Petticoat Ranch (24 page)

They had a dozen other snares and booby traps set up around the perimeter of the property, not to mention a collection of clubs and sharpened sticks tossed in unexpected places so there was always a weapon close at hand.

Nope, no one was getting this husband. Sophie had become purely fond of him.

Sophie began filling buckets with dirt so there’d be no evidence of digging. “You know, I’ve done a fair amount of lifting to get the traps all in place, so Sally’s theory about muscles isn’t perfectly sound.”

Mandy nodded. Sally shrugged. Laura stirred in her sleep. Sophie thought that “fond” didn’t really describe how she felt about her new husband. It was a whole lot more than fond—even if he did have weird notions.

“Where do womenfolk get all their weird notions?” Clay shook his head at Beth’s inept efforts saddling his Appaloosa. Why would the little mite think a horse would want to hear all five verses of “Bringing in the Sheaves”? All the girls were proving difficult to teach.

Mandy couldn’t seem to twirl a rope for more than a few seconds before it would drop on her head and get her so tangled she had practically tied herself up. Her eyes had gotten all teary a couple of times, and Clay had been forced to remind her about rule number one. She’d finally gotten the hand of landing a lasso on a bored, little calf who wasn’t even moving.

Sally was a trooper. She was picking things up fairly well, although she still had a long way to go, and sometimes her chatter about how brave and strong Cliff was grated on Clay’s patience.

And today he had Beth. He knew she could catch up a horse. He’d seen her do it with Hector. But she was the almighty slowest little thing he’d ever imagined. She kept getting distracted by petting the horse’s nose and talking about how soft the “’paloose’s” fur felt. She also had a tendency to giggle at things that weren’t funny in the least, and that made the horse nervous. It made Clay nervous, too. They never got anything done.

And Sophie—well, Sophie had the weirdest notions of all. Clay had decided that it wasn’t too late to teach Sophie a few things. So he’d started taking her out—never going far, of course, because of the girls, and setting her to practice man things. He’d needed to tell her about the men watching the ranch yard and give her orders about being cautious, both for herself and the girls.

He’d told her he didn’t expect much from someone as old as she was, citing the adage, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” but she might as well try.

She took a notion to get huffy when he mentioned her age, and all the things he taught her came a little faster. He’d have to remember a few little jabs about her being old seemed to spur her on. That might come in handy.

She was a good shot—better than good, he reminded himself, as he thought about the day she’d brought down that wild boar. And she knew how to slap leather on a horse, although to Clay’s way of thinking, she spent too much time talking to the horse, too.

She started talking once about laying snares and booby traps for night riders. Clay did his best not to laugh at her, but he couldn’t stop himself. He told her to quit worrying her pretty little head about man things. She worked harder than ever after that, mainly because she wasn’t speaking to him at all.

But the most unusual reaction she’d had so far was when he brought the material home for her to make pants for the girls. He’d brought some other material, too, because the girls needed a spare Sunday dress, but the brown broadcloth was his favorite purchase.

Mandy hugged the bolt of flowery blue to her chest, and Beth and Sally had started a tug-of-war over a bolt of pink nonsense the lady in the general store had told him was just the thing.

“I remember once Pa brought us four different colors of cloth for dresses.” Mandy nudged Beth. “Remember? He got us ribbons to match and said Ma was to make us each a matching dress, ’cept in different colors?”

Beth nodded and with a hard wrench got the fabric away from Sally. In the tussle Beth dropped the cloth, and Laura crawled over and sat down on top of it.

Clay felt his jaw tighten until it likened to break under the strain. Of course Cliff had gotten them more. Of course there’d been four pretty colors and ribbons to match. Clay felt his temper rising. He
remembered he’d made a rule about the girls taking things away from each other, but the cloth didn’t belong to anyone yet, and the girls weren’t screaming or crying, although they were too close for comfort. And Clay didn’t want to be cranky right now. Not while they were all thinking about how much better their other pa was than him.

Laura started chewing on the material. Sally turned her attention to the bolt Mandy was holding. Beth was scolding Laura, who started to cry. Clay longed for the day Laura was three. They all ignored the brown. Clay told Sophie about his plans for the broadcloth while he was trying to think up a rule to cover this kind of racket.

“There is no way on earth I am putting my little girls in men’s clothing.” Sophie harrumphed. “It isn’t proper! You can teach them all the manly skills you want, but it’s my job to teach them to be ladies, and that means dressing as God intended!”

“Now Sophie, don’t go getting all persnickety on me,” Clay said. “I don’t know where in the Bible it says anything against pants on a woman, so we’re okay with God on this one.”

Sophie stirred her soup as if her life depended on it. “We are
not
okay with—”

“We’re living way out here where no one but the coyotes and the cattle see any of us.”

“And the cowhands,” Sophie reminded him.

Clay refused to be distracted. “No one’s gonna care if the girls wear a pair of pants. It’s not safe for them to ride sidesaddle. It’s just a plumb fool idea. They’re riding astride, and their skirts are flying all over and. . .”

Sophie wheeled away from the stove and stormed right up into his face with a steaming, heavy metal ladle. Clay almost took a step back before he found his backbone.

“You have to be mindful of their skirts, Clay.” She waved the ladle under his nose. “They’re out there with the hands, and I won’t have their skirts flying about!”

Clay caught the ladle and relieved her of it so he could keep bossing her around without any danger to himself. He tossed it onto the table
with a loud clatter and stepped up until her nose was practically pressed against his shirt. She looked up at him. The angry glint in her eye told him she wasn’t going to back down. Since it was up to a man to do all the thinking for a family, especially one that had as many females as this one, Clay examined his idea for flaws. There were none.

He bent over Sophie until his nose almost pressed against hers. “Either you sew up a pair of pants for each of these girls and do it right quick, or I’ll take ’em into town and buy ’em a pair right in the general store, in front of everybody!”

Sophie’s eyes flashed so much fire, Clay wouldn’t have been surprised if his hair was set ablaze. He held her gaze even at the risk of his charred skin. Something feral crossed Sophie’s expression, and Clay got ready to catch a fist if she threw one.

Before she could attack, Mandy piped up, “Remember the schoolmarm with that split skirt she wears sometimes, Ma?”

Sophie broke the deadlock of their clashing eyes and looked at her eldest daughter.

Clay grinned. “I remember that skirt. I saw her ride by me just today in town. Why, Mrs. McClellen,”—he chucked Sophie under the chin so she’d look back at him—“are you going to stand there and tell me that Miss Grace Calhoun, Mosqueros’s one and only school teacher, isn’t a proper lady? Why she’s the most stiff-necked, starchy female I’ve ever met. If she wears one of those whatchamacallem skirts, right in the middle of town mind you, I reckon my girls can, too.”

Sophie jerked her chin out of Clay’s grasp, looked at Mandy, then planted her fists on her hips and turned to her husband with a much more serene expression. “Yes, I hadn’t thought of Miss Calhoun’s riding skirt. When you showed up with brown broadcloth, I just naturally thought you were expecting men’s pants for the girls, like you wear.”

That’s exactly what Clay had been expecting, and he hadn’t once thought of Miss Calhoun until Mandy mentioned it, but since he was winning the fight, he decided to let Sophie think whatever she wanted.

Mandy, from behind them, said, “Pa brought us yellow calico, remember? It was mine first, but we all wore it as we grew into it.”

Clay wanted to snap at Mandy, which he knew wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her fault her first pa had been so much nicer than her second pa. He focused his temper where it would do some good—at his stubborn wife. “Next time I give an order, Sophie, I expect it to be obeyed. We’re not having a debate every time I decide the way of things. That’s not how a marriage works!”

“How do you know how a marriage works?” Sophie asked tartly.

“I just do. The man’s in charge, just like God intended. And that it
does
say in the Bible.” Clay tried to hold on to his mad. It stung a little that Mandy had needed to jump in and convince Sophie to make the pants. But he was getting his way, and he could always go back to town for more cloth and a bunch of stupid ribbon, so he started to cheer up some.

“You’ve never been married before,” Sophie pointed out. “I know a far sight more about marriage than you do.”

“Yes, I know. My perfect brother.” Suddenly it was easy to be mad again. He was sick of hearing about Saint Cliff. “Cliff, the world’s bravest man. Cliff, the nicest pa who ever lived. Cliff, the best cattleman. Cliff, the world’s best—”

“Who in the world ever told you Cliff was the world’s best cattleman?” Sophie asked incredulously. “The man barely knew the horns from the hooves, and he didn’t know how to dodge either one.”

“He didn’t know. . .” Clay stopped, dumbfounded. “But. . .he built this place. All these buildings. . .that herd. . .the old C B
AR
animals are healthier than. . .”

“Adam built the buildings,” Sophie said. “For that matter, Adam picked out our cattle, bought our horses, and hired our hands.”

“But what did Cliff do?” Clay couldn’t get his mind around what Sophie was telling him. He’d never heard a one of these women say a word against Cliff.

“Well, he built that rickety lean-to on the barn,” Sophie said.

It all clicked into place when she said that. He’d thought something looked familiar about the patching job she was doing. There were signs of it all over the ranch. Buildings and corrals that were well built and laid out intelligently. Ramshackle little add-ons that were almost universally falling down. Tidy little patch jobs that were holding the shoddy lean-tos and fence rows together. Adam did the building. Cliff did the adding. Sophie did the patching.

Clay suddenly quit worrying about his girls wearing pants and focused all his attention on his wife. His wife who had never had much to say about his brother. Of course, he’d never asked her about him. His wife who went around doing men’s work without asking for help.

She wasn’t doing it because she thought Clay was a lesser man than Cliff.

She was doing it because she thought Clay was
exactly
like Cliff! Clay’s heart lightened until he wanted to launch into a chorus or two of “Bringing in the Sheaves” all on his own.

“Girls, I gotta talk to your ma for a minute. You stay in the house.” He grabbed Sophie’s hand and dragged her outside, striding toward the barn until he was almost carrying her.

“Tell me!” he ordered as he pulled her around the corner of the barn.

Sophie’s eyebrows arched with confusion. “Tell you what?”

“Tell me about my brother. Tell me what kind of husband he was.”

“Oh, Clay,” Sophie said apologetically, “I don’t want to say anything against Cliff. I didn’t mean to be unkind.”

Clay wanted to hear every unkind thing she had to say, which caused him a second of sadness. He shouldn’t want to hear ill of his brother. Even without her saying a word, she was saying a lot to admit that talking about Cliff would be unkind. Clay lifted Sophie by her waist until she was pulled hard against him and kissed the daylights out of her. He wasn’t sure just when her arms went around his neck, but sure enough, they were there. He reluctantly pulled her away. “Tell me.”

“Clay,”—Sophie rested her hands on his chest—“your brother was
a good man. He truly was. I cared about him, and I tried to help him the best I could.”

“Help him? What does that mean?” Clay was hoping to hear that Cliff got bucked off his horse every time a naked baby went screaming past him. He didn’t expect Sophie’s voice to be so warm when she said Cliff ’s name.

Well, he’d asked for it. He braced himself as he prepared to listen to Sophie sing the praises of his brother.

F 
O U R T E E N