Page 2 of Wellspring

ERICK SAT at the table in the saloon across from his new friend, not quite sure how they had gotten there.

He had expected to need time to find his footing once he arrived in America, but events since he stepped off the ship in Galveston had moved so quickly that he felt a bit like a leaf swept in the wind.

How much worse would it have been had he not been fortunate enough to meet Webster?

He hadn’t been managed so thoroughly since his mother arranged his presentation at court when he was sixteen.

Webster had shown him around town, helping him settle his new horse and find a boarding house with an empty room.

The boarding house only served breakfast, so Webster had promptly offered to buy him dinner.

Erick had almost refused on the grounds that he was already beholden to the man for his help, but Webster had insisted he accept, saying it was only fitting to welcome Erick to Texas.

The beans and rice the saloon girl brought to the table were spicy, unlike anything Erick had ever tasted in Prussia, but he found himself eating more even as his eyes watered from the heat of the dish.

“You okay over there?” Webster asked.

Erick nodded and took another deep swig of beer. It wasn’t Prussian beer, but it was drinkable and it quenched the fire in his mouth, at least until he took another bite. “The food at home was not so spicy.” He smothered a frown at the slip. Texas is home now , he reminded himself.

Webster laughed. “I had the same problem when I first arrived. You get used to it.”

“You were not in Texas born?” Erick asked, curious to learn more about the man sitting across from him.

Webster’s muscular physique proclaimed him man, not boy, but beyond that, Erick could not determine his age.

Somewhere over eighteen, somewhat less than Erick’s own thirty-three years.

His blue-green eyes sparkled with delight and mischief at times, but he had taken appropriate care in helping Erick find accommodations for both his new horse and himself.

The cowboy might appreciate a good joke now and then, but he could be serious when such behavior became necessary. All in all, a delightful companion.

Best of all, a companion with no ulterior motive.

Erick was used to people cultivating his acquaintance for his connections, his title, his name, or his wealth, but those things had no meaning here.

Yet Webster had spent some hours with him today for no apparent reason beyond desiring Erick’s company.

Dare he think he had made a friend? He was quietly pleased that Webster would see in even so obvious a newcomer someone worth investing time in.

“I hail from Kentucky originally,” Webster said, “but my parents were dirt poor—their land wasn’t worth shit. When Texas joined the Union, they decided to take their chances out here. It didn’t go so well for them—they died before they ever got here—but I turned out okay.”

The casual vulgarity surprised Erick less than his companion’s seemingly casual attitude toward his parents’ death, both reminding him he was no longer in the rarefied salons of Europe.

He wondered how old Webster was at the time—young enough to soften the loss, but capable enough to have survived it?

He did not know the other man well enough to ask.

“I am sorry for your loss,” he said quietly.

“But I am glad you turned out okay.” He stumbled over the unfamiliar word, frustrated with the lapse. He hated sounding uneducated.

“It was a long time ago,” Webster replied. “I barely remember them, to be honest. Either way, I’m happier working with animals than I ever woulda been trying to grow things. Animals like me. Plants, not so much. And the ranches out here that run cattle always need hands to take care of them.”

As much as he would like to know more about Webster’s background, Erick didn’t push.

He was no more eager to talk about his own past. “Cowboys,” Erick murmured instead, the stories he’d read in Prussia coming back to him as he imagined days and nights spent in the saddle, out on the open plains with nothing around but the herd of cattle and his fellow riders.

After the stilted manners and stifling etiquette of his childhood and youth, it sounded like heaven.

The saloon girl reappeared at their table, batting her eyelashes in Erick’s direction.

He answered her question without giving any outward sign of noticing her charms. Even if he had been interested, his mother had taught him better than that.

As it was, he had left that life behind, and he had no intention of starting his new one with any kind of ruse.

When she had left again, Webster leaned closer. “If you decide you want some… friendly company, just say the word and I’ll scoot. You were cooped up on that ship for a long time. I understand if you need some relief.”

“Your company is far more congenial than hers could be,” Erick replied with a warm smile.

The overly painted woman held no appeal for him.

If he needed relief, he could make do with his own hand as he had for the duration of the voyage and indeed much of his life.

If his mind’s eye conjured an image of a tanned, long-haired cowboy, no one would ever know. “What will we tomorrow do?”

“The first thing I have to do tomorrow is meet the shipping agent at the wharf,” Webster said.

“My boss ordered a shipment of furniture from England for his wife before he went and got himself killed falling off a horse. Miz Roarke sent me to pick it up, even if she thinks it’s a bigger waste of money now than she did when old man Roarke first ordered it. ”

Erick smothered a chuckle as Webster rolled his eyes.

“You gotta meet her to understand. She ain’t the type to just make house.

She’s as strong as most of the ranch hands and knows more about running the ranch than all of us put together, ’cept maybe Payne.

She inherited the land from her pa as his only child, after he raised her like he would a son.

Anyhow, she would have canceled it if she could, but Roarke had already paid for the order, and a letter wouldn’t have reached England before it was already on the ship.

I met the shipping agent today to let him know I was here.

I have an appointment tomorrow morning to pick up the furniture.

Once I have it, it’ll be time to head back home. ”

“Think you she will be willing another hand to hire?” Erick tried without success to imagine his mother managing a cattle ranch, although she was well-accustomed to expecting her commands to be followed.

Webster seemed to admire Frau Roarke, though, which implied an open-mindedness too uncommon in Erick’s life to this point.

“That’d be up to Payne—he’s the foreman, and Miz Roarke don’t let nobody onto the ranch without his say-so—but I don’t see why he wouldn’t.

You speak English well enough—he won’t hire anyone he can’t talk to himself—and you know your way around a horse.

I can teach you how to toss a rope and the rest you can learn on the job,” Webster replied.

“But if you’re coming with me, we’ll need to get some work clothes for you.

That suit you’re wearing wouldn’t last a week on the ranch.

And you’ll need a bedroll and camping gear for the nights out on the range, plus enough supplies to make it back to Wellspring—that’s the name of the ranch.

Assuming Payne hires you, you’ll eat and bunk with the rest of the hands. ”

“And if he does not?” Erick asked. Once again Erick was glad of his mother’s insistence on a complete education.

He knew his speech sounded foreign to Webster’s ear—even he could hear the differences between his diction and the other man’s—but Webster didn’t seem to have any problem understanding him.

Hopefully that would be enough to get him a job at Webster’s ranch.

“I am willing to learn and to do other tasks until I do. I can stables clean if nothing else.”

“You’ll do that too,” Webster said. “We all do. But there’s plenty of other work. Have you ever broken a horse?”

Erick frowned, not understanding the question. “Why would I a horse break? It would not of any use be if I did.”

Webster laughed, the sound coiling in Erick’s gut. “Not that kind of breaking,” he said. “Training, teaching.”

“Why did you not say that?” Erick asked. “Yes, I have trained horses a saddle and bridle to take.”

“Then I know you’ll have a job.” Webster’s confidence convinced Erick of his assertion.

“Besides the cattle, we round up wild mustangs that we break for the hands to use or to sell to other ranches. That’s how Roarke died.

He got thrown and broke his neck, and we haven’t found a new bronc buster to take over.

Some of the other hands have a bit of experience with young horses, but that’s not the same as working with the wild ones.

Plus Payne needs us all on the range with the cattle, not back at the ranch house working with the mustangs. ”

“I will my best do if he hires me,” Erick promised.

The thought of having one familiar task in a land where everything was new reassured him immensely.

He had refused to dwell on the future during the passage, not wanting to work himself into a panic over something he could do nothing about, but now that he had arrived, his uncertainty returned full force, both eased and augmented by the time he had spent with the handsome cowboy across the table from him.

Webster had done everything he could to make Erick’s transition easier, but his demeanor, his comportment, everything about him proclaimed the differences between Erick’s old life and his new one.