The Lady's Arrangement (Help Wanted)

by Colleen L. Donnelly

  “He said boys make good sons and women make good wives. If I did my part and kept learning to ranch, you’d eventually get back to doing yours, and he’d fill in where we lacked. Where Pa used to be.”

  “No.” There was that word, and I’d said it again. Twice out here on my prairie in the past three weeks. “Ted is our help.” Help I’d informed him I couldn’t afford, but he insisted he would stay. It wasn’t to “fill in where we lacked” that he’d offered me. He’d said he was doing it for Flynn, holding up his end of the bargain from when Flynn hired him on, until this ranch business was settled. “He’s here to help, but Ted can’t fill in. Not like we need.”

  “What we need is for you to cook, keep the house, go back to looking like my ma again. Ted said nothing graces a ranch better than a woman who’s a lady.”

  “Ted said that? After your father was…gone?”

  “No, Ma, before. But he’s still right.”

  I stared at my son. Ted had offered me gardening and barnyard advice I didn’t really need before Flynn’s death, but he’d never mentioned roles he deemed unsuitable for women. His simple, “You should talk to the bank,” I’d taken as evidence Ted recognized me as his new boss. When I’d turned to him that day at the bank, glanced to my side at the one-handed man Flynn had trusted, Ted had returned my look with a grim nod. I’d taken that, again, as saying I was the same as Flynn to him.

  “Listen, Jess. A lady can grace a ranch in more ways than one. And, I’ll have you know, I’m still your mother and Ted’s boss for as long as he’s here, no matter how I dress.”

  “As long as he’s here?” Jess backed away. “Everything’s changing. Now you’re saying Ted’s gonna go. I don’t know who you are anymore.”

  “I didn’t mean Ted’s leaving. I offered to let him go if he wanted, but I’ve never asked him to.” Yet.

  “You can’t ask him to. Pa hired him. You’re not the real boss.” Jess twisted on the heel of his boot, spun in the direction of our house, then paused and glanced back. “I lost my pa, and it feels like I’ve lost you, too. I don’t want Ted gone or more things to change. I want everything back the way it was. Now.”

  Jess raced across the prairie, rounded the house his father had built, and disappeared. The closest we’d ever get to the way things were before was for me to marry the perfect stranger who would be here in two days. A man I wanted nothing to do with, but who had agreed to my terms of letting me have his name and taking orders from me as long as he was here. I stared at the house and barn where Jess had run. If my boy wanted to raise a family on this ranch someday, and Ted wanted a job, they had to accept what I was going to do and the way I was going to do it. In two days. And from now on.

  I stared at the ground. Doggone you, Flynn.

  Chapter 3

  Kansas dirt is brown, but I still see red. Red flames and red dirt. My father’s life burning all the way to the ground. ~Rex

  “That-away, mister.” The farmer pointed to his left, a long forearm sticking out from what remained of a tattered sleeve. He made Kansas look even less like a place I wanted to be. I turned the direction he aimed his finger, toward a house that looked near broken-down. Maybe old. Maybe the widow was, too, making getting here two days early something I might regret. “Mrs. Howard lives that-away a short piece.”

  I gazed down a long narrow strip of dirt, beaten bare by hooves and wagon wheels, that stretched between where I sat on my horse and the place that was to be my new home. Temporarily.

  “She’s recently widowed. Nice service.” The farmer dropped his arm to his side. “You kin?”

  “Sort of. Thank you for your help. Obliged.” I tipped my hat to the farmer’s questioning nod and nudged my horse the direction the man had indicated, wishing this weary animal would refuse to go a step further. “Not really all that obliged.” I muttered it so the farmer couldn’t hear as my horse dragged one foot in front of the other and headed Mrs. Howard’s way.

  I leaned forward and patted my horse’s neck. He was a trooper, even though for once I wished he wouldn’t be, and he was warm. We were both tired. His head bobbed up and down with each step while mine lolled from side to side. Tired and bored. Kansas was flat, flatter than what I was used to, with every direction offering up the same scenery.

  “There ain’t even a fit place to hide around here.” I patted my horse’s neck again. “Or a gully we could dip into to turn tail and run.” I glanced behind and felt the wind on the back of my neck instead of my face for a change, a wind that hadn’t stopped whistling since the terrain had stopped changing. I gazed where we’d come from, toward the southeast, back to red dirt and red rocks, where no widow woman would interfere with what I really needed to do.

  The farmer’s arm, long and thin, waved at me from the side of the road. He stood where I’d talked to him, his hand held high as he watched me go. I lifted a hand and waved back. No, I haven’t lost my way. I dropped my arm and twisted forward in the saddle again, the wind once more against my face. “Like I said, ain’t no place to hide around here.” I tugged the brim of my hat low over my forehead.

  From beneath the hat’s lip, I peered at the brown swath of dirt stretching ahead. I loosened my jacket. It was warm for spring, almost too warm for early afternoon. I judged by the sprouts of grasses in unripe shades of green that Kansas springtime wasn’t much different from what I was used to south of here. Just more of it. These young blades were spindly and waved like the farmer had, from both sides of the road, flowing the way I always imagined sea waves would if I ever saw an ocean. “Mrs. Howard most likely has cattle,” I said to my horse. “Some of this grass and a couple of those patches of brown dirt might be hers.” I never much cared for brown. I preferred red. Red dirt. I tugged my hat a little lower. Red flames. Their crimson heat and my brother’s voice still dogging me. Both had chased me all the way from Indian Territory to here. Made me ride foolish. Hard and fast to brown dirt and flat land to marry a widow woman I didn’t even know. Didn’t want to, either.

  I dug beneath the flap of my saddlebag and extracted a small flask. “Courage” caught my eye, the sun glinting off the word I’d scratched into the flask’s side the night Becky Landon married and became Becky Carson instead of Becky Duncan, the name I thought she’d end up with. Now I was heading to a woman I knew wasn’t going to be with me long even before I got started. “The Parting,” she’d called it in her written description of our arrangement, according to Jim. I unstoppered the flask and took a small swig. I never needed Courage when I faced outlaws. I closed the top and dropped Courage back into my bag.

  I slid my fingers through my horse’s wiry black mane, the section nearest my saddle horn. “It’s your fault we’re early, you know. You ran too fast. Seeing Luke was hard on both of us.” Especially there in the middle of our burning ranch. Seeing him that way made me ride as hard as I could so I wouldn’t turn back and tell him he deserved to be left standing there shooting crazy and crying. He should have been smart enough to see what Morrissey was up to and do something about it. He was the one living on the ranch with Pop at the time, not me. I’d been long gone, giving Luke space to grow into something on his own, while I kept contact with our father, sending him an occasional letter from wherever I could. Blast that Luke. If I’d turned back that night I would have needed to punch him. For both of our sakes. And when he got up, his aim probably would have been better. Maybe I would have let it. I dug my fingers deeper into my horse’s wiry hair. “It’s just a couple of days. Mrs. Howard shouldn’t mind. Two days early means two days sooner we get finished so we can go back home.” To what’s left of it.

  I let the reins sag alongside my horse’s neck as the house and barn became plain in my view. He moseyed at his own pace down the narrow strip of dust. Brown dust. The house was small. It wasn’t old after all, but it looked weary, the barn a mite bigger, but no better. “I’d say we’re at the right place.” It looked like a woman had built it and was struggling to keep it up. “Has to be the
widow Howard’s home.”

  I made a low sound in my throat at the entrance to the homestead. My horse stopped, and I surveyed what lay ahead. A house, an outhouse, and a barn. That was all I could see, possibly all she had. A fence swayed around the nearside of the barn, barely substantial enough to be used as a corral, its posts struggling to hold upright. The barn itself was crude, nothing like my father’s…the one I’d burnt to the ground…an act that might do this one a favor. I shoved my hat back and scratched where the band had been. This barn was not only small, it was built with wooden planks so uneven that gaps rippled between each board. It looked like a row of bad teeth, the kind meant for whistling or straining soup. I tugged my hat forward again and settled it back into place. At least the barn was suitable for sleeping in decent weather. I’d be gone by winter, so making that my bedroom for the next few months suited me just fine.

  I studied the house next, a square, squat building surrounded by dirt. More brown dirt. The main level was small, and what appeared to be an upper berth, even smaller. Both buildings and the outhouse blended into the ground around them. “Stark. That’s the word for this place.” This place needed some life. Mrs. Howard truly needed a man. One who wasn’t getting paid behind her back to be with her.

  I made a clicking sound. My horse dragged first one hoof and then the other through the dirt, heading straight for a trough, a crude wooden structure beneath the mouth of a pump that stood between the barn and the house. “Thirsty?” I asked as we reached its edge and stared down into the trough’s bone-dry bottom. “You’re going to stay that way for a bit, it looks like.” I threw my leg over the bundle tied behind my saddle, lit on the ground, and slid the bridle and bit from my horse’s head. “Hang on. I’ll pump you a drink. Pray this thing holds water.”

  “Mind telling me what you’re doing?”

  The voice came from behind. It was young, but cracking the way a boy’s did when manhood was knocking at his door. I angled my arms out to the sides, let the boy see both hands. At the age I guessed him to be, it was wrong to trust that innocence still ruled. When manhood was that close, I could just as easily turn and look down the barrel of a rifle as into a freckled grin.

  “My horse is pretty dry. Haven’t seen much of a stream for hours, so I thought I’d get him a drink before I said hello.” I kept my back to the boy, and my hands in plain sight. The boy said nothing. I waited and listened, not sure whether I’d hear a welcome or the click of a hammer being pulled back. My horse turned from nudging the dry wood and looked toward the barn. He tossed his nose into the air, gave a dry nicker, then swung back to the trough. “I was looking for the Howard place. If this isn’t it, I’ll be on my way. I didn’t know of any boy supposed to be here. I mean, young man. You a hired hand, or am I at the wrong ranch?”

  The boy’s shadow appeared in the dirt to my left. Long and lean, easing my direction until it stopped. “I work this ranch, but not as a hired hand,” the boy said, his voice solid this time. “I’m Jess Howard.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Howard.” I kept my tone level, gnawed the inside of my cheek. A boy. A woman and a young boy. Luke would get a chuckle out of that. He’d laugh at what a misfit I’d be again. All the useless plans I’d laid out for him back then just as useless with another boy now. There was no mention of a son in what Jim had told me. Or even a little brother. Surely Jim wouldn’t have omitted a fact like that. Mrs. Howard might have, though. The woman must be a liar.

  The pump let out a squeal. I turned to the side, slow, to where the boy stood lifting the pump’s handle. He was tall and slender, straight brown hair flopping forward on his face. His build and strength reminded me of myself at that age, but the childlike look on his face was too much like Luke. The soft way Luke had looked when he didn’t know I was watching.

  “Thank you.” Water dribbled from the spout, a trickle that soaked into the dry wood of the trough. My horse dipped his head, nuzzled the damp wood, then stuck his nose under the growing stream. “He’s mighty thirsty.” I nodded toward the horse, and let my hands fall against my sides.

  The boy pumped harder. Water began to pool in the bottom of the trough. The breeze around us carried the squeal of the pump and the greedy slurps of my horse. I wanted to ask where Mrs. Howard was. Not that it mattered much, now. As far as I was concerned, this arrangement was over. If she had a son, this wasn’t the deal I was signed on for. I was bad with women and worse with boys.

  “What’s his name?” the boy asked. The squeal slowed.

  “What?”

  “Your horse. What’s his name?” Jess Howard looked at me, the sort of serious curiosity only boys could have.

  “I never named him. Seemed like a wasted effort for an animal I just use for work. I mean, to ride.” I looked down at the water filling the trough.

  The boy pumped harder. Water surged until my horse tossed back his head and nuzzled my shirt. The wet circle he left on the front revived the smell of burning wood and old smoke. Of my father. Of Luke.

  The boy stopped; the squeal disappeared. “There are things we do just because we have to, and others happen whether we want them to or not. But no matter what, giving and knowing a name is right. It’s a sign of belonging.”

  I glanced at the boy. This had to be Mrs. Howard’s son. Death was in his stare, regret in his words. The same vacancy that had devoured me and Luke when his mother died. I extended a hand. “My name’s Ben. Ben Miller. I’m glad to meet you, Jess Howard.”

  Jess stepped away from the pump, walked to the other side of my horse. He put a hand on the horse’s neck. “We have another horse here. Just one.” The boy paused, chewed his lower lip as his hand ran down my horse’s neck. “I call him Boss because he belongs to our ranch manager. I’d call this horse Walter, if I was you. It sounds like water, and he sure does like to drink.” There was a smile somewhere in Jess’s gaze. I leaned around Walter’s head and took the boy’s free hand.

  “Walter it is. We’re both glad to meet you.”

  Jess smiled, still caressing Walter’s neck. “Why did you say you and Walter were here?” he asked.

  “I didn’t say.” Ben Miller was the fake name Jim had told me to use. The boy hadn’t flinched when I said it. Hadn’t shown any sign of having heard it before. Clearly Jess knew as little about me as I did about him. “I’m…”

  Jess’s expression changed. He dropped his hand from Walter’s neck and the other from my grip. He peered around the horse’s nose, off toward the prairie.

  I turned and glanced to where the boy stared. Over the small rise someone was walking. A slow and laden step coming our way. A man, by the look of the trousers, except they were cinched tight at the waist. They were far too large for him, and billowed at the hips. Even the shirt was too big, angling down behind the belt in a tight vee. With men like that on the ranch, no wonder Mrs. Howard needed help.

  “That one of the hands?” I glanced back at Jess.

  The boy snorted. “If she was a hand, I’d fire her. Send her back east so she can remember who she is.”

  “She?” I turned back around. The figure was closer. Near enough I could see the hair now, a cloud of wisps and loose red curls escaping whatever knot she had it gathered in behind her head. Red. “Is that how women dress in Kansas?”

  Jess snorted again. Louder this time. “That’s no Kansas woman. That’s my ma.”

  I’d never seen a woman in men’s clothing before, and getting a closer look didn’t appeal to me. I latched onto Walter’s bridle and slid it back over his head. I’d rather face Jim, tell him the Howard situation didn’t work out, and confess I’d burned my family’s ranch to the ground, than get yoked with a woman in man’s clothing, especially a woman that thought nothing of telling a lie. Mrs. Howard slowed as I watched her. She must have spotted me and Walter. I glanced back at her son, who was scowling at her approach. I considered leaving Courage with him. “I’m not supposed to be here after all. I need to get on down the road.”

 
“Me, too,” he responded. There was boyish determination in those eyes. It mingled with the hurt, pointing him places I could tell he wasn’t ready to go.

  “You’re leaving, too? You work somewhere else besides here?” I saw then what I hadn’t before. A small bundle lying in the dirt behind Jess. A tablecloth tied in a knot around whatever it was he thought he was going to need. I remembered tying one myself once. The night I left home to become a Ranger.

  “We got more than what you see here. I know we do. More land, I’m betting. I aim to find it, if so, and if it needs worked, then I’m gonna work it. Myself.” He turned and bent in one easy movement, the bundle he’d tied swept up off the ground and pinned under one arm.

  I glanced back to where his ma was crossing the prairie. She was hurrying now, tearing through grass too thick for her small stature. She was coming after one of us, and it was probably her son. I recalled that sort of motherly devotion. It was powerful, and it was coming our way. “Guess maybe Walter could use a little tending to, if you don’t mind. Then I’ll go.” I looked back at Jess, extended the reins his direction. “Can you spare a minute, before you head out, to give me a hand?”

  She was getting closer. I saw it in his eyes along with, “Dang,” the younger version of the word I felt like saying. Neither one of us was going anywhere right now, and neither one of us wanted to stay.

  Chapter 4

  I have a boy who won’t listen and a ranch manager who can’t stay put. That man coming to marry me in two days had better know how to do as I say. ~Regina

  The breeze turned my hair into a thousand whips. I ran a hand up my forehead, cupping the curly mass above my brow, and the other up from the base of my neck to corral what my leather strap seemed incapable of holding. My hands just weren’t big enough to grasp the bulky rope of hair and retie it while I raced across the prairie toward my house. That wasn’t Ted standing in our yard, and that wasn’t his horse. It was some stranger, tall and dark like the animal next to him, watchful like the sort of men Ted had warned me about now that I was alone. I scanned the area around the barn and house, searching for Jess, praying Ted’s accounts of local marauders had sunk into my boy.