"Jen, listen. Your school is about ready to start. A lot of kids have already come in to board for the winter. What about them? Where could Streeter get another teacher this late if at all?" She stirred in the darkness as she was assailed by the logic of his words.
"Stay until spring. By then, if things haven't changed, I won't try to stop you. In the meantime your kids won't be without a teacher." He paused and thought a moment. "I think I can promise you there'll be no more trouble… at least concerning you. I'll be plenty busy at Wagon. Think about it, Jen. Don't make a decision tonight… you're too close to what happened. And believe me, you were only a small part of it." He stopped lest his words undo the good his plea for her school had done.
Her answer was a long time coming. "Ma and Muddy would be hurt if I left Streeter without a teacher. They were real proud of the school. I hope I'm not doing wrong, but I'll stay until spring. But you've got to promise me something, and Bill will have to make the same promise. Don't either of you come to see me, even talk to me on the street. I won't have blood on my hands… yours or Bill's."
"That's a mighty tough condition," he told her. "Going to make this a mighty long winter. But if that's the way you want it—" He sighed. "Jen, I hope you know I planned to ask you to come back to Wagon to live this winter, and for the rest of your life and mine…"
She interrupted with a sob in her voice. "Don't say any more… please. Just leave things as they are."
Silently he turned to his horse. As his foot sought the stirrup, her hands caught his shoulder and turned him around.
"This will have to last all winter," she said, and raised her face for his kiss. Hungrily he tried to bury her deeper in his arms, but she tore herself from his grasp. Without a word she fled into the house.
"Goodbye, Jen," he said to the empty blackness.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kirby was as wet as a drowned sage hen and chilled to the bone when he rode into Wagon that night. His young hostler, Miguel, had been watching the poker game in the bunkhouse, and when he heard Kirby ride in came to take the horse.
"I'll rub him down, Boss. You better get a rubdown, too. This is a bad night to be out."
Kirby agreed as he sloshed to the house and entered by the kitchen door. A pot of coffee simmered on the big range, and he drank a cup, standing in his underwear after he stripped and spread out his clothes to dry. He padded down the hall to his room, wincing when his bare feet hit the cold polished boards. His room was cold, too, a sticky wet cold. Wish Manuel had built a fire, he thought. Teeth beginning to chatter, he got an extra blanket and crawled into bed to get warm.
For a long time he lay quietly, his thoughts as cold as his body. The taste of a bad night was heavy in his mouth. I wish I'd never gone to town, he thought, as he listened to the patter of rain on the roof, the sound of water pouring through the spout into the big rain barrel beneath the window. Ma had said there was nothing like rain water to wash her hair, he remembered. Ma and Jen used to make hair washing day something of a ceremony. He could see them now, sitting in the sun, gray hair and red brown, making woman medicine. Warm at last, he was nearly asleep, despite his worry, when he realized that the sound of rain had stopped. Maybe I can't read weather signs, he thought. I would have sworn we were in for a two-day rain. Uneasy, he threw back the blankets and went to the window.
The lights of the bunkhouse across the big yard were nearly blotted out by great wet flakes of snow. What he could see of the ground and bunkhouse roof were already white. Winter had come to Wagon.
Hope this doesn't turn into an early blizzard, he thought. Doubt very much if anyone is ready for a howler this early. He shivered and returned to the warmth of his bed.
The sound of the triangle ringing in front of the cookhouse awakened him next morning, bringing him reluctantly from troubled sleep… from dreams that even now seemed almost real. He had dreamed of talking to Muddy about the weather… had fished with Bill at the big bend in the Clear, had once again held Jen in his arms. He tried to sleep again to shut out the misery. Failing, he went to the window and looked out into a day as gray and dismal as his thoughts. Sometime during the night the snow had stopped, but ground and buildings held nearly an inch of white stuff. Low, puffy clouds looked as if they might open and spill their contents again at any moment. Thank goodness there's no wind, he thought. He watched smoke rising straight up from the bunkhouse chimney.
Taking clean clothes from the closet he hurried to the warmth of the kitchen. Maria, cook and housekeeper since Wagon was started, turned golden brown pancakes in an iron skillet. He hurried into his clothes, unabashed at dressing before the old woman. After all, she had been the first to dress him and Bill in three-cornered pants.
Gruffly she greeted him. "You take cold last night?" she asked. "Your clothes not dry yet. You want I should fix…?"
He quickly interrupted the question. "No, Maria, I don't need any cold remedy." He shuddered at the thought of the taste of her homemade prescription for everything from stomachache to burned fingers. "Fix me a couple of eggs to go with those pancakes, and I think I'll live." His boots were not dry yet, and he went back to his room for another pair.
He was finishing his third cup of coffee when Josh Steuben, his foreman, stamped the snow off his boots and pushed open the kitchen door.
"Mornin', Kirby," he said, shrugging out of his coat. He took the coffee Maria poured for him and joined Kirby at the table. "Looks like summer is over," he said.
"Sure does," Kirby agreed. Josh is beginning to show his age, he thought. He watched, knowing regret, as his segundo's work-stiffened fingers closed gratefully about the hot coffee cup. Another good thing coming to an end. Wagon wouldn't be the same without Josh as ramrod.
"What's new this morning?" he asked.
"Nothing but the snow," replied Josh. "Sent a crew out early to drive the critters down from the east ridges. Rather they'd be closer to headquarters if we do have to haul hay. Don't rightly know what the weather's going to do."
"Pretty early for a blizzard, but you never can tell in this country," Kirby agreed. "You going out?"
He shook his head. "Waitin' for you," he said. "Held Curly and Ringo in, too. The Clear's risin' fast, Boss. Up a foot since first light. Must have been a whale of a rain up in the hills."
Kirby smiled to himself at the foreman's choice of words. Only a little while ago he had called him boy or, on occasion, that danged kid. He waited for Josh to go on.
"There's a jag of beef down in the west bottom," he said. "If the river gets much higher, they'll be cut off. Thought maybe you'd want to ride down with us to take a look."
Kirby knew a glow of pleasure at the words. He knew he wasn't needed. Josh would decide what to do with the cows anyway. The foreman was using the situation as an excuse to get Kirby to ride with them.
"Be with you as soon as I get a coat," he replied. "Have Curly or Ringo saddle the black stud. Haven't forked him in more than a week."
Josh's weather-beaten grin was sheepish. "Already have," he admitted.
The snow had begun to melt by the time the four riders hit the river trail, making the going slippery. Kirby and Josh dropped far behind Curly and Ringo to avoid the mud thrown up by their horses' sliding feet. Kirby knew that Josh had something on his mind… that he wanted to talk to him alone. He waited for his oldest friend to break the silence.
At last Josh cleared his throat and asked awkwardly, "What happened in Streeter last night, Boss? I was some worried before you rode in."