“Nope,” Royal said, his tanned face showing ruddier as he did.
“Well, then, your mother,” Gray said.
“Died young, m’ aunt raised me, and she was a holy terror. Yeah, really,” Royal said with the vestige of a smile. “She talked to God and the preacher, and never did more than pray over me. That’s why I lit out when I was old enough to go it on my own. I want to talk to her. Gray,” he said with difficulty, “but what in hell do I say? I know how to lay a woman down, but nothing else. I never had one for a friend,” he shook his head and smiled at the inanity of that thought before his smile slipped. Then he said softly, “I’d sure like to have her as a friend, even if I know there couldn’t be nothing else. She’s sure special, ain’t she?”
Gray glanced over the little woman Royal was staring at. All he saw was a round-faced, freckled girl with an unremarkable figure and a mass of sandy hair. She’d a friendly face, he decided, a not unpleasant one, but only that. But he knew how much it meant to Royal to agree as he nodded and said, “Surely a fine-looking woman.”
His eyes were on Hannah before he’d done speaking. She looked as lovely in the forest setting as he imagined she’d look on a stage; her dark good looks were more than attractive, they were dramatic. In fact, everything about her—her way of dressing, of speaking—was just exaggerated enough to make everything she said and did seem larger than life. She might swear she was no actress until her last breath, but there was an aura of excitement about her that transcended even the fascinating one of suppressed sexuality that lured him, and spoke louder than she did; there was no mistaking she was of the theater.
But what else was she? For the first time. Gray wondered if he’d ever know. Even more surprising, for all his success with women, for the first time he wondered if he’d ever known much more of them than Royal did. Because he, too, had had no sister, and though he’d adored his gentle, doting mama, she’d died before he’d come to manhood. And now he saw that though he’d had more liaisons than he could count, and many of them for longer than a night, most of them, he had to admit, had been, however nicely done, about little more really than how much and honey you was fine. He was glib and liked women, never had anytrouble talking to them, and had had some of the best times in his life with them. Still, now he stood and considered the matter, and realized he’d never had a woman as a friend, or at least not as he thought of as a man as such. Or even ever thought of having one as such before.
He looked at Royal with new respect. He was a canny trader, and knew truth, in whatever guise, was always a valuable commodity to acquire. But he didn’t have time to refine on it now. His friend needed advice. His immediate problem, at least, was easy enough to solve. He could teach Royal how to talk to a woman, the incomprehensible rest would be up to him.
“You know how you talk to me?” Gray asked. “Well, talk to her just like that. No, I mean it,” he said to Royal’s incredulous stare. “If you’re not hellbent on getting under her skirt, then you don’t have to flatter and coax and lie. Just talk. Talk about things like you’d talk about them to any man. Just avoid cuss words, and the subject of sex and cigars. Well, aside from the obvious, their brains work like ours do, don’t they? Talk about things you’d like her to talk about with you. What would that be?”
“I want to know more about her,” Royal said simply, turning his head to stare at Peggy again.
“Well, there you go,” Gray said cheerfully. “Ask her. Just up and ask her. That’s all. There ain’t nobody,” he said, slapping Royal on the shoulder, “man, woman, or not-quite-sure, who don’t love talking about themselves.”
And so when they went to join the ladies, after they’d spread out the blanket and taken out the wicker basket full of food, and Royal was sitting up alongside Peggy on one side of it—the two of them like tent posts and just as comfortable looking, as Gray whispered to Hannah from where he reclined on the blanket next to her on the other side—it was Gray who then turned his head as it rested on his hand and looked up at her. And the very next thing he said, was: “Now then, enough of them. Tell me all about yourself, Miz Hannah Roberts.”
They drove back to Central City in silence as the sun slid further into the west. They’d eaten every scrap of food the hotel had packed into the basket, and even if the men had the lion’s share because the ladies were too tightly laced to take onmore, they were all, as Royal observed, “full as ticks.” And so, full and sleepy in the last of the golden sunlight, lulled by the pace of the horses, and stilled by the intoxicating draughts of thin air they’d breathed all day, they rode back as they’d gone out, in silence. Only this time it was a contented one.
The men saw the ladies to their hotel, and left them as the sun set. Which was, Hannah and Peggy realized as they hastened up to their room, the time when they were most needed. Hannah threw off her air of lassitude along with her shawl, and scrubbed her face with water to wake up and prepare for her working night. Because it was, as she said as she groped for a towel, now the time of day when both bats and actors came out.
“And other dread cray-tures of the night,” she said on a grin when she saw Peggy smiling. “So we’d best get busy. As she struggled into a less expensive dress for work, she remembered her duties. “You my dear,” she said over her shoulder, “have got to let out some seams in Polly’s doublet. She popped a few last night. I think the air agrees with her. If she gains more weight, we’ll have a bigger little lord than we need, but I haven’t the heart to tell her to eat less. You’re only young once, and before she knows it, she’ll be stuffed into a corset with the rest of us.”
“What a crowded corset that would be, to be sure,” Peggy said on a grin.
Hannah’s laugh was as much surprise as genuine amusement, for though Peggy had the merriest of temperaments, she seldom made jokes. But now she saw that though Peggy’s pleasant face was wreathed in familiar smiles, there was a new dimension to it, too. Her hazel eyes sparkled, her very skin seemed more translucent. Happiness? Hannah wondered, or love, or just fresh mountain air? Whatever it was, it transformed her from just a pretty girl to a very pretty one. Hannah was glad for it, and sorry, too, because if it depended on the smile of a man, it was ephemeral as innocence and just as fragile.
“And that red skirt of Mary Holiday’s needs mending,” Hannah went on, forcing herself to forget the matter so she could attend to business. “And then, I’m sorry but you must drop in on Lottie—she’s been whining that her gown forMidsummer Nightis too plain and won’t show up at all—yes, Kyle wants to get it ready for Aspen, even though I think it’s too soon for her, and would always be too much for us to do, but I don’t have the running of things.”
“Hannah,” Peggy said, still smiling so widely she forget to conceal the tiny gap between her two front teeth that she was usually so ashamed of. “Oh, my dear Hannah, but wasn’t it a glorious day!”
“Yes, yes,” Hannah said distractedly. “We’ll talk about it tonight,” she promised as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and tried to make a last-minute adjustment to her hair. But Peggy’s sudden change of expression was clearly reflected behind her. It wasn’t her expression of hurt confusion so much as the eloquent way her small shoulders slumped that made Hannah spin around. Then she crossed her arms in front of her, leaned back against the vanity table, and sighed.
“Very well,” Hannah said with an encouraging smile. “Tonight’s a year away then, isn’t it? Tell me, what did he say?”
“No, no, you’re right, I’m that foolish,” Peggy said. She began bustling about the room in a whirlwind of ineffectiveness, looking for things to pick up and put down again, before she stopped, shrugged, and said, “Och, well, but you see, I never walked out with a gentleman before.”
Hannah’s pretended smile widened into one of real relief, “Ah, so it’s the novelty of the situation, and not the fellow himself that’s got you into such a twitter.”
“Oh no,” Peggy said at once, a faint high flush coming to her round cheeks. “It’s never just that. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met before.”
“And you’ve met so many gentlemen,” Hannah said.
“Well,” Peggy said, straightening her spine and looking at Hannah with an unconscious haughtiness, “?‘tis true, I haven’t walked out with a gent before, but that don’t mean I don’t know them. I’ve four brothers, Miz Hannah, and more uncles than I know what to do with, and there’s the neighbors, too—we live on top of each other at home, and what’s one person’s business is everyone’s, and they’ve all got friends—yes, I know a great many men, I do. But none like Royal Atkins, that I’ll swear. He’s kind and handsome and has a good heart, too.”
“Splendid. And what else do you know about him?” Hannah asked, though she hated to. But although she disliked being devil’s advocate, she knew an unhappy affair was the last thing Peggy needed. When she saw Peggy’s chin come up, she’da moment to worry and wonder if she’d challenged her because Peggy’s having a happy affair was the last thing she herself needed.
“I know a good bit about him,” Peggy said proudly. “He’s an orphan and has got no family at all, and he’s worked for Mr. Dylan’s family for most of his grown life so that he’s ready to strike out on his own now. And he’s got a bit of land that he’s thinking of settling on to raise cattle and horses and especially palomino horses, which he says are the prettiest on the face of the green earth; and he had a spotted dog named Bango when he was a boy—and he loves fried chicken and biscuits, and he plays the harmonica.”
Hannah blinked.
“Heavens!” she said, when she could. “I’d no idea. You do know a thing or two about him, don’t you? I didn’t hear you two talking together at all.”
“Well, and that’s maybe because you and Mr. Dylan was laughing and joshing so much,” Peggy said.
