Sweetwater Page 22

  Whit hesitated and looked to where the light spilled out the kitchen door.

  “Please, Whit. You both need a meal under your belt,” Jenny added firmly.

  Colleen came from the house with the water bucket. Travor went to meet her and took the bucket from her hand.

  “I’ll get it.”

  “Fine with me.” She turned to go back into the house. He took her arm. She jerked it free of his grasp.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Talk.”

  She stared up at him through thick, dark lashes, all her nerve ends tingling under the scrutiny of his dark eyes. She fervently hoped that he didn’t notice how breathless she was.

  “You took that wink serious, didn’t you?”

  “Yo’re thinkin’ yo’re pretty special, if ya think that.”

  “If it wasn’t the wink, why are you so hostile to me? You’ve been like a bear with a sore tail ever since I got here.”

  “Is that what ya wanted to talk about?”

  “No.”

  “Then say it if ya’ve got somethin’ fit to say.”

  Color tinged her cheeks as his gaze traveled over her face, taking in the freckles on her nose, the wisps of curly hair that had escaped her braid. She stared back at him, her blue eyes holding a definite shimmer of defiance against the effect he was having on her breathing. Her defenses were raised. She felt a desperate need to protect herself from the damage this man could do to her heart.

  “The Indian boy—”

  “He’s got a name. It’s Whit.”

  “All right. Whit said a peddler picked up an injured man down river. Ike thinks the peddler is from Pine City. I’m going there. First I want to know if a man in a white duster has been by here the last week or so.” He let the well bucket fall to the waterline. It landed with a PLOP.

  “No.”

  “If he shows up, look out for him. He’s a hired gunman. I think he may have been looking for me and found Trell.”

  “Is he a bounty hunter? Are you an outlaw?”

  Travor pulled up the bucket and poured the water in the pail before he answered.

  “He’s not a bounty hunter. I’m not an outlaw. I’ve known some pretty decent bounty hunters. This man is a hunter and he kills for money.”

  “Someone must want you dead pretty bad to pay for it.”

  “It’s a long story. I doubt you’d be interested.”

  “Yo’re right. I ain’t.” She tried to pick up the bucket. Travor beat her to it. His hand touched hers and she let go of the bail on the pail as if it were red-hot.

  “Another one you’d better look out for is a man named Hartog. He went down river with a Mexican the morning after he and I had a set-to in town. He’s crazy-mean.”

  “I know it. I’m not wearin’ this gun ’cause I want to.”

  “Don’t try to use it on him! If he didn’t get you, the Mexican would.”

  “Don’t ya be tellin’ me what to do, ya slack-handed, flirtin’ jackass!”

  “Christ on a horse!”

  “Ya’d better not let Granny hear ya takin’ the Lord’s name in vain, either. She’s got old-timey religion, and she ain’t puttin’ up with no such talk.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” he said dryly, then, “You women are like sittin’ ducks out here. Crocker and Hartog or any number of bush-bottom trail-scum could come here, and you women wouldn’t stand a chance against them.”

  “I’d not be sittin’ on my hands. Jenny’d not roll over and play dead either. She looks ladylike but she’s got sand in her craw. She’s pulled that pistol she carries in her pocket more’n once. Me and Granny has been in a few tight spots, and we know a snake when we see one.”

  They reached the house far too soon to suit Travor. He followed Colleen inside and set the water pail on the washstand.

  “Ya sure ’nuff look like Trell,” Granny said. “Do ya eat like him?”

  “I reckon I do, ma’am. Big eaters run in the McCall family.”

  “Yore mama must’a had her hands full.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I see I got me another youngun to feed,” Granny said as Whit and Jenny came in.

  Whit stood just inside the door, his back straight, his head up. Jenny looked quickly to see if it offended him to be called a youngun. She could read nothing in his stoic expression but saw that his eyes were darting hungrily around the room.

  “What can I do to help, Granny? Whit and I washed out at the well.”

  “Nothin’. Sit. All of ya. Colleen, see if the biscuits is done.”

  “Whit, you and Mr. McCall sit on the other side of the table. Colleen and I will be on this side. Granny sits at the head.”

  “Good morning, everyone.” Cassandra came from the other room, closing the door softly behind her. Her eyes went directly to Whit.

  An uncharacteristic groan came from the boy. As soft as it was, Jenny heard and prayed that for once Cassandra would be tactful and not mention that Whit had removed the feather from his headband or offer her usual sarcastic remarks.

  “Sit there on the other side of Mr. McCall, Cassandra. I’ll get you a plate.”

  Jenny breathed a sigh of relief when the child sat down. With Travor seated between her and Whit, she would be unable to look at him; therefore, she might not address her conversation to him.

  Travor ate heartily, Whit sparingly, but Jenny could see that his table manners were passable. Travor seemed preoccupied and spoke only when he was spoken to. When he emptied his plate and refused a refill, Jenny stood.

  “Please don’t stand on ceremony, Mr. McCall. We understand that you are anxious to be on your way to Pine City. Granny and I will prepare a package of food for you and Whit to take with you.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. For the first time in several days, I’ve hope of finding my brother alive.” After thanking Granny for breakfast, Travor took his hat off the rack beside the door. “Finish your meal, Whit. I’ll saddle my horse and we’ll get whackin’.”

  “I’m ready.” Whit left the table and as he passed Granny he parroted Travor’s words and murmured, “Thanks for the meal.” Then he scurried out the door.

  It was daylight when Jenny stood beside Colleen and Cassandra, and watched Whit lead the way into the dense forest on the reservation.

  “I told you Whit would find Trell.” Cassandra spoke when the riders were out of sight.

  “He didn’t find him, honey,” Jenny said tiredly. “He found someone who thinks it may have been Trell the peddler picked up.”

  “Same difference.” Cassandra took her sister’s hand. “Don’t worry, Jenny. Travor and Whit will find Trell. I think I like Travor almost as much as I like Trell. Do you like him, Colleen?”

  “Who? Whit?”

  “Travor, silly. Whit’s too young for you.”

  “But just right for you, huh?”

  “He’s the first boy I’ve met that’s almost as smart as I am.”

  “Then why are you always needling him?” Jenny asked.

  “Because he needs to talk, to argue. How do you think he’ll get along in college if he doesn’t improve his speech and stays stone-faced all the time,” Cassandra said with an impish grin. “And, Virginia, if you notice, I said nothing to him this morning. I knew that you were scared to death I would, and I knew that he was uncomfortable. He’s been squatting before a fire to eat for the past few years and was unsure of himself at a table. I understand that.”

  “It’s commendable of you.” Jenny spoke dryly. “Now what in the world will we do to make this day go faster?”

  “Wash.” Colleen spun on her heels and went to the shed where she had put the iron washpot.

  “Doesn’t sound like much fun to me,” Cassandra grumbled.

  “Ma used to wash when she was worried about somethin’. I’ll fill the pot and put a fire under it.” Colleen started drawing water from the well. “Gather up yore dirty clothes, Cassy, and tell Granny to get our bed sheets.”

 
Jenny welcomed the activity. Never in her life, until she had come to Stoney Creek, had she scrubbed clothes on a washboard. Today, she rolled up her sleeves and buried her arms in the soapy water and was grateful for the labor. Keeping thoughts of Trell at bay, she washed, rinsed and hung the bedding on the bushes that rimmed the yard.

  Still the day dragged on. The grim-faced women didn’t talk about the anxiety they were feeling. Only little Beatrice played happily with the puppy, completely unaware of the tension that gripped her sisters, Granny and Colleen.

  Evening came. After a supper of apple cobbler and cream, Jenny got out the sadiron and set it on the cook-stove to heat.

  “Ya’ve worked all day, Jenny. Ain’t ya tired?” Granny sat in her rocking chair with Beatrice cuddled in her lap.

  “I don’t know if I’m tired or not. I just know I’ve got to keep doing something.” Jenny brought out the ironing board and set it on the backs of two chairs. “Where’s Colleen?”

  “Out prowlin’ ’round. She’s antsy, too.”

  “I’ve no idea how far it is to Pine City.” Jenny placed the basket of dampened and rolled clothes on the chair seat.

  “We come through it to get here. If I recollect right, it’s a little bitty place. ’Course it could’a growed by now.”

  “I don’t expect them back today.” Jenny put her thoughts into words. “If they come back too soon, it’ll mean they didn’t find him.”

  It was a moonlit night. Colleen circled the house. Walking softly and staying in the shadows, she tried to remember all her father had taught her about being alert to night sounds. Listen for the absence of familiar sounds, he had told her. If the frogs down at the creek stop croaking, or the cicadas suddenly cease their racket, it’s sure something unfamiliar is among them.

  Tonight there were no cicada sounds because there were still more than six weeks until the first frost. Granny had told her that. She wasn’t sure it was true, she’d never put it to a test. There were frogs at the pond and a while back they had suddenly stopped croaking.

  Colleen, silent as a shadow, moved from tree to tree until she was behind the schoolhouse. She stopped, listened, and heard little muttering sounds. Going along the side of the building to the front, she stopped again and looked around the corner. Just as she suspected, Linus, sitting on the ground with his back to the building, was holding and talking to his pet raccoon. His horse was behind the school cropping grass. It was when he watered the animal at the pond that the frogs had stopped croaking.

  “Hello, Linus,” Colleen called softly. The boy jumped up, the raccoon left his lap and scurried into the woods. “Stay put while I decide if I’m goin’ to shoot ya or not.”

  “Who? Where are … ya?”

  “Here.” Colleen came around the corner and faced him. “What’er ya doin’ here?” She held the pistol up where he could see it.

  “Nothin’.”

  “Ya got it in mind to tear up the school again?”

  “No. I’m just … waitin’.”

  “Waitin’ for what?”

  “Daylight.”

  “Do ya stay out here ever’ night?”

  “Most nights.”

  “Does Whit know yo’re here?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ gets by that red peckerwood.”

  “Why do you hate him? What’s he done to you?”

  “Why ain’t he here tonight?” Linus ignored her questions and asked one of his own.

  Colleen shrugged. “Maybe he is. He moves around like a whiff of smoke.”

  “He ain’t here. His pony’s in the corral and the other’n is gone.”

  “Is that right? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Crazy Swallow’s gone, too.”

  “Ya’d better pull foot and get that news to Havelshell.”

  “I ain’t tellin’ him everythin’ … no more.”

  “Found out he’s a snake, did ya? Well, it took ya long enough.”

  “I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’ either.”

  “I doubt ya have anythin’ I want to hear.”

  “Are ya goin’ to shoot me or what?”

  “I reckon not … tonight.” She shoved the gun back into the holster. “Are you hungry?”

  “What’d ya want to know that for?”

  “Back when we lived in Timbertown I fed all the stray pups.”

  “I ain’t no dog!”

  “Didn’t say ya was. There’s a world of difference ’tween a dog and a pup.”

  “I ain’t goin’ over there.”

  “You don’t have to. I’ll brin’ ya some biscuits and meat.”

  “Why’er ya doin’ that for?”

  “Let’s say I’m butterin’ ya up to get on yore good side. Might need yore help someday.” She melted back into the darkness and Linus sank down next to the building again.

  He was dumbfounded. She wasn’t the crazy, mean bitch Alvin said she was. Why was she prowlin’ ’round at night? What was she up to?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Morning came and with it Alvin Havelshell.

  “Guess who’s comin’?” Colleen stuck her head in the door and by the turned-down corners of her mouth, Jenny knew that as far as Colleen was concerned, the visitor wasn’t welcome even before she announced. “The great Mr. Havelshell has come to call.”

  Colleen looked at her friend anxiously. Faint lines of strain had appeared this morning between Jenny’s brows and at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and worry shadowed her eyes.

  The agent was accompanied by Frank Wilson, the man who had brought Jenny and the girls out in the wagon the day they arrived in Sweetwater. The buggy stopped within a few yards of where Jenny and Colleen waited beside the door, Granny and the girls behind them.

  “Morning,” he said pleasantly to Jenny, ignoring everyone else. He climbed down out of the buggy and tossed the reins to the grinning Frank, who had moved up beside him. “Water the horse,” he said curtly.

  Jenny stared at him coolly and did not return his greeting.

  “How are you?” He smiled into her eyes. When she remained silent, he said, “Don’t worry about the dam being put back in. I’ve decided to let it go for now.”

  Jenny made no reply. She had learned that silence could be far more disconcerting than an angry tirade of: YOU decided? The Shoshoni decided, you low-caliber, jerkwater crook!

  A long silent moment passed before Havelshell’s patience snapped.

  “This is an official visit. I came to inspect the school.”

  “You have no official obligation to inspect the school.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Everything and everybody on the reservation is my official obligation.”

  “I beg to differ. The school is my responsibility and mine alone.” Jenny met his gaze squarely, contemptuously. His eyes became hard as stones as he looked back at her.

  “You come with me to inspect the school, Virginia, or I’ll send men out to board it up or … burn it down.”

  “You’re … despicable!”

  And you’re the most exciting woman I’ve ever met. I’ll have you, Virginia, and you’ll love every minute of it.

  “Despicable or not, I’m the agent in charge. Are you coming?”

  Without a word, Jenny moved past him and headed for the school.

  “And you stay here,” Alvin snarled at Colleen, then to Frank, “See that she does.”

  Head up, shoulders straight, her body as stiff as a board, Jenny led the way. She threw back the door, entered the school and stepped aside for the agent to enter.

  Alvin had followed closely behind her, watching her skirt swirl about her ankles and her hips sway with each step she took. He had looked forward with breathless anticipation to being alone with this sensuous creature and had planned exactly what he would say to her.

  He hadn’t anticipated such hostility. He had given her time to think about their last meeting and assumed that she would have come to realize that he was the authority here. He had not expected her to bow
to his wishes immediately but at least to be civil. But no matter. He would say what he had come to say; and if she refused, he would consider an alternative plan.

  “Sit down, Virginia. I see no reason for us to be enemies.”

  “We are not on a first-name basis, Mr. Havelshell. I will thank you not to forget that.”

  “I think of you as Virginia. I see no reason why I shouldn’t call you that.”

  “I do. Only my friends call me by my first name. I do not consider you a friend.”

  “More than a friend, Virginia?” He leered at her.

  “A mere acquaintance, Mr. Havelshell.” Her lips curled in disdain.

  “We’ll not split hairs over that.”

  “Have you finished your inspection?”

  “I want to talk to you about your position here and … how hopeless it is.”

  “Hopeless? I see it as far from hopeless.”

  “Have you not thought about the conversation we had when I was here before?”

  “Not for one minute after you walked out the door.”

  “You’ll get no help here, Virginia. Come winter, Crazy Ike will find a squaw and hole up till spring. Don’t count on help from McCall or that female out there in men’s pants. You and your sisters will be here alone. When the snow is on the ground and food is scarce, the Indians will come and take yours.”

  “As much as you wish it to be true, we will not be alone. The Murphys will be here, and I’ve made friends with the Shoshoni. They are sending their children to the school. And I’ve no doubt that they want the school to succeed.”

  “And you’re counting on their word? Ha! You know little of these savages. They would cut your throat and that of your sisters if the notion struck.”

  “I don’t believe that. Your scare tactics won’t work.”

  “Mark my word.” He was almost shouting now. “The Murphy girl is a slut. I’m sure that word is offensive to you, but it is true. Do you want your little sisters living in a house with a woman who’ll spread her legs for anyone with a couple of dollars? Or has she set up business in the bunkhouse?”

  “Get out!” Jenny stood beside the door and waved her arm. “You’ve got a nasty mind and a nasty mouth!”