CHAPTER FIVE

I kept walking the gelding, almost every day. He was still limping, but it seemed a little less with every day that passed. One morning, Mrs. Frederiksen came down to the pasture gate to see how he was doing. We were watching him graze when we heard the sound of hoofbeats.

We walked up the little rise side by side, then stood in the stand of elms, looking east through the branches. There were three riders galloping up the road. They wore hats like cowhands.

“Do you know them?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Then she reached out and took my hand for a second, squeezing tight. “I have an intuition about this, Margret. Put Mr. Flynn in the barn, will you please? Hurry.” She looked worried and I whirled around and ran down the hill.

I slowed near the pasture gate so I wouldn’t spook the horses. I was scared. An intuition? Did she think one of the cowboys was the gelding’s owner? Would she tell me to hide him if she thought that? Stealing a horse was a serious crime.

I approached the black, talking nonsense in the calmest voice I could manage, extending my hand slowly to grasp his halter. Once I had him, it was awkward, holding on to him and opening the gate, but I managed. I led him out and tried to put the rails back in place without letting go of his halter. I managed the middle one. Tish and Ben wouldn’t try to jump it, I was sure.

I led the gelding at a trot to the barn. I gave him grain in his manger, then scattered a little more over his pile of dried grass. I didn’t want him to start nickering to Bennie and Tish when he realized that I wasn’t coming right back.

“Be good. Be quiet,” I said, patting him before I closed his gate. I forced myself to walk calmly out of the barn, closed the door, then glanced up the hill. They weren’t here yet. So I sprinted to shove the top and bottom rails back into place, then ran up the path.

They were getting close. I hesitated, then ran back downhill, bearing left, so that I passed between the pasture fence and the back of the house. Then I stopped to catch my breath before I walked at a normal pace to the chicken coop and went inside, hoping for at least one egg. The hoofbeats were loud now. The riders were nearly in the yard. I found two eggs and carried them palm up, forcing a half smile as I walked around the corner, trying to look like I had interrupted my chores to come see who was here.

Mrs. Frederiksen was already out on her little porch as the men reined in. I stared at them. One of them glanced at me as he dismounted and handed one of his companions his reins. He used one index finger to push his hat back so I could see his face. He was young and sort of handsome. And he seemed polite as he called out a good day to Mrs. Frederiksen. I turned to see her nod and blinked. She had a rifle in her right hand, the barrel slanting downward and to the side, half hidden by her full skirt. I hadn’t known that she owned one. She held it with complete ease, loose and familiar, just like a man would. I had no doubt she was a crack shot and I could see the cowboy’s face well enough to know the instant he noticed the gun. He stood up a little straighter.

I moved to lean against the soddy wall. They were cowboys, all of them, it looked like. Their clothing was rough and worn from endless riding. Both the men who hung back, waiting, sat astride sturdy, plain-looking horses. The riderless bay was finer-boned, much prettier. Maybe they were just wanting a drink of water or asking the way to Denver. Maybe they weren’t looking for Flynn. I was too nervous then to notice the way Mrs. Frederiksen’s name for the gelding had stuck in my thoughts, but I realized it later.

“It is a lovely day, isn’t it, ma’am?” the cowboy said a second time.

This time Mrs. Frederiksen nodded, but she still didn’t answer.

“Is your husband around?” he asked.

She nodded again and said nothing. I knew her well enough to know that she thought very little of liars and was trying to avoid it. Her William was around, in pure truth. He was buried up above the pasture. Mrs. Frederiksen was just being cautious. Why the cowboy would want to know could be as simple as wanting to get hired for a few days of work, or as wicked as wondering if there was a man around to protect an old woman and a girl. Two girls.

I could hear Libby banging pots in the kitchen. She was probably doing exactly what Mrs. Frederiksen was doing—being cautious. There was no way for the cowboy to know how many people were here. The kitchen noise could just as well have been made by two or three grown sons as one orphaned kitchen maid.

“Do you have business with my husband?” Mrs. Frederiksen asked abruptly.

The cowboy shrugged. “We were just wondering if you’d seen any horses running loose.”

My heart stopped and I held my breath.

“My horses are in the pasture,” she said.

Mrs. Frederiksen gestured and I saw the cowboy lean a little, to see past the elm trees. “But you haven’t seen any horses besides your own?”

Mrs. Frederiksen tipped her head. “You lose a horse, mister?”

The cowboy nodded. “Four. And a few cattle. Did you see a tornado here?”

Mrs. Frederiksen nodded again. “We did. Terrible sound. Put a hole in my roof.”

I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. Her face was stiff and stern, too, the exact opposite of her usual expression.

The cowboy took off his hat and worked the crown, shaping it with his fingers. “It came straight through our place, too.”

Mrs. Frederiksen smiled a little. “Where’s that? Nearby?”

An odd expression flickered across the cowboy’s face and he gestured vaguely to the northeast.

I looked past him just as his horse sidled a little. The mare was a beautiful bay with a lovely face and an arch in her neck. I watched her move restlessly while the other two horses just lowered their heads and stood still. As she turned, the sunlight slanted across her coat and I noticed something else. Her flanks were covered with long whip welts.

“You saying you’re from up north?” Mrs. Frederiksen asked after a long silence. “Do you know the McKenzies?”

The man nodded, but it was a second too late, like he’d had to decide whether or not to nod. In that instant I knew what Mrs. Frederiksen had known when she first saw them. These men weren’t from around here. And now we both knew something else. They didn’t seem honest. This one certainly wasn’t. Or kind. I looked at the bay mare again and hated him for beating her.

“Come on, Eli,” one of the other men said deliberately. He scratched his neck, then lifted his head and spoke in a stiff, careful voice. “Maybe we should be on our way.”

“I’ll be the one to decide that,” the cowboy named Eli shouted back. The other man shrugged and didn’t speak again.

“You hear anyone else talk about finding horses?” Eli asked Mrs. Frederiksen.

She shook her head and shifted the rifle in her hands.

“Well, then, thank you, ma’am,” the cowboy said, smiling. He walked to his horse and mounted in one quick motion. He said something in a low, angry voice to the man who had called out to him. The man’s face was stony and he said something back. They were arguing all the way down the path to the road, then instead of turning right and going on, they turned left.

Eli kicked his mare into a gallop and the others followed. He rode like he had been born in a saddle, and I winced as I saw him lashing the long end of his reins across his horse’s flanks.

“Are they gone?” Libby asked in a low voice, without pushing the door open.

“Yes,” I told her.

She came out onto the porch. “What happened? ”

Mrs. Frederiksen looked at Libby for a long moment, then smiled. “Nothing, I hope. He said he had lost four horses and some cattle. I didn’t tell him we had found one.”

Libby’s eyes widened. “Why?”

Mrs. Frederiksen glanced at me. “Because his mare had whip marks all over and he lied to me about where he’s from. Mr. Flynn isn’t our horse, but he doesn’t belong to that cowboy, either.” She took a long breath and I thought she was going to say more, but she shook her head and went inside.

“Mr. Flynn? You named him?” Libby demanded, the instant the door shut behind Mrs. Frederiksen.

I nodded, then shrugged. “She did. I like it.”

“It’s a silly name.” Libby said. “What did the men say?”

I opened my mouth to explain just as the gelding whinnied from inside the barn. I turned, wondering if I should let him out, or wait awhile. When I glanced back, my sister was frowning.

“What happened, Margret? Did they say anything else?”

The gelding whinnied again and I turned to look past Lib, to the east. The men were tiny figures in the distance now and they were going straight back the way they had come.

"Margret!”

I looked back at my sister and repeated everything I could remember.

“And she just stood there holding the rifle?” Libby whispered.

I nodded.

Libby smiled—a thin little smile that meant she might not approve of something, but she admired it. “Mrs. Frederiksen is a tough old bird,” she said. “But if they come back,” Libby said quietly, “we’ll leave. This is her fight, not ours. If it was up to me, we’d never have taken the horse in at all.”

I blinked, startled by the finality in her voice. I am not sure why. I should have known. At the first sign of any kind of trouble, Libby had always wanted to leave. This time would be no different. It wouldn’t matter to Libby if Mrs. Frederiksen was here all alone to face the cowboys when they came back. It wouldn’t matter to her if the gelding ended up whipped bloody the first time the cowboy tried to force him to cross a river, or through a narrow gate, or any of the things that horses often shied at.

All Libby cared about was keeping us out of trouble. I knew it made sense, in a way, but it felt wrong this time. “I don’t want to leave,” I said, surprised by the sound of my own voice. I had thought it many times, but saying it aloud to my sister was another thing altogether.

“What?” Libby looked surprised, too.

“I like it here,” I said quietly. “I like Mrs. Frederiksen a lot. And we shouldn’t just leave her alone out here where—”

“She has a daughter in Denver,” Libby interrupted in a hissy whisper. “A daughter who has so much money she doesn’t know what to do with all of it. If Mrs. Frederiksen didn’t want to live alone in this old soddy, she could have gone to Denver City long ago.”

“She doesn’t want to,” I said. “She doesn’t want to move into Denver.” I glanced past Libby. The cowboys were nearly out of sight.

“We will leave here soon,” Libby said sternly, like she was daring me to argue with her. “We need to get settled in somewhere for the winter.”

I looked her in the eye. “It’d be wrong to leave Mrs. Frederiksen alone after the way she has helped us,” I said as evenly as I could.

Libby opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. When she did speak, her voice was sharp, even though she kept it quiet so Mrs. Frederiksen wouldn’t hear. “It isn’t up to you where we stay. It’s up to me. I have always been the one to decide and I still am. I’ve kept us safe so far.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “But I don’t want to go, Libby,” I whispered.

“Mrs. Frederiksen is a nice enough old woman, ” she said in a low voice. “But she is not family. We are all we have. The two of us. Don’t forget that, Margret. Ever.”

The gelding neighed again and I spun around and ran all the way down to the barn. I burst through the doors and ran to stand in front of his stall, trying to calm myself so I wouldn’t scare him. But I couldn’t. Tears were rolling down my cheeks.

I closed my eyes and felt warm grass-scented breath on my cheek. Flynn nudged my shoulder. I rubbed his forehead without opening my eyes. We stood like that for a long time. He loved being petted, and every second I stood there, I felt a little better, a little stronger. Libby had always made all our decisions, but maybe it was time for things to change. I wasn’t a baby anymore. For an instant, thinking that made me feel grown up. Then I shivered. If I refused to go, would she leave without me?