Caress of Fire (18 page)

The hoodlum, the calf aboard and his mother trotting along, drifted out of sight. The sound of longhorns moving to north and the dust from beneath their hooves began to fade.

Lisette and her husband were alone at the now deserted campsite. Big Red, fretful as ever, pulled at the reins held in Gil's hand. His long mane drifting like wash on the line in a breezy day, he shook his massive head. His master quietened the stallion, then wound the reins around a tree trunk.

From over his shoulder, Gil said impatiently, “Wife, I am not going to stand here all day, waiting for your answer.”

Just moments ago she had thought she didn't want to make up with Gil, but that wasn't so. Since “guilty party” fit her like a second skin, he deserved an apology.

“I guess we should talk,” she said hesitantly.

“No. I'm doing the talking.”

He wouldn't talk, he'd yell, she decided.

She was in for a surprise when he rounded on her and said in an evenly modulated voice, “I won't put up with your undermining me in front of my men, Lisette.”

“I'm sorry. I–”

“I told you a good while back, ‘sorry' doesn't work with me. If you and I are going to get along, you're gonna have to think before you act.”

“I was upset over Cactus Blossom. It would've been terrible, sending her off alone, and–”

“I don't see how she relates to your snit over that calf.” He rubbed a finger across the scar Blade Sharp had left.

“It's bothered me since the first day I joined this outfit, the way you abandon the sucklings.”

“They have to be left behind. We can't slow the drive to let them poke along or take time to nurse.”

“You spend hours herding their mothers back to the fold.”

“Not as much time as we'd spend babying those calves along. This isn't a ranch or a farm, Lisette. This is a cattle drive. A drive that depends on moving and moving fast. We need the spring waters and the best grasses. Soon summer's going to be here. The water and grass will be scarce. You know the first cows at the railhead get the best prices.”

He grimaced. “And I'd have appreciated it if you'd had the courtesy to speak with me about your obsession with calves before you took the matter into your own hands.”

“I was afraid to.” She studied the toes of her shoes. “I figured you'd find me weak for even mentioning the matter.”

“I would've. But no matter how I might have reacted, you had no call to take the reins as trail boss.” He took a step toward her. “Nobody, nobody tells me how to run my cattle drive.”

Still shaking from the morning's events, she bristled at his high-handedness. “You've got a cold heart.”

“When it comes to business, yes.”

“I don't see how you can sleep at night, with all those dead calves in our wake.”

Exasperation set his whisker-shadowed features. “Let me tell you something, Lisette McLoughlin. I sleep pretty damned well, thank you very much. Want to know why? I've been to hell and back. I'm thankful I survived.”

“I thought you had a conscience.”

“Conscience has nothing to do with it. Ours is the game of survival. I've made this trip before–three times. And what I didn't know about enduring, I learned up this very cowpath.”

“They teach cruelty to animals somewhere along the way?” she asked crossly.

“You're better suited to the drawing room, woman.”

“You would have made an excellent executioner.”

“Thank you, wife.” His eyes got dark. “Appreciate it. I love being so compared.”

Contrite, Lisette licked her lips and contemplated the ground once more. “Forgive me. I was being cruel.”

His voice lost its sharp edge as he said, “Don't apologize for a trait that might just get you to Kansas and back. This land demands cruelty. And it could get worse before we reach Abilene–especially in the Indian Territory. There's neither a town nor a lawman between Texas and Kansas.”

Catching on “Indian Territory,” she shivered, thinking of savages, arrowheads, tomahawks. And guns.

“Comanches are up there, too, aren't they?” she asked.

“In some areas. Mostly around here. Lisette, I can't say I blame the Comanche for trying to protect the land we whites are taking from them. They want to live and prosper same as us. They fight to keep their way of life; we fight to capture the land we need. And we'll keep fighting until one of us wins.”

Borrowing wits from somewhere, she jacked up her chin. “What do Indians have to do with baby cows?”

“What I'm trying to make you understand is ... nothing–neither man nor beast–has an inherent right to life out here. Either you survive or you don't. We've been lucky so far, honey. We've had good weather and only one Indian attack. Let's pray that holds, because no one–no one–will make it unless he or she is tough as ten-year-old pemmican.”

“You're certainly that.”

“Right.” He nodded. “But even the fittest don't make it sometimes. Some of us are going to die, some of us are going to live. Some of those will be cattle, some will be man. It's as simple as one-two-three.”

“You paint a grim picture.”

“I speak the truth.” Gil collected Big Red's reins. “You've got two choices. You can toughen your hide and go on with me to Kansas. Or you can stay in Fort Worth till I get back to collect you.”

“You want,” she began in German, then spoke in English. “Y-you want to leave me in Fort Worth?”

“I'll rent you a place in town, hire you some help. You needn't concern yourself, I'll leave plenty of money for you to live on.”

She swallowed, then met his determined gaze. “It sounds as if you've been thinking about this awhile.”

“I don't deny it. I think your settling would be for the best. You said yourself you're lonely for womenfolk. And the work's getting to be too much for you.”

“I can handle my work.”

“You won't be able to handle it a few months down the line.”

“Not true,” she protested.

He closed the distance between them. His fingers locking around her shoulders, he said, “Why don't we stop the pussyfootin' around. You haven't admitted it, maybe not even to yourself, but you're with child.”

“I ... I've admitted it to myself.”

His voice quiet, he asked, “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I was waiting for the right moment.” Rubbing her suddenly aching temple, she said, “If you won't be back till no telling when, you might miss the birthing.”

“There's a chance of that. A slight one. But a chance.”

All her old feelings of loneliness and fears of abandonment struck anew. Nerves lurching like an out-of-control wagon, she took a step backward. Her knees almost buckled.

“Lisette,” he said patiently, “it's best for the cattle drive if you stay put. I can't have anything holding us up.”

“You could have put it in more personal terms.”

“Then think of all those heads of cattle as gold pieces, giving us security. Delays could mean losses.”

“You've no right to assume I'll cause delays. Anything could happen to slow the procession.”

“You're right about that.” A grim set to his mouth, he added, “You'd have no business in the middle of it. You are going to stay in Fort Worth, keep your sense and sensibilities in check, and bring our child into the world. That's more important than me being there for the birth.”

Maybe it wasn't important to her husband, but it was very important to Lisette. She was on the verge of telling him all the things she'd decided this morning: she wasn't some delicate flower in need of pampering; she was as healthy as a horse, and babes had come into this world under far worse conditions.

He wouldn't want to hear that, she figured. Why? Because she'd become a hindrance rather than an asset to the Four Aces undertaking. He ought to have a sign painted on the sides of the chuck wagon:
No Sentimentalists Need Apply.

“I don't blame you,” she said, filled with the self-pity she believed was deserved, “wanting to be free of a teary-eyed female who's muddying up your trail drive.”

“You're putting it bluntly.”

She read “but truthfully” in his eyes. If he loved her, he would want her within sight. Nothing would keep him from being with her when their child drew his first breath.

But he had never said anything about love. Never.

Tears burned her eyes; her throat tightened; her stomach knotted . . . and threatened to roil.
I'm not going to be sick again. I've shown too much weakness already.

He offered his hand. “Come on, honey. Let me help you up Big Red. We need to catch the herd.”

“And get on to Fort Worth.”

“And get on to Fort Worth,” he echoed.

“I have no say in it?”

“Lisette, will you stay there of your own accord?”

“I'll do whatever is best. For you, for the child.”

“It's best for you, too.”

This wasn't what she wanted. They were nowhere near Fort Worth, yet the ache of her lonely prospects doubled. She wouldn't beg, though. She would not. Settled behind him on the saddle, she let him lead her toward Fort Worth.

Nonetheless, she wasn't above having the last word. “If you don't return in time for my lying-in, should I have Hermann Gilliegorm McLoughlin christened?”

“Don't you dare name him that.”

“Guess there's not much you can do about it. You'll be on the trail, and I'll be in Fort Worth.”

“Damn you.” His words were profane, yet he laughed and reached behind him to pat her thigh. “You're a spiteful lass.”

“Agreed.”

“Lisette,” he said quietly, “I guess I ought to tell you something. I wouldn't have left you here. Not for over five minutes or so.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

Her faith wasn't misplaced. She wrapped her arms around him, leaning her cheek against his back. Gruff and dogmatic he might be, but Gil McLoughlin was a good man.

“Liebster
, thanks for letting that baby calf ride in the hoodlum.”

“Damn it, don't remind me.”

 

 

Matthias Gruene was away from camp, rounding up cattle that had strayed during the night, when the set-to about the bullock occurred, but he heard about it the same day. Attitude Powell enlightened him. Dinky Peele added his two cents. At a rest stop, Jackson Bell had a few words to say on the subject. Wink Tannington spoke floridly on a woman “knowing her place.”

Setting his spur rowels to spinning, Matthias headed his mount toward the chuck wagon. Lisette needed help.

The Indian woman was wandering around the wagon, Lisette nowhere in sight.

“Where is Mrs. McLoughlin?” he shouted.

“Shhh.” Cactus Blossom brought a finger to her lip. On quiet feet, she walked to Matthias. Tossing a braid over her shoulder, she looked up with wide-set black eyes. “Albino sleeps in the wagon.”

“Is she all right?”

“As fine as a woman can be at a time like hers.”

Suspicious, Matthias asked, “What ‘time like hers?' ”

“She needs her rest. She's going to have a papoose.”

The announcement hit Matthias with the force of grapeshot. He squeezed his eyes shut, his head dropping almost to his chest. Lisette, a mother. No! Not darling Lise, sweet as a peach, tart as a lemon. He pounded the heel of his fist on the pommel. He accepted that Lisette belonged to her husband, but the trail boss getting a baby on her added a finality to the marriage Matthias was loath to embrace.

Since the night she'd shown up and wanted to be part of the outfit, he'd had fantasies about the girl he loved with a purity of spirit. Those fantasies, his new feelings–they were sinful. Sinful!

And she loved her husband. Any fool could see it.

He couldn't. He yearned for her love, for her passions, and for
him
to fulfill her every want and desire.

“You're in love with Albino.”

His head shot up to meet the beautiful Indian's wise eyes. “Leave me alone,” he muttered.

“You need a woman, Mouth That Beckons.”

“Not just any woman.”

Cactus Blossom laughed. “You speak with a forked tongue.”

“I didn't lie. I spoke a simple truth.”

He turned his mount and rode away. Rode away as if demons were chasing him. Matthias Gruene had always been a loner, and he clutched solitude around him. He was glad for the loneliness of the trail with only cows for company. That evening he avoided the campfire, took supper on a piece of jerky and deep quaffs of the schnapps he kept in his saddlebag. That night he laid his head on his saddle, with grasses and twigs his mattress. He closed his eyes to blank out the stars above, but mostly the vision of Lisette.

Then it came to him, a slight whiff of lilac water, Lisette's cologne. Fingers touched his cheek. Lisette? He grabbed the hand. This wasn't the woman of his dreams . . . but there was nothing wrong with the way she looked or smelled.

“What are
you
doing here?”

“I'm here to warm your night and chase away the bad spirits.”

“What are you doing, wearing
her
cologne?”

“Don't question too deeply, Mouth That Beckons.”