This Calder Range (37 page)

“What about that new Hereford bull you bought last September? Barnie was by today and said you're keeping it at Mary and Ely's.” Lorna fought to hold the squirming child on her lap as Arthur tried to wiggle free. Her glance swept Benteen with an impatient look. “Can't you at least take your hat off at the table?”

“Sorry.” He removed his hat and hooked it on a chair back.

“I thought you were going to turn that bull out with the cows,” Lorna returned to the subject.

“That bull's too valuable to have one of those range-wild Longhorns kill him in a fight.” Benteen explained his reasons for isolating the purebred. “Ely's going to select a small herd of Western stock to breed to the bull this spring. That way he won't have to compete to have his own private harem.”

“Webb, use your spoon,” Lorna warned when she caught him eating with his hands.

“Don't want to!” He hid his hands behind his back.

“What's gotten into these boys?” Benteen frowned at the pair of defiant youngsters. “Can't you make them behave?”

It was the final spark to set off her temper. Lorna pushed away from the table and shoved a startled Arthur onto Benteen's lap. “Here. You can do everything else by yourself. You might as well raise your own sons!”

While Benteen was still trying to recover from the shock of her unexpected action and hold on to a squealing boy as well, Lorna grabbed her shawl and went storming out of the cabin. Webb started to slide off his chair, crying with alarm, “Mommy!”

“Stay right where you are,” Benteen ordered in a harsh tone that stopped the tears instantly. He sat Arthur on Lorna's chair and stuck a spoon in his hand. “You're old enough to feed yourself.” Then he stood up and pointed a warning finger at the two shocked and silent youngsters, staring at him with rounded brown eyes. “Eat your supper and neither of you move.”

Long, angry strides carried him to the door Lorna had so recently slammed. Before he stepped outside, he sent one last look at his silent and unmoving sons, then closed the door behind him. Almost immediately he saw Lorna huddled against the corner of the cabin, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. The rage that had filled him when she had walked out the door faded. She hadn't really left him and the boys. He came up behind her, his hands closing on her shoulders with a kind of fierceness.

“My God, what was the idea of walking out like that?” Benteen muttered thickly with relief. “Where did you think you were going?”

“It hardly matters, since I didn't go very far.” Her voice quavered.

“You'd better come back inside. It's cool out here,” he said.

“No. I don't want to go back in there yet.” Lorna resisted his mild attempt to turn her around.

“I think you have a bad case of cabin fever,” Benteen guessed.

She whirled around at the faint smile in his tone and faced him, all angry defiance and trembling resentment again. “That shouldn't come as a surprise. What else do I see but those four walls? I don't have anyone to talk to all day long but two little boys who can't even talk well. Every day it's the same thing. I cook, clean, and
sew, haul water, wash clothes, and keep the boys out of mischief.” Her chin was quivering. “I swore I wouldn't let this land get to me. I swore I wouldn't end up like that woman in Kansas. I was going to work and help us build a future here.”

“That's what your doing,” Benteen assured her when she turned away and sank her teeth into her lower lip.

But his reply angered her instead. “How?” Lorna challenged. “By cooking your meals, taking care of your sons, and sleeping in the same bed with you! You can hire people to do that. It's obvious that's all you want from a wife.”

His gaze narrowed in bewilderment. “I don't understand you.”

“I think that's the problem. You don't,” she agreed. “You leave in the morning and never tell me where you're going. You come back at night and never tell me where you've been or what you've been doing.”

“I suppose I have Mary to thank for this, because Ely talks everything over with her.” Impatience rippled through him. “I make the decisions in this family.”

“Without talking it over with me. I have absolutely no say in what happens. I don't even
know
what's happening.”

“Why are you bringing this up now?” he demanded. “Why has it become so important all of a sudden?”

“Maybe because I was too busy when the babies were small to realize how little I knew about what was going on,” Lorna suggested. “In case you haven't noticed, this happens to be the first winter I haven't been pregnant.”

“If it's going to keep you from becoming a nagging wife, maybe we ought to change that,” he snapped.

“I'll bet you'd like it if I calved every spring like one of your cows. Or do you want to keep me pregnant so I can't leave you?” The bitter accusation was a cruel one. Lorna instantly wanted to bite back the words. “I'm sorry, Benteen. I didn't mean that.” She tried to retract them, but he stood rigidly in front of her, no expression
showing on his hard features. “Benteen, you have to believe me. I love you too much to ever leave you. I am not like your mother.”

“I left the boys alone,” he said. “We'd better go inside and finish our supper.”

“No.” Lorna stood her ground, searching his unrelenting features. “All I want is for you to share your life with me. And I'm not taking one step until you tell me you believe that.”

He looked at her for a long second, then scooped her off the ground and into his arms. “Believe this, Lorna,” he said. “I'm never going to give you the chance to leave me.”

Despite the possessive ring in his voice, it wasn't the answer she wanted. She knew, without being told in so many words, that he didn't want to need her. There was a part of him that didn't want to love her. That's why he allowed her to occupy only a small space in his life and not the whole of it. But she wasn't going to let it continue, even if it meant becoming a nag or a shrew.

Spring was twice as busy that year. The mild winter had given them a good calf crop. That and the continuing boom in the cattle market convinced Benteen to begin the construction of the house on the knoll. In addition to the branding crews, he hired men to dig the footings and ordered lumber from the mill. A well was drilled to supply the house with running water, and a crew of carpenters was hired.

The house began to take shape right before Lorna's eyes. It was going to be more magnificent than she had dreamed it would be. Benteen consulted her on just about every detail. She was too excited by all their plans and the sight of the mushrooming structure to notice that he failed to keep her abreast of happenings elsewhere on the ranch. There were wall coverings to be chosen, furniture to be picked out, and draperies to be selected, carpets for the floors, and fixtures in the house. All of it had to be ordered and shipped in viatrain,
steamboat, and finally freight wagon. If they were lucky, it would arrive when the house was finished.

When Jessie Trumbo arrived in late July with another herd of Longhorns from Texas, he beheld the sight of the two-story structure towering up from the plains. It was merely the outer shell, but it gave him quite a start.

Fat Frank Fitzsimmons lifted the stopper covering the container and squeezed his pudgy hand through the opening to take out two pieces of peppermint sticks. There was a twinkle in his eye as he turned to Lorna.

“It sure is a shame there aren't two good little boys in my store that I could give this candy to,” he declared, and deliberately ignored the two boys that, a second ago, had been pushing at each other.

“I'm good,” Webb piped up immediately.

Little Arthur stuck a finger in his mouth and blinked at the fat man with wide-eyed innocence. “Dood,” he affirmed, despite the finger in his mouth.

“Well…” The proprietor hesitated for a minute more under the anxious looks from the boys. “I guess you have been pretty good.” He was too fat to bend over, so he leaned downward and gave a piece of candy to each of them.

“What do you say to Mr. Fitzsimmons?” Lorna prompted.

“Thank you.” Webb had to take the stick out of his mouth to respond.

Little Arthur didn't think it was necessary. “T'ank oo.”

“You're welcome.” The fat man beamed and helped himself to a stick of peppermint before he covered the jar. “I'm still a little boy myself—a growing one.” He patted his stomach and laughed.

“I don't think you should give them candy every time we come in,” Lorna protested mildly. “They'll start expecting it.”

“And they'll always want to come to
my
store when you shop. Bribe the youngsters and get their parents' trade.” He declared his motive openly.

“You have certainly expanded since I was here in the spring,” Lorna remarked, and glanced around at the improvements he'd made. A second room had been added on, which was now the saloon area and separate from the store. There were glass windows in the front and shelves to hold his goods. It seemed she could never enter a general store without judging it according to her father's.

“From what I've heard, you and your husband have been doing some building, too.” He began packing her purchases in a box.

“Yes, we are building a home.” She tried not to sound too proud.

“A mansion, by all accounts,” he chided her modesty.

“It certainly seems huge compared to the one-room log cabin we're living in now.”

“When will it be finished?”

“I was hoping we could celebrate Christmas in it, but I doubt if the furniture will arrive by then. We plan to move into it sometime this winter.”

“It's only fitting that you and your husband have a grand home,” Frank Fitzsimmons assured her. “Your husband is bull of the woods around here. I hear he's running upwards of twenty thousand cows on his range.”

“Really,” Lorna murmured, unaware the number was so large. She opened her cloth purse. “How much do I owe you?”

“I'll just put it on your account,” he replied.

She hadn't known Benteen had set up an account at the store. It was something else he had omitted telling her, but she didn't let on to the storekeeper.

“Of course.” She smiled thinly.

“I'll carry this out to the wagon for you.” The fat-man
picked up the box, puffing at the slightest exertion, and waddled out from behind the counter. “Did someone ride in with you?”

“Yes. Mr. Willis is at the smithy's. One of the team threw a shoe on the way here,” Lorna explained why Woolie wasn't with her now. She turned to the two boys, busily sucking on their candy. “Come on, boys. Let's go outside to the wagon.”

In addition to the general store and saloon, the town of Blue Moon boasted a blacksmith's and wheelwright's shop, too, and two cabins to house the Fitzsimmons family and the smithy—a man named Dan Long. Traffic had worn away the grass in front of the two businesses, exposing the hard earth and creating a short street of sorts. Three sets of rutted tracks fanned out from it and disappeared over the rolling plains.

Their wagon stood outside, with only one horse standing in the traces. A blacksmith's hammer sounded out rhythmically in the summer afternoon.

“If you would put the box in the wagon, Mr. Fitzsimmons,” Lorna requested, “I'll let Mr. Willis know that we can leave whenever he's ready.”

“Of course, Mrs. Calder,” he agreed.

While he puffed his way to the back of the wagon, Lorna took Arthur by the hand to walk to the blacksmith's shop. Webb skipped a few paces ahead of her, then stopped abruptly to point.

“Look at that wagon, Mommy!”

“It's a carriage, not a wagon,” she corrected, seeing it almost at the same moment her son did. It was a fancy carriage, too, all enclosed and brightly painted. She had not seen anything remotely like it since leaving Texas. It more than piqued her curiosity.

“What's a carriage?” Webb frowned.

She laughed at his question. “You're looking at one.”

“Oh,” he said, and ran ahead for a closer look.

It gave Lorna an excellent excuse to satisfy her curiosity and venture nearer after Webb instead of
going directly to find Woolie Willis. A pair of matched sorrels with flaxen mane and tail were in the corral adjoining the smithy's shop. They had to be the team that pulled the exquisitely built carriage. Lorna had a glimpse of seats covered with red leather, but Webb was trying to climb inside to see what it was like.

“You mustn't climb on other people's property,” she admonished, and dragged him from the step-up.

“But I wanta see inside,” he protested.

She heard footsteps coming around the carriage and saw a pair of booted feet before the man walked out from behind the vehicle. Her eyes widened in surprise, because she had expected it to be the owner of the carriage. Instead it was Bull Giles.

“Mr. Giles.” She smiled widely in recognition. “It's good to see you again.”

“Lorna.” He took off his hat and held it in front of him. He seemed to stare at her for the longest time.

She was a little shaken by the raw yearning in his eyes and the liberty he had taken by using her given name. She tried to cover the sudden awkwardness she felt. “Did you just arrive from Texas with another herd?”

Bull Giles seemed to straighten a little, and the look went away. “No. As a matter of fact, I didn't leave last fall.”

“You didn't? I hadn't seen you in some time, so I just supposed …” She was at a loss for something to say.

“I saw your husband here last fall. Didn't he mention it to you?” He knew the answer even as he asked the question.

“He must have forgotten,” Lorna weakly tried to defend Benteen.

“I'm sure he did,” Bull Giles agreed dryly.