The cook brought out a big pot of beans and several loaves of freshly baked bread to augment the meal. The aroma of the cooking meat continued to fill the entire compound.
“I hope they enjoy it,” Kitty said.
“Are you kidding? Listen to them. They are having the time of their lives,” Matt replied.
“They are one of the reasons I so want this to work,” Kitty said. “I’ve never had a family, Matt. The closest I ever came was at the orphanage, and Captain Mumford was so cruel that any sense of family was eliminated just by the effort of surviving. These men are truly my family. It’s not just for selfish reasons I want to save the ranch. I want to save this family.”
“You are not going to lose this ranch, Katherine. I promise you,” Matt said.
“Matt, after we go to Chicago, sell the horses, and get the money, you will come back with me, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” Matt said. “The way I see it, delivering the horses is only half of the job. The job won’t be finished until the bank has been paid off, and the ranch is in your hands, free and clear.”
“Then what?” Kitty asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What will you do after the bank is paid off, and the ranch is mine, free and clear?”
“All right, here we are,” Prew shouted, coming around from behind the bunkhouse, bathed, and wearing clean clothes. His appearance and shout precluded Matt from answering Kitty’s question.
“Yeah, when do we eat?” Crack asked.
By now, every rider had appeared, freshly scrubbed, all wearing clean, and in some cases, new clothes. Jake was particularly proud of his new yellow shirt, for which he was soliciting compliments.
“Hah, if you ask me, it looks like somethin’ a whore house piano player would be wearin’,” Prew said.
“All right, fellas, come and get it!” the cook called, and there was a rush of all the ranch hands to get plates, and get them filled. Kitty had even bought a barrel of beer, and within minutes, the evening meal had turned into a party.
“The only thing we need now is some women and music,” Crack said. “Iffen we had that, why we could dance and have us a fine time.”
“I’m a woman, and I can dance,” Kitty said. “And Jake, I’ve heard you play the harmonica.”
“No, that won’t do,” Prew said. “Mrs. Wellington, you’re a fine lady. You wouldn’t want to dance with the likes of us.”
“Sure I would,” Kitty said. “Tyrone, you’re the foreman, it’s only right that you get the first dance.”
Tyrone looked shocked at first, then he smiled and nodded. “I’d be right proud to dance with you, Mrs. Wellington,” he said.
There was something in the expression in Tyrone’s face that caught Matt’s attention. Then, he remembered that Tyrone had been foreman here long before Kitty ever arrived. Matt was certain that Tyrone knew about Kitty’s background, and he was equally certain that Kitty knew that he knew.
Jake pulled out his harmonica and began playing, and as he played, the other men stood around clapping and stomping their feet in time to the music.
Because the eating and the partying and the dancing went on until long after nightfall, Matt never did have to answer Kitty’s question.
Sleep did not come easily to Kitty that night. She lay in bed, tossing and turning as she thought about the question she had asked Matt—the question that had gone unanswered. It wasn’t as if he had specifically avoided answering the question, they were interrupted before he could do so. And yet Kitty could not escape the feeling that it was a question he didn’t particularly want to answer.
She couldn’t blame him, especially when she considered what she had been before she had married Tommy. Of course, Tommy had known that she was a whore when he married her, because that was where and how he had met her.
In marrying one of her clients, Kitty had realized the dream of nearly every soiled dove she had ever met. They all dreamed of meeting a man who would marry them and take them away from “the life.”
In Kitty’s case she had been particularly lucky, because the man who took her away from life on the line had not only been a loving and caring husband, he had also been exceptionally wealthy. And, most important, he had never, even once, made her feel guilty about her past.
That was why she told Matt what she had been. She sincerely believed that whatever relationship they were going to have, even if it went no further than the current relationship, would have to be based upon the truth.
Maybe she shouldn’t have told him.
No.
Whatever was causing Matt’s hesitance in deepening the relationship had nothing to do with her past life. She was sure of that.
She heard the clock strike one before she finally fell asleep.
At half past one in the morning, the Auxiliary Peace Officers approached Coventry on the Snake. Sherman held up his hand to halt the band, then he pointed. The moon was bright, and several horses could be seen bunched together in one field.
“Scraggs, you and Grimes go down and take a look. If there is anyone watching over the herd, take care of them. If no one is watching, come back and let me know,” Sherman ordered.
Sherman, and the other men with him, waited as Scraggs and Grimes checked out the herd. One of the men took out the makings and started to roll a cigarette but Sherman rode over and knocked the makings from his hand.
“You light up a cigarette and you may as well just ride down there and tell them we are here,” Sherman said.
“Sorry, Colonel, I wasn’t thinking,” the man said.
“A man in this business who doesn’t use his head, can easily lose his head,” Sherman said.
“I know. I’ll be more careful from now on.”
“You damn well better be. It’s not just yourself you are putting in danger. It’s all of us,” Sherman scolded.
About five minutes after Scraggs and Grimes had ridden down to check the herd, they returned.
“What did you see?” Sherman asked.
“Nothin’, Colonel,” Scraggs reported. “There ain’t nobody down there at all.”
“Are you sure? You mean to tell me there is not one rider watching over the herd?”
“That’s what I’m sayin’ all right. Me’n Grimes rode all the way around. I’m tellin’ you, there ain’t nobody out there watchin’ ’em.”
Sherman smiled and nodded. “Damn, they are making this too easy for us. All right, Scraggs, take Carson, Anderson, and Burnett with you. You four go down to the south end of the field and take the fence down. The rest of you, move on down as quietly as you can, and start driving the herd south, away from the house.”
“How many are we going to take?” Scraggs asked.
“Why, we are going to take all of them, of course,” Sherman replied.
“All of them?”
“At least all of the horses they have gathered here. According to Marcus Kincaid, they were goin’ to gather all the horses they were planning on shipping in one small field. These are all saddle horses, the field isn’t all that big, so this has to them.”
“Hah,” Scraggs said. “And without nobody watchin’ the herd, this here is goin’ to be about the easiest thing we’ve ever done.”
As Scraggs and the men with him rode out to take down the fence, Sherman led the rest of his men into the field with the horses, then spread them out around the herd. Because there were so many of them, the herd was easily moved and within less than five minutes the field was completely empty as the horses moved at a rapid trot away from the main house. Within another ten minutes, the entire herd had passed over a low lying ridge two miles to the south, and nothing remained of where they had been but the un-cropped grass, moving in a gentle, night breeze.
“Prew, Jake, Crack, you boys wake up,” Tyrone said as he walked through the bunkhouse just after dawn.