Unbridled Dreams (5 page)
As the sun rose above the horizon, reality crashed through Irma’s daydreams about the day ahead. She had run off and stayed away
all
night.
Momma would be beside herself. What if, when she got back to the ranch, Daddy punished her by making her stay at the ranch while everyone else headed for Scout’s Rest? She hadn’t thought of that. She might not even be allowed to
go
today.
You are in so much trouble. Again.
Urging Diamond into an easy lope, Irma argued herself around to accepting the only sure way for her to deflect her parents’ combined wrath. Reluctantly she realized that she’d best forego the idea of auditioning today. Maybe she could talk to Bill Cody and arrange for something on another day. It would be over a week before the Wild West train pulled out of the station. Maybe it would work out to her advantage
not
to audition when half the world was at Scout’s Rest. And now that she thought about it, having plenty of time to explain ranch life to a certain handsome drugstore cowboy wasn’t exactly a bad thing. Her stomach growled. As she urged Diamond into a gallop Irma decided it was a good thing she was hungry. She had eaten some crow in her life, but to get her parents’ permission to go to Scout’s Rest, she was going to have to wolf down the whole bird.
B
E KIND TO ONE ANOTHER, TENDER-HEARTED
,
FORGIVING EACH OTHER, JUST AS
G
OD IN
C
HRIST
ALSO HAS FORGIVEN YOU
.
Ephesians 4:32
NASB
“I’m
sorry,
all right?” Irma said as she dismounted and handed Monte his misshapen hat.
“Do you have any idea how long it took me to steam this over Ma’s tea kettle? To get it just right?” Monte struggled in vain to shape the crown with his hands. “I can’t believe you’d just steal a man’s hat, Irma. That’s so wrong.”
“I’ll find a way to make it up to you. But first—you’ve gotta help me.” With a glance toward the house, Irma led Diamond into the barn. “Can you take care of Diamond while I get changed?” When Monte didn’t move, Irma said, “Come on, Monte. Alice Carter thinks you hung the moon. She wouldn’t care if you came to a dance in a pink dress, let alone a new hat. The way she stares into your eyes every time she sees you, she probably wouldn’t have even
noticed
the hat.” Irma touched the brim. “And besides, it isn’t ruined. I’ll take it to town with me when we go home and have Mr. Hamilton fix it up like new. Daddy says he’s the best haberdasher in town.”
“He’s the
only
haberdasher in town,
Irmagard,
” Monte said, still refusing to show any signs of forgiving or helping her.
Irma batted her eyelashes at him and shimmied her shoulders in a pantomime of the way she’d seen Alice Carter flirt. “So . . . am I right? Did she save you the first dance?”
Monte shrugged. “All of ’em,” he finally said, and there was the grin. Monte could never stay mad at her for long.
“I told you so.” Irma led Diamond into a stall, grateful when Monte followed her.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “I heard you took a bad fall before you ran off.”
“I’m sore, but it wasn’t that bad a spill.” She put her hand on Monte’s arm. “I
did
it, Monte. The whole routine. I just slipped at the end. But I
did
it. And yes, I’m all right. I ran off because I just—” She nodded toward the house. “I just couldn’t listen to her anymore.”
“Well, they’re
both
really upset. You should have been at supper. Everyone around the table was trying not to talk about the only thing we could think about.” One corner of his mouth curled up. “You really did that dismount?”
When she nodded he whistled softly in appreciation. “Wish I woulda seen it.” Picking up a stirrup, he slung it over the saddle horn and undid the girth strap. As he pulled saddle and blanket off Diamond, he shook his head and murmured, “You are in
so much trouble.
”
Irma slipped Diamond’s bridle off and, pushing the stall door closed with her foot, followed Monte into the tack room. “Is anyone else up?”
Hoisting the saddle onto an empty rack, Monte took the bridle from Irma and hung it up. “Pa’s over at the old barn harnessing up the team. The girls are awake, although I don’t think they’re downstairs yet.”
“My parents?”
Monte shook his head. “Didn’t hear anything when I walked by their room. But there were two cups and saucers on the back porch. Like someone had a midnight meeting. Unless Miss Viola had a visit from a secret admirer.” He laughed at the joke about Miss Viola, who seemed delighted with the fact that she was approaching her sixtieth birthday having never been “hog-tied-by-any-two-legged-varmint-lookin’-for-a-servant-he-don’t-have-to-pay.”
“Finish up with Diamond for me, and I’ll do all your chores tonight,” Irma promised. “And I
will
make it up to you about the hat.”
“I don’t think you can fix it this time, Irm, and I’m not talking about the hat. Aunt Willa’s gonna want to hustle you straight home. Even if I wanted to make a deal about hats and chores and stuff, the fact is I don’t think you’re gonna
be
here for chores tonight.”
“I’ll handle Momma,” Irma said. “Just, please . . . for now. . . ?” “Oh, all right,” Monte said. They walked back toward Diamond’s stall. “Ned and me are trying out for the Wild West today. Having someone else to do chores here at home would be fine with me. That way we can stay later if we want.”
“
You’re
trying out?” Irma glanced toward the house again, where a light was now glowing in the kitchen. She wasn’t surprised about Ned thinking of signing on. He had an ambitious streak as wide as the Platte River and no local family ties, but Monte never spoke of anything but the riches to be made in the sandhills, which he called the “best cattle country in the world”—as if he’d actually seen the world.
“I didn’t think you ever wanted to see the other side of the South Platte, let alone the other side of the state line,” Irma said.
Monte shrugged as he opened the stall door and began to go over Diamond’s dapple-gray coat with a curry comb. “Pa could do a lot with forty dollars a month. Might even be sixty if I can impress Bill and get into more than one act.”
“But Uncle Charlie would have to hire someone to replace you.”
Monte shook his head. “Nope. We talked about it already. Not much of a herd left to run since the blizzard. Fact is, Pa’s thinkin’ he might have to let some of the hands go. Ned volunteered to try and find something else. Then we decided why not Wild West together.”
Irma knew untold numbers of cattle had died last month when a blizzard dumped eight inches of snow and left drifts five and six feet deep all across Lincoln County. But Daddy’s talking about the damage from his perspective as a banker was different from hearing Monte talk about how the blizzard had hurt Uncle Charlie and Aunt Laura—and how he was trying to help.
“If
you’re
trying out today,” she murmured, “I just have to be there.”
“You aren’t still thinking of trying to sneak in your own audition are you? Your momma would—”
Irma shook her head. “No. That was probably a bad idea all along. I’d need Diamond there, anyway, and—” She put her hand on Monte’s arm. “But I can’t miss seeing you and Ned ride. Please, Monte—help me out.”
“Isn’t that what I’m doin’?” Monte waved the curry comb at her.
“But you gotta wash my britches and—” he thought for a moment— “polish my boots before the next dance.”
“Agreed.”
“And iron my shirts. And . . . I need a button sewed on my—”
“Don’t press your luck, Monte Mason,” Irma protested. “You may be my favorite cousin, but a girl’s gotta draw the line somewhere. I’d have to love you a lot more than I do before I’d be your seamstress. Besides, you have a sister who’s almost as talented as the seamstress in town. And Minnie actually
likes
to sew.”
Monte shook his head. “How you gonna’ find a husband with an attitude like that?”
“What makes you think I want to find a husband?” Irma sassed back. “Part of me thinks Miss Viola has it right about men.”
“Well, that’s good, because you’re practically an old maid already,” Monte teased. “Minnie seems to think eighteen is the last gasp age for getting a man.”
“The only thing
I’m
feeling desperate about this morning is how to smooth Momma’s ruffled feathers. As you said, I’m in trouble. And believe me, I know it.”
“Go on in there, then, and fancy yourself up while I tend Diamond,” Monte said, nodding toward the house. “And do a good job of it, too. I want you there when I make a darned fool of myself trying to impress Mr. Cody. Swipe on some of that lemon verbena stuff. Maybe Aunt Willa will see there’s hope if you’re all gussied up like a real girl when you come down for breakfast. Shoot, maybe she won’t even know you’ve been gone all night.” Monte paused. “Which reminds me, where were you, anyway? Diamond doesn’t look all that wore out.”
“If I tell you,” Irma said, “you have to swear never to let anyone know.”
Monte raised his right hand. “Swear.”
“I got lost.” The dimple returned to Monte’s cheek. Irma tapped it as she said, “You promised not to tell. And now you’d better promise not to laugh.” She sighed. “I fell asleep in the saddle. When I woke up, Diamond had gone home. Only to his
old
home.”
Monte stroked Diamond’s neck. “You old devil, you,” he said. He chuckled and looked at Irma. “So you spent the night at Scout’s Rest?”
Irma nodded. “Slept in the barn—and don’t you forget that you promised to keep that secret. I can’t have Momma thinking I got
lost.
I need her to believe I can take care of myself.” With a sigh, Irma turned toward the house. “Now, if I can just get upstairs without anyone hearing me.”
“I left my window open,” Monte said.
Irma went back to hug him. “And that,” she said, “is why you will always be my favorite cousin.”
Monte waved the compliment away. “The rooster’s gonna be crowing any second. You’d best be climbing that trellis.”
Irma kissed his cheek. “Thank you. And I’ll help you with chores for a week if this all works out.” She trotted quickly across the open space between the barn and the ranch house and ducked around the corner of the house. With a last wave in Monte’s direction she grasped the trellis Uncle Charlie had built only last year and climbed up to the second story, where, as promised, Monte had left his bedroom window open, just in case his runaway cousin needed to sneak home in the middle of the night. The rooster crowed just as she pulled herself through the window.
Suffering from a stiff neck and a headache, Willa had just given Laura’s coffee grinder a crank when the answer to her midnight prayers walked into the kitchen dressed in the double pink housedress Willa had had made by North Platte’s best dressmaker. Irmagard’s red hair shone from a good brushing and was piled atop her head in the most becoming style. And—what went past the realm of answered prayer and ventured close to the miraculous in Willa’s mind—the girl had donned an apron as if she intended to help in the kitchen. Willa’s spirits soared momentarily but plummeted back to earth as she wondered if, instead of sincere repentance, this might be yet another performance by the actress known as Irmagard Determined to Get Her Way.
Clearly caught off guard by the sight of her rumpled mother cranking the coffee grinder, Irma offered a muffled greeting before hurrying out on the porch. She came back inside bearing the cups and saucers Willa and Otto had left behind last night, then collapsed into a kitchen chair and, with her most repentant expression on her fresh-washed face, moaned, “Oh, Momma. Will you ever forgive me?”
Willa didn’t answer. Instead, she fumbled her way through making coffee. When she reached for the dirty cups and saucers, Irmagard hopped up.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
Barely managing to refrain from another emotional outburst— this one fueled by anger, Willa waved Irmagard away while she went to the dry sink, pumped water enough to rinse the dishes, dried them, and put them back on the wooden shelf hanging above Laura’s gateleg worktable. She began to set the table for breakfast. When Irmagard moved to help, Willa acquiesced. Plates clunked against the table. Silverware rattled. Coffee cups and glasses landed in place with a thud, all of it unnaturally loud as the two women worked in emotionally supercharged silence.