Two Brothers (30 page)

“What about these sheep?” Polymarr wanted to know, looking from Emily to Tristan and back again. “We might just as well plug ‘em our own selves as leave ‘em here.”

“Put them in the lower pasture,” Tristan snapped. His gaze was hot enough to warp hardwood. “I’ll deal with the visitors.”

Emily sprang forward, before he could ride away, and grasped the gelding’s bridle. “No,” she said. She swallowed, and her pride went down, but not easily, and not without pain. “Please, Tristan. They’ll kill you.”

Polymarr and Fletcher had begun to argue about moving the sheep, while Spud trotted tirelessly back and forth along the outer edges of the flock.

Tristan’s eyes were like blue flint. “There’s a good chance
of that,” he replied. “But nobody—
nobody
rides onto my land and makes threats.”

She laid a hand to his thigh, felt the muscles go taut beneath fabric and flesh. “Don’t go alone. Ride to town and fetch your brother first. Please.”

“No.”

“He’s the marshal—it’s his job to settle disputes like this—”

“He has a wife, a baby on the way. Aislinn’s brothers and Miss Dorrie, they all depend on him. I won’t put him in danger.”

“Then take me with you.”

He glowered down at her for a long moment. “Go look after your sheep, Little Bo Peep,” he said, with quiet bitterness. Then, as she watched in misery and fear, he rode off, headed toward Powder Creek.

Chapter 5

T
RISTAN HADN’T GOTTEN FAR WHEN
the gelding came up lame. Maybe it was Providence, maybe it was just plain sorry luck, but there was nothing he could do, for the moment, but turn back. He’d pay his respects at Powder Creek another time, and make a point of doing it soon.

Carefully, he pried a stone out of the animal’s hoof, but the soft flesh was bruised. On foot, with the horse limping along behind him, he set himself toward home. Of necessity, he made slow progress, but not so slow that he didn’t catch up with that squalling mob of sheep. The gelding turned skittish at the noise and the smell, and it took some doing to calm him down.

He and Emily exchanged a look as he came alongside the flock, but neither made any attempt to speak. It would have been futile anyhow, with all that fuss-and-fidget going on.

A gentleman, he reflected, would help drive the stupid creatures to their new pasture, but that day he wasn’t feeling very gracious. He’d asked the woman to marry him—he still wanted her more than he could admit, even to himself—but since then he’d begun to question his sanity.

Oh, plenty of hasty weddings took place, especially out
West, where women, handsome ones in particular, were at a premium, and babies had a way of coming ahead of schedule, but Tristan had always envisioned a different scenario for himself. He’d planned on abstaining from private pleasures, once he’d chosen a bride, and courting her properly, though with dispatch, wooing her with flowers and pretty words, bedding her only when she was his lawful wife. The first child, he’d always figured, would come after a full nine months had passed, that there should be no scandal attached to the boy’s name—he wanted a son first, so there’d be someone to look after his daughters when he wasn’t around.

Now, here was Emily, and abstaining was the last thing he wanted to do. It seemed plainly impossible, and after all, they would be standing up before a preacher come Sunday.

Reaching the barn, he took the gelding inside, took up a pitchfork to muck out a stall and put down fresh straw. That done, he cleaned the wounded hoof and treated it with salve. Meanwhile, Emily, Polymarr, the dog and the boy—who had turned sullen but was helping nonetheless—were herding the sheep into his best pasture to graze right alongside his cattle. Shaking his head, he muttered a curse and strode toward the house.

He’d clean up, he decided, and when Fletcher and the old man got through playing sheepherder, he’d take one of the old plow horses they were riding and go to town. For one thing, he needed more horses, and more men, if he was going to run the operation right. And it had occurred to him, during the long walk down the hill, that there was another way to handle his grievance with the raiders from Powder Creek. He could buy the place, and send the lot of them packing.

Meeting the price, undoubtedly high, wouldn’t be a problem; he had plenty of cash, thanks to the wise investment he’d made a few years before, in his own stagecoach line, since sold at a hefty profit. He preferred not to
ruminate too much on where the seed money had come from; those days had dissipated into nothing, like thin smoke, and he had no desire to resurrect them in memory.

He was smiling as he filled a couple of buckets with hot water from the stove reservoir and carried them outside to the bench, where he liked to wash, since he always indulged in considerable splashing. He stripped off his shirt, hung it on a wooden peg, and reached for the soap. He was all lathered up when Emily startled him halfway out of his hide by sneaking up on him from behind.

He swore again, though more moderately than he might have done in other company.

“I am glad to see that you’ve come to your senses,” she said. “Those men might well have killed you.”

Tristan poured a bucket of water over himself, to rinse off the soap suds, road grit and sweat. “I’d be there now,” he said pointedly, “if my horse hadn’t picked up a rock.” Her color flared a little at the challenge; he loved it when that happened—seeing it was like laying down a high straight in a game of cards.

“Then you’re a fool,” she said.

“I won’t argue that.” He reached for the other bucket and doused himself a second time. His trousers were wet through, and he was hard, and there was no hiding it. He wasn’t sure he even
wanted
to hide it. “I’ll speak to the preacher while I’m in Prominence. Unless you’ve changed your mind, that is.”

She looked away, looked back. “I haven’t changed my mind,” she said, pinkening up again, real bright. Blessed God, she was stubborn, and he loved that, too.

He extended one arm to brace himself against the sidewall of the kitchen, deliberately capturing her gaze and holding it, just to prove that he could. “Listen to me,” he said, and for all his easy stance, he was deadly serious. “If anybody comes looking for trouble, you leave those sheep to their fate and hightail it for the house. You might be foolish enough to die for a lot of mutton stew and woolen underwear,
but that’s too much to ask of Fletcher and the old fellow. Do I make myself clear?”

She swallowed, nodded. It made him mad that she didn’t seem to place as much value on her own safety as that of two virtual strangers.

He kissed her forehead, just lightly. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Is there anything you want from the general store?”

She scrounged up a dusty smile. “Something for supper—besides eggs. Mr. Polymarr went rabbit hunting this morning, before those outlaws came along, but he didn’t have much luck.”

“I’d say he had more than his share of good fortune, just getting out of there alive. So did you. Be careful, Emily. I mean it.”

She nodded, and he headed into the house, mounted the stairs to his bedroom and put on dry pants and a clean shirt. After combing out his wet hair, he went outside again, and found Fletcher waiting with the nag he’d been riding all day. He was leading Polymarr’s horse by the reins.

“I thought maybe you’d want some company,” the boy said.

Tristan was touched, though of course he took proper care not to show it and embarrass the kid. “You’d best stay here,” he said brusquely, taking the reins of the second horse and climbing into the saddle. “Look after Miss Emily and the old man.”

Fletcher gulped down a protest, then gave a glum nod. “You’re going to need a hell of a lot more men than just me and Polymarr if you mean to keep those sheep from being slaughtered,” he observed. “And it’ll be hard getting help, cattle-folk being like they are.”

“You’re right about that,” Tristan admitted, with a sigh of resignation. “But I’m going to get the hands I need, that much is certain. Sweep out the bunkhouse, because I plan to bring home some company.”

He asked himself, as he rode toward Prominence at the best pace the horse could manage, which wasn’t impressive, why he’d ever let himself get knotted up in this predicament with Emily in the first place. He was a cattleman himself, and thus he sympathized with the ranchers’ position. He had no use for sheep, except in the form of good, serviceable wool. Still, the answer wasn’t hard to calculate: one look at Emily Starbuck, in her ragbag serape and slouch hat, and he’d lost every ounce of good sense he’d ever had.

Emily owned one dress, a blue calico, and it was rolled up and stuffed into the bottom of the small leather kit bag that held the few possessions she’d collected over the years—an old tortoiseshell hairbrush with bent bristles, a frayed camisole and a pair of drawers of butternut linen, and a copy of a dime novel about a handsome outlaw and a fancy Eastern lady. There were pages missing now, but that was all right; she’d read through it so many times that she could have recited the story without once referring to the print between its tattered covers. She particularly liked the part where the heroine sewed the villain into his own bedsheets and pounded him like berry pulp in a flour-sack dish towel.

When Spud, Mr. Polymarr and Fletcher had gotten the sheep to settle down, and she’d scanned every horizon for another batch of raiders, Emily went inside, built up the fire in the cookstove, and commenced pumping water to refill the near-empty reservoir. While it was heating, she shook out the tattered frock and hunted down a round copper washtub. By the time she’d carried that upstairs, into one of the spare rooms, purloined soap, a washcloth and a towel from the washstand in Tristan’s bedroom, and carried half a dozen buckets to the tub, a precious hour had passed.

After propping a chair under the latch of the spare-room door, she stripped to the skin, stepped into the shallow but still-steaming water and sank down into it with a sigh of
well-earned contentment. There was no time for lounging—Tristan might come back at any moment—but that didn’t matter. It was luxury enough, just to be clean.

Later, clad in the calico, she half carried, half dragged the tub down the stairs and outside, through the kitchen, to empty it off the side of the stoop. She rinsed the receptacle and returned it to its place in one of the sheds, then went back up to the spare room to brush her hair and wind it into a braid. After a glimpse into Tristan’s shaving mirror—although she had slept in that room the night before, she had not been comfortable with the idea of bathing there—she pronounced herself presentable and returned to the kitchen.

A thorough search of shelves, bins and cupboards yielded the makings for baking soda biscuits, and she was rolling the dough out on the freshly scrubbed table when Fletcher rapped lightly at the open door. “Ma’am?”

She smiled at him, but some of her good cheer faded when she remembered the sheep and the men from Powder Creek, who were probably plotting revenge at that moment, if they hadn’t already settled on a plan. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Fletcher said, and even in that short stretch of words, his voice broke a couple of times. He was even younger, Emily realized, than she’d thought. “Polymarr, he sent me to see that you were safe.” He took in her dress and tidy hair. “You sure do look different. I would hardly have knowed you.”

She suppressed a second smile, but he turned red anyway. “Thank you,” she said. “I think.”

Fletcher remembered his hat with a painfully obvious jolt, and snatched it off his head. “I was making a compliment, right enough,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

Emily made a point of looking away for one merciful moment. “You’re very kind,” she told him softly. “I’ll bring you some supper, when it’s ready.” She didn’t qualify the promise, but it did depend on Tristan’s timely return
and his good memory. Given the perils they all faced, though, she’d be happy if he merely came back, with or without supplies.

The sun had set and the lamps were lit when she heard a commotion outside, snatched up the .38 and hurried to investigate.

Tristan had arrived, with eight stout horses, each one ridden by an Indian. Grinning, he loosed a burlap bundle tied behind his saddle and handed it down to her. “There’re two chickens in there, along with some other things.” He cocked his thumb. “You don’t need to fix for the new sheepherders—they prefer their own cooking.”

Emily held the bundle of goods tightly, almost overcome with relief, not because there would be fried chicken for supper, but because there were no holes in Tristan. Because he was home, safe and sound. “Is there news of Aislinn?” she asked, after her heartbeat had played leapfrog with itself for a few long seconds.

Again, the grin flashed, brilliantly white in the thickening twilight. “The doctor’s with her now.”

“Is she well?”

He got down from the saddle, spoke briefly to one of the Indians, who nodded in reply, and turned back to her. “She’s in better shape than Shay is,” he replied. “If I didn’t know for certain I’m his twin, I’d think he was beside himself.”