Lauraine Snelling - [Wild West Wind 01] (8 page)

Chief dismounted, and Micah climbed down from the wagon seat.

That did it. Cassie’s curiosity got the better of her, and she rode on up to see what was happening.

The team was already grazing, angling the wagon toward the edge of the road. She could see Micah’s hat above the brush, but Chief had disappeared. Dismounting, she flipped the reins over the nearest juniper bush and followed the game trail down a slope into a gully with a stand of cottonwood saplings. “Micah, where are you?”

“Over here.”

She followed the sound of his voice. “Is Othello with you?”

“Yes.”

She pushed through some more close shrubs and stopped, her hand going to her mouth. An Indian woman lay on her side, eyes closed, her lower right leg jutting at an impossible angle. A dog sat beside her, glaring at the intruders and growling whenever Othello moved toward them.

“How did you find her?”

“The dog.” Micah squatted down, making soothing noises and half singing in a way she had heard him tame animals before. “Her leg is broken.”

“Is she alive?” Cassie stepped closer, her heart thudding in her throat.

“Yes. You can see her breathing.”

“But she’s not responding?”

“No.”

The dog licked the woman’s cheek and whined, then pawed at her shoulder, all the while keeping an eye on the intruders.

“How did you know to follow him?”

“He ran out to me, barked, and ran back. Three times before I stopped.”

“She is off reservation, whoever she is.” Chief hunkered down beside Micah. “Can you calm dog so we can see how she is?”

“I’m trying.” Micah took up his singsong again.

The dog nudged the woman under the arm. When she made a sound, he licked her face again.

“I’ll go get a blanket, and we can move her.” Cassie headed back toward the wagon. What had happened to the woman? Who was she? So many questions, how they could help her being foremost. She deliberately ignored a voice inside that asked why they should help her. They had enough problems of their own.

Bar E Ranch
Argus, South Dakota

B
rother, we need to talk.”

Ransom Engstrom looked up from the ledger he’d been working on since supper. He nodded to the chair by the worn oak desk, but his younger-by-four-years brother, Lucas, chose to pace instead. Ransom heaved a sigh and closed the leather-bound ledger, giving his brother his full attention. Now was not a good time, since he’d just added to the red total. The Bar E Ranch was not doing well. He had a good idea what his brother was going to say.

Lucas stopped in front of the window, hands rammed into his rear pockets. Turning, he shrugged. “You know what I’m going to say?”

Ransom nodded.

“Then we need to talk Mor into being realistic. We’ve given this ranch all we have, and yet we go further and further into debt. Pa must be turning over in his grave, if he can see what is happening.”

Ransom raised his hands in the gesture of surrender. He knew when Lucas referred to their mother as
Mor
that he was in a serious frame of mind.

“But if we talked with Mor together?”

“It still wouldn’t do any good.” Mavis Engstrom stood in the doorway, obviously having heard what her youngest son was saying. “We are not selling this land, and that is final. Our calf crop was good, and we’ll have plenty of steers to send to market next fall. We just have to hang on.”

Ransom wondered at the tenacity visible in his mother’s face and locked in on her words. He’d always felt there was something she wasn’t telling them, but being pushy with their mother was about as useless as a candle in a blizzard. She knew what the ledger made obvious. Their outstanding tab at the general store in town would make anyone choke, and yet JD continued to give them credit. They were fairly well set for the winter, but they would need seed in the spring. He had set aside what he hoped was enough oats to reseed the fields, but the harvest had been mediocre at best. Saving the seed cut into the feed for the winter.

“Say something!” Lucas scrubbed his hands over his head. While Ransom wore his hair longer and tied back by a thong, Lucas kept his short, so it curled around the lobes of his ears. Both men had the tall, solid body that came from both of their parents, but Lucas still wore a more boyish look. His mother teased him at times about his baby face, but the female population found him exceedingly attractive.

Ransom looked up from studying the ledger cover. What could he say? He looked to his mother, still standing in the doorway. The tension between the two people most important to him in all the world was nearly visible, a braided cord quivering at the stress.

“We have to cut costs somehow.” Ransom shook his head. “Or bring in more cash. That’s the bottom line.”

“We could sell some of the steers as feeders.” Mavis entered the room and crossed to the stone fireplace to add more wood. “The temperature is dropping.”

Lucas returned to stare out the window, his back and shoulders rigid. “We’ll lose money on them that way.”

“But we’ll have some cash now.” Her gentle voice persisted. “I’m sure Jay Slatfield would buy maybe ten of them. That should cover the bill at the general store.”

“But what about the bank loan?” They’d been forced to take out a loan to cover seed costs the year before, and the harvest had not been sufficient to cover it all. In reality it covered only a small partial payment.

“We could . . .” Ransom stopped in frustration. “We could work the mine.”

“If we could cut some trees and get them sawed into timbers to shore up the walls and ceiling.” Lucas leveled a glare at his mother. “Cash is crucial for anything we want to do.”

“One of us could . . .” Ransom paused again, knowing Lucas would have a ready argument. “Go work for the Triple S.”

“As if they need more help in the winter, and when spring comes, we need to be working our own place. We could bring Jesse home from school.” The third son in the family dreamed of becoming a doctor and was in his third year of college in Denver.

“We send him hardly any money as it is.” Mavis shook her head. “He’s making it on his own. There’s no need to deprive him of his dream.”

But what about my dream?
Ransom refrained from mentioning what he knew to be an impossibility. At least one of the brothers was off doing what he’d aimed for. As the oldest, Ransom felt responsible for preserving the ranch, and it took every bit of his time and energy. Not that he would call Lucas a slacker. He just had a different way of looking for solutions. Shutting the door on his own dreams had become a habit.

“This isn’t solving anything. How would you like a cup of coffee?” their mother said. “The cinnamon rolls are about to come out of the oven.”

“Where’s Gretchen?” Ransom asked. Their only sister rode her horse into town every day so she could attend school. “Shouldn’t she be home by now?”

“She asked if she could stop off at Jenna’s for a bit. She promised to be home before dark.”

“Then she better be getting a move on. It’s her turn to milk tonight.” Lucas flopped down in the cowhide easy chair, the frame of which was made of cottonwood branches. Their father had made most of the furniture in the house, using the raw materials of their land.

“I’ll do the milking.” Mavis left the room, heading for the kitchen that filled the house with the fragrance of baking bread and cinnamon.

Ransom glared at his brother. “Seems to me Gretchen has taken your turn at milking more than once. We’ll call tonight payback time.” He knew Lucas hated to milk the cows, but since they had only one to milk now, it shouldn’t be so terrible.

“She hates me.”

“Who?”

“Bess. She delights in kicking the bucket when I’m milking.”

“Oh, for . . .” Ransom shook his head. “Put the kickers on her, then.”

“I’ll pitch out the hay, and you milk.” Morning and evening when the snow got too deep, they loaded a sledge with hay from the barn and took it out to the pasture where the cattle grazed. As the winter progressed, they’d erect rail fences around the haystacks and let the stock help themselves.

“The cattle don’t need hay now. The pasture is clear again.”

“I knew that.” Lucas shot his brother a half grin.

“We will not let Ma do the milking. Remember our agreement?”

Lucas nodded. For some reason, their mother had fainted one day in the barn, and in spite of her protests, the men of the family decreed that she was not to do the milking any longer. That was when the boys and Gretchen took the job over completely. While Mavis had never had an episode like that again, Ransom, especially, was taking no chances.

The fragrance of just-out-of-the-oven cinnamon rolls preceded their mor as she entered the room again. Lucas jumped to take the tray from her and set it on the table in front of the sofa, which matched the easy chairs. Comfort had been a primary concern of their father, and while the hides looked worn from years of use, the padding had been refreshed, along with the springs. Sitting down on the sofa was a sure trip to slumberland for a tired cowboy. While Lucas joined their mother on the sofa, Ransom judiciously took his favorite easy chair, the one made with the spotted hide of Thor, his father’s first bull, a Longhorn whose horns hung above the fireplace in tribute.

With a roll in one hand and a cup of steaming coffee in the other, Ransom propped his feet on the matching footstool and enjoyed both the coffee and the roll. He let his mind wander as he stared into the cheery fire. He’d always believed the story that God brought them to this land, just like he believed the stories of the Israelites conquering the Promised Land. If God brought them there, then He must have a plan for them to continue raising beef cattle and producing as much of their own staples as possible. He led them to this land that also had a once-producing gold mine on it, not that much gold had been taken out, but there was always the possibility more could be found. He glanced up at the glass-encased nugget on the mantel. Selling that would bring in some cash, but again, his mother was adamant that it not be sold. Why was that? What memories did it hold for her? And how could they live on memories? One good year would turn off the drain. Two would put them back in control.

“Ransom.”

He pondered the toe of his boot that needed patching, another of those things his father had done with ease, leaving a legacy to his sons of self-sufficiency. If only he were still alive . . . He jerked his mind back to the present. Had someone spoken to him?

“Ransom!” The tone said the call had indeed come before.

He looked from his mother, who rolled her eyes, to his brother, who looked plain put out. “Yes?”

“Every time you go off like that, I want to tackle you and bring you back.” Lucas slapped his hand on his knee. Their cow dog, Benny, leaped from his mat by the fire, standing at attention, not sure which way to run.

Ransom patted his knee, and Benny came over to lay his muzzle on Ransom’s thigh and gaze up at him with adoring eyes. Since the day Mother brought him home from town in a basket, the dog had belonged to Ransom. He worked well for all the family, but his human of choice was the quiet man sitting in the easy chair. Ransom stroked the fluffy mottled gray-and-tan fur and the perky ears. With one blue-gray eye and one dark, Benny had always seemed a bit off-kilter, but his short tail wagged in spite of its diminutive size.

At a sound only his ears could hear, the dog sprinted for the front door. Mavis let him out. “Gretchen’s home.”

“How do you know?” Lucas asked.

“Because Benny would have been barking his head off if he didn’t know who it was.” She returned to the sofa. “More coffee, either of you?” She refilled their cups and passed the platter. “At least you don’t have to milk now, Lucas.”

“Good. Think I’ll go hunting, then. Saw elk signs out in the west pasture, so they are down for the winter.”

“It’s early.”

“That’s so.”

Ransom knew that meant a hard winter in store for them all. It was a good thing they had plenty of hay. One year when the snow was really deep, he’d found elk grazing along with the cattle on the hay. From then on, he’d tried to put up extra, just in case.

Lucas set his cup down on the tray. “If I get one, I could probably sell half to the Hill City Hotel. We still have that side of venison that we smoked, don’t we?”

“Much of it. And a couple of turkeys. I canned those three geese.”

Ransom watched his brother leave the room. Why was a place always more peaceful when Lucas left? His just being in the room seemed to stir it up somehow.

Gretchen burst through the door like a charging bull was after her.

“Did you put your horse up, little sister?”

Gretchen glared at her oldest brother. “What do you think I am? Stupid?”

“Not in the least,” Mavis answered. “He’s just being careful. Did you have a good visit?” She held out the platter. “Would you like coffee or milk?”

“How about coffee with milk.” The twelve-year-old girl unwrapped her muffler and hooked her knit hat and muffler on the coat-tree, followed by her coat. While pants were not allowed at school, she wore them under her skirt when the weather turned cold and removed them before class started. Besides, they made riding back and forth far easier. She flipped her long wheat-colored braids over her shoulders, the cold making her fair cheeks glow red.

“Thank you.” Taking cup and roll to stand with her back to the fireplace, she turned to Ransom. “Did you know that Emerson bought a Rambler automobile?” Emerson Hansel owned the blacksmith shop in town. “He brought Cindy to school in it today. That was the noisiest thing I’ve ever heard. Even worse than Johnson’s steam engine.”

“Couldn’t be that bad. They say that in the East, folks are driving all over. We don’t have enough roads yet to make one of those things practical out here.”

“Have you thought of buying one?”

“Not really. I’d rather use horses any day. Tolerating that steam engine for harvest is bad enough.” Ransom smiled at his little sister, now the baby of the family since another daughter had died before she’d turned two. His mother was no stranger to sorrow, having lost two babies, a five-year-old son, and her husband. In spite of her faith, life had certainly not been kind to her.

But you’d never know it by the serene look on her face. Interesting that her stubborn will didn’t show.

“Are you in a deep-thinking mood again?” Gretchen asked as she crossed her legs and sat down on the floor to pet Benny. She drained her cup and let the dog have the last lick of her roll, then glanced sheepishly at her mother. Feeding the dog was not allowed in the living room. They didn’t have a real parlor, just a large general room with cedar-lined walls and a stone fireplace as its centerpiece. Ransom’s desk sat in one corner, with an oak ladder-back chair sporting cushions Mavis had made for it. In another sat a rocking chair with a table that always held books and often newspapers. A wool afghan lay folded over the back in rich black-and-gray stripes that Mavis both spun the yarn for and knitted one winter. Gretchen loved drawing the chair near to the fire and curling up with a book off the shelf above the desk.

“I better get to milking.”