Forget Me Not (15 page)

J.D. gave Josephine a glance. Her uneasiness was readable in the expression on her pale face. Rather than make any atonements for his outburst, he kept quiet about what had just transpired between him and Boots. It was nothing he cared to elaborate on for her, anyway. “Are you still set on taking the sagebrush route?” J.D. asked after an eternal few seconds of silence.

“It's the shortest way.”

“I reckon throughout this drive you'll be taking the shortest way.”

“Y'all reckoned right.”

“Then I've got to ask Miss Whittaker if she feels safe traveling with you.” At the mention of her name, Josephine's chin rose. “If she doesn't, she'll ride with me.”

Josephine's eyes widened, and her mouth opened, then snapped shut. Then she changed her mind and spoke her piece after all. “I don't think riding on the back of your horse would be comforting to either of us. I'll stay where I am.”

Nodding once, J.D. said tightly, “If you're not at Willow Creek by noon, I'll send Rio after you.”

J.D. spurred Tequila and took off in a smooth lope that turned into a gallop. His outward anger had abated somewhat, but there was still that fury beneath the stoic facade he'd planted on his face. Boots sent him to the limits, more often than not pushing him over the edge. They rubbed each other the wrong way, and he wasn't sure how much longer they could go on fighting before one of them went for the jugular. Boots was undoubtedly mulling over the same thoughts, and J.D. was glad Colt bullets didn't fit in a Remington revolver.

8

T
he ride to Willow Creek had been rough going. Boots made the mules trudge through the gnarled sage. Fragrant gray branches snapped and broke beneath the animals' hooves. Contrary to what Boots had told J.D., there was no trail. At least none that Josephine had seen.

After long, tedious hours of travel, they finally reached the meeting spot at Willow Creek, which was nothing short of a dried-up gully.

Building a cook fire took know-how. Know-how Josephine didn't have. She was forced to rely on Boots. He kept a steady stream of wood coming from a storage bunk beneath the wagon, and she took the initiative to light it. She didn't question him as orange flames climbed skyward in what could only be considered a huge bonfire.

Minutes later, the fire blazed so hot, the sparks erupting from it shot to the canvas on the chuck wagon and began to burn a hole.

“Good gawd!” Boots yelled. “Look at what you did!”

“I
did?” she replied over the roaring din.

A horse and rider bore down on them, just as Josephine looked for something to put the canvas fire
out with. There was a water barrel anchored to the wagon's side, but there was no way she could lift it.

“Get out of the way!” J.D. blared within inches of Josephine, as he threw his leg over the saddle and ran to the water barrel. He grabbed the coffeepot, dunked it, and splashed water over the flames.

Josephine dashed to the front of the wagon and looked for something to help with. A stack of blankets was within her reach. Snatching one, she began to whip the end across the hole that was burning into a large gap.

Between both methods, the fire sizzled to a smoking end. The damage had been kept to a minimum, but a sizable black-edged circle had come precariously close to burning up the back of the chuck's cupboard.

The fire in the cooking pit had calmed down a bit but was still burning so hot that Josephine kept her distance.

J.D. tossed the coffeepot on the ground and stared at Josephine and Boots—who had stood there the entire time without doing a thing. “What happened?”

“She made the fire too big,” Boots quickly offered. “The damn thing burned out of control.”

Josephine bit her tongue. She couldn't fathom why she didn't immediately put the blame where the blame belonged. Perhaps because she saw Boots's hands trembling so badly he had to put them in his trouser pockets to control them.

“Is that true, Josephine?” J.D. asked, his eyes hard like flints.

She hated that she was afraid of the tone he used on her. Even after she'd become a married woman, her father had still been able to make her fearful of his reprimands when he spoke to her in such a way.

The Josephine with backbone who had told J.D. McCall not to call her Cookie had disappeared. Her hard-gained self-command failed, and she reverted back to what she did best.

She apologized.

J.D. swore beneath his breath.

“I've never built an outdoor fire before. I didn't know how much wood to use.”

To her surprise, his anger was no longer directed at her. He vented on Boots. “You were here. You should have stopped her. You've seen Luis light a cook fire a hundred times. You know how it's done.”

Boots licked his lips, sunlight catching on the stubbled gray whiskers on his chin. “I'm not a babysitter.”

“You're not much of anything,” J.D. shot back.

Josephine's shock was probably nothing compared to Boots's. His expression tightened, his face paled, then he stormed off.

She knew what it was like to receive such a belittling remark. If only J.D. knew how much he'd just hurt his father. “You shouldn't have said that,” she caught herself saying. “It was unnecessarily cruel.”

With an oath, J.D. kicked some dirt over the containment rocks holding back the fire. “You don't know the way of things. Stay out of it.”

Josephine concluded that something horrible lay buried between J.D. and Boots. It had to do with two sons who had died during the war. And probably a whole lot more.

At that moment, Rio reached them, his herd of fine-looking horses in tow. He dismounted and stood back to gaze at the damage. Shaking his head, he said, “I reckon dinner won't be hot. That fire won't settle down in time to cook it.”

He was right.

At noon, half the crew came in from the trail expecting a satisfying meal, while the other half stayed to control the herd. Dinner was canned tomatoes, with a side order of curses and even a few mutterings about her being a jinx.

Packing up hadn't taken any time since she hadn't unpacked anything. Rio had repaired the hole in the canvas with a tarp.

The rest of the afternoon, her thoughts wandered from Boots to J.D.

She had never known a man who had as many changing faces as J.D. McCall. He could be hostile one moment and caring the next. She'd witnessed the way he went after Boots, yet she'd watched him softly stroke the ear of his dog. He'd told her to get dressed in her ruined clothes, then given her a set of his. She didn't understand him. She had only truly known the characters of two other men: her father and Hugh. Both had been self-absorbed. Her father had never known the truth about her deceitful marriage. And her mother had died thinking her only child had been blissfully happy.

She wondered if men like Rawhide Abilene existed outside the pages of a book. Men who would risk their all for their love. Men who were daring yet honorable and kind. For Josephine, based on past experience, there just wasn't such a man.

“We're at the bed ground,” Boots said, pulling Josephine out of her musings.

She and Boots hadn't exchanged a single word since leaving the disastrous dinner spot.

“This is where we set up camp for the night.” There was a slight breeze in the air, and Boots grappled to swing the team around so that the wagon would be headed into the wind.

The terrain was rocky and sparse. The sagebrush had thinned, giving way to native bushes she couldn't put a name to. Sparrows flitted about in a stand of hawthorns. The sun began to hang low, though there was at least a good three hours of daylight left. In the near distance, a short range of mountains was cast in a golden hue.

After pulling back on the brake and wrapping the reins around the handle, Boots eased himself to standing. He faltered some, and Josephine automatically put her arm out to steady him. Their eyes locked. To her amazement, he didn't snarl at her to let
go. His fingers felt like parchment in her own as he stamped his feet and shook his legs a little, no doubt ridding himself of the numbness that had set in. She felt it, too, though probably not nearly as much as he did. Letting her go, Boots shifted to the side of the wagon box and let himself down. Once on the ground, he stood back and waited for her. Wordlessly, he extended his own weathered hand to aid her in disembarking.

She took it with the same silence he'd given her, then walked around to get the circulation moving in her own limbs.

Josephine inhaled the sweet air and let her gaze travel in a slow circle as she turned in place. No signs of cattle dust came from any direction, nor was there a single hint of the cowboys who herded them. All she could see was gently rolling land. All she could hear were the sounds of birds and the buzz of insects. It was as if she and Boots were the only two people for a hundred miles.

An unexpected calm claimed Josephine. She never would have guessed, but she
liked
it here. She liked the solitude. The dull greenery. The sky that seemed made especially for her.

She told herself that lunch was over and that there was no sense in worrying about that failure. For dinner, she was going to fix those hungry and tired cowboys a meal they could really appreciate. And even personally hand J.D. McCall his plate. One that she could be proud of. She could do it. She had to prove to all of them that she wasn't a jinx.

But more importantly, she had to prove her worth to herself.

•  •  •

After getting several small fires going, Josephine accidentally stumbled onto leaflets of handwritten recipes that had been stashed in one of the wagon's assorted compartments. She'd been looking for the spices when she came upon the pieces of yellowed
paper marked by oil splotches from grease splatters and various other food stains she didn't recognize. J.D. must have returned the recipes after he'd done his thorough cleaning. They probably belonged to the last cook, Luis.

Josephine skimmed through them. There were some for pies, meats, desserts, and vegetables. Even one for “Best Six Shooter”—which she quickly realized was a code name for coffee. The ingredients for all were listed in large quantities. Elated, Josephine selected several for the evening meal.

Boots had set up the drop table in the back of the wagon, anchoring the leg in a small area of ground he'd leveled. Now she had a counter to use. The first order of business: the stew. Then the sourdough biscuits. Since tackling a pie seemed too overwhelming, she'd opted to attempt a dessert she thought she could make on her own with the dried apples she found in the wagon.

While Boots smoked a cigar and sat on an overturned crate at the fire roasting a plain, fat stick he'd picked up, Josephine set the slab of meat on the clean table and began cutting it into cubes. Her untutored fingers were blundering and clumsy, and she forced herself not to get discouraged. She'd had no practice in this art. Her hands knew how to write a letter in perfect penmanship, to embroider a beautiful border on a handkerchief, and to arrange a lovely bouquet, but they hadn't been trained to work this way. They knew only the labors of decoration and display.

Boots didn't come over to investigate when she dusted each piece of meat—fifteen pounds' worth; she'd weighed the cubes on the scale to make sure she had the designated amount—with flour and pepper. He stayed where he was, stirring the ashes of the fires that were now banked into red-hot coals.

It dawned on her then that everybody had a job outlined for them but Boots. All she had heard was
that he was to drive the wagon. When the wagon wasn't in use, he wasn't in use.

Though Boots's temperament was far from pleasant most times, she was beginning to see that perhaps some of his gruffness was a way to hide his lonely heart. And his failing memory. Apparently, he'd known how to make a fire but had forgotten. That once realized, he'd been afraid. She'd seen it in the tremor of his hands and the stoop of his body.