Upon a Midnight Clear (Legend, Colorado 2)

It was after that encounter that she began to ask Zachary questions about his father's business. At first the boy was very secretive, until Kathryn told him what she already knew.

"He told you the mines are playin' out?" Zachary said in disbelief. "He told you that? Don't nobody know that."

"No one knows of that," she corrected him automatically, then waved her hand before Zachary started one of his "That's what I said" routines that could go on for half an hour. "Why has he stayed here?" she asked.

"A dream," Zachary said as he bit into a piece of apple pie, then grinned at the look Kathryn gave him. "All right, I'll tell you, but it don't make no sense to me."

Kathryn had to bite her tongue to keep from correcting his grammar, and the imp knew it. Finally, Zachary told her that when his father was nine years old he'd had a dream that changed his life. In the dream his whole family had been shot by the people of

Legend, and as a result all the townspeople were sent away and died terrible deaths.

"And because of this dream he now takes care of the inhabitants of this town?"

"Don't make no sense to me, either, but that's the way he is. He won't carry no gun, and he makes sure that when this town goes under, nobody is hurt but him. He's put money into banks in Denver for the people who have been here the longest."

"And knowing that the mines are going to give out, he doesn't encourage family people to come here. They'd lose their homes in a few years," Kathryn said thoughtfully.

"That's right. My grandpa wants Pa to stop tryin' to be a hero and move to Denver with the rest of the family, but Pa says he owes something to these people and he has to keep them from cursing the Jordan name for all eternity. That seems to be part of the dream too. Oh, and that woman Wendell told him some things too. I think she's a distant cousin to my pa."

It was later, as Kathryn felt her resolve melting toward Cole Jordan, that she renewed her distance toward him. Hadn't he made it abundantly clear that he wanted no woman who was interested in him in a matrimonial way? And as for Kathryn, she knew where such closeness could lead. Jeremy was evidence of that.

* * *

Chapter Five

"Damn her!" Cole muttered as he pulled the barbed wire even tighter.

"Hey!" Joe yelled. "You almost caught my hand in that." He started to say more, but then a bolt of lightning flashed nearby, the horses let out screams of fear and tried to get away, then Cole yelled something that Joe was sure he didn't want to hear. All in all, Joe decided it was better to keep his mouth shut, which was what all the men who worked or lived in Legend had decided of late.

Ever since Mrs. Kate had come to live in the Jordan house, Cole's temper had been like that of a wildcat caught in a trap. Couldn't nobody talk to him or even look at him for fear of having his head bit off.

The only way the people of Legend could stand Cole's temper was because they knew what was going on, since everybody who worked near the Jordan house made sure they told everything they saw. And they saw plenty!

Mrs. Kate had indeed tamed that brat Zachary. Everyone was amazed at what she had been able to do with him. Who would have thought that the boy was smart? Clever, yes, but not book-learnin' smart. But he was.

After Mrs. Kate showed that hellion Zachary that if he was going to eat anything besides Manuel's swill, he had to apply himself to the books just as her perfect, prissy son did, Zachary settled down to become a real scholar. Of course it greatly helped matters that one day the two boys went behind the barn and young Jeremy knocked the stuffing out of Zachary. Everyone on the place had gone running to watch that fight. Everybody except Mrs. Kate, that is. Of course she must have known that it was going on, what with all the hollerin' and swearin' that she was sure to have heard in the house, but maybe she decided not to try to stop what was bound to happen.

Manuel said that when the boys came to breakfast she didn't say a word about their bloody faces and bruised, sore bodies. In fact, she made them both sit on hard benches without a break for three hours. And when both boys were nearly falling asleep from fatigue, she said their problem was that they needed some exercise, so she took them outside and made them run halfway up a mountain then back down. By the nightfall both boys were united by a common enemy: Mrs. Kate.

So now, three months later, the boys, if not exactly friends, certainly were together a great deal, both of them challenging each other to be the best at whatever they tried.

No, the problem was not the boys. The problem was Cole. For all that weeks had gone by, Mrs. Kate had not relented in her complete and absolute disregard for Cole Jordan. Manuel reported that for all the notice that Mrs. Kate took of Cole, he might as well not exist.

At dinner she and the boys sat at one end of the table and ate what she cooked, while Cole sat at the other end and ate the greasiest mess Manuel could manage to come up with. And considering Manuel's expertise in that area, Joe hated to think what that was like.

With Zachary's help, Mrs. Kate had hired a couple of women who had retired from "other" work in Legend to do the cleaning, washing, and ironing. Except they didn't clean or iron or wash for Cole. His room was left a pigsty and she left the care of his clothes to Manuel, who made sure they stayed dirty and rumpled.

The result of all this was that Cole Jordan's temper was enough to send bears running for cover. Half the hands had quit and moved to Texas. "Or hell," they'd said. "Hell couldn't be worse than this place."

Now, when the sky opened up and cold rain poured down on them, Cole didn't seem to notice, so Joe kept on holding the fence posts for him while he strung the wire. But when the sleet started and icy pellets hit the two of them, Joe didn't bother to tell Cole he was going back to the bunk-house. After all, it was already ten o'clock at night, they were working by moonlight (which wasn't there anymore), and they'd both been up since four a.m. And if that weren't enough, it was Christmas Eve.

After another half hour, Joe just turned away, got on his frightened horse, and started riding away. Even over the storm he could hear Cole behind him shouting that he was fired and that a man couldn't find anybody today who knew how to work.

"Damn them all to hell," Cole muttered under his breath as he pulled on the wire again, but it slipped from his gloved hand and landed… He had no idea where the wire went, and it was much too dark to see. Reluctantly, he stuck the hook in his back pocket and mounted his horse. When the animal was skittish, Cole pulled back on the reins until it knew who was master.

The sleet was so bad that it took nearly an hour to find his way back to the house, and when he rode into the barn he was shivering. Shaking one of the men awake, he told him to rub his horse down, then Cole staggered to the house.

As always, the back door was bolted closed, and the sight of the Christmas wreath on the door just angered him more. "Damn her!" he yelled just as thunder cracked and drowned his words. Her and her obsession with locking him out of his own house! In one of her rare moments of addressing actual words to him, she'd handed him a key and said that he could use it. But now his hands were too cold to find a key in his pants pocket.