Dorothy Garlock (11 page)

“Jesus!” Smith swore and plopped his feet up on a chair.

“I know I’m not full-growed yet, but I’m strong,” Charlie continued doggedly. “I’ll work hard if Mrs. Eastwood will
take my sister. I can take care of myself and I think Willa can too, but Jo Bell—She’s just too dang pretty for her own good. I can’t turn her loose in a town, mister. She don’t know beans when it comes right down to it.”

Something that may have been amusement flickered in Smith’s green eyes. “Where does the other woman fit in?”

“Willa? She’s a . . . friend of the family.”

“Your pa’s woman, huh?”

“Not like yore thinkin’, mister. Miss Hammer ain’t that kind.” Charlie lowered his voice. “She’s stayin’ with us till I get Jo Bell settled. Then . . . me ’n’ her’ll move on.”

“I heard what you said, Charlie Frank. You ain’t goin’ off no place with
her
!” Jo Bell marched across the room and stood facing her brother with her hands on her hips.

“Stay out of this,” Charlie snarled.

“She ain’t no kin to us. She ain’t nothin’ but a down-n-outter a ridin’ in our wagon and eatin’ our food cause Papa felt sorry for her. She could be a whore for all we know.”

“She’s no such thing! Shut up your mouth! Hear?” Charlie yelled so loud Smith winced.

“I don’t have to and you can’t make me.” Jo Bell stamped her foot like a stubborn child.

“Go to the wagon,” Charlie shouted.

Smith pressed the heels of his hands to his temples, wishing he had saddled his horse and ridden out as soon as Byers kicked him awake. Right now he could be lying in the cool shade where there was peace and quiet.

“Folks back at Hublett hung her pa,” Jo Bell blurted with a defiant look at her brother. “He was mud-ugly with lumps on his face and a hump on his back. He looked like . . . like the boogy man. They hanged him cause he shot a man. Deny that, Charlie Frank. Folks were after her with stones and switches. Said she’d brought bad luck to the town.”

Charlie grabbed Jo Bell’s shoulders. “You don’t have a
brain in yore stupid head!” Even while he shook her, the girl babbled on, her voice shrill.

“They burned her out, hit her with dirt clods, tore off her clothes ’n’ called her a whore. Pa pulled her up on the wagon or they’d a hung her, too.”

“It wasn’t her fault—” Charlie looked beseechingly at the two men.

“Papa helped her get away and she wouldn’t even sleep with him after all he done for her. She told him right out, bold as brass, she didn’t do
night
work.”

“That proves she ain’t no whore,” Charlie shouted.

“Papa had Starr to give him comfort till she run off with a freighter. Papa said a man needs comfort from a woman—” Jo Bell watched the men to see their reaction. “Now . . . he’s gone—” When neither spoke, she did what she usually did to gain sympathy: she collapsed on the floor in a storm of weeping.

In the moment after the girl’s outburst, Smith looked over his shoulder. The blond-haired woman’s chair was empty. His head had been fuzzy when he first had awakened, but after getting a good look at her, he realized that she had that scarcely definable something that Oliver called breeding. It was harder to recognize in people than it was in a wild horse that was the offspring of a thoroughbred, but it was there if you looked close enough. The woman had it. He wasn’t surprised that she’d refused to be Gil Frank’s whore. She would aim for bigger game than a two-bit gambler.

The boy seemed to be a level-headed kid. He wouldn’t mind having him around for a while. Too bad he was saddled with a pea-brained sister. The old woman wouldn’t want any part of her. Then what would they do? Dammit to hell! He didn’t want the sister or the nasty-nice woman hanging on his coattail. He didn’t want to look out for anyone but himself and . . . Billy.

Smith looked dispassionately at the bawling girl. She needed someone to take a stick to her behind. Goddamn! She made more noise than a calf stuck in a mud hole.

Gradually the import of the girl’s words sank into Smith’s mind. Gil Frank wanted to sleep with the blond woman and she refused him. Good Lord! What kind of man would discuss a thing like that with his daughter?

“Come on, Jo Bell. Yore makin’ a show of yoreself.” Charlie lifted his sister off the floor. “I’m down right sorry she kicked up such a to-do. She just got it in her head she don’t like Miss Hammer. Starr petted her along like Papa did, but Miss Hammer—Jo Bell, stop that!” he said as the girl tried to hit him. “I’ll take her out to the wagon.”

“Well, Smith?” Byers said when they were alone.

“Well, what? The boy ought to take a belt to that girl.”

“Are you goin’ to take them to Eastwood?”

“Old Maud’ll slam the door in their face. She wouldn’t take in Jesus Christ if he come riding in on a mule.”

“They’ve got to find that out for themselves. If you don’t take ’em, they’ll strike out alone. I ain’t likin’ to think of Coyle ’n’ Fuller waitin’ up the trail.”

“Why in hell don’t they go back where they came from?”

“Hell, I dunno that. I want ’em on their way. Take ’em to Mrs. Eastwood. It’s her problem, not ours.”

“Ah . . . shit!” Smith stood and glared down at Byers. “Tell ’em I’m leaving in an hour. They can tag along behind if they can get across the river.”

“Now ain’t that big of ya? How’n hell will that boy get the wagon across the river?”

“If you want ’em out, get ’em across the river.” He stepped out the door, took the cigarette from his mouth in one quick, impatient gesture, and threw it down.

*  *  *

It was the stock-tender, Rusty, who drove the wagon to the river crossing with Willa and Buddy sitting beside him on the wagon seat. Jo Bell, after raising a fuss about leaving her father’s grave, had cried herself to sleep. Willa looked back at the station. She could scarcely believe that less than twenty-four hours had passed since they had come over the rise and had seen it for the first time. So much had happened in the short time they had been in this forsaken place.

Riding Rusty’s horse and leading his father’s, Charlie was to cross the river first.

“Jist sit back’n let that old bangtail take ya across, son. He knows the way ’n’ don’t cotton to nobody tellin’ him what to do. We be comin’ right behind ya.”

When the boy reached the middle of the river, Rusty coaxed the team into the muddy water. The frightened animals fought for purchase on the slick river bottom, but they obeyed the old man’s signals on the reins and his shouts of encouragement. Willa tried not to look at the water swirling around the wagon. She had read that more people drowned in river crossings on the way west than were killed by Indians. Why did she have to think of that now? A cry of fear escaped her when the wagon fishtailed in the water.

“Don’t be sceered, ma’am. Ya be as safe as if yore sleepin’ in a featherbed. Many a wagon has crossed here a dodgin’ floatin’ logs ’n’ I ain’t seen nary a one.” Rusty grinned at Willa showing toothless gums. “This ain’t bad a’tall. This be good rock bottom. Ain’t no quicksand. H’Yaw! Get on up that thar bank, purrty critters,” he sang out to the mules. “Yore a fine team, is what ya are.”

Rusty urged the mules up the bank and guided them to the track worn deep into the grassland by the freight wagons. Willa searched the landscape ahead and saw no sign of Smith. Had he gone on and left them? Rusty answered her unspoken question before she could ask it.

“He’ll not be far off, ma’am. That boy’s got him a devil ridin’ his back. He’d a never spoke so if’n he was sober. He only be half-bad.”

“That’s the part I’m worried about.”

“Tell ya one thin’, ma’am, yore better off with Smith than any ten men I know, includin’ me. He told Byers he’d see ya to Eastwood Ranch. It’s good as done.”

“That’s comforting to know.” The touch of sarcasm in Willa’s voice didn’t escape the old man.

“Gets yore back up, don’t he?” Rusty’s laugh was like dry corn shucks rubbing together. Willa couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

“I guess he does. You like him, don’t you?”

“Ya betcha. He’s hickory. Ain’t nobody else like Smith.”

“Thank goodness for that.”

Charlie came to the wagon mounted on his father’s horse.

“Are you sure you want to drive, Willa?”

“Of course.” She pulled a pair of Starr’s gloves from her pocket and put them on before she took the reins. The dog settled on the floor at her feet.

“Behave nice, fellers,” Rusty said to the mules, and stroked their noses. “’Tis a lady ya’ll be pullin’ fer.” Their ears stood, then flopped as if they understood the old man’s words.

“Thank you, Mr. Rusty. Thank you for being so kind.”

“’Twarn’t nothin’, ma’am. ’Twarn’t nothin’ a’tall.” Rusty mounted his horse. “Yore water barrels is full, young feller. Smith’ll get ya to water before they run dry. Keep yore eye peeled ’n’ move right along. There be a good camp spot up the ways a piece. Ya’ll know it when ya come to it.” The old man reached over, shook hands with Charlie, and turned back toward the river.

“I’ve not seen Mr. Smith,” Charlie called out nervously.

“Smith’ll be around somewheres.” Rusty flung the words over his shoulder and urged his horse into the river.

*  *  *

Smith spurred his horse into a run until they reached an overhang where he could look down on the track below. The boy, Charlie, was riding ahead of the wagon. The blond woman, with the dog beside her, was driving. Somehow that didn’t surprise him. The woman appeared to be fragile, but his guess was that she would be no pushover if it came right down to it. The boy and the dog were devoted to her. He snorted with disgust. She was pretty, no denying that. The boy reminded him of himself when he had been a callow lad and enamored of a woman.

Smith rode along the ridge and watched the wagon until it reached a campsite alongside a small trickle of water that came down out of the foothills. He was relieved that the boy recognized it as the logical place to spend the night. He sure as hell didn’t want to ride down and turn them back. When he saw the woman pull the mules to a halt and climb wearily down from the wagon, Smith turned away and headed for a place where he could cook some supper and bed down for the night.

Willa felt as if her arms had pulled her shoulders into a permanently rounded position. The mules were harder to handle than the pair of horses Papa Igor hitched to his wagon, but she supposed she would get used to it. When Charlie dismounted, she took the reins of the horse, unsaddled him and led him to the water before she staked him out to crop the grass that grew alongside the stream. While Charlie unhitched and picketed the mules, she started a fire within a circle of stones that appeared to have been used many times.

While she worked, Willa felt strangely exultant. It sud
denly occurred to her that she had fallen in love with the country, her heart lost to it forever. She gazed across a waving sea of grass and the rolling aspen-cloaked hills toward the Bighorns. It was wild, beautiful, untouched. She drew in a deep breath.

There was every chance that she would not be made welcome at Eastwood Ranch, Willa thought now as she brought her attention back to the small flame she had kindled amid the dry leaves. She flapped her skirt to spread the fire and vowed that she would never go back east. She had no ties now. Surely there was a place for her in this lonely, beautiful land.

“I ain’t seen no sign of Mr. Smith.” Charlie dropped an arm full of dry wood beside the fire.

“His name is Mr. Bowman. But I don’t suppose it makes any difference what we call him.” Willa fed the sticks to the fire. “Rusty said not to worry, he’d be close by. All we can do is trust that Rusty knew what he was talking about.”

“Well,”—Charlie looked nervously around—“I’d feel better if I knew where he was. Mr. Byers said Fuller and that other feller had headed this way.”

“We’ve got Buddy. He’ll warn us if anyone tries to sneak up on us.”

The boy sighed heavily. “I sure am glad we got Buddy. Ma’am, Jo Bell ought to be out helpin’ ya. Is she still sleepin’?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll see.”

Willa pulled back the flap at the end of the wagon. Jo Bell was sitting on her bunk brushing her hair. Willa stared at her in open-mouthed amazement. The girl tilted her chin and looked back defiantly.

The white dress she had taken from her mother’s trunk had at one time been modest, but not anymore. Rough seams
showed where Jo Bell had ripped out the sleeves. With the scissors she had cut the neckline down until it just barely covered her breasts. A red sash was wrapped tightly about her waist from just beneath her breasts to her hip bones. And the skirt . . . good Lord! The skirt came to just below her knees, showing a length of bare legs. Her cheeks and lips were rouged, something she had no doubt learned from Starr, and dangling from her ears were a pair of Starr’s red earrings.

“My goodness gracious me!” It was all Willa could say.

“How do I look,
ma’am
?
”
The last word was emphasized to put Willa in the category of an older woman.

“Jo Bell, ya get on out now and help Willa. Jo Bell! Good godamighty—”

Jo Bell shoved her brother aside and climbed down out of the wagon.

“Whata ya think?” She preened, walked a few steps swaying her hips, turned and came back.

“Ya . . . ya . . . look like a t-tart!” Charlie almost choked. “Get back in that wagon ’n’ put on some decent clothes,” he shouted.

Jo Bell ignored him. “I’m pretty, ain’t I?” Her eyes gleamed as she looked at Willa. “Don’t ya wish ya was as pretty as me? You’re old, ain’t ya? Bet that man back at the station didn’t give ya a second look.”

“Yes, you’re very pretty,” Willa said calmly. “I am four years older than you are. Old enough to be glad a man like that didn’t give me a second look.”

“Yore twenty? Shitfire! And ya ain’t found a man that’d have ya?”

“I haven’t been looking. Jo Bell, I agree with Charlie. You look like a . . . tart. Dressed like that you’re sending a signal that you’re . . . you’re loose.”

“What do you know about it? Starr said I was shit-stompin’ pretty.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?” Charlie yelled. “Starr was nothin’ but a whore.”