The question startled Jane into silence. She simply stared at Mrs. Sterling.
“Clearly, I’ve overstepped. I shouldn’t carry on as if I’ve known you all my life. It’s a fault of mine.” Mrs. Sterling picked up her teacup and raised it to her lips. Before she drank, she said, “It’s on account of Morgan that I take liberties with you.”
Jane found her voice. “What accounts for it with everyone else?”
Mrs. Sterling managed to swallow her tea but not without effort. Her small, choking sounds prompted Jane to pat her lightly on the back. She held up a hand and nodded to indicate that she was all right. After she set her cup back in the saucer, she dropped her spectacles to the tip of her nose and dabbed at her eyes with one corner of her apron. “Goodness, but that was unexpected, and dare I say, welcome?”
“Welcome?”
“I wouldn’t want you to make a habit of taking me to task, but I confess to worrying about how well you’d do out at Morning Star with Morgan and the boys. Now I’m thinking you don’t let them ride roughshod over you.”
“Some days are more challenging than others.”
“I’m sure. What’s this trouble you were having a while back?”
“Trouble? What did you hear?”
“Rustlers.”
Jane felt a measure of relief that Mrs. Sterling was not asking about something more personal. “Yes, they showed up after I arrived at Morning Star, but when the snow began to fly, they disappeared. Morgan does not have enough men to be everywhere at once.”
“I don’t know a rancher who does, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon what with the price of beef falling like it’s been pushed over a cliff.”
“I am learning to ride. Morgan gave me a beautiful mustang. I am hopeful that in time I will be able to help.”
“Ride out, you mean?”
“If that’s helping, yes.”
Ida Mae Sterling bent her head and regarded Jane over the rim of her spectacles. “Have you mentioned this to Morgan?”
“No.”
“Well, I hope you’ll let me know how that turns out when you do.”
“Morgan is teaching me to shoot.”
“That so? I expect he has his reasons. Benton wouldn’t let me near a gun. Never did set well with me, but I really had no cause to learn to use one here in town.”
“I’m glad you mentioned your husband. Morgan’s men told that he admired him but precious little beyond that. How did they know each other?”
“Early on, my husband traveled some in the course of his work. I think it was on one of his visits to Lander—that’s up in Fremont County—that he and Morgan crossed paths. You would have to ask Morgan for the particulars. I don’t recollect what they were. I’m not sure I ever knew them.”
“Was Morgan a young man when they met?”
“Younger than he is now.”
“Of course,” she said. “Tell me, what did your husband say about Morgan? I ask because it seems to me that you hold Morgan in affection. There’s no one else to tell me what he was like as a younger man.”
“I didn’t know him myself, you understand. Just what Benton told me about him.”
“It must have made an impression.”
“True. Benton never talked much about his work. Like his gun, he didn’t really like me near it. I suppose that’s why Morgan Longstreet stuck in my head. Benton just started rattling on one day about this boy he met. And ‘boy’ is what he called him. Said he was smart as a whip but hadn’t figured it out yet. Needed some mentoring. Benton would say that when someone needed a good kick in the—well, I reckon you know what part he thought needed kicking—and I think my husband figured he could to the kicking. He said Morgan could make something of a chance if he was given one. Benton aimed to give him one.”
Jane waited while Mrs. Sterling took another sip of tea, but when the older woman replaced her cup and offered nothing further, Jane was moved to prompt. “That’s all?”
“That’s what stuck in my head. You didn’t know my husband, but that was a lot.”
