Rose (12 page)

“I don’t think we ought to do that again.”

“Why?”

“Be reasonable, George. I’m your housekeeper. Suppose I let you start kissing me, catching me in corners, and…” Rose couldn’t finished that sentence. “Zac caught us. One of the other boys soon would. Then what would happen?”

“It was only a kiss.”

“I couldn’t stay here.” Rose meant to stop there. She didn’t know what made her say the next words. “It would be different if you wanted to marry me.”

“I don’t intend to marry anybody.”

“I know.”

“But I didn’t mean any harm.”

“I know that, too, but I can’t let you kiss me.”

She made him feel guilty, and that made him angry. “Why didn’t you stop me at the creek?”

“You caught me by surprise.”

“Is that all?”

“I guess I liked it.”

George started forward, but Rose stepped back again.

“I won’t do it again.”

“Why not?”

“Once something like this gets started, there’s no way to stop it except…”

“Except marriage,” George finished for her, an edge on his voice. “Is that all women think about? Can’t they imagine two people just enjoying each other?”

“Maybe I could, but other people can’t.”

“Are other people so important to you?”

“I’ll have to leave this ranch someday. What kind of work am I going to find if people think I’ve been carrying on with you? That would be worse than being a Yankee.”

“You don’t have to leave.”

“Yes, I do. You’ll leave, and the boys will find wives.”

“There’ll always be a place for you.” Why was he always saying that? They’d never intended her employment to be permanent.

“To do what? Be a nurse for other women’s children? To cook and clean so they can spend more time with their husbands? I want a husband and children of my own. I don’t want to be on the outside looking in.”

George couldn’t imagine Rose being anywhere without being the center of attention. It wasn’t just her looks or the fact she had a knack for organizing their lives and making them like it. She would be a very special person anywhere she went.

“Where are you going to find a husband?”

“Don’t be cruel,” she snapped.

“I didn’t mean it like that. You’ve already said nobody in Texas would have you. Where will you go?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not your concern.”

“Maybe not, but I am concerned.”

“Don’t be,” Rose said, fighting to hold back her tears. “Don’t pretend you care.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t. You like me, and you want me. That’s not the same thing.”

Wasn’t it? Liking and wanting. Because he felt both very strongly.

One of the horses in the corral neighed.

“Somebody’s coming,” Rose said, dashing a tear from her cheek. “No matter what you or I feel, there can be nothing between us. Not unless you mean marriage.”

She fled to the kitchen.

George felt like a skunk. He had warned himself against this from the start, yet he’d gone right ahead, knowing he couldn’t offer marriage, knowing he planned to leave within a year. Rose should have slapped him. She should be packing to leave right now.

A feeling of self-loathing swept over him. If his selfishness caused her to return to Austin and the likes of Luke Kearney, he was truly his father’s son.

George wanted to go after her, but the rider, a stranger, had reached the house. George walked forward to meet him.

He was nearly as tall as George, but he had none of his size. He had narrow shoulders, was whipcord thin, and rode bent over from the waist. He looked dirty and unshaven, but his worn and patched Confederate uniform guaranteed him a welcome.

“Howdy,” the man said. “I’m looking for a job. I heard your ranch had come through the war better than most.”

“Look around you,” George said. “Is this your idea of better than most?”

For the first time since his return, George looked at his home with a stranger’s eyes. The results staggered him. The rough logs of the house, the mud that filled in the cracks, made it look like the home of a poor dirt farmer, something George’s grandfather would have been ashamed to let his slaves live in. The scattered corrals, thriving garden, and brand-new chicken coop couldn’t negate the effect of clothes hanging on a line in the front yard, chickens scratching for grubs, and a wash pot nestled on a bed of ashes only a dozen feet from the front steps. Steps led to an open breezeway between the two halves of the house, not the elegant wallpapered passage of Ashburn with its polished heart-of-pine floor and winding double staircase.

Suddenly George felt poor. He had always faced the world against the backdrop of an elegant mansion; he’d extended hospitality that depended on the work of a dozen servants. He’d
always been a Randolph of the Randolphs of Virginia, privileged, courted, his name a household word from Massachusetts to Georgia.

But this stranger saw only a poor Texas rancher, hardly better off than himself, with no reputation, no standing in society. He was plain George Randolph.

He was nobody.

But quick on the heels of that devastating realization came another. For the first time in his life, he was free of the Virginia Randolphs; he had no reputation to live up to, or pull him down. And if he made something of himself, he would have earned it himself.

If he failed, he would disappear without a trace. In Virginia, a Randolph could never entirely disappear from society’s view. In Texas, plain George Randolph already had.

He was so taken by his thoughts he was almost unaware that the stranger was answering his question.

“You’ve got a roof over your head. That’s more than a lot I’ve seen.”

Rose had stepped out on the porch beside George to take up the burden of conversation.

“Won’t you get down and come inside?” she asked. “I’ve got a pot of stew on the stove. You’re welcome to have some.”

“Thank you, ma’am. It’s sometimes hard for a man to get a full belly. Ain’t no way he can keep it that way.”

“Why don’t you unsaddle your horse,” George suggested, ashamed of his lack of hospitality. “The least we can offer you is a few hours’ respite from the trail.”

“Mighty obliged,” the stranger said. He swung down and George helped him unsaddle his horse and turn him into the corral. When they entered the kitchen, Rose had a bowl of stew, some cold cornbread, and a big glass of milk waiting on the table.

“Have you come very far?” she asked.

“All the way from Georgia,” he replied. “There wasn’t much
left of the home place, so I started to drift. Things were better in Alabama, but they don’t have any money. It was even worse in Mississippi. Things seem a little better in Texas.”

Rose refilled his glass with fresh milk.

“I don’t mean to pry,” she said with an ingenuous smile, “but who do I have the honor of serving?”

“Things must have got real bad when I forget my manners,” he said, returning her smile. “The name’s Benton Wheeler, but I’d rather you call me Salty.”

“How did you get such a name?” Rose asked.

“The men in the company gave it to me for liking too much salt on my food. My old ma always said it would kill me someday.”

“My brother and I got home just a few months ago,” George said, sitting down to the table himself.

While Salty ate a plate of the venison stew Rose had simmering for dinner, three chunks of cornbread left over from breakfast, and drank two more glasses of milk, he and George talked.

“I must have passed a thousand ex-Confederates along the road, all looking for work. Lots of them have their families with them.”

“We’re not much better off here,” George said.

“Then I guess I’ll keep moving,” Salty said.

“I wish I knew where to tell you to go. You might try Austin or San Antonio.”

“Already been to Austin. That’s where I heard about your place. I thought I’d drift farther west. Maybe go as far as California or Oregon.”

They discussed the merits of looking for gold against farming, ranching against fighting Indians, homesteading against starting up a business in a new town.

“I guess I’d best get going,” Salty said, coming to his feet. “I’d like to be a good fifty miles west of here before sunset. Thanks for the food, ma’am. I never tasted anything better in my whole life.”

They walked outside. For several moments Salty stood looking into the distance, apparently reluctant to get back on the trail.

“Old Bony sure is going to be mighty disappointed to feel the weight of that saddle again today.”

Rose and George walked to the corral with Salty. “I thought you said you wanted to round up some cows to sell this fall,” Rose whispered to George when Salty slipped through the rails to catch his horse.

“I do.”

“You ever been on a roundup?”

“No.”

“Has Hen or Monty?”

“No.”

“Then you’re going to need help, first with the roundup and then with the drive.”

“I planned to hire men when we got ready to hit the trail.”

“You’ll need more help with the roundup and the branding than you will on the trail. They wouldn’t expect to be paid until you sell the herd. All you need to do now is feed them. They’d probably do most of their own cooking.”

“I don’t know if I can afford it. We won’t get more than a few dollars each selling them for hides.”

“Then trail them north to Missouri. A man came through Austin a few months ago saying he got thirty dollars a head for steers in St. Louis.”

“Thirty dollars!” George almost choked. “At that price I can afford to buy a hundred heifers from Mr. King. Are you sure they won’t expect to be paid now?”

“Ask him.”

“Just a minute,” George called out to Salty. The man had led his horse up to the corral fence. “We’ve got some rounding up to do. I’m thinking about sending a herd north to Missouri. Would you be interested in something like that?”

“Sure.”

“There might be shooting.”

“No more than in the war.”

“I won’t be able to pay you until I sell the herd.”

“Eating regular is more than I’m doing now.”

“I can’t even offer you a bed. The house is hardly big enough for us.”

“It ain’t rained but once since I crossed the Trinity,” Salty answered with an easy smile. “And I dry out real fast.”

“Okay. Leave your horse in the corral. You can go out with us tomorrow and get the lay of the land.”

They headed back to the house.

“I almost forgot,” Salty said. “I got a letter here. I’m told it’s almighty important, but I can’t seem to find the young woman it’s addressed to. I was told she stayed over this way, but I must have been given the wrong information.”

“I haven’t heard of any women living out here, young or old,” George said. “The Indians or bandits drove nearly everybody out during the war.”

“What’s her name?” Rose asked.

“Miss Elizabeth Thornton.”

“But my name’s Elizabeth Thornton.”

“Now what a coincidence,” Salty said. “No wonder people got confused thinking you and this Elizabeth Thornton were the same one.”

“But we must be. I mean, we are.”

“This can’t be you, ma’am. This young lady is unwed.”

“I’m not married,” Rose told him.

“I thought…”

“I keep house for Mr. Randolph and his brothers.” Rose hated the silence that fell. “My father always called me Elizabeth, but I prefer to be called Rose,” she explained.

“Then I guess this is yours,” Salty said, handing the letter to her.

Rose looked at the postmark and lost a little of her color.

“Anything wrong?” George asked.

“No,” she answered. “It’s just from somebody I thought had forgotten me.” She tucked the letter in her pocket. “I expect you men have a lot to talk about. I need to get back to the kitchen. There’ll be seven mouths to feed tonight.”

“You got five brothers?” Salty asked, startled.

“Six. One hasn’t come home from the war yet.”

“She a relative?” Salty asked, after Rose had gone.

“No.”

“She hiding out from somebody?”

“Exactly what are you getting at?” George asked, his temper and curiosity beginning to rise.

“Nothing much. Just that it’s unusual for a young woman to be staying with so many men. You know, women being such gossips and all.”

“There aren’t any women around to gossip.”

“Good thing.”

George didn’t pursue the conversation, but he didn’t have to in order to know what Salty meant. By coming to work for them, Rose had ruined her reputation.

But she must have understood the risks when she offered for the job. Whatever happened, it was none of his concern. Certainly not his fault.

But that didn’t soothe George’s irritation. People had no right to judge Rose. They hadn’t thought any worse of Peaches or Mrs. Hanks. But Rose was a Yankee’s daughter. She was young and single and prettier than their own daughters.

“There’s not much to show you,” George said to Salty. “Outside of the house and a chicken coop, all we have is corrals. And a bull we hope to use to upgrade our herd.”

“I know something about bulls,” Salty said. “Let’s have a look.”

“Did George say we could go this far from the house?” Zac asked.

“I didn’t ask him,” Rose replied.

“He said he’d chain me to the porch if he ever found me past the creek.”

“Do you think he’ll chain me?”

Zac giggled. “George wouldn’t chain a lady.”

“Who says I’m a lady?”

“George.”

He would, Rose thought, and ruin all her arguments for putting him out of her mind. She had gotten herself pretty much in hand after telling George she wouldn’t kiss him again. He wanted nothing permanent, and she wanted nothing to do with an army man. He was keeping his distance and she was keeping hers, but she had felt the need to get away from the house. Sometimes she felt as though the house was suffocating her.

“Keep an eye out for flowers,” Rose told Zac. “I want a bunch for the kitchen.”

“Do you like flowers?” Zac asked.

“Sure. Doesn’t everybody?”

“Men don’t,” Zac said, putting a bit of a stiff-legged strut into his walk. “That’s girl stuff.”

“Now who told you a thing like that?”

“Nobody had to tell me,” Zac stated. “I just knowed it.”

“Well, girls like flowers, so look sharp.”

“I’ll bet we’ll find thousands by the creek,” Zac said, running ahead. “Monty says they’s daisies everywhere.”

Rose refrained from correcting his grammar. They were on an outing. Both of them deserved to feel completely free to enjoy themselves. She particularly didn’t want to be thinking about George. That’s what had driven her from the house. If it ruined the countryside for her as well, she’d have no place to go.

She hurried ahead to catch up with Zac, pausing only to make a mental note of the berries or nuts she saw along the way.

Rose could never accustom herself to the brush—it seemed a cross between a desert and a jungle, all of it covered in thorns—but today it seemed friendly and welcoming. She started to wish they had brought a picnic lunch. The day was warm without being too hot. About a mile from the house, a thicket of live oaks beckoned invitingly. After the long walk, she was content to wander into its shade. She sat down on a fallen trunk and let her body absorb the cool. Zac followed moments later and immediately waded into the stream. She wondered why it was that little boys never could resist water, especially if it had mud in it. The two oldest Robinson boys seemed able to locate every mud puddle in Austin within ten minutes.

Next minute Rose found herself thinking about George, wondering if he’d enjoyed getting dirty when he was a little boy. Wondering if he had been as charming as Zac. Wondering if his sons would be like him.

Heaving a sigh, Rose got to her feet. She refused to think of George today. It only gave her a headache and solved nothing.

“Come on, Zac,” she called to the boy. He had climbed a tree and was crawling along a limb that extended out over the stream. “It’s time to head back.” They had come a long way, and she had plenty of work waiting for her when she got back.

Looking back to make sure Zac was climbing down from the tree, Rose started up the bank. She raised her hand to pull back a branch blocking her path and froze in her tracks.

Indians!

It was only one Indian, a Comanche she guessed. He sat his horse about a hundred feet up the trail, scanning the horizon. What was he doing here? What was he looking for? Was anybody else with him?

She foolishly hadn’t brought a rifle, and she had no idea where George and his brothers might be. If the Indian meant to raid the house, she was glad she wasn’t there. But he didn’t seem interested in going upstream. He looked around a moment longer, then waved to someone she couldn’t see.

There were more Indians.

“Wait for me,” Zac called, running up behind her.

Rose turned and slammed her hand over Zac’s mouth. The boy immediately struggled to free himself, but the single word “Indians!” hissed into his ear stilled his struggles.

Rose looked through the foliage, petrified that the Indian was even now galloping to where they hid in the trees. He hadn’t moved, but he was facing them. Before she could wonder what to do next, she heard the sound of hundreds of hooves on the hard earth. Moments later, several Indians emerged from the brush followed by a large herd of horses. Hundreds of them, Rose decided as she watched them go by.

“They’re stealing horses,” Zac whispered.

“Maybe they’re mustangs.”

“Look, they’re branded.”

Rose didn’t want to look. Just like anyone else, Indians were free to capture the thousands of mustangs that roamed the plain. But stealing horses was a hanging offense, and these Indians would be prepared to shoot anybody who interfered with them.

Rose became so fascinated with the horses streaming past she forgot the Indian sentry until Zac pulled on her sleeve.

“He’s coming.”

Rose didn’t have time to panic. “Climb back up the tree,” she hissed to Zac as she turned and ran back into the trees. She searched frantically for a place she could hide. The Indian was close to them now. If he pulled the branch aside, he couldn’t help but see them. Zac was already halfway up the tree when Rose decided the fallen tree was her best chance. She climbed over the log and hurried along the trunk hoping to hide among the tangled roots at its base. The tree had torn a big hole in the earth when it fell over, raising a ball of roots more than a dozen feet in diameter. Rose jumped into the hole. Chancing discovery, she looked back long enough to make sure Zac had disappeared among the upper branches of the tree.

Rose drew back as the Indian pulled aside the branch. Did he know they were here? Did he only guess?

Rose nearly stopped breathing when he rode his pony into the shadowy depths of the oaks, his rifle leveled. He must know they were here. She looked up into the treetops, but couldn’t see Zac. She hoped the Indian couldn’t either. She looked around for an escape route in case he discovered her hiding place. She could beat him across the creek, but she couldn’t get away, not when he was on horseback and she on foot.

Suddenly she noticed that the silence was so deep she could almost hear herself breathe. The horses and the other Indians were gone. Just the sentry remained. He looked at the ground. They must have disturbed the leaves. Maybe he could follow her trail to her hiding place.

She heard a strange animal sound, and the Indian looked back. His friends were calling him. The Indian looked over his shoulder, but didn’t turn his horse. He continued to study the ground.

The call came again, more impatient this time. Muttering something angrily under his breath, the Indian turned his pony. At the edge of the grove, he turned back once more.

Rose held her breath.

Digging his heels into his pony’s side, the Indian rode out into the sunlight and cantered off to join his fellow warriors.

Rose almost fainted with relief. She had known there were Indians and outlaws roaming over most of Texas, everybody knew that, but her days at the ranch had been so peaceful she had come to feel that no danger threatened her. George had made her feel safe. Now she realized that not even George could shield her from every danger.

She waited a few minutes to make sure the Indian didn’t mean to come back. It seemed as if she waited for hours, but she knew that only a few minutes had passed. Finally, she emerged from behind the roots of the fallen tree. She searched the trees overhead, but try as she might, she couldn’t see Zac.

“Zac,” she called softly. She was afraid to call too loudly
for fear the Indian was close enough to hear. “Zac,” she called again when nothing happened.

A bit of bark fell at her feet, and she looked up to see Zac descend to the joint where the oak’s huge trunk divided in two.

“Is he gone?” Zac asked.

“I think so,” Rose answered, glancing nervously about to make certain the Indian wasn’t trying to sneak up on them from a different angle.

“Wait till I tell George,” Zac said, dropping to the ground. “He told me I wouldn’t see no more Indians.”

Rose didn’t want to tell George. She was going to have to think of a good reason for being so far from the house. George had never told her not to leave the house, but she had known it was a dangerous thing to do. Thinking about George had caused her to forget caution. It was a stupid thing to do, and she couldn’t expect George to think much of her intelligence after this.

“They must have had a million horses,” Zac told his brothers that evening.

“Closer to a hundred,” Rose corrected.

“I wonder where they got that many?” Hen asked.

“Must have been Hewson’s place,” Monty said.

“But that’s more than fifty miles from here.”

“Hewson probably thought he was safe. That’s why the Indians were able to steal so many.”

“Are you sure the Indian wasn’t doing anything more than serving as a lookout?” George asked Rose. “Was he wearing war paint?”

“His face wasn’t colored, if that’s what you mean,” Rose answered. “And he didn’t come up to the house. Do you think he knew you lived here?”

“Yes,” Monty answered her. “They know every rancher in the area.”

“Someone is going to have to stay at the house from now on,” George said. “It was stupid of me to think we could leave it unprotected.”

“We’ll take turns,” Hen said.

“And I don’t want you or Zac to go any farther than the creek or the corrals unless one of us is with you,” George said to Rose.

“Those old Indians won’t find me,” Zac stated proudly. “I bet I can go all the way to Austin without nobody seeing me.”

“We’re all going to have to be more careful,” George told his youngest brother, “even you.”

“But—”

“If you want to go with us again, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

“But—”

“How would you feel if some Indian shot Rose while you were playing in the brush, all because you weren’t here to warn her?”

Rose hated for George to make Zac feel guilty before he had done anything, but she realized it was probably the only way to make the boy stay close to the house. After years of doing pretty much as he wanted, he was having difficulty accepting discipline.

“Okay, but if any old Indian comes sneaking around the house, I’ll blow his head off.”

“You do that,” George said. “As for you,” he said turning to Rose, “I don’t want you to leave the house unless it’s necessary.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Rose assured him. “Today was enough to keep me quaking in my boots for months to come.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Monty said. “If any Indian was stupid enough to come after you, you’d have his clothes in the wash pot and him in the bathtub in five minutes. Wouldn’t any Indian ever come around here again.”

Rose laughed along with everyone else, but as far as she was concerned, the Indians could stay dirty.

Rose had a bad feeling about the six men the moment she spotted them through the kitchen window. There wasn’t supposed to be anybody out this way except rustlers, bandits, and ex-soldiers down on their luck. These men rode strong, well-fed horses and wore good clothes. Their eyes seemed to dart from one spot to another as though they were making a mental inventory of everything they saw.

She couldn’t believe they were thieves come to check out the ranch before they tried to rob it. There was nothing to steal. But they wanted something and probably weren’t too concerned about how they got it. They looked the type.

Whatever they wanted, George was here, in front of the house. He had seen them, too.

But the tension along the back of her neck twisted a few notches tighter when she saw George move toward a rifle he had leaned against the house. They were alone today. All the boys, including Salty, were working a little-used part of the range. Much too far away to hear gunshots.

Almost without thinking, Rose reached for the shotgun that George had made her keep in the kitchen since the Indians appeared.