Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (7 page)

      
As she cleared the kitchen table, Charlee covertly studied the three men dressed in dusty work clothes. Asa Ketchum was tall, lanky, and gray-haired, with a drooping moustache. His soft speech and careful manners proclaimed him a Virginian, a contemporary of Jim Slade's father who had come to Texas to make his fortune. Asa was the long-time ramrod of Bluebonnet. It seemed unlikely he would have any cause to want her brother dead. Indeed, he spoke fondly of young Dick and offered her his sincere sympathy.

      
The same was true of the youth Leandro, a boy of seventeen or eighteen, a native-born
Tejano
who had been taken in by the Slade family when he was orphaned nearly a dozen years earlier. Growing up in the shadow of Jim Slade, Leandro Velasques worshiped the older man. Slimly built, with finely chiseled features and black eyes, he was almost too pretty for a man, but his whipcord strength kept him from appearing effeminate. Like Asa, Lee, as everyone called him, had made Charlee feel welcome at once. Grateful for her help with Weevils’ dreadful cooking, Lee shyly teased Charlee, another orphan, and made her feel comfortable. He was a kindred spirit in spite of their different backgrounds. Liking him instantly, Charlee felt certain he had not been involved in Richard Lee's death either. Anyway, her brother was easily forty pounds heavier, so there was slight chance he could have been done in by a mere boy.

      
That left her most attractive but forbidding employer. As he and Ketchum talked about the calf crop and the early summer weather, Charlee watched Jim Slade. She had learned from Lee that morning that his hero had been a member of the local ranging company since the age of fifteen. Slade had grown up fighting Comanche and other renegade raiders. He had followed General Houston on his long, bitter march across Texas to make the last-ditch, desperate stand at San Jacinto that had won the Republic's independence from Mexico. He was a man with much practice at killing, hardened by the brutality of frontier life.

      
He was also an enigma, guarded and quiet, possessing a fierce temper when crossed. Lee had told her that, too. Slade was certainly capable of killing Richard Lee, but why should he? Her handsome brother might have been a rival for Slade's beautiful neighbor, Tomasina Carver, but Charlee doubted it. Still, Slade was very protective of the elegant young widow and vague about where he had been when Richard Lee died. Charlee found herself attracted to the Texian in a shocking, physical way, yet she was frightened of him at the same time.

      
She had been at the ranch for only one day. There was a lot more to learn, and many more people to meet, she decided, before she could solve the mystery of Richard Lee's death.

      
Jim, Asa, and Lee finished their coffee and left. Slade had given her no specific instructions, so after washing up the dishes, Charlee left the kitchen and began to explore the rest of the house. It had two stories and a large root cellar beneath the north side. The polished oak floorboards left Charlee in awe, as did the smooth mortared walls, elegant carpets, and stained oak woodwork. The white walls and carved furniture bespoke the tastes of the former lady of the house, Teresa Magdalena Sandoval de Slade. It was austere and Hispanic; yet at the same time it was welcoming in a bluff, masculine way attributable to Will and Jim Slade, no doubt.

      
More recently acquired paintings, cut glass, and carpets indicated how well the house had prospered under the hand of the son. Charlee lovingly touched a beautiful pitcher, admiring the good taste so carefully cultivated even in this wild country. Jim Slade came from educated, aristocratic stock on both sides of his family, and the decor subtly showed it.

      
“Mama would really approve of these,” she murmured to herself as she ran her hands lightly down the heavy lace curtains over the parlor window. Two days a week, a couple of women from San Antonio came and cleaned, she had been informed by Weevils, who could see no use for her at all. He cooked, they cleaned. What was Charlee's job? She realized that she must make an ally out of the crotchety man if her place at Bluebonnet was to be assured.

      
“I’ll just have to learn how—” Her murmuring was suddenly interrupted by a loud volley of inventive oaths, crackling over the still afternoon air in a high-pitched, gravelly voice that piped and broke with fury.

      
“Hellfire 'n damnation, yew sonofabitchen heathen bastard from th' pit! I'll gut yew 'n use yer innards fer puddin' damn if’n I won't—er new fiddle strings!”

      
Following the shrieking to the kitchen, Charlee arrived in time to see Weevils attempting to chase an orange blur around the big table in the center of the room. The cat was dragging something, cutting deftly between chairs and table legs, thus far eluding the meat cleaver wielded by the frenzied cook.

      
When she opened the hall door the cat saw his opportunity to escape with his prize, a long stringer of bullhead catfish. As the cat barreled past her legs, she stamped her foot and held the stringer fast to the floor. Unfortunately, with the momentum of the twenty-pound tomcat and the slipperiness of the catfish, Charlee was unable to keep her balance. She fell in a billow of red gingham, landing on cat and catfish.

      
“Whoa, you thievin' rascal!” Charlee grabbed the ratty orange fireball expertly by the scruff of his neck, extricating him from the folds of her skirts. She plopped him inelegantly in her lap and began to examine his chewed-up, fish-smeared body. “Phewee, 'n Mama used to say I stank!”

      
Voice cracking in terror, the cook screeched, “Lookee thar, gal! Thet cat's th' meanest, orneriest bastard ever ta set foot on Bluebonnet, not even barrin' polecats 'n Comanche!” Weevils eyed the tom from a good six feet and gave no indication of coming closer. “He'll take yer laig off clean to th' bone afore yew kin spit!”

      
The cat fixed his basilisk glare on the obese prophet of doom and then dismissed him with a disdainful flick of his beaver-thick tail. Never one to waste time where he was not appreciated, he snuggled up against Charlee’s neck and released a volley of loud, rasping purrs.

      
“Why, you are an old lover boy! A little the worse for wear though,” she said as she scratched the shredded remains of his left ear. The side of his right eye had been ripped and the resulting scar left a puckering along the seam, giving his face a quizzical expression. The thick, bright orange fur was mottled with burrs, and generous hunks of it had been bitten and clawed away. Charlee laughed and scratched him beneath the chin while he butted his head playfully against her.

      
“Wal, hellfire 'n damnation! He likes you! Thet tom ain't niver liked nobody afore, ever since he wandered in more'n three, four weeks ago. Onliest one who could git near him's Lee, 'n he only lets th' boy put milk down fer him. Niver shoulda encouraged th' sneak thief.”

      
“So, you're a stray, too, just like me, cat. Maybe that's why we hit it off. That 'n the fact I always had me a cat back in Missouri. Sure would admire to have one again, specially a scrappy fellow like you. You need a name. Let me see, what shall we call you?”

      
“Hellfire! Yew gonna keep him, like a pet? He ain't even tame 'nough fer a circus, much less ‘round a house.” Weevils’ indignation caused him to forget himself and move a few steps closer to the cat, which bristled up in Charlee's lap like a lightning-struck porcupine and gave a wicked hiss. “Hellfire! I didn't mean nothin'!” Weevils jumped back, causing the floor to give a reverberating groan under his considerable weight.

      
“That's it!” Charlee snapped her fingers and then proceeded to soothe the cat, who settled down on her lap with a contented murph. “With all that fiery orange fur, and the way you're always flying around and bristling up, I'll call you Hellfire! Fits your disposition, too, so I hear tell.” Laughing, Charlee picked up the large orange bundle and planted a kiss squarely on the battle-scarred face.

      
“What in hellfire's going on?” Slade stood in the kitchen door, his fierce gaze on the fish-smeared girl and her new friend.

      
Charlee burst into giggles. Weevils tried to suppress the rumbles of laughter that burbled up from his mammoth belly, but quickly abandoned any pretense and joined her in a hearty roar.

      
Jim's eyes took in the pile of glossy fish, tails still swishing as they flopped feebly on the stringer, spilled haphazardly across Charlee's dress and the carpet. Hellfire held court from his throne on her lap, one paw proprietarily hooked over a nearby bullhead, daring either of the men to take it away from him.

      
“It seems every time I see you, you're on the ground covered with muck, and that cat is somewhere nearby. What's so damn funny?” He looked glaringly from the girl to the fat old cook.

      
“Hellfire,” said Charlee idiotically. Then collecting herself and realizing how awful she must look, not to mention smell, she amended, “I mean, I named him Hellfire.”

      
“The cat or his fish?” Slade quirked a golden eyebrow, full well realizing the wily old tom had finally found someone whom he deigned to favor.

      
“
His
fish! I spent me all day catchin' them fer our dinner tonight,” Weevils croaked indignantly.
 
“I'd be obliged, Charlee, if’n yew'd git thet critter outta here so's I kin pick up
my
fish.”

      
The cat favored the speaker with a fish-eyed look, his claws flexing more deeply into the succulent bullhead, which lay beside Charlee's lap.

      
“Er, let's have a compromise, Weevils. I know you caught the fish, but Hellfire has to eat, too. Besides, they're really big—Texas-size catfish. We can spare just one for Hellfire, all right?”

      
She favored the cook with a winsome smile, and once more Slade was startled by how nearly pretty she looked, despite her penchant for getting into unladylike predicaments. “Give him the fish, Weevils, but get this damn stinking mess cleaned up before it dries into the new carpet. I had it shipped all the way from Boston.” With that he took two long-legged steps over Charlee. She watched him go into his office, then gently dislodged the cat, carefully keeping one finger hooked behind the sharp gill fin of the bullhead. Deftly, she removed Hellfire's prize from the stringer and then coaxed the cat to the back door, where he claimed his reward and sped off to devour it beneath the bushes.

      
Wanting to take advantage of her newly won approval from Weevils, Charlee ventured, “I used to be my pa's best fish cleaner back home, 'n bullheads were my specialty. Can I help?”

      
Never in his life had the old man heard of a female conversant with skinning and gutting catfish. This he would have to see. And see he did, as he and Charlee talked amicably now that he had inadvertently accepted her into the camaraderie of the ranch house. She pinned a catfish to a large wooden block with an ice pick through its head, and with swift, precise strokes she peeled off the skin. Then, she removed the entrails and cut away the sharp side fins and oil sacs beneath them. Last of all, she cut off the head and tossed the meat into a bucket of cold water, ready to begin the next one.

      
“Slick as a whistle.” Weevils beamed, and Charlee knew her place was assured.

      
“When we get through with the fish, I'd better put some vinegar water on that rug, just to be sure no fish smell stays in it. That is, if you don't mind my not helping you with supper right off, Weevils?”

      
He grinned as he rolled the drained fish in finely ground cornmeal. “Naw, yew git th' rug 'n I'll tend ta supper. Boss man sets right much store by his fancy furniture 'n sech.”

      
“Where did he learn about fine carpets and lace curtains? I thought he was born and raised here in Texas. I heard his ma was Mexican, but he sure don't look like the men I saw on the trail or in San Antonio.” Was her curiosity too obvious, Charlee wondered? She kept her eyes averted, intent on the fish cleaning.

      
Weevils chuckled. “Yew are green from th' states, aintcha? Yep, Mr. Jim's ma was Mexican all right—what Texians call ‘white Mexican,’ that is. Upper-class, educated folk, with no Injun blood mixed in. Her people was rich 'n high up in th' gover'ment afore th' Texians ever won free o' Mexico. Will Slade come here from Virginey even afore Colonel Austin got here with th' first big bunch o' settlers. Married into th' Sandoval family 'n set out gettin' this spread ta prosper.”

      
“Then that explains why he doesn't look like the Mexicans in town,” Charlee said, recalling with a blush her words when she had first found out Slade was the half-Mexican owner of Bluebonnet.

      
Weevils watched her consternation in amusement. “Yew noticed who he favors, huh? Wal, fact is, them yeller eyes come from th' Sandoval side 'n the yeller har comes from ole Will. Yew kin look all ya want, but—”

      
Indignantly she cut in, “I wasn't ‘looking,’ leastways not the way you mean it! I was only interested in him because he's my boss 'n was my brother's, too.”

      
“Uh-huh,” Weevils snorted, unconvinced. “Thet's why yew couldn't take yer eyes off'n him whilst he walked down th' hall a few minits back. I seen 'nough females moonin' over Mr. Jim, 'n thet's a fact.” He paused. “All 'cept fer Miz Sina. She always seems kinda cool. Mebbe cause she's th' onliest one whose sure o' him.”

      
Charlee almost sliced off a finger at that last remark. “What do you mean, ‘sure of him’? I thought she was newly widowed,” she said, still hating the beautiful black-haired woman who had laughed at her.