Pearl (41 page)
‘‘Where did you get the heart?’’ Ruby asked Pearl later as she poured their tea.
‘‘Robert and Atticus. Isn’t it lovely?’’ Pearl rubbed the sleek wood. ‘‘What a surprise.’’
‘‘A good surprise. Was your letter a good one also?’’ They chose a corner of the dining room away from the kitchen door and sat down to visit.
‘‘Not really. I told you about Sidney Longstreet, the man my father decided I should marry.’’
Ruby nodded.
Pearl pulled the letter from her pocket. ‘‘May I read it to you?’’
‘‘Of course.’’
‘‘My dear Miss Hossfuss,
I cannot tell you how many letters I have written to you and burned rather than mailed. I must confess that when I received your letter informing me you were leaving, I was furious. After all, your father had agreed to our marriage, and I believed betrothals to be of some significance. I looked forward to the day we would be man and wife. My children looked forward to having you for their mother. You broke all of our hearts.’’
‘‘How sad.’’
‘‘I know, but, Ruby, I couldn’t marry him. I just couldn’t.’’
Pearl returned to the letter.
‘‘At first, I never wanted to see you again, but now that I have had time to calm down, I want to tell you how much I miss you. I still believe you are the woman God intends for me to marry, so if there is any way you can see your way clear to return to Chicago, I still hope to bring you home to be my wife and the mother of my children.
With all the love my heart can express,
I remain yours,
Sidney Longstreet’’
Ruby ran her forefinger around the rim of the cup. ‘‘Would you go back?’’
‘‘No, never.’’
‘‘So what will you tell him?’’
‘‘To go look elsewhere, for God did not tell me to marry Sidney Longstreet. My father did. Though some would contend that is the same as God, I will not go back. This is my home now.’’
‘‘You even have a new heart for here.’’
‘‘Yes.’’ She rubbed the heart again. The face of Carl Hegland swam across her inner vision. Now what could that mean?
The next afternoon when Milly rapped on Belle’s door to clean her room, there was no answer. When she pushed the door open, thinking Belle asleep, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She ran down the stairs, her heels thundering on the steps.
‘‘Ruby, she’s gone.’’
‘‘Who’s gone?’’
‘‘Belle. All her clothes, drawers open, all a mess. But she’s gone. Where do you think she went?’’
‘‘I have no idea.’’
And I don’t really care
.
‘‘Probably went back to Deadwood.’’ Cimarron turned from stirring the soup. ‘‘She still has friends there.’’
Why do I have the feeling we have not seen the last of Belle?
Ruby wished she didn’t have a tight knot in her middle.
‘‘Cut that cow out of there, and we’ll hold ’em at the house overnight,’’ Rand shouted to Chaps.
Chaps waved and sent his horse into the middle of the herd where an old cow kept seeking safety. He and his horse edged her out of the milling steers and, with a slap on the rump with his rope, sent her off toward the river.
‘‘Three hundred fifty. That what you counted?’’ Rand stopped beside Beans.
‘‘Right, Boss. Three hundred and fifty prime head of beef ready to ship to Chicago. You goin’ with them?’’
‘‘Yep. Can’t afford any accidental miscounts or off weighing. I won’t be gone more’n a week.’’ Rand ducked his chin into the collar of his sheepskin jacket. After a prolonged visit, Indian summer left during the night. Gray clouds scudded across the sky, now set to embers in the dying sun. November first, and he had his first real shipment of beef ready for the journey. The hundred head last year was just a warm-up.
‘‘Beans, you take first watch, Joe, the second, and Chaps third. We’ll leave at sunup.’’ They only needed two men to trail the cattle to Little Missouri and then drive them into the railroad cars.
Certain that things were in order and the steers were settling down for the night, Rand headed back to the cabin. He unsaddled Buck and let him loose in the corral before joining the others for a supper of bubbling stew.
What he wouldn’t give for a piece of Cimarron’s apple pie right now. Beans was an adequate cook, but he’d never mastered pies.
I wonder if Miss Torvald has learned to make a good pie
. The thought made him shake his head. Amazing how his mind could rabbit trail back to Miss Ruby Torvald.
That afternoon he and Ruby and Opal had gone riding and had seen the badlands in all its fall finery. Sumac bushes blazed as if torched by fire. Willows and cottonwoods danced in their best yellow gowns, and the oak trees bowed in red and rust. While Ruby had been hesitant in rougher terrain, Opal, on Bay, would try anything. Good thing Bay had so much common sense and Opal had the sense to listen to her horse. If Bay refused to step on marshy ground, Opal didn’t force her but let her pick her way around the periphery.
‘‘You can be real proud of her,’’ he told Ruby as they rode north along the river.
‘‘I am. The way she handled the crisis with Milly. . . .Why, if I’d been caught out in a storm like that, I’d have been weeping my way into the earth or running screaming for any kind of shelter.’’ Ruby shuddered. ‘‘I hate lightning. It scares me silly.’’
‘‘I didn’t think anything scared you.’’
‘‘I hide some things well.’’
‘‘Other than that little snake in the garden.’’
‘‘I don’t like surprises like mice jumping out of the cupboard at me or a snake sticking out its tongue when I thought it was a green stick. Lying in the shade like that, it could have fooled anyone.’’
‘‘I heard you ran screaming into Dove House.’’
‘‘Well, you know Cimarron has a tendency to exaggerate just the tiniest bit.’’ She pulled back slightly on the reins for Baldy to stop.
‘‘Will you look at that?’’ Down below the bluff they were riding, the river looked to be surrounded by gold. Green pasture bounded the gold with a herd of deer grazing the field. ‘‘Need to get out with the rifle and take one or two of them back to the ranch, hung across the back of a packhorse.’’
‘‘I need to tell Mr. Roosevelt about that herd. He sure is interested in everything of the West. He wants a buffalo in the worst way. Says he’ll stay until he gets one.’’
‘‘Interesting man. He’s out hunting with Jake Maunders, right?’’
‘‘If they don’t lose the tenderfoot out there somewhere, not intentional, mind you, but—’’ ‘‘How long he planning on staying?’’
‘‘No idea. He reserved the room and pays for it even when he’s out camping. I heard him express an interest in the cattle business.’’
They turned the horses and headed on down the game trail that Opal had already gone down.
‘‘Keep him on a tight rein and lean back in your saddle. You’ll make it.’’
When Baldy slid a couple feet, Ruby let out a shriek and then attacked Rand when they leveled out. ‘‘You trying to get one of us killed or something?’’
‘‘Ruby—Miss Torvald.’’ Ever since the Milly fright, he had a hard time not calling her Ruby. Miss Torvald was proper, but when you’ve been through something like that, the formalities should no longer matter. Ruby had been really upset that day. She could have lost both Milly and Opal.
The log breaking in the fireplace, sending up a shower of sparks, brought Rand back to the present. He’d see Ruby the next afternoon and stay overnight at the hotel if he didn’t get there in time to load for the eastbound train. Perhaps he’d get a chance to talk to Mr. Roosevelt again. Anyone who could earn the respect of the likes of Jake Maunders must be quite a man.
The next day the cattle drive went smoothly in spite of a brisk wind from the north. The diehard leaves were giving up and fluttering to join their fallen comrades lying in drifts beneath brush and trees. The wild song of high-flying waterfowl played against the lowing cattle and the rustle of hooves through the dried grass.
Rand could think of no place he would rather be. He swung his coiled rope at a lagging steer. ‘‘Get on up there. We got plenty to do before we sleep.’’
Rand and Beans had the cattle well watered and driven into the holding corral before the train arrived. Railroad men pushed open the doors of the cattle cars, and with ropes swinging, Beans and Rand drove the steers aboard.
‘‘Take Buck over to Opal,’’ Rand said to Beans. ‘‘She’ll take care of him while I’m gone, and if you want, you can stay at the hotel tonight.’’
‘‘If they have any room. I’d just as soon head on home, if you don’t mind.’’
‘‘Suit yourself.’’ Rand swung his saddlebags and bedroll over his shoulder and headed for the railcar in front of the cattle cars.
By the time they arrived in Chicago, he’d tired of watching the country pass by from the open door. At least they’d not had to endure the heat and thirst of summer, but that cold biting wind chewed right through his sheepskin jacket. He stayed with the buyer as he counted and weighed, coming to the same count of three hundred and fifty head that Rand had started out with.
Rand thanked him, collected his money, and caught the next train west. Cities had a stink his nostrils couldn’t bear.
He roused when the conductor announced Dickinson and immediately swung off before the train came to a complete halt in Little Missouri.
Milly waved when, laden with her tray, she climbed the steps to the first coach car. ‘‘Hey, Rand, welcome home. We took good care of Buck.’’
Rand waved to Charlie and slung his gear over his shoulders. If he could talk Ruby into providing hot water for a bath to wash the city and train off him, he’d be content to pay extra. He glanced up to the bluff to see the roof on and windows in place on the Chateau, as the locals had begun to call the marquis’s country home. Although how anything that big could be called less than a castle was beyond him.
‘‘Do you know where I could find Miss Hossfuss?’’
Rand stopped when he heard the question behind him. He turned to see an expensively dressed man in a gray suit talking to Charlie.
Charlie’s eyes narrowed, but he answered the man. ‘‘She’s teaching school over there at Dove House.’’
‘‘Thank you. How long does the train remain in this station?’’
The man had a Norwegian accent, which Rand recognized from listening to Ruby. Surely this man was too old to be the jilted suitor Pearl had told them of one day at the dining table. That left . . .
Rand waited until the man caught up with him, then held out his hand. ‘‘Welcome to Little Missouri. I’m Rand Harrison, a friend of Miss Hossfuss’s.’’
‘‘Jorge Hossfuss, her father. And how did a cowboy like you come to be friends with my daughter?’’
‘‘We often eat at the same table in the dining room at Dove House. Especially after church on Sundays.’’
‘‘I see.’’
‘‘Your daughter has a fine reputation as a teacher here.’’
‘‘Ja, well, she will not be here much longer.’’
‘‘Sorry to hear that. If you’ll excuse me . . .’’ Rand touched the brim of his hat and turned back the way he’d come. That man was trouble walking, and Rand needed reinforcements. He dropped his gear at the base of a cottonwood tree and headed up the hill to the Chateau, where he knew Carl would be working.
It took him longer than he expected. He should have gone for Buck. Stopped at the door to the house, he asked, ‘‘Hey, anyone here know where Carl Hegland is working today?’’
‘‘Upstairs.’’ The man pointed to the staircase.
‘‘Thanks.’’ Rand mounted the stairs and stared around at the framed walls. ‘‘Carl?’’
‘‘Here.’’ Carl Hegland, tool belt riding his hips, stepped into the hall.
Rand stepped around lumber pieces scattered on the floor.
‘‘Rand, what brings you here?’’
‘‘Jorge Hossfuss just got off the same train I rode in on. He’s plannin’ on takin’ Pearl home with him.’’
‘‘She won’t want to go.’’
‘‘That’s why I came for you. The two of us can handle him, unless she wants to go.’’
‘‘I’ll tell the boss I’m leaving for a short time.’’
The two men caught a ride on a wagon fording the river and trotted the short distance to Dove House. Children playing in the street spoke of recess, so Rand and Carl entered the front door as if storming the Bastille.
