by Janet Dailey
“I guess that explains why I lost more beef last winter than usual,” Benteen murmured, and studied the liquor left in his glass, knowing the situation was likely to get worse before it got better.
“I thought you were new to this area.” Loman Janes studied the fat man with close interest.
“I traveled some before my wagon broke down here. You see; you learn.” The man lifted his pudgy hands in a weighing gesture and shrugged. “And it so happened that I ran into the leader of the bunch. I knew him a few years back when he was hunting buffalo in Kansas. He was a mean sort then. Now he’s just plain bad. They call him Big Ed.”
“Big Ed,” Bull Giles repeated. “Big Ed Sallie? He’s got a scar running clear across his right cheek?” He ran a finger diagonally across his own cheek from eye to chin.
“That’s him.” Fat Frank nodded.
“You know him?” Loman Janes glanced at Bull as the stoutly muscled man straightened from his slouched position.
“I hunted buffalo with him one season a few years back. I saw him get into a knife fight with another hunter—slashed him to ribbons.” Bull took a sip of whiskey and seemed to hold it in his mouth before swallowing it.
“Indians are enough trouble when they’re sober,” Loman Janes remarked. “Drunk, it’s worse.” His glance raised to Benteen. “You got a lot more range to cover this winter than I do.”
“Yeah.” Benteen listened for something else in the comment, but didn’t hear it. If the Indians started raiding the stock, this was one time size would be a hindrance. Loman Janes wouldn’t have that problem with his smaller herd ranging over less ground. “I figured you’d be down in Texas, Bull, throwing together another Ten Bar herd to bring up the trail.”
“I decided to stay the winter,” Bull replied. “I had my fill of that alkali dust for a while.”
Bull Giles never got along with anybody for very long. Benteen couldn’t imagine him taking orders from Loman Janes all winter.
“You planning on working for Janes?” He came right out and asked.
Loman Janes responded. “I heard the wolves were bad, so I told Bull he could spend the winter cuttin’ down their number, since he was going to be here. We’re pickin’ him up some supplies and ammunition.”
All the Ten Bar cattle were getting their first taste of a northern winter, so it was a sensible plan to cut down on the number of predators stalking the cattle’s range. Benteen had issued ammunition to his men with orders to shoot any wolf they saw, but those gray wolves could be as elusive as ghosts. Hiring a wolver wasn’t a bad idea, but it could be an expensive one, since they got paid three times or more what a regular cowhand made.
That thought prompted Benteen to inquire, “Does Boston know about this?”
“I put it in the last report.” Janes stiffened at the implication he didn’t have the authority to do it without Judd Boston’s okay.
Benteen finished his whiskey. “In your next report, give him my regards.”
“Why don’t you wait until spring, then you can deliver them in person?” Loman Janes suggested with a cool smile.
Covering his surprise, Benteen eyed the Ten Bar foreman. “Boston is coming here? Why?”
“He’s going to open a bank,” Janes informed him. “With all these Texans coming up here, he thought they’d rather do business at a bank owned by a fellow Texan than with these Yankees.”
“As I recall, Boston was a Yankee himself when he came to Texas,” Benteen remarked cynically. “Now he’s claimin’ to be a Texan, huh?”
“He’s lived there longer than most,” Janes defended the claim.
“I guess he has.” Benteen stepped away from the bar and nodded to Fat Frank. “Thanks for the whiskey.”
“Come back anytime and bring your wife,” the owner invited.
Out of the corner of his eye, Benteen saw Bull Giles reach for the whiskey bottle that sat on the small table. The timing of it came right on the heels of the reference to Lorna. The big man still coveted his wife, which made Benteen wonder why Giles hadn’t been around the ranch pestering her. But whatever was keeping the man away, Benteen wanted it to stay that way.
As he rode from the store, the cantering of his horse’s hooves seemed to drum out the name Judd Boston. A Texas bank in Montana. It was a brilliant move. The man would end up making money on every outfit up here, not just his own. Benteen had to give the man credit. He was a smart and shrewd businessman. like him or not.
21
The winter was a mild one. The warm, dry chinook wind that came from the eastern slopes of the Rockies was blowing across the plains, melting the snow and exposing the cured grasses to the grazing cattle.
It was dark when Benteen rode into the ranch after taking supplies to Shorty out at one of the line camps. He unsaddled his horse and the packhorse, turning both of them into the corral. As he walked to the cabin, he studied the curling ribbon of smoke bending over to be whisked into the night by the chinook.
When he entered the cabin, Lorna was balancing a fussing little Arthur on her hip while stirring a pot on the stove. Webb was hanging on her skirt and sobbing. Benteen noted the harassed and impatient look on her face and smiled as he turned away to remove his coat.
“What’s the problem, Webb?” He crossed the room, rolling up his shirt sleeves to wash his hands.
But his older son wailed louder and tried to climb up Lorna’s skirt. “He wants me to hold him.” Lorna irritably tried to push the little boy away from the hot stove.
It seemed dark in the cabin. Benteen glanced around and realized only one lamp was lit. “How come you haven’t lighted the other lamp?” He poured water in the basin and reached for the chunk of lye soap.
“The kerosene’s getting low. I’m trying to make it last.”
“I’d like to see what I’m eating. Light it anyway and I’ll ride over to Fat Frank’s tomorrow or the next day and pick up some more.”
“Webb, you’re going to get burned if you don’t keep away from this stove. Who is Fat Frank?” Both sentences came all in one breath, without a break in between.
“It’s that little general store east of here.” Benteen wiped his hands and glanced over to see his whimpering son still hovering close to the hot stove. “Can’t you make your son do what he’s told?”
“And hold little Arthur and cook your supper all at the same time, I suppose,” Lorna flared, and dropped the spoon in the pot, leaving it unattended. “I’ll just let supper scorch.” She plunked a fussing Arthur in his cradle, and he immediately let out an ear-piercing wail. She smacked Webb on his bottom and sat him on a chair, where he immediately began crying in earnest. Pausing, she lit the second lamp and set it on the table with an abruptness that made the glass chimney rattle. There were angry words in the look she sent Benteen as she swept past him to the stove.
“Is something wrong?” He tried hard not to smile at her display of temper.
“You never mentioned anything about a general store east of us, certainly not a man named Fat Frank.”
“Didn’t I?” He quirked an eyebrow in mild surprise, then shrugged and laid aside the towel he’d dried his hands on. “It must have slipped my mind. The place went up just this last fall.”
“A lot of things have been slipping your mind lately.” Lorna began dishing food onto the plates and setting them on the table. Webb was still crying. She shoved a spoon in his hand and pushed him closer to the table. “Be quiet and eat.”
Sitting down, Benteen waited until she had returned to the table with the wailing one-year-old in her arms and sat down with him. “What things have been slipping my mind?” he asked.
“Everything.” It was an all encompassing answer as she forced a spoonful of food into Arthur’s mouth. “I don’t know anything that goes on anymore. You have men working for you that I’ve never even met. You don’t tell me anything that’s going on.”
“I didn’t realize I was supposed to introduce you to every new hand I hired.” He frowned. “Considering that
the three men are vaqueros who came up with the herd last summer, it’s a little late to be getting upset over an oversight. At the time, you were busy taking care of little Arthur and Webb. It hardly seemed important.”
“What about that new Hereford bull you bought last September? Barnie was by today and said you’re keeping it at Mary and Ely’s.” Lorna fought to hold the squirming child on her lap as Arthur tried to wiggle free. Her glance swept Benteen with an impatient look. “Can’t you at least take your hat off at the table?”
“Sorry.” He removed his hat and hooked it on a chair back.
“I thought you were going to turn that bull out with the cows,” Lorna returned to the subject.
“That bull’s too valuable to have one of those range-wild Longhorns kill him in a fight.” Benteen explained his reasons for isolating the purebred. “Ely’s going to select a small herd of Western stock to breed to the bull this spring. That way he won’t have to compete to have his own private harem.”
“Webb, use your spoon,” Lorna warned when she caught him eating with his hands.
“Don’t want to!” He hid his hands behind his back.
“What’s gotten into these boys?” Benteen frowned at the pair of defiant youngsters. “Can’t you make them behave?”
It was the final spark to set off her temper. Lorna pushed away from the table and shoved a startled Arthur onto Benteen’s lap. “Here. You can do everything else by yourself. You might as well raise your own sons!”
While Benteen was still trying to recover from the shock of her unexpected action and hold on to a squealing boy as well, Lorna grabbed her shawl and went storming out of the cabin. Webb started to slide off his chair, crying with alarm, “Mommy!”
“Stay right where you are,” Benteen ordered in a harsh tone that stopped the tears instantly. He sat Arthur on Lorna’s chair and stuck a spoon in his hand. “You’re old enough to feed yourself.” Then he stood up and pointed a warning finger at the two shocked and silent youngsters, staring at him with rounded brown eyes. “Eat your supper and neither of you move.”
Long, angry strides carried him to the door Lorna had so recently slammed. Before he stepped outside, he sent one last look at his silent and unmoving sons, then closed the door behind him. Almost immediately he saw Lorna huddled against the corner of the cabin, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. The rage that had filled him when she had walked out the door faded. She hadn’t really left him and the boys. He came up behind her, his hands closing on her shoulders with a kind of fierceness.
“My God, what was the idea of walking out like that?” Benteen muttered thickly with relief. “Where did you think you were going?”
“It hardly matters, since I didn’t go very far.” Her voice quavered.
“You’d better come back inside. It’s cool out here,” he said.
“No. I don’t want to go back in there yet.” Lorna resisted his mild attempt to turn her around.
“I think you have a bad case of cabin fever,” Benteen guessed.
She whirled around at the faint smile in his tone and faced him, all angry defiance and trembling resentment again. “That shouldn’t come as a surprise. What else do I see but those four walls? I don’t have anyone to talk to all day long but two little boys who can’t even talk well. Every day it’s the same thing. I cook, clean, and sew, haul water, wash clothes, and keep the boys out of mischief.” Her chin was quivering. “I swore I wouldn’t let this land get to me. I swore I wouldn’t end up like that woman in Kansas. I was going to work and help us build a future here.”
“That’s what your doing,” Benteen assured her when she turned away and sank her teeth into her lower lip.
But his reply angered her instead. “How?” Lorna challenged. “By cooking your meals, taking care of your sons, and sleeping in the same bed with you! You can hire people to do that. It’s obvious that’s all you want from a wife.”
His gaze narrowed in bewilderment. “I don’t understand you.”
“I think that’s the problem. You don’t,” she agreed. “You leave in the morning and never tell me where you’re going. You come back at night and never tell me where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing.”
“I suppose I have Mary to thank for this, because Ely talks everything over with her.” Impatience rippled through him. “I make the decisions in this family.”
“Without talking it over with me. I have absolutely no say in what happens. I don’t even know what’s happening.”
“Why are you bringing this up now?” he demanded. “Why has it become so important all of a sudden?”
“Maybe because I was too busy when the babies were small to realize how little I knew about what was going on,” Lorna suggested. “In case you haven’t noticed, this happens to be the first winter I haven’t been pregnant.”
“If it’s going to keep you from becoming a nagging wife, maybe we ought to change that,” he snapped.
“I’ll bet you’d like it if I calved every spring like one of your cows. Or do you want to keep me pregnant so I can’t leave you?” The bitter accusation was a cruel one. Lorna instantly wanted to bite back the words. “I’m sorry, Benteen. I didn’t mean that.” She tried to retract them, but he stood rigidly in front of her, no expression showing on his hard features. “Benteen, you have to believe me. I love you too much to ever leave you. I am not like your mother.”
“I left the boys alone,” he said. “We’d better go inside and finish our supper.”
“No.” Lorna stood her ground, searching his unrelenting features. “All I want is for you to share your life with me. And I’m not taking one step until you tell me you believe that.”
He looked at her for a long second, then scooped her off the ground and into his arms. “Believe this, Lorna,” he said. “I’m never going to give you the chance to leave me.”
Despite the possessive ring in his voice, it wasn’t the answer she wanted. She knew, without being told in so many words, that he didn’t want to need her. There was a part of him that didn’t want to love her. That’s why he allowed her to occupy only a small space in his life and not the whole of it. But she wasn’t going to let it continue, even if it meant becoming a nag or a shrew.
Spring was twice as busy that year. The mild winter had given them a good calf crop. That and the continuing boom in the cattle market convinced Benteen to begin the construction of the house on the knoll. In addition to the branding crews, he hired men to dig the footings and ordered lumber from the mill. A well was drilled to supply the house with running water, and a crew of carpenters was hired.
The house began to take shape right before Lorna’s eyes. It was going to be more magnificent than she had dreamed it would be. Benteen consulted her on just about every detail. She was too excited by all their plans and the sight of the mushrooming structure to notice that he failed to keep her abreast of happenings elsewhere on the ranch. There were wall coverings to be chosen, furniture to be picked out, and draperies to be selected, carpets for the floors, and fixtures in the house. All of it had to be ordered and shipped in viatrain, steamboat, and finally freight wagon. If they were lucky, it would arrive when the house was finished.
When Jessie Trumbo arrived in late July with another herd of Longhorns from Texas, he beheld the sight of the two-story structure towering up from the plains. It was merely the outer shell, but it gave him quite a start.
Fat Frank Fitzsimmons lifted the stopper covering the container and squeezed his pudgy hand through the opening to take out two pieces of peppermint sticks. There was a twinkle in his eye as he turned to Lorna.
“It sure is a shame there aren’t two good little boys in my store that I could give this candy to,” he declared, and deliberately ignored the two boys that, a second ago, had been pushing at each other.
“I’m good,” Webb piped up immediately.
Little Arthur stuck a finger in his mouth and blinked at the fat man with wide-eyed innocence. “Dood,” he affirm
ed, despite the finger in his mouth.
“Well…” The proprietor hesitated for a minute more under the anxious looks from the boys. “I guess you have been pretty good.” He was too fat to bend over, so he leaned downward and gave a piece of candy to each of them.
“What do you say to Mr. Fitzsimmons?” Lorna prompted.
“Thank you.” Webb had to take the stick out of his mouth to respond.
Little Arthur didn’t think it was necessary. “T’ank oo.”
“You’re welcome.” The fat man beamed and helped himself to a stick of peppermint before he covered the jar. “I’m still a little boy myself—a growing one.” He patted his stomach and laughed.
“I don’t think you should give them candy every time we come in,” Lorna protested mildly. “They’ll start expecting it.”
“And they’ll always want to come to my store when you shop. Bribe the youngsters and get their parents’ trade.” He declared his motive openly.
“You have certainly expanded since I was here in the spring,” Lorna remarked, and glanced around at the improvements he’d made. A second room had been added on, which was now the saloon area and separate from the store. There were glass windows in the front and shelves to hold his goods. It seemed she could never enter a general store without judging it according to her father’s.
“From what I’ve heard, you and your husband have been doing some building, too.” He began packing her purchases in a box.
“Yes, we are building a home.” She tried not to sound too proud.
“A mansion, by all accounts,” he chided her modesty.
“It certainly seems huge compared to the one-room log cabin we’re living in now.”
“When will it be finished?”
“I was hoping we could celebrate Christmas in it, but I doubt if the furniture will arrive by then. We plan to move into it sometime this winter.”
“It’s only fitting that you and your husband have a grand home,” Frank Fitzsimmons assured her. “Your husband is bull of the woods around here. I hear he’s running upwards of twenty thousand cows on his range.”