“Can I saddle your horse?” Zac asked.
“You can’t—” Jeff began.
“Of course,” George said. “Just don’t saddle that bad-tempered paint. After yesterday, he’s probably just waiting to take a bite out of my leg.”
“Beat you to the corral,” Zac said and lit out the door running. Tyler followed close on his heels.
“You’d better keep an eye on them, Jeff.”
“Why? They won’t listen to a thing I say.”
“You watch real well. It’s just when you talk that you cause trouble,” George said.
“I know he doesn’t mean to,” Rose said after Jeff had gone, “but it’s almost as though he looks for the one thing that will hurt them the most.”
George’s frown caused her to bite her tongue. She would have to remember not to be so outspoken. It was bad enough she was always ordering them about, telling them what to do. Nobody liked to have his brother criticized by a near stranger, even if it was justified.
“You’re not comfortable around him, are you?”
“No, but not because of his arm. You like your brothers, even when you disapprove of them or are angry at them. Jeff doesn’t.”
She had done it again. Would she ever learn not to blurt out everything she thought?
“You’re wrong there. Jeff’s the one with the sense of family, not me. In fact, I wouldn’t have come home at all if it hadn’t been for him.
“What would you have done?”
“Joined the army to fight Indians.”
His words shocked Rose so much she could hardly respond.
“But that would mean joining the union Army.” She could hardly believe he would have done that after four years in the Confederate Army.
“The United States Army,” George corrected. “I’ve always wanted an army career. I mean to rejoin as soon as I can leave here.”
“Won’t it be difficult to support a wife, especially raise a family, under those conditions?”
“I don’t mean to get married or have a family.”
He might as well have knocked the breath out of her with his fist. His every thought was bound up with his family. It seemed only natural he would want one of his own.
“It’s just that I thought…with so many brothers…you have taken on so many responsibilities…”
“That’s exactly the reason I don’t want a family,” George said. “I know the kind of burden we were to Ma and Pa. And what for? Seven sons who can’t get along with each other? It’s not something that appeals to me.”
“But why the army?” Rose asked, unable to absorb either his words or the shock of their meaning.
“It’s a job I’m good at. And it allows me the freedom to do what I want.”
“But won’t you miss the love and companionship a family gives you?”
“You haven’t been in the army, or you’d know that combat forges extraordinary friendships between men. You trust your life to a comrade because you know he would give his life for you. Those feelings are just as strong as any between a man and woman, yet they carry no suffocating ties. Wives and children hold onto you forever, drain you of your strength. They feed upon you like beasts upon prey. Other men don’t.”
Zac came running up with George’s horse.
“Did I do it right?” he asked, his eyes shining with excitement.
“Looks shipshape to me,” George said, ignoring a loose cinch and the near-certainty there was a crease in the saddlecloth.
“Hen bridled him, but I did the rest.”
“It’s obvious I’m going to have to give you your own horse.”
“Really?” Zac was so excited he released his hold on the bridle and threw himself into George’s arms. Hen took the opportunity to tighten the cinch. Rose imagined George would stop just past the first thicket and readjust the saddlecloth.
“As soon as we get a chance, we’ll go after some mustangs. Monty said he saw a big herd just across the river.”
“Can I go with you? I want to pick out my own horse.”
“Of course you ca—” Jeff began.
“We’ll see about that,” George interrupted. “But someone has to stay here to protect Rose in case any bandits show up while we’re gone.”
“I want a black one,” Zac said, apparently unmoved by any possible danger to Rose. “Then no one can see me when I sneak up on them at night.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” George said.
“When you say that, you don’t mean to take me,” Zac complained.
“I certainly won’t take you if you throw a tantrum,” George said, his tone severe. “Now I have to go. You be sure to do everything Rose asks. We’ll talk about your horse tonight.”