A Restless Wind Read online

  “I’d never expect that from you,” he sighed as he adjusted his napkin in his lap. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you did learn back East.”

  “I learned a great deal,” she said as she came back to the table with the plate and a cup and saucer. “For one thing, that I wish my life to have meaning beyond simply wondering what the latest fashions are or what color dress I will wear or how I will arrange my hair each morning. Or what my husband would like for dinner.”

  And that was new for Hetty? Zebadiah thought to himself. Though he did find himself wondering what she had planned for dinner that night. Two years of his own cooking was about a year and eleven and a half months too long.

  “I don’t want to spend my life thinking how best to please a husband,” Hetty went on as she slid two eggs onto the plate before him. “The notion that a woman exists for the sole purpose of being some man’s wife is fast becoming outdated. As well it should.” She went to the stove and poured flapjack batter on a hot iron griddle.

  “Women are doing a great many things these days,” she said with her back to him as she waited and then turned the flapjacks. “They are thinking beyond the old accepted, but very limiting, roles of wife and mother and awakening to the fact that life can offer more than simply bearing children and seeing to a man’s needs, his comforts, his pleasures- ”

  “By God, Hetty!”

  “Don’t swear at the table,” she remonstrated him gently. “I am merely expressing the truth.”

  “You’re not intending to marry then?” he questioned, hesitating with his fork halfway between his mouth and the plate.

  She looked thoughtful as she set a plate of steaming flapjacks before him. “I don’t mean that there is anything wrong with being a wife and mother. And you know as well as I do that most women work as hard as men do. In some cases they work harder.”

  Zebadiah grumbled his agreement as he reached for the syrup. He wasn’t going to argue with her there. Caring for a husband and children, in addition to cooking, washing clothes, gardening and putting up food was a rough job. Taking care of a home and family required endless, heavy labor. And too often it was thankless labor.

  He glanced at Hetty who had taken a seat opposite him. Urged to the decision by his sisters in Boston, Zebadiah had thought that sending Hetty back East to get an education was the right thing to do. He had been told it was the logical step in teaching her how to be a proper young woman. To his dismay, however, she had come back with even more radical views and newfangled ideas about things like reforms and women’s rights.

  “You might find the cause of women’s rights out of place out here, Hetty.”

  She shrugged one blue-clad shoulder as she sipped at her tea. “Speaking out about it might be. But not the cause.” She looked directly at him. “Women’s rights conventions, Uncle Zebadiah, are regularly attended by some of the most socially prominent women of Boston. I attended one of those conventions myself,” she informed him, obviously proud of the fact.

  Zebadiah drew a deep breath and groaned audibly before devoting his attention to the stack of flapjacks. Talking about suffrage and women’s rights made him uncomfortable. And temperance. He didn’t even want to think about that one. But she went right on while he ate.

  “Why, what would you think if I told you that there are men who support the cause of women’s emancipation? That some of those men have even organized and financed several of the campaigns?”

  “H’m,” was his muttered comment between bites.

  “It’s all well and good to be a partner in life with a man. Equally,” she was saying. “But the old-fashioned idea that a man owns his wife and children as he does his horses or his cattle and that she is to be at his beck and call without any rights whatsoever is thankfully becoming a thing of the past.

  “The slaves have been set free, Uncle. What rational person would expect that women should remain enslaved to men?” she asked as she stood up. “When and if I do marry, I should like to gain a partner in life. Not a master.” She took off her apron and laid it over the back of her chair.

  “H’m,” Zebadiah muttered again as he lifted his coffee cup to his mouth.

  “Things are changing, Uncle. Even in the West. Perhaps moreso in the West. Women have already won the right to vote in several of the territories.”

  “Well, things have changed here, too, Hetty. It isn’t safe for a young woman to be riding about alone. Why, when I found out that you went riding alone in the timber yesterday, it scared ten years off my life.”

  Hetty flashed a smile at him. “Are you going to tell me those stories about bloodthirsty wolves as you used to tell me to keep me from riding there?”

  “If they would do any good, I would tell them,” he answered. The truth was, though, that his stories about wolves hadn’t stopped her then. And he doubted they would stop her now.

  “Well,” he said with a shake of his head. “I don’t know why I should be surprised, Hetty. You never did listen to a da- to a thing I told you.”

  Hetty smiled and agreed. “No. Not if I could help it. More coffee?”

  He slid his coffee cup forward. “Don’t be smiling at me like that, Hetty. You,” And he shook a reproving finger at her for emphasis. “Know very well how to get your way with me. Don’t think I don’t know it. But in this instance, Hetty, I am putting my foot down. There are plenty of wolves of the two-legged kind prowling around the hills right now. It isn’t safe to be riding alone. Why, Sara Cade’s disappearance ought to prove that to you. Not to mention everything else that has been going on around here.”

  He was on safer ground now. Surely she could see that in this particular instance his request was for her own good. She ought to be reasonable about that.

  “I’m sorry if I worried you,” she said, her manner quickly changing. “But after being shut up in the city all winter, a good long ride was something I couldn’t resist. And it’s the middle of Spring roundup, You have your hands full running the ranch and the ranch hands are too busy to spend their time escorting me around.”

  As if she’d consent to an escort, he thought.

  “And- ” She gave him another one of her bright smiles. “I have come back safe and sound, so you don’t have to give it another thought.”

  Another thought? He’d sat on thorns for hours waiting for her to return yesterday. He wasn’t reassured, wasn’t sure she wouldn’t go riding alone again and he voiced his concern.

  She arched a delicate brow in his direction. “I don’t imagine you give the same orders to the men.”

  “No. That’s because they are men, Hetty.”

  “You know that I can ride as well as most of the hands,” she reminded him. “And I can shoot, too.”

  She was right. She could shoot, probably better than half the ranch hands. And she rode as if she had been born to the saddle. He had taught her himself. Living here, it was practically a necessity for her to learn those things.

  “Hellfire, girl- “

  She reminded him again not to swear.

  “Hetty, you are twenty-one years old now. Almost a woman- ”

  “Twenty-two,” she corrected him. “I am a woman, Uncle. And a woman is just as capable of defending herself as a man. Don’t you remember all those stories you told me about women settlers defending their families? And what about the bravery of women during the war? Surely those stories ought to convince you.”

  Exasperated, he shook his head. “Books, Hetty. It’s the books.”

  Hetty listened patiently. She had heard the book lecture more times than she could count over the years. In her uncle’s opinion, books had done it. They had filled her head with frivolous flights of fancy and outlandish ideas years ago, long before she had even left for Boston.

  “Books,” he repeated one last time with a final shake of his head.

  She let him finish voicing his concerns and then tactfully changed the subject, thanking him again for the mare he had given her.

  �
��You like her?”

  “She’s beautiful,” Hetty said, smiling. “It was very thoughtful of you.”

  When she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, he said gruffly, “You need to be riding something better than an old range horse. Remember though, she’s not completely broke. She needs to be worked more. She’s young and she still spooks easily.”

  Zebadiah lifted his coffee cup to his mouth. It tickled him to have pleased her. He remembered the way her face had lit up last night when he’d had the mare brought around to surprise her.

  He finished the last of his coffee. The legs of his chair scraped on the wood floor as he stood. As he began to help her clean up the kitchen, they talked about the mare’s training and from there conversation drifted to how the Spring roundup was going and the usual talk about running a ranch, subjects he was comfortable discussing with her.

  After they had finished putting the clean dishes away in the cupboard, he said, “New cat showed up. It’s been hanging around the barn since yesterday. Starved-looking thing but it seems friendly enough. Pierce has been feeding it.”

  By the look on her face, he saw that she was the same old Hetty. She never could resist a puppy or kitten when she was little. And somehow strays and orphaned animals always managed to find their way to the ranch. In fact, Hetty had always had a wealth of sympathy for anything or anyone in need. She was all female in that regard.

  “It’s going to warm right up, I believe,” Zebadiah said as he went to the window. He parted the curtains and peered outside. “Looks like your company is coming,” he said.

  The sound of wagon wheels and approaching horses reached them through the open window. “They’re here all right. All five of ‘em.”

  Two of the women in the wagon were from Boston for a visit, to get a look at the “West.” One of them was Zebadiah’s sister, Fidelia. The other woman was a stranger to him. The rest of the wagon’s occupants were women from Eminence, the nearest town, who had come to welcome Hetty home.

  Zebadiah had sent a wagon to town with an escort to bring the women back to the ranch. He’d stay around long enough to politely greet them, but he had no intention of staying in the house after that hen party descended upon it.

  “I’ll have the men fetch their things up to the house,” he said as he settled his hat on his head, frowning at the trunks and bandboxes piled high in the bed of the wagon.

  Zebadiah sighed deeply as he leaned his arms on the top rail of the corral fence. He propped a boot on the lower rail. Mornings like this he still felt the emptiness. He missed his wife and sometimes the ache was as sharp as ever.

  Isabel had loved the Springtime. She’d be baking now, or sweeping the porch. Or she’d be by his side for an early morning walk, eagerly discussing plans for the new garden.

  Isabel had worked hard but she had always seemed happy. He had loved her dearly. He’d certainly never treated her like a slave. And Isabel had never shown an inclination towards reformist ideas. She had never seemed discontent with her life.

  Hetty, now, was a different story altogether. Hetty had always been high spirited and rebellious. She had always done exactly as she pleased. She was right. She not only had a voice of her own, but a mind of her own as well. Anything she wanted to do she just went ahead and did it. Always had. And she was right about riding and shooting as well as any man. Truth was, Hetty took to anything he ever tried to teach her. And deep down, he had a grudging admiration for her abilities. And her spirit.

  When she’d come to him, a six-year-old child completely bereft and lost after the death of her parents, she’d damned near broken his own heart. Right off, there had been a bond between the two of them. It was something inexplicable. But she’d taken to tagging along with him wherever he went.

  He wasn’t used to children. He’d never had any of his own. But there was, in his experience, only one answer for grief. Activity. Lots of strenuous activity so a man didn’t have to think too much. So he filled Hetty’s days with what he knew best. Horses and cattle and all that went into ranching.

  Zebadiah suspected that his younger brother had encouraged his daughter’s independent thinking. She favored him, Hetty did, with her wildness and sometimes her downright recklessness. She favored him in so many ways. She favored her mother, too, in her looks.

  He was glad to have her back home. He had missed her. After the death of his wife, the ranch house had been almost unbearably lonely.

  Hetty had grown into a fine young woman. During the week since she had returned, Zeb had seen a great deal in her that pleased him. She had strength of character. But she also had gentleness in her as well. She was a curious mixture of those things. It was the mystery of being a woman, he supposed. A mystery Zebadiah Parrish had never in his life pretended to understand in the least.

  It was true that he’d assumed Hetty would come back a finished young woman, whatever the hell that meant. That she’d be settled and ready for marriage. That was his job, wasn’t it? To see her settled and married? He thought that’s what all women wanted. Brent Marsten had shown more than a casual interest in her in the year before she had left for Boston. And Zeb had thought that Hetty returned the interest. A fine match, he’d thought. Brent Marsten was the wealthiest rancher around, a very ambitious man with a promising future. He could give Hetty a very comfortable life.

  But since her return, Hetty didn’t seem to have an inclination for marriage to anyone. Hell, he had assumed he would have his hands full fighting a stampeded of lovesick young cowboys who would be showing up on his doorstep. Hetty was uncommonly pretty.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. This past week, he couldn’t help but think that maybe he had failed her in some way. Had he not been so free handed with her, had he not shown her so many men’s ways and let her run so wild, maybe she would be satisfied with a traditional woman’s role.

  He’d never admit it to Hetty, but all her talk about women’s rights had got him questioning the views he himself had held for a lifetime. It was true that most men expected obedience. Most men weren’t about to let go of their superior role and treat women equally. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but for a lot of men that concept was set in stone.

  He shook his head slowly in the morning light. Horses he could deal with. Cattle he understood. But his one spirited female had the ability to make him tremble like an aspen in his boots.

  And she bucked about staying close to the ranch. Hetty had always ridden whenever and wherever she liked. There was a restlessness in her that Zebadiah himself understood. Sometimes, he, too, just needed a good long ride to clear his head.

  She was young. That very fact, coupled with her innocence made her blithely certain that nothing bad could happen to her. And that’s just about when something would happen, it seemed.

  Zebadiah shook his head again. But what could he do? Hog tie her to the front porch? Or have one of the ranch hands watch her? He thought of the restriction of some ranch hand trailing around after her. Why, Hetty wouldn’t stand for it. It would be an invasion of her privacy. He understood because he certainly wouldn’t tolerate it himself.

  Well, today at least she would be too busy to think about much more than how to entertain her guests. She was going to have her hands full. No doubt about that. And for the next few weeks as well.

  He drew a breath in deeply, let it out in a sigh and set out to follow his own remedy for worry. Hard work.

  Chapter 3

  No breath of air came through the opened windows. No wind stirred the heavy curtains. Through the rest of that morning and into the afternoon, the fringed green velvet hung as motionless as the leaves on the trees outside. Uncle Zeb had been right. It had warmed right up.

  But as the afternoon wore on, there had come a change in the weather. The air was still hot and sultry, but the sky had darkened and there was a brooding stillness over everything as if all of nature was holding its breath before the coming storm.

  Hetty drew a slow, deep breath under the starched
, white bodice she was wearing. Her corset and its confining stays kept her uncomfortably straight in her parlor chair. But patience was not among Hetty’s virtues. It was all she could do to keep from shifting restlessly, all she could do to smile pleasantly and make polite comments when it was necessary to make them. And while the women’s fans offered some relief against the stuffy heat in the parlor, there was nothing to help assuage the tedium of small talk and gossip that some women, these women, thrived upon.

  The three women from Eminence had wanted to know all about Boston. Particularly, they wanted to know about the latest fashions and what women were wearing there. Her two guests from Boston had been quickly caught up in Eminence gossip.

  There was a pause in the conversation and a whisper of silken skirts as, once again, tea was poured all around. In the silence, thunder growled, low and ominous.

  “I think it will storm soon,” said one of the women, stating the obvious. The other women offered their own comments on the weather.

  Amiline Marsten finished pouring tea into her own cup and set it aside to cool. Amiline enjoyed her status as the wealthiest woman in the county. Her brother Brent owned the biggest ranch around. Amiline was also the town’s reigning queen of gossip.

  Except for a small crocheted collar, Amiline’s gray silk dress was plain, but stylish and crisp, even in this heat. Her dark hair was precisely parted and drawn back into a tight knot at the nape of her neck. As it always was. Amiline’s hair, Hetty mused, was as unchanging and uncompromising as her nature.

  Amiline took up her needlework and held it at arm’s length for a critical examination, then bent her head over her sewing, inspecting every stich, which, of course, would be perfect. Amiline was like that in all things. Perfect.

  Amiline settled back in her parlor chair and when she was certain that all eyes were upon her, resumed the gossip she’d begun earlier. “Imagine. Smoking a cigar where anyone could see her. I don’t what she will do next. Take up drinking in the saloons, I suppose.