Again there was a lull in conversation. No sound came from the poker table, where the men held their cards close, studying them carefully.
Jake yawned. “Must be a flock of full houses and flushes out in that hand of draw. Well, boys, tomorrow we do the field roundup here, cut the stuff for shippin’, and any strays that go into the jackpot. Suppose the Big C figures on shippin’ about next week.”
“Yep. More ridin’. A man spends half his life in the saddle.”
“Far as I’m concerned,” Jake murmured, “it’s as good a place to spend it as any.”
Kelsey moved away from the stove, into the frosty fall night. He walked slowly down the worn path to the ranch house and stood for a moment, looking up at the stars. They were big and close and very bright. He thought of Prim and of the harbor, where the night sky was soft and the sound of the sea was always with a man.
The yard gate creaked, and he saw Monte Maguire walking toward him. She came to stand beside him, saying nothing, looking out across the land. He wondered what thoughts ran in her mind. Did she think only of cattle on a night like this—or of the man who had been her husband? Did the enormous silence of the world here, so close to the sky, make her lonely; was a part of her crying for things the mind could never define?
She turned her head and looked at him, and he knew she tried to see into his face. His heart suddenly felt big and crowding to his throat. Then, quickly, she brushed past him and went into the house.
CHAPTER VI
Kelsey rode into the yard of the Plunkett ranch with the cold fall rain drifting over him. He’d come for the Red Hill Ranch mail. After tying the horse to a fencepost, he walked through the muddy yard, which was pockmarked where the chickens had dusted themselves in summer.
To Kelsey the house had an easy, slipshod appearance that matched Amie’s character. Built of logs, it had settled on one side, listing toward the east. In many places the mud chinking had fallen from between the logs and been replaced by rags. There were no curtains up, for Amie never got around to ironing them until they were so mussed it was time for another washing.
Beyond the house he could see the river, running high from the heavy fall rain. Yellow leaves clung to the willows, made brighter by the wetness of the day.
He stepped onto the sagging porch. Sodden chickens huddled under it. A clutter covered the gray boards of the floor. There were old tin cans, worn coats and shoes, toys, a wooden washtub, a rusty boiler, two pitchforks, shovels, and a soggy crust of bread a child had dropped half-eaten. He knocked on the door, which was sticky from jelly-smeared fingers, and heard Amie’s warm voice lifted in a shout. “Come in if you can get in!”
Harry Plunkett was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. He wore no shirt, and his long gray underwear was stained at the armpits with sweat. Opposite him sat Amie, her dark hair wound carelessly on top of her head, loose strands clinging to her plump cheeks. She was wearing a soiled pink wrapper; the hem was stained black from trailing across the kitchen floor. The baby, a little girl, cooed to herself where she lay in a clothes basket, her pink toes thrust in the air above her. From another room came the noise of the three small boys playing.
“Coffee’s hot,” Amie said. “Sit, Kelsey, and take a load off your feet.”
Harry looked sour—in one of his brooding moods, Kelsey thought; Harry was either away up or away down in his mind. He was big and fair-skinned and heavily freckled, much younger-looking than his wife. Now he stuck a finger in his ear and worked it back and forth. “Got them head noises again.”
“Oh, hell,” Amie muttered, setting a cup before Kelsey, “he gets them every year this time. When haying’s over and he starts thinkin’ about winter, then he’s got wheels in his head.”
“By God, you wouldn’t think it’s so funny if you had ’em,” Harry said, scowling at his wife. “You gonna get Kelsey his mail, or are you gonna sit here and run off at the mouth for an hour?”
Amie thumbed her nose at him, and a brief smile lighted Harry’s face. The dirty hem of the wrapper flipped behind her as she went from the kitchen to the small bedroom which was the post office.
Harry poured coffee and shoved a cream pitcher toward Kelsey. A hard yellow river of cream curved from the mouth of the pitcher and down its bulging front. “I dunno if this country’s worth what it takes out of a man,” Harry complained. “Man tears his guts out chasin’ water and shovelin’ manure all spring. Then he runs himself thin after the cattle until they’re ready for summer range. After that it’s put up hay, and every time a cloud rolls over the range a man worries for fear he’s gonna get his grass wet, and then it’ll burn and maybe have to be put up damp, and after that it can sweat in the stack and cause sickness in the cattle come winter. And winter—what’s before a man in winter but shovel hay until his back’s broke down and—”
“It’s not shovelin’ hay that’s broke down your back,” Amie said tartly, putting a pile of mail on the table before Kelsey. “And any time you want to take over the kids and the house I’ll be glad to pitch hay. I’d just like the chance—no kids to fuss with, no meals to cook, no house to clean.”
“You oughta been a woman like Monte Maguire,” Harry said, his eyes narrowing as he looked at his wife. “She run right out of the house and onto the range—like a man.”
“And more power to her! I like Monte Maguire. She’s the only interesting woman in this damn snowhole of a country. What’s more, I don’t care what the other women say or think about her.”
Harry shrugged, a glint in his eyes now. “Well, she sleeps around, they say. Only trouble is, them that are supposed to get it don’t keep it long.”
“You talk dirty, Harry Plunkett! Didn’t ever see it, did you? Got no proof, have you? And what if she has slept with a few men? She’s human and lonely, and no man or kids to hold her down. Maybe I’d do the same thing—if I was free.”
Harry laughed. “Now, Amie—”
“You think because I’ve been pregnant and spread out until I’m two ax-handles across the rear that I couldn’t find a man?”
“Now, look here, Amie, there’s some things men can do and it’s figured to be their right because they gotta, but—”
“Got to, my foot! Men been gettin’ away with that idea since heck was a pup. Trouble is, women let ’em and never put up a fight.” She turned to Kelsey. “You got two letters in that pile of mail—both of them from Scotland.”
“Amie.” Harry glared at her. “You’re not supposed to fiddle with other people’s mail.”
Her dark eyes opened wide. “Am I to sort letters with my eyes shut? How could I help seeing they were from Scotland?”
“Don’t forget one day I caught you holding a letter of that kid Long Dalton’s up to the light,” her husband accused.
“I was only tryin’ to find out if he got that girl in a fix—the one was waitin’ table in Posser’s hotel. He didn’t. Found out since he can’t get nobody in trouble. He’s got something wrong with his—”
“Amie!”
“Oh, all right! He’s sort of sterile, you might say—and a good thing, or this country would be full of Dalton bastards.”
Kelsey burst into laughter. A man never knew what Amie would say next. It was one of the pleasures of being in her company.
“Be quiet,” Harry said. “Let Kelsey read his letters in peace, will you?”
“Be quiet yourself. Pass the cream.” There was a sound of ripping cloth as she stretched an arm toward the pitcher. “Damn, there goes that seam again! What’s the matter with the thread they make nowadays?”