Chapter 5 #2
In spite of Henry’s regular trips to town, they’d been making good progress on their projects during the day.
They had to. There’d been almost no rain in the past couple of months, but it was getting colder.
Caleb knew snow couldn’t be far off. For the past week, the two men had been busy putting up the walls of Henry’s cabin.
It would be identical to Caleb’s to start with, but he knew once his partner moved into it, the place would look like the back lot of a laundry in no time.
Caleb shook his head. “I’m afraid the minute we leave you alone, that door is gonna fall on you, and Gabe and I’ll have two dead bodies to bury.”
Gabe snorted and then looked away to hide his laugh.
“If you don’t let us get on with it, there’ll be two dead bodies, but it won’t be me and my young partner here.”
“That’s right!” Paddy added.
Camaraderie like this had no place in Caleb’s history. He had no brother. No sister. No family. His mother was killed when he was sixteen. And his father was in jail in Elkhorn.
Hearing these three made Caleb feel wistful about something he'd never known.
Not long ago, he'd have told himself such things weren't meant for him. Family. Friendship. Belonging.
Now he wasn't so certain.
The ranch was taking shape around him. The boys were here almost every day. Henry had become as close to a brother as any man could ask for. And somewhere in town was a woman who had somehow convinced him that the future might hold more than simply surviving from one season to the next.
That was a dangerous sort of hope.
But Caleb found he didn't mind it nearly as much as he once would have.
“You know, if you boys’ tender feelings will allow it, how about if Gabe and me hold the door in place. Then you two can do the brain work securing them hinges.”
Henry and Paddy looked at each other, then grudgingly accepted the help. Twenty minutes later, the doors were hung square.
They all stood back and admired their work. Caleb swung the top half of each door open.
“Good for a hundred years,” Henry said.
Gabe gestured toward the horses in the corral. “Pirate will be nice and snug in here when winter comes, Mr. Marlowe.”
The buckskin’s ears pricked up, and he was watching them with interest.
Caleb nodded and walked over to the fenced enclosure.
Near the corral, Bear was on his back, rolling on a clump of grass, getting a good scratch, but the dog hopped up and shook out his golden fur before trotting over to greet them.
Caleb scratched him behind his ears, and the animal turned his attention to the boys, who had a stick that they started tossing back and forth, getting the big dog running for it.
Pirate came over to the fence to nuzzle his master.
Henry stood beside him, one foot up on a rail. “One more thing to cross off that damn list.” He looked up at the clear sky. “Crazy that we ain’t seen them Texans. Where do you reckon our cattle got to?”
Caleb frowned. “Who knows? Maybe they got a late start. Maybe they hit bad weather. Maybe they run into one of them bands of Comanche renegades that ain’t ready to give up.”
Henry looked off to the south for a while. It was one of his rare moments of quiet.
“Can’t really blame them Comanches,” he said finally. “They’ve had as raw a deal as any of ’em.”
Henry was a unique fella. It was fairly common among white men to lump the tribes together as “red Injuns,” as if there were no difference between them.
Not Henry. He had a profound respect for some of the tribes they’d fought while serving in the army and pure disdain for others. It came from knowing them.
Caleb figured it was his upbringing. The two men rarely talked about their past, which was probably one of the things that drew them together as friends.
Caleb’s past had caught up to him recently, but Henry still kept a part of his life locked away.
Caleb only knew his partner’s father had been a horse dealer who traded with a number of tribes out in Wyoming and Montana.
Henry traveled with him from a very young age, and he knew horses.
But his friend never mentioned his mother or any siblings.
Caleb didn’t ask either.
Paddy suddenly appeared next to Caleb, climbing up onto the fence. “Mr. Marlowe?”
“Yep.”
“I got something to ask you.” He turned and looked at Gabe, who nodded encouragingly.
Paddy obviously had something to say, and he was restless as a tomcat under a full moon. Caleb waited for the boy to find the words.
“Say what you need to say, Paddy,” Henry prodded, “before you fall off this fence.”
Another restless tomcat heard from, Caleb figured.
The boy pulled off his old, wide-brimmed hat and twisted it in his hands. His reddish hair was sticking up, making him look like a nervous Irish porcupine.
“Well, it’s like this, Mr. Marlowe. I was thinking maybe I could move out to the ranch. Now that you got the barn up, maybe I could put some boards across the rafters and bunk in there.”
Caleb kept his eye on the boy. “What makes you ask, Paddy? I can’t imagine Mr. Rogers or Mrs. Rogers been treating you poorly.”
“That ain’t it,” he blurted out. “They’re treating me real fine. Good as Gabe. Miz Rogers even started learning me reading and ciphering.”
“Then what is it?”