Joe's Wife

Nothing. But he knew a lot about being a kid without a father. It wasn’t really the cruelty of classmates and townspeople that hurt so much at this age; a kid didn’t have anything to compare his experiences with. It was the memory of those humiliating slurs years later that ate at a person’s gut.

What kind of burden had Lottie asked him to carry? What kind of mess would he make of it, of this kid’s life, if he went along with her request?

Nothing worse than life in an orphanage. Unwanted kids didn’t even get to eat the foods they needed to grow healthy. They got the scraps, the dregs. And it was never enough.

Tye had learned to use his fists and his wits for survival. But this little girl? He didn’t even want to think about it. He had only to look at Lottie to see what would become of her.

Unless someone stepped in.

“Did you come for me, Mr. Hatcher?”

Tye looked up. Knowing what was happening, yet unable to do anything to prevent it, he fell headlong into her black-lashed, blue-violet gaze, eyes that reflected trust and innocence and waited for him to make the decision that would shape the rest of her life. She had no one in the world. No one but him.

Heaven help her.

“Yes, Eve. I came for you.”

Chapter Three

Before dark, Gus and Purdy returned from the hills with the welcome news that others who’d been fighting a brushfire since yesterday had been successful in quelling it and that they’d be following. Meg had a hearty stew and corn bread warming, as well as rice pudding with raisins and currants in a milk pan in the oven.

Freshly washed, his thinning gray hair combed back in streaks on his sun-browned head, Gus entered the kitchen without knocking, as was customary on the Circle T. He did as much cooking as Meg did, coming in early each meal to grind the beans and start the coffee.

“Fire’s out?” she asked.

“Yup. Got a big patch of brush up by Lame Deer and was spreadin’ to the Anderson place, but we stopped ’er.”

“I could smell it on the wind this afternoon.” Meg had kept herself busy, the thought of the fire spreading this far licking at her already edgy nerves.

“Seen you got the cows milked,” he said, opening the oven and stirring. the rice pudding, which had turned a smooth caramel brown.

She nodded. “Thought Patty was going to kick me good, though.”

Joe’s Newfoundland “puppy,” which he’d brought home from a buying trip, only to watch rapidly grow to the size of a Shetland pony, had slipped in behind Gus and now stood with a chunk of firewood in his mouth.

Meg propped the door open with the wood. “Good boy, Major. Get more.”

The dog immediately bounded for the woodpile, returning several times and dropping the wood into the firebox. Gus had taught him the trick, perhaps with the idea of saving his own steps, and the dog had caught on the way he did to everything.

After several trips, Major sat before Meg, his snout quivering in anticipation. She rewarded him with a lump of sugar, and he found a place in the corner of the long room to settle. He caught much of his own food: rabbits and squirrels. Meg had thought the practice disgusting at first, but had since grown appreciative due to the fact that she couldn’t afford to feed another mouth.

The rest of the hands arrived minutes later: Purdy, along with the “boys,” Aldo and Hunt Eaton, brothers in their teens, who’d been too young to go to war and needed to work to eat. Their parents lived on an acreage near town with several younger children. For lack of grown men, Meg had hired the brothers on as reps a couple of years ago.

Joining them as the day progressed came reps from nearby ranches, stopping to eat before heading to their own places. She fed them gratefully, this bedraggled bunch of cowboys who’d been too young or too old to fight, or who’d only recently come home to ranches in need of more attention than they could afford.

All were respectfully solemn in deference to her widowed state and her mourning clothing, and they soon headed out.

Purdy was shorter and wirier than Gus, a long gray handlebar mustache his distinguishing feature. He walked with a hitch now, and lengthy stretches in the saddle enfeebled him for days. Tomorrow he probably wouldn’t be able to do much around the place, and the others would work harder to make his slack unnoticeable.

“I’m gonna take care o’ the horses now.” He grabbed his hat.

“I’ll do it,” Gus offered.

“No,” Meg said immediately. “Aldo and Hunt, will you see to the horses, please? You two—” she shooed Gus and Purdy with a flour-sack towel “—hit your bunks. I’ll finish up here.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The boys got up from the bench and headed for the corral. Gus and Purdy followed.

Another hour passed before she had the dishes washed and beans soaking for tomorrow’s noon meal. If she weren’t so tired from checking the stock and doing all the chores while the men fought the fire, she’d have filled the big tin tub that sat in the space beside the pantry. The prospect sounded too exhausting for this evening. She’d settle for a tin basin of water in her room and sponge herself off.

At the sound of a horse and buggy, she paused in scooping warm water out of the stove’s well. She peered out the back door, but the rig must have continued to the front.

Meg walked through the house and opened the seldom used front door. Niles Kestler stood on the grouping of boards that could only be called a porch in the broadest of terms. “Niles! How nice to see you.”

She probably smelled like cows and lye soap. Belatedly, she whisked off her spattered apron. “Won’t you come in?”

“I don’t know if I should,” he said, stepping from one foot to the other uncomfortably.

He’d been to their home many times when Joe had been alive; Niles and Joe had been pals since their youth. But her widowed state changed that situation. For propriety’s sake, she shouldn’t have asked him in.

Which was ridiculous. Gus and Purdy and the Eaton brothers had the run of her home, with nary a thought to impropriety. But to meet his standards of decorum, she stepped outside. “What brings you?” she asked.

“I thought I’d pay a call and see how you’re doing.”

“I’m doing fine.”

“Good.”

“How is Celia?”

“She’s well, thank you.”

Niles’s wife was expecting a baby, but men and women didn’t speak of such delicate things.

“Harley spoke with me this week,” he said.

So that was why he’d come. Harley’d gone ahead with it.

“I can get you a sizable price for this land, Meg. There are investors who will snap it up in a minute.”

Her civility fell to the wayside. “Oh? And would they be among those select few Northerners who got rich off the war?”

Niles bristled. “The point is, Meg, you need the money. You can’t keep going without some help.”

“Well then, how about a loan until I get this place back on its feet?”

“You must know I can’t do that.”

He could probably do it out of his own pocket. He would have done it for Joe. The thought angered her. As Joe’s wife she’d had respect because he’d been respected. As his widow she had sympathy and little else. She’d known Niles her whole life, yet he wouldn’t consider an investment in her.