Dakota Father

Guess he’d known what the final outcome would be because he had abandoned all pretense of work on the house several months ago. It no longer bothered him that it looked forlorn and neglected. He would probably never complete it. No need to. It was adequate for his purposes.

He reined back to study the place and analyze his feelings. Shouldn’t he feel something besides disappointment that there was no reason to finish the house? Shouldn’t he be mourning the fact he and Flora would never marry?

“Guess I’ve known it for a long time. I’ve just been going through the motions of asking, waiting, hoping because I knew that’s what I should do. But you know what, horse? I expect I’m happy enough to let it go. In some ways it’s better that it is over and final.” Still he couldn’t quite shake a sense of failure. He should have walked away from the ranch when he’d seen how Flora felt about it. He didn’t need her parents pointing out that her present condition and her current incarceration in the insane asylum was due, in no small part, to his failure to do so.

He flicked the reins and rode into the yard, turning toward the barn. He dropped to the ground. “Lucky,” he called to the squat little man hanging around the corrals, wielding a pitchfork. The man was past his prime, one leg all gimped up from an accident. But he was handy around the place and had proven to be a loyal friend. “Look after my horse.”

“Okay, Boss.” He dropped the fork and sprinted over to take the reins. “Good trip, Boss?”

“Glad to be home.”

Lucky chuckled. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say.”

“What’s new around here?” He’d only been away two days but it felt like a month.

“Nothing, Boss. Though Mac said he thought the spring over to the west was drying out.”

“I’ll ride over tomorrow and check.”

“And the mosquitoes been awful bad. I’m about to start a smudge over past the barn for the horses.”

“I’ll do it.” Burke welcomed the chance to be out in the open doing something mindless and undemanding. He didn’t want to think of Flora or his failures. He smiled as he recalled the look on the young woman’s face as he warned her this territory was too tough for a woman, then he shook his head.

He didn’t want to think about her, either.

His restlessness returned with a vengeance matching the vicious prairie winds. “Lucky, throw my saddle on another mount. I’ll ride out and have a look at things.” He strode to the house with an urgency that had no cause and quickly changed into his comfortable work clothes. He paused long enough to build the smudge, smeared some lard on the back of his neck to protect himself and rode into the wide open spaces where a man could enjoy forgetfulness.

Forgetfulness was all he sought—all he needed.

Jenny jolted to one side as the buggy bounced along the trail. She feared little, hadn’t blinked when caring for Meggie’s parents in their final days. Nor had she felt anything but a trickle of excitement at the task they had given her before their death—deliver their child to her new guardian. But trepidation gnawed into her bones as the miles passed. She’d soon have to meet Lena’s brother and his wife and inform them of Lena and Mark’s deaths, then turn Meggie over to their care.

Jenny smiled at the child in her arms. It was appreciably cooler riding in the open buggy and Meggie had fallen asleep. She loved this little girl. It would be a wrench to leave her.

“How much farther?” she asked the man she’d hired to take her to the ranch in the far corner of the Dakotas.

“Lookee there and you can see the buildings in the distance.”

She followed the direction he indicated and indeed, saw a cluster of buildings. “Looks almost as big as Buffalo Hollow.” The little prairie town had proved dusty and squat but friendly. The store owner had allowed her to wash Meggie and tidy them both up as best she could. Customers had offered greetings and given her details about the ranch she was about to reach.

“Big place.”

“Boss works his men hard and himself harder.”

“Too bad about what happened.”

When she pressed for details on that latter bit of information she found the people of Buffalo Hollow suddenly reticent.

Too bad? A fire perhaps or a broken bone.

Now, as she studied the far-off buildings, she wished she’d insisted someone tell her what they meant. She could almost hear Pa’s voice and she smiled up into the sky. ‘Pepper, you must learn to guard your inquisitiveness. Sufficient to the day is the trouble thereof.’ He meant everyone had enough troubles and trials of their own without borrowing from others. And that included wanting to know more than she needed about other people.

She turned her attention back to Meggie. Despite her attempts to clean them up in the tiny town, they were both dusty and soiled, and smelled of coal smoke and sour milk. Not the way she would have wanted to arrive on a stranger’s doorstep. She could only hope Meggie’s new guardians cared nothing for such things and only for the well-being of their orphaned niece. Suddenly she wanted this meeting over with and had to remind herself to be patient. Like Pa would say, “Settle down, Pepper. You can’t make the world turn faster.”

They rounded a corner, ducked between two sharp embankments crowned with a jagged row of rocks and headed toward the buildings.

She strained forward, assessing everything. A barn surrounded by rail fences with a horse in one of the pens. Several low buildings on either side of the alleyway running from the barn to the rambling frame house that sat like the crowning jewel a little apart. Smoke twisted from the rock chimney.

She squinted at the house as they drew closer, anxious for a good look, wondering what sort of life Meggie would be thrust into.

A roofed but wall-less lean-to covered the sides of the house—a sort of veranda though it seemed to come to an abrupt halt midway down one wall.

Even several hundred yards away she could see an untidy assortment of things under the roof of the lean-to. As if the barn wasn’t big enough to accommodate the tools of ranching.

“We’s here.” The driver’s announcement was redundant as he pulled to a halt before the house.

“Could you please put my things on the porch?”

He yanked the two bags from the buggy and deposited them. One contained her traveling things and Meggie’s few clothes. The other held most of Lena’s and a few of Mark’s belongings. The bulk of Mark’s possessions had been claimed by his brother, Andy, who also wanted to take Meggie but Lena had been insistent that Meggie go to a married man.

“I don’t want her raised by a bachelor. How would she learn to be a refined lady? No, promise me you’ll take her to my brother. He sent for his bride six months ago. They’ll be happily settled by now. My brother and I were always close. They’ll take good care of my baby.”

Jenny had gladly given her promise and would very shortly fulfill it.

She allowed the driver to help her from the buggy, carefully shifting Meggie from one arm to the other as she descended. The baby wakened and whimpered.

The man stood by his buggy. “I’ll wait and see if anyone has letters to post.”

Meggie hesitated. Why had no one come to the door or strode from one of the outbuildings? She’d glimpsed the shadow of a man in the barn. Seems someone should show a degree of curiosity if not neighborliness but apart from the creak of a gate blowing in the wind and the far-off cry of a hawk, there was no sound of welcome. “This is the right place?”

“The Lazy B. ’Spect all the men are out working but Paquette should be in the back. Want we should go that way?”

“Paquette?” What was that? But if it meant admission to this house, she’d follow the man most anywhere.

“She’s the housekeeper. A Métis.”

She’d heard of the part Indian, part French-Canadian people, many of them descended from the fur traders.

They left the baggage where the man put it and picked their way past overturned buckets and around a huddle of chairs.

They found the back door open. The driver stepped inside with complete confidence and Jenny followed hesitantly. In her world, one didn’t walk into a house unbidden. This, however, was a strange, exciting new world. A thrill trickled through her lungs.

The enormous size of the room surprised her. A scarred wooden table with plank benches along each side and a chair at each end took up the area nearest the door. At the far end, cupboards and a stove—presided over by a little woman so bent and crippled Meggie wondered if she could walk. Her graying hair hung in twin braids down her back, tied with a length of leather. The frayed ends of each braid were black.

“Hullo, Paquette. The boss man about?” the man at her side called.

“I hear him soon ago. Out by de corrals, him. He ride away ’gain. I hear horsesteps. I help you? Me?”

Jenny edged past the driver. “My name is Jenny Archibald. I need to speak to the Edwards. Could you tell Mrs. Edwards I’m here?”