Jake Walker's Wife (16 page)

H
e’d gone on to say, "Met a man in Kansas City once. Said he'd been all the way across the ocean, where he'd spent a year in sunny Italy. Told me about all these beautiful statues, carved by Michelangelo, and described paintings by a man name of Lorenzo Ghiberti."

Though s
he’d been impressed to learn that Jake, rough and tumble cowboy, knew so much about foreign art, Bess hadn’t understood the connection between fine art and him, seeing her as proof there was a God…

…until
he showed her.

"No painter or sculptor could create a work of art as magnificent as Bess Beckley
,” he’d said, drawing her close. “It took God to do that."

And then
he'd kissed her.

Bess had felt his
heart, beating hard against her chest. Suddenly, without warning or reason, Jake ended the beautiful moment and looked at the ceiling and, eyes closed, drew a deep, shuddering breath. Three syllables toward the scones flanking the mantle, syllables that sounded an awful lot like 'I love you.'"What? What did you say?"

One corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily, as if he were trying to
take back the words…and whatever emotion had inspired them. Ever so gently, he traced her lower lip with a calloused fingertip, then rested his chin atop her head and said, "I'd better get back to work."

And just like that, he left her to admit that without him, she felt cold and empty, and very much alone.

Bess's heart fluttered, remembering the kiss she'd so often dreamt of and thought about as she went about her chores. And disappointing as it was, no opportunity to repeat the magical moment had presented itself since. Jake busied himself with overseeing the harvest, and she had plenty to keep her busy, preparing for her meeting with the Texas cattle rancher.

Excitement bubbled inside her in anticipation of this, her first real business trip. After lunch, Bess hummed contentedly as she straightened the rows of canned goods she'd stored on the pantry shelves. Soon, the humming escalated to under-her-breath singing as she stacked neatly-folded line-dried sheets and pillowslips in the linen c
upboard. By the time she stood out back beating rugs, Bess's song could be heard clear across the yard.

"Amazing Grace," she sang, "how sweet thou art...."

Of all the melodies she could have chosen, he wondered why Bess sang
that
particular hymn. It was his uncle's favorite, sung morning and night...and as he beat Jake for boyhood infractions, and before and after every lecture.... By the time Jake turned fifteen, he'd come to hate the song with a vengeance.

Always before, hearing it conjured painful memories
, raised doubts and awakened suspicions that he’d kept carefully hidden under layers of pretended sternness. Christians, he'd come to believe, were all the same, good when decent folks were in plain sight, but mean and evil when no one but family could see.

His aunt Polly had endured nearly as many whippings as
Jake over the years. Several times, in trying to rescue her from yet another lash of Josh's thick, leather strap, it was Jake's skin that later stung with ugly, red welts. "In the name of the Lord God," Josh would thunder, "you will obey me!" After each beating, once his wife and nephew quit sniffling, he’d insist that they join him in praising the Lord by singing his favorite hymn, Amazing Grace.

But t
his time, the melody didn't summon angry, bitter feelings. Bess's sweet, angelic voice trilled with meaning and intent, and for the first time in his life, Jake understood the
words
.

"Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. 'Twas grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home." Suddenly, she saw him standing there, and lurched with fright. "Goodness gracious. You nearly scared me out of my boots!"

"Sorry," he said, walking closer and taking the rug beater from her. "I was just enjoying your song. Please don't stop."

She grabbed the tool and gave the rug a
nother good wallop. "I'll sing, on one condition."

He tipped back his hat and
both crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for her to name her terms.

"You have to join me."

Jake laughed. "Me?" He pointed at a nearby tree, where several chickadees perched on a low branch. "What'd they ever do to you?"

Bess's merry giggle was punctuated with a wink and a bright smile. "I've heard you sing. You have a beautiful voice."

Jake shrugged. He supposed his voice was pleasant enough, but he'd always thought of it more as a way to soothe restless cows on moonlit nights.

Bess sat on the rough-hewn bench alongside the flagstone walk and patted the empty space beside her. When he joined her, their backs to the white-picketed kitchen porch, she took his hand. "Oh, Lord my God," she began softly, "when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made...."

With a gentle poke of her elbow to his ribs, she nudged him. "Come on now, sing with me."

"Can't," he said. "Don't know that one. But it's beautiful. Don't stop."

Her brown eyes bored deep into his blue ones, as if in search of the truth. Then she closed her eyes and began again: "Oh Lord my God...."

Jake
stared at her lovely profile, reveling in the feel of her soft, warm fingers nestled in his calloused palm. The moments sped by, and disappointment rang loud in his heart when she sang the last line: "How great thou art, how great thou art."

She sighed. "I've always loved that one...."

"Is there anything you
can't
do?"

Bess giggled again. "Can't seem to get any work done when you're around. You're a very distracting presence,
Jake Walker."

He stiffened.
I'm not Jake Walker,
he ranted mentally.
My name is Atwood. Walker Atwood
! He was proud of the name his parents had chosen for him, but regrettably, hadn't been able to use it, not once in many years.

He saw the
startled, almost frightened expression on her pretty face and realized he must have been grimacing something fierce. He smiled, but his heart wasn’t in it.

"Aren't we friends,
Jake?"

Such a simple question, yet
Jake didn't know how to answer. Yes, she'd been a friend to him, one of the best he'd ever known. Why, she'd wrangled more from him than he'd ever shared with anyone. She knew he'd lost both parents in a prairie fire at the age of twelve, that he'd spent the next seven years with his aunt and uncle, and somehow managed to get him to talk about the horrible abuse he'd suffered at Josh's hands. It had been Bess who’d convinced him that surely goodness and mercy lived
somewhere
in the man's heart, and her point-blank question, fired in exactly the same way as she'd fired every other, made him remember the precise moment in time when Josh changed into the cruel man whose testimony caused Jake to run for his life:

He'd been ten years old on the Sunday his parents
, Uncle Josh and Aunt Polly had been invited to a neighbor's for dinner. Just as Josh picked up his fork to dig into the delights prepared by their hostess, Abe Martin held up his hands and said, "Before we eat, we must thank God for our bounty."

"Thank
God
?" Josh had countered, smirking. "If you want to thank somebody, thank your pretty little wife, here, who slaughtered the hen and roasted it, who peeled the spuds and snapped the beans, with her own two hands."

Jake
recalled Josh's words with startling clarity. Recalled, too, that Abe had simply shrugged and said, "I suppose you've got a point." At that, he picked up his own fork, as did everyone at the table, and began eating without saying grace.

Two days later, while in the barn helping Abe repair the sickle's broken handle, Marta had reached out to steady the workbench, and when she did, the sharp blade of the sickle slipped from the vise, nearly severing
both hands. The doctor stopped the bleeding in time to save her life, but not quickly enough to save her fingers. And though Marta managed quite well with her thumbs-only stumps, Josh had convinced himself that his careless, Godless words had caused it.

Unable
to listen to reason, he found solace only in his bible, the only place he could find guidance to rectify the awful thing his blasphemy had provoked. Day by day, nose in the pages of the leather-bound good book, his anger and bitterness grew. No matter how many verses he memorized, no matter how well-acquainted he became with scripture, Josh couldn't undo what he believed his snide words had done. It was his lack of faith, he believed, that started the series of events that led to Marta's deformity, which left her unable to comb fingers through her children's flaxen hair or hold their tiny faces in her hands.

Josh
alleged that repentance could only be reached if he buried himself in the Word. He spent every spare moment at the church, working his way from elder to deacon, and when the pastor passed away, the brethren chose him to take the man’s place, for they knew no man more devoted and devout than Josh Atwood.

He was hard on his parishioners, demanding pure and abiding faith in all things
, and hard on his wife, demanding total surrender and submission, which he claimed was the Lord's intention for wives. Hard on his brother's son, too. But, Jake remembered, Josh was hardest of all on himself. He allowed himself no human pleasure, no lapse in judgment, no time for anything but prayer and work and more of the same. His chronic self-abuse turned him into a stone-hard, cold man without an ounce of Christ’s love or mercy or forgiveness in his heart.

It had taken
Bess to help Jake see Josh as a suffering, tormented man, and in doing so, she’d lifted the burden of hate from his shoulders. Thanks to her, for the first time since the murder trial, Jake could think almost fondly of the uncle who’d opened his home to a frightened, orphaned youth.

So y
es, he and Bess were friends, but in the months he'd been at Foggy Bottom, Jake had come to realize she was so much more. He’d never truly loved a woman before, and if not for his miserable past, he’d marry her, raise a house full of young’uns, and grow old beside her. But he'd never be able to admit it, especially not to Bess. He'd grow old, all right, but he’d do it alone, because she deserved more than a life of running and hiding to stay one step ahead of the hangman.

"Aren't we friends?" she
repeated, squeezing his hand again.

"'Course we are," he
said at last.
And that's all we'll ever be.

"Then why don't you tell me what's made you so sad all of a sudden. Maybe I can help."

When she let go of his hand, his own felt so cold and so empty that Jake thought his heart might break.
Better get used to the feeling
, he thought, for it was only a tiny example of how life would be...when he left her....

"Maybe someday," she said quietly, getting to her feet, "you'll trust me enough to tell me whatever
—or whoever—has hurt you so badly." She headed for the house, but paused halfway there. "You
can
trust me, you know. With anything." She stared hard at him from across the yard. "Do you believe that?"

It had nothing to do with trust!
Jake trusted Bess with his very life, but he couldn’t burden her with the story of how he'd been tried and convicted and sentenced to hang for a murder he didn’t commit!

Bess made
her way to the porch. "Whenever you're ready to talk," she said, stepping through the screen door, "I'm ready to listen."

He didn't know how long he sat there, alone on the bench beside her rusty rug beater. It wasn't until a barnyard cat brushed against his boot that he realized the sun was
setting. It would be suppertime soon, and he'd get to watch her bustling about in the kitchen, walking up and down behind the hired hands, refilling their plates and mugs and the biscuit basket. He'd revel in those moments, for there would be painfully few of them before he'd be forced to leave this place...and that woman.

Jake
rose slowly and headed for the bunkhouse to wait for the dinner bell to ring.

The encroaching darkness that shrouded him couldn't compare to the joyless gloom
that hung in his heart.

"Aren't we friends?"

Bess hid behind both hands. How could she have asked such a silly question, especially after that kiss!

Nearly every time she closed her eyes, she pictured him, big and broad and brooding. But oh, how his handsome face changed when he smiled! Bess sighed softly at the mental image of his wide grin. His sparkling blue eyes. Honey gold hair that curved and curled beneath his wide-brimmed hat.

Her smile grew as she pictured that hat, for before Jake had come to town, Bess could have counted on one hand the number of fellows who sported western-style headwear. Now, she'd need ten hands to count them all: All over Baltimore, men strutted in what they called 'ten gallon-ers.' Foggy Bottom field hands claimed to have purchased theirs because it made good sense, since the height of the crown allowed air to circulate and cool their heads, while the width of the rim protected their necks and faces from the blistering effects of the sun. Matt and Mark, however, made no bones about it. "Hey, Pa," they'd exclaimed when Homer Jensen stuck one in the window of his Baltimore haberdashery, "we'll clean the barn twice over in exchange for a hat like Jake's!" Her father hadn't said yea or nay. Instead, he quietly paid for two white toppers for his twins...and plunked down enough cash to buy one a gray one for himself as well.