Wyoming Heather (10 page)

Chapter 20

Heather carefully went over the books again. She’d sat at her father’s desk since Whip left, adding and re-adding figures. Finally, she pushed the financial registers to the back of the desk and stood up, arching her back. She walked over to the window. Pushing aside the lace curtains that had been her mother’s pride and joy, she gazed out over the fields, green with spring’s growth of hay.

Elation and sadness fought for supremacy as she took in the land that was now hers. She bit back the sadness, refusing to give it reign on such a beautiful day. But still, fragments had broken off and occupied a part of her being, a part she tried to close off, a part that recognized that the land she loved, the Circle C, was hers and hers alone. It was the alone that hurt. She’d never wanted to be any place else but the Circle C, but not alone. She missed her parents. She missed sharing. And, lately, she’d felt that aloneness more than ever before.

She glanced back at the books she’d just closed after making a final entry, and elation nibbled at the sadness, demanding recognition.
Yes
. She was financially secure. More than secure. The ranch was showing a profit.

For the first time, Heather knew freedom from worry. Worry that beef prices would drop. Worry that a Wyoming blizzard would swoop in and take back with it a portion of her herd. Worry that a problem would present itself, one a lone woman couldn’t handle. She’d heard the expression,
shooting from the hip,
and acknowledged that was exactly what she’d been doing the last few years. She’d gotten up each day apprehensive of what the day would bring. Would it bring a problem too big or too complex for her to face alone?

And it had. Each day had arrived with its own unique worry and challenge. But, and she smiled, she’d met each one head on. The proof of every win was reflected in the black figures lining the columns of the registers.

Heather went into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. A memory of one of her first “challenges” had surfaced. She went back to the window, cup in hand, and looked out. This time she wasn’t seeing the new hay field, she was remembering this particularly challenging problem, one that had reduced her to tears and left her doubting her ability to exist in a man’s world.

Thinking back now, she could laugh at the situation. Laugh and wonder why it had presented itself as such a catastrophe. In the whole scheme of things, it was a minor incident certainly not worthy of the heavy darkness of spirit it produced. If she had known then that there would be others much more demanding of her ability and wisdom, others much more threatening, she wondered if she would have gone on.

Yes, she would have. Even in retrospect, the thought made her back straighten and her chin tilt up. Of course, she would have gone on. There was never any question of that. She
had
gone on to meet each day’s challenge, and she would continue to do so. And the challenge of being so alone, well, she would meet that one too.

She took a sip of the strong coffee and gave in to reliving that traumatic, yet hilarious, challenge.

Her father had built a Rumford fireplace in the living room, dominating one wall and the focal point of the room. It was a favorite place for the family to gather on cold, stormy winter nights. It was a place to read by, to share the day’s happenings by, and a place to dream by.

As with everything, her father had researched building the fireplace before he’d tackled the job. He was quite impressed with Rumford’s findings, in particular, the fact that a wide, shallow firebox would allow the maximum amount of heat to radiate into a room. He’d analyzed, planned, and drawn scale models. He’d even gone so far as to mix natural cement by burning a mixture of lime and clay, a failed experiment because the mixture was inconsistent and the properties varied.

He gave up on this cement as being too unstable and had ordered cement from England called Portland cement. It was so called because its color resembled the stone quarried on the Isle of Portland off the British coast.

He’d read of this discovery by Joseph Aspdin from Leeds, England, who had produced the mixture on his kitchen stove, grinding it into a powder to create cement. This enterprising young man appealed to James Campbell, and although he’d started the fireplace using his own natural mixture of cement, he put the remaining bricks aside and waited for the English cement to arrive.

What Heather was to later discover, much to her dismay, was her father had apparently laid most of the firebox floor with bricks mortared by that earlier natural mixture.

It was her first summer alone, and she was sweeping out the floor of the fireplace when particles and hunks of a white, powdery substance began to come up from between and around the bricks. The more she swept, the more the powder and dust filled the air. Finally, when the dust settled, there was no more cement. In fact, there was no more firebox floor. Bricks lay side-by-side and the slightest nudge would separate them.

Although the incident was a few years past, Heather could remember the overwhelming sense of despair and helplessness as she picked up one brick after another. She stood facing an empty opening that had been the floor for the many logs of wood that had brightened her winter days. The cheery fireplace was ruined. Because of her.

She dropped to the floor, cradled her head in her arms and gave in to more than a few minutes of despair and self-pity. Then with the same
can-do
and
I-will
spirit that was to become her pattern of coping with everything at the Circle C, she got to her feet, wiped her sleeve across her eyes, gritted her teeth, and set about to fix the fireplace. Unfortunately, it was easier to make the decision than to accomplish the task.

Having the correct type of cement wasn’t a concern this time. She had the cement, and the tools. She just didn’t have the slightest idea of how to use them.

She stood in the barn, a book of her father’s notes in one hand, a trowel in the other, mixing white powdery cement, sand, and water in a tub, when a buggy drove into the yard.

She swiped a strand of errant hair out of her eyes, leaving a white streak across her face, which mingled quite well with the soot and ash from the fireplace. Wiping her hands down the front of her shirt and pants, she went out to see who had pulled a stylish buggy to a stop in front of the barn door. She closed her eyes and gave an internal groan and muttered some very unladylike words. If she hadn’t been so stupid as to frame the doorway where she was sure to have been seen, she would have hidden behind the stack of hay and prayed for deliverance.

The visitors simply couldn’t have been worse. Perched on the black surrey seat were two well-meaning church ladies. She knew them well. They were taking a Sunday drive to check up on the poor, helpless girl silly enough to think she could run a ranch on her own.

Heather could not believe her bad luck. Maud and Clara Samuelson. Maud and Clara were spinster sisters that more charitable people might call well meaning. Heather recognized them as being blunt, opinionated, and downright nosy. They were bossy, forceful, outspoken, and a few more expletives she probably shouldn’t know.

Not only was she caught looking like a wraith, but she was wearing a pair of her father’s trousers cut down to fit her slim figure. Men’s pants were frowned upon by Maud and Clara, and men’s pants on the Sabbath were unthinkable. Her hair was straggly, her face dirty, her shirt torn, a couple of buttons missing, and the mannish trousers were indecently tight.

Heather felt certain part of the agenda for today’s visit was to snoop and see if she was keeping her mother’s house as clean and tidy as her mother had. She wasn’t. Not even close.

Between calving, fixing fences, cleaning manure filled corrals and barns, and doctoring animals, she had neglected any housework. It wasn’t her favorite thing to do on the best of days. And when necessary, she quieted that wee, small voice of a conscience by assuring herself no one would be seeing the two days worth of dishes piled in the sink. And certainly no one would see she hadn’t made her bed when she’d crawled out of it before dawn that morning.

There were her father’s books piled on every available surface. Several of the bricks she’d taken from the fireplace floor were lying around the living room. Of course, they were black with soot as evidenced by the tracks left on the hardwood floor, a floor no longer as polished and shiny as it had been when her mother was the homemaker.

The ladies would expect to be invited in and offered tea. Tea. She wasn’t even sure she had one clean cup, much less two. She wasn’t even sure she could brew a suitable cup of tea, and there certainly wasn’t anything to serve with it. She’d broken the lid to her mother’s china teapot several days ago. It would just be her luck for the glued pieces to fall apart in one of their cups.

There was no bread to offer, no butter and jam. The cream was still cooling in the spring cellar, waiting like everything else. There hadn’t been an opportunity to bake for weeks. If it didn’t have a mouth to feed, lungs to bawl, whinny, or cluck for attention, or excrement to shovel and clean, it was left for a later time that seemed never to come.

Running the ranch was taking every minute of every day. She’d always had her mother and father to round out the team. Then, later, it had been just her father. Now everything fell on her. Try as she might, she fell exhausted into her bed at night leaving a multitude of chores undone. She got up earlier and earlier each day, but the extra hours didn’t seem to help.

And, somewhere, at the bottom of the list, the very bottom, were her own needs. There was the forgotten luxury of soaking in a hot bath and washing her hair until it shone. Shoot, she was lucky to stuff something in her mouth and pull on yesterday’s clothes.

She told herself that under no circumstances would these two ladies enter her house. No way! No way would she let them see the chaos inside. The weekly gathering of the ladies’ quilting club would have to have an additional meeting just to thoroughly discuss the situation as presented by the gossip queens, Maude and Clara.

Much like a soldier going into battle, she resolutely went forward, a smile pasted on her face and a pleasant greeting on her lips.

“Why, Heather, darling, how simply delightful to see you. I was telling Clara just this morning—wasn’t, I Clara?—that we have been terribly remiss in not visiting you before now. We’ve neglected you and, therefore, our duty.” Maud’s head bobbed and with each bob, the big silk rose on the brim of her church hat nodded in agreement.

“That’s correct, Maud. Just this morning,” Clara piped up.

Maud pursed her lips and bobbed again. “Just so. It’s simply not like Sister and me to neglect our Christian duties. Is it, Sister?”

“Not at all, Maud. Not like us at all.” Clara looked at her sister for approval.

But approval was not forthcoming, for it was at that moment Maud gave more than cursory glance at Heather. Her eyes widened, she sucked in air as her lips worked soundlessly around a lemon puckered mouth.

“Oh, my. Oh, my. Whatever . . .? Oh, Heather, your appearance. It’s quite, quite . . .” She weakly laid her head back on the pillowed headrest of the buggy seat. “My salts, Sister. Quickly.”

“Your, your salts, Maud?” Clara looked like a plucked pullet with her head cocked to one side, her faded blue eyes wide as she stared uncomprehendingly at her gasping sister.

“Salts, salts,” Maud demanded in a voice unaffected by the near swoon. “Don’t be such a dolt, Clara. My smelling salts.”

“We-we don’t have any, Maud,” Clara fearfully said. She slid to the far side of the seat, wringing her hands. “They’re at home on the bureau.”

“Oh, good grief,” Maud moaned as she raised a gloved hand, fanning herself.

“Miss Maude.” Heather came closer to the buggy, “Could I get you a cold cloth or a cold drink of water?” The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she sent up a prayer that there would indeed be a clean cloth and a clean glass.

“Oh, Heather,” Maude weakly whispered, “your mother, your poor sainted mother. Thank heavens she is removed from the trial and tribulations of this earth and cannot see the state of her only daughter.” Another moan escaped the woman as she gave herself over to Clara’s ineffectual fanning and flapping. What the diminutive sister lacked in size, she made up for with enthusiasm.

Then Maude reared upright in the seat and gave Clara a shove. “Will you please stop that flapping around, Clara? It’s obvious we were sent here today to help this poor child.” And with that Maude swung a brown, cotton-hosed leg out the door of the surrey.

In panic, Heather stepped closer, stopping any further movement on Maude’s part. She would throw herself across the seat pinning Maude and Clara before she’d let them put one foot on the ground. There had to be some way to stop this visit and send the two ladies on their way. Her appearance alone was sufficient gossip fodder for the next few days or weeks.

Heather also knew she could count on a visit from Reverend Harris before the week was out. The poor man was at the mercy of Maude’s purse strings and, therefore, forced to dance to her tune.

Think, Heather, think
, she commanded. There had to be some way, and it had to be now. The three words joined hands and danced through her head.

She had it. It was brilliant. It was wicked. It was her only chance.

“Oh, Miss Maude and Miss Clara, I am so grateful you are here. Why, you are indeed an answer to prayer.” Then she paused, biting her lip, a woeful expression on her face. “But no, I mustn’t. I really mustn’t.” Heather rolled her eyes in her best heroine tied to the railroad tracks imitation.

“You are? I-I mean, we are? You mustn’t? No, no, I mean, really, Heather, dearest, whatever is it? You know Clara and I live to serve. Isn’t that right, Clara?”

“Oh, yes, Sister. Absolutely right. We always look for ways to be of service. Why, just the other day, Sister, when you said it was our duty to tell Reverend Harris about Minnie Stow putting that red rinse on her hair—”

“That’s quite enough, Clara. You are clattering again. Have some decorum. We do not share everything. That would be gossip, Sister. Why, what would our dear papa think?”