Carla Kelly (52 page)

She found herself enveloped in a cocoon of comfort that spread until she could sleep without chewing over what she had said or not said, done or not done, that had turned Paul Otto so inward, terse even.
You haven't done anything,
came to her mind. Instead of dismissing the notion, she welcomed it. When she woke, morning had come, after the first solid night's sleep she had enjoyed in the months since Iris's death.

Two Bits was sleeping against her stomach now. Julia reached down to pet him, starting up the motor again and making her smile. “Well, little buddy, maybe snake catcher is the least of your major duties.”
I think I learned something,
she thought.
Heavenly Father, I intend to remember it.

When Julia and James came down to Cheyenne the following Saturday, Paul Otto sat in the parlor, holding the youngest Gillespie and looking dubious. His eyes brightened when he saw her. He held out the baby, which she took gladly. James flashed Paul a monster smile but rushed upstairs, where muffled shouts of greeting seemed to swell out of the woodwork.

“Well, stranger,” she said, keeping her voice light, “back from Denver?”

“I am, indeed, and the owner of two Hereford bulls worth more than I am, if you believe McLemore.”

“Which I don't,” she commented. She sat beside him, acutely aware that she felt content for the first time since he went away.

Was that it? She felt a rosy glow start on her chest and work its way north, which gave her a sudden urge to hold the baby against her shoulder so Paul couldn't see her face.
Take another breath, Julia,
she told herself.
This happens to people every day.
No, it couldn't. It wasn't possible that anyone else in the entire universe had ever felt like this before.

He was saying something. She peeked around the baby to see his face. He looked the same: same olive complexion, same high cheekbones, same brown eyes, same mustache, same weather wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. She had regarded him for months now, enjoying his company, frustrating him with her early cooking, listening to him confide the deepest pain of his life, sharing his discoveries about James, and serving as his sole audience when he told her about Child Walking, his mother.

I love this man,
she thought. Nothing she had ever felt for Ezra Quayle remotely approached the feeling inside her as she listened to him tell her about his plans to improve the stock on his ranch and then worry out loud about the scarcity of winter snow. She even loved the sound of his voice, the inflections of someone who had probably learned English second.

“Darling? Are you listening to me?”

“I-I thought I was.”

“I just told you that Ursula sends her love, and Julia is sleeping through the night now.”

He peered closer at her, and she felt her face flame. “That appears to be more than what you're doing lately. James keeping you up?”

She shook her head, willing herself calm. “No, but I have been a little restless lately.”

Paul stood up when Sister Gillespie came into the room, took her baby back, and kissed Julia's forehead.

“I didn't even hear you, Julia!”

“I grabbed her and put her in charge of Mabel,” Paul said. “Better not to send an amateur on a professional's errand. Mabel's asleep now, and I didn't do it.”

So it went all weekend, Paul as affable as ever, except there was still that change she couldn't understand.
Did he touch me that much before, as offhand as it was, and now I miss it?
Julia wondered to herself as she dressed for church on Sunday. She couldn't overlook the kiss, but neither of them had commented about it.
For all that he's an experienced man, we're both so green,
she thought. He was engaging and kind but different in a way she couldn't identify. It quickly began to distress her, now that she knew Paul Otto had become the center of her universe. It was as though she had decided one thing, and he another.

So began the strangest spring of her life. The day after she and Paul returned from Cheyenne, Blue Corn left. She had taken him his usual morning bowl of oatmeal, complemented by a cup of the dried apples he liked, and sausage Sister Gillespie had sent home with her. The tack shed was empty.

She brought his breakfast back to the kitchen, where Paul sat with Doc, looking at the registration papers of the two bulls he was so proud of.

“He's gone,” she said.

There was no mistaking the worry line between Paul's eyes. “Spring's here. He's never left this early before. Doc, we're in trouble.”

And then she might as well have not been in the room at all as he and Doc turned their attention to drought. She put the food away, glanced at the men, and then quietly opened the kitchen door again, easing outside to walk down the slope to the distant river. She looked at the water a long time, trying to see it through a stockman's eyes—shallow. Even in Salt Lake City, she knew what happened when spring came and the snow melt swelled the rivers and streams. There was no spring rise on the river, no snow in shaded pockets of rolling land, no brisk wind suggesting winter was trying to hold on.

She perched on a branch that stretched near the deeper pool where she knew Paul like to bathe and where she had gone last summer when the men were away and James asleep. All winter, bathing and shivering in a tin bucket in her room, she had looked forward to those summer nights when the little dammed up spot in the river was hers. Now it was already shallow.

She sat there a long time, looking at the water and thinking about Sister Duncan.

The men left the next morning, riding out together. Again Paul had put his hand on her shoulder as she stood at the window. This time he gave her a little shake before going to the corral to saddle Chief.

Her mind settled a moment after breakfast when he nodded to her and said, “Walk with me, Darling.”

She followed him into the yard. He put his hand on her shoulder this time as they walked slowly. He took her to the tack shed, opening the door for her.

“Blue Corn left you something. It was on the lamp shelf. I guess you missed it when you brought him his breakfast.”

He held out a small decorated strip, with deerskin ties. “Hold out your wrist.”

She did as he said, and he tied the bracelet around it, smiling to himself. “It's made of porcupine quills, not beads.”

He still held her hand, touching the twined diamond pattern. “He uses roots and leaves for dye.”

“Maybe it's for you,” she said, not wanting him to ever let go of her hand.

“No, it's for a woman's wrist. A small woman. You.”

She swallowed and looked up at him, irritated that her eyes seemed to be filling with tears she had promised herself, after a nearly sleepless night, that she would not shed. “It was kind of him, Mr. Otto,” she managed to say.

He didn't joke this time when she called him mister. “Mr. Otto? I thought he might be back,” was all he said before he took her gently by the shoulders, pulled her close, seemed to breathe deep of her fragrance, and then left her standing in the tack shed. She stayed there, hands to her ears so she could not hear him ride away.

He was back in two days with his crew, augmented now by three more hands, shy men who seemed pleased to put their feet under her table and eat what one of them told her was the best chow in Wyoming. It was just steak and mashed potatoes and gravy, but she thanked him and called it good.

Even the new hands came to the Double Tipi somber men. All talk at each meal centered around little snow all winter and no rain now. The topic changed briefly when Paul and Doc brought back the two bulls from Denver. Julia had to smile when she watched the men of the Double Tipi gather around the enormous animals in their special enclosure, reminding her for all the world of the neighborhood's reaction when Papa drove up in his Pierce-Arrow. But once the bulls had been turned onto the range—as Paul put it when he thought Julia was out of earshot, “to make the girls happy”—the talk returned to drought.

One bright spot was a little note from her father for Paul, which he had slipped into a letter. She handed the folded note to him on one of the rare nights he was actually home and sitting in the parlor—or sleeping there, more often than not. No one was sleeping well, not with worries and constant flickers of heat lightning that promised nothing but spotty range fires.

“What'd he say?” he asked when she gently touched his shoulder to wake him. She was grateful that he no longer jumped slightly whenever she touched him.

“I don't read your mail, Paul Otto,” she said, a little more sharply than she wanted.

He looked at her, surprised, but made no comment. He read the note and nodded. “Says it's been a bit more time-consuming to find my Hixon-Dixon-Hickman relatives than he would have thought. Maybe Mama wasn't the only secretive one.” He looked at her and patted the sofa. “Sit down, Julia.”

She shook her head, mumbling something about James needing her attention in the kitchen.
I can't sit with you, not when all I am craving these days is your arms around me,
she thought.
Maybe I should spend some time alone in the line shack.

She knew she had disappointed him because the next morning, when she stood at the window and he passed by, he put his hand on her shoulder, left it there a moment, and whispered, “It's a hard time of year, Darling. That's all.”

That wasn't all, but she hadn't the heart to contradict him. Not after last night in the parlor and then a hard moment in her room. After starts and stops and a lifetime of dabbling in a verse here and a thought there, she had finished the Book of Mormon, suffering with Moroni as he grieved the loss of his fair ones and wandered alone like Child Walking in a wilderness that could have turned deadly at any bend in the trail. He had kept his faith. With calmness, he was prepared to remain true to the end.