Maggie stopped her horse a few yards away, and Rhonda halted beside her. Sarah seemed to be holding her own. She rounded on Tommy now, her fist clenched around the reins. “Home where I belong? You insufferable man! Don’t bother coming around to call on me ever again.”
“Ha! Who said I wanted to?” Tommy kicked his horse and steered around Maggie and Rhonda, avoiding their curious stares. He loped away from the town, back toward Brady.
Maggie walked her horse over to Sarah’s. “Are you all right?”
“Mad as can be, but yes. That man is despicable. Don’t know what I thought was so terrific about him.”
Rhonda moved in on Sarah’s other side. “Well, he is rather dashing, I have to admit. Of course, he’s not as handsome as my Bronc.”
Maggie laughed, and Sarah swiped at the tears on her face, giving a rueful chuckle. “Papa never liked Tommy. I guess he was right, but I’ll never admit that to him.”
“Come on,” Maggie said. “If we don’t get a move on, we’ll be riding back in the dark.”
They loped the last mile into town. When they rode up before the hotel, they brushed the dust off their skirts and hats.
“We’re a sight,” Sarah said.
“That can’t be helped. But I do look forward to a long, hot bath when we get to Fort Worth.” Maggie straightened her clothing and headed up the steps.
No one was behind the desk in the hotel lobby. The three young women stood in the cramped, narrow room for a moment. The noise of conversation and the clink of silverware on dishes came from behind a closed door.
“The clerk must be in the dining room.” Maggie walked over and pulled the door open. About a dozen people were seated at two long tables inside, eating their supper. A thin man with a large mustache glanced over at her and rose, pulling his napkin from his collar. He tossed it on his chair and hurried toward her.
“May I help you ladies?”
Maggie stepped aside and he squeezed out into the lobby.
“I’d like to send a telegram,” Maggie said.
“I’m sorry. Our telegraph office closed at five. Could you come back in the morning?”
Maggie’s shoulders slumped as she considered how complicated that would make their morning start with the herd. “No, it’s all right. Thanks just the same.”
“Wait,” Sarah said. “Is your operator nearby? Is it possible he could open up for us? Miss Porter wants to get a message to her father, and it would be extremely inconvenient for her to come back tomorrow.”
“Porter?” The man eyed Maggie sharply. “Are you related to Martin Porter?”
Maggie raised her chin and smiled. “Yes, he’s my father.”
“Well, it’s irregular, but you could ask. Our operator’s a female, and she lives down the street. It’s a plain house just beyond the mercantile. Lives with her aunt and uncle, and they’ve got flowers along the path out front.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said.
“She doesn’t like to come back to work once she’s gone home,” he called after them.
“Maybe we shouldn’t disturb her,” Maggie said as they reached the street.
“It’s too bad to come all this way and not get to send your telegram,” Rhonda said.
“All right, we’ll walk down there and see if we see the house.”
“Let’s leave the horses here,” Sarah suggested. “It can’t be too far.”
“I wonder if that mercantile is open.” Rhonda peered down the street, squinting.
Dusk was falling, and Maggie looked around uneasily. A little ways ahead, a couple of men were sitting on a bench outside a house. “Maybe we should just go back.”
“Oh, come on,” Rhonda said. “It won’t take long to ask if she’ll do it for you.”
One of the men stood and strode toward them. Maggie hung back. He was very tall, and though she didn’t like to admit it, his dark skin and confident manner frightened her. She was about to speak when the man called gleefully, “Well, lookee here!”
“Hey!” Rhonda laughed and ran to meet him.
“Is that her husband?” Sarah asked.
Maggie peered at the grinning man, who was now lifting Rhonda in an exuberant bear hug.
“Let’s hope so.” Now that she thought about it, Maggie decided she’d seen him at the roundup camp the day she went out to talk to Alex and again the day the men picked up their wages. “I think it is—Bronc Tracey is his name.”
“Well, come on then.” Sarah strode toward the couple, and Maggie followed more slowly.
“Miss Maggie, Miss Sarah, have you met my husband?” Rhonda asked, turning to them with a big smile.
“I believe I have.” Maggie held out her hand. “Hello, Mr. Tracey. This is Sarah Bradley.”
“Oh, Mr. Bradley’s big girl?”
Sarah’s face screwed up as though she’d just bitten into a sour pickle. “That would be me. Nice to meet you.”
“What are you doing out here?” Maggie asked him. The smirk on Rhonda’s face told her enough—and it was no wonder she’d been so eager to ride into Milburn tonight.
“Well, I met up with Alex and a few of the boys, and we come up here together,” Bronc said, almost apologetically.
“Alex?” Maggie gasped.
“Hello, ladies.”
Maggie’s gaze slid past Rhonda’s extra-large husband and landed on Alex, who had approached quietly from the bench.
“Well, Alex Bright!” Sarah grinned at him. “How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since the dance at the Lazy S in February.”
“Other than being unemployed, I guess I’m all right, Miss Bradley.”
“Good. Why are you in Milburn, though?”
Maggie kept quiet and let Sarah do the talking, since she was willing and, unlike Maggie, didn’t seem tongue-tied.
“Oh, Bronc and I decided to see if we could get some home cooking,” Alex said.
“That’s right, sugar.” Bronc grinned down at Rhonda. “I missed your cookin’, so we come to this here boardin’ house and got some supper.”
“That’s a long ways to ride for supper,” Sarah said. “Couldn’t you get anything in Brady?”
“Oh, we been out lookin’ for work,” Bronc said.
“Find anything?” Rhonda asked, keeping her arm around his middle.
“Not yet.”
Alex shook his head. “We’ve asked at a few ranches. Early thinks maybe we’d have better luck up around Brownwood, so we’re headed that way.”
Maggie started to speak then clamped her lips together. So, they just happened to be drifting northeast at the same time as the cattle drive. Sounded fishy to her.
“Is Early Shaw with you?” Sarah asked.
“He sure is,” Bronc said. “He’s a good man to have with you when you’re campin’.”
“I always liked him.” Rhonda looked around. “Where is he?”
“Oh, he and Nevada and Joe stepped down to the saloon.” Bronc stopped and cast a glance at Maggie. “I beg your pardon if that’s not proper to tell ladies.”
Sarah laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
“We could get you ladies a glass of lemonade from the boardinghouse,” Alex said.
“That’s right.” Bronc grinned at him. “That Miz Kruger, she makes fine lemonade. I’ll bet she’s got more of it, too.”
Sarah smiled at him. “Why don’t you go ask her, Mr. Tracey? We’ll wait here.”
“Oh, I’m Bronc,” he said. “Just Bronc—no mister.”
“I’ll go with you.” Rhonda clung to his arm, and the two started toward the side door of the boardinghouse.
“She really is an accommodating lady,” Alex said. “She serves meals to lots of travelers who pass this way.” He glanced cautiously in Maggie’s direction. “Maybe you’d like to sit down for a minute?”
“We were going to see if we could rout out the telegraph operator for Maggie,” Sarah said.
“It’s getting so late.” Maggie looked down the street, feeling
much less inclined now to seek out the woman. “I think we’d best let her be.”
Alex frowned at her. “You want to send a telegram? Nothing wrong, I hope.”
She glared at him, unable to hold back her resentment. “Oh, nothing thirty dollars didn’t cure. I don’t suppose you know anything about the outrageous toll that sheepherder charged me?”
Alex winced. “I, uh … That was not my idea. I tried to talk them out of doing anything like that.”
“I guess you didn’t try hard enough.” Maggie whirled and stalked down the street.
“Wait, Maggie!”
She heard his quick footsteps behind her. A woman poked her head out the window of a nearby house and stared at her.
“Maggie …”
She stopped walking and faced him. “Leave me alone, Alex. I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t want to drink lemonade with you.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“Do you know how hard it was for me to scrape up enough cash to finance this drive? To pay off the women who helped finish the roundup?”
“Well, I …” He couldn’t look at her.
Sarah came down the street behind Alex, looking anxiously from him to Maggie.
“How many more surprises have you set up for us?” Maggie glared at him.
“None. I promise. And if the boys suggest something, I’ll put my foot down, even if it means we split up.”
“That’s such a comfort.” She tried to wither him with one disdainful look, but he still stood there, rugged and handsome, with eyes like chocolate. She turned on her heel and hurried to the horses.
Sarah caught up with her, panting.
“What about Rhonda?”
Maggie swung into the saddle and turned toward the camp. “I’m sure Rhonda’s brawny husband will see her safely home. Come on.”
Sarah scrambled onto her horse and kept pace. Maggie fought to control herself. Tears threatened, and she went over and over the short interchange with Alex in her mind.
A half mile out of town, Sarah said, “You were pretty rough on Alex.”
Maggie’s tears broke and streamed down her face. Angry with herself, she pulled off her neckerchief and used it to wipe them away.
Sarah reached over and pulled Maggie’s reins. “Whoa,” she said in a low, firm voice, and both horses stopped. “Are you all right?”
Maggie sniffed and nodded. “I will be. Oh, Sarah, why did he have to side with them? If he’d just stayed on, I could have gotten through this. I’d be home with Papa right now, and he could be handling the cattle for us. How could he abandon us when we needed him most?”
Sarah hauled in a deep breath. “You haven’t been exactly open about your father’s situation, have you? We girls all figure it’s worse than you’ve let on. That day we met at your house and the doctor came—that’s what decided a lot of us to do this. Maggie, Alex isn’t a bad man. If he knew how deeply this would hurt you, don’t you think he’d have acted differently?”
“I have no reason to think that.”
Sarah looked down at her hands. “I guess we’ve both been disappointed in our menfolk today. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Sarah!” Maggie sobbed and leaned over to give her a hug. The horses shifted, and they drew apart. “Thanks for being so good to me.”
“You’re in love with Alex, aren’t you?”
Maggie bit her lip. “I’m afraid I am.”
Sarah gave a little laugh. “Why afraid?”
“Because I’ll never have a chance with him now. Papa started to drive him away, and I’ve finished the job.” She wiped her eyes again. “What about you and Tommy?”
“Oh, I think Tommy and I are through. I should have known from the start he wasn’t the kind of man I want to marry. He was interesting, you know? Exciting. Maybe a little dangerous.”
Maggie studied her friend’s face. “That kind of danger we can do without.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Maggie couldn’t rest after they returned to camp. Sarah made a funny tale from their encounter with Bronc and Alex, but she didn’t mention seeing Tommy. Maggie took Carlotta into her confidence and revealed everything to her, including her heartbreak.
“I was crushed. He admitted it was the strikers who got Carter to cheat us. And who knows what Rhonda’s telling that husband of hers! She might be giving them ideas to plague us even worse without meaning to. I shouldn’t have left her there.” Maggie paced back and forth near their bedrolls.
“Well, everything was quiet here,” Carlotta said. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to send a message home.”
“Who did you put on night herd?” Maggie asked.
“Celine, Bitty, Mariah, and Helen are out there now. I figured one of us would take the midnight watch and the other the 3 a.m.”
Maggie nodded, still distracted. “That’s fine. I want to be in camp when Rhonda gets back though.”
Carlotta laid a hand on her sleeve. “Don’t take out your anger with Alex on her.”
“But she’s been sending messages to Bronc somehow. Those two knew we’d be there tonight.”
“That’s silly. You only decided this afternoon to go into town.”
“I know but …” Maggie frowned. “All right, but I still think she let Bronc know we’d be near Milburn. Maybe they arranged to meet, maybe not, but he wasn’t more than half surprised to see her.”
“I guess I can picture that. But you don’t want to lose her. If you rail at Rhonda now, she might pack up and leave with Bronc. She’s already crossing the picket line that her husband’s a part of, so to speak. I doubt it would take much to put her squarely in their camp, cooking for those men. I mean, she’s free now, and she doesn’t want to—”
“What do you mean?” Maggie asked.
Carlotta’s lovely dark eyes narrowed. “You mean you don’t know she was born a slave?”
“Rhonda?”
“Yes. Her folks were on a cotton plantation down Victoria way.”
Maggie let out a slow breath. She’d always felt rather remote from the days of slavery. The War Between the States, emancipation—it all happened so long ago. She was born the year the proclamation was written, freeing the southern slaves. Her father had hired cowboys indiscriminately, and she’d grown up with white men, blacks, and Mexicans working on the ranch as a matter of course. They’d even had a half-Kiowa for a couple of years. But she’d never thought about any of them having been enslaved in their youth.
“What about Bronc?”
Carlotta shook her head. “I don’t think so. His mama came to Brady after the war with him and his two brothers. I don’t know what happened to his papa. But Bronc went back and got Rhonda when they’d got a cabin and he had a job. I guess they could have been slaves before that.”
Shadowy memories came to Maggie. “I met his mother once. She’s dead now, isn’t she?”
“Yes. One of Bronc’s brothers worked for us for a long time, but he left last year. Said he was going to Utah to try his hand at prospecting. I don’t know if he found anything.”
“We’ll have to ask Rhonda if they’ve heard from him.” Maggie looked up at the moon, peeking from behind a wispy gray cloud. She couldn’t harbor anger on such a beautiful night. “Do you want some coffee?”
“No thank you,” Carlotta said. “I think I’ll go and get some sleep now that you’re back. I can take the midnight watch.”
Maggie sat by the fireside sipping her coffee. Everyone else was either out with the herd or rolled up in their blankets. Nearly an hour passed before she heard horses approaching. They stopped near the remuda line, and she got up and walked over.
“Rhonda?” she called softly.
“It’s me, Miss Maggie. Bronc brought me home.”
Maggie smiled at her designation of their one-night camp as “home.” She walked closer and found Rhonda holding Bronc’s horse while he unsaddled hers.
“How are you communicating with your husband? I want you to tell me now.”
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Rhonda caught her breath. “We didn’t mean any harm. The men are following the herd. When I’m on night watch, I ride out to the edge, and Bronc finds me. Well, the last two nights, that is. I’m sorry, Miss Maggie. We won’t do it anymore if you don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it. Maybe you should leave with Bronc, Rhonda. After what the men did today—”
“I’m sorry we made trouble for you, Miss Maggie,” Bronc said.
Maggie eyed him in the moonlight. The large man looking down at her pleaded as well with his face as if he’d knelt and grasped her hand. “I didn’t suppose it was your idea,” she said at last.
“Nope, t’warn’t mine, and t’warn’t Alex’s neither.”
Rhonda said, “Alex wants you to know it wasn’t his intention to hurt you none.”
“That’s right. He asked us to tell you.”
“Why didn’t he come himself, if he wanted to apologize?” Maggie asked.
Bronc shook his head. “I don’t expect he thinks you’d listen to him, ma’am—no offense intended.”
Maggie felt tears brewing and scrunched up her face. “I don’t expect I would.” Not being able to trust Alex hurt more than anything else right now—so long as she didn’t think about her father’s condition.
Bronc opened his mouth and closed it, then blurted, “The truth is, Alex and I didn’t know anything about it until it was done. The other fellas went to the sheep ranch and talked Carter into doin’ that, and we wasn’t even there.”
Maggie stared at him. “Why didn’t Alex tell me that?”
“Because he’s a man who sticks by his friends, that’s why.”
“Funny, I thought he was my friend.” Maggie turned away so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
“Please forgive me, Miss Maggie,” Rhonda said. “I surely didn’t know anything about what they were doing with that sheep rancher, and I believe my husband, that he didn’t have any part in it. I didn’t even know Bronc was going to come out here. When I left home, he said he’d be out looking for a new job.”
“And so I did,” Bronc put in. “But most of the ranches around Brady aren’t hiring. I heard where a few of the boys were, and I caught up to them. But those fellas ain’t mean-spirited. We were near to your herd, so I rode out the other night, just to see if I’d have a chance to speak to Rhonda. I found her riding night herd, and we had a nice visit, so I came back last night. Me an’ the boys thought we’d look for work farther north when we get there. We truly didn’t mean you no harm.”
Cowgirl Trail Page 20