Softly Falling

by Carla Kelly

  When they came to the ranch gate, he got off, and with a certain easy-walking pride, opened the gate. To his surprise, Miss Carteret slid over, took the reins, and clucked the horses through, so he could close the gate behind him. She pulled up a little shortly, but the horses didn’t mind.

  “Thanks for that. Didn’t know you knew horses,” he said as he climbed up again and took the reins from her.

  “I don’t know teams, but I’ve been watching you.” She placed her hands placidly in her lap again, as if daring him to make anything of such a simple act of kindness.

  The buildings weren’t far from the gate, down a sheltering slope. The sodbuster or would-be rancher who had first owned the property that her father bought had known something about wind, tucking his shack a little below the constant breeze. The barn was close by. He had already told Manuel to string a rope between the two buildings, even though the Mexican had laughed. Just you wait, Jack thought, feeling grim again. You’ll be glad you listened to me.

  Wiping his hands on a towel, Manuel came into the yard. He was just a little Mexican, too old now for hard ranch work, but willing to sign on to watch one bull and a couple of cows and not laugh about it, as everyone else did.

  “Manuel Ortega, this is Miss Carteret,” Jack said, remembering the proper way to introduce a lady. “She’s going to stay on the Bar Dot with her father. How’s Bismarck?”

  “Fat and king of the pasture,” Manuel said. With a courtly little bow, he held out his hand to Lily Carteret and helped her from the wagon. “All I have inside is cold coffee, and I don’t recommend it,” he told her.

  She laughed. “I’ll settle for a glass of water, if you have one.”

  The three of them went into the shack, two rooms and a kitchen lean-to. There was only one tin cup, but Manuel graciously wiped off the rim with the same cloth he had used on his hands, and dipped Lily a drink from a bucket. She accepted it just as graciously and looked around the room.

  She focused her attention on the wallpaper, roses on a shiny background.

  “My father’s home improvement.”

  “Yes. He also left this funny couch . . .”

  “A chaise lounge.”

  “. . . and Manuel has a really nice pitcher and basin with roses.”

  He couldn’t help but watch her expressive face, wondering if this information would break through the steely resolve she seemed so capable of, but no. She took it all in stride, though, and just glanced into the other room, which held an ornate brass bed. Manuel had just thrown his bedroll there, but she made no comment, beyond observing a whiter portion of the wall and asking if there were photographs.

  Jack felt his own discomfort now. “Yes’m, two,” he mumbled. “I took them down and tried to give them to Mr. Carteret, but he just gave me a strange sort of smile and reminded me that I had won the whole ranch, fair and square.”

  She flinched at that and tightened her lips, reminding him that even this woman with no expectations had a tender heart.

  “I have them at the Bar Dot, and I’ll give them to you,” he said.

  “I thank you for that.” And then she completely betrayed herself by lowering her eyes and dabbing at them in the most casual way, perhaps thinking he might believe she was just flicking off dust. “Is there one of a beautiful woman?”

  “Yes’m. You’ll have it.”

  She gave herself a little shake, as if daring him to comment on the tears that made her brown eyes look liquid. “I would like to see Bismarck, if you please.”

  They walked from the house toward the barn. He couldn’t help himself as he ran his hand along the rope stretched between the two buildings, testing it for tautness, wondering if Manuel was going to be equal to the winter he knew was coming.

  He had to admire the barn. He had stuffed it with hay, cut from his fields when all his work was done on the Bar Dot. Mr. Buxton had unnecessarily warned him that he was foreman of the Bar Dot first, and rancher second. Jack knew that. Every penny of his salary went for hay he contracted from the few farmers in the area. No one had a good harvest that year, which meant that stunted corn, blasted by the wind, came his way too. What he couldn’t cram in the barn, he and Manuel had piled into stacks and covered with canvas, anchoring them down against Wyoming wind. Would it be enough?

  He gestured toward his summer-long efforts. “I am a source of real amusement to every stockman I know,” he told Miss Carteret. “ ‘Hey, reb, why don’t you let that overgrown pile of beef and tallow graze with all the rest?’ they joke. I keep my head down and my mouth shut. It has been my pattern.”

  Miss Carteret nodded. “Mine too.” She put her hand on his arm, which startled him, although he liked it for the split second she did it. “After a while, people forget to tease, and you just blend in.”

  He nodded, impressed with Miss Carteret, and walked her to a fenced pasture, where Bismarck cropped whatever ground cover he could find. His massive head went up and he began a slow, nearly regal progress to the fence. He didn’t look around, but his harem moved along in his wake, as he must have known they would.

  “Goodness, does he know you?” Miss Carteret asked.

  “We shared a cattle car on the train from Cheyenne. I expect he does.”

  Miss Carteret had draped her arms over the top fence rail. He enjoyed her smile, relieved that she didn’t seem to be dwelling on the ranch that should have been her father’s.

  “Mr. Sinclair, if I get homesick for England, which I doubt I will, I will visit this pasture,” she told him. “I’ve seen many cows like this one. Is he dangerous?”

  “Most probably. I kept him tethered to an iron chain in the railcar, and I don’t take chances now.” He patted the wooden fence. “I made it stronger than most.”

  But there Bismarck stood, curious, with a gleam of intelligent capability in his eyes. Jack touched his big head. “His lady friends will each have a calf, come early March. Slow and sure, I’ll get a herd of . . . Hairifords.” He laughed, a self-conscious sound. “If it won’t ruffle your sensibilities, I’ll keep calling them Herferds. No sense in giving the boys even more to laugh about.”

  Miss Carteret walked behind his house while he gave a few orders to Manuel, plus the promised peppermints. He questioned Manuel about the general condition of the privy, but the old man only shrugged. “It’s just a privy,” he said.

  Jack knew Miss Carteret was too much of a lady to comment on the primitive facilities, but she surprised him. As he helped her up to the wagon seat again, she said to some imaginary person standing just beyond his left ear. “Only my father would have put a chairback in a necessary. He does like his little comforts.”

  Jack laughed out loud. His good humor lasted to the main road and even beyond the sight of skinny cattle overgrazing worn-out land. It might be too much to hope for, but maybe Miss Carteret really had what it took to survive what he feared was going to be a winter to remember. If she stayed that long.

  Who was he kidding? Of course she would stay. He knew Clarence Carteret was not a man to plan ahead. His daughter would find out soon enough that her father probably expected her to help him.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to warn the pretty lady beside him that if she had any money, she needed to squirrel it away, maybe hide it in her corset. Clarence Carteret had a bad habit of thinking he would win at cards.

  Jack Sinclair said nothing. His mother had raised him better than that.

  CHAPTER 6

  You’ll see the Bar Dot over this next rise,” Jack told Lily. “The Cheyenne L&C has five ranches in this district, and this is the smallest. Just fifty thousand acres.”

  Lily knew she would have to reorder her idea of small and large, but she had been thinking that all the way through Nebraska and into Wyoming Territory, where everything seemed larger, from the sky on down.

  “Just? Thank goodness for that! I could probably take a little stroll and not get lost on a mere fifty thousand acres.”

  Mr. Sinclair chuckled a
t her little joke. He stopped at the rise, and there was the ranch spread out below. “That’s the big house where the Buxtons live,” he said, pointing to a smallish two-story house of regular boards, the only such building. “Horse barn, a barn or two, bunkhouse, cookshack—we all eat there; you too, probably—and my little place.” He counted in the air with his finger. “Your father’s place is farther away, and there are corrals and more sheds than we know what to do with.” He tipped his hat back. “You’ll find any number of hounds, but they won’t bother you. I advise you to avoid the cat, a tom named Freak.”

  Lily felt the silliness overtook her. “A cat? You’re all afraid of a cat?”

  “You will be too.” But he was still grinning. “There’s not a mouse on the place, no small feat.”

  Lily shook her head over the cat. She looked at the ranch spread below, not certain what she had expected to find at the Bar Dot. It looked more like a bedraggled village than her idea of a ranch, gleaned from a Western novel or two she would never admit to having read. She noticed another log building nearby on the wagon road. “Over there?”

  “That’s a schoolhouse Mrs. Buxton demanded we build. No one uses it.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “What would induce an Eastern schoolmarm on the search for a husband to drop everything and rush to all this splendid isolation to teach a coupla kids?”

  Indeed, why? Lily thought. I would never do it.

  He shook his head. “There it sits, too far away to be of any practical use. Mrs. Buxton wanted to make sure that whoever ended up there had plenty of cold air to breathe in and out, on the way to an education. It’s healthy, she claims.”

  “Seriously?”

  “She actually told me that.” He frowned then, maybe thinking he had said too much about the people who employed him. “You’ll understand better when you meet her. I’ll take you around tomorrow.”

  And that was the end of any more confidences from the foreman. Lily brushed a stray hair from her face where the wind had teased it. So many cattle everywhere—too many. She shivered inwardly, wondering—not for the first time—why the people who made the decisions never seemed to know as much as the people they employed. Thank goodness it wasn’t her problem. No one ever listened to her either.

  Mr. Sinclair spoke to the horses and they started toward the odd conglomeration of buildings and corrals that made up the Bar Dot, plus one isolated schoolhouse.

  No one seemed to be about, but cheery smoke poured from the cookshack chimney. Her stomach growled, too loud to be ignored.

  “Beg pardon,” she murmured, embarrassed.

  “You’ll do better here than chop suey,” he told her. “I’ll take you to your father’s first.”

  “Doesn’t he eat with everyone else?” she asked, suddenly unwilling to be placed in the care of a man she hadn’t seen since she was fifteen.

  Mr. Sinclair reined in the wagon in front of a shack no more dignified than the others. He set the brake, but made no move to get her luggage. He turned sideways on the seat and appraised her, his face troubled.

  “How long’s it been?” he asked.

  “Nine years.” She didn’t know Mr. Sinclair well enough to say that the occasion was Papa’s return from India, and what was supposed to have been a second or third chance to make something of himself. She was almost sixteen then, and down for a brief holiday from Miss Tilton’s, which kept her out of sight and out of mind. It hadn’t been much of a glimpse, either, just the sight of a slender man swaying, then collapsing into a chair. India had not been profitable. “Nine years,” she repeated more softly.

  “A lot can happen in nine years,” the foreman said, and she knew he was hedging.

  I can throw myself on this kind man’s chest and sob, or I can continue to be the dignified woman I know my mother was, Lily thought. She looked Mr. Sinclair square in the eyes. “He drinks, doesn’t he?”

  “A lot. He’s not a dangerous drunk, though, or I don’t think I’d leave you here,” Mr. Sinclair said, his voice flat.

  “Where else would I go, sir?” she asked with some spirit. She had come this far; might as well finish. “I have five American dollars in my purse, which means the Bar Dot is my home now. If you would please get my luggage out of this wagon? I’ve taken up too much of your time, and you have been so kind.” No need to tell him about the hundred pounds that Uncle Niles had wanted her to give to his brother for cattle shares, the last thing she would ever do, now that she knew the situation.

  Still he hesitated, which touched her, even though Lily knew he had no more choice in the matter than she did. She could strive for a more pleasant tone, though. She might need an ally in the months ahead. “I have very few expectations, Mr. Sinclair. Probably no more than you do.”

  Her eyes chose to fill with tears then, but she didn’t think this was a man much moved by tears. I don’t want your sympathy, but I do need a friend, she thought. Oh, I do. “I’ll be fine, Mr. Sinclair,” she said, and almost meant it.

  What could he do? He climbed down from the wagon, came around, and held out his hand. When she hesitated because the ground looked so far away, he grasped her waist, set her down, and then reached for her luggage.

  He picked up both pieces and knocked on the door. “Mr. Carteret? I have your daughter,” he called, then opened the door and set her two cases inside. “Mr. Carteret?” He shrugged.

  “Miss Carteret, it’s been a complete pleasure,” he said. He leaned closer and she could smell his shaving lotion. “We eat at the cookshack, and I want you to meet Madeleine.” He hauled out a timepiece. “There’s food on the table until six tonight, and breakfast starts pretty early at five thirty.”

  Lily nodded, knowing she could not keep him there but wishing he did not have to leave her with someone barely more than a stranger. “Thank you,” she managed to say.

  He took another look at her, hesitated, and then climbed back into the wagon seat. When he gathered up the reins, she stepped closer.

  “Mr. Sinclair?”

  He did not try to hide his worry. Maybe the foreman on a ranch felt he was responsible for everyone.

  “I promise you that I will have a plan, next time I see you.”

  He tipped his hat to her and was gone.

  Lily took a deep breath and went into the shack. She noted the braided rug on the floor, a table and two chairs, and what looked like a packing crate with a lumpy cushion on it, a most primitive settee. At the end of the little room she saw a cot with folded blankets and sheets, but not made up. Someone had tacked up a thin wire, but the effort to stretch it to the other wall had proved too much, apparently. The wire was there, but drooping. Two gray blankets with “US” stamped in the center drooped too. Perhaps that was the makeshift wall.

  That will be my room, she thought, looking at the slack wire.

  She crossed the main room in only a few steps and peered into what Mr. Sinclair had called a lean-to. “Well named,” she murmured, seeing a cookstove, counter space for a midget, and a stand with a bucket and dipper. A galvanized tub took up the rest of the space. She stared at it, wondering if someone her height could ever compact herself into such a space and bathe. It seemed unlikely.

  The other door was closed. Lily stood a long moment in front of it, wishing it would open by itself and her father, smiling and well-dressed, would come out with a smile. She sighed, knowing she had not told Mr. Sinclair the whole truth. She did have expectations, and they were breaking her heart right now.

  She looked back at the outside door, wanting to rush outside, commandeer the foreman’s wagon, and go . . . where? Using that strength of will she was only beginning to appreciate about herself, Lily forced down her rising panic. She made herself think how little she had left behind in England, and how she had yearned for freedom from her uncle and his pretensions.

  Here you are, Lily, she reminded herself. You got what you wanted. Make something of it.

  Thus bolstered, she tapped on the closed door
, then opened it. “Father?”

  The curtains were closed, but there was enough afternoon sun to outline her father, sound asleep on a much better bed than the cot destined for her in the main room.

  She removed her hat, set it on a bureau crowded with bottles, and pulled up a stool beside the bed. She sat down and regarded the man lying there so peacefully asleep, with his hands tucked under his cheek like a child. A nearly full wine glass was on the floor beside the bed.

  There was no point in waking him; she would keep. Lily looked around the little room. She had taken the stool from beside a small desk. Quietly, she returned the stool to the desk and noticed a packet of letters tied with twine. She looked closer to see they were her own letters, written for years under some duress, because she could barely remember her father. Uncle Niles and the governess who had taught her manners, embroidery, and drawing had insisted she write her father two times a year. Gradually, that onerous chore to a person she barely knew had tapered off to one letter annually, and then none. I should have written more, she thought, stung by the slender pile.

  Next to her own letters were a writing tablet, a fountain pen, and an ink bottle. And you could have written to me, she thought, trying to remember if he had ever sent her a letter. She started to turn away when she noticed that the wire trash receptacle was filled to the top with crumpled papers from the tablet. She thought she saw her name, so she reached for one page, straightened it, and then reached for another, and another. Across each page was written “Dearest Lily,” or “My Sweet Lily,” or “Dear Child.”

  She dug deeper. “Dear Lily, I am so delighted that you are coming to stay at my . . .” she read to herself. She flattened out another failed letter. “Dear Daughter, Gracious, how time flies! And now you are coming . . .”