This Calder Range (9 page)

“Will you have dinner with us tonight?” she asked, not wanting him to leave her now that he had returned.

“I need to get back and check on the herd,” he refused gently, then promised, “I'll be in town tomorrow. I'll see you then.”

He assisted her into the buggy. This time, he climbed onto the seat beside her, taking the reins and driving the horse to the Pearce house.

On a trail drive the cook was second in importance only to the trail boss. Most of the drovers considered him to be more important, especially if he knew how to cook. Besides fixing the meals and keeping a pot of hot, strong coffee going all the time, he doctored men and horses, was entrusted with personal belongings and money, pulled teeth on occasion, and trimmed hair. The cook could make life pleasant on the drive or turn it into sheer hell.

There was only one man Benteen wanted—a cantankerous old sea dog who claimed to have been the personal cook of an admiral. His name had long been forgotten, probably even by him, ever since a cowboy had claimed that his coffee tasted “rusty.” “Rusty” emptied the pot on the cowboy's head. No one ever made the mistake of claiming his coffee was rusty again, but the name stuck.

Rusty had been cook on two of the outfits Benteen had bossed. He allowed himself to be persuaded to accept Benteen's offer to trail with him a third time. He claimed that it wasn't that he liked working for Benteen so much as it was a desire to see the Montana Territory, blaming the wanderlust in his soul.

Together Rusty and Benteen picked out the chuck wagon, since it would be Rusty's domain for the next few months. The man who sold it gave Benteen the name of a man who had a covered wagon for sale. He slipped the piece of paper in his pocket and walked over to Pearce's Emporium with Rusty.

After he had introduced Rusty to Arthur Pearce, he explained to Lorna's father, “Rusty is the cook for my outfit. He'll tell you what provisions he needs. I'll be back later to pay for them.”

The quickest way to get on the wrong foot with Rusty was to tell him how many pounds of flour, kegs of molasses, jars of vinegar, pounds of sugar, bacon, and assorted items he'd need. So Benteen gave Rusty the authority to purchase what he felt he needed.

“Lorna asked me to tell you, if I saw you today, that she wanted to talk to you,” her father passed along the message.

“A man named Davies has a wagon for sale. I'm going to see him first, then I'll ride over to the house to see Lorna,” Benteen agreed.

“She won't be home this afternoon,” Arthur Pearce quickly corrected that impression. “She and my wife are going to the milliner's shop this afternoon to pick up her wedding veil. Then they were stopping by the church to speak with the minister.”

Amusement lightened Benteen's eyes. “What am I supposed to do? Run all over town trying to catch up with her?” He shook his head at the vagaries of the female sex.

“I'm just passing on the message.” Arthur Pearce smiled in understanding.

Leaving the store, Benteen first went in search of the man who had the wagon for sale. There seemed to be a never-ending number of things to buy. His pockets kept getting lighter.

The wagon was needed to carry the items for their new home in Montana as well as personal possessions. Also it would afford Lorna some privacy and the luxury of a bed. He didn't expect her to rough it like the rest of them.

After the wagon, Benteen still needed to buy another twenty head or so of horses. He wasn't comfortable with less than eighty horses in the remuda. Yates was
wrangling for him and claimed to have found a fair-looking group to finish out the string. More money spent, not to mention the wages to the boys on the cowhunt. When he had started putting his plans in motion, eleven hundred dollars had looked like an ample amount of money to fund the drive. Now Benteen wished he'd taken the extra time last spring to catch another twenty head of wild cattle to throw in with the Ten Bar herd he'd trailed to Wyoming for Boston, instead of settling for just thirty steers of his own. He'd have two or three hundred dollars more to play with now.

It was a good thing he planned to sell some of the steers from the herd when they reached Dodge City, provided the beef prices were respectable. He'd need the money to pay off the drovers when they reached Montana Territory. He wondered briefly about Barnie and how the winter had been. The knowledge Barnie gained with one Montana winter behind him would be invaluable, come the next.

Benteen weaved his way across the street, dodging horse-drawn wagons and galloping riders. The dust constantly swirled about him, kicked up by hooves and wheels. The livery stable was just ahead. Benteen could see it through the haze of mixing dust and people.

The clang of a blacksmith's hammer banging a horseshoe into shape added to the din of the streets. As Benteen neared the stable, he saw the gimpy-legged man holding a bald-faced roan for the shoer. He angled toward the blacksmith's lean-to.

“Hey, Stoney,” he greeted the man.

“Hey, Benteen.” Stoney raised a hand to him. “Sad thing about your pa. Heard yore gonna be pullin' out soon.”

“Three days.” That was his plan.

“Right after the weddin', huh?” Stoney grinned, a ribald twinkle lighting his eyes. “Think you'll be in condition to fork a horse?”

Benteen smiled and let the comment pass without reply. “I heard a man named Davies had a wagon for sale.”

“Yep.” Stoney nodded and yanked on the horse's head when it started to fuss at the smithy's approach. “Another one of them farmers,” he said, and spit into the dust. “They're getting thick up north. Heard they was fencin' in the water.”

“Is that a fact?” He filed the information away, part of the storehouse of knowledge about trail conditions. Trail drives went from one watering hole to the next. “What about the wagon?”

“It's over behind the barn,” Stoney replied, gesturing toward the stable with his head. “Davies left it here. He's hopin' to sell it to get seed money. I told him he should pack his things and move on. They're a stubborn bunch, those farmers.”

“What kind of condition is it in?” Benteen was going to look for himself, but it never hurt to ask.

“Hell, it's like new. He brought it from Kansas. Swears he'll never go back.” Stoney chuckled. “Can't blame him.”

“I'm gonna take a look at his wagon,” Benteen stated.

“It'll go cheap. Like I said, the fool needs money for seed.”

Benteen could use a bargain. Crossing to the corral, he started to hop the rail and cut through to the rear of the stable. He thought he heard someone call his name, but there was so much racket in the streets it was hard to be sure. He glanced around.

“Hey! Calder!” A wagon rattled toward the stables, a man and woman perched on its seat.

Benteen stepped back on the hard-packed ground as he recognized Ely Stanton. Ely whoaed the pair of horses to a stop in front of the stable and set the brake.

“Howdy, Ely.” Benteen greeted the man and touched his hat, nodding respectfully to the woman sitting beside him.

“I was just coming into town to look for you.” Ely was smiling, a rare occurrence in Benteen's memory. “This is my wife, Mary. I don't think you've met her. This is Mr. Calder, honey.”

“I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. Stanton,” Benteen responded to the introduction.

“It's an honor, Mr. Calder,” she replied. She was a plain-looking woman, strong with a no-nonsense air about her. She was the kind who could wind up henpeckin' a man if he wasn't careful. But there was a solidness about her, too, that Benteen liked. “Mr. Stanton has told me a great deal about you. If only half of it was true, you must be quite a man.”

Ely sent her an impatient look to shush up, but Benteen chuckled at the bluntness of the woman—after all, he wasn't married to her. Mary Stanton wasn't about to be intimidated by a man's superiority.

“Ely has mentioned you several times, too,” Benteen replied, and the woman looked a little uneasy, as if her outspoken nature was a trait that her husband found objectionable, but she concealed her feelings well.

“I came to tell you that I have decided to take you up on the offer for Mary and me to travel with you on the drive,” Ely stated, putting a little bit of emphasis on his role in the decision-making process, asserting his position as head of the house.

“But only as far as Dodge City,” Mary inserted. “From there, we're going to Iowa, where I have relatives.”

“Ely mentioned that before,” Benteen assured her, but suspected Ely wasn't in favor of that journey. Benteen hated to see a man with Ely's cow sense turn to dirt farming, but it wasn't his life.

“I just wanted to be sure you understood.” But her reply was directed more to her husband than to Benteen.

“I do.” He pretended to be unaware of the interchange between husband and wife. “We're planning to
pull out in three days. You and your wife are welcome to join up with the herd whenever you get loaded up.”

“We'll be there the day after tomorrow,” Ely stated, and his wife didn't dispute it.

“Benteen!”

He recognized Lorna's voice and pivoted. A smile broke over his features when he saw her wave to him from the middle of the street where she waited with her mother for a buckboard to pass. He had a tantalizing glimpse of a well-turned ankle as she lifted her skirts to hurry a few steps out of the way of another horse-drawn vehicle. There was a silent groan inside him at the thought of waiting two more days before she belonged to him, and there would be no more “glimpses” of things.

“Hello.” For all her ladylike demeanor, there was a vivid sparkle in her brown eyes. “We stopped by the store on our way to the millinery shop. Daddy said you were coming over here.”

“I came to see about a wagon to haul all of your ‘precious cargo,'” he said mockingly, referring to all the embroidered linens and household articles she had accumulated for their new home.

“It had better be a big one.” Lorna smiled.

He tucked a hand under her elbow and turned her to face the Stanton wagon. “Lorna, I'd like you to meet Ely Stanton and his wife, Mary. They'll be traveling with us part of the way.” Then he reversed the introductions. “This is my fiancée, Lorna Pearce, and her mother, Mrs. Clara Pearce.”

Benteen was too busy watching Lorna to notice how subdued Mary Stanton was during the exchange of greetings.

“You didn't mention there would be another couple traveling with you and Lorna,” Clara Pearce remarked, pleased by the turn of events.

“The decision was recent,” he admitted. “But I thought Lorna might like the company of another
woman for part of the journey. When Ely mentioned his plans, I asked them to travel with us.”

“I'm glad you did.” The idea that she'd have another woman to talk to made Lorna feel just that much easier about this trip they were undertaking.

Her mother shared that relief for a different reason. Although she was confident Benteen would look out for Lorna, she had been worried about her daughter being the only woman in a campful of men—drinking, carousing cowboys. She'd heard about their wild sprees on a town, the bloody fights, the shooting, and the womanizing. A lady wasn't safe on the streets of Fort Worth at night—some streets at least. Her husband had insisted there was no cause for concern, but Clara hadn't been so sure. Now, with another respectable woman along, Lorna wouldn't be alone.

Lorna turned to smile at the woman on the wagon seat. “I'm going to look forward to us getting acquainted.” She paused an instant and asked, “May I call you Mary?”

“Please do,” Mary Stanton murmured, and measured her with a veiled look, taking note of the white skin, always protected from the damaging rays of the sun, and the white gloves that covered smooth hands.

Having been raised one of a brood of farmer's children, Mary Stanton knew all about hard work and hard living. She was a good, God-fearing woman. She bowed her head to no man, but there were members of her own sex that made her feel self-conscious about her lack of education and refined manners. Lorna Pearce was one of those. So her feelings toward the young woman were ambivalent. On the one hand, Mary pitied the girl's ignorance of the hardships ahead of her, and on the other, she envied her ladylike airs, cultured speech, and unblemished looks. Which explained the silence of her tongue. She didn't want Lorna to discover she wasn't her equal.

“Your father said you needed to speak to me this
afternoon.” Benteen reminded Lorna of the message he'd received.

“Yes. Reverend Matthews wants to meet with us tomorrow morning at the church.” The demure curve of her lips seemed somehow provocative. “I think he intends to lecture us on the sanctity of marriage and our respective duties.”

“Is it necessary?” Benteen breathed heavily, irritated because there were so many other things essential to their departure that needed to be done.

“Chase Benteen Calder, you are going to be there,” she stated. “The reverend is half-convinced that I'm marrying a heathen. If you don't come tomorrow, he's liable to refuse to perform the marriage ceremony.”

“Good.” His smile mocked hers. “Then I'll just carry you off and he'll have to marry us to make an honest woman out of you.”

A faint blush heightened the color in her cheeks. “That isn't amusing,” Lorna protested, but there was a sparkle of humor in her eyes.

“I'd let him ‘save' me in the process,” Benteen assured her, and felt the rush of heat through his veins when she laughed in spite of her attempt to appear so proper and devout. God, how he wanted her.

“I'll meet you at the church tomorrow morning at ten o'clock,” Lorna replied, and laid her gloved hand on his arm, an acceptable display of public affection. “Mother and I have to go. There's still a thousand and one things that have to be done before the wedding.” She politely included the couple on the wagon in her farewell. “It was a pleasure meeting both of you. And I look forward to seeing you again, Mary.”