T don’t know,” Trinity mused, devils dancing in his eyes. “If I was a cow used to coming nose to nose with bobcats, bears, and the like, I’d be so happy to come upon this little lady I’d probably lie down and hold my feet together so she could tie me up. And being branded wouldn’t be more than a bee sting compared to some cougar making fresh steaks out of me.”
Victoria laughed, a delighted peal which reverberated about the room.
“Do give him a job, Uncle,” she said. “He lies shamefully, but he does it with such charm.”
“I assure you, ma’am—”
“Don’t. Women delight in flattery. Maybe we should be more fond of the truth, but it’s nice to hear ourselves described in more glowing terms than we deserve. However, flattery loses some of its appeal when you start swearing it’s the truth.”
“You’re very wise to be so young.”
A cloud passed over Victoria’s spirits. “I’m older than you think.”
“I knew you were no longer in your girlhood,” Trinity said, recovering swiftly. “A girl, by definition being a woman still unformed, could never have attained such perfection.”
Victoria laughed again, even more easily than before.
“Are you never without an answer? I wouldn’t be surprised to find they ran you out of Texas.”
“I’d like to run him out of Arizona,” Buc said, making no effort to keep the animosity from his voice.
“I’m really quite harmless” Trinity said. “My old man used to say, ‘Never worry about a man as long as he’s talking, but look out when he stops.’“
“Then I guess we got nothing to worry about from you. You haven’t stopped jawing since you rode in. Think you can stop long enough to get some work done?”
“If you give me the right kind of job.”
“And what might that be?” Buc asked, sarcasm in his voice.
“Why a talking job, naturally.”
Victoria and her uncle grinned. Buc didn’t.
“We don’t have any jobs like that.”
“Sure you do. I could fetch and carry for Miss Davidge. She must need lots of wood and water for cooking. Then there’s the slops to be thrown out and the sweeping up to be done. And of course a lady can’t be allowed to go fetching eggs and feeding chickens. And all the while I would be talking steady so she wouldn’t worry about whether those Indians have got you yet.”
“When we want a housemaid, we’ll hire a female,” Buc said.
“I bet Miss Davidge would like it better if you hired a house fella. It would make things more interesting.”
“Things are interesting enough around here,” Buc sputtered. “And they’ll be a whole lot more pleasant after you’re gone.”
“Maybe for you, but not for me. I’m not looking forward to the long ride through the desert. You want to go with me, ma’am? Sure would help to while away the hot afternoons. They say Los Angeles is making up into a right fair town. Of course it don’t compare to San Francisco, but I’d take you there, too, if you wanted.”
“Victoria doesn’t want to go to California, and certainly not with the likes of you,” Buc exploded before Victoria could respond.
“It’s a good thing I don’t take that as a personal insult,” Trinity observed, sounding too amiable to get insulted about anything.
“I meant it personal. Now if you want this job, you’d better shake a leg. And forget you ever found your way into this kitchen. Hands don’t eat up at the house”
There’s no one but you in the bunkhouse just now,” Victoria objected, “and you eat with us. You can’t expect him to eat alone”
“Somebody’ll be back in a couple of days,” Buc said.
“I won’t mind,” Trinity said, “as long I can come up for a piece of pie now and again.”
“You’ll eat with us,” Grant Davidge said.
Buc didn’t like it, but Grant’s decision put an end to the discussion.
“I’m heading over to the bunkhouse,” Buc said to Trinity. “I’ll settle you in.”
“No need to be in such a hurry,” Grant said. “You can take him over after dinner. I want to talk to him.” Buc seemed reluctant to leave. “He’s got to know sooner or later.”
“Can you trust him?” Buc asked, casting Trinity an angry glance.
“It’s not much of a secret. Half of Texas knows already”
“Still, I don’t think—”
“You can go on. I"ll take care of it.”
Buc leaned against the wall, his frown of disapproval deepening into a scowl. “I’ll wait.”
“Buc doesn’t dislike you,” Grant assured Trinity. “He’s just worried every man who sets foot in this valley is after Victoria.”
Trinity tried to look surprised and mystified in turn. Fortunately, Grant didn’t seem much interested in his facial expression.
“Five years ago somebody killed Victoria’s husband,” Grant explained. “Nobody could find out who did it so they tried to put the blame on Victoria. By the time I got there, they had set the date for a trial and picked the jury. They had also made plans to hang her at the end of the week. The scaffold was already going up. Can you imagine any man meaning to hang a lovely, innocent young woman like Victoria?”
It took no special intuition to see Grant believed implicitly in his niece’s innocence. The man actually vibrated with the fury inside him.
The judge wouldn’t listen to a word I said. He was Victoria’s father-in-law, you see, and he was all eaten up with grief. Jeb was his only boy. I don’t think he would have managed to hold up at all if it hadn’t been for his wife. Victoria didn’t much like her stepmother-in-law, but Myra Blazer is a remarkable woman. Quite handsome, too.” Grant looked embarrassed to have ventured so far from the topic. He cleared his throat.
“I intended to appeal to the governor, but Judge Blazer held the trial early. The jury never even left the room.”
“What did you do?”
“Buc came up with a plan to break her out of jail. Worked like a charm. Not a single shot fired and nobody hurt. We were halfway across Texas before they even knew Victoria was gone.”
“Is she safe here? Maybe you ought to take her to California.”
“As long as she’s not in the states, they can’t touch her. The territorial governor is a personal friend of mine. Besides, he wouldn’t send Victoria back. He doesn’t believe in hanging women.”
“Not even the ones who’re guilty?”
Trinity hadn’t meant to say anything, but he couldn’t restrain himself. Grant’s words had scraped against old wounds. Even after all these years, just remembering what Queenie had done to him and his father made him burn with rage.
Now sitting here, listening to Grant Davidge talk about helping his niece escape, as if it were his right to decide when the criminal justice system did and didn’t work, made him furious. Queenie had gotten away. She had disappeared without a trace. But by God, Victoria Davidge wouldn’t, not if he had anything to say about it.
“Since Victoria’s not guilty, I never considered it,” Grant said, impatiently dismissing the idea.
“Did you have any trouble with people coming after her?” Trinity asked, changing the subject. “I mean, is there any kind of reward for taking her back?”
“You wouldn’t be thinking about trying to collect it, would you?”
“No, but there’s a lot of people who’d turn in their own ma for no more than fifty dollars.”
There’s a thousand dollar reward, but Judge Blazer has offered several times that amount to any coyote who’d come after her.”
Grant’s eyes had turned steely cold, his features set in the cement of rock-hard determination. In that moment Trinity had no trouble seeing in this mild-mannered, fond uncle the man who had carved a ranch out of the Arizona wilderness and held it against Indians and rustlers.
“But he reckoned without Buc and me. If they couldn’t be bought off, we …” Grant stopped himself. His gaze met Trinity’s gaze an
d held steady, challenging. “Let’s just say I was able to convince them they could earn easier money somewhere else.”
Trinity wondered if there were any bodies buried in the remote reaches of Mountain Valley Ranch. It wasn’t his job to check on Grant or his foreman, but it would be helpful to know. A wise man always takes careful inventory of the obstacles facing him before undertaking a task if he wants to be successful.
And Trinity Smith was always successful.
“Why’re you telling me all this?” Trinity asked.
“Because part of your job will be to protect Victoria. In fact, it’s the most important part. Every cowhand here knows what happened and has sworn not to let anyone take her out of this valley.”
“I suppose it can get mighty tiresome being kept under lock and key” Trinity said, turning to Victoria.
“Yes, it can,” Victoria agreed, glad to be able to turn the conversation, if only slightly, from her awful past. “This may sound ungrateful, but there are times when I wish I weren’t so much a prisoner and could go anywhere I liked. I especially wish I were a man.”
“Lord almighty!” Trinity exploded. “Think of the waste.”
Victoria laughed again. She couldn’t remember ever having laughed so much in one day, and it felt good.
“I’m going to insist Uncle Grant keep you around for a long time,” Victoria said. “You’re wonderful for my ego.”
“All the men think you’re beautiful,” Grant told her.
“I know, but they’re afraid to say anything. Trinity just wades in and says what he thinks. I imagine there’ll be times when I’ll wish he hadn’t, but on the whole I prefer it.”
“I can’t imagine saying anything against you, ma’am.”
“You just did.”
“Ma’am?”
“You did it again.”
Trinity looked confused.
“My name’s Victoria. I don’t know anyone named Ma’am”
“But it ain’t polite to call the boss lady by her first name.”
“Then it’s fortunate I’m not the boss lady,” Victoria said when Trinity started to demur. “Uncle Grant is the boss and Buc is the foreman. I just live here. If you want any more pecan pie, you’ll have to learn to call me Victoria.”
“Ma’am, I’d learn to call you anything if you just keep on baking those pies.”
“Call me Ma’am again, and you’ll eat dinner in the bunkhouse.”
Trinity hung his head and shuffled his feet a bit. Then he looked at Victoria, rather sheepishly. “Ill do my best, but you got to forgive me if I forget now and again. My pa was real strict, you see, and he used to cane me if I didn’t call every female I saw ‘Ma’am.’ Didn’t matter if they was so little they could hide behind their ma’s skirts. It was ‘Ma’am’ or nothing. It got to be such a habit I don’t know if I can break it.”
The imps dancing in Trinity’s eyes convinced Victoria she couldn’t believe a word he said. “You’ll just have to try. A few missed meals ought to help sharpen your memory.”
“Is she always so cruel?” Trinity asked Grant.
“She’s real determined,” Grant said, an answering gleam in his eye. “I guess you’d better do like she orders.”
“Do you think she might order me to keep an eye on her? It would be terrible if some Apache was to get hold of her.”
“You said they were a couple hundred miles south of here,” Buc interrupted.
“They might get tired of all that desert. It’s much nicer up here in the mountains. Lots of cold water to drink.”
Victoria turned away to hide her smile.
“It might not be such a bad idea for you to stick close to the house for the next couple days,” Grant said. “We’re too short of hands to pull anybody off the range, and Buc and I have to ride pretty far out the next few days.”
“Victoria doesn’t need the likes of him hanging about,” Buc protested.
“I never do like leaving her,” Grant explained to Trinity.
“She’s got Ramon and Anita.”
They’d be no help if trouble came.”
“We haven’t had any trouble in three years. I don’t see why we should expect it in the next two days”.
“It’ll also give him a chance to get familiar with the place, learn his way about,” Grant continued, good-naturedly ignoring his foreman’s repeated objections. “You wouldn’t mind, would you, Victoria?”
“Not if he helps me with my survey” she answered.
“Have him do anything you want. That okay with you?” Grant asked Trinity.
“Looking at a pretty woman is always better than chasing after ornery cows that don’t want to be found.”
“Now you look here—” Buc started.
“He’s just kidding you, Buc,” Victoria interrupted. “Can’t you see that?”
“All I see is a nameless cowboy who’s wormed his way into this ranch in less than an hour.”
“I told you my name was Trin—”
That’s what you say,” Buc replied angrily. “It could be Billy the Kid for all we know.”
“He’s about six inches shorter than I am,” Trinity pointed out. “Besides he’s going to fat. And he’s got this big ugly chin that—”
“You know what I mean!” Buc roared furiously.
“We all do,” Grant said. He didn’t raise his voice, but his expression clearly showed his impatience. “But I trust Trinity. I like the look of him. And I’d feel a lot safer knowing he was with Victoria.”
The tension in the room was almost tangible. Trinity could see Grant had brought the discussion to an end, and he guessed Buc was barely able to keep a rein on his tongue. He didn’t know what Victoria thought, but she didn’t seem to mind the idea.
That was enough for now. He stood up.
“Thanks for the pie, Miss Victoria. I don’t know when I’ve tasted any half as good.”
“You still want a second piece?” Victoria asked, the tension gone from her eyes.
“I’ll save it for tomorrow. That ought to make sure I don’t get lost.”
“If you didn’t get lost from Texas to Arizona, I doubt you’ll get lost between here and the bunkhouse.”
Trinity grinned in response. “Not with Buc here to guide me.”
“I wouldn’t depend on that too much. The way he’s looking at you right now he’s liable to lead you right off the mountainside.”
“Buc doesn’t dislike you,” Grant told Trinity for the second time. “He just doesn’t trust you yet.”
“I can understand that” Trinity said, “but surely he knows I’d do everything I could to protect Miss Victoria.”
“Well see,” growled Buc, stymied for the moment. “Let’s get you settled.”
Trinity followed Buc to the bunkhouse. He could see the anger in the man’s stride, the stiffness of his carriage, the hurry with which he expected Trinity to follow. Like he wanted to get him settled in the bunkhouse and then wash his hands of him.
Trinity didn’t plan to be dismissed that easily. He had a job to do, and he didn’t mean to let anyone stand in the way.
And that included Buc.
“You can take your pick of the bunks” Buc said when they reached the bunkhouse. He had escorted Trinity in silence. But for some reason, the bunkhouse loosened his tongue. “Let’s get a few things straight. I don’t trust you, and I don’t like you either. I don’t know why, I just don’t. And I’m a man who always goes with his instincts.”
That’s okay with me,” Trinity said, as he tossed his gear on the bunk nearest him. “I tend to do the same thing myself.”
“Well your instincts had better not cause you to start sniffing around Victoria. She’s going to marry me, and I won’t have any man nosing around my woman.”
Trinity looked him in the face. “I can’t imagine Victoria would be any man’s woman, however much she might want to be his wife.”
“I don’t care what you imagine. You won’t be here long enough for
it to make any difference.”
“What makes you say that? This looks like a good place to work.”
Buc’s expression turned grim. “You said you planned to move on as soon as you got a grubstake together.”
“I did at first,” Trinity said, lowering himself on his bed and stretching out his full length, a grin calculated to annoy Buc on his face. A soft mattress covering the boards made the bunk more comfortable than he’d expected, and Trinity let his body relax. After sleeping on the rocks and hard ground, this felt almost as good as a San Francisco hotel. “I never stayed too long in one place, but I think I’m going to like it here.”
“Now look here—” Buc started.
He never finished. Trinity exploded off the bed. Before Buc knew what had happened, he found himself nose-to-nose with a very different kind of man from the easygoing stranger who had lain down on the bed just seconds before.
“You listen to me” Trinity said, his voice soft, his eyes dark, his body tensed for action. “I don’t like being threatened. You’re welcome to dislike me as much as you want—I don’t much care for you either—but I won’t be threatened. I’ll do any job you give me, and I’ll do it over if I don’t get it right the first time, but you keep riding me, and I’m going to be all over you like a coyote on a jackrabbit. You hear?”
“Yeah, I hear,” Buc said, as though he’d heard it all before and wasn’t the least bit impressed. But he stepped back, a silent admission he had overstepped his limits. “You just keep in mind I oversee this outfit. Mr. Davidge might have given you the job, but you’re going to have to work for me to keep it.”
“Does that mean you’re changing my work orders for tomorrow?” A challenge flashed in Trinity’s eyes.
“Mr. Davidge is the boss. If he tells you to keep an eye on Victoria, then that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. Though I would have supposed he would have picked someone he knew he could trust.”
“You meaning to hire more hands?”
“Not if I can help it. I’d rather work everybody until they drop than bring in another man. Might be like a man we hired a few years back. Nearly didn’t find out until it was too late.”
“Didn’t find out what?”
“He’d been sent to take Victoria back. He was the second one.”
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