Mail Order Cowboy

Threading her way through them, she found Sarah at the cookstove, talking to Doc Harkey.

“How’s Josh?” Sarah had taken the evening watch, but she was no night owl, and had gone to bed when Milly relieved her. But Milly was never at her best in the morning or at cooking, so she was grateful Sarah was up with the sun and feeding the hungry men.

“Awake. I can tell he’s going to make it, ’cause he’s already ornery,” Milly said with a laugh.

“I’ll go in and have a look at him,” Doc Harkey said, and waded through the throng of men toward the back hall.

Sarah looked questioningly at the armload of sheets Milly carried.

“Mr. Brookfield has very kindly offered to stay on and help us while Josh is laid up,” she said, keeping her tone low so only Sarah could hear, and nodding toward Nick. He was talking to one of the other men while spooning clumps of scrambled eggs onto his plate to join a rasher of bacon and a thick slice of bread. “I’m just going to make up a bed in the bunkhouse for him.”

“I see.” Sarah’s knowing eyes spoke volumes and she grinned. “Well, isn’t that nice of him? You have your very own knight in shining armor.”

“Yes, we do,” Milly corrected her in a quelling tone. “It is very kind of him, though he’s never done ranch chores before. But he seems to think Josh can advise him and Bobby can show him what he needs to do.”

“He seems like the kind of man who can do anything he sets his mind to,” Sarah commented. “All right, you go make up the bed, but once these fellows go home, you go on to bed.”

“Oh, I slept a little in the chair,” Milly protested. “I’ll be all right.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t enough.”

“Thanks for handling breakfast,” Milly said. “How did you ever manage?”

“The eggs were from yesterday morning, the bacon from the smokehouse. I’m sure I don’t know what we’re going to do after that. I found a few hens roosting in the trees, and that noisy rooster, but I’m sure the barn fire killed the rest of them.”

“We’ll make it with God’s help, and one day at a time,” Milly said, determined not to give way to anxiety. Only yesterday morning Sarah had been gathering eggs, while she had been planning a meeting to marry off the women in Simpson Creek. Now she had bigger problems to worry about.

“You’re right, Milly,” Sarah said, squaring her shoulders. “I guess we won’t be eating chicken for a while until the flock builds up again.”

“Or beef,” Milly said.

“We’ll have to send Bobby to look in the brush. Maybe some of the pigs made it.”

Weariness nagged at Milly’s heels by the time she finished making up the bed in the bunkhouse and trudged back across the yard. The men who’d ridden in the posse were in the process of departing, some saddling their horses, some already mounted up and waiting for the others. Caroline was riding double with her father.

At Milly’s approach, Bill Waters handed his reins to Amos Wallace and headed out to intercept her.

“Mr. Waters, I want to thank you for taking charge of the men and doing your best to find our cattle,” she said, extending a hand.

“You’re welcome, little lady,” he said in his usual bluff, hearty manner. “I’d do anything for Dick Matthews’s daughters, and that’s a fact. Wish we could’ve caught them thievin’ redskins and gotten all of the cattle and horses back, instead of just some.” He shrugged. “It’s a shame this has happened, it surely is,” he said, gesturing at the charred remains of the barn, from which a wisp or two of smoke still rose. “Now, I think you ought to reconsider my offer to buy you out. You could find rooms in town, take jobs…or move on to some big city somewhere. Don’t you see it’s the only sensible thing to do now that this has happened?”

“Thanks, Mr. Waters. We’ll think about it,” she said, as she had so many times before, ever since Pa had died. She saw by his exasperated expression that he knew she was only being polite.

“You need to do more than just think about it. Your pa would want me to make you see reason, I know he would!”

He was getting more red in the face as he talked. A vein jumped in his forehead. Milly fought the urge to pluck the hanky he had sticking out of his pocket and wipe his brow.

“The good Lord knows I’d hoped somethin’ might grow between my boy Wes and you or Sarah, once the war was over. But it didn’t work out that way.”

Wesley Waters was one of the Simpson Creek boys who had not returned. Milly, Sarah and Wes had been friendly, but never anything more. But Milly believed his father hadn’t wanted a romance between Wes and either of the Matthews girls nearly as much as he’d wanted a means of joining the Matthews land to his.

“Just tell me, how are you two going to cope out here, with Josh laid up and only that no-account boy t’help you?” He made a wide arc with his arm, including the whole ranch.

“We’ll be all right, Mr. Waters. Mr. Brookfield has very kindly offered to stay on and help us while Josh is laid up.”

He blinked at her. “That foreigner? What does he know about ranchin’? Beggin’ yer pardon, Miss Milly, but have you been spendin’ too much time in the sun without your bonnet? And that scheme of yours of invitin’ men here t’marry is just plumb foolishness. Your pa would want me to tell you that, too!”

Temper flaring, Milly went rigid. “Mr. Waters, the way you’re talking, I’m not sure you ever really knew my father after all. My pa always encouraged me to pray about a problem, then use my brain to solve it.”

“And this is the solution your brain cooked up?” he said, pointing an accusing finger at Nick, who had just come out onto the porch. “Bringing an outsider—a foreigner—to Simpson Creek?”

Nick crossed the yard in a few quick strides. From where he had been, Milly knew he could not have heard Bill Waters’s words, but he’d seen the finger pointed at him, for he asked quietly, “Is there a problem, Miss Matthews?”

She could have kissed him for coming to her side just then. “No, Mr. Waters was just fretting about his need to leave and go take care of his own ranch. But I assured him we’d be fine, with you to help us.”

She saw Waters try to stare Nick down, but Nick returned his gaze calmly. “I’m sure Miss Matthews appreciates your concern,” he said. “And I assure you I’ll do everything in my power to ensure her safety and that of her sister.” He offered his hand, which Waters pretended not to see.

“I’ll count on that, Brookfield,” he growled. “Good day, Miss Milly,” he called over his shoulder as he stalked off to his waiting horse.

Bill Waters is nothing but a patronizing hypocrite, trying to hide his greed under a cloak of concern! thought Milly.

“What did he say to you? You’re shaking,” Nick observed, still keeping his voice low as Waters led the way out of the yard.

Milly was still stinging at Waters’s condescending words, but she didn’t want to repeat what the old rancher had said about Nick. Just then, she was saved from the necessity of talking about it by the arrival of the circuit preacher’s buggy rolling into the barnyard.

“Reverend Chadwick, how nice of you to visit,” she called, reaching the buggy just as the silver-haired preacher set the brake and stepped out of his buggy.

“Miss Milly, I was in Richland Springs. I was so upset to arrive back in town this morning and hear what had happened to you,” he said, embracing her, then staring with dismay at the blackened ruin of the barn. “I came straight here. I didn’t stop any longer than it took to water the horses,” he said.

“Reverend Chadwick, a circuit rider can’t be everywhere at once. We certainly understand that,” Milly protested.

“And how is Josh?”

She told the preacher about their foreman’s injuries. “I’m sure he’d be pleased to see you,” she said. “Come inside. But before you do, Reverend, I’d like you to meet Mr. Nicholas Brookfield, who’ll be helping us out here while Josh recovers.”

Chapter Six

After introductions were made, Milly mercifully excused Nick and sent him to get some sleep. He’d thought at first he’d never be able to fall into slumber on the thin ticking-covered straw mattress in the middle of the hot Texas day.

The next thing he knew, though, the creaking of the door opening woke him as Bobby clumped into the room and started rummaging in the crate at the foot of his bed.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t mean t’wake you, sir,” the youth apologized, straightening.

“No need to apologize,” he told the youth. “I never meant to sleep so long. And you’d probably better start calling me Nick, too,” he told the boy.

Bobby looked gratified but still a little uneasy. “How ’bout Mr. Nick? Uncle Josh says t’ be respectful to my elders.”

“Fair enough.” The angle of the shadows on the wall told Nick hours had passed even before he reached for the pocket watch he had left on the upended crate that served as bedside table and saw that it was four o’clock.