The Cowboy's Orphan Bride

Chapter Five

“Ain’t those about the best green beans you ever ate?” JoJo asked, dumping another spoonful onto Garth’s plate. “That little gal told me how to make them. Said to boil them until tender and then give them a toss in the frying pan with bacon grease. Cain’t believe I never thought of that before.”

Garth didn’t comment. He’d eaten the beans because whether he was hungry or not, he needed to eat, but couldn’t say he’d actually tasted a bite. The rest of his men had. The beans and the eggs had the entire outfit grinning and asking for third helpings.

His attention wasn’t on the men any more than it was on the food. It was on the horizon to the northwest, watching for Brad’s return. He still couldn’t see out of one eye, but the other one was doing better. His face wasn’t. JoJo had scraped off a generous amount of skin trying to get out the stinger. Garth had put a stop to the scraping, but not soon enough. Rather than burning from the hornet’s sting, the entire side of his face stung as if he’d shaved with a dull razor and no soap.

The pain though wasn’t what he was thinking about. It was her. That woman. She’d been snippy and uppity, and he just couldn’t get her out of his head. He hadn’t thought this long and hard about someone in a long time.

Actually, he’d only ever thought this much about one person.

Bridgette.

“You ain’t heard a word I said, have ya?”

Garth focused his good eye on JoJo.

“I didn’t think so,” JoJo said.

Handing his plate to the cook, Garth stood. “When you say something worth hearing, I’ll listen. Until then, I’ll just let it go in one ear and out the other.”

“You got that right,” JoJo said. “There ain’t nothin’ betwixt those ears in your noggin ’cept air. You oughta have a constant earache from the wind blowing through your head.”

Normally he gave JoJo back as much as the man gave out, but he wasn’t in the mood, and turned about.

“Where you goin’?” JoJo asked. “I was only telling you we got enough eggs for breakfast, too.”

“Good,” Garth replied. “I’ll go relieve the last two cowboys.”

JoJo mumbled something about being ornery as a snake before saying, “You cain’t even see yet, and no one’s expecting you to take over for them.”

Garth walked toward his tack. He was ornery some days. It was his nature. He doubted he’d been born that way, but for as long as he could remember, he’d been mad, and that alone was enough to leave a person ornery.

That didn’t mean he never laughed or had fun. Some of his earliest memories were of the big ships that docked in New York. The sailors were often willing to pay a penny for directions or to have a message delivered, and he and other boys spent a lot of time in that area, earning enough to buy a warm meal now and again. They’d had a lot of fun at the docks, especially teasing the laundrymen who washed the sailors’ clothes. Those men could run, and often chased him and the other boys with hot irons, threatening to turn them in to the officials.

They had never caught him, or turned him in—that had all been his own doing. His lesson in not thinking things through.

Garth swung the saddle over one shoulder and grabbed the bridle and blanket with his other hand. Spinning about, he all but ran over Bat. He hated only having one good eye.

“You want me to fetch you a horse, Boss?” the boy asked.

“I can do it,” Garth answered.

“No, he can’t,” JoJo said. “Go get him a mount, Bat.”

The horses were kept a distance away, between the cattle and the camp. His sight was good enough to walk that far, and good enough to keep an eye on the cows while the others came in to eat. He didn’t tell JoJo that. It would be a waste of breath, as had telling the truth all those years ago.

His capture, as he’d labeled it, had come about when he’d witnessed a man bludgeon one of those little laundrymen. He’d gone to the authorities and the man was captured, but had claimed the opposite. That Garth had done the bludgeoning. Because he’d been the one with blood on his clothes from dragging the laundryman into the back door of the laundry shop, he was the one arrested. The authorities hadn’t put him in jail, instead he’d been sent off to the Children’s Home at age eleven. The horror stories he’d heard had been true, at least in part. It was a prison for children if there ever had been one.

His second lesson in not thinking things through came about when he ran away from the orphanage. He hadn’t been an orphan, not then. His mother had worked in a crib close to the docks, but when he got there, she was gone. Turned out, she’d run off with a sailor as soon as she’d heard he’d been taken to the orphanage. As far as he knew, his mother could still be alive, living on some other continent. Gertrude, the woman his mother had shared a crib with had told him to go back to the orphanage, that it was where he belonged, and didn’t waste any time in alerting the authorities. It was only a matter of days before he was hauled back to the Children’s Home.

He was kept under lock and key, as were most of the others. When given the opportunity to go West on one of the trains, he’d jumped at the chance. And told Bridgette she should, too.

Unlike him, she’d lived most of her life at the orphanage, and believed her parents were coming back for her, some day. He knew that wouldn’t happen, and had told her so. She didn’t believe him and attempted to run away. Thought she could climb the big oak tree that had branches hanging over the back fence. She’d fallen instead and broken her arm.

In an attempt to keep her from doing that again, he’d snuck into the office and looked up the information they had on her. He’d found a baptismal record from a church on Staten Island and a note from her mother saying her husband had died and that she was too ill to take care of Bridgette. Another note stated her mother had died a few days later.

Looking back, Garth figured Bridgette had always known her parents had died, but hadn’t wanted it to be true. Hadn’t wanted to be an orphan. He could relate, and grinned at the memory of sitting beside her beneath the same big oak she’d fallen out of. It had been a cold fall day and the two of them had been assigned to gathering the dead leaves. She’d been mad about him sneaking into the office. Told him he could have gotten caught and then they’d never be able to go West.

That’s when the waiting had started. For both of them. Over a year of wondering if there would be room on the next train or not. Bridgette had come up with all sorts of wild plans of how they could sneak onto one of the trains, and he’d had to stop each one of them, telling her she had to think things through before jumping into action or she’d break another arm. She’d been frustrated, but conceded—until she’d come up with another harebrained idea that would threaten to get them both in trouble.

He’d been almost fourteen and she had just turned nine by the time they’d finally boarded a westbound train.

“Here you go, Boss.”

Bat’s voice brought Garth’s mind back to the present and his feet to a stop.

“I know you like this one, Boss,” Bat said. “She’s a good horse, no?”

“Yes,” Garth answered. The big brown horse had three white socks and was one of the best cattle horses he’d ever ridden. “You know a good horse when you see one, Bat. And you are good with them.” The boy deserved the compliment. After helping JoJo all day including gathering an ongoing supply of firewood, the boy visited the remuda each evening, making sure the mounts had all been taken care of. The job hadn’t been assigned to Bat, he’d just taken it upon himself, and Garth had taken notice of that.

“I like horses,” Bat said. “Afore my ma died, I had a black-and-white horse all of my own.”

That was the most the boy had ever said about his past. At least the most Garth had heard. Then again, he’d never asked. He hadn’t this time, either. Bat must have just figured it was time. That’s how it was with orphans. When the time was right, they’d share their past. Usually in bits and pieces.

“It shows you like them,” Garth said. “I appreciate how well you take care of them.”

Bat handed over the rope. “I’ll put on his bridle while you saddle him.”

Garth nodded. Just as he suspected, Bat was done talking about himself. JoJo had never mentioned where he’d found Bat, or how, and Garth hadn’t asked. It hadn’t mattered. Today, with all his own ghosts roaming about in his head, he found himself thankful JoJo had taken Bat in.

“Unless you cain’t see well enough to put on the saddle,” Bat said. “I can do it if you need.”

Garth stepped forward and threw the blanket over the horse’s back. “Can’t see well enough.”

“You cain’t?” Bat asked.

“I can see well enough,” Garth answered, settling the saddle on the horse. “The word is can’t not cain’t. Cain’t isn’t a word.”

“It ain’t?”

Garth grinned and the tightening of the muscles said his face still hurt too bad to go into a lesson right now. The salve JoJo had put on it after scraping off his hide stunk as strongly as it burned. “Run back to camp now,” he said. “I’m sure JoJo has something for you to do. Thanks for gathering my mount.”

“You betcha, Boss,” Bat answered, already hightailing it toward camp.

Once he’d tightened the cinch, Garth couldn’t help but press a hand to the side of his face. The swelling didn’t feel like it had increased, but the hurting sure hadn’t eased. Ignoring it seemed his best, and only, choice, so he mounted and headed toward the herd.

Not in the mood for conversation, he merely gestured for both of the two cowboys riding watch to go to the camp. There were always to be no less than two men with the cattle, but that was his rule, so only he could break it. Another man would ride out before long. As soon as he’d had his fill of eggs and green beans.

As Garth slowly made his way around the circumference of the cattle, he found himself thinking about Bridgette again. Over the years, that had happened more than he’d wanted. Usually when things were slow or he’d find himself alone, often in his bedroll staring at the night sky. He’d wonder if the people who had adopted her were good to her and if she ever thought about him. When he first left Orson’s place he’d contemplated finding out what had happened to her, where she’d been dropped off, but concluded there wasn’t anything he could do if he did know. What Orson had shouted while whipping him had been true. Bridgette was better off without him. He never discovered how Orson knew about her. It could have been Fredrick Fry, considering Fry had said the same thing, but in truth it didn’t matter. As the years went on, he told himself to forget about her, forget about everything that connected him to his past. He had nothing to gain from it.

Malcolm Johansson had told him that a man couldn’t create a future while living in the past, and that’s what Garth wanted. A future. One that held no connection to his past.

It had been over nine years since he’d seen Bridgette. She’d be eighteen now. Could be married. Have children of her own. The idea of that, of her being married, made him crack another grin. She’d been so sad about admitting she was an orphan that day under the oak tree, he’d pretended to perform a ceremony, marrying the two of them so neither of them would be alone. Kids. Life seemed so simple to them.

Not one but two men arrived to take over watching the herd. Garth waved at them as he finished his slow trek around the cattle and then headed back toward camp. His head still hurt. Not just from his injury. It ached from thinking too much.

As he rode into camp, he noticed Bat leading Brad’s horse and scanned the area for the young man. At least his good eye was no longer watering, leaving his limited sight a bit clearer. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, Brad spooned beans and eggs into his mouth as fast as the others had.

“Want me to take your horse back to the others, Boss?” Bat asked.

“No, I’ll ride back out to the herd once more yet this evening.” Garth dismounted and dropped the reins of his horse. Every animal in his remuda was trained to stay where it was left and didn’t spook easy. He put as much effort into training his horses as he did his men.

On his way across the camp, Garth paused long enough to fetch a cup of coffee from JoJo before walking over to sit down next to Brad.

“How’d that go?” he asked, taking a sip of coffee.

“Fine.” Brad swallowed the food in his mouth. “She was real nice, and thankful.”

Although it didn’t matter, Garth couldn’t stop from asking, “What’s her name?”

“I dunno,” Brad said.

“You didn’t ask? She didn’t tell you?”

“Nope. I might’ve but as soon as we got the cow in the barn, the man came out of the house yelling that she was needed. That something was wrong. She took off for the house and I got my rope and skedaddled. That fella’s an ornery one.”

Garth pitched the contents of his coffee cup onto the ground. “You left her there? With the man yelling that something was wrong?”

“She told me to go.”

“Where’s the house?” Garth couldn’t say why that bothered him. He wasn’t one to put his nose in someone else’s business, but his gut was churning and he couldn’t ignore it.

“About five miles northwest,” Brad said. “You want me to go back? See if she’s all right?”

“No,” Garth answered as he stood. “I’ll go.”

“Want me to go with you?” Brad set his plate down.

“No. You’re on duty soon.”

“Just follow the creek,” Brad said. “When it veers east, go west about half a mile. It’s a sod house and a barn that’s about to fall down.”

“I’ll find it,” Garth answered.

JoJo’s frown couldn’t go unnoticed, nor could how the man fell in step beside him. “You think she’s in trouble for giving us the eggs and green beans?”

Garth shrugged as he gathered the reins of his horse.

“I didn’t see that fella earlier,” JoJo said, “only Brad did.”

“I’ll be back.” Garth swung up into the saddle.

“Maybe you oughta take someone with you, with your eyes hurting and all.”

“My eyes are fine.”

“One ain’t,” JoJo supplied.

Garth steered the horse around and headed northwest. He knew damn well one eye wasn’t fine. He couldn’t see it, or see with it. Didn’t need to. The pain told him all he needed to know. Next time he got hurt, he’d stay far away from JoJo. Doctoring was not JoJo’s strong suit, but cooking was, and although Garth hadn’t admitted it, those green beans and eggs had been a much needed change to their diet of late.

As he rode, he wondered about the woman who’d traded the eggs and beans for the cow. And he wondered about Bridgette. Normally, he planned rather than wondered. Bridgette hadn’t. She’d wondered about everything, especially rainbows. How they formed. Why they formed. Where they started and ended. Every time she saw one she was ready to take off in search of discovering the mythical pot of gold. He’d tried to tell her that riches aren’t found, they have to be made, just like the sun makes rainbows. She’d scoffed at that, told him he needed to have more imagination and belief.

He had belief all right. That life wasn’t full of rainbows.

In some ways, he hoped that she’d finally learned that; in other ways, he hoped she never would.

Just as Brad had instructed, Garth shifted direction when the creek veered, and sure enough, a sod shanty and run-down barn appeared a short distance later. A bit of injustice flared inside him. The place needed work. He could understand money being tight, even nonexistent, but ambition was free. A man not using that irritated him more than fidgeting.

He found a place where the barbed wire fence had been cut and followed the trail through the tall grass to the barn. His horse hadn’t stopped yet when a man exited the doorway of the ramshackle building. One of the double doors that would be needed to keep animals inside was missing and the other door, gray and rotting away, hung crooked on its one hinge.

“What you want?”

Using only one eye, Garth didn’t have time to completely size the man up before he spoke again.

“If it’s doctoring you need, head out,” the man said. “She’s busy.”

“I don’t need a doctor,” Garth said.

“Looks like you do to me.”

The man was of fair size, but it came from laziness rather than hard work, and the bottle he’d slid in his back pocket could be part of the cause. Garth dismounted. “I’m with the cattle drive.”

Taking a step back, the man folded his arms over his portly stomach. “I told her you’d be back to get your cow. No man, not one with a brain that is, trades a cow for eggs and beans. I sure enough told her that. And I told her I wouldn’t be taking the blame for her foolishness.” Waving a hand toward the barn doorway, he continued, “The cow and calf are in the barn. I can’t help you take them back. I’m busy.”

Even with just one eye, Garth saw plenty that had been ignored for a long time and wasn’t receiving any attention right now, either. “Doing what?”

The man rubbed his nose with the back of one hand. “Waiting. The wife’s pushing out a baby.”

Garth’s glance toward the house didn’t tell him anything other than it was in better shape than the barn. At least the door had both hinges and was tightly closed. “Your first?” he asked, turning his attention back to the man.

“Yes. If it lives that is.” Worry filled the man’s eyes as he glanced toward the house. “A couple ones before this didn’t.”

Compassion didn’t come easily, but in this instant, it seemed to. “Name’s Garth McCain,” he said, holding out a hand.

“Cecil Chaney.”

“I hope congratulations are soon in order, Mr. Chaney,” he said while shaking the man’s hand. Every child’s life was important, even this man’s. As Cecil’s eyes lightened up, Garth continued, “I’m not here to collect the cow or the calf. I wanted to say thank you for the trade. My cowboys were greatly pleased with the eggs and beans. We don’t get foodstuff along those lines too often while on the trail.”

Cecil’s face had completely brightened and his chest puffed. “I told her that.”

Satisfied there wasn’t trouble here, Garth reckoned he could head back to the herd, yet couldn’t stop from saying, “You seem to have told her a lot of things.”

“Have to. A girl that uppity needs some direction or she’ll go flying around like a moth, flapping her wings and getting nowhere.”

“Are you referring to your wife?”

“No, no, no. My wife, Emma Sue, she’s the one having the baby. I’m talking about Bridgette. That girl...”

Garth had started for his horse, but stopped as his stomach shot past his heart to land some place near his throat, where it dang near strangled him. After telling himself Chaney couldn’t be talking about his Bridgette several times, that his ears must be as swollen as his eye, he managed to catch enough breath to ask, “Bridgette who?”

“Don’t rightly know her last name. Rodgers I guess. She’s the doc’s adopted daughter. He farms her out to folks needing doctoring. Costs plenty for what ya get, but—”

“And she’s the one who traded for the cow and calf?” Garth asked, staring at the house. That couldn’t have been Bridgette; she’d have said something. Especially when he told her his name. Suddenly, the side of his face, where she’d slapped him, stung again, and irritation flared. Why the hell had she slapped him?

“Where you going?”

Garth had started for the house, and didn’t slow at the man’s question.

“You can’t go in there! My wife’s having a baby.”

That shout stopped him. At least it stopped his feet. With his insides gushing about like flood waters, Garth spun enough to see Cecil with his good eye. “Go get her.”

“My wife?”

“No,” he growled. “Bridgette.”

Cecil shook his head. “I can’t. She told me not to open that door.” Wiping his lips with one hand, he added, “I thought the baby would come before she got back. I don’t know nothing about birthing babies and I don’t want to learn.”

Garth spewed a mouthful of curse words as he swung back around to glare at the house. He didn’t want to learn about birthing babies either, but he did want to see Bridgette. Wanted to know why she’d smacked him and why she hadn’t told him who she was.

“She swindle you out of that calf and cow?” Cecil asked. “She’s like that. Has you doing things you don’t know you’re doing ’til it’s done. She’s had me doing more work around here since—”

With his head hurting and his guts twisting, Garth spun back to Cecil. “Give me that bottle.”

Clamping his mouth shut midsentence, Cecil glanced around before asking, “What bottle?”

“The one in your back pocket.” Garth took a step forward. “Now.”

Cecil shuffled his feet while dipping his head. “Oh, that one.” He pulled a bottle out. “I was just calming my nerves. You know how it is. Had to get me a couple extra bottles lately, with Bridgette living here and all. That woman could drive a man batty.”

Garth took the bottle and a long swig. It burned his throat, proving the whiskey—if that’s what it was supposed to be—was far from good, but that didn’t stop him from taking a second swallow. There was no reason, not a single one, for Bridgette not to have told him who she was.

“I told her there ain’t nothing wrong with being an orphan, ain’t no one to blame, but she didn’t take to my...”

Cecil kept talking. Garth wasn’t listening. There had been times in his life when he’d said those exact words. Events happened. Children were left without parents. Some, like him, were simply not wanted; others, like Bridgette knew of their beginning but no more; and others still, knew the exact moment they’d become an orphan. He’d spent a good amount of time being angry that he’d been an unwanted one and had spent a fair amount of time searching for a way to get back at life for that. At getting even. Until he’d decided to forget his past.

The injustice of life, the unfairness, the inequality still got to him at times. Being older helped. Knowing life was life, that you got out of it what you put into it. But this, Bridgette treating him like a stranger, hit him almost as hard as learning his mother had run off all those years ago.

Bridgette had been in the hallway when he’d arrived at the Children’s Home, on her hands and knees scrubbing the floors, and so skinny and scrawny the bucket of water had been bigger than her. He’d been mad, upset about being taken to the orphanage, and had been trying to get out of the constable’s hold. When the man had raised a hand to whack him, Bridgette had thrown her scrub brush toward them. It had missed the constable, and bounced off the wall. She’d run to retrieve it and prepared to throw the brush again.

He’d known plenty of girls on the streets, but he’d never seen or heard of a girl who’d laid into a constable the way Bridgette had. Even while being carried down the hall by one of the nursemaids, she’d continued to rant about the wrongness of hitting a child.

Later, when he’d seen her again, he’d pointed out that she was a child. She’d said exactly, who was better to know the wrongness of hitting a child than a child.

He hadn’t been able to argue that point, but they hadn’t formed a friendship until after he’d been brought to the Children’s Home the second time, when she’d snuck food to him when he’d been forced to complete chores during mealtimes as punishment for running away. After that, they’d spent plenty of time in each other’s company.