“I am sick of this old he-grizzly.” Silas took a quick glance at Belle, who still sat on horseback, breathing hard, her expression calm, but Silas thought he saw a tinge of fear and, probably his imagination, just a hint of gratitude.
Silas tied the blazed-face steer’s head down to his foreleg with rapid twists of his pigging string and then released the string hog-tying his legs together. Silas released his lasso from the broad horns and jumped free before the spooky mossy-horn knew what had hit him. Silas stepped back into his saddle.
Hazing the beast back toward the herd with his head strapped down to his foreleg, Silas waited until he was satisfied the steer wasn’t going to attack; then he turned and rode back to Belle. “We’ll leave him like that till he settles in for the night. It won’t hurt him, and it might gentle him some.”
Belle stared after the steer. “I’ve seen that done a time or two, but I’ve never done it.”
“You can’t throw a steer like that.”
Belle looked at him and shrugged. “Sure I can. I run a branding iron every spring, but that’s mostly calves. Still, you can’t run a ranch without busting cattle.”
Silas couldn’t seem to get his mind to twist around the sight of Belle doing something like he’d just done. Cold fear shook him at the thought of Belle wading into that mass of churning hooves and stabbing horns. “I don’t believe it. You’re too small to throw a steer.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” Belle dropped the question into the space between them like a drawn six-gun.
Silas’d seen that level, challenging look before out West. A man’s word was everything out here, where thousands of acres or whole herds of cattle might change owners on a handshake. To call a man a liar was to cause his reputation damage that might destroy his ability to make a living and follow him to his grave. Silas knew better than to call anyone a liar. And he hadn’t meant that now, but judging from the golden lightning flashing out of her eyes, Belle didn’t see it that way.
His Western learning kicked in. “No, I apologize for that. I haven’t done much this whole trip but underestimate you, and I’m sorry. I just thought as little as you are …”
“How much do you weigh?” Belle asked through clenched teeth.
Silas shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. A hundred and eighty, or two hundred pounds, I guess.”
“And how much does that steer you just threw weigh?”
“A ton. At least.”
“I’d say more like twenty-three hundred pounds.”
Silas was a good judge of cattle, and he’d say that steer weighed within twenty pounds of Belle’s estimate. “What about it?”
“Throwing cattle isn’t about weight. If it was, the few pounds difference in ours wouldn’t matter.”
“It’s more than a few pounds, Belle. You’re a skinny little thing, and I—”
“It’s about leverage and quickness.” Belle cut him off. “And, more than anything, a good cow pony. You know your horse did most of the work there, and mine is just as good. All of my horses are well trained to work cattle. Emma can bust a steer better than I can. Lindsay just as well. This is the second year Sarah has bulldogged calves at branding time.”
Belle rode her horse straight up to Silas’s side. “Don’t ever tell me what I can and cannot do.”
Belle’s voice was so cold it sent shivers up Silas’s spine. “I’ll try and watch my mouth, boss. But I’m trying to learn about a new kind of woman here. The two I almost married weren’t a thing like you.”
Belle’s chin lowered, and the anger left her eyes. Silas knew that was the very reason he’d spoken of such foolish things. Belle was a woman after all. She’d forget about whatever was going on inside her head if she could listen to his mistakes.
She didn’t ask, not out loud, but her eyes burned with curiosity.
“The first one was the tough one. I really thought I was set in life. I owned a nice spread in New Mexico. I had a house built, a good herd started, and I had a woman set to marry me. I got caught in the middle of the Lincoln County War. Ever heard of it?”
“I’ve heard a little. Mainly I’ve heard of Billy the Kid.”
“I met him. I wasn’t even involved with that fight. It was between two other bunches of hotheads. But when the bullets started flying, they were none too particular who got caught in the crossfire. My girl thought she saw the future and hitched her wagon to another star. I still thought I’d win her back until the day I came on a group of men on my property. I rode up to order them off.”
Silas could still feel the icy chill running down his spine. “One was Billy the Kid. The way he stared at me…killing-mean eyes.” Silas paused to swallow. He was a coward, no denying it. “I knew it wasn’t a fight I could win. The Kid didn’t say much. He didn’t have to. The law’d broken down, and Billy and his outfit were taking whatever they wanted. The only way to stop him was to kill him, and he was a mighty hard man to kill.”
Silas rubbed the back of his neck and forced himself to admit the truth. “Too hard for me.” Silas looked at the ground between their cow ponies, not wanting to see what was in Belle’s eyes. “They let me ride off.”
He’d seen contempt before because he’d ridden to Millicent’s pa’s ranch and told her he was leaving the country. He’d asked her to come with him.
Contempt. She’d figured out before Silas had that he was a coward.
Millicent had turned Silas down. She’d dealt her cards into another game and she’d made what she saw as the best choice. Later Silas heard the man she’d taken up with had died in the fighting…so she’d backed another loser. He was well rid of her, but it still hurt. It was all part of the shame. The failure.
Belle might as well know the truth. She’d know what Millicent had known. Silas wasn’t a good bet for a woman. “I quit the country. Went home and paid off my hands and fired ’em. I rode out with what supplies I could pack on a string of horses and what cash I could scrape together. I didn’t even try to move my herd. I knew I wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy ’em.”
“Smart man.”
Silas looked up, figuring she was making a joke.
She looked dead serious. Then she smiled. “Did you think I’d say you should have shot it out with Billy the Kid—backed by a pack of his friends? My life has little time for fancy dreams, Silas.
You did the right thing, and you know it. You’ve been drifting ever since? What, two years? Three? That’s when that trouble was brewing, right?”
When she put it like that, walking away from Billy the Kid sounded like an act of wisdom. The next wasn’t so easy. Running from Lulamae. Belle might as well know.
“I started a new spread in the far corner of northwest New Mexico Territory and got run out of there by a woman. Not as exciting as Billy the Kid.”
Belle laughed. “What happened?”
“I got caught kissing her in the stable.”
Belle narrowed her eyes, and the smile faded from her pink lips.
Silas wasn’t above feeling ashamed.
“And when you were caught you refused to do the right thing?”
Silas well remembered Belle had four daughters. This wasn’t a woman who liked seeing young women treated wrong. “She set me up. She grabbed me and kissed me. Her pa was there, handy with his rifle, yelling about my mistreating his daughter before he could even see us, so I knew the two of ’em had it planned. He had friends right behind him, and they took his word against mine. He demanded a wedding. I guess Lulamae was ornery enough that they’d given up finding a husband for her by the regular means.”
Belle shook her head. “Overpowered by a girl, huh? I feel real sorry for you.”
“Well, don’t. I’ve learned my lesson. If you haven’t figured it out by now…well, I get that same message right back from you, so you understand. I’m not gettin’ tangled up with a female. Never again. I’m drifting now because it suits me. But I like having land I can call my own. I like a nice spread, and I aim to build
myself another one of these days.”
“We understand each other then. That…that first morning. Just a stupid, weak moment on my part. I don’t have many.”
Silas remembered that moment. He’d spent far too much time remembering that moment. Weak and stupid about explained it. And he knew she didn’t have many. That was the honest truth.
“Let’s get back to work.” Belle looked at the cattle spread out in front of them. Almost trail broke, except for a few like that blazed-face steer. “The sun’s moving low in the sky, and there’s good grazing up ahead with plenty of water. I might let the cattle stay put for a day or two so the girls can rest.”
“After only three days on the trail?” It just came blabbing out of his mouth without a thought. He’d like to let the girls rest, too. He could see that Emma had already lost weight. Lindsay had a gaunt, hard look around her eyes, and Sarah had cried when they woke her up this morning, though only until she was fully awake. Then she cut the tears off instantly and went straight to work setting up breakfast for the camp.
Before Belle could cut him off at the knees, he said, “I think they need it. The first few days on the trail are rough. The cattle are almost trail broke, so it won’t be as hard from here on. And we’ve got that mountain pass ahead of us. We’d better rest now, because there’ll be no stopping then.”
When he’d first opened his stupid mouth, Belle had looked like she was ready to bite his head off, and he wanted to save his neck. Then, when he’d changed his tune about stopping, she got that soft, sad look in her eyes. The one that’d made him kiss her that first morning, and he wanted none of that either.
Well, that wasn’t strictly true. He wanted it something fierce. It just wasn’t going to be one of those things he let himself have. He decided maybe he was safer when she was mad.
Before he could think of some way to get her hackles up, she said, “It’s so hard on them. They’re game as any man, and they’d never ask for me to give them any kind of break. But I’m worried about them. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but …” Belle stopped talking, and with practiced ease she swung the baby around to her front and looked down at the wide-eyed little girl who rode so patiently day after day. “Betsy has changed.”
Silas thought of diapers. “Changed how?”
Belle ran her hand over the baby’s cheek. “She doesn’t cry anymore.”
Silas leaned over and looked at that pretty baby, smudged with dirt and so quiet. Her huge black eyes, lined with lashes too thick for any baby, blinked up at her mama. Silas followed the baby’s gaze and saw the feminine side of Belle. He saw the mother in her and wished almost violently that she didn’t have to work so hard and that men hadn’t done her so wrong.
“Is she sick?” Silas nudged his horse forward to stand side by side with Belle, facing opposite directions, and looked at the little one.
Betsy turned her eyes on Silas, but she didn’t smile. Just watched.
Belle shook her head. “All the girls did this. They started out being these pink, perfect little babies. Then I’d carry them along with me while I did chores, and they’d get quiet and watchful. I’ve seen Indian babies act like this.” Belle raised the little one so she could look directly into her eyes.
Betsy reached for Belle’s nose, and Belle kissed the little grabbing fingers.
“I don’t suppose it’s bad. It just doesn’t seem quite normal to me. I don’t know what else to do than…than br–bringing them along.”
Silas heard that break in her voice again.
Belle pulled Betsy into her arms and hugged her tight, burying her face in the baby’s neck and rocking her gently.
“Betsy has been cared for more gently than the others were in a lot of ways, because Sarah stays in the house with her most of the time. But after only a few days, this drive has changed her.”
Silas looked at Belle holding her baby, and something burned in him that almost overwhelmed every lick of sense he had. And right at that moment it was a good thing they had two horses, a thousand head of cattle, a baby, and three suspicious girls between them, or he’d have dragged Belle Tanner into the nearest town and married her without another thought just so she could spend a little time sitting in a rocking chair, tending her baby, while someone took care of her and her girls. And while he was at it, he’d make sure her roof didn’t leak!
Belle hoisted Betsy into the crook of her arm and shook her head as if to clear it. “You have a knack for making me doubt myself, Silas. I don’t thank you for that.”
Silas sat silently, afraid of what might come out of his mouth if he spoke.
Belle turned her gaze on him. “I do thank you for saving me from that steer though.” She tucked Betsy back into her sling, lifted the reins with one hand, and squeezed her knees on the sides of her horse. With a soft clucking sound she rode away.
Silas turned to look after her as she rode away, and he surely enjoyed the sight of her working that horse.
Belle Tanner might be the toughest cowpoke he’d ever partnered with. She might talk and work and even think like a man. But Belle Tanner was 100 percent, through and through, pure female, and no one who got within ten feet of her ever doubted it for a moment. He had no doubt that when Belle turned up widowed each time, men came a-runnin’, and it wouldn’t be any different when word got out about Anthony. The thought of droves of no-good saddle tramps trying to get their hands on Belle didn’t sit well with him.
If she was going to get herself mixed up with a no-account saddle tramp, it might as well be him.
He tore his gaze away from her, and it was almost physically painful. Then he spurred his horse for the far side of the herd and worked himself hard the rest of the afternoon just to keep his mind off those hordes of worthless men…and the way Belle sat in a saddle.
CHAPTER 8
Resting a day was a poor excuse for an idea.
Rest was not agreeing with her. Instead, rest was giving her the energy to have her imagination running wild.
“I’ll go ride a circuit.” Silas bent over the basin of warm water and slid his scraped-clean plate in. Belle watched every move. What the man did to a pair of chaps was exactly why resting a day was a poor excuse for an idea.
Silas walked away from the camp, and she almost went after him. She felt her muscles bunch to rise and chase that man down right there on the mountainside.
It wasn’t the first time. She’d started toward him every time she came within seeing distance of him. She stopped herself before she could do anything foolish like catch the man alone and kiss him again, but she was fighting some powerful instincts. In the end, only the girls being there kept her from chasing him.
The cattle spread out across a high valley in the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountain Range. They would swing the herd slightly east after this and scale a saddleback pass that took them on the east side of a rugged peak Belle had heard called Mount Jack. That was the worst stretch of the trail. The herd would move slow, wear itself out climbing, line up mostly single file, and trudge at the most two or three miles a day for the next week. Then they’d drop down off the peaks to an easier trek with plenty of water but poor eating for the most part, which would take weight off her steers and make them edgy and difficult to handle for the last two weeks of the drive. The herd needed a few days to fill their bellies and rest up for what was ahead, just as her daughters did.
Belle thought of Silas, out there riding in slow circles around her cattle. She thought of the way he’d worked without asking fool questions or making excuses. She knew in her heart he was a different kind of man than the ones she’d gotten tangled up with before. But she also knew that Gerald had shown no signs of being a drinker before they’d married. And William had seemed like an eager, hardworking young rancher when he thought he’d be getting Belle’s pa’s ranch. And Anthony…well, she’d been down on men by the time she agreed to marry him. She wanted to stop the crowd of suitors, and beyond that, she had expected very little. And
that was exactly what she’d gotten.
So, even though she thought Silas was different, she didn’t trust her judgment, having proved to be sorely lacking in that ability in the past. Belle spent a moment in silent prayer, asking God to forgive her for the life she’d provided for her girls and the sins she’d committed by marrying men who weren’t decent Christians.
It was her. She knew it.
Maybe God could give her a miracle and make her smarter, but so far the miracle hadn’t happened. She’d always thought she’d just had bad luck until near the end of her marriage to Anthony when the man had left her on the trail in the midst of giving birth to his child. Anthony was more than worthless; he was evil. And she’d picked him and exposed her children to him.
There was something broken inside her. It wasn’t bad luck. She was a pure fool when it came to men; or worse yet, there was something in her that brought out the worst in a man. Maybe Gerald had taken to the bottle because of the way Belle acted. Maybe Anthony had been driven to other women when Belle pushed him aside and did everything herself.
Belle knew there was some truth in it. More likely though, she picked men who were weak because she was used to being in charge, and men who could be pushed around tended to be shiftless from the start. Then she’d run roughshod over them.
“Why be surprised that they ended up being exactly what I expected?” she asked no one, or maybe God. Her question drifted on the air unanswered, but Betsy, who sat on her lap, looked up and raised her pretty dark brows.
The older girls were all away from camp, so Belle smiled at her baby and kept talking. “Maybe if Gerald had needed to get the chores done, he’d have sobered up. You think so, baby? You think I should have let the cattle next thing to starve in the hopes Gerald would take charge?”
Belle’s jaw clenched at the very idea. Betsy swatted her playfully on the chin, and she relaxed. “Maybe if, when William wanted to spend the few dollars my pa gave me on foolishness, I hadn’t stepped in and told him how it was going to be, William would have had to grow up and do something to put food on the table.”
Mary Connealy Page 37