“You can’t do that. I don’t work for you.”
“You want me to get Mr. Archer?” Nell asked.
“That’s up to you, Charlie,” Buddy said.
The cowboy swore until Buddy told him to shut his mouth in front of a lady.
Charlie gave Buddy a surly look and muttered, “I’ll get even for this.”
“I expect you’ll try, but I’m not worried,” Buddy replied.
Charlie stared, until Buddy pointed with his gun at the bunk where Nell had dumped the clothes she’d taken from the trunk. With an angry motion, Charlie rolled up the clothing in a blanket. He reached for his gun, but Nell looked at Buddy, who shook his head. “I don’t cotton to be shot in the back before he lights out,” Buddy said. So Nell picked up the gun and held it behind her.
“Maybe Willy can get a dollar or two for it,” Buddy added.
Charlie scowled. He kicked at the rooster, which was now hiding under the bunk, then strode out of the bunkhouse, and in a few minutes, Nell and Buddy saw him larrup up his horse and ride off.
“Now what?” Nell asked.
“Now we catch that rooster. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“I mean about Willy’s wallet. Are you going to give it to him?”
“I am.”
“He’ll be pretty broken up that it’s empty.”
Buddy sat down on a bunk near the door. Nell sat across from him. He reached over and took her hand, and she let him hold it. “Miss Nell, here’s the thing of it. That wallet isn’t going to be empty. It’ll have almost a hundred dollars in it.”
Nell was confused. “But I thought Charlie gambled away the money.”
“He did.”
“Then how…?” She stopped. “You mean you’re going to put your own money into it? You’re giving Willy a hundred dollars?”
“You know of anything better I can do with my money? Willy’s a real nice kid, and I don’t believe his life ought to be ruined because a no-good like Charlie stole his money. That girl isn’t going to wait forever.”
“Why, that’s the nicest thing I ever heard of. Willy will be indebted to you.”
“It doesn’t need mentioning.” Buddy leaned forward until his face was close to Nell’s. “Miss Nell, he’s not to know it. He wouldn’t take the money if he knew it came from me. I’ll tell him I found the wallet. You tell him any different, and there’s no end of jokes I’ll play on you. I don’t allow anybody to cross me.”
Nell was taken aback by the threat and took her hand out of Buddy’s. She knew he meant what he’d said. “Is that why you let Charlie go, so’s you could give Willy a full wallet?”
Buddy nodded. “I could’ve told Mr. Archer, and maybe he’d have sent for the sheriff. Everybody would have known Charlie was a thief, but that wouldn’t help Willy any.”
“So you won’t tell Mr. Archer?”
“Might be I’ll have to, him wondering why Charlie lit out all of a sudden without asking for his wages. But Mr. Archer’ll keep it a secret, and Miss Nell, as I said, I expect you to do the same. I don’t want you speaking to Mr. Archer or to Miss Lucy about it either.”
Nell understood and nodded. “Won’t the other cowboys wonder why Charlie left?”
“Maybe, but he’s not the likenest cowpuncher at the Rockin’ A. Might be they’ll think he’s gone to Texas.”
“Texas?” Nell asked.
“Oh, that’s what we say when a man lights out ahead of trouble.”
Nell thought a moment. Then she straightened up and looked Buddy in the eye. “I won’t tell, but in exchange, you’ve got to promise me one thing.”
Buddy frowned, and Nell realized he was stiff-necked. “What’s that?”
“You’ve got to let me pay half of that hundred dollars.”
Buddy scoffed. “Where’d you get that kind of money? Biscuit-shooters don’t make much.”
“Where did you? I know what ranch hands are paid.”
For a moment, Buddy didn’t answer. “Truth is I came out west with a little cash, fixing to buy a spread. But I had to learn the land out here first. You’re not to tell that around either.”
“And I got my teaching salary from last year all saved up. I don’t intend to spend it on, what do you call them, do-funnies?” Nell didn’t see any need to tell him she had inherited a little money from an aunt.
“I expect I have more than you, so I don’t intend to let you pay.”
“Then I’ll have to tell Willy how his wallet came to be full of money.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Nell put her hands on her hips. She could be as stubborn as Buddy when she thought she was right. “Lord, and why wouldn’t I?”
Buddy glared at her, and she knew he was not a man to cross. But neither was she someone who gave in. Finally he said, “No wonder that rooster came in here. He knew once you had him by the neck, you’d never let go.”
Nell didn’t reply.
“All right. I guess you won. But don’t think you can best me again.”
She held out her hand, and they shook on it. Then Buddy grabbed the rooster and held it under his arm. “You going to give quarter to this old bird?”
“Not on your life.”
As they reached the bunkhouse door, Buddy said, “You know what, Miss Nellie Blue-Eyes? This here’s the best joke I ever done pulled, and nobody’ll ever know it.”
“We,” Nell said. “We pulled it.”
Buddy tipped his hat with his free hand. “We sure did, honey,” he said. Then he added, “I’d have thrown him off the ranch just because he said something disrespectful about you. I wouldn’t allow any man to do that.” And then before Nell could react, he leaned over and kissed her. Nell not only let him kiss her, she kissed him back. The rooster squawked.
CHAPTER FIVE
Willy was too tickled at being handed his wallet full of money to question how it had been found. If the other cowboys were curious about it, they kept it to themselves. They did wonder why Charlie Potter had taken off, however. Not that they missed him. Buddy was right when he said that the other cowboys didn’t like Charlie.
“He was cultus when he was full of busthead,” Wendell said at the supper table the day Willy got his wallet back.
Nell blinked at Lucy, not understanding. “That means useless when he was drunk,” Lucy told her.
“Which was most of the time,” a cowboy added.
“I wouldn’t play cards with him,” Wendell added.
“He was the one-eyed man in the game, all right,” Gus put in.
“How was it again you happened to find Willy’s purse, Miss Nell?” Mr. Archer asked.
She nudged Buddy with her elbow as she made the rounds with the pot of chicken and dumplings that contained the remains of the rooster, spooning a helping into Mr. Archer’s bowl. “It was under the hen house. I found it when I was looking for eggs. I knew one of those hens was laying them where she wasn’t supposed to.”
Willy shook his head. “I wonder how it got there. I ain’t been near the chicken house since I come here.”
“Maybe that old rooster took it,” Buddy said, suppressing a grin. “He might have found it and dragged it off.”
“Well, if he did, we sure paid him back,” Nell said, pointing with her spoon at the pot.
Wendell said, “Hey, I just thought of something. Wasn’t you lucky, Willy, that Miss Nell found it instead of old Charlie? You’d never have seen it if he had.”
Nell exchanged a glance with Buddy, then looked away so she wouldn’t smile. Mr. Archer saw the look, however. After the cowboys filed out, he stayed behind, taking a seat among the red geraniums growing in coffee cans in the deep adobe window. “Kind of a coincidence Charlie taking off just about the time you found Willy’s wallet, ain’t it, Miss Nell?” Mr. Archer asked.
Nell was startled. She hadn’t realized he was still in the room, because she was thinking about how Buddy had touched her finger as he left. It hadn’t been an accident. She picked
up a dish towel and began drying dishes. “Kind of,” she replied.
“I guess I don’t know everything that goes on at this ranch.”
Nell kept silent.
“Here’s another coincidence. Mrs. Miller, you remember that gold watch fob I had made a while back? It was of that prize bull I sold.”
“You sure set store by that fob,” Lucy replied.
“I was real careful with it, but I lost it. Looked everywhere for it, but I couldn’t find it.”
“I remember.”
Nell continued wiping a plate, although it was dry. Buddy had recognized the watch fob among Charlie’s loot, and Nell had sneaked it into Mr. Archer’s room.
“I found it right on top of my dresser. Now, how do you suppose it got there?”
“Well, I didn’t put it there,” Lucy said.
“I did.” Nell whirled around. “I found it outside and thought it must be yours.”
“You sure are a whiz at finding things. I wonder, did you find Wendell’s jackknife, too?”
Nell didn’t answer. She put the plate in the cupboard and took up a cup to dry.
“Now, it looks to me like somebody found a whole cache of lost items and didn’t care to have me to know. Maybe because whoever that was didn’t want me to go to the sheriff to report a certain cowboy was a thief right here on the Rockin’ A. Might be Willy’d have got suspicious about how that money come to still be in his wallet. Funny how Charlie Potter lit out like somebody’d give him a lucky break. I never knew a hand to leave without asking for his wages, especially one as tight-fisted as Charlie. I wonder what made him scoot like that.”
Mr. Archer paused to take out a cigarette paper. He removed a pouch from his shirt pocket and sprinkled tobacco on the paper, then used his teeth to draw the yellow string, closing the pouch. He rolled up the cigarette, licked the edge, and put it into his mouth. Then he struck a kitchen match on his boot and lit the smoke. “Now, I can’t help thinking, what if that wallet was empty when it got found, and somebody filled it up and didn’t want Willy to know, being as how he wouldn’t accept charity. There are some mighty nice folks around here.” He stood and went to the door, peering out at the darkening sky. “Miss Nell, I’m proud you’re working on the Rockin’ A,” he said before he left for the corral.
After he was gone, Lucy said, “Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. I told him I saw you and a certain cowpoke leave the bunkhouse right after Charlie rode off, you with that wallet in your hand. Which one of you filled it up?”
“I promised I wouldn’t tell.”
“You went into your room before you showed it to me. I suspicion it was you.”
Nell stared at her aunt a moment. She had promised Buddy to keep what they’d done a secret, but she couldn’t let Lucy think she’d replaced all the money. Buddy ought to get the credit, even if Lucy was the only one who’d know. “We both did,” she said.
“That’s what I thought. You know, honey, you could do worse than that cowboy. There’s not a finer man in the territory than your Buddy.”
“He’s not my Buddy,” Nell muttered, although she was wondering if he might be.
“You seem to be the only one around here who doesn’t know it.” Lucy paused. “But I think you do. He surely does.”
Nell blushed and turned away to put the cup into the cupboard. She reached for another wet dish but then had a thought. “You ever lose anything around here, Aunt Lucy?”
“I dropped my ring someplace, ruby and diamond it was. That sure did trouble me, since Mr. Archer gave it to me.”
Nell set down the cup and reached into her pocket and held out the diamond-and-ruby ring she’d found in Charlie’s trunk.
* * *
Buddy didn’t play any more jokes after that. Now there were nice surprises. Nell found a branch of golden aspen on the table one day after Buddy had gone into the mountains looking for strays. Another time, someone put a hand-tooled leather belt in her bedroom, which was just off the kitchen. And on her birthday, when she stepped outside the kitchen door to ring the dinner bell, she discovered a package wrapped in newspaper with “Miss Nell” printed on it. She opened it to find a box made from tiny bits of wood. Those gifts were anonymous, although Nell knew they came from Buddy, and she treasured them. One day when she had been feeding the chickens and hurried back to the house unexpectedly, she discovered Buddy spreading a gray-and-red Navajo rug on the floor beside her bed. The design was a pattern of stripes and diamonds, and it was tightly woven. He’d been to Santa Fe that week, he explained when she caught him. “Those floors get awful cold in the winter,” he said.
After dinner one afternoon, Buddy asked Lucy if she would give permission for Nell to leave for a few hours. “She might like to see that pretty land over toward the mountains.”
Lucy eyed him. “I guess I could spare her if she’s back in time to dish up supper. Are you planning on saddling Sky High for her?” Sky High was a devil horse that few of the cowboys would ride.
“Why, no, ma’am,” Buddy said, surprised. “That bronco wouldn’t do. I’ll fetch Bean for her.” Bean was a gentle old dun, and riding her was like sitting in a rocking chair.
“You think she can ride that horse without falling off?”
“I’ll make sure she can. Does she know how to ride?”
Lucy shrugged.
“You think she’ll go with me?”
“She will unless she wants to stay here and black the stove.”
“You give your permission, then?”
“It’s all right with me—if it’s all right with Nell.”
Nell didn’t like them talking about her as if she weren’t there, the two of them deciding between them whether she should go riding. But then she wondered if Buddy was shy about asking her, afraid she might turn him down. That was why he’d asked Lucy instead. “She might go if you’ll ask her direct,” Nell told him.
“Yes, ma’am. I sure would be pleased if you’d ride out with me.”
“Why, I’d like that,” she said.
“Such foolishness,” Lucy observed after Buddy left and she had gone to her room for a pair of pants for Nell. Ranch women didn’t ride sidesaddle anymore.
In a few minutes, Buddy was at the portico, sitting on his horse and leading the dun. He dismounted and held Bean’s stirrup for Nell. “Now you mount up on the left side,” he explained.
Nell frowned. Where had Buddy gotten the idea she didn’t know how to ride a horse? She’d ridden the horses on her grandparents’ farm, ridden them bareback. Nell put her foot into the stirrup and swung onto Bean. They rode out of the ranch yard at a slow pace, Buddy explaining how to hold the reins, how to sit in the saddle. Once past the corral, Nell kicked the horse into a trot, and then she spurred him into a gallop. Buddy, caught off guard, hurried to catch up with her. When he did, she yelled, “Race you to the poplars,” and kicked Bean with her heels.
Buddy grinned and spurred his horse, reaching the trees just ahead of Nell. “Beat you!” he yelled, when she stopped beside him.
“Only because you gave me this tired old horse.”
“Next time, you can ride my horse, unless you want to try Sky High,” he told her. “But you won’t beat me. No woman can best me at horses.” Then he grinned at her with a look of appraisal. “You sure are some horsewoman, Miss Nellie Blue-Eyes.”
He trotted his horse off toward the mountains, Nell behind him. He liked that she knew how to ride a horse, she decided, and she glowed at his approval. Still, she wondered what his reaction would have been if she really had beaten him. He wouldn’t like it, she thought. Maybe she’d better not challenge him.
* * *
The fall was a happy time for Nell. She was having fun, and she was crazy about Buddy. He seemed to feel the same way about her. Sometimes in the evenings, Nell sat in a chair outside on the porch with her piecing while Buddy leaned against a porch post or sat on the steps, playing his harmonica or talking. Nell thought she would make a quilt for him s
ince his sugan, like the others in the bunkhouse, was dark and poorly made. She was afraid the other cowboys would tease him about it, however. One of Nell’s quilts, even a string quilt made from random bits of leftover fabric, would stand out as much as a lace spread. She pondered what she could make for Buddy but gave up. He wouldn’t want an embroidered pillow sham, and it wouldn’t be proper to sew him a shirt. Finally she decided she would buy him a silk handkerchief that she had seen in the mercantile in Las Vegas. It was bright red, Buddy’s favorite color, and had fringe on the ends and was very fine. It cost two dollars. She’d find a way to sneak it into his trunk or maybe under the blanket in his bunk.
“You make a real pretty picture, Miss Nell,” Buddy said, watching her as she bent over her sewing one evening after supper. He was sitting on the steps. “A person would never know you had a temper.”
Nell laughed. “And you, Buddy, sitting there playing your mouth organ. Who’d know you came up with the meanest practical jokes ever invented.”
“They weren’t so mean.”
“Last week, I got one of my handkerchiefs returned in the mail. It stank up the envelope. I don’t know who sent it.” By now, the story of Nell’s perfumed handkerchiefs was known across New Mexico Territory. “I bet some people still think I’m a loose woman.”
“How many you got back?”
“Ten. Two are still missing.”
“One,” Buddy said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a white square.
“You’ve been carrying it around with perfume sprayed all over it?”
“This one doesn’t have perfume.”
Nell considered that handkerchief. She hadn’t been at the ranch long when Buddy took the handkerchiefs. Had he cared about her from the beginning, and that was why he’d kept one for himself? Had he been as attracted to her that first day as she was to him? She thought to hold out her hand for the square of cloth, but she liked the idea of Buddy carrying it like some favor given to a knight, and she smiled. Buddy put the handkerchief back into his pocket.
The wind came up, and Nell tightened the shawl around her shoulders. It was almost too cold to sit outside, but she relished those evenings with Buddy. “You want my coat?” Buddy asked, taking off his denim jacket.
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