Dorothy Garlock (3 page)

“You’re all right, Smith. You’re safe here. Billy will be close by. I came out to see how you were doing and heard you cry out. Go back to sleep. You’re not out there in the night alone.”

He had gone back to sleep and slept soundly the rest of the night, but when morning came the dream was still with him when Oliver came to take him to the house.

Smith would never forget standing beside the kitchen door and listening to Mrs. Eastwood’s shrill, angry voice and Oliver Eastwood’s quiet one trying to persuade his wife to let him be a part of the family.

“Get that little bastard out of my house. I’ll not have him here.”

“The boy has no place to go, Maud.”

“This ain’t no catch-all for every stray that comes down the pike.”

“His folks were drowned—”

“What the hell do I care about that? Lots of folks drown. Get him out!”

“Maud—”

“Is this my house or not?”

“Of course, it’s your house.”

“I don’t want him here.”

“All right, Maud. He can stay in the bunkhouse with Billy.”

“Why do you want him? Ain’t me and Fanny good enough?”

“What a ridiculous thing to say. You’re my wife. Fanny is your daughter—mine now. The boy being here won’t change that.”

“He’d better not be hanging around Fanny. I’ll take a horsewhip to him.”

“He’ll not bother Fanny,” Oliver said firmly. “And he’ll not bother you. But I’ll tell you this, Maud. That boy will have a home here as long as he wants to stay. You’d better understand that.”

Tears had blinded him as he had listened to this unseen woman reject him. He hadn’t seen that Oliver had returned until the big man had put his arm about his shoulders.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that, boy. Women folk get crazy notions sometimes.”

As time went by, Smith and Oliver became constant companions. Oliver spent more and more time outside the house. Smith grew to be a man at Oliver’s side, neither wanting nor
needing anyone but Oliver and Billy Whiskers and the magical world that was Eastwood Ranch.

Smith had been at Eastwood a week before he even saw Fanny, Oliver’s stepdaughter. The men in the bunkhouse had talked about her and Mrs. Eastwood, but the first sight of her was one he would never forget. She was about the age of his little sister. He thought she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen.

Fanny had been dressed in white with a pink sash tied about her waist, reddish-brown curls falling down about her shoulders and a face so white it looked as if it had never known sunshine. Fanny stood with her arm wrapped around a porch pillar, gazing off toward the mountains. When he passed near, as he had to do to pick up a shovel he had left behind, he raised the brim of the old felt hat Billy Whiskers had found for him. The girl stared at him with hostile eyes and poked out her tongue. Then she went back into the house and slammed the door.

Mrs. Eastwood, according to snatches of talk he heard in the bunkhouse, had lived on a homestead with her first husband. When Oliver Eastwood came west, he was as green as grass. When he wandered out into the Bighorn Mountains, he was thrown from his horse one day and would have died if not for Maud’s husband, who found him and took him home. Maud set his broken leg and nursed him back to health. The nester died soon after and Oliver married Maud, who had no idea the greenhorn she married was a wealthy man.

Oliver built a fine home on his land for his wife and stepdaughter. Then he began to concentrate on building a herd of Texas longhorn cattle. The animals were of a nervous temperament and had pugnacious dispositions. They would run away from a horseman with the speed of the wind, but if a person were unhorsed, they would attack him in an instant.

Thinking back on it all, Smith took another drink from
the bottle and wondered for the thousandth time why Oliver Eastwood, an educated, kind man, had wanted to raise the wild, unpredictable cattle and why he had married a shrew like Maud, who over the years had become more belligerent, more unreasonable and more demanding.

Smith dragged his hand over his unshaven face. He was tired. It had been a long trip down to Denver, and although he had left the city days ago, he was still a long way from home. One thing was sure. Fanny, who now insisted on being called Francine, wouldn’t be coming home. The damn bitch! He could wring her blasted neck. If she had answered her mother’s letters, it would have saved him the trip. He wondered how the old lady would take it.

Smith felt old. He was caught by what he could never forget. He was sentenced to spend the rest of his life reliving the pleading look in Oliver’s eyes, then the flash of mortal fear just before the end.

He reached for the bottle. Guilt ripped into his soul like a barb. He would give half his life for the chance to relive that one day.

2

W
illa lay on the pallet and listened to the creak and groan of the wagon, her heart shriveling within her. To the aching loneliness, the bitter sense of loss, was added the guilt of not having stayed to bury her loved one. Her grief had been wild and noisy before blessed blackness had enfolded her in its arms.

She felt calmer now; the storm of grief had abated for a little while, but the humiliation of being whipped and stoned was like a hungry dog gnawing at her pride. Words spoken by a preacher long ago came back to haunt her. He had said that when a sinner died, he would roast in everlasting hell—but he had failed to mention that the sinner’s torment began in this world. It was
her
fault, someone had said. She had sinned. She must have sinned or God would not have punished her in such a cruel way.

What could have happened to stir the crowd to such a frenzy that they would strip Papa Igor of his dignity by exposing his deformed body to the crowd, then hang him? He was the kindest, gentlest man in the world. Well educated, he loved to visit and was able to converse on most any subject. She
owed her love of books and history to his teachings. Why couldn’t people see beyond his misshapen body and his features distorted by the large lumps that had appeared on his face the last few years?

At Willa’s insistence they had moved six times in four years. When he had fixed all the clocks that needed repair in one town and sold all the clocks they were going to sell, they moved on. People tolerated the grotesque little man only as long as they needed his skills. And then the taunts would begin. Mothers would threaten their children with “be good or the clock man will get you.”

Willa could scarcely remember life without Papa Igor. She did remember all those many years ago, standing with her mother beside the road in the Mississippi river town where she was born. They had been put out of the rooming house when they could no longer pay. Tired and hungry and with no place to sleep, they had welcomed the peddler wagon when it had stopped. The little man had jumped down and, after tossing their bundle of belongings into the wagon, lifted her up onto the seat and had helped her mother climb up to sit beside her. He had laughed at her shyness and thrust a stick of peppermint candy in her hand. From that moment on she had adored him and he had doted on her, loving her as if she were his own.

Papa Igor and her mother had never married because her mother had a husband. Willa’s father had left them shortly after Willa was born. Her mother had told her he was an irresponsible boy with itchy feet. They used Papa Igor’s name, and the townspeople assumed they were husband and wife. When she was older, Willa realized that her mother and Papa Igor had never shared a bed and that their relationship was more like that of a brother and sister. Her mother had been very fond of the little man and he of her.

It wasn’t until after her mother died six years ago that the
large lumps began to appear on Papa Igor’s face. Willa had insisted he see a doctor. He had seen several, and they all had told him that there was no reasonable explanation and there was nothing they could do. Afterward they had moved frequently, coming to this town only four months ago.

“Are ya goin’ to lay there all day?”

Willa felt something nudge her arm and opened her eyes. A girl sat on the flat top of a trunk, her bare feet inches from Willa’s pallet.

“Well, are, ya?” The pouting mouth was drawn down at the corners. An unbrushed tangle of thick dark curls hung about her face. The girl kicked the trunk with her heels to emphasize her words.

“Who are you? Where are we?” Willa whispered hoarsely.

“Jo Bell Frank. And I don’t know where the hell we are.”

If the girl thought to shock Willa with her swearing, she was disappointed. Willa merely gazed out the back of the wagon at the sky, brassy with sunlight. Had the mob killed Buddy too? she wondered. They must have or the dog would have warned her. Damn, damn! Oh, damn them!

“Papa said to give ya some clothes when ya woke up. Yore buck naked—almost.”

The word naked caught Willa’s attention and she realized that beneath the quilt covering her she wore only the torn nightdress. She sat up, holding the quilt up over her breast, and flexed her shoulders. Every bone in her body ached and her back felt as if it were on fire.

“They whipped ya good with that switch,” Jo Bell commented, as though she were talking about the weather. “I put some salve on yore back—cause Pa told me to.”

“Thank you.”

“Ya ain’t pretty, but ya ain’t ugly either. Was that mud-ugly man really yore pa? You don’t have no hump and no lumps. I didn’t feel one when I was puttin’ on the salve.”

Willa was speechless; she sat staring at the young girl, her eyes dry and hot, her throat screaming for a drink of water. At first, observing Jo Bell’s dress that came to mid-calf and her bare feet and legs, Willa had thought the girl to be ten or eleven years old. On closer examination Willa realized the girl was older, possibly fifteen or sixteen. The dress was loose, but not loose enough to hide her rounded breasts. The shapely calves were not the limbs of a child. She would be pretty, even beautiful, if not for the surly look on her face.

“Ya ain’t as pretty as Starr was,” Jo Bell was saying. “Yore eyes are a funny color. They’re blue like the bluin’ we used to put in the wash back home. Starr’s hair was red ’n’ her titties stuck out to here.” Jo Bell held her fingers curled six inches from her own rounded breasts.

“Who is Starr?”

“A whore, I reckon. Papa picked her up in Aberdeen. She come with us almost all the way to Prairie City. Papa purely hates to sleep all by his ownself.”

The girl’s words sent a chill over Willa. She pressed her fingertips to her temples. Concern for her safety leaped into her mind.

“What happened to . . . Starr?”

“She took off with a mule-skinner. Papa was so mad he wouldn’t let her take her trunk.” Jo Bell lifted the trunk lid and carelessly threw out clothing. “She didn’t care. She just climbed the wheel of that freight wagon and thumbed her nose at him.” She giggled and slapped her hands against her thighs. “It was a sight. Papa shook his fist at her ’n’ yelled she’d miss ah . . . you know what. Then he sulked all the way to Hublett.”

Willa listened to Jo Bell’s frank talk in stunned silence. The dresses the girl took from the trunk were large and gawdy. The undergarments, however, were of good quality and had drawstrings at the waist and neck. Holding the quilt around
her, Willa searched the trunk for bloomers, but there was nothing but a teddy with a split crotch. She chose a black and white checked gingham dress and slipped it on over the teddy and the petticoat. She found an apron to tie about her waist.

Starr’s shoes were many sizes too big for her, and when Jo Bell offered a pair of Indian moccasins, she accepted them gratefully.

“I hate Indians. I ain’t wearin’ nothin’ made by no stinkin’ redskin. What’s yore name, anyhow?”

“Willa Hammer.”

“I knowed the Hammer part. Well, ya ought to fix your hair so you’d look good when Papa gets back. Ya still won’t be as pretty as Starr. Yore too skinny.”

“Your father’s not driving the wagon?” Willa glanced at the front of the wagon and the tied-down canvas curtain.

“Charlie is. He drives good. Papa tied down the canvas. He said it ain’t decent for a boy Charlie’s age to look on a buck-naked woman. Not yet anyhow. He’d get all excited and go off half-cocked, is what Papa said.”