The Chap in Chaps

Chapter 1 Ash Fork, Arizona Territory October 15, 1910 Charles Bainbridge Darwin-Smythe stepped off the metal stepstool the obsequious porter had placed beneath his feet onto the bricked platform between the Santa Fe track and the small frame depot. A brisk wind whistled past, carrying the nip of approaching winter and the scent of juniper, sage, and wildness. The odor was totally different from any scent ever to assail Chaz’s aristocratic English nostrils. It told him, beyond any doubt, that he was far away from England and the home he was unlikely ever to see again. Black foot-high letters on the end of the depot proclaimed “Ash Fork.” The fragments of town he could see on either side of the depot and the tracks promised little in the way of comfort and culture. He shook his head, then shrugged philosophically and strode toward the building. Glancing back at the train, he saw a pair of burly workers lift his two trunks down from the baggage car and push them clear of the track. He’d deal with them shortly. The pressing business now was to see if anyone was here to pick him up. One would think the arrival of a new owner for the D-Bar ranch would merit some kind of notice. He had wired ahead to tell them of his travel plans, after all. He was still not sure why Uncle Dabney had left the place to him, but it mattered little. It was his, and he was here to claim his domain. Perhaps a change of venue would do him good. The whole London scene had begun to pall, especially after he and Aubrey had the acrimonious split this past May. Chaz had thought the two of them were going to be set until doomsday. After all, they’d been a pair for over two years, but Aubrey suddenly had developed an interest in some young bohemian type who would starve in his garret if not for a well-heeled patron. Let them starve together when Aubrey’s father learned of it and cut him off without a cent! A genteel friendship with an equal was one thing; a flaming affair with a foreign artist quite another. Just as Chaz reached for the handle on the door into the depot, the staccato rap of boot heels on brick arrested his motion and attention. The tall, lean man who strode toward him would be difficult to ignore under any circumstances. Clad in dusty black, he looked like a dooming shadow against the sunlit morning’s blue sky. He came to a halt about two steps from Chaz and looked him up and down with narrow-eyed arrogance, as if he were the master and Chaz the subservient. “Mr. Smythe, I presume?” Although the greeting was spoken in a drawl Chaz was learning to recognize as the style of English spoken in the American southwest, the wording seemed at variance with the accent. “That is I, and you are?” “Just call me Sombra.” “I take it you’re from the D-Bar?” The tall man nodded once. “Yep. Needed to come to town anyway so I figured I could collect you on the same trip. You got a war bag or something?” Chaz pointed to the two trunks huddled together down the platform. The dark man glanced at them and back at Chaz with a raised eyebrow. “Traveling light these days?” Chaz fought his urge to bristle. This laconic stranger, whatever function he served on the ranch, would require a set-down sooner or later, but this was not the time or the place. “I do not plan on going back. I brought along everything I intend to keep.” Sombra shrugged. “I’ll get the buckboard.” Turning on his heel, the dark-clad man strode off around the building. Moments later he returned, now seated on the wooden bench of an open wagon style conveyance with four wheels. In the harness were two bays, stout but clearly not lacking in spirit. The engine let go a blast of steam and a mournful whistle as the train began to pull out. Both horses tossed their heads and snorted, but Sombra snapped the reins, bringing them quickly into line. He swung off with a nimble bound after he brought the rear of the buckboard even with Chaz’s trunks. He tossed Chaz the reins. “Hold them while I load these.” Again, he issued orders as if he expected to be obeyed, and Chaz found himself doing what was asked. Sombra took up the smaller trunk and slung it onto the wooden deck of the buckboard. Then he hoisted the other and gave a grunt of surprise. He had to put a bit more muscle behind the lift this time. “Bloody hell, did you bring the crown jewels along and half the king’s gold? Thing weighs a ton.” “Just my books,” Chaz responded. “I suppose there are some weighty tomes in there.” He chuckled at his own sally, which Sombra ignored. In a few moments, they were heading out of town, the bays moving at a brisk trot. The fresh wind tugged at Chaz’s overcoat. He wrapped his woolen scarf more snugly around his neck and settled down for a chilly, bouncing ride. Despite some discomfort, he looked around as they rolled along, already intrigued by the scenery. Everything seemed so totally different from the gentle green hills of the family’s Lancastershire estate and the environs of London. All he saw appeared harsh, bright, sharp, and clean cut. Red stone poked out in bands from darker hills to the north, deep green and teal-hued shrubs or low trees squatted in ranks along the ridges. Overhead, the sky was bluer than a robin’s egg, and the sunlight seemed painfully sharp, slicing into his eyes with its intensity. Sombra fit the landscape, Chaz decided. He was tall, two or three inches more than Chaz’s own height of a hair under six feet. The cowboy’s skin had a weathered texture and earthy tone, burnt brown by the fierce sun, although Chaz suspected where it was protected it would be as light as his own. Beneath a wide-brimmed black hat, Sombra’s inky hair hung straight to his shoulders. His piercing gray eyes were the first feature Chaz had noticed, the only bit of light about him. Now Chaz noted the strength of the westerner’s jaw and the keen blade of his nose, both of which gave further power to his face. He was altogether an exceptional-looking man. In spite of his better judgment, Chaz could not deny a stir of interest. Finally the silence became too deep. “What do you do at the ranch, Sombra? Do you have a special function or just perform the duties of an ordinary cowboy?” Sombra’s gaze flashed to him for an instant and then turned back to watching the horses as they took a less-defined track that split off from the dusty road they had followed from Ash Fork for several miles. He gave a shrug that might have signaled irritation, yet when he spoke, his tone was bland. “A bit of everything, whatever needs to be done. Ride fence, doctor cows, shoe a horse or two, hunt some game for the cook, patch up the boys who get hurt, start a rank colt—whatever needs to be done. Out here we don’t have the luxury of specializing. You do what’s required.” “I see.” Chaz wasn’t sure he did, but it was a fair answer. “Did my uncle get out and oversee things or leave that to a hired manager? What’s expected?” This time Sombra snorted, almost like the horses. “You didn’t know him well, did you? At least not the man he’d become. Yes, he was out and about almost every day. Prob’ly what killed him. He got that grippe and it went into pneumonia on account of his being out in the rain during roundup. Time we got him to Flagstaff to the doctor he was too far gone to pull out of it, getting on in years as he was. Yep, he was all over the place, poking his nose into everything. Made a damn good rancher, once he got the hang of it. Of course I didn’t know him at first. Understand he was here near forty years.” Chaz nodded. “So I was told. I only met him once, when he came home after Grandfather died for the reading of the will and the inheritance formalities. He ceded all his rights in England to my mother, his only sibling, and left as quickly as he could. I was a lad of twelve at the time and found myself quite in awe of him.” Sombra gave a short bark of laughter. “He was a formidable man.” A smile flitted across his face so quickly Chaz wasn’t sure he saw it. He found himself wishing the dark man would smile more. It made him look much more approachable. However, he suspected smiles were almost a stranger to the cowboy’s countenance. Most of the time the man’s expression was stern, if not downright grim. He could pass for one of the gunslingers in the dime dreadful novels Chaz had devoured while a schoolboy, an avenging dark angel, dealing death as casually as he would deal cards. A delicious shudder slithered down Chaz’s spine. Imagine living in close proximity to such a person!