CHAPTER 4
Hunter sat through most of the meal, served by the gastronomically gifted Lakota, Four Bulls, with his ears still afire with embarrassment. Lucinda and Four Bulls must have told Scanlon about the . . . um, incident . . . earlier, for the rancher kept regarding Hunter with a bemused smirk. Not helping any, Anna occasionally gave her hulking husband a jeering poke in the ribs.
A welcome distraction was the meal itself, which was nothing less than delicious. Especially after nearly a week on the trail herding horses down from the Hills. The haunch, corn on the cob, oyster stew, and mashed potatoes served with a rich, dark gravy spiced with mint and wild onions were all cooked to perfection.
The meal was served with coffee and milk, which Scanlon informed his guests had come from a neighboring ranch stocked with several Holsteins. More coffee was served when Four Bulls hauled out a big silver tray loaded with large wedges of dried apple pie topped with generous dollops of freshly whipped cream.
During table conversation, Hunter learned that Scanlon had several years ago served in the Colorado Territorial Senate before opening a gold and silver mine in the mountains near Leadville. His family had owned the Navajo Creek Ranch for two generations, his father and two brothers having fought the land away from the Arapaho and Utes. Scanlon and two uncles had run the ranch for several years after Scanlon’s father died. Scanlon left the ranch and moved to Denver when he’d been elected to the territorial senate.
When both his unmarried uncles died from typhoid, the house was closed, the herd sold off. Only a year ago, Scanlon and his daughter, who’d been educated in England where the man’s estranged wife still lived, had returned to Navajo Creek to reopen the ranch and restock the range as well as its remuda. They both very much wanted to build back up the Scanlon family holdings to its former glory and to call it home again, far from the madding crowd of both England and Leadville.
Their start were the horses the man and his daughter had bought from Hunter and Annabelle. They were having several blooded mares hauled up from Texas with which to sew the seed of a larger remuda.
Hunter kept wanting to ask Scanlon why he had a man of Jack Tatum’s lowly ilk on his roll, but supper didn’t seem the right time or place.
Neither did after supper cigars and brandy in the parlor, for the women were invited to join them. Scanlon coerced his daughter, decked out in a creamy, low-cut gown and earrings of pearl and a pearl necklace, her hair coifed fetchingly, to entertain them at the piano. Now, Hunter Buchanon was not a good judge of musical talent, you would not be surprised to learn, but some of the piano “concertos”—at least, that’s what he thought Scanlon had called the music the young woman was playing—tied knots in his throat. Not only the music itself but the way she tilted her head this way and that and the way her hands floated over the keys, seeming to barely touch the ivory yet evoking such affecting sounds.
Hunter could see that Annabelle, despite her pique at the lovely, young, cultured woman and Hunter’s male fascination with her, was as moved as Hunter was. The notes fairly floated like little birds around the room, and at one point, Hunter glanced at his beloved sitting beside him and saw tears rolling down her cheeks. Annabelle caught his glance, frowned self-consciously, and quickly brushed them away.
Beneath the piano’s soft chiming, a lone coyote howled mournfully somewhere on the prairie beyond the ranch house. Hunter smiled. Bobby Lee, too, had found an appreciation for fine music.
During one particularly affecting rendition at the baby grand piano, Miss Scanlon’s hands suddenly lifted from the keys. She sat frozen. Hunter couldn’t see the expression on her face, because her back was to him, but then she lowered her head slightly, and she sobbed. She rose suddenly and stepped out away from the piano.
“I do apologize,” she said through another strangled sob and, hurrying out of the room, said, “That was mother’s favorite!”
Then she was gone.
Scanlon sat in an overstuffed leather chair across from Hunter and Anna, smiling bittersweetly. He removed the ubiquitous pipe from his mouth and said, “She lost her mother only last year, you understand.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Annabelle said.
She leaned forward to set her empty brandy snifter on the small table before her, and said, “If you’ll excuse me, gentleman. I’m very tired. I think I’ll turn in.” She rose and faced the rancher. “Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Scanlon. Hunter and I will likely be back on the trail at first light.”
“Without breakfast?” the rancher asked, rising from his chair.
Anna smiled. “Yes, but not without regret. But we, too, have a ranch to run. Maybe see you again sometime.”
She shook the man’s hand, kissed her husband’s cheek, then left the room, leaving Hunter and Scanlon standing in a heavy, awkward silence following Miss Scanlon’s poignant, lingering music.
Hunter and the rancher slacked back into their seats. Hunter cleared his throat but before he could say a word, Scanlon said, “I bet you’d like to get paid.”
“That’s sort of what I was getting around to.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” He turned his head toward the parlor’s open door. “Four Bulls?”
Silence.
Heavy footsteps sounded. They grew louder, the old wooden floor creaking, until Four Bulls entered the room, wearing as he had earlier a broadcloth jacket over a white shirt decked out with a necklace of Indian-colored beads. He wore broadcloth trousers and beaded moccasins. In his right hand he held a fat manilla envelope.
“Mhmm,” he said, and gave the envelope to Scanlon, who then turned and left the room, leaving the smoky smell of the buckskin moccasins and the spit on which he’d roasted the elk in the room behind him.
Scanlon hefted the envelope in his hands, smiling. “A goodly amount.” He set the envelope on the table between him and Hunter. “And worth every penny. Thank you for bringing them to me.”
Hunter stood and stuffed the envelope in his back pocket. “My pleasure, sir. Been nice doing business with you. And like my lovely wife said, much obliged for your hospitality.”
Scanlon rose creakily from his chair and shook Hunter’s hand.
“Good night, young man,” he said, regarding Hunter almost sadly.
That took Hunter aback a bit, but he just smiled, said goodnight, and left the room, hoping he could remember how to find his way back to his and Anna’s.
* * *
Later that night, in the night’s deep bowels, in fact, Anna found herself lying awake, arms crossed behind her head.
It was hot so she and Hunter had left the French doors open, hoping for a breeze. There was a slight one now, somewhat relieving the heat. Still, she found herself sleepless, for some reason.
Why?
She frowned as she stared at the ceiling.
She’d felt a strange unease all evening, but she hadn’t been able to put a finger on its cause. She couldn’t now, either. Likely, it was just that she was far from home and now that their job of delivering the horses to the Arapaho Creek Ranch was complete, she just wanted to be back on the trail home with her husband. Though she’d let on otherwise, she was not jealous of Lucinda Scanlon. She knew Hunter’s love for her was complete. What man with red blood in his veins wouldn’t be taken with the lovely and cultivated young woman?
No, Miss Scanlon was not the reason for her unease.
Whatever the cause, she couldn’t sleep while Hunter lay snoring softly beside her. She’d swear the man could sleep through a cyclone. Not she.
Restless, she slid the covers back and rose from the bed.
Hunter stirred, grumbling.
“Just gonna take a walk,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
Hunter smacked his lips and made the bed quake as he rolled onto his side and resumed snoring.
Anna gave a dry chuckle.
Clad in only her longhandles, she pulled on her plaid wool shirt and stepped into her boots. She grabbed her hat off a wall peg, set it on her head, and walked softly out the two open French doors and onto the balcony, the old boards creaking beneath her feet. She stood gazing out over the star-capped prairie, enjoying the fresh breeze sliding against her face, rife with the wine of cottonwoods, cedars, and sage.
She turned sideways to the balcony rail and crossed her arms on her chest, over the shirt she’d buttoned only partway. She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath. The only sounds were the breeze and the pulsating hum of crickets.
A twig snapped.
Anna opened her eyes and looked around. Beneath her were only the paving stones and old, rotting benches of the courtyard. Beyond a fringe of cedars, shrubs, and a few small cottonwoods at the edge of the courtyard, below and to her left, was only vast, open prairie mantled with twinkling stars. The twig had snapped somewhere in the shrubs. It hadn’t snapped itself. Someone or something had snapped it.
Anna had a sense she was being watched.
“Who’s down there?” she wanted to yell but did not. She didn’t want to wake the house. She considered waking Hunter, but she might be alarmed about nothing. It could just be a cat or a dog down there. Possibly Bobby Lee.
She’d find out for herself.
She walked back into the room where Hunter still lay snoring on his side, and grabbed her carbine from where she’d leaned it against the wall. She walked back out onto the balcony, swung left and, staring into the black mass of moving shrubs and small trees, she walked to the end of the balcony and then followed the steps down to the courtyard, where the heat from the now-covered spit still radiated.
She walked out along the courtyard to its backside and stared into the thicket, the branches being nudged this way and that by the fickle night breeze.
“Hello?” she said very quietly.
She’d feel foolish if someone saw or heard her out here, frightened as a child who couldn’t sleep, possibly only pestered by specters from her own imagination.
She glanced back at the house hulking up darkly behind her, making sure she wasn’t being watched, then followed a thin path into the thicket, holding the carbine up high across her chest. She walked six feet, ten, stepping around the breeze-brushed shrubs, squinting into the darkness around her. The rustling of the breeze was louder out here.
Again, a twig snapped. Anna gasped and turned to her left.
“Who’s there?” she said, louder this time, hearing the tremor of fear in her voice. Still more loudly: “Who’s there? I know you’re out here. Who are you? What do you want?”
Ahead now the trees and shrubs made a heavier, blacker line. That was the area from which the last sound had come.
Anger building in her, tempering her fear—someone was toying with her—she strode forward quickly, squeezing the carbine in her hands.
A growling sounded from that dark mass ahead of her.
A man cursed.
More growling and snarling and then a man said, “Git, damn you!”
An angry bark and then there rose the thudding of a galloping horse.
The thuds dwindled quickly to silence, to only the rustling of the breeze in the branches around her. A figure moved ahead of her, growing larger until the gray-brown coyote took shape ten feet in front of her.
“Bobby!” Anna cried in relief.
The coyote came up to her, mewling and panting, obviously troubled.
Anna dropped to a knee and wrapped an arm around the frightened beast’s neck.
“What happened, boy? Who was out there?”
Bobby mewled, gave a brief, low howl, then licked Anna’s cheek.
“Whoever it was, you scared him off, didn’t you? Thank you.” Anna hugged the coyote more tightly. Bobby Lee had likely been out here all night, watching over her and Hunter.
A tear came to Anna’s eye.
A wild beast, eh?
“You run along now, Bobby,” she said, straightening. “I’m going to go back to bed, see if I can get some sleep. We’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”
She knew she didn’t have to tell Bobby Lee that. He’d be watching and waiting. As soon as Anna and Hunter were back on the trail, he’d show himself and run along beside them. She gave the coyote one more pat then swung around and started to retrace her route through the trees and shrubs. She’d taken only a few steps when a young woman’s cry of “Oh, God!” sailed from the direction of the house.
Anna froze, frowning toward the house, which she could not see from this vantage.
“Now what?”
She broke into a run.