Rebellion in the Valley (3 page)

Setting the white porcelain pitcher of water
carefully back in its place and scrubbing her face once more with
the last bit of lavender soap she still had left, she made sure not
to splash water down the front of her dress while rinsing off the
soap.

Richard’s hurried breakfast of biscuits and
sausage gravy hit the spot just right. Without much fuss, the group
of hands that were staying behind went about their chores, while
the rest of the group was all ready to head out on the day’s
journey.

“Let me do those dishes, Richard,” Hailee
offered, “so you can get your things in order and get ready to head
on out of here.”

Appreciating the extra help, Richard folded
his half-damp dish-drying towel and thanked the girl for her offer
as he hobbled his way toward other tasks.

P

Not quite six in the morning, but Bruce
snapped the reins. Epoenah and the three other horses came to
attention and let out a soft whinny as if to reply they had been
set to go all morning and were only waiting on the humans. With a
starting jerk, the wagon wheels began to turn. And so did Hailee’s
stomach.

The ranch hands, cook, and owners were all on
the road toward the valley. The Colorado air at that time of the
year felt fresh in Hailee’s lungs and she took in an extra deep
breath with her eyes closed. Halfway to filling her lungs to
satisfaction, she heard a mountain bluebird overhead and wondered
if it paid any attention to the goings-on underneath it.

Poised between her father and Tobias, her
fingers reached habitually for her bonnet strings, then adjusted
the brim so the early morning breeze would stay off her face as she
snugged her brown and cream rippled afghan around her arms in one
more fluid motion.

Spying Tobias looking at her out of the
corner of her eye sent a shot of excitement through her spine; she
remembered to sit up just a bit taller in the buckboard seat and
grinned, realizing that she was sitting so close to the man she
could smell the soap he’d washed his hair with the night before,
feel him bouncing in gentle little nudges each time the wagon hit a
rut or rock. His shoulder rubbed against Hailee’s and she was
grateful that the wagon disguised the wild beating of her heart–if
the man only knew she could barely breathe!

After all the planning of what to talk about
and which games they would play along the way, none of that
mattered once the trio were out of sight of the ranch. Bruce
inquired about the cat and whether or not Tobias thought it would
be a good idea to go out and find the blasted thing before it found
a way to wipe out all the livestock.

“Well, I figure we best be getting to it
before we lose everything. That would be my guess, if you’re asking
what I would do,” Tobias answered Bruce with a shrug of the
shoulders. “I was giving thought to going after that blasted thing
the day after we get back from Canon City, anyhow,” he thought
aloud. “But on the other hand, I better get that fence mended on
the back forty before I go off for that long, though, don’t ya
think?”

Bruce turned his head and looked past Hailee
as if she had disappeared.

“You weren’t figuring on going after that
dang cat alone, now were you?” he wanted to know.

Tobias shrugged again. “It ain’t any trouble,
Boss. I didn’t want to take the other men from their duties,
‘specially with us being gone for a few days on this trip. Besides,
I can handle it myself. Not like I ain’t never tracked a cat
before.”

Hailee shook her head.

“No! You can’t go out there by yourself!
Daddy - you’ll go with him, won’t you?” Hailee begged.

Heart pounding in her chest, the look on her
face indicated she didn’t much care whether her words had been
spoken out of turn or not.

Bruce waved a hand and gave her knee a gentle
pat.

“Hailee’s right, Tobias; you shouldn’t be
going out there alone. Anything could happen. Why don’t all of us
get together and see who wants to go with you? We’ll talk it over
at dinner tonight. It needs to be done and it’s my responsibility
to make sure it gets done; let’s plan on maybe three or four of us
going together, ” Bruce said with a nod of his head.

It suited Hailee just fine; if anything
happened to Tobias, her heart would be crushed!

Both passengers knew when Bruce gave that one
certain nod of his, the final word and decision had already been
made; there would be no sense in speaking about the matter after
his final word.

For the remainder of their ride into town,
rounds of joke telling and ranch talk kept the conversation
rolling, and a few times the group pulled over near some trees to
relieve themselves.

Richard thought ahead and brought along
plenty of snacks and barrels of water to drink from. And he was
certain to pack one of Hailee’s favorite treats - his famous
pickles. The man was well-known throughout Rosita for those dill
pickles; he canned them with a couple cloves of garlic and a few of
those tiny little red peppers Hailee adored. Hot, crunchy, and oh,
so tasty on a warm day!

She gulped down three of them by the time
they reached the town of Canon City.

Even before leaving home, she'd set on taking
in as much of the town as she could before dinner; she saw three
new businesses since the last trip into town, and one of them
looked like a rather well-stocked general store. Maybe that
burgundy yarn would be in their supplies!

“Where do you want me to leave you, Hailee? I
might as well drop you off so you don’t have to walk the whole
street,” Bruce told her when he noticed the look on his daughter’s
face.

Her eyes hadn’t moved from that new
storefront.

She pointed to it and looked back at her
father.

“I’d really like to go in there, Daddy,” she
told him with an excited raise to her voice. “Is there anything I
can look at for you while I’m there?”

Bruce thought for a moment, rubbed his chin
while in the thinking process.

“Tell ya what, Darlin’. How about I stable
these horses and I’ll just come back to join you?”

The wagon pulled to an abrupt stop in front
of the storefront, kicking up some dirt and dust from under the
wheels as it did. Tobias jumped down and held his hand up to
Hailee.

Those cocoa-toned eyes of his nearly begged
her to stay with him instead of heading into the store when he
smiled up at her.

For just a brief second, Hailee noticed that
Tobias’ eyelashes seemed darker than she usually noticed them to
be; was that a fleck of gold in his left eye?

Their hands touched and Hailee felt her knees
go limp just a bit; did he notice that when she fell against
him?

She gathered her skirt in her hands and
reached up for the handbag her father was holding down to her.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she smiled. “See you in a
few minutes.”

She turned to Tobias.

“Thanks.”

He nodded and watched her walk into the store
before turning his attention to climbing back into the wagon.

“I noticed a new horse-boarding stall down
the street, Boss. Which one we gonna use?”

Bruce let Tobias choose, and with the money
paid for services, Bruce clapped a hand on Tobias’ shoulder.

“So what are we eatin’ tonight? Do you want
to try something new, or do you have the notion to fill yer belly
on some of Ethel’s apple pie?”

Ethel made herself a favorite for a couple of
years back; she made the best pie ever - but they wouldn’t dare
mention it in front of Richard. She layered hers deep in cinnamon
and sugar. As a real treat, the woman topped it off with a generous
helping of vanilla ice cream, which was an item the ranch did not
have very often.

Halfway down the dirt street, Bruce heard the
train a few hundred yards behind them. He turned to get a good look
at it, but only saw the heavy black smoke pouring out from the coal
engine over the brown-topped roofs of buildings on either side of
the street.

“Who ever thought we’d see something like
that runnin’ through a civilized town, huh, Tobias?” he asked with
a jerk of his thumb. “Just amazing.”

He paused a moment to allow a woman in a
heavy-looking green and white calico dress to pass by, tipped his
hat to her.

Tobias nodded his head to the woman and
lowered his eyes out of respect until she has passed by them before
they crossed the street and made their way to the wooden-planked
walkway lining the storefronts.

The younger of the two men spied the shops he
was anxious to explore and found the one stocked with all the
equestrian gear a rancher could ever dream about.

Bruce caught the way his friend eyed the
front window of the shop and reminded him to get what he
needed.

“Now, I mean it, Tobias. I don’t reckon we’ll
be back to town for another six months, what with the winter
coming, on. You fill your list, you hear me?”

Blessed to work for such a generous man, he
parted ways with Bruce until dinnertime and made his way into the
equestrian storefront, list in hand.

The owner of the Red Bone Ranch turned his
attention and walked past the empty lot between the Webb &
Thurman store and McGee’s & Mack’s Feed Store, making a mental
note to stop in the feed store before he left town to ask about
enough trees for a sizable apple crop come spring.

When Bruce found his daughter, she stood
perched in front of a tall glass cabinet housing several glass
bottles of various fragrances, colors, and sizes. Just the sight of
it caused one of his eyebrows to arch when he wondered how females
went about their selection process in such feminine matters.

This should be a mother’s place, he shook his
head as he kept his fatherly role distant at the back of the store;
even a father could see she hadn’t chosen quite as many items as
she wanted to; she appeared to be having a great amount of
difficulty in deciding whether or not to get the fragrance in the
tall greenish bottle or the shorter rose-colored one. She held the
shorter bottle in her hands, indicating that she was close to
making her mind up to take that fragrance.

When he saw the store clerk wrapping all the
items in butcher paper, Bruce made his way to the shelves lined in
books, confident that his daughter had taken care of her most
delicate needs.

Choosing, in the end, one last amber-colored
bottle, both father and daughter made their final selections and
paid for them at the wooden counter in the back of the store.

Handing the store owner some cash, Bruce
inquired about how his children were and asked him to please send
his greetings back home to the wife.

“I’ll stop by before we head back up the pass
to settle up with you for the charges my ranch hands sign for,
Todd,” Bruce reminded the man as he reached out to shake his
hand.

“That sounds fine, Bruce, sounds fine,” he
agreed.

The pair turned with packages in tow and
found the sun already setting.

“Tobias wondered about that steak and taters
place down there,” he pointed to the end of Main Street. “How’s
that sound for dinner?”

Hailee would eat mud-covered biscuits if
Tobias suggested them.

“Sounds great to me. When are we supposed to
meet up with everyone else, Daddy? And are we staying at Cassiday’s
hotel again?”

Bruce grinned. He certainly enjoyed seeing
his daughter so relaxed and happy; if only Cammi were there to make
sure their daughter made it home with the proper items a young girl
should have in her dresser drawers.

“Six o’clock sharp, and yes, if that’s what
you want.” He answered both of her questions at once, moving his
eyes up and down the street, through the mass of people and fading
sunlight.

Surrounded by a multitude of faces, the girl
assisted her father's search through the busy crowd, spying a few
of the ranch hands standing in front of the restaurant.

“There they are, Daddy,” she pointed them out
to her father.

Once decisions finalized on where to eat,
Bruce handed each man a generous amount of greenbacks for their
meals, rooms, and evening entertainment; he figured the men might
enjoy a drink or two at Jenkin’s Tavern before turning in, seeing
as how he didn’t allow them to have any on the ranch.

He explained to the men, once again, that
they were to sign for any supplies they needed and he would make
good on the payments by four o’clock tomorrow, so they best be
finished with their lists by that time.

The group agreed to meet back at the same
spot the day after next, at precisely six in the morning and parted
ways for the evening, each group heading off into different parts
of the bustling little town of Canon City.

Chapter 4

G
us
Hyde, owner of Canon City’s blacksmith shop, struggled as he bent
over the chunk of iron ore situated in the flame. Glowing a
red-orange, the shape in the man’s hand really didn’t resembling
anything in particular, not yet. Sweat poured from his entire face
and neck, each drop sizzling when it hit the iron; the shirt clung
to his back muscles, drenched from the intense heat and physical
labor.

The sledgehammer, which he made himself, sat
next to his right side for the ease of grabbing it in a hurry.

As the iron rotated around in the center of
the fire, Gus introduced a gentle blast of air near the piece,
waiting patiently until it began to glow an even darker shade of
orange.

With a pair of tongs held tightly in his
hands, Gus gripped the glowing ore and turned it over to examine
the entire piece of work. Satisfaction came to his face when the
ore turned a shade closer to the color of a harvest moon in
September, and he reached down for that sledge hammer; bringing it
down with such massive force, a few flecks of bright orange flew
off from the glowing chunk he held firmly in the tongs.