“Thank you.” I took the paper from his hand. “Owe you anything for your trouble?”
“No, sir. Just glad we found you. You staying in town in case we need to find you again?”
I glanced behind him, wondering who “we” was. “Don’t worry about finding me. I’ll find you. Thanks again.”
I stepped to the edge of the boarded walk as Mr. Greene hurried back the way he had come. I leaned against a post and opened the wire.
Your brother paid a visit.
I crumpled the note in my fist. I didn’t have to read more to know it was from Jim. I stared down the street. Luke. Little Brother. I opened the wire, and smoothed it out enough to read between the creases.
Shooting from both hips with his mouth. Aiming for Morrissey. Eventually, for you.
Jim was sharp. He’d figured far quicker than Luke it was me who burned our father’s ranch. He’d also know soon enough from my letter that I was coming back with my assignment half done, so I’d best be sure the rangering half was done right, since it wouldn’t be done his way. Pop would get his letter too, and he’d know I was still alive. That was enough for now. Pop didn’t need to know more.
I glanced toward the south. Kansas had no obstructions. I should be able to see red. Red hills, red dirt, red-hot Luke.
Red curly hair.
I shoved my hat lower on my head.
Morrissey would be safe from Luke. He was too smart for Little Brother. I was too, but smart wasn’t how I handled my half-brother.
“Oh, I thought you were going home.”
“Mr. Gulliver,” I said without turning. I continued to stare toward the south.
“I was just leaving for the day, I’m surprised to see you’re still here.”
I folded Jim’s wire and stuffed it into my shirt pocket. “I’m surprised you’re leaving so early.”
“If it’s land you want, Mr. Miller, I can assist you with that. Maybe in a simpler fashion than what you’re considering. Land with fewer complications attached.”
I turned and faced Regina’s banker. He was nearly tall enough to look me in the eye, and he held himself with as much confidence as if he were. “Your bank has land?” I watched for the blink that wasn’t there…the shuffle, the clearing of the throat, anything that would tell me Mr. Gulliver was uncomfortable.
“You’re in the West, Mr. Miller. There is land in abundance out here.”
“Just like that? Land for the taking?”
“Well, Mr. Miller, there’s always a price tag. Time. Money. Some just not as pricey as others.”
“So, a way to help with that price tag if a man wants to do more than just homestead?” I watched again for that shift, the nervous repositioning of the hands or feet.
“That’s right. That’s the business of a bank. Land and opportunity without complications—complications like a family and its problems attached. Unless it’s too late for that. Is Mrs. Howard now Mrs. Miller?”
“You have a deed I could sign?”
“I have the deed. But her husband left the finances in such a shamble you’re going to have to have some money up front, I’m afraid. Clean slate, new deed.”
“I’d like to see the deed. And hear the story about the finances.”
“First the marriage certificate, then we’ll discuss her financial problems, and lastly we’ll tend to the deed. Now, as I said, I must be going. When you have that certificate…” Mr. Gulliver turned.
“Seems pretty complicated out here to keep a ranch in the family it belongs to.”
“Mr. Miller, if it’s land you want, I can help you. If it’s the widow you want, I’m warning you that you’re in for some steep challenges.”
“It’s Regina’s land this is about, not me.”
Mr. Gulliver came closer. He stood in that almost eye-to-eye position. “Ted Morgan is her best solution, if she and her land are your concerns. He’s local, he has a reputation, and he knows her ranch better than anyone around. His name on that deed would bail her and that boy out because we know he’d turn that ranch into profit. Then you’d be free to do as you wish.”
“Without marrying her? Regina knows what you’ve said about Ted?”
“Well, she was a bit baffled by the mess her husband left her in, but she knows women can’t own land in Kansas. Only men.”
“Men. Like husbands, unless they’re dead.”
“Unfortunately, that happens. Good day, Mr. Miller.”
Chapter 14
There are too many men in my life, and not a single one of them knows how to take an order. ~Regina
“Why are you here, Mr. Miller? I thought you were gone. For good this time.” I dropped into the back of the wagon what was left of the wire Flynn had bought, and rubbed my palms down the front of his pants, dulling the sting from its thorny barbs.
From on top of Walter, Ben stared at the tools stacked next to the wire. “Told you I wouldn’t go far. Ted need those things?”
“No, I do. I’m expanding the fence around my cow and calf so I can build up the herd.” Instead of talking to the reverend or placing a new ad for a husband, like I would be if the men in my life hadn’t confounded my morning. “If you were staying, I might let you help, you being a cattleman and all.”
“Cattleman… That’s right. Well, those cows didn’t have fences.”
“Look, Ben, I don’t have time to waste, and I can’t have you just loitering around.”
“Loitering?” Ben repositioned his hat on his head.
“Sitting around on your horse.”
“I’m not just sitting. I’m tending to things. You got posts?”
“If it’s Jess you’re tending to, Doc has that under control.” I hopped down out of the wagon, slapping dust and grime off my hands.
Ben glanced at the house. “What did Doc have to say when he was here?” Ben rose in the saddle, swung a leg over Walter’s back end, and lit on the ground near where I stood.
“Get back on your horse. You just said you don’t do fences, and we don’t need tending.”
“I can do posts, and it looks like you need some.”
I glanced at the nearly treeless prairie and Flynn’s axe in the back of the wagon. “I have the posts under control. I have a plan. And what Doc had to say is nothing you need to tend to, so you can be on your way.”
“If your plan is for cutting posts, that isn’t going to be…never mind. Just tell me what Doc said.”
“If it means you’ll get on down the road, he asked Jess questions, rather mundane questions like how many legs a rabbit has, what color the sky was, what was Jess’s favorite food.”
“Mundane?” One side of Ben’s mouth kicked up. “Not sure what ‘mundane’ means, but Doc did right. Shows whether or not Jess remembers things he would have known a long time ago.”
“You might be a bit shy on vocabulary, but you sure know an awful lot about doctoring for a cattleman.”
Ben rolled his shoulder in a slow shrug. “More than just cattle out there. Got cowhands, too. How’d Jess do?”
“He had to think about his answers, but he was right every time.”
Ben tossed the ends of the reins over Walter’s neck, flung the stirrup over the saddle, and began to undo the girth underneath. “Did Jess remember more recent things?”
“Why are you unsaddling your horse?” I marched to his side and stood close, where Ben could see me.
“Tending things wears Walter out. Did Jess remember…yesterday, for instance?”
“You mean real memories instead of the imaginary ones of you encouraging him?” I shook my head as Ben glanced over at me. “No. He doesn’t remember much about yesterday, but he sticks to his story that you told him to keep going.”
Ben tugged the saddle off Walter’s back. It dangled between his arms, one end in each hand, as he turned to face me. “I did say those sorts of things once. But that was years ago. To a different boy. A young fellow who needed to try harder, so he’d hate me less. I didn’t say them
to Jess. I only thought them.”
“He said it again after you walked out. He told Doc all about you.”
“I imagine Doc would agree Jess just dreamed what he thought he heard. And I’m pretty sure when Jess gets his memory back he won’t think so kindly of me. That other young fellow never did.”
“Well, it won’t matter much what Jess thinks, since you’re done tending to him, and leaving. Is Walter recovered enough you can go?” I stretched an arm up and ran my hand down Walter’s neck. “He feels recovered.”
“We ain’t done tending, yet, so I’d say no.”
I stopped caressing Ben’s horse’s neck and planted my hands on my hips. “Let me say it again: I didn’t invite you here to come and go at your leisure. I have a ranch to save and a boy to see to, not to mention…”
“The arrangement you’ve got to work out.”
“A new one, since ours was a failure.” I couldn’t look at him. My ad, my cow standing idle, my boy on his sick bed, the ranch this cowhand refused to help me keep, and the tears still waiting to be shed got in the way.
“If I’d been told you had a boy, and he’d been told about…about your plans…things might have started out a whole lot better. Not that your stubbornness—I mean, our differences—wouldn’t have sparked up enough trouble on their own.” Ben’s grip on that saddle whitened the crowns of his knuckles. Like peaks, covered with ice caps. Frigid ice caps. “Never mind all of that.” One end of his saddle dropped toward the ground. “We’re past starting out. We’ve got to tend to what we have so you can get on with your life and I can get on my way.”
My life. His way. The cold of those caps swept around me. The air became thick, too heavy to breathe. It felt like losing Flynn all over again. I stared at Ben, at the black hair and the dark skin that was here, and then would go again. But he was supposed to. It was my other plan. It just wasn’t supposed to happen with someone so complicated. “No.” It was all I could think to say. “We’re not tending to anything together. ‘I should have’ and ‘you should have’ no longer matter, except for your responsibility for what happened to Jess and for causing my plan to fall apart.”
His saddle dangled by the horn as he looked down at me.
“Please put that saddle back on Walter and go.” I meant it. It just didn’t come out like I did.
“I told you, Mrs. Howard, I have things to tend to. One’s your son, and another’s you.”
“Me?”
“Yep. You told me what Doc said about Jess. What did he say about you?”
“Me?” The question, the way I screeched it, sounded rangy and ridiculous. I closed my eyes. I knew better than to converse like a child or squawk like a hen, especially with a man whose vocabulary contained less than twenty words. “What I mean is, whatever is it to you if Doc said anything about me?”
“There’s still that arrangement to be made. And it needs to be a good one.” Ben stepped closer, dragging the saddle with him.
“Doc has nothing to do with any arrangement I make.”
“He’s a possibility.”
“A possibility? How dare you! It’s not like I’m some cow men barter over.”
“One thing about cattle is they never give you any sass.”
I balled my hands into fists. “I won’t be herded like, compared to, or mated off like some cow, Mr. Miller. And that’s not sass, that’s the respect I deserve.”
“Bred.”
“Bread? You hungry?”
“You breed a cow, you don’t mate it.”
“Oh. Yes. I knew that. That’s what I meant.” I tossed my head back again, hoping the sun would hide the crimson burning my face, praying when I looked back, Ben Miller would be gone. For good this time.
Ben let go of the horn of his saddle. I looked back at him as it dropped to the ground, the top leaning against his leg. “Look, I’m no good at these man-and-woman things, but you need more than a business arrangement. You need a real husband. Why settle for some agreement with a stranger when there’s a man close here who’d marry you right?”
“Mr. Miller…I…” No more words would come. They caught in my chest, where my heart struck up a chorus of eager beats as I stared up into eyes I could tell meant everything the man behind them said. If a cowhand ever proposed to me, that’s exactly how I imagined it would sound.
He raised a finger in my silence. His hand came close, his finger at my lips.
“Please listen. I want you married the right way, with your property secure.”
I nodded. His finger brushed against my mouth, the sensation delicate, yet firing all the way to my toes.
“I’m suggesting you consider Doc for a husband. Admittedly, you’re too much of a wild thing for him, but he’ll give you more than just a last name. He’ll dote on you, watch out for you, and probably even take orders from you. And he’ll be good to Jess.”
Doc. My heart became silent, my chest an empty cavern. Ben lowered his finger before I could bite it off.
I felt red crescents forming where my nails dug into my palms. “I don’t need your advice or that much of a husband, and Jess doesn’t want another father.”
“You need to get yourself wedded to someone before something worse happens. And Doc’s a nice man, who actually seems to like you.”
“Doc, or anyone else from around here that knows me, would have unwelcome notions about me as a wife, and fatherly ideas for Jess. We had Flynn. That was enough. All we need now is this ranch. And whatever else Flynn had. And a man’s name to get them.” I stretched taller so this cowhand would take me seriously. “Kansas law says I just need a name. A man’s name. Any name will do, as long as that name stays out of my bedroom, my pocketbook, and Jess’s life.”
Ben straightened. “Ma’am, if something’s empty, a good man would more than likely want to fill it.” He lifted and tossed his saddle on Walter’s back, and grabbed his dangling reins.
I reached above his hand and snatched the reins away. “Ben Miller, I’m tired of you coming and going. You need to…”
“Tend to things.” The skin of his hand scratched mine as he peeled back the fingers I had clamped around Walter’s reins.
“Your skin feels like a cactus. Let go.” Red pinpricks showed on the palm of Ben’s hand as I yanked mine away.
“Not cactus. Memories.” He dropped his hand with the reins. “You and Jess both need a good man attached to your ‘any-name’ husband, and right this moment your best option is the doctor. Unless you’ve got some other neighbor interested in that red hair of yours.”
“Of course not!”
“Well, you’re a lady somewhere under those trousers, and you’ve got a boy to look out for. I’m not good with boys, but Doc’s the sort that can tend to all of your boy’s wounds. It’s up to you, Mrs. Howard, to come up with a new husband. It won’t be me. It doesn’t have to be Doc, either, but you’d better make sure the man is at least as good as his name. Which brings me to the last thing I need to tend to.” He looped the reins over Walter’s saddle. “I want to have another look at those combs on your dresser.”
“My combs are of no concern to you, and I wish you’d stay away from my things.” I lifted a hand to touch my hair where the comb should have been. “I’ve already lost one of my favorites, as I said, and I don’t care to lose any more.”
“I’m here especially because of that comb. I don’t want any more hurt to come because of it after I’m gone.”
Chapter 15
Being a Ranger showed me how to see the black and white of living. That is why there are no women Rangers. ~Rex
“I thought you were gone.” Ted stood in the barnyard behind the woman who was his boss, saying the one thing the two of them liked best to say. I’d seen him riding across the prairie, his stocky set on that horse of his heading this way. Regina turned toward her ranch manager, her fists back on those hips.
“Where were you?” Regina asked.
“I came from the north field. Looking it over befo
re we plant.”
“I told you we’re not planting that field. You were to corral the cow and calf so I can extend the fence.”
“You’d be smart to keep that field in crops, with the ranch in the situation it is.”
I glanced at Regina’s manager, the one man in Liberal I’d been told knew her land and business best. The name that would save her an arranged marriage and embarrassing debt. I patted Walter as he stuck his nose my direction. The one name I was pretty sure should never be allowed on her deed. I walked to the barn.
“Ted, I’m in charge of the ranch. For now, just go watch Jess while I start the fence. After I corner the cow and her calf, since you didn’t.”
I could picture her in the quiet that followed her orders, a finger tapping her lips as she glanced toward the prairie, churning up another of her plans. The same lips I’d touched earlier. I found other tools I knew the widow would need, even if she didn’t, and stepped with them out of the barn.
“Maybe if he would go, you could think straighter about what this ranch needs,” Ted said loud enough for me to hear.
“I’m tending to a couple of things.” I tossed the tools into the back of the wagon and turned to Regina. Darn. There was no finger tapping on those lips.
“We don’t need any tending. Just like she don’t need a husband.”
“Both of you! If I choose to marry again, it’s my business. And Ben will be gone as soon as he understands I don’t need him tending silly things like my combs.”
“Your what?” Ted’s eyes widened beneath the brim of a hat he wore far too low.
“My combs.”
“Curry combs?” Ted asked.
“No, hair combs.”
The sound of knuckles cracking came from Ted’s one good hand. “I think your tending is done here.”
That comb of hers he had in his box would probably disappear after this, but it wasn’t worth a barnyard brawl now when there were bigger things at stake. Like her ranch, and my rather shaky permission to be on it. A buggy broke the silence, softly, as it entered the drive. Ted didn’t flinch, and Regina didn’t turn. I heard it pause at the mouth to the barnyard.
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