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8
Picnic
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Slim could not believe his luck! The familiar buggy rolled into the yard a little before noon – the second visit in three days! And it was a glorious day. It would have been a glorious day even if it had been pouring with rain, but fortunately it wasn't.
"Oh, Mr. Sherman! I do hope you like surprises?" Hope jumped out almost before the buggy had come to a halt. She was a picture of perfection in cream sprigged muslin, with dainty little pumps, lacy gloves and a small but smart flowered hat crowning her shining hair.
It was as well that Jago's habitual expression never revealed anything, even his desire to chuckle. Andy was already safely out of the way, embarking on his mission. Jess averted his gaze hastily and became very interested in the young horses in the corral.
"I like anything you've planned, Miss Hope."
"Then will you take me for a drive, please? You promised you'd show me how beautiful your ranch is."
Slim hesitated. If he went off with Hope, his share of the work for the day would fall on Jess. Into the pause, Jago made the longest speech they had heard from him yet: "Ain't going anywhere without a chaperone!"
"Oh, Jago!" Hope actually stamped, but so prettily that Slim was enchanted rather than warned by this evidence of temper. "Don't spoil my surprise! Aunt Agnes knows all about it and she knows Mr. Sherman."
"Reckon Slim's a trustworthy as a man can be!" Jonesy was staunch in his support.
Jago had seemingly exhausted his ability to utter, since he shrugged and climbed down from the buggy. Slim turned hopefully to Jess, but waited to see how he would react.
Jess frowned for a minute, as if calculating. Then he said quietly, "Was just goin' to work on a few of the youngsters we broke to saddle last week. Maybe Jago can give me a hand, if he's not playin' driver?"
So the master-plan was launched. Slim hastened to fetch his hat, climbed into the buggy and took up the reins. As it moved off out of the yard, they heard Hope's tinkling laugh as she explained: "I've brought a picnic. Didn't you mention the lake was very pretty?"
Jess and Jago did not catch each other's eye in front of Jonesy. Both were thinking: so far, so good!
With Jonesy still staring after the buggy, a benign look of satisfaction on his face, they had, perforce, to take two of the young horses, rather than any of the more reliable ones. After assuring to Jonesy that all was in order for the stage team to change their own horses for once, Jess announced their intention to give the new horses a little try-out with some young steers in a nearby pasture. This was not exactly a fabrication. The pasture just happened to be immediately above a certain lake …
Meanwhile, Slim was showing Hope the joys of the ranch. This provided a ride which was rather more bumpy and uncomfortable than she had bargained for, the buggy being sprung for use mainly on some kind of road rather than across country. But since the rough passage entailed a good deal of sliding together and the occasional supporting arm against the jolts, neither of them thought of complaining. Well, not Slim, anyway – he was used to it. Hope was conscious that her dress was getting creased and that she would be sore sitting down for some days to come. The discomfort was unexpected and unwelcome, so it was a good job Slim's company made up for it. To a certain extent.
He was being the perfect gentleman, attentive, considerate – and obedient to her every whim. This included the location of their picnic. Slim had naturally enough drawn up at the place on the lakeside which the Sherman family had always used. There was a wide lawn, some fallen trunks and dry bounders to sit on, a ready-made fire pit and just enough trees to give shade without impeding the view of the surrounding countryside.
It was not, however, to Hope's liking, since it did not accord with what she thought was her plan.
"Come on, let's walk along the shore a little!" She actually took Slim's hand and led him prettily along the margin of the lake, in the direction of her objective. That nice friend of Aunt Agnes, Mrs. Travers, had mentioned casually that there was a lovely secluded glade in the trees a little way along the shore, quite private …
The way along the shore was not as easy as it looked. Nor were Hope's dainty pumps the ideal shoes in which to be walking. She had a nasty feeling she was getting a blister. But the rough parts also gave Slim the opportunity to lift her over them, so it was not without its compensations.
When they reached the spot, she sank gracefully onto the grass and smiled up at him. She knew that she looked an absolute picture of feminine loveliness, with her billowing cream skirts spread wide around her and the flowers in her hat adding a touch of colour. "This is perfect! Perhaps you can bring the buggy up, with the picnic?" There was a rough trail skirting the trees about thirty feet from the lakeside, so she knew it was possible.
Slim dutifully did as he was asked. He had some misgivings, having a lot more experience of eating outside than Hope had, but he didn't want to disappoint her. After he had driven round, he watered the horse at the lakeside and tethered it in the shade of the trees, since, being corn-fed, it didn't really need to graze.
Hope watched these ministrations with ill-concealed impatience. She really could not see why Slim insisted on making more fuss over the animal than he did over her. Finally, however, he spread out the rug on the grass for her to take her seat and lifted down the picnic basket.
Sitting in the middle of the grassy lawn was picturesque, but since there was no shade, also rather hot. Hope had neglected to bring a parasol and in any case would have considered one to be an impediment to developing interesting relations with the man of her choice. She pulled out her fan and wished she had chosen a more shady hat. The last thing she wanted as a result of this interlude was to develop a tan and freckles!
Slim, who was wearing his usual practical working clothes and a tried and trusted hat, looked a good deal cooler than she did. She couldn't help noticing, though, that his boots were scuffed and dusty, his vest well-worn and there were even a couple of darns in his shirt. Still, he was very handsome and he was entirely alone with her.
Entirely alone, except for the ants. It did not take long for the ants (several nests carefully transported and reestablished by Andy) to locate the picnic. This was because the picnic basket was no sooner deposited on the rug than it began to ooze an ominous red liquid.
"Oh! The jam! The jar must have broken!" Hope exclaimed and on examining the contents, found that this was the case.
Slim said nothing. Jam was not a good choice for a picnic, but he was not going to criticize and spoil her enjoyment. In fact, all the food was surprising for its unsuitability for outdoor eating. Everything seemed to be sweet and sugary and squishy, resulting in a sticky mess on fingers and plates and anywhere else it could inconveniently spread itself. The ants had a field day! So did the numerous flies, bees and wasps which it attracted.
Not so the humans. After they had moved the rug a couple of times, they abandoned the picnic hamper to the invading Formicidae and contented themselves with sipping luke-warm lemonade. Somehow it didn't stay cool the way it did in the pitcher at home.
Ants were not the only hazard, as Slim knew well. Part of the usefulness of the fire-pit was to generate some aromatic smoke to keep the gnats at bay. Since he didn't smoke cigarettes or cigars himself, he was not able to offer an alternative preventative and Hope found herself wanting to scratch her itching hair in a most unladylike fashion.
Something else did fill the air, though, totally eclipsing the gnats and settling on them both in a fine film. It was dust. It was dusty because a small herd of young steers were ambling and skirmishing and head-butting their way along the trail at the edge of the clearing. They appeared to be following their natural inclinations without any encouragement, although this was not, in fact, the case. Jess was just a good way behind them and well out of sight. Several of them broke away from the herd and followed further natural inclinations down to the water's edge to drink. They were not particularly big steers, but they were noisy, smelly and unpredictable. Hope clung to Slim's arm.
"Oh, horrid! Make them go away! At once!"
Slim detached himself from her with some difficulty, took off his hat and shooed them back onto the trail. The steers dodged and curvetted and bellowed, but eventually rejoined the herd. "They're only being playful," he explained. "Just full of high spirits – like you."
It was an unfortunate compliment. Hope pouted and snapped back: "I am nothing like a smelly old cow, Mr. Sherman!"
"They're not old," he corrected gently, "and they're not cows. You have to learn the difference, living out here."
"Indeed?" Hope sniffed. "I can't think why!"
A faint frown creased Slim's brow. "Because raising cattle is how most of us make our living."
"How horrid!" Hope said again, but then her dimples re-appeared and she breathed: "Thank you for protecting me. You are a hero!"
The frown deepened. Slim was nothing if not realistic and did not relish exaggerated compliments, especially ones which actually made him look a fool. Hope, however, did not notice.
"The beastly things have churned up the grass and made the water muddy!" she complained, contriving her prettiest tones as she did so. "I'm afraid our picnic will be spoiled and …"
It was at this point that a simple plan to sabotage the idyll and introduce a few hard facts about real life into the romantic liaison, went badly wrong. The result was the picnic from hell!
While Slim and Hope had been distracted by the steers which Jess had managed to drive surreptitiously in their direction, Jago had wormed his way through the trees and unhitched the horse from its tether. The idea was to let it loose, necessitating a hot, dusty walk back to the relay station, during which they would have come across and had to attend to an apparently injured Jess. The hot and hungry couple, and their patient of course, would be rescued – eventually – in a plain old unsprung wagon, the like of which formed the usual transport around Laramie. Hope would either rise to the occasion with flying colours or be put off for ever. Slim would see her reaction to and opinion of his life-style and its demands. That was the plan.
It was a couple of horses who really upset it. The buggy horse was no more used to steers than Hope. Seeing the frolicking herd, it panicked, took flight and crashed through the undergrowth in an attempt to escape. Unfortunately, it disturbed a hornets' nest, with predictable results. The insects billowed out in a savage swarm, ready to defend their home to the last.
Slim took one look and grabbed Hope. "Run!" He dragged her by the arm and plunged them both into the lake, which was fortunately several feet deep at this point. "Get under!" His hand came down smartly on the top of her hat and her head was submerged, just as the angry buzzing cloud swirled overhead.
When they emerged, after a couple of minutes, the immediate danger from the hornets was over. The danger from Hope's temper was equally fierce and certainly not over! She was furious. Her favourite hat had floated away, her hair was full of water-weed, her eyes smarted from the peaty water and her dress was soaked and clung to her in a most embarrassing fashion. Not a dimple was in sight.
Slim waded ashore and turned to offer her his hand.
It was frigidly declined.
Fortunately the sun was very hot and, as she tried to wring out the soaking folds of muslin as best she could, her dress began to steam.
The hornets, meanwhile, deprived of their human targets, set about finding something else on which to vent their wrath. The next moving objects to catch their attention were the steers. This would not have mattered very much if the steers, like the horse, had not panicked. Instead of running away, they milled and circled and eventually, maddened by buzzing and stinging, decided to stampede back to the pasture from whence they had come.
Unfortunately, Jess was right in their path.
And that would not have mattered very much either, if he had been riding Traveller. But the subterfuge of the plan meant that he was on a green young horse who had never faced a stampede of maddened cattle in its short life. It baulked mightily, dug in both forelegs and, to make matters worse, shied sideways into a thicket. Even that would not have mattered, had it not become entangled in some stout creepers which pulled it abruptly to its knees. As his mount disappeared from under him, Jess was catapulted into the path of the charging herd.
There was a split second of sheer horror all round. Hope was just petrified by the – to her eyes – huge, rampant beasts. Slim had barely registered his friend's presence before he was suddenly lost from sight under the pounding hooves. Jess felt time slow down as he curved through the air, asking himself why on earth he had got involved in all this in the first place, at the same time as automatically rolling into a tight ball with the object of minimizing the blows he was about to receive. He sent up a brief prayer like a bullet enquiring of the Almighty why, after so much divine intervention on his behalf, he was being abandoned now?
And then a very hard head hit him in the ribs and, as his protective curl was forced open, he felt the searing pain of a horn raking across his collar-bone and gouging into his shoulder. Nothing broke, though, and Jess decided the Almighty might, after all, still be interested in preserving him. And as he was offering up yet another prayer of thankfulness for small mercies, a much larger and more active mercy appeared in the shape of Slim.
Slim it was who seized the offending steer by one horn and twisted its tail with the other hand. Then he simply ran it back onto the track, where it lost interest in doing any more damage to the recumbent human and high-tailed it after its fellows. They were being cheered on their way by the combined efforts of Jago and Andy, who had sensibly decided that the cattle had participated quite enough for one day and were driving them back to their proper milieu.
Jess sat up cautiously, spitting out a mouthful of dust and dung as he did so. He was wheezing and gasping for breath as a result of the impact of head-butt on his ribs. Slim advanced in no uncertain manner, vengeance warring with worry in his eyes. He reached Jess, bent down and simply picked him up, an action which he knew full well would definitely infuriate his shorter partner.
Sure enough: "Ain't nothing wrong with m'legs!" Jess growled angrily.
"No, just with your crazy head!" Slim retorted.
"My head's fine too," Jess asserted with all the dignity he could manage, which wasn't much when he was being carried like a baby! "An' that's more'n can be said for yours!"
"Shut up!" Slim told him firmly as he dumped him on his feet once more by the waterside. "And you are not fine! For a start, you're bleeding like a young river."
"Hell!" Jess looked down at his shoulder. His legs felt wobbly from all the exertion of the last few minutes, but his reaction had nothing to do with pain. "Hell!" he said again. "That's my last decent shirt!"
"Just shut up and sit down, will you?" Slim had noticed the wobble of course.
He turned to Hope, who was staring, open-mouthed. She had never seen so much blood in her life. In fact, she had never seen more than a pin-prick or a paper-cut in her life. Jess's line in spectacular injuries was certainly an education.
"Rip me a length off your petticoat," Slim ordered the stunned girl.
"What?"
"I need a bandage. Your petticoat's fine linen and," he chuckled, "it's just had a good wash, so tear off a strip."
"I will not!" Hope was frankly horrified. "How dare you ask such a thing of a lady!"
Slim's frown became formidable as it always did when his principles were challenged. "You're looking at a man who's losing too much blood!" he snapped. "D'you want him to bleed to death?"
"Don't be s-s-silly," Hope stammered. She had never come anywhere near a life-threatening situation before.
"Don't waste y'time arguin'," Jess begged. His hand was beginning to ache from being clamped hard down on the wound and he just wanted to get something on it, he didn't much care what. "Rip up my shirt. It's ruined anyway."
"Ok." Slim helped him out of it and tore it into strips to bandage the wound. The horn had fortunately not driven in, but just ripped a long gouge across Jess's chest and shoulder. "You need this stitching," Slim said firmly, "and don't start complaining you can't stand the medical profession!"
"Isn't that what he always does?" A new voice, a feminine voice, joined in the debate.
They looked round and saw a dilapidated wagon and, driving it, a familiar and trusted friend. Sally Travers' eyes were bright with concern and affection as she took in the situation and the need for some surgical skills. "Trouble again, I see. Do you boys need some help?"