Ruby (13 page)

“Word just hasn’t gotten around yet.” Charlie set a plate of ham and eggs in front of her. “I’ll go out later and call on every building in Little Missouri.”

“What if you put up a sign at the railroad stop? For the people on the train, you know.” Cimarron took a bite out of a cinnamon roll that looked and tasted both sinful and delicious.

Charlie continued to surprise Ruby with his cooking talents. If only everyone would realize what they were missing.

“Good idea. We’ll paint one this morning.”

“Milly and me could take samples around,” Opal offered.

Ruby looked a question at her little sister. “Samples?”

“You know, like the man in the park used to do. ‘Get your free samples here!”’ She imitated the barker’s call to the chuckles of the others at the table. “We could do that, huh, Milly?”

Ruby glanced at Milly too, hoping that she would agree. At her nod of agreement, Ruby smiled at Opal. “That’s a good idea too. Anyone else?”

“Oh!” Charlie shut the door to the pantry a second too late. Cat, as the young kitten was called since she had no name yet, streaked across the kitchen and into the storage room. Milly and Opal lunged off their chairs, too late to dive for the cat but quick enough to see which stack of boxes, barrels, and buckets the gray fluffy tail disappeared behind.

“Here, kitty kitty.” Opal had already perfected the right tone of pleading. She’d spent a good part of the evening before sitting in a corner of the pantry trying to entice the cat to take a bit of venison from her fingers, all to no avail. However, anything put in the dish had been devoured. Their cat would not starve to death. Of course, with all that food available, she might not bother with the mice either.

“There are mice in the storeroom too.” Charlie poured more coffee all around.

“True, but it will be more difficult to tame her if Opal can’t find her.”

“She’ll come out for food.”

“Now if that was a male cat, food would work, but for a female? Don’t count on it.” Cimarron stared at Charlie over the top of her coffee cup, one eyebrow raised.

“You saying males can be bribed with food?”

“If the shoe fits . . .”

At the man’s guffaw, Ruby happened to glance at Daisy and saw a look of adoration aimed at the man teasing Cimarron.
Oh my, I hope that’s not what I think I’m seeing
. Though inexperienced in the ways of men and women, she’d read enough books to recognize the situation. Daisy had a thing going for Charlie, and Charlie always treated her like his kid sister—if he paid any attention to her at all, other than being polite.

A bell tinkled. Ruby leaped to her feet and headed to the dining room. Someone had come in. She pushed the newly painted swinging door open.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, ma’am.” The soldier who spoke removed a gray broad-brimmed felt hat. “Is Charlie here?”

“Yes. I’ll get him. Would you like to have breakfast?” At the shake of his head, she added, “Coffee?”

“Sorry, I just need to talk with Charlie.”

“All right.” Ruby returned to the kitchen and sent Charlie out. She’d hoped for at least one customer.

By evening they’d served no one in the dining room, but four men had gathered in the cardroom where Belle could be heard laughing as she dealt.

“Hey, Charlie, bring on the whiskey!”

Ruby looked up from the table where she sat going over the ledger and caught the look on Charlie’s face.

He believes we should be serving whiskey. And if we were, we would have some money coming in today. I know that’s what my father would have been doing, along with providing plenty of “hospitality.” And he made money. Now here I am trying to turn this establishment into a place I needn’t be ashamed to work in and where I can have my sister with me. God, I figured this is what you wanted me to do. If I’m wrong, I’d sure appreciate it if you would let me know before I lose every cent I have and this place, our inheritance, too
.

“Don’t you go gettin’ discouraged now.” Charlie stopped by the table on his way back to the kitchen. “It’s just the first day. Tomorrow I’m going to take rolls and coffee over to sell when the train comes in. No one is used to getting food here, but we’ll see how it goes. I baked cookies this afternoon too. If it goes well, this is another something that Opal and Milly can do.”

“You think so?”

“Well, how often did you have to get off the train for food on your way west?”

“You’re right.” She thought a moment. “We could make up some handbills to hand out to the drummers.” She flinched at the thought of the man she’d had the altercation with on the train. What if he came by? Not that there were many people in the town to buy anything from a drummer. Whatever possessed her to think she could. . . ?

“Now, Miss Ruby, there you go again.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“ ’Fraid so.”

Belle’s laugh from the cardroom stung like lemon on Ruby’s nerves. Here all the rest of them had worked themselves to the bone, and Belle lay around complaining. Now she was having a great time while the rest of them were still working dawn to dark and later.

Ruby slammed the ledger shut, stuffed it on the shelf behind the former bar, and stomped off into the kitchen.

The three around the table looked up, guilt like red paint all over their faces.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m learning how to play poker, Ruby, want to join us?” Opal held up her hand of five cards. “Five card draw, and I won twice already.”

Ruby closed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and unclenched her teeth.

Cimarron snatched the cards back. “I think we’ll play hearts instead. You ever played hearts, honey?”

That’s all I need. My little sister a cardsharp
.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Fool woman. Why’d she have to go messin’ around with things?”

Thoughts of Dove House’s new proprietress had plagued him day and night for the two weeks since he’d been to town. Buck’s ears swiveled as he kept track of the terrain, his rider’s muttering, the whisper of the wind in the sagebrush, and the tumbling creek.

Pretty little heifer, isn’t she?
Rand thought back to the spitfire he’d stepped in to protect on the train. In spite of having spent days on the train, she’d backed that fool drummer right up the aisle. Rand’s own warnings had been helpful but not necessary. Still, it must have been a shock to wake up to a little girl staring you in the face.

He chuckled, then right out laughed when he put himself in the man’s place. No wonder the drummer had been fit to be tied. And Rand was tied too, tied up in knots by a bitty young woman who’d most likely take on the world in defense of her little sister. On the train he’d thought the young girl might be her daughter, but Miss Torvald, as he now knew her to be, didn’t look old enough to have a child that age.

While she didn’t look so fancy in a dark skirt and white shirt, blouse, waist, whatever women called it, her backbone hadn’t softened any. You had to respect her for that, even though she was totally foolish in making changes at Dove House. The odds on her making a living in Little Misery without the girls’ services and the booze were slim to none.

Of course, that’s what his family had told him about running cattle out here in the middle of nowhere. But then they hadn’t seen the lush grass that grew so fast in the spring you could measure it each day, the rivers and creeks that provided water, and the breaks and valleys that provided protection from the cold in the winter and the heat of the summer. One needn’t worry about neighbors getting in your way either.

And now that he had a snug cabin, steady help, and two hundred cows calving this spring, he’d decided one winter night that if he didn’t start thinking of a family pretty soon, he might as well not think of it at all. Thoughts of sharing his bed and house with a warm and willing woman kept returning to him like butterflies to a patch of flowers.

He tightened the reins only a twitch, but Buck stopped immediately. Rand stared out over the greening plains that rippled and rolled far as the eye could see. If you didn’t know the badlands were out there, one would think the plains went on forever until you rode up to the edge of the cliff and looked down and across the most incredible shapes and colors, unimaginable until you saw them yourself. Near as he could figure, God went on a carving and painting spree when He laid down the Missouri and the Little Missouri Rivers. He must have been having a right good time. After the horror of war, the wildness of the badlands— or Mako Sica, as the Indians called it—was a good antidote. Rand had not had time nor energy for feeling lonely up until this past winter.

The trip home to Missouri hadn’t helped.

“Why don’t you stay, Rand?” His sister Abigail had pleaded. “We could sure use some help around here.”

“I know you could, but I got cows of my own to take care of. Spring roundup will start not long after I get back, and I gotta be there for that.”

“Roundup?”

“We have free range. That means those cows can cover half a county or more.”

“No fences? You must lose a lot of stock that way.” Abigail paced the kitchen, alternately patting the baby she carried against her shoulder and stirring the squirrel stew she’d made for supper. She handed Rand the baby and set about beating an egg and adding the flour and milk for dumplings. After dropping the spoonfuls of dough into the simmering stew, she retrieved the now sleeping infant.

“How bad has it been?” he asked her.

“Well, we still have the place. As you can see, Mark Allen works dawn to dark in the fields, and most of what we make goes for taxes. If we could pay some of the Negroes to come back and work, it sure would help. This place is too big for one man. Though Benjamin helps as much as he can, he’s only ten.” She laid the baby down in the cradle near the stove. “But it’s not big enough to support the two or three families needed to work it.”

“I understand, but . . .”

He watched her. She’d aged far more than her letters had let on. They had three children now, and several small markers over in the family graveyard told of losses alongside of his mother and father. While his father died not long after the end of the war from wounds suffered in the battle at Sayer’s Creek, his mother lived on until after Rand had left for the West.

“How are Jefferson and Sue Gail doing?”

“Hanging on like the rest of us. Too many women and not enough men to support them or keep the farms going.”

Rand thought of all the land in the West, the free homesteading. But in the West one didn’t have two-story houses with curtains and rugs or barns with stalls and neighbors within hollering distance. You didn’t have churches and schools and roads, but then you didn’t have taxes and the law breathing down your neck either.

“You could come west.”

“We’ve been over that before. This is home, and here we’ll stay.”

The next morning he had kissed his sister good-bye, shaken his brother-in-law’s hand, and offered them the freedom of the West once more before boarding the train. He hoped his next trip would be to take back the Hereford bull he’d found after visiting several farms up in Illinois.

Buck stamped a foot and tossed his head, bringing Rand back to the present. On the valley floor a small herd of pronghorn antelope grazed, one buck keeping an eye on the horse and rider. Ponderosa pine trees, junipers, and elderberry and chokecherry bushes lined the draw leading from valley to prairie. He would follow the cattle-and-game trail back down, most likely scaring up a mule deer or perhaps the doe with twin fawns he’d seen a few days before. Riding this range he called home always brought new sights, if nothing more than the way the buttes threw their shadows in the evening or the rising sun highlighted a slash of red stone. The
whee whee
of a canyon wren sang from the draw. He’d seen them, their tiny tails flicking upright with every motion, almost invisible as they dug in cracks and crevices, searching for insects. There were far fewer birds here than at home.

Mother would approve of her
. The thought jolted him.

Buck tossed his head, his show of surprise or even resentment at Rand’s movement. Rand knew his mother had only tolerated Isabelle, warning her son more than once that his intended had a roving eye. Hard to admit she’d been right. He patted Buck on the shoulder and murmured an apology. Funny how thoughts could blindside you like that.

One rifle shot, then another—the universal call for help— echoed across the land. Turning Buck to the left, he headed over the prairie and to the ranch house. What could have happened now?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

May 1882

Empty rooms. Empty tables. Empty pocketbook.

Ruby stared at her ledgers. Empty. At least on the income side. She hated to look at the other side. Good thing she couldn’t write in red, or it would look as if someone was bleeding on the pages. How could refurbishing Dove House cost so much money? Although she wasn’t totally out of funds, her resources were dwindling. If only she could find the buksbom. Surely there was more money in that.

“Ruby!” Opal’s call jerked her out of her stupor.

She rose and followed the calls to the pantry.

“Look. Cat caught a mouse.” Cat looked up at them, the half-eaten body clutched between her claws. Cat had become the name because they could not agree on a name for her. Fluffy, Spot, Ghost, Tippy—none of them fit as well as Cat. And besides, she’d quickly learned to come when someone called Cat. It never failed that a treat was waiting for her when she arrived.

Ruby felt slightly sick at the sight, but one less mouse in the pantry meant one less shock when she opened a cupboard door, although the mouse population had dropped after Charlie boarded up the hole in the cupboard and the other in the floor molding.

“Charlie says she caught one in the storage room too.” Opal couldn’t have been more proud had she caught the critter herself. “She’s really smart, isn’t she?”

“I guess.”

“Well, just think. She figured this out all by herself, even without her mother here to show her how.”

“I think cats are born knowing how to hunt.”

“Well, how come people have to be taught to eat and get their food?”

“I imagine people would eat just fine with their hands. We teach manners and proper ways of doing things so that we can all get along better.”

“Do you think if we had another cat, they would share?”

“Have you done your lessons for today?” Sometimes changing the subject helped when the questions got beyond her ability to answer.

“Well, Bernie didn’t share well. He took Jason’s toys whenever he could.”

“Your lessons.” And sometimes distractions didn’t work at all.

A big sigh. “All right. But it’s almost bedtime now.”

“Opal.” Ruby closed her eyes to calm the words that shouldn’t be said, no matter how good the saying would feel at the time. She’d spent much of the day practicing to be like Mrs. Brandon.

Belle had tried to talk her out of making her pay for her room—again. Several of the cowboys from area ranches had complained at the changes in Dove House. Cimarron burned her hand on the flat iron. The men who came to play cards tracked in mud from the slick street, due to two days of rain. If allowed to dry, the mud had to be chipped off the floor. Never had she seen such hard stuff in her life. Milly had shown Opal how to slide across the top of the mud, something like skating on ice. After they’d slipped, she’d sluiced them both down with buckets of water on the back porch before allowing them to enter.

Charlie thought it was funny. She might have too if things weren’t piling up high enough to choke her. Good thing every day wasn’t like this one.

The next morning Cimarron pulled Ruby aside into the storeroom. “I just want to tell you what I’ve found out.”

“All right.” Ruby waited, wondering if she should ask where the information came from.

“I heard that some folks in town have been warning everyone to stay away from Dove House.”

“Stay away? Why?”

“So you will go broke and someone can come buy the place cheap.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who told you?”

“I better not say.”

“Is Belle in cahoots with this idea?” Cahoots was a new word she’d learned from Charlie. It seemed to fit well here.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Ruby could feel the heat beginning in her midsection, heat she’d felt far too often lately.

Cimarron tightened her jaw. “Because she’s the one who told me, and if you let on you know, she’ll suspect I told you, and then she won’t never tell me nothing again.”

Ruby rubbed her tongue against the back of her teeth, thoughts chasing after one another like Cat after her tail in the sunshine.

Speaking of which, Cat meowed from the top of a box, and when Ruby reached up to pet her, she commenced to purring. “Well, will you listen to that?”

“She’s getting tamer every day.” Cimarron rubbed under Cat’s chin. “I better go. Charlie is teaching me to make bread this morning. I figured I might as well learn more about cooking too. After all, who knows what the future might bring.”

“Good for you.” Ruby kept on stroking the cat, the rumble feeling as good beneath her fingers as it pleased her ear. When Cimarron left the room, Ruby dug through a barrel and a crate looking for
the box
, as she’d come to think of it. Soon, when she ran out of places to look, she’d ask Charlie if he had any idea what box her Far had meant.

A jingle from the bell over the front door sent her scurrying into the dining room.

“Good morning.” Captain Jeremiah McHenry pulled off his leather gloves to loop through the belt of his dark blue coat.

“Good morning, Captain, welcome back. How can I help you?”

“Are you still serving breakfast?”

While it was past the hour, Ruby nodded. No matter what time it was, they finally had someone who wanted a meal. “Sit where you like, and I’ll bring in the coffee.”

His hat lay on the table nearest the kitchen door when she returned, and he was studying the changes in the room.

“Looks mighty nice in here. Has an entirely different feeling.”

“Thank you. Charlie is making fresh coffee, so it will be a minute. We have ham and eggs with potatoes and a choice of fresh bread or sweet rolls.” No sense letting him know that the girls drank the extra coffee so as not to waste it. It was better to let him think there had been customers earlier of sufficient numbers to drink it all.

“Sounds wonderful, especially the sweet rolls.” His smile made her want to make sure her hair was neat, but she kept from fussing with the reminder that a lady didn’t fidget. This time the voice was her mother’s, and since fidgeting had been a problem for her daughter, she’d repeated the admonition every day, sometimes far more than once.

“I’ll bring the rolls in.”

“Could you join me in a cup of coffee?”

“Why . . . why I suppose so. Is there a problem?”

“Problem? I don’t believe so.” The look of confusion that flitted across his face told her he had no part in the revolting scheme. But since he came in, of course he didn’t. She scolded herself as she returned to the kitchen. But who could it be? If it wasn’t Belle, then who? That Bill Williams and his cronies? Could be. But who had voiced his disapproval most heartily?

That rancher—Rand Harrison, that’s who! The certainty burst in her mind like a gunshot. She set the rolls on a plate and returned to the dining room.

“You said Charlie was making coffee. Is he your cook?” At her nod the captain shook his head with a chuckle. “He is most certainly a man of many talents.”

“He’s a far better cook than I am.” Ruby held the plate of rolls out for him to help himself.

“I wanted to come by and tell you again how sorry I am on the death of your father.” He bit into the roll and nodded. “Very good.”

“Thank you.” She took a roll and broke off a small bite.

“I hear you are from New York?”

“Yes, and you?”

“Ohio. I joined up on my seventeenth birthday in the final days of the war. My mother wouldn’t allow it before then. I’d just joined my father as an adjutant when he was wounded during the siege of Petersburg. He died a few weeks later.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.” She glanced up when Daisy arrived with the coffeepot and filled both their cups. “Thank you, Daisy.”

“Your breakfast will be right out, sir.” Daisy kept her gaze down, as Ruby had instructed her, and returned to the kitchen.

“How’d you find any young woman like that to work for you out here?”

He doesn’t recognize her
. The thought pleased her. Perhaps Cimarron could serve the tables too—no, Cimarron’s red hair would give her away anywhere. And once anyone heard her laugh, they’d never forget it. But Daisy . . . Her new look along with a name change had made her unrecognizable. If what she’d heard about the lack of women out here was really true, perhaps some man would fall in love with Daisy and . . . Within heartbeats, Ruby had the story all worked out. Now if only life would help instead of hinder.

“Ah, here comes your meal. I hope it meets with your approval.”
And I hope you will tell everyone you know that the food here is the best
. Best of what she wasn’t sure, but something needed to happen soon if they were to stay in business.

“Sure beats military grub,” he said after a few bites.

“How long have you been stationed here?”

“Two years.” He took another roll. “I was stationed at Fort Laramie in Wyoming Territory before coming here.”

“So you know the local people well?”

“Most of them.”

Ruby argued with herself for a few moments. Would he be loyal to his friends, if that’s what they were, or would he be honest? “Your family must enjoy being closer to a real town again.”

He paused, set his fork down, and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “My ma and brothers and sister are still in Ohio. I thought of bringing Ma out, but this is still frontier country, and she likes having her family around.”

So he’d say if he were married. But, still, I want to know about the folks here
. “I have a question to ask if you don’t mind.”

“No, I don’t mind, but I’ll make it easy for you. I’m not married and never have been.”

Her face flamed in a flash. “Pardon me?”

“Oh. Miss Torvald, please forgive me for my . . . my . . .”

Rudeness, presumption, ego,
even if she had thought—oh, bosh. She didn’t help him out but stared at her hands and wished for a fan, a breeze, cold water, anything to cool the heat. She took a sip of her coffee and finally looked back at his face. Good, he was as uncomfortable as she. Served him right.

“I was going to ask you for advice.” At his now composed nod, she continued. “It has come to my attention that someone in the vicinity has requested or suggested that no one eat or stay at Dove House so that I will be forced to sell, supposedly at a greatly reduced price. Do you have any idea who that might be? The ‘why’ I can understand, since whoever this person might be would like to return Dove House to its former mode of business.”

“Ah, I see.” He drank from his coffee cup, staring at nothing, clearly running names through his mind. “Williams wouldn’t have the money. He’s always cash poor. Not Maunder’s way of doing things. He’d cuss or cut you to death instead. Belle?”

“That was my first thought too, since she assumed Dove House would be hers when my father died.”

The captain shook his head. “I can’t see it being any of the ranchers. You considered someone outside of the area, like from Dickinson or Bismarck?”

“I hardly know anyone in town, let alone those places.”

Daisy returned with the coffeepot. “Would you like refills?”

The captain smiled at her as he raised his cup. “Daisy, is it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, thank you kindly, Miss Daisy. And tell Charlie he makes a great breakfast.”

“I will. You are most welcome, sir.” She turned and scurried back to the kitchen.

Ruby caught him staring after her.

“She looks vaguely familiar. Where did you say you found her?”

“I didn’t. She found me. So can you think of anyone else who might be involved?”

“Not off the top of my head, but if someone comes to mind, I’ll let you know.”

“Would you like more to eat?”

“Gracious, no.” He drained his coffee and leaned back with a sigh. “It’s been a long time since I had breakfast with a lovely young woman.”

Again the heat flared. “You are most kind, sir.”

“I was wondering if you might like to see more of our country? I haven’t forgotten my promise to your sister that I would bring a horse by for her. Do you ride?”

“No, but both my sister and I are willing to learn.”

“Your sister is how old?”

“Nine, but as she reminds me, almost ten. She dreams nightly of riding a horse and has suggested we have plenty of room behind the hotel to pasture said animal should I be willing to purchase one for her.”

“She sounds like my little sister when we were growing up. She became quite a horsewoman.” He leaned slightly toward her. “So am I understanding correctly—if I brought two gentle horses by, both of you would be willing to learn to ride so I could show you the country? We don’t have too many roads for a buggy or wagon.”

“I see.” Ruby thought of Opal’s coming delight. “Yes, Captain, we would be most happy to ride with you.”

“I don’t have sidesaddles. They aren’t exactly army issue.”

“Oh.”

“Women around here, what few there are, wear divided skirts.”

“Divided skirts?”
What am I getting myself into?

“You haven’t seen pictures of them?”

“No.”

“Sometimes they are made of leather.”

“Leather?”
What do I do with all my petticoats? I can’t ask him things like this
. There came that heat up the neck again.
Mrs. Brandon, what would you do now?

“I’ll work something out. Thank you for the invitation.” She pushed her chair back. “We’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yes, for breakfast, and unless it is raining, we’ll ride. That’s thirty-five cents, right?”

“Yes.” Should she say it was on the house since he volunteered to take them riding?

He handed her a dollar. “That nice little waitress deserves a good tip.”

Ruby swallowed her immediate response of “no.” If he wanted to tip the waitress, that was his choice. After showing him out the door and making change from the cashbox, she whirled around to head for the kitchen.

“See, you knead this way,” Charlie was explaining to Daisy as Ruby burst through the door.

“Does anyone in this house have a divided skirt for riding a horse?”