Lady Outlaw

Chapter Five

Jennie pushed down on the post in her hands and secured it into the hole she’d dug. Stepping back, she scrutinized her work. Another rail, and the fence would be nearly as good as new.

Hearing footsteps, she turned to see Caleb approaching. “Have you mastered it already?” she called to him.

“I came to ask for another lesson,” he said, stopping a few feet from where she stood.

Jennie stared at him for a moment before deciding she could spare a few minutes. “One more,” she finally said, wiping her grimy hands on her breeches.

“Show me what you’re doing,” she said when they arrived back at the corral.

Caleb demonstrated tossing the lasso, but he missed the sawhorse by a foot.

“You need to rotate your wrist a little more as you’re spinning the rope, and make sure the loop is open to the sawhorse before you release.” She picked up his rope and swung it over her head, feeling the motion, anticipating the release. At the right moment, she dropped her arm and sent the loop around the sawhorse. “Did you see that?”

Caleb’s brow furrowed, but he dipped his head in answer.

“Here, we’ll try one together.” Jennie moved behind him and helped him position the coils correctly in his left hand. Stepping to his side, she placed her hand over his right wrist and let her other hand rest at the center of his back.

“Start to swing the loop,” she directed, her hand moving with his. His gaze darted to hers, and she laughed. “Don’t look at me, cowboy. Keep watching your target. On the range, that calf is going to move fast. You have to train your eye to follow the cow’s moving feet.” She waited for him to relax his wrist, then continued her instructions. “Using the forward momentum, when you’re ready, drop your wrist in line with your shoulder and let go.”

After a few more swings, Caleb lowered his wrist and released the lasso. Jennie watched with held breath as the rope flew through the air and circled the neck of the sawhorse.

“Wahoo!” Caleb threw his hat into the air.

“You’re not done,” Jennie said with a laugh. “You have to pull the rope tight or he’ll get away from you.”

He returned to her side and together they yanked back on the rope. Peering up at him, Jennie realized how close they stood, close enough to feel his warm breath against her cheek and smell the musky scent of his shaving cream. She tried to step away, but her hands were still holding the rope beneath his. Her heart began thudding loudly in her ears.

“Thanks for the help,” he said with a grin.

Jennie managed a nod. She’d never met someone like Caleb Johnson—someone kind and good-looking and irritating all at the same time. She hadn’t socialized with any young men in years—not since the family had stopped attending Sunday services. Occasionally on trips into town, she’d run across some boy she recognized from her time at church or school, but she’d been too embarrassed to strike up a conversation. She felt like an outsider, mostly because of her mother. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t found it hard to talk to Nathan that first time. Here was someone else on the cusp of society.

Nathan. Thoughts of him brought her traitorous pulse to almost normal speed.

Jerking her hands free, Jennie stumbled backward. “I think you have it,” she said, her words still coming out shaky. She forced a cleansing breath. “Keep practicing until you can do it with ease. Then come help me with the fence.” Without waiting for his response, she spun on her heel and hurried across the corral.

She couldn’t like him—she wouldn’t. Her focus had to remain on doing what she must to save her home. No charming, would-be cowboy was worth losing her ranch.

* * *

Muscles strained, Caleb held tight to the squirming calf while Jennie applied the branding iron near the animal’s rump. The smell of burnt hair filled Caleb’s nostrils, and sweat ran down his back from working close to the fire. It didn’t help that the day was unusually warm for mid-April. His clothes were now damp, dirty and speckled with blood. He wished he’d worn his old boots for this messy work, instead of the newer ones he’d been given yesterday.

It’s all for the freight business, he told himself. If he could survive the next few months, he’d never have to look at another cow rump again.

The calf bellowed and twisted in protest as Jennie put down the iron and took up her knife to cut a small notch in the animal’s right ear.

“All right,” she said, using the back of her hand to brush hair from her glistening forehead. “He’s done.”

Caleb untied the rope from the calf’s feet and released it. He jumped out of the way as the animal scrambled through the brush in search of its mother. “How many have we done?”

Jennie blew out a long breath and plopped down in the dirt. “Twenty calves in all. We had twice that many last spring. It took me and Will three days to round them all up and brand them. We’ve lost quite a few since then.”

“What happened?”

“A few died over the winter, but mostly it’s been rustlers.”

“You mean the Indians that shot your pa?” She looked up sharply at his words, so he quickly added, “Will told me what happened.”

She nodded. “They took some, yes. But I think one of the other landowners around here might be stealing from us, too.”

Caleb’s eyebrows shot up. “Why would you think that?”

“The Indians might want a few head of cattle here and there, but since they don’t have the setup to handle anything more, there’s no cause for them to take very many. But the other landholders...they could add my calves to their stock with no problems at all, and have the bonus of driving us out at the same time. There are plenty of folks who think I can’t handle this ranch on my own. I think someone’s trying to prove it.”

Her voice was strong and steady, but Caleb could see how tired she looked, how the responsibility for running and protecting the ranch wore away at her. A surge of protectiveness filled him and he promised himself that, for as long as he worked on the ranch, he’d help lift some of that load. But that brought up another question. Would his wages take away from the family’s ability to survive? Could they support another mouth to feed? “Can you afford to pay me?”

He realized she’d misunderstood the motivation behind his question when her cheeks flamed red.

“That’s not what I—”

“I said I would,” she interjected. “It’s going to take another set of hands to make this place what I want, what my father wanted.” She climbed to her feet and threw him a haughty look. “I can afford to pay you when our agreement is up. Just as I promised. And I’ll pay you for every month you stay after that.”

“Then I’m not a mail-order cowboy anymore?” he teased, hoping to defuse her anger.

She scowled at him, but only for another few seconds, before she laughed. “I’ll admit you’ve done well.”

Will approached them carrying a calf, its ankles tied. “I think she’s the last one.”

“Caleb and I’ll finish up,” she said. “Why don’t you go get some drinking water from the creek?”

Nodding, Will transferred the calf into Caleb’s arms and headed off into the brush with one of the buckets.

As Caleb wrestled to keep the calf still, Jennie crouched beside the fire and pulled out the white-hot branding iron. When they were finished, Caleb let the calf go and stood to stretch his sore back. “You’re good with that iron.”

“I should be.” She dropped the branding iron into a nearby bucket. The hot metal sizzled against the water inside. “My mother hated this part of ranching, but I found it fascinating. I was always getting in the way during branding season until my father finally agreed to teach me what to do. I’ve been branding cattle since I was twelve.”

“Where’s your mother now?”

Jennie eyed him with suspicion. “Why do you want to know?”

Caleb shrugged, unsure why the simple question had struck a wrong chord in her. “Just wondered, since she’s not around.”

Frowning, Jennie picked up a cloth and wiped off her knife. “My mother passed away two years before my father did. She wasn’t living with us, though. She went to live with her sister when I was thirteen and Will was six.”

The casualness of her words didn’t disguise the pain Caleb heard behind them. He sat down on the ground and stretched out his legs, thinking of how to redeem himself. He hadn’t meant to dredge up hurtful memories. Sometimes they were best left buried in the past.

“I’m sorry.”

She stared off into the distance, the knife and cloth motionless in her hands. “You didn’t know.”

“That must’ve been tough.”

“The next few years were difficult.” She finished cleaning her knife and set it aside. “This is the point when you tell me it was all for the best. She couldn’t care for us. She was obviously ill in mind and body. We were better off without her.”

“Why would I say that?”

“Because that’s what people said after she left.” Jennie sat on the bare ground and wrapped her arms around her knees like a frightened child. Her vulnerability made Caleb want to put his arm along her stiff shoulders, but he didn’t. She was his boss, after all.

“Maybe that’s why my father stopped going to church,” she said. “He couldn’t stand people’s feigned sympathy.” Her eyes, dark with anguish, met his. “I couldn’t stand it, either.”

The urge to comfort her grew stronger, so he busied himself with opening the saddlebag that held their supper things. He unloaded the jerky, bread and dried fruit that Grandma Jones had packed for them. They’d stay tonight on the open range and return to the ranch tomorrow, once they’d doctored the few cows that needed it.

“I felt like that before,” he finally said.

“What?” She spun her head around and blinked at him as if she’d forgotten his presence.

“There was a time I felt alone and angry, and couldn’t stand it when people tried to sympathize.”

“Why?”

Caleb took a long breath, steeling himself against the rush of memories. “It was right after my fiancée, Liza, died.”

“Your fiancée?” Jennie brought her hand to her mouth. “What happened?”

“She...um...came down this way on the stage to visit her aunt, about a month before our wedding.” He regarded a group of trees in the distance, embarrassed to see the pity he imagined he’d find on Jennie’s face. It had been more than a year since he’d last recounted the story, but the pain felt as fresh as ever as the words spilled from him. “There was...an accident with the stage, and she was killed instantly.”

“I’m so sorry.” She set her hand on his sleeve for a moment. “That must have been devastating.”

“We attended the same church congregation with our families. I tried going a few times after Liza’s death, but I couldn’t take the pity I saw reflected in everyone’s eyes, how they’d stop their whispered conversations when I came close. I quit going to any kind of church for a long time.” He tore his gaze from the landscape back to hers, hoping to make his next point understood. “About a year ago, after making peace with God, I finally realized those people who knew Liza weren’t being cruel or unkind on purpose. The real reason I’d quit going to church back then had nothing to with them, and everything to do with me.”

With a shake of her head, Jennie scrambled to her feet. “You make it sound so easy, but it’s not. You don’t know what they said about my mother, the horrible rumors that they spread. Not that the truth was much better. Do you know she only wrote me once in those five years before we got the telegram about her death? Once.”

Caleb couldn’t fault her entirely for her reaction; he’d been stubborn about giving up his past hurts, too. “What’d your mother say in her letter?”

“I don’t know.” Her cheeks flushed red. “I never read it.” She stalked away from him, calling over her shoulder, “I’m going to see what’s keeping Will.”

Breaking off a chunk of bread from the loaf at his side, Caleb opted to appease his growling stomach while he waited for Jennie and Will to return. He ripped off a smaller piece of bread and popped it into his mouth. He didn’t regret telling Jennie about Liza, despite the sadness it still stirred inside him. Rather than pitying him, she’d shown sympathy. At least before she’d gotten mad and left.

Caleb ate another bite of bread as he thought over what Jennie had told him. He was honored she would share as much as she had about her own past, but it concerned him, too. He’d grown comfortable with only having to be responsible for himself, and he didn’t like the idea of having people dependent on him again. It left too much potential for disappointment, and loss. Life was a whole lot simpler on his own.

Chapter Six

Caleb crept through the grayish mist of the nightmare, the voices of the two stage robbers arguing somewhere unseen ahead of him. He felt none of the anticipation he had that fateful day a year and a half ago when he’d discovered the final two members of the gang who’d robbed Liza’s stage were together again. In the dream he felt only dread at what he knew was coming.

He moved toward the cabin and peered through the dirty window. The two men hunkered around the small fire, their weapons neglected on the nearby table. Brandishing his revolvers Caleb slipped silently to the door. He paused, the hatred he felt for these men thrumming as hard as his heartbeat. Lifting his boot, he kicked in the door and rushed inside.

“You’re both under arrest!”

One of the men scrambled up and tossed his chair at Caleb. Caleb leaped out of the way but the split-second distraction allowed the man to lunge through the back window with a horrific crash of glass. Caleb fired a shot, hitting the man in the foot, but he still escaped.

“Get down on the floor,” Caleb barked at the other bandit.

“Blaine,” he screamed as he lowered himself to his knees and put his hands in the air. “You gutless coward, get back here!”

Keeping one gun trained on the man, Caleb stuck the other in his holster and reached for his rope. He approached the bandit. “Don’t worry about your partner. I’ll find him, too.”

The man scowled, then hung his head.

Caleb tossed the loop in his rope over the man’s head and waist, but just as he prepared to tighten it, the bandit leaped up, slashing at the air with a knife. The rope fell to the floor.

“Put the knife down,” Caleb shouted as he jumped back to avoid the blade. “I don’t want to take you in to the sheriff dead.”

“I ain’t going no other way.”

The man rushed him, his arm cocked. Caleb backed up and felt the wall hit his shoulders. He was cornered. He dropped to his knees as the man came at him, hoping to throw the bandit off balance, but Caleb found himself wrestled to the floor.

Caleb tried to work his gun free from the man’s weight, but his arms were quickly growing tired from keeping the knife at bay. The blade inched nearer to his skin.

The bandit grinned, releasing foul breath into Caleb’s sweaty face. “So long, sonny,” he hissed.

Caleb put all his remaining strength into wrenching his arm loose. He angled his gun against the man’s shirt and squeezed the trigger. The bandit’s eyes flew open wide in shock before he crumpled onto Caleb’s chest, dead.

At this point the dream whisked Caleb away from the horror of the cabin to the sheriff’s crowded office.

“It was self-defense, Mr. Johnson,” the sheriff said. “No judge would convict you otherwise.”

“Self-defense,” Caleb repeated, if only to convince himself. “Self-defense.”

* * *

“Caleb? Caleb, wake up.”

Grabbing his guns, Caleb jerked upright in his bedroll. In the moonlight he saw Jennie crouched next to him.

“It’s all right,” she said, drawing her coat tighter around herself. “I think you were having a dream. You kept muttering something.”

“I—I’m sorry to wake you.” He rubbed at his eyes to clear the sleep from them.

Her shoulders rose and fell. “I couldn’t really sleep. I wanted to...” She ducked her head, her next words directed at the dirt. “I wanted to apologize for my...behavior earlier. I don’t like talking about my mother leaving, but it wasn’t right to lash out at you, either.”

“Apology accepted.” He steeled himself against the questions she would likely ask about his dream, but to his relief, she moved back to her makeshift bed. Caleb glanced at Will. The boy snored softly from his cocoon of blankets. At least he hadn’t awakened him. “You going back to sleep?”