Softly Falling Read online

  “We have a classroom. Just think what is going to happen here!”

  Both girls applauded, and Lily curtsied playfully. “Of course, there is much to do.” She waved at the spiderwebs and shuddered when they seemed to wave back. To distract herself, she looked through the window toward the backhouse with the door flapping open.

  “Jack, do you think . . . ,” she began, not taking her eyes off the privy. “It’s a delicate subject.”

  “I’ll turn Preacher over to you for all necessary repairs.” He crouched down by Amelie. “My dear, would you be interested in coming with me to Wisner tomorrow morning? We will have ten dollars to spend on school supplies and I will need your advice.”

  What a nice touch you have, Mr. Sinclair, Lily thought. She noticed Chantal’s lower lip stuck out. “Chantal, you and I will keep quite busy here. Do you think we dare ask Luella to help?”

  Chantal shook her head. “Fothering might.” She moved closer, and Lily bent down. “That night I was on the porch? He saw me, but he didn’t tell on me.”

  “Then I think he is your friend and will help us,” Lily said. “I will depend upon you to ask him.” Chantal nodded, her eyes serious now that she had been given such responsibility. “Do you think the Buxtons might have a chair for you, since . . .”

  “Miss Carteret broke hers?” Jack teased. “I wouldn’t put too much faith in Mrs. Buxton providing another chair. We’ll think of something, so Teacher here doesn’t have to stand up all day. And I . . .”

  “Jack? Mama wants my sisters.”

  Lily looked at the door, where stood the boy who must be Nicholas Sansever, already pointed out to her as a reluctant scholar. She knew he was twelve, but he was short for his age. What he lacked in height he more than made up for in a handsome face and impeccable carriage. She had already noticed that the Sansever girls took after their energetic mother, with her curly hair and snapping eyes. Nicholas must resemble his father.

  She had also seldom seen so much disapproval on one face. “Do come in,” she said with a gesture. He only backed away, as if fearing some contagion from what would be going on within, come Monday.

  “Now, lad,” was all Jack said, but his tone of voice had gone from humor to command. “You’re to be here Monday morning too.”

  Nick shook his head with considerable vigor. “I’m a cowboy,” he said, his eyes on Lily, as if daring her to argue. “A cowboy. Papa couldn’t read.”

  “You will be a cowboy when I say you are, and you learn to obey orders,” Jack replied. “Monday. You. Here.”

  The look Nick returned was no less mutinous. Jack gave him stare for stare. Nick turned away but not before growling, “All right! But I don’t have to like it.”

  “He’ll be your challenge,” was Jack’s comment. “I’ll talk to him some more; you know, convince him of the necessity of learning something. Get along, ladies,” he said to the sisters. “Your mother needs your help.”

  Lily stood beside Jack, watching them skip down the slope. Chantal looked back several times, which gratified her. “Will Nick give me grief?”

  “He might try. I’ll work on that.”

  She looked around the room again, wishing she could see it through Chantal’s eyes. “This isn’t even a sow’s ear,” Lily said. “I wish I could see it as the Parnassus of learning, like Chantal does.”

  With a shake of his head, Jack looked out the door again. “You’ve just enlarged their world.”

  “I haven’t done anything yet!” she said in protest.

  “I say you have and not just for them. Look there.”

  Hand shading her eyes, she watched where he pointed to see her father leave the Buxtons’ house. He went down the three porch steps, hand over hand on the railing, like an old man, but he had his course set on the cookshack.

  “Shall we?”

  Lily nodded and closed the door, wishing for a foolish second that when she opened it tomorrow morning, armed with a broom, bucket, and mop, she might see more than a room hardly better than the other shacks that littered the place. What did ranchers do with all these little buildings? Maybe she would learn.

  They walked slowly down the hill, which gave Lily the perfect opportunity. “Why is Amelie so quiet? Does it have to do with her father’s death?”

  “Some,” he said. “She has always been the quiet one, even from a baby. Only one who could make her smile was Jean Baptiste, and even he had to caper about and work at it.” He shrugged. “Since his death . . . well, I suppose life isn’t funny. The Sansevers teeter on the edge of ruin. If Madeleine wasn’t such a cook, I have no doubts that Buxton would run them off.”

  “You’d stop him, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d try.” He stopped. “Lily, we’re just the little people here.”

  Maybe the shabby classroom that Chantal and Amelie Sansever saw as a palace was starting to turn Lily into an optimist. Time to nip this negativity in the bud.

  “Little people? No. You’re the man who owns Bismarck,” she reminded him quietly.

  He gave her such a look. “Tell me that now and then,” he said.

  Apparently it was going to be a day of milestones. His hand shook on the spoon, but her father ate stew with the others. He did it with a certain dogged look to his face, as if determined to show everyone who knew better, just how normal he was. If he could keep up such a pretense, the least Lily could do was try to equal it.

  They sat together and ate their beef and canned beans and potatoes. This dining hall was a far cry from even the breakfast room at Carteret Manor. Lily could have counted on one hand the times she had been invited to dine with guests, even though everyone in that seaport probably knew of her mother’s origins. The Bar Dot was different. As her father haltingly attempted conversation, she glanced around at the others, gratified to see curiosity, but no scorn. Possibly the Bar Dot’s inmates were, on the whole, kind.

  As the little girls brought around Madeleine’s raisin pudding, Jack introduced her to the remaining hands, as he called them.

  Jack began with Will Buxton, and he left just enough hesitation to suggest to her that this obvious relative of the man in the big house was probably foisted on him and next to worthless. Amazing what Jack Sinclair could disclose without words. She said all that was proper and held out her hand, which Will shook, after a slight hesitation of his own. She was used to that, so it hardly registered.

  Stretch was another matter. He wasn’t much larger than Nicholas, so his nickname was evidently a joke. Or so she thought. “We call him Stretch because he can tell the best lies. You might call them stories,” Jack said.

  However dubious his tales, Stretch had no qualms about his handshake, which he accompanied with a little bow that made the others grin, and Chantal put her hand to her mouth, delighted.

  Lily had her own questions, the ones that labeled her as the greenest amateur on the planet. “Gentlemen”—that alone brought chortles—“how is it that you can control so many cattle with so few, er, hands?”

  They looked at each other, as if wondering who could do such ignorance justice, but there was no meanness. Preacher spoke up. “Ma’am, cattle stay pretty close to home in the winter,” he said. “Kinda like old ladies.”

  “’Cept for the new ones up from Texas,” Stretch chimed in. “They like to head south. We keep’um milling with the old timers, and that reassures them.”

  “And then in May or so, we’ll have a cow gather in the district, and sort everyone out,” Jack added.

  “Wouldn’t it be simpler to fence your land?”

  The men looked at each other, and Lily sighed inwardly.

  “It’s too expensive to fence thousands and thousands of acres,” Jack said, coming to her rescue, even though he smiled too.

  “Except for Jack’s big ranch for his pretty red bull,” Will joked.

  Lily was no stranger to nuance. A glance around the suddenly quiet circle suggested to her that Will Buxton didn’t have the merit yet to tease the for
eman.

  Lily was also no stranger to filling awkward silences. She could change the subject as well as anyone.

  “Gentlemen . . .” Again that chuckle. “Perhaps you have heard about the school that is opening on Monday.”

  They nodded, perfectly willing to move on from a subject that, from the look on Jack’s face, had been chewed like cud for too long.

  “We have a tiny budget and no books. Could I ask all of you for the loan of any reading material you might be willing to share?”

  Will just didn’t want to give up. “No French postcards?”

  “None,” she said firmly, not sure what he meant, but taking her cue from the frown on Jack’s red face.

  “I’m from Connecticut and I have farmer’s almanacs,” Stretch said.

  “Could you use a grammar book?” Indian asked.

  The others stared at him. “I’m not ignorant,” he said pointedly. “Came in a missionary barrel from back East somewhere. I can read and write.”

  “I’d like that more than you know,” she said. “Thank you, Monsieur Fontaine.”

  Indian grinned at her and the others stared. Evidently, this had been a day of firsts for several of the Bar Dot’s residents.

  And then the noon hour was over. Silent, his head down, her father had worked his way slowly through Madeleine’s wonderful stew. In fact, the cook had peeked from the open door of the kitchen to see how he did, which touched Lily. When he finally finished, Madeleine pushed Chantal forward with cookies done up in a bit of waxed paper. Clarence Carteret accepted them with a smile.

  “See, Papa? You’ve been missed,” Lily said simply.

  He had trouble rising, but she could stand beside him and help him to his feet without attracting too much attention. And once he was on his feet, Amelie held open the screen door. He couldn’t walk fast, so Lily linked her arm through his and turned his meander into a stroll.

  At the door to his office, he looked at her for the first time. “D’ye think anyone noticed?” he asked, his voice wistful.

  “Papa, they were glad to see you at lunch,” she assured him. “And now since I have free time until school starts next week, I’ll help you here.”

  They spent the afternoon side by side at the desk, Lily copying whatever correspondence needed a firmer hand, and her father adding up columns, then adding them up again and again. She wondered how on earth he had kept his job. By the end of the afternoon, he could only sit and shake. To her relief, Mr. Buxton must have been busy elsewhere. His eyes kind, Fothering brought in tea at four o’clock.

  She thanked him. As he turned to go, she said, “Fothering, Chantal Sansever and I are going to clean out the schoolhouse tomorrow. Could you mention to Luella that we would like her help too? It is going to be everyone’s school.”

  He was too good a butler to appear doubtful. “I will suggest it,” he assured her.

  “That’s all I can ask.” Lily clasped her hands together. “I . . . I’ve never taken the lead in anything before, but I think a school should be everyone’s investment.”

  “I am certain I can cajole Mrs. Buxton into allowing me to assist,” the butler said. “As for Luella, perhaps her natural curiosity will inspire her.” He stood in the door, obviously teetering back and forth about saying more. Then he succumbed. “May I say, Miss Carteret, I have difficulty believing that you have never organized anything before. You have a knack.”

  And then he was gone, leaving her to wonder about this knack. The thought nourished her as she walked to their shack with her father, who was so desperate for a drink that he could barely contain himself. He went directly into his room. In another moment, she heard the clink of a bottle, a massive sigh, and the creak of bedsprings. Clarence Carteret, remittance man and general all-around failure, had made it through another day.

  As she stood on the porch, unwilling to endure another evening like the one before, Lily noticed a stack of books and pamphlets on the bench by the front door. She came closer, impressed to see a leather-bound copy of Ivanhoe, with the title in gilt letters. And there was Pierre Fontaine’s promised grammar, a real treasure.

  She made a space and sat down with books on each side of her. She picked up Toby Tyler or Ten Weeks with a Circus, practically new, and a note fell out. She opened it. “Dear Miss Carteret, I’ll be their tamorrah, but I can’t get dirty. L,” she read out loud. “Thank you, Luella.”

  She tucked the note in her pocket and patted it, her first reward for teaching a class that hadn’t even started yet.

  CHAPTER 11

  Oliver Buxton made a production of counting eight silver dollars into Jack’s hand the next morning. “That’s all you’ll get from the consortium,” he said, sounding prissy and put-upon at the same time.

  The consortium spends more than this on one night’s booze at the Cheyenne Club, you tightwad, Jack thought as he smiled at his employer. “We came up with two more dollars, so we’ll manage.”

  This didn’t seem to be the answer Buxton wanted, but Jack had long since given up understanding managers.

  Clarence Carteret was already at work in the office. Jack had secretly been impressed that Lily had bullied the man to breakfast, and he didn’t look half bad.

  “That’s quite a daughter you have,” he went so far as to say as he passed through.

  “I never knew her,” Clarence said simply. “My loss.”

  Wondering to himself how many lost opportunities the man had squandered, Jack tipped his hat and went to find Amelie.

  She wore what he knew was the best of her two dresses, and she carried a bouquet of zinnias, survivors of the summer’s heat and wind. To be sure, calling it a bouquet was overly generous—four zinnias gasping out their last. Amelie had given the bouquet a Gallic twist with a strand of silvery ribbon.

  He knew she could manage only a gentle tease. “Did you decide to put them out of their misery?” he asked as he nodded to Madeleine, who glared at a pot of beans as though wishing she could change it into something else.

  Amelie shook her head. “For my papa,” she whispered, and he felt immediately lower than a snake’s belly. “Mama said we would be going right past the burying ground.”

  “So we shall.” At least he was smart enough not to fall all over himself apologizing. If anyone knew life was hard, Jean Baptiste Sansever’s children did.

  He had taken the ranch’s smaller buckboard, the one usually reserved for consortium members because the seats were padded. Amelie saw so little luxury that he knew she would appreciate it. With a slight smile—in itself a reward—she patted the seat.

  “Let’s stop at the schoolhouse and see if anyone is working,” he said. Earlier, he had watched Chantal heading toward the school carrying a bucket and scrub brush, her hair done up in a bandana and wearing an old dress too short for her that had somehow avoided the ragbag. The determination on her face—so like Madeleine—had made him smile.

  The window and door were open, giving the place the airing out it needed. Talk about sow’s ears. It didn’t look any better than a half dozen other unused outbuildings he should have burned down years ago. He waved to Preacher, who was putting new hinges on the outhouse door.

  “Will it work?” he teased.

  “I’m going to take some sandpaper to the seat,” Preacher said. “The door’s been open so long that the wood inside is weathered, too.”

  When Jack looked back at the school, Lily stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. She somehow managed to look tidy, even though her hair was done up in a bandana too. Maybe it was the elegant way she carried herself as though Wyoming Territory was only going to be a temporary stop and she had grander venues in mind. Lily Carteret probably had three or four plans by now.

  He set the brake but didn’t get down. Through the door, he saw the tall figure of Fothering. The butler had covered a broom with cheesecloth and was swiping at cobwebs while Chantal dusted off a desk. Jack leaned across Amelie. “No Luella?” he asked Lily.

  “
Not yet, but I have hopes,” Lily replied. She reached in her pocket and handed him a coin. “Papa’s contribution. He said you call it two bits.”

  “If there is a bargain to be had in Wisner, we will find it, eh, Amelie?” he said as he pocketed the coin. “I have your list, and this makes ten dollars and two bits.”

  “We are rich,” Amelie said solemnly.

  “I believe we are.” He nodded to Lily and spoke to the horses.

  The next stop was the Bar Dot cemetery, a bedraggled patch where the zinnias would look at home. The only occupants were cowhands like Jean Baptiste, and four others done in by more horse than they could handle, or a stubborn cow. The sixth grave was even more recent than Sansever’s, a pile of bones with two arrowheads and a belt buckle buried deep. He wondered if some mother back East still watched for a wandering son.

  While Amelie left her little gift for her father, he took a hard look at the Bar Dot, wishing the woodpile were bigger. He had sent the others to cut more wood and he saw them down by the river. There had been protests—Will even had the nerve to point out that the wood lot was already full—but Jack was the foreman. He knew it wouldn’t happen to Will, but the others didn’t want the dubious freedom of riding the humiliating grubline from ranch to ranch during the winter, hoping for a handout. He had done that one winter, and that was enough.

  Wisner basked in early September warmth as they came to town. It had been a silent trip. Amelie had looked at him when he passed his own little ranch without stopping. “We’ll visit Manuel and Bismarck on the way back,” he assured her.

  “I like Manuel,” she had said, and that was their sole conversation.

  Since the only game in town for them was Watkins’ Superior Mercantile, he tied up the horse in front of the store. He helped down his little guest, touched to see the wonder on her face at the metropolis of Wisner. She seldom got off the Bar Dot, and he tried to see the shabby little place through her eyes.