Page 51 of Silver Lining
When she stood in the doorway watching them drive away through a moist blur, she wondered if she really would choose differently if she could relive that moment of decision on the mountainside in front of Olaf's cabin.
*
Max reined up next to Dave Weaver, pushed back his hat, and wiped dust from his forehead. "Does it seem to you that the herd is only half what it was last year?"
He had agreed to return to the main ranch with the first herd and brand any beeves they'd missed in the spring. But until today it hadn't seemed necessary to split the cattle into smaller herds. Today they'd added another eighty beeves, and splitting into two herds would make each herd more manageable.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't really necessary. The boys were handling all the beeves with no particular difficulty.
Dave nodded. "I'm not sure this is the best year to split out the beeves. No one's going to end up with a decent-sized herd." Rocking back in the saddle, he frowned at the cattle grazing on dry yellow grass.
"We sold too many in the spring. Course, no one could have predicted this would be a drought year or that we'd lose so many."
The judge who'd adjudicated Jason McCord's will had insisted the cattle be counted and branded according to ownership, thus ensuring that no dispute would arise later among Jason McCord's heirs.
This had been done, but Dave Weaver and the McCords had continued to work the four land parcels as one ranch.
Early this spring they'd held a family meeting and agreed that operating four ranches as one was not an efficient long-term arrangement. Whose hired hands should hay the cattle during the winter? To whom did the spring calves belong? Who was responsible for what chores and expenses? Moreover, Dave and Max had both pledged cattle as collateral to build their places. The bank reasonably wished to know how many cattle each man owned. In the end, it was agreed to split the main herd as soon as each place was fenced. Dave was prepared to move his and Gilly's cattle onto their range. Max's ranch was ready enough that he'd agreed to bring his beeves to his place and Shorty and the boys would be responsible for feeding them over the winter.
The bank. Max lit a cigar and waved out the match.
This spring he'd sold fifty winter-thin beeves for about half the money he could have gotten for the same cattle if he'd sold them now. But he'd needed cash money then to put against the loan to build his house, barn and outbuildings, and begin the fencing.
Cost overruns hadn't concerned him much. When he'd ordered the best stove and oven on the market, when he'd decided on top-grade wallpaper and when he'd bought a piano for the parlor, he'd thought of the salary he'd earn at the bank and planned to put most of it against the house loan. The terms of his loan were generous, and he hadn't supposed Howard Houser would be too particular about the date he paid it off.
Now he gazed at the herd and imagined it divided into fourths. The result was sobering. Happily, his note at the bank wasn't due until the first of June next year. Therefore, he had some time to find a solution for paying off his loan. This was about the only happy thing he could think of at the moment.
The day after tomorrow he'd have to face his brother and the woman who was carrying his child.
CHAPTER 12
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Much as it pained Louise to conduct herself as a real wife, she felt Max deserved to return home to a clean house. Therefore, she pinned up her hair, tied on an apron, and eventually, grudgingly, conceded some satisfaction in scrubbing floors and polishing surfaces until they gleamed. Next in her preparations, she put up a wash, laundering the items she'd borrowed from Max's side of the dressing room along with the rest. She suspected it would be a long time before she'd again enjoy the comfort and convenience of trousers.
Once the laundry was flapping on the line, she took a couple of pie apples down to the corral to give Rebecca and the black gelding. "It'll be good to have the boys back," she said, offering the apples. She couldn't quite bring herself to state aloud that she'd missed Max and would be glad to see him again.
Tugging her shawl close against a cold wind and leaning against the corral rails, she squinted up at the house. In her time she'd ridden past hundreds of houses with lines of wash waving in the yard. Sometimes laughing children ran in and out between freshly laundered sheets, and that was nice to see.
There was nothing that spoke so powerfully of family and home as a line of wash, that snowy proof of a woman's labor on behalf of those she loved. Home was where a person could hang out the wash without fear that someone would steal her shirts and long johns.
Home was also where the squeak of a windmill was a comfort and not a lonely sound. And home was where you planted flowers in the expectation that you would be there to see them bloom year after year.
Louise had never had that kind of home, and she doubted she'd be here in the spring to plant flowers around the front porch. But she'd already realized part of a dream she hadn't known she'd dreamed. She was looking at a house with wash on the line, and, miraculously, it was hers. That was her petticoat pinned next to Max's nightshirt, and her everyday stockings flapping against his heavy boot socks. If a solitary figure were to ride past and wonder what sort of woman lived in the house with the wash in the yard—this time the woman would be her.
A shine of moisture filmed her eyes. Oh Lord. How could she have wanted this so much and not have known it?
Almost running, she returned to the warmth of the kitchen where she focused on peeling the apples Livvy had sent over. And while her pies baked, she leaned in the mudroom doorway, drinking coffee and watching the wash flutter on the line even after it was dry and ready to come inside.
*
Louise awoke well before the rooster crowed. As she had done all week, she rolled to Max's pillow to inhale the scent of him, but the laundered case now smelled of soap and fresh air. Rising in the dark, she dressed quickly in old clothing, heavy boots, and a thick shawl to protect her from the frosty air as she went about her morning chores. When she returned with a basket of eggs and a bucket of milk, the water she'd left on top of the stove was hot enough to fill the wash tub and have a bath.
Once she was clean and glowing from a good scrub, she sat near the opened oven door, drying her hair and wondering if she should wear the black dress she'd worn to dinner in Denver . Or if it would be more appropriate to wear one of the too-short skirts, a shirtwaist, and a jacket.
When she realized what she was thinking, she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and threw up her hands.
No one she had ever known—including herself—would believe that Louise Downe would waste two minutes trying to decide which lady ensemble might make her appear the most attractive.
