To Tame a Wolf

“I hope that venison stew suits you,” Mrs. Bryson said from the stove, pushing damp hair from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Please, sit down.”

Tally sat in one of the chairs at the dining table between the kitchen and parlor, admiring the braided rag rug that covered much of the floor. Kavanagh stalked in a slow circle like a beast in a cage.

Beth rushed into the room with a pitcher, spilling water on the kitchen floor. “Father’s home,” she announced. Kavanagh paused by the fireplace and lifted his head, nostrils flared.

“He always knows when supper’s ready,” Mrs. Bryson said with an indulgent laugh. She opened the stove’s heavy door and pulled out a pan of biscuits, perfectly browned. “Get the butter, Beth.”

The girl hurried to obey, and a few moments later a big man with salt-and-pepper hair strode into the cabin. His face was damp, and he wore much-patched but clean clothing, as if he’d made some effort to make himself presentable for his guests. Tally got to her feet and took his offered hand.

“Miles Bryson,” he said, nearly crushing her fingers. “Glad to have you, Mr. Bernard.” He looked over her shoulder. “Mr. Kavanagh.”

Sim nodded without moving from his place by the hearth. Tally smiled all the wider. “I hope we aren’t putting you to too much trouble, Mr. Bryson.”

“Not at all.” He released Tally’s aching hand, joined his wife by the stove and gave her a hug about the shoulders. “Mrs. Bryson loves to show off her cooking.”

“Now, Miles.” She feigned affront, but her eyes gleamed with pleasure. Beth arrived with the butter and began to set the table. The plates were china, chipped but lovingly preserved from some former, more genteel home. Soon the table was piled high with a crock of savory stew, a plate of biscuits and a steaming pot of coffee.

Kavanagh still hadn’t moved, and Tally was about to risk calling him when he sat down next to her. Bryson took the head of the table, and once Beth and Mrs. Bryson had finished their serving duties, they sat in two of the three remaining chairs.

Bryson bowed his head, and his family did the same. Sim stared at the ceiling. Tally lowered her eyes to the table’s painstakingly polished surface, reciting the prayer through stiff lips. If Mrs. Bryson had any notion of who was sitting next to her innocent daughter…

“Amen,” Bryson murmured. Without another word he dug into the food, passing bowlfuls of stew to Tally and Kavanagh before serving his family. Mrs. Bryson watched Tally expectantly until she took a bite and made the appropriate noises of satisfaction. Kavanagh ate with single-minded attention and never once looked up from his plate.

Tally found it hard to swallow, though the food was as good as anything Miriam made at home. Beth’s curious glances were more shrewd than those of her parents. Maybe she’d guessed something was not quite right about “Mr.” Bernard. But Kavanagh earned her most fascinated stares, and it was all Tally could do not to shout a warning.

Stay away from men like that, ma bonne fille. Wait and find a boy your own age. Don’t throw away what good fortune has given you….

She pushed her plate aside and patted her stomach. “Ma’am, I don’t think I’ve tasted anything quite so fine in years. If he were more of a talker, I’m sure Mr. Kavanagh would say the same.”

Kavanagh looked up from his cleaned plate. His pale eyes settled first on Tally, then quickly moved to Beth and Mr. Bryson. “Good,” he said.

“Your friend does talk, Mr. Bernard,” Bryson said with generous good humor.

“Tal,” Tally said. Bryson offered her and Kavanagh a pair of pipes, which both declined. The homesteader lit his own and settled in one of the rawhide chairs in the parlor. Tally took the other, while Kavanagh crouched on his boot heels beside the fireplace.

Bryson smiled through his full beard. “Beth has told me something of why you gentleman are in the canyon. I did meet a man fitting the description you gave, Tal, but he was in a hurry to be on his way.” He tamped the tobacco in his pipe. “You’ve been following him from Tombstone?”

Tally saw no harm in telling him at least part of the truth. “Our ranch is in Cold Creek Valley, in the southern Chiricahuas,” she said. “My brother left to buy cattle from some ranchers in the north Valley two weeks ago, but he disappeared, and we learned that he’d come up here…supposedly to look for ore.”

“You must be his younger brother, from the looks of you,” Bryson said. “I’m sorry your kin has given you trouble.”

“I’m worried that André…might have gotten lost up here. That’s why I hired Mr. Kavanagh to track him in the mountains.”

Kavanagh muttered something under his breath. Pans clanged in the kitchen. Bryson puffed on his pipe. “Have you been with the army, Mr. Kavanagh?” he asked.

Kavanagh glanced at Bryson without interest. “From time to time.” Bryson’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Army scouts are notoriously taciturn men, Tal. The best of them hardly ever make a sound, let alone indulge in idle conversation.”

“So I’ve learned.” She felt Kavanagh’s stare and shifted in her seat. “Our foreman went looking for André a week ago,” she said. “He’s a former Buffalo Soldier with the Tenth Cavalry, very tall—”

“I’m afraid I didn’t see such a man. I’ve heard good things about the Tenth, though. Formidable fighters.”

They drifted onto the subjects of army movements, the Apaches and cattle prices. Tally let Bryson do most of the talking, while Kavanagh kept his thoughts to himself. Eventually Mrs. Bryson and Beth joined them, pulling chairs from the dining table.

“Will you tell us about Tombstone, Mr. Bernard?” Beth asked eagerly. “Is it as wicked as they say?”

“Now, Beth,” Mrs. Bryson reproved.

Mr. Bryson chuckled. “You’ll have to excuse our daughter, Tal. She’s heard too many fantastic stories.” He set down his pipe. “Willcox is wild enough for us. I’d like to hear more of your ranch, and how you find the south end of the Valley. There aren’t too many of us here, but more will be coming every day now that the Apaches have cleared out. If not for the rustlers—” He glanced at Beth and thought better of that subject.

Tally asked Mrs. Bryson about the quilt on the wall, which led to an innocuous conversation about fabric and sewing. Tally listened with the polite incomprehension of any typical male. After Beth and Mrs. Bryson retired, Bryson asked Tally for general news of the Valley and its residents.

Tally had little to tell him. She’d spent most of her days deliberately sequestered at Cold Creek, working the cattle and letting André deal with the outside world. If Bryson found her ignorance strange, he didn’t let on. He showed Tally and Kavanagh the plain, neat room they would share for the night.

“You’ve done Ida a heap of good by praising her cooking,” Bryson said. “She gets a little lonely in the canyon with only Beth for company.” He lit a kerosene lamp and set it on a table near the door. “You men are welcome here any time.”

“As you are at Cold Creek,” Tally said, glad that Bryson would have no cause for such a visit. She thanked him again and closed the door to the room, her heart beating unpleasantly fast in the heavy silence.

Kavanagh was sitting on the wood-frame bed, pulling off his boots and stockings. The moment of truth was at hand.

Tally turned and leaned against the door, folding her arms across her chest. “Can I ask you a question?”

Kavanagh arched his back in a bone-popping stretch. “When did you ever need my permission?”

“Why were you so rude to the Brysons? Is it because two of them are female?”

He looked at her with an expression of genuine surprise. “You still expecting pretty manners from me, boy? I thought you’d been disabused of such notions.”

“I hired you to do a job, and I’m prepared to pay the price. The Brysons don’t know us, but they’ve been generous hosts. The least they deserve is the respect due decent people.”

He got up from the bed and strolled toward her with a lazy air of tolerant amusement. “You gonna fire me because I was disrespectful to them decent, proper folk out there?”

She edged away from the door. “Fortunately, I don’t think they’ll hold it against you. They trust instead of judge, and I admire them for it.”

Kavanagh stopped in the middle of the room and cocked his head. “Took a liking to that little filly Beth, did you, boy?”

“Not the way you mean.”

“She’s wild for a little freedom, ain’t she? How well d’you think she’d make out in Tombstone?”

Tally balled her fists. “Her parents take care of her. They love each other. You never had that kind of family, did you, Kavanagh? A sister, a brother to look after, or who looked after you.”

“No.” The denial cracked like a thick oak branch snapped in a storm. “I never had a family like that.”

She met his stony gaze, swallowing the knot in her throat. She could see the pain he tried not to show, pain she saw only because she had become so accustomed to discerning the motives of men.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s none of my business.”

He seemed not to hear. “I had a mother and a father and half brothers. We never lived together.”