Chapter 19
Nineteen
Beau was up before first light, and he didn’t come in until well after dark.
Della could only watch as her husband took the foreman's work on top of his own and would not hear of giving it to anybody else.
Grieving the loss, Beau threw himself into work.
He got thinner and quieter and harder around the eyes.
She marked the days off on the calendar, but could do nothing about it except feed him and be there when he came in.
Della rode with the men as they culled a hundred and eighty of their breeding stock.
Thirty years of his father's careful blood, driven into Grand Springs in the first week of September, and sold to a buyer out of Miles City who knew the quality of the stock before him.
A forced sale before the fall shipping meant that the whole county knew Silver Sage was under pressure, and the price reflected that with some precision.
The spare wagon and the horses that pulled it went, too. Along with John Hawkins’ good saddle. Together, they stripped the house of what they could. Scrap metal and furniture that they didn’t have use for. Four thousand dollars meant that they had no room for sentimentality.
Della sold what she had. Butter and eggs into town every Tuesday. Whatever she could get for mending shirts for the Nine Bar's crew. And she walked home, having sold her sorrel mare to one of the wives.
Beau didn't speak to her for the rest of that day. She found him at the corral gate after supper, leaning on the top rail with his back to the house, and she went and stood beside him and looked at the empty pen.
“It was forty dollars, Beau.”
Beau's hands closed on the rail. "I give you that horse."
"You did. And she is the best gift I have ever been given, and I shall be sorry about it for a long time." Della kept her voice steady. "But what’s the point of having a horse if, by the end of the month, we don’t have a stable to put her in?”
“It won’t come to that,” he said, though he didn’t sound convincing.
And Della knew the figures. They raised just over three and a half thousand dollars, even as Hollis’ deadline ticked down. They were still short by almost a thousand dollars. It may as well have been a hundred thousand.
“There’s always my brother,” she tried again. “I could write to him and–”
Beau turned then, leveling a look at her. “No, Della. I already said no, and I meant it.”
"He has the money. He has a great deal more than we need. He could send it by wire, and we could have it here in less than a week. It’s what I would have had if I'd have married the man he chose for me, instead of coming here. I think he owes me that.”
Beau faced her fully. His gaze held her captive.
Dark shadows under his eyes. Lines of strain around his mouth.
Marks of worry that became more prominent as the deadline ticked ever closer.
“A man that will let you get on a train to a place he'd never seen, to a man he'd never met, just because it was cheaper for him?” Beau’s mouth twisted. “What if he made you go back East?”
Della’s brows moved. ‘Well, I wouldn’t go.”
His eyes narrowed as he searched her face. “It would be easier for you. We’ve not… consummated. You could go home, have the marriage annulled, instead. It would be easier for you all round.”
The very idea of leaving her husband behind was absurd. That he’d even suggested it hurt her feelings, though he was probably doing it to give her options. Options that she’d not even considered.
Still, she decided to call his bluff. She folded her arms and pretended to consider it, eyes traveling over their yard, to the grasslands beyond.
“I suppose I could go back. Noisy New York. And the busy drawing rooms, with all those men to leer over me. And my brother assessing them like you asses a new bull to cover your herd.”
A stern look crossed his face, and it darkened. He remained mute.
And she chuckled. “I am your wife, Beau Hawkins. I ain’t going anywhere that you’re not.”
He straightened up, eyes blazing down at her as he drew her closer. “You ‘ain’t’? You’re sounding a lot more like a rancher’s wife now.”
She stepped into his arms, delighting in the feel of being there, of the casual way he’d reached for her. “That’s because I am a rancher’s wife.”
His eyes swept her face, and he brushed a thumb down her cheek in a caress. And then Boyd cleared his throat, and Beau was back into work. A little while later, she came back out onto the porch and saw the trail of dust along the driveway.
She shielded her eyes as she called out to Colt. “Was that Denny?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did he bring any post?”
“No, just flour.”
She sighed. “Supper will be ready shortly. Can you round everyone up?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She cast an eye along the driveway and sighed, as Colt hurried off.
The night before the deadline, she stood in the kitchen, surveying the ledgers.
Beau dusted his hat on his pants, pausing in the doorway. “What’s all this?”
Della exhaled. “I was just having one last check. Seeing if there was anything I’d missed.”
Beau hung up his hat. “There’ll be nothing you’d not already looked at a hundred times.”
“I can’t find the loan forms.”
"What for?"
"Because I would rather walk into that room already knowing his figures better than have him tell me them."
Beau smiled then. His wife. The woman loved her numbers. "It is in the office somewhere."
They ate their supper. Beau retrieved the sheet, and she tucked it into her reticule. She found Beau sitting in the living room, brooding. Knowing that they were still almost a thousand dollars short.
“Maybe we can negotiate with Hollis,” she offered into the quiet evening air. “I know you said he’d been generous enough to extend the payment terms once. We have three-quarters of the amount. Perhaps he can do so again.”
“I should have taken out that second loan,” he said instead.
“To what end?” Della asked huskily. “We’ve still got shipping week, and yet to get through the winter. With feed prices climbing, we’ll be even worse off than we are now.”
He looked at her then, eyes pained. “I’m going to sell Crimson Creek.”
She leaned against the door jamb, saying nothing.
“And the land beyond it,” he nodded miserably. “Then I won't have to cross it.”
“But you said the land on this side isn’t as viable for cattle in the summer months.”
“No, the grass is better over there. But we’ll have a smaller herd,” his voice trailed off. “I’m sorry, Della. I shouldn’t have brought you out here. You’ve married a man of no means.” She crossed to him, hovering, and then bent to brush a chaste kiss to his cheek.
“I married a good man,” she whispered, eyes shining with unshed tears. Then she hurried from the room and went to bed
They set off at seven.
The end of September, and the light had gone thin and gold.
The chill in the air had set a frost on the water barrel that had not been there a week ago.
Della wore her velvet dress, and was grateful once again for its weight as she was handed up into the wagon.
The grass had gone over entirely. Winter was coming down out of the north the way it came every year, and she was braced for whatever came their way.
Beau had shaved. He had on the shirt with the twelve bone buttons, her canvas bag on the seat between them.
She inhaled and sent him a nodding smile. “Ready?”
Beau flicked his wrists, and Della’s attention was on the ranch hands watching them go.
Grand Springs was busy. Shipping week, and the pens were full, and the dust was up.
It took a while to wait for a space to clear somewhere they could leave the wagon.
They walked up the boardwalk past Vance's and the harness shop. Beau could feel eyes on him as they walked. He hated it, those knowing his shame. He hated more that he’d placed Della into this whole situation through his cowardice.
Beau paused at the bank’s brass rail. The rig at the foot of the steps had a Miles City livery painted on the shafts. Shipping week, he thought, and missed Duke all over again.
He looked at Della, taking her hand. He climbed the steps and opened the door, knowing what he needed to do next.
Pelton, the young clerk, was flustered. "Mr. Hawkins." His eyes darted around like a bat caught in a barn. "What— uh… Mr. Hollis is taken up right now."
Beau glanced at Della, even as apprehension rippled through his blood.
There were three men in the corner of the front office.
Two of them turned as soon as his name was mentioned, and the third was standing with his back to the grille.
Strangers, each of them. And city men, too.
Black broadcloth, cut close. Collars that had been starched.
Watch chains. Side hair combed flat and shining.
There was not a speck of dust on any of the three of them from the boots up, which meant they had not come from a ranch.
The older of the group stepped forward. "Hawkins? Mr. Beau Hawkins?"
Beau took in the suits, the gloves, the strongbox sitting on the counter in the corner. "Who's asking?"
But the man's interest had already gone past him, to the woman at his side. "Might you be Adele Hawkins?"
"H-how do you know that?" Della asked.
"Because we've been waiting for you."