Pete (The Cowboys) Page 11

  “When did your mother die?”

  “When I was nine.”

  “Do you have any other family?”

  “Not that I know about.”

  So she’d been an orphan, just like him. He supposed that didn’t feel any different, no matter whether you were Indian, French, Spanish, or a mixture. He was about to ask her about her father when a very well-dressed old woman approached the table.

  “Well, my child, I’m glad to see you got down before the dining room closed. I thought for a while you might have to go to bed hungry.”

  “I’d never let that happen,” Pete said. “If they wouldn’t open up again, I’d have taken her someplace else. There must be other restaurants in town.”

  “Several, but this is the nicest. You’ll have to introduce me to your companion,” the woman said to Anne. “I had thought you would be dining with Peter.”

  “But I am,” Anne said. “This is Peter.”

  The woman looked startled. She looked at Pete, then at Anne, and back at Pete. “What trick are you trying to pull, Anne dear? I knew Peter as well as anybody. This man can’t possibly be he.”

  Chapter Eight

  Pete wondered how many more bullets he would have to dodge. Calling Belser a liar, when it was obvious he was enraged over not getting the ranch, was easy compared to facing an elegantly dressed woman who appeared to have nothing to gain from his exposure.

  “Of course he’s Peter,” Anne replied immediately. “I know he’s changed. I was rather shocked myself at first, but he was only a boy when he left.”

  “He may have been a boy,” the woman stated, “but boys develop definite characters by the time they’re fourteen. I knew Peter. He was a weak-willed, nervous fellow, never able to stand up for himself. I was in The Emporium a short time after you. From what I understand, this man more than stood up for you.”

  Anne lowered her gaze before raising it again. “They didn’t want to serve me because I’m Indian.”

  “You’re not an Indian,” the lady declared, “certainly no more so than half the people in the Territory, and I told them so in no uncertain terms. However, that doesn’t change the fact that this man is not Peter.”

  “There’s at least one person who disagrees with you,” Pete said. He pulled his hair back to expose the scar made by the bullet. “I was shot on my way to Wyoming. Someone tried again this morning.”

  “Why should anyone want to shoot you?” the woman demanded.

  “To keep me from inheriting the ranch.”

  “Who would do that?”

  “The most obvious choices are Belser, so he could get his hands on the ranch, and Anne’s uncle, so he could sell her to that old leacher, Cyrus McCaine.”

  “That man ought to be shot.”

  “Who are you trying to get rid of now, my dear?” a man asked as he came up to join the woman at their table.

  “Cyrus McCaine.”

  “I don’t much like him myself, but I don’t see what he’s done to you.”

  “He hasn’t done anything to me.”

  “Then why are you trying to convince this young man to shoot him?”

  “I’m not. But he’s been trying to get Anne’s worthless uncle to force her to marry him.”

  “Don’t do it, child,” the man said. “He’s rich, but you wouldn’t like being married to him.”

  Anne laughed. “I can’t marry him. I’m already married to Peter. He wants people to call him Pete now he’s grown.”

  “See there, my dear,” he said to his wife. “Nothing to worry about. She’s already married to this fella.”

  “Horace Dean, do shut up and listen. I’ve just been telling Anne that this man is not Peter.”

  “He must be, my sweet. She just said she was married to him and his name was Peter. Heard her say so myself. Can’t be two young men in the room named Peter. Don’t imagine Anne would forget which one was her husband if there were.”

  His wife’s disgust was so patent, Pete had to struggle to keep from smiling.

  “Horace, it will always be a mystery to me how you got to be a colonel in the army. I declare, if I hadn’t been around to watch out for you, you’d have been cashiered long ago.”

  “Always knew you were smarter than I am,” her husband said, his affability unimpaired. “I tell everybody. Quite proud of you.”

  His obvious pride didn’t smooth his wife’s ruffled feathers.

  “Forget about all that. Forget about Cyrus, too.”

  “I had forgotten about him. You brought him up.”

  “Well, I’m not going to mention him again.”

  “Good. Never did like Cyrus much.”

  His wife took a deep breath—apparently to keep hold of what was left of her temper—and started all over again. “Do you remember Carl’s nephew, the young one? His name was Peter.”

  Her husband’s dazed expression gave Pete hope that he hadn’t the slightest idea whom his wife was talking about.

  “Well, this young man says he’s Peter.”

  Her husband smiled and stuck out his hand. “Glad to meet you again, young fella. I thought you’d gone back East. Good thing you didn’t.”

  “Horace, if I thought it would do the least good, I would brain you with the first solid object I got my hands on. This man is not Peter Warren. He just says he is.”

  “Well, if he says he is, I think you ought to believe him, my dear. After all, he really ought to know who he is.”

  Pete felt rather dazed. He’d braced himself to be exposed, at the very least to endure a harrowing few minutes, and the whole thing had turned into an absurd exchange between this harridan and her doddering old fool of a husband. Though thankful that all the other diners had already left the dining room—even the waiters seemed to be elsewhere—Pete was certain the entire conversation would make its way through Big Bend before morning.

  “Young man,” the woman said, turning on him with the light of battle blazing in her eyes, “do you know who I am?”

  A dozen answers sprang to Pete’s tongue, but he thought it better not to utter any of them. He was certain this woman could be a very dangerous enemy. “No, I don’t,” he said, quite candidly. “But before you jump on that as proof of what you say, let me tell you that I don’t remember half of what I should. I’m still getting over the effects of a concussion.”

  “That’s no excuse. I say you’re not Peter.”

  “Really, he is,” Anne said. “He knows all kinds of things he couldn’t know if he weren’t.”

  “Such as?”

  “I can’t remember exactly. But we’ve talked about lots of things, and he remembers nearly everything.”

  “How did you travel here?” she demanded of Pete.

  “I went to St. Louis and took a steamboat to Miles City.”

  “What did you go there for?”

  “Business. After that, I bought a wagon and headed south. Two men ambushed me and left me for dead.”

  “Why didn’t they make sure of the job?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t conscious at the time.”

  She clearly didn’t believe him. She took him by the chin and turned his face from one side to the other. “It’s all wrong,” she announced. “You’ve got the wrong bone structure. Peter would never have been as handsome as you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a compliment. You’re a fraud. I don’t know what your game is, but I must say, Anne, I’m extremely disappointed to find you going along with it.”

  “There’s no game at all,” Anne insisted, clearly distressed by the whole situation.

  “I can understand your talking him into marriage to protect yourself from that penny-pinching uncle of yours,” the woman said. “I certainly can’t imagine Peter having such a sensible idea on his own. Nor can I imagine you loving such a dimwit. I had hoped you’d outgrown your fascination with him. You deserve better.”

  “He’s not a dimwit,” Anne said. “Eddie said he sh
ows a remarkable understanding of the ranch for being here such a short time. He says it’s in capable hands.”

  “Then I know he can’t be Peter Warren. Horace, we must inform the sheriff at once. I’m sorry, Anne dear, but I can’t let you delude yourself with this man. He’s a much better catch than Peter ever would be, but you can’t have him. Come, Horace. I must speak to Owen immediately.”

  She turned and sailed away without looking back to see if her husband followed. Pete was certain he always had.

  “Sorry about this, young fella. She’s got you mixed up with this other Peter. Bea doesn’t usually get the wrong end of a stick. She’s a sharp one, Bea is.” He saluted and toddled off after his wife.

  “You’ve got to stop her from talking to the sheriff,” Anne said.

  “Who is she?” Pete wanted to know.

  “Mrs. Dean. She was the only woman who ever came out to the ranch. We’ve got to stop her. If she talks to the sheriff—”

  “There’s no way I can stop that woman from doing anything she wants to do,” Pete said.

  “But we can’t let her talk to Owen.”

  “What harm can it do?” It could do a lot of harm, but he didn’t want to tell Anne that.

  “People will talk.”

  “People always talk. Don’t pay any attention to them. As long as you believe me, there’s not a lot anybody can do. Besides, we’re going back to the ranch tomorrow. It won’t matter what anybody thinks. Now finish your dinner. I expect they’re waiting for us so they can close up.”

  But Anne was no longer hungry.

  “We’ll go for a walk before we go to bed.”

  “No,” Anne squeaked. “We can’t possibly be seen.”

  “If we hide in our room, people will think the worst. If we go parading about the town as proud as peacocks, what they’ll see is a beautiful young wife and a man who considers himself very fortunate to be her husband. They’ll think we couldn’t possibly be walking about so openly if we weren’t telling the truth. Unless I’m mistaken, your Mrs. Dean is a busybody who’s ruffled more than a few feathers in her time. I imagine there’ll be lots of people only too glad to believe she’s got the wrong calf by the ears this time.”

  Anne didn’t look convinced.

  “Besides, you don’t want to miss this chance to show off your new finery,” Pete said. “You’ll turn every man’s head, and the women will seethe with envy.”

  “They won’t.”

  He could tell she hoped they would.

  “If they don’t, we’ll go straight back to that store first thing in the morning and buy another half-dozen dresses. We’ll keep on buying dresses until we find one that will make every woman in this town green with envy.”

  Anne’s eyes shone with happiness. “You never used to be so bold. I was the one always getting in trouble. You didn’t say such pretty things, either.”

  “No fourteen-year-old boy is able to appreciate a woman. Now come on. We don’t want to waste the light. Nobody can see you in the dark.”

  But as they walked along the single street, looking in store windows, making a point of speaking to everyone they met, Pete wondered if maybe that bullet hadn’t affected his brain after all. He certainly wasn’t acting like himself. Words of flattery poured out of his mouth as though they were natural to his speech. He kept falling over himself to reassure Anne, to make sure no one hurt her feelings, to shield her from anything that might make her unhappy.

  He’d never done any of that before. He had fallen in and out of love with a dozen women, been crazy about them for a morning, or as much as a week, then forgotten all about them. He wasn’t in love with Anne. He couldn’t even tell her who he was. Yet he was watching over her like a protective older brother. He guessed that was what it was. She was so young, so sweet, so innocent, and so alone, he couldn’t help wanting to look after her.

  That was okay. Isabelle had always insisted the boys do everything they could to protect defenseless women, but he had to remember his neck was on the line. He had to think less about how adorable she looked when she giggled and more about where to find his saddlebags. His neck wouldn’t be safe until he was a long way from Wyoming Territory. If the killers were in the area, they would want to kill him. It wouldn’t matter to them whether he was Pete or Peter. They would want him dead either way.

  He had to think of a way to look for his saddlebags without making himself a target.

  “Did you enjoy that?” Pete asked Anne when they returned to their hotel room.

  “It was sort of fun to see the whole town, to talk to everybody, daring anybody to say you aren’t Peter,” she replied. “But I was scared the whole time. If I hadn’t been holding your arm, I could never have done it”

  “There’s nothing to be scared of,” Pete said. “They’re just people.”

  “But they’re important people.”

  “No more important than you.”

  That notion was so completely beyond her ability to conceive, she couldn’t do anything but stare back at him.

  “Well, look at you,” Pete said. “You’re young, beautiful, and the wife of the richest rancher in this part of Wyoming. If anything happened to me, you’d be the owner of the richest ranch in this part of the territory.”

  Anne wanted to protest that nothing would happen to Pete—she didn’t even want to think about the attack outside of town—but she couldn’t think of that for the picture of herself Pete had painted. Except for her parents, she had always been the little girl nobody wanted and everybody was ashamed of. Even Uncle Carl ordered her to keep out of sight when he had visitors. Mrs. Dean might insist she was different, but she had never seen either Anne or Peter as real people, just kids she had to champion because she was a woman, and women were supposed to be interested in children.

  Even Eddie and Dolores treated her more like a daughter than an adult. She couldn’t imagine anybody at the ranch, especially Belser, treating her like an owner, like a boss.

  “People will soon be after you to sign petitions, form committees, head up projects,” Pete said. “They’ll seek your advice and solicit your support.”

  “I couldn’t do that,” she said, unnerved by the thought of standing up and giving her opinion to a group of women like Mrs. Horace Dean. “I don’t know anything.”

  “Of course you do,” Pete said. “And you can learn even more.” He’d started to undress and spoke to her from the bathroom. “None of those women we met today knew any more than you when they started.” Pete stuck his head outside the bathroom door. “And you’re smarter than they are, so it won’t be any time at all before you know twice as much as they do.”

  His head disappeared and Anne heard him pour water into a basin. She ought to be undressing, preparing for bed, but she couldn’t move. No one had ever thought she was smart. No one asked her opinion. No one listened if she managed to get up the courage to offer it. She’d been ignored all her life, taken for granted, always present, always ready to be of use when wanted.

  And always, at the back of everything else, was the knowledge that she was part Indian, that she was inferior.

  “I wouldn’t let them talk you into anything just yet,” Pete said, still invisible in the bathroom. “We may decide to live in town during the winter, but you’ll want to spend most of your time on the ranch. It’s too far to drive in more than a couple of times a year, and you don’t want them coming out” He stuck his head out again. “Can you imagine being locked up in the same house with Mrs. Dean? She’d probably expect you to give up your bedroom.”

  His head disappeared again, and Anne sank into a chair. She’d never considered the possibility of entertaining Mrs. Dean as an equal. The thought terrified her. The idea of having to entertain the owner of The Emporium was equally intimidating. She didn’t believe anybody would want to ask her opinion or solicit her to form committees, but she definitely would refuse if asked. She couldn’t do any such thing. Fortunately, living on the ranch would make it a pra
ctical impossibility.

  But no sooner had she reached that comforting conclusion than she became aware of a very different feeling. She didn’t want people to keep thinking of her as that little Indian girl, as a young woman with no opinions worth notice. She liked having people stare at her in admiration, even envy. She liked being noticed, her comfort considered, her wishes consulted. Nobody had considered her before except Peter—Pete.

  She used to have to protect him. Now he was protecting her. She liked that, too.

  “You haven’t even started to undress.”

  Pete had come out of the bathroom. He had changed from his fancy clothes—that was what he called them—into the clothes he’d bought that afternoon. He looked more like a cowboy than a rancher, but she decided she liked him better that way. He looked younger, more like the boy she remembered.

  His pants fitted his slim hips and powerful thighs more tightly. The shirt and vest fitted snugly across his chest. Now that they weren’t partially hidden by his loose coat, she could see just how broad his shoulders were when compared to his waist, how powerful his arms were. She couldn’t imagine what he’d done to develop such a powerful body, but she liked the results. He might say she was the most beautiful woman in town—she didn’t believe him, but it was nice of him to say it—but there wasn’t any question she had the most handsome husband of any woman in Big Bend. She imagined the women in The Emporium were just as upset about that as they were about her having the money to buy clothes they considered too good for a breed.

  Pete was looking at her with concern. “Are you feeling all right?”

  She practically jumped to her feet. “I’m fine.”

  “You looked a little funny. Your stomach isn’t acting queer, is it?”

  “My stomach is fine,” she said, grabbing a few things before heading to the bathroom. “I was just thinking.”