The Cactus Creek Challenge (11 page)

“Amanda needs time by herself when she’s upset.” She always had.

He took Jenny’s arm in his big hands. “I’m sorry. I had no idea I’d set her off like that. What made her think I was hurting you?”

Jenny stiffened and jerked, but he hung on. “Hold still.” Bending to examine the wound, his hair fell like a curtain alongside his face. The light from the window fell in a solid block over him, and the golden-red strands glowed, making her think of conquering vikings. Nothing about Carl Gustafson resembled her deceased husband, unless it was his strong will and certainty that he knew what was best, regardless of the situation.

Jenny winced as he probed the edges of the wound. Now that she saw it again, it hurt worse than ever. The individual teeth marks had begun to blend into an overall angry, purple bruise. In a couple of places, the skin had broken, and though she’d dabbed them with cold water when she first got bitten, they now oozed a watery pink that made her feel light-headed.

“This is a bite. What did you do? Which horse did this?” His voice was hard, and his muscles bunched.

“Does it matter?” She tugged her arm from his grasp, and this time he let it go. “Please, I can take care of it myself.”

“Of course it matters. It’s too big to be that pony. And the draft horses are too lazy to bother biting anyone. I can’t imagine one of the saddle horses biting you unless you did something foolish.”

“It wasn’t a saddle horse or a draft horse or that sweet little pony.”

He glanced up, and she felt shot through. “You got too close to Misery, didn’t you? Even after I warned you. I told you to stay away from him.” He jammed his fingers through his hair as if he would like to rip it out. “He’s barely even halterbroke. A month ago, he was running wild.”

“He also got his halter twisted and torn off his nose. It was wrapped around his neck, and I was afraid he would catch it on something and strangle himself.”

“Then you should’ve come for me.”

“It was
my
job.” The fact that he was right just made her more determined to hold her own.

“You should see Doc Bucknell and get him to treat this.” He took her arm again, cradling it. He stroked the skin alongside the wound, sending shivers and sparks up her arm.

“Nonsense. It’s a silly little wound, and it doesn’t need a doctor.” She trembled. No man had touched her since her husband died, and she couldn’t remember the last time a man had touched with gentleness. Carl’s hands were huge and work-worn, nothing like Robert’s diminutive, smooth banker hands, and yet the horseman’s touch was almost a caress.

Jenny firmly removed her arm from his grasp once more.

“If you won’t go to him, I’ll bring him to you.”

Carl’s autocratic, domineering statement snapped her raw emotions. She would not be backed into a corner, told what to do by a man who wouldn’t listen to her or treat her like she was a person with her own will and intellect.

“I can take care of myself, Mr. Gustafson. I don’t need you or any man to boss me around.”

For a moment he stood his ground, his expression dark, but then he turned and stomped out, the back screen door slamming in his wake.

B
en hitched up his gun belt and mounted the steps to the school, bracing himself. Friday at last. If he could just get through today, then he’d have two whole days of reprieve when he wouldn’t have to listen to mind-numbing recitations, referee playground squabbles, or hear one more time, “That’s not how Miss Bucknell does it.”

I’d rather haul a hundred prisoners to the state pen in Huntsville all by myself than wrangle these kids one more day
.

His footsteps echoed in the empty room. At least he was early enough to enjoy a little peace and quiet. Heaven knew he wouldn’t get any once the children showed up. Funny how he didn’t remember being so noisy as a kid. Maybe he had been. Maybe he’d ask his ma. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t. He hadn’t enjoyed school very much, preferring to be out of doors playing in the creek or riding his horse, tagging after his older brothers, or best of all, hanging around the jail pretending to be a lawman and watching his father sheriff. He’d known from the time he was a little gupper that he never wanted to be anything but a lawman, and the minute he could put aside the pencils and books, he’d shot through the schoolhouse door and hadn’t looked back.

Until now.

He went to the blackboard behind the desk and began scrubbing away his chicken-scratch marks from yesterday. Penmanship had always been his nemesis, and his temporary students took great delight in asking him to “show them” a word or math problem, just so they could laugh at his slanted writing. He felt like a hypocrite making them practice their letters on their slates.

The door creaked, and he waited to see who would be first around the partition. His heart sank, but he tried not to let it show when Mary Alice Watkins pranced in. There wasn’t any other word for how she minced her way toward him. Long about Wednesday, she had stopped wearing her hair in thick braids and piled it up on her head instead—with varying results that made him wonder if her mother had given her permission or she was putting it up on the way to school without benefit of a mirror. She’d also started smelling like way too much rosewater, and she’d developed a strange flutter to her eyelids every time he looked at her. He was flattered and bewildered and embarrassed at these signs that she was nursing a crush on him. Such a thing had never happened to him before, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

Ben arranged his features in what he hoped was a neutral expression. “Good morning, Mary Alice.”

She blushed a painful pink and bobbed her head. One of her hairpins gave up the fight and clattered to the floor, and the pink deepened to red. He turned back to the blackboard to allow her time to compose herself, thankful that little shoes were pounding up the steps so he and Mary Alice wouldn’t be alone.

Calling the class to order, he half-listened to the now-familiar psalm and prayer. The schoolroom was stifling, and once everyone was back in their seats, he opened the windows on the leeward side of the building to catch a breeze.

“Amanda, you can go sit with Mary Alice.” The little girl scooted out of her chair and edged around him as if afraid he might grab her or smack her. Something more than shyness was causing this, but he hadn’t had time to investigate further. His lawman’s sense told him someone had abused or frightened the girl, but he couldn’t reconcile the little he knew about Jenny Hart with child abuse. She was quiet and kind and well-spoken—by all accounts an excellent mother. Next time he saw Cassie, he’d see what he could find out. If he was doing something that scared the little girl, then he wanted to stop doing it.

“Second Primer Class.” He took his chair behind the desk and reached for the second McGuffey Reader, dragging it toward himself and flipping it open to page fifty-five. A picture of a mother rocking her child accompanied a poem. He sighed as the twins jostled and elbowed their way to the front.

“Knock it off, boys. You’re supposed to have this poem memorized. Ulysses, you start.”

Ulysses scuffed his nose with the heel of his hand and tugged at his overall strap. “Can’t.”

“You can’t? Why not?”

“Didn’t learn it.” His chin came up, and he tilted his head.

“Quincy? How about you?”

“Nope. Not a word.” Quincy had lost a tooth yesterday, courtesy of his brother and another wrestling match. A baby tooth, fortunately. At least the gap in his smile made him easier to identify.

“Why not?” He slapped the book closed. Bad enough he had to assign this stuff, but if they weren’t even going to bother to learn it, then what were they all doing here?

They shrugged.

“Well, you’re going to learn it now. Go back to your desk and get to it.” Little horrors. When he was a kid, if you showed up to school not knowing your lessons, you had a hide tanning coming.

“Third Primer Class, bring your arithmetic books and tablets.”

They shuffled to the edge of the platform and put their toes on the crack in the floor. Two boys and a girl, all about nine or so, the biggest class. Bekah handed him her paper, but the other two stood there empty-handed.

“Well? Where’s yours?”

Thomas and Isaac slanted looks at each other. “We didn’t do it.”

A flicker of panic went through his chest. The twins and trouble went hand in hand, but Thomas and Isaac were good kids who hadn’t given him a lick of problems.

Perhaps they were testing him. Testing his resolve. Would he be the teacher and make them learn, or was he just babysitting for the month so they could do whatever they wanted?

Though the temptation to let the whole herd run maverick for thirty days appealed, his competitive side reared up. There was the Challenge to consider, his standing in the community, and his desire to win. Win the Challenge, win at whatever battle of wits and wills he now found himself in with these kids. Not to mention Cassie would string him up if he let everything slide at the school and would crow over him forever if she trounced him soundly in the Challenge.

“Go back to your seats. You, too, Bekah.”

He rounded the front of the desk and perched his hip on the edge. Crossing his arms, he surveyed twelve youngsters who all looked back at him—except Amanda, who stared at her lap.

“How many of you left your homework unfinished from last night? I want to see your hands.”

Seven hands went up, all of them male.

He studied them, trying to appear stern, when in reality, he couldn’t think of what to say. More than half his class had kicked over the traces before he’d even taught a full week.

“Why?” The word popped out, though he hadn’t meant to ask it.

Ulysses shrugged. “Why bother? You said none of this stuff was going to help us survive out here on the prairie. It wasn’t going to help us be better cattle ranchers or to fight off Indians or outlaws. You said that memorizing poems about mothers was sissy stuff, and you couldn’t believe we were wasting time on it.”

Guilt settled on Ben like a bad smell. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Cassie was going to kill him. He had said those things, hadn’t he? In a fit of boredom and frustration at being cooped up in that schoolhouse wondering if his town was going down the river while Cassie made pillows and curtains.

Quincy piped up. “No point in wasting time learning stuff that won’t do us no good later, right?”

The boys all nodded, and even a couple of the girls looked like they might be buying what was being sold.

Mary Alice frowned and shook her head. “This isn’t right. We are supposed to learn these lessons. What will Miss Bucknell say if she finds out you boys aren’t doing your assignments?”

All of them except the twins had the grace to look at least a little bit bothered by the prospect. Quincy and Ulysses slouched, and Quincy jiggled his leg. Ulysses propped his chin in his hand and stared out the window, the perfect picture of boredom.

Ben was lassoed and tied with his own piggin’ string. He should’ve kept his tater trap shut, no matter how tedious or useless he found the book learning these kids were subjected to. His collar felt tight, and he tugged at it, rubbing the back of his neck and feeling the knots growing there. Time to start trying to wriggle out of this mess.

“Mary Alice is right. Miss Bucknell will be upset if she hears you left your work undone. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s boring or if I think it’s the most ridic— Well, a man has to do what he has to do, no matter if he likes it. Your job is to learn this stuff, and my job is to teach it to you, so that’s what we’re going to do. I’ll stop complaining about it, and you’ll do your homework, and that’s how it’s going to be.” He rubbed his hands together, trying to drum up a little enthusiasm.

No one appeared enthused.

He glanced at the clock. Relief trickled through him. “It’s close enough to time for the morning recess.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when every kid but Mary Alice jumped to life and streamed out of the schoolhouse like a freight train on a long downgrade. Mary Alice chose to stand, smooth her skirts, look up at him through her lashes, then sashay toward the door. She wobbled a bit, and he noticed the high heels on her button-up boots. The shoes were clearly too large for her, perhaps borrowed from her mother or an older sister?

Poor kid. Childhood was short enough without rushing it. He had cause to know. One day he was gigging frogs and climbing trees down by the creek, the next he was facing down the Cactus Creek Schoolhouse Gang and losing.

He was halfway to the door when Mary Alice tumbled inside, her hair falling from its pins and her face pale as a linen duster. “Sheriff, you better hurry!” She stumbled out of his way and pointed to the door. “The twins!”

Needing no other explanation, he bolted. Left to their own devices, the twins were most likely either fighting like two badgers in a gunnysack or plotting the overthrow of the known world. Clattering down the steps, he glanced up the street toward town but didn’t see them.

Mary Alice clung to the doorjamb behind him. “Around back! Hurry!”

He rounded the building, where nine children stood with their backs to the siding and their eyes all but bugged out. Half a dozen paces from the outhouse, one of the twins held a bottle with a rag hanging out of it while the other lit the rag with a match.

“Stop that!” He took two steps, but the one holding the bottle—Quincy, Ben noted the missing tooth—glanced over his shoulder, then hurled the bottle through the open door of the privy, turning and flattening himself in the grass as it arced toward the outhouse.

It was a perfect shot. The bottle didn’t so much as clank off the seat before disappearing down the hole. There was a moment of dead stillness when Ben kissed his temporary teaching assignment and his hopes of keeping his job as sheriff good-bye, then a whoosh, a flash of light, and a concussive blast that hit him hard enough in the chest to spin him to his knees.

Boards flew out and up, the roof tilted off backward, and the ground lurched. Ulysses, who had been hopping up and down clapping his hands now lay on his back staring at the sky.