Cheyenne's Lady, page 3
Before Charlie could reply, a scream of pure terror rang across the open yard. At the same time frightened shouts erupted in the far paddock. Heart leaping with fear, Maria swung around to see Pieta wailing and knotting her apron near the back door, her face a portrait of terror.
Following the direction of Pieta’s gaze, Maria swung back to the paddock that Pedro had toddled into just minutes before. With a cry Maria grasped the danger, and she broke into a run. Luke had already grabbed the rifle from his saddle and was racing with long lopes toward the railing.
For some reason, the gate between the paddock and the bull’s enclosure was open. The little boy toddling across the field had attracted the attention of Old Red. Irish had once threatened to butcher the old bull for his meanness, but his progeny was needed more than his meat, and he’d been left to grow meaner by the year. Irritated by the shouts, the animal switched from a wary stance to full attack even as Maria watched.
Cowhands who had heard Pieta’s screams were already crossing the fence with lariats in hand, angering the bull even more. Maria cursed as her boot heel caught in a hole and she stumbled, twisting her ankle. She would never reach the little boy in time, and Pieta’s screams only served to cause Pedro to stop and turn in curiosity.
Luke reached the fence rail first. Maria watched in amazement as he lifted the long barrel of his rifle to gauge the bull’s speed and direction, judged the distance to the child with bone-chilling swiftness, picked his point and pulled the trigger.
The gun exploded three times before the animal toppled to a halt. Pieta’s frantic screams filled the silence following the gun’s sharp report.
Shaken by the near disaster, Maria limped to the fence and climbed over. Weight and age prevented Pieta from running to her son. Maria could sense Luke climbing after her, but her one thought was for the paralyzed boy standing terrified and alone beside the dead bull.
She caught Pedro up in her arms, burying her face against his small neck as the first waves of horror washed over her. So close, Jesu! so close to losing this warm little body that had yet to learn what life was all about. Holding Pedro close, she lifted her tear-stained face at Luke’s approach.
“Thank you,” she whispered, choking on a sob. She had not cried at her father’s funeral or in the months since, but she could not help herself now. Death had come much too close, too often. A new horror took root in Maria’s heart as she stared up into the gunman’s knowledgeable bronzed features.
Luke gave only a curt nod of acknowledgment to her gratitude.
“You’d better take him back to his mother,” he said gruffly before turning back to bark orders at the men running toward them.
Pieta reached gratefully for her youngest as Maria carried him out. Soon as she had Pedro in her arms, she characteristically began to scold. Maria wiped the dust from her brow, staring bleakly after Pieta’s retreating form. The incident had shaken her more than she cared to admit, and her hand trembled as she tried to stuff the neckerchief into her pocket.
“Damned handy he is with them guns,” Charlie ruminated as he watched Luke swing from the fallen animal to study the open gate.
“It’s a good thing.” Maria couldn’t turn to watch, but braced herself against the fencepost, giving her heart time to slow its pace.
The bull was the most valuable piece of livestock she owned, but she could not regret Luke’s action.
“Maybe it is, maybe it ain’t.” Laconically Charlie watched the paddock.
Maria sent him a suspicious glance. “What do you mean? If Luke hadn’t killed that animal, he would have torn Pedro to pieces.”
“But’s it’s almighty handy he was right here when that gate was left open for the first time in years. Nobody uses that gate. Didn’t know it still worked.”
Maria swung around in time to watch Luke slam the gate closed and examine the lock. It couldn’t be. Someone couldn’t have deliberately left that gate open. Everyone in the county knew Old Red was the meanest animal this side of the Pecos. Anyone could have been in that paddock.
Feeling a cold chill, Maria offered only a sharp reply. “Keep an eye on him, Charlie, and any other strangers. I’m not going to lose any more livestock.”
Straightening her spine, Maria stalked toward the house. Even if Luke hadn’t been there to shoot the bull, the men would have killed the animal if it had mauled anyone. The result would have been the same, except there might have been one dead child besides the bull. Either way, the ability to improve her herd had ended. She had no cash to buy another. The whole town knew it. The deviousness of the plan was almost as breathtaking as its cruelty. Someone wanted her out of the business and didn’t care who got in the way. Her father had been right.
Maria didn’t have the patience to argue with Manuel when he rode up later with a retinue of his vaqueros. She felt the scorn in his dark eyes as he gazed down at her rumpled, dusty apparel, but she was accustomed to scorn. Coldly she watched Manuel dismount and come toward her.
“What is this I hear of your stocking sheep?” Incredulity laced his voice he regarded her attire with vague mockery. His own tall, well-built frame was garbed immaculately, as if the dust did not dare land upon him.
Maria prayed for the strength to hold her hasty tongue. She had no wish to offend Manuel. As arrogant as he might be, he was the only damned man in the valley to offer for her.
“Sumner offered his herd for the promise of payment when I sell the first flock. He was anxious to be quit of this place. It was too good a deal to turn down.” Maria twitched irritably at her soiled neckerchief, wishing she could look as cool and laundered as Manuel in his snowy white shirt and skin-tight black calzones. His dark hair lay slicked back from his bronzed forehead as if he had just stepped from a cool shower.
“A woman’s foolishness.” Manuel shrugged. “You should not concern yourself in a man’s business. Have you asked Father Diaz about lifting your mourning so we might set a date? Then you will no longer need to worry over such nonsense.”
Her irritation did not disperse with the replacement of one argument for another. “I can manage, Manuel. I will not dishonor my father’s name by acting hastily. We can wait.”
Not satisfied with this reply, Manuel frowned, until his gaze encountered Luke leaning against the paddock gate.
Dropping the subject, Manuel signaled for his men to mount. As they did so, he reminded Maria, “You will dine with us on my father’s feast day as promised?”
“I will be there.” Maria watched in relief as he rode off. Glancing at Luke, wondering about Manuel’s reaction to his presence, she hurried back toward the house and a bath.
Later, when the moon was full and the coyotes wailed in the distance, Maria stood at her window, basking in the cool breeze off the mountain. She could not sleep. Too many problems rolled through her mind when she closed her eyes, too many memories sneaked in when she shoved the problems aside. She only wanted to savor the breeze and bask in the freedom of the stars overhead.
The first chords of a guitar whispered in her ears. A voice followed the chords, a low tone of haunting melancholy, appealing to the time and the mood. The song filled her with longing, stirring feelings she did not want to surface.
Cursing beneath her breath, Maria slammed the window. Tomorrow she would send word to Manuel, invite him to dinner. She would show him she could be as much a woman as any other, banish all doubt in her mind and his. To hell with foolish love songs.
Chapter 4
Luke broke away from the huddle of men at the back of the feed store as Jesse, the storekeeper, carried his order from the storeroom. In the last few weeks Luke had made himself a fixture around town, and the men were growing accustomed to his presence. He had cultivated relationships with several of the ranchers and men who owned businesses in and around San Pedro. What he had learned gave room for thought but brought him no closer to Connolly’s killer. For that he would need outside help.
As Luke reached to help with the sack of grain, the older man lowered it to the counter instead of passing it over. With concentration, Jesse scratched out a bill of sale, then wiped the ink from his fingers on the greasy leather of his vest before looking Luke in the face.
“Sorry, Cheyenne, it’s gotta be cash.” Sticking the thick pen behind his ear and leaving a smear of ink in his graying hair, the storekeeper waited nervously.
Luke reached for the bills in his back pocket while eyeing Jesse narrowly. “New policy?” he drawled, peeling off the necessary bills.
The storekeeper shrugged. “I gotta pay for this stuff myself. I can’t bankroll Connolly’s place any longer.”
Raising an eyebrow but not inquiring into the ranch’s finances, Luke shouldered the bag of feed and strode out, leaving the storekeeper to stare after him.
After he deposited the feed in the wagon, Luke entered the dry goods store. He halted in the doorway at the sight of the little witch trying on a simple straw hat with yellow streamers. The wide brim and small crown was meant to be worn by a woman with upswept hair and curls and not a long, black braid, but the silk trailed fetchingly over her shoulder and contrasted with her tanned skin and green eyes.
Without the filthy slouch hat pulled down over her face, the exotic slant of her eyes behind sooty lashes held his attention. The girlish hat emphasized her youth and accented the soft texture of rose-hued cheeks. Even her mouth seemed softer, fuller, less grim than her usual expression. For the first time since he had entered her employ, Luke caught a glimpse of the lovely woman who had flown into his arms that first day.
He didn’t understand women, never had, never would, but this one intrigued him more than any other he had known. All fire and tempest, she did her best to disguise anything womanly about her. Yet he had seen and kissed the woman in the red dress and knew there was more to her than the grim-faced, boyishly dressed figure she presented to the world.
Realizing she was being watched, Maria blushed and hastily returned the hat to the shelf. Dusting off her old felt, she grimaced and clutched it in her hand as she gathered up her bags and prepared to leave.
“You ought to buy it. It looks good on you,” he ventured.
“If I had that kind of money, I would pay the bills,” Maria scoffed, attempting to brush by him and be on her way.
He didn’t budge, and though he was leaner and not so broad as most of the men she knew, she still felt his masculine presence with an impact akin to running into a wall. In these close quarters she could not avoid him.
Luke’s lips quirked upward at one corner, and the golden glints of his brown eyes twinkled with an almost boyish mischief as he regarded her set expression. “I know how to get you that hat and win me some spending cash at the same time,” he offered.
Maria sent him a suspicious look, but could discern nothing behind his studiedly unconcerned expression. “How?”
“Cracker Jack out there bet me the other day you didn’t own a hat besides that filthy thing of your father’s, and that you wouldn’t know how to wear one if you did. I’ll buy you the hat, and the wager will pay for it and then some. We’ll both come out ahead.”
Maria continued to look suspicious as she tossed around the idea. There had to be something wrong with it, but she wanted the hat so badly she could not see the harm. She offered only one weak protest: “That doesn’t seem fair. Cracker didn’t mean for you to go and buy me the hat so you’d win.”
“It serves the scoundrel right to go talking about you that way. Besides, you do know how to wear a hat. I just saw you. Seems fair enough to me.”
Luke watched the flash of anger in her eyes and knew he had won. Now all he had to do was steer poor Cracker out of her way for a few days until the insult was forgotten. That shouldn’t be difficult. She’d have found half a dozen new things to rankle her ire before day’s end.
Jesse’s wife gaped in surprise as Maria slapped down the hat and the coins to buy it. With a smile she helped Maria pin her braid up and arranged the new hat on top. If the yellow silk looked slightly incongruous with the white linen shirt and boy’s denims, Maria defied anyone to say a word.
Proudly sporting the pert straw, Maria consented to sit beside Luke on the wagon seat as he whipped the team out of town. As they passed Cracker leaning against the corner of the saloon, whittling a stick into nothing, Luke made a thumbs-up gesture that Maria pointedly ignored. Cracker stared after them, scratching his head.
Once out of town, however, conversation lagged, and Maria regretted not riding ahead on her pony, now hitched to the wagon gate. The man beside her seemed content in the silence, but his proximity made her nervous. He always wore his guns to town, and she was aware of the lightning-like speed of the strong, capable hands on the reins.
“You’re certain Cracker will pay up? I’d hate to be obligated to you for the cost of the hat.” She stared straight ahead at the swaying rumps of the old mules. The proud carriage horses had been sold long ago, when things had first started going bad.
Luke slanted her a look askance. “That’s a damn fool question. Got any others you want to try?”
Maria bristled, but he was right. What man would be fool enough to dispute a simple wager with a man wearing Colts? She just hated being obligated to anyone. “You needn’t be rude. I was just trying to make conversation. Did it ever occur to you that you could talk with people and not just at them?”
Luke clicked his tongue and whipped the reins, urging the mules to a faster pace. “Far as I can see, women are the ones that do the talking at. I never had much trouble conversing with men.”
Refusing to be baited, Maria tried another tactic. “Maybe your problem is refusing to think women capable of conversing, so you talk at them as if they were objects. That way you only get the same in return.”
Luke grunted, unconvinced, and changed the topic. “You’d better be planting one of those pastures to grain if you’re going to feed your animals come winter.”
Maria glanced up at his square-jawed visage in surprise. “I haven’t got a plow to turn that sod, even if there was enough growing season. My father never had to grow his own.”
“Your father must have paid his bills. Jesse is cutting off your credit. Beef prices being what they are, it would be a shame to sell off the stock. Your only other choice is to sell off some of the sheep.”
Maria stared over the high plateau. From this angle, it blocked all sight of the ranch and the valley below. She had one other choice, but it went against the grain to admit defeat. “I’ve got to pay Sumner first if I sell the sheep. They won’t be worth anything this time of year. It’s not your problem, anyway. You just look after the man who killed my father. I’ll look after the ranch.”
Luke ignored her protest. “How long’s it been this bad? Looks to me like you got a pretty good spread here. Bad prices shouldn’t wipe you out that quickly.”
Maria shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes. “Bad prices, bad health, bad luck, you name it, we’ve had it these last few years. I’ve never seen my father discouraged before, but those last few months . . .” She let the sentence trail off, not wanting to describe the awful helplessness she had sometimes caught in her father’s eyes when some new disaster struck. Irish Connolly was a fighter, and he had fought until his dying breath. It was better to remember him that way, not as the broken man he would have become had he lived to see his ranch sold off piece by little piece.
“Don’t you have any relatives you can call on? Why keep struggling? Why not pack it up and get out of here?”
She turned to confront this arrogant man who so confidently arranged her life. “My mother’s brother lives in California. He washed his hands of her when she had the temerity to run off with a peon like my father. My father’s brother moved back East years ago. I barely remember him and my cousins. I keep in touch with both of them, but my home is here. I don’t wish to leave.”
Luke made a rude noise. “You don’t want to leave dry water holes and starving cattle and a town that thinks you’re loco or worse? You know what I think? I think you’re scared to leave. You don’t know anyplace or anyone else and you’re scared to face what you don’t know.”
“That’s not true! A lot you know about me. I’d be off in a shot if I had any reason to go, but I’m no quitter. I know what they think about me back there. My mother’s people look down on me because my blood’s not blue, and my father’s people think I’m little better than an Indian, but I’m going to show them! One of these days I’ll walk down that street with my nose in the air, wearing gowns straight from New York and Paris, and they’re going to beg for my attention! Now shut up and leave me alone.”
Luke grinned then, a wide grin that reached his eyes. “Are we done conversing, then?” he asked.
Heaving a loud sigh of exasperation, Maria crossed her arms and stared toward the ranch, purposely ignoring him. He was the most annoying, overconfident male she had yet to encounter, and she had known plenty. Still, she couldn’t hide a flicker of a smile.
Luke guided the animals into the cool darkness of the barn, where he could unhitch the team and unload the grain out of the heat of the sun. At this hour the place was deserted.
Maria regretted her sharp words. He had bought her a hat and treated her as an intelligent human being, which was more than many men had. And he certainly had no reason to stay and help her if she insulted him too often.
“I apologize if I was rude. I just resent everyone assuming I cannot take care of myself just because I’m a woman. And I thank you for the hat. I hope you don’t have too much trouble collecting your wager.”
Maria stared straight ahead as she made these admissions. Climbing down from the seat, Luke circled the wagon to help her out.
“That hat’s worth whatever it takes. I like it. And I’m not a fool. I can see very well that your father taught you to take care of yourself. I’m just not so certain that you want to.” With that enigmatic remark he reached up to swing Maria down from the wagon.
