Rebellion in the Valley (9 page)

Or better yet, how about that danged
Tobias?

P

Richard gave one more glance into the sink
filled with dirty dishes, thankful there weren’t any more than
that. He knew that once he finally had some warm water to suds up
with his lye soap, he would first have to let them soak an hour
before he could scrub them down. ‘Dried-on egg is a beast’, he
grumbled without anyone hearing him. Just as the older man turned
around, he heard the sound of Hailee laughing outside.

Glancing out the window, he couldn’t help but
notice that Tobias was the reason she was having such a good time
out there. Shaking his head, a smirk found its way to his face; he
ran a finger over his eyelid to care for an itch and chuckled at
the way those two got along so well.

“And what’s so comical,” Bruce wanted to know
as he came in for an old rag to clean his rifle with.

Richard finished the chuckling and nodded his
head toward the window. “Those two,” he indicated with a tug of his
thumb. “They’re at it again.”

Hailee raced around the laundry-drying line,
threatening to toss her handmade wicker basket at Tobias, who was
threatening in equal measure to yank her wet dress off the
line.

Of course, he never would have done such a
thing to Hailee, and she knew that. Once she allowed him to catch
her, she let out a squeal for his reward.

“C’mon,” Tobias told her over the top of her
thick blonde curls. “I’ll help you finish this up.”

Bruce watched the pair work together, tugging
on Hailee’s dress as they straightened all the ruffles and gathers
so it would dry tight. She did like her ruffles tight, he grinned
before the words that Gus told him came full circle back into his
mind.

Could Tobias really be sweet on his
Hailee?

Before wrapping his mind around that question
much more, the dust trail of hooves caught his sight just over the
other side of the hill and diverted Bruce’s attention; it was
Duffy, he finally figured out.

Bruce motioned for Richard to come closer.
“Get some oil lamps out, just in case we hit a snag on fixing your
water pump. I want it done by the time anyone hits the pillow
tonight,” Bruce assured his old friend with a hearty pat on the
back.

Disguising the way he felt about how long
Duffy had been gone, Bruce made his way outside, waved at the man
on horseback and smiled.

Chapter 8

H
er
father’s favorite wing back chair cradled her lower back and eased
the tension she felt at the base of her neck. Even after a bath in
the creek, the general disgruntled atmosphere around the ranch
caused everyone to be on higher than usual alert. What was wrong
with Duffy these days, anyhow?

With eyes fixed straight ahead into the
fireplace, Hailee’s intention had been to focus on the new book she
bought in Canon City, but found no concentration for anything
except the man who stood outside. The man she found herself staring
at through the window. The man leaning up against the loaded down
wagon and discussing the best route to take in the morning.

The man who found himself glancing back
inside the window at the pretty blonde sitting in front of the
fireplace…the girl with the glow of soft flames against her
face…the girl he would rather be talking with right now, than a
bunch of foul-smelling men who best be bathing tonight before they
all head out together in the early morning hours.

Hailee slid a lavender-scented bookmark into
the book, flipped the cover and set it down on the round table on
top of the snow-white doily her grandmother had tatted a lifetime
ago, then lifted herself from the chair and made her way to large
picture window overlooking the majority of the ranch.

Her eyes fell right into focus on the group
of men as they ironed out the last details for their departure, and
she wondered what Tobias found so comical as he flashed his teeth a
couple of times in response to what she assumed was men-talk; he
held out a hand and motioned toward Puma Canyon before the crowd of
ranch hands shook hands and dispersed, each one moving toward his
respective bunk house.

The girl allowed her eyes to narrow as she
watched Tobias linger at the wagon and tend to tightening down one
of the ropes. As the last man fell into shadows, Hailee saw Tobias
shove a hand into his leather coat pocket and pull out a piece of
paper that he unfolded, read, and placed inside an envelope.
Glancing over his shoulder, Tobias made his way to the front porch
and her pulse quickened; would he come inside the house so late at
night?

When he paused at the porch railing and
slipped the envelope under a flower pot before turning and
whistling all the way back to his bunk house, she tilted her head
out of curiosity. He was grinning ear to ear.

She had only been inside his bunkhouse one
time. Her father explained to her later that it was probably not
appropriate for her to have been in there, but Bruce couldn’t be
angry with either of them; Tobias had simply shown her a winter
blanket in need of mending and wanted her opinion about the matter.
Hailee had to make a full confession to the man, which was the fact
that couldn’t sew a lick.

“I can crochet a mile a minute and have even
begun to knit some, but you sit a mending basket in front of me and
you’re likely to be running naked before I’d even think about
looking into it!,” she laughed.

That's when the books caught her
attention.

“You’re a reader!” she accused in an excited
tone.

Tobias ran a hand through his hair and nodded
before he had time to think about it.

“Yeah, I like to read right before I blow the
candle out at night; read most of these a few times each, but
that’s alright, I guess.”

Hailee’s eyes ran over the titles.
Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, followed by a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
and next to that book, stood one that she never even heard of
before.

She ran a finger over the spine.

“John Rollin Ridge? Who is that?”

He grinned. It was one of his favorites.

“He’s actually an Indian. Cherokee. The man
wrote about his own life, told his own story the way he wanted it
told, before anyone else had the jump on it. Pretty clever,
wouldn’t ya say? I read somewhere that he was born and raised in
the heart of the Cherokee Land in Georgia, right in New Echota
itself.”

Hailee nodded. She’d remembered something or
another about the place when she was still in school, but the
teacher hadn’t spent much time on the subject.

“He walked a hard life, saw things a man
shouldn’t have to see,” Tobias told her with a twist in his eye. “I
like books that tell a story the everyday man can understand and
take to heart; the other books over there,” he told her with a jerk
of the thumb to the side where Hawthorne and Dickens were housed,
“don’t get to me like these over here,” referencing a few of his
more tattered books, such as The Last of the Mohicans.

Hailee nodded; she knew what he meant.

“I just don’t get those fancy pants boys who
live in Paris and whatnot. They’ve never done a decent day’s worth
of work, I bet. Shoot,” he told her as his hand ran back through
his wavy mop, “it’s not their fault they weren’t born in the
Valley, so it’s not really like I got something’ against ‘em, ya
see. I just don’t understand them.”

Allowing herself to take in his abode a bit
closer, she noticed how tidy he kept his home. When did he have the
time to clean it? It was something she had never given any thought
to until that day – the man her heart ached for stooped over a
bedchamber pot or a messy floor, food crumbles underfoot.

The two of them talked about books and story
lines until her father found them together in the bunk house.

The minute Bruce heard their voices from
inside the bunk house, he stood frozen to the ground, leaning over
to get a listen at their conversation. He’d stood outside just long
enough to become comfortable before knocking on Tobias’ door.

The girl’s father was even more pleased when
he poked his head in, finding Tobias keeping his distance from
Hailee at a respectful pace.

With her thoughts wandering off, so did
Tobias. Before she knew it, the man disappeared into the evening
air. She squinted out the window to see if she could catch one last
glimpse of the man, but only caught her own breath fogging over the
image of the flower pot on the porch railing; all she could see in
the near distance was the occasional flicker of a lightening
bug.

He was gone.

“How far are you?”

Startled, she turned her face to the sound of
the familiar voice.

“Daddy! You scared me! What did you say?”

He pointed to the book.

“How far are you? Isn’t that one of those new
story books you bought?”

Nodding, she answered. “Yes, it is…but Daddy,
I can’t read the night before you leave the ranch; do you even how
long you’ll be away?”

Bruce shook his head and grimaced.

“No way of knowing, not really. I guess we’ll
be gone til we get us a cat; could be a few days, but it’s possible
it’ll be more than that.”

He grabbed the cast iron poker Gus made the
family as a gift a couple of years back and budged a smaller log on
top of the burning mass, reached over and pulled another log into
his arms from the iron ring next to the fireplace.

Rolling it into the burning center of the
fireplace, Bruce added, “I bet you won’t even miss me, I’ll be back
so fast!”

“Not true! And not funny, either,” Hailee
pouted. “I know that thing has to be found, but I guess I was
hoping he’d come and give himself up or something, “ she
teased.

For a fact, that girl hated it whenever her
father had to leave on any kind of ranch business. He hadn’t had to
leave without her very many times, but she disliked it every time
that he did.

Not that she wanted to go with him this time.
She rather enjoyed her soft bed with the blankets. And a
pillow.

Glancing at the book still on the catalog
table, Hailee knew she wouldn’t be able to read any more of it
tonight.

“I just wish I knew how long you were going
to be gone, Daddy,” she told him, standing up and wrapping her arms
around him. “I miss you when you’re not here.”

“So let’s make the most of the time we have
before I have to go,” he suggested.

Opting to sit down at the chess table in the
corner, she vowed to win this time.

Chapter 9

R
ubbing the sunlight from her eyes, Hailee dressed in such a
rush, she discovered crooked buttons running down the front of
herself; unbuttoning her dress and smock in order to dress
properly, she opted to skip over her morning routine of face
washing and ran down the staircase, fearing she had missed the men
already and would not even have the chance to say
goodbye.

Most of the men had either already eaten and
were strapping their horses down or were going about the daily
chores of ranch life; her eyes darted around for her father or
Tobias, the only two she cared about at the moment.

A smile emerged and Hailee felt relief
trickle through her veins when she caught sight of her father
making his way toward the barn.

“Daddy!” she called out to him.

He turned and held out his arms for the hug
he knew was coming his way.

“I was afraid you had already gone,” she
informed him when his strong arms wrapped around her untied
hair.

“I would have woken you up, Darlin',” he
replied. “Want to help me get ready to go?”

“No. If not helping you means you’ll
stay.”

He cocked his head to one side and looked
down at her with father’s eyes. He understood.

Resigned to do whatever he asked of her, the
girl sighed.

“What do you want me to do?”

Before the man could even begin to think of
an early-morning chore to assign his daughter, he spied Tobias in
his regular morning routine of toting firewood into the
kitchen.

“I guess you could hold the door open for
Tobias,” he chuckled.

Hailee smiled. Sure, she could do that!

She yanked up on her dress and scooted on
back toward the main house, landing at the kitchen door just an
instant before Tobias reached out for the door handle.

“I got it!”

The log-laden man peered around the firewood
and thanked her, but before either of them could even give a good
morning greeting, they overheard Bruce cussing in the barn.

“Ah, dang burned it!” he hollered out.

They heard the sound of a milk bucket being
kicked across the barn and made a face at each other.

Duffy had just rounded the side of the barn
and dropped his load to find out what the commotion was all
about.

When the three reached the barn entrance, it
didnt take long to figure out what the commotion was all about;
black and white fur tainted with blood. Lots of blood. The goat’s
neck had been ripped wide open and from the look of the rest of the
body, the meal had been a grand one.

“It wasn’t a cat, Boss,” Tobias told him,
full aware that every person standing there knew the habits of the
predators that sneaked their ways into the Red Bone Ranch. “We know
cats take the meal off and eat it; this had to be a dog. Wolf,
maybe?”

He shook his head at the sick look on
Hailee's face, but the girl had seen her fair share of blood living
on a ranch. She could get through the next few minutes well
enough.

“Dang burned it,” Bruce repeated. “We can’t
keep losing animals this way! Gonna have to kill off that cat and
whatever else gets in here,” he told whoever was listening. “Well,
boys, good thing we decided to head off this morning; this mess
isn’t going to just up and go away all by itself.”