Authors: Jae
"Maybe he wanted to show me that running the ranch is
about more than handling horses. Or maybe he thought I already knew." Amy
sighed. She had disappointed her parents and herself. While Hendrika had made
mistakes, the responsibility had been hers.
Hendrika set the bowl of stew on the table and ran her thumb
over the black burn marks. "Then we both learned something today,"
she said. "I'll never feed your horses again, and you'll keep a better eye
on me, just to make sure I don't do anything stupid."
Keeping a closer eye on her...
Amy wasn't sure that
was such a good idea, but she admired Hendrika's calm maturity. Instead of
holding a grudge, Hendrika was moving on. Maybe she should do the same.
"You can feed the horses. Just ask me or one of the ranch hands first. And
please, never leave a bucket with a handle in a stall. The horses might get a
hoof caught in it."
"Horses really are vulnerable animals, aren't
they?" Hendrika said, her brown eyes wide with the realization. "They
look so big and powerful, but they can be hurt so easily."
"Yes." The shared knowledge formed an almost
tangible connection between them. Amy lowered her gaze. "How are your
hands?"
"Oh." Hendrika hid them behind her back.
"They're fine."
"Let me see," Amy said, using the voice she
normally reserved for coaxing a skittish foal from its mother's side.
Reluctantly, Hendrika presented her hands, palms up.
"Ouch." Amy winced at the sight of half a dozen
blisters. She also noticed that Hendrika's hands were not as smooth as
expected. Those weren't the hands of a spoiled eastern lady. Calluses had
formed in different places than on Amy's own hands, but they told Amy that
Hendrika was familiar with hard work. "Mama gave me some ointment for the
blisters." She dug into her pants pocket and held out the small jar.
"Here."
"Thank you." Hendrika dipped a finger into the
ointment and spread some of it onto her palms.
A mental image of taking over the task, running her fingers
over Hendrika's palms, flashed through Amy's mind.
Stop. Don't start this
again. Keep your distance from her.
She had finally gotten a grip on her
reactions to Hannah, and now Hendrika came along and threw her world into
chaos. Amy took a quick step back and almost stumbled when Hendrika reached out
to hand her the ointment. "Um, listen, there's a dance at the schoolhouse
Saturday night. Nattie is trying to talk Mama into letting her go. You're welcome
to attend too."
"Just Nattie? What about you?" Hendrika asked.
"Ah, I'm not much for dancing."
Hendrika nodded. "Neither am I."
Though she hadn't planned on attending the dance, Hendrika's
rejection stung, maybe because she couldn't read Hendrika well enough to know
if it was a rejection of dancing or a rejection of her family.
It's better
that way,
Amy told herself. "All right. Goodnight, then."
"Goodnight," Hendrika answered.
Seconds later, the cool night air embraced Amy. She sucked
in a calming breath, but the tension in her shoulders didn't dissipate. Her
life, which had consisted just of her family and the horses, was getting
complicated. Somehow, being angry with Hendrika had been easier.
M
UD
SQUISHED IN Luke's boots with every step. Her feet felt like frozen blocks of
ice. Her breath condensed in front of her, mingling with the mist in the air,
as she struggled up the steep path.
Behind her, the horses in her string pounded through the mud
and the sleet. Every horse in her little herd was a hardy, sure-footed
Appaloosa, but Luke worried nonetheless. Boulder-strewn ravines and slippery
grades didn't make the best road. It was slow going, and they'd already lost
hours climbing Laurel Hill.
Luke initially wanted to keep going and make it down the
other side before they set up camp but realized that continuing on would be
more dangerous than stopping for the night. "Phin," she called over
her shoulder. "Let's make camp here."
No one objected. Without losing time or words, they put up
their canvas to protect them from the rain and hobbled the horses so they
wouldn't wander off and eat the poisonous laurel growing everywhere on Laurel
Hill.
Finally, Luke used her saddle as a backrest and wolfed down
a bowl of cold beans and bread. Chewing, she looked around. To her left,
half-frozen water glittered in ruts that had been carved into the road by
thousands of wagons crossing the Cascade Mountains over the last decades.
One of those wagons had been theirs, seventeen years ago.
Seventeen years.
Luke shook her head in silent
wonder.
Where did the time go?
A lot had happened in those seventeen
years, but at the same time, it felt like yesterday. She still remembered the
night on Laurel Hill. Somewhere around here, Nattie had been born.
And it was here that Nora and I first made love.
The
memory of it warmed her cold body. Her skin burned under Nora's remembered
kisses.
"Boss?" Phin's voice cut through her daydreams.
"Can you come over here and look at the bay gelding with the blaze? I
think he's favoring his right hind leg."
The thought of a horse being injured chased the smile off
Luke's face. She set aside her bowl and hurried over.
The bay gelding stood on three legs, resting his right hind
leg. That in itself wasn't unusual. Luke had often seen horses standing on just
three legs when they were dozing. The gelding wasn't relaxed, though. His
muscles stood out in sharp relief, and he was wringing his tail in tight
circles.
"Hey there," Luke murmured and softly touched his
nose. "How are you doing, big guy?" Sliding one hand over his back to
let him know she was there, she walked around the gelding and ran her other
hand down his leg. "There's some heat in his fetlock. This doesn't feel
good."
Kit watched over Luke's shoulder. The gelding was part of
his string. "Anything we can do?"
"Let's pack some moss around his leg and soak it with
cold water. Other than giving him lots of rest, there's nothing more we can
do," Luke said.
"Lots of rest?" Phin stepped next to her.
"You want to stay here and not move on tomorrow?"
Luke watched Kit gather some moss and secure it around the
gelding's fetlock. The horse twitched, and Luke winced in sympathy.
"No," she said. "We can't leave the herd here for more than a
night. If the gelding is still favoring his leg tomorrow morning, we'll have to
think of something else."
"Something else?" Phin looked at her as if he
didn't doubt that Luke had a solution in mind.
Luke often wondered whether that trust and easy acceptance
of her authority would turn into disgust and rebellion if Phin ever learned who
his boss really was. "The gelding won't make it to Fort Boise," she
said. "Not at the pace we need to deliver the herd on time. And there's no
settlement nearby and no place where we can safely leave the gelding until we
get back. If he's not better in the morning, one of us will need to take him
back home."
Phin glanced at Kit and Charlie, then back at Luke.
"Want me to go?"
Luke was tempted to say yes. At least then she'd know her
family and the ranch were well taken care off. Part of her, the overprotective
parent part, even wanted to head back herself, just to make sure everything was
all right. But it wouldn't be fair to Amy to hand over responsibility for the
ranch and then take it away so soon. If Amy wanted to run the ranch one day,
she needed to learn how to deal with all upcoming problems and the obstacles
people threw in her way because she was a woman. With her or Phin there, that
wouldn't happen. "No," Luke said. "Let's send Kit." As their
youngest ranch hand, he wouldn't give Amy any trouble, and it would also put
him out of harm's way should anything go wrong on the way to Fort Boise.
"All right," Phin said.
Guilt sneaked up on Luke. "Listen," she said.
"I know you want to go see your betrothed, but if I send you, people will
think you're taking charge."
Phin's blue eyes zeroed in on Luke and studied her.
"You're keeping me away from the ranch to test Amy? You're setting her up
to fail?" Phin's jaw tightened.
His loyalty to Amy sent a smile to Luke's lips. "No. I
want her to succeed in whatever she chooses to do with her life."
"I think it's pretty clear what she wants to do,"
Phin said.
Amy said she wanted to run the ranch one day, and Luke had
never tried to talk her out of it. But other twenty-year-old women were already
married and starting families. One or two of Amy's schoolmates had gone east,
and Bernice and Jacob's oldest daughter had even become a lady doctor. Amy had
a lot of options, and Luke didn't want her to have any regrets later on.
"She wants to live her life and run the ranch the way I
do, but that will never be possible for Amy," Luke said. Not without
constantly hiding a big part of herself and Luke didn't want that for her
daughter. "Amy knows what running a ranch means for me, not what it would
mean for an unmarried woman. She's never had to give orders without me there to
back them up, never had to do business in town without the townspeople knowing
that she was acting on my behalf."
"You don't think Amy can do it?"
"Given enough time and experience, I'm sure she could,
but I want her to be sure this is what she wants to do with her life, despite
all difficulties. If it's not, I'd rather she find out now, when she's still
young and can do other things with her life." Luke couldn't see Amy living
and being happy anywhere but the ranch, but being a good horsewoman didn't
necessarily mean Amy was cut out to be a good rancher. "If all she wants
is to work with horses, she might want to marry a rancher willing to accept a
wife who's not just going to sit at home."
Phin's eyes twinkled. "I don't think that's what Amy
wants. I offered."
Her heart leaped. She squinted at Phin. What was that
supposed to mean? "You proposed to Amy? Without asking Nora and me
first?"
"Easy, boss." Phin rubbed his blond stubbles,
which didn't hide his blush. "I knew Amy would say no, but I thought I'd
give her the option. I never made any advances toward your daughters. I
promised you that when you hired me."
Back then, Phin had been little more than a pimple-faced
adolescent. Had it been easy for him to keep his promise over the years?
"You don't love Amy," Luke said. She wanted love
for her daughters, the same happiness she shared with Nora.
"I like her," Phin answered. "That's more
than many men can say about their wives. It would have been a business deal
between friends."
A business deal.
The familiar words made Luke grin.
Her business deal with Nora had blossomed into love. Maybe it would happen for
Phin and his mail-order bride too, but she couldn't see it happening between
Phin and Amy.
She clapped Phin on the shoulder in a fatherly way.
"You're a good man, Phin."
Phin smiled. "I had a good role model."
Helpless laughter almost brought tears to Luke's eyes as she
tried to suppress it and started to cough.
If only he knew.
"
A
RE
YOU SELLING newspapers now?" Jacob Garfield chuckled and nodded at the
stack of paper in Amy's hands.
Amy smiled back and tried her best to ignore two young women
who looked up from bolts of fabric to throw curious glances at her. "No,
Jacob. These are just posters Mama made. We're searching for a new ranch hand.
Know anyone who might be interested?"
"Buzz Williams has been looking to get away from
working in the livery stable," Jacob said.
An image of Buzz whipping the gray mare with the end of his
rope flashed before Amy's eyes. She gritted her teeth.
We might be in
desperate need of new help, but we're not that desperate.
"One of your men give his notice?" Jacob asked
while he cut off a few yards of fabric from a bolt.
Amy nodded. "Adam."
Jacob's bushy brows crept toward each other like two gray
caterpillars. "You are not in trouble now that your father is gone for so
long, are you? Maybe Luke shouldn't have taken Phin with him."
Anger boiled up in Amy, but she forced it back. Papa didn't
need her to defend his honor. Amy had her own battles to fight. "We'll be
just fine," she said. "Can I hang up one of the posters in your
store?"
At his nod, Amy handed a handwritten poster over the counter.
"Thank you," she said and hurried from the store.
She marched through town and left posters at the barbershop,
the saddle maker's shop, and the livery stable.
One more place to go.
When
she neared Baker Prairie's saloon, she slowed her steps.
From beyond the swinging doors, the clinking of glasses
greeted her.
Just as she was about to enter, a man stepped onto the
boardwalk and almost collided with her. Amy recognized Augustus Snyder, the
only other horse breeder in this part of the valley and Papa's biggest rival.
"God darn it, girl!" He squinted at her through
whiskey-clouded eyes. "Aren't you Lucas Hamilton's oldest girl?"
Amy squared her shoulders. She was twenty years old, not a
girl. "I'm his daughter, yes. Good day, Mr. Snyder." She tried to slip
past him and into the saloon.
"Not so fast." Snyder grabbed her shoulder.
"What are you doing, girl?"
"I have business to attend to." Amy struggled to
keep still under his grip. Mama's admonition not to act impulsively still rang
in her ears.
"In the saloon? That's no proper place for a young
woman. What kind of business is this?"
Under the pretense of adjusting her bonnet, Amy swept his
hand off her shoulder. "I want to hire a new rider." She gave him a
sugar-sweet grin. "So if any of your men are interested in working for the
best horse breeder in the valley..."