Lorraine Heath (12 page)

“Everyone was thin. They were having a hard time getting supplies through.” She looked so damn fragile trying to pretend she wasn’t hurting. He’d never expected Meg to look fragile. “He’d grown a beard.”

“A beard? I can’t imagine Kirk with a beard.”

He offered her a small grin. “Well, it wasn’t much of a beard.”

“Was it as blond as his hair?”

“A little darker.”

“Did it make him look older?”

“Considerably,” he said, although he knew it was the war that had aged his friend.

Her hands tightened their grasp on the paper until her knuckles turned white. “Did he … did he still believe in the Cause?”

Clay nodded. He didn’t want to hurt Meg, but Kirk’s words echoed through his mind.
You were right. There’s no glory to be found in war. I just want to go home, but the damn Yankees won’t let us.

“Do you think he was afraid of dying? I mean, when death came, do you think he had regrets?”

“He believed in a state’s right to secede, to govern itself. That’s what he was fighting for. He felt his beliefs were worth dying for so I don’t think he regretted giving his life as he did, but I imagine he regretted not being able to hold you again.”

Tears flooded her eyes, and Clay wondered how he could have said something so stupid. He’d wanted to reassure her, but he didn’t know a damn thing about the kind of words women wanted to hear. The tears spilled over onto her cheeks, and he thought he’d drown in them. He took a step toward her, hesitated, then strode from the building.

In disbelief, Meg watched him leave. She walked to the small stool, sat, and buried her face in her hands. She cried with a force that caused her chest and shoulders to ache. Kirk had grown a beard, and she’d never seen it.

She felt a light touch on each shoulder and lifted her tear-streaked face. The twins looked at her with concern reflected in their eyes.

“Clay said you was in need of comfort,” one said. He squeezed her shoulder. “Said we was to give it to you.”

The other twin dug a soiled piece of cloth out of his pocket and extended it toward her. “Only blew my nose on it once, and it was a long time back. You’re welcome to use it. I don’t mind.”

Meg took the offering and used the cleanest corner to wipe the tears from her cheeks. She forced a tremulous smile as she handed the cloth back to him. “Thank you.”

Nodding, he stuffed it into his pocket. “We ain’t got much experience at givin’ comfort, but when I’m feelin’ sad ‘cuz I ain’t got no ma, Clay makes me close my eyes and do some powerful thinkin’ about her. He says there’s a touch of heaven in our hearts so our ma’s always with us even though we can’t see her.”

“Your brother says some smart things, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, ma’am, but he can’t make biscuits worth a damn.”

Sitting on an old tree stump beside the house, Clay fought the urge to return to the shed. He wanted to wrap his arms around Meg, lay her head against his chest, and comfort her. Instead, he sent the twins to her.

Perhaps he
was
a coward after all, for it was fear that made him leave, fear that if he touched her, she’d slap him again, and he’d crumble into a thousand pieces of nothing.

He stopped his wood carving.

He had the ugliest damn hands in the entire state. When he was a boy, they’d been too big for his skinny arms, and he’d always felt like a mongrel pup waiting to grow into its big paws. Whenever possible, he’d kept them shoved deeply into his pockets.

Now he was grown, but his hands still looked too large. His palms were rough from years of running them over abrasive rock. When he relaxed his hands, the veins and muscles continued to stick up like an unsightly mountain range.

But they were the ugliest when he carved. When he held tools and tightened his grip, everything in his hands and forearms visibly strained with his effort.

He couldn’t imagine that any woman would want hands as big or as rough as his to touch her. He knew his hands repulsed Meg, not only because of the way they looked, but because of what they hadn’t done.

His hands had never killed a man.

He saw her small feet come into view and lifted his gaze to hers. “You all right?”

She nodded. “Thank you for sending the twins to me.”

“They always seem to know the right thing to say.”

“They knew exactly what to say.”

“I think it’s because children don’t weigh their words before they say them.” He laid his knife on the stump and stood. “I think it’d be best if I waited until tomorrow to start work on the monument.”

She wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “All right. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“I’ll open the shed early so you don’t have to sneak in.”

She forced a quivering smile. “I wasn’t planning on sneaking. See you in the morning.” She turned to leave.

“I—”

Stopping, she looked at him.

He extended the wooden carving toward her. “This is what your husband looked like the day he told me he was going to marry you. Thought you might want it.”

She took the offering and studied it. “He couldn’t have been any older than twelve.”

“That sounds about right.”

“Why are you giving me a present?”

“It’s not a present. It’s just something I carved, and now I’ve got no use for it. If you don’t want it, you can throw it away. Makes no difference to me.”

“Is this what you were working on when we traveled to Austin?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She trailed her fingers over the small features he’d carved. Then she extended it toward him. “I can’t take it.”

“Why not?”

“Because we are not friends. We will never be friends. If I accept this, I’d be—” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just know I can’t take it.”

“Consider it payment for stitching my head. I know it’s not much, considering I nearly bled to death, but it’s all I have to trade. The carving for my life. Considering the value you place on my life, it’s probably a fair trade.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that I hate you?”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, meeting her cold blue gaze, he said quietly, “It bothers me a great deal.”

Meg stared at the land where Mama Warner’s sons and daughters had once toiled and crops had flourished. One by one, her children had left to build their own homes and harvest their own dreams. In abundance, the wildflowers had reclaimed the fallow fields.

Shortly after her return from Austin, with a strong need to tell someone about the granite and the monument, she’d confided in Mama Warner. She knew Kirk’s grandmother wouldn’t judge her actions and would understand her motives.

She’d come here today to savor and share her first victory, but she’d only shared the carving of Kirk that Clay had given her. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t boast about the pain she’d seen reflected in Clay’s eyes when he’d answered her question.

Lowering her gaze, she touched the delicate petal of a wooden flower that Mama Warner had planted in a wooden box. Kirk had made the box for his grandmother when he was ten. Clay had carved the flowers from twigs and bits of wood and painted them blue.

Everywhere Meg looked, she ran into their lives, intertwined.

“Do you like my buffalo grass?” Mama Warner asked.

Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Meg turned and smiled at Kirk’s grandmother. She’d grown frail since the war. Her grandsons and two of her sons had ridden away in gray. Only one grandson had returned, but it was Kirk’s death that had nearly broken the woman’s spirit. She’d always been closest to Kirk.

“They look like bluebonnets,” Meg said.

“Years ago, when I was young and filled with dreams, I watched the buffalo forage on the blue weeds that coated the hills. I haven’t seen a buffalo in a good long while, but I always have my buffalo grass.” She pressed the wooden carving against her breast. “And now, I almost have my grandson again.”

Quickly, Meg crossed the room and knelt beside the rocking chair. “I didn’t mean to upset you with the carving.”

The older woman touched a gnarled finger to Meg’s cheek. “Ah, child, memories don’t upset me. They’re all I have in my winter years to keep me warm.” She trailed her finger along Kirk’s likeness. “I can almost see his freckles. Kirk hated them so, and Clayton knew it, but he still put the shadow of them here. He always carves what he sees. Honest to a fault that boy is. Did you notice the freckles?”

Meg smiled. “No, ma’am, I guess I didn’t look that closely.”

“It’s just a little difference in the shading. Over the years, Clayton has become skilled at carving. When he was a boy, he’d bring me things and ask me to guess what they were. Got to the point where I hated to guess. I said a cloud once, and it was a pig. Nearly broke his heart. Not that he’d let me know that, of course, but his eyes don’t just see more than most. They also tell more than most. But you gotta look closely. Have you looked closely, Meg?”

“I try not to look at him at all. I hate him and all he stands for.”

“You said that too strongly.”

“Because my hatred for him is strong.”

“Or is it not strong enough? You accepted his gift—”

“I only took it because he didn’t want it, and I thought you might like to have it. I certainly don’t want it.”

“But it’s a likeness of Kirk when he was a boy.”

Standing, Meg held up her hands to emphasize her point. “He made it. I can’t keep it.”

Mama Warner leaned back in her rocker. “But you’ve asked him to make you a monument.”

Meg walked to the window and gazed at the flowers Nature had created, trying to ignore the flowers that a boy had made. “That’s different. The monument isn’t for me specifically. It’s to serve as punishment for him, and it’ll serve as a memorial for the others.”

She heard the gentle creaking of the rocking chair. Sometimes, she wished she were small enough to crawl onto Mama Warner’s lap as she rocked. She glanced over her shoulder and watched the older woman slowly touch every line and curve of the carving.

“I’d say Kirk was about twelve when he looked like this,” Mama Warner said.

Returning to the woman’s side, Meg placed her hand over one disfigured by years of fighting to survive. “That’s what he said.”

“He? Will you not even say his name to me?”

“Speaking his name sickens me.”

“And yet you plan to spend the coming days in his company.”

“So I can witness his suffering.”

“Revenge has a way of turning on itself, sweet Meg.” Mama Warner gently touched the tip of her finger to a tear that clung tenaciously to Meg’s eyelash. “Are you not the one who will suffer?”

Roughly, Meg swiped the tear away. “I made the mistake of asking him about Kirk. In the future, I won’t speak to him at all.”

“In silence you’ll watch him work? Sometimes, silence can be so very loud. Remember how you cried when Kirk’s mother wouldn’t talk to you?”

“Which is why I know it’ll be an additional punishment for him.”

“You feel strongly about this, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am. They were all so young, so brave, filled with conviction. They were men of honor. He betrayed them when he didn’t stand by them.”

“And you think he’ll come to recognize his failings as he works on this monument?”

“If he doesn’t, he will by the time he’s carved every name into stone. He’ll have to face each man’s memory again.”

“And when he’s finished?”

“Then we’ll have a tribute to those who gave their lives for the Cause.”

“A tribute steeped in revenge. It’ll be interesting to see if this monument will become what you envision, to see how deeply your punishment will cut into his soul. Will you bring me my box?”

Meg knew the box. It sat in a corner beside the window. Kirk had made it, using cedar. The scent circled Meg as she shoved the box across the floor to the rocking chair.

Leaning forward, Mama Warner rubbed her fingers over the bluebonnets that Clay had carved in the lid. Her wispy white hair fell across her cheeks and along her shoulders as though it were delicate lace. She lifted the lid and carefully placed the carving of Kirk inside the box. “There will come a day when I’ll tell you to take this box home with you. You do it without questioning me. This box and the things inside it are for you.”

“I don’t want the carving he made.”

“A day will come when you will want it. When you’re young, you wish for things in the future, but when you grow old … you wish for things from the past.”

“This box should go to your children.”

“Had Kirk not died, this box would have gone to him. He loved you. He’d want you to have it. I want you to have it, and I’ll ask you to take it before I die so my children won’t be fighting over it. I’ll be leaving them enough around here to fight about. They’re Texans, and Texans surely do enjoy their fights.”

“Not all Texans.”

“We can’t seem to steer the conversation away from Clayton. Why is that? What did he say to make you cry?”

Meg felt fresh tears well within her eyes. “He told me Kirk had grown a beard.” She laid her cheek against Mama Warner’s knee. “It hurts. It hurts to know he saw Kirk after I did and knows things about Kirk that I don’t.”

Mama Warner gently brushed her fingers over Meg’s hair. “I know, child.”

“I hate him all the more because his memories of Kirk are fresher than mine.”

“Memories don’t age, Meg.”

Lifting her face, Meg met the older woman’s blue gaze, a gaze that very much resembled Kirk’s. “No, but they fade.”

M
EG SET THE PLATE OF BACON ON THE TABLE AND TOOK HER
seat. Her father sat at the head of the table. To his left, two chairs remained empty. To his right, set another empty chair. Each served as a reminder of the young men who had once toiled in the fields beside Thomas Crawford.

Meg sat across from Daniel at the end of the table closest to where their mother had sat. In the thirteen years since her mother’s death, only dust and the gentle caress of a dusting rag had touched her mother’s chair.

Waiting quietly while her father and Daniel scooped food onto their plates, she missed the banter that had once been as abundant as the food. Enjoyable conversation during meals had ridden away with her brothers.