Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold (29 page)

“I know Rob was too young to remember, but I’m surprised you didn’t, Mother.”

Leona had listened to Anne’s tale as intently as the Bennetts. She said, “You were in that kind of trouble so much in those days, and we were so new in town we didn’t really know anyone. I’m not sure I ever knew why you did it. The teacher said you attacked another little girl for no reason.”

“No one would even let me tell my side of it,” Anne said.

Martha said, “Well, at least Cord thanked you. It’s a blessing you were there. Marie got hysterical that weekend and said she’d rather die than go back, and Cord said he’d go, but we shouldn’t make Marie go. So we gave up and kept them home. I wish we’d known all this back then.”

Anne was sad at the memory. “It wouldn’t have made any difference. Miss Striker was there another two years.”

Martha began to refill coffee cups, and it was she who said, “So you were friends after that. Was that all?”

Anne smiled mischievously up at Martha. “No, there were two other ‘encounters.’ The second time I got in just as much trouble. Rob should remember that one, but maybe Mother’s right. I was in trouble so often, no one but me remembers each incident.”

“I remember.” Rob said suddenly. “I was still in school and I got in fights with some of the other boys over what they said about you.”

“I didn’t think you ever
defended
me.” Anne said. “I thought no accusation was too heinous.”

“You’d be surprised,” Rob said sullenly.

She reached over and gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek. “Well, thank you, years too late.”

Anne went back to the story then. “If Rob was still in school, we must have been nineteen that winter. There was snow on the ground. I had been shopping and was on my way home. My arms were full of parcels, and I cut through the alley behind Elm Street. I turned around the back of Miles’ store to get back to Main Street, and Cord was coming the other way, and we crashed into each other. I slipped in the snow and went down on my back, the packages went every which way, my skirts were all rucked up, and Cord kind of just froze there staring at me.”

“Thank God nobody knew about that part,” Rob muttered.

“Maybe so,” Anne admitted, “but I thought it was funny. I remember trying to tease him and asking him if he was going to stand there like a fence post or help me up.”

Cord did help her up, acting as if he expected to be burned by the contact. Only now, years later, had she found out from him that he expected her to start screaming, accusing him of deliberate assault, if not worse. When she started to laugh, he recognized her and realized she wasn’t going to make accusations, but he was still leery.

Oblivious of what Cord recognized as a sticky situation, she piled half the packages in his arms. “The least you can do for knocking me over is to help me home with all these.”

Short of dropping her parcels back in the mud and snow, he had no choice, but he refused to walk through town beside her and followed a few steps behind. When they reached the Wells house, he deposited the packages on the edge of the porch, tipped his hat, and disappeared like smoke in the wind.

“My feelings were half hurt because I always thought of him as a friend since that business in school. I’d smile at him when I saw him in town, and he’d always tip his hat or nod at me or something, but the fuss everyone made about that walk through town made me realize he was just smarter than I was. I mean it was broad daylight, we were in the middle of town, and he just carried some packages for me, but the town busybodies couldn’t tell Mother and Father about it fast enough.”

Leona said, “My goodness, I do remember that. Your father was very upset, and he was already worried about Elroy Turrell.

Frank ignored Edward Wells’ worries and Elroy Turrell. “So what was the other time?” he asked.

Into the spirit of the story telling now, Anne made a wry face and continued with the final encounter with Cord before last October. It was the only time she didn’t get in trouble, because no one ever knew.

“I took a shortcut through that same alley again, and there was a half grown kitten just huddling back there. He didn’t even try to get away when I picked him up. One hind leg had a horrible wound that looked all infected, and he seemed just sick and dull. I knew I couldn’t take him home. Father doesn’t believe in pets. I couldn’t think of anyone in town who might help, and I was really upset, when all of a sudden there was Cord, wanting to know if I was hurt.”

“He probably lurked in that alley ever since the first time, waiting to knock you over again,” Rob said.

“Don’t be silly. This was years later. After I got back from Chicago. He’d been gone for years too.”

Cord had examined the little cat with gentle hands and then told her he would take it home and fix it. She gave the kitten to him, not knowing anything better to do. She often wondered in the years since if he had lied to her, told her he would fix it when he couldn’t or wasn’t going to bother just to make her feel better - had wondered until last fall, when she saw the same cat in the barn, easy to recognize by the unique white mark on its face.

“I call him Paddy because he’s orange and looks sort of Irish to me,” she told them seriously. “Cord said he thought about trying to tell me Paddy healed and was fine, but he knew if he talked to me and anybody saw it would cause trouble again. He knew about the other times, you see. There’s so much gossip in the town.”

Frank pressed for more information. “Do you know where he was those years he was gone from here? What he did?”

“Yes, I do, but those are his stories. If you want to hear them, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

“He’d never tell us a word, you know. We didn’t know he’d been in Utah or Texas until that day Noah was here after the fight.”

“Maybe you never asked him nicely.”

Frank started to argue, but right then Luke came in, wanting hot water for cleaning Red’s wound. Anne rose from her chair. “I’ll come help.”

Luke gave her his engaging, teasing grin. “No you won’t. Cord says if you don’t stay here and mind your own business, he’ll tell Uncle Eph how to keep a hold of you.”

She shot right back, “You tell him if he tells Ephraim anything of the sort, it will be the last time
he
keeps a hold of me,” but she sat down.

It was not, Luke assured her, a bad or dangerous wound, just ugly from neglect, and the horse seemed quite happy to be rescued from Lennie’s care.

A short while later, Cord and Anne started for home in the buggy, Red trailing along behind with no fuss at all.

The Bennetts discussed what they had learned about their brother. Frank felt his attitude was vindicated. “I knew he’d never have invited her in or tried to help her that day Wells found her there unless there was a reason. Even then, he figured he owed her - from way back when they were kids.”

Ephraim looked at it differently. “It sounds like he
liked
her - from way back when they were kids.”

Frank said cynically, “As much as he likes anyone maybe. You hear the way he talks to her. Does it sound affectionate to you?”

Shaking his head, Ephraim had to concede the point. “No, it sure doesn’t sound affectionate, but I don’t know, Frank, that woman is…. Would she stay with him unless he’s being decent to her?”

Frank had a ready answer to that, one which Ephraim conceded had merit. “Think about how she grew up with Wells for a father. She probably has no idea of how a decent man acts.”

* * *

Chapter 29

EVEN THOUGH THE VERY THOUGHT
of the race made her stomach clench, Anne admitted to herself she was looking forward to the weekend of the race like a child does a birthday. Frank had agreed to send a young cowboy who could milk cows to stay at their house and care for the stock from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening. Billy James showed up right on time, leaving Cord and Anne free for a leisurely ride to town.

Anne rode Red. Cord rode Keeper and led Lady, packed with everything they’d need for the weekend, including Anne’s dress for the post-race dance. When Martha showed them to a spare bedroom with two narrow beds, both freshly made up, Anne winked wickedly at Cord. It was a good thing they were both thin, or they’d never fit together in one of those skinny beds.

The next morning, Cord ate no breakfast, drank only one cup of coffee. As Anne refilled her own coffee cup at the stove, Martha whispered her amazement.

“Nothing ever affects his appetite. Surely he’s not nervous about this, is he?”

Anne didn’t answer but intended her pat on Martha’s arm to reassure the older woman. It didn’t. Martha began to look nervous herself.

Soon after, the rest of the Bennetts began arriving. Luke and Pete had ridden to town with Riley. Frank brought Judith and the younger children in the carriage. Echoing Cord’s brief greetings, Anne put them all out of her mind and followed her husband to the barn. She told herself the sunny, clear day was a good omen, then realized the horse himself was a better one. After two months of zealous grooming and careful conditioning, Red was all but bursting out of his gleaming hide with good health and energy. Anne did the final brushing as Cord buckled protective leather boots on all four legs.

Close to the starting line, with half an hour left before the ten o’clock start time, Anne held Red while Cord worked his way through the crowd. There were fifteen horses entered this year, and he observed each before returning. She questioned him with raised eyebrows.

“Four, I think. Lathrum’s sent two really grand looking bay stallions. There’s a good chestnut gelding from the Bar S and a classy brown mare from Wyoming.”

These were, Anne knew, the four he felt would have the speed and endurance for this grueling contest, the ones that, barring an all too likely unhappy twist of fate, had the best chance of winning.

As the time for the start grew closer, the family began to show up, surrounding them with partisan good wishes, obviously believing that Cord planned a slow, safe ride through the course, and was only going through the motions. Recognition that something else was going on began to dawn on them when the Bennetts saw one of the Stones’ English saddles on the stallion.

It was Gil, too young for caution, who asked, “What’s the pimple for?”

Anne knew Cord was less likely to indulge in small talk than usual, and Gil’s derogatory reference to the small saddle didn’t help. She did the explaining. “Most of the other horses are being ridden by boys or small, lightweight men. That saddle takes more than twenty pounds off Red. He’ll still be carrying close to two hundred pounds.”

Frank and Ephraim stared at her, understanding spreading across their faces. Going through the motions did not require lightening the horse’s load by twenty pounds. Their concerned expressions sharpened after Cord mounted and trotted Red toward the starting line when Anne pulled a small sheaf of bills from her pocket and said, “Luke, do you think you and Pete could bet this for me? On Red to win?”

The two young men had learned their lesson the last time Anne bet on Cord and the red horse. As they walked toward the tables where most of the betting was taking place, Pete could be heard asking Luke, “How much spare cash you got on you?”

Frank asked no one in particular, “What the hell is going on?”

Anne gave him what she hoped was an innocent smile.

For spectators, the best feature of the race was that from a position near the starting line, one could look down into the wash where the worst of the race took place and see everything except parts of the Narrows. Anne worked her way to a good vantage point and then turned to watch the start. The family joined her, a small crowd within the crowd, and then the Stones pushed their way to her side too.

For a seeming eternity, first one horse and then another broke formation at the starting line, until finally all fifteen were aligned for the seconds necessary for the starter to fire his gun. They broke towards the wash in a herd, an indistinguishable blur of shining bay, chestnut, and brown.

Slowly, over the first mile, the group began to string out. As Cord had predicted, Lathrum’s leggy bays led the pack. Even as Anne spotted the pretty brown mare and the Bar S chestnut, the mare passed two other horses. Red was definitely last, running several lengths behind the last of the ten horses in a pack behind the leaders. He seemed to lose even more ground as the animals ahead of him began to run through the overturned trees and deadwood covering the first part of the wash.

By the time Red came to that part of the course, the pack had streamed through, leaving his way clear. He picked his way neatly through the litter strewn trail. One of the horses in the pack ahead was already pulling up lame.

The leaders were now splashing through the treacherous stream bed. The next casualty was the brown mare. She was ridden out of the stream, out of the way of the oncoming riders, barely putting weight on one hind leg.

Anne could not stop a moan from escaping. “Poor pretty brown lady.”

John Stone’s voice came sharp and sarcastic. “Save your sympathy. We’re going to need it.” The Stones must have really believed the lure of keeping the prize money would make Cord forget any scruples he had and push their horse through the course full tilt.