This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [102]
Jesse allowed the horse to run until they were out of sight of the settlement and pulled him up to a walk.
“Goddam crazy old fool!” Jesse’s face was red and sweat ran from his forehead. “Goddam crazy old fool,” he said again.
Summer’s head was spinning. She had been holding tightly to the side of the buggy but she let go now to fumble in her pocket for something to wipe her face.
What could she do now? Willing the tears not to come, she glanced at Jesse and found him looking at her.
“What did he say?”
“He said you’d have to marry him, be one of his wives before he’d take you with them.”
Summer gasped, tears forgotten in her sudden anger. “No! Never!”
“That’s what I told him,” Jesse said drily, “along with a few other things.”
Her anger died as quickly as it came. What could she do now? What in the world was she going to do? Tears would have started had she been left to her own thoughts, but Jesse was speaking again.
“I’ve met Bible-spouting lechers like him before,” he bit out. “Had my doubts about takin’ you there in the first place.” He turned to face her, and for the first time she saw him smile. “When he clapped his eyes on you, they almost laid out on his face. He thought he was about to get hisself a real choice little bit of woman.”
In spite of herself, Summer smiled in return. Then, as if she had no right to smile, she sobered.
“I’m imposing on you, Mr. Thurston, and I feel badly about it. I think it’s best for me to go to Austin. I can get a teaching job there.” She stopped, then forced herself to go on. “I can drive the buggy on into Hamilton and leave it at the livery stable, if you want to take your horse and go on to the Rocking S.”
“I’m not in that big of a hurry, Summer. Nothing at the ranch that won’t keep till night. We’ll go on into Hamilton and see when the stage runs to Austin.”
“Thank you, Mr. Thurston.”
“Name’s Jesse. Just plain old Jesse,” he said with a sigh.
Summer shivered. “I can’t help thinking about that old man, and what I’d have done if you were not with me.”
“Don’t think about him. He ain’t worth a plug of tobacco.”
“But those poor women. They all seemed so sad.”
“That’s how he keeps ’em with him, cowed and afraid.”
Hamilton’s street was teeming with several times its normal population when Jesse drew up beside the stage office. He wrapped the reins about a post and disappeared inside. He didn’t need to tell Summer to stay put this time. She sat quietly, eyeing the jostling crowd. There were drovers in their drab work clothes, former easterners in dark suits, soldiers in pieces of uniform and the usual amount of strutting cowhands laden with pistols and Bowie knives. What Summer didn’t know was that the army troop had arrived with their prisoners, and the crowd had surged into the street to watch their passing and to linger to talk about this exciting event that had jarred their usually monotonous existence.
The last time . . . For a moment, gripped by a rush of savage emotion, Summer thought she would scream. She closed her eyes and willed herself not to think of the time she and John Austin had arrived at this stage stop, and when she opened them again, Jesse was climbing into the buggy.
“Friday. The stage goes on Friday.”
“Friday? That’s . . . five days. I can’t wait five days.”
“Yes, you can,” Jesse said gently, but firmly. “You can stay at the hotel.” He was turning the buggy around in the middle of the street.
Summer’s lips trembled. She wanted to protest, but didn’t feel she had the right to burden him further.
“It’ll be all right,” Jesse said, seeing her stricken look. “It won’t be very comfortable, but you can stay in the room. I’ll come on Friday and put you on the stage.”
At the hotel, he helped her down. She could feel the stares of the men lining the benches as she stood waiting for Jesse to lift her trunk from the back of the buggy. The hotel lobby was stiflingly hot, and the odors of highly seasoned food,