A Patchwork Family

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “This here’s Mr. Lincoln, my colt,” Billy said as they stopped beside the nearest corral. The mares and their foals stood to one side, gazing at the boys with curious brown eyes. “He’s four months old now. Smaller than the other foals—but that’s why I picked him. Just stand here real quiet-like, and maybe he’ll come to us. He don’t know you yet, so he might get skittish and stay by his mama.”

  Gabriel stood stock-still, peering between the fence timbers. With a smile spreading slowly over his slender face, he extended a hand toward the colt. Billy did the same, relieved that the boy knew not to jump around and spook the horses.

  “Here, Mr. Lincoln . . . come here, little buddy,” Billy crooned. “It’s just me and my new friend Gabe, okay? Come on over here, now.”

  With a toss of his head, the colt whickered and walked a few steps away from his mother.

  “Attaway, Mr. Lincoln. Lemme scratch behind your ears.” Billy held his breath, willing the colt to walk closer. “Good boy, Mr. Lincoln. Come ’ere and see your Billy, now.”

  The colt’s ears flickered and he took another step, and another, until he reached their outstretched hands. He sniffed and snorted at Billy’s familiar fingers first, his muzzle like warm velvet. Then he tentatively stretched toward Gabriel’s palm.

  The boy bided his time, letting the young Morgan make all the moves. When Mr. Lincoln sniffed his fingers, he lightly stroked the colt’s nose—grinning as the animal skittered back to his mother on spindly legs.

  “He likes you,” Billy crowed softly. “He can tell you’re a natural around horses, same as me and Nathaniel. You gotta see these puppies, though! Now that they’re weaned, you can have one, if ya want.”

  Into the quiet, musky barn they went, past the stalls to the back corner where straw bales sat in stacks and harnesses hung from pegs on the wall. With a finger to his lips, Billy motioned for Gabe to follow quietly. Sure enough, the puppies were napping in a nest of straw, a black-and-white heap against their mother.

  When her yip of recognition roused the litter, four little fur-balls leapt to yapping, wiggling, waggling life around the boys’ feet.

  “That’s more like it!” Billy reached for one with a white chest and a white spot encircling one eye. “This here’s Spot. He’s my other little runt, but if you want one of his litter mates, you can have—”

  He’d turned to let Gabe hold his puppy, but the boy was already sitting on the straw-strewn floor, letting the little dogs crawl into his lap. His eyes followed their movements, while his hands couldn’t get enough of their soft warmth and their little pink bellies when they rolled onto their backs. Their tiny teeth found his fingers, and he giggled. When two of the more adventurous pups had clawed their way up the back of his shirt, he leaned over to accommodate them.

  The first one reached his ear, and Gabriel screwed up his face so suddenly, Billy thought he’d been nipped. But no, the boy was wheezing as though he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Grabbing the little fur-ball at his ear, he hugged it fiercely. It clung to him like a baby, with its stubby front legs on either side of his neck.

  “Puppies,” Gabriel rasped.

  Billy didn’t know what to do. The kid looked ready to have one of those fits—looked possessed by demons, grimacing with thoughts he was struggling to express. And then he soared like a hawk on a current of elation.

  “Puppies,” he whispered in a voice that sounded rusty from lack of use. “Oh, puppies! Had puppies . . . at home when those Indians burned our—”

  “Easy now, Gabe,” Billy said, his arm going around the boy’s shaking shoulders. “I know how hard it was to lose your family, but you’re gonna make it. This little girl likes the smell of you, so—”

  Rapid footfalls entering the barn warned him they weren’t alone. Instinct made him turn to stop whoever was coming, so Gabe wouldn’t be jarred back into his lonely, silent state. It was Emma, her blond curls bouncing like plump yellow sausages around her flushed face.

  “I tried to come sooner, but my folks was gettin’ their—”

  “Shhh! Gabe’s got puppies all over him. And he’s talkin’!”

  Her blue eyes widened, and she inched toward the corner stall. When she saw the four furry pups, however, she immediately joined her cousin on the floor. Her giggles bounced off the barn walls when two puppies hopped into her lap.

  “Oh, Billy, they’re so cute!” She sat cross-legged, cradling them in her calico skirt. “And you’re sayin’ we could have one? I can’t decide if I like this one with the white head and shoulders—or the one with the four white feet that looks like he’s wearin’ a black frock coat. I better ask Mama if—”

  “This one’s mine,” came that raspy voice. “Her name’s Hattie. Like my dog back home.”

  Emma’s breath came out in a whoosh. “You are talkin’!” she gasped. “And would you look at the way that puppy loves you, Gabriel? It’s like she’s been waitin’ for you to come and get her!”

  With her lap full of little dogs, all she could reach were Gabriel’s knees, and she grabbed them with both hands. “If Hattie’s the one you want, then she’s the one we’ll take home. I can always—”

  “You can pick one, too, Emma.” Billy joined them on the floor with Spot. “Far out as your place is, it might be better if one puppy had another one around to play with.”

  “Keeps them out of . . . trouble, too,” Gabriel added haltingly. He lowered his puppy so it would quit gnawing on his collar. And when her little brown eyes fixed on his, she went absolutely, adoringly still, supported by his hands and forearms. The barn around them went quiet.

  “Can’t argue with that,” Emma whispered in awe. “And if we’ve already named ’em, well, Mama can’t tell us to leave ’em here, now can she? I’m thinkin’ this little fella in the frock coat likes me best, and I’m thinkin’ his name’s gonna be Boots. ’Cause that’s what he’s wearin’!”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Billy echoed as they all stood up. “We’d best get us some dinner now, ’fore the good stuff’s gone. Let’s see how long it takes folks to realize Gabe’s talkin’ again.”

  As they left the barn, clusters of men sat on the benches, or on wooden crates in the shade, while the women sat on quilts in the shadow of the house. The three puppies nipped and tussled around their feet, and when they got within sight of the food on the tables, Emma’s cousin chuckled.

  “Pie,” he stated, as though that were all it took to make a complete sentence—or a complete meal. “Pie like I had . . . the first time I was here.”

  “You are gonna be all right!” Billy crowed as they picked up plates. “Asa made us two gooseberry pies for today, and that big ole pan of peach cobbler there. Won’t have no more punkins till September, ya see.”

  The boy gazed solemnly at him from across the laden table, adjusting his spectacles. “You say you won’t have any more pumpkins until September, Mr. Bristol?”

  Billy paused with a spoon halfway to the cobbler. Gabriel was only eight and built like a beanpole. Easily pinned to the ground if he needed to be put in his place. But worth humoring, just this once.

  “That’s right, Mr. Getty,” Billy replied in an elevated tone. “We’ll have no more pumpkins before the fall harvest. Thank you, sir, for your observation.”

  Gabe’s face split with a grin. “Sorry. Mama was a schoolmarm.”

  “Daddy was a rancher.” Billy lifted a big corner of the cobbler to his plate. “Guess our horses didn’t much care how pretty I talked, long as I kept ’em fed and exercised.”

  “Hmmm,” Emma joined in, stabbing the biggest piece of chicken before her cousin could. “Maybe you was better company when you couldn’t talk, Gabriel. If you boys’re gonna get all uppity, Boots and me’ll just go sit with Christine. I sure like that yellow dress she’s wearin’.”

  “She does, too,” Billy quipped at her retreating figure. Then he finished filling his plate. “Let’s go sit by Judd and Mike Malloy. He always tells good stories ’bout
what’s goin’ on along the stage route.”

  He started away from the table, and then noticed his new friend staring after Emma. “She didn’t mean that part about you not talkin’, Gabe. You know how girls can run at the mouth, just to make you suffer for some fool thing you said. Or didn’t.”

  Gabe’s lenses flashed in the noonday sun. “Your sister’s very pretty.”

  “Yeah, well don’t tell her that! Christine spends enough time gawkin’ in her mirror without anybody givin’ her a reason to.”

  Careful not to trip over Spot, who was frisking between his feet, Billy headed toward the men sitting on bales in the shade of the barn. Their voices floated to him on the hot breeze, deep and masculine, as they quizzed Mike Malloy about the latest schemes in Abilene.

  “You’re tellin’ me Joseph McCoy’s been advertising in Texas? Making our town out to be the best market for their cattle?” Iry Barstow demanded. “Where’s he going to pasture ’em? Why does he think for a minute—”

  “Must be the railroad,” Judd joined in. “Now that it’s running through here, McCoy probably thinks those beeves can fatten up on all the prairie land hereabouts, after drovers herd them up from Texas. Then he’ll ship them east in cattle cars.”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Malloy agreed. “McCoy’s invested a bunch of money in this. Already got a hotel going up, and he’s bought a lot of land east of town for stockyards.”

  He was dressed in denim pants and a collarless shirt, much like the fellows around him. But Mike was younger, and Billy thought his slender mustache and sunstreaked hair—which was a little longer than most men’s—gave him an air of adventure and derring-do. Almost like an outlaw.

  “So what’ll happen when those drovers run their herds past our places?” George Clark protested. “How’re we supposed to keep that Spanish fever from infecting our own cattle? That’s why Missouri’s having nothing more to do with those longhorns!”

  “I hear tell Missourah’s got a new breed of trouble, without steers carryin’ the fever,” Clyde Fergus chimed in. “Bandits named Frank and Jesse James held up the bank in Richmond a couple months ago. In broad daylight!”

  Billy’s mouth dropped open. He knew of the James family—why, their daddy was a preacher! He itched to know more particulars, but as the other men scraped the last food from their plates, Mike Malloy was intent on discussing Abilene.

  “Maybe McCoy’s more of a visionary than we think,” he challenged. “If he’s smart enough to take advantage of the law that bans Texas cattle from Topeka on east, there might be a way for farmers around here to ship their own herds at more of a profit.

  “And I’ve got to tell you,” Malloy went on, his voice rising with his expressive eyebrows, “our stagecoaching days are numbered. Folks’re taking the train now—just like Miss Vanderbilt and Christine did this time. You might want to think about other income from your land once Wells Fargo isn’t paying you to feed their passengers and provide fresh horses.”

  “Still sounds half-baked to me,” Barstow muttered. “If you’ve got longhorns on the trail, you’ve got cowboys driving them. And you know what an ornery lot they are! And you know the gamblers and barkeeps and loose women’ll follow them. Where does McCoy think all these people’re going to stay?”

  “Just lookin’ to make a buck,” Clark groused. “Can’t tell me that little hole in the road’ll ever be much more than a general store and a train station.”

  Billy was following the conversation with interest, and he set his plate on the ground for Spot. “You like cows, Gabe?” he asked in a whisper.

  “They seem pretty dumb and ugly, compared to horses and dogs.”

  Nodding at this wisdom, Billy scooped his puppy back into his lap. “Ever met a real live cowboy? Sounds like a fine life, ridin’ in the open air all day, ropin’ and wranglin’ them steers.”

  The kid sitting next to him closed his eyes in ecstasy when Hattie licked his face. “Right now, I want to catch up with my studies, so I can go on to school somehow. I want to be a lawyer. That’s how President Lincoln started out, you know.”

  Billy’s eyebrows shot up. He’d never known of an eight-year-old boy considering such a high-minded profession, yet Gabriel Getty seemed suited to it. And how much different might his own life be, had his daddy’s lawyer prevented the bank from foreclosing on their home? There was something to be said for men who studied their lessons—in books and in real life.

  He was stroking Spot on his lap, considering these things, when a familiar wail arose from over by the house. Christine leapt to her feet, wiping frantically at her skirt with her napkin.

  “Get that ugly mutt away from me!” she screeched. “Lord, I hate this place! I’m never coming back! And you can’t make me!”

  Billy swallowed hard when Mercy stood up to make amends. But Christine, with her flair for high drama, was running toward the house like a pack of wolves was after her. Everyone had heard every word, of course. And they were speculating about who would win this battle of wills . . . and wondering if the Monroes were sorry they’d taken this ungrateful girl under their wings.

  Emma knocked into Billy in her hurry to sit down. Her puppy landed in his lap, which made Spot play-fully bare his little teeth, which started Hattie yapping to join in the fray.

  “Say there, Billy Bristol! Where’d you get those fine collie dogs?” It was Mike Malloy coming over, grinning like he was truly interested and not just humoring a little kid.

  Billy grinned back, lifting his pup from the tangle of black tails and furry bodies. “This here’s Spot. His mama hung back from a wagon train to have her litter in our barn!”

  “And you and your cousin have pups, too, Miss Emma?” Malloy knelt in front of them to stroke and admire the three wiggling dogs.

  “Yessir, this here’s my new dog Boots, and he’s already got me in trouble,” the girl wailed, “on account of how he just peed on Christine’s new dress.”

  Billy patted her hand, noting her valiant effort not to bawl in front of them. He knew firsthand how his sister’s wrath could sting. “No harm done, really,” he consoled her. “It’s a yellow dress, after all.”

  The cheerful notes of Nathaniel’s guitar and Iry Barstow tuning his fiddle announced it was time for the dancing to start. If Mike Malloy was right, these gatherings where friends shared their food and faith might not go on for much longer. The world as he knew it seemed to teeter on the brink of big changes and exciting times—and he hoped to be right in the middle of them!

  Billy glanced over to see Gabe hugging his puppy. His glazed-over expression suggested he’d retreated into his own little world again. But thanks to that little fur-ball named Hattie, he knew his new friend was on the road to recovery, and would come to see him whenever he could.

  Just as he knew Christine would not.

  Chapter Nineteen

  October 3, 1867

  Dear Sis,

  You won’t believe Abilene! It’s a real town, now that they’re starting to drive those long-horns up from Texas. When we went to Doc Moon’s store last week, all the talk was about the fancy new Drover’s Cottage hotel that fellow Joseph McCoy is building for Eastern cattle buyers. Hundreds of folks’ve come here to open stores and saloons and such, and by next year they’ll be in real buildings—including the Great Western store that’ll sell EVERYTHING!

  They say more than twenty boxcars of beeves got shipped to market on the first day! And they’re still coming in! The new stockyards’ll hold 3,000 head, and McCoy’s built huge livery stables and a scale that weighs twenty cows at a time! The Clarks are pretty peeved about how some of their corn crop and garden got trampled when a herd got out of control, hurrying to the river to drink. Spot and Snowy earn their keep by barking and biting, to run those longhorns down the road instead of through our fields! It’s a sight to see!

  Sure wish you’d come for Christmas again. Now that the train comes through, we don’t fix so many meals for the stagecoaches. So it�
��d be a nicer visit—and an easier ride—for you. Mercy would really love to see her Aunt Agatha again. You’ll be amazed at how much Mr. Lincoln and Spot and Snowy have grown—and how smart they are! Both dogs are house-trained and sleep with me, when I can sneak them upstairs.

  I’m sorry about Emma’s pup wetting on you. You were wetting on Mama when you were that little, too, after all. Please come to see us soon! Mercy and Judd are really very nice people, who want us to have a good life.

  Love from your brother, Billy

  12 today

  “Did I spell everything right? Do you think it’ll get her to come?”

  Mercy wanted more than anything to assure the earnest boy at her elbow that his sister couldn’t possibly resist his plea. He kept busy managing the horses, playing with his pets, and helping her serve meals, but she knew there were times—like his birthday today—that Billy Bristol was acutely aware of his family’s absence.

  “Your letter is perfect,” she pronounced with an emphatic nod. “We’ll send it on its way with Mike Malloy and our prayers.”

  “Do you s’pose Christine ever thinks about me?”

  His voice swooped up a few notches at the end of his question, cracking with emotion and the change that came with his age. He resisted her displays of affection these days, but Mercy framed his face in her hands anyway. It was an open, honest, sturdy face now, tanned and without freckles. His shining blue eyes and auburn hair were going to make the ladies take notice someday.

  “Your sister has always loved you, Billy, and I’m sure she’d be happy to see you if she didn’t have to come out here to do it,” she said. “She’s different from Emma—”

  “That’s for dang sure!”

  “—and she’s always had a mind of her own—”

  “Amen to that!”

  “—so even a starchy old battle-ax like Miss Vander-bilt can’t make Christine behave the way we’d like her to. The way she should.” Mercy patted his hair back from his face, amazed at how thick and soft it was, but not surprised that he flinched a little.