I'm Off to Montana for to Throw the Hoolihan (Code of the West) (3 page)

The wide, expansive Montana sky streaked gold as the se
tting sun reflected off high, thin clouds. The air chilled considerably when the travelers climbed to higher ground. All three huddled under blankets.

Tap startled Pepper and Angelita from their slumber. “There’s some of our cows.”

“Are we almost there?” Angelita asked.

“Over that next knoll.”

“Do the cows just hang around the barn?” Pepper asked.

“No, we’ll move them down to the river range in a week or so. I told Lorenzo to keep them up here until they got the lay of the land.”

The wagon rolled up the crest of the hill and began a gradual descent.

“I see it,” Angelita squealed. “Look, there it is. Is that it? That our ranch?”

“That’s it, lil’ darlin’.”

“It’s big, really big. Look at all those buildings. I love it! Do you love it, Mrs. Andrews—I mean, Mama?” Angelita gulped down her final words.

“It’s wonderful. Just like I imagined. Although at the moment any shack with a soft, clean bed would seem like heaven.”

Tap veered the wagon down the rutted lane.

“Why does Lorenzo have so many cows in the corrals when there is all this grass for them to graze on?” Pepper asked.

“Corrals?” Tap peered up at the headquarters. “We don’t have any corrals except some little ones for horses.”

“It looks like a split-rail fence all around the buildings,” she insisted.

Tap stopped the wagon and stood up. “But that’s just a fence to keep the cattle out of the yard.”

“I think there are cows in our front yard,” Angelita remarked.

“What’s goin’ on? The gate must have been left open. Where’s Lorenzo?”

“That’s one way to fertilize the garden.” Pepper stretched her arms and back. “Just get me out of this wagon.”

Tap slapped the reins on the rumps of the driving horses. Gringo and TwoShoes trotted down the slope and up the other side of the draw toward the buildings. At least forty or fifty head of cows wa
ndered around.

I can’t believe this. I wanted everything to be perfect when we came rollin’ up, and Lorenzo leaves the gate down. Come on, you’re a better hand than that.

I’ll get Pepper tucked in the house, and then I’ll mount up Roundhouse and drive them back out on the range.

They pulled through the open gate and around between the barn and the bunkhouse.

“There’s a cow on the porch,” Angelita hollered.

“The front door’s open,” Pepper cried out.

"There’s a cow in there,” Angelita shouted.

“This can’t be,” Tap fumed.

“There are cows tromping around in my home,” Pepper sobbed.

Tap drove the wagon to the front of the house.

“You two wait here,” he ordered. “I’ll check it out.”

Tap reached back, yanked out his rope, and jumped down. He sprinted to the porch. Slapping an indifferent, sta
ring cow in the rump, he hollered, “Hey, yaa! Get! Get on down, cow. Hey, yaa!”

The 900-pound brindle longhorn lumbered down the steps, past the wagon, and turned back to the house. A loud bellow followed.

Tap peered into the house. His square, broad shoulders and lanky frame almost filled the doorway. “I’d shoot you dead, but I couldn’t drag you out of there,” he shouted.

“Who’s in there?” Pepper called out.

Angelita jumped down from the wagon and bounded up the porch and into the house. “There’s a cow in the living room and another in the kitchen. There’s poop everywhere.”

“Watch out, lil’ darlin’, I’m goin’ to chase these two out the front door. Check and see if there are any in the office,” Tap called out.

With shouts and screams, crashes and hooves hammering bare wooden floor, a hemp rope slapped on rumps. Two more mottled cows lumbered out the front door, down the steps, and into the yard.

“Nothing in the office but cow manure," Angelita reported. “I’ll check upstairs.”

“It’s too steep. They wouldn’t go up there,” Tap assured her.

Angelita dashed up the wide stairway, holding her long off-white dress up to her knees.

Tap heard a scream.

“Get out of my room!” Angelita chased a yearling calf with a broom down the stairs, across the living room, and into the yard. “Shoot him. Kill him. He deserves to die. He pooped in my war
drobe closet.”

Tap jogged up the stairs to check out the remaining rooms, then hustled out the front door, slamming it b
ehind him.

Pepper rocked back and forth, trying to ignore the conf
usion around her.

“Angelita, run check the other buildings for cows.” Tap slapped a saddle on Roundhouse. “I don’t want any trouble out of you,” he warned the steel-gray horse. “I just don’t have time.”

Mounting from the right side, the horse didn’t buck. Soon they chased cows back out through the downed gate. Angelita caught up with him just as he pushed the last reluctant bovine into the open pasture.

“You find any more, girl?” Tap shouted down.

“No. The bunkhouse is a bit messy, but all the other buildings look fine. They sure messed up the yard.”

“Can you close that gate? I’ll go check on Mama.”

Tap rode back to the wagon and slid down off Roundhouse, draping the reins over the saddle horn. He climbed up into the wagon next to the silent Pepper. “Well, darlin’, it’s not like I hoped. But we’re home.”

“It dawned on me as I watched you chase cows out of our house I have no idea what it means to live on a big ca
ttle ranch. Does this sort of thing happen often?”

Tap thought he saw a faint sparkle in her eye. “Oh, no, ma’am. I don’t reckon you’ll have cows in the house more than two or three times a year.”

“Oh, good, I thought perhaps it was an everyday occurrence.”

Tap grew serious. “Darlin’, I don’t know what to say. This should never happen, ever. I don’t know what happened to Lorenzo. I don’t know how that gate got left open. And I don’t know who opened the front door to our house. It’s a cinch those cows didn’t.”

Pepper started to laugh, just a muffled chuckle. Then a burst of guffaws. Finally a stampede of deep roars. Followed by a flock of giggles.

“Darlin’, are you okay?” Tap asked.

“I should have known. Why did any of this surprise me? From the day I first met you north of McCurleys’ Hotel, we haven’t had two ordinary, calm, peaceful, boring days in our lives.”

“You braggin’ or complainin’?”

“I just want to know one thing, is there cow dung on my featherbed?”

“Eh, no, ma’am. The bed’s intact and clean, as is the be
droom.”

“Well, sweetheart, I think Lil’ Tap and I will waddle up the stairs and take ourselves a nap. A very long nap.”

2

A
fter eleven shovelfuls of cow manure had been removed, Tap boiled water and tried to scrub up the stains. Even after the sun set, every window and shutter in the house remained flung open. A fire blazed, and vanilla boiled as they attempted to rid the place of its barnlike aroma. Both he and Angelita wore coats and gloves.

“Lil’ darlin’, that’s about the best we can do tonight,” Tap a
nnounced as they examined Angelita’s upstairs room. “If you want to, you can sleep in one of the other bedrooms for the night. I don’t think they smell as bad.”

“It’s my room—my very own room. I want to sleep here.”

“I’m sorry Pepper’s not awake to tuck you in tonight. I do believe she’s going to sleep for a week. I’ll boil some more water and unload the rest of the things in the wagon. You put away your valuables. Holler at me when you’re all fixed up for bed, and I’ll come up and say prayers with you.”

The wagon was parked by the barn, the horses put away for the night, and the bunkhouse fairly well cleaned out. Tap sat in the drafty kitchen, still wearing coat, hat, and gloves, when A
ngelita scooted down the stairs. She wore her long flannel nightgown, dragging a wool blanket wrapped around her shoulders and carrying a big black comb.

“What are you doing?” She pulled a chair up next to him.

“Surmisin’.”

“About what?”

“About what could have happened to Lorenzo.” Tap glanced over at Angelita. “You want a cup of coffee?”

“I’ve told you a thousand times, coffee is not good for gro
wing young ladies. It’s not that long until my birthday.”

“That’s what I keep hearin’. You don’t plan on gettin’ ma
rried when you’re twelve, do you?” he teased.

“Hah! We just move in, and you’re trying to get me ma
rried off. I have a notion to stay right here until I’m thirty.”

“Miss Angelita Gomez, you are hereby invited to stay with Mama and me as many years as you want to. The more, the better.”

“Oh, I know that. You’ve grown attached to my fascinating charm and sparkling personality. It’s beyond your comprehension to think of me being anywhere but here.”

Tap snickered and then sighed. “I wouldn’t have used those exact words, but I catch the drift. How do you come up with phrases like that?”

“Did I say it wrong?”

“How would I know?”

Angelita wrinkled her nose as she pulled a heavy comb through her waist-length black hair. “You know, I’m really, really glad to be here, even if it does smell bad. And I’m very happy you and Mrs. Andrews—you and Mama let me stay with you.”

“We both feel mighty fortunate to have you with us.”

“It was the Lord’s leading, you know.”

“You’re right about that.”

Angelita glanced at the coffee on the stove. “I wish I had some hot milk. When are we going to get a milk cow?”

“I plan on buyin’ one after the weddin’. ’Course we’ve got to find the groom before we can have a weddin’.”

“Maybe he went to see Miss Selena.”

“That could be. But it doesn’t really add up. Maybe it will seem clearer in the mornin’. That’s what I’ve been sittin’ here tryin’ to fi
gure out. Lorenzo’s a good man. He wouldn’t leave the headquarters knowin’ I was due any day now unless it was an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?”

Tap pulled his gloves off and wrapped his fingers around the steaming tin coffee cup. “Only two I can think of . . . either something here on the ranch, like wolves killin’ the cattle. In which case he’ll probably come draggin’ in late tonight.”

“What’s the other?”

“Selena. If she sent word for him to come a runnin’, I reckon he would.”

“But wouldn’t he leave a note or something?”

“That’s one of the things that bothers me.”

“What else bothers you?”

“That yard gate being open and the door to the house left open. Lorenzo wouldn’t do that no matter what the emergency. It don’t figure.”

“You mean, ‘it doesn’t figure.’ The correct word is
doesn’t
.”

Tap grinned. “Nothin’ like havin’ two women in the house to nag at me.”

“Your progress is slow even then.”

“Come on, Angel-girl, I’m goin’ to tuck you in.”

They crossed through the front room and hiked up the stairs hand in hand. “You going to sleep in that big featherbed with Mama?” she asked him.

“Not tonight. I don’t want to take a chance of wakin’ her up. In fact, you and me better figure on cookin’ meals tomo
rrow. Mama and Lil’ Tap are mighty bushed after that long trip up from Pine Bluffs.”

“Why do you always call the baby Lil’ Tap? Do you like boys be
tter than girls?”

“I guess I call him Lil’ Tap because I’ve already got a fasc
inating and charming daughter.” He leaned down and gave her a squeeze.

“Yes.” Her eyes widened with a satisfied sparkle. “I can ce
rtainly see your point.”

“Now come on, you. Let’s thank the good Lord and get you snuggled under them covers.”

“
Those
covers,” Angelita corrected with a musical jingle in her voice.

Around midnight Tap eased off the leather sofa, closed all the windows, and stoked the fire. He lit a kerosene lantern and hiked out to the bunkhouse and then over to the barn to see if Lorenzo Odessa had returned.

He hadn’t.

Tap was up boiling coffee by 4:00
a.m.
He had Roundhouse saddled and ready to ride by daybreak. Holding his spurs in one hand and his hat in the other, he crept quietly up the stairs to Pepper’s room.

For several moments he studied her face, the only part of her not covered by the mountain of blankets.

“Well, Mama,” he sighed, “you are a purdy lady even when you’re ready to deliver.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls.” She didn't open her eyes.

“I didn’t know you were awake.”

“I’ve been awake all night waiting for my husband to come to bed.”