was gone, Hildahl had looked at Katherine as if he were witness to the raw side of a woman he had held in high esteem. Whatever it was that bothered him, Davey Hildahl had a forward, bitter touch to his words now, and Katherine knew she responded in kind, with a quick, sharp word and a hard stare whenever he confronted her.
She did not know what was happening to her ordered world, but it was frightening, and exciting, at the same time. Maybe she was being granted the merest taste of an unorthodox freedom.
Her father, however. She had not been surprised when he had put out the word that he was claiming the mustangs branded with his Bench D. Edward Donald saw a chance to take something to which he had no earned right. Since he had officially put in his claim and had signed a warrant, she had not spoken to her parent.
Her hands began to play with an escaped lock of hair. Sweeping and cleaning, baking cakes and pies, all were more difficult when her thick hair came unbound and into her eyes. She would cut it but for the weight of it on her neck, the pleasure of throwing back her head and feeling its bounce. Unseemly, her father might say, a sign of wantonness in an otherwise good and righteous woman. But there was so little she could be vain about, so little to please just her.
She had a quiet, secret memory of one morning finding Burn English with a book out of Meiklejon’s library. A leather-bound copy with faded gold script and an odd dark stain on the cover—Rudyard Kipling. English had sat with his backpropped against the wall, his hands wrapped around the book, working over the words. When Katherine had entered the room, he had dropped the book under his covers.
Since his departure, there had been no word from English, or about him except that he continued to escape the law’s highly ineffective attempts to take the mustangs from his stewardship. No word from Jack Holden, either, but lots of stories about rustling cattle, scrapes and fights in too many small villages at the same time to be possible. Gossip about him and the Blaisdel girl, which had a nasty turn. And Davey Hildahl, bitter and harsh, barely smiling. Too many men and none of them belonged only to her.
Jack rode in to town to see her. Just her. After two months of being deliberately ignored, Rose had resolved not to respond to him. But he rode to the back of the hotel, where he had first found her midwinter. And she was there again, getting vegetables from the root cellar for one of Mama’s heavy stews. Nothing had changed about their meeting except the time of year. The humid sweetness of late summer replaced the bitter wind, but that was all.
Jack leaned on the low cellar door, and, when Rose turned around, a basket full of carrots and onions on her arm, he was there watching her. She hugged the basket to her belly like a child and felt her heart pound. He was as handsome as she remembered—the smile slightly vague, the eyes still blue. He had come in just to see her, he said. Here was her power, her strength. An outlaw wanted by the law, hated by everyone, and he risked his life to come to her.
There was little tenderness in his hands. She was casual, breaking away from the urgent caress to put the basket on the damp cellar floor, and then pat her hair, work at the buttons of her skirt. She did not want his lovemaking here; she hated the smell of the place, the crawling insects and other varmints.
He came back with his hands to raise her skirt, and, when she tried to cry out, he covered her mouth with his hand. She stared into his eyes, which mocked her as he finished his labored, dispassionate act.
They separated and did not look at each other. Rose attempted to clean herself while Jack did nothing but stare out past the cellar’s heavy posts to the bright air beyond them.
She revolved slowly, brushed against Jack, and brought his attention back to her. Then unexpectedly he leaned down and kissed the top of her head and Rose knew the man she loved had returned.
“Rose Victoria, you are a pretty thing.”
She didn’t want this, as if she were nothing more than a child. Then her mother’s shriek called for her, and she sighed deeply, again aware of the gesture and what it accomplished. Jack leaned over her as she sorted out the vegetables and wiped the last of the dirt from her hair and face. He picked a twig from her curls, put his face to her bosom, and kissed her skin in a loving, long, delicious kiss. Rose quickly rebuttoned her shirtwaist and went out into the misery of the noon sun. When she risked a look back, Jack Holden was gone.
Chapter Twenty
Gayle Souter and Davey Hildahl rode up to Quemado where Melicio Quitano wanted to know if he would ever get his fee for having returned Meiklejon’s pacer. Souter paid him, then got a tidbit of old gossip for his troubles. Burn English was riding the dark colt branded with Donald’s brand, and Jack Holden had another Liddel mount, a stocky paint this time.
They were also told that Stan Brewitt had come in one night and offsaddled his badly lamed red dun. Said the horse had stepped in wire and panicked. He’d been up checking on the Red Durham bull, and said there were wild mares in the fenced-off pasture.
Souter looked sideways at Davey, but neither man spoke of the mares after that.
The wire cut had turned sour, and, despite three weeks of care, the only answer was a bullet between the ears for the red dun, and a meal for the coyotes out in a distant wash. Brewitt moped around. The dun had been his best mount, but he perked up when Souter brought in a rugged buckskin and let Brewitt have the horse.
One day Eager Briggs rode in on a scrawny palomino gelding. His broken leg was still wrapped in a hard cover and stuck out to one sideof the horse. Briggs, as usual, had some gossip. Said that Edward Donald was pushing a warrant on Burn English for horse theft. The old man stared at Davey while giving out the information, as if Davey would naturally have something to say. Briggs would make his rounds and soon enough the whole territory would know about Donald’s greed.
Briggs had more news: two corpses had been found near Jewitt. A man and a horse. The man was a Mex, buried in a shallow grave with a rude cross near his head. Powder burns said the killing was done close and after the injuries. Only one eye remained in the skull. That last bit of information upset most folks, Briggs told his audience.
Other riders came through after Briggs’s first visit, passing on more information, looking for late strays. Briggs came by often toward the summer’s end. It seemed like the whole southwest corner of New Mexico was fired up about Jack Holden and his thieving and Burn English and his damned horses.
Summer turned quickly to fall in the mountains. The San Agustin plains became muddy and dangerous with late rains. Three cows got bogged down, two were saved, one was shot before it choked to death. Red Pierson got thrown from a rank mustang and broke his wrist, but was out hunting L Slash strays two days later.
Stan Brewitt learned his buckskin gift was a better mount than the old dun, and bragged on the horse, mostly about its speed, until a course was set up and bets made, all on Sunday. Stan was more than $50 ahead, a real high roller, until a passing Mex beat the buckskin racer on a flea-bitten gray.
New trouble started, so the ranchers held a meeting at the Morely place. The rains had come late, but soon enough for the grass to green up before winter. Patches of the best graze were being eaten; hoof prints of a small band of horses could be read in the damp earth. Attempts to follow the horses led up narrow canons and impossible trails where no sane man would ride. The ranchers were angry. This was their grass, their feed, and they depended on it for the wintering. Horses were stealing their grass. But there was no solution, and the meeting ended in anger.
English’s name wasn’t spoken around the L Slash Ranch. Miss Katherine got thinner and quieter, and Meiklejon was caught in his barbed-wire hell. Then he got called back to England. His parting orders to Gayle Souter were to pursue any leads that might finish the reign of theft perpetuated by Jack Holden.
Katherine was able to lose herself in ironing, a task she rarely enjoyed. Today it used her energies and calmed her thoughts. Until a noise outside the window distracted her. She blinked, looked out, and saw Davey Hildahl riding in.
She watched Davey dismount, groaning softly with him as he took those first steps in the awkward walk achieved from being in the saddle too long. Katherine knew Davey was searching for Burn English as well as Jack Holden. She blamed her father’s unconscionable act for Davey’s exhaustion. Davey still harbored a burden of guilt, believing himself responsible for any trouble chasing the
