Hill Country Cattleman

by Laurie Kingery

  “That’s really nice of you, Miss—that is, Violet,” the girl had said. “Especially considerin’ how mean she was to you today. Once Ella’s picked out her cloth, Aunt Mary wouldn’t mind stitching it up into something real nice for her. I can’t wait to tell her! You’re a real true Christian lady.”

  “A real true Christian lady”—Violet didn’t feel she deserved such a compliment. In the past, she’d been desultory at best in practicing Christian charity. If Ella felt confident and assured because of Violet’s secret gift, that would be reward enough, even if the other girl never suspected who had donated it.

  * * *

  Nick came home just as supper was ready, bursting with the news of what the second meeting had been about. “Mr. Avery at the bank’s real anxious to sell a ranch property after its owners left and never returned. Violet, we had some trouble not long ago when a group of scoundrels tried to take over San Saba County,” he added in explanation. “Sheriff Bishop exposed them. One of them was killed when he tried to take Prissy hostage in the courtroom. The other two went to prison. But before it was over several ranch owners left.”

  While Violet was still goggling at the story, Milly asked, “You mean the Daughertys’ place east of town?”

  Nick nodded. “Pity it’s not near here, or we could enlarge the ranch. I could be a real cattle baron—that’s Texas-style nobility,” he told Violet with a wink.

  “So what’s Avery’s idea of what to do with the property? And how did that concern you?” Milly asked.

  Violet lost interest, and allowed herself to be distracted by little Nicky, who was waving a green bean in the air and humming a tune of his own devising. But what Nick said next quickly recaptured her attention.

  “There was a fellow from Austin, one Phineas Daley, at the meeting who’s something of an entrepreneur in the horse-racing business,” Nick said. “He’d like to make the hill country the center of Texas horse racing—with Texas horses, that is, not eastern thoroughbreds. He thought Simpson Creek might be a place to start.”

  Violet leaned forward, riveted by the idea. “Horse racing? Right here in Simpson Creek? Do you mean racing on a track?” The type of horses that worked cattle here weren’t as fast as a thoroughbred over the usual-length course, but over a quarter-mile sprint, some of them were faster. It was why the stocky cowhorses were being called quarter horses—they were faster over a quarter mile.

  Her brother smiled at her enthusiasm. “Eventually, yes, we hope there’ll be a track, but this first race will publicize the new racing business, so it’ll likely be a point-to-point endurance race, with a change of horses midway through. I’m part of the committee to organize it.”

  “So what did the bank’s ranch property have to do with the horse racing?” Violet asked.

  Nick leaned back with the satisfied look of the one who is about to announce the best part. “The prize in the race will be Daugherty ranch.”

  Violet felt a flash flood of excitement sweeping over her as she remembered the competition this afternoon. Both the roan and the pinto were fast horses. She wasn’t even conscious she was speaking aloud before the words spilled out. “I can’t wait to tell Raleigh!”

  Chapter Nine

  Only after her words hung on the air like a cloud did she realize how they had sounded, and see the look that passed between her brother and his wife.

  “I didn’t mean...that is, well, when Raleigh escorted me home today, we raced Lady and his roan from about a mile out of town to that old tree that’s split by lightning,” she said. “Both horses are really fast, and I was just thinking maybe he’d like to enter them in the race, that’s all.” She waved a hand in airy dismissal of the subject, though deep down she knew that if sundown wasn’t fast approaching, she’d be trying to find some excuse to ride over to Colliers’ Roost and tell the handsome cowboy about the race.

  Guilt stabbed at her then. Why hadn’t her first thought been how interested Gerald would be when he read her letter, telling about the prospective race? In the future, if this plan to promote horse racing in Texas succeeded, and the Lullingtons were an established name in British racing, they might race their thoroughbreds here. Violet could imagine a well-publicized match race between their best horse in the Lullington stud and a champion from the local horses. She’d lead off her letter to Gerald with this news. But it should have been the first thing that came to her mind, she reprimanded herself again. She felt Gerald’s ring lying heavy against her skin beneath her dress, hidden from other eyes.

  Her brother’s face remained amused. She needed to distract him immediately. She couldn’t have him thinking—and maybe writing to Edward—that she was interested in Raleigh Masterson.

  “Nick, let me ask you something,” she said. “I was thinking perhaps Lady could be trained to jump—just low obstacles, of course, like a fallen log or a ditch. But obviously, a stock saddle isn’t suited to that, so I was wondering if it would be possible to obtain an English saddle somewhere locally. A used one would be fine, of course—it’s just something I was thinking about to pass the time.” There was no point in paying for a specially ordered saddle since she wouldn’t be here forever.

  Nick rubbed his chin. “I don’t know—I could ask at the saddlery in town....”

  * * *

  “Are you asleep, Masterson, or are you going to hold this beast so he doesn’t try to kick me again?” came the aggrieved cry from the other end of Jack Collier’s favorite mount.

  Raleigh pulled himself together with a start as he felt the guilty flush spread over his face. “Sorry, boss, guess I did get a little sidetracked,” he said. He was supposed to be distracting the ornery gelding with the twitch wrapped around his upper lip while Collier applied soap and water to a gash on the horse’s off hip, not getting distracted himself. A one-man horse, and crochety at the best of times, the creature had taken exception to his master’s ministering to the touchy area.

  Before he could stop himself, Raleigh yawned.

  “What’s the matter, didn’t you sleep last night? You didn’t take up playing poker with the boys again, did you?” Collier asked, his tone more amused than irritated now.

  “No, I know better than that,” Raleigh said as Collier continued to dab at the horse’s flank. His hands had held his open Bible, not a poker hand last night, but he hadn’t managed to keep his attention on the scriptures. Collier’s guess that he hadn’t slept well had been dead on. Raleigh had lain awake long into the night thinking about the kiss that had come so close to happening.

  He knew that Violet Brookfield’s lips would have been the sweetest he’d ever tasted. But what would have happened afterward? Would Lady Violet—he still thought of her that way, even though she’d told him it wasn’t the correct way to address her—be shocked and embarrassed that he’d taken advantage of her girlish excitement over their informal race? Or was she very accustomed to kisses, thanks to the blasted fellow back in England, and had decided Raleigh might be amusing to toy with until she returned home?

  He shook his head. He needed to find the right girl and settle down, he told himself yet again. It was better to marry than to be led into temptation by a pretty face—which is what he figured the apostle Paul meant by saying it was better to marry than “to burn.”

  But the question that accompanied this line of thinking always discouraged him. How was he ever to marry when he had nothing but a horse and saddle to call his own?

  “Maybe the view behind you would wake you up,” Collier suggested.

  Though his boss’s words made no sense, Raleigh dutifully looked over his shoulder. What he saw had him straightening and quickly dusting off his trousers.

  Violet was trotting into the yard on Lady, holding a cloth-covered basket.

  “Well, good morning, Miss Violet,” Jack Collier said while Raleigh struggled to form words in a mouth
that had suddenly gone dry. “What do you have there? Smells good, whatever it is.”

  “Milly and I were baking this morning, and we thought we’d bring you some of what we made,” she said, peeling back a corner of the cloth. “I was missing the scones Cook bakes at home, you see, and Milly said Amelia had sent her the recipe, so we tried our hand at making them. They’re not bad, if I do say so myself. Milly sent some fresh-churned butter to go with them, too. Here, gentlemen, try some,” she said, lowering the basket invitingly.

  “Save me one, Raleigh,” Collier said. “We’re done here, so I’m going to turn this cayuse out. Thanks, Miss Violet,” he said, fingering the brim of his hat before he led the stallion away.

  They were alone.

  “Raleigh, Nick told me something yesterday you might be quite interested to know,” Violet said. “If you have a minute...?” she added, looking around as if Raleigh’s chores might be stacked up somewhere nearby.

  “Sure,” he said, taking the proffered basket from Violet as he wondered what the news could be. “Miss Caroline’s gone to town, but I reckon we could sit in those rocking chairs on the porch for a spell.”

  After hitching Lady to the corral fence, they settled themselves under the morning-glory vine-covered overhang. Raleigh helped himself to one of the pastries and bit into it.

  “Mmm,” he murmured as he tasted wild raspberries and warm, sweet dough.

  “It’s even better with butter,” she said, pushing the small crock of it and a knife toward him. “Raleigh, Nick told me that an entrepreneur, Mr. Phineas Daley, came to the later meeting with the mayor. He wants to make the hill country known for quarter-mile horse racing, and he wants to center it in Simpson Creek.”

  He drank in the loveliness of her shining eyes, but he had yet to figure out what this had to do with him. “Go on,” he murmured. He supposed he could run Blue against other local horses, maybe win a few dollars, but that could hardly be the reason Violet looked so animated.

  “He’s proposing to publicize his idea by setting up an endurance race for hill country horses. And the bank owns a vacant ranch southwest of town, which the bank president is offering as the prize!”

  He leaned forward in his chair, staring at her. He’d been wondering how it could ever be possible for him to be more than the foreman of another man’s ranch, and here Violet had come, dropping the solution neatly into his lap. How had she guessed?

  “You think I should enter Blue,” he said as his mind whirled with the possibilities.

  “Not just Blue,” she said. “Lady, too. The entrants are to change horses midway through the course,” she said. “Raleigh, both Blue and Lady are fast horses, as we proved yesterday. I believe you could win this race.”

  “Well, Blue can run from sunup to sundown in about half an hour,” he drawled, trying to tamp down the excitement building like a prairie fire within him. He shifted his tone into a teasing one. “I’m surprised you’re not asking me if you can race Lady. I imagine Nick has a speedy horse he could loan you for one of the legs.”

  “I’d love to, but what would I do with a ranch if I won it?” she said reasonably. “I’ll be going home to England one day—though I haven’t been told when. Only Edward knows when that might be.”

  He saw her mouth twist with a hint of bitterness at that last sentence. He couldn’t imagine leaving Texas. It must be painful, indeed, to be exiled from home, kept away from the man she apparently loved....

  He wanted to divert her from the painful subject. “Have they said when this race will take place, or what the course will be?” Raleigh asked.

  She shook her head. “Not yet, but Nick’s on the committee, so I’ll tell you if I hear anything. He said the ranch is the old Daugherty place, if that means anything.”

  He shrugged. He hadn’t been out that way much in the year or so since he’d come with Jack Collier to the area, but he could go look it over.

  “You think I could win this race,” he said, watching for her reaction.

  She nodded, her eyes regaining some of their luminousness. “Of course I do. Wouldn’t you like to own your own ranch someday?”

  “You have no idea how much, Miss Violet,” he said. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. Jack Collier’s a great boss, but after a while, a man wants a place he can call his own,” he said. And a woman, he thought. A woman to love, to marry and raise children with. It was a downright pity Lady Violet couldn’t be that woman.

  “By the way, the entry fee will be fifty dollars. Will that be a problem for you?” she asked. “I—I mean, I can help you if it is.”

  He blinked. “You’re offering to stake me for this race? Why would you do that?” Did it mean anything deeper, or was it simply an offer from someone who had money to spare?

  Violet seemed surprised at his question. “Because I want you to win, of course, and I didn’t know if...you had the money for the fee. I know that cowboys aren’t—” Her voice trailed off, and she seemed to realize she could hurt his pride if she wasn’t careful. “That is, I’m not trying to play Lady Bountiful, but I do have some pin money at my disposal.”

  Of course fifty dollars was “pin money” to this privileged aristocrat. It just served to illustrate what a great gulf there was between him and Lady Violet.

  “Oh, dear, I’ve offended you,” she murmured, a worried look furrowing her forehead. “I’m sorry, Raleigh, that was the last thing I intended. I only wanted to offer help if you needed it.”

  He felt like he might drown in the depths of those big blue eyes. “No offense taken, Miss Violet,” he said. “As it happens, I am able to lay my hands on the cash, thanks to the trail drive, but I thank you for your offer.”

  Raleigh didn’t think fifty dollars a small sum, but it wasn’t an unreasonable fee for the bank to set when you considered the prize. He supposed the bank needed to make at least some of the money back on the property. While the amount of the entry fee was high enough that not every saddlebum with a nag could afford to enter, it was low enough that the race wouldn’t lack for entries.

  Blue and Lady were fast horses, but there were no guarantees they would win. And he’d purely hate to see that ranch go to another entrant.

  “Yes, well...I suppose I had better go home now,” she murmured.

  Raleigh guessed she was still uncomfortable, still thinking she’d injured his pride with her offer. And before that incident on the trail the suggestion that he was poor might have angered him. But since he’d lived through the stampede, he was just going to let her offer remind him to keep his head around her, and regain control of his heart.

  But that didn’t mean he wanted her to go. “Uh, how’s your novel coming?” he asked, hoping it would tempt her to stay awhile longer. He had a heap of chores waiting that had to be done before supper, but how often would he get this chance to speak to her alone like this?

  Violet, who had been rising, sat down again. “I’m glad you reminded me. I was going to ask you about Indians. I’ve drafted a scene where the heroine is captured by Comanches. The hero, naturally, gallops in pursuit of the savages who’ve carried her off and charges them, pistols blazing.”

  He sat back and pictured what she’d described. “It sounds very dramatic and exciting, Miss Violet, but how does he manage not to shoot the heroine?”

  Violet blinked. “Why, he’s an expert marksman with his Colt pistols, of course,” she said, as if surprised he was questioning the detail.

  “With a pistol?” He shook his head. “The Colt’s a good pistol for a close shot, but on a galloping horse?” He shook his head. “Besides, if he’s using a couple of pistols, he’s got twelve shots total, then he’s out of ammunition,” he explained. “Better to give him a rifle—say, a Winchester. Much more accurate over distance. But hitting an Indian on a galloping pony’s still a chancy thing. Better to try to shoot the horse.”<
br />
  She was clearly horrified. “Shoot the horse? A hero would never shoot a horse,” she said.

  He had to struggle to hide his amusement. “You did say this was a story, didn’t you? All right, then, have your hero ride after them till he catches them, then he can do hand-to-hand combat with—how many of them are there?”

  “Oh...I see what you mean,” Violet said. “Perhaps I’d better rewrite this part till it’s more plausible. But I have another problem, you see. I’ve never set eyes on an Indian, Comanche or otherwise. How am I to make my portrayal of them correct? How would I go about observing a real Comanche? Is there a place where one can go to meet them, a civilized group of them, at least?”

  Now he couldn’t smother a grin. “A civilized Comanche? Our grandchildren may see that someday, but right now you’d be risking your pretty yellow hair, Miss Violet.”

  She stared down at her lap. “I—I see,” she said in a small voice. “I must seem very naive to you, Raleigh.”

  Now he’d made her think he was making fun of her, Raleigh thought regretfully. Before he could think about what he was doing, he reached out and patted her arm. “Shoot, Miss Violet, no one would expect you to know that, just like I wouldn’t know how to palaver with a king of England.”

  Incredibly, her lips quirked into a smile. “I wouldn’t, either, since there isn’t one. Only a queen, Queen Victoria.”

  He grinned back, relaxing again. “There, you see? We all have things we’re ignorant of. Say, I know who you could talk to about the Comanches. Reverend Gil and his wife had a scrape with them not so long ago—right before they got hitched, in fact. They were lucky to get through it alive. You ought to talk to them. They certainly saw Comanches up close—too close for comfort, you might say.”

  She beamed at him. “What a good idea, Raleigh! I’ll do that. Thank you,” she breathed, as if he had just hung the moon in her window.