Authors: Siara Brandt
Amiline Marsten finished pouring tea into her own cup and set it aside to cool. Amiline enjoyed her status as the wealthiest woman in the county. Her brother Brent owned the biggest ranch around. Amiline was also the town’s reigning queen of gossip.
Except for a small crocheted collar, Amiline’s gray silk dress was plain, but stylish and crisp, even in this heat. Her dark hair was precisely parted and drawn back into a tight knot at the nape of her neck. As it always was. Amiline’s hair, Hetty mused, was as unchanging and uncompromising as her nature.
Amiline took up her needlework and held it at arm’s length for a critical examination, then bent her head over her sewing, inspecting every stich, which, of course, would be perfect. Amiline was like that in all things. Perfect.
Amiline settled back in her parlor chair and when she was certain that all eyes were upon her, resumed the gossip she’d begun earlier. “Imagine. Smoking a cigar where anyone could see her. I don’t what she will do next. Take up drinking in the saloons, I suppose.
“I dare say,” Amiline went on with a sigh. “Eben will have his hands full with his new wife. He will see,” she said as she jammed her needle into its precise position. “What comes of marrying a woman with such a questionable past.”
There was head shaking and general agreement among the Eminence women. Alva Peasley, who generously filled her parlor chair to overflowing, remarked, “How Eben has tolerated her behavior this far is beyond me. He seems to have a great capacity for looking the other way. Heavens,” Alva paused, placing a plump hand against the swell of her ample bosom. “I know my husband would never allow me half the liberties that that woman takes for granted.” She clucked her tongue. “I’ll never understand why Eben decided to marry her in the first place.”
“Why, indeed,” Amiline said in a voice that made Hetty glance at the woman’s downbent head as she stitched. She noted the change in Amiline’s dark eyes, saw the tell-tale spots of color in Amiline’s cheeks. “I’d call it a decided lack of sound judgment.”
Amiline suddenly set her sewing aside and gave them all a long, significant look. Her lips thinned with
disapproval. Her voice ran low. “How she caught Eben in the first place one can only imagine. Beauty is vain and men can be fools. I suppose that some men might find Evalia pretty. But I doubt that it was merely her face that caught Eben. Why, I don’t have to tell you what snares a woman like Evalia Bannet might employ to trap a man. Need I mention the scandal she has caused already?”
Amiline’s claws were out now. “It should be obvious to everyone that Evalia is thinking to better herself and that she believes such a marriage will ensure a decent standing in the community. As for Eben allowing himself to be trapped by a woman whose past cannot stand the slight
est examination- ” Amiline went on a trifle too heatedly. “Perhaps he foolishly believes that she will change her habits after the wedding. But I think we all know the failure of such beliefs.”
Amiline settled back in her chair. “No. Eben is about to attach himself to a dead weight that will only drag him down and
will,”
Hetty did not fail to notice the bitter edge to Amiline’s words for Hetty understood the root of that bitterness. “Make a mockery of the sacredness of their marriage vows.”
Silence filled the room. It dragged into a long, contemplative silence. Except for Amiline, who as yet remained unmarried because, Hetty suspected, she had hoped to marry Eben Cantey herself, the other women from Eminence knew all about the sacredness of
marriage vows. Those vows had left them with few illusions regarding the state of matrimony, if they were to be honest with themselves.
Hetty had heard enough of Amiline’s gossip to know that the other two women from Eminence had suffered immeasurably from thoughtlessness, unfaithfulness and a lack of common respect by their husbands.
Hetty’s gaze rested for a moment on Lieta DeVore from Boston who sat across the parlor with a half smile on her lips. Lieta was also not married although she had had plenty of marriage proposals.
Lieta was beautiful and she knew it. Her features were flawless and she was dressed, as she always was, very fashionably, from her dark glossy curls to the tips of her exquisitely-detailed leather shoes. She was wearing a dress of deep blue watered silk that caught the light whenever she moved. Right now Lieta’s dark eyes were gleaming with interest as she listened to Amiline.
Thunder rumbled again, closer this time, and more threatening. Hetty shifted her gaze towards the sky which had grown perceptibly darker. She turned to listen as conversation drifted to the most recent crimes committed by outlaws.
Amiline was telling how, just a few days ago, a rancher named Ransford had been confronted by a party of outlaws who attempted to rob him.
“As I heard it,” Amiline went on. “He refused to hand over his money and was shot while trying to escape. And somehow, although he was severely wounded, he managed to stay in his saddle even after a chase of some three miles or more. After which he was lucky enough to run into a group of cowboys who ran the outlaws off.” She paused to sip at her tea.
“And that family living in the McLaren cabin has had their share of trouble with outlaws, as well,” Amiline went on.
Hetty looked up. “Is there a family living down there?” she asked.
“Yes,” Amiline answered. “They moved in some time before last winter. Forbes, I believe, is the name. There’s a wife and three children, I hear. But I have never met any of them. They keep to themselves.”
“What trouble have they had?” Hetty questioned. The cabin was located down in the valley, just beyond the eastern border of her uncle’s land.
“So far,” Amiline informed her. “The family has not been personally molested in any way. But a barn was set on fire one night and burned to the ground. I don’t imagine they will stick it out,” Amiline said as she patted her dark hair. “Forbes has only a few head of cattle, nothing worth fighting for. And what cattle he does own is run on McLaren land. Brent is certain they will move on soon.
“In any case,” Amiline said. “Hopefully the posse that set out yesterday will find the criminals and bring them to justice.”
But so far, Hetty thought to herself, the outlaws had managed to stay just beyond the reach of the law. Like wolves they prowled the hills in packs. Like wolves, instinct kept them together. And a man named Thrall. Thrall himself was a mystery. No one knew his first name or where he had come from. Nothing whatever was known about him except that he was behind all the depredations committed in the region.
Rumor had it that he was as bloodthirsty, ruthless man without scruples or conscience. It seemed he had plenty of ambition for making a reputation of notoriety for himself. Practically every ranch around had had trouble with the outlaws in one way or another, whether it was from rustling or outright thievery. And the outlaws were becoming bolder. It was clear that something had to be done.
“Are they as bad as that?” Lieta questioned as she opened her fan with a graceful flick of her wrist and waved it slowly before her.
“They are,” Amiline confirmed. “Even my brother Brent has had trouble with the outlaws. He’s had cattle stolen left and right. Of course, he has enough cattle that he can recover from the losses.
Amiline poured another cup of tea for herself. “And speaking of outlaws, do you know who I saw in
town yesterday?” Amiline added a spoonful of sugar to her cup and stirred the tea slowly with a spoon.
“Jesse McLaren.” Amiline raised one dark brow as she spoke the name and then sipped at her tea as if she had just washed down something bitter. “Now there’s a man you don’t easily forget.”
Hetty slowly raised her head.
Alva spoke in the silence. “Why, I’d thought we’d seen the last of Mr. Jesse McLaren when he left town two years ago.”
“Well, he’s back,” Amiline said as she settled herself like a nesting hen against her silk-upholstered chair. “With a reputation behind him far worse than the one he left with. From all that I have heard.”
“Jesse McLaren always was a wild one,” Alva commented, choosing another cookie from the tray before her. “He was just as wild as a barbarian. Why, he wore his hair as long as a savage.
And
defied Dal Toombs from the very moment that he was elected sheriff.”
“They don’t put men like that in prison out here?” Delia questioned.
“I heard he was actually,” Amiline informed them all. “In prison, that is.”
“And that is just where he belongs,” Adalia Sweet suddenly spoke up in her gravelly voice.
Adalia had the look of a woman who had been disappointed in life and who had become bitter because of it. Her pinched, sallow features never changed. She always wore a sour expression, prompting Uncle Zeb’s opinion that Adalia must have been weaned on vinegar when she was a child.
“I remember the day that Jesse McLaren left town,” Adalia went on. “I remember it like it was yesterday. I saw him myself on the road outside my house. I was in my garden tending to my roses when he came riding that black horse of his at a dead run and throwing dust up all over the street. I went outside the gate to see what the commotion was all about.”
Adalia paused as if she were seeing it all again. “How he avoided riding right over me, I cannot say. But I can tell you that when he finally brought that beast of a horse to a sliding halt right outside my gate, he was just as insolent as can be.
“The man swept his hat from his head and looked right down at me with those- those wolf eyes. I always thought his eyes were too bold.” Adalia squinted and compressed her thin lips even more tightly together as she remembered. “And what do you think he did? He smiled at me. He actually had the effrontery to smile at me. A man like that. Why, he isn’t fit to be in the company of decent women. Who knows
what-
” And here Adalia pressed a scrawny hand against her equally scrawny breast. “A man like that is capable of. Wicked is what he is. Positively wicked.”
Hetty had never seen Adalia quite so animated. She was leaning forward, nearly breathless with her recital.
Alva was listening closely while she slowly wiped cookie crumbs from the bodice of her dress.
It was silent in the parlor, with more than one woman contemplating, perhaps, just what exactly it was that a man like Jesse McLaren was capable of doing to a decent woman. Or any other kind of woman for that matter.
Amiline narrowed her dark eyes. “Avoiding justice. That’s what he was doing,” Amiline declared. “It was the very same day that Rafe Landry was shot,” she explained for Lieta’s benefit. “And even though Mr. Landry insisted he didn’t know who shot him, everyone knew that Jesse McLaren did the shooting. There was always bad blood between the two of them. And if Mr. Landry had died, Jesse McLaren would have been hunted down, arrested for the murder and hanged for the crime.”
Amiline settled back with a shrug of her shoulders and remarked, “Pure audacity, the man’s coming back here. If you ask me.”
Thunder rolled across the sky, angry thunder that was building with an ominous intensity. And Hetty was suddenly remembering another day like this one. A day with dark clouds pushing up from the horizon and the smell of rain heavy on the air though the sun was still shining warmly down on her where it slanted through the missing slats of the barn roof above her.
Hours later, Hetty had finally put out the lamp in her bedroom, but she remained standing at the window in her nightgown, still staring out at the darkness, still prey to unbidden memories.
After a long, drenching downpour, the rain had finally ended. They sky was pitch black, without any stars. The air was heavy and fragrant with dampness. The stillness was very deep except for the steady drip of rain from the trees and the eaves of the house and the shrilling of Spring frogs.
Thunder still echoed faintly among the distant hills. Lightning flitted like a ghost beyond them, as restlessly, it seemed, as the secrets that remained hidden in Hetty’s heart. Secrets that she tried not to recall and yet could not seem to forget. She closed her eyes for long moments, recalling when she, like Adalia Sweet, had stared, mesmerized, up into wolf-gray eyes.
Jesse McLaren was back. Jesse McLaren who everyone knew was wild and reckless. And overly bold. Who, like her, had been gone for two years. And still, there was not a time when Hetty heard the thunder of a summer storm that her traitorous heart did not remember. Even while she had been in Boston, distance had not had the power to make the memory fade. Amiline was right. Jesse McLaren was not so easily forgotten.
She still could not say how it had happened. She had been so frustrated that day, so alone with all those terrible emotions churning inside her. The recent death of her aunt and a fight with Brent Marsten had sent her on her own wild and reckless horseback ride.