Unbroken Hearts (21 page)

    
Cal approached Sarah from behind and
wrapped his strong arms around her waist. He lovingly nuzzled and planted tiny
kisses on her neck.

    
Sarah closed her eyes and savored the
moment. She felt his warm, rigid body press against her, encircling her with
desire. She had to fight the urge to lean back, to sink completely into heaven.
Then she remembered, and the cut she felt in her chest was sharp. She turned
abruptly to face him.

    
"I'm busy. Isn't there some work you
should be doing?"

    
Cal was taken aback. "Heck yes. Work
is always waiting. I just wanted to hold my favorite woman for a minute."
He laughed and turned around to face his mother. "Don't worry, Mama.
You're still my
first
favorite."

    
Sarah smiled and twisted around to see
Mrs. Easton's eyes dancing. Sarah suspected that Mrs. Easton was like a
fascinating book, if only she could open the cover and start reading. Lately
she'd dreamed about speaking with the enchanting woman, but she always woke up
disappointed, bit by the cruel reality that it could never happen.
 

    
Cal's smile reached to his eyes as he
wrapped his arms around Sarah again. Once Cal had got it into his head to woo a
woman, he wouldn't be dismissed, and now he spoke low next to her ear.
"Will you marry me and make me the happiest man in the territory?"
His tongue grazed the soft edge of her earlobe. "The preacher can come on
Saturday. We'll be married in the parlor with Mama and Roy and Emily here, just
like I've dreamed." He punctuated his murmured words with more hot kisses
along her neck.
 
"Darlin', say
yes."

    
Cal's proposal should have lifted Sarah to
ecstasy, but instead she felt panic followed by gut wrenching turmoil, as
helpless as she'd been on the runaway mare. With the threat of Crane hanging
over her, she couldn't consider this offer, and bile rose to the back of her
throat just thinking about it. She could tell him half the truth, she decided.
It wouldn't really be lying.

    
She stared past him and fixed on a
knothole in a floorboard. "I can't marry you, Cal." Her voice wavered
slightly. "While you were out this morning a Tom Black came by, with a
telegram for me. From Illinois. Somebody I knew back there. He's coming out for
me."

    
Sarah's news struck Cal with the force of
a belly blow. He groaned and tightened his grip on her arm. "You told me
you didn't have a man!" He thrust a shaking hand through his hair.

    
Sarah had accepted his advances. Hell, he
thought, she'd responded to him in the most heated and passionate way.

     
Sarah couldn't stop the tears from
flowing. "I didn't think he was interested. T-turns out he is—"

    
Cal's eyes darkened and he'd lose control
if he didn't leave now, but there was something he had to know. "You love
him?" he flung out desperately.

    
Sarah hesitated before answering. She
shrugged. "Some things are a matter of duty."

     
"Duty, hell! Might be that I
could rid you of that duty!" His voice was hoarse and desperate, his face
a twisted confusion of anger and disbelief. Just when he thought she was safely
in his corral she'd jumped the fence. And for what?
 
Some twisted sense of duty?

    
"You can't help." She whispered
quietly.

    
Cal was so hurt and furious he couldn't
find words.

     
She said she didn't love the man.
Well, damnation. What favors had the man done her, that she felt duty bound to
marry him?

    
Cal turned on his heel and stormed out of
the house, slamming the back door with such force the plates rattled on the
shelves.
 

    
Sarah looked up and was heartbroken all
over again when her gaze fell upon Mrs. Easton. Tears were sparkling in the
elder woman's eyes. Sarah knelt, and she folded Mrs. Easton's small wrinkled
hands into her own.
 

    
"Mrs. Easton, I do love your
son." She took a ragged breath and continued. "I didn't know it, but
my uncle borrowed $350 to get us here, from a man named Ansel Crane. In his
telegram he said he's coming to get what my uncle owes him. It turns out that
is
me
. Now I must pay Mr. Crane
the $350, or likely marry him and go back to Illinois. Of course I don't have
$350." Her voice trailed off, and her head dropped forward with her
humiliation. "Your son is so fine and handsome. He can have any
woman."
One that can hold her head up in his community.

    
The image of Cal with some other woman
brought a sense of crushing hopelessness. The breach between them was an ocean
wide and she was standing alone on the opposite shore, no ship in sight.

    
She looked up at Mrs. Easton. The woman's
kind blue eyes rapidly flickered up and down. Sarah followed the movement. Mrs.
Easton's eyes were darting to her wedding ring, then to Sarah, then back to the
ring again. Understanding dawned, and Sarah's heart swelled.

    
"Oh Mrs. Easton, I couldn't take your
beautiful ring," she sobbed. "I'll find the money some other
way," she added hastily.

     
The older woman's face reddened and
a croak gurgled from her throat as she valiantly struggled to speak.

    
Sarah's heart lurched. She brought Mrs.
Easton's hand to her cheek and impulsively kissed her wrinkled palm.
"Truly, I will."

Chapter 19

    
Caring for Mrs. Easton was a blessing.
Except for mealtimes, when she couldn't escape his presence, Sarah carefully
avoided Cal, and a bitter distance grew between them. If he veered in her
direction she quickened her step and skipped out of his path. If he entered the
room she found excuse to exit.
 

     
Cal's tender touches and urgent
kisses filled Sarah's restless thoughts and dreams. She dreaded waking in the
dead of night, aching, and hearing the empty, lonely howl of a coyote echoing
in the distance.

   
Cal passed the time with hands and herds, and Roy sensed something had
gone awry. Cal sat rigid in his saddle, and he grunted tersely at the hired
men. He didn't even roll his eyes at Roy's barbs. The man was mute at meals,
hurrying to shovel in Sarah's fine fare without comment before rushing to get
back to work.
 

     
At first blush it seemed that Cal
had an itch, and Sarah wasn't willing to scratch it -- a common enough lovers'
quarrel, thought Roy. But it wasn't like Cal. He always went slow and easy with
the women -- glacially slow by Roy's standards. Sarah looked disheveled and
sad, and Cal as though he'd been dragged over a washboard trail.

   
Roy pondered the situation. Cal had been crazy about Sarah. Why didn't
he stop acting like a mule's backside and saddle up and marry her? Cal was past
the age to settle down, and Sarah had proven to be a fine woman.

    
Roy was rarely stymied by a problem. This
one was wearing a hole in his hat.

                                                  
*
     
*
     
*

    
Peck turned up at the Mineral Creek Ranch.
He was leading a string of ten mules, including the six Roy had sold to McHenry
at the mining camp.

    
The Eastons leaned lazily against the
fence as he rode up to greet them.

     
"Hellfire and blazes," Roy
sputtered. He slapped his hat against his thigh upon spying the mules. He
didn't want to own the whole lot of those critters again. He counted and
scratched his head. "Looks like those darn animals gone and
multiplied."

    
"Roy Easton, you're a lucky man! You
sold
eight
mules and you're
getting'
ten
back." Peck
laughed.

    
"So why do I feel like a pail of hot
spit?" Roy shot back.
 

    
Cal laughed. "How about that."
He grinned at his brother. "Your mules are breedin' like
jackrabbits."

    
Roy stretched out a long plaid arm and
pushed at the backside of the nearest beast, to coax it into the pen.
 

    
"I can't wait to see McHenry an' give
him a piece of my mind. These two he put on me are the sorriest looking I've
seen north of Texas. Hell, I'm scared to look them in the mouth," Roy
lamented.

    
Roy and Cal knew return of the mules was
simply a convenient excuse for Peck. He needed to talk. The three men strolled
away from the corral until they were out of the wrangler's earshot.

    
Peck cocked his prospector hat back, and
rubbed at the whiskers on his chin.

       
"Right neighborly
to return those mules," Cal muttered.

    
Peck nodded and wiped his hands on his
shirt. He dragged the toe of his boot in the dust around a rock, as if to free
it from the ground.
 
"You men
got a fine spread here. Dullen . . . he offer to buy you out?"

     
"You mean he didn't tell
you?" Cal flashed a look of disbelief.
 
"He offered for a thousand acres in the north section.
Says he's aimin' to extend his range to the west all the way to the creek. He
needs more grazing and water. He sent his man to make a second offer, after we
didn't bite down on the first."
 

    
Cal hitched his thumbs over his belt.
"We'd be loco to deal. That's the best grazing on the property. The creek
floods out and keeps the grass. It's the watering for the herd in the east
section." Cal's voice had pitched higher and his neck was reddening.

     
Peck dug his hands into his pockets
and rocked back on his boot heels. "He don't want it for ranching. You
boys got copper ore up there. Along the creek. Can't say how much
exactly." He waved a hand. "Dullen's known it some while, an' he sent
for me to check." Peck's mouth turned down at the corners. "He'd trim
a tree with my hide if he knew I was talking to you. But I think a man has a
right to know what's on his property before he sells."
 
Peck spit again and looked sharply at
Cal.

    
Roy slapped his hat across his thigh.
"Damn! Copper!"

    
Peck winced at Roy's boyish enthusiasm.
"Boys, it takes a pile of cash to start an operation. Smart folks sell off
the claim and let a company with the money and know-how work it. I know an
outfit in Denver, they'd give you a fair deal, of course."

    
Cal's gaze at Peck was intense. "It's
poison, isn't it? Would kill our cattle."

    
Peck simply looked at the ground and
nodded.

    
Roy grimaced, recalling the dead fish and
foul water he'd seen over at Lazca.
 

    
The brothers were silent for long minutes.
Cal had never considered a different occupation.
 

    
Roy spoke first.
 

    
"We could sell this land, and start
another spread farther north or west in the valley. Easy enough to drive our
cattle to a new range." He looked at Cal. "We could even buy out
Dullen, keep some of our home range to the west side." The idea made him
smile.

    
"We could." Cal's voice was
distant, pensive. "This spread's better."

    
Peck dragged his toe in the dirt again.
"What's downstream of this place? More ranchers?"

    
Roy felt an uncomfortable twinge as he
remembered abandoned homesteads he passed on the trip up to Lazca.

    
Cal swallowed and his throat tightened.
"Indian land. Lone Eagle's tribe. Their territory extends to the east. The
creek runs through an area they take to be sacred."

    
Peck watched as Roy and Cal exchanged
grimaces.

    
"You'll keep this under your
hat?" Cal asked hesitantly.

    
"You got my word."

    
Cal and Roy exchanged another quick
glance. "Tell him," Roy blurted.

    
Cal squared his shoulders and turned to
face Peck fully. "Our family was some of the first to settle in this
valley."

    
Cal looked at Roy once more before
continuing. "Lone Eagle's our kin, our cousin. Our father drove cattle up
here because his brother, our uncle Arthur, was already here, working as a
trapper and guide. Uncle Arthur was married to an Indian woman named White
Dove, Lone Eagle's mother. He took on their religious beliefs, went into the
sweat lodge, and he carried his own medicine bundle. Before our uncle died, he
took me to the camp where I stayed. I played and hunted with my cousin. Lone
Eagle taught me to speak his language. He taught me about tracking and hunting
their way."

    
"Since Uncle Arthur's death we don't
see each other much. Now he's the leader. But we trade with them, of course,
because we share blood between us."

    
Peck looked grave. "Indians are being
moved onto government reservations."

    
Cal wagged his head back and forth. " They
never use land in a way that might bring harm to the next generation." He
gazed at the horizon. "I figure we'll keep ranching, Mr. Peck."

    
Roy folded his arms across his chest and
silently withdrew from the conversation. The nine years between him and Cal
meant he'd never known Lone Eagle the way Cal did. His brother was satisfied to
rough it as a rancher.

    
Peck grimaced and looked as though he were
fighting a battle inside himself. "I'm
 
about to say something you didn't hear from me, boys. The ore
is near played out up at Lazca." He paused and narrowed his eyes.
"Dullen ain't a patient man. He'll likely find a way to swindle you or run
you off your property." Peck wiped his sleeve across his brow and hitched
his thumbs into his pockets. Beef bawled in the distance.

     
Cal's expression was suddenly
granite hard. "So that's it. He's been meddling to start a range war.
We'll be ready when he comes."