“Anybody could do that.”
What Wallace was incapable of understanding was that by taking the time to make the crutch and teach Jared how to heat branding irons, Salty had helped him believe he was worthy of Salty’s time and attention. Seeing himself valued in the eyes of a man he admired was something Sarah couldn’t do for her son, and that had warmed Sarah’s heart toward Salty in a way that Wallace’s money and power never could.
“Maybe anyone could,” Sarah said to Wallace, “but no one did.”
“I’d have been happy to do that and more if I’d known.”
Therein lay one of the important differences between the two men. Wallace had seen Jared many times since the end of the war but had never been interested enough to talk to him or learn anything about him. Salty cared just as much about Ellen as he did Jared. The only time Wallace had noticed Ellen was to tell her she had to act more like a girl if she ever intended to get a husband.
“We’ve wandered from the point of the conversation,” Salty said. “I think we can agree that each of us has the right to brand any maverick stock we find on our individual ranges. I gather you’ve already been doing that.”
“You’re right, he has,” volunteered a young man Sarah remembered from a week ago. “When I asked if we shouldn’t try to find out where they came from, he said they were on his land now so they were his.”
“That’s the law,” Wallace declared. “Your man just said so.”
Sarah knew Wallace was within the letter of the law, but in her eyes it violated the spirit of cooperation that should exist between neighbors.
“I haven’t branded any cows I saw wander onto our land,” Gary said. “Only ones I found already there.”
Sarah was tired of this conversation. It wasn’t getting them anywhere. “There’s no point in discussing what’s been done or what might have been done. I would like to think we’d both drive back any unbranded cows we saw wander onto our ranges.”
“If you’ll give me a couple of your irons, I’d be willing to put your brand on any mavericks I see wander off your range onto Mr. Wallace’s,” Gary offered.
“As long as you’re working for me, you ain’t putting any brand but mine on a cow.” Wallace was so worked up, he was red in the face.
“That’s okay,” Salty said. “Just drive it back and we’ll brand it.”
“I’m not driving any cows off my land,” Wallace declared. “If it’s on my land, it’s mine.”
“Using that same argument, a cow will become ours as soon as it crosses onto our land.”
“If you brand even one of my cows, I’ll have the sheriff down on you before the fire is cold.” Wallace was furious, but he’d backed himself into a corner.
“Thank you for coming over,” Sarah said to Wallace. “I would ask you to stay for supper, but we have more cows to brand before we can quit for the day. Now I have to get back to work. Ellen is too young to be left in charge of even a small herd for long.”
Wallace was reluctant to leave, but his cowhands had already turned and were heading home. There was little he could do but follow.
“I’ll be watching you,” he said to Salty.
“Feel free to come by any time,” Salty said. “I can always use an extra hand with the branding. I’ll be happy to teach you everything I know.”
Wallace was so offended anyone could think he would do his own work it was comical. He doffed his hat to Sarah, wheeled his horse, and galloped away.
“I don’t like that man,” Jared said.
“You don’t have to like everyone,” Salty said, “but you have to treat everyone fairly and kindly.”
Jared looked up at Salty from where he was seated on a low bench next to the fire. “He’s not being fair to Mama. Why do I have to be fair to him?”
Salty sat down next to Jared, put his arm around the boy. “You’ll be fair to him because it’s the kind of person you are.”
“Why do I have to behave better than other people?”
“You don’t base your behavior on what other people do. You base it on what you feel is right, what makes you feel good about yourself.”
Jared looked at Salty with a question in his eyes. “Do you think Mr. Wallace feels good about himself?”
“I don’t know, but I’d guess he’s too angry right now to feel very good about anything. Now you’d better get back to the fire before some of those irons get too hot to use.” Salty stood, ruffed Jared’s hair making the boy smile up at him, his eyes filled with trust. “I don’t know about you, but I want to get the rest of the branding done in a hurry. I’m hungry.”
In a few minutes, everyone was back in place and the branding took up where it left off before the interruption, but Sarah felt there had been a shift in the relationships that connected her family to Salty. He was taking his position at the head of the family without pushing her aside. Ellen already thought he could do anything. Now Jared was turning to him for guidance. He’d even managed to turn Arnie into a cooperative worker. What about her?
She wasn’t ready to put her relationship with Salty into words because her feelings were evolving too rapidly to be quantified. She did know Salty had become a very important part of her life in a way that didn’t involve the children, and that scared her senseless. She didn’t want to fall in love.
* * *
The next afternoon, Wallace’s youngest cowhand rode up. Sarah recognized him straight off and wondered what he was doing there. It seemed unlikely her neighbor would have sent a message with him.
He rode up to the house and dismounted, then removed his hat before he spoke. “Howdy.” He colored slightly, as though unsure how to start.
“Can I help you?”
He looked around at the house and the surrounding trees before glancing back at her. “I was wondering if you could use an extra hand.”
“Don’t you work for Henry Wallace?” she asked.
“He fired me. Said I didn’t have any loyalty. He didn’t like what I said when we was here yesterday.”
Sarah sighed. “I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere. I can’t afford to pay you.”
“I’m not asking for much,” he admitted. “Wallace is going to make sure nobody else gives me a job.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t afford to pay you anything. Until my…husband and I sell our steers later this summer, I can’t even pay Arnie.” She stumbled over the word husband. “I don’t even have a bunkhouse for you to sleep in.”
“Where does Arnie sleep?”
Sarah was caught in a quandary. How could she tell this boy that her husband slept in the shed while Arnie slept in a wagon?
“Arnie sleeps in one of our wagons. He covers himself with a bedroll if it rains.”
Much to her surprise, the boy burst out laughing. “You don’t pay him, and he sleeps in a wagon. Do you feed him?”
She felt herself grow warm from embarrassment. “Of course we feed him! We’re not so poor I can’t manage to put food on the table.” She was so unused to saying we, she stumbled over it every time.
“Well, I have a rain slick to keep me dry, so I’ll be satisfied with the same deal.”
She’d always made the decisions about who worked for her, but that hadn’t always worked out so well. Also, she was no longer the sole arbiter of what happened on the ranch. Despite what she’d said about maintaining control, she wanted Salty to make some of the bigger decisions. “You’ll have to talk to Salty. He’s out by the corral, teaching Jared to ride.”
Her heart had caught in her throat when Salty told her son it was about time he learned to ride a horse. Only the look of happiness on Jared’s face had kept her from objecting to the danger.
“That the little boy who was tending the fire?” the young cowhand asked, squinting as he turned to look through the break in the trees to the corr
al. “He spoke right up, didn’t he, when Mr. Wallace said those things about your husband? That’s what made me decide to come here. I figured if a kid with a bad leg liked him, he must be right decent. Er, no offense.”
“You figured right,” Sarah said. “Now, I have to get started cooking if there’s going to be any supper to put on the table. You need to see Salty.”
“Salty? That’s a right peculiar name for a man.”
“It’s a nickname. I don’t think he much likes Benton.”
The youngster grinned. “Don’t like my name, either. Maybe that’s why I didn’t introduce myself earlier. Dobie. Dobie Carlisle.”
Sarah didn’t see too much to like about the name Dobie, but she guessed it didn’t matter. A man was what he made of himself, not what he was called.
“Be looking forward to supper,” Dobie said before heading toward the corral.
Sarah couldn’t help but think how much had changed in her life. A month ago, no one would work for her; now Salty and two other men were working without pay, her herd was being branded and her son taught to ride. She shook her head to dislodge the sense of unreality. It seemed impossible that one man could make so much difference in such a short time. She still needed to sort through all the changes and how she felt about them, but more important was fixing supper. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if five hungry workers showed up at her table to find it empty. That was one change she didn’t want.
* * *
Once she’d cleaned up after supper, Sarah was so tired she felt like she could go to sleep standing up, yet she was too restless to go to bed. It was the same as the last few nights, actually. She’d tried to ignore the pressure building inside her by concentrating on work. But now things had changed. While they would probably be branding mavericks off and on for the rest of the year, they no longer had to be in the saddle from dawn to dusk. Salty had time to turn his attention to other projects.
The arrival several days ago of so much lumber had disconcerted her. She hardly knew how she felt about his decision to build an extra room onto the house. Three people in three bedrooms seemed extravagant, especially when Salty was sleeping in the shed. Should she suggest a different arrangement? She could share a room with Ellen, Salty share one with Jared, and Arnie and Dobie could share the third—but she wasn’t sure how she felt about having the two men sleep in the house or having Salty so close.
She could insist that he use the lumber to build a bunkhouse…but Salty ought to be the one to decide how it was used, she admitted. He’d spent his own money for that lumber. She felt guilty about that, too. She didn’t know how much money he’d earned working for the Randolphs, but he must have spent all of it on her and the children now. It was impossible to question his attachment to her family or his will to succeed. So, just what was her attachment to him?
Neither Arnie nor Dobie had commented on Salty sleeping in the shed, but they had to think it was odd, despite their excuse. She had begun to think it was odd, too. Salty was her legal husband. He ought to be sleeping in the house. He ought to be sleeping in her bed, to be honest. And she wanted him to sleep in her bed. She was finally able to admit that.
Unable to stand the confinement of the house, she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and went outside. The night was full of the coming spring. The air was soft and warm. Moisture promised dew in the morning if not rain before.
The sound of a snorting horse emerged from a multitude of tiny indistinguishable night noises. She could almost hear the sap rising in the trees, flower buds swelling, and blades of grass pushing up through softened soil. Mother Nature was just as restless as she, eager to get on with the work of shedding her cloak of winter and revitalizing the land. Calves would be born, her sows would give birth to litters of six to ten pigs, the chickens would turn broody and look for places to build nests. The desire for change was all around. The earth would soon be resplendent with new beginnings. What about her? Did Sarah want a new beginning—one she hadn’t originally planned? Or was she too afraid to take the chance?
She settled on the front steps, her bare feet on the cold ground. She liked Salty. From the way he’d been smiling at her lately, following her with his eyes, she was certain he liked her. All she had to do was let him know she would be receptive to a closer relationship. It would be good for the children, too. If they developed a closer relationship, maybe he really would stay attached to their family if and when she asked him for a divorce.
There was no question the kids had become so attached to Salty they would be devastated if he left. He’d taught Ellen how to use a rope, how to ride better, and how to use Bones to roust a steer out of the thickets where they liked to hide during the heat of the day. Teaching Jared to ride had guaranteed her son’s lifelong devotion. He wasn’t able to do much more than stay astride, but Salty had promised they’d experiment with different kinds of saddles. Watching her son glow with pride when he did things people had said he’d never be able to do had brought tears to Sarah’s eyes on several occasions.
It was harder to evaluate exactly what he’d done for her. For so long she hadn’t allowed herself to feel anything for anyone except her children. She hadn’t had room for real emotions, because fear of failure overrode everything else. She’d drawn her lines of defense closely around her, closed out the rest of the world. She had hidden herself on an island of three in a sea of desperation…but Salty had changed that.
How lucky she was! She was married to a man who liked her, who thought she was beautiful, and who respected her right to decide what to do with her property, her life, and her person. It was inconceivable that he was so strong, both physically and emotionally, and she sometimes wondered if she was losing her mind.
She shivered and tucked her feet into the bottom of her nightgown. The ground was cold and the air smelled like rain, but she didn’t want to go inside. The house was a prison, restricting her growth, confining her to old ideas of what was possible. Intellectually she realized it was a metaphor for the past that had caused her to withdraw into herself, and emotionally it felt like some living, breathing organism that had wrapped itself around her and wouldn’t let go. And fear held her in place: fear that what she had learned about her possibilities was only a mirage. Once she left it, she’d never be able to retreat to her island of safety again.
Ignoring the cold and the first drops of rain, she got to her feet and walked across the yard. Salty’s lumber was neatly stacked under the trees and covered by a tarp. At supper he had said he wanted to start building her bedroom in the morning, if it wasn’t too wet. Her bedroom. No one had ever bought or done anything specifically for her. Everything had always been handed down from someone else. Even the clothes she wore had once been her mother’s.
Things had changed, and she was glad. She wanted more for herself. She was no longer willing to just sit by and make do, not when she had the opportunity to have what she wanted. She didn’t know how her body and emotions had been able to stage this successful revolt, or why her body longed for something it never before had, but she couldn’t turn back. Not now. Whatever the reason, she wanted to be open to these changes—and to Salty’s interest in her. It might yet be as much of a mistake as Roger had been, but she’d never know if she didn’t try. She had to find the courage to reach for it.
She turned back to the house. It was starting to rain in earnest.
Nineteen
Sarah had made it clear at the beginning that she didn’t want to be attracted to him. What confused Salty was that she seemed to be sending intermittent signals that she desired a closer relationship. He had never been very good with women, so he’d been inclined to attribute it to wishful thinking every time she sent a positive sign. Dobie had recently changed his mind.
“I wish a woman would look at me the way your wife looks at you,” the young man said one afternoon when he and Salty were working on the extra bedroom. Sarah and
the children were working in the garden, and Arnie was digging holes for a fence to keep the cows out.
Salty didn’t look up from where he was nailing together the frame for one of the walls. “How’s that?” They’d all been working so hard and were so tired at the end of the day, he hadn’t given much thought to anything other than how soon he could crawl into bed.
“Like she wants you to share this bedroom with her when it’s done.”
Salty laughed. “You ought to pay more attention to your work and less to Sarah. She doesn’t trust men, and she only married me because she couldn’t see any other way out.” Salty hesitated to offer this explanation, but it was nearly impossible to keep secrets when they worked so closely together.
Dobie helped him raise the wall and hold it steady while he nailed it to the house. “She might have felt that way at first, but she’s changed her mind.”
Salty nearly smashed his thumb with the hammer. He needed to pay more attention to his work instead of letting this youth get his hopes up. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen. Why?”
Salty grimaced. “I’m ten years older, so I’ve had plenty of time to learn that attractive women aren’t interested in me. Whatever it is they want, I don’t have it. Now let it drop.”
“I don’t believe that,” Dobie said.
“Well, you’re not an attractive woman, so your opinion’s not worth a dead coyote’s hide. Fetch me another load of two-by-fours. I’ve got two more walls to frame before supper.”
That conversation had taken place four days ago. Salty had tried without success to forget it. Since then, he’d weighed every word Sarah said to him and compared her every glance to those she gave Dobie and Arnie. He struggled to prevent his wants from affecting his judgment, but…Dobie was right. Sarah was definitely warming up to him. He had to figure out what to do about it.
“Are you losing your hearing, or do I have to turn myself into a horse to get your attention?”
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