Letter to a Lonesome Cowboy

by Jackie Merritt

  And the wind continued to howl….

  Eight

  Suzanne awoke even before the men began stirring upstairs. It was very early, still dark and, from the growling wind she could hear outside, still storming. Despondency gripped her. How much longer was she going to be trapped out here?

  But there was a trap awaiting her return to Baltimore, too, wasn’t there? Her heart beat harder over the possibility of not finding a job right away, which, considering her failure with that effort since being laid off from her previous position, had every chance of being the case. At least here she and Mack had a roof over their heads and plenty to eat. At home her apartment rent was due, utility bills were stacking up and now—after this completely unnecessary trip—there was no longer a family savings account to fall back on. A tear formed in the corner of her eye as she realized how truly dire the situation was.

  Her next thought was about how she had phoned the principal of Mack’s school the morning she’d left Baltimore to explain that Mack would be absent a few days as he was ill with the flu. It was a lie that could easily catch up with her; she would bet anything that some conscientious soul from the school had already called the apartment to check on Mack’s progress. She shouldn’t have lied, she should have told the principal the truth, she thought, her bitter recriminations aimed as much at herself as at Mack. Why protect someone who didn’t want protection? Why turn herself into a liar for the sake of a thankless brother?

  Because he’s only fourteen, you love him and you’re worried sick about the direction he’s taking with his life, a voice in her head answered.

  It was the God’s truth. No amount of trouble would ever make her stop loving Mack. She might disown him when he was older if he didn’t straighten up his act, but she would always love him.

  Hearing movement on the second floor, she jumped out of bed. Maybe she shouldn’t accept a paycheck from Rand for doing the cooking and the bookkeeping, but if anyone had ever needed income, it was her.

  Hurriedly she washed her face and hands, brushed her teeth and combed her hair. Then she quickly pulled on some clothes. She would shower later, after breakfast. Leaving her bed unmade she hastened to the kitchen, planning a menu as she went. Rand, she noticed, was no longer lying at the foot of the stairs. That still puzzled her, and she shook her head in dismay over such strange behavior.

  She had never moved so fast in her life, certainly not in preparing a huge breakfast at this unholy hour. The men began coming downstairs, and she started carrying pots of steaming oatmeal, bowls of scrambled eggs and platters of fried ham and toast to the tables. Sleepy-eyed though they were, most of the men mumbled, “Thank you, ma’am,” when she filled their coffee mugs. She was beginning to see these men as individuals, and was able to put names to some of the faces around the tables. Some were old, some quite young. None were boys, like Mack, although it looked as though a few were around twenty.

  Dale Carson, for instance, looked young. He had blue eyes and an open, honest-appearing face. Dale smiled at her as she filled his mug, and she smiled back. He caused no romantic feelings within her, but he seemed to be a pleasant person, polite and eager to please.

  Rand came in and took his place at one of the long tables. He looked freshly showered and shaved, and he sent Suzanne a smile. Nervous suddenly, unable to think of anything but the intimacy of their kisses in the office last night, she brought the coffeepot over to him. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” he returned. “Everything looks and smells wonderful, Suzanne, thank you. You did a fine job.”

  “Thank you.” She filled his mug and moved down the table. Rand affected her much too strongly, she thought uneasily, and her best course was to stay away from him as much as possible. Approaching Mack, she said for his ears alone, “I would like you to find some time to come in and talk to me today.”

  Mack looked around with an embarrassed expression, and Suzanne realized that he didn’t want the men to know his sister had anything to say about his activities. With reddened cheeks, he nodded his head once, then ignored her and dove into a huge helping of scrambled eggs and ham. Sighing because she felt so helpless where Mack was concerned, Suzanne finished filling the men’s mugs.

  They were eating, and she left them to themselves. In the kitchen, she sat at the counter with a cup of coffee, a slice of toast and a piece of ham. Her worry over Mack was taking a new tack: what if he refused to go home with her? She was his guardian, but if he dug in his heels in stubborn denial, would she take legal measures to force him back to Baltimore? Would it do any good if she did? She couldn’t watch Mack twenty-four hours a day, and she suspected he would run away again the first chance he had. This time it wouldn’t be quite so easy for him to do, as he wouldn’t have the money to fly anywhere. But the idea of him hitchhiking the many miles back to Montana scared her to death.

  She had to talk to him, and she didn’t want to wait until he decided to suffer through a conversation with her. Actually, she didn’t trust him to make that decision at all. In fact, she knew he would do everything he could to avoid it.

  Rand came in for the coffeepot, and she jumped off the stool. “I’ll do that,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He narrowed his eyes on her face. “But you have been in here worrying about something, haven’t you? Suzanne, if it’s about last night…”

  “I wasn’t thinking of that,” she said without even a hint of a blush as she was still deeply focused on her problems with Mack. It suddenly occurred to her that Rand could help her out, if he would. “Could I impose on you to do something for me?” she asked.

  “Name it. Oh, wait just one minute while I take this coffee in to the men.”

  He was back almost immediately. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “Tell Mack to stay behind when the men leave for work. He can join you all later. I need to talk to him. I’ve mentioned it to him, but I know he’ll do everything he can to avoid it. I believe he’ll listen to you, and if you tell him—”

  “Consider it done.” Rand’s thoughts were elsewhere. She was even pretty without makeup, and he was thoroughly enjoying the sight of her morning-fresh face. It pained him to remember that she was in as much danger as the rest of them until that box of dynamite was found, and he became more determined than ever to locate it.

  “Thank you,” Suzanne said with obvious relief. She wished he wouldn’t look at her so intently, but considering what had happened between them last night, his close scrutiny was perhaps justified. After all, she certainly did not look her best this morning, and maybe he was finally realizing how plain a woman she really was.

  Her heart sank a little. He looked marvelous and she didn’t. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and she had to wonder why it would even enter her mind. Did she care how she looked to him? It hadn’t concerned her while getting dressed, but maybe it should have. It would only have taken a very few minutes to put on some makeup, after all.

  She was glad when he said, “Well, I’d better go and finish breakfast,” and left her alone in the kitchen. Done with her breakfast, she started scrubbing pots and pans at the sink. When the men began bringing in their plates and coffee mugs, she dried her hands, spoke to them if they said something to her and waited for Mack to come in.

  He finally showed his face. His first words were surly, his tone of voice resentful. “Everybody’s gone to work but me. What d’ya want?”

  Suzanne drew a breath. “The first thing I want is your speaking to me like you do to everyone else around here. I deserve no less respect than men you met only a few days ago, Mack.”

  He slunk to a stool and sat on it. “You’re just gonna give me hell, and I don’t wanna hear it.”

  Frowning over his analysis of their relationship, Suzanne filled two fresh mugs with coffee and brought them to the counter. She sat on the stool next to the one Mack occupied.

  He poured sugar and milk into his mug and stirred it. Suzanne sipped hers black and set
it down.

  “Mack, I arrived here angry, but I don’t want any anger between us ever again. Can’t we just talk?”

  He sent her a sideways glance. “If you’re not mad, what d’ya wanna talk about?”

  “About you, about me, about what each of us wants out of life,” she said quietly. “About what each of us can attain with the little we have to start with.”

  “Uh, what d’ya mean?”

  “I have very little money. Do you have any?”

  “A few bucks. Do you want it?”

  “No. But putting money aside for the moment, what else do you have, Mack?”

  He looked puzzled. “My clothes?”

  “Your clothes and a few bucks. Mack, is that how you want to spend the rest of your life, with a backpack of clothes and a few bucks in your jeans?”

  Mack was beginning to grasp the gist of Suzanne’s conversation. “Hey,” he said with some of his old anger, “do you think that’s all the guys working on this ranch have? Most of them are driving great-looking trucks. You haven’t seen ’em ’cause you haven’t been able to stick your nose out the door, but I have!”

  Suzanne could tell she was not going to diminish Mack’s wide-eyed enthusiasm for this life by suggesting he would gain very few possessions from it. Perhaps a little reverse psychology would work better, although it would take some heavy-duty pretense on her part.

  “I know why you like it here,” she said gently. “I couldn’t figure out why you would come to Montana before I got here myself, but I think I understand it now.”

  “You do?” Mack looked and sounded suspicious.

  “Driving from Billings I saw some beautiful country. I wish the storm would pass so I could get outside and look around.” That much was true, at least. She shaped a smile. “And you fit the role of cowhand so well.”

  Mack’s suspicious expression vanished in one of his big grins. “I really do, Suzanne. I’m never gonna leave here. I love this ranch. I wanna learn to ride a horse. I know it’s not hard to do, you just have to learn the right way to get on one. I bet Rand could show me in two seconds.”

  Suzanne gulped. “Did Rand say he would hire you?”

  “Uh, no. But I think I can get him to change his mind.”

  “Perhaps you can. Of course, you would only be able to work part-time until you finish high school. I’m sure Whitehorn has a high school, and there must be buses that pick up the rural students.”

  Mack leapt off his stool. “I’m not going back to school, and you can’t make me!” He ran from the room, stopped in the dining room only long enough to pick up his outside gear and then slammed the door as he left the building.

  Suzanne put her head in her hands. She had accomplished nothing, except for learning one thing. She knew now that taking Mack back to Baltimore would only be achieved with a court order. And she didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer to even start the process.

  While the men went in for lunch at noon, Rand stayed away from the bunkhouse and conducted another search of the outbuildings. He cautiously poked mounds of loose hay and straw with a pitchfork. He looked under stacks of folded tarps. He peered into anything and everything that was big enough to hold a case of dynamite, and when it occurred to him that the culprit might have split the case, he went over it all again. Discouraged, he finally had to face facts: the dynamite was not stored in the barn, the equipment shed, the small toolshed or the storage shed.

  That still left an awful lot of possibilities—every rick of hay on the place, for example, the bunkhouse and the main house, although he was the only one on the ranch with a key for it. Not only that, the dynamite could have been buried before the storm hit and was lying under three or more feet of snow, depending on the drifts.

  Standing outside the barn thinking it over, Rand suddenly noticed that the wind had died down. Snowflakes were still falling, the sky was still the color of lead, but losing the wind was a definitive sign that the storm was passing.

  Normally he would be relieved enough to dance a jig because the end of a blizzard of such ferocity was finally in sight, but not this time. Once the plows cleared the roads, Suzanne would leave, and that prospect hit him like a ton of bricks and created a wrenching sensation in his gut.

  Seeing the men starting to come outside again, Rand stepped into the barn, walked clear through it and came out of it by its back door. Circling the other outbuildings to avoid the crew and the questions they might ask about why he hadn’t gone in for lunch, he entered the bunkhouse through the door to the laundry.

  For a while he just stood there and listened. The only sound in the building came from the kitchen—Suzanne cleaning up. Kicking off his snow-encrusted boots, he also removed his jacket, hat, gloves and scarf. Then he quietly began opening the doors of the cabinets in the laundry and inspected everything they contained. He hadn’t really expected to find the dynamite in this room, but he was determined to leave no stone unturned. Finally, satisfied with his search, unproductive as it had been, he padded stocking-footed to the kitchen.

  “Suzanne?”

  She whirled. “You scared the stuffing out of me!”

  “Sorry, that wasn’t my intention. Have all the men left?”

  Suzanne frowned. “I think so. Why?”

  “No reason in particular. Just wondering.”

  “You didn’t come in for lunch. I can heat up the soup and—”

  “Maybe later. I, uh, misplaced something and I’m going to look for it.” The last thing he would ever tell Suzanne was that there might be dynamite concealed somewhere in the bunkhouse.

  “Oh. Well, would you like me to help?”

  “Not necessary, but thanks.” He knew there was nowhere to hide anything in the dining room, so he ignored it, and also the kitchen for the time being, and strode down the hall to the office. It took about three minutes to scratch the office off his mental list, but he did pick up a telephone to find out if they had phone service yet. No such luck, the line was still dead.

  Returning to the hall, he stopped to wonder about Suzanne’s room. He knew there was nothing in his own room that shouldn’t be there, but what about the one Suzanne was using? And Handy’s and George’s?

  Deciding to leave Suzanne’s bedroom until last, he made a quick search of the other two bedrooms, found nothing amiss and then headed up the stairs. From below Suzanne could tell he was moving from room to room on the second floor, and wondered what on earth he was looking for. Was some valuable missing? Goodness, if he found it in one of the men’s rooms, did that mean the man was a thief?

  Her heart sank considerably. What if Rand found what he was looking for in Mack’s room? She could easily picture the chaos that would cause, and she suddenly felt as nervous as a cat. It was at that precise moment that she realized the wind was no longer howling. She ran to a window and saw only lazily falling snow.

  “It’s stopping,” she whispered with her hand splayed at the base of her throat. How long would it take for the plows to get out this far? How much longer would she be on the Kincaid Ranch? She had completed the payroll this morning, as she’d promised Rand, but she certainly could not have earned very much money in the few days she’d been here.

  Another thought startled her: she wasn’t looking forward to going home at all, and not merely because of her dire financial straits in Baltimore, either. It wasn’t that she had fallen in love with the ranch—heavens, she’d barely seen it, other than the inside of this bunkhouse—but leaving the ranch meant leaving Rand, and once she left, what possible reason could there ever be for them to see each other again?

  She took a slow but startled breath. In spite of her misgivings about Rand’s ad, despite her disapproval of his tasteless method of meeting women, Rand had gotten under her skin. How did something like this happen to a woman with her sensible nature?

  Totally shaken, Suzanne made quick work of cleaning the kitchen. The payroll checks were lying on George’s desk awaiting Rand’s signature. Avoiding Rand whi
le she was in this peculiar mood seemed smart, and she hurried down the hall to her bedroom and shut the door.

  Upstairs, Rand gave up with a disgruntled sigh. He had gone through every single room on the second floor and come up empty. There was only one room in the building still un-searched and that was Suzanne’s room. For his own peace of mind he had to check it out. She was probably still in the kitchen and wouldn’t notice, he figured as he tiptoed down the stairs and hall to the door of her bedroom.

  But when he opened the door and stepped in, there she was, lying on the bed. “Suzanne!” he exclaimed in surprise.

  She sat up with a jerk. “Rand!”

  “Uh…” He honestly didn’t know what to say, but then something came to him. “I looked everywhere else for…uh, for that thing, and I thought you were still in the kitchen. I swear I would not have walked in like this if I’d known you were in here.”

  She was beginning to get very uncomfortable about whatever it was he’d torn the bunkhouse apart to find, mostly because of Mack, who she knew wasn’t above taking things that didn’t belong to him. Money from her purse, for instance. Not large sums, just a dollar or two at a time, but to her stealing was stealing, a concept Mack didn’t seem to grasp, or if he did, he thought it didn’t pertain to him.

  But Rand looking for that mystery object in the room she’d been using was a personal affront. Sliding off the bed, she said coldly, “I’m not a thief, Rand.”

  “God, no!” He was horrified. “Suzanne, I could never think that about you.”

  “Then why are you in my room?”

  “You’ve only used this room a few days. What I’m looking for has been, uh, missing for about a week.”

  “Oh. Well, in that case, feel free to look around.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, feeling enormous relief. If the article involved had been missing for a week, then Mack couldn’t have taken it. For some reason, however, Rand wasn’t saying what it was, and that struck her as very odd. Saying nothing to the men about it was understandable—after all, one of them must be the thief—but why keep it from her?