The Complete Oregon Series, page 72
“Gloves?” Mama’s gaze wandered to Amy’s bare hands.
“Not for me. Hendrika needs her own pair. I still owe her money, and it would be a good way to say thank you for helping me save the horses.”
A warm smile lit up Mama’s face. “That’s a nice idea.” Then a frown replaced her smile. “But with what the new tack is gonna cost us, it might not be the best time for the extra expense.”
She was right. New saddles, bridles, and harnesses would use up most of their savings.
“Maybe the cobbler will agree to trade the gloves for some of our hay?”
“I’ll try,” Mama said. “Do you know what size Hendrika wears?”
It was amazingly easy to call up a mental image of Hendrika’s hands. Along with it came the memory of how good it had felt to have Hendrika take care of her burned fingers. Amy shook her head to get rid of the thought. She looked at Mama’s fingers, which had a competent grip on the reins. “If they fit you, they should fit Hendrika too.”
“All right, sweetie. I’ll see you later.”
With a flick of the reins, the wagon rolled up the hill.
When Nora left the cobbler’s, the town’s pastor and doctor descended on her. “Mrs. Hamilton.” Dr. Tolridge tipped his hat and extended his hand to help her cross the street. “How nice to see you in town.”
Oh, yeah? Nora eyed them suspiciously. Except for a quick greeting in church, she hadn’t talked to either of them since she had told them she wouldn’t teach while Luke was away. They had accepted it with an uncaring shrug, acting as if good teachers were a dime a dozen. She said nothing but waited to hear what they wanted.
“Do you have a minute?” the pastor asked.
Nora nodded.
“We know you said that with your husband gone you wouldn’t be able to teach, but...” Reverend Rhodes looked at the schoolhouse across the street.
“Oh, let me guess. George has managed to chase off yet another teacher and now you want me to take over the rest of the term.” Bitterness and grim satisfaction warred within her. When she had first started teaching years ago, these two men had been her biggest opponents, loudly declaring that a married woman shouldn’t be allowed to teach school. Only Jacob Garfield’s vote of confidence had convinced the school board to give her a chance.
“No,” Reverend Rhodes said. “It’s not that.”
“Not yet,” the doctor said.
Right at that moment, the schoolhouse’s door banged shut. A young teacher stormed away, his collar askew.
Nora could easily imagine what had happened. George was a big boy of sixteen—almost too old to still be in school. By now, he should have been helping his father or trying to find work, but hard work didn’t have much appeal for him. Spelling, arithmetic, and geography didn’t interest him either. He came to school to amuse himself by disrupting class and terrorizing the teacher. Openly, he boasted that no teacher would last a whole term—and no one but Nora ever had. Now that his cousin Hiram had moved to town and joined him in school, it was probably even worse.
“All right.” The pastor sighed. “It is as you thought. We need a teacher who won’t let herself be chased off by George and his cousin. It would just be for a few weeks, until summer break.”
Nora hesitated. The boys wouldn’t dare to lay hand on a female teacher, but they had other ways to make teaching unpleasant for her. She reached into her apron pocket and felt the list of things they needed from the saddle maker. It was a long list. We could really use the money. With Hendrika willing to help out, Nattie could handle the chores around the house.
“All right.” She gave the pastor a grim nod. “You’ve got yourself a teacher, Reverend.”
The schoolhouse’s door opened again, and laughing children stepped outside.
“Excuse me,” Nora said. “I need to stop them before this gets completely out of hand.” She marched to the schoolhouse and reached it just as the last two children headed out the door. “If it isn’t George Miller—just the young gentleman I wanted to see. And you must be Hiram.” She stared them down, acting unimpressed with the fact that the boys towered over her.
Hiram folded muscular arms across his chest. “But maybe we don’t want to see you.”
Oh, so he’s the boss, not George. Nora gestured at the door, ignoring his comment. “Let’s go in and talk like adults.” They couldn’t dismiss her invitation if they didn’t want to be thought of as children.
George shuffled his feet and looked at Hiram.
“Oh, not you, George.” Nora patted his arm. “You go on home. I’ll talk to Hiram—that is, if he’s not too scared to be alone with me.”
“Scared?” Hiram snorted. “By a little schoolmarm like you?”
Nora held the door open for him. “Wonderful. Then it’s settled. We’ll go inside and talk.”
When Hiram entered after her, the schoolroom felt much smaller than it usually did. The child-sized benches and desks made him appear even larger. For a moment, old fears surfaced, but Nora wrestled them down. At Luke’s side, she had learned to face all kinds of threats, and she wouldn’t back down from this young brute who had the body of a man and the brain of an unruly child.
She sorted through her options. The teacher’s cane next to the blackboard wasn’t her style of teaching, and she knew Hiram could easily take it away from her and use it as a weapon against her anyway. Telling his father to discipline him wouldn’t work either. She had tried it with George last year, and whatever punishment his father had handed out, it made him resent her even more.
I need to earn his respect—and just being a good teacher won’t impress him. She had to prove herself superior in an area that he didn’t expect. A slow smile inched across her face when she remembered something else Luke had taught her. “Let’s sit down.” She gestured at her desk.
“Sitting around is for womenfolk. I’ll go fishing now.” Hiram sauntered to the door.
“So you don’t want to hear the deal I have to offer?” Nora asked from her desk.
A cautious glance met hers. “Deal? What deal?”
“If I win, you’ll come to school every day for the rest of the term and you’ll sit quietly and try to learn what I’m teaching.”
“Sounds like a bad deal. No, thanks.” He took another step toward the door.
Nora continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “If you win, I’ll cover for you and tell your father you’re studying hard while you spend your mornings fishing with your cousin.”
Interest sparked in his eyes when he turned his head, but he quickly hid it. “Win at what?”
“Oh, I thought we could arm wrestle.” She gave him her sweetest smile.
Silence filled the schoolroom.
Then laughter exploded from Hiram. “Arm wrestle?” He slapped his thighs. “With you?”
“I considered a spelling bee, but then I thought I should give you at least a hint of a chance to win.”
“Are you crazy?” He rolled up his sleeve and flexed impressive muscles. “How could a little woman like you beat that?”
She gestured to a bench at the other side of her desk. “Sit down and find out.” Nervousness knotted her insides, but she was careful not to show it. Appearing confident and throwing him off balance was part of the strategy. “Or are you afraid? If I win, I promise not to tell anyone what our deal was about.” The school board wouldn’t like that kind of teaching method anyway—at least not from a woman.
With a snort, Hiram plopped down on the bench.
Nora put her elbow on the table and gripped his hand.
The difference in their arm size made him laugh, but Nora remained focused. She pressed her feet against the floor to support her upper body and leaned forward. “Ready?”
Still chuckling, he nodded.
“Go!”
Immediately, Hiram tried to push her arm down.
Nora didn’t push. She locked the muscles in her belly, shoulder, and arm and focused on keeping her arm upright. She used her entire body, not just her arm, to resist his pressure.
Hiram’s face turned red, and Nora wasn’t sure whether it was from the exertion or from anger when her arm wouldn’t budge. He let out a grunt and doubled his efforts.
The muscles in Nora’s shoulder and arm screamed at her, but she held on, not trying to push him down. Her fingertips put pressure on the nerve between his thumb and index finger.
Another grunt was wrenched from Hiram’s lips. His grip weakened for a moment.
Nora pulled her elbow slightly toward herself and rotated her arm. Her fingers dug into the soft spot on Hiram’s hand again, and in one swift move, she forced his arm part of the way down.
“What the hell?” His gaze darted up as if to make sure it was still a slender schoolteacher sitting across from him, not a muscle-bound giant.
With her feet pressed against the desk leg, Nora shifted her hand and used his distraction to push his hand all the way down.
“Hell and tarnation!” Hiram let go of her hand as if it were on fire. He rubbed his fingers and stared at her.
Nora’s insides quivered with joy, but she forced herself not to let her triumph show. An adolescent boy like Hiram would be a sore loser if she hurt his pride.
“How did you do that?” he asked, still staring.
“There’s a trick,” she said. The same trick enabled Luke to beat some of the much stronger ranch hands and prove her “manliness.” “If you want, I can teach you.”
Eagerness glimmered in his eyes. He was probably already imagining becoming an unbeatable hero and the envy of the other boys.
“Next year,” Nora said. “When you have mastered everything else I have to teach you.”
The light in his eyes dimmed.
“Deal?” she asked and held out her hand. Her fingers trembled with exertion, but she hoped he wouldn’t notice.
Hiram hesitated. Finally, he wrapped his fingers around hers. “Deal.”
When Nora stood, her knees felt weak. She knew by tonight, her muscles would be stiff and hurting and she would long for one of Luke’s massages. “All right. Then I’ll see you tomorrow morning. And bring your cousin.” She ambled out of the schoolhouse, her skirt swishing, before he could answer.
Hamilton Horse Ranch
Baker Prairie, Oregon
May 6, 1868
“Wanna try branding one?” Nattie asked.
The blood drained from Rika’s face. She retreated until her back pressed against the corral rails. “Oh, no. I couldn’t.”
“Sure you can. Come on. Amy can show you. She taught me too.” Nattie dragged her to the fire as if she were a lassoed foal. “Amy, can you catch one for Hendrika? I need to go help Toby with the colts in the other corral.”
Before Rika could protest, Nattie walked away and Amy shook out a loop in her rope.
“Come on over here,” Amy said. “Don’t be afraid. It’s easy to learn, really.”
After a second’s hesitation, Rika stepped over to her.
A mare rushed from one end of the corral to the other, her foal sprinting after her.
Amy’s loop flew through the air and jerked the foal off its feet. Two of the men who stood next to the fire ran to hold it down.
“Here.” Amy took a branding iron out of the fire and handed it to Rika.
Rika stared at the foal’s spotted hip. She couldn’t imagine pressing the red-hot iron against the foal’s vulnerable side. If it felt anything like burning her hand in the stable, she didn’t want to cause the little horse the same pain. “No.” She hid her hands behind her back. “I don’t want to hurt it.”
Amy tipped back her hat, allowing Rika to see the soft glow in her eyes. “It’s not too bad. And if we don’t brand her, anyone can take the filly from us and claim to own her.”
That wasn’t what Rika wanted. The Hamiltons were good people who treated their horses well. Branding the horses seemed a necessary evil, and if she wanted to become Phineas’s wife, she needed to get used to it. “All right,” she said, hiding the tremor in her voice. “Can you show me?”
“Come over here.” Amy walked to where the two ranch hands were holding down the filly. It struggled but couldn’t break free. “Grip the branding iron here. Be careful not to burn yourself.”
“Yeah.” Emmett, one of the ranch hands, laughed. “Phin wouldn’t be happy to find the Shamrock brand on his betrothed.”
Slowly, Rika stepped up to the struggling foal.
“Press it against her hip right here.” Amy stroked a spot on the filly’s hip.
Rika clamped trembling hands around the branding iron. She wanted to tell Amy she couldn’t do it, but by now, all the ranch hands were watching. She had something to prove—not just about herself, but also about a woman’s place on the ranch. Maybe that was why Amy was so strict with her and seemed ambivalent about her presence on the ranch. Every mistake a woman made told her ranch hands that Amy might not be a good boss.
She swallowed and touched the branding iron to the filly’s hip.
“Harder.” Amy stepped behind her and put her hands over Rika’s. Her warm breath tickled Rika’s ear. “Press down harder.”
With Amy’s strong presence against her back, Rika let her hands be guided down with more force, pressing the branding iron against the filly.
The smell of burning hair drifted up, and the filly’s scared whinny made Rika’s stomach roil. She tried to focus on something else.
Behind her, in another corral, colts squealed as they were gelded, and mares pranced around, calling for their foals. Men shouted over the din while they drove more horses into the corral.
In the middle of all this chaos, Amy’s orders were calm and her hands steady as she guided Rika. “Now step back.”
When the two men who held down the filly let go, it jumped up and ran to its mother, who sniffed her daughter’s hip.
“See,” Amy said. “It’s not so bad. It only hurts them for a moment, and then it’s over.”
“Amy?” Hank shouted from the other corral. “I think we got one of the neighbor’s horses mixed in with our herd.”
A quick glance to Rika, then Amy strode away to take care of the problem.
Rika watched her go. Two weeks before, she had thought it strange that the Hamiltons let their daughter do a man’s work. But Amy seemed at home in the corral as if running the ranch was what she’d been born to do. She inspected the neighbor’s horse, helped clean the incision of a newly gelded colt, and wielded a branding iron with the same ease with which Rika had tended her looms.
But there was one big difference. Amy loved working with horses, while Rika’s work in the cotton mill seemed more meaningless and dreary with every day she spent out west.
“Miss Bruggeman?” Emmett called. “Wanna brand another one?”
Rika swallowed and then squared her shoulders. “Sure.”
Hank shoved his hat back with his thumb and looked at something in the other corral.
Amy got up from her place kneeling next to a yearling they were about to geld. Was something wrong in the other corral? She craned her neck to see over Hank’s shoulder.
The branding was going well, with no problem Amy could detect. Most mares already stood laving their foals’ hips with a soothing tongue. At one end of the corral, Kit and Emmett flanked Hendrika and nearly fell over themselves to be the one to give her branding advice.
“They’re fawnin’ over her instead of doing their jobs,” Hank said, still frowning. “Womenfolk hanging around the branding crew is a damn distraction, isn’t it?”
Amusement curled Amy’s lips. “It sure is.”
He looked up and blinked as if only now remembering that she was a woman too. “I didn’t mean...”
“I know what you meant.” And he was right; Hendrika’s presence was a distraction. A few days ago, that distraction had nearly gotten her bitten when she forgot to let go of Mouse’s foot.
“But she ain’t doing half bad for a city girl from back East,” Hank said, his expression softening.
That much was true. Despite the fear Amy sometimes saw in her eyes, Hendrika did everything asked of her and took on extra chores without being asked. She was no stranger to hard work.
Loud cursing interrupted Amy’s thoughts.
John stumbled past them, gripping his hand. Blood spilled from between his fingers.
“John!” Amy rushed to him. “What happened?”
“I cut myself instead of the colt’s—” He interrupted himself.
Amy rolled her eyes. She was familiar with every part of a horse’s anatomy. “Let me see.” She reached for his bleeding hand.
“Don’t bother,” John said. “I’ll go and have Miss Hendrika take a look. She was a nurse during the war, and she took real good care of your mama too.” He walked away before Amy could answer.
“Miss Hendrika, huh?” By the time Phin came home, he might have to fight the other ranch hands for the honor of marrying her. Sighing, Amy knelt down. “Come on, Hank,” she said. “Give me a hand, or this colt will never be gelded.”
Rika’s eyelids felt as heavy as her arms, and she struggled to keep them open. She was used to long days and hard work, but helping with the branding had left her exhausted. She stared at the cat on her lap with tired eyes. “You truly are one lucky cat, Othello.” She scratched behind one black ear. “How come he’s allowed in the house instead of being sent to the barn for mousing duty?”
Groaning, Nattie took a seat next to Rika on the divan and stretched out her feet. “He was trampled by a spooked horse when he was just a kitten. Everyone said he should be put out of his misery, but I convinced Papa to let me try and nurse him back to health.”
Rika wished she’d had a father like that. She hoped Phineas would be like Mr. Hamilton.
