Sequins and Spurs

At sixteen, Ruby had been fed up with rules and restrictions, weary of her mother’s constant admonitions. Ruby had packed a bag and caught a train.

She’d been proud. Self-reliant. Adventurous.

Impetuous. Foolish.

Lonely.

More tired than she’d ever been in her life, Ruby stood, dried herself and then dressed in a wrinkled skirt and shirtwaist from her bag. She couldn’t deal with emptying the tub at the moment, so she left it and climbed the stairs.

She chose the room that used to be hers, though the only familiar furnishing was the bed. After setting the doll aside, she opened the window for fresh air and pulled down the spread, climbing between the sheets and closing her eyes.

The best thing that could happen would be to sleep for days, wake up and find this had all been a nightmare.

* * *

Nash’s head ached so fiercely he left the hired men mending fence and rode northeast to a strip of land near the river that nestled between the Lazy S and the Sommerton property, where his father owned and operated a grain mill.

Little Bird’s husband had left her the strip of land, and she had remained after his death. There was nothing conventional about the landscape or the cabin. Wooden slews carried water to thriving herb and vegetable gardens that stretched toward the river.

Cages had been built against a squat, bare-wood barn, and at any given time half of them contained birds or small animals in various stages of treatment and healing. Frames made of willows and small saplings held curing hides. Peculiar scents of distilling syrups and natural cures permeated the air.

At his approach, a slender figure in a simple fawn-colored dress and moccasins moved forward from one of the gardens. She was a handsome woman, probably a good ten years older than himself, and she’d been a good friend to his family. Her hair was plaited into two long braids that didn’t show a strand of gray.

“Nash Sommerton,” she called, one hand raised in greeting.

He slid from his horse. “Little Bird.”

She held the back of her hand to his horse’s muzzle. Boone inhaled her scent and pressed his nose to her chest. “He says there is much confusion in your heart today.”

“I don’t know about that, but there’s a mighty powerful pain in my head.”

“Come,” she said, and gestured. “Sit by the fire and I’ll make you tea.”

He’d been inside the cabin a time or two, but Little Bird preferred to greet and treat her patients out of doors.

He took a seat on one of the slabs of rock situated around a fire pit. She added a chunk of wood before coming to stand behind him. Her deft fingers found the knot on the back of his head. “Did you fall?”

Nash held back a groan. “Not until after the iron skillet struck me.”

“I sense it was not an accident.”

“No. Pearl’s sister meant to put me out of commission.”

“I haven’t heard news of Pearl’s sister. She is visiting?”

“I don’t know what she’s doing besides knocking me senseless. She just showed up last night.”

Little Bird headed for the cabin. While he waited, a squirrel scampered close and leaped to perch on its hind legs on another slab of stone. The beady-eyed little creature stared at him curiously. It watched when the woman returned with a wooden tray and a small pouch.

She took a pan from a pile of utensils beside the fire, poured water from a gourd pitcher and added dried leaves. She measured out and added several drops of a tincture before setting the pan over the fire.

While that heated, she made a poultice. “Lean forward.” She separated his hair and pressed the warm compress to his scalp. “The arrival of Pearl’s sister was unexpected.”

He didn’t reply. It pained him to think how much Pearl had missed that undeserving woman, longed for her return.

“Laura Dearing often spoke of her.”

“Pearl, too.” He probably knew everything about the two of them as children, because his wife had shared it all. There were so many times she’d needed her sister. He couldn’t understand Ruby’s selfishness.

“You’re angry she left her family behind to seek her way. I, too, left my family when I married William McLeod. I haven’t seen them for many years.”

“That’s different. You left to marry. Ruby didn’t marry or start her own family. She just ran off.”

“Pearl’s sister had no way of knowing her mother would become ill.”

“She’d have known if she’d stuck around. Or come back once or twice. My head feels better already.”

“Hold the compress in place while I pour your tea and cool it.”

He did as instructed. His neighbor ladled greenish liquid into a gourd dipper, added cool water and handed it to him. “Drink it all at once. Don’t stop to take a breath.”

He found out right off why she’d told him not to stop. The bitter tea tasted awful. He finished it and shuddered.

“Saint Anthony’s fire,” she told him. “Tastes bad, but will stop the pain in your head.”

He trusted her. Once when his mother had experienced some sort of female infirmity, Little Bird’s remedy had fixed her good as new. The woman had cured one of his father’s mill workers from palsy in his hands, and last winter she’d made Nash an ointment for his cracked and bleeding knuckles that had healed them right up. “Yes, ma’am.”

He went to his horse and opened the saddlebag to take out a sack of sugar. Little Bird never accepted cash, but she always appreciated items she didn’t grow or gather herself. He carried the sugar to the doorstep and set it down.

“Thank you, Nash Sommerton.”

“It’s I who am indebted.” He took his hat from the pommel of his saddle and settled it on his head.

“We must travel our own paths,” she said. “Some try to tell us which turns to take and how fast to walk. But in the end it’s our journey, and we must make it alone.”

“Are you trying to tell me something about my wife’s sister?”

“I’m suggesting you don’t draw conclusions without all the information.”

He had plenty of information. All of it incriminating where Ruby was concerned.

Little Bird raised her hand in farewell. Nash tipped his hat and headed back to the ranch.

Approaching the stables, he glanced toward the house, and his heart skipped a beat. Sheets and pillowcases flapped on the clothesline in the sunlight, a sight he painfully associated with his wife. But of course it hadn’t been Pearl’s hands who’d hung the bedding. Dressed in a plain brown skirt splotched with water and with her sleeves rolled back, Ruby lugged a washtub to the side of the porch and dumped it out onto the parched lilac bush.

She wiped her forehead with her wrist and glanced in his direction.

Even from this distance, the differences between her and his wife were glaring. He’d never seen Pearl looking disheveled, not even on wash day.