Larkspur (28 page)

Kristin’s eyes scanned the list down to the things a gentleman should
not
do, and for the first time that day, she smiled.

10.   Do not spit on the floor.

11.   Do not pick your nose at the table.

12.   Do not scratch your groin, your armpits or suck on the ends of your mustache.

13.   Do not let wind in her presence—even silently. The stink will give you away and she will know that you are not a gentleman.

14.   Do not swear, or make reference to bodily functions.

15.   If you must sneeze at the table, turn your head away from the lady.

16.   Do not slurp your coffee from a saucer. Hold it with both hands and tip it toward your mouth.

Kristin stopped reading.

She understood now why he had said, pardon me, this morning. With a feeling of compassion for the poor little boy who’d had no one to teach him manners, and for the man who realized the need, she placed the clipping back in the desk and hoped that he never would learn that she had read it.

The day seemed endless.

On one of her trips to the outhouse, she saw a party of Indians riding single file along the edge of the woods. One trailed behind the others looking toward the ranch. She couldn’t tell if it was Runs Fast. From a distance the Sioux all looked the same. An uneasy feeling came over her, and she hurried to the house.

At noon she sat at the table, nibbled on a biscuit and drank a cup of tea. Later she made a cobbler out of dried apples and extravagantly added a handful of raisins. The brown beans she had put to soak the night before were simmering on the stove. For want of something to do, she began knitting a muffler out of the sky blue yarn.

It was late afternoon when Kristin heard Sam’s welcoming bark and knew that Buck had returned. Her heart picked up speed as she hurried to the back door in time to see him and two of the Indian boys ride into the yard. Bowlegs appeared and opened the corral gate. While Buck unsaddled his horse the Indian talked to him and gestured toward the east. Buck shaded his eyes with his hand, the better to see across the grassland, then spoke again to Bowlegs, who mounted his pony and rode away as Buck turned his face toward the house.

Kristin stepped back away from the door. Not for anything did she want him to know how glad she was that he was back safe and sound. How would he act toward her when he came to the house? Would he apologize again or ignore what had happened between them?

More nervous than she’d ever been in her life, Kristin waited for Buck. Surely he would come in before suppertime. She looked around the room with a critical eye. Buck valued his home. It was as neat and as clean as she could make it. She sank down in the chair and picked up her knitting again, but after having to remove several wrong stitches, she sat quietly with the work in her lap.

With her eyes tightly closed she pictured his face, unreadable as one on a stone sculpture. She wondered if he would ever share his innermost feelings with anyone. She longed to see his firm lips spread in a smile, his green eyes laughing, his stoic features relaxed, and, above all, she wanted him to feel the happiness of knowing he was loved and wanted.

Jarred from her musing by another spate of Sam’s barking, Kristin went to look out the window. A wagon with a cow tied on behind was pulling into the yard. Heavenly days! A cow meant milk, cream and butter!

She grabbed her shawl and went out the door. The wagon had stopped beside the corral. Her breath caught in her throat and her hand caught at the porch post for support. Getting down from the wagon was a man with a jaunty bill-cap on his blond head.

“Gustaf!” The name tore from her throat as she began to run. “Gustaf! Gustaf!”

Gustaf opened his arms and she ran into them. With a whoop of laughter, he grasped her around the waist, swung her around before he sat her on her feet and kissed her soundly on the mouth.

“Hello, little cousin. Told ya I’d come out to see this grand place Uncle Yarby left ya.”

Tears flooded her eyes, and she hugged him as if she would never let him go.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Well, now, I figured you’d be at the Larkspur. It was a stroke of luck to meet Gilly. Now don’t ya be bawlin’,” he said gruffly.

“I’ve so much to tell you—”

“I already heard some of it from Gilly.”

“How did you get here? Where did you meet him? What all has he told you?”

“Wait, wait a minute!” Gustaf laughed. “My backside is numb from ridin’ on that wagonseat and my ears are tired from listenin’ to Gilly. He said you wanted a cow. This one is ’bout as sorry a cow as I’ve ever seen. She’s goin’ to calf any day is why it took us part of last night and all day today to get here.”

With her arm about his waist and his about hers they went to the end of the wagon where Gilly was untying the cow. She was reddish brown with a white streak down her face, and pitifully thin except for her bulging belly.

“She’s beautiful.” Kristin patted the side of her face. “And so tired,” she added. “Don’t worry,” she crooned to the cow. “You’ll get plenty to eat if I have anything to say about it.”

“Ya’ll have all to say ’bout it,” Gilly said. “I ain’t havin’ nothin’ to do with no cow!”

Kristin laughed happily. The sound reached to where Buck stood just inside the corral. He had heard her shout and saw her fly off the porch to meet the agile blond-headed man who sprang down off the wagon to meet her. This was the cousin she was always talking about. He saw the look of happiness on her face and heard it in her voice.

A sickening feeling began to grow in the pit of his stomach. Was the good-looking man more to her than just a cousin? Cousins sometimes married. Hell, Moss had said it was done all the time in some backwater places. They had idiot children. Even knowing that, would it stop a woman from mating with a man if she loved him?

For less than a minute he contemplated getting on his horse and riding back up into the mountains. She didn’t need him now. She had her
Gustaf
to look after her. The moment passed. This land was his and Moss’s—hers now. The house was his. He’d worked his ass into the ground building it and, by God, he was not giving up any part of it. He jerked his saddle off the fence and carried it into the barn. She had her damn cow and from the looks of the crate in the back of the wagon a rooster and a couple of hens.

“Where ya gonna put this sorry pile a hair and bone?” Gilly, leading the cow, stuck his head in the barn door.

“In here, for now.” Buck lifted a bar from one of the two stalls and led the cow inside. “We can stake her during the day.”

“We?”
Gilly said irritably.

“Where did you run onto . . . him?”

“At Ryerson’s. Ryerson’s boys came in—riding the rails. He was with them. They hopped off the train and came cross-country.”

“Ryerson going to stay?”

“Him and his boys is goin’ to stick it for a spell. The boys took his woman and the girls to his brother’s in Billings. Most a his stock’s been run off.”

“Hell of a note, isn’t it?” Buck filled a bucket of water from a barrel and set it in the stall with the cow.

“Yeah. But he’s a tough old coot. He kept one cow. Sold me this’n and the chicks for six dollars. Hell, the meat’d brin’ that much in town.”

“See anything of Forsythe’s men?”

“Naw. Met up with Glazer. He asked how Miss Anderson was doin’. Said he hoped ya wasn’t put out cause he brought her here. Cletus Fuller asked him to do it. Said he heard the old man was killed right after. Somebody beat him plumb to death.”

“Son of a bitch!” Buck exclaimed angrily, then bowed his head for a moment. “Do they know who did it?”

“They know, but ain’t nothin’ been done ’bout it. Takes some kind a man to beat up a crippled-up old man who couldn’t walk but with a cane.”

Buck stared off toward the mountains. Knowing of his fondness for Cletus Fuller, Gilly was quiet for a moment before he spoke again.

“Glazer’s goin’ to start freightin’ outta Dumas Station,” Gilly said. “It ain’t but a wide spot in the road, but he ain’t wantin’ to go to Big Timber what with all the ragshags driftin’ in. He’s had to hire more fellers to ride shotgun. What ya want me to do with the chickens?”

“Turn ’em loose. I’ll spread some feed. They’ll not go far.”

“Ya betcha they won’t. Sam’ll have ’em before their feet hit the ground.”

“I’d forgotten about Sam. Leave them in the coop till morning.”

“Ya’ve stalled long enough. Ya better get on out and say howdy to the cousin.”

Buck frowned at Gilly. “Who’s stallin’? He’s got a right to come visit Kristin.”

“Visit? Horse-hockey! He be here to stay. ’Sides, it ain’t her place nohow.”

“Drop it, Gilly.”

“Why was ya lookin’ daggers at him, if’n he’s got so much right?”

“What the hell you goin’ on about?” Buck snarled.

“He ain’t a bad feller, as Swedes go. Good talker. Tells some tall tales ’bout far-off places. He’s been all up and down the big river. Clear down to the ocean. Got a real fondness for Kris. That’s what he calls her. Kris.”

“Hell,” Buck said with disgust. “I need another tenderfoot to look after like I need my guts strung from here to Bozeman.”

“Ya didn’t ’pear to mind lookin’ after . . . her.”

“Mind your own business.”

Buck strode out of the barn as if he was going to do battle. Kristin and Gustaf were standing by the porch. She was clinging to his hand. Buck ground his teeth in frustation.

“Buck,” she called. “Come meet Gustaf. He’s the cousin I’ve been telling you about. I was telling him that if he’d gotten here a few days ago, he would have met Uncle Yarby.”

Gustaf stepped forward and held out his hand.

“Howdy. After what Gilly said about you and from what Kris has been sayin’, I expected ya to be somethin’ more than a mortal man.”

Buck accepted the firm handshake.

“Gilly’s been known to stretch things a bit. And as for Miss Anderson, she don’t know me none a’tall.” Buck’s eyes, mere slits of green between his dark lashes, flicked from Kristin and away.

“If I’d a known what was going on here, I’d never have let her come out here alone.”

“Even without Forsythe, this is hard country. Some men would kill for a woman like her. It was foolish of her to come here, foolish of her menfolk to let her. She was lucky to have met some decent folks in town that helped her. It may have cost one of them his life.”

“Thank God things turned out all right.”

“Not yet they haven’t.”

“What . . . do you mean? Who has lost his life?”

“Cletus Fuller.”

“Oh, no!” Kristin’s hands flew to her cheeks. “Oh, merciful heavens! Do you think . . . it was because of me?”

“Who knows?” Buck saw the distress on her face and wished he hadn’t mentioned Cletus. “Someone might have thought he had money.”

“Gilly filled me in a bit,” Gustaf said, throwing his arm across Kristin’s shoulders to comfort her. “The Andersons owe ya debt for what ya’ve done for Uncle Yarby and now our Kristin.”

“Forget it! The Andersons don’t
owe
me a gawddamn thing,” Buck spoke with a voice as hard as iron.

“I never dreamed Gilly was going to get a cow,” Kristin exclaimed hurriedly. “And chickens. Oh, I’ve missed hearing a rooster crow.”

Gustaf’s sharp eyes were going from his cousin’s flushed face to the face of the big dark-haired man who stood with his feet planted firmly on the ground and his thumbs hooked in his belt. Both of them were edgy. Neither one looked directly at the other. He knew his cousin well enough to know that it wasn’t fear of the man that was causing her anxiety. That, at least, eased his mind.

“He won’t do much crowing if Sam gets him,” Buck commented dryly and turned to look at the shaggy dog lying on the ground, his eyes on the chicken coop.

A little cry of distress came from Kristin. “He would eat them?”

“He hunts for his food,” Buck said crossly. “He can’t be blamed if he takes what’s handy.”

“I understand that but—”

“Keep them penned. I’ll explain matters to him in the morning. Make yourself to home,” he said to Gustaf. “I’ve things to do.”

“I’ll lend a hand.” Gustaf stepped off the porch.

“No. Visit with your cousin.”

“Supper will be ready in a little while.” Kristin’s voice seemed to have shrunk.

Buck nodded. He walked away, grinding his teeth in frustration.

“This is Buck’s house,” he heard Kristin say and automatically slowed his steps. “He built it all himself. He’s been kind enough to let me stay here because Uncle Yarby’s house is not in very good—”

Her voice was lost to him when she and her cousin went into the house.

Chapter Eighteen

K
ristin took pride in showing Buck’s house to her cousin, a fact that was not lost of Gustaf.

“He built it himself. Uncle Yarby may have helped him some. He said he learned about carpentry from Uncle Yarby. Did you notice how tight the logs were on the outside? No chinking in this log house. Buck said that the logs were smoothed with a broadax and laid face-to-face. The boards on the floors are two inches thick.” She flipped up the table covering. “He made this table, the wash bench and the—” Her voice faded when she glanced at her cousin’s grinning face.

“Does he put the moon to bed at night and get up ever’ mornin’ and hand out the sun?”

“Oh, Gustaf!” A beet red blush rushed up her neck to flood her cheeks. “Stop teasing!”

“Ya don’t have to sell him to me, love. Gilly already done that.”

“I wish you could have seen how he was with Uncle Yarby.” A wistful look came over her face. “He was so gentle with him. He hid him away when the posse came to hang him and has been taking care of him all this time—”

“Gilly told me. And he told me he thought the man was sweet on ya—said he’d taken to shavin’ ever’ two or three days and was mindin’ his manners.”

“Forevermore! Gilly talks to hear his head rattle. He passes the time with flummadiddles. I learned right away that he says things without giving any thought to them.”