Bride School: Mary (The Brides of Diamond Springs Ranch 4) (9 page)

Mary’s shovel dug into the cold stream bed one
last time and came up with a satisfying load of sand and pebbles. She added it
to the half-full bucket and called it good. If she loaded the pair of buckets
too full, her back would be hurting in the morning.

She fixed the yoke over her shoulders and sighed.
She shouldn’t have come for another load after all. She would be sore for days.
But when she thought of all the mud at the bottom of her front porch steps, she
decided the pain was well worth it. The pebbles and sand would save her
scrubbing the floor three times a day until summer dried things up.

Spring in Wyoming was a magical time…except for
the mud.

The cabin her brothers had purchased twelve miles
west of Sage River was twice as big as the ones she’d been raised in. The summer
place had been the largest with its open porch. The winter cabin had been a
quarter the size of her new home and she tried to keep that in mind every
day—and tried to keep
out
of her mind how large Stoddard House had been.
Or Carnegie House, where her boss had lived… Or Tucker House, where she’d
roomed with the rest of the staff…

Every day made it easier to believe her stay at
Diamond Springs Ranch had only been a dream. It had been nearly four months
since she’d left with her brothers. Four months to remember who she was, or had
been.

There was something comforting about that—knowing
your place in the world. And when she remembered how it felt to not know who
you might marry, or where you might eventually end up, she told herself it was
a frightening state of mind and she was well rid of it.

Exciting? She used to think so. But no more. Now
she realized she was meant to care for her family. She always had been.

And her home was solid. Dry. Close to clean water.
She had her own bedroom, and her brothers were happy to sleep in the loft.
Everything she remembered from her mother’s shelves had been brought down from
the summer place. She couldn’t have felt more at home.

And there would be much less mud on the floor now.

She came over the lip of the creek bank and looked
toward the precious house, trying to decide just where the last bit of sand and
rocks needed to go. But a large dark form blocked the path between her and the
house that stood another two hundred yards away.

A bear.

She slowed her steps, but the weight of her load
made it impossible to stop silently, and the animal turned to face her.

She lowered the buckets to the ground but kept the
yoke on her shoulders, hoping she would appear larger that way. She moved her
leg, searching for the heaviness of her revolver in her skirt pocket, but it
wasn’t there. Her stomach sank when she remembered leaving it on the porch to
avoid the added weight. After all, she’d only been headed to the creek.

If she survived, she’d never make that mistake
again.

Something dark hung from the bear’s lip. Either it
was something dead, or the animal had gotten inside her smokehouse.

“That had better not be mine,” she shouted.

The bear looked away, then back at her. Hoping
maybe it was too satisfied to want a fight, she shouted again.

“You keep your stinking carcass out of my
smokehouse, do you hear?”

The bear sniffed in her direction.

One end at a time, she dipped the yoke up and
down, up and down, hoping she might resemble a giant dragonfly, or at least
something befuddling. She shouted nonsense, but it did no good. Undaunted, the
bear started for her—the deranged woman that smelled much like the
smokehouse—just a large, noisy piece of Elk jerky.

Mary cursed and lifted the buckets off the ground.
Then she started turning in circles. It wasn’t smart to show a bear her back,
but she was facing it again soon enough. And her buckets, now much lighter in
her terrified state, swung out in a wide circle.

At ten feet away, the bear pushed off his front
paws and stood. It was huge! She had to resist the urge to stand and stare. She
had to keep those buckets flying!

The animal’s head moved back and forth as it
watched the buckets pass a scant yard from its face. It was watching for an
opening.

Dizzy now, she nearly toppled. She struggled to
spin faster, hoping it would see no opportunity to attack. But the damn thing
was smart. It sat back on its hind quarters and waited.

Mary knew she wouldn’t last much longer. A slip of
her foot would mean the death of her. She had no choice. She had to attack the
bear. If she was lucky, she’d hit it with both buckets before the momentum was
gone.

She made small adjustments. A little closer with
each turn.

The bear stood again. The head was far too high
for the buckets to hit. But on its feet, she could maybe knock it over!

Closer…

Now hit him hard!

She screamed as she put her all into the first
bucket. It hit the bear’s arm and it knocked it away! It took all the momentum
out of the second bucket, so she swung it around in the other direction. If the
bear was going to get her, it wouldn’t matter if she was facing it or not!

But this time its head was low enough. She gave
one last surge of effort and the bucket struck true. Sand and pebbles spilled
across the animal’s face and into his ear. It stopped advancing and shook its
head.

She swung back the other way again and struck the
other side of its head with the first, nearly empty bucket. The rocks rattled
and the animal startled.

“Go on you yellow-bellied monster!”

Facing it, she was able to spin the yoke over her
head, the buckets all but empty.

The right bucket flew off behind her.

The bear, poised to flee, reconsidered.

“Oh, no you don’t!” She got hold of the bare end
of the yoke and swung the remaining bucket while she advanced. Maybe it
wouldn’t know how useless that nearly empty pail was. “Go on!” she demanded.

The bear took its sweet time deciding. But if she
retreated, it would come after her again. She simply held tight to the long
narrow yoke and prayed.

The empty bucket struck. The sand spilled. The
rope lifted off the notch and the bucket bounced harmlessly away.

The bear considered her curved stick, then took a
step forward and growled—a sound that came all the way from his toes.

And while it growled, she jabbed hard at its
throat with the yoke.

The sound cut off. A massive arm came around and
knocked the yoke away.

It growled again.

With nothing left between them, Mary screamed like
a woman who had just discovered someone had stolen a pie from her windowsill.

The bear sniffed once like its feelings were hurt,
then miraculously turned away.

She resisted the urge to chase it, but stood her
ground as it wandered up toward the road. Something caught her eye and she
jumped, worried another animal was coming after her. But it was a man dripping
with fur and raw leather. With an arrow aimed at the retreating bear, he
advanced. Only when the animal caught wind of him and turned his way did he
fire.

The first arrow stopped the beast. The second
arrow brought him down.

With a third arrow at the ready, the man circled
sideways until he stood within an arm’s length of Mary.

“Are you all right?” he asked without looking at
her.

She realized she was shaking, but kept her voice
steady. “You didn’t need to kill it. I’d scared it away.”

The man shook his capped head, his weapon still
aimed at the motionless black form on the ground. “It would have come back.”
Finally, he lowered the weapon and smiled. “One whiff of you and
I’d
have come back. Smokehouse?”

She nodded. “Then I guess I should thank you.”

The man winked. “I could have brought it down
sooner, but you just kept dancing with it.”

Her mouth fell open, but she was still too shaken
to be clever.

“Nothing else you could have done,” he said, “unless
you had a gun.” Before she had a chance to explain, he dropped the bow and
pulled out a large hunting knife. He walked toward the road and approached the
creature carefully at first, but must have seen something to tell him it was
dead. With his menacing blade, he reached down and cut the animal’s throat,
then wiped his knife on the grass and came back to face Mary.

“Bear skin’ll bring a good price,” he said.

She shook her head. “Your kill, your pelt.”

“Ah, now, if I’m going to have any kind of reward,
I’d rather have something else…”

Mary nodded and smiled pleasantly, then walked
straight for the porch where she’d left her gun. The smile was gone when she
turned back and cocked the pistol. “And I’d rather not dance with any more
bears today, thank you.”

“Mary!” Fritz bellowed outside. “Mary!”

He’d hollered a third time before she had a chance
to answer, or to reach the door. Then she had sense enough to step away before
Fritz barreled through the wood.

“I’m here, Fritz!”

Her brother grabbed her by her shoulders and
looked her over.

“I’m hale and hearty. You see?”

Fritz shook his head. “Blood. Next to the road.”

“Oh, that’s from me,” William said from the table
where Fritz had yet to notice him. “I skinned a bear.”

Fritz’s face lit up for a minute, then fell like a
heavy raincloud. He looked from Mary, to the mountain man, and back again. “You
let a stranger inside?”

“Well, obviously he’s not a stranger to you. And
next, I have my gun in my pocket ready for whatever beast comes at me. And
last, the man saved my life. The least I could do was offer him a meal.”

“She’s lying, Radley,” William grinned. “I didn’t
save her life. At least not today. She’d already scared the bear away. I only
made certain he wouldn’t be coming back looking for your smokehouse again.”

Fritz was not appeased. “Why didn’t you shoot the
bear? I thought they taught you how to shoot and protect yerself at that
dad-blamed ranch!”

William laughed. “Oh, she protected herself just
fine. And with nothing more than a couple of buckets and a stick.”

Her brother growled. “Stay out of this, Bill.”

The mountain man nodded and tried to hide his
amusement behind his beard.

“This seals it, then.” Fritz nodded at Jens and
Max who had followed him inside. “She’s going back.”

“Back?” Mary put her hands on her hips and spread
her feet a little, kind of like Fontaine did when she sensed she’d stepped into
a fight. And oh, how she was prepared to fight.

It had taken nearly four months for her to get her
old skin back on and to finally feel at home once more. She wasn’t about to go
back to Diamond Springs Ranch and face that uncertainty again. And she
definitely wouldn’t risk the heartbreak of never finding a man she could love.

What’s more, she couldn’t possibly go back and ask
Mrs. Carnegie to allow her to work on the ranch again. The woman had bent
enough rules for Mary’s sake. She wasn’t about to ask her to bend again. She
didn’t care if she had to fend off a bear, or a mountain man, every day of her
life. This was her home, and she’d defend it. And she’d defend her right to
stay in it, even if it put her and Fritz on opposing sides once again.

“Mary. It’s not safe here for you. Too close to
town. Too many…passers by.” Fritz gave  William a dirty look. “I thought you
were dead.”

The man looked surprised. With the hand not
holding a spoon, he patted his chest and grinned. “Nope.”

Mary laughed. “Don’t feel bad. He has a habit of
thinking people are dead.”

Fritz growled at her that time. “I won’t be able
to concentrate on my work if I’m worried about you all day.”

“Easy to fix that,” she said. “Just stop worrying.”

Fritz shook his head. “Old man Hermann would send
us all packing when we have to come check on you in the middle of the day.”

Her brothers had come to town to sell pelts to
Rebel’s father and ended up working for the man instead. As it turned out, Fritz’s
carving skills earned him a good paying position that kept him out of the
winter cold. And since Hermann’s business was booming, thanks to the orders
from his son in Boston, he was building a big house in the new part of Sage
River. So he’d needed the younger boys to work there. With so many new
buildings being constructed, men were thin on the ground, and Jens and Max had
a good start as carpenter apprentices.

It was only her father who had no desire to come
down from Snowy Range. He’d visited twice since Christmas, but he’d never spent
the night under the new roof. Mary suspected he was hiding from Mrs. Carnegie,
like he thought she might pop out of the woods and demand her twenty-five
dollars back, since Mary had failed to land a husband. No matter how she
assured him that she’d put in well over twenty-five dollars’ worth of work on
the ranch, he hadn’t believed her.

She pulled the pot of stew from the stove and set
it on the table. “I won’t go back, Fritz. You do whatever you have to do, but
I’m home now.”

He grunted in frustration, then chewed on his lip
like he had something to say but not enough courage to say it. Finally, after
another snort from William, he found his tongue.

“You’ll never meet a husband holed up in here all
day.”

She hid her surprise and pointed teasingly at the
rumpled mountain man. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the right fellow will come
along, since there are so many
passers by
and all.”

Fritz’s eyes grew wide. Jens and Max kept sniffing
at their supper but didn’t dare move close enough to their larger brother in
order to sit at the table.

William tried not to smile, but failed. “I don’t
know. I might be of a mind to take a wife if’n she’s able to fend off a bear
with her bare hands.”

Mary felt her face heat along with Fritz’s.

“You’re going back, Mary. Prepare yourself.”

As her brother marched out of the cabin, she called
out. “And prepare yourself for disappointment, brother. If a bear doesn’t scare
me, what makes you think you can?”