by Linda Broday
The patron dragged her attention from the clean window. She appeared dumbstruck at Delta standing there. “Oh, do you work here?”
“I do indeed. I just started this morning.”
“Never thought John would hire anyone. A government mule doesn’t have anything on that man. Never saw a more god-awful stubborn cuss.” The woman leaned closer to Delta and whispered, “Don’t let him run you off. He just forgot how to smile.”
The old lady spoke the truth on all counts.
“What can I assist you with, ma’am?”
But the woman was in no hurry. She took a pair of spectacles from her pocket and put them on. Her eyes looked huge through the thick lenses. She gave Delta a long stare. “You’re a right pretty little thing. I ’spect you’ll have all the single men in this town ogling you. All except Cooper Thorne and his brothers. Don’t hold your breath there. They’ve got this crazy fool notion that they’re happy being bachelors.”
The old lady appeared to know the way they sat in their saddle, Delta thought wryly, recalling her almost-groom’s firm avowal to never marry.
“Cooper and his brothers formed the Battle Creek Bachelors’ Club, you know,” the woman expounded.
A club? Of all the silly notions. Did they truly need to band together to keep some female from slipping a rope around one of them and dragging him kicking and screaming to the altar? Their efforts to cling to independence seemed a bit desperate.
Bachelors’ club, indeed!
The woman leaned close and peered up into Delta’s face as if she’d just noticed her. “I don’t think I’ve met you. You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Delta Dandridge.”
“Pretty name. I’m Granny Ketchum, but everyone just calls me Granny. What brings you to Battle Creek, dear?”
Heat inched up Delta’s neck. She wondered what would happen if word got out that she was a mail-order bride and the intended groom had spurned her before she even stepped off the stage. She’d die before she admitted any such thing.
“I’m just passing through. I like the town and decided to stay a while.” Delta glanced up. John Abercrombie glared his disapproval. His stern, unyielding face became even harder. “Ma’am, what did you say you came in for? I’ll be happy to help you find it.”
“Oh, I clean forgot. I need a thimble. Someone came right into my house in broad daylight and stole mine. Can you believe anyone would be so bold? It’s scandalous. Why, last week they came in and stole my poor cat.”
“That’s terrible. Did you tell the sheriff?”
Granny Ketchum drew herself up. “I certainly did. He didn’t do a blooming thing about it, either.”
Mr. Abercrombie came out from behind the counter. “Miss Dandridge, I don’t pay you to air your lungs all day. You’re here to work. If you can’t do that, then you and I should part ways.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, go blow a smoke ring, John. Leave the poor girl alone.” Granny clutched Delta’s arm to steady herself.
“Let’s go find you that thimble, Granny.” She led the old woman over to the display case and helped her select one.
A short while later, the woman hobbled out the door. Delta returned to her cleaning. She tackled the spilled cracker barrel next. Mice scurried into other parts of the store as she uprighted it and swept up the crackers.
“Mr. Abercrombie, would you by chance have any mousetraps?”
With his lips still set in a thin straight line, he showed her where they were. He put her in mind of a buzzard, with his piercing gaze and hooked nose. The long conversation with Granny hadn’t helped her tenuous situation with him. So when the noon hour came, she never mentioned lunch, working right on through it.
The rest of the day went by in a blur, but by the time Mr. Abercrombie locked up and called it a day, she’d managed to neatly restack the pile of blankets, straighten up the yard goods, clean the countertops, and sweep the floor. In between all that, she’d waited on the customers who came in.
One was a woman who wore a heavy black veil over her face. She’d introduced herself as Widow Sharp and bought baking supplies.
By quitting time, Delta was exhausted but proud of her efforts. As she blew out the oil lamps, she vowed to tackle them the following day. The globes were so filthy, the lamps put off little light. When the women saw how clean and inviting the store was, they’d be more eager to spend time and money in there.
She made her way to Mabel’s, trod wearily up the stairs to her room, and collapsed on the bed. She’d close her eyes for only a moment.
The next thing she knew, Mabel was calling her to supper. She’d never meant to fall asleep. She couldn’t remember being so tired. She got up and washed her face.
“How was your first day, dear?” Mabel passed a plate of meat loaf to Delta when she got down to the table.
She told Mabel and the full table of boarders about meeting Granny Ketchum and her wild tales.
“We should’ve warned you about Granny,” Mabel said. “No one is stealing from her. She misplaces things and can’t find them, is all. So she’s convinced thieves break into her house.”
Delta could understand a thimble or a cup. But a cat? How on earth could anyone lose a cat?
“She seems like a sweet old lady.” Delta took a bite of meat loaf. “I’m sure she’s very lonely.”
“Oh, she is,” Mabel agreed. “Pa Ketchum passed over several years ago and that’s when Granny’s forgetfulness got decidedly worse.”
“We could tell you stories that would make your head spin,” a fellow boarder, Charlie Winters, added. A silver deputy sheriff’s badge stood out against the young man’s black shirt. “Granny puts Sheriff Strayhorn through the wringer. Her complaints never end. Someone’s always stealing something.”
It could be the woman simply wanted some attention, to know someone cared. Delta suspected the same thing held true for Mr. Abercrombie. She couldn’t fault them for that. Knowing you mattered even to one person was important. Delta knew the special kind of heartbreak that came from being invisible.
“Granny never had any children, and I think that added to her loneliness and grief.” The words came from Violet Finch, another boarder. Her small frame and fidgety movements reminded Delta of a little brown wren. Violet worked at the milliner’s and wore big hats that dwarfed her head.
For several long minutes, they ate in silence. Then another boarder—Mr. Nat Rollins, the clerk at the hotel—cleared his throat, his large Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Miss Dandridge, since you’re new to town, I reckon folks have yet to tell you about Battle Creek’s fame.”
Delta wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “What’s that, Mr. Rollins?”
“We’re…the town that is…the proud possessor of a piece of the opera singer Abigail Winehouse’s shoe. You see, when she passed through here three years ago on her way to Austin, the heel of her shoe broke off when she stepped from the coach.” Nat Rollins leaned forward with his elbows propped on the table. “We got it in safekeeping over at the Lexington Arms Hotel. You can stop by and take a gander at it any time you want to. Be happy to show it to you.”
“I’ll remember that, Mr. Rollins. Thank you.”
Deputy Winters put down his fork. She grew uncomfortable under his piercing gaze. “Where did you say you were from, Miss Dandridge?”
“Georgia,” she mumbled.
“A real Southern peach,” Mabel said.
“Georgia’s a big state. Where exactly?”
“Charlie Winters! That’s none of your business.” Mabel shot him a disapproving glance. “I’ll not tolerate rudeness in my house.”
“I didn’t mean nothing by it. I apologize, Miss Dandridge. Sometimes I forget my manners.”
If he ever had any to begin with. She wondered if he’d asked because he w
as a lawman or out of idle curiosity. She couldn’t take the chance.
“That’s quite all right, Deputy.” Delta had lost her appetite. If he were to telegraph Cedartown… She pushed back her chair. “Excuse me, but I’ve had a long day.”
“Don’t you want pie? I made peach. Most folks don’t know Cooper Thorne has a small orchard on his ranch. He brought two bushels of peaches by last July and I canned them. These are all I had left. Some of the sweetest you’ll ever eat.”
“It’s very tempting, Mabel, but I think I’ll skip dessert.”
Upstairs, Delta gazed out over the town from the corner window in her tiny room. Twilight bathed the people walking below and every building in dusky purple hues.
Battle Creek, Texas, was a strange place. She’d never seen one quite like it. For starters, it only had one of everything. One mercantile, one saloon, one barbershop, one newspaper, one boardinghouse, one livery, and so on and so forth. It was as if they had a policy against having two of anything in the town. Maybe they feared competition. Or maybe they simply had no energy left to bring in more.
The only thing they seemed to have two of was cemeteries. Not that you could rightly call the one planted smack in the middle of Main Street a cemetery. The more accurate term would be burial plot, since it held only four graves. Someone, probably the blacksmith, had built an iron fence around the section to protect it from being trampled. Otherwise, she suspected folks might drive their rigs right on top of it instead of going around. Whoever kept the weeds out deserved a medal—burial plots needed to be tended.
Mabel King had whispered to her over breakfast that no one even knew the names of the people buried there, as though it was something scandalous she couldn’t bear to speak aloud. She said folks had bickered for years over what to do with it. Some wanted to dig the bodies up and rebury them in the Battle Creek Cemetery, at the edge of town. Others fought to keep them right where they were.
If the citizens wanted to cast out the dead inhabitants, what would they do to living ones? Delta’s stomach churned and she fought down nausea.
Then, there was the overwhelming shabbiness of the rickety buildings. Most were well on their way to collapsing in on themselves, held up by a few nails, peeling paint, and abundant prayers. The buildings reminded her of ugly stepsisters that’d been left behind and forgotten while everyone else went to the dance.
It saddened her that these people clutched that opera singer’s broken heel as their only claim to fame, and yet it deeply touched something inside her. Like this town, she was searching for her own reason for being.
A sense of excitement suddenly swept over her.
No one knew her here. Her secret was safe. So far.
Besides, this place could be no worse than what she’d faced in Cedartown. Less-than-savory recollections came unbidden. She closed her eyes against searing pain. She could start fresh, her life a clean slate. She’d take special care to fit in and not draw undue attention.
Her thoughts drifted to Cooper Thorne. Everywhere she turned, his name came up. People sang his praises as if he were a founding father or something. Maybe his family had settled the town. He appeared pretty vital to Battle Creek. She wanted to find out more about the man who gave peaches to a friend but refused to offer kindness to a newcomer searching for a place to belong.
Battle Creek Bachelors’ Club, indeed!
Five
Cooper woke in the darkness to unbidden memories of Tolbert Early and the Steamboat Bathhouse in Hannibal, Missouri, sixteen years earlier. He’d been a scared boy of fourteen.
So much blood on his hands and clothes. Smoke from the gun in his hand clouding his vision.
He didn’t think he’d ever get the stench out of his nostrils or block out the screams of his younger brother Brett that still echoed in his head. He doubted he’d ever forget the sight of his little brother standing there in the clutches of Tolbert Early, with his shirt ripped half-off, eye swelled shut, and blood oozing from his mouth.
And then Isaac Daffern discovered them hiding in the back of his wagon the night the boys ran for their lives. Best thing that could’ve happened. The kind rancher took them under his wing. If not for him, Cooper would probably have been tried for murder and possibly hanged. But Daffern gave them food and shelter and taught them how to be men. And when the old man died, he left them each four hundred dollars in his will.
Cooper wiped the sweat from his forehead and assured himself again that Tolbert Early was dead. He tried to go back to sleep but found it impossible.
By the time the first slivers of dawn peeked over the horizon, he was atop his favorite lookout spot, hoping to find the peace he sought. He thought about the long list of things to do before Monday rolled around, one of which was going into town for supplies.
Thank goodness he didn’t have to worry about the maddening Miss Dandridge, because she’d likely left by now.
The first order of business—right after a quick breakfast—was riding over to talk to Brett. Cooper wanted to tell him about the disease and maybe get his thoughts. Possibly his help if it came to that.
Back at the ranch house, he gave Zeke the orders for the day and asked him to hitch up the wagon. Then he strapped on his Colt. Climbing into the wagon box, he set out across country for Wild Horse Ranch. He was proud of his little brother. Brett had one of the best horse ranches in several counties. He rounded up wild mustangs and broke them before selling them to the U.S. Army. His spread only measured a couple hundred acres, but he made every inch count.
Passing under the crossbar proclaiming the land as Wild Horse Ranch, Cooper headed to the far eastern corral, where a fair amount of dust rose. Sure enough, Brett stood in the middle as if he had not a care in world while a wild mustang ran circles around him, kicking and pawing the ground.
Cooper held his breath, sure that the horse would plow Brett down and leave nothing but blood and bone and past glory. The animal was majestic, no doubt about that, but the stallion had the eyes of a man-killer. That, too, was a true fact.
Setting the brake on the wagon, Cooper jumped down and took a ringside seat on the top rung of the corral to watch, ready to charge in and rescue Brett if needed.
Brett had a knack for this line of work. He seemed to know before the horse what it was going to do next. And Brett showed no fear. He spoke to the mustang in a gentle calming voice, no matter how near the animal came to running over him.
Finally, the mighty beast got tired of fighting the inevitable and came to a sudden stop. He stood there with his powerful muscles quivering and let Brett put a blanket on him. Brett put it on and took it off, repeating the action several times. Brett showed uncommon patience in getting the animal accustomed to the feel of something on his back.
Brett finally walked over. “Hey, Coop. What brings you out this way?”
“Got something to talk to you about. Besides, I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age.”
Brett wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I’ll let this stallion into the pasture and meet you at the house.”
Cooper nodded. Minutes later, he pulled up at the “house,” which consisted of a canvas-covered wagon. Brett cooked over an open fire and took his baths in the nearby creek. From all appearances, his brother was content, though.
Brett Liberty was as wild as those mustangs he tamed. He hadn’t had an easy life and had the scars on his back to prove it. Everyone had picked on him in the orphanage, mostly because of his Indian heritage. With a white father and Indian mother, he’d had to endure being called a half-breed…and worse.
It was in that orphanage that a bond stronger than steel formed between the boys. They’d each nicked their thumbs and swore they were brothers in every sense of the word. Nothing had come between them and nothing would. They were the only family each other had, and it was more than enough.
Cooper had built a fire and had the cof
fee makings out by the time Brett joined him. Standing a good six feet, with broad shoulders, Brett got no shortage of female attention on the rare occasion he went into town. Not that he sought a speck of it. Like him and Rand, Brett was a confirmed bachelor and liked it that way.
Though his baby brother was tall, Cooper still beat him by a few inches and never let him forget it. He knew the fact that Brett and Rand had to look up to him stuck in their craw. But that’s the way it should be, seeing as how Cooper was the oldest of the three. It seemed reasonable he’d have the most height. Besides, he’d needed it for all the fighting he’d had to do to protect them.
Brett removed his hat—which had an eagle’s feather sticking from the band—and shook his long hair back. “Glad you came. I have need of your help.”
“Doing what?” If Brett was going to ask him to go toe to toe with that mustang, Cooper would have to give that some serious thought.
“Putting up my tepee.”
“A tepee?”
A wide grin covered Brett’s face. “Every self-respecting Indian needs a tepee.”
“Yep, I reckon so. It’s a damn sight better than living in a wagon.” Cooper squinted into the distance, wondering when Brett would finally find the peace he yearned for. “Any other ideas about what you think an Indian needs?”
“Plenty of wide open spaces, sweet grass, and cool water.”
“Well, you’ve got all that. Shoot, Brett, you’ll be chewing peyote and doing a war dance before I know it.”
“It’s time I remembered my heritage,” Brett said quietly.
Cooper considered the fact that Brett was lucky, though his life had been far from easy. At least his little brother had a heritage that he could be proud to claim. Cooper thought about the different types of cloth he, Rand, and Brett had been cut from while they got a decent pot of coffee made and sat cross-legged on the ground to drink it.
“What did you come to talk about?” Brett finally asked.
“We have trouble over at the Long Odds.” He told Brett about the hoof-and-mouth disease.