Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
The day went better than Caleb had hoped. He and the boys levered a number of logs up the sloping supports and into position, while he did his best to find Sheila jobs that kept her busy and well away from anything likely to fall on her. The walls of the barn were beginning to rise.
Working with Gabe and Paddy was all well and good, but it would take Henry’s return to really put the ranch in order.
Every time Caleb thought about what they’d need, the list kept growing.
Finishing the barn and the corrals, putting up a chicken house, and—after the summer rains—digging a well.
And that didn’t include all he needed to be doing with the livestock.
Everything in its season, Caleb told himself as he watched the youngsters. Right now, he was satisfied to have his helpers here where they could earn a wage and a feeling of accomplishing something. The ranch was a safe place for them. Better than the streets and alleys of the town.
And somehow, Sheila Burnett fit among them more naturally than she ought to have.
She had spent the afternoon working beside the boys, arguing with Paddy, laughing with Gabe, and pretending she wasn't looking every time Caleb climbed onto the barn wall to wrestle another log into place.
The ranch had felt different with her here. Livelier. Better.
He stretched his tired shoulder muscles and looked across the rock-studded meadow at a loosely organized regiment of thunderheads marching ominously across the sky to the southwest.
The sun was still shining, but he wondered for how long.
If that storm was going to hit soon, he'd have to get Sheila and the boys headed back toward Elkhorn. The last thing he wanted was the three of them caught out in the open once the rain and lightning rolled in.
At that very moment, Bear put his massive paws on Paddy’s chest and knocked him right onto his butt. The dog clearly thought the boys only came here to keep him entertained.
After casting his tools aside, Paddy rolled in the dirt with the furry beast. They were close to the same weight, even the same height. In their playfulness, they were very much the same, too, except that Bear was rougher.
After a few rolls in the dirt, Paddy stopped, pushed the dog away, and sat up.
“Lordy, Bear! I swear, your breath smells like week-old fish.”
Gabriel laid down the axe and wandered over to where his friend was wiping his cheeks on his sleeve. “And now you’re gonna smell like it too…though it might be an improvement.”
“How come this dog just loves putting my face in his dang mouth?”
“Maybe he’s trying to figure if he can swallow you whole,” Gabe suggested.
“I reckon that’s exactly what he’s doing.” The twelve-year-old scratched his head, leaving the reddish hair spiked up at odd angles.
Gabe bent down and scratched behind Bear’s ears. “They say a rattler can unhinge his jaw and swallow a whole jack rabbit.”
“That true? Swear and spit.”
“I heard a fella tell Pa about seeing a rattler up in Montana swallow a full-grown steer. Said that creature looked more like a diamond-backed whale than a snake. Couldn’t hardly move for a month.”
The younger boy’s eyes opened wide, and then he scoffed, realizing Gabe was joking.
This was another reason why Caleb liked having these two here.
He was helping a friendship get a good foundation.
At their age, he wasn’t allowed to have boys over to the house, nor could he rattle around with them anywhere else.
He was the schoolmaster’s son, and his father made sure he was always working.
He was watched constantly. And if anything went wrong, he felt the lash as an example to everyone else.
Bear went to the pile of pegs Caleb had fashioned and, after selecting one, began gnawing away at it like the thing was a well-aged elk rib. That dog always knew how to distract him from the darkness of the past.
“You are a troublemaker,” Paddy declared. “Don’t you be chewing up work Mr. Marlowe already done. He needs them pegs.”
The boy went to the nearby stack of kindling and pulled out a sizeable stick. Showing it to the dog, he tossed it into the field.
“Fetch it, boy,” he commanded. “Get it, Bear.”
The animal lifted his head and looked at Caleb and Gabe before turning his brown eyes to Paddy. The two stared at each other for a full minute.
“He's not going to do it,” Sheila observed.
“Why not?” Paddy demanded.
“Because he knows you want him to.”
Gabe barked out a laugh. “That's exactly it.”
Finally, Bear went back to chewing on the peg. He had no intention of fetching anything.
“See?” Sheila folded her arms. “He's trained all of you very well.”
“Dogs don't train people,” Paddy protested.
“That one does,” she replied.
Caleb found himself smiling.
The woman had only spent a day at the ranch, and she'd already figured Bear out.
“Ornery,” Paddy muttered. “That’s you, Bear.”
The dog ground away at his found treasure harder.
“Half mule, I reckon,” Gabe added affectionately.
Bear lifted an eyebrow at them, his powerful jaws continuing to reduce the peg to splinters.
“He can have the one,” Caleb suggested. “Let’s clean up before them storm clouds close in.”
Sheila glanced toward the darkening sky.
“Looks like we're finally going to get some rain.”
“Maybe,” Caleb said. “Wouldn't hurt none.”
Paddy gathered the loose pegs that had rolled off the pile and tossed them back where they belonged. Suddenly Bear was interested. Pushing to his feet, he raced over, grabbed the pieces and returned with them.
“He is a retrieving dog.”
Bear had plans that didn’t include fetching, however, and he began reducing the peg to splinters.
“Give me that,” Paddy ordered.
The dog ignored him.
“This seems unlikely to end well,” Sheila observed.
Lunging, the boy grabbed hold of the piece of wood the dog had firmly in his teeth. Bear pulled back, yanking him off balance. A moment later, Caleb watched Paddy being dragged across the ground by the growling creature.
“Called it,” she said as Paddy slid through the dirt.
Gabe dove into the fray, grabbing for the dog’s tail and then getting an arm around the animal’s legs.
Bear dropped the peg, and Caleb shook his head as they all wrestled around like a litter of wolf pups.
Even when a forearm or shoulder ended up in the animal’s jaws, Bear never bit down, but continued to growl and snarl with mock ferociousness.
Sheila stepped back to avoid the cloud of dust they kicked up.
“Are they always like this?” she asked.
“Pretty much,” Caleb replied.
“And the dog?”
“Especially the dog.”
Someone had to clean up, and he was the only one doing it. Caleb unhitched the team, removed the harnesses, and led the horses out into the meadow to graze. He had more logs ready to go up into place another day.
When he glanced back, he saw Sheila laughing at something Paddy had said.
The sound carried faintly across the meadow. And Caleb found himself smiling.
When he returned, the wrestling had subsided. The boys were working diligently cleaning up. Bear was lying on his side in the sun, making no such effort to look industrious. The splintered peg lay between his massive paws.
Caleb glanced off across the rolling meadows, where his cattle were grazing contentedly in the midday warmth.
Some were standing in the shallow water at the edge of the river, and some were lying on the ground.
For as far as he could see, from the line of cottonwoods below the western bluffs to the pine-forested ridges in the east, the long grass was bending in waves as the breeze moved across the valley floor.
A sense of belonging stirred in his chest. He was part owner of a ranch.
He had a home. A place where he could put down roots if he wanted to.
Zeke’s teasing words on their way to Doc’s house about Sheila came back to him.
How quickly he was getting tamed and settled.
And how fast the bubble burst when he crossed paths with Bat Davis.
If the man had lived, Caleb’s life would already be in shambles. He doubted that anything other than that bullet would have stopped Bat from telling anyone who’d lend an ear how Caleb Starr was a runaway. An outlaw and a runaway.
He ran a hand down his face. But Bat Davis was a hired gunslick, and he was dead. Caleb could put that worry behind him. He had to focus on now, what was his, what he could control.
Caleb glanced at the cottonwood logs he’d cut and hauled up for the building.
What he wanted to do over the next few days was get the walls up for the barn, which would consist of two large stables with a wide, roofed space connecting them.
A few days ago, he’d finished putting up a privy, which would be damn handy when the snows came.
And before the boys and Sheila arrived this morning, he finally hung the door on his cabin.
“Where’d you get Bear?” Paddy crouched down beside the animal and petted him. “I want a dog.”
“Don’t know if Mr. Rogers would take kindly to having you and a dog.”
“Pa don’t hold with keeping dogs.” Gabe sat down on a log he’d been working on before. “He only tolerates cats in the barn to keep the mice and rats from eating the grain.”
Paddy sighed. “So, where’d you get Bear from, anyways?”
“He got me, actually,” Caleb replied.
“Dogs don’t get people. People get dogs.”
Caleb shrugged. “He’s smarter than most dogs.”
“That part, I believe,” Sheila said.
Bear thumped his tail against the ground as if accepting the compliment.
“Will you tell us the story?” Gabe asked.
“And then tell us how you took down the cougar. The sheriff tells it different every time.”
“I imagine Sheriff Vernon tells most stories differently every time,” Sheila said.
Gabe laughed. “That's true.”
Caleb was not much of a storyteller, but they were done working. Bear also lifted his head and stared at him, as if to say, Tell it right, cuz I’m listening.
Caleb glanced toward Sheila. She'd settled onto one of the logs near the barn and appeared just as interested as the boys.