Beckett's Birthright

Early the following morning Lilah hitched up the buggy, neither waiting nor asking for help. Three men paused in what they were doing to watch. Eli was one of the three.

“Going somewhere?” he asked, knowing he was risking a set-down in front of his men, something a smart manager avoided whenever he could.

“What does it look like?”

“Then you won’t mind if I take Demon today? I’ll be out all morning, so if you were planning on riding later…?”

She opened her mouth to retort, then clamped it shut again and swung herself up into the buggy.

Watching her ride away, snapping the whip so that it curled just above the little mare’s shiny rump, he had to admire her style. Underneath all that flash and fire, he had a sneaking suspicion there lurked a woman no one knew. What kind of lady would go out of her way to alienate everyone around her, including her own father?

A daughter whose father didn’t approve of her? Didn’t even appear to like, much less to love her?

At least Burke seemed to have her best interests at heart, Eli told himself as he saddled the stallion and set out toward the south pasture to look over the crop of fall calves one last time before the final cut was made.

As much as he hated to admit it, his own childhood had not been all that different as far as family relationships went. According to Shem, during one of their late evening, front porch discussions, Lilah’s mother had given birth to a stillborn son, and a year later she had died giving birth to a daughter, leaving behind the helpless infant and a brokenhearted husband. Both had evidently survived, after a fashion.

His own mother had waited until her son was eleven years old to run off, claiming in equal parts her father-in-law’s nasty disposition, having to work her fingers to the bone, and the freakish Oklahoma weather.

The irony of it was that the Chandler family had had plenty of money. They could have hired help if there’d been any help to be found in the desolate area Matthew Chandler had chosen to settle in. The trouble was that like Burke Jackson, the old man had been a skinflint of the first order. He figured that as long as he had women in the family, why go to the trouble of hiring outsiders? He didn’t like strangers in his house.

For that matter, he hadn’t much liked having his own family there. Eli had grown up in a house so big and empty it echoed, set out in the middle of nowhere. The nearest settlement, consisting of a jail, two saloons, and half a dozen shanties, was three miles away. By the time he was old enough to give much thought to women, he’d been convinced that the Chandler men were congenitally incapable of forming a lasting relationship with any of them. Nothing that had happened in the intervening years had changed his mind.

At least after Grandmother Ianthe had left, his grandfather had channeled his bitterness into amassing a fortune by buying up more land and reselling it, mostly to the railroads. Randolph, Eli’s father, had drowned the sorrow of his wife’s desertion in a bottle. When the old man, furious at his son’s weakness, had threatened to take custody of young Eli, Randolph had made an effort to sober up and find work. His good intentions hadn’t lasted. Drunk again, he’d been riding point on a herd of longhorns for a neighboring rancher when he’d started firing at imaginary rustlers. The cattle had spooked; Randolph’s horse had bolted and Randolph had been trampled to death in the ensuing stampede.

No sooner had his son and heir been laid to rest than Matthew Chandler had set out to tame and educate his grandson, who’d been fifteen years old at the time, wild, tough and already towering over most men.

There followed a string of major battles between the two remaining Chandlers, with the old man usually winning. Gradually, mostly against his will, Eli had been educated and a few of the roughest edges polished off.

Now, looking out over the tall pines, a rocky stream and acres of lush green pastures, all so different from the barren land he’d inherited—thinking of the fortune his grandfather had worked so hard to acquire, and that his only grandson, on inheriting it, had given away, Eli had to wonder if there was a pattern to the things that happened over a man’s lifetime. He’d about come to the conclusion that God simply scattered his children over the face of the earth like handfuls of confetti and left them to the will of the four winds.

A few miles to the south at the train station, Lilah waited impatiently for the last of the passengers to disembark. She was certain she had the right day. If Isobel had changed her mind, she would have written or sent a wire. It was one more way in which the two women differed. Lilah was prone to barging full steam ahead once she’d set her mind on a course of action. Small, timid Isobel Dinkins would hang back, awaiting permission before ever making a move.

“Growing up in a parsonage,” she had once explained, “you learn early not to offend a single soul for fear of finding your whole family uprooted and moved to a new charge before the cat can lick her paw.”

Isobel’s parents had perished in a house fire that the church board felt somewhat responsible for. They’d been told that the chimneys in the parsonage were in sad condition, but had put off having them repaired in favor of more important matters, such as new carpeting for the church.

Lilah had been sent off to school by a father who didn’t approve of her, didn’t want her around and could well afford to pay someone else to contend with her. He’d been sick to death of the constant wrangles between his housekeeper and his daughter. The two women had despised each other since the day Pearly May had been hired to look after the house, the man and his newly weaned daughter.

“There you are, the last straggler off the train. I might have known,” Lilah exclaimed, rushing forward to embrace her friend. “Where’s the rest of your luggage? Is this it? I told you you’d be staying here all summer, didn’t I? Well never mind—we’ll just start all over again. I know a woman who can make you a dress in a day’s time. Shall we shop for cloth while we’re in town, or come back next week?”

“Whew!” The smaller woman caught her breath and readjusted the bonnet that had been knocked crooked by the enthusiastic greeting. “I’ve got everything I need. Just because I came for a visit, don’t think you’re going to manage me the way you did at school. I’ve graduated, remember? You didn’t.”

“Oh, so now you’re going to rub my nose in that, I suppose.” Both women laughed. As oddly assorted as they were, they were closer than most sisters.

Isobel swooped up her cardboard suitcase and looked around. “Where’s the cart?”

“I took Papa’s buggy.” Lilah grinned. “He purely hates for me to drive it.”

“I see being back home hasn’t changed you. Was your father furious when you told him you’d dropped out three weeks short of graduating?”

“Mad as a wet hen. Not a blasted thing he could do about it, though. Fussed a lot about the waste of money. Since then I mostly just try to stay out of sight so that he forgets I’m around.”

After stopping to buy three bolts of dimity in pastel colors and one of pale blue sateen, all over Isobel’s protests, the two women climbed back in the buggy. Catching up on gossip about classmates which neither could claim as friends, Lilah drove them to the Hillsborough Inn for refreshments, knowing her friend would not have had the pennies to spare on the journey from Salem.

“Now, what is this exciting new development you hinted at in your letter?” Isobel blotted her lips with the linen napkin. At four foot nine, she was plain as a woman could be short of being downright homely.

“Oh, that. Well, I told you Papa was ill. Doc Bender said it was a consumptive heart. Or was it congestive? Anyway, he’s gotten worse since I’ve been home, and before you say a word, no, it’s not because I’m there.” There were no secrets between the two young women. Isobel knew that Lilah’s father had no use for her, but she was determined to make him respect her.

“I still intend to take over managing the farm,” the vibrant redhead continued. “At least then Papa won’t have so much to worry about.”

“Has he agreed?”

“Not yet, but he will. He’s hardly in a position to stop me,” Lilah replied, not without a hint of regret. He was her father, after all, even if he did resent her very existence. “And honestly, Izzy, it makes sense. I do know how to study. I can learn whatever I need to know, and who has a bigger stake in seeing the Bar J succeed than I do? Well, there’s Shem, of course.”

She had told her friend all about the man who had taken care of her all her life, even giving her a name to live up to. Shem’s given name was Samson, he’d once confessed, although no one had called him that in half a century or more.

“I don’t know,” Isobel said, frowning. “I don’t think your daddy’s going to let you do it. What if he comes right out and forbids it?”

“He always forbids things, no matter what I ask,” Lilah dismissed airily. “Don’t you worry, I have my plans all laid out. The first thing I’m going to do is get rid of Pearly May and hire a neighbor of ours, who really needs a job, to take over the housekeeping. She happens to be the same woman who’s going to make you a whole new wardrobe.”

“No, she’s not, either,” stated the freckle-faced girl with the dun-colored hair.

“Oh, hush. I’m certainly not going to wear all those pretty pastel colors. Mrs. Randall sews beautifully, and besides, she needs the work.”

Over the long ride back to the Bar J, the women talked over plans for the future. Lilah was not quite as confident as she tried to appear, but if she’d learned one thing over the course of twenty-two years of being a misfit, it was that no one was going to shape her life for her. If she wanted something, she would have to go after it herself. And what she wanted was a real home, one where she was both needed and respected.

She was definitely needed in her father’s house. Unfortunately, he was not yet ready to admit it, and until he did there was little she could do to earn his respect without setting him off. He would roll his eyes and his face would turn red, and then he’d clutch his chest and make her feel like the vilest creature who ever lived for daring to upset him. The trouble was, she had a temper to match his, and sometimes she just couldn’t hold back.

They pulled into the yard just after five that evening, hungry, dusty, their throats raw from talking nearly nonstop throughout the journey. Catching sight of a familiar trap tied off in front of the house, Lilah frowned.

Streak emerged from the barn and came shambling across the clearing. He stared at the passenger for a moment and then reached for the reins. “Here, let me take her for you, Miss Lilah.”

“What’s the doctor’s trap doing here?”

The herd boss glanced over toward the house. “Well now, as to that, I reckon Doc Bender just stopped by to pay his respects to your papa.”

Lilah jumped down and handed over the reins. “The devil, you say. Papa’s had another spell, hasn’t he?”

“All I know is when Shem went up to the house this morning, he come out threatening to wring Pearly May’s neck for not sending Willy to fetch Doc Bender.”

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