by Hall, Billy
Her eyes dropped toward the cabin’s floor. ‘I hate being that weak.’
‘That ain’t weak,’ he argued gently. ‘You are one tough lady. But don’t never be ashamed of bein’ a woman too.’
She looked back up at him, then seemed suddenly embarrassed. ‘I’ll go ahead and fix us some dinner.’
Taking his cue, Sam said, ‘I’ll work on the wood pile till you holler.’
He split a fair pile of kindling before she called him for dinner. She rang the triangular dinner bell that hung in the yard. Within minutes Billy galloped into the yard. ‘The horses ain’t gonna go anywhere for a while,’ Sam called to him. ‘Your ma’s got dinner ready.’
They ate a hearty and hasty noon meal, then returned to their tasks: Billy to watching the horses, Sam and Kate to the wood pile. By the time she quit to fix supper, they were both exhausted.
They had scarcely finished eating when they heard a horse approach. ‘Now what?’ Sam muttered, as he checked his gun.
Kate waited, preferring the light and Sam’s presence to meeting whomever approached in the dark alone.
‘Hello the house,’ a voice called.
Softly, Kate told Sam, ‘That sounds like Bobby Farmer.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘One of Spalding’s cowboys. He used to come by to help Ralph once in a while. I’ve never been very comfortable around him, but he’s never really bothered.’
‘Hello the house,’ the voice called again.
‘Is that you, Bobby?’
‘Yup. Sure is, Kate. Can I come in?’
‘Sure, come on in,’ she invited. ‘We’ve got some supper if you’re hungry.’
A young cowboy burst unsteadily through the door. He didn’t see either Sam or Billy, as Sam had herded the boy and himself back into the shadows cast by the kerosene lamp. ‘Aw, I ain’t really hungry,’ Bobby said, slurring his words ever so slightly. Sam clearly smelled the whiskey on his breath from across the room. Kate backed up a couple steps, startled by his obvious drunkenness.
‘Not for supper, anyway,’ Bobby went on. ‘A little dessert sure would be nice, though. You gotta be gettin’ pretty lonesome nights, what with Ralph gone and all.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Kate pretended.
‘Aw, sure you do, Kate. You gotta know I ain’t never been able to keep my eyes off o’ you. I didn’t never do nothin’, what with you bein’ married and all. But now that you’re just as single as me, I figured I’d just ride over here and cure your loneliness and mine too, for a while.’
Kate drew herself up to her full five foot six. ‘You can just figure differently, Bobby Farmer. You can just get on your horse and ride back where you belong.’
‘Aw, now, don’t go gettin’ all standoffish. I know you’ve been wantin’ me just as much as I been wantin’ you. There ain’t nothin’ standin’ in our way, now, Kate.’
As he spoke he strode forward and wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms down and barring her from reaching her rifle. She struggled against him, but she couldn’t move from the iron grip of his arms around her. The smell of whiskey on his breath was overwhelming as he fumbled for her mouth to kiss her.
A rough hand on his shoulder spun him around unexpectedly. As he spun, an iron-hard fist slammed into his jaw, sending him sprawling across the floor. Kate stepped back, gasping, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.
Bobby scrambled to his feet just in time to be knocked flat by a left hook from Sam’s fist. He got to his feet more slowly. ‘Who’re you?’ he demanded.
‘I’m a friend of Kate’s, that ain’t about to let some two-bit drunken cowboy make a fool of himself with her. Now get out.’
‘What business have you got bein’ here?’ the cowboy demanded.
‘If it was any of your business, I’d tell you I’m just working for her for a few days. But since it isn’t any business of yours, I’ll tell you I’m Santa Claus. Now go get on your reindeer and beat it, or I’ll beat you.’
He looked confused, trying to make sense of the strange words. Then he clearly considered making a fight of it, but thought better of the idea. He stumbled for the door. As he started through it, he turned back to Sam. ‘Whoever you are, you better watch your back. You’re buttin’ in where you ain’t wanted.’
He slammed the door. In a few minutes they heard his horse gallop away.
‘Santa Claus?’ Kate demanded. ‘Santa Claus? You might at least have told him you were a hired bodyguard or something, so he’d think you’d still be here if he came back. And if you’re Santa Claus, why is he riding a reindeer?’
‘You will still be here, won’t you, Sam?’ Billy pleaded. ‘You ain’t gonna leave me and Ma here by ourselves, are you?’
Sam squirmed. ‘I’ll stay another day, Billy, and get a good pile of wood split up. But I’ve got those horses out there, and they don’t belong to me. If I don’t take them home, I won’t be any better than the guys that stole them in the first place.’
‘But me and Ma need you here,’ Billy insisted.
‘Your ma’s one tough lady, Billy. She can take care of herself, and you too. I helped her out a little tonight, but if I hadn’t been here, she’d have handled that cowboy. If she’d have needed help, I’m bettin’ you would have hit him over the head with that iron skillet on the stove. You’ll both be just fine.’
As he rolled into his blankets under the trees, along the creek, he felt like he was the biggest liar in Wyoming.
CHAPTER 5
‘Hello the house!’
Sam and Kate had heard the buckboard’s approach. Sam had put his shirt and gun back on. Kate picked up her rifle and stepped around the corner of the house.
‘Well, hello, Eva. Hello, Hi,’ she greeted Hiram and Eva Spalding. ‘What brings you two over here?’
Then, without waiting for an answer, she said, ‘Get down and come in. I was just getting ready to quit cutting wood and get some dinner.’
‘You’re cutting wood?’ Eva accused.
As if on cue, the sound of an axe splitting wood resumed from the back side of the house. Sam had watched and listened long enough to know Kate was talking to friends, then returned to the wood pile.
‘Well, not by myself,’ Kate confessed. ‘I’ve had some help the past couple days. A man named Sam Heller is resting his horses, fattening them up a little on the tall grass over toward the crick, and cutting wood for his keep.’
Hiram frowned. ‘Heller. He ain’t by chance ridin’ a horse with a Rafter J brand, is he?’
‘Why, yes. Why?’
Hiram seemed suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Uh, I was visitin’ with Buck Hinsmeyer the other day. Some fella from somewhere down in the Indian Nation caught up with some horse thieves tryin’ to sell a bunch o’ stolen stock to the Mill Iron. Buck says the fella called ’em horse thieves, then shot all four afore a one of ’em could get off a shot. He said he’s the fastest man with a gun he’s ever seen or heard of.’
Kate nodded. ‘Sam told me about that, when he asked to feed and water his horses.’
‘He told you about that?’
‘Well, I guess I asked him why he had horses with that many different brands.’
‘You asked a question like that of a strange man you had not even met before?’ Eva demanded, her voice filled with reproach, rose an octave and slipped unconsciously into her natural Mexican accent. ‘Katie Bond, you could get killed asking questions like that of strangers! How did he not shoot you for asking that?’
Hiram recaptured the conversation. ‘I ain’t sure it’s a good idea, bein’ here alone with a hardcase like that, Kate. He ain’t bothered you none, has he?’
Kate shook her head. ‘He’s been a perfect gentleman.’ A hard edge gave her next words more stress than she intended. ‘He did send someone else packing, though, that thought I’d be lonesome enough by now to be available.’
‘Somebody tried to take advantage of you?’ Eva demanded. ‘Did he shoot him? Did you
shoot him yourself, with your own gun?’
Kate laughed. ‘No. He was drunk, or I’m sure he wouldn’t have tried anything like that. Sam knocked him down a couple times and sent him packing.’
‘Who was it, Kate?’ Hiram demanded.
Kate hesitated a long moment. Obviously torn between refusing the demand and divulging information that could be severely damaging to a man in that country, she finally said, ‘It was Bobby.’
Hiram’s face suffused with anger. ‘Bobby Farmer? Are you tellin’ me one o’ my own hands pulled a hair-brained stunt like that? Is that where he got that big shiner an’ sore jaw he’s sportin’?’
‘He was drunk, Hi. I’m sure he wouldn’t try anything like that sober.’
‘Well, he won’t be drunk on any wages o’ mine, from here on,’ Hiram vowed. ‘I’ll tie a can to his tail so quick he’ll wonder how it happened.’
‘That’s not necessary, Hi.’
‘It sure as he … uh, it is too necessary,’ Hiram argued. ‘No hand of mine can get away with somethin’ like that. If he’d try somethin’ like that with you, my own daughters ain’t even safe with him on the place. I’m plumb sorry, Kate.’
‘It’s not your fault, Hi. Nothing came of it. Besides, Sam already took care of it.’
Bart Spalding, riding his horse beside his parents’ buckboard, spoke for the first time. As soon as he opened his mouth, it was apparent that speech was a problem for him. ‘I-I-I-I t-t-t-t-told you he wasn’t n-n-no good, Pa.’
Hiram looked at the strapping, sandy-haired, six foot two inch frame of his youngest son. He bore no resemblance to Eva, nor to Eduardo, their eldest son, who favored his mother. Two boys from the same parents could not have been more opposite. Eduardo was small, dark, quick as a rattlesnake in his movements, self-assured and suave. Bartholomew, or Bart as he was known, was pale-skinned and freckle-faced, hulking as his father, and stuttered uncontrollably.
The same total lack of semblance in appearance was true of their two daughters as well. They sat their horses beside Bart, listening, but not participating in the conversation. Katrina was somewhat large boned, blond and blue-eyed like her father. She was attractive with a large, wholesome beauty that seemed as honest and open as the Wyoming sky. At sixteen she was as good a ranch-hand as any man, but her parents were beginning to screen the hands they hired more carefully.
Camilla was the spitting image of her mother. She looked every bit of her Mexican heritage, with rich olive skin, perfect features, and, at fourteen, a body that already turned men’s heads wherever she went. Her greatest difference from Katrina was on the back of a horse. Camilla knew only two speeds a horse should travel: fast and faster. While Katrina was as easy on her horse as possible, Camilla demanded the utmost from hers, all the time. Hiram scolded her constantly for pushing her mount too hard. Except for that, she seemed to idolize her older sister.
From the time Camilla began to crawl, she had tried to imitate everything Katrina had done. It was only a matter of time until their father began calling Katrina ‘Pete’, and Camilla ‘Repeat’. It had grown so until everyone now knew Katrina simply as ‘Pete’.
When Hiram declined to respond to his younger son’s assertions about Bobby, Eva spoke, bringing the conversation back to Sam. The Mexican accent in her voice became even more pronounced as she adopted a teasing tone.
‘It sounds to me like this Sam happened by at a pretty good time, eh? Is he handsome?’
‘Eva!’ Hiram remonstrated.
Kate only grinned. ‘Actually, he is.’
Then her face and voice grew more serious. ‘He’s every bit as incredible with a gun as Buck told you, too, Hi.’
‘You’ve seen him use it?’
She nodded. ‘Lance Russell and two of his hired gunmen just happened to stop in. It was the same day Bobby came over, as a matter of fact, earlier in the day.’
‘Twice in the same day somethin’ like that happens? What did that slimy snake, Russell, want?’
‘My place. He offered to buy the patent on the land and all my cattle for five hundred dollars.’
Eva gasped aloud. ‘Did you tell him what kind of worthless garbage he is?’
‘I told him something like that. Then he threatened to let his hired gunmen take advantage of me to their hearts’ content if I didn’t take the offer. That’s when Sam stepped around the corner and ordered them off the place. One of the gunmen decided to kill him, instead. He didn’t even get his gun out of its holster before Sam shot him out of the saddle. I didn’t even see him draw. It was just like his gun was in his hand by magic or something. He was way faster, even, than Eduardo. Where is he, by the way? Why isn’t he with you?’
Hiram either didn’t hear the question, or was too preoccupied with fretting over his own hand’s attempt to take advantage of Kate, the same day Russell and his gun hands had shown up. ‘You had to deal with that and one of my drunken hands in the same day?’ he fussed.
Eva climbed down the wheel of the buckboard, walked over and put an arm around Kate’s shoulders. ‘I think you need to keep this Sam around, Kate. That is what I think. It sounds like he showed up at just the right time, just when you were going to need for him to be here. Who knows, maybe the angels sent him to you.’
Choosing not to answer that, Kate said instead, ‘Why don’t you and the girls help me get some dinner, Eva. Hi, you and Bart can go get acquainted with Sam. Tell me what you think of him.’
‘You wantin’ me to size him up for you, or you just gettin’ rid of me so you four can do a bunch o’ women talk?’
Eva chose to answer for Kate. ‘You are being sent away so we women can talk without you foolish men telling us what we are supposed to think and to say,’ she confirmed.
Muttering to himself, Hi motioned to Bart, who dismounted and tied his horse’s reins to the wheel of the wagon. Together they strode around the house. Sam set the axe head on the ground as the pair rounded the corner of the house. Sweat coursed in rivulets down his tightly muscled torso. He pulled his neckerchief from where he had stuffed it in a rear pocket and mopped his face. He nodded to the newcomers. ‘Howdy.’
‘Mornin’,’ Hiram responded, stepping forward and thrusting out a hand. ‘I’m Hi Spalding. H Bar V Ranch.’
Taking the hand and returning the strong grip, Sam said, ‘Sam Heller. I work for the Rafter J, down in the Indian Nation.’
Bart shoved his huge ham of a hand forward as well. ‘I-I-I-I’m B-B-Bart. H-H-Howdy.’
Sam took the hand, returning its iron-hard grip. ‘Bart. That short for Bartholomew?’
‘Y-Y-Y-Yeah, b-b-but it t-t-t-takes me ha-ha-ha-half a dd-day to say all th-th-that.’
Not sure just how to respond, Sam said only, ‘I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Bart.’
Speaking just slightly too fast, as if embarrassed by his son’s stuttering, Hiram jumped in to reclaim the conversation. ‘Indian Nation, huh? That’s a long way from here.’
Sam nodded. ‘I came up here trailin’ some horse thieves that drove off some of our best horses, as well as a couple of the neighbors’. I got about half of ’em back.’
‘I heard about that.’
‘That’s not surprising. Word gets around.’
Bart stepped forward and took the axe from Sam. Wordlessly he attacked the wood pile, splitting the cut sections of log with a speed and efficiency that made Sam’s efforts seem like child’s play.
The two men watched in silence for a moment, before Hiram spoke again. ‘Yeah, word does get around in this country. Where are the horses now?’
‘Billy’s keepin’ ’em from driftin’ off too far, so I can get some wood cut.’
Hiram nodded appreciatively, eyeing the wood pile that was stacked higher than the house. ‘That’s a pretty impressive wood pile for two days’ work.’
Sam nodded. ‘Nothin’ like what Bart would have piled up in that time, the way he swings that axe. But I have been pushin’ it pretty hard. Kate ain’t no slouch on a two
-man saw, neither. She don’t need to stop and rest near as often as I do. Anyway, her and Billy are gonna need a lot of wood to get through the winter. Seemed like the least I could do before I push on.’
Hiram eyed him appraisingly. ‘You’ll be headin’ out before long?’
If Sam was offended by the probing question, he gave no indication. ‘Day after tomorrow, most likely. I Should have wood enough split and stacked by then. On the other hand, if she don’t ring the dinner bell too quick, Bart may have it all done by dinner.’
‘Kate tells me one of my hands made a jackass of himself a couple nights ago.’
‘Bobby Farmer’s one of your hands?’
‘He was until today.’
‘What happened today?’
‘Nothin’ yet. It’s gonna, when I get home, though.’
Sam was thoughtful for a long moment. Finally he said, ‘I’d like to tell you not to be too hard on him. He was some drunk. On the other hand, it was Kate he tried to force himself on, so I’d like to tell you to horse-whip ’im. I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.’
‘I already know what I’m gonna do. I’ll send him packin’, and tell ’im if I ever run into ’im again, even workin’ for another outfit in this country I’ll shoot ’im down like a mangy coyote.’
Instead of responding, Sam walked over to Bart. He held out his hand. ‘I’ll take a few swings, Bart. Let you catch your breath.’
‘I-I-I-I ain’t t-t-t-tired yet.’
‘Yeah, I know, but you’re makin’ me look lazy.’
Bart handed over the axe with obvious reluctance. Sam grinned at him as he took the axe. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll hand it back just as soon as I show you how this really oughta be done.’
The two took turns trying to outwork each other, trading jibes, and challenging Hiram to judge which was the best log splitter for well over an hour before the dinner bell rang an end to their good-hearted rivalry and newfound comraderie.
CHAPTER 6
‘Sam, I’m worried.’
Sam stopped and set the head of the axe on the ground. He shook his head, sending a shower of sweat in all directions. He already had enough wood chopped to see Kate and Billy through the winter. Every day he told himself one more day and he’d gather his horses and leave the country. Every day he found himself less willing to do so. Deep down he knew the supply of wood for winter wasn’t what was keeping him here.