Softly Falling (53 page)

“What daunting prospect?” she teased. “Oh, you mean who of us gets the chore of cleaning up behind the lean-to now that the snow has melted there?”

“That’s the one, I mean,” he teased back. He opened the door. “You in there? Wasn’t the one who complained the most all winter supposed to ‘police the grounds,’ as they say over at Fort Laramie?”

Everyone came outside. Amelie, Chantal, and Luella had become better than friends through the winter. They stood with linked arms. Nick walked toward Pierre. How could the boy have grown so tall on beans, onions, stringy beef, and a sugar cube? Preacher was looking over his little flock. Lily wondered how many prayers he had said for them all and said her own silent prayer of gratitude. Madeleine and Fothering already looked like a couple. Maybe all those arguments in the kitchen hadn’t been so vehement, after all. Will stood by himself. He would probably always be a solitary sort of man, but he had an air of confidence about him now.

She leaned against her husband’s arm, wondering about love and how it happened. When she got off the train in that distant summer gone by, she had only wondered how soon she could leave this Wyoming Territory that was now her home. “God is good to me,” she whispered into Jack’s sleeve. He had the lion share of the property and Bismarck, this man of hers. No one was going to laugh at him now. Maybe in time the locals would come to understand her.

“Here it is, crew,” Jack said. “The one who complained the most this winter gets the lime, a bucket, and shovel.”

Everyone stepped forward, which made him look at her, his wife, tears in his eyes. “What do you do with people like this?” he asked.

“Mostly love them,” she said. “I’ll get the bucket, boss.”

C
HAPTER
49

T
he ground was ready to receive the two LC cowboys, Mrs. Buxton, the maid, and Stretch by midafternoon. Everyone took a turn digging the graves. Amelie, Chantal, and Nick spent a quiet moment by their father’s grave. Amelie left one of Stretch’s
Farmer’s Almanacs
on Jean Baptiste Sansever’s final resting place.

“He would like to know that we can all read now, and that Nick is a marvel at numbers,” she told Lily. “Do you think he does?”

“I am certain of it,” Lily said. She held Amelie close, admiring the cemetery beyond the schoolhouse, with its long view of prairie and mountains in the distance. All around them were dead cattle, which made her sigh. She turned precisely toward her new home two miles away. In her mind and heart, the Sinclair Ranch was going to be the spot everyone knew about as the place where ranching changed. Perhaps other ranchers had the same idea. She knew the little spread Jack won from her father in a card game was first, and best.

After the two cowboys were at rest, they buried Stretch, the maid, and then Mrs. Buxton, a woman deeply troubled who was now at peace. By unspoken decision, Preacher handed his Bible to Jack, who turned to the book of Job.

“ ‘For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.’ ” He read with real fluency and feeling, which made Preacher smile. “ ‘And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’ ”

Jack swallowed and handed the Bible to Lily. “I just can’t. This is hard.”

“You’re good at hard,” she whispered, handing it back. “They want you, not me. You’re in charge.”

He took back the Bible and turned to Psalms. “I like this one,” he said, sounding almost as shy an Amelie. “ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou are with me.’ ” He stopped. “We all took that walk this winter.” He looked down at the graves and then around at them. “Some of us didn’t make it. I intend to make my life count for me and my . . . my own family, and for these dear ones who left us. That’s it and amen.”

Jack and Lily took the buckboard to town, Preacher and his one suitcase in the backseat. Luella had refused to leave, and no one forced her. “I’ll make it right with your father,” Jack said. “I’ll tell him we’ll take good care of you.”

They drove in companionable silence to Wisner, Lily’s hand on Jack’s knee. He kept inching it higher, which made her laugh and pinch him, but she didn’t remove it. Preacher, in the backseat, couldn’t see anything, but she doubted he would mind. He wasn’t that kind of preacher.

“You have to tell me what’s so all-fired important in Alabama that you have to go back,” Jack said as they reached the depot. “I know it’s a Western credo not to ask questions, but I gotta know.”

“Easy enough,” Preacher said as he took his suitcase out of the buckboard. “There’s a young lady in Dothan. I got cold feet and left. If she’ll forgive me, I’ll make that right too.”

Lily clapped her hands in delight. “Preacher, you sly dog!”

“Oh, you Sinclairs. I watched you two all winter, maybe even before you knew you loved each other,” he said simply.

“Couldna been that early, Preach,” Jack said. “You weren’t with us in the Great Wall of China Café.”

Lily stared at her husband. He shrugged. “You looked mighty good over chop suey.”

Lily laughed, her face flaming hot. She kissed Preacher. “Keep being a good man and come back with
your
wife.”

“I just might.”

They followed him inside the depot and there was Mr. Buxton, pacing up and down and glaring at his watch, as if it didn’t measure up, either. He saw them, then went to the window and looked outside.

“She didn’t want to leave,” Jack said. “I hadn’t the heart to force her. We’ll take good care of her.”

Mr. Buxton said nothing. He looked at them a long time, as if wondering at what point he had lost charge of his entire life, and then turned on his heel and went out to the platform. He stared at the tracks and came back inside. His shoulders drooped, and Lily had one small moment of pity.

“If she decides to return to you, we’ll see that she gets to Moline,” she said.

He nodded, took another breath, and was all business again. “Sinclair, I’ll take your contract to my attorney in Cheyenne. He’ll spruce it up and I’ll register it there. Next time you’re in Cheyenne, drop by the First National, and you’ll have the deed.” He held out his hand and Jack shook it. He didn’t hold out his hand to Lily, but she hadn’t expected him to.

“Well, Lil, let’s drop by the bank and see just how pitiful my account is,” he told her.

The teller had a smile for them both and turned to Lily. “I’m glad to see you! We’ve been holding two checks for your father from England. Just the usual. Sign for them and I’ll give you the money, so you can take it to him.”

“My word,” Lily said, stunned. “I forgot he had remittance checks.”

“We can understand why no one made it in from the Bar Dot this winter.” He ran a finger around his own too-loose collar. “It was a dilly, wasn’t it? Sign here, and I’ll get the money.”

“Grab it and run,” Jack whispered out of the corner of his mouth when the teller turned away to complete the transaction.

She did, holding her breath and afraid to look down at the bills until they stood on the sidewalk. “One hundred, two hundred—Jack, five hundred dollars!”

He closed his eyes and turned his face to the warming sun. “I hadn’t even thought of those remittance checks. Do you think he’d mind if we used some of it for posts and bob wire?”

“You’re the boss,” she reminded him, handing over the money.

“So are you,” he said as he pocketed it.

They spent the next hour in the bathhouse behind the hotel. The tub was too small to share, which Jack considered a great pity, so they took turns until the water ran clear. “That’s a lot of grime,” Jack said as he stood there with a towel around his middle and took a careful razor to his battered face. He looked back at her. “You’re getting all wrinkled, Lil.”

“We’re going to have bathhouse on the ranch just as soon as cattle start paying again,” she told him.

“Guess we’d better. You’re one of the bosses.”

Clean and brushed, Lil felt almost self-conscious walking down the sidewalk. She was pretty sure what came next, even though chop suey would never be high on her list. Maybe there had been enough trains coming and going by now to drop off some green tea at Mr. Li’s Great Wall.

As they passed the Back Forty, Lily’s attention was caught by a group of men standing around one of the still-snowy alleys. As they watched, one of the men ran for the sheriff.

Jack shrugged. “I’m betting they’re finding dead cattle everywhere. On to Mr. Li. I insist.”

The restaurant looked the same, and the menu had the same fly specks. She handed hers to her lord and master and favorite rancher. “Chop suey, of course.”

While they were eating, Mr. Li took a moment from mysterious noises and fragrances from the kitchen to pull up a chair. He gave her a little bow.

“Jack tell me he marry you, pretty missy. May you have many, many children.”

“We’re working on it, Mr. Li,” Jack said cheerfully, which made Lily blush.

Mr. Li nodded and gave Lily his attention again. “Missy, you let me know what day you want me to visit your class. I tell them all about China and bring almond cookies.”

“My class?” Lily stared at him. It seemed so long ago that she had given that letter to her father and told him to drop it by the Great Wall. “You . . . you got the letter?”

Mr. Li bobbed his head up and down. “Yes, missy. Mr. Carteret brought it right here and we ate chop suey.” His face fell. “It was snowing so hard, and I told him to hurry and run for the train, but he said it would be fine.”

Jack leaned forward, his eyes intense. Lily clutched his arm. “Lots of heavy snow?”

“Ah so. I told him after a while maybe he better just stay here and eat chop suey and get the train the next day, but no, he ran out.”

Jack took her hand, probably squeezing it harder than he intended to. “Lily.”

She didn’t know what he was going to say because the door slammed open then and the sheriff stood there, breathing hard. He took off his hat. “Miss Carteret.”

“Sinclair,” Jack said automatically.

“You’d better come with me. Good thing you’re here, Miss . . . Mrs. Sinclair? Jack, don’t let go of her.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Jack kept hold of her hand as they hurried after the sheriff toward the mounded snow in the alley.

“Jack, you don’t think . . .”
Think what?
she asked herself frantically, her mind and heart on her father, the man who had delivered her letter to Mr. Li and run out into the storm, the man who had run off and abandoned her.

Jack made her stay at the head of the alley while he threaded his way past snowdrifts and out behind the buildings. “Breathe, Lily, breathe,” she whispered.

He came back more slowly, the crowd parting to let him through, his eyes disbelieving. He took her hand and his fingers were so cold. He tucked her close to his side. Two deep breaths. “Lily, your father didn’t run away and leave you.”

She fell to her knees because her legs refused keep her upright. Jack knelt beside her in the mud and snow of the alley and they clung together. She cried tears of sorrow, anger, relief, and gratitude that Clarence Carteret, that weak man who told her she was the best thing he ever did, had not failed her after all.

When she thought she could stand, she let Jack lead her through the alley and into the open field. She covered her nose with her fingers as they passed dead cattle. The crowd of men parted, and she saw a tall figure wearing a familiar overcoat, face down in the mud, still clutching his valise.

The sheriff put a meaty hand on her shoulder. “I’m afraid it’s . . .”

“My father,” she finished, calm now. “He got lost in the blizzard, didn’t he?”

The sheriff nodded, his eyes solemn and sad. “It happens. One inch and he would’ve touched a building. Another inch . . .” He shrugged and turned away, leaving her scant privacy with what he thought was simply grief, but which was grief mingled with the greatest relief she had ever known.

“He didn’t leave me,” she told Jack.

“Not at all.”

At her husband’s quiet words, the sheriff and others wrapped Clarence Carteret’s mortal remains in a blanket, knotting it securely, and carried them to the buckboard that Jack had pulled around. One of the bystanders handed Lily the valise. Tears in her eyes, she traced his initials on the worn bag. “Papa,” she whispered.

They rode home in silence, Lily holding the valise tight in her arms, staring straight ahead.
He never made it to Cheyenne
, kept running through her brain.
He never made it to Cheyenne
.

“Stop!” she cried.

Jack spoke to the team. “What, honeybunch?” he asked, his voice so gentle.

With hands that trembled, Lily opened the valise. She pawed through the jumble of clothes, a copy of
King Solomon’s Mines
, and her father’s ledger. Underneath everything was a canvas bag. She pulled it out, widened the drawstring and gasped.

Jack was looking over her shoulder. She heard his sharp intake of breath.

“I’d forgotten about that,” he said finally. He leaned back and started to laugh.

“Jack! How can you . . .” She stared at the money in her hands. “My word. Two thousand dollars that a dissolved company has already written off.”