The Lady's Arrangement (Help Wanted)

by Colleen L. Donnelly

  His ranch.

  My ranch, now. Almost.

  I cupped a hand at my brow and surveyed the piece of ground Flynn had bought and left behind. Left behind with enough complications I had a choice to make ahead of any tears and grief—either return to New York where we’d come from, penniless and in debt, or do the unthinkable in order to hold onto this place.

  I chose the latter. I had a plan to manage the unthinkable.

  Prairie swept around us, around my husband’s grave where Jess knelt and I stood, bowing and waving in the wind, a dizzying swirl of grasses that never stopped moving. It made up most of what Flynn had bought and loved, less of it now than at the beginning, since Ted had convinced him field crops were the way to success. I looked beyond the immediate reedy flow at distant bare spots that interrupted the sea of blowing green—cold fields waiting for spring planting. Too many of them, in my opinion. All waiting for the first time for me to say what we would plant. And when. But most of all, and what Ted wouldn’t like—if.

  “Stone sounds good for your father’s marker. What sort do you have in mind?” I looked down at my son.

  Jess was on his haunches now, leaning back, tilting his head. “Has to be a smooth stone.” He turned, straight hair swinging with the motion and falling into place over his brows as he looked at me. First at my feet, then up to my face, his mouth sealed shut by the time our eyes met.

  “Well, we have lots to choose from around here.” I dug my feet in near the edge of the dirt, holding onto my plan. “It should be easy to find one.”

  He shook his head, and craned his neck far enough back he could avoid what he didn’t want to see. “No, Ma. Not just any old rock. It has to be big and last forever. Pa said this was Howard land from now on. Everything he bought and did was for me, for my kids, and then for my kids’ kids. He had it all planned out, and I won’t let anyone forget him.” Jess turned from looking at my face back to the spindly cross. “The first Howard man.”

  His shoulders squared, the word “man” delivered with a punch. I joined him on the oval of dirt neither of us could get used to and laid the flat of my hand on the top of his head, then my fingertips as he tipped his head forward. Jess was twelve. He didn’t need to know that the “everything” his father had bought amounted to this piece of land with a surprise debt hanging over it, and only rumors of there being more. He didn’t need to hear that nothing was done, and not a thing taken care of. “There’s a perfect stone for your father somewhere.” My hand fell back at my side as Jess dropped his head even farther.

  Jess did need to understand the predicament his father’s death had left us in. And he needed to accept that what I was about to do to see us through it was the right decision. No matter what.

  Two days. I glanced beyond the prairie at those pieces of ground Flynn and Ted had cleared for crops, stones turning up where they didn’t want them, always causing trouble. We needed to find the right one for Flynn within two days, even though it had been three weeks since his death and in the flurry I hadn’t been able to find or get my hands on anything else we needed. Things that were important and we were desperate for—like the money we’d brought from New York, and at least one deed.

  It was Ted who suggested I talk to the bank before Flynn was even buried or grief had had time to set in, patting me on the shoulder without actually touching me, and insisting this was something that needed to be done. Flynn’s death had been a shock, a horrible shock, his horse returning to the ranch without him one evening, his body found out on the trail the next day, a blow to his head on a rock.

  Accidents happen, Flynn’s banker, Mr. Gulliver, had tsked when I’d gone in at Ted’s insistence. Mr. Gulliver added to my shock by saying Flynn’s lands weren’t mine, that bank policy and Kansas law forbid an unmarried woman to own property. Even a widow. You’d best let all of the properties go, if you know someone to take them. We can extend a little leniency, give you a brief amount of time to get organized before you return to your family in New York. And of course, if you don’t have someone who can take over your ranch, we’ll handle that, too, since we possess the primary deed. And he tsked again at the grievousness of my situation.

  My name—I reminded Mr. Gulliver without the scream I felt roiling inside—was on the deed alongside Flynn’s. We’d been on our ranch long enough to homestead it, even though we’d bought the land outright. I protested the law, argued the ridiculousness of it, asked why they held the deed, and why our money Flynn surely kept at the bank didn’t account for something. Mr. Gulliver dismissed my arguments that day, going on to further dumbfound me with the news Flynn had no money, that he’d left his lands in financial trouble, borrowing against the acreage where we lived. Mr. Gulliver had no idea where or from whom Flynn was getting what little money he did to keep his loans alive, but it wasn’t from the depleted account he’d once held at the bank.

  “But we came here with an abundance of money,” I exclaimed. And we had—all of our own, plus large contributions from his parents and mine—to secure and farm one piece of land…this ranch. Mr. Gulliver spoke over my floundering thoughts, over shock that was exploding in too many directions—the money we brought…was it gone? Kept at another bank, or in the tin box behind a hearthstone at our house, or somewhere else?

  “Doesn’t matter, anyway.” Mr. Gulliver summed up my and Flynn’s four years in Kansas. “No need to work yourself up when, as I said, it’s not our policy to leave deeds in a woman’s name.” Deeds. Mr. Gulliver had said “deeds.” He’d also said “lands and properties.”

  “Flynn bought more than just this ranch?” I plied Ted with more questions on the way home, my chest burning with tears that couldn’t find their way out, tears that had too many reasons to be there.

  He shrugged. “Must have. But I warned him not to.”

  I yanked open the tin box I’d already checked as soon as Ted brought me back to the ranch. I found it the same way I had the first time—empty. No money. No deeds. Ted had followed close as I’d scoured the house and the barn and found nothing in those places, either. Flynn hadn’t said a word to me about owning anything else, especially other land, and he wouldn’t have wasted our money, nor would he have lost it. Surely. He’d been a merchant back east, and he’d made the promise to himself, to me, and to our parents that we’d return to New York if ranching didn’t work out. He’d spend only so much, then take us home with enough to restart him in his business and pay back those who’d invested in his dream. That was Flynn’s plan. Before he died.

  I glanced to the side of the nearest field—one I was letting go back to prairie so I could raise cattle instead of crops—and studied the house and barn Flynn had built when he began this venture. Flynn had never built a thing in his life until he came here, and it showed in their slack construction, obvious even at this distance. He’d been a businessman where we’d lived in New York—where we’d been introduced to each other by my father, married at his encouragement, and where we’d eventually given birth to Jess. It was Flynn’s dream to ranch and his belief it would be profitable that had uprooted us and carried us all the way here four years ago. But it was my determination to stay that would keep us here now, as well as make us prosper, right where he’d planted us, not far from the small but growing town of Liberal, Kansas.

  The wind teased my hair as I stared at Jess’s back, and it wrested more red curls and strands from the leather strip I’d started using to tie it back only hours after Flynn was buried. One of my best combs, one of a pair Flynn had given me, lay out here somewhere, lost in this prairie after the service as I’d stood off to the side listening to Mr. Gulliver tell me he had good news—he had someone who would take over Flynn’s properties so Jess and I could move on, return to New York City where we’d be taken care of. Mr. Gulliver had leaned close when he spoke, and rested a hand on my shoulder as he extracted Flynn’s ranch from beneath my feet. You just pack up your necessities, your fine apparel, and move back east to your real home and fam
ily. Lone, unmarried women aren’t made to ranch, not even allowed to, especially an elegant woman like you.

  Elegant.

  Ted had walked Jess away from us when Mr. Gulliver pulled me aside. I watched him and my son as Mr. Gulliver finished, caught Ted’s glance back as I stood letting the banker’s “good” news sink in.

  “No.” I’d said it with my eyes fixed on my son. Elegant wasn’t the only thing I’d learned growing up. “My father’s a banker, like you, Mr. Gulliver, but in New York.” I’d taken a step back and freed my shoulder from his touch. His genteel demeanor vanished as I looked at his face. “His attorney will review all of Flynn’s financial paperwork and deeds for me. Send everything to him right away. Then you and I will talk.”

  Wild ringlets, freed from my leather strap, swiped across my eyes now the same way they had after Flynn’s funeral, the wind ripping them loose that day from my arrangement of pins and combs. I’d let all of my finery go as I stood near Mr. Gulliver, instead holding onto the ranch and the four years we’d invested here. I’d learned my role here well, mastered what I needed to know and do while Flynn struggled to master his dream. I’d developed a knack, and I decided I’d use what I’d learned to turn Flynn’s dream into a success as I stood on the prairie letting my pins and combs fall to the ground while listening to Mr. Gulliver and watching my son. Jess had stood in the prairie with Ted, halfway between our house and me, looking too much like Flynn, too much at home on a land that had done nothing but take. So far. That’s when I’d said, “No,” and sent Mr. Gulliver away.

  I ran my hands over my head, corralling every lock I could as I thought of all that “No” had cost me in the past three weeks, knowing it was about to cost me and my son much, much more. I tipped my head forward as I held my curls back and loosened the leather to retie my hair. I twisted the rope of locks as I looked down toward my feet, at the toes of my deceased husband’s boots stuffed full of socks so they’d stay on, worn leather tips peeking from beneath the bottom of Flynn’s pants I had rolled up and cinched tight at my waist. His shirt billowed like a sail in the wind beneath my upraised arms, fluttering above where I had tucked it in his dungarees, and folded several times at the sleeves. Different from the finery I’d normally worn, dresses and as much elegance as I’d been able to manage while tending a ranch house, a garden, and barnyard chores. But not anymore. Jess had paled the first time I stepped out of our house in his deceased father’s clothing instead of my nice dresses, while Ted had reddened, his eyes wide as I passed. I tugged the leather taut around my hair and shook my head. Larger changes than what I wore were about to come, and those two needed to be ready.

  “Look at me, Jess. There’s something we need to talk about.”

  Jess glanced up from the bare ground that circled us, oval like a rug around Flynn’s boots and Jess’s bent knees. He stared at Flynn’s dungarees, then twisted in the dirt and staggered to his feet. “I know, Ma, and I already know what about.”

  “You do?”

  “I do. I figured out what Pa would want me to do, and I aim to start doing it. He told me over and over he took care of everything ahead, and I just needed to watch and learn. I did that. And I’m going to do more as I take over being the man in this family. The first thing I’m going to do is get Pa a new marker. I’ll find the stone all by myself, and Ted can help me chisel it. You can get back to what you’re supposed to do.” He glanced down at Flynn’s pants and shirt. “The way you’re supposed to do it.”

  I listened to Jess as I looked into eyes he’d inherited from his father. Blue eyes, dreamer’s eyes that wanted things to go well. Smoothly, easily. Eyes that wouldn’t fathom feeding Mr. Gulliver a string of stories to buy time the past three weeks. Eyes that couldn’t grasp unexpected debt, missing deeds, lost money—or that in two days a man who had agreed to marry me so I could save this ranch would arrive.

  Jess and I stood locked in silence. A silence I held against Flynn.

  “I can do this, Ma,” Jess said. “You don’t need to do any of Pa’s work…” He glanced down again. “Or wear his clothes.”

  “Jess, there’s something you don’t understand. Something even I didn’t understand, at first.”

  Anything at all I can do for you now that you’re on your own, you just let me know. The reverend who’d performed Flynn’s service had approached and spoken to me here in the prairie after I sent Mr. Gulliver away.

  I’d stared at the mound of dirt while the reverend made his offer, watched two neighboring ranchers shovel scoopfuls of Flynn’s land on top of his pine box and pat it into place. I shook my head when the men finished, and then looked up into the reverend’s face. “There’s nothing, really, unless you know how a widow can survive out here.”

  “Well, the usual means, I suppose.”

  The fact he responded with anything other than a consoling pat on my shoulder and a sad shake of the head made me draw closer. “What usual means?”

  “You’ll have to remarry if you intend to stay on this ranch.”

  “Remarry?” That was the last thing I would do—add another man who wouldn’t listen to a single idea I had, then leave me penniless and in shock, too overwhelmed to spare a moment for grief. I laughed after my outburst at the absurdity of the suggestion. It was an unladylike eruption, and I expected the reverend to do the same.

  He responded as stoically as if he were still giving Flynn’s eulogy, without any levity at all. “Performed many a quick wedding for widows left behind. And I do mean quick. Just let me know when arrangements have been made.” He’d tipped his hat, then strolled away, leaving me alone with unthinkable arrangements fluttering in my mind.

  Jess had to be told about those arrangements and the upcoming ceremony that was nothing more than a business deal. Far less civilized, even, than the pairing my father had suggested between Flynn and me. “I should have said this days ago.”

  He frowned. “Said what? I just said it all.”

  I glanced from his blue eyes back to the bare dirt beneath our feet. I wondered if Flynn knew, if he could hear, if he realized the mess he’d left me in. I considered stomping one of his boots to see if I could jar a reaction from him—a sign as to where our money was, what another deed might be to, whether he had known Kansas law wouldn’t leave me the ranch if he fell off his horse and accidentally died.

  Jess tilted his head, tall like his father, the same boyish features, but pinched tight, so tight he looked older than his twelve years. His hands, though, the balled fists at the ends of his long, thin arms, reminded me of myself. Determination, energy. A plan.

  “It’s the ranch, Jess. I have a plan.”

  “The ranch isn’t for you to worry about, Ma. I just told you that. So quit acting like it’s your problem. Pa never got the chance to show me everything, but I still learned a lot from him. I can figure out the rest. We’ll be fine.”

  I bit my lip, thinking of what Jess may have learned from Flynn, methods that hadn’t worked before and I intended to change anyway. “It actually is my job to worry, son. Things are going to be different from now on. Not exactly the same as when your pa was here. I’m going to test some new ideas…such as more cattle and fewer fields, hay instead of some of the crops your father tried.”

  Jess shook his head, his brows furrowing over the bridge of his nose. Ted’s had furrowed also when I’d told him I wasn’t buying seed from the neighbor. Ted, like Jess, but with a more mollifying demeanor, had suggested I not take on too much in my current state…or the state of the ranch. Neither one of them thought I should interfere with what they believed to be best. They didn’t want my suggestions any more than Flynn had. Any more than my father had, either, when as a child I pored over numbers at his New York City bank and came up with bookkeeping strategies of my own. A smile was all the reward I received from him—the honor of being groomed as the next banker in the family going to my cousin Clyde. Clyde, who wrote me often behind my father’s back, asking for advice.

  Jess�
�s furrow deepened. “Things don’t have to be different. I don’t like different. I don’t like changes. I want everything to stay the way it is, the way it was before.”

  “I wish things didn’t have to change, either, but they do. They would have to change anyway, even if your pa were still here. But now they have to change even more, and I want you to be ready.”

  “Have you talked to Ted? He knows what’s best here. You should just let him take care of the big things while I keep learning.”

  I stared at my boy. According to Flynn, Ted knew more about ranching than any of us, but I knew from my garden this soil wasn’t conducive to certain crops he suggested. It was a grass land, a dry land, a land that should support cattle. I shook my head. “Ted’s not the boss of this ranch. I am.”

  Jess’s eyes opened wide. “No…no, you’re not the boss. That’s not right.”

  “Listen to me, Jess. I need you to understand the changes we’re going to make while I…” While I marry a perfect stranger, use his name to secure this ranch, then borrow or find enough of Flynn’s money to pay him off and send him away so I can keep his name and this land for the two of us. An arranged parting. It was drawn up in the papers the stranger had agreed to. I swiped my hands down the front of Flynn’s dungarees. “While I…”

  “That’s not how Ted said things would be now that Pa’s gone. He didn’t mention any changes.”

  “What? Ted? He talked to you about this?”

  “He did. Especially when you became different. You know, when you started acting more like Pa than yourself. And looking like him, too.”

  “Okay, Jess. Just tell me what Ted said.”