Plots and Pans (33 page)

Or rather, where they
would
have slept if the cattle didn’t keep spooking. Even under the best of circumstances, camp cooks had to be up three hours before sunrise to get the grub ready for the men coming back from late shift and the group riding out to spell them.

“You have no right to sound so cheerful.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Tucker wished he’d bitten his tongue. “Sorry. You have every right to be cheerful. It’s a wonderful thing that you can run on so little rest and still sound happy to greet the morning.”

“Yes, it is. I’m glad you can see that I have a right to be happy.” Jess poured a stream of dark, luscious liquid into a mug.

Something uncurled inside him with a hopeful sniff. When he didn’t follow up that smell with an immediate gulp of blessed, bitter brew, the thing snapped and snarled.

“Yeah,” Tucker snapped right along with the nameless impulse. “The right you don’t have is rubbing your liveliness in everyone else’s faces when the sun isn’t even shining. It’s downright indecent.”

She drew in a deep breath, as though breathing took all her concentration. Then she held the mug out toward him and asked, “Coffee?”

That bright smile of hers didn’t falter this time like it had the first eleven times he’d gone in grumpy. Either she’d done something awful to his coffee, or she’d stopped taking his bad moods personally.

Thing of it was, women were like barbed wire. They all had their good points, but they got awful prickly. Jess proved no exception to that rule.

Tucker frowned. The pounding against the inside of his skull made it hard to be sure, but he sorta had the notion he’d decided she still took things personal. Which meant—

“Just drink it.” She nudged a blessedly warm mug into his hands. “You barely count as human until you do. I’ve got it figured out. With coffee, you’re Tucker again. Without coffee …”

“Don’t you go givin’ him no options.” Desta woke up more like a normal person, showing no signs of Jess’s revoltingly chipper attitude. “There ain’t no Tucker without coffee. It’s somethin’ he’ll need to turn an eye toward fixin’ someday, but not till after this drive gets done.”

“Dunno what you two are yammering about.” He glared at each of them, then glared down at the mug he’d wrapped both hands around. Tucker let the steam wash over his face and stopped trying to figure out whether or not this was some sort of perfectly plotted female vengeance.

So what if it is?
He downed the whole mug in two swallows, letting the liquid scald him awake. Smacking his lips, he thrust the cup back toward Jess in wordless demand. So it went. She filled, he emptied, and when they’d done this dance four times, the pounding in his head packed up its bags and left him in some semblance of peace.

Guilt struck him almost immediately—or maybe it had already been knocking, but hadn’t made it past the pounding to be heard. Tucker hung his head, the whiskers on his chin scratching against his rumpled collar. “Sorry. Usually I make a point of not talking to anyone until after I’ve put away half a carafe or so.”

“You mentioned that afore.” Desta arched a brow at him. “In fact, every morning after you’ve turned back into Tucker, you run remorseful like this. We promise we won’t take it personal if you rest yore voice a few extra minutes every morning.”

“We’ll probably like you better for it,” Jess called from the side of the wagon, where she fetched more water to put on another batch of coffee. No doubt about it, the woman was a marvel.

How could I have ever argued against her coming along? Without her, we’d probably be three days behind
. Tucker leaned against the side of the wagon and accepted another serving of the black fuel that kept him running when he’d been run ragged.

Maybe if he put away enough of the stuff, he’d feel half as friendly and full of energy as the woman who continued to surprise him.

If the man had any idea what ran through her head when he staggered in here every morning, he’d run as though fleeing the hounds of hell.

No
, Jess silently amended.
He’d grab the coffee
then
run as though fleeing the hounds of hell
.

Then again, if he thought to turn around and treat those poor creatures to the same snapping and snarling he aimed at her, they’d probably slink back to perdition with their tails tucked between their legs and their hearts full of gratitude that
they
weren’t the ones stuck working with him day in and day out with no end in sight!

But instead of giving Tucker the telling-off he so richly earned every day, she smiled and served him more quickly. Sure, he earned another notch on the stick she kept hidden in her barely used bedroll, but he didn’t need to know about his growing tally. He’d settle that score with her when the drive was done. Until then, she figured she owed him both her service as black-coffee supplier and her silence about his even-darker morning moods. If she’d listened to the man, she would have been spared all of it.

Every time she caught him looking or acting as miserable as she felt, it broke her heart a little more.
Tucker tried so hard and fought all of us for so long, trying to spare us
. And when they hadn’t listened on the night of the roundup, he’d still ridden the length and breadth of the county, wired telegrams, and done everything in his power to inflict this terrible journey on anyone else. But the worst part, to Jess, had been how hard he took his own failure. She’d thought him annoyed and aggrieved at having gotten saddled with a pair of women. Now she knew better. Tucker understood the hardship ahead, and he grieved
for
them.

If I’d only known, I would’ve grieved for us, too
. Jess sighed and started slicing yet another slab of bacon. Once, she’d loved the sweet-savory flavor of the smoky meat. Now she could scarcely stand the smell. It was added to the list of disappointments plaguing her.

The grand adventure she’d envisioned, filled with miles of changing scenery, tall tales swapped with the men, and deepening conversation with the only female relative she could claim, had proven false. In place of these happy dreams, they got a brutal serving of drive life. The men worked in rotating shifts, which meant someone always needed to be fed—and food always needed to be ready. This meant that at least one of the cooks always had to be ready.

No matter how and when they tried to snatch sleep, Jessalyn never caught more than a couple of hours at a time. In spite of the cushion, long miles took their toll. Combined with sleepless nights, neither of them had much energy left for conversation. It was all Jess could do to keep driving the team while her aunt dozed next to her.

Throw in enough stampedes to make the men miserable and cranky, and every day dragged into the next with unceasing, unrelenting monotony.
Drive, cook, dishes. Drive, cook, dishes …
The cycle spun on endlessly, punctuated by these delightful morning visits with a pre-coffee Tucker. To be fair, post-coffee Tucker was a vast improvement.

It might take a mountain-range worth of bitter beans to sweeten the man’s outlook, but no one could deny he took care of his own. Jess’s irritation eased as she thought of the many small kindnesses Tucker showed along the trail. From the sites he chose to the shifts he assigned and the gear he inspected, Tucker kept busy making sure they had everything they needed to get through the long days.

They were fortunate to have such a capable trail boss. Whenever and wherever possible, he tried to ease their way.

But nothing could make the journey easy.

Increasingly, Jess found herself turning to her father’s Bible in search of a way to stay awake. And, as time went on, in search of answers and inspiration.

Papa always cited psalms of praise when he rode the ranch. Aunt Desta held a fondness for practical proverbs. But Jess treasured the Old Testament tales told to her as a child—stories filled with larger-than-life heroes handling hardship through faith. Now she sought out those stories with fresh eyes, finding comfort from traits she shared with the greatest of God’s chosen people.

Abraham believed in a future beyond what he could see. Born with no birthright, Jacob fought for his father’s blessing. Esther remained true to her heritage, and her heart, in the face of death. Joseph, discarded by his family and sent to a foreign land, proved his worth beyond any doubt.

And so will I
. Jess slipped a ribbon between the whisper-thin pages of Papa’s Bible, marking Joseph’s story so she could read it again later.
Papa already sent me away, I survived the foreign land … and after this cattle drive, no one on the Bar None can say I haven’t earned my place and proven my worth!

If she lost sight of that, she lost everything.

W
hen did you lose it?” Tucker eyed the boy’s burned cheeks and the sunburned stripe of scalp dividing his white-blond hair, and winced in sympathy.
How did I not notice one of my men riding around without a hat?

“Charge before last, sir.” Porter Creevey, the young man in charge of the outfit’s horse remuda, bowed his head. The vantage point displayed his sunburn even more brilliantly.

“We’ll get you a hat as we go past town today.” Luckily, there were enough outposts scattered on this side of the trail after Monument Hill for them to get this taken care of. A cowboy without a hat wouldn’t make it far.

It wasn’t a question of if he’d die. It was a question of
how long
until he succumbed to sunstroke or dehydration.

“It’s Sunday.” Creevey sounded apologetic as he broke the bad news, but Tucker understood. Finding a shopkeeper who’d do business on the Lord’s Day could get tricky.

Giving the order to keep the herd grazing and let them drift north at a leisurely pace, Tucker took the kid to town. He knocked on the back door of the mercantile, figuring the shopkeeper might be more willing to work out a deal privately. The man carried a good bit of extra weight around his middle, but sadly seemed to have missed out on such bounty between his ears.

“Can’t sell anything on the Lord’s Day,” he steadfastly maintained, jaw jutting forward. “‘Sides, I’m about to leave for church!”

“You’d rather sacrifice this young soul to death by exposure?” Tucker clapped a hand on the youth’s shoulder and nudged his neck so his head fell forward, exposing the bright line of burned skin already beginning to blister.

“Ain’t my sacrifice,” the self-righteous shopkeeper maintained. “In any case, a mortal life is little cost compared to the loss of an immortal soul. Around here, we follow the Lord’s laws!” With that, he yanked the door from Tucker’s hand and slammed it in their faces.

Tucker fought the urge to break the man’s windows, walk inside, and steal a hat. He stood there for a long time, banging on the door and bellowing for all the world to hear. But it did no good. The shopkeeper had escaped through the front of the store to seek peace in the House of the Lord.

The man needed to be taught the difference between peace and quiet and the peace that passed all understanding. But Tucker didn’t see how he’d be the one to manage it. The best they could hope for was to wait until church got out to see if God worked in the man’s heart and his conscience kicked up a fuss.

Failing that, Tucker would rig some sort of head covering for the boy. A bit of bedroll or some of his slicker would do in a pinch. Both were thick enough and treated to withstand rain to some degree. It wouldn’t be pretty, it wouldn’t hold water, it wouldn’t sit high enough to allow the luxury of an air pocket to lessen the heat … and it’d slide off in a stiff breeze. Useless.

They only had one choice. Tucker’s jaw clenched as he slapped the hat back on his head and addressed his hapless puncher. “We aren’t leaving this town today without getting you taken care of.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Jess patted Quincy Creevey’s shoulder, trying to soothe the sixteen-year-old who’d been such a big help to her and Desta throughout the trip.

The boy suffered from a lisp severe enough to keep him from saying much, but he worked hard. The smallest and youngest member of the crew, he gathered firewood or buffalo chips, stocking the leather swing stretched across the underbelly of the chuck wagon. He drove the spare buckboard the women insisted on bringing along, sparing Desta from the strain of learning to drive a team.