Carla Kelly (49 page)

“Oh.” She didn't mean to sound disappointed. His time was his own. “I guess winter is about your best opportunity to leave the Double Tipi.”

“Always has been. I was thinking you and James might want to come with me as far as Cheyenne. I'd leave for Denver after church and you two would be all right to get home from there. Would you?”

“Of course. I'd like James to meet the Gillespie boys.”

“That's what I thought too. Thing is, I want us to leave for Cheyenne a day earlier. I'm going to transfer my legal business to Brother Gillespie. Up to now, I've had a Chicago lawyer, but I'm not going back there ever again. An agent can ship my cattle, and I like Brother Gillespie.”

“You would be a welcome addition to his practice, I'm sure,” she said.

“Here's how it concerns you, if you're amenable.” He turned around and rested his elbows on the rail, which made Chief nose at his head. “Pesky horse. I bank in Cheyenne, mostly, and I want to list you as a cosignatory on my account there.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Otto!” Julia exclaimed.

“Mr. Otto again? I thought we had seen the last of him. Hear me out. I want you to be able to tap into funds for the kitchen when you're in Cheyenne. You've indicated that the grocery selection in Gun Barrel is poor…”

“You're being kind to Gun Barrel,” she said dryly.

“True,” he agreed. “Point being, there are emporiums in Cheyenne that will crate up your purchases and ship them to Gun Barrel. I—or you—can send Matt or Doc down to the Cheyenne & Northern depot with a wagon to fetch whatever you buy. This way you have free rein, in case I'm not around.” He looked into the distance. “I … uh … I'm not going to be around much this spring.”

“You trust me
that
much?”

He stared at her as though she had sprouted another head. “Darling, I trust you completely.” He could tell it wasn't going well by her expression. “Uh, is there something I should know?”

She laughed as she knew he wanted her to. “Of course not! Mr. Otto—Paul—is this a good idea?”

He shrugged. “If you here at the Double Tipi are interested in eating regularly—or at least in the style to which even Willy Bill has become accustomed—it probably is.”

“Well, if you put it that way,” Julia countered, unable to keep the dubious tone from her voice. “I'll think about it.”

“That's all I ask. And if you and James want to leave for Cheyenne on Friday, think about that too.” He nudged her shoulder, which made Chief whinny. “Don't know about you, but I've been missing that painting of Custer behind whoever's at the podium trying to make the Odd Fellows Hall a more righteous place.”

“That's a bit flip,” she retorted.

He shrugged again. “Your church, Darling, not mine.”

She thought about that through the week, even going into Paul's room one night to see if he had taken the Book of Mormon and her father's gift with him to the line shack. Neither book was in sight, and she wasn't about to pry further. She reminded herself it wasn't his religion as she cooked and cleaned and made the Double Tipi a better place after her absence. Custer probably would look funny to anyone not used to Mormon meetings in strange places.
Be honest, Julia,
she told herself.
It also startled you, at first.

She decided she had made a mountain out of a molehill after Paul returned from the line cabin, smiling and obviously more at peace with himself since before his trip to Chicago.

“He likes his solitude,” Doc told her from the dinner table when he saw her looking out the window after hearing his horse. “It's nothing personal, Julia.”

She sat down. Matt and Willy Bill hadn't come inside yet, and James was busy drawing. “Have I been that obvious?” she asked quietly.

“Call me an observer of human nature. I wondered if you two had quarreled.”

“Not really.” Julia thought a moment, unwilling to mention the Church and knowing that wasn't her only concern. Doc didn't need to know everything. “He wants to put my name on his bank account in Cheyenne! Something about making it easier for me to obtain funds for food purchases, if he's not around. I told him I didn't think it was a good idea.”

“Calm your heart, Julia.” Doc said. “That's a sound idea. Know this about Boss, because I'm not sure you're aware of it: he's one of the most successful ranchers in Wyoming. He didn't get that way by having poor business instincts. If he trusts you, you're trustworthy. He has a sixth sense about this, I do believe.”

“That's it?” she asked in relief. “So I should agree?”

“I would.” He grinned at the expression she knew was on her face. “You look like you ate a sour pickle! Maybe you should trust
him.”
He looked closer. “He ever given you reason not to?”

Far from it,
she thought. “Never. All right. You've convinced me.”

He put his hand to his heart in mock relief. She was swatting him with a dish towel when Paul came in.

“Jerusalem crickets, I go away for a few days, and my cook gets violent.”

She swatted him next, which made James look up from his artwork and grin. Paul grabbed the dish towel and swatted back. Doc rolled his eyes and turned back to another outdated newspaper while James continued his drawing, a smile on his face. When Julia tried to retrieve the dish towel, Paul slung it over the rafter like he used to sling the calving ropes and grinned at her.

Matt Malloy opened the door about then, watching them. He removed his coat and sat down beside Doc, addressing him specifically. “I disremember, Doc. When did this place turn into bedlam?”

“When Julia showed up,” Doc said.

“To think I just hired her to cook,” Paul replied as he reached for the dish towel. “Little did we know.”

Little did I know how enjoyable the Double Tipi would become,
Julia told herself later when the men were in the bunkhouse and Paul was reading to James in bed. He was in a good mood now, maybe because she had agreed to become a signatory on his Cheyenne account or more likely because the entree was pork chops. She had bartered for them with Alice Marlowe, tempting her husband with a magnificent mound of hand-dipped, chocolate covered maraschino cherries.

She left enough behind for the Double Tipi men and another cache she was taking to the Gillespies tomorrow, hidden in a tin labeled dried lima beans, a trick Mama had passed on to her after her older brothers moved out.

“Julia, do you have a minute?”

She looked up from a plate rubbed dry. Paul stood there, more serious than she had seen him since Salt Lake City. He held a tablet of James's drawings. “Is something wrong?”

“I'm not sure. Come in the parlor. James is asleep, and we can talk.”

Julia put down the plate and removed her apron, following her boss into the next room. He patted the sofa next to him and put the tablet in her lap when she sat down.

Puzzled, she shuffled through them, smiling at yesterday's illustrations of horses in the corral. “I think he has some talent,” she said.

“Keep looking.”

She turned page after page in the drawing book, amused to see herself, hair twisted in her impromptu topknot, kneading bread. Her mouth was open. “I'm singing. I really tried to teach him ‘Silent Night’ before you got back today, but he seems to think ‘Sweet Evalina’ and ‘Redeemer of Israel’ will do.”

“That's about my favorite drawing,” Paul said. “The only thing he missed was the flour that's usually on the end of your nose. Keep turning.”

She stopped two pages later. She held her breath as she stared down at a midnight sky and a cabin on fire. “Paul,” she whispered, as she took in what appeared to be people on fire inside the cabin. The skin on her back seemed to prickle as she saw horses with riders around the burning cabin and a smaller figure in the snow, partly in shadow. “Please tell me this isn't what I think.”

He put his arm around her, pulling her close. “Three years ago, that winter when he just wandered onto the Double Tipi, there was a nasty range war going on north of us.” He tightened his grip. “It was the usual problem: nesters moving onto what used to be open range and stockmen taking exception to it. They burned a couple of claim shanties and drove off the settlers.”

“But…”

“Let your mind wander. Think more ill of people than you usually do.”

It wasn't a great leap; maybe she just hadn't wanted to think like that. “One of the shanties wasn't empty,” she said slowly.

“I know those ranchers.”

“Would they…?”

“They would. Apparently they did, though I doubt a judge or jury in this state would ever convict them, provided they even knew they had left a witness alive.” He sighed. “Julia, I asked James, just casual like, if he knew who that little boy was. He nodded. Told me his name was Tad, or Thad. I couldn't tell.”

“Tad is James?” she asked, horrified.

“I think so.” Paul made an effort to speak calmly. “I asked him if Tad had a last name. It sounded like he said Pulaski or Polatki.” He put his hand to his eyes. “Darling, this could almost be my mother's story: someone small left to wander.”

Julia leaned her head against Paul's shoulder. He was running his thumb down her arm now, probably an absent-minded gesture.

“I do remember that the homesteaders they ran off were from Eastern Europe,” he said, speaking softly, as if the arsonists were in the room with them, watching the claim shanty burn. “No one knows where they went, and I assure you no one made any effort to find them. They were gone, and that's all that mattered.”

“Should … should we call James Tad now?”

“I asked him that, but he shook his head. He looked afraid, as though they might still come after him.” He made an inarticulate sound. “Darling, he told me, ‘That was Tad. You named me James.’ “

She took a deep breath. “Dear God. Can we do anything?”

“Don't think I'm craven if I tell you no. You know as well as I do that tempers run high on what used to be the open range and what's left of the range. When I think—Julia, I'm so glad the Rudigers are safe. If we hadn't done what we did—if you hadn't pricked my conscience about it—I hate to think … And someone burned their house anyway.” She watched a muscle work in his jaw.

When Paul spoke again, his words were tentative. “Darling, I've been thinking. We know James is slow, but he learns.”

“He does. He might be a little behind, but—” “When Tad—when James found us here, he didn't speak for at least six months. When he started to talk, it was in short sentences, sort of the way
I
learned English. He's more and more fluent each year. I think his first language was Polish, and he was learning from us.”

Julia put her hands to her mouth. “Thaddeus Pulaski, maybe?”

“Maybe James Otto now. It's a safe name.”

Both his arms were around her then. They clung together, Julia unable to stop shivering, and Paul taking deep breaths until he seemed to calm down. He still didn't release her, and she was grateful for that.

He spoke into her hair. “I doubt we'll ever know more. Mama never told us much about the time she wandered. Maybe God mercifully lets us forget.”

He kissed the top of her head and then her lips next, just a gentle kiss, as if he doubted the wisdom of his action. She kissed him back just as gently. They sat together until the clock pronounced the hour.