Part 13 (2/2)

”You'll excuse me,” she said.

”I have to talk to Mr. Betts.” She turned quickly and walked away from him.

Winn stood for a few minutes thin king about his situation. Until now, hehad thought of his friends' arrival as his salvation. They would take himhome and things would be normal again. But he hadn't counted on still beingblind when they came for him. And he hadn't counted on attachments here.

What if he did decide to go with them? What if they planned to take care ofhim? Did he really want that? And how would he travel? He hadn't even tried to ride yet. He was definitely not ready for Lullaby. He might neverbe.

He wasn't going to decide anything now. He'd talk it over with Slim and Mike when they got here. Mike would have a suggestion. He'd been around and was probably already giving it some thought.

He took a step forward and realized that he didn't know exactly where he was.He tried to remember what Cynthie's footsteps had sounded like. Which wayhad she gone? It seemed like it was straight away in the direction he wasfacing. He took a couple of tentative steps and heard a familiar tinkling.The sh.e.l.ls!

He took small steps toward the sound, trying to remember the angle the soundcame from when he was at the bottom of the steps. A couple more steps and hereached out for the handrail. It took some groping, but he found it slightlyto the right of where he had expected it to be.

His left hand on the rail, he felt with his toe for the step, but it wasn'tthere. He was sure this was the handrail. He felt again. The step was notthere.

He stood still, his hand on the rail, and listened to the sh.e.l.ls. He tried to picture the house according to what he knew of it. The porch had a swingat one side, then the door, with the steps in front of it at the center. The sh.e.l.ls hung on the far end, on the swing side. The steps came down, threesteps, with a handrail on either side.

Winn wanted to laugh. There were two handrails! He had almost missed the steps after all. He moved to his left, putting his right hand on the rail,and walked easily up the stairs. He felt very good about thisaccomplishment. His sense of direction and distance from the sh.e.l.ls had proven to be reliable.

He went inside and crossed to the door of the room he had been using.

He paused for a moment, listening for Cynthie's presence in the house. He heard a rustle of paper near the door to the kitchen.

Cynthie must be working there. He waited a moment, but she didn't speak. He went quietly into the bedroom, closing the door behind him so gently itdidn't quite latch.

Cynthie was sit ting at her desk when she heard Winn come in. She watched him cross the room and pause at his door. She wanted to say something, atleast to greet him, but she was afraid to speak. If she said anything at allshe might start begging him to stay. In a moment he went inside and she breathed a shaky sigh.

It seemed like everything conspired against her when it came to ma king senseof Victor's books. It was hard enough to concentrate under normalconditions, but when her mind was in such a turmoil it was impossible. The best she could hope to do today was find the right page and record the salewhen Betts arrived.

She didn't have long to wait. A few minutes after Winn came in, JeremiahBetts tapped on the front door.

”I got the sales money, Mrs. Franklin,” he said when Cynthie opened the door.

”Mr. Louie said I was to come up here.” He held a thick envelope out to her.

”Yes, of course,” Cynthie said, opening the door wider.

”Please come inside.”

Jeremiah hesitated a moment. He wasn't invited into white folks' homes much and, though he had worked for the Franklins since they started the ranch,he'd never been inside. Finally he removed his hat, exposing a head of

graying nap, and followed Mrs. Franklin.

Cynthie took the envelope and, turning toward the desk, asked over her shoulder, ”Did you have any trouble, Mr. Betts?”

”Mister” always sounded good when she said it. ”No, ma'am, I didn't havetrouble neither with the stock nor the men.” He was proud to get to say itand hoped she understood what it meant to him.

Cynthie turned and smiled.

”I'm glad,” she said and he knew she was.

She started to lift the ledger and changed her mind. Instead, she brought a

chair from the kitchen and set it down. Casually she motioned to it and took her own seat at the desk.

Jeremiah looked at the chair across the room and at the woman's back.

Did she mean for him to sit there beside her?

”I need a little information,” she said as if she hadn't noticed his hesitation. He quickly crossed the room and sat down, easing the chair a little farther away before sit ting in it.

”First, Mr. Betts, did the cook we hired work out all right?”

”Pretty good, ma'am, but it is good to be home.” He saw her smile and was

glad he hadn't told her that the cook wouldn't take orders from him and he had had to put Emery in charge of telling him where to make camp.

Cynthie bent over the ledger.

”Did you lose any cattle on the trail?”

One question was followed by another. As Jeremiah sat stiffly in the chair

and answered them, several questions of his own were going through his mind.Was she trying to find something wrong with the way he had done the job? Wa.s.she really going to pay him a dollar and a quarter a day instead of a dollarlike the rest of the drovers? If she didn't, was he going to argue or justput up with it? It seemed he had been putting up with things like that allhis life. He kept reminding himself that she had always treated him fairly.

It didn't completely eliminate his fears.

Finally Cynthie leaned back in the chair.

”It sounds like you didn't have any trouble at all.”

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