Rebellion in the Valley Read online

  Being a horse lover himself, he would have never allowed Epoenah to become rubbed raw with his weight on an uneven blanket and half-cocked saddle. But he was especially careful to mind what he was doing because he knew what that horse meant to his beloved Hailee.

  Tobias grinned as his fingers adjusted the stirrups; he was reminded of the fact that she was a good six inches shorter than he was and he could, in fact, rest his chin on top of her head in a very comfortable standing position. He had pictured himself doing just that many times over in the past several months and wondered when he would ever be able to test it out.

  With his left foot in the stirrup, he glanced around to make sure nobody else was around as he leaned over and motioned with a nod for her to come toward him.

  Tightening his grip on the saddle horn, he confided, “I left something for you under that flower pot on the front porch…it’s a letter I wrote,” he told her with a sheepish wave of his hands. “I never have written a letter to a girl before, so I don’t know if I did it right or not. I just kinda let my heart guide the pencil and I almost didn’t leave it at all, but -” he was cut short when Hailee put a hand on his leg.

  “I watched you lay it under the pot. I thought it was for Daddy, so I just let it sit there!”

  Pulling himself upward and swinging his right leg up and over the saddle in one swift motion, Hailee watched his muscular arms tensing as he seated himself, hooked his left boot into the stirrup and looked back down at the pretty girl with the bonnet strings in one hand.

  “Well, it ain’t for your Pa or anyone else, so you best get to finding it before someone else does.”

  She nodded and smiled, anxious to read what his heart had to say to her.

  Tobias yanked on the reins and urged Epoenah to join the rest of the men gathering by the ranch gate.

  Bruce called out to Hailee and motioned for her to come give him a hug.

  “Now you help Richard out in the kitchen and make sure you keep those eggs gathered up while I’m gone, you hear me?”

  All goodbyes said, the group of seven men headed out of the ranch gates, a few pots and pans clinking off the rear of one horse.

  Hailee wasted no time in running to the front porch, where she yanked the flower pot off the railing.

  There it was.

  Her hand swooped down and snatched the envelope; she felt the bulge inside and replaced the flower pot quickly in an effort not to draw any attention to herself.

  Noticing the dark clouds gathering off in the distance, Hailee wondered if it would rain on the men later in the afternoon. If it did, she knew the men would get both cranky and on one another’s nerves.

  She also knew if Howard J. Duffman became any crankier, Tobias was more likely than not to set him straight.

  Forcing that image from her mind, she found her place on the wooden rocking chair in the far-left-hand corner of the porch. Fingers skittered along the bulge as she tried to guess what it might be.

  Hailee closed her eyes and pictured Tobias writing the letter. Had he spent much time pondering over his words, or did he just blurt it all out at once? Had he written the letter early in the morning or at night, by the light of his lantern?

  The young woman’s mind rolled back to earlier in the morning when he admitted that he wanted to hold her, kiss her.

  Her heart moved with a new kind of warmth at the thought that someday, he would be able to do just that.

  Sealed with a line of glue, Hailee ripped the top of the envelope off and removed the letter. Once it had been unfolded, the bulge revealed itself in the form of a cameo on a delicate double chain.

  Her breath paused, causing her chest to tighten as her fingers dared to touch the face of the unknown woman; the chain winked in the sunlight.

  She opened her pocket and allowed the cameo to be lowered down little by little so the chain wouldn’t become tangled, then unfolded her letter, noticing the neat handwriting.

  A tight grip on Hailee’s throat caused her hands to tremble as she began reading:

  Dear Hailee, The whole time I’m gone, I’ll be thinking about you. We’re gonna have to find a way to talk to your Pa soon enough, but don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of everything. You’re mine, you know. Sleep well until we see each other again and know that my heart belongs only to you.

  The words were signed with, All my love, Tobias.

  An entire lifetime of promises summed up within a few lines of the most open words she had ever heard, Hailee read the letter another three times before folding it back up and slipping her man’s vow of love into the envelope.

  Before standing up, she took the necklace from her pocket and laced the chain around her fingers, held it up to the sun and allowed herself to imagine Tobias clasping the lock at the nape of her neck and letting her hair fall down around it.

  It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen; where in the world did he buy it? She hadn’t seen any fine jewelry stores in Canon City.

  P

  Richard slumped over the cast iron fry skillet, pouring the last of the morning’s bacon grease into a tin can he kept in the back of a handmade cabinet Bruce crafted; the oak-carved kitchen accessory stood over five feet tall and occupied a prominent section of Richard’s kitchen.

  Tapping the lid down to keep the grease fresh and inside the container, Richard placed it on a shelf and yanked the red and white checkered fabric across the wooden rods to put the morning chores to rest.

  Hailee smoothed her pocket, pausing over the spot where her new treasure lay in secret; if Tobias found a moment to speak with her father in the next few days, she would be able to wear it to church!

  Thoughts of making an entrance through the oversized white double doors in her blue frilly dress, a splash of lavender oil and her new token from the best looking man in the Valley slowed her down just a bit in the dish-drying task Richard assigned to her.

  She thought about laying the necklace out across the butcher block for Richard to take a gander at, but uncertain where his faithfulness to her father would actually begin or end, opted to excuse herself in order to finish up a couple of chores in the hen house instead.

  “How about you gather those eggs and I’ll pour us some sweet tea. It’s just you and me for a while, so I figure we may as well play games all day and stay up late drinking hot cider. Maybe even make a few wishes on stars while we’re at it. What do ya say?”

  Staring out the window, Richard added, “Although I probably already know what some of your wishes might be.”

  She swallowed hard but didn’t want to look him in the eye.

  “Yeah. I sure do hope they find that cat and get back home in a hurry; that’s about the only thing that’s been on my mind lately,” Hailee openly lied to one of her dearest friends.

  Richard chuckled.

  Hailee reluctantly gave him that quick glance out the corner of her eye.

  “He does love you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Of course he does! I have the best daddy in the valley. I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do for me -“

  Richard shook his head and cut her off.

  “There is no doubt that your father does adore the ground you walk on, Hailee, but that's not who I’m talking about here,” he told her as a matter-of-fact.

  When her face snapped up and their eyes met, panic darted straight into her heart; he knew! How could Richard know about the secret she and Tobias worked so hard to keep hidden? The grip tightened when her mind shifted to the other question, which took precedence over every thought in her mind - did her father know?

  He chuckled again and the young woman could feel her face beginning to blush.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Hailee started to explain.

  “Well, for starters, you can tell me what’s in that pocket of yours.”

  She pulled her head back and cocked it to one side.

  “Girl, I haven’t seen anything pawing at something the way you’ve been pa
wing at that pocket of yours, not since those dogs tore away at an old bone I tossed out last month,” he teased. “So what did Tobias give you that you’re so scared of showing someone?”

  Hailee knew when she’d been caught.

  And she had just been caught.

  Shaking her head, she brought the necklace out and held it up so he could take it in his fingers.

  He whistled.

  “Whew-wee, that’s a dandy! Set Tobias back a few coins, I reckon! How long have you had it?”

  Relaxing a bit, Hailee smiled this time when their eyes met.

  “Just since this morning. He left it in an envelope with a letter,” she started. “Tobias said he wants to talk to Daddy.”

  The cook, old friend, and wise man nodded.

  “He aught to do just that. You know your daddy don’t wanna step in the barn one day and get an eye full of something he ain’t ready for; he might be feisty about the news for a while, but he’ll come around,” Richard tried to comfort. “Best for Tobias to step on up to the plate and ask for your hand. Best he get it over and done with as soon as he can.”

  Hailee blushed. Her hand?

  Richard caught the look on her face and shook his head. One eyebrow cocked upward, he looked her square in the face.

  “What? Now don’t you tell this old man you didn’t think Tobias was leanin’ that direction. A fella looks at a beauty such as yourself, he’s got marryin on his mind.”

  “I don’t think I was looking at it that way. Not really. No boy has ever been interested in me before - I don’t know what to do now!”

  The old friend reared his gray head back and ripped out a good old belly laugh on that one.

  “Girl, are you serious? No boy has ever looked at you? You can’t be meaning that.”

  But soon as he asked, he saw the blank look on Hailee’s face; she was oblivious to all those other boys who had come calling on her in the past.

  “Well, Hailee, I got one thing to say to you,” Richard told her with a more serious tone in his voice. “Tobias ain’t a boy. He’s a full grown man with full grown ideas and ways of thinkin’ about certain matters. Are you ready to be a grown up woman and meet him in those ways of thinkin’?”

  “Richard, what happens now?”

  He nodded for her to follow him to the table and reached for the deck of cards someone left there from the night before.

  “We play gin rummy. Just let the cards play themselves out, Hailee. If it’s a good game, you’ll come out of it just fine. Now get on out there and get my eggs, girl. I’ll whip you at a round or two of cards when you get back,” he winked.

  Chapter 10

  A couple of days after the wagon wheel marks disappeared up at the Red Bone Ranch, the group of men found themselves looking down a seventy-five-foot embankment in Puma Canyon, located not more than three miles from their home.

  Duffy shrugged a thumb downward. He shook his head.

  “That creek’s got a lot of water flowin’ since that rain storm came in the other night, and that’s a good sign. Critters follow the flow of water, ya know. What do ya think we oughtta do, Boss?” he asked, not really listening for an answer from anyone.

  Bruce shrugged a shoulder in response.

  “We go on. I came to get me a cat, and I ain’t goin’ home unless I have me a pelt to hang on my wall,” he asserted.

  The men nodded in agreement.

  Another hour up the canyon path, the ranchers-turned-hunters pitched tents and ate hot beans under the twinkling stars, which gave off just enough light to see by.

  Bruce finished sopping up the last bit of his food with a chunk of Richard’s sourdough bread when he caught sight of Tobias all hunched up over a writing tablet on the other side of the campfire. He looked involved in his thoughts; probably, knowing how thorough the man was, he probably kept a diary of their every movement while tracking the cat. Good man, that Tobias.

  He waited until the pencil slid back into a coat pocket and the tablet shut before calling his fellow hunter over to his side of the fire ring.

  “Come get your coffee cup refilled, Tobias. I don’t reckon anyone else is gonna have any more and it ain’t that good after it sits a while.”

  Tobias obliged.

  “Keepin’ track of what we’re doin’ out here?” Bruce inquired with a nod of his head toward the tablet.

  Tobias didn’t want to lie, but the fact was, he had been writing to Hailee, and yet, he wasn’t ready to say anything to Bruce about the situation. The timing wasn’t right and he wasn’t about to say one word about his feelings unless they were words said in private.

  Glancing around at all the other men, he answered in softer tones, “Well, no, Boss. I had another project I was workin’ on. I reckon we’ll remember where we are in the morning, so there really ain’t any need to record where we slept last night or where we’re going tomorrow. Least ways, that’s how I see it. But I can write it all down if you want me to, though,” he mentioned off the cuff.

  Bruce just chuckled and rubbed his chin.

  “Nah. You’re right as usual, Tobias. We come home with a pelt, we’re gonna remember the story well enough to tell our grandkids,” he took a slow sip out of his mug. “Not like I see any of them coming any time soon,” he drifted off in half-mumbled words.

  Tobias grinned into his own mug. If the man only knew.

  The younger man glanced around and noticed they were the last two still milling about. The fire flickered low highlights around their boot heels, the fireflies gave evidence of themselves in and out of the trees.

  “Hey, Boss. You ever smear those things all over your arms when you were a kid? Wake up covered in bug guts the next morning?” he asked out of the blue.

  Bruce choked on his drink and let out a soft chuckle, obviously remembering a childhood moment or two.

  They sat together for a while longer, not really saying that much, just building on the friendship they already enjoyed.

  Bruce tossed one more log on the fire and bid Tobias a good night’s rest. He pat him on the shoulder and went his way toward the wagon, where he slept.

  Hailee was the last thing on the minds of both men that night.

  P

  “I ain’t doin’ it!” Duffy shouted loud enough to wake the Rosita cemetery. “I ain’t here to be no errand boy!”

  Bruce lifted his head off his rolled-up blanket so fast he gained an instant headache from the jerk, wondering not the first time, what in the world had gotten into Duffy lately. He’d been behaving like a different person for a while now. Why didn’t he leave the attitude behind at the ranch?

  When a man gets jerked awake by a grown man throwing a tantrum, it’s time to start asking questions.

  He rolled over, onto his side and pushed himself into a sitting position on the back on the wagon, stretching out the night’s kinks.

  “Sure wish the day wouldn’t start out like this,” Bruce muttered.

  Jumping down off the wagon, Bruce’s eyes darted toward the source of the commotion: Duffy riled up over something or another.

  Arms folded over his chest almost like a three year old and his mouth all shriveled up, the man’s demeanor made him look ten years older than his actual years.

  “Alright, Duffy. What’s got you upset this early in the morning?”

  Duffy wasted no time in telling his story.

  Come to find out, a couple of the men woke up and someone suggested putting on coffee Then someone else mentioned a need more wood; someone would have to go fetch a few branches. And someone had the audacity to ask Duffy to do the fetching!

  “I ain’t no errand boy,” he repeated.

  Stunned, Bruce shook his head and rubbed both fists into his eyes. This couldn’t be the same man he felt a friendship with not very long ago; what had gotten into him?

  “Let me get this straight. You wanta eat but you don’t wanta help. Duffy, we could use an extra pair of hands out here, and I’d sure hate to see you go on back to the
ranch-but we’re all out here to make one thing happen, and that is to bring us home a dead cat. Now, you know how I feel about it: ain’t any of us better than another one out here or back home at the ranch. Let’s you and me come on back to my wagon and get to the bottom of what it is that’s got your dander up.”

  Embarrassed and humiliated by this point, his mind filled with excuses he could lay on Bruce. Truth was, he was just plain sick and tired of never having anything for himself, and it was getting the best of him.

  Having no choice but to watch that danged Tobias edging his way into the very core of the Johnson family day in and day out almost had Duffy at his breaking point.

  The man tried to disguise his mood and ran a hand up to the brim of his leather hat.

  “Aw, can’t we just forget about this? There really ain’t nothin’ to it. Just woke up in a foul mood, that’s it-ain’t no more to it than that,” he lied.

  Bruce wanted to believe him. But his attitude had been increasing to heights that even he couldn’t ignore anymore.

  “Look, Duffy. You and me, we’ve been friends for a mighty long time now. I’ve tried to take care of you, like I’ve tried to take care of everyone else on my ranch. Maybe I’ve done more for you over the years because we’ve been friends. But that don’t mean you’re any better than the rest of the help.”

  His voice trailed off in a mud puddle of words and humiliating talk.

  Like everyone else? My ranch? The rest of…the help?

  Bruce could see the day had gotten off to a rotten start and he didn’t know how to fix things, make them better.

  Tobias wandered closer to them in case Bruce needed him to lend a hand, but Duffy seemed to resent the younger man’s presence and made no further comments when their eyes met; instead, he marched off, fists clenched.

  As if to emphasize an opinion of his company for the day, the grumpy ranch hand refused breakfast, drank no coffee, and nearly cut the circulation from his horse when he saddled, making certain everyone knew how disgusted he really was, by gosh!

  The other men, however, would not allow Duffy’s disposition to wound their spirits as they cut jokes and ate a hearty breakfast before climbing back on their horses for the important task at hand.