Sweetwater (19 page)

“You’re welcome.” He squeezed her hand gently before he released it.

“Most of all, we thank you for bringing Colleen and Granny. They’re our family now. The girls and I hope they stay with us forever and ever.”

“Don’t be silly, Virginia. Colleen will want to marry someday.” Cassandra rolled her eyes in disgust.

“So will you, but you’ll still be my family.”

“That’s true. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

“I want a word with Whit before I go.” Trell strode toward the school and Whit who was sitting on the doorstone.

“Do you know how to get to my ranch?” Trell asked. Whit nodded. “If Havelshell gets too rough here, and you need to leave, come to me. I’ll get you to people who will know what to do.”

“I not leave teacher now.” He stood straight and proud, his arms folded over his chest.

“If she should need help, come to me.”

Whit nodded.

Trell went back to the group waiting to say good-bye. He had hoped for some private time with Jenny, but that wasn’t to be unless he asked for it. He looked at her face, storing away every feature to bring back and remember on the long ride home.

He said good-bye to Colleen and the girls, thanked Granny for the meals, then looked at Jenny.

“Walk with me a ways?”

Jenny glanced at the others. Cassandra rolled her eyes, winked and murmured, “I told you so.”

Jenny was agonizingly aware of the man at her side. They walked alongside the pole corral, Trell leading his horse. When out of sight of the house he stopped and turned to Jenny. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but her hand was held tightly in his.

“I’ll be back, Jenny. If you should need me during the next few days, send Whit.”

“I will. Are you sure you don’t mind posting my letters?”

“Not at all. I’ve already sent a letter to my half brother, Pack Gallagher in Laramie. I told him what was going on here and asked him to get in touch with Marshal Clive Stark.”

“How can I thank you?”

“Don’t.”

The evening light fell gently on her face, molding it. She had a wistfulness about her tonight. He liked the way she looked and talked. She was a woman, yet she was a girl, too. She was nice and tall and held herself proudly. He wanted more than anything in the world to pull her to him and hold her in his arms as he had done earlier. The moment crackled with tension.

As Trell’s eyes roamed her face, strange feelings stirred in Jenny. Her heart fluttered, and she drew the tip of her tongue across dry lips. She wished that he would hold her and kiss her. The boldness of the thought, the sheer wonder of it happening, sent a thrill of excitement through her.

“Jen … ny, you’re … awfully pretty.”

“Like this?” She laughed nervously and moved her free hand up to smooth her hair.

The shimmer in her eyes and the smile on her soft mouth made him feel shaky inside. He dropped the reins, captured her other hand and pressed both palms to his chest.

“I wish I didn’t have to go.”

“I … wish it, too.”

She looked at him with wide, clear eyes. As if vaporized, Jenny’s thoughts fled, and emotion took over. Forces stronger than she compelled her to sway toward him. Feeling more daring than ever before in her life, she lifted her face to his. Their breaths mingled for an instant before he covered her mouth with his. Although his lips were soft and gentle, they entrapped hers with a fiery heat. There was such a sweet taste to his mouth!

With a leap of joy, Trell realized he had actually kissed this angel of a woman. He could not speak above the sound of his thundering heart. Silently, he held her close, his cheek pressed tightly to hers.

“I’ll watch until you’re back in the house.” His voice came finally in a husky whisper.

“You … must go?” Her hands were still pressed to his chest.

“Yes, but I’ll be back.” He lifted her palm to his lips. “Jenny, I … I don’t usually act so bold—”

“Neither do I. I wanted you to kiss me. It doesn’t have to mean anything unless we want it to.”

“I want it to.” He kissed her again, hard and quick, then dropped her hands and picked up the reins. “I’ll be back—”

He walked with her to the edge of the corral, then mounted his horse. Jenny stood alone. She lifted her hand and waved. He put his heels to his horse.

He looked over his shoulder after he was halfway across the grassland, hoping to see her one last time. She was still standing there, the evening breeze pressing her skirt against her legs.

She lifted her hand again.

Chapter Twelve

“I should stay here with Ike.” Colleen helped Granny up onto the seat of the wagon.

“Why’s that? Ya think I’m too damned old to take care of thin’s here?”

“I don’t think that and you know it.”

“McCall said it warn’t a good idey fer Jenny to go to town by her lonesome. He said no man in his right mind was goin’ to stand up to three armed womenfolk and fer ya to stay together.”

Ike waited for Colleen to climb up the wheel. It was the first time any of them other than Granny had seen her in a dress. She was right pretty, he thought, even with her pa’s gun belt strapped about her waist.

“Trell told me that, too,” Jenny said.

“What he said was, ‘There’s safety in numbers.’” Cassandra chimed in.

“He was countin’ on Colleen drawin’ that six-gun if need be. Said she warn’t no slouch with that rifle a’tall.”

Colleen’s face reddened a little on hearing the compliment and hurried to take the attention from herself.

“Jenny’s pretty handy with that little peashooter she carries in her pocket.”

“Somebody’s going to have to teach
me
to fire a gun,” Cassandra said from where she and Beatrice sat on a box behind the seat.

“Lordy mercy, Cassandra!” Jenny glanced over her shoulder at her sister. “You forget sometimes that you’re a child.”

“You don’t have to be a certain size or age to pull a trigger, Virginia. Boys my age fought in the War. I’m going to ask Trell to give me some shooting lessons like you took at Uncle Noah’s club.”

“We could call ya Cassandra Jane, like that there Calamity Jane.” Colleen took up the reins and slapped them against the back of the team.

“She’s
ugly
! She drives a mule team and wears men’s pants!”

“So do I.” Colleen turned the team and headed down the wagon track toward town. “They’re more comfortable than this darned old skirt.”

“But you’re pretty. Trell thinks you’re pretty, too. I asked him, and he said you were as pretty as a covey of quail. He considered that a compliment. I’d rather be compared to a sunset or a flower than a stupid bird.”

Jenny heard a small chuckle and click of the tongue come from Granny, who was sitting between her and Colleen.
Trell thought Colleen pretty.
Jenny couldn’t fault him for that, but she felt a twinge of jealousy anyway. Today Colleen wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a calico skirt slightly frayed around the bottom. The tight waistband showed off her small waist and generous bosom. Her freshly washed hair was tied back with a ribbon and her suntanned face contrasted becomingly with her light blue eyes.

Jenny was ashamed of the uncomfortable feeling in the region of her heart when she thought of Trell and Colleen. In the short time she had known the Murphys, they had become very dear to her. Colleen deserved a good man like Trellis McCall.
But it was me he kissed!
Jenny adjusted her small-brimmed straw hat and tried not to think of Colleen and Trell together.

She had not dressed to impress the population of Sweetwater as she had done when she went to the Agency store. The two-piece dress she wore today was called a wash suit back in Baltimore. It was made of tan-and-white-striped percale. It was not at all fancy, and she had rolled the sleeves up to her elbows to make it appear to be even less so.

It had not been easy to ride away from the ranch and the school knowing what
could
happen while she was gone. She had expressed these concerns to Whit the night before, and this morning he had appeared at the school with the man who had helped him take out the dam. She had gone to speak to him.

“Be careful, Whit. I’d rather have the schoolroom destroyed again than to have you hurt.”

“I not alone. Others follow.”

“What do you mean?”

“Father’s second wife speak with elders. Others will come to watch school while teacher is away.”

“That’s wonderful. Then the elders are not opposed to the school?”

“They say school is foolish. They do it for Father. He give much meat when they were hungry. He give blankets when they were cold.”

As he spoke a dozen horsemen came out of the woods and stopped at the edge of the clearing. They were fearless, primitive-looking men, some with bows and quivers of arrows on their backs, others with rifles. They stared at Jenny. She knew better than to wave and was uncertain how to acknowledge their presence.

“You do not have to speak to them.” Whit seemed to have read her mind. “They do not expect it from a woman.”

“Well, good! I didn’t know what to say anyway.”

Whit had smiled one of his rare smiles. “Teacher not like Girl-Who-Squawk-Like-Jaybird.”

Thinking about it now, Jenny realized how much she had come to like and depend on Whit. Some way or the other she was going to see that he got the education his father wanted him to have and eventually share with him the homeplace that was his birthright.

To Jenny the landscape seemed even more beautiful than it had been the day they passed through it going to Stoney Creek. The trail ran alongside a stand of tall pines and cedars. The breeze carried their scent and the tweet-tweeting of the birds in their branches. On the other side, a meadow stretched to another stand of pines in the distance and from it came the song of a meadow lark and the cooing of mourning doves.

“I’m thirsty, Cassy.”

“Don’t call me Cassy,
Beatrice.
You just want to drink out of the fruit jar.”

“Jenny—?”

“Give her a drink, Cassandra.”

“Then she’ll want to wet.”

“If she does, we’ll stop.”

“I will never have children when I grow up. Never! Never! Never!”

“You’d make a wonderful mother,” Jenny replied patiently.

“Of course, I would. But I’ll
never
do what you have to do to become a mother. It’s too revolting even to think about.”

Jenny opened her mouth, then closed it. She glanced at Colleen and saw that her lips were pressed tightly together to hold back the laughter.

The town with its rutted streets and plank buildings, fronted with boardwalks, seemed even smaller to Jenny than it had the day they arrived. The street was bare except for a buckboard and a few horses tied at the rails in front of the stores. Oblivious to the stares of the men who occupied the slab benches and the gawkers who paused along the boardwalk, Colleen turned the team into the first side street and stopped. She climbed from the seat and then helped her grandmother.

“This is a town?” Cassandra’s sarcastic remark required no answer as they moved in a group to the corner and stepped up onto the boardwalk. At the door to the mercantile Jenny took a paper from the drawstring purse that hung over her wrist and gave it to Granny.

“This is the list you and Cassandra made out. I need to go to the bank and to the post office. Girls, stay with Colleen and Granny. I’ll not be long.”

Jenny walked purposefully down the walk past the saloon, the restaurant and the hotel, and crossed the street to the bank.

The door was set in the corner of the building, the glass pane decorated with a gold-leaf design. She went up three steps and into the building. A teller in a visor cap looked up from behind the bars that separated them. He pursed his lips as if to whistle, but no sound came out.

“Good morning. I would like to see the bank president.”

“Mornin’.” The clerk stood and leaned his forearms on the teller counter. His black eyes stared at her boldly. His waxed mustache twitched when he spoke. “You’re the Indian teacher, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m Virginia Gray.”

“Figured you was.”

“Now that you know who I am, please tell the bank president that I am here.”

“Not many city women make it as far as Sweetwater.” He ignored her request. “How’er you likin’ it out there at Stoney Creek?”

“I like it just fine.”

“Have you taught the little heathens how to cipher yet? Haw! Haw! Haw!”

Jenny’s face turned icy cold. She lifted her brows and stared him in the eye for a full minute. Words were not necessary. His face slowly began to turn red.

“I can open an account if that’s what you want,” he said trying to recover his bravado.

“I want to see Mr. Norman Held, the president of this bank.”

“Maybe he ain’t here.”

“And maybe he is.” Before he could speak, she turned and walked quickly to the glass-paned door and opened it.

“You … can’t—” the teller stammered.

Jenny ignored him, closed the door, and smiled at the man who rose from the rolltop desk.

“I’m Virginia Gray.” She held out her hand.

“Norman Held, ma’am.” The erect, impeccably dressed, gray-haired man of fifty took her hand, then motioned to a chair. “Please sit down.”

“I’m sure you know who I am and why I am here in Sweetwater, so I will skip over that. I will be writing checks on a bank in Laramie and I’m here to find out if that bank has contacted you.”

“Yes, I had a letter from Gerald Spelling of First Community Bank requesting that I honor your drafts. I understand that you have a substantial amount in your account.”

“Yes, I have. Do I have your assurance that the information is confidential?”

“Absolutely.”

“Would you be kind enough to answer a few questions about the area?”

“Anything, ma’am. I’m at your service.”

“Does the territory have a law-enforcement officer?”

“Federal marshals come in from time to time.”

“Has anything been done to notify the authorities about the murder of Mr. Murphy? He was killed by men who were sent to warn him off Stoney Creek land.”

“It’s my understanding the killing was not murder, but a matter of self-defense.”