Under the Desert Sky Read online

  “My given name is Christian, and I’d be honored to have you call me by that name.”

  “All right, Christian it is. And I’m pleased to have you as my friend.”

  “Good. Now that we’ve established our parameters, it brings two friends back to the problem at hand. Is there anyone here to help you?”

  “Yes, I have two men who work for me.”

  “But they aren’t here now.”

  “No.”

  “Then, as your friend, I’m going to stay here tonight.”

  “You can’t. You can’t do that,” Phoebe said in panic.

  “I think I should. You say you have an idea as to who might’ve done this, but what if you’re wrong? What if the person who came here knows your men are gone, and that person also knows you’re defenseless?”

  “I have a gun, and I know how to use it,” Phoebe said defiantly.

  Christian laughed. “I’m sure you do, but I’m still not going to leave you. You don’t know what you’ll find in the morning. What if there’s more damage other than the eggs? What if your grown birds have been killed? How will you explain that to Will?”

  “Oh, dear, I hadn’t dared think of that.”

  “All right, then it’s agreed, I’m staying. Do your men have a bunkhouse?” Christian rose from the swing.

  “They do, but it’s not kept up very well. They are both old men, and I think neatness is not something they are very concerned about. If you’re going to do this, you’ll stay in the house. I have five bedrooms.”

  “All right. Which room is mine?”

  4

  After showing Christian to his room, Phoebe put on her nightgown and climbed into bed. It was unsettling to listen to Christian’s footsteps in the room above her. She heard the springs of the bed when the footsteps stopped. His boots came off with two distinct thuds. Holding her breath, she waited. She’d invited a man—a stranger—into her house, and now he was in the room adjacent to her sleeping son’s.

  He’d suggested that someone might want to prey upon a defenseless woman, but what if he’d said that just to get her to let her guard down? What if he came down in the night and tried to assault her? She thought about setting a chair under the doorknob, but then what would happen if Will had one of his nightmares and came down to her room?

  There was only one thing to do. As quietly as she could, she made her way to the dresser and withdrew Edwin’s Colt .44 from the top drawer. She’d told Christian she knew how to use a gun, and technically that was true. Less than a month ago she’d shot a rattlesnake coiled on the bank of the irrigation ditch.

  With trembling fingers, she withdrew a shell from the ammunition box. After the snake incident she’d unloaded the gun, but to be on the safe side, she pulled the hammer back, to check the cylinder. Seeing no bullet, she fully expected to hear the relatively quiet snap of the hammer falling on an empty chamber.

  To her complete shock, a muzzle flash lit up the room, accompanied by a loud report of a gunshot.

  Phoebe screamed. What had she done?

  • • •

  Christian had just stripped down to his drawers when he heard the shot. Without bothering to pull on his pants, he bolted out of the room. Bursting through Phoebe’s door, the acrid smell of cordite burned his nostrils. In the darkness he couldn’t see.

  “Phoebe, where are you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He moved, hoping to find some way to light the room. He heard a loud bump that sounded as if something had been dropped. Christian’s heart began to beat rapidly. Who was in this room? Where was Phoebe?

  “Phoebe?”

  This time he heard an intake of breath and he knew she was alive. The kerosene lamp had been turned down so that only a small arc of yellow-red outlined the mantel.

  “Are you hurt?” As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he could make out where she was standing. Moving toward her, he took her in his arms, her sobs now uncontrollable.

  “What happened?”

  “I . . . I’m not sure.” Her voice quavered, the words coming between sobs.

  “You’re safe now.” Christian continued to hold her. “Did someone break into the house?”

  “No, I did it myself.”

  “You fired a gun? Why?”

  “I wanted to protect myself in case you came to my room.”

  Christian chuckled quietly, stroking her hair as she laid her head on his chest. “You got your gun to keep me out, but your gun brought me to you.”

  “Mama, I heard a loud noise, and it waked me up. Can I sleep in your bed? Wet! You didn’t go home!” The little boy came bounding toward Christian and Phoebe and grabbed both of them around their legs.

  Then Christian remembered he hadn’t bothered to pull on his trousers. He was in his underwear holding Phoebe, who wore only a nightgown, and now her son was causing his body to stay in contact with hers. At a time when he shouldn’t have had such thoughts, he was acutely aware of their near nude proximity.

  Quickly, he released Phoebe, and after adjusting the lamp so there was more light, he turned his attention to Will. “The loud noise scared me, too, but everything is all right.” Christian knelt beside Will.

  Will saw the gun lying on the floor and picked it up. “Did you have to shoot a rattlesnake?”

  “I’ll take that,” Christian said as gently as he could. He was fearful that in the excitement Phoebe may have cocked the gun a second time and another bullet might be in the chamber.

  “You can have it, Wet. It was my daddy’s.”

  When Will handed it over, Christian pulled the hammer back to half cock and spun the cylinder, checking it. Every chamber but one was empty, and he was certain this must’ve been the one that had discharged. Pulling the shell casing out, he saw that it was, indeed, spent. Satisfied that the revolver was now empty, he turned to Phoebe. “Where shall I put this?”

  Phoebe pointed to the dresser, and Christian put in on top, not wanting to invade her privacy by placing it in a drawer.

  “Come on, Will, with all this excitement I’m hungry again. Did we eat all your cookies?”

  “I don’t think so.” Will turned to his mother. “Can we have some more?”

  Phoebe nodded.

  “Then let’s go find them.” Christian scooped up the boy and went to the kitchen.

  Phoebe was still visibly shaken, but she moved to her dresser to put the gun away. She looked around the room to see where the bullet had hit, but was unable to find any trace of it.

  She needed to say something to Will, to comfort him. He’d been present when his father had died, and he often had nightmares about it. When she looked in the kitchen, she saw Christian and Will sitting at the table. Will was giggling about something and seemed to have forgotten the gunshot that had awakened him.

  “Did your horse go home?” Will reached for a cookie.

  “No, he’s still here.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “You know, I don’t know. He’s Mr. Prinsen’s horse and he didn’t tell me.”

  “I think his name is Poongie.”

  “Poongie? What kind of a name is that?” Christian asked. “I think his name is Sissy.”

  “Sissy—that’s a girl’s name. I think his name is Booby.”

  Will continued to come up with nonsensical syllables to name the horse, and Christian interacted patiently, all the while allowing Will to eat as many cookies as he wanted.

  Phoebe should’ve joined them but she couldn’t. This was the first time she’d had the chance to really look at Christian. As he sat at the table with her son, still clad only in his underwear, she was amazed at how comfortable he seemed.

  His eyes were light blue and his face was bronzed, but his upper body and his bare legs were not. Phoebe reasoned that a businessman wouldn’t be inclined to shed his shirt and work in the sun as Edwin had often done. She knew Christian was taller than Edwin because her head had lain on his shoulder while he comforted her. Edwin was more
portly, even having what some would call a potbelly, but Christian didn’t seem to have an extra ounce of fat on his body.

  All at once Phoebe caught herself. She had been ogling Christian as if he were an animal she intended to buy. All that was lacking was looking into his mouth and counting his teeth!

  She turned quickly, hoping that Christian hadn’t seen her staring. The most troubling thing was that mentally she’d been comparing him to Edwin, and Edwin was coming up short.

  She was sure that Christian would work on the reservoir project for a few months only and then he’d go back to South Africa. That was how it should be.

  Phoebe wouldn’t allow herself to get entangled with another man whose station was obviously so far above her own. She’d never again be put at the mercy of a W. F. Sloan, who would not let her forget her place. After all, she was the housekeeper who got pregnant and snared the master’s son.

  This ostrich farm had been her idea. Everyone, including Edwin, thought it was a crackpot idea at first, but she’d convinced him it could be successful. Now she considered this enterprise to be a way to prove to the Sloans—and everyone else—that she wasn’t a gold digger. She’d make it on her own, without any help from anyone else. She owed that to Edwin’s memory and she owed it to Will.

  “All right, little man, it’s time for us to go back to bed.” Christian stood.

  “No, no, one more cookie.” Will grabbed another.

  “That’s it.” Christian picked Will up and threw him over his shoulder.

  “My teeth. What about my teeth? Mama makes me clean my teeth.”

  “Not tonight. Let’s go.”

  • • •

  When Phoebe went back to bed, she felt guilty she hadn’t joined the two in the kitchen and was relieved when Christian extinguished the kitchen lamp and she heard them clomping up the stairs to the bedrooms.

  She thought it odd how easily Will had taken to Christian. Because he spent so much time with her, he usually had difficulty relating to a man. Of course, the only men he saw regularly were Rueben Bucknell, Andy Patterson, and Trinidad and Cornello. Frank Sloan came often enough, but his visits were always punctuated with strife. Will’s reaction to him was either to hide someplace or cling to Phoebe, making his behavior one more thing for Frank to criticize.

  The very thought of Frank made her cringe. And now he’d done yet another thing that caused her stress. She wanted to believe destroying the eggs wasn’t his doing—that he wasn’t that cruel—but he was the most logical culprit, probably at his father’s urging.

  She lay back on her pillow, not yet turning down the light, and then she saw it. A bullet hole in the ceiling.

  • • •

  Christian was awakened by a crowing rooster, and when he opened his eyes, he saw the red-orange orb of the sun, barely two disks above the eastern horizon. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t in his room at Prinsen House, but rather in the house of a woman he’d met only last night.

  Last night! Last night had been busy. The gunshot had more than startled him, it had frightened him. Fortunately it was just an accident, and as frightening as it was last night, this morning he could smile about it. With a yawn and a stretch, Christian got out of bed and reached for his pants . . . the pants he now realized he’d failed to put on when he’d hurried down to Phoebe’s room. He put on his shirt, pulled on his pants, then reached for his boots.

  When he tried to pull the first boot on, his foot hit something inside; curious, he turned the shoe upside down.

  It was the bullet!

  Surprised, Christian examined the boot and found a hole in the sole. The bullet Phoebe had shot had passed through the ceiling of her bedroom and the floor of the room where Christian was staying. It had gone through the sole of his boot before it was finally spent. He poked his finger through the hole, then pulled on the boot. He needed a cup of coffee.

  • • •

  Phoebe awakened to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. She smiled in her half sleep, thankful that Edwin had started breakfast.

  She bolted upright in her bed as she clutched the quilt to her chest. Someone was in her house. Who? Then the recollection of the night before came to her. Christian, the gunshot, and the destruction of the eggs.

  Quickly she rose and began to dress. She grabbed one of her two old blue chambray dresses that she wore on most days when she was working with the birds, but then thought better of it. Instead she chose a yellow gingham that she often wore when she went to town. Brushing her russet hair, she secured it with side combs, allowing her ringlets to hang down her back.

  • • •

  “Good morning,” Christian said, looking around from the cookstove when Phoebe stepped into the kitchen. “I wanted to make you some breakfast, but I was afraid I’d make too much noise and wake you up.”

  Phoebe was at a loss for words. Gwen had asked if she didn’t think Christian was a handsome man, but she wasn’t prepared for her reaction to seeing him standing here, in her house. He was dressed in the same cream-colored shirt he’d worn the night before, but his shirt was open at the collar, far enough down for her to see a strong neck, and just the suggestion of what she already knew was a broad chest.

  Christian hadn’t combed his hair this morning; it was somewhat disheveled, a few ringlets falling across his forehead.

  “You don’t have to fix breakfast. I can do that.” Phoebe went to the cupboard to take down some flour. “Do you like flapjacks?”

  “Flapjacks?”

  “Pancakes.”

  “Yes, I love pancakes.”

  “All right. You can carve the bacon if you’d like. It’s in the icebox.”

  As Phoebe began preparing the batter, Christian started carving slices of bacon. She glanced over at him a moment later. “Heavens, how many slices are you cutting?”

  “I don’t know. There’s you, Will, and me. I figured three collops apiece.”

  Phoebe laughed. “I’m not familiar with a collop, but I’ll eat one piece of bacon, and Will won’t eat any.”

  “Oh, then that means I’ll eat”—Christian began counting—“five collops, and you shall have one.” He self-consciously chuckled.

  Christian put the knife down, and as he moved, he felt the floor through the hole in his boot, reminding him of the incident the night before. Smiling, he reached into his pocket. “You lost this last night.” He withdrew his hand. “I found it in my boot.” He laughed and opened the palm of his hand.

  Seeing a bullet, Phoebe gasped and put her hand to her throat. “God in heaven! You found that in your boot?”

  Christian turned around and lifted his foot, showing the hole in the sole.

  “Oh! That’s the bullet I . . . What if . . . ?”

  Christian had thought to make light of the situation, but from her expression he saw she wasn’t taking it as a joke. “Phoebe.” He stepped to her quickly and pulled her into his arms. “It’s all right.”

  She leaned against him for a long moment, until finally she realized what she was doing and stepped away, although the disengagement was more gentle than abrupt.

  “I’m so sorry. I could have . . . Oh, Christian, what if you’d been standing in that very spot where the bullet came through?”

  “Well, the important thing is I wasn’t. But now we’re about to have another catastrophe.” He inclined his head toward the stove, where smoke was beginning to rise as the pancakes curled in the skillet.

  “The pancakes! I forgot!” Phoebe rushed to the stove, grabbing the handle without benefit of a cloth. Immediately, she dropped the hot pan, making a loud clatter. “Damn.”

  “Mrs. Sloan, did I just hear you curse?” Christian’s facial expression clearly showed he was jesting.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . It’s just that I am so discombobulated this morning. You must think I’m a real scatterbrain.”

  Christian snapped off a piece of an aloe plant that was on the windowsill. “No, Mrs. Sloan, I don’t
think you’re a scatterbrain.” He took her hand in his and began rubbing the soothing liquid over her burn. When he’d finished, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “There. That should take care of you.” He didn’t drop her hand as his gaze held hers.

  Just then Will came bounding down the steps and into the kitchen.

  “Wet! You’re still here. . . . You stayed all night with us. Yippee!”

  As Will ran toward them, Christian dropped Phoebe’s hand and caught him with one arm, lifting him into the air.

  “Are you ready for breakfast? I’ve made something special and I know you’re going to like it.” Christian set the boy on a chair and turned to get a piece of bacon that was cooling on a plate.

  Will wrinkled his nose. “Yuck! I don’t like bacon.”

  “Oh, but this is something different. This is a collop.” Christian popped a piece of bacon into his own mouth.

  Gingerly, Will imitated Christian, and a wide grin crossed his face. “Mama, collops are good. Why don’t you ever make some?”

  “I’ll have to do that.” Phoebe glanced toward Christian. “Mr. De Wet has a lot of tricks up his sleeve.”

  “Someday I’ll have to show you a few more.” Christian flashed a smile toward Phoebe.

  She felt an unexpected warmth radiate through her body. “I’m sure you will . . . someday.” She tossed it right back to him with the same challenging smile. She was pleased to see, by the quick blink of his eyes, that he knew she knew exactly what this exchange was about.

  Phoebe brought the platter of pancakes over to the table, then put a couple on Will’s plate and several on Christian’s.

  “Mama, you know what you did?”

  “What did I do?”

  “You gave Wet a whole bunch of pancakes. Do you remember when you used to give Daddy a whole lot of pancakes?”

  “Yes, Will, I remember.” Phoebe felt a flush in her cheeks, which she hoped Christian didn’t notice.