Cowboy Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #3, Kitty and Lukes story) (6 page)

             
Sarah rose, about to offer her chair, obviously thinking of something else she could be doing.  He put a hand out.

             
"Don't get up, ma'am.  I came to see, actually, if Miss Collins would accompany me for a constitutional this evening." 

             
Sarah looked a little puzzled and a little uncomfortable.  I rose and walked past Mr. Michaels at the edge of the porch.  "I'd like to take a walk, Sarah, if you don't mind.  Or you could join us?"

             
"I was about to go in," she said.  "Will you be long?"  In Sarah Speech, that meant,
Don't be long
.

             
"Just stretching my legs," I said, which probably slighted Mr. Michaels.

             
Mr. Michaels nodded to Sarah and I took my leave, all but skipping down the front porch steps.  The breeze felt wonderful, the evening heat wrapped around me, I was outside.

             
He led me along the path of the low-flowing creek that bounded and separated the pastures.  Shadows fell long in the evening light.  We walked north, up the creek, out of sight of the ranch house as we wound through willows and grasses across rocky, sandy ground.  Black birds and sparrows darted in and out of the trees and bushes.  On either side of the creek stretched meadows, wild on one side and full of brush and grass, pasture on the other side. 

             
"If you follow the creek, you come out on Mr. Getties' farm," said Luke.  "Have you seen much of the ranch?"

             
"Some of it," I said.  "There's a farm that way, right?"  I pointed north, the way we were heading.

             
"That's the Getties' farm," he said, his face serious.  "Your brother's involved in a lawsuit with Mr. Getties because Mr. Getties likes to dam up the creek and Big Sky Ranch has water rights.  Also there's the no-fence law here, means we have to put up fences to keep the cattle out of Mr. Getties' farm but it doesn't mean Getties can just cut through the barbed wire whenever he chooses and take a steer for dinner."

             
Thinking I didn't want to run into anyone by mistake if there was this kind of acrimony going on, I asked, "Has he caused trouble?" and received a curious look as if I should already know.

             
"You could say that," Luke said, and pointed east.  "Pasture and open land."

             
"And farther?"

             
"Redding."

             
"What's south?" I asked.

             
"California," he said, sounding both serious and uninterested, so I neither laughed nor pursued it.

             
There was a stand of cottonwood ahead of us, poplars and birch, before the forest growth started.  The forest was thick enough, though even here I could see where some logging had taken place but close to the river where the trees were thinner, I could see evidence of the drought.

             
The cottonwoods, trees that love water, were dry.

             
We stopped beside them, close to the low flowing stream, and I longed to take off my boots and soak my feet in the cold water.  I resisted, some propriety seeing me through, but the trees called to me.

             
"If I were home," I said into a friendly silence that had fallen between us, "I'd want to climb these trees, see what I could see from the tops, or just sit in one of them until the animals felt safe enough to roam around me."

             
I glanced at him then, wondering if he'd be staring in horror at the horrendously improper girl he had innocently asked to go for a walk with.

             
To my surprise, he was smiling, a broad smile on his open, cheerful face. 

             
"Race you to the top," he said.

             
My father used to say that taking dares would land me in hot water some day.  Certainly, Sarah wouldn't be pleased to hear I was going up trees again, not when, as far as she was concerned, I'd curbed the impulse.

             
Sarah was back at the ranch.

             
"Same tree?  Different trees?  Climb at the same time?  Do you have a watch?  Otherwise, how will we know who won?"

             
Luke Michaels began laughing.  "Same tree.  Same time.  Winner is the one who figures out a way past the other to the top."

             
The trees were dry, leaves already turning brown, which they shouldn't have, with lots of whiskery twigs sticking out every which way.  There were plenty of handholds as long as no branches snapped because they were dry.

             
"Ready?" I asked.

             
We scrambled up the tree, each taking a side without consulting about it.  Handholds came naturally.  The main trunk didn't split into branches until it was more than six feet off the ground, and then I took one side and Luke Michaels took the other and we kept going up, batting at insects, sending sprays of dry leaves crumbling and falling earthward. 

             
The race ended in a tie as we took branches that spread away from each other and climbed, snagging clothes, getting leaves in our hair, until the dry tree branches snapped with warning and groaned with our weight.  When I'd gone as high as I could, I leaned into the tree branch, securing my position, and looked around from my vantage point.  From there, I could see almost to the neighboring farm to the north, but that was probably my imagination.  There was forest in the way, and the Kennedy's ranch was many acres.

             
But atop the cottonwood, life was simpler.  Luke Michaels had won me over as a friend and proved the fire I thought I'd seen in him truly did burn.  My girlfriends had all changed into proper young women.  My sister had always been proper.

             
It was nice to find someone to run and climb with; a friend I didn't have to worry would go off and marry a Sissy Tompkins. 

             
A good deal of evening went by before we came down from our tree, and then it was only to walk companionably back to the ranch house, discussing cattle a little and Sacramento and Virginia City, school and books and trees.

             
I'd made a new friend and found some new trees.  For now, at least, I felt at peace. 

             
The next morning, I woke with a start to the clatter of horses outside the ranch house and excited, loud voices.  Confusion dizzied me; even after 10 days, I didn't always wake knowing where I was.

             
The noise and confusion under my window didn't relent.  Looking at the ornate mantle clock someone had placed on a plain pine dresser, I saw it was still early, barely six.  Sarah fed the hands at eight, and most of them had already done a couple of hours work by that time, but this, the noise and horses and voices, this was new.

             
I rose, tiptoed across the floorboards as if anyone could hear me, and moved the lace curtains just enough to stare down.

             
In the yard, half a dozen of the hands stood with William and Sarah, everyone talking at once, pointing in the direction of one of the larger pastures, then shaking their heads. 

             
The air through my window smelled like honey and the early light was golden.  Bird song competed with the men and horses.  I stretched, keeping back out of sight, and watched Robert McLeod. 

             
Morning light caught the red highlights in his hair and outlined his broad shoulders under the denim shirt.  This morning, his face looked grim.  He was listening to William and to one of his hands, who was pointing and talking.

             
Gradually, the words became clearer as I woke fully.  They were talking about one of the tributaries that ran through one of the grazing pastures, which overnight had dried up.

             
"It's not the drought," I heard Robert saying more than once, sounding impatient, and William saying there was no cause to be casting aspersions until they knew more and Mike adding that it seemed powerful strange, then, that the water had just stopped overnight.

             
"What about Baker's Mill?" Sarah asked.  "They've dammed up the water before."

             
"Sent Tiny to take a look," Robert said.  "Possible.  Got men looking at the other fields."

             
"Fine," William said, rolling his sleeves up.  "I'll ride out to the mill, take a look.  Robert, get men out to look at the other pastures.  We can send the cattle to free range until we figure this out."

             
"We have to get water," Sarah said.

             
He patted her absently, as if she'd said something too obvious to consider.  I bristled a bit at that.  Everyone else was stating the obvious as well.

             
The group of men started to break up, some heading into the pastures, others going for horses to follow the creeks.  Sarah would be heading inside to start breakfast.  I splashed water on my face, tried to get control of my hair and gave up, braiding it and letting it hang down my back.  I put on my traveling skirt because it was the least complicated garment I owned. If nothing else, Sarah would need help in the kitchen today, maybe preparing food for the men to take on the trail if they were riding out very far.

             
At least something was happening.  The days had fallen into a predictable order until the trail team had returned.  Last night's supper had been a break in routine and now something was happening. 

             
I met Sarah in the kitchen.  "How can I help?"

             
She looked quizzical.  "You heard?"

             
"Stream dried up?  What are they going to do?" 

             
Sarah smiled.  "It's not quite an emergency, Kitty.  They'll check out the cause and set the cattle grazing somewhere else.  Can you help me with breakfast?  They'll be back in an hour and I swear men get hungry crossing the dooryard, let alone riding a horse up a creek to look at something."  She shook her head and checked in the pantry.  "I'm going to need more eggs today, and we need to bake again, we're low on bread and this stuff "—she pulled out a soggy looking loaf wrapped in a checked cloth—"This we can give to the chickens, though it might insult them."

              The men returned just past eight, still loud and every bit as hungry as Sarah had predicted.  Over eggs and bacon, biscuits, gravy and coffee, decisions were made to send the cattle to graze in the eastern most pasture, and past that, into the open land if the creek problem wasn't set right by evening.

             
During meals, I watched Robert across the table.  He was animated, serious, considerate and polite.  Sometimes, when I wasn't paying attention, I'd look up to find him watching me and instantly find myself blushing.  I'd hurry into conversation if possible, distracting myself. 

             
I was getting to know the hands slightly.  They were more comfortable with each other than they were with me, though they mostly talked with Sarah, except for Luke, who usually sat with me and sometimes commented on something his mother or sisters had said or done.  His family lived in Sacramento and I thought I'd like his younger sister, a year or so older than me, and his mother, who sounded a lot like mine, all common sense and dictums until it came to her own flighty behavior.

             
In turn, I told Luke about Gold Hill and Virginia City, about the Nevada desert, the heat in summer, the winter snows, the pogonip freezing fog that sometimes stuck metal to metal and broke glass with the extreme cold.  I told him about the sound of crows in the sage and the scent of it under the sun and about cottonwoods creek side, where I used to catch frogs, and came perilously close to talking about Johnny, but the lump in my throat prevented me.

             
Luke, in turn, talked about growing up in Sacramento and moving to Redding and watching the town grow, more businesses being built, more people moving in, and the convolutions of local governing bodies as they named and renamed Northern California towns.  Sometimes, everything seemed rushed and complicated, with gold in San Francisco and silver in Virginia City and steam engines and railroads crossing the land.

             
Comfortable, friendly conversations.  I thought that Luke's sister might be a friend, if only she lived close enough for me to meet her, I thought that Luke already had become a friend.

              The men didn't come back for midday meal that day, but carried it with them.  I missed seeing Robert and talking with Luke.  The sight of Robert made my heart beat faster and breath become short.

             
Early afternoon, Sarah took me with her to see to a pair of new calves and their mothers.  Inside the barn, sunlight fell in bands of chaff-scented, dusty sunlight.  The wooly Hereford brown and white cows chewed contentedly. 

             
Mid-August heat wrapped around the ranch.  I'd been in California three weeks and had time to decide what to do, whether to return to Nevada or stay on the ranch and help Sarah.  The latter seemed an imposition; the former, a dread.  Mother had written that her dress shop was doing well and the mine closing down.  John Overton was seeking work with the railroad, or possibly at The Faro Queen with my uncles.  They were planning their wedding for December, she wrote, along with information about Maggie and Hutch and Little John, Matthew and Chloe and The Faro Queen, and Matthew and Chloe's letters about the railroad and the jobs they took so they could travel the western territories.  Her letters should have made me homesick, probably would have if I'd been inclined to be.  Instead, my mother's letters made me panic, feeling my life in Gold Hill and the boundaries Mr. Overton wanted to impose settling around me.

             
I was content in the warmth on Big Sky Ranch, and content enough in the barn, the sunlight and calves around me, to wait when Sarah went to the garden to fetch greens for the calves.  The continuing drought was causing weakness in some, blindness in others, and a number of stillbirths in the spring meant all of the cows needed more greens.

             
I waited, busying myself with equipment in the barn, hanging extra grooming equipment and tack from the horses' stalls that someone had stored here.  When a shadow fell over the entrance, I figured Sarah had returned.

             
"Need a hand?" I asked, without looking.  The calves were gentle and quick to play and I liked being around them, feeding them, although the herds of steers still scared me, especially when Sarah moved so confidently around them.

             
"Came to talk to you, actually," a male voice said, and I spun quickly, surprised, my skirt swirling around my legs.

             
Robert McLeod, tall and backlit by the sun that caught in his hair and highlighted his beard.  He held his dusty hat in his hands.  I spent rather more of each day daydreaming about him than made sense, unless it was to make certain Johnny no longer had room to occupy in my thoughts, but having him right there, I felt breathless, clumsy and tongue-tied.

             
"I was hoping to catch you alone," he said and leaned against the threshold, long and lanky. 

             
I didn't trust myself to speak, so stepped out of the barn into the sunlight, where he could see my features and that I was attentive.  Silly, really, to find myself so ill at ease with a man, simply because I found him attractive.  Once, when I was much younger, I freed a raccoon from a trap and kept the creature in my father's storage locker in the grocery for a week before he caught me.  I wasn't afraid of the sharp-toothed varmint, or of my father's equally likely sharp-tongued response.  Though actually, in the end, my father had discovered the raccoon before it finished healing and, after some quite voluble exclamations of surprise and not especial pleasure, he'd helped me finish nursing the creature and we'd set it free together along the creek outside town, where it quickly lost itself in the willows.

             
So things aren't always what one expects.

             
"Miss Kathryn, I was wondering if you'd like to take a ride out with me this evening.  I have business in Redding and could escort you to a meal at the hotel, if you'd like."

             
He didn't seem to notice my breathing stopping or the way my heart hammered and my mouth went dry.  He looked more handsome than ever and I felt more empty-headed than usual, afraid of squeaking out acceptance before he'd even finished his question.

             
"It's probably not what you're used to—we have a playhouse of sorts, but nothing like the opera house your sister's spoken of."

             
Not that I'd spent a lot of time going to Piper's in Virginia City, or even to plays in Gold Hill.  Johnny more often took me to see sunsets and for picnics and once, memorably, to visit a den of baby cotton tail rabbits.  All we'd done that afternoon was sit on a dry riverbank where grasses grew and watch the family of rabbits from a distance just far enough away that the mother didn't panic.

             
"It would be a pleasure to accompany you, Mr. McLeod," I said and cursed the blush that had already started. 

             
He smiled, then, a long, slow smile that sent my heart racing, and said he'd call for me late afternoon before he put his hat back on and tipped it to me, then to Sarah, who was coming up past him carrying handfuls of carrots and broccoli.  "Ma'am," he said to Sarah, as if they hadn't just been discussing livestock and water rights in the dooryard hours earlier.

             
Sarah nodded after him and gave me a curious look as she handed me off greens for the calves that were already nosing round my skirt.

             
"What did Mr. McLeod want?" 

             
Sarah trying to sound casual is Sarah desperately wanting to know something.

             
"He asked me to accompany him to Redding this evening, for a meal," I said, trying not to sound as if my heart was skipping and I wanted to.

             
Sarah didn't say anything and, when I turned, she was frowning hard at the smallest of the calves, which was doing its best to eat all of the lettuce she held.

             
"Sare?"

             
Her brow smoothed and she nodded without looking at me.  "I have no objection to you accompanying Mr. McLeod," she said, and I certainly hadn't thought to ask her permission or even consult her about what I was doing.  "But be careful, Kitty."

             
Of my heart?  My honor?  No, because, with the latter, she'd have told me and with the former, she had no way of knowing how it turned.

             
"He—"  She started, stopped, looked at me and then looked out of the barn from where there was shouting and commotion as William and Mike returned from the farther pastures.  She gave the calves the rest of the greens and started for the men.

             
"Sarah?  Mr. McLeod?"

             
She looked back, backlit by the sun as Robert had been, her dark hair curling wildly in the heat.  For an instant, I didn't think she was going to answer, then she said, "He isn't constant, Kitty.  And I don’t want to see you get hurt."