This Calder Range (16 page)

“I came out for a closer look at the wildflowers.” Lorna came up with a desperate lie to explain her presence.

A twinkle leaped into his eyes. “I reckon I got the same idea, ma'am.” He touched the drooping brim of his hat and walked on by.

Lorna wished the ground would swallow her up. She hadn't fooled him for a minute. And she hadn't really
wanted to know that his intention was the same as hers had been.

When she reached the wagons, neither the wrangler nor his helper paid any attention to her, but it felt like a hundred eyes were watching her. She heard the din of the approaching herd. Benteen and another rider were at the water hole, cutting the wire that fenced it in.

Lorna shared a small pan of water with Mary to wash some of the grime from her face and hands. Bathing was out of the question. The cook had returned from his stroll on the prairie and was adding a few dead limbs to the already blazing fire. The wood had been gathered along the trail that day by the wrangler and stowed in a hammocklike contraption stretched under the bottom of the chuck wagon, called a cooney. The metal coffeepot was already set out to boil for its usual half-hour.

“I think we should offer to help with supper, even if it won't be accepted,” Mary suggested with a faint grimace.

“Why not?” Lorna wasn't too anxious to face the cook, but she didn't understand why anyone would refuse help in the kitchen—even a prairie kitchen.

“Ely says that cooks on these drives jealously guard their positions. They don't like being given advice about anything related to cooking,” she explained. “But let's make the gesture anyway.”

With Mary for moral support, Lorna walked over to the chuck wagon. The end gate was down, making a small worktable. Satisfied that the fire was burning well, the cook had returned to his outdoor kitchen. He was taking sourdough batter out of a keg for the requisite biscuits that accompanied nearly every meal, and adding more flour, salt, and water to ferment with the remaining batter to keep the starter going.

“Is there something we can do to help?” Mary asked.

“Nope.” He didn't even turn around to answer.

A rumbling started and grew into a roar. “What's that?” Lorna turned toward the sound in alarm.

“Stampede.” The cook stopped his work to look. “They ain't comin' our way.” He turned back to the table.

Lorna stared at the mad rush of cattle, a quarter-mile distance giving her a view of the entire scene. She had heard tales about cattle stampedes and riders being trampled under their hooves. Her heart was in her throat at the sight of riders racing pell-mell, stride for stride with the thundering herd. Benteen was out there somewhere, but in the haze of dust and the mass of running bodies, she couldn't pick him out. Fear for him paralyzed her, rooting her feet to the ground and riveting her eyes to the scene.

Rusty continued his work, but kept one eye on what was happening. Until he found out whether he was going to be cook, doctor, or undertaker, there were biscuits to be made. When he saw the cattle slowly circling back into themselves, he nodded his approval. “They got 'em turned,” he announced. “It's all over but the shoutin' now.”

It wasn't until Lorna heard the loud bellowing of the cattle that she realized the animals hadn't made a sound during the panicked run. The din was awful. Dust boiled to encapsulate the milling herd and hide the riders. She still couldn't see Benteen anywhere.

From the far side of the herd came the baying bark of dogs, or so Lorna thought. She jumped at the rapid-fire explosions that followed, and glanced in alarm at the cook.

“Are those gunshots?”

Rusty nodded. “I reckon Benteen met up with the folks who strung the wire. He's probably explainin' the situation to 'em.”

The gunfire stopped seconds after it had started. But Lorna knew she wasn't going to draw an easy breath until she saw Benteen again—safe and unharmed. She
continued to scan the area, trying to pick out horse and rider from the churning mass of longhorned beasts.

“There's Ely,” Mary breathed, standing next to her.

Lorna hadn't considered that her friend was experiencing the same anxiety she was. Her hand closed on the woman's arm in a silent expression of gladness that Ely Stanton had made it unscathed.

“But where's Benteen?” Lorna murmured.

It was an eternity of minutes before she spotted him with the other cowboys surrounding the herd. Her legs started shaking and she felt amost sick with relief.

“The excitement's over for a while,” the cook stated, eyeing both women discreetly. “Why don't you sit yourselves down and have some coffee?”

“Thank you,” Mary said. “I think we will.”

The coffee was so strong and black that Lorna nearly gagged on the first swallow.

“Ely always said my coffee was weak.” Mary's laugh was thin. “I didn't believe him when he said you could float a pistol in trail coffee.”

Untying the bow to her bonnet, Lorna slipped it off and smiled her agreement to Mary's remark. She felt emotionally drained. At least the strong coffee partially revived her, despite its appalling taste.

Benteen stayed with the herd until it had been watered and thrown off the trail to graze awhile before bedding down for the night. When he rode to camp, the wrangler Yates was bringing the cavvy in so each rider could get his night horse for his two-hour watch. He dismounted at the chuck wagon.

Rusty handed him a tin cup, knowing he'd want coffee first thing. “Anybody hurt?”

“Nope.” Benteen held the cup while Rusty poured it full of coffee from the pot. “Taylor's horse stepped in a prairie-dog hole and went down, but he went off clear of the herd. Says he's all right.” He drank the coffee down, not giving it a chance to cool.

“All that commotion gave your bride quite a scare.”
Rusty passed on the information carelessly, but noticed Benteen's quick glance toward the wagon.

Lorna stood poised at the back of the covered wagon, an uncertainty in her manner as she stared at Benteen. He set the cup on the makeshift worktable of the chuck box and crossed the camp circle. Her gaze went over him from head to toe, inspecting him for damages. Unconvinced, she searched his face when he finally stopped in front of her.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Not a scratch.” The corners of his mouth deepened at this concern for him.

She swayed toward him, then slid her hands around his middle to hold him close, his solidness more reassuring than his words. “I was so worried,” Lorna admitted, and felt a hand on her hair.

“It's all part of a day's work,” he said. She shuddered that he could be so nonchalant about it. “Besides, something good came out of it.”

“What?” It seemed impossible.

“You're not angry anymore.”

Keeping her head down, Lorna pulled reluctantly away from him. “I wasn't angry before.” But she didn't try to explain the hurt she'd felt at his lack of understanding about her parents and the indifference he'd shown for what she was going through. “We heard some shooting.” She changed the subject.

“A bunch of farmers sicced their dogs on the cattle.” Benteen shrugged, making light of the incident.

“Were they the ones who fenced in the water?” she asked, to see if the cook had been right.

“They said they were.”

“I suppose they were upset about it,” Lorna guessed. “Wasn't it wrong to cut it down? I mean, you shouldn't destroy other people's property, should you?”

“A man doesn't have any right to fence thirsty cattle away from good water.” His lids were shielding his eyes, but she sensed his displeasure at her questions.

“But shouldn't you have asked before you cut it? The
farmers probably wouldn't have been so angry if you had.”

“While I sent somebody to look them up and ask permission, what was I supposed to do with twenty-five hundred head of thirsty Longhorns? They would have torn the fence down to get to that water, and cut themselves up bad.” Benteen was curt with her, and she saw the hardness in his eyes. “This isn't Fort Worth, Lorna. Life is different out here.”

Behind them, Rusty banged a metal pan. “Come an' get it or I'll throw it out!”

Benteen half-turned at the sound, then faced Lorna again. “Supper's ready. Are you hungry?”

“Yes.” Actually she was starved, but he had made her feel young and ignorant again. She resented that, and retaliated by shutting him out from her private thoughts.

He curved a hand under her arm. “I want to introduce you to the men. Some of them you know, but the others haven't met you.”

While the cowboys waited in line for Rusty to dish up their plates of stew, Benteen identified them individually to her. Two of the shyer ones turned red when she was introduced to them. Shorty Niles flattered her outrageously, making her laugh, but all of them treated her with the utmost respect. They weren't at all like the foul-talking, loud trailhands she'd seen on the streets of Fort Worth.

There was no order to the meal, no formality observed. The men sat on the ground, leaving their hats on and shoveling the food into their mouths as if there might not be another meal for days. Lorna found it difficult to appear at all ladylike when she was sitting cross-legged on the ground with her skirts billowing around her and holding the plate of stew she was eating. Rusty came around with the coffeepot to refill the cups.

“This stew is very unusual.” She had been taught to compliment the cook. Since she hadn't eaten anything
that tasted quite like it before, it seemed logical to mention it. “What's it called?”

There was a lull in the conversation. Rusty glanced at Benteen. Everyone was fully aware of his orders about swearing in front of the women.

“It's called … son-of-a-gun stew,” Rusty said finally, and a few of the cowboys chuckled aloud.

Lorna didn't understand the joke and slid a questioning glance at Benteen. His mouth was slanted in a half-smile, but he kept his gaze down.

“It's made with beef, isn't it?” Lorna guessed.

“Well, yes, ma'am.” Rusty seemed to hesitate before admitting it. “It's made from beef parts—the heart, liver, tongue. 'Course, it gets its flavor from the marrow gut.”

“Marrow gut,” Lorna repeated, and let her fork rest on the plate. “What's that?”

“It comes from the tube that connects a cow's two stomachs.” Having spent a great deal of his life at sea, Rusty knew sailors had to have some greens in their diet to keep from getting sick and diseased. So did cowboys on the trail. Meat and beans alone weren't enough. Since cattle ate grass, the necessary nutritious elements were in the marrow of the tube connecting their stomachs. If a cowboy ate it, he got the benefit of the greens. “Son-of-a-bitch stew,” as it was more widely known, usually contained it.

“Oh.” Lorna stared at her plate and wished she had never asked. There wasn't any way she could eat another bite. And the food that was in her stomach didn't feel like it wanted to stay there. She looked across the way at Mary, but she didn't appear to have been listening.

As if she hadn't been through enough that day, here she was eating animal guts. It was too much. She set her plate on the ground, not caring that the cutlery clattered off the side, and scrambled to her feet.

“Excuse me,” Lorna mumbled, conscious of Benteen's frowning look.

Gathering her skirts tightly around her, she ran from the campfire area and sought refuge in the back of the wagon. She sprawled the length of the quilt-topped mattress and started to cry. She just couldn't take any more.

A guilty look of regret stole across Rusty's lined face. “Sorry, Benteen. I fergot such talk offends a lady's delicate sensibilities.”

A hush had settled over the men at Lorna's flight. Benteen was conscious that they were waiting to see what he was going to do. He was irritated at the awkward position Lorna had put him in.

He forced himself to smile. “Don't worry about it, Rusty. There's a lot of things she's going to have to learn to accept.”

He put his plate aside and rolled to his feet. Crossing the camp with slow deliberation, Benteen raised the canvas flap of the wagon and ducked his head to climb inside, aware of the smothered sounds of Lorna's crying. He struggled to control his impatience. She lifted her head from the quilt long enough to look at him, then turned it quickly away.

“What is it this time, Lorna?” There wasn't room to stand in the cramped quarters of the wagon bed, so he sat down on the mattress.

Immediately she moved, turning and pushing herself into a sitting position. Her legs were crooked under her skirt to avoid any contact with him.

“Animal guts,” she declared in a choked voice. “How can you expect me to eat animal guts?”

“It isn't the gut. It's the marrow, and you liked the stew well enough before you found out what was in it,” he reminded her.

“It isn't just that,” Lorna protested, and scrubbed away the tears with her hand.

“Then what is it?” Benteen demanded.

“It's everything. You never told me it was going to be like this,” she accused.

“You knew it was going to be rough.” His eyebrows were pulled together in a dark frown.

“Rough, yes.” She nodded. “I can take being bounced all over a wagon until I'm black and blue. I can stand being dusty and dirty because there isn't enough water for bathing. But it's the rest.”

“The rest?”

“Don't you know how humiliating it is for a woman to relieve herself where others can see her?” Lorna sobbed, turning pink again at the embarrassing memory. She buried her face in her hands. “I wish I were back home with my parents where they eat regular food.”

“What do you want from me, Lorna?” There was a steely quietness to his voice. “Do you want me to turn the wagon around tomorrow morning and take you back?”