Miss Murray on the Cattle Trail(12)

But the real surprise was realizing that he actually liked working alongside Dusty.

Roberto’s instructions were clear, and little by little the mixture in the vessel hanging on the iron tripod over the fire began to bubble away and smell like stew.

“And now,” Roberto called, “make biscuits.”

“Biscuits!” Dusty leaned close to Zach. “Do you know how to make biscuits?” she asked under her breath.

“Haven’t a clue,” he murmured. “They’re round. I know that much.”

“I’ve seen Roberto cut them out with an empty tin can.”

“Starter in big jar in wagon,” they heard Roberto say.

Dusty blinked. “Starter? What on earth is starter?”

“Make biscuits rise,” Roberto called. “Flour in barrel. Bacon grease, too. Starter in big crock.”

Zach dumped flour into a big bowl until it was half full, then scooped out a glop of the starter. Dusty dribbled in some bacon grease and smashed it all together with a fork. When it looked about right she dumped it out onto the fold-down tabletop.

José frowned and shook his head, and when Zach stared down at the sticky mess, he realized why. “I think we should have tossed some flour onto the table first.”

“Oh.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, scraped the dough back into the mixing bowl and waited while he dusted the table surface with a handful of flour. Once more she upended the bowl.

“Maybe we should pat it down flat?” he suggested.

“No. I’ve seen Roberto knead it some and then flatten it out.” She pushed the heel of her hand down onto the dough. “More flour,” she instructed.

He was beginning to sweat. Stew was just water and stuff boiled up in a pot, but biscuits were one of God’s great mysteries. She nudged him, and he sprinkled another fistful of flour over the mess on the table. Accidentally, he got it all over her, as well. She sent him an exasperated look and began punching the doughy mixture to press it out flat.

“Zach, find that empty tin can so I can cut these out,” she ordered.

“Yes, General!” he shot back. That earned him a thin-lipped smile. He located the tin can in one of Roberto’s secret cubbyholes, and when Dusty pointed at the flattened dough, she stepped back and he began cutting out rounds.

“What do we bake them in?” she called to Roberto.

“Dutch oven,” the cook replied. “Rake coals out of fire and set on top.”

Zach laid two dozen perfect rounds in the iron pot, nestled it on a bed of coals, and heaped more coals on top of the lid. “How do we know when they’re baked, Roberto?”

“When they are brown, señor,” the cook answered. Zach thought the old man must be feeling better because he was chuckling.

Every five minutes he and Dusty took turns scraping the hot coals off the lid to peer at the biscuits, then heaping them back on top. Finally Zach thought the biscuits looked done. At least they looked kinda tan. He sent Dusty a questioning look.

She nodded and then held up crossed fingers on both hands. “I want to ring that triangle to announce supper,” she said. She grabbed a big spoon and rattled it around and around inside the iron triangle until Zach thought his ears would fall off. She sent him a triumphant grin, and his heart gave an odd kick. She looked flushed and happy, like a pretty girl at her first square dance.

Well, she was a pretty girl, he admitted. The fact that her nose had a smudge of flour on it didn’t matter.

* * *

Long past midnight Zach rolled over and stared up at the stars winking overhead, trying to brush an annoying thought out of his head. It didn’t matter that he and Dusty had forgotten to add salt to the stew or that the biscuits had been hard as horseshoes or that the brown cloth sack of Arbuckle’s coffee was wet where he’d spilled a kettle of water on it.

For some reason, that didn’t matter at all.

* * *

At the end of another long day, Alex nibbled the end of her pencil and studied the grizzled older man seated next to her. “Your name is Cherry, is that right?”

“In a way, yes, ma’am. Short for Cherokee.”

“Are you an Indian? A Cherokee?”

“In a way,” the graying wrangler said again. “Real name’s Rising Hawk. My momma’s Cherokee. My daddy was white.”

The only time she saw the wrangler upset was when one of his animals was mistreated. She loved to watch Cherry catch mounts for the men in the morning; all he had to do was hold out a hand and the horse he wanted would trot right over. If Cherry was half Indian, the other half was horse.

Each morning before breakfast she snuggled under the blanket and listened to the bird songs; there must be hundreds of them, even though trees were becoming few and far between. Cherry, of course, was up long before the birds.

“All right, Cherry...um, Rising Hawk, tell me about yourself.”

“Gosh, Miss Alex, that’s gonna be kinda hard. Never talked much ’bout myself before.”

Alex reached to pat his gnarled hand. “Take your time, Cherry. We have all night.”

“Don’t know I’ve got that much to say, miss.” He scratched his graying whiskers. “My young years was mighty ordinary for a Cherokee. And an Indian. But things got interesting later.”

He stopped and gazed off toward the hills. Alex waited.

“Guess you could say folks in towns, they don’t much like Indians. Storekeepers don’t like ’em. Schoolteachers don’t like ’em. We ain’t even welcome in saloons.”

Alex bit her lip but said nothing.

“Well, anyway, I guess I growed up not knowin’ where someone like me belonged. Started workin’ as a cowboy when I was ’bout thirteen, I guess. Never knowed ’xactly how old I am, see. Anyway, I could ride real good, so they showed me the ropes and then I found I was real good at breakin’ horses and takin’ care of ’em. I like horses, see. They don’t beat up on ya unless you don’t treat ’em right. A horse won’t ever lie to you or say a mean thing, that’s why I like ’em.”

“Is that how you became a horse wrangler, Cherry?”

“Guess it is, miss. Knowin’ about horses comes natural to most Indians. Kinda grew up in tune with ’em. Cows, too. Even some humans.” He gave a dry chuckle. “But not too many.”

“Oh?” She waited a heartbeat and he took the bait.

“Well, there’s them like Zach Strickland. And then there’s others.”

Alex laughed out loud and saw Zach look up from across the campfire. So the men respected their boss, did they? She could understand that, she guessed. Sort of. In her view, Zach Strickland was short-spoken to a fault. Rude. Unfeeling, even. He rode his cowhands hard, but the only one she’d heard complain out loud was Cassidy.

And Cassidy...well, she preferred not to think about Cassidy.

“Cherry, tell me some more about your life. About being a wrangler.”

The old man blew out a long breath. “Well, see, Mr. Kingman, yer uncle, he hired me on as a horse wrangler, and he took a real chance doin’ it cuz none of the cowhands liked Indians much. But Mr. Kingman, he was always real fair. Missus Kingman, too. Real nice lady.”

“Did you ever have a family of your own?”

Cherry jerked as if she’d punched him. “Started to once, yes ma’am, I did. Her name was Honey, and she worked for Missus Kingman for a while doin’ laundry and suchlike. Then she—” He broke off and cleared his throat.

“Then she...what, Cherry?”

“Then...” His mouth worked. “Then I guess she decided she’d rather be white and not Indian, and she run off with one of them travelin’ gents sellin’ snake oil and fancy aprons.”

“Oh, Cherry, that is sad.”

“Aw, I dunno,” he said, his voice hoarse. “She never liked horses anyway.”

Alex didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Till you came, Miss Alex, I never talked much ’bout myself. Didn’t think anybody much cared.”

Tears stung into her eyes and she swallowed hard.

He patted her hand. “Thanks fer listenin’, Miss Alex. Thanks a lot.”

Cherry talked on, and Alex wrote until the campfire died down and most of the hands had crawled into their bedrolls. When the campfire burned down to coals and Cherry went off to check on his horses, she rolled herself into her blankets and crawled under the wagon next to Roberto. Zach was sleeping somewhere nearby, so she felt safe.

But she found she couldn’t sleep. Instead, she listened to the coyotes yip and call back and forth. Their forlorn cries sent chills up her spine.

* * *

Immediately after Roberto served a breakfast of Dutch oven biscuits and leftover stew, he packed the chuck wagon up, drove down the gravelly river bank and floated it across the expanse of swirling, muddy water. Cherry and the remuda followed. After that, it took hours for the cowhands to prod the bawling cattle into the turbulent water and swim them across until they staggered up the brush-swathed bank on the opposite side and lumbered on following the bell steer.

It took from dawn until almost suppertime to push the entire herd across the rain-swollen river. Zach rode back and forth, shouting orders and galloping after stragglers, but all the time he kept half an eye on Dusty, trotting at the back of the herd on her favorite sorrel. Its left hind leg showed no ill effects after Cherry’s ministrations, but wisely she kept her pace moderate and her nose and mouth covered by her blue bandanna.