Love Along the Widow’s Trail (Preview)

Chapter One: Beth

Spring 1872
Wallace Township, Texas

“But I don’t have it!” Beth exclaimed, eyes wide and her heart pounding hard in her chest. “I’ve already sold everything of value!”

“You’re a schoolteacher, Missus Crawford—”

“I used to be a schoolteacher,” she corrected, glaring at Bart Hutchins and Cole Murdoch, so-called debt collectors working for a brute who had sent them to collect on the debt owed by her deceased husband.

“We’ve tried to be patient with you, Missus Crawford,” Murdoch said. “We’ve given you five months to come up with the money.”

She gaped at Murdoch, a leaner, younger man than his partner, with slick and oiled black hair, wearing his fancy suit with gold thread-embroidered vest.

“Mister Murdoch,” she glared at him, quickly doing the math in her head, “I made fourteen dollars a month as a teacher. Why, even if I were working year-round, it would take me thirty-five years to pay off my husband’s debt, and that doesn’t even allow for my own living expenses, for food or—”

“How you pay it isn’t our concern, Missus Crawford.”

He spoke in a lower tone of voice, as if that made him sound more reasonable. The two men glanced at one another and Hutchins stepped forward. 

“All we’re asking for right now is a token good faith payment,” Hutchins growled. 

Hutchins looked a good ten years older than Murdoch, and not nearly as slick. Balding, with a square face and a flattened, crooked nose, he looked like one of those bare-knuckle fighters back East she had read about. He rarely showed emotion, his voice rough and gritty.

She dug her hand into the pocket of her skirt and retrieved a coin purse and opened it, practically shoving it in the two men’s faces. 

“See? That’s all I’ve got at the moment to… to feed my boy.” Even as she blinked back tears of hopelessness, anger prompted her to stomp her foot. “And it’s not my fault that my husband was so bad at cards!” Recklessly, she pointed a finger in Murdoch’s face. “Your boss obviously knew that and yet he continued to encourage my husband to gamble. So whose fault is that?”

Murdoch scowled and reached out a hand to place it over hers and lower it. “Our boss has been more than generous in allowing you the time to collect the money for the debt,” he said calmly. “You have five days, Missus Crawford, not one hour more. Find the money or we’ll take what we have to in order to cover the debt.”

Her eyes wide, she gaped at the man. “Take what?” She flung out a hand. “The bank has already foreclosed on our home and property. They auctioned off our animals and our equipment has also gone to the bank. I’ve got nothing else to give!” Panic surged through her and she balled her hands into fists to prevent them from trembling.

“Mama, are you all right?”

She gasped and quickly turned to find five-year-old Tommy standing at the foot of the stairs, eyes wide and uneasy as he eyed the two men hovering just inside the front door. She hurried to his side and tried to hide him from their view. She didn’t like the look in their eyes as their attention focused on her son, not one bit.

Murdoch grinned as he looked back at her and gave a small shrug. “The boss might be able to find a place for him in his house,” he murmured to Hutchins. “Maybe as a stable hand?”

Beth gasped, jaw dropped and eyes wide. “You wouldn’t dare!”

Hutchins smiled back at his partner. “Maybe,” he said, scratching at the stubble on his cheek. “But what about her?”

“Housemaid? Perhaps kitchen help?”

“What?” she gasped. They couldn’t possibly thinking she’d agree for either herself or her son to become indentured servants to a heartless gambler. “Absolutely not!”

“Mister Fairchild wants his money, one way or the other,” Murdoch said. “And we’ve been hired to make sure he gets it. If not, we’ve been told to make an example of what happens to people who renege on their debts. They either work it off or…”

He let the threat hang in the air. She shook her head, finding the entire situation ludicrous. 

“I didn’t do the gambling. I didn’t even know about it,” she snapped, trying to tamp down the gut-wrenching fear flooding through her. “It isn’t my debt!”

“It’s a debt nonetheless,” Murdoch growled. “You can’t expect a businessman like Fairchild to allow people to default on their debts owed to him, now can you?” He shook his head and pointed a finger at her. “You pay up or your boy there might just find himself an orphan.”

Sick to her stomach, she held onto Tommy’s hand a little tighter. “You wouldn’t.”

Hutchins shrugged. “He’s been more than patient with you and might be willing to work out a deal.”

Beth scoffed. “Roger Fairchild is no gentleman,” she muttered. “He’s heartless, ruthless, crude, and…” She paused and glanced at her son, afraid she might be frightening him. “We will not agree to indentured servitude to Mister Fairchild for the rest of our lives,” she said stiffly. “And that’s that.”

“Well, then I suggest you come up with the five hundred dollars you owe him within the next four days or you might… or worse.” Hutchins lifted a hand to interrupt her protest. “And Fairchild has the law on his side, just in case you thought you could dispute that you owe him. His lawyer said so.”

Beth tried desperately to hide her anxiety. Doggone her husband for putting her in this mess! She’d given him six years of her life and a son and then he’d had to go and die, leaving behind a massive gambling debt to one of the most dangerous men in the Houston area. 

She’d had no idea that Marcus had gambled so often nor so deeply. How was this fair? How was it that a woman was prevented from maintaining a hold on her money, property, or belongings when she married, their belongings and properties automatically going under the control of a husband? 

And now they were telling her that she was responsible for her husband’s debt when she had no prior knowledge about it?

“You think about it, Missus Crawford,” Murdoch said. He glanced at his partner and nodded. 

Moments later, they left the house, closing the door softly behind them.

“What did they want, Mama?” Tommy asked, stepping out from behind her. “What’s a or fan?”

The words slipped from her mouth before she thought about it. “They want money, Tommy—money that we don’t have.” 

She realized what she’d just said and pulled her eyes from the door to glance down at him. He looked up at her, his own eyes wide.

“Never you mind,” she murmured, trying to hide her anger from him.

“Are we poor?”

She forced a small smile. “Just at the moment, honey, but we’re going to be just fine.”

She was lying to herself and her son. How was she supposed to earn any money when school was out until fall? Crops had just been planted and it was a busy time for ranches and farms throughout Texas. It was calving and field planting season. 

Soon, corn and hay, maybe even alfalfa and sorghum crops would grace the landscape. Early spring cattle had been born. Repairs were being made to homes, barns, and all kinds of structures that had been damaged over the winter, and children stayed home from school during these months to help out.

She turned away from the door as she heard the debt collector’s horses riding off. With a sigh, she glanced into the tiny parlor, crowded with a faded and worn sofa, a small end table, and a potbellied stove in the corner, desperately needing a new coat of blacking polish. She spied the bits and pieces of wood in all shapes and sizes in the middle of the floor and nudged her son. 

“Tommy, why don’t you play with your blocks while I fix supper?”

“What are we having?”

“Chicken soup,” she said softly. He screwed up his face.

“Again?”

She ruffled his hair. “Yes, again, and we’ll be grateful for it,” she said. Even so, she tried to cheer him up. 

Heaven knows she’d grown tired of chicken soup as well, but a big pot of it had been brought over by the reverend’s wife several days ago. She tried to shove back the shame she felt. Everyone in town knew now that the bank had taken her house and anything else of value to pay the debts owed on the property as well as county taxes. 

“I think I have just enough flour and baking soda left to make up some biscuits. Would you like that?”

He smiled up at her. “With butter?”

She winced. “I’m afraid we’re out of butter, honey. You’ll just have to dunk your biscuit into your soup.” She gave him another small smile. “Now go play.”

He did as she asked. She moved into the kitchen, blinking back tears and an ache in her chest that just wouldn’t go away. Oh Marcus, why? Why did you leave me with this burden? 

Marcus had died five months ago after a fall from the barn roof, leaving her a widow at only twenty-six. It was only afterward that she’d learned Marcus had fallen behind on the bank payments for their property. She’d also learned he owed money to the town’s hardware store and mercantile, as well, which she had paid out of her own teacher’s salary, carefully saved over the past school year. Those debts were on top of what he apparently owed Roger Fairfield.

Despair tugged at her heart as she moved to the stove and the rest of the pot of soup left covered on the cold burner. The days were still cool enough that she didn’t have to worry about the soup spoiling overnight, but soon enough it would be summer. Mister Avery at the bank had been kind enough to allow her to stay there a few more weeks through the end of April, but she still had nowhere to go and no money to buy food. She held back a groan.

Marcus had told her when they were courting that his parents had died when he was a child and he had been raised by a myriad of aunts and uncles, until he’d left his native Massachusetts and ventured south to Texas to seek out better job opportunities. Oh, he was charming and handsome, no doubt about that, and she’d believed that he was doing his best making a living as a train conductor working for the Eastern Texas Railroad Company. Unfortunately, his job kept him away from home for days, sometimes weeks at a time.

Little had she known that he had filled his downtime with gambling.

She listened to Tommy playing with his blocks, without even looking knowing that he was piling them one atop the other before slashing at the bottom and sending them all tumbling with a ripple of giggles.

“What am I going to do, Lord?” She lit the kindling in the oven box and reached for a wooden spoon. “Where am I going to come up with five hundred dollars?” 

A veritable fortune. 

She knew the truth. She couldn’t come up with that kind of money in such a short amount of time. She hadn’t been able to do it in five months and she certainly couldn’t come up with it in thirty-five years either, not even with all the extra sewing, tutoring, or helping out the town doctor as she did every summer. 

Her first priority was her son. She had to keep him safe. She wouldn’t see him responsible for working off his father’s debt—or even worse, paying for it with his life. Frowning in thought, she tried to figure out a way to get out of the bind that they were in. 

She mixed biscuit dough and kneaded it time and again, taking a small bit of pleasure in imagining it to be Murdoch’s or Hutchins’s faces, punching it, squeezing it between her fingers, and rolling it. As she began to work off some of her frustration, her thinking cleared.

By the time the biscuits were in the oven and the soup warmed through, she had come up with a plan. It was reckless with no guarantees, but it was better than nothing. Earlier, she had come across a short letter that her husband had written to her while he’d been away for work. The train took him to faraway destinations. That was what had given her the idea in the first place. 

There was no doubt that she had to leave this place. After all, it wouldn’t be her home much longer. Getting somewhere was the hardest part because she didn’t have any money for travel, let alone with a small child. Then she recalled a bit of conversation she’d overheard the other day in town about rancher Jake Thornton preparing for another cattle drive.

She’d never been formally introduced to Captain Jake Thornton, but the fact that people still used his title seven years after the conclusion of the war implied respect. The former cavalry captain owned and ran a large ranch with over a thousand head of longhorn cattle, maybe more if the rumors were true. 

A brief image of him came to mind. She’d seen him once or twice around town: tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair, wisps of silvery gray at the temples. She’d never seen him close up, but she recalled his military bearing. Perhaps he could provide her not only with a way out of town, but out of Texas completely—away from her despair and the threats of Fairfield and his two debt collectors.

She and Tommy ate quietly. Afterward, she cleaned up the dishes and sent him up to his room to get ready for bed.

“I’ll come up and read to you in just a few minutes, Tommy.”

“All right, Mama.”

Dishes put away, she looked into the pantry. The shelves were practically empty. One jar of tomatoes canned by Mrs. Meriwether the previous fall. A few potatoes and what remained of a smoked ham shank. She shook her head, feeling like a complete failure. She couldn’t even feed her son. Ashamed and desperate, she stepped outside to get a breath of cool, evening air.

The orange ball of the sun slowly sank below the horizon to the west while to the east, darker shadows of purple and gray crept slowly westward, following the sun. She looked up into the growing darkness of the Texas sky, her heart aching. 

She had loved this house from the moment Marcus had brought her here shortly after their marriage. They’d come from Houston, with money he had saved up after working as a bank teller. She had just learned that she was with child, both of them filled with excitement for their future.

“Lord, please show me the way. Please tell me if I’m doing the right thing or if it’s just the desperation of a desperate woman.”

She waited for a sign but none came. She’d always worked hard and had faith things would always work out the way they were supposed to, but Marcus’s betrayal, the secrets he’d held, had nearly taken her to her knees. 

She’d tried, oh how she’d tried, to forgive his deception! Now it seemed as if God too had abandoned her. Was she to be punished for her husband’s sins? Was she partly responsible for trusting so thoroughly, so completely?

She started as a small hand touched hers. She glanced down at Tommy, looking up at her with a small smile. He was in his nightshirt, ready for bed.

“I was waiting for you, Mama,” he said. “But you didn’t come up.”

She frowned. “I was only out here for a few minutes…” Then she realized that darkness had settled over the landscape and the moon had risen, a crescent hovering over the bluff in the distance. Even in its wan light, she saw the shimmer of it on the river that wound its way along in the near distance before disappearing to the south in the Gulf.

“Can you read to me now, Mama?”

“Yes, Tommy, let’s go in and read.”

“What story tonight?”

For a moment, she thought the story of Daniel in the lion’s den was apropos to her situation, but she decided on the one of David protecting his sheep instead. She couldn’t allow her worries and fears to affect Tommy. She took his hand and they went inside, closing the door softly behind her. 

She would read to her son and then retire to her own room to spend the rest of the evening thinking about her idea, and planning. Whether it was the right decision, she didn’t know, but she could only pray that it was—that this was her way out, not only for herself, but for her son as well.

Tomorrow, she would tell Tommy that they were going on an adventure.

Chapter Two: Jake

“How do they look, Captain?”

Jake Thornton glanced at his longtime friend and trail cook, Rusty McLean, with a nod. “It’s a good herd,” he replied, turning his gaze once more toward the north pasture, where nearly a thousand longhorn cattle had been gathered for the drive.

At forty-five years of age, the trail cook was a good ten years older than Jake, but ever since they’d served together in the cavalry, they’d been fast friends. When Jake had been discharged from the military nearly five years ago at the rank of captain, former Lieutenant Rusty McLean had followed suit. Together, they had made their way back to Texas, only to learn that he’d left behind one kind of hell to face another.

During his absence fighting Indians, rebels, and outlaws, Jake had returned to his fledging ranch to find his cabin burned to the ground, his wife and younger brother dead. He quickly shoved the memory away.

Focus on now. 

They had gathered his longhorns and would, within the next day or two, leave his ranch twenty-five miles west of San Antonio and head north along the Goodnight-Loving trail up into to southeastern Wyoming. 

This year, if his luck held, his bulls would net him nearly ninety dollars each and his cows would bring in twenty-five dollars a head. Two- to three-year-old steers would get him between twenty-two and sixty-two dollars a head. 

In Wyoming, they would be loaded onto the Union Pacific Railroad and sent east or west while he returned home with money to buy more calves to grow the next herd and more property the following year.

He turned again toward Rusty. “Do we have everybody we need?” 

His friend’s brownish-blond hair was a bit on the long side, the breeze exposing a slightly receding hairline over dark green eyes. His skin was tanned brown by a lifetime in the sun, and premature wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and along either side of his mouth made him look a bit older than he was.

“Miguel says so.”

Miguel Santos was Jake’s foreman. Nearly seven years younger than Jake, his top hand was nevertheless one of the best he’d ever worked with. Loyal and extremely observant, there wasn’t much of anything that got past him, whether it was an ailing longhorn or a bit of trouble with one of the ranch hands.

“Larry getting the horses and tack ready, with extras?” he asked. Larry Williams was his head wrangler. He’d be in charge of all the horses and their care during the drive.

“Yup.” Rusty nodded.

“Well, I guess we better go see to this year’s crew,” he sighed. 

This wasn’t Jake’s first trail drive, and it wasn’t his first attempt to put together the perfect crew. For the size of his herd this year, relatively small by most standards when several thousand cattle would be moved at one time, he’d need at least eight cowhands. 

He preferred cowhands with at least one or two cattle drives under their belts. That way, they at least knew some of the things they could expect while on the nearly fifteen-hundred-mile trail. 

On a good day, he could expect to drive their herd twenty to twenty-five miles. In rough terrain or depending on circumstances, that distance would decrease to as little as ten or fifteen. Every day along the trail came with its own set of challenges and decisions.

This year, he’d been encouraged to consider hiring a woman or two to help out with cooking and laundry and anything else that needed doing when the herd stopped for the day and camp was set up. He’d balked at first, but after giving it some thought, he’d agreed that having a woman along to help Rusty with the cooking might make life at least a little easier, as well as a bit tastier than weeks of eating the same thing day after day. 

Nevertheless, he had warned Rusty and Miguel both that if there was any trouble between any of his cowhands and any woman along, the woman would be dismissed and the cowhands disciplined. Once they were on the trail, he couldn’t afford to lose a single man. A woman, however, would unfortunately be expendable. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time they arrived at their destination filthy and stinking to high heaven, with long beards and torn clothing.

He and Rusty rode back to the main house, where a couple of wagons, a covered buggy, and several horses had gathered in the yard. He glanced at his house with a tug at his heart, wishing Rebecca could have lived long enough to see what he’d done with the ranch. He’d married her just before he’d decided to join the war effort early in 1863. 

On the heels of that thought came that of his younger brother, David, only nineteen years old when he’d died trying to protect Rebecca and himself against an attack by warring Comanche. He took a deep breath and pushed away the guilt and blame that he hadn’t been here to protect either one of them. After the war, it had taken years of nightmares and sleepless nights to recover from the loss—which still haunted him at times. 

The cowhands that weren’t out with the herd at the moment had been gathered in front of the bunkhouse, five men of various ages from eighteen to fifty years of age. Rusty McLean and Miguel Santos stood near Jake while he eyed sixty-year-old Carl Hanley, a traveling doctor who had joined the cattle drive the year before and had agreed to ride along on this one as well. 

His gaze then focused on two women. A child stood nearby. He eyed the child for several moments in consternation, and then the woman whose hand the kid held. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, her long brown hair worn in a single braid over her shoulder. Though petite, she looked determined and eyed him with her chin raised. He couldn’t really guess the age of the child. The tyke had a wild mane of dark brown hair but stood still, eyeing him somberly.

He turned to Miguel with a lifted eyebrow.

Miguel nodded and stepped toward a middle-aged, red-headed woman of medium height and build. “Jake, this is Mary O’Sullivan. I figured we could hire her on as the laundress and all-around helper for camp duties. She’s heading for Colorado.”

Jake eyed the woman for several moments. He wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking women weren’t as tough as some of the cowhands he worked with on a daily basis. Though much a stranger to women and their ways since Rebecca had passed, he couldn’t deny that some of his men on previous cattle drives often complained about having to stitch a button or wash clothes that were stained and smelly with sweat, cattle or horse dung, and sometimes even blood.

He stepped closer. Though the woman’s eyes never left his, he sensed her nervousness even though she did her best to hide it, her lips pressed slightly inward and her slightly reddened hands folded in front of her.

“You want to join this drive so you can get to Colorado, Miss O’Sullivan?”

“It’s missus… or at least it was until a couple of months ago, Mister Thornton,” she said.

He lifted an eyebrow. A widow. “Wouldn’t it be faster to take a stage or a train?”

She nodded before she spoke. “It would, but I’m afraid I don’t have enough money to go the quicker way,” she mumbled.

“You have no friends that could’ve helped you out—”

“I prefer to make my own way,” she stiffly interrupted. “Besides, I can do them boys’ laundry, I can cook, and I can even sing if I have to, but I was told that you’re paying your hands eight dollars a month and I figured by the time I got to Colorado I’d have a good enough stake to start over.” She paused. “And if you hire me, you can call me Mary.”

He eyed her for several moments, admiring her gumption and determination. He glanced at Miguel and gave him a brief nod. “All right, Mary, you’re hired.” He paused. “But you need to know ahead of time that if you hold us back in any way…” He glanced at all of them, even his cowhands. “You’ll be fired on the spot. I don’t have any time for handholding or coddling, is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” she said. 

The cowhands behind him echoed their agreement. He turned to the younger woman and child, both standing next to the traveling doctor. “And you are?”

Before she could even speak, Doc Hanley spoke up. “This is Missus Beth Crawford, Jake. Like Mary, she’s a widow in a tough spot.”

Aren’t they all? He turned to Doc with a frown. What was he about? “I’m not a travel service, Doc, and I don’t belong to any women’s church leagues that pass out clothing, food, and shelter to wayward orphans or widows.” 

He turned to Beth Crawford, who didn’t seem to be able to look at him long without lowering her gaze and turning again to Mary O’Sullivan. He crossed his arms over his chest. 

“It’s not that I don’t have some sympathy for your plights, ladies, but again, this is a cattle drive, not an overland jaunt.” Jake heaved a sigh and muttered under his breath before turning to the younger woman. “Well?”

The young woman glanced up at his face once and then lowered her eyes as if she found the button of his shirt captivating. She spoke softly. “Mister Thornton, my name is Sarah Elizabeth Crawford, but most everybody calls me Beth. This is my son, Tommy.”

He spoke bluntly. “A cattle drive is no place for a child.”

Doc Hanley spoke up once more. “Over the years, when the school sessions are out, I’ve taught Beth a good deal about medicine and healing. She has a gentle touch, she’s quick and intelligent, and her skills would come in handy along the trail.”  

Jake frowned at his old friend. “Doc—”

“I’m not getting any younger, you know,” Doc interrupted. “She can ride in my wagon with me and Mary, and if she’s not needed for her nursing capabilities, she can help Rusty with the cooking or Mary with the laundry or sewing. Saves time for everyone, don’t you agree?”

“Doc, one woman on a cattle drive is enough.” He frowned in Beth Crawford’s direction. Too young, too pretty. Her presence would cause trouble. “I certainly don’t need two women on this drive, and I definitely don’t need to be dragging a child along.”

The doctor glanced uncertainly at Beth before he gestured with his chin for Jake to step away a few paces. Jake heaved a sigh and followed. He didn’t need this. With a frown, he leaned closer and harshly whispered, “Doc, what are you thinking? It’s one thing to take a woman along on a cattle drive, but a kid? And such a young one at that?”

“He’s well-behaved and obedient,” Doc insisted. “I will be responsible for both of them.”

Jake swallowed a groan. “You’re serious. Two women and a kid.”

Doc Hanley nodded. “Look, Jake, Beth doesn’t have anyone left and she’s wanting to go to Montana to stay with an old friend of hers and start over. Her husband left her with nothing, not even two nickels to rub together. She’s a proud woman and won’t take charity. She’s a strong, hard worker. You won’t be sorry to have her along.”

Jake eyed the young woman for several moments. She watched him, no expression on her face. Doggone it! Why had Doc confronted him with both of them and the child in front of everyone else? “You could have approached me about this in private.”

“If I had, you would’ve said no immediately.”

Jake shook his head, mumbling under his breath. He stayed where he was while Rusty rejoined the others, his gaze focused on the women. With a heavy sigh, he crooked his finger at the younger one. 

She didn’t seem to realize he was gesturing toward her. He pointed at her. 

“You, Missus Crawford.” He barely spared a glance at the child, who continued to watch him. 

The younger woman spoke softly to the boy, disengaged her hand from the child’s, and stepped toward Jake. Like Mary, she tried to hide her nervousness but wasn’t nearly as successful as the older woman had been. Even so, he felt an unbidden curiosity about her.

“You do realize you’re going to be away from your home and family for months, depending on a number of variables along the way?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and then nodded. “Yes, Mister Thornton, I realize the journey is long and arduous.” She glanced down, her voice even softer. “My husband died and…”

He glanced at the doctor, who gave him a brief nod. He turned back to her. “Doc tells me that he’s been training you as a nurse or an assistant of some sort when you’re not teaching?” 

The young woman’s cheeks flushed pink, her lips pressed inward as she nodded.

“How old is your son?”

“He’s five, Mister Thornton, but he’s very well behaved and obedient. He won’t get in your way.”

“Funny, the doctor said the same thing.”

She looked up at him with a slight frown. “But he is.”

He glanced past her at the child, now curiously eyeing his buckskin gelding, standing nearly sixteen hands high. Black maned and sometimes temperamental, his horse was one of the best he’d ever owned, even though he could often be stubborn and difficult even for the cowhands to handle.

He gestured for her to step back and she rejoined her son and Mary. He heaved one more sigh before he spoke. 

“Before I make a final decision, you both need to know that we could be on the trail for up to five months, perhaps even longer depending on the weather, the condition of the trail, and other unforeseeable circumstances—which could include delays and dangers such as a stampede, attacks by outlaws, Indians, or accidents, and a bunch more that I don’t need to spell out for you.”

Neither of them said a word. The boy looked up at him wordlessly. He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be bringing women along, let alone a child. Yet he also felt some compassion for them. A woman alone out on the frontier didn’t have an easy time of it. They were easily victimized by men who sought to take advantage of their vulnerability. 

Still, a woman with a child? 

At that moment, thoughts of Rebecca came to mind. She would be appalled if he didn’t offer a helping hand to either one of them.

He glanced behind him at the cowhands. “If I agree to hire them on, these women will be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy, is that understood?”

Five nods all around. 

“If even one of you steps over the boundaries, you’ll be fired on the spot. Understood?”

Again, nods all around. He glanced again at the child and then turned to the women. 

“You two will restrict your interactions to doing your jobs. Any indication of untoward behavior from either one of you will result in the same. You’ll be fired on the spot, paid for your time, and sent on your way.” He eyed both of them for several moments. “Is that understood?”

“Yes,” they both said. He glanced at the boy, who, to his surprise, nodded briskly and spoke.

“I know how to behave,” he insisted. “My mother taught me manners, how to pray, and I can read a little and—”

“That’s enough, honey,” his mother said, laying a hand gently atop his head.

Jake had to hide the small smile that threatened to form on his lips. Instead, he frowned at the child. “You will behave, son, or you and your mother will have to leave. If you are told to do something, you do it without question. Understood?”

“Understood!” the boy replied with a bright smile.

Jake turned away, glanced at Miguel and then Rusty. “Fine. They’re hired. Get them outfitted with what they’ll need.”

Rusty and Miguel moved off, gesturing for Mary and Beth to follow. Tommy suddenly tugged his hand from his mother’s and approached Jake, who was preparing to mount his horse. He paused, gazing down at the child with a lifted eyebrow. His mother watched with uncertainty.

“Mister… Mister Thorn?”

“It’s Thornton,” Jake said.

The boy nodded, his eyes now on Jake’s horse. “Does your horse have a name?”

Jake didn’t have time for this. Still, he found himself nodding. “Yes, his name’s Buck. He’s a buckskin horse.”

“Can I pet him?”

Jake eyed the boy. Most grown men were cautious around his horse, which was not only taller than most, but broad and with huge, deadly-looking hooves. He glanced from the boy to his mother, looking on calmly, waiting to see what would happen. 

He tugged gently on the reins until the gelding lowered its head with curiosity toward the boy. He was a bit surprised when the boy held out his hand, palm up, allowing the horse to smell it, his fuzzy muzzle twitching. The child giggled. Buck’s ears tilted forward and he lifted his head as if not so sure about the small boy. Then he lowered it again. 

Jake found himself unexpectedly drawn by the boy’s apparently fearless curiosity, but he quickly tamped down those feelings. With one pointed look, he glanced at the boy’s mother. She understood and motioned for her son.

“Tommy, come here.”

Without hesitance, the boy turned and started toward his mother. Then he paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Thank you, Mister Thorny, for letting me pet your horse. He’s pretty.”

Jake scowled and eyed them as they walked away, then at Rusty, chuckling softly under his breath. He mounted his horse and turned to face all of them once more: his cowhands, Doc Hanley, the women, and the child.

“We’re heading out at dawn tomorrow morning. Be ready. If you’re late, you’ll be left behind. If you complain, you’ll be left behind. From this moment forward, I will listen to no complaints or excuses. We have roughly a thousand miles of hard travel ahead of us. You’ll pull your own weight.” His gaze passed over all of them once more, lingering on the women and the boy. “If either of you ladies or the boy slows us down or get in the way of us doing our jobs and moving these cattle, you’ll be let go. Is that understood?”

All three nodded gravely. His eyes kept returning to Beth Crawford. There was something about her that triggered curiosity. No woman in her right mind would drag such a young child along on a cattle drive unless she had a very good reason. What that reason was, he didn’t know, and he even tried to tell himself he didn’t care. 

Yet when she met his gaze, he saw something in her eyes that prompted a sudden realization. He felt almost certain she was running from someone or something. 

He almost changed his mind and came to the point of telling her that no, she couldn’t come along. Instead, as she placed a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder and he saw the look in her eyes as she gazed down at her son, he felt an uncomfortable yet nearly irresistible desire to protect her and the boy.

He just hoped he wouldn’t come to regret it.