He felt her eyes on him and turned slowly from his task. “Morning, missus.” His smile was warm and childlike in the rough face. He was easily as tall as Imogene.
“Good morning, Mr. Saunders.” Sarah slipped in, staying near the door. Karl had a belly that hung down over his twine belt; it began to throb and pulse independently, and Sarah stared, transfixed. The small pointed nose of the coyote pup thrust through Karl’s open shirtfront, and Sarah laughed. Charmed, she crossed the kitchen, her fear of Karl gone. “He’s took a shine to me,” Karl said, and smiled down into the bright brown eyes. “You got cold by yourself with no ma, and come to sleep with old Karl, didn’t you?”
Already at ease with this big simple man, Sarah stroked the ears of the pup as it peeked out from its hammock in Karl’s shirt.
“I’m peeling,” the man said, and gestured to a pile of carefully skinned potatoes on the sink sideboard.
“You oughtn’t to be standing on your feet.” Sarah got him a bowl for the leavings and settled him at the table. “There’s a lot needs doing. The morning stage from Buffalo Meadows is due in today. Mac and Noisy run the folks on down to Reno.”
“Good slop pickings,” Karl observed. “Ought to have a hog.” And with less furor than the coyote pup had caused, Sarah assimilated Karl into life at the stage stop.
As Noisy steadied the horses and Imogene helped the passengers aboard, Mac glanced back into the shadowed interior of the bar. Karl, wearing a pair of overalls that Van Fleet had left, shuffled after Sarah, carrying a tray heaped with dirty dishes. Moss Face trotted close at his heels. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a couple of strays,” Mac commented.
Imogene followed his gaze. “Mr. Saunders can stay until his feet heal.”
“Maybe you ought to hire him on,” Mac urged. “Big fellow. Might make you a good hand.”
Imogene watched Karl, a quiet ambling man, following in Sarah’s wake, seemingly content to help with the house chores and talk to the puppy. “He can stay as long as he likes,” she said.
32
“HO, HO, HO!” THERE WAS A CRASH AND A GUST OF WIND, AND THE doorway of the Round Hole Inn framed the imposing figure of David Tolstonadge. He was laughing; an icy wind blew his long hair forward, mingling it with his beard. Gaily wrapped packages filled his arms, and there was a red bow pasted to his forehead.
Sarah, sitting by the hearth, tatting a lace collar for Imogene, threw her work down and ran to him. David dumped the packages on the nearest table and picked up his sister, swinging her feet off the ground and hugging her. “Merry Christmas!” he bellowed, and she cried and clung to his neck and laughed.
“You’ve been so long!” she said over and over.
“I’m a railroad typhoon. Responsibilities. Besides, I had to find you first.” He rolled his eyes and tickled her until she screamed and broke away, out of breath. Then she was back in his arms, kissing him and pulling his beard. David growled an rubbed his bushy beard against her neck, eliciting a wonderful squeal.
“Stop it!” Sarah shrieked.
A heavy hand descended on David’s shoulder and a dark furry form darted at his legs, growling and nipping at his trouser cuffs.
“It’s okay, Karl,” Sarah said quickly. “He’s my brother, David.”
Karl nodded and scooped up Moss Face. The little coyote had grown by leaps and bounds since spring and was a foot and a half high at the shoulder, but he still pounced and fell over himself with the graceless charm of a puppy.
As Karl departed through the kitchen door, David let his breath out in a whoop. “Who was that? He had a coyote! I wish I could see that dog up close.”
Sarah laughed, dancing as if she were a girl again. “That’s Karl, he hired on with us. He lives in the tackroom in the barn. Sometimes he does the dishes.”
“Doesn’t say much, does he?”
“He and I talk. He’s not one for strangers.” Sarah led her brother over by the fire and sat him down. “You’re so good to look at, David.”
He ran his hand over his head. “I’m almost bald,” he groaned. “Too tall-my hair rubs off on the head of the bed.”
Sarah pulled the long, light-colored fringe of hair forward over his shoulders. “What’s gone on the top is made up for below the collar. It’s long as an Indian’s. With your hat on, you look like a storybook cowboy.”
David caught her hand and smoothed his hair back. “Here come the boys.”
“Brrrr.” Noisy hurried in out of the cold, followed by Mac. He blew out through his moustache like a whale surfacing for air. “Close that pneumonia hole!” he bellowed. “You born in a barn?” Mac slammed the door with a satisfying crack.
Mac moved to the fire and stood with his back to it, rubbing his rear end. “The only man fool enough to go out in this cold without being paid’s your brother here. Ross’ll have an empty haul north.”
“The railroad’ll put you two out to pasture before too many years are up,” David said. “Your business is dying off. You’re too slow.”
Mac snorted so hard he had to shake his head to clear his ears. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when those engineers of yours take on the Smoke Creek.”
“Where’s Imogene?” Sarah put in. “She met the coach, didn’t she?”
“Out getting a Christmas tree.” Mac hit Noisy with his hat and laughed uproariously, and the stage driver looked sheepish.
Dragging David by the hand, Sarah grabbed a heavy scarf from the back of the chair and ran outside. Noisy roared, “Close the door! It’s colder’n a well-digger’s hind pockets out there!” and David closed it.
Clouds ran before a biting wind. The desert was colorless under the hard metal sky. The wind had scoured a curtain of dust off the alkali flat and held it against the ragged skirts of the Fox Range. Snow dusted the peaks, coloring them the same gray as the sky. The regular chunk-chunk of Karl chopping wood came to them from behind the house, and the smell of woodsmoke gusted under the porch overhang. The mudwagon, without its team, was parked in the lee of the stable. Sarah pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders. “Where’s the tree?” she asked of no one in particular.
“There’s Imogene, at any rate.” David pointed up the hill behind the stop. Imogene was making her way down through the sage, a spiny branched skeleton of bitterbrush, nearly as tall as she, held over her shoulder. She caught sight of them and waved her arm in a wide arc above her head.
Huddled in the doorway away from the cutting wind, Sarah waited while David, covering the ground quickly with long, loping strides, met Imogene and shouldered her burden for her.
They reached the porch and he swung it down, balancing it on its stump. Blackish limbs thrust out asymmetrically. It gave off a tart, acrid odor that smelled of the outdoors. Sarah hugged herself and waited for Imogene to explain.
“This,” Imogene said, “is a Christmas tree.”
Sarah’s face fell. “Noisy forgot.”
David turned the snarled bush from side to side. “Put an angel on the top, and who will know the difference?”
Noisy had become suddenly busy poking the fire when they came in bearing the Christmas bush. “Noisy’s getting old,” Mac said, his voice heavy with sorrow. “It’s good he’s knocking off come spring. Mind’s going. He’d be forgetting the routes, next thing you know, and dribbling folks all over the desert.”
The bush was enthroned on an overturned washtub in the corner away from the fire. It would be decorated on Christmas Eve.
After supper, David excused himself to “see a man about a horse.” Just after he let himself out, Karl, chuckling to himself, waved Sarah over to the window. Wondering what the excitement was about, Mac, then Noisy, then Imogene joined them. When David closed himself into the privacy of the outhouse, there were six pairs of eyes watching him. He was about to get his wish concerning Karl’s coyote dog.