Chapter 12

When Beth rode into the high meadows and approached the shack, she felt completely normal. Everything was right with the world. She would tell her parents about Buford, and then offer to go back to the ranch to mind things there.

Her mother came out of the shack, her hands white with flour. She looked at her daughter, sitting on the horse.

“What happened to you?” asked Amanda.

“What do you mean?” asked Beth. “The Sheriff didn’t come. It’s a long story, but Buford is dead.”

“You look different,” said Amanda. She realized that Beth somehow didn’t look girlish any more. She looked closely at her daughter. Everything was the same, but something was different. She realized suddenly that Enid looked the same way. She was still Enid, but older somehow, less juvenile.

Beth felt herself begin to blush. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, getting off her horse and trying to make the blush stop.

Amanda tilted her head sideways, as if that would let her see what was different. She couldn’t tell.

“Come inside and tell me the news,” she said.

“Yes, Mamma,” said Beth.

Life was back to normal for both families, at least as far as the adults could tell. Once the Sheriff had heard Sarah’s story, he patted Frank on the back and handed him his gun belt. There would be paperwork to file. The Government was interested in problems between sheep ranchers and cattlemen. There had been problems elsewhere, but this situation was clear-cut, with witnesses. The Sheriff himself had seen Buford draw first, which is why his own gun was in his hand when Frank froze as Buford was about to try and shoot him. The Sheriff planned on filing a report that simply said he had shot the man while he was trying to gun down an area youth. If anybody ever came asking questions about Chaps, which was doubtful, the Sheriff would answer them then.

Beth had convinced her parents to let her mind the ranch for two weeks, after which she would be replaced by Enid. Brad and Amanda wanted Charley and Xian Bai to stay in the high meadows to deal with predators. There was a bear that had been sniffing around the edges of the flock. She had two cubs with her and though Brad did not want to kill her, there needed to be someone out with the flock to help the dogs discourage her.

While Beth was at the ranch she was able to meet Peter almost every day. There were times when he could not make it. What they did when he was able to be there made up for it in Beth’s mind. She had learned that she could stroke herself when he wasn’t there. That was almost as much fun, in the same way that bread is almost as much fun to eat as cake.

When he was late one day he found her there, her skirt up around her waist while her fingers busy between her legs. She had heard him coming and, after she rose up and saw it was him, she laid back down so that he’d see her when he rode up. He sat and watched, alternating between looking between her legs and her eyes, which were pinned on him. He had been wild that time, and she had loved his urgency. Neither of them gave any real thought to what the rivers of sperm he injected into her might be doing deep inside her body.

Before Beth went back to the ranch, she tried to get Enid to admit she had made love with Frank, but Enid knew that if her parents found out what they’d done they would probably either make him marry her immediately, or forbid her from ever seeing him again. The marrying him immediately part didn’t bother her, but there was no guarantee they’d think that way. Being forbidden to see him would have killed her; she was sure, so she kept her mouth shut. When Beth claimed to have lain with Peter, Enid thought it was just a trick to get her to confess. She glared at her older sister, turned and stalked off.

That changed when Enid rode back to the ranch to relieve Beth.

Beth met her, ready to go.

“You know that old Cottonwood tree over that-a-way?” she pointed. “The one by that little seep of water?”

“Yes,” said Enid.

“Frank will be there every evening, two hours before sunset. Take a blanket with you when you go.”

“What are you talking about?” Enid asked sullenly.

“I’ve been meeting Peter there most days,” said Beth. She thought of herself like a woman now... felt like a woman.

When she went back up the mountain she was going to tell her parents she wanted to marry Peter. She was still sure that Enid had lain with Frank. Peter told her Frank was surly, going off by himself a lot, asking Peter to have Beth pass messages to Enid. The two of them had decided that, when Enid replaced Beth, Frank would be told about their meeting place.

“You’re lying,” said Enid, still sullen.

“You can go or not,” said Beth. “I don’t care. If you don’t want to go, then go on back up to the high meadows. I’ll be most happy to stay here and keep meeting my love.”

That, more than anything else was what convinced Enid to go to the tree. Beth had traditionally hated staying at the ranch. When the girls were younger, one of the men would stay with them or their mother or father would. Beth got bored easily though, and had always wanted to stay up at the summer camp, where there were people to chatter at.

When, a day later, she went to the tree, and no one was there Enid felt foolish. Then she saw the scrap of paper nailed to the tree. It was from Frank, or at least bore his name.

It said he had been there the day before, and would return.

She waited and then cried when she saw him coming across the plain. He thought she had been hurt, seeing her standing there bawling, but soon found he was wrong. She tore at his clothes and cried continuously until they were joined. Then her tears dried and she laughed instead, urging him on.

They reached the pinnacle of joy three times and he had to push her away so he could mount his horse, instead of her, and get back home before suspicions were raised.

Jonas’ attitude toward his daughter had changed dramatically.

Knowing that she had almost been raped had made him solicitous.

When, on a Sunday afternoon she announced that she was going to see Bobby, her father objected.

“That’s foolishness,” he announced.

“Well I’m going,” she responded firmly.

“I told you I won’t allow it,” he said, his voice rising.

“Pappa, I love you, and I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m going,” she said, her voice surprisingly level.

Perhaps it was her lack of anger that penetrated his brain, and convinced him she was as serious about this as anything she had ever been. He felt the sinking sensation in his gut that all fathers feel when their little girl begins to act truly independently of his ... advice. He suddenly didn’t want to argue with her in front of the family, sensing somehow that he might lose. He took another tack.

“You don’t even know where he is for sure,” he complained.

“He’s up in the high meadows,” said Peter, who had been watching the exchange almost eagerly. He spoke without thinking.

Molly looked over at him, her eyebrow raised. “And how would you know that?” she asked.

Peter paled. “Aren’t they all up there?” he tried. “I’m sure Beth ... I mean that girl ... you know his sister? I’m sure when I went over there to tell her the Sheriff wasn’t coming that she said they were all going up there for the summer.”

Molly looked at him steadily. He had been disappearing in the evenings. He said he was out making sure coyotes and wolves weren’t hanging around, but he was always in a good mood when he returned. He never brought a pelt with him to explain that good mood.

Sarah took her mind off of that. “I’m going to the house first, and if he’s not there, then I’ll go up to the high meadows,” she said firmly.

Jonas groaned. “That will be an overnight ride, baby.”

“I’m not a baby, Pappa,” she said with dignity. “What happened before won’t happen again. Both of those men are dead now and the Indians know who I am. Bobby has much honor with them and they won’t bother me. I’m going.”

In the end Jonas simply saddled up his horse and accompanied her. Both Frank and Peter offered to go, which made Molly look at them in wonder, her brow creasing. Neither boy had worked up the courage to tell their father that they, too, were interested in one of the Rocklins.

Sarah was not pleased. No teenaged girl wants her father to be along when she goes to see the man she loves. But she swallowed her impulse to argue. She wanted to see Bobby badly enough that she’d take what she could get. She expected to be grumpy, and for her father to keep harping against her wishes.

Oddly enough, their long ride gave them an opportunity to talk that otherwise probably would not have happened.

That time, and that talk, convinced Jonas that Sarah’s feelings were not just a crush, or transitory. Of course he didn’t know that Bobby’s baby grew happily in her womb. She didn’t either at that particular time, but when she found out later she was thrilled, rather than forlorn. The fact is that Jonas, rough as he was, recognized that Sarah’s feelings for this boy he’d never met were not only real, but deeply founded as well. He had the same conflicting feelings about that that any father feels when he realizes his daughter is in love with ... some man. He was also smart enough to know to keep his misgivings to himself, because he was smart enough to know that it wouldn’t do one bit of good to voice them.

They talked about a lot of things ... things other than Bobby and what had happened to her. The hours brought them closer together in ways that would otherwise have been unlikely, if not impossible. Jonas found that he was enjoying himself immensely. He didn’t have to worry about the ranch.

The boys and Buckshot, to say nothing of Molly had things well in hand. They wouldn’t drive a herd to the rail head until fall, so all that needed doing was keeping the herd more or less bunched so that the roundup later would go more quickly and easily.

Eventually the talk came back to Sarah and Bobby and he asked her what her plans were.

“I don’t care,” she said simply. “I just want to be with him. I’d like to run a few head of steers, but there’s cash money in wool too. When I was in the Indian village I saw sheep skins that the Rocklins had traded for the most beautiful blankets. We could ship those blankets back East and make a lot of money Pappa. I’m sure they don’t have anything like that back that far.”

Jonas thought for a while as they rode companionably in silence.

“If I gave you some land, would you build on it?” he asked.

“I’d have to talk to Bobby, but I’m sure he’d love to have his own place. I want to have lots and lots of babies.”

Jonas felt a twist in his gut and a hint of panic at the idea of a man making his baby girl pregnant. He looked over at her and was stunned when he realized she was, for all intents and purposes, a woman. Where had his little giggling toddler gone? Where was the girl he’d bounced on his knee and who rode Buckshot like a horse around the kitchen?

“When might you want to get married?” he asked carefully.

“I’d get married right this minute if I had my way,” she said. He heard something in her voice that he’d heard in Molly’s so long ago, when she pleaded with him not to wait until he had a stake. He’d wanted a place, with cattle on it before he brought her home. Instead she had used her wiles on him and they’d come west with nothing. He’d made his ranch out of rounding up strays. In some cases he collected a fee for returning them to their owners, signing contracts before-hand and then going out to find them. But strays produced calves that weren’t branded, and that’s where the real money was. That’s how he had built his herd. By the time others caught on to the idea, he had his herd, and his spread and his family well established.

“You know you can homestead free range,” he said. He was amazed that he’d said it. Most stockmen knew a man could claim land he sat on long enough, but they didn’t want others to know about that.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said.

Jonas wasn’t even upset when that whippersnapper girl who dressed like a wild Indian met them with rifle in hand when they rode in. Her attitude toward him was easy, and she lit up at learning who Sarah was.

“I’ve heard so much about you!” she said excitedly. “You’ll be a sight for sore eyes for my brother,” she said, inviting them to come in. “He can’t talk about anything without bringing it around to you.”

“Is he here?” asked Sarah excitedly.

“Just rode in at noon,” said Enid. “He’s taking a bath.”

Sarah jumped down and dashed into the house while Jonas shouted after that she couldn’t go in there while he was doing that. Enid laughed and, when he frowned at her, held up her hands.

“They’ve got it bad for each other,” she said smiling. “I doubt anybody could stop them from seeing each other.” She opened the door for Jonas and he didn’t know whether to go find his daughter and drag her away from the boy or not.