He surprised her by humming as they rode and then by adding words. In a smooth rich baritone, he softly sang, “Nearer My God to Thee,” and Freddy listened in astonishment. Dal had a beautiful singing voice that would have done credit to a professional. He would have been a tremendous asset in the olios following a stage production. She couldn’t believe her ears.
At the end of the third verse, she strained to see his face through the darkness. “Are you a religious man?” There she went again, prying into personal areas.
“Not especially,” he said, lighting another cigar. She saw him tilt his head back and gaze at the stars, then sweep a glance across the dozing cattle. “But a man doesn’t get much closer to God than this.”
Freddy understood. Riding night watch made a person ponder the firmament and the sweet earth, brought strange and weighty thoughts into a person’s mind.
“The beeves like that song. Here’s another one they like.”
He sang a version of “Dan Tucker” containing lyrics that bordered on risque and caused Freddy to clap a hand over her mouth to smother gales of laughter. On the far side of the herd, she heard Drinkwater take up the refrain and wished she could hear the words to his version, too. As Dal had promised, the singing did seem to soothe the steers. A few tails twitched and a few steers made the blowing sound that always startled her, but there was no sign of trouble tonight.
When Dal’s voice died away, she felt a twinge of disappointment. That aggravated her so much she blurted out a question which had been bothering her. “Are you brushing against my leg on purpose?” Every time his leg touched hers, it was like a tingle shot out of his chaps and ran up and down her leg. “Stop doing it.”
Without a word, he rode ahead. Instantly Freddy felt the darkness close around her as she hadn’t before. Now she had a taste of the solitude she would face when he stopped sharing her night shift, and she realized it was going to be difficult riding in circles for two hours alone in the darkness. She had never much cared for the company of her own thoughts.
Urging her horse forward, she tried to catch up, but Dal paced her, staying in front until they headed in at the end of the shift. Angry and disappointed and trying not to show it, she sat on her horse in front of the chuck wagon, half-hoping he would lift her down from her saddle again. But he walked toward the coffeepot hanging over the fire. She sighed and followed.
“This is one of those times when you’re really irritating me,” she said in a voice soft enough not to wake anyone. Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she sat on the ground near him and glared at the low flames beneath the pot.
“Yeah, well you’re irritating me, too. Riding close enough to talk means legs are going to brush occasionally. That’s all it means.”
“Good, I’m glad you understand that.” She hoped he didn’t think the light reflecting on her cheeks was a blush. “Why did you quote that line about love being a sickness?”
“No reason,” he said shortly. “It just came to mind.”
“Well, the fellow who said it was right.” She didn’t try to repeat the quote because memorizing lines wasn’t her strong suit, a failing that had driven Maestro Delacroix to despair. But she always got the gist of her lines. “I don’t want to fall into that kind of sickness again.”
“Sounds like you’re a woman of experience,” he said in a light voice. She couldn’t tell if he was teasing her.
“Experienced enough,” she answered, tossing her head. She’d enjoyed dozens of flirtations, and once she had mistakenly believed she might be in love. The last experience was too humiliating to dwell on, but she never thought of it without thanking God that she hadn’t succumbed to a man just because he looked good wearing stage tights. “I suppose you’re experienced, too.”
“Experienced enough,” he said, tossing her response back and giving her one of those slow cool smiles that made her thighs tighten and her heart pound.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Freddy said abruptly. She had no idea why she was sitting with him in the middle of the night when she could be in her bedroll grabbing some sleep. Straightening her shoulders, she walked away from him, feeling his gaze on her back.
“Good night,” he called softly, his voice floating toward her. She didn’t answer.
After crawling into her blankets, she folded her arms behind her head and gazed up at a sky milky with stars. Dal had been showing off. Quoting lines about love, singing. Showing her that he was more than just a cowboy and a former drunk.
She wished she could do something to show him that she was more than just an actress with a ruined reputation who wasn’t very good at anything.
When she flounced over on her side, her nose touched a piece of cloth. Sitting up, she lifted the square of material close to see what it was and discovered a new bandanna. Puzzled, she studied the long forms sleeping around her. Who had left this for her?
When she remembered that Luther and Jack had driven into San Antonio today, she turned her face toward their campsite. Luther had agreed that gifts were acceptable and could have explained that fact to Jack, if asked. A glow and the dim outline of a coffeepot above it told her where their fire was, but she saw no movement in the observers’ camp.
Pulling the bandanna through her fingers, she considered what to do. She would have to thank Jack for the small gift or reject it. And that, she realized, was why he had given it to her.
“Ward, please. I can’t continue to miss the noon dinner.” Facing the main camps, Les noticed that some of the drovers had already placed their empty plates in the wreck pan and were lighting cigars. There was no water here, and the herd was restless. They’d move out soon.
Ward’s hand flashed forward and gripped her lower jaw. Anyone watching would think he merely touched her face as a lover might do. They wouldn’t know he squeezed so hard that she couldn’t speak. “What do you and Frisco talk about on night watch? Answer me!”
She clasped his wrist and signaled that he had to release her or she couldn’t talk. “We sing to the cattle… we talk about the day’s events… he tells me things I need to know.” When she saw Ward’s eyes narrow, she added hastily, “like how to ford rivers, that kind of thing!” She was so hungry and tired. “Tonight’s the last night Dal will ride with me. Tomorrow I’m on my own.” And she dreaded the responsibility. “Ward, I have to go. Please.” Dal was frowning at them.
“I don’t understand you, Les. You act like it’s unreasonable for a man to be concerned about his fiancée spending several hours in the middle of the night with another man. You don’t appear to welcome my suggestions as to how you can improve your efficiency. You make it seem like you’d rather be with those people than with me.”
“Ward, the observers’ wagons travel faster than the herd,” she said, trying to hold her voice to a reasonable tone. “You arrive before we do, and you’ve already had your dinner when Freddy and I ride in. We don’t have much time to eat because we’re the last to get here.”
“Your stomach is more important than I am?”
“I’m not saying that,” she said, beginning to despair. “But I do need to eat. When I miss dinner, I don’t do as well out there. I’m practically dizzy by the time we bring the steers onto the bedding ground. Surely, you can understand—”
“Oh, I understand all right,” he said in a low snarl. “I understand that I sold my store to come on a goddamned cattle drive to support a selfish woman who only thinks of herself. I understand that I’m putting myself through hell for nothing.” He waved a hand toward his wagon. “I was going to give you a tin of canned tomatoes as a treat, Les, a little gift. What a fool I am. Why did I ever think someone named Roark would care about a mere shopkeeper?”
The mention of the tomatoes made her mouth water, and she swallowed, wishing she had them now because she wouldn’t get dinner. Alex would have everything packed away before she got Ward calmed down and reassured.
It went exactly as she predicted. She was still trying to sooth
e him when Freddy shouted her name. When she glanced toward camp, the fire was out, the coffeepot packed away, the drovers already gone. The only people still in camp were Alex, holding the reins to her mules; Freddy, waiting with Les’s horse; and Dal, watching her with a thunderous expression.
“I have to go,” she said, feeling a rush of panic. She murmured, “sorry,” as she passed Dal, then swung up on her horse without meeting Freddy’s glare.
“Les?” Alex shouted at her. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come here a minute.”
Cowed by Dal’s disapproval, she wanted to ride out immediately. But a lifetime of habit made her respond to Alex’s imperious command. Trotting up beside the seat of the chuck wagon, she gazed at Alex with pleading eyes. “Please, no lectures.”
Alex’s cool gaze focused on her jaw. “If you let him browbeat you now, he always will.” She tossed Les a small bundle, then braced her leg against the seat fender and lifted the reins.
“No one gets special consideration on this drive,” Dal said sharply, speaking to Alex. “If Les doesn’t eat when everyone else does, she doesn’t eat. Don’t do this again.” He nodded at the bundle Les was hastily tucking inside her vest.
Alex froze him with a withering glance. Les would have given the earth to be able to look as haughty and cold as Alex could when she wanted to.
“That is my sister,” Alex snapped. “If I choose the extra work of preparing a special packet to save her from starvation”—she flicked a look of disgust at Les—“that is my affair and not yours.” She slapped the reins across the back of the mules and the chuck wagon shot forward toward the open range.
Tears of surprise, gratitude, and admiration glistened in Les’s eyes. She wished she could stand up to people the way her sisters did. Her gaze followed the chuck wagon streaking across the prairie. She couldn’t remember ever doing anything to help Alex.
Knots rose along Dal’s jawline. “If you continue missing meals, we’ll have to talk about it. That’s not acceptable, so work it out.” He pulled his horse around and cantered toward the herd.
“Bravo,” Freddy said softly. She, too, was watching the chuck wagon race away from them. “Sometimes I admire the same qualities in Alex that also make me want to throttle her.” She nodded at Les’s vest. “The rest of us had the last of the son of bitch stew.” A light shudder twitched her shoulders. “I hope she sent something better for you. Not that you deserve it.”
They rode out together, trotting into the sun and dust toward the same stubborn beeves who always lagged behind the herd. “You don’t understand,” Les called. “Ward drives his own wagon, and he has nothing in common with Luther and that gambler. He needs company.”
“Fine. Give him company after you eat,” Freddy said, swinging in behind the herd.
“That would only be a few short minutes.” Once she saw that the situation with the laggards was normal, she eased the packet out of her vest and untied the cloth. Alex had made her a thick cheese sandwich, fragrant with butter. And she’d been given a hard boiled egg, an item so precious that she could hardly believe her good fortune.
Freddy frowned at the egg. “Son of a gun. Maybe I’ll miss a couple of meals, too.”
“Ward can’t seem to understand that I need time to eat.” But she had to fix this problem or Dal would. Somehow, she had to make Ward see reason.
Freddy rode beside her, their legs brushing. “In the theater we handled this kind of thing by facing the person who was being obstinate and saying, ‘Ward, piss on you’.”
Les’s head snapped up. She could have chastised Freddy for being vulgar. She could have pointed out that she’d never find the courage to say something like that. Instead, she imagined Ward’s expression if she did, and burst into startled, delighted laughter.
Freddy smiled. “Hurry up and eat, then let’s chase those stupid beeves back to the herd. I’m in a mood to show those old mossbacks who’s in charge back here.”
That night they came in for supper only fifteen minutes behind the other drovers, earning themselves a nod from Dal.
Les could feel Ward watching from the observers’ camp, but she didn’t look in that direction. Falling into step behind Freddy, she washed her face, then filed past Alex to receive her supper. After Alex forked a slab of meat onto her plate, Les looked up. “Thank you.”
“Blood is thicker than water,” Alex said with a shrug. Then she smiled and touched Les’s wrist. “Don’t rush off. For dessert we have sizzling hot, melted tallow poured into a plate of black sorghum molasses. Grady’s recipe, naturally. He claims the boys love this.”
“Tallow?” Les’s mouth dropped open. “Animal lard and molasses?” She and Alex looked at each other, then both burst into helpless laughter.
“I have it on good authority that you have to eat the stuff fast,” Alex said with a slight shudder. “Or the tallow congeals and sticks to the roof of your mouth.”
Freddy returned in time to hear. “I hope you’re writing down all these recipes, Alex, so you can dazzle your fancy friends when you return to Boston.” She laughed. “Course it might be kind of hard to find a longhorn’s stomach tube in Boston.”
“And she couldn’t call it son of bitch stew,” Les said. “She’d have to call it something more highbrow, like nongentleman’s stew.” That set them off, and they laughed until they were weak, until they became aware of the silence behind them.
When Les turned, she discovered the drovers were watching. At first she didn’t understand. And then she did. This was the first time the cowboys had heard the Roark sisters laugh.
Still smiling, she studied her disheveled, sunburned sisters. For all Freddy’s vulgarity and posturing and competitiveness, there were moments when Les truly enjoyed her company. And beneath Alex’s stiff pride and standoffishness was a caring woman, more likable than Les had ever imagined.
Laughing with her sisters, glad to be with them, was the nicest, warmest moment she had experienced in recent years.
She had to do it. Freddy had delayed the chore for two days. After supper, rubbing her tongue over the roof of her mouth to scrape off congealed tallow, she slowly walked through the early darkness to the observers’ camp. Ward was off somewhere with Les, but Luther and Jack were sitting beside their fire, drinking coffee.
Jack stood. “Evening, Fancy honey. I was wondering when you’d come calling.”
Heart sinking, Freddy slipped a look at Luther. His puzzled expression told her that he hadn’t missed Jack’s familiarity. Now everyone would know that she and Jack knew each other and there had been something between them. Squaring her shoulders, she looked him in the eyes. “Don’t call me honey,” she said, hoping she sounded as cold as Alex. “And don’t buy me any more presents.” She pushed the bandanna into his hand.
“Now, Fancy honey, don’t be like that. We talked about that, remember? And we decided it wouldn’t do any harm to be friendly during this drive. Sort of pick things up where we left off.”
She stared at him with disgust. They had been meticulously discreet during the time he was calling on her. She hadn’t wanted Pa to get a whiff that she was seeing a gambling man, and she didn’t want to give the town gossips something new to hang her with. Jack had said he understood. What she hadn’t mentioned was that she had never come to terms with seeing his kind of man. Now he’d spilled the beans in front of Luther.
It got worse. Dal walked out of the darkness between the wagons with Ward and Les behind him. They all heard what Jack said next.
He stepped toward her, waving the bandanna. “I bought this for you in San Antonio. A little token of my affection, Fancy honey. For old times’ sake.”
She was so angry that she was shaking. “I told you to go to hell once, Jack Caldwell, and I’m telling you again.”
He laughed. “You’re a feisty little thing, aren’t you? I’ve always liked that about you.” He gave her one of those contrived melting looks that made her want to slap him. “There’s a nice moon tonight. How ab
out a little walk out there under the stars? Five will get you ten that I’ve got some things to say that you want to hear.”
“You lose,” she snapped. “You have nothing to say that I want to hear, not now, not ever.” Turning on her heels, her face flaming, she marched back to the fire where the drovers were sitting, drinking coffee, swapping tall tales.
She hadn’t made it halfway when Dal moved up beside her, shoving his hands into his back pockets. “Well, Fancy honey, seems that you neglected to mention that you and Lola share an interest in the same man. You want to tell me again how you don’t trust me because I used to know your stepmother?”
“My association with Jack Caldwell was over before I ever met you!”
“An association? Is that what they call it now?” His blue eyes narrowed into slits. “I believe I explained the same was true for me and Lola.”
A flush climbed her face. “You can go to hell, too, right along with Caldwell!”
“I expect I will. That’s a given.” He stared down into her eyes. “Fancy honey.”
On his lips, her stage name sounded cheap and foolish, more like a name for a soiled dove. Heat throbbing in her face, she pushed past him to fetch her bedroll, then carried it well away from the fire and climbed inside.
She wouldn’t have imagined that it would be this upsetting to have Dal learn that she and Jack had been friendly. And she knew that associating with Jack would only confirm the popular perception that actresses were of low moral character. Even Ward Hamm was more respectable than Jack Caldwell. Decent women didn’t invite gambling men into their parlors.
Rolling onto her stomach, Freddy buried her hot face in the crook of an arm. Her impulse was to seek out Dal and explain that she had been lonely, and Jack had been the first to come calling as if she were the Freddy Roark she had been before she ran off with the acting company. From the first minute, she’d known he was no good, but she’d given in to loneliness.
She was still castigating herself when two thousand steers simultaneously jumped to their feet and the ground started to shake. This time Dal would expect her to help control the wild run.
The Best Man Page 16