Sisters (11 page)

"What're the other two
buildings?" Sophie asked. "Not homes, surely. They're too
small."

"One's the soddie they
built when they first came out here. Then they put up the shack they
live in now right on the edge of their other parcel so they'd have
dwellings on both homesteads."

"That's the law?"

The schoolteacher nodded.
"They built the smaller shack just this spring for Baby to keep
a few chickens in. She kept them in the soddie for a while, but she
was always afraid somebody'd claim the soddie wasn't a dwelling if
they saw chickens scratching in it, so she hounded Zack until he
built the little shack."

They crossed the creek in
silence, and Sophie found herself studying Amy Travers' hands. They
were amazing really, especially considering that Miss Travers had
spent most of her life in this country. They didn't look like the
hands of a woman who could drive a buckboard, shoot a gun, kill a
rattler. Except for their size, they looked almost like a child's
hands, the nails neatly trimmed ovals, pink and pliable-looking, the
knuckles not protruding, but instead making a slight dimpling in the
soft flesh. The skin had a marblelike smoothness, but one knew the
slightest touch would make an indentation in the pillowy softness.
Sophie was reminded of a statue, The Rape of the Sabines, she thought
it was called. The ravisher is lifting his victim to carry her off,
and his fingers sink into the yielding flesh of her thigh.

The comparison increased an
uneasiness Sophie already felt , and for much of the ride back she
was silent, examining her feelings. But Baby's words nagged at the
back of her mind, so as the buckboard reached the outskirts of
Cheyenne, she spoke, "Was Helen a friend of Baby's?"

"No. She was only
trying to help her."

"But Baby implied they
were confidantes."

"They weren't."

"She said she knew
about something James had done to Helen."

Miss Travers looked at her
sharply. "That's impossible. She's lying. Just like she was
about Jenny in the cellar. I'm certain she makes her go down there
when she wants to entertain her men friends."

Sophie had trouble
believing that of Baby, but she didn't want to get distracted in
defense of her now. "Why would she make up something like that?
I'm sure that's what she said. That Helen told her about something
James had done to her."

"She's lying,"
Miss Travers nodded her head jerkily. "Yes, she's lying. You
don't know Baby well enough to judge what she's saying. And you don't
understand what's happening here. You've been gone too long."

There was no mistaking the
reproof in Miss Travers' words, but Sophie restrained herself from an
impatient response. "I'd like to understand," she said.

"Baby hates James.
Because he's one of the big cattlemen, don't you see?" The
register of Miss Travers' voice shot even further upward, and Sophie
wondered at her sudden emotion. It was such a change from the way she
usually spoke, and seemed artificial somehow, as though she were
trying to convince herself as well as Sophie. "With all the
ranches James has bought up," Miss Travers went on, "the
Cloud Peak Company's the biggest owner in the state. Baby's implying
she knows ill of them because he's one of them, the biggest one, and
they make her life miserable. She hates them all."

"Why do they harass
her? I don't see what difference Baby and Zack can make, a couple of
homestead claims on all this land." Even as she spoke, Sophie
realized her question was off-target. It followed the logic of the
conversation, but missed the feeling she had heard in Amy Travers'
voice. But what was the locus of that emotion? Sophie couldn't
pinpoint it.

"There are more and
more homesteaders every day," Miss Travers was saying, her voice
dropping. "And each of them cuts into the open range the big
owners need for their cattle. And Baby and Zack are fairly close to
Cheyenne too, close to where the big owners headquarter. That makes
them more of an irritant than if they'd homesteaded somewhere else.
It also makes them easy targets. A man can ride out there after
supper, shoot out a few windows, and be back in time to drink with
his friends."

"You don't think Zack
Wilson's a cattle thief?"

Miss Travers shrugged. "No
more, I'd say, than the big cattlemen, though they figure out ways to
make their thievery legal. They get together at the Cheyenne Club and
devise their schemes, and the next thing you know, there's a law on
the books that lets them steal unmarked cattle from the
homesteaders."

They were back at the
Stevenson house, and as Miss Travers brought the buckboard to a halt,
Sophie tried to bring the conversation back to what Baby had said.
"It just didn't strike me that hatred for James was the main
force behind Baby's words," she said. "She seemed to want
me to know that Helen was her friend." She saw Miss Travers
stiffen with annoyance. "Miss Travers, I'm simply trying to know
my sister."

"I wouldn't spend time
worrying about Baby, then. You should come to a temperance
meeting--there's one tomorrow afternoon. Why don't you come? It's at
three o'clock in the Presbyterian Church. Come, and you can see the
women who were really Helen's friends." She was thoughtful a
moment. "Or have you considered looking for your mother? Maybe
you should take up a task which was important to Helen. That might
help you to know her. I've even thought I might try to find Julia
myself, for Helen, you know."

"Leave it alone, Miss
Travers."

The schoolteacher's eyes
widened in surprise, and Sophie felt uncertain how to go on. She
wasn't prepared to discuss her innermost thoughts with Amy Travers,
but having taken things this far with her unthinking response, she
felt she had to continue. "It's always seemed to me that my
mother must not want to be found. She made a choice to leave us, to
be apart from us, and she's kept to that choice all these years,
never relenting once. If I were to find her, I'd be in the position
of a petitioner, begging her to do something she obviously doesn't
want to do. It's not a role I'd feel comfortable in."

Miss Travers didn't answer,
and while Sophie could not be certain of the feeling in the
schoolteacher's deep-set eyes, she thought she saw a gleam of
understanding. Sophie looked down at Amy Travers' hands, those soft
hands which had written the loving inscription to her sister, and she
remembered how Miss Travers had killed the snake and comforted her
with those hands. She was suddenly aware that Amy Travers might reach
out to her again, and she didn't want that. Quickly she got down from
the buckboard.

"Wait, I'm coming in
too," Miss Travers said. Sophie waited, and side by side they
walked toward the house.

As they drew near the
porch, Sophie noticed a small cloth bundle lying at the foot of the
steps. Before she had time to give it more than a passing glance,
Miss Travers scooped it up and put it under her arm. Just then the
front door opened and both women looked up.

"Oh, you're here,
James," Miss Travers said. "How does that happen? Am I
early?"

"I was concerned about
Mrs. Dymond. She didn't tell anyone where she was going with you."

"And you thought I
might let harm come to her? You know me better than that, James."
The disdain in her voice was unmistakable, and the muscles of James'
cheek and neck strained with suppressed anger.

As they all moved into the
drawing room, Sophie saw Miss Travers shift the cloth bundle just
enough so James could see it.

"Where...?" he
started to ask.

"At the bottom of the
porch stairs," Miss Travers answered. She shifted the bundle
again, and something bright blue fell to the floor. Sophie bent to
pick it up, and only in the last second before she handed it to Miss
Travers did she realize what it was: a tiny glass eye. As the
schoolteacher took it from her, Sophie saw that the bundle under Miss
Travers' arm was a doll. Its head was cracked open.

"It was Esther's,
wasn't it?" said Sophie. "She threw it from the attic
window."

"Either that, or down
the steps," Miss Travers said, exchanging a glance with James,
which Sophie couldn't interpret. "I'll go up and talk to her. To
both of them."

As she left the room and
started up the hall stairway, James turned to Sophie. "Where did
you go with her!" he demanded.

"To the Wilson
homestead," she answered in a tone no less indignant than his.
What right had he to demand an accounting of her?

"Ah, I might have
guessed." He jammed his hands in his pockets, and his
dark-ringed eyes flashed with anger. "And I suppose she told you
all about how we're a bother to those poor folks out there."

"The subject came up.
Somebody shot out all the Wilsons' windows."

James raised his eyebrows,
seemed doubtful for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, that kind of
thing is going to happen. Look, I don't know what she told you, but
the Wilsons shouldn't be out there."

"Why not? The law says
they're entitled to their homesteads."

"You can't run cattle
on a homestead. It takes thousands of acres in this country."

"But there's all the
land that doesn't belong to anyone. Can't Wilson's cattle graze there
just as yours do?"

"It's not that simple.
There are too damned many cattle on the range now." He began to
pace back and forth. "But, hell, that's not the real reason for
getting Wilson out of there. The plain fact is, he's a thief."

"Miss Travers said the
big owners got a law passed which lets them steal unmarked cattle
from the homesteaders."

"She's talking about
the maverick law," he said with some impatience. "It just
gives the Stock Growers' Association--the big owners, if you
will--control of roundups and lets them sell the unmarked cattle
that're brought in."

"But couldn't the
unmarked cattle belong to Wilson, for instance?"

"Not likely. Since the
stock growers own most of the cattle in the territory, odds are the
mavericks come from their animals."

"But there's a chance
they could be Wilson's."

"A chance, yes."
He was growing angry at her insistent questions. "But there's a
much better chance that the animals in Wilson's herd belong to other
people. He's put his brand on every unmarked cow he can find, and
he's changed more than a few brands, too. He's a thief, plain and
simple, but the juries won't find against him, so people are going to
take the matter up themselves. Wilson's lucky if it doesn't come to
anything worse than a few windows shot out."

She took a moment to think
about what he'd said. "Let me see if I understand you. It's all
right for the stock growers to round up Wilson's unmarked cattle, but
not for him to take yours. And it's all right for Cloud Peak animals
to graze on the open range, but not Wilson's cattle. You seem to
think you have more right to the law than he does."

"In a way, I suppose I
do. Who will do more with it? Who will contribute more?" His
voice was rising. "Wilson's a drunken thief. His wife--no, not
his wife, the woman he lives with--is a whore! The future shouldn't
lie with them."

He walked over to the
window and looked out. "I love this land," he said. "My
grandfather would come here and hunt and then come home and tell us
about it. I loved this land before I ever saw it, and damned if I'll
see it ruined!" He turned and started to pace again. "The
people who are coming here now, do you want them putting up their
shacks every hundred-and-sixty-acre parcel? And shacks are all
they'll ever have, because a hundred and sixty acres isn't enough to
get a man beyond a bare subsistence. Or do we want the big ranches
and the wealth they can bring, the plenty which makes a city like
Cheyenne possible?" He stopped and looked at her directly. "We
have to keep it like it is, don't you see? If the Wilsons of the
world triumph, it'll be ruined forever. The land cut up into small
parcels, the town presided over by small minds--"

"James, really--"

"No, I'm right.
They'll turn the opera house into small shops, an apothecary here, a
tobacconist there."

"How did Helen feel
about what you're saying?"

"These last years, she
seemed to regard whatever I thought as wrong, every idea of mine in
error. And Miss Travers encouraged her. I can easily imagine what
those visits to the Wilsons were like. 'Look, Helen, look at these
poor people who have hardly anything. And James, who has so much, is
persecuting them.'"

"Did you forbid her to
go out there?" Baby's words were in her mind. Was it something
like this Helen had confided in Baby? If, of course, she'd actually
confided anything.

"No. I doubt she'd
have listened. Maybe a few years earlier... but by the time she
started her visits to the Wilsons, well, it was no use. By then..."
He stopped speaking, and though his eyes were still on Sophie, he
didn't seem to see her. He seemed to be looking at something which
had leaped out at him from the past.

"James?"

He blinked as if to clear
his visions. "Ah, Sophie. Forgive me." He turned and walked
to the fireplace. He put a hand on the mantel, leaned against it, and
looked down. There was a long silence., and then suddenly he raised
his fist and brought it down hard on the mantelpiece. Several
pictures fell over; the silver candlestick crashed to the floor.
"Dammit, Sophie! It's important that you understand what I'm
about!" He turned to her. "You spent the day with Miss
Travers, why not the evening with me? There's a dinner at the
Cheyenne Club to welcome the governor back from the East. I hadn't
intended to go, but I'd like to if you'd come with me."

"I'd be pleased to,
James."

"He had his hands
clasped behind his back; his expression was difficult to read. "About
nine, then. I'll waitr for you down here." He nodded and left
the room.