They stood at the end of the street, where Bradshaw met the emptiness of the prairie, and watched the horse grow larger. Cherry’s heart was thudding. If it was Jared, if it was Jared… oh, what would she say? Should she be dismissive? Even curt? Or should she forgive him, forget the past month?
“Who is that?” Mr. Morrison mused. “Looks like just a boy.”
And as the horse grew closer, Cherry could see that he was right. Her heart sank to her boots. It wasn’t Jared galloping into town.
“Why… Wilbur!”
It was Wilbur, Jared’s little hired boy, come galloping into town on the wooly lop-eared mule Jared kept for pulling the wagon and the plow. He pulled up as the mule came close to Cherry and Mr. Morrison, his cheeks red and his eyes bright.
“Wilbur, what’s happening? Is the cabin afire? Is Jared hurt?”
He looked at Cherry curiously. “Nah, miss. Jared ain’t here; he’s been over to Opportunity for at least a month. I came in because I saw that blizzard cloud rollin’ in and I don’t want to be alone out there in a blizzard.”
“What about the livestock?” Mr. Morrison asked sternly, while Cherry still stood with her mouth open, trying to deal with the shock of Jared’s whereabouts. “You haven’t just abandoned Mr. Reese’s animals, have you?”
“No sir!” Wilbur shook his head vehemently. “I shut up the cow with enough hay for a week. The chickens and the goats are all set, too. And the cattle at pasture, they worry about themselves. I was ridin’ up, checkin’ on them, and that’s when I knew a bad storm was comin’. They’s all gone to shelter in the bluffs at the north end of the claim.”
“Jared’s in Opportunity?” Cherry asked, in a small, foolish voice, but the men didn’t notice her.
“Good enough,” Mr. Morrison told Wilbur. “Do you have a place to stay?”
Wilbur shook his head. “I was goin’ to Miss Rose’s.”
Cherry found her voice. “Come and stay with us,” she said firmly. He was entirely too young for Miss Rose’s, she thought. Really, Bradshaw needed a hotel that wasn’t a faintly-disguised brothel. And she had a lot more she wanted to discuss with Wilbur. “There’s room in the stables for the mule.”
Mr. Morrison was gazing north. “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Beacham, I’m just going to hurry home and get my own stock taken care of.”
“Of course.” Cherry nodded. “Good night to you, Mr. Morrison. Thank you again for… everything.”
He smiled and went hurrying down the dark road towards the lumber-yard, where his own horse and cart waited. Cherry turned to the hired boy, who had slithered down from the tall mule’s back and was watching her expectantly. “Now, Wilbur, let’s get this mule taken care of and you safe and warm inside.” She’d feel better, she thought, when her hands were busy. And she could ask Wilbur a few questions in private.
“What’s that?” Wilbur had turned around and was gazing east, towards the open prairie beyond town. “Another horse?”
Cherry whirled. Not so very far away, a horse was trotting wearily in their direction. She could see his head bobbing hard with every step. “The poor thing is lame. And coming across-country at this time of night… whoever could it be?”
Wilbur frowned. “Sure looks like the roan.”
She looked at him incredulously. “Jared’s roan?”
“Who else has a roan?”
He was right, Cherry realized. That was the roan tripping painfully towards them in the dusk. But that wasn’t Jared on his back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Snow’s gonna hold off until tomorrow,” the man from the livery was saying sagely, and everyone in the saloon was nodding in agreement.
“What’s his story?” Jared asked the bar-man, sliding his glass across the counter for a refill. “First he won’t let me take a horse outta town, now he’s prophesyin’ the weather like a goddamn Messiah and everyone’s eating it up.”
Michael, the bar-man, chuckled at Jared’s bad temper. “He’s a weather genius. He’s like a scientist. Or an Indian. Knows the meaning of every cloud in the sky.” He refilled Jared’s glass and pushed it back to him. “You want out of this town real bad all of a sudden.”
“Everyone knows my girl took my horse,” Jared shrugged, as if it wasn’t eating him up inside. He was remembering Prince, and all the stories, people jostling to come up to him on his first night back in Galveston: “You know that horse you gave her? She ran him into the ground. Broke his leg in the street. It was horrible.” He hadn’t believed them then, choosing to believe Hope’s sad story that he’d broken his leg kicking his stall wall during a storm, but now he knew it was true. Why else would have of Galveston have wanted to tell him the same sad story?
Such a fool. Poor Roan. He didn’t even bother with the “the” in his name. He was Roan. He was a good horse, and if Jared ever got him back he was going to call him by his name, not just his color.
“That was some ridin’ she did on the way outta here.” Michael didn’t even try to deny he’d been talking about the Hope incident. The out-of-towners’ public lover’s quarrel and the maybe-a-whore’s mad dash out of town while her fella stood in the street and shouted like a madman was the talk of Opportunity. Even the folks who hadn’t seen it were talking about how they’d felt when they’d seen it. It was the social event of the year. “Where you figure she went?”
“I have no idea,” Jared said, and he tossed back the whiskey, savoring the burn in his throat. He did have an idea, he just hoped like hell he was wrong. “I just aim to get back to Bradshaw tomorrow before this damned snow starts falling, put all this behind me once and for all.”
“She looks like a handful,” Michael agreed, shaking his head sympathetically. “Shame about the horse.”
Jared just nodded.
***
By the time the roan and his nameless rider had come stumbling up to Wilbur and Cherry, Patty had come out on the porch to see what all the fuss was. “What’s goin’ on out here?” she called, pulling her coat close about her. “Cherry, who’s that coming?”
“I don’t know,” Cherry replied, her voice deceptively calm. Inside her coat pockets, her hands were shaking. Something must have happened to Jared. Why else would someone just show up on his horse?
“Hello!” cried a woman’s voice, and they all jumped. A woman had come clattering into town on Jared Reese’s horse? Cherry bit down on her lip until the dry skin cracked.
“Hello,” Patty said suspiciously, coming down the porch steps. Behind her, Matt appeared in the doorway. He took one look at the woman dismounting from the horse and nearly fell over backwards.
“Why, Matt!” the woman trilled, walking the sore horse up to them without a care in the world. “How lovely to see your smiling face at the end of this journey!”
Patty looked from the woman to Matt and back again. Cherry just looked at the ground, willing herself not to cry. She didn’t know what was happening, but she had the most awful suspicion that this was the woman who had once broken Jared’s heart.
“What’s going on, Matt?” Patty’s voice was sharp. She wanted answers, and she wanted them immediately.
But Matt came down the stairs slowly, none too eager to get into the center of the females, who were already looking at each other like cats before a fight. He fancied he could hear them testing their claws. Finally he walked up to the woman, who was standing in the middle of the street, holding the roan’s reins in one hand, holding out her other hand with a simper, as if waiting for Matt to kiss it.
Matt eyed her hand, but he didn’t bother kissing it. He came to a stop in front of her and put his hands on his hips, assessing her for a long moment. The woman let her hand drop. “Aren’t you going to say anything, Matt?” she asked sweetly. “It’s been a long time.”
“Not long enough,” Matt growled.
“Why you—”
“Why d’you have Jared’s horse?” Matt interrupted. He was furious, Cherry realized. She had never seen gentle Matt even a little ang
ry, and the knowledge frightened her.
“He gave him —”
“He didn’t.”
“It’s rude to interrupt.”
“It’s a crime to steal a horse.”
She tightened her jaw and glared up at him. Whoever she was, she wasn’t a bit afraid of Matt’s smoldering anger. Or, Cherry thought, she was a very, very good actress.
“Why don’t you wait until Jared gets here, and we’ll see what he has to say,” the woman suggested. “I’m sure he’ll be here tomorrow.”
“If I know Jared, he’ll have borrowed a horse already and come after you. I’m only surprised he didn’t catch up with you on the way here. He’s a much better rider than you.”
She actually laughed. “Such a flatterer, as always, Matt.” She looked over his shoulder at Patty, who was hovering a few feet behind. “You must be Matt’s wife. Never thought I’d see the day this old charmer got married. Lucky you.”
“And you’re Hope Townsend,” Patty said accusingly, as much as if she’d said “and you’re a murderer.”
Hope Townsend had the grace to flinch a little at Patty’s barbed tone. But she managed to fasten a little smile back on her face. In the orange lamplight from Patty’s front porch, the effect was grotesque. “I see I’m not wanted here.” She looked up the street. “Some town. Is there a boarding house or a hotel, or is that too much to ask for?”
Matt stepped up and took the roan’s reins from her. She looked pleased at first, but her smile faded when he said: “The big house next to the saloon is Miss Rose’s. You can go there, but don’t go stealin’ any business from her… Miss Rose is very protective of her girls.” He turned away from her then, gently tugging at the reins to convince the roan to come with him. “I’ll take care of Jared’s horse for him.”
Hope Townsend stood in the dark street for a long moment, as if hoping that one of them would relent and take her in. But one by one, they all followed Matt past the house and towards the stable in the back. Cherry scooped up Eddie from the front porch along the way, pressing kisses to his fair hair. Her heart felt like it had taken one too many blows.
“I’ll make tea,” Patty announced once they were all in the hall, jostling a little to take off coats scarves. She took Eddie’s hand. “Come, Eddie, I think a little bird told me where I can find one more dumpling.” Eddie needed no further urging and went marching down the hall towards the kitchen.
Matt was in the stable, tending to Jared’s horse. This left Wilbur and Cherry alone. Cherry thought that her friends were very good at organizing such things. “Wilbur,” she said as he struggled with his coat-buttons, “Come and sit in the parlor with me, won’t you?”
Wilbur shrugged off his coat and hung it on a free peg next to the door. He eyed Cherry as nervously as a wild horse. But he nodded. “Yes, miss,” he agreed, and followed her into the warm parlor.
“Have a seat,” Cherry said, gesturing to the plump arm-chair she favored. “Warm yourself by the fire. You’ve been outside for a long time in the cold.”
“I have,” Wilbur nodded. “My nose is that cold, miss.”
She observed his nose, a round button in a round face. “It is red.” The trite conversation was driving her mad, she thought. She was going to have to come to the point, even if neither of them wanted to talk about it. “Wilbur,” she said. “Tell me what happened to Jared.”
The boy was quiet for a long moment, and the only sounds were of the mantlepiece clock ticking, and a burst of laughter from the kitchen that must have been Eddie acquiring his second apple dumpling of the day. Cherry was starting to think he wasn’t going to answer her at all when he finally opened his mouth. But what he had to say wasn’t very edifying.
“He went to Opportunity to see about that woman.”
Cherry sat down with a thump on the divan. She waited for more. After another long, tick-tocking moment of silence, she urged him on. “What happened the day he came back to the claim? How long did he stay?”
Wilbur swallowed and shifted uncomfortably. “He worked on the barn with me. We nailed shingles. He got drunk after supper.” He glanced at her from beneath pale eyelashes. “He was upset about you. He said somethin’ about Timbuckaroo and buyin’ you a present. To make up for things. Don’t know if he ever did, though. Matt came and they jawed about some woman — that one outside I reckon — and Matt told him he was a fool and Jared said he knew it. Then he wrote out a letter and gave it to Matt and damn near passed out. He was that drunk, miss. Next day he got up and saddled his horse and he was gone. And that… that’s all I know, miss.” Wilbur’s hands were knotted together, his fingers entwined. He was pretty sure he shouldn’t be talking about how drunk his boss had been, but this lady was the one he’d been so upset about, after all. He hadn’t wanted her to meet the crazy woman out in the street. And now here they were. They’d met. It was going to be tough for Jared to deal with this when he got back to Bradshaw, Wilbur reflected. He did say woman trouble was the worst kind of trouble.
Cherry leaned back in the divan, tilting her head up and closing her eyes so that she could concentrate. Wilbur’s halting little story told her next to nothing. That the woman in the street was the woman from Jared’s past, she had gathered already, from the way Matt had spoken to her. But what was everything else? Buying presents and getting drunk and then disappearing altogether? And now this woman — Cherry knew better than to even think of her as a lady — showing up on his horse. It all looked very bad. She sighed. Men trouble was really the worst kind of trouble.
***
Late that night, after the house was asleep, Cherry slipped outside.
It was a bitterly cold night, too cold for snow, as Matt had said, but the clouds were still there to the north, hovering low against the far horizon, blotting out the sparkling stars with ominous darkness. All around her the prairie sparkled with frost, the grass hung over heavy with its glittering coat of ice, and high above the moon was so bright and huge that it was nearly like having a person watching her from above. Cherry kept glancing up and over her shoulder at it, strangely uncomfortable with that half-mad laughing face looking down at her.
The walk from the house to the barn was a short one, through the rectangle of grassy yard, past the toolshed and Matt’s workshop, past a funny little hedge, all sticks now in the winter’s grip, that Patty was trying to grow like a fence around the yard, to keep the children in, she had explained. Cherry ran her gloved fingers lightly along the bare skeleton of the hedge and wondered when Matt and Patty’s children would begin to come. Patty was so fond of Eddie, Cherry was half-afraid of Patty’s reaction when spring came and they went back to the claim to live.
Cherry herself felt that she couldn’t wait to go back to the prairie. The months between now and spring felt long, empty, impossible to surmount. All at once her time with her friends and her time on horseback, training Percival, felt exhausting and draining. There had been too much upheaval, too much emotion. She had come to the Dakotas in search of peace and isolation, a place where the gossip couldn’t find her and the scorn of relatives and so-called friends could be left behind forever. And somehow, in the space of nine months, she had managed to be drawn into the lives of others in a way far more intimate than any of her old acquaintances in England. And she had found herself entangled in a love affair that seemed as doomed as her first one. It might not end in death, but it would certainly end in sorrow.
She opened the latch on the stable door and silently slipped in, breathing the scents of straw and leather and horse. The inhabitants within stirred at her arrival; Percival and Galahad rumbling a deep welcome in their chests as they came to the front of their boxes and put their heads over to see why she had come at such an odd hour. She slipped off her gloves as she approached, stuffing them into her coat pockets, and stood between them, leaning against the post between their stalls. She spread out her arms so that each horse could lean out and lip at her fingers.
The feeling of their strong, s
oft lips wiggling upon her finger-tips was always one to bring a smile to Cherry’s face, and she closed her eyes, sighing with contentment. She thought she would be perfectly happy to take these horses back to the claim, and together with Eddie live in splendid isolation forevermore.
No men, no drama, no gossip.
Of course such a thing wasn’t possible. They couldn’t be alone out there. Eli would be there, for a start, because she needed a hired man now more than ever, with the horses to ride and Mr. Morrison’s plans to include her in his livery stable. Eddie needed someone to keep an eye on him while she was working, so the Jorgenson girl would be around as well.
Galahad worked his way up to her wrist and started tugging at a button at the sleeve of her coat, his teeth clenched determinedly around the thread holding it in place. She pulled her left hand away from the more gentle Percival and gave Galahad a swat to make him let go. “I can’t afford to lose buttons! For shame!”
Galahad jumped back, the button still in his teeth. Cherry fingered the loose edges of thread hanging from her sleeve and shook her head. That was what she got for coming out in the middle of the night and acting like an emotional fool with her horses: one of them ate a button right off her coat. “Goodnight, bad horses,” she sighed, giving them both a farewell rub between the eyes to assure them that she wasn’t mad, and she went back to the house, mind a little less fixed on foolish dreams, and a little more resigned to facing up to her problems in the morning.
***
Jared woke up on the train siding half-frozen. He cursed, sitting up so rapidly he nearly blacked out from the rush of blood to his head, and after he had finished cradling his forehead in his hands and waiting for the spinning to cease, he looked around and tried to figure out where the hell he was. And what the hell he’d been doing there. He could see he was on the platform at Opportunity’s little train station, but he didn’t have a clue why.
There was a jingle behind him; he turned around and saw the station-master, silhouetted against a pink and gold dawn, walking briskly towards the station with his key-ring in his hand. Jared scrambled to his feet, not wanting to be mistaken for a drifter or a thief. The station-master carried a pistol. Jared had seen it in action a few days ago, waving around in the air while a vagrant high-tailed it from the siding and down the street. Going, Jared figured, wherever vagrants go.
The Genuine Lady (Heroines on Horseback) Page 24