This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [29]
“How’d she get it past Bulldog?”
Slater grinned at that. “He was busy keeping his eagle eye on Ellen.”
They sat in silence for a while before Jack spoke again.
“Ain’t that kid a ring-tailed tooter?”
Slater refilled his cup and thought about the pleasant hour he had spent with John Austin.
“It’s no lie about him being brainy.”
Jack chuckled. “He got ol’ Pud treed. Drawed him a picture of the world and showed him how the sun and the moon went around it. 0l’ Pud jist sit thar with his mouth open. Kid tol’ him he’d show him how to read and write his name. I thought ol’ Pud would bust a gut when the kid said thar warn’t no excuse for him to be ignorant now that he was here. Kid’s smart. Ya gotta give him that. But the fool kid don’t know nothin’ else. Walked right up close to a rattler . . . wanted to look at it. I tol’ Pud not to take his eyes off him, leastways till we get some sense in him.”
“His sister said he lacked horse-sense, but she brought it about herself by protecting him too much, doing too much for him. It’s made him selfish and forgetful of his manners. He needs a man’s hand.”
The older man looked down at the table, twisted his cup round and round in his large calloused hands.
“Travis has come a courtin’, Slater. He’s behavin’ real good. If’n him and his ma get their way, we ain’t gonna have nothin’ to say ‘bout the girl or the kid.”
Although Slater was of the same opinion, the spoken words angered him.
“Who the hell says they’re going to get their way? That girl is no fool. I’m counting on her seeing right through Ellen and that murdering son-of-a-bitch.” Resting his elbows on the table and rubbing a fist against his forehead, he heaved a laborious sigh and continued, “Goddammit, Jack. I ought to kill the bastard and be done with it.”
“There’s times when I agree with ya, and then there’s times when I don’t. I ain’t sayin’ you’re wrong in thinkin’ he was in on the killin’ of yore pa, but if ya just gun him down, not knowin’ for sure, it could be a hard thing to live with. ’Sides, you might have Jesse to worry with.”
“How about Jesse, Jack? He still lickin’ Ellen’s boots?”
“I’ll tell you somethin’. I’d bet my bottom dollar Jesse is onto Travis. He’ll do all he can to keep it from Ellen, but he’s onto him. He dogged him all day, and once, when he was talkin’ to Armando, you know that hand we hired a while back? Well, he kind of sidled up to them, easy-like, and Travis moved off. I ain’t a likin’ that coot a cozyin’ up to Travis like he done.”
“Maybe you ought to tell him to skeedaddle.”
“Thought it might not hurt to keep him and see what he’s up to.”
“He’s spying for Travis.”
“Maybe.”
Slater fingered the scar on his face as he sometimes did when he had something on his mind. Irritably, he jammed a cheroot in his mouth and, striking a match on the sole of his boot, puffed it until it glowed. A wraith of smoke curled into the air.
“Jesse see any Indian sign?”
“None. Said the bunch what hit us was likely an offshoot of Mountain Apaches in the hills south and west. Jesse’s got good Indian sense, fought ’em a heap from the way he talks. Course the booger don’t give away nothin’ ’bout hisself.”
“Jesse knows what he’s about.”
“Except for one thing.”
A scowl came to Slater’s face. “Every man has a weakness. Jesse’s is Ellen McLean.”
Six
Just after daybreak, Jesse brought the buggy to the front of the house.
“Must we go so soon?” Ellen, in her gray traveling suit, placed a hand on his arm.
He patted her hand and spoke to her as if she were a child. “You know we must. Say your goodbyes, so we can get goin’.”
“I didn’t see enough of Summer,” she pouted.
“We’ll come again,” he promised.
Watching from the doorway, Sadie chastised herself for even daring to dream a man like that would be interested in her when he had that beautiful, dainty creature, even though she was years older than him. She folded her hands across the clean apron she had put on in hopes she would see him again, and scolded herself for the extra time she had spent on arranging her hair. He had not even looked