by Anna Schmidt
On the ride back to the ranch, Loralei settled herself against the carpetbags and immediately fell asleep, leaving Maria to care for her child as if that were perfectly normal. Within minutes of their leaving town, Little Chester laid his head on Maria’s shoulder and was soon sound asleep himself. She was surprised at how solid and heavy he felt in her arms…and how perfectly right.
But then she reminded herself that this child she was mooning over was Chet’s child, and the woman in the wagon was someone he had left behind—unmarried and pregnant. How could she have been so wrong about him? Loralei certainly was the last woman she would ever have thought would have traveled such a distance on her own, and yet here she was. How could Maria not believe her story? Why else would Loralei travel more than halfway across the country to find Chet if it wasn’t true?
Maria felt her chest fill with a stew of anger and regret and half a dozen other emotions that she did not begin to understand. Were all men not to be trusted, or was she just so gullible when it came to the male of the species that she was an easy mark? Well, as soon as Chet returned to the ranch, she was going to…
“How old do you think he is?” Amanda asked, then answered her own question. “Certainly not yet a year.”
“We can do this,” Maria said, lowering her voice but losing none of her resolve. “After all, it’s not forever. Chet will see his responsibility and accept it.”
“He ran away once,” Amanda reminded her. “Nita says he’ll take off again, and then where will that baby be?”
For once, her sister was right, and Maria had to accept that perhaps she had permitted her heart to overrule her head when it came to Chet Hunter.
No more, she told herself—and firmly locked away whatever breathless hopes may have been brewing.
* * *
The part of his job that Chet enjoyed the most was the roundup in preparation for branding. One cowhand was chosen to separate—or cut—the stock to be branded and earmarked from the larger herd. In Florida, Chet had been well-known as the best cutter around, and he was hoping maybe that might count for something now that he was in Arizona. Of course, if Turnbull had anything to say about it, Chet was pretty sure that he would not be chosen. More than likely Turnbull would send him off to bring in any strays—a solitary job that required following tracks…tracks that wouldn’t be easy to find.
Bunker had explained that their outfit was behind on branding mostly because of time lost after Isaac Porterfield’s death. “Between the old man dying, young Jess taking off the way he did, and the women and Snap all pretty much lost souls, we probably lost near a month in there. There was a time, truth be told, that me and the others thought maybe there’d be no branding a’tall.”
So now the time had come to make up for lost time. First Chet and the other men from the Porterfield outfit would drive the extra horses upstream, to where all the hands from surrounding ranches would come together in one large camp, and the work would begin. The other hands would be there to keep track of their stock as the Clear Springs men set their brand on yearlings and strays they’d rounded up—strays that bore no mark and so belonged to whoever claimed them. As they approached the camp, he saw that Eduardo was back. The chuck wagon was already in place, and a makeshift corral had been set up for the extra horses. After Eduardo had served up the noon meal, the trail boss would hand out assignments and the work would begin.
Chet sat next to Bunker while they ate.
“Turnbull’s got a burr under his saddle,” Bunker muttered around a mouth filled with food.
“Seems to be a permanent situation with him,” Chet replied. “What’s he mad about now?”
“The other foremen took a vote and elected Ty Baxter trail boss.” He nodded toward a man who was about Chet’s age, height, and weight.
“Looks like he could handle the job.”
Bunker snorted. “He’s the best around.”
“Which ranch?”
“None of them. He does this on his own—goes from one roundup to the next, getting the job done. The ranchers finally figured out that if you bring in somebody from the outside, there’s not so much strutting around trying to show off by the local boys.”
“So if this is the way it works, what’s Turnbull’s problem?”
“He thought because of the hard times and the fact that Porterfield stock is the only stock in need of branding, the ranchers wouldn’t spend the extra money. He’s been campaigning for a week or more to have the job. Then Baxter shows up.” He snickered. “You shoulda seen Turnbull’s face when he realized nothing was gonna change. Wish Snap coulda made a drawing of that.”
Ty Baxter climbed onto a stump next to a cypress tree. “All right, gents, listen up.”
Chet listened as the trail boss doled out the assignments, admittedly a lot different than what he might have given at a regular full roundup. Mostly he laid out some ground rules for how the other outfits were to tend their herds like normal while the Porterfield outfit did their job. When it came to the Porterfield group, Baxter paused and glanced around. “Where’s Jar Johnson?”
“He ain’t here,” Bunker called out. “Went to work for Tipton.”
Baxter frowned. “Buffalo Benson?”
“Same story,” Slim shouted.
Chet saw Turnbull give both men dirty looks.
Baxter scratched his chin. “Got any suggestions, Turnbull?”
“Hunt could do it,” somebody from another ranch shouted, and several other cowboys who Hunt had only met in passing shouted their agreement.
Chet looked at Bunker, who seemed to be focused on his coffee cup and grinning. “What’s going on?”
Bunker shrugged and started to walk away. “Turnbull’s not the only one in this gang who knows how to work up a groundswell of support for something. Don’t let us down, Hunt.”
The roundup took a full week. Leaving three of the Porterfield hands to watch over the main herd, Chet and the rest of their crew drove the stock in need of branding back to the ranch. There was quite a bit of good-natured ribbing as Chet and the others left, and Chet was well aware that those men Bunker had recruited weeks before to call out support for him were now men who knew and respected him—as he did them.
After weeks on the range, he was looking forward to getting back, if for no other reason than they would have one of Juanita’s home-cooked meals, a cot with a dry mattress, and the chance to bathe and wash out their clothes.
And Maria would be there.
Every night, once the others were sleeping or keeping watch, he had taken out Trey’s sketch of her and studied it by the glow of the banked embers of the campfire. He had begun to wonder if there was any chance at all that she held some thought of him. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from imagining them together. Of course, he’d have to tell her all about Loralei, but she’d understand. More difficult would be persuading her to come with him to California. He knew there was no chance she would leave as long as her mother was in the state she was in, and besides, who would take over the running of the ranch? Of course, he could stay. But that carried with it a whole other set of problems—Turnbull for one.
Trey rolled over on his side and rested his head on Chet’s saddlebag. “Whatcha doin’, Hunt?”
Chet quickly folded the drawing and stuffed it inside his shirt pocket. He’d started carrying it there since he’d taken it from the sketchbook. The spot was handier than the tally book, and there was less likelihood it might fall out as he recorded the count of steers and calves. The fact that it lay close to his heart had also occurred to him and been dismissed as sentimental claptrap. “Just thinkin’, Snap. How ’bout you? Trouble sleepin’?”
The boy sat up and stretched. “Yep. You think we’ll make it home tomorrow?”
“No tellin’ for sure. Rain seems to be passing, so I guess it’s likely.”
“I’ll be glad to s
ee Maria and Amanda again—and Ma.” His voice dropped to a whisper on this last name.
“Your ma will come out of it, Snap. Can’t say when, but knowing you and your sisters tells me she’s stronger than this thing that’s got her in its grip.”
“I sure hope so. Maria says one day I’ll be running the ranch, and I’d sure like to make Mama proud.”
“I expect your ma is already proud of you,” Chet said. “No sickness could change that.”
They were quiet for a moment. Chet stirred the fire. Trey reached for his sketchbook and a stick charred by the fire. “You think I’ll be up to runnin’ the ranch, Hunt?”
“Depends. You’re good at the work—kind of a natural. But the question you need to be thinking on is if that’s what you want to do with your life.”
“I can’t imagine livin’ nowhere else.”
Chet watched as the boy made quick strokes with the stick, glancing up now and then to look at their surroundings. “Ranchin’ is more than just someplace you live. You’ve had a taste of it now. It’s long days and nights away from home. It’s a love of the land and everything that comes with that—wind, heat, cold, dust, rain, snow. Most of all it’s finding a comfort with just yourself for company.”
“And your dog.” Trey grinned.
“Yep.” He realized then that Trey was sketching Cracker, who was stretched out by the fire. “You think you might find that a life you’d want?” he asked as he watched Trey work.
Trey shrugged. “Maybe. How about you? What do you want? I mean, I heard Maria say you’d probably move on one day. So where would you go?”
Chet shrugged. “Maybe California.” Maybe? Hadn’t that been the goal all along? And now he was changing that to “maybe”?
“You got people out there?”
“Nope.” The other men started to stir, their inner alarm clocks telling them it was time to get up and get back to work. “Best put that away, Snap,” Chet said, nodding toward the sketch pad.
Trey made one more stroke, placed a cover sheet over the drawing to keep it from smudging, and placed the sketchbook back in Chet’s saddlebag. “I like talkin’ to you, Hunt. You listen like what I’ve got to say matters.”
“A man’s thoughts shared with a friend are somethin’ to be respected, Snap.”
Trey grinned shyly. “I ain’t no man yet,” he said.
“Gettin’ there,” Chet told him. “A lot closer now than you were a few weeks ago.” He watched the boy walk away, his shoulders back with his head held high and his step the long stride of a cowboy.
* * *
Loralei had settled right in to the ranch house. In fact, she never bothered to dress or leave her room, pleading exhaustion and a “sick headache” that she insisted kept her from her motherly duties. Of necessity, Juanita had found Ezma, a wet nurse and widow from the small cluster of Mexican families that lived nearby, and Maria had hired the young woman, putting her up in the room off the main house where Roger usually slept. She could not see having Loralei and the child and Ezma in the house just down the hall from her mother, and once Trey returned, the room next to Loralei would be occupied as well. Besides, the idea that Chet might also spend time in the house with his little family was not something she intended to let happen. No, the anteroom would work just fine.
Roger would not be pleased to return and find his dwelling turned into a nursery, but what else was she to do? The baby had to be fed, and he was not yet old enough to be able to chew solid food, although Maria noticed that Juanita had begun to mash up soft foods like potatoes and applesauce and feed them to little Chester as he sat playing with a variety of wooden spoons and crawled around on the tiled kitchen floor.
To Maria’s shock, her mother had come down to the kitchen one afternoon, fully dressed and carrying an armful of baby clothes. “These were Trey’s,” she said, handing them to Ezma. “He’s outgrown them, so they may as well be put to use.” And then to everyone’s astonishment, she lifted little Chester high in the air. “Hello, little man,” she crooned as he giggled and flailed about above her. “Just wait until my Isaac meets you.”
Maria dreaded the men coming home. Usually she couldn’t wait until she saw the cloud of dust in the distance that signaled their arrival. The distant cloud was always followed by the sounds of whistles and shouts from the men and the rumble of hooves moving slowly across the terrain that the recent rains had turned a verdant green. In years past, her father would be the first to come into view and her mother would stand in the courtyard, smiling and waving a red scarf high in the air—their private signal that he was home at last.
But this year it would be Roger leading the way followed by Trey—not Jess—and somewhere in there would be Chet Hunter. In the days that had passed since Loralei’s arrival, Maria had used her anger and disappointment in Chet to drive her to work harder to secure the future of the ranch. She’d been a fool to imagine for one minute that there might be something between them. So she had avoided being in the house—or the presence of Chet’s child—any more than was absolutely necessary. She’d started taking her meals in the office and returned to her room only after she was sure Amanda would be asleep. Her sister’s constant rambling about Chet and how he might react once he returned and found Loralei and the baby waiting for him drove her to distraction. But the truth was that she also spent long hours wondering how he would react when he learned that Loralei had arrived with their son and that his past was no longer a secret. Well, it was hardly her concern. She reminded herself repeatedly that she had misjudged him from the first. Now she just hoped he would stay long enough for them to get the herd to market. After that, he and his little family could take off for wherever he had been headed when he’d first arrived.
She stood in the courtyard waiting, and at the same time wanting desperately to hide somewhere and postpone the moment of Chet’s reunion with Loralei. But when she saw her mother come running from the house, the red scarf trailing behind her, she realized that Chet was the least of her problems.
Constance ran to the gate and began waving the scarf. Her husband had always signaled her that he had seen it by leaving the others and galloping toward her. When he reached her, he would scoop her onto his horse, and they would ride together to the outbuilding that served as his office. He would carry her across the threshold and slam the door with his foot. Everyone understood they were not to be disturbed for any reason.
“Not unless the house is on fire or you are bleeding buckets,” her father had once told Maria when, as a child, she had dared to march to the door and bang on it with both fists. “This is private time, understood?”
Later she had been the one to explain to Amanda that their father needed private time with Mama, and Jess had laughed and said, “Yeah, likely as not they’re making another baby.” And when Trey had been born and Amanda’s position as the youngest had been given over to this intruder, Amanda had blanched every time the words “private time” came up.
But there would be no answer to the red scarf today—no private time—and Maria had no idea how she was going to explain her father’s absence.
“He’s coming,” Constance shouted as she stood on the bottom rung of the corral fence to make it easier for her husband to carry her onto the horse.
Sure enough, a single rider was galloping toward them. Maria shielded her eyes and recognized Roger. “Mama, it’s Roger,” she shouted as she started across the yard toward the fence.
As Roger came closer, Maria saw her mother let the red scarf flutter to the ground. “Where is my husband?” she demanded as soon as Roger had reined his horse to a stop, dismounted, and started across the yard toward Maria.
“Your husband is dead, ma’am,” he replied and kept walking.
“How could you be so cruel?” Maria and Roger were now abreast of each other, but she did not wait for an answer—she strode forward as her mother climbed
down from the fence and collapsed in tears on the ground.
Roger caught her arm and spun her around. “You’ve got bigger problems than a crazy old woman who—”
Maria slapped him with all her might. “You work for that crazy old woman,” she shouted. “Now let go of me.” She wrenched herself free of him and ran to her hysterical mother.
“Oh, Maria,” Constance sobbed. “It’s your father. There’s terrible news, and I don’t know how I will tell the others.”
“We’ll do it together, Mama. Now let me help you back to the house.” Another lie. As they staggered past Roger, Maria shot him a look of pure venom. “You’ll have to sleep in the bunkhouse for the time being,” she said. “The anteroom is in use.”
He glanced toward the house, where Juanita was handing the baby to Ezma as she ran to help Maria with Constance.
“You gave my room to—”
“Not another word, Roger, or you can leave. I have as much as I can deal with right now, and unless you have something related to the herd to report—”
“What I have to report is that I think your drifter might be tied up with the Tiptons. He knows too much about what they might be up to for my taste.”
Maria made sure Juanita had hold of her mother before she turned back to Roger. “You checked the water flow?”
“There’s nothing wrong with the water flow, Maria. There’s been a drought that has gone on weeks longer than normal, in case you’ve forgotten. The water runs slow because we need rain—a lot of rain—days and days of it.”
“But Chet said…”
“But Chet said,” Roger mimicked her. “Get those stars out of your eyes, Maria. The guy’s trouble. I’ve done some checking, and when I was in town a few weeks ago, I got a wire back from the ranch where he worked in Florida. He ran off, Maria. Something about him and the rancher’s daughter from the little that was said.”
So that explained Roger’s trips to town over the last few weeks. He knew.
“Who’s the kid?” he asked, jerking his head toward the courtyard, where Ezma was now playing with the baby.