by Lauran Paine
She didn’t kiss him and he didn’t notice it. The echoing thunder of her heart lingered long after he’d straightened up. “I’ll go saddle the horses,” he said. “We can stop with the Mullers for tonight.”
“But what about the supper, Shan?”
“I couldn’t eat now, Sarahlee. Honest I couldn’t.”
“All right. I’ll bring you a cup of this coffee when it’s hot.”
She turned back toward the stove, and he went out into the sunlight where shadows were lengthening, growing thin and knifelike. Day was fast dying, but the heat lingered. By the time he’d saddled their horses, tied them outside the cabin, Sarahlee had his coffee ready. He drank in silence, put the cup aside, and helped her mount. It was pleasantly warm as they rode toward the road and down it. He reined over enough so that their legs touched once in a while. Once she reached up gently and touched his face like a mother would do to a small son. There was tenderness in her expression, deeply etched understanding, almost a sadness.
Chapter Six
The Mullers were thunderstruck at what Shan told them. Otto opened and closed his mouth several times and never did get a word out, went to the kitchen table, and sat down heavily. Mrs. Muller was the first to recover. She seemed more excited than shocked, was more talkative than Shan had ever before seen her, and, when Otto made no move to do so, went herself to the under-stair closet and brought back the whiskey jug, set out two glasses for Shan and her husband, and poured Sarahlee a thimble glass of blackberry wine she’d made herself.
Otto gradually brightened. He drank a glass of whiskey though, before he finally found words. “I didn’t know you had a girl,” he said, and studied Sarahlee with glaring approval. “Shan … you are a rascal. All this time you had a girl …”
The kitchen glowed with mellowness and warm good feeling. Sarahlee and Mrs. Muller made supper. Mrs. Muller talked incessantly. Otto and Shan drank more whiskey, and when it grew late, Mrs. Muller took Sarahlee to the guest bedroom. That time Sarahlee kissed Shan. For moments afterward he sat stiffly in his chair, staring at the glass in his hand. Otto made no comment. After a while they began talking again. Shan nodded without hearing half what Otto was saying about the coming season for working the cattle, haying, finishing Shan’s barn.
“We’ll go to Tico in the morning,” Shan said without any preface.
“Sure.”
“She liked the ranch, Otto.”
“That’s good, Shan. But something else you got to learn, Shan. Women get lonesome in country like this. For us it ain’t so bad, we got plenty work to do, but for women …”
“She can ride down here and visit if she gets lonely, Otto. I’ll get her a nice top buggy, then she can drive down.”
“That’ll be good,” Otto said. “But, Shan, we’re older. Young people need young friends.”
“The country’ll grow, Otto. Someday there’ll be other folks up here.”
“I expect there will. Anyway, it’ll all work out.”
“Why shouldn’t it?” Shan asked, big knuckles white around the empty glass.
“It will,” Otto said soothingly. “All good marriages work out, Shan. A good marriage can work out anything. I just worry too much.”
“I made that ranch for a purpose, Otto. I got that cabin for a purpose, too. To live in. To have a woman in. To maybe someday raise kids in.”
“All right, Shan.”
“No, not all right. I got this much coming to me from life, Otto. I never felt sorry for myself. I’ve managed to keep my gut full, to stay alive, but life’s got to mean more’n that, Otto. Other men get wives, cabins, kids. I can have them, too.” He pushed the glass away violently and stood up, big and flush-faced, breath pumping in and out of him audibly, in shallow bursts. “To hell with this,” he said, “I’m going to bed.” He turned, lurched, caught himself, and staggered out of the room.
Otto’s eyes followed the big body. He listened to his sturdy house creak under Shan’s large feet. He poured himself another shot of whiskey and looked at its amber color through the sticky glass, wondered at some of the other things Shan had said, and shook his head over them. A man ought to want more than a mother when he got a built-up girl like that. He drank the whiskey, struggled up out of the chair, and looked at Shan’s empty glass. They must not have eaten up there, otherwise that whiskey wouldn’t have knocked Shan out like it did.
“Bar the door, Otto,” his wife called softly.
He barred the door and blew out the lamp chimney. The room got dark. Through the window the big, pale moon etched filigreed patterns upon the house through budding tree limbs, mottled the kitchen with splashed shadows. Otto tried to fathom the mood that was upon him and couldn’t. He looked out the window for a long time.
“Otto …?”
He crossed through the parlor to their bedroom. His wife was already under the covers, the lamp was turned down low. Otto began divesting himself of outer garments.
From the bed his wife said: “She’s a pretty girl … big and strong, too.”
He went on undressing, sat down to tug off his boots.
“What’s the matter with you, Otto?”
“I don’t know. Just a feeling about things is all.”
“You don’t think he should get married. It’s their business, Otto.”
“I know it’s their business. I didn’t say anything against it.” He rolled back the quilts and climbed in. The bed groaned, sank down on his side. “Maybe it was too sudden. Maybe it isn’t even their marriage. I don’t know. Maybe it’s this weather. I don’t like to see it get so hot in April. By July’ll it’ll be a hundred and ten … no feed, no water, poor hay crop … a drought year if it keeps up this way.”
“Do you know what she asked me? If we’d go down to Tico with them tomorrow and stand up for them at their wedding.”
He gazed steadily at the ceiling a moment. “What’d you say?”
“That we’d want to stand up for them. She said she wished they could have a better marriage but Shan doesn’t want to wait.”
“No,” Otto said, still looking at the ceiling, “I don’t expect he does.”
“There’s nothing can’t be put off another day.”
“No.”
“Good night, Otto.”
“Good night.”
He listened to his wife roll over on her side and burrow down under the covers and for a long time he couldn’t sleep. When he finally dropped off, it seemed he’d only been asleep a moment when his wife was shaking his arm. Dawn was streaking the sky. He got up, dressed, took his coat and the milk bucket, and went outside. The new day was cloudless. A turquoise sky hung with narrow streamers of pink light greeted him. He put on the coat and trudged to the barn. Inside, animals bawled and nickered. He climbed to the loft, forked hay, and climbed back down, got the stool, drove the cow up, and hunkered down. The barn was warm and pleasant-smelling.
Shan loomed in the doorway. He had shaved and combed his heavy shock of hair. He blinked down at Otto. “Morning.”
“Morning, Shan.”
“Otto … I got a little drunk last night. I didn’t mean to get roiled up in the kitchen like I did.”
“You didn’t say anything wrong.”
Shan looked relieved. “I thought I might have.” He moved deeper into the barn, looked at the eating horses. “Kind of worried me when I woke up this morning. You’ve already fed?”
“Yes. Shan, did you eat anything up at your place before you rode down here yesterday?”
“No,” Shan said, leaning against the wall, “I didn’t. Couldn’t have if someone’d tried to make me eat with a pistol.”
Otto looked at the milking bucket between his legs, gave an extra savage squirt into it. “It’ll hit you that way sometimes,” he said.
“That’s what did it to me, I expect. Are you sure I didn’t make any
one mad at me last night?”
“You didn’t,” Otto said, gazing up into the earnest, open face. “You sure got a guilty conscience, though. I know what you think you might have said but you didn’t hurt my feelings or Georgia’s, or Sarahlee’s.” He got up with the bucket, hung up the stool, and went out through the doorway. “Come on, let’s go eat.”
When they were almost to the house, Shan said: “Sarahlee wanted you folks to come down to Tico with us, Otto.”
“Sure, we planned to. I wouldn’t miss this for the world, Shan.”
Breakfast was gay but no one ate much. Sarahlee looked radiant to Shan. He didn’t see the nervousness, the indecision. Mrs. Muller laughed a lot and even Otto seemed snared into the spirit of things and so they neglected to notice the large, lemon-yellow sun that hung majestically overhead and spilled heat down over the world, molten gold.
Mrs. Muller and Sarahlee did the dishes while Shan and Otto hitched the team to the wagon, drove down to the house, and sat there, waiting. Then Otto noticed the warmth, the cloudless sky.
“It’s never been this warm in April before,” he said.
“Early spring,” Shan said, watching the house.
“I hope that’s all it is.”
Shan moved on the seat, then began to climb down. Otto watched him. “They’ll be along,” he said. “Women take longer to do anything than men could afford to take time for. Be patient.”
When they finally came out of the house, Shan sought Sarahlee’s eyes, held them with his own. She smiled. After he’d handed them both up and resumed his own seat, Otto lifted the lines, flicked them, and the horses leaned into their collars.
The road was dark and mushy-looking. New grass was showing everywhere, like silk, green but too weak to do livestock much good yet. There were birds, too, and Shan thought it the most beautiful day he’d ever ridden through. He twisted on the seat to look at Sarahlee.
“You’re going to love it up here,” he said.
Her eyes twinkled at him. “How do you know? You’ve never seen a summer in Wyoming.”
He laughed and Mrs. Muller turned on the seat to look at them. Otto began rummaging through his pockets for his pipe. He stoked it one-handed, lit it, and smoked hunched over, eyes fixed on something far off between the horse’s ears. He said nothing.
Chapter Seven
They were nearing Tico before Shan shed his coat. Sarahlee had unbuttoned the little artilleryman’s jacket. Otto straightened up a little, grunted, and pointed. Off to their left in the middle distance two horsemen were loping northward.
“The Blessings.”
Shan strained to see. As he watched, one rider drew up. A second later his companion also stopped. They sat motionlessly watching the wagon go past. Shan tried to make out their features but the distance was too vast. Something about one of them was familiar. He would have dwelt on it further to himself but Sarahlee interrupted him.
“Who did Mister Muller say they were … I didn’t hear?”
“The Blessing brothers. I’ve never met them. They own a ranch over the hill from our place a ways. Otto knows them.”
“The most troublesome twosome in these parts,” Otto said. “I get along with them all right … have up to now … but they’re no good.”
Neither man looked away from the distant riders so failed to observe a peculiar whiteness around Sarahlee’s mouth. When the riders were far behind, Shan reached back and touched her arm.
“They don’t mean anything to us, Sarahlee. Today I’ve got no worries anyway.”
She smiled into his face, and Otto removed his pipe and pointed with it. “There’s town. Haven’t seen it since last summer.”
His wife poked him in the ribs. “You thought maybe it wouldn’t still be there?”
Otto smiled a trifle ruefully. “When you and I were married, the town was a little larger, but we didn’t have as much to go home to as they have.”
Mrs. Muller said to Sarahlee: “Otto was a wheelwright. His father was once a wheelwright in Germany. For you two, it’s going to be better and I’m glad for that. We had hard times for many years, then we came out here. Here we’ve worked and saved. It will be like that for you two, work and save.”
Sarahlee leaned forward and touched Shan’s shoulder. She was squinting into the distance. “See my uncle’s cabin from here?”
He found it with no effort and nodded. “Who bought it?”
“A miner named Callahan. He’s new to Wyoming, also.”
He looked around at her. “Also? I’m not new, not anymore. When we get in, I’m going to buy me a wedding present … one of those big black hats Wyoming men wear.”
“No, you’re not supposed to buy your own wedding present. I’ll buy it for you.”
“All right. I already know what your wedding present’s going to be. I almost bought it when I came down here after the other things.”
“What is it?”
He faced forward as the wagon swerved. “You’ll see.” He got down to tie the team when Otto drew up.
The rest of it was like a half dream, half nightmare. They were married by a justice of the peace with a great golden watch chain dangling across his belly. The Mullers stood unnaturally straight and Shan never once looked the minister in the eyes. When they were back outside, Shan drew in a big breath and let it out. Tico looked different; the sun seemed hotter. In fact, Wyoming didn’t seem the same as it had before he’d gone into that house less than an hour before. Otto nudged him.
“What kind of a husband you going to make anyway? You were supposed to kiss her back there.”
Sarahlee seemed smaller to Shan. She was standing beside Mrs. Muller. Now she laughed nervously, and Mrs. Muller put an arm around her. “Not out here in the road,” she said sternly to Otto. “Go with him and get her present … go on.”
“All right,” Shan said, “where will you two be?”
“At the Mercantile.”
Shan watched them walk down the plank walk. He momentarily forgot Otto who said: “Pretty as a picture.” Then he laughed. “Today even my wife looks good.”
They crossed the road together, and Shan led the way down an alley behind the livery barn, out into a yard where a row of buggies stood.
“That one, Otto. The top buggy with the yellow wheels.”
Otto went closer. The buggy was used and dusty, but he could find no flaws in it. He tried to wobble the wheels; they were tight. He worried the tires, but they had no give. He put his weight on the iron step and hopped up and down several times, then he walked completely around it and finally got down to peer underneath at the running gear.
“How much, Shan?”
“Twenty-two dollars.”
“Offer fifteen, go up to eighteen-fifty, and don’t budge from there.” Otto brushed off his knees. “You’ll need a driving horse.”
“I know. He had some pretty nice ones when I was down here before.”
“Go see what you can do on the buggy, and I’ll go around to the corrals and see what he’s got.” Otto walked away.
Shan entered the barn from the back alley. The trader greeted him with a wide smile. They began to trade. It required a half hour to barter for the top buggy at nineteen dollars, then Shan and the trader went out back to the corrals. Otto nodded to them and pointed out an animal. This time the trading took even longer for Shan insisted on a set of driving harness being thrown in. By the time the trader had Shan’s money, and he and Otto had the horse between the shafts, the morning was spent. Otto climbed in and sat back while Shan drove. When they tied up at the Mercantile, Otto got down and stomped mud off one boot. Shan came around beside him and they entered the store together. An odor of mothballs and oiled floors arose around them. A clerk came up. Otto pointed to a handsome black Stetson hat with a wide brim. “One to fit him,” he said, indicating Shan. While Shan was trying
one on, Mrs. Muller and Sarahlee came up. Shan smiled broadly at Sarahlee. The hat’s darkness made his teeth stand out startlingly white. Otto paid for the hat and winked at his wife.
Shan led them outside where the buggy stood in sparkling sunlight. Mrs. Muller was stunned at Shan’s extravagance and shot her husband a reproving glance. Sarahlee drew Shan’s arm close and squeezed it.
“It’s beautiful, Shan, simply beautiful.”
“Something for you to drive when you go down to the Mullers’,” he said.
“Darling, it’s wonderful.”
They went to the Clark House dining room for dinner, and Shan’s ecstasy began to fade almost at once. Otto said: “Did you two find out when the stage’s due?”
Sarahlee looked up swiftly, saw Shan’s stricken look, and bit down hard on her lip. Mrs. Muller nodded at her husband. “Well,” Otto demanded. “How much time we got?”
“Not very much,” his wife said. “Half an hour.”
Otto ate a good meal but Shan only picked at his food. Sarahlee ordered only coffee. Mrs. Muller ate a piece of pie. When Otto looked at his watch, they all arose, left the hotel, and trudged across the road to the stage station, and there they stood around, awkwardly waiting.
Mrs. Muller hugged Sarahlee. Otto got his pipe going and seemed drowned in the peculiar gloom that had been bothering him since the evening before. He roused only when Sarahlee said good-bye, standing close and looking straight into his eyes.
“Take care of him, Mister Muller.”
“Yes,” Otto said, “we’ll take care of him. You get back as soon as you can.”
“Don’t worry about him,” Mrs. Muller said to the girl. Her eyes were damp. “Don’t worry about anything. He’s like a son to us, so don’t worry about him. We’ll watch things. I want you to come right back, Sarahlee … right back.”
“I will. No, I won’t worry about him, Missus Muller.” She turned quickly away from the older woman. “Shan …?”