Dorothy Garlock (46 page)

As the day worn on Maud’s resentment increased to include Inez. She kowtowed to him just like everyone else. Inez didn’t believe her when she told her that Smith had killed Oliver. She thought Inez was her friend. They had known each other for a long time.

By suppertime Maud was so worked up she refused the meal when Inez brought it to her.

“For crying out loud!” Inez snorted. “I even went and made bread pudding ’cause you like it so much.”

“I ain’t wantin’ it.” Maud’s face was set in stubborn lines.

“Ya need a hairbrush on yore bottom, Maud Holt.”

“Maud Eastwood, and don’t ya forget it.”

“Yore a mean, selfish old woman. That girl’s done everthin’ she could for you and you’re puttin’ a damper on her weddin’ a good man.”

“Good! Ha! It ain’t no business of yores nohow. Ya just work here. Go tell that whiskered old billy-goat to send for the doctor. I’ll have him find me a
decent
woman.”

Inez hooted. “Shit, Maud, you’d not know a
decent
woman if she waved her butt in yore face.”

“Get out!” Maud shouted.

“I’m goin’. I’ll take the puddin’ down to Billy. Want me to light the lamp?”

“Light it, and don’t ya take nothin’ down to Billy. Hear?”

“Billy sent up the raisins and the cinnamon for the puddin’. I’m takin’ it to him. I don’t give a hoot if ya like it or not.”
Inez glanced at Maud’s scowling face. The ornery old biddy was not going to back down.

After Inez left, Maud lay for a long while with her bony hands clasped over her stomach. She wished she hadn’t told Inez to light the lamp. What did she need a light for? All she could see was three walls. With the light off she could see only what she wanted to see and remember what she wanted to remember. She liked to recall the days when she was young, when she and Carl would race their horses across the prairie—before Carl turned mean.

Maud rolled to her side and stretched to reach the lamp. It was a good six inches from her fingertips. She grasped the two spindly legs of the table to pull it closer to the bed. It moved an inch or two. She pulled harder, the table tilted and the lamp began to slide off.

“Shit!” she said and tried to right the table, but it was too late. The lamp crashed to the floor.

Suddenly fire was running across the kerosene-soaked carpet to the window curtains and spreading to the papered walls. Maud’s mind went blank and she stared at it stupidly. When she came to realize what was happening, she screamed.

“Help! He . . lp!” she cried, but she could scarcely hear her own voice over the roar of the fire. Oh, God, she’d be cooked alive. “Inez!” she screamed, even though she knew that Inez had gone down to the cabin behind the bunkhouse.

She threw the feather pillows on the floor and, scarcely feeling the pain, she flung herself off the bed. Maud screamed again when her leg hit the floor and she rolled off the pillows and onto her stomach.

“Dear Jesus, don’t let me die like this. He . . . lp! Someone . . . help!”

Hysterical with fear, she dug her elbows into the floor and slowly and painfully dragged herself toward the door. The
fire was spreading rapidly, already racing across the ceiling. It reached the bureau. The other lamp burst into flames, but Maud was unaware of it.
She had reached the door to find it
shut!
She whimpered with pain and fear. After several tries she managed to reach the doorknob and open the door a crack. It was enough to allow her fingers to slip through and she pulled it back.

Suction from the open doorway drew the swirling, leaping flames. They swept to the hall ceiling and danced rapidly down the hallway, reaching hungrily down the walls to the floor. From there the fire spread throughout the upper floor of the house like water from behind a dam that had burst.

“Smi . . . th!” Gasping for breath, Maud pulled herself down the hall toward the stairs. He had always been there when she needed him. Where was he now? “Smi . . . th, help m-me.”

Maud prayed that she wouldn’t swoon or have one of her fits. By keeping her face close to the floor she could breath easier. “Smith will come,” she told herself aloud. “Smith will come. God, help me get to the stairway.”

Maud had almost reached the top of the stairs when she thought she heard someone call her name.

“Maud!”

She listened. The hoarse shout came again.

“Maud!”

It was Smith. He had come.

“Here,” she croaked, her throat filling with sobs. She lifted her face and peered through the smoke. Her eyes burned and watered. “Hurry! Hurry!”

“Keep calling so I can find you.”

“He . . . re! By . . . in . . . the . . . hall! Sm . . . ith! Sm
. .
. ith!”

It seemed as if an eternity passed before Smith hunkered down beside her.

“I got to drag you to the stairs so I can get you on my back.”

Without waiting for her to reply, Smith took her hands and dragged her to where he could go down a few steps and hoist her upon his back. He threw a wet blanket over both of them and began the slow journey down the stairs with Maud’s arms clasped tightly around his neck. Flames reached for them with hungry fingers. Smith moved as fast as he dared, knowing that their only chance was to go through the hall and out the front door. If the ceiling burned through, they would be trapped. He had come in through the kitchen, but now that part of the house was feeding the ravenous fire.

Coughing, choking, with Maud on his back, Smith burst out of the roaring inferno and stumbled across the veranda and down the steps. He sucked the outside air into his grateful lungs and staggered away from the house.

“He’s out! Thank God!” Willa’s frantic voice reached him.

Someone pulled the wet blanket off them and he knelt so that Billy and Plenty could lift Maud off his back. Then Willa was in his arms, her hands running over him from his singed face down his arms to his hands.

“Are you all right? I was so . . . scared. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, sweetheart.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Let Inez see to Maud. The rest of us had better get wet blankets or sacks and try to keep this fire from spreading to the grove.”

*  *  *

It was after midnight. The Eastwood mansion was a pile of smoldering embers. It had been back-breaking work to keep the fire from spreading to the grove. From there it would
have leaped to the forested hillside and Plenty Mad would have had his forest fire. Maud had been carried to the cabin behind the bunkhouse. She was in terrible pain, but before she would take the few drops of laudanum Billy had prepared for her, she insisted on seeing Smith.

He came to the bed and looked down at her. Billy, Willa and Inez stood back out of the lamplight, not knowing what to expect from this meeting.

“Ya saved my life.”

“Ah, I don’t know. You might have crawled down those steps.”

“Ya come and ya didn’t have to.” Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “If ya’d wanted me dead you’d’a left me there.”

Smith shifted his feet, plainly uncomfortable. “You don’t have to bawl about it,” he growled.

“I’m tryin’ . . . to say thanks. And that . . . I’m sorry—”

To Smith’s utter amazement, she reached for his hand and grasped it tightly.

“It’s all right,” he said and looked away from her.

“I knew in my heart that what you did . . . was right for Oliver, but I didn’t want to believe it. I’m . . . mean and stubborn—”

“I can’t argue that.”

“I’ll . . . try to change. Inez made me see . . . what I am. I’ve been so lonesome.”

“Yeah . . . well— Let Billy give you that laudanum. Plenty’s going to Buffalo tomorrow to fetch the preacher. Willa and I are getting married. He’ll fetch the doctor too.”

“Can I be at the weddin’? I ain’t never been to but my own.”

“It’s all right with me if it’s all right with Willa.”

“What’ll I do now, Smith? I ain’t got a home.”

“Of course you have. You got this one. It ain’t fancy like
the big house, but you’ll be taken care of.” Maud began to cry. Smith slipped his hand from hers and looked around for Inez. “You’d better do what you can for her. She must be hurting in places she didn’t know she had.”

Smith and Willa went outside and sat down on the bench. He put his arms around her and they clung to each other. All that mattered to Willa was that he was safe, holding her as she was holding him.

“I remember how terrified I was the night the crowd set fire to the house in Hublett. But it was nothing compared to how scared I was tonight when you were in that burning house.” Willa’s palm cupped his face and she kissed his smoke-blackened cheek.

“I’m glad the house is gone. Can you understand that? I think Oliver would rather it burn down than to sit there and decay.”

“Did what Mrs. Eastwood said surprise you?” Willa asked, after they had exchanged a kiss.

“Sure did. In all the years I’ve been here she’s never said two decent words to me.”

“Why did you go in after her? You risked your life.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t stop to think about it. She’s a human being. She was helpless. Lord, I’m tired.”

“We’d better find a bed and get some sleep or we’ll miss the wedding tomorrow.”

“How about bedding down in the haymow?”

“I’m smoky and dirty.”

“So am I. We’ll bathe in the morning.”

Smith struck a match and lit a lantern. Arm in arm they went to the barn. He held the light so Willa could see to climb the ladder to the loft.

“What you doin’, Smith?” Plenty Mad came out of one of the stalls at the far end of the barn. “Damn plenty good fire, huh, Smith? Roar like herd of buffer. I say that. Plenty
Mad say fire come. Nobody pay no attention to Plenty Mad. Plenty smoke, plenty hot fire, huh, Smith?”

“We were lucky it didn’t spread to the grove. It would have taken everything.”

“I say to Billy fire would come. He say I crazy Indian. I tell Billy he can hell damn kiss my ass—”

“Watch your language, Plenty,” Smith cautioned.

“How you watch language, Smith? Can’t see language. God hell damn, you gettin’ crazy like Billy?”

“Stop grumbling, Plenty, and hold the lantern. Blow it out when I get up the ladder.”

“Damn hell,” Plenty Mad grumbled. “What you goin’ up there for, huh, Smith?”

“I’m going to sleep up there.”

“With silly damn white squaw?”

“Yeah, with silly damn white squaw. Now blow out the lantern and go to bed.”

“Things plenty damn bad here, Smith. Big fire, Billy say Plenty Mad crazy Indian, boss sleepin’ in the hay with silly damn white squaw.”

“Yeah. Things are plenty bad.” Smith climbed up into the haymow, took Willa’s hand and led her to a far corner. They sank down into the soft hay.

“I heard what Plenty said.” Willa giggled happily and snuggled into Smith’s arms.

“About boss sleeping with silly damn white squaw? He was wrong. Boss isn’t going to sleep for a while. He’s going to love silly damn white squaw and tell her how much his life has changed since she came into it and make her forget the first time she saw him sleeping in the hay.”

“Silly damn white squaw has a few things to say herself. But you’d better get on with the loving; it’ll be morning soon and she’s getting married.”

O
n the porch of their new home Willa held her firstborn, William Oliver Bowman. The tow-haired child was the spitting image of his green-eyed father. She hugged her son to her and turned when the screen door slammed behind her.

“Give him to me. He’s getting too big for you to carry.” Smith lifted the boy from her arms.

Little Billy squealed and threw his chubby arms around his father’s neck.

“Ride, Papa, ride.”

“Not now, rascal.” Smith put his mouth against his son’s neck and made loud popping sounds. The child went into spasms of giggles. “Go in and see if Grandpa’ll give you a cookie.” He set the child gently on his feet and steadied him until he got his balance.

Willa watched Smith and his son. How different he was from the sullen man she had known only a few years ago. Smiles came easily to his face now, and a hundred times a day his eyes would catch hers and hold for a second or two. They were one in mind and spirit and needed no words to
communicate with each other. However, they talked about everything, knew everything about each other. Smith had known she was pregnant with little Billy almost as soon as she had. It was the same now. Their second child would be born during the Christmas season.

Strangely, now that Smith was at peace with himself over Oliver’s death, the community accepted him. Today he and Willa were hosting a July Fourth celebration for neighboring ranchers and friends from Buffalo. There would be dinner “on the ground,” horse racing and bronco busting. Smith had prepared contests for the kids and had sent to Sheridan for fireworks.

Willa was so happy that, at times, it scared her. Sometimes in the night she would awaken afraid that it was all a dream and reach for her husband, whose arms always welcomed her. Her love for the man she had married grew each and every day. He was her life and she was his.

Billy came out of the house with his “grandchild” in his arms. He was delighted with the boy and spoiled him shamefully. Little Billy had a mouthful of cookie and another in his hand.

“Ain’t they comin’ yet?” Billy asked. “Inez is goin’ to make chili. If she keeps on a foolin’ ’round she won’t have time.”

“They’ll be along.” Smith moved over behind Willa, put his arms around her and pulled her back against him. “Tired?” he murmured in her ear.

“Heavens no. I’m just barely pregnant,” she whispered, her face turned up to his.

“Silly damn white squaw won’t admit she’s tired until she’s worn out.” His hand caressed her barely rounded stomach, his lips nuzzled the side of her face.

Contented, Willa leaned on her husband and looked across
the valley of gently waving grasses and watched for the buggy bringing Maud and Inez for the day. They came to the ranch as often as the weather permitted. Maud and Inez spoiled little Billy, too, but no more than his doting father did.