Three months later
Meagan Parker was sitting with Duff MacCallister at “their” table in Fiddler’s Green Saloon. Although it was a saloon, it was considered a decent enough establishment that no stigma was attached to women who visited. She was discussing with Duff the prospect of taking some cattle to market
“According to the Cheyenne Weekly Leader, top steers are bringing eighty-seven dollars a head.” She put some figures to a piece of paper and looked up with a broad smile. “Sixty-five thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars. That is, assuming we can get every head to the railroad without losing any of them.”
“Sure ’n there’s nae we in this, Meagan, as you will nae be for goin’,” Duff replied.
“Are you forgetting, Duff MacCallister, that of the seven hundred and fifty head you’ll be driving to Cheyenne, seventy-five of them are mine?”
“Aye, ’tis a ten percent owner of Sky Meadow you be, Meagan, ’n you are nae for letting me forget that.”
“Duff, you aren’t saying that you don’t like having me as a partner, are you?” Meagan asked with a pout.
“Nae, lass, nae!” Duff said quickly, reaching over to lay his hand on Meagan’s. “Sure ’n ’tis no finer partner I would be wantin’.”
Biff Johnson laughed out loud. “Duff, I do believe the beautiful Miss Parker has her bridle on you.” Biff, who had served with Custer in the Seventh Cavalry, was owner of Fiddler’s Green. He had been standing close enough to overhear the conversation.
“’N would you be for tellin’ me, Sergeant Major, if there be a more beautiful lass for me to submit to?”
“You’ve got me there, Duff, because I sure can’t think of one.”
“Here comes Elmer,” Meagan said.
Like Meagan, Elmer was a partner in the ranch.
“Did Wang come into town with you?” Duff asked.
Wang Chow’s absolute loyalty to Duff was earned when Duff kept him from being lynched. The offense for which he was being lynched was being Chinese while riding with a white woman.
“Nah, I left the heathen back at the ranch to get the cows gathered for the drive tomorrow.”
Neither Duff nor Meagan questioned Elmer’s use of the word heathen. They knew that Elmer and Wang were very close friends and would take a bullet for each other.
“Elmer, would you do me a favor and leave seventy-five of the cows behind?” Meagan asked.
“What?” the question came in unison from Duff and Elmer.
“Meagan, are you for saying that you don’t want your cows to go to market?” Duff asked.
“Oh, I want them to go, all right. But since you won’t let me go with you, I suppose my cows and I will just have to go on our own. I’m sure I can get someone to help. It’s only a three-day drive, after all.”
Elmer chuckled and shook his head slowly. “Duff, m’ boy, I think the woman has got you caught in a vise.”
Duff chuckled as well. “Meagan, let me ask you somethin’, m’ darlin’. Would you be for wanting to make the drive to Cheyenne with us?”
“Oh, well, now that you have asked so nicely . . . yes, I would love to make the drive with you. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go down to the shop and make some arrangements for it to be kept open without me for the next few days.” She stood, leaned over, and gave Duff a quick kiss on his forehead, then hurried out of the saloon.
Duff watched her leave, then saw that Elmer and Biff were looking at him with a bemused expression on their faces. Duff held up his finger, then wagged it back and forth. “You dinnae have to say a word. I had it in mind all along to take her. ’Twas just giving her the chance to stay home if she wanted to without feeling guilty about it.”
Biff chuckled. “Duff MacCallister, when has Meagan ever felt guilty about anything?”
* * *
After supper on the first evening of the drive when most of the others had bedded down for the night, Meagan, who had been unable to fall asleep, decided to go for a walk. Within a few steps from the camp, she was enveloped in the darkness, and the night air felt good as it touched her skin with the softness of a lover’s kiss. The sky above was filled with stars from the several very bright ones, to those of lesser intensity, down to small but still identifiable individual specks of light, and finally to a dim film where individual stars couldn’t be seen but there was an awareness of their presence within that barely perceptible glow.
The cows, having spent the entire day moving, were quiet, some lying down while just as many were standing motionless but at rest. An owl landed nearby and his wings made a soft whirr as he flew by.
Meagan came to a small grass-covered knoll then looked down upon Bear Creek, the water a dark streak except for where the flowing stream broke over rocks, causing white feathers to form. The contrast between the dark water and the white swirls made the stream even more beautiful at night than it was by day. She sat down in the grass and pulled her knees up under her chin. The constant chatter of the brook soothed her, and she was enjoying the contemplative silence—a silence that was soon interrupted.
“Tell me, lass, would you be for wanting some company?” a voice asked.
“Oh, so now the man who would keep me from making the drive wants to spend some time with me?” Meagan teased, smiling back at Duff, who was climbing up the little hill toward her.
“What are you doin’ out here so late?” he asked as he sat down beside her.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“It has been a long day for you, Meagan, ’n ’twas early enough you had to get up this morning to come from town so you could be at the ranch in time to make this drive with us. I can nae imagine you having trouble falling asleep.”
“I know I shouldn’t be having any trouble sleeping, but my mind is so full of thoughts that sleep won’t come.”
“What is it you are thinking?”
Meagan smiled at him. “Duff, never ask a woman what she’s thinking. She might tell you, and then you’ll have no place to run.”
“Och, ’tis silence I’ll keep then,” Duff replied, returning the smile.
The long moment of quiet was broken only by the soft sound of the flowing creek.
Meagan broke the silence. “Duff, do you miss Scotland?”
“Aye, lass, ’twould be lyin’ if I said I didn’t miss it. But there is nothing back there for me now, ’n if I were to return to Scotland, ’tis thinkin’ I am that I would be for missing this place even more than I miss Scotland.” He reached over to take Meagan’s hand. “And ’twould be much more than a place I would miss.”
“It’s nothing we’ll ever have to worry about. I don’t intend to ever let you go.” Meagan chuckled softly. “If I have to, I’ll hog-tie you to keep you here.”
* * *
Wang had made a private sleeping area for Meagan by dropping canvas down from the sides, front, and back of the hoodlum wagon. She had no idea what time it was when she finally crawled under the wagon but imagined that it must be eleven or later.
As she lay there listening to the snoring of a few of the cowboys who were sleeping nearby, she thought of her relationship with Duff. She loved him, and she was certain that he loved her. Meagan’s sister Lisa, who lived in Rongis, Wyoming, had asked her on more than one occasion why she and Duff had never married. Lisa was married and often extolled the virtues of matrimony.
Marriage was always there, just beneath the surface in their relationship. They had never overtly spoken about it, but each knew that the other often thought about it. Back in Scotland, Duff’s fiancée had been murdered on the night before they were to wed. Meagan knew that Skye McGregor would always occupy a chamber in Duff’s heart, and she felt no jealousy over that. She thought of it only as proof that a man like Duff was capable of a love so intense that it could never die.
Was there room in his heart for another love as deep as the first? She was certain that there was, but she had no intention of forcing the issue. It would happen, when it would happen.
* * *
The next morning Duff was awakened by the smell of coffee brewing, bacon frying, and biscuits baking. In addition to Elmer and Wang, six cowboys were on the short drive: J. C. Jones, Larry Wallace, and Bill Lewis, who were Duff’s permanent hands, and Eddie Marshal, Merlin Morris, and Vernon Mathis, who were hands he had hired just for the drive.
Wang was the cook, but to say that he was just a cook was a huge understatement of the Chinese man’s actual position. He was a cook, an assistant foreman to Elmer Gleason, a man of intense talent and abilities as a mechanic and technician.
More important, he possessed the most unique fighting skills of any that Duff had ever seen. Wang never used guns, but in a life-or-death situation one could never have a more valuable ally than Wang, nor a more dangerous foe.
“How come it is that in all the time you been here, you ain’t never learned how to make grits?” Elmer demanded. “You’re supposed to be my friend, but you ain’t never made no grits for me.”
“Grits look like very small grains of rice,” Wang said. “I think if you eat rice it will be same.”
“No, it ain’t the same thing, you heathen celestial,” Elmer said in frustration. “It ain’t the same thing at all.”
Duff approached just as the two friends were engaged in an argument that had become routine between them.
“I’m just disappointed that Wang has nae made neeps ’n haggis for us,” Duff said.
“Argh, no!” Elmer called out. “Wang, you go ahead and cook all the heathen food you want, as long as it’ll keep you away from that . . . that poison Duff calls food.”
* * *
The next day the drive covered ten miles without incident, finding a place with water and grass that would keep the cattle contented. While two of the cowboys kept watch on the herd, Duff, Meagan, Elmer, and the remaining drovers settled down for the supper Wang had prepared.
“What we should have brought with us is one of Vi’s pies,” Duff said.
“We did,” Meagan said. “I have four of them back in the hoodlum wagon. That should be enough to feed the entire crew. I was just looking for the best time to bring them out.”
“Meagan, you brought pies?” Elmer asked.
“Two cherry pies and two apple.”
“What a good thing for you to do. I’ll tell you what. If Duff don’t never marry you, I will.”
Duff laughed out loud. “Aye, ’n what makes you think that any lass would be for wantin’ to marry an old former pirate?”
“They’s some out there that would,” Elmer insisted. “’N you can mark my words on that.”
“Vi would marry you,” Meagan said.
“Why would Vi Winslow want to marry me?” Elmer asked. “She’s much too grand of a woman to get tied up with the likes of someone like me.”
“Don’t put yourself down so, Elmer. You’re as fine a man as I’ve ever known,” Meagan said.
“I, uh, had better go check on the cows,” Elmer said.
“What did I say that upset him?” Meagan asked as he walked away, quickly disappearing in the night.
Duff chuckled. “You dinnae upset him, lass, you embarrassed him. Someone like Elmer isn’t used to having someone say nice things about him.”
“Well he should get used to it. I really do believe that he’s as fine a man as I’ve ever known.”
“Aye, ’n I’ll nae be for disagreeing with you. Still, ’tis a hard thing for a man such as Elmer to be hearing people say good things about him.”
Meagan smiled. “Yes, I can see that now. I shall try and be less effusive in the future.”
One by one the other cowboys drifted off until only Meagan and Duff remained by the fire. A trapped gas bubble in one of the burning logs burst with a quite audible pop, and it sent some bright red sparks riding a heat wave up into the night sky to mingle with the stars.
One of the cowboys watching the herd began to sing.
It was early in the month of May,
The rosebuds they were swelling;
Little Jimmy Grooves on his deathbed lay
For the love of Barbery Allen.
He sent his servant into the town
Where she’d been lately dwelling,
Saying, “Bring to me those beautiful cheeks,
If her name be Barbery Allen.”
“Oh, who is that singing?” Meagan asked.
“That would be Bill Lewis.”
“Why, it’s beautiful. I had no idea you had someone who could sing so well.”
For the next few minutes Duff and Meagan stared quietly into the fire as they listened to the song.
So slowly, slowly she got up
And slowly she came a’ nigh him
And all she said when she got there
Young man I believe you’re dyin’
Oh yes I’m low, I’m very low
And death is on me dwellin’
No better, no better I never will be
If I can’t get Barbery Ellen