Lauraine Snelling (2 page)

“But we are the ones who put all the work into this place. Doesn’t that count for anything?” Lucas leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Seems to me that all they have title to is the land—nothing else about the ranch.”

“And the cattle purchased with the money he left.”

“I suppose.” The face Lucas made said he didn’t really agree.

“If we had the money, we could buy her out.”

Lucas turned to look at his brother. “Mighty big
if
. Might as well be worth millions.” Shifting his attention back to his mother, he asked, “Any idea what the ranch is worth, Mor?”

“No, none. But I remember your father saying that something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.”

“What if she wants to buy us out?” Lucas raised his eyebrows.

“You just want to go homestead in Montana.” Disgust riddled Ransom’s tone.

Mavis shook her head. “I have no desire to start over on bare land in Montana or here or anywhere. I already did that once. If you want to go, you will go with my blessing, but I am staying here. This ranch is not for sale.”

Even if we own only half of it.

Campsite

W
ell, what do you think?”

Chief shrugged.

Cassie Lockwood heaved a sigh. Her friend’s lifelong scarcity of using a lot of words was hard to change, if not impossible. Especially since the aging Indian showed no desire to change. Had the meeting with the Engstroms gone well? She most certainly had been welcomed by Mrs. Engstrom. What an amazing woman to welcome them so warmly, as if she’d been expecting them. Cassie had a feeling the rest of the family would not be so forthcoming, although the daughter sure was likable.

After all, if she lived on that ranch and someone showed up out of the blue with another deed, how would she react? She leaned back in her saddle a bit and tipped her head back, staring up at the brilliant cobalt sky with nary a bit of white. A fall sky, Chief had called it. Although the sun was warm, there was surely a bite in the breeze.

She jerked her mind back to the situation at hand. She had a deed to half the ranch, signed by her father and Ivar Engstrom, father and husband of those on the ranch, who had conveniently died a number of years earlier. When her father last saw the ranch, what had it looked like? Wild and free, she suspected. So this family built the buildings, fenced it, and made untamed land into what looked to be a thriving ranch. She wished she were a mouse in a pocket back in that room, which like Mrs. Engstrom herself, invited them in to sit and be comfortable. Those two men riding up to the house were most likely part of the family.

No doubt now they were an angry part of the family.

Cassie’s pinto, Wind Dancer, tossed his head, bringing her attention back to the matter at hand—riding back to camp.

So why had she not stayed when invited?

Because you were scared. That’s why.
Her internal voice showed no mercy. What was she to do next? Help make supper, finish cleaning the house-on-wheels wagon they all lived in and around, and go to bed.

“So what do we do next?” She raised her voice for Chief to hear her over the scuff of horses’ hooves.

“We are nearly out of meat. Need to go hunting.”

Cassie swallowed a sharp retort. Leave it to Chief; the old man was ever practical. “I meant regarding the ranch.”
Now don’t get snippy. You know he’ll really get quiet then.
Counseling herself had become endemic through their weeks on the road, after they had left the failed Wild West Show and headed south to locate her father’s valley of dreams—a place he’d always dreamed of returning to. His dream was to raise Appaloosa horses and beef cattle for the market. Both he and her mother had died before the dream could be realized. And then the Wild West Show was disbanded due to failing revenues. Poor management by her so-called uncle, Jason Talbot, is what she really figured, but it didn’t matter now. The show was dead and left far behind.

She decided to try Chief again. “Regarding the ranch.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Go back. What else can you do?”

“I can go back to riding and shooting in Wild West shows.”

But how could she leave her family? This family that was not related in any way, but a month of traveling together had given them a bond, a unity probably closer than most families knew. What if she left them? Chief could go back to his reservation. And Runs Like a Deer, the Indian woman they’d found with a broken leg on the way down? She could probably return to her reservation as well, but she didn’t want to. And Micah, former animal handler for the show and always her friend and protector? What about him?

Cassie could sell the cattle and buffalo, but George, the bison bull she’d raised from a calf, was so old that someone would probably just shoot him. The others too would most likely be slaughtered. And Wind Dancer? She could always sell him, but how did one go about selling a piece of her heart? Unthinkable. Perhaps he could go with her. After all, she needed him in her act, the act she’d not practiced since they’d left the show. Instead of shooting clay pigeons and various targets, she’d learned how to shoot game birds from the trees and deer on the run.

They turned onto the trail that led to their camp, where the others were waiting to learn what had happened. Her rangy dog, Othello, and Runs Like a Deer’s dog both came bounding down the trail to greet them, yipping their delight at seeing her again. George, the buffalo, looked up from grazing and snorted his greeting before dropping that huge head and continuing to eat.

The fragrance of meat cooking over a campfire welcomed them in. Runs Like a Deer looked up from her task of sewing rabbit skins into mittens for winter and smiled. It was the first time Cassie had seen the woman really smile. What was Runs Like a Deer thinking about? Did she too yearn for a home, a safe haven, a place of peace? Like the ranch?

Micah looked up from checking the rabbit carcasses sizzling on sticks over a glowing fire. Even he smiled, if one could call a lightening of the eyes and a lifting of one side of his mouth a real smile. If Chief was miserly with his words, Micah was doubly stingy with his smiles.

These people were her family now, far more so than the Engstroms could ever be. She could not, she dared not, neglect their welfare when the hour of reckoning came. And that hour was not far off.

Cassie dismounted by the wagon, which had a charging buffalo painted on the sides with
Lockwood and Talbot Wild West Show
lettered in an arch over the picture. While the bright red and blue trim was starting to fade, the wagon was all that remained of the show she had called home. That and her skills as a sharpshooter and trick rider. She’d become a headliner of the show after her mother and father died and, like her father, had participated in shooting matches during the winter season when most of the shows disbanded until spring. This was the first year in her twenty years that she was fighting snow instead of enjoying warm sunshine and time to work on refining and adding to her act. But never had she had a real home, a roots-deep-in-the-ground, house-without-wheels, roaring-fireplace kind of home. Like the one she’d just left.

While her mind flirted with dreams, she pulled off her saddle and smiled when Micah exchanged a halter for the bridle and led Wind Dancer off to graze with the other animals. Othello shoved his nose under her hand, demanding his share of attention. She rubbed his ears without thinking, but when he whimpered, she bent over and stroked down his back, sending him into spasms of delight.

“I wish we all could be as delighted as you with so little.” She straightened to see the other three pretending to go about their own chores and not pay attention to her. But she knew they were curious, their glances sliding away when she caught their gaze. Heaving a sigh, she motioned toward the chunks of wood that Micah had dragged in and sat on the one nearest her.

“That ranch is certainly the one my father’s deed gives me part of. Mrs. Engstrom and her family own the rest of it. Mr. Engstrom was a good friend of my father’s. She welcomed us with open arms and even recognized Chief as the young man who’d been a guide and friend to the two partners.” She looked toward Chief. “He knows far more than he has ever let on. I do hope you will tell me more about those early days.”

His shrug said he’d heard her but nothing more than that.

“Did she invite you to stay?” Micah asked.

“Yes.” The memory of the woman saying
“Welcome home”
with such warmth shocked her anew. “But I have a feeling her two sons are not going to agree.”

“So what will happen? What will you do?” Micah never raised his gaze from the wood he was carving, most likely into some other useful tool. Wooden spoons for cooking were his specialty, besides the crutch he’d fashioned for Runs Like a Deer.

“What will
we
do?” she responded. “I don’t know. I guess it depends on how they all act. Maybe we can build a cabin somewhere on the ranch.”

“There was a cabin up in the woods by the mine,” Chief said, finally taking part in the conversation.

“Indians are not welcome around here,” Runs Like a Deer said as she smoothed the rabbit-skin mitten she had just completed.

“Mrs. Engstrom didn’t seem to have any bad feelings about Indians. She was happy to see Chief.”

“But what about those in town?”

While the pastor had welcomed them to Argus, a couple of loudmouths had made their dislike clear. So they had left town immediately and found this place to camp on their way to the ranch.

Runs Like a Deer lifted the lid on the simmering kettle and stirred the contents with a long-handled spoon, one carved by Micah. “Supper’s ready.”

She dished up the stew as everyone held out their plates, and Micah broke pieces off the crispy rabbit for each of them.

Cassie cut up a chunk of potato that the Brandenburgs had given them right out of their garden. She closed her eyes, the better to savor the flavor. “Do you think we’ll be able to plant a garden here? If we get to stay, that is.”

“There were lots of gardens in Argus.” Micah licked the meat juice from his fingers.

Cassie looked from Runs Like a Deer to Micah. “Either of you ever made a garden?” When they both nodded, Cassie forked a piece of carrot, from the same garden as the potatoes.

“So you would know how?”

More nods.

Mrs. Brandenburg had said she would teach her to cook, so perhaps she could teach her to garden too. At least she knew how to sew, but not with skins and hides. Her mother had insisted her daughter learn to repair her own costumes. Not that there would be much call for fancy clothes out here. And if she needed clothes, she had plenty in the trunk. Wrapped up in her own thoughts, Cassie finally realized someone had called her name. She looked up, a rabbit bone in her hand. “What?”

“When are you going back?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Winter coming soon.”

They’d already waited out one storm not long after leaving Dickinson, where the show disbanded. The wind and cold had been like nothing she’d ever experienced. How would the four of them live in this tiny wagon for months at a time?

Cassie sopped up the gravy with the bit of biscuit she had left. How were they going to survive on the little money they had left, plus feed the animals?

The load she’d managed to shed since arriving in Argus climbed back onto her shoulders like a monkey she’d seen in one of the newfangled circuses, an entertainment that seemed to be surpassing or even destroying Wild West shows. Monkeys were popular exhibits in zoos too, and she’d seen some big ones, especially in Europe. Only the monkey on her back was bigger than she was.

Her last thought before diving into the well of sleep was to take the deed with her and go back out to the ranch in the morning.

Digging into the trunk as soon as she was dressed and her hair was in its usual braid, Cassie retrieved the packet of papers she’d found in the wagon cubbyholes on the trip south. Just when she heard the jingle and snort of an approaching horse and rider, the two dogs started announcing that company was arriving and one of the horses joined in. Cassie tucked the papers back in and shut the trunk before stepping out the door.

The sight of two riders made her pause until she recognized the young girl with the wheat-colored braids, Gretchen Engstrom.

“Hi, Miss Lockwood. I’m here on an errand for my mother. She said to tell you she hopes you will come back to the ranch this morning and to please bring . . .” The girl paused, and the man riding beside her finished for her.

“The deed to the ranch, if you have one, and any other things your father may have kept.”

“This is my oldest brother, Ransom.” She frowned at him, his cold tone being obvious to her too. “I have to go on to school, but he’ll take your answer home to Mor. I do hope you are still there when I get home.”

“That is, if you have—”

“Ransom Engstrom, that is rude.” She glared at her brother and turned back to Cassie. “He isn’t always like this. Sorry.”

“You better get a move on, or you’ll be late.”

“I know. Bye.” She waved and reined her horse around to lope back out on the trail.

He barely touched the brim of his hat. “And your message for my mother?”