[Dakotah Treasures 01] - Ruby

by Lauraine Snelling

  He tipped his hat to Mrs. McGeeney as he rode alongside her boardinghouse. “Good day, ma’am.”

  Hair bound under a kerchief, she looked up from sweeping her front porch. “Howdy-do, Mr. Harrison. You wanting something to eat?”

  “Not right now, but thank you. I may be back later.” He crossed his arms on his saddle horn. “Can you catch me up on what’s gone on around here?”

  She left her broom leaning against the wall and came closer. “You know that Per Torvald died? Buried him several days ago.”

  “I do now. I would have come to the funeral had I known. He was a good man.”

  Mrs. McGeeney rolled her eyes. “If you’re meaning he weren’t violent, you’d be right, but the goings on over to that place . . .” She shook her head, setting her third chin to wobbling.

  “Leastwise, there weren’t too many shootings there, and the cards were dealt straight. Charlie keeps things pretty much under control.”

  “You heard about the new owner? Torvald’s daughter? Now what kind of man would bring his daughter into a situation like that, unless of course, she’s one of them.” Mrs. McGeeney dropped her voice on the last word as if afraid to soil her lips.

  Rand Harrison looked over his shoulder to the three-storied Dove House and back at the pug hound woman near the shoulder of his horse. “Oh, I think a real lady has come to town, and we’re all goin’ to pay the piper.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Good day.” His horse twitched his tail and moved forward at the touch of the spurs.

  His thoughts returned to the encounter in the kitchen of Dove House. Spunky little thing. But then he’d noticed that on the train too. Just never in a million lifetimes had he thought to see her again—and least of all at Dove House. Have to admire her— for doin’ what’s right—but I’m gonna have my hands full keepin’ the men in line.

  At each of the next places he asked if anyone had seen Belle. She’d been to Johnny Nelson’s store but had gone on. No, he hadn’t noticed where. There weren’t that many places in town. The cantonment? Perhaps McHenry knew where she was.

  He found her at Bill Williams’ dingy saloon, sitting with Jake Maunders, one of the first unsavory characters to settle in town. She was having a drink and looking like she owned the world. That was Belle all right.

  “Howdy, Bill. Maunders.”

  He joined her at the table, setting his hat down first. “I’ll have a cup of coffee, Bill.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Unless you got some good stuff?”

  “I do. Bought it off Charlie this morning. Got a good deal on it too, but only going to offer it to my best customers.” Williams’ long teeth glinted through his bushy red beard, giving him the appearance of a fox with a swollen nose.

  “What was Charlie doing peddling whiskey?”

  “You want some or not?”

  “Yeah, I do. Now you didn’t go mixing it with that rotgut you usually serve, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Bill Williams looked aggrieved, as if Harrison had hurt his feelings doubting him like that. Aggrieved was a look he did well. “That’ll be fifty cents.”

  “Fifty cents?”

  “You wanted the good stuff. Only place in town you can get it now.” He held out a hand that had needed a good scrubbing for as long as Rand could remember.

  “So now you know.” Belle tapped Rand on the arm with her closed fan. “Just give us a couple of months, and that high-and-mighty girl will be hightailing it east again, back to where life is easy. Maybe only weeks.”

  “So what are you going to do in the meantime?” He glanced around the long narrow room with its unpainted walls darkened by smoke. “No piano here. Can’t be room for more than one card table. And no upstairs. Besides, Belle, you ain’t been a workin’ girl for all the years I’ve known you.”

  Belle blinked several times and looked toward the low ceiling. “Might as well’ve been married to that man. Never thought Per’s going would leave such a hole.” She sniffed. “My land, but we had good times before he went and took sick.”

  “The two of you sounded real good singing together. Like the shows I’ve seen sometimes in the big cities.”

  “He had the voice and the smile of an angel. Never could tell him no when he got to really wanting something.” Her jaw tightened. “And then he up and deeded our place to them two girls of his. Guess he had an attack of conscience or something. Rand, Dove House was supposed to be mine.”

  “So what are you going to do?” He took a swallow of his drink and nodded to Williams, who’d gone behind the bar.

  “I thought to bring the girls along and open up a place of my own, but there’s nowhere in town to do such. I ain’t going back to living and working out of a tent. Did that back when I was younger, and I ain’t goin’ to do it again.” She took out a slim cigarillo and set it into a holder.

  “Hey, Bill, the lady needs a light.”

  “Be right there.” In a minute or so the man brought a spill from the kitchen and lighted the cigarillo.

  Belle drew in a deep breath and released the smoke in a thin stream, her eyes slitted like a contented cat’s. “That fool girl has no sense what is needed here. We was doing just fine, even after Per took sick. Went on with business as usual. Even if she just came and left things alone, she’d a had a good living. And the rest of us too.” She knocked the ashes of her cigarillo off onto the floor. “What are our regulars going to do?”

  “They can gamble here.” Williams brought the bottle over, but Rand waved it away.

  Yeah, so you and your reprobate partner, Hogue, can cheat ’em clean to their teeth.

  “I got to get back to work.” Rand rose and pushed his chair back in to the table. “Let me know what you decide, Belle. If’n it were me, I’d lay low and play the waitin’ game.”

  “Easy for you to say. What am I supposed to do? Pay for my room and board there?”

  “That’s not a bad idea, you know.”

  “If you was the southern gentleman you claim to be, you’d invite me out to your ranch to stay.”

  “My ranch, as you so grandly put it, is a two-room log cabin, and I know you wouldn’t want to bunk with the boys.”

  “Teach ’em some manners, maybe?” The glint in her eyes told him she was teasing.

  Rand touched a finger to his forehead and headed out the door, settling his hat on his head as he went. Change was coming to the Little Muddy, and a certain young blond woman was at the heart of it, whether she wanted to be or not.

  Grass is comin’ up so fast, you can watch it grow, he thought as he rode out along the river toward the Double H. He glanced up as an eagle’s scree echoed from high above where the big bird lazily drifted on the winds. Spring was coming to Dakota Territory, and no other place on earth equaled it, least not the places he’d been. Spring in Missouri held a place in his heart, but the violence of a Dakota winter made warm breezes and sprouting grass and wild flowers even more appreciated. And the amazing thing was it could change overnight. Go to sleep with the north wind trying to freeze your nose off and wake to the icicles dripping off the roof and the chinook wind inviting you to leave your coat behind.

  Restless and unable to settle at home in Missouri after the destruction of the war, Rand had followed what he heard about the abundant grass for hay and cattle in the last frontier. Range land, wild and free, and a place to start over with no laws to speak of and no one inquiring into your past was just what he had been looking for. Though he was fairly certain some of his men had plenty to be hiding from in their past, he had nothing to hide.

  Unless, of course, someone reminded him of Isabelle. The eagle cried again, a primal sound that, like the bugling of a bull elk, ate its way into a man’s heart and soul to take up permanent residence, unlike those of the female gender who promised and left.

  He stopped at a slow shallow pool to let his horse drink and stared off across the river to where a flock of Canada geese grazed on the sprouting grass, the honking of the guard
goose letting the others know there was danger in the area. Shame they weren’t on his side of the river, where he could bag a couple for supper. Something other than venison and rabbit would be a welcome change.

  Thoughts of Miss Torvald made Rand clench his teeth, the tension running out his hands, causing his horse to toss its head at the tightening of the reins. She was causing more trouble than she knew. “I hope she does get back on the train like Belle said. Save us all a pile of grief.” The buckskin twitched his ears and snorted as his rider added, “But she sure is a pretty little thing.”

  He crested the final hill before home, his heart picking up as it always did when he saw his low cabin, sheltered by cottonwood trees along the creek. He’d known this little valley was home the first time he’d ridden over the hill. Elk had been grazing the flatland on grass just going to seed with the greens and golds mixed with nodding white daisies and a blue flower that looked like bits of sky had been trapped and were being held prisoner in the grass. Ducks had quacked on the river, and a crow had announced his arrival from the top of a cottonwood, sending the elk splashing through the shallows and up a steep bank on the other side.

  Today Beans had red long johns, several sheets, and other clothes hanging on the line, a sure sign that winter was over. Rand had met Beans, who agreed to come cook for him, on his way west. The three hands he employed year around were two drifters and a cowboy who’d decided Texas was getting too crowded.

  He watched a few minutes more, counting the calves that had started arriving in the last two weeks. His dream of buying a Hereford bull to cross with his longhorn cows from Texas had yet to materialize.

  He leaned forward and patted his horse’s shoulder. He’d traded his blooded horse for the buckskin back in Kansas on the way west. Out here speed didn’t count as much as endurance.

  Harrison, you got a good life here, he told himself, so stop thinkin’ about that heifer back at Dove House. I don’t reckon Miss Torvald is the one for the likes of you. Maybe Belle, then, now that Per was gone? Or one of the others?

  “Must be spring when all men’s fancies turn to . . .” He snorted and nudged Buck forward. Beans had been heckling him lately to find himself a wife, but face it, there weren’t too many women out here on the frontier to choose from.

  Even if you did head back east to find a wife, what woman in her right mind would be willing to come this far west, to the brink of civilization?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The front doorknob rattled and the door shook from the force of a slamming shoulder.

  “We’re not open yet.” Daisy stopped scrubbing the woodwork stained a dull ocher by the cigar smoke and shook her head. “How many times. . . ?”

  Ruby glanced over from measuring the windows for their new curtains that Cimarron was about to cut out of bleached muslin. “Be polite.”

  Daisy shot her a disgruntled look.

  “Sign said three days, and you been closed over a week.”

  “Sam, we won’t have whiskey when we open, so go on down to Williams’.” Daisy dipped her rag in the soapy water and wrung it out. Scrubbing the woodwork without getting the flocked wallpaper wet took special care.

  “No whiskey?”

  “You heard me. We serve food now instead.”

  As the man stomped off, Daisy looked over to Ruby and shook her head. She looked up at the wide white woodwork that emerged from the dingy yellow. “Looks good, don’t it?”

  “Yes, it does. Better than I thought it would. Charlie said he would paint the floor tonight.”

  “How you goin’ to keep them men from spittin’ on the nice new floor? They don’t take to change easy.”

  “Who does?” came out on a sigh. “I ordered extra spittoons.”

  “I scrubbed this floor three times afore I got all that up with a scrub brush. Near to wore it out.”

  The grumbling tone grated on Ruby’s nerves, but she bit back a retort. Daisy had borne the brunt of the scrubbing in here since Cimarron spent all of her time sewing and Milly and Opal worked together on the bedrooms. Not all of the rooms would be open at first, but if she believed the girls, that wouldn’t be important, as no one would be staying.

  Belle had been no help at all. More of a hindrance when she made her comments on the impossibility of success.

  Keeping a civil tongue in her head took constant effort.

  Daisy sighed and hefted her bucket of water. “Got to go change this. Don’t look like I’ll get any sewing done today.”

  “Get yourself a cup of coffee.” Maybe that will help. As if anything would help. Why, oh why, did I not get back on that train? Ruby stared at her hands, now red, with one thumb cracking from the lye-soap water. Her skin felt rougher than the grit they’d used to scrub the floor. She rubbed the spot on her forehead that seemed to simmer constantly with headache warnings. Far, how can I live up to my promise? I’m just too tired.

  “That’s too much money.” Belle stood, hands on her hips, glaring at Ruby.

  “That’s what we’re charging for that room. It’s the best in the house. If you want to move to a smaller one, the price is seventy-five cents a night, breakfast included.” Ruby forced herself to stand toe-to-toe with Belle, wondering if at any moment the discussion might turn to fisticuffs or hair pulling.

  “But that room’s been my home ever since we opened the doors at Dove House.”

  “Save the tears for the men, Belle. I have a heart of stone.” At least she’d been working at toughening up her heart. Explaining to men in various stages of rage that Dove House would no longer have the same hospitality services as before either hardened one’s heart or broke it. And she was determined hers would not be broken. Not by hard work or whining women or thundering men.

  Both Cimarron and Daisy bemoaned the demise of their soft hands due to all the scrubbing, water-hauling, and washing of curtains and braided rugs that had been inflicted upon them since the arrival of Ruby Torvald, despot and slave driver. But at least they worked, unlike the high-and-mighty Belle.

  “Belle, my offer for you to run the cardroom still stands, and I am hoping we can offer some musical entertainment since we have the piano.”

  Belle leaned forward, her cigarillo-tainted breath nearly knocking Ruby backward. “You won’t be open even two weeks unless you got money I don’t know about stashed somewhere. A lot of money. And how you going to pay me?”

  “One third of the receipts from the cardroom, like I told you.”

  “Half.”

  “Either take it or leave it, Belle. I’m not going to haggle with you.”

  “If I agree to run the cardroom at a third, can I keep my room?”

  Ruby thought of the lack of customers desiring rooms of any kind, let alone the big room. Charlie had suggested she and Opal take that room, and she’d declined. But if she let Belle have privileges, that wouldn’t be fair to the others who had worked so hard. The urge to rub her forehead twitched her fingers.

  “No, Belle, I’m sorry, but that room needs cleaning too. You can have a free room up in the attic like the rest of us.”

  “You’re up in the attic too?”

  “Yes. And we all”—she stressed the all—“have pallets on the floor for now.” Until we can make or buy some beds. Extra tables for the dining area had come in on the train just that day, but there was no money for beds. She thought of the funds in the envelope and the expenses so quickly slimming it down in spite of all her efforts at frugality. Dove House ate money like the stove did wood.

  “I think not.”

  “That’s your choice, but you must have your things out of the room today.”

  Belle threw four dollars down on the counter. “There. That gives me four nights. You got at least one customer.” She glanced at Ruby. “And if I pay for my room, I get half the winnings?”

  Ruby shook her head again. This was too much. Carefully folding and putting Belle’s rent in her pocket, she said, “Thank you. Breakfast is from six to eight.”
/>   “I don’t get up that early, and you know it.”

  “There will always be coffee and bread or rolls for those who would rather sleep later.” Please, Lord, get her out of my hair before I tear it out.

  “Humph.” Nose in the air, Belle marched up the stairs, her heels tapping out her displeasure.

  Ruby stared down at the dirty apron that covered a skirt badly in need of a brushing. Her waist needed washing, and more than anything, she needed a bath. In a tub—with hot water. But there was no way she was going to lug all those buckets of hot water up two flights of stairs to the attic.

  Thinking of a way to remedy that situation, she went in search of Milly. Together the two of them dragged the tin hip bath into the pantry. Carrying the buckets ten feet was a relief compared to lugging it up all the stairs to the attic.

  “Why don’t you go tell Cimarron and Daisy that, if they’d like to use the bath water, they are welcome to do so. I’ve heated enough water from the rain barrels for all of us to wash our hair and to bathe.”

  Milly took a step back. “You don’t mean for me to get in that water, do you? Catch a chest cold is what you do if you take a bath before summer. ’Sides, that’s what the bowls and pitchers are for.”

  Arguing took more energy than Ruby could dig up.

  “Do you know where Opal is?”

  “Last I saw her she was about done scrubbing the porch. She might be helping Charlie.”

  “Tell her she can have a bath too.”