Salty was moving toward Sarah before the frying pan hit the floor. He sent a chair careening across the room and banged his thigh against the corner of the table, but he reached her in time to catch her. “Ellen, bring me a cloth and a basin of cold water. What happened?” he asked Jared.
The boy stared at his mother’s crumpled form, his eyes wide with shock. “I d-don’t know,” he stammered. “Sh-she was just standing there. Then she dropped the corn bread.”
Bones had followed Salty and Ellen into the house. He gobbled up two pieces of scattered corn bread before Ellen shoved him out and closed the door.
Sarah had lost color, but she didn’t seem to be in any distress. Salty was less worried that something might be medically wrong than that a woman with Sarah’s strength of mind would faint. What could have upset her so badly? Had Jared said something without realizing its significance?
Salty wasn’t so worried, however, that he was unaware of the pleasurable sensations that came from having such an attractive woman in his arms. He felt guilty about it, but that didn’t stop him from thinking how nice it would be to hold her under different circumstances. She was so soft. She seemed slight compared to him, even fragile. Her upturned nose, her generous mouth, eyelashes that seemed too long to be real; her bones were smaller, her features more finely sculpted.
She stirred in his arms and her eyes opened. She struggled against his embrace. “What happened?”
“You fell down.” Ellen had finally arrived with the water.
“She didn’t fall down,” Jared corrected. “Salty caught her.”
“You fainted,” Salty explained. “Are you sick?”
“I’m fine. Let me up.”
“Maybe you should wait a bit longer. Until you feel steady enough to stand.”
“I feel fine. Besides, supper is getting cold.”
Ellen was gathering up pieces of corn bread. “Bones ate some,” she complained.
Sarah struggled to sit up. “I’ll make more.”
“There’s no need,” Salty assured her. “He only got a piece or two.”
“But it’s all been on the floor.”
Ellen rubbed a piece against her shirt. “I brushed the dirt off.”
Salty reluctantly released Sarah as she struggled into a sitting position and argued, “You can’t eat dirty corn bread.”
“Then we won’t eat any corn bread at all,” he told her. “You’re not doing anything until I’m sure you’re all right. Let me help you up.”
“I can stand on my own,” she said.
“I’m sure you can, but there’s no reason not to let me help you. Is there?”
Sarah looked like she wanted to say something but thought better of it. “I’m not used to being helpless.”
Salty chuckled. “I never saw a less helpless woman in my life—but it’s nice to depend on somebody else once in a while.”
Sarah allowed herself to be settled in her chair but didn’t look happy about it. “I’ve always been responsible for everything. It was the only way I could be sure things would get done.”
“Well, I’m here to help now.”
“I can help,” Ellen said.
“Me too,” added Jared.
Sarah reached for her son with one hand and for Ellen with the other; her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “You know I couldn’t do without either of you.” She hugged both children, and they threw their arms around her.
Watching, Salty understood why he couldn’t be part of this family unit, but he felt like he belonged in that huddle of warm bodies. Maybe it had happened last night while they processed that pig. Maybe it happened when Jared got his crutch. It didn’t really matter when it happened, he supposed, just that it had. He felt it. He wondered if anyone else felt it, too.
Sarah released both children, kissed them then stood. “We’ve got to feed Salty before he starves.”
Her reaction confirmed to Salty that he still wasn’t a member of her family, was in reality just a hired man like all the others. She had to take care of his physical needs so he would be able to do the work necessary to put her ranch on a better financial footing; she wasn’t thinking of anything else. He could accept that, he decided. He’d only been here one day.
Still, one day was long enough to know he was part of this family. They just didn’t realize it yet.
* * *
“I want to go with you.” From the moment Salty announced that he and Sarah were going to spend the morning looking for the cows that had strayed onto Wallace’s land, Ellen had lost interest in her breakfast.
“I need you and Jared to begin planting the garden,” her mother said.
“I don’t want to be a farmer,” Ellen protested. “I want to be a rancher.”
“A rancher has to eat,” Sarah reminded her. “Vegetables are important. Someone has to plant and tend the garden.”
Ellen put down her fork and dropped her hands to her lap. “Why does it have to be me?”
“Who would you suggest?” Sarah had eaten little, subsisting mainly on coffee.
The answer was obvious to all of them. Salty had to go after the cows because he knew the most about ranching. Sarah needed to go because she knew the most about the ranch. Besides, she might be able to talk some sense into Wallace if they saw him.
“I hate chickens and I hate gardens,” Ellen declared.
“If you want to have your own ranch someday, you’re going to have to know all about both,” Salty said. “Pigs and milk cows, too.”
Ellen took a swallow of milk before answering. “I’ll hire somebody to do it for me.”
“A topnotch boss should know how to do every job as well as the men he hires.” At her look, Salty amended his statement. “Or she.”
Ellen picked up a piece of corn bread but didn’t take a bite. “Why?”
“So you’ll know if the men you hired are doing a good job.”
The girl looked disgusted. “Maybe I’ll just be a cowhand. Zac told me a real cowhand won’t do any work he can’t do from the back of a horse.”
Salty laughed. “Zac was pulling your leg. He doesn’t like cows or horses. He says he’s going to New Orleans as soon as he grows up.”
Ellen shook her head. “And I thought he was smart.”
Salty decided it probably wouldn’t do any good to tell her there were lots of smart people who didn’t like horses and cows. He finished the last of his fried potatoes and corn bread. Sarah got up to refill both their cups.
“What are we supposed to plant?” Jared had eaten his breakfast in silence.
“What do you think we ought to plant?” But the moment Salty spoke, he realized he should have let Sarah answer. She didn’t appear upset when he turned to her, though.
“Mama has a book of what we planted last year. I’ll look there. I’ll also see what seeds we have.”
“That’s an excellent idea. Once you decide, talk it over with Ellen so she’ll know what kind of rows to dig.”
“I hate digging. I always get blisters.” Ellen wrinkled her nose in disgust, but she didn’t appear too upset. Maybe she just wanted to make sure everyone knew she was a real cowhand and that she was doing this garden stuff only because somebody had to do it.
“Wear your gloves,” Salty suggested.
“I don’t have any.”
“Wrap an old cloth around your hands or around the shovel handle.”
“Will you show me how?”
“If you’ve finished eating, get Salty to help you find the best place for the garden,” her mother interjected. “He can show you how to wrap your hands then. Jared, you can start sorting our seeds and deciding what to plant. I’ll clean up. Then we can ride out.”
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” Ellen asked. It surprised Salty that she wanted to do anything like women’s work.
“It won’t take but a few minutes.”
Salty took a couple of big gulps to finish his coffee then pushed his chair back. “I’ll have the horses saddled by the time you’re done.”
Ellen was up from her chair and out the door ahead of him; she had the same boundless energy that seemed to inhabit Zac Randolph. Jared was slower to move, but he used his crutch so easily it was hard to believe he’d had it less than a day. He was soon out of his chair and headed to the storage cabinet for seeds.
“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” Salty asked.
Sarah smiled. “What would you say if I asked you to wash the dishes or dry them?”
“I did it all during the war. I even cooked.” He didn’t add that he’d cooked and cleaned during the years between his mother’s and father’s deaths, too. The memory of having his efforts constantly belittled and the food thrown at him on occasion was something he’d rather no one knew.
Her smile vanished. “I don’t know why I keep forgetting you were in the war.”
“I’m glad you do. I keep trying.” It had been easy to believe in a cause. Still was. Everybody believes in something. The hard part was having to kill a human being on behalf of it. He would always wonder if what he’d done was worth it.
“Are you sure the children will be safe while we’re gone?” he asked.
Sarah nodded. “No one would hurt them. Not even Arnie.”
* * *
“Why didn’t you marry Wallace?” Salty asked Sarah. “Seems like a perfect answer to your difficulties.”
They’d been riding for more than two hours. The sky had been overcast early, but the sun had come out to burn off the chill. It had grown so warm it felt like early summer rather than the tail end of winter.
“If you knew him as well as I do, you wouldn’t ask that question.”
Wallace and his wife had been good neighbors to Sarah’s family while she was growing up, but he’d changed after his only child died of fever. Maybe he thought being the richest man, the biggest rancher, the most influential man in the county could compensate for the loss of his son. After his wife died, he’d gradually became so irascible no one wanted anything to do with him. When he couldn’t force Sarah to sell her ranch, he’d tried to acquire it through marriage.
“Has he complained about your cows getting on his land before?”
“Yes, but he never threatened to shoot them,” Sarah said. “He doesn’t act like himself anymore.”
Salty apparently sensed her sadness. “Forget Wallace. Tell me about your ranch. How much land do you control? Who are your other neighbors? What kind of water do you have? Where is your best graze? What’s the size of your herd, and what’s its condition?”
Sarah was relieved to have something to think about rather than Wallace—or Salty’s nearness. She still couldn’t believe she’d fainted. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night for thinking about him and her feelings for him. The waves of desire that washed over her had shocked her. Where had they come from? Why hadn’t she ever felt that way about Roger?
It wasn’t as if she had the excuse that she was in love with Salty. She liked him and had confidence in him in a way she never had with her husband, but that didn’t translate into love. It took far more than being kind to her children for a woman to fall in love with a man. Didn’t it? But even if she wasn’t talking about love, these flashes of desire that constantly assailed her were just as unexpected and unexplainable.
“From what you’ve told me, I don’t understand why your ranch is in such difficulty,” Salty said.
Sarah tried to recall what she’d been saying. She was hardly aware that she’d been talking, but apparently she had been filling him in on the details for some time. They were approaching the stream that divided her ranch from Wallace’s. Cows had punched out several paths to the water through the large patches of bushy growth and tangled vines that bordered the stream.
“My father never seemed to have a problem,” she told Salty, “but Roger never wanted to do the work necessary to make a go of this place. After he left, I thought all I needed was a dependable man, but we could never find enough cows when it came time to sell them. At three dollars a head, I never made much.”
Salty snorted. “We’ll send our cows with the Randolphs when they go to Kansas. A man there is opening a market and says we can make twenty dollars a head if they’re carrying good flesh.”
Twenty dollars a head? Sarah could hardly believe her ears. She’d never heard of anybody getting that much for a single cow, not even a big five-year-old steer. If she could sell her cows for half that, she’d be able to pay off the arrears on her debt and be on the way to holding the ranch free and clear. “Are you sure of that?”
“There’s a railhead coming through Kansas right now. It’ll be easier to trail a herd north through Indian country than try to ship them to New Orleans or fight our way through the farmers in Missouri. They’re so afraid of a fever that comes from a tick on some of our cows that they’ve passed a law banning Texas cattle from the state.”
“I don’t know if I have any steers ready for market.” She had often wondered why they couldn’t find more cows, but she hadn’t been able to ride the range herself. The children had been too small to be left alone when Roger left. It was only in the last year that she had started to feel it was safe to leave them alone at all.
“After we deal with Wallace, I want to ride over all of your range,” Salty said. “Once I know what kind of stock you have, we can start branding and choosing which to send to market.”
“We?” His comment surprised her. None of the men she’d hired had ever asked her to participate.
“Yes. Me, you, and Ellen—I even have tasks for Jared. You didn’t think I could do all of this alone, did you?”
“I really hadn’t given it much thought. I don’t have any experience.”
He laughed. “It’s easy to learn. It’s just hard as hell to do.”
That was probably a reason the men she’d hired had found so few of her cattle. She should have asked more questions, been more vigilant, more involved, but it had been all she could do to take care of her children as well as the milk cow, pigs, and chickens. Now Salty wanted to teach her.
“Is the stream the only boundary between the two ranches?” he asked.
“Yes. There was never any trouble when my father was alive, but now Wallace is trying to claim both sides.”
“Cows go to a stream to drink,” Salty mused. “It’s not likely more than one or two will cross unless the grass on the other side looks a lot better. Has he said anything about your bulls crossing to breed with his cows?”
“No. Our stock’s the same.”
“It won’t be once that calf I’m getting from George Randolph is big enough to start fathering calves. The future of ranching in Texas is dependent on finding an inexpensive way to get our steers to market and improving the quality of our herds. Steers that carry more meat bring a higher price,” Salty pointed out.
Sarah’s father had never worried about improving his herd. He had been content to sell his cows for tallow or to someone wanting to trail them to market. Roger wouldn’t have seen the point of buying a bull when there were already dozens on the range. Sarah had been too concerned about survival to give much thought to improvements.
“Why isn’t that cow branded?” Salty asked.
“Which one?”
Salty pointed to a cow with a spotted calf.
“I guess it’s not mine.”
“That’s not what I mean. Every cow on the range should be branded. It’s the only way you can identify your cows. If it’s on your land and has no one else’s brand, it’s presumed to be your cow. She should be carrying your brand.”
“My cows are branded every year. I guess that’s one that was missed.”
“Missed long enough to have a calf?” Salty asked.
Sarah didn’t have an answer.
They eyed the stream that separated her land from Wallace’s. Salty rode his horse into it then stopped. “This looks like good water. When does it dry up?”
“It runs all year. My father said it’s spring fed.”
“I expect that’s why Wallace is trying to claim it. Not many Texas streams run all year, even ones fed by springs. Do you have any other streams on your ranch?”
“Yes.”
“How many and where are they?”
“I don’t know.” Sarah could feel his gaze home in on her. She was beginning to feel very ignorant—and it wasn’t just because of not knowing how many cows she owned, why one of them wasn’t branded, and where exactly to find water. There was a lot more, she imagined. “My father thought it was improper for women to ride horseback, work cows, or to know anything about the ranch beyond how to run the house and take care of things like chickens and the garden. Roger felt the same. By the time I had any freedom to go where I wanted, I couldn’t, because I had two babies.”
Salty seemed unperturbed. “That’s something we can rectify in a few days. As soon as it’s practical, I’ll teach Ellen and Jared as much as I can about the ranch, too. The more all of us know, the better we can manage.”
Sarah rode her horse through the stream. “We’d better start looking for those cows Wallace complained about and get them back. I don’t like leaving the children longer than necessary.”
Salty rode a little farther and looked around. “You’ve got better grass. I’d expect Wallace’s cows to cross, rather than the other way.”
The only time Sarah could recall being at this stream was for a picnic when Roger was courting her. Comparing the quality of grass on each side hadn’t been on her list of things to do. She said, “None of the men I hired reported any trouble.”
“Well, cows that aren’t fenced in are going to wander. That’s another reason why I don’t understand Wallace’s complaint.” Salty shrugged. “It’s probably just another way for him to aggravate you into selling your ranch.”
“The bank owns as much of it as I do.”
“That wouldn’t be his problem. Let’s see what we can find.”
They rode at least a quarter of an hour before they found one of her cows. “If this is the only one, Wallace can’t complain that your cows are eating up his grass. I counted seven of his on your land on our way here,” Salty pointed out. Stopping, he moved his head from side to side and sniffed the air.
“Someone is branding cattle.”