Vows (22 page)
Before the house a line of hitching posts waited, each topped by a steed's head of black iron, gripping a brass ring in its teeth.
"Looks like Liberty does all right for himself," Jeffcoat observed, dismounting.
"He sells horses to the army. The army not only pays top dollar, they create a constant demand. If the army thinks Lucky L horses are good enough, I do, too."
Emily led the way to the house, whose door was answered by a short, round woman in a white mobcap and apron. "Mr. Liberty is down behind C Barn." She pointed. "It's that one over there."
The first thing Jeffcoat noticed about Cal Liberty was not his impressive barrel-chested stature, or his expensive, freshly brushed Stetson trimmed with a leather band studded with turquoise set in silver, but the way he treated Emily Walcott—as if she were a ghost he could see through. Liberty immediately shook hands with Tom but ignored the hand that Emily offered. Upon learning that Tom was there to buy horses the rancher invited him over to the next barn, where his foreman was working, but he suggested Emily go to the house to have coffee with his wife.
Emily bristled and opened her mouth to retort, but Jeffcoat cut her off. "Miss Walcott is here to help me choose the horses."
"Oh." Liberty spared her a brief, derogatory glance. "Well, I guess she can come along then."
As they followed Liberty, Tom felt Emily sizzle with indignation. He squeezed her elbow and dropped her a pointed glance that ordered. Shut up, tomboy, just this once? To his relief, she only puckered her mouth and glared at the back of Liberty's head. Tom did likewise, thinking. You pompous ass, you should have seen her an hour ago pulling dead pigs.
They found Liberty's foreman, a seasoned cowboy with skin like beef jerky and hands as hard as saddle leather. His eyes were pale as jade, his legs bowed like a wishbone, and when he smiled the plug of tobacco in his cheek gave him the appearance of a pocket gopher.
"This's Trout Wills," Liberty announced. "Trout, meet Tom Jeffcoat."
Tom shook Trout's hand.
"Jeffcoat wants to look at—"
"And this is Miss Emily Walcott," interrupted Tom.
Trout tipped his hat. "Miss Walcott, how-do."
Liberty picked up where he'd left off, turning a shoulder to cut Emily out. "Jeffcoat wants to look at some horses. See what you can fix him up with."
Though Trout followed orders. Liberty stayed close by, watching. After the rancher's cool dismissal of Emily, Tom took perverse pleasure in allowing her every opportunity to display her knowledge of horseflesh. By some unspoken agreement they'd decided to take Liberty down a notch.
When the cavvy of horses milled before them, Tom asked, loud and clear, "What do you think, Emily?"
They both ignored Liberty, who lounged at a nearby fence. Tom watched as Emily singled out a two-year-old mare, won its confidence, and began a minute inspection. Tom stood back, impressed himself as she went through an entire half dozen animals with educated thoroughness. On each one she checked to make sure the skin was soft and supple, the hairs of the coat lying flat and sleek, the eyes bright, the bearing alert. She checked the membranes of the nostrils to be sure they were a pale salmon pink, felt each crest for possible soreness, each tendon for bursal enlargements, pulled back lips to inspect molars and tushes, picked up feet to examine the condition of the frogs, and even checked pulse rates beneath jaws.
While she was checking that of a healthy-looking sorrel, Tom stood close and inquired in an undertone, "What should it be?"
"From thirty-six to forty. He's right in there."
When one of the horses lifted its tail and dropped a few yellow nuggets, instead of jumping back as most women would, Emily nudged the droppings with her boot and commented, "Good … not too soft, not too hard, just the way they're supposed to be." When another urinated she watched the proceedings, unfazed, and approved of the urine's color and the lack of strong odor.
"As a lot, they're healthy," she told Tom, adding, "but I was more concerned with their internal health. Anybody who's been around horses as long as you have knows what makes a sound one and which ones are light of bone. You can look them over yourself for conformation."
She stood back and took her turn at studying him as he went through the herd, sizing them up for conformation. She watched each move he made, recognizing what he was searching for: ample width between the eyes; eyes with little white showing; long, arched necks; well-developed shoulders; broad knees tapering front to back; flat shinbones and fetlocks angling at forty-five degrees. He disqualified one for its bell-shaped feet, winning a glance of approval from Emily, then singled out another for its thick cannon bones. Bridle-leading it, he checked its leg and foot action, and led it back to Emily.
"This one's a beauty."
She gave the big buckskin a hand-check and a perusal, then called to Liberty, "What's his name?"
"Buck." It was the first word he'd spoken directly to Emily.
She turned Jeffcoat aside and advised in an undertone, "You're right, he's beautiful, but let Liberty's foreman tack and ride him first. Just because he's beautiful doesn't mean he's manageable. And with a name like Buck … well, it might be because of his color, but there's no sense taking chances. If anyone gets flattened against the fence or thrown, better the foreman than you."
Jeffcoat smiled and bowed to her wisdom.
Buck turned out to be a real gentleman. He stood docilely while Trout tacked him, then performed with absolute manners while being ridden. When Jeffcoat himself mounted and took Buck through his paces, Emily watched, once more impressed. He wisely walked Buck first instead of sending him into an immediate canter, as a greenhorn might have. He patiently circled, bent, halted, walked on, assessing the horse's reaction to the bit and the strange rider.
When he nudged Buck into a trot Emily watched him master the awkward juggling gait with unusual grace. At trot most women looked like corn being popped, most men like eager children reaching into a candy jar. Jeffcoat rode it rising, perfectly balanced, his hands steady, his loins relaxed, body inclined slightly forward, not just tipped from the hips. Emily's father had taught her to ride, had pointed out how few people could perform the trot gracefully, and that fewer still rode it on the correct diagonal.
Jeffcoat did it all effortlessly.
Equally as effortlessly he kicked Buck into a canter, changed rein to make certain the stallion performed correctly on either lead, and finally set him into a gallop. When Jeffcoat wheeled and stretched out, galloping back to her, he made an impressive sight, with leathers properly shortened, his weight out of the saddle carried on the insides of his thighs and knees, lifting on the balls of his feet.
Damn you, Jeffcoat, you look like you might have been born in that saddle, and the sight of you there does things to my insides.
When he reined in, his touch was light; already he'd learned that much about Buck. He dropped to the ground before the dust had settled, smiled, and told Emily, "This one'll be mine."
She couldn't resist teasing, "Don't you know, Mr. Jeffcoat, that a wise horseman never lets his heart be captured by the first animal he tests?"
"Unless it's the right one," he returned, smiling back.
She relented by patting Buck on his broad forehead. "He's a good choice."
Tom told Liberty, "This one's sold. I'll need four others for riding."
"Three should do," interrupted Emily, quietly.
"Three?"
"You'll find that around here you'll be renting out rigs mostly, to land agents taking immigrant families out to pick out their eighty acres for preemption. You'll need a few who are saddle-broke, sure, but most of your stock should be wagon-trained."
Again Jeffcoat bowed to her judgment, and the selection went on until his four saddlehorses were chosen and the deal made. The horses for the rigs would have to wait until another day, as it was getting late and they'd have to head back or get caught by dark.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Liberty. I'll be back sometime next week." Tom extended a hand. When Liberty had shaken it he found another waiting.
"You've got basically good sound stock," Emily approved, holding her hand poised where it could not be avoided.
"Thank you. What did you say your name is again?"
"Emily Walcott. I'm Edwin Walcott's daughter and I'm studying to be a veterinarian. That black pointed bay you call Gambler has what appears to be a touch of thoroughpin on his rear off hock that might be worth watching. My guess is he probably had a small sprain that you might not even have known about. It's no cause for worry, but if I were you I'd treat it with equal parts of spirits of camphor and tincture of iodine, and if it should ever grow to where pressure on one side makes it bulge on the opposite side, it should be drained and trussed. In that case, I'll be happy to come out and do it for you. You can find me at my father's livery stable most days. Good-bye, Mr. Liberty."
She and Jeffcoat mounted up and trotted their horses down the driveway feeling smug and amused. When they got beyond earshot, he released a whoop of laughter.
"Did you see the expression on his face!"
She laughed too. "I know I was showing off, but I couldn't resist."
"He deserved it, the pompous ass."
"I should be used to it. I'm a woman, and women, after all, are better at blacking stoves and punching down bread dough, aren't they?"
"I doubt that Liberty thinks so anymore."
She cast her companion an appreciative sidelong glance. "Thanks, Jeffcoat. It was fun."
"Yes, it was. The whole afternoon."
They rode on for some time in companionable silence, adjusting to it with some lingering astonishment after their turbulent beginning. It was a beautiful time of day, nearly sundown, conducive to amity. Behind them a flaming orange ball rested half-submerged below the tip of the mountain. Before them their mounted shadows stretched into distorted caricatures that slipped across the roadside grasses. They flushed a great flock of crows who flapped their way upmountain. At a narrow creek they startled a heron who winged his way to some distant rookery. They passed a spot where blossoming fireweed spread a great sheet of color, its bright pink flowers turned gilt by the flaming sun behind them. And farther along they turned in passing to study a picket-pin gopher sitting motionless atop his mound, as straight as his own shadow. From a roadside fence a meadowlark trilled and overhead the goshawks came out, calling their haunting flight song.
And the peace of evening settled within the two riders.
They listened to the squeak of shifting saddles, the three-time waltz rhythm of cantering hooves, the steady rush and pull of the horses' breath. They felt the east cool their fronts and the west warm their backs and realized they were enjoying each other's presence far more than advisable … riding … riding … a mere horse's width apart … eyes correctly ahead … digesting the mellowing turn their relationship had taken in a single day. Something indefinable had happened. Well, perhaps not indefinable—inadmissible, rather—something startling and compelling and very much forbidden. They rode on, each of them battling the urge to turn and study, to confirm with an exchange of glances that the other was feeling it, too—this newfound confederacy, this inadvisable, insidious fascination. To feel it was one thing; to allow it to show was another.
They rode on, downhill all the way, toward a party they would both be attending, and a dance they might conceivably end up sharing, and an attraction that should never have begun, schooling themselves to remain outwardly aloof while both of them thought of Charles Bliss—his friend, and her intended.
Chapter 8
T
hey were both late to Tarsy's party. By the time Tom walked through the door, the hostess was in a state of near-panic, thinking he wasn't coming.
"Where have you been?" Tarsy flew across the room and grabbed his arm hard enough to cause black-and-blue marks.
"At the Lucky L Ranch, buying horses."
"I know that. Charles told me. But you're so late."