Gib Rides Home (10 page)

Caesar and Comet, the bay team that Gib had met before, were in the first two stalls, and on the right side across the corridor a blue roan stuck his head out over the half door and nickered coaxingly. And suddenly the quiver was there again in the farthest corners of Gib’s mind, the deeply buried stirring of something almost remembered.

“All right, you old beggar,” Hy was saying. “Be right with you. Got ourselves a new wrangler here who’s going to be looking out for you.” Turning to Gib, he said, “Roan’s mine. Had him nigh onto twenty years now, since he was just a yearlin’. Best cutting horse I—”

“Lightning,” Gib interrupted excitedly. “Lightning?” He made it into a question, and Hy nodded, grinning.

“Right again,” he said. “Old Blue Lightnin’.” One eyebrow crept up. “So you remember Lightnin’.”

Gib’s nod was enthusiastic—exultant. “I do. I do now. I wouldn’t have if somebody just asked me, maybe, but seeing him, seeing the way his mane flops over like that, and how his forehead kind of tucks down over his eyes, it—it just came back like. All of a sudden I saw him trotting down a road, stepping high and tossing his head.”

“Sounds like my old blue devil all right,” Hy said, rubbing the quivering nose. “Always did have a full head of steam in him.”

It was then, peeking over the next door, that Gib saw something that almost took his breath away. The mare in the next stall was a thing to look at, long-legged and high-necked, solid black except for a white blaze on her forehead and three white feet. A little jumpy, though, Gib thought as she eyed him curiously from across the stall, flicking her ears back and forth. Gib was still hanging over the door when Hy swung up beside him on his crutches.

“Got to watch this one,” Hy said. “Not mean. No sirree. Not mean at all.” Hy shook his head firmly, as if someone were arguing with him. “Just high-spirited and a mite skittish.”

“She yours too?” Gib asked, gazing in awe at the elegant creature, but Hy only shook his head.

“Silky? No. ’Fraid not. Black Silk here’s from bluegrass country. The missus got all sorts of fancy papers on her. Used to be her pleasure-ridin’ horse. ’Fraid nobody rides her much now.” They both stood quietly as the mare approached cautiously, snorting and showing the whites of her eyes. Gib was holding out his hand when Hy clapped him on the back.

“That’s all there is now, ’cept for the mules, down t’other end. All those fancy box stalls just goin’ to waste.” He shrugged. “Come on now, let’s get to it. Lots to do. I’ll show you the ropes and then I’ll brush down the boss’s team a bit while you take care of the feedin’.”

Gib’s job, at least the first part, which consisted of climbing the ladder to the loft and sending down a double flake of hay to each of the four horses and two mules, was easy and fun. And rationing out the oats was even better. He really liked going into each stall, being nickered at and nudged by velvety noses as he poured out the oats. Into each of the stalls, that is, except the black mare’s.

Hy insisted on feeding Black Silk. Balancing on one crutch and holding the oat can with the other hand, he made his way into the stall and out again while the mare stood back and eyed the crutch suspiciously, flicking her ears and rolling her eyes.

“Maybe you can take over tomorrow or the next day,” Hy told Gib, “after she’s had a bit of a chance to get used to you.”

There were other chores after the horses: feeding and watering the chickens, gathering eggs, and feeding the cow. And soon, Hy said, there would be some gardening, and the milking too. According to Hy, Mrs. Perry, who was the Thorntons’ cook and housekeeper, had been doing the milking lately but wasn’t happy about it. So that was to be a part of Gib’s job too, as soon as he got the hang of it. And when Gib said he already knew how to milk because he’d learned at the orphanage, Hy looked surprised and said as how Mrs. Perry was going to be mighty pleased to hear that they taught the orphans at that awful place something useful.

The last chore was delivering the eggs to the cooler on the porch of the big house, and then came washing up at a long metal trough near the kitchen door. By then it was time for supper. The five-thirty meal that the girl named Livy had come all the way down the lane to Hy’s cabin to announce.

As he was hanging up the towel Hy said, “’Bout having meals with the boss’s family. It’s kind of a leftover from the days when this place used to be the home spread for the Rocking M Ranch. Merrill family owned the Rocking M back then, and the missus used to be Julia Merrill ’fore she married Mr. Thornton. Grew up right here on the ranch, she did. Back in those days all the hired hands used to eat in the kitchen with the family.”

Hy’s grin had a hazy, remembering look to it. “A dozen people, closer to twenty during roundups,” he went on. “Used to get pretty lively sometimes back then, but ... He paused. “Things are different now. Different,” he said again, Gib could tell that the difference was somehow important.

“Different?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Hy said. “Well, quieter like. Bein’ a banker and all, Mr. Thornton likes things to be sort of polite and quiet like.” He grinned. “Quiet, ’specially.”

Gib had a feeling Hy was trying to tell him something without really saying it.

“Quiet,” he repeated, nodding, and Hy grinned and nodded back.

Gib told himself he wouldn’t forget.

The kitchen in the big house was pretty amazing. Amazingly huge and warm and good-smelling. It was an enormous room with a long rectangular table running down the center and, around the walls, cupboards, sinks, worktables, and two big cooking ranges. At one end of the long table there were place settings for—five, six, seven, Gib counted—seven people. Yes, he thought, a large family.

Looking around the room, breathing in the mouthwatering smells, and then counting the seven place settings, Gib felt an unexpected rush of hope. A fleeting feeling that here it was, a scene right out of his dream. But then the people began to arrive, and they were not one big family and not at all like the people he had always imagined.

A woman came in first. A large roundish woman with a face to match who was wearing a gingham dress and apron and carrying a big pitcher. When she saw Gib she stopped, stared, and then said, “Well, glory be. So this is finally the boy from the orphanage.” Setting the pitcher down on the table, she put her hands on her hips and went on staring, nodding her large, round head.

Gib was wondering if ... and then deciding that no, this couldn’t be the Mrs. Thornton who had ridden the mare named Black Silk, when three more people came in. Two more women and then Mr. Thornton himself, still dressed in a dark suit and high-collared shirt.

The two women were very different-looking. The older one was tall and thin with a narrow, bony face, a plain, dark dress, and lots of wiry gray hair. The other was probably the most elegant woman Gib had ever seen. She was wearing a dress made of a deep blue shiny material, there was lace around her wrists and neck, and a great pile of brown hair was arranged in sleek coils on top of her small head. She looked, Gib decided, as elegant as the black mare and almost as beautiful. But the beautiful woman didn’t walk into the room like the others. Sitting in a thronelike chair, she was pushed through the door and up to the table by the woman with the thin face and sharp, quick eyes.

Gib had never seen a wheelchair before, but he’d heard about them. He was still staring when the beautiful woman turned, looked directly at him, and said, “Well, hello there, Gibson Whittaker. So here you are at last.” Just then there was the sound of running feet. The door flew open, and the girl who had visited Hy’s cabin shot into the room, skidded to a stop, and then, ignoring Gib completely, walked primly to the end of the table and sat down next to the woman in the wheelchair. And when the woman said, “Livy dear, this is Gibson Whittaker,” she only glanced at him briefly and turned away. “I know,” she said coolly. “The boy from the orphanage.”

L
ATE THAT NIGHT, AS
he tossed restlessly on a squeaky cot in the loft of Hy’s cabin, Gib’s mind spun with a bewildering confusion of vivid mental pictures, unanswered questions, and up-and-down emotions.

The pictures came first. Most often and most shocking, a picture of Mr. Thornton in his long, dark coat seated in front of Miss Offenbacher’s desk. That scene flashed up again and again, and with it always came the same quick flicker of nightmare terror as when, at first glimpse, the man had looked so much like Georgie’s Mr. Bean.

Other images stirred up other feelings. The feeling of hope when he had first seen the Thorntons’ big, old tree-sheltered house. And the bewildered excitement that had flared when Hy stumbled out of the cabin. Dusty old Hy with his tumbleweed hair, broken leg, and leathery face. A face that had caused one of those vibrations that promised, but didn’t always produce, a buried memory. But with Hy the memory had burst free, and Gib had known for sure and certain that he had not only seen this man before but also heard that creaky voice and strange honking laugh.

Other pictures ... the huge old barn with its four horses. Its four beautiful horses. Thinking about the horses, Gib shivered even though the night was warm and there were plenty of blankets on the squeaky cot.

And then there was the mouthwatering image of the Thorntons’ kitchen with its long table loaded down with wonderful food. Oven-roasted meat and fresh vegetables and freshly baked bread. And peach pie for dessert. Never in his life had Gib eaten anything so delicious as that thick slab of peach pie. Full as he was now, he still enjoyed reliving the eating, tasting all of it over and over again in his imagination and comparing it to the grainy soups or mushy stews that, along with a slice of bread, were all there was to a Lovell House supper.

The kitchen scene went on and on, around the table and back again. Mr. Thornton first, gray-bearded, dark-suited Mr. Thornton, who sat at the head of the table and read a paper and spoke very little. And then the beautiful lady in the thronelike wheelchair, who, just as Gib had guessed, was Mrs. Thornton.

Mrs. Julia Thornton, who had grown up here on the Thornton land when it was the Rocking M Ranch, and who had owned and ridden the black mare. And who smiled at Gib every time she noticed him staring.

During the meal Mrs. Thornton and the other women, Mrs. Perry, the cook, and the tall gray one, whose name was Miss Hooper, had done almost all of the talking. Quiet talk, mostly about things like a church supper that was being planned and a new batch of baby chicks that had hatched that morning.

There were vivid mind pictures, too, of the girl called Livy—or sometimes Olivia. Seen at the other end of the table, without the element of shocked surprise that had accompanied her sudden appearance at the cabin door, she had at first seemed rather elegant, too. Or interesting, anyway. Interestingly unlike anything Gib had ever imagined in his daydream families. The girls he had pictured had tended to be vaguely shy and pale, not at all like this head-tossing, high-spirited person with her frowning dark blue eyes.

During dinner Gib had watched her cautiously from time to time, but whenever she saw him looking she frowned and tossed her head in a way that jiggled her big white hair ribbon and the thick mass of brown curls that hung down her back. She didn’t say anything to him, though. Most of the time she didn’t say anything to anyone, but now and then she talked to the women, particularly when they were discussing the baby chicks.

“I helped one of them hatch,” she’d said. “Its shell had a sticky skin inside it that wouldn’t break and the chick couldn’t get out so I peeled a little of it off and it came out all wet and sticky and—” She broke off suddenly, looking at her father, who was frowning at her over the top of his paper.

“Olivia,” he said sharply, and then, turning to the gray-haired woman, he went on, “Miss Hooper, don’t you agree that discussions of such barnyard procedures are hardly appropriate during a meal? Perhaps a lesson on suitable dinnertime conversation would be in order.”

“Yes,” Miss Hooper said, “I quite agree. Olivia and I will discuss it when the opportunity arises.”

Watching the girl right then, Gib had noticed how a muscle in her cheek tightened and twitched angrily. And when she caught Gib looking, her glare was fiercer than ever. Gib couldn’t help wondering what he’d done to make her so angry.

At their end of the table Hy said nothing at all unless he was spoken to, and neither did Gib. Remembering Hy’s warning, Gib had been careful to be very quiet.

Outside the cabin the wind increased, hissing around corners and rattling loose shingles, so that even after the pictures faded Gib couldn’t fall asleep. It was then that the questions began. Hy had answered some of them, but now it seemed that there were even more that had been left unanswered. Questions about exactly where his home had been and what it had been like, and why his memories had always been so vague and confused. There was so much more that he wanted to know.

Then there was another question that hadn’t occurred to him at first but that now seemed to be terribly important. Why had Mr. Thornton come for him? If the Thorntons had known him all those years ago, and had known he was at Lovell House, why hadn’t they come to get him before? Why did they wait until ... But then, suddenly, Gib thought he knew at least that one answer. Buster had given him the answer when he had explained how nobody wanted to farm out a boy who was too young to be useful.

Gib sighed. So that was it, then. He had definitely been farmed out, just like Georgie and Herbie. He was here at the Thorntons’ as what Buster had called slave labor, an unpaid milker of cows and gatherer of eggs and cleaner of stalls and who knew what else.

Rolling over on the squeaky cot, Gib rewrapped himself in blankets and tried, just as he’d always tried at Lovell House, to concentrate on hopeful thoughts. Like the food, for instance. Unless this evening had been a special occasion, which nobody had said it was, it certainly didn’t look like he was going to starve to death, at any rate.

And then there was that other, even more comforting, thought. The one about how Hy had called him the new wrangler. A wrangler was the cowboy who was in charge of the horses on roundup. Rolling over again, Gib wrapped himself in the thought of being a wrangler, and before long went to sleep.