All Together in One Place by Jane Kirkpatrick Page B

out from beneath the hem. Judging from the color of her face, she seldom wore a bonnet and did not now. Leather gloved fingers pushed at a loose curl, folded it behind her ear. She nodded at something Tyrell said. He laughed.
    Tipton clutched her parasol so tightly her fingers hurt.

    Ruth Martin felt more than saw the parasol and girl approach. The closer she floated in her wide skirts, the straighter her back became. Ruth had seen the flash she guessed was fury cross the girl's face, replaced with a smile of white teeth.
    “You must be Tipton,” Ruth said in a gravelly voice. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me. This dust makes my throat thick.”
    “I don't believe we've met.”
    “I'm Ruth, Ruth Martin.” She put her free hand out the way a man might. The girl stared, then touched it lighdy with her fingers. “I'd know those ‘startling blue eyes’ and someone ‘dressed like a china doll’ anywhere. Your intended here has said few words, but most have been of you.”
    The girl's face relaxed a little, but Ruth recognized the anxiety in it, the fright folded into the fine-boned face.
    “Thought you might do a painting for her,” Tyrell offered, his voice spoken into his work.
    “Of you, ma am?”
    “Me? Oh no,” Ruth said. “I might like for you to draw my Koda here.” Ruth nodded toward the horse. “He's a favorite of mine and getting on in years. Does a few tricks I've taught him. He counts and takes handkerchiefs from my sleeves sometimes when I'd rather he didn't.” She patted the horse's nose, and he pulled his lips back as if he were laughing. “I'd like to have a keepsake of him. Do you do charcoals?”
    Tyrell grunted with the horse's shift in weight.
    “I'm sorry,” Ruth said to Tyrell. “I'm not paying attention. Koda does have a nasty habit of leaning.” She pulled the halter gently, spoke to the horses nose, scratched it with her fingers, and the horse shifted its weight. “I shouldn't have let him go so long without a trim.”
    “Well spoken,” Tyrell said, “though you have a gift for it, I'm seeing.”
    “Can't count on any but myself most times.”
    “Won't be needing to go so far for service this trip,” he said. With the back of his arm, he wiped the sweat from his forehead, looked up at her, and smiled. He had an open, inviting face, Ruth thought. Kind.
    “There'll be fair competition for your skills, Mr. Jenkins, on whichever train you join.”
    “You might loan your own trimming skills out,” he said. “You did good.”
    “Oh, I doubt—”
    “You and your husband are going west, then?” Tipton asked, interrupting. The girl fluttered her eyelashes and spun the umbrella. Koda's ears twitched at the movement, but Ruth had trained him well and the horse didn't jerk away.
    “I'm driving my own wagon,” Ruth said.
    Tyrell lifted the horse's foreleg off his thigh and stood to stretch. “No husband or brother or teamster?” He laid the rasp in a woodenbucket and moved it and himself in one motion back toward the horses hindquarters. “Could be risky”
    “I have a brother,” Ruth said She heard the irritation in her own voice and made an effort to lighten her next words. “Though Jed and Betha and their crew're more likely to be needing taking care of than me.
    “You dont share his wagon?” Tipton asked.
    “Have my own. Bullwhack it fine Jed does his. His wife, Betha, she has her hands full with their four little ones. They're around here somewhere.” She looked around. “Pigtails, that's Sarah. Ones chubby, Ned; the other, Jason's like a strip of bacon. Youngest is Jessie. My brother's a solicitor, or was, back in St. Louis. I'll help them with the children some, but he'll let me be ‘responsible for my own lot,’ as he said before we left. That suits me fine.”
    “What if something happens, who would handle your wagon?” Tipton asked.
    “I believe what happens will, and having a man beside me won't stop any misery that might come.” She knew that