After consulting with his wife, the young couple agreed. Those returning to the Sugarloaf made their way slowly homeward, Smoke and Sally and Ralph and Bountiful in buckboards, the rest on horseback.
“It’s so beautiful up here,” Bountiful said, squeezing her husband’s arm. “So peaceful and lovely and quiet. I think I would like to live up here.”
“Might have a hard time supporting a church up here, Bountiful.”
“Yes, that’s true. But you could do what you’ve always wanted to do, Ralph.”
He looked at her, beautiful in the sunlight that filtered through the trees alongside the narrow road.
“You would be content with that, Bountiful? A part-time preacher and a full-time farmer?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure of several things, Ralph. One is that I’m not cut out to be a preacher’s wife. I love you, but that isn’t enough. Secondly, I’m not so sure you’re cut out to be a preacher.”
“It’s that obvious, Bountiful?”
“Ralph, nothing happened back East. It was a harmless flirtation and nothing more. I think you’ve always known that. Haven’t you?”
“I suspected. I should have whipped that scoundrel’s ass while I was feeling like it.”
He spoke the words without realizing what he had really said.
Bountiful started laughing.
“What is so…” Then Ralph grinned, flushed, and joined his wife in laughter.
“Ralph, you’re a good, decent man. I think you’re probably the finest man I have ever known. But you went into the ministry out of guilt. And I think that is the wrong reason for choosing this vocation. Look at us, Ralph. Listen to what we’re saying. We’ve never talked like this before. Isn’t it funny, odd, that we should be doing so now?”
“Perhaps it’s the surroundings.” And for a moment, Ralph’s thought went winging back in time, back almost eight years, when he was a bare-knuckle fighter enjoying no small amount of fame in the ring, open-air and smokers.
The young man he’d been fighting that hot afternoon was good and game, but no match for Ralph. But back then, winning was all that Ralph had on his mind, that and money. And he was making lots of money, both fighting and gambling. The fight had gone on for more than thirty rounds, which was no big deal to Ralph, who had fought more than ninety rounds more than once.
And then Ralph had seen his opportunity and had taken it, slamming a vicious left-right combination to the young man’s head.
The young man had dropped to the canvas. And had never again opened his eyes. The fighter had died several days later.
Ralph Morrow had never stepped into another ring after that.
He and Bountiful had known each other since childhood, and it was taken for granted by all concerned that they would some day marry. Bountiful’s parents were relieved when Ralph quit the ring. Bountiful was a bit miffed, but managed to conceal it.
Both had known but had never, until now, discussed the obvious fact that Ralph simply was not cut out to be a minister.
“What are you thinking, Ralph?”
“About the death I caused.”
“It could just as easily have been you, Ralph,” she reminded him. “You’ve told me a thousand times that the fight was fair and you both were evenly matched. It’s over, Ralph. It’s been over. Stop dwelling on it and get on with the matter of living.”
Quite unlike the strait-laced minister, he leaned over and gave Bountiful a smooch on the cheek. She blushed while the old gunfighters, riding alongside the buckboards, grinned and pretended not to notice.
After supper, the young couples sat outside the cabin, enjoying the cool air and talking.
“How many acres do you have, Smoke?” Ralph asked.
“I don’t really know. That valley yonder,” he said, pointing to the Sugarloaf, “is five miles long and five miles wide. I do know we’ve filed on and bought another two thousand acres that we plan to farm. Right now we’re only farming a very small portion of it. Hay and corn mostly. Right over there—” again he pointed, “is seven hundred and fifty acres of prime farm land just sittin’ idle. I think we overbought some.”
“That acreage is just over that little hill?” Bountiful asked.
“Yes,” Sally said, hiding a smile, for it was obvious that the minister and his wife were interested in buying land.
“We’ll ride over in the morning and take a look at it, if you’d like,” Smoke suggested.
“Do you have a proper saddle for Bountiful?” Ralph asked.
“We’re about the same size,” Sally told him. “She can wear some of my jeans and ride astride.”
Bountiful fanned her suddenly hot face. She had never had on a pair of men’s britches in her life. But…this was the West. Besides, who would see her?
“I don’t know whether that would be proper for a minister’s wife,” Ralph objected.
“Don’t be silly!” Sally said, sticking out her chin. “If it’s all right for a man, why should it be objectionable for a woman to wear britches?”
“Well…” Ralph said weakly. Forceful women tended to somewhat frighten him.
“Have you ever read anything by Susan B. Anthony, Bountiful?” Sally asked.
“Oh, yes! I think she’s wonderful, don’t you?”
“Yes. As well as Elizabeth Cady Stanton. You just wait, Bountiful. Some day women will be on an equal footing with men.”
“Lord save us all!” Smoke said with a laugh. He shut up when Sally gave him a dark look.
“Do you think the time will come when women will be elected to Congress?” Bountiful asked.
Ralph sat stunned at the very thought.
Smoke sat grinning.
“Oh my, yes! But first we have to work very hard to get the vote. That will come only if we women band together and work very hard for it.”
“Let’s do that here!” Bountiful said, clapping her hands.
“Fine!” Sally agreed.
“But how?” Bountiful sobered.
“Well…my mother knows Susan B. very well. They went to school together in Massachusetts. I’ll post a letter to Mother and she can write Miss Anthony. Then we’ll see.”
“Wonderful!” Bountiful cried. “I’m sure Willow and Mona and Dana would be delighted to help us.”
Smoke rolled a cigarette and smiled at the expression on Ralph’s face. The man looked as though he might faint at any moment.
The ladies rose and went chattering off into the cabin.
“My word!” Ralph managed to blurt out.
Smoke laughed at him.
“Boss!” Pearlie stilled the laughter and sobered the moment. “Look yonder.” He pointed.
In the dusk of fast-approaching evening, the western sky held a small, faint glow.
“What is that?” Ralph asked. “A forest fire?”
“No,” Smoke said, rising. “That’s Peyton’s place. Tilden’s hands have fired it.”
6
There was nothing Smoke could do. Peyton’s spread was a good twenty-five miles away from Sugarloaf, his range bordering Tilden’s holdings.
It was not long before the fire’s glow had softened, and then faded completely out.
“Peyton refused our offer of help,” Buttermilk said. “Some of us offered to stay over thar with him. But he turned us down flat.”
“We’ll ride over in the morning,” Smoke said. “At first light. There is nothing we can do this evening.”
“Except wonder what is happening over there,” Ralph stated.
“And how many funerals you gonna have to hold,” Luke added.
Peyton, his wife June, and their kids had been forced to retreat into the timber when it became obvious they were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. The family had made it out of the burning, smoking area with the clothes on their backs and nothing else.
They had lain quietly in the deep timber and watched their life’s work go up, or down, in fire. They had watched as the hooded men shot all the horses, the pigs, and then set the barn blazing. The corral had been pulled down by ropes, the garden trampled under the hooves of horses. The Peyton family was left with nothing. Nothing at all.