I am pleased to hear that "Harland Makes a Friend" is going so well. "Abigail Goose Goes to Town" will be printing next week, and I will forward copies to you as soon as they are ready. Your young readers have been asking in our bookstores for quite some time when "the next Auntie Ardith book" will be available. I need not tell you, that bodes well for this book's success.
Let me say in closing that I find your recent letters only tantalizing sips of a friendship I am afraid I had taken too much for granted. I miss your visits to the offices, and the lunches we shared. That they encompassed not just discussions of business, but of politics and philosophy and theatre made them all the more enjoyable. I will miss seeing your face light with pleasure when you hold the first copies of "Abigail" in your hands, and I look forward to the day when circumstances in Wyoming allow you to return to us.
Until that day I am your very humble servant,
Gavin
* * *
Sugar Creek Ranch
July 3rd, 1882
My Dear Gavin,
I received with wondrous delight the news that "Abigail Goose Goes to Town" is so near publication. That it has a ready readership is very exciting indeed. The idea of doing a series of stories set here in the West interests me, but at present I am so caught up in painting anything and everything I see that I am reluctant to narrow my focus to tales appropriate for my young readers. Still, I promise I will think on it.
I am delighted that you and your family have enjoyed the descriptions and illustrations in my letters. As you can see, I have not painted in the margins of the pages of this missive, but am enclosing several of the full-page sketches I have been doing lately. The first is one of our Negro horse-wrangler, Frank Barnes. Mr. Barnes is very skilled and learned his trade as a slave on a plantation in Virginia before the War. The second picture is painted looking west from the house. I send it on to you so you will see that I am indeed spending my summer at the very foot of the Big Horn Mountains. The third is of Baird's prize bull. After many delays, he arrived at the end of last week to improve the quality of our breeding stock. I would not normally paint such an animal, but there was something so disdainful and dignified in his bearing that he reminded me of the old gentleman you and I so often saw taking a turn around town. Khyber has decided to call the bull "Randy," an appellation that never fails to send the cowhands into gales of laughter.
After resolving to broaden the range of subjects I have been painting, I also decided to try my hand with oil colors. Baird secured a set for me in Cheyenne, and I have begun to experiment. Working in oil is a good deal more difficult than painting with watercolor and gouache. I worry that I have not the skill to become proficient, but I am heartily convinced that only oils can provide the scope this landscape requires. Since I hope to work larger than I have been thus far, I was wondering if you could arrange to have a roll of stout canvas sent to me here, since my stay has been extended indefinitely. Please deduct the price of it and of the other supplies you have already sent from my upcoming royalties.
Let me say in response to your letter, dear Gavin, that I miss your company more than I can say. I hold our friendship in high esteem and greet the arrival of one of your letters with tremendous enthusiasm. It would be my pleasure to have dinner with you and your family when I return to Boston, but I am looking forward to simply chatting with you even more.
As I write this I realize that tomorrow is Independence Day, and I am reminded of the lovely time Uncle Franklin and I had last year attending the celebration with you on Boston Commons. Since "red coats" are in possession of the ranch, I doubt that much will be done to mark this nation's birth. Still, I resolve to sit out on the porch tomorrow night, pretend the stars are fireworks, and that you are there beside me enjoying them.
Your very dear friend,
Ardith
Chapter 9
"So there you are!"
Baird tossed the forkful of hay he'd been turning and looked down from the loft to the floor below. Ardith was standing in the very middle of the barn with her chin jutting out and her arms braided across her chest.
"I've been right here most of the morning," he answered, evenly. "We've got to get this hay stored away before we can drive the cattle up to summer pasture."
"That's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about!"
Baird braced the handle of the pitchfork against his chest and mopped the sweat from his forehead with his arm. "Storing hay?"
"Going up to summer pasture!" He could hear the frustration in her voice, and knew it went deeper than his deliberately misunderstanding her. "Myra says when you take the herd into the mountains, you intend to stay."
Baird nodded. "I told you we were putting an extra crew in the high country, and someone needs to be there to supervise them."
"Can't Buck do that instead of you?"
Baird fought a swell of irritation. "What right did Ardith have to second-guess his decisions about the ranch? Is there a reason why he should?"
"I was thinking about the children," Ardith said. "Between breaking the horses and being away at the roundup, you haven't done much about holding up your part of our bargain."
It chaffed Baird that she would bring up their bargain now, when she'd voluntarily stayed on after the terms ran out. He was glad she'd stayed. Having Ardith here made it so much easier for him to keep his mind on his work.
"I'm the one going to the summer camp," he explained, "because Buck can keep the whole ranch functioning. All I'm good for is chasing cattle."
He hoped she'd let it go at that. But Ardith, being Ardith, had more to say.
"What exactly will happen to the children while you're at the camp?"
Because he'd grown so used to having her here, he hadn't given much thought to the children. "I thought they'd stay here at the house."
"And who did you expect to look after them?" She sounded reasonable enough, but he could see the glitter in her eyes.
"Since you've stayed on here, I thought you would."
One dark eyebrow snaked upward. "I've stayed on because you've had so little time with them. I stayed because I thought they needed me. Now I find you're leaving them again and going up to the mountains. What would you do about the children if I said I was going home to Massachusetts?"
"You're not, are you?" Damn Ardith for making this more difficult than it needed to be.
"Not right now," she conceded. "But I will leave eventually, and when I do, those children are going to have to depend on you for guidance and affection. I don't think you've done nearly enough to prepare yourself to accept that responsibility."
Baird scowled down at her. He figured he'd taken on about all the responsibility he could handle when he'd decided to try to make a go of the ranch. He'd have time to spend with the children once he sold the Sugar Creek stock in Cheyenne.
Baird stabbed his pitchfork into a mound of hay and stepped to the edge of the loft. "You know how important summer grazing is. It's what fattens the cows for market. Since our margin is so small, we can't afford to lose so much as one of them. We have to make sure none of them stray. We have to keep them from getting sick, or hurt, or falling prey to God knows what other disasters! I can either go to your father with hat in hand looking for money to take care of the children, or drive enough steers to market to keep the Sugar Creek afloat."
"I understand about the cattle," she acknowledged, her jaw still set at an implacable angle. "But isn't the children's welfare infinitely more important? You're their father, Baird. You can't just hie off into the mountains for weeks at a time. With Ariel gone, they need you here with them. They need permanence, stability."
"Goddamnit, Ardith!" Baird shouted at her. "I can't be their stability right now. You be their stability!"
In the space of a heartbeat she went from defensive and angry to utterly still. His nerves sang with sudden tension. There was some inexplicable peril in that stillness.
"Is that really what you want?" she asked him.
<
br /> He stared at her, instinctively wary. "What do you mean?"
She straightened one vertebra at a time. Her head came up. The fierceness in her face might well have harkened back to Celtic queens or pagan goddesses. Yet when she spoke her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Do you want me to take the children back to Concord?"
"No!" His answer came without an instant's consideration. As the word melted into the close, fecund silence of the barn, Baird scrambled to make sense of both her offer and his own impulsive refusal. What made her willing to take his children home with her now? Why hadn't she suggested it weeks ago? What could he possibly hope to gain by keeping China and the boys in Wyoming?
"No," he reiterated, utterly intractable.
He swung down out of the loft, landing lightly in front of her. "What I want is for you to stay. What I need is for you to see to the children's welfare while I'm up in the mountains."
She stared at him, and he wished he knew what was going on behind her eyes.
"I'll pay you if you like."
She recoiled from him. "Pay me?" she spat. "Pay me as if I were a governess? To tend my own sister's children?"
He wasn't sure why she was so incensed. "Please, Ardith, just look after them a little while longer—just until we get the herd to market, just until I know where I stand. Once I've sold the cattle, I'll be taking the children back to London with me, and you need never set eyes on us again."
All at once Ardith's face went stark, her eyes all haunted and hollow. She suddenly seemed brittle enough to shatter.
"To London?" she breathed. "I—I didn't think about you taking them back to London."
Abruptly she dipped her head and turned away.
With her hair knotted tight atop her head, that gesture bared the soft, delicate hollow at the back of her neck. Something about revealing it made her seem unexpectedly delicate, uncharacteristically vulnerable. Somehow it tempted Baird to curl his hands around her shoulders and pull her close. Though for the life of him he couldn't think why he should want to do that.
"Of course I'll be taking the children back to London," he told her. "Taking them home. Even remittance men aren't expected to brave the winters out here. And I certainly wouldn't expect that of the children."
What he was supposed to do was return to England in triumph, give glowing reports on the profitability of the ranch, and disperse the huge dividends the stockholders had come to expect. The very thought of facing his uncle and his investors with the news that those dividends weren't all they'd hoped turned Baird cold inside.
He wouldn't face that censure alone, either. He'd have the children to contend with, to consider, to protect.
Nor was he particularly anticipating the swarming streets, the stodgy halls of the Royal Geographical Society, or the press of bodies around the tables at White's. He wasn't looking forward to any of the things he usually missed when he was away from London.
Something about that realization made him itchy inside his own skin. Instead of dwelling on it, he turned to the problem at hand—getting Ardith to watch the children for a little while longer.
He stepped around her, wanting to plead his case head-on. He needed to be able to read the expression in her eyes to win his way with her. "Please, Ardith," he cajoled and reached for her hand. "Can't you help me with the children?"
Ardith backed away, resistance tightening the line of that already prim mouth. Baird couldn't imagine how those taut, pursed lips could once have reminded him of raspberries.
He jammed his hands into his pockets and pushed doggedly ahead. "You know why I have to stay at the summer camp. You know that the children will need supervision while I am gone. I was wrong not to ask you about this weeks ago, but I need your help."
He searched her face for some hint that she was softening, and found that she was staring up at him no less intently. It was as if she were trying to discern what kind of man he was, if he had it in him to be a father to his children.
And if she'd asked him outright, Baird wasn't sure what he'd tell her.
Then her eyes shuttered, excluding him in a way that made him feel as if once again he'd fallen short of her expectations.
"Very well then," she said briskly. "I'll see to the children while you're away."
The suddenness of her acquiescence startled him. He hadn't seen capitulation in her face, or in the way she'd stood confronting him. He didn't understand what he'd said or done to convince her, and he needed to know why she'd so abruptly agreed to stay.
Before he could press her, Lem Spivey and several of the other cowboys arrived with the hay wagon.
Ardith sprang away from him like a housemaid caught filching from her mistress's dressing table. Distress flickered across her face, and he realized she was no more pleased by the intrusion than he was.
At least he had the presence of mind to thank her. "I appreciate you agreeing to stay on with us. I'll rest easier knowing you'll be with the children while I'm in the high country."
"You're welcome," Ardith acknowledged, and without another word, she wheeled in the direction of the house.
He watched her go, misgivings pinching his belly. Something in the twitch of her skirts as she crossed the yard made him think there was something wrong, something he should have realized. Maybe if he went after her...
"Boss? Mr. Northcross, sir?"
With a scowl, Baird shifted his attention from Ardith to where Lem Spivey was perched on the narrow seat of the hay wagon.
"You want to step aside, Mr. Northcross," Lem suggested, "so I can pull this buggy into the barn?"
Baird stepped back. Lem eased the wagon past him, and the men on the hay rick began forking hay up into the loft.
Before he joined them, Baird glanced toward where Ardith was disappearing into the house. He couldn't shake the feeling there was more they needed to settle between them, but if he meant to drive the cattle to the high country any time soon, they had to get the hay stowed away.
He looked one last time at the back door, then climbed the ladder to the loft and grabbed his pitchfork.
* * *
The summer camp lay in a wide, wildflower-studded meadow, embraced by humpbacked mountains and crowned by a blazing sunset sky. Ardith fought to catch her breath at the stark, wild beauty of the place. Since they'd left the ranch house this afternoon, they'd trailed Buck Johnson and the shimmying supply wagon through the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. They'd snaked up steep-sided canyons, across meandering streams, and past vistas that Ardith saw as subjects for future paintings.
She wanted to capture the bristle of the pines and the way the mountains mounded together at the rim of the horizon. To show how the trappings of human habitation were dwarfed by this primitive grandeur.
"Is this where Papa went?" Khy asked her, twisting around in Ardith's saddle. Though the boy's new pony was tied to the back of the wagon, both she and Buck had agreed there would be less chance of mishap if Khy made the trip with her.
Ardith tightened her arm across his chest as they approached the chuck wagon. "Won't your father be surprised that we've come visiting?"
Baird would indeed—especially when he discovered they meant to stay. Ardith was going to force him to spend time with these children if she had to chase him to the ends of the earth. Not only were Khyber and China dispirited after Baird left, but even Durban had become mopey and silent.
Buck brought the wagon to a stop, and Ardith pulled Primrose up behind him.
"What're y'all doing here?" Jubal Devereau asked, dusting the flour from his hands as he came toward them. "I didn't 'spect to see anyone from the ranch for a good while yet. We only been up here two weeks."
Buck jumped down from the wagon seat. "Myra was afraid you hadn't brought enough coffee. And what kind of reputation would the Sugar Creek get if our cook ran out?"
"True 'nough," Jubal agreed. "I see you brung his lordship's family, too."
Ardith swung out of her saddle and helpe
d Khy to the ground. "The children miss their father."
"Children do." Jubal nodded sagely. "An' it looks like Marse Baird's coming this way now."
Ardith's stomach dipped precipitously, and inside her riding gloves her hands went clammy. Explaining this visit to Baird wasn't going to be the easiest thing she'd ever done, but she was fortified by the knowledge that these children needed their father. She thought he might just need them, too, but he was too damned stubborn to admit it.
Baird did give a fine impression of a man who was glad to see his family. Once he'd dismounted, he hugged China off her feet and gathered Khy up in his opposite arm. It was only when he turned to Ardith that his face went stormy.
"Just what brought you all this way?" he demanded, glaring at her over his giggling children's heads.
Durban stepped up to defend her. "We've come to stay," he announced, his tone cool and belligerent, as if he were daring Baird to send them back to the ranch.
Baird lifted one eyebrow in acknowledgement of his son's challenge. "Have you really?"
"Aunt Ardith borrowed a tent and some cots from the commander at Fort McKinney," China confirmed.
"How resourceful of you, Ardith," Baird observed.
"Why, thank you," she answered, ignoring his sarcasm.
"We thought you might be lonely up here all by yourself," Khy put in.
"I do appreciate your concern," he assured his son, "but I've had Jubal and the other hands to keep me company. As glad as I am to see you, I think your Aunt Ardith and I have a few things to settle before you take up residence."
With a nod of his head, Baird indicated that they would discuss them on the far side of the cook wagon. Ardith led the way and tried to tell herself that it was the hours in the saddle that were making her knees so wobbly.
Once they were around the corner of the wagon, Baird leaned in close so their voices wouldn't carry. "Just what in bloody hell do you mean dragging my children all the way up this mountain?" he hissed at her. "What made you think you could just stroll into camp and announce you mean to stay?"
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