The Lady's Arrangement (Help Wanted)

by Colleen L. Donnelly

  “Now, if you’d just let Ted sign for you,” Mr. Gulliver said, scooting the document a little Ted’s way.

  I stared at Flynn’s signature. It flowed like the Kansas wind. I could feel it, and I could imagine how he’d looked when he signed this deed. I wished I’d been here with him, but Jess and I were still in New York, waiting for Flynn to buy the ranch, secure the paperwork, and build us a home. Jess had asked every day if his father was ready for us yet. I could picture Flynn’s hand, the smoothness of his skin, the long fingers meant for business, not for ranching. The mind meant for the intricacies of finances, not for finagling a crooked deal. “No…”

  “Regina…” Ted began.

  I could only see Flynn’s signature and think how well he had always provided for Jess and me. How good he intended to be.

  “Regina,” Ted said again. “I’d only be a signature, making sure everything Flynn meant you to have would stay yours. And Jess’s. My name would be on paper only. Ted and Regina.”

  “Make that Mrs. Miller. With Mr. Miller alongside it.” A hand, a rugged hand, stretched between Ted and me. Fingers settled on the deed and swiped it away, quicker than Mr. Gulliver’s reach. “Mrs. Miller and I are keeping this property. I’m her husband. I’m the rightful owner.”

  “Sir, are you still interested in other investments? I have some, if you are. Good ones.”

  I glanced at the young man who had brought the deed. He nearly bounced on his heels as he hurried toward Ben. Sir? He called Ben “sir”?

  “I’ll let you know.” Ben nodded at the young man, and touched my shoulder. I looked up at a man Mr. Gulliver claimed he didn’t know, and I truly didn’t, either. With the deed in one hand, he took my arm in his other. And he turned me toward Jess.

  Chapter 45

  Be careful on the approach, and quick on the grab. ~Rex

  I held the deed in the air, everyone’s eyes on it except for one’s. Her eyes were on me. This deed wed us more than the marriage certificate—my name and hers, joint owners of her ranch. She was beautiful. In her glance I felt a honeymoon.

  Then I didn’t. This was business. That’s what she’d wanted, it was part of her plan. There would be “business” in her gaze as soon as we were outdoors. Something I really didn’t want to see.

  “Now, Mr. Miller…” Mr. Gulliver stood.

  I held the deed higher. Ted rose to his feet. I looked down, as far down as I could. He didn’t have a chance as he eyed the deed high above him. If he’d had two good hands, he would have been clenching two fists. I looked from him to Regina’s banker.

  “Now, I see no reason for another buyer. It would be wrong, don’t you think, since she’s married now?”

  “The bank must protect its interests, Mr. Miller, and you are a gamble. Even with cash, that ranch is still a gamble, one we can’t afford to carry again.”

  I rolled the deed and slipped it into my shirt pocket. “A simple ‘yes’ would have been the right answer.” I glanced down at Regina. “You ready to go? We have land to look at, and I’d guess we can have this deed taken care of somewhere besides here.”

  She nodded. Then smiled. I liked the way she did it. If I’d drawn a sketch, when I was younger, of how my wife would look someday when I invited her to go somewhere with me, Regina would have been picture perfect. So perfect that the “Mr. Miller” I heard in the background didn’t matter. I gave her my arm as if we’d been doing this—and would continue to do it—forever.

  “Ma?”

  “We’re ready, son.” We paused near Jess. “Time to go find your father’s land.”

  The boy stole a glance at me, “father” too confusing a term after what he’d just seen. He faltered, dragged himself forward, and the three of us went for the door.

  If I were Ted, I would have been quick to make it the four of us. If I were Ted and meant what I’d just said in there.

  I reached the door first, let go of Regina’s arm, and held the large oak monstrosity open while she and her son passed through.

  “I’ll be right there,” I heard her ranch manager say in the background as I let the door close behind us.

  “Shall we?” I looked at the bride I hadn’t wanted, offering her an elbow, knowing our charade might be done now that we were outside. Or maybe it wasn’t. A charade.

  Chapter 46

  I’d wanted a name, not an elbow. But Ben Miller’s elbow looked mighty good. ~Regina

  Ben’s skin was warm through his sleeve, the feel of being alive emanating through the heavy cotton to my palm and fingers as I held on above his elbow.

  “We shall,” I said, peering into those eyes. Endless tunnels to something good. Surely. Good mixed with the occasional aggravation and obstinacy.

  Jess took off faster than Doc would probably have preferred, his lanky body bobbing up and down as he charged forward on his crutches.

  “Let him go,” Ben said.

  As Jess’s thumps and bangs disappeared ahead of us, Ben and I were left to ourselves. “Rather an amiable moment for us, don’t you think?”

  “Amiable? Is that like what your son’s doing up ahead?”

  I looked at Jess swaying back and forth as he “hied” it away from us. He hadn’t been amiable since his father died. “That’s right.” Even though what he was doing could more rightly be called ambling.

  “Then we’ll amiable right behind him.”

  “Since you’ve got the deed, I’d say you’re right.”

  “Not the deed. Our deed.”

  We came to the end of the main boardwalk, and Ben steered me to the right, where Walter and the wagon were waiting. Jess was already in the back, and Ted had the reins.

  “I’m still doing the driving.” Ben said it the same way he looked as he frowned up at Ted. “And I need Jess up close where he can see, with his mother behind us.”

  Ted’s knuckles whitened.

  “I take it you know where Flynn Howard’s other land is, then.” Ben stood beside the wagon, his comment a challenge, nearly an accusation, an opportunity for Ted to say “yes” or “no” to what he had already denied.

  Ted stared down at Ben, the white disappearing. “No, I don’t. Just trying to be helpful. It’s what her husband hired me to do. The husband whose name is on that deed.” Ted tossed the reins aside and dropped to the ground.

  When he had everyone where he wanted them, Ben made one of those noises only Walter understood, and the horse started forward, my son on the front seat, me on a crate behind the two of them, and Ted behind—at the end of the wagon, his feet dangling off the back.

  “Okay, Jess, I’m going to take you the direction I think this land is. I have a feeling you’ll know if it’s right.”

  Jess sat up a little straighter. His color was good, his eyes bright. Ben was the same, his posture strong, his eyes alert, his shirt the one he’d laid over Jess that night in the prairie. The night he promised to make sure my boy was settled. I raised a finger, touched the back of it, and grazed its surface.

  “Got something for you.” With the reins in one hand, Ben glanced at my son, pulling two stems of grass from his pocket. He put one in his mouth and offered the other to my boy. Jess stared at the stem in Ben’s fingers, then at the one protruding from between his lips. “Thinking weeds.” Ben extended the grass Jess’s way. “A man’s gotta chew on one now and then.”

  Jess took the thinking weed, set it in his mouth the same way Ben had his, then gazed ahead. Just as Ben did.

  “How long do you think it will take to get there?” I asked.

  “If you’re hungry, we can stop and eat under that tree over yonder. I packed us some food. Enough to satisfy even Jess.” Ben smiled over his shoulder at me, and nodded to a greening oak to the right.

  “You did?”

  “All wrapped up under that crate you’re sitting on, so sit still.”

  “I always sit still. If it won’t take long to get there, we’ll eat on the land.”

  Ben glanced at Jess. “You need
to eat now? At least more than that weed?”

  Jess swiveled the stem around in his mouth. “Thinking’s okay for now. I’m watching, and not really hungry yet.”

  “Not hungry enough for this?” Ben drew a candy stick from his pocket. It was shiny and red, tempting even me as it glittered in the sun. The stem in Jess’s mouth stilled as Ben ran the candy under his nose.

  “Maybe I’m done thinking.” Jess gave Ben a half smile as he watched the candy.

  “I’ll give you a few minutes off from thinking. If what I suspect might be your father’s land really is, you have enough time for that candy before you get back to thinking.” Ben handed the stick to my son.

  “Thank you.” Jess settled back against the seat, a fresh kind of contentment on my son’s face.

  We rode along in a peaceful silence, Ted watching the road behind us while Jess worked on his candy and studied the acres and acres of grass and dirt ahead and around us. An occasional homestead appeared, always poor, like ours. We wouldn’t be quite so poor if I could find Flynn’s money. I looked for landmarks so I could find my way back to Flynn’s land on my own to look for that money, but there were none. Flat land, flat prairie, brown homes so far apart I couldn’t tell one from the other.

  “I can’t believe Flynn would want land so far away,” I said at last. I glanced back at Ted. He said nothing, stayed fixed where he was, watching behind us as we continued to the northeast. Far enough and wide enough of Liberal I’d never have enough time in a day to come all the way back here to search for hiding places Flynn may have chosen, and return in time no one would question what I’d been doing.

  “You’re going to need this.” Ben handed Jess another stem of grass.

  Jess perked up. He devoured the rest of the candy, looking around. “Yes.” Jess said it softly, softer than the wind, but I heard it. He straightened, eyed a small grove of trees. Ben made a noise that brought Walter to a halt.

  I looked where my son looked. More grass, a gentle rise and fall to the land, and trees. More trees than usual. “Is there a creek down there?”

  “There is.” Ben looked at Jess. He made another noise and Walter edged forward, headed straight to the trees lining the creek.

  “Walter sure was the right name for this horse.” Ben grinned at my son. “Because of him I stopped at this stream the first time.”

  Jess felt the smile, caught the tribute, as he scanned the land close and far. For all the times I had tried to force Flynn Howard to speak from the grave, I knew he was speaking now. To his boy.

  “This is it,” Jess whispered. “It fits the stories Pa told me. He said he was making them up, but he wasn’t. I knew he wasn’t! He told me to keep learning. He was teaching me through all those tales he told.”

  Flynn. He was indeed a good provider. He’d made our son ready, even if there was no land.

  Walter reached the stream and shook at the halter on his head. His language to Ben. The wagon teetered as Ben jumped to the ground. I listened to his deep rumbling tone as he freed Walter and gave him a love pat on the rump that sent the horse straight to the water.

  “Let’s eat.” Ben snatched my son’s crutches from the back and helped Jess down.

  “Not really hungry.” Ted slid off the back, and I scooted off behind him. “Gonna waste a lot of time, eating.” Ted watched Ben remove a blanket from the back and spread it on the ground. Ben nodded for me to sit, lifting food from the crate and setting it at the wagon’s end—stomach level for my boy. Ben handed Jess a tin plate, something I prayed was clean, since it had likely been his on cattle drives, and told him to do what my son had been dying to do—help himself.

  Jess swelled with a grin, that big tin plate swelling with food as he balanced on his crutches.

  “You might as well eat, Ted,” Ben called from close to my son, ready to save either him or the plate.

  “I said I’m not hungry.” Ted’s good arm shot into the air, sort of a wave, but more of a gesture as he tromped off through the grass.

  “More for you.” Ben shrugged at my son. Jess grinned and ladled more—more bread, more dried meat, more thick fried potatoes—onto an already heaping plate while Ben worked around him, snatching food for me and bringing me a plate. I’d fought this man for weeks, but this time I didn’t. I stayed on the blanket and ate like a mother, and like a lady, while Ben stood at the wagon next to Jess.

  I nibbled, and watched as the two of them pointed between bites, talking about the endless grass Flynn must have seen something special in. The water, the unusual lay of the land, the way everything in nature seemed to be coaxed its direction.

  “We should head to that rise,” Ben said after Jess’s third helping. Ben stowed away what little was left. Methodically. Part of a ceremony that celebrated something Flynn had planned.

  “Let’s go. I can make it up there with no problem,” Jess said. And he did. We walked alongside him against the wind as he combed his crutches and good leg through reeds and weeds, either or both snagging on occasion, but still he plowed through. The breeze was enough to undo my hair, and could have toppled my son, but somehow it didn’t matter. We were on a piece of us, Jess certain he was touching something of his father. When we crested the knoll, we stopped, rotated together, hands at our brows saluting the endless Kansas terrain.

  “Why this?” I asked. I didn’t expect an answer. Flynn could have told me, although he didn’t. Maybe he would now, if he had the chance.

  “Pa called it Promise Land in his stories.”

  I frowned at my son. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Especially right before…right before he…”

  I wrapped an arm around my son’s shoulders, squeezing his crutch between us. Jess looked over Flynn’s Promise Land from my side. I did, too, above and around that straight light hair so like his father’s. At land only subtly different from all of the rest of Kansas. If there was a promise here, it had to be our money. But where? I glanced at Ben. He was staring to the east, one hand rubbing his chin.

  “How far does it go?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine pock-marking all of this prairie the way I had the barn floor.

  “I know who you can ask,” Ben said. “He lives over there.” Ben pointed to a lone settlement across a field. He poked the front brim of his hat up with a finger and looked from the homestead to us. “I say we ride. Looks a bit far for a walk.”

  “Let’s go,” Jess said. He spun on one crutch like a master and hobbled down the hill. Fast. The wind at his back, his father all around.

  Ben re-hitched Walter to the wagon and helped my son and me into it.

  “What about Ted?” I cupped a hand over my brow and scanned the land around us. Ted was nowhere to be seen.

  “We’re not leaving him behind. We’ll find him before we go home. More likely, he’ll find us.”

  Home. Ben called my ranch home. I eyed his pocket. “Want me to hold the deed so it doesn’t blow away?”

  Ben laid his long fingers over his pocket as he shook his head. I glanced at my son. The day had been too perfect to strike up an argument. I’d wait until we got home.

  The farmer met us as we rode into his barnyard. Like Kansas, he and his home looked the same. The same as other ranchers and ranch houses on a terrain that hardly changed.

  “Howdy,” he said as he looked us over. He narrowed his gaze, then cracked a smile at Ben. “Good to see you again.”

  “You, too. Regina, meet Fred Albert. And, Fred, this is Regina Miller. Was Regina Howard. And this is her son, Jess Howard. His father and her first husband was Flynn Howard. From New York.”

  The smile vanished as Fred turned his attention on Jess and me. A hand went to his chin where he scratched, a dry rasping sound carrying with the wind. “New York. You the folks bought that land over there?” He nodded where we’d been.

  “They’re not sure. That’s why we came to talk to you. Flynn Howard died accidentally before he told his wife about the land.”

  “He told me, th
ough,” Jess piped up. “Not about it exactly, but some things. I think that’s it.”

  “What do you know about the place?” Ben asked the farmer.

  “Well, it’s a long and narrow strip. Unusual, but I heard the owner…maybe Mr. Howard…insisted it be that way. About eighty acres. Goes about a mile that direction.” Fred pointed west. “And another two that way.” He pointed back east.

  Ben looked north and south. “Guess the land around it must already be bought up. Or at either end?”

  “Going fast.” Mr. Albert shook his head. “With the railroad coming, this land is going fast, and what’s bought is changing hands at even higher prices. It’s usually Easterners or big money buying it up before the railroad gets it done. Smart buy for smart money.”

  Chapter 47

  Death was in his stare. A different sort of death than had been in Flynn Howard’s son’s. ~Rex

  Regina was quiet, stone quiet for once, as we headed back home. I glanced behind me to where she sat in the bed of the wagon, flat on her backside instead of on the crate, staring across the prairie as we passed. The last I’d heard from her was a slight gasp. It was Fred that made her gasp, not me. And she’d been silent ever since. I glanced to her son at my side.

  “Now that you know where your father’s other land was, we just got to find the deed to prove it. How about we take a shortcut from here to your home, so we can get started? You know one?”

  “Ain’t no need hurrying to find something we don’t know exists,” Ted called from the back. He’d found us, like I knew he would. Probably been lying and waiting like a snake in the grass. “Might as well spend what’s left of the day riding.”

  I looked at Jess. “I was asking you.”

  “There is a shorter way…” The boy stared off to the right a slight bit.

  “That-away?” I nodded where he stared.

  Jess sank back in the seat, instead of answering me, his eyes on Walter’s rump.

  “Like I said, no need to hurry, and I need to talk to our neighbor next to the ranch,” Ted interrupted again. “Stay on this road so we can stop at his place as we go by.”