Chapter 11 #2
Mrs. Sterling’s wiry salt-and-pepper eyebrows lifted toward her widow’s peak.
“No corset? Well, then, that’s cause to think about this differently.
” She poured another dollop of sweet cream into Jane’s tea.
“You need to start eating more of what you’re feeding those men.
Lord, Jane, but you can slip through cracks where a shadow couldn’t go.
Morgan looks fit, and I’ve seen the Davis boys and Max Salter around and about.
I can’t say they’re missing any meals. Are you? ”
“No. I’m fine. Really, I am.”
Mrs. Sterling continued to regard her suspiciously. “I’ve known some women who lose weight at first…you’d tell me if you were going to have a baby, wouldn’t you?”
The question startled Jane into silence. She simply stared at Mrs. Sterling.
“Clearly, I’ve overstepped. I shouldn’t carry on as if I’ve known you all my life. It’s a fault of mine.” Mrs. Sterling picked up her teacup and raised it to her lips. Before she drank, she said, “It’s on account of Morgan that I take liberties with you.”
Jane found her voice. “What accounts for it with everyone else?”
Mrs. Sterling managed to swallow her tea but not without effort.
Her small, choking sounds prompted Jane to pat her lightly on the back.
She held up a hand and nodded to indicate that she was all right.
After she set her cup back in the saucer, she dropped her spectacles to the tip of her nose and dabbed at her eyes with one corner of her apron.
“Goodness, but that was unexpected, and dare I say, welcome?”
“Welcome?”
“I wouldn’t want you to make a habit of taking me to task, but I confess to worrying about how well you’d do out at Morning Star with Morgan and the boys. Now I’m thinking you don’t let them ride roughshod over you.”
“Some days are more challenging than others.”
“I’m sure. What’s this trouble you were having a while back?”
“Trouble? What did you hear?”
“Rustlers.”
Jane felt a measure of relief that Mrs. Sterling was not asking about something more personal. “Yes, they showed up after I arrived at Morning Star, but when the snow began to fly, they disappeared. Morgan does not have enough men to be everywhere at once.”
“I don’t know a rancher who does, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon what with the price of beef falling like it’s been pushed over a cliff.”
“I am learning to ride. Morgan gave me a beautiful mustang. I am hopeful that in time I will be able to help.”
“Ride out, you mean?”
“If that’s helping, yes.”
Ida Mae Sterling bent her head and regarded Jane over the rim of her spectacles. “Have you mentioned this to Morgan?”
“No.”
“Well, I hope you’ll let me know how that turns out when you do.”
“Morgan is teaching me to shoot.”
“That so? I expect he has his reasons. Benton wouldn’t let me near a gun. Never did set well with me, but I really had no cause to learn to use one here in town.”
“I’m glad you mentioned your husband. Morgan’s men told that he admired him but precious little beyond that. How did they know each other?”
“Early on, my husband traveled some in the course of his work. I think it was on one of his visits to Lander—that’s up in Fremont County—that he and Morgan crossed paths. You would have to ask Morgan for the particulars. I don’t recollect what they were. I’m not sure I ever knew them.”
“Was Morgan a young man when they met?”
“Younger than he is now.”
“Of course,” she said. “Tell me, what did your husband say about Morgan? I ask because it seems to me that you hold Morgan in affection. There’s no one else to tell me what he was like as a younger man.”
“I didn’t know him myself, you understand. Just what Benton told me about him.”
“It must have made an impression.”
“True. Benton never talked much about his work. Like his gun, he didn’t really like me near it.
I suppose that’s why Morgan Longstreet stuck in my head.
Benton just started rattling on one day about this boy he met.
And ‘boy’ is what he called him. Said he was smart as a whip but hadn’t figured it out yet.
Needed some mentoring. Benton would say that when someone needed a good kick in the—well, I reckon you know what part he thought needed kicking—and I think my husband figured he could to the kicking.
He said Morgan could make something of a chance if he was given one. Benton aimed to give him one.”
Jane waited while Mrs. Sterling took another sip of tea, but when the older woman replaced her cup and offered nothing further, Jane was moved to prompt. “That’s all?”
“That’s what stuck in my head. You didn’t know my husband, but that was a lot.”
“Oh. I’d hoped—” Disappointed, she sighed. “I’d hope for more.”
“If there is more, that’d be for Morgan to tell you.” Mrs. Sterling tilted her head as she studied Jane. “He’s not exactly an open book, is he?”
Jane smiled ruefully. “I don’t know anything about where he grew up, nothing about his parents, brothers, sisters, cousins.”
“I couldn’t tell you about that.”
Jane went on. “There are no stories. None. It’s as if he did not exist before Morning Star.”
“Maybe he didn’t.” Mrs. Sterling waved a hand dismissively. “Just a fancy crossing my mind. You’ll have to press him some if there are things you want to know. You’re not afraid of him, are you?”
“No. No, not at all.”
“Well, then, you have to keep at him.” She pushed aside the plate of cookies and laid a hand over Jane’s. “But gentle. You said that he gave you a mustang.”
“Yes.”
“If he meant for you to ride it, he would have been particular about how it was trained.”
“He was. I watched him.”
“Then you know how it’s done.” She smiled encouragingly.
“I just recollected something else Benton said about the boy: He has a fine hand and the patience to put it to proper use. I’d forgotten that ’til now.
Maybe you want to think about that when you talk to him.
” She patted Jane’s hand, sat back, and pointed to the plate.
“Now have a cookie. I’m going enjoy myself watching you eat until Morgan gets back from the hardware store. ”
* * *
When Morgan arrived at the Pennyroyal, he found Mrs. Sterling in the kitchen but not with his wife. “Where is Jane?” he asked without preamble.
“She walked over to Mrs. Garvin’s. I’m surprised you didn’t see her. She only left a few minutes ago.”
“Mrs. Garvin.” Morgan frowned slightly, trying to place the name. “The milliner? Jane already has a fine hat.”
Ida Mae made a tsking sound with her tongue as she regarded Morgan sorrowfully.
“A woman can always use another hat, but she went there with the idea of finding a pattern and material for something she can wear when she’s riding.
Mrs. Garvin has books and such that she can look through.
Goodness, what has your dander up? Your wife intends to do the sewing; although it seems to me you could part with money enough to see that she doesn’t have to. ”
Morgan lifted his hat, plowed his fingers through his hair, and then slapped his hat against his leg instead of returning it to his head. “She didn’t say a word about it, didn’t ask me for money, and she’s not where she told me she’d be.”
“And yet you’re glowering at me.”
It did not happen immediately, but Morgan eventually got around to taking a calming breath. “Sorry.”
“Humph.” Mrs. Sterling returned to peeling potatoes. She gestured with her chin to the plate of almond cookies. “Jane managed to choke down two of those. I think you’ll have an easier time.”
Morgan picked one up and bit it in half. “What do you mean she managed to choke them down?”
Mrs. Sterling shrugged. “She doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite.”
“Maybe she was too polite to tell you she doesn’t like almond cookies.”
“That’s probably it.”
Morgan wasn’t fooled. “Out with it. You’re the one who’s going to choke on what you have stuck in your craw.”
Firmly setting down her knife, Mrs. Sterling regarded Morgan with her most penetrating gaze. “Do you ever intend to tell that girl anything about you?”
“Whoa. What’s this about?”
“She has questions, Morgan. Any woman would, living with a man who doesn’t have two words to string together about himself. She’s looking to know you better, and she’s come to me for the blank parts. Apparently there are a lot of them.”
Morgan pulled up a stool up and sat down. He set his hat on the table away from the potato shavings. “What kind of questions?”
“What kind of questions,” she repeated flatly. “Hmm. Can you think of any that you’ve answered about your family?”
Morgan said nothing.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I don’t have family.”
“You can say that all you want, but it doesn’t make it true.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Mostly nothing. I told her to ask you.”
“Mostly nothing?”
Mrs. Sterling removed her spectacles, cleaned them with her apron, and then carefully replaced them. “I told her some about you and Benton because she asked. Just a few of the kind things he said about you. I might have mentioned Lander. Frankly, I didn’t see the harm in it.”
Morgan briefly closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It isn’t your place to say anything.”
“You don’t think so? Benton was my husband. I guess I can talk about him if I have a mind to.”
“Sorry.”
“How’s that again?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, more loudly this time.
“That’s better. Lord, Morgan, I know you have no one left you’re proud to claim as family, but I don’t see the sense in keeping them a secret.
What do you think will happen if Jane hears about Jack and Gideon?
And is it the worst thing in the world for her to know about that Jezebel who raised you? ”
A muscle jumped in Morgan’s jaw. “I don’t see myself ever talking to Jane about Zetta Lee. I don’t like saying their names in the same breath.”
Mrs. Sterling’s slim smile was rueful, her eyes full of regret. “I understand.”