A Man for Temperance (Wagon Wheel) (3 page)

Brennan was strongly tempted to turn and walk away, but the delicious smells from the kitchen weakened him. “All right,” he muttered, cursing under his breath. He slammed the door and went out, which caused Temperance to smile. “Slam the door all you want, but you’re going to do what I say.”

Five minutes later Brennan came in. His face was red from the exertion and his hands were clean, and he had evidently used his fingers for a comb. His coarse, black hair was too long, and she made a note of that. “You can sit right there. I’m not going to have this discussion every time we eat. If you want to eat at my table, you’ll wash first.”

Brennan opened his mouth to argue, but then the smell of the food got to him and he nodded in a surly fashion. As soon as he seated himself, he reached for the chicken, but her voice caught him. “We’ll thank the Lord for the food, Brennan.”

Brennan stared at her, then slumped down and refused to shut his eyes. Temperance shut her eyes and said, “We thank
Thee for this food and for everything which You provided. In Jesus’s name we’re grateful. Amen.”

“Is it all right if I eat now? Or are you gonna preach a sermon and take up a collection?”

“That will do!”

Brennan loaded his plate until it would hold no more. It looked like a small mountain. He worked his way through the food, eating like a starved wolf, and his manners were the worst Temperance Peabody had ever seen. He snorted and groaned and grunted and even paused once to spit something onto the floor. Twice she started to call his attention to his manners, but then she decided any hope she had of improving this wild man would come slowly.

She tried to carry on a conversation, asking him about his past, but got only monosyllable answers and grunts or shakes of the head. Finally, when he had demolished half of the sweet potato pie and washed it down noisily with coffee, she said, “Come on. I want to show you the work to be done.” He got up and followed her outside. She watched as he rolled a cigarette expertly. He did it with one hand, it seemed, licked the middle, and twisted the ends in one smooth motion. Pulling a kitchen match out of his shirt pocket, he lifted his leg and struck it on the outside of his thigh, then threw the match on the ground. “All these fences are going to have to be repaired. They all need work. The troughs are leaking. Tomorrow you can work on that, but the main thing is spring plowing.”

She turned to him and saw resentment in his eyes. Something had painted shadows on his face and had laid silence on his tongue. It had branded his solid face with rebellion and loneliness. “You do know how to plow, don’t you?”

“Spent the first ten years of my life looking at the hind end
of a mule. Thought I’d seen the last of it, but here I am again.” He drew on the cigarette, blew a perfect smoke ring, then dropped the cigarette and ground it into the earth with his boot heel. “Here I am doing what I said I’d never do.”

“One more thing,” she said. “I don’t like my help drinking during working hours.”

Brennan turned to face her, looking down at her with a strange expression on his face. “You ever been married?”

The question caught Temperance off guard. “Why—no, I haven’t.”

“I didn’t figure so. Easy to see why.”

His words angered her. “You shouldn’t talk like that.”

“You like to push at a man, Peabody.”

“Most of the men I’ve seen need pushing.”

Her words touched him, and there was a feral wildness in him. For a moment something like fear came to Temperance. She was alone with this man who had a violent streak in him. Her eyes widened, and she had to resist taking another step backward. He was a limber man with amber eyes half-hidden by the drop of his lids. He had a looseness about him, and the sun had scorched his skin, putting layers of tan smoothly over his face. All his features were solid, and his shape was the flat and angularly heavy build of a man turned hard by time and effort. She could not read his eyes for they were empty mirrors looking out at nothing. He made Temperance nervous, and she said, “Breakfast will be on the table at five o’clock. Remember, I’ll expect you to do no drinking on the job.”

Brennan watched her go and, when she was out of hearing, muttered a curse. “What you expect and what you get might turn out to be two different things, you dried up old maid!”

* * *

TEMPERANCE HAD COOKED BREAKFAST, but no Brennan came to eat it. She waited ten minutes, then left the kitchen. Going at once to his room, she banged on the door and heard a muffled voice cursing. Shoving the door open, she saw he had the covers pulled over his head. “Get out of that bed, Brennan. You’re late for breakfast.”

Brennan came out cursing. He had been sleeping in his underwear, which was dirty and filled with holes. The hair on his chest curled through the front of it. “Get out of here!” he yelled.

When Brennan plopped back down and closed his eyes, Temperance picked up the pitcher of water from the washstand and poured it over his face. Brennan sputtered and cursed. He came out of the bed, and she saw that the bottom part of his underwear was in worse shape than the top. He started for her angrily, but she did not move. She looked up at him and said, “If you’re not cleaned up and ready for work in half an hour, I’ll have Marshal Meek come and see what he can do with you.” Without another word she whirled and left the room.

Brennan glared after her and more than anything he had wanted in a long time, he wanted to get dressed, ride out, and never see this woman again. He knew, however, that he was in a bind. “Building roads,” he muttered, “can’t be much worse than her.” He knew better, however, and began pulling on his pants.

* * *

THE BREAKFAST WAS HUGE. Brennan ate six eggs, so runny he had to eat them with a spoon, and fried ham and biscuits seemed to flow down his throat. He used the fine, fresh butter to layer the biscuits, dumped the peach preserves on them, and
washed it all down with fresh milk. Finally, when he was so swollen he had to undo his belt, he looked over and said reluctantly, “That was a good breakfast.”

“My mother taught me to cook, Brennan.”

She had eaten probably a fifth of what Brennan had eaten, and now he seemed to be in a receptive mood, at least for him. “What about your people?”

Brennan took a swig of coffee, then pulled the makings out and made a cigarette. He was half expecting her to tell him he could not smoke in the house, but she said nothing. He twisted the ends, lit it, drew the smoke deeply into his lungs, and finally shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know.”

“That’s sad.”

“Things happen.”

“Who raised you?”

“I did.”

The two sat there uneasily. Conversation with this man was merely impossible, and finally Temperance said, “I’m going to see a family that’s been hard hit by cholera. You can start the plowing. I’ll be looking to see how much you’ve done by the time I get back.”

“Better stay away from the cholera. It’s a good way to get sick yourself.”

“I trust God to keep me from that.”

“Well, God sometimes makes mistakes, or so I hear.”

“Who told you that?”

“A Pawnee war chief.”

“He didn’t know God.”

“He knew his god.”

Temperance did not want to get into an argument over the differences between the god the Indians knew and the God she
knew. She got up and said, “I’ll clean up the dishes. You can go on and start on the fences. I warn you, Brennan, you’ll have to work even when I’m not watching.”

“You’re worse than Marshal Meek!”

* * *

TEMPERANCE HAD MADE THE Duttons as comfortable as she could. Their cabin was poorly built, and the wind sifted through the crevices and cracks between the logs. She had brought food, had done their washing, and now she was holding two-monthold Timothy. She loved children, and Timothy was a charming baby, fat and healthy with an unexpectedly cheerful smile at the oddest times.

“Aren’t you a handsome one?” she said. Timothy gurgled, reached out and caught her finger, and stuck it in his mouth. She let him bite it for awhile and then got the store-bought nipple that his mother had used. Martha Dutton was a small woman and did not have enough milk for the baby, so she kept goats for milk, which seemed to satisfy Timothy. The two women sat together, and before long, as she had expected, Martha began expressing her doubts. “We should never have come to this awful place. I never wanted to come to Oregon. It was Clyde. He had this dream of owning land, but we would have been better off renting it back in Missouri.”

“You’re going to be fine. You’ve got a good place here.”

Martha looked toward the single bedroom the cabin afforded. “Clyde’s so sick.” Fear washed across her face. “What will happen if he dies? I couldn’t take care of my baby or myself.”

Temperance knew this woman was not strong in body or in will. She belonged back East where life was more settled. For a
long time she encouraged the woman and finally said, “You’ve just got to trust God. Clyde’s going to be all right. I’ll come early tomorrow and get the rest of the clothes washed. I’ll cook something that Clyde will like. You just rest and try not to get sick yourself.”

As she left the cabin and headed back to her own homestead, she was wondering how long the woman would last. Clyde Dutton looked like a dead man to her. She had had enough experience with cholera to recognize the final stages of it, and she would not be surprised if Clyde was one of those who didn’t make it.

When Temperance got home, the late afternoon shadows were already beginning to draw their long shapes outside the cabin. She made a quick tour and found that most of the fences had been fixed. Part of the field next to the cabin had been plowed, but the animals were put up now and there was no sign of Brennan. She went at once to his room, calling out, “Brennan, are you there?” But when she looked inside, she saw that his things were there though he was gone. Returning to the barn, she noticed that his horse was missing. A disgust came to her. “He’s probably gone back to town to get drunk.”

The struggle to stay alive in Oregon country in 1850 took all the strength a man or a woman had. It was hard on any human being, and Temperance was not as strong as some of the pioneer women. Now as she went to the house, she suddenly found it difficult to climb the steps. She made it to the top and then sat down in one of the white oak rockers her father had made. She began rocking, and Gus came at once and jumped into her lap, purring like a steam engine. She rubbed his chin, which he loved, and murmured, “I wish I didn’t have any more worries than you, Gus.”

Gus responded by digging his claws in and releasing them. He loved to trample her, not that he ever punctured her with his huge claws, but it seemed to give him pleasure to shove them down and back and forth.

The struggle of life caught up with Temperance Peabody. She was tired, exhausted. She was seeing sick people every day, knowing that many of them would not live. Her family was gone, and she had the sense of total isolation. Now her hired hand was probably in town getting drunk, probably would quit, and she had no one else to help.

She was not a crying woman as a rule, but she could have cried as she sat there. Finally she heard the sound of a horse approaching. Eagerly she looked up and saw Brennan on his stallion. It was getting dark, but she saw that he had a large deer tied down on the horse. He pulled up, and she said, “I thought you’d gone to town.”

“There you go, always thinking the worst of me.” He came off the horse and gestured toward the buck. “I hit him but not dead center. Had to run him down.”

Quickly, she tried to think of something pleasant to say. “Some fresh venison would go down good. I’ll show you where to dress him.”

“I seen the place. I’ll go cut off some steaks, and you can cook ’em while I do the rest.”

He started to turn the horse away, and she said, “I thought you had run away.”

Brennan somehow found that amusing. He smiled, and when he did, the two creases beside his mouth became more prominent. “Peabody, I’ve run off from more places than you can think of, but I’ll let you know when I run off. I won’t sneak off in the night.”

She thought this was a strange thing, but she didn’t ask any more questions. She walked out with him and watched while he strung the deer up and quickly cut the two steaks out. He said, “We’ll save the hide. It might be a good rug.”

“You can always use another rug.” She hesitated, then said, “I saw the fences. They look good.”

“Ain’t hard to fix a fence.”

“The plowing looked good too.”

“You know I didn’t mind it as much as I did when I was a boy. I’d hate to do it for the rest of my life though. Go cook the steaks.”

Temperance turned and headed back toward the house. When she was inside, Gus was pawing at the raw meat. “Well, Gus,” she said, a smile softening her features, “at least he didn’t run off.”

BRENNAN DECIDED TO SHAVE, and then he decided not to.

For a moment he stood looking at the mirror over the washstand, taking in the shaggy, coarse, black hair and the whiskers that in two weeks had become more than just stubble, and felt a perverse sense of satisfaction. Ever since he had come to work for Temperance Peabody, he had deliberately remained filthy and unshaven merely to aggravate his employer.

“I reckon I’m just about pretty enough to make her happy,” he spoke to the mirror. He had a habit of speaking not only to animals as if they could understand but also to inanimate objects. Now he nodded toward the fly-specked mirror and grinned. “Another two or three weeks of this, I’ll be just about ripe enough for that psalm-singing preacher woman.”

He moved across the room to a small table, picked up the jug, and tilted it. Only a few trickles were left, and with a curse he slammed the jug down and grabbed his hat, which hung from a nail on the wall. He took one look around the room and was satisfied that it was about as disreputable as he could make it. He knew this irritated Temperance Peabody, and he spit on the floor and said, “There! That ought to put the finishing touches on it.”

Brennan left the room and saddled Judas after the usual titanic struggle. He waited for him to try to kick him, and said
loudly, “Why, you’d be good for a month just to get a chance to bite me once.” Cautiously he put the saddle blanket on, then when Judas swung his big head around, teeth bared, Brennan rapped him sharply in the nose with his fist. “There, you spawn of Satan! Try to bite me again, I’ll bust your teeth out!” He waited to see if he would respond, but the stallion merely quivered his withers. Brennan, with satisfaction, slapped the saddle on, cinched it up, and then went through the usual difficulty of getting Judas to accept the bridle. “You better not mess with me today, Judas. I’m just in the mood to kick the daylights out of anything that moves and you’re closest.” The horse knew the tone, evidently, for he allowed Brennan to slip the bridle on.

Stepping into the saddle, Brennan rode out of the barn and was headed for town when he heard his name called. “Brennan!”

With a sigh he turned and saw his employer standing on the front porch. “Well, Judas, she caught us. I guess we’ll get another sermon now.” He did not dismount but simply rode within ten feet of the porch and asked grumpily, “What do you want?”

“Where you going?”

“I’m going to town and buy some whiskey.” He knew this would anger her, and it pleased him inordinately when he saw a cloud pass across her face.

“You didn’t finish plowing the south field.”

“No, I didn’t, and I ain’t going to.”

“Why not, may I ask?”

“Because it’s Monday.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

Patiently, as if speaking to a child, Brennan said, “Why, didn’t you know Monday’s a hard-luck day? Shucks, I thought everybody knowed that.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just another day like the other six.”

“Not for me it ain’t. Everything bad that’s ever happened to me in my life happened on Monday.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it’s not! Let me tell you something, lady. I was walking down the streets of Mobile, Alabama, one time, and I got shot. And guess what day it was? Monday! That’s what it was.”

“Who shot you?”

“Oh, I disremember his name. He was a dentist and he was drunk.”

“Why’d he shoot you?”

“Oh, I didn’t say he was aimin’ to shoot
me.
There was a lawyer named Simmons who was sleeping with this here dentist’s wife. I don’t mean when he shot me, I mean on a regular basis, and it aggravated that dentist. So he got his pistol out and waited outside the lawyer’s office. Wouldn’t you know it was just my luck to come along right then. Now, if it had been Tuesday, I’d have been gone. Or if it had been Sunday, I’d probably been in church.” Brennan grinned at this and waited for her to protest, but when she was silent, he shrugged. “If bad luck’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.”

“That’s silly.”

“Silly! Why, he shot that lawyer, and the bullet went plum through him and hit me right in the leg. Laid me right up for a month.” Brennan shifted his weight and shook his head sorrowfully. “I felt so bad I couldn’t go see that sorry dentist hung.”

“Monday didn’t have a thing to do with that. It could have happened any day!” Temperance insisted.

“That’s what
you
say. Every time I’ve had a bad time, it come on a Monday. Once I was out with the dragoons and a
whole mess of them sorry Cheyenne surrounded us, and they kilt all our horses. Before we left, I tried to tell the lieutenant that Monday wasn’t no day to be trying to tackle a Cheyenne war party, but he wouldn’t listen. Durned fool didn’t believe me! I guess he believed me when he got an arrow through his gizzard. Why, we had to walk away that night, and we was lucky to get out with our skins. No, Monday I try to be as quiet as I can so that bad luck don’t fall on me.”

Temperance had learned that Brennan could tell a tall tale, especially when he was trying to get out of work. She put her hands on her hips and stared at him. “You make your own bad luck, Thaddeus Brennan, and Monday has nothing to do with it.” A thought came to her, and she nodded firmly, “I’m not giving you any money for whiskey.”

“Didn’t ask for none.”

“Well, you’re not getting any. Go by the store and get what’s on this list.” Reaching into a pocket of her apron, she came out with a slip of paper. He was not going to dismount and come for it, so she walked up to him.

“Stay away from that horse’s head. He’ll bite you.”

“No, he won’t. He’s a nice horse,” Temperance said. “You’re mean to him. That’s why he tries to bite.”

With disgust Brennan snatched the paper and stuck it in the pocket of his filthy shirt. “You don’t know nothing about horses. This is the meanest horse west of the Pecos!”

Temperance reached up and stroked Judas’s nose. When the horse whinnied slightly and nudged her, she said, “See? He’s a nice horse. I’m going over to the Dutton place and help them, Brennan. When you get those things from the store, bring them by their place.”

“Not me. I’m not going near that cholera, not on Monday.”

“You do it or I’ll tell Joe Meek.”

Brennan stared at the woman, and a hot reply rose to his lips. He had discovered, however, that nothing he did could get her goat, as he put it. It irritated him, for he was accustomed to having his own way with women. “I’ll bring it, but I ain’t going into the house,” he shouted as he whirled Judas around and left the yard at a dead gallop.

When he was out of sight of the house, he pulled the bay down to a walk and then, as was his habit, began thinking of what had happened. It preoccupied him, and at such moments as this he forgot that Judas was a treacherous animal. He was caught off guard when suddenly the horse humped his back and flung himself sideways. Making a wild grab at the horn, Brennan managed to stay in the saddle. He fought the animal to a standstill and realized he was lucky not to be thrown.

“Well, you thought you had me that time, didn’t you?” he said loudly. “Well, you didn’t. You’re about the sorriest, meanest, no account hoss that ever lived!” He continued to berate the animal and finally nodded, saying, “But you ain’t as mean as Miss Temperance Peabody. What she needs is a man to take a belt to her. That’s what she needs. Well, Judas, I may be just that hairpin to give it to her! There ain’t no law that says a man can’t take a switch to a single woman—when she needs it, that is.”

All the way to town Brennan talked on and off to his horse. “And another thing,” he said as they turned down the main street, “I’d run off and leave her, but I gave my word.” A smile crossed his rugged lips and he chuckled. “I’d like to give that Joe Meek a run for it. He’d never catch me, not in a hundred years! I’d run him until he wore his legs off to the knees. Why, he thinks that badge makes him some pumpkins, but he ain’t. I can clean his plow anytime. But you know,” he said confidentially,
“I can’t leave until I whip Al Sharpless for parting my hair with a pool cue. As soon as I get enough money to pay off that blasted fine, I’ll tell that preacher woman off, and then I’ll whip Al and maybe Joe Meek too. Then I’ll ride out and laugh at the whole bunch of ’em.”

The sun had passed the meridian and was slowly beginning to sink to the west as he turned down the main street of Walla Walla. He made straight for the Dancing Pony. He dismounted, avoiding a feeble attempt on the part of Judas to bite him. He slapped the stallion on the nose and said, “You just wait. I’m going to teach you a lesson if you don’t stop that!”

He stepped inside the saloon, and at once Al Sharpless turned to face him. Sharpless was wearing one of the most colorful floral vests on the market, and his black hair was laid flat with grease. He had small dark eyes that he fixed on Brennan. Then he grunted, “Whut you doing in here?”

“Why, Al, I just come into town. Thought I’d stop by for a friendly visit.”

“You make any trouble, I’ll shoot you.”

Brennan shrugged his shoulders, walked over, and stood at the bar, facing Sharpless. “Why, Al, that ain’t no way to talk to a friend.”

“I don’t consider you my friend. Not after you wrecked my place.”

“Well, I’m paying for it, Al, and I just stopped in to buy a jug of whiskey.”

Sharpless stared at Brennan, then suddenly laughed. “How you like working for a woman, Brennan?”

“Well, Al, I’ll tell you what,” Brennan said, “Honestly, I just love it! It’s the best job I ever had. I don’t think I’ll ever leave.”

Several loafers engaged in a poker game had been listening to the interchange. One of them, a tall lanky man named Simon Gee, laughed the loudest. “You won’t leave because you know Joe Meek would run you down and whip your tail.”

Brennan turned to face the speaker. “Why, Simon, that ain’t so. Me and Joe Meek have got to be real good friends. Why, shucks, I may even hire out as his deputy.”

Sharpless stared at Brennan. “You’d rather lie for credit. Just tell the truth for cash. Now what do you want?”

“Like I said. I want a gallon of whiskey.”

“You got the money?”

“Just put it on my tab, Al. You know I’m good for it.”

“Not likely,” Sharpless said. “Now get out of here before I throw you out.”

For a moment it seemed Brennan would take up the challenge. Sharpless saw something in the face of the tall man that made him take a step backward, but Brennan merely laughed and said, “When I’m rich and famous, you’ll wish you had sold me that whiskey on credit, Al. I’ll see you gentlemen later.”

Leaving the Dancing Pony, Brennan unhitched Judas, swung into the saddle, and rode down the street. He stopped in front of Satterfield’s General Store. “Well, Judas, you better wish me luck. I’ve got to have something to drink on. I’ll have to get it out of Satterfield, I reckon.”

He dismounted, tied Judas to the hitching rail, and then entered the general store. Silas, he saw, was grinding coffee beans, and the rich aroma of coffee filled the air. “That shore does smell good, don’t it now, Silas?” Brennan greeted the owner breezily. “Nothing smells better than coffee being ground, I don’t reckon.”

“Hello, Brennan. What can I do for you?”

“Got a list for things to get for my boss.” Brennan fished in his pocket and came out with a list. Satterfield glanced at it and then cocked his head to one side. “Miss Temperance tells me you’re not a bad hand at plowing.”

Brennan leaned on the counter and pulled a piece of candy out of a glass jar. “Is this here penny candy?”

“On the house, Brennan—the first one anyway.”

Brennan popped the candy into his mouth and talked around it. “About that plowing. You know a man does well with whatever he loves doing, don’t you know, and I always loved plowing. Nothing I’d rather do than stare at the back end of a mule for, oh, ten—twelve hours a day.”

Satterfield laughed. He was disgusted with the big man, but there was something likable about him at the same time. “Yeah, I loved it, too, when I was growing up.” He listened to Brennan talk as he filled the order, then said, “Anything else?”

“A gallon of whiskey please.”

“You know I’m not going to give you any whiskey.”

“Why, Silas, I’m surprised at you.”

“Miss Temperance would never forgive me. You’re liable to get drunk and bust up the saloon again or ride off until Joe Meek hauls you back.”

“You hurt me deep in my heart, Silas,” Brennan said. “Why, Miss Temperance has gone over to help that poor sick Dutton woman, and she wants this for medicinal purposes, and you won’t even give her the medicine she needs. Here I thought you was a Christian man, Silas.”

Silas Satterfield stared at the face of Thaddeus Brennan. “I don’t ever know whether to believe you or not.”

“Why, it’s gospel truth. That’s where she’s gone—over to the Dutton place. She sent me to get this stuff.”

“Why didn’t she put it on the list?”

“She forgot it, but she called out to me to get it as I left.”

Silas Satterfield struggled for a moment, then threw his hands apart with an impatient gesture. “Well, I’ll give it to you, but it’s on your head. She’ll see it on the bill.”