Mail Order Cowboy

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He’d slept the day away! Milly, her sister and Bobby had no doubt taken on tasks he should have been doing.

“What needs to be done?”

Bobby traced a half circle with the toe of one dusty boot, apparently also uncomfortable with the idea of giving an adult orders.

“I—I dunno, s—Mr. Nick. Mebbe you best ask Miss Milly.”

“All right, I’ll do that.”

He found Milly in the kitchen, shelling black-eyed peas into a bowl in her lap. Sarah, her back to the door, was kneading dough. The delicious odor of roasting ham wafted from the cookstove.

“Oh, hello, Nick,” Milly said. “Did you have a good sleep?”

“Too good,” Nick said. “I want to apologize for lying abed so long when there’s so much to be done.”

“Horsefeathers,” Milly Matthews responded with a smile. “You must have needed it.”

Her lack of censure only made him feel guiltier, somehow. “Did you get some rest, ma’am?”

She shook her head. “I’ll sleep tonight.”

“As I should have waited to do. I only meant to lie down for an hour. This won’t happen again, Miss Milly, Miss Sarah.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Nick,” Sarah admonished, looking over her shoulder.

“Thank you, but I intend to be more of a help from now on. What should I be doing now?”

Milly’s hands paused, clutching a handful of unshelled pods. “It’s a couple of hours ’til supper—not enough time to get started on any rebuilding projects…. It might be a good idea if you and Bobby were to saddle up and go for a ride around the ranch so you can get an idea of how far the property extends and make a survey of what needs to be done. Oh, and you’ll be passing the creek that runs just inside the northern edge. You and Bobby could take a quick dip and get cleaned up,” Milly added, eyeing his cheeks and chin.

“A dip sounds good.” Nick ran his fingers over the stubbly growth, imagining how scruffy he looked. He was glad he’d kept his razor in his saddlebag. He didn’t want to look unkempt around this lovely woman he was trying to impress.

“Take your pistol with you,” Milly called as he headed for the door. “You never know what you might meet out there in the brush.”

“Do you mean Indians?”

She nodded. “Or rattlesnakes. They like to sun themselves on the rocky ledges that line one side of the creek. There’s a little cave in those ledges. Sarah and I used to play there and pretend it was our cottage until we saw a snake at its entrance.”

“Then I’ll be sure and take my dip on the other side.” He’d had enough encounters with cobras in India to have a healthy respect for poisonous snakes of any kind.

“Don’t let Bobby dillydally in the creek,” she admonished. “Supper’s at six and Reverend Chadwick brought a big ham with him on behalf of the congregation.”

“If Bobby wants to stay in the creek, I shall eat his share of the meat,” he said with a wink.

Nick was as good as his word, riding into the yard with Bobby at quarter ’til the hour. By the time they’d unsaddled and turned the horses out in the corral, the grandfather clock in the parlor was chiming six times.

“Here we are, ma’am, right on schedule,” Nick said, pronouncing it in the British way—“shedule” instead of “schedule.” She watched him, noting the way his still-damp hair clung to his neck while he sniffed with obvious appreciation of the savory-smelling, covered iron pot she carried to the table with the aid of a thick dish towel.

“Your promptness is appreciated,” she said lightly, although what she was really appreciating was the strong, freshly shaved curve of his jaw. Nick Brookfield was compelling even when tired and rumpled; when rested and freshly bathed, he was a very handsome man, indeed. She wrenched her eyes away, lest he catch her staring. “You can sit over there, across from Bobby,” she said, pointing to a chair on the far side of the rectangular, rough-hewn table that had been laid with a checkered gingham cloth.

“How about Josh? Would you like me to take him his supper and help him eat first?”

“Oh, he’s already eaten,” Sarah said. “He’s not up to anything but a little soup yet, but he took that well at least. Maybe tomorrow he can eat a little more and even join us at the table.”

Milly was moved that Nick had thought of the injured old cowboy’s needs before his own. She watched now as he seated himself gracefully, then waited.

“Nick, since this is your first meal with us, would you like to say the blessing?” You could tell a lot about a man by the way he reacted to such a request, Pa always said.

Nick hesitated, but only for a moment. “I’d be honored,” he said, and bowed his head. “Lord, we’d like to thank You for this bountiful meal and the good people from the church who provided it, and the hands that prepared it. And we thank You for saving the house, and Josh, and please protect the ranch and those who live here from the Indians. Amen.”

“Thank you. That was very nice, wasn’t it, Milly?” Sarah asked.

“Uh-huh.” Milly thought Nick sounded like a man accustomed to speaking to his Lord, but Pa had also said sometimes folks could talk the talk, even if they didn’t walk the walk. “Here, Nick, take some ham,” she said, handing him the platter, while she passed a large bowl of black-eyed peas flavored with diced ham to Bobby. He took a couple of slices, then passed it down to Sarah.

“We always pass the meat to Bobby last, because there’ll be nothing left after he’s had a chance at it,” Sarah teased from her end of the table.

Bobby, who’d been watching the progress of the ham platter as it made its way down the table, just grinned.

“He’s still a growing lad, aren’t you, Bobby?” Nick said, smiling.

“I reckon I am,” Bobby agreed. “Uncle Josh says I got hollow legs. Look, Miss Milly, I think my arms have growed some.” After helping himself to a handful of biscuits, he extended an arm. The frayed cuff extended only a little past the middle of his forearm.

“Grown some,” Milly corrected automatically, taking a knifeful of butter and passing the butter dish. “I suppose I’ll have to buy some sturdy cloth at the mercantile next time I’m there and make you a couple of new ones. Josh probably needs a couple, too, though I know he’ll say just to patch the elbows.” She sighed. While making clothing was actually something she was good at, even better than Sarah, trying to find the cash to buy cloth or anything extra right now would be difficult. “Nick, what did you think of our land?” she said, deliberately changing the subject. She could fret about Bobby’s outgrown shirts later.

“It seems good ranch country, to my novice eyes,” he said, with a self-deprecating smile. “Much bigger than I thought. We didn’t even get to the western boundary, or we would have been late returning.”

“It’s actually one of the smaller ranches in San Saba County,” Milly said, but she appreciated how impressed he seemed.

“Is that right? Back in Sussex, you two would be prominent landowners. They’d have called your father ‘Squire.’ Most English country folk have very small plots and rent from the local noble or squire. I noticed there’s fence needing repair along your boundary with Mr. Waters’s land, by the way.”

Before she could stop herself, another sigh escaped. “Yes, he won’t repair it. He doesn’t think there should be fences—‘Just let the cattle run wild ’til the fall roundup, just like we always did,’” she said, deepening her voice to imitate the man. “I suspect he used to brand quite a few yearlings as his that were actually ours, before Pa put up his fence.”

“Has he always been a difficult man?”

Milly shrugged. “He isn’t really difficult, only set in his ways.” He hadn’t acted this way when Pa was alive, of course. And before the war he had cherished dreams of gaining the ranch by his son marrying Milly, or even Sarah. Milly supposed she couldn’t blame the man for wanting to enlarge his property by persuading her to sell out—and only time would tell if he had been right that a woman couldn’t manage a ranch.

Suppertime passed pleasantly. Nick Brookfield had perfect table manners and ate like a man with a good appetite, although not with the same fervor that Bobby displayed, as if he thought every meal would be his last. When it was over, he thanked them for the delicious meal, especially Sarah for the lightness of her biscuits, which brought a grateful warmth to her sister’s eyes.

“Perhaps you should tell me what I should be doing tomorrow,” he said to Milly, as Sarah began to clear away the dishes.

“I think I’ll let Josh do that,” she said. “Why don’t you go visit with him now for a while? Bobby can see to the horses and the chickens.”

“I will.” He rose. “Would it be all right if sometime tomorrow I went into town? I need to pick up my valise at the boardinghouse, and let the proprietress know I won’t be needing the room.”

“Of course,” she said. So he had taken a room at the boardinghouse before coming to meet her and the rest of the ladies, she mused. He’d intended to spend some time getting to know her. “Actually, we need sugar from the general store, if you wouldn’t mind picking it up. Oh, and perhaps some tea? Don’t Englishmen prefer to drink that?” At least, she thought she had enough egg money in the old crockery jar to cover those two items. She was going to have to scrimp until they had enough eggs to spare from now on.

“Coffee is fine, Miss Milly. You needn’t buy anything specifically for me.”

An hour later, he found Milly ensconced in a cane back rocking chair on the porch, reading from a worn leather Bible on her lap.

“What part are you reading?” he said, looking down at it. “Ah, Psalm One—‘Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful,’” he quoted from memory.

Her hazel eyes widened. “Were you a preacher, as well as a soldier and occasional field surgeon?” she asked, gesturing toward the rocker next to her in an unspoken invitation to sit down.

He sat, smiling at her question. “No, but my second oldest brother is in holy orders, vicar of Westfield. They’ll probably make him a bishop one day. Any Scripture I know was pounded into my thick head by Richard when I was a lad.”

“And do you read the Bible now?” she asked.

He wished he could say he did. “I…I’m afraid I haven’t lately.”

He could see her filing the information away, but her eyes betrayed no judgment about the fact.

“And how did you find Josh? Does he need anything? Is he in pain?”

“He’s not in pain, no, but he needs a goodly dose of patience,” he said, appreciating the fine curve of Milly’s neck above the collar of her calico dress. “He’s restless, fretting over the need to lie there and be patient while he heals. But I think he’s reassured that I can help Bobby handle the ‘chores’—” he gave the word the old man’s drawling pronunciation, drawing a chuckle from her “—and keep this place from utter ruin until he can be up and around again. Oh, and he says there’s no need to sit up with him tonight, if you’ll let him borrow that little handbell of your mother’s he can just ring if he needs you.”

“Hmm. That sounds just like him. I’d better check on him a couple of times tonight at least. I can just picture him trying to reach the water pitcher and tearing open those wounds again. That old man would rather die than admit a weakness.”

Nick chuckled. “He said you’d say that, too.”

They were silent for a while. Nick appreciated the cool breeze and the deepening shadows as the fiery orange ball sank behind the purple hills off to their right.

“Nick, why did you leave India, and the army—if you don’t mind my asking, that is?” she added quickly.

She must have seen the reflexive stiffening of his frame and the involuntary clenching of his jaw.

“It’s getting late, and I’m keeping you from your reading,” he said, rising.

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me to pry. Please forgive me for asking,” she said, rising, too. Her face was dismayed.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “I’ll tell you about it sometime. But it’s a long story.” He’d known the question would come, but it was too soon. He wasn’t ready to shatter her illusions about him yet.

Chapter Seven

As Nick tied his bay at the hitching post outside the general store, he saw two men standing talking at the entrance, one with his hand on the door as if he meant to go inside. Nick recognized one of them as Bill Waters, the neighboring rancher who’d pressured Milly to sell out yesterday. He’d never seen the other one, the one with his hand on the door.

“Hank, I’m tellin’ you, the problem’s gettin’ bad around here,” Waters was saying, “what with them roamin’ the roads beggin’ fer handouts and such. Why, a friend a’ mine over in Sloan found half a dozen of ’em sleepin’ in his barn when he went out one mornin’. He got his shotgun and they skedaddled away like their clothes was on fire.”

The other man guffawed.

“We got t’nip it in the bud, before they try movin’ in around Simpson Creek. That’s why I’m revivin’ the Circle. Bunch of us are meetin’ at my ranch tomorrow night. Can you make it?”

Nick wondered idly who the men were talking about. Beggars of some sort—out-of-work soldiers from the recent war? Certainly not the warlike Comanche. Poor Mexicans? And what was the “circle” Waters referred to?

“Excuse me,” he said, when the men seemed oblivious of his desire to enter the store.