Lorraine Heath (18 page)

“Still, it seems a shame for his brothers to suffer for something they had no control over.” Meg glanced at the abundance of food and hoped her next words didn’t betray her. “I suppose they’re fortunate your father extends them credit at the mercantile.”

Helen looked at Meg as though she had no more sense than the Hollands’ mule. “He doesn’t extend them credit. My father told him if he ever set foot in the mercantile, he’d shoot him as a thief. Said he robbed this town of its honor.”

“That hardly seems fair to Lucian and the twins,” Meg said.

“Then they should run him off.”

“I think he owns the farm. What can they do? And those twins look so thin.”

Helen held up a finger. “Don’t do that. Don’t make me feel guilty about the decision my father made.”

“I don’t want you to feel guilty, but surely your father could work out an arrangement with Lucian that will give them credit as long as his older brother doesn’t partake of the offerings.”

“Why do you care?” Helen asked.

“Because they’re children, and if I had been blessed with children, it would break my heart to think they were going to bed hungry.”

Helen picked up a ginger cookie and took a bite. “I’ll, think on it.”

“The twins have such big brown eyes—”

“All right. I’ll talk to him. He just hates Clay—” She stopped herself with a groan. Not saying Clay’s name was a game they began when the war started because women weren’t supposed to care about politics or talk about war. “He just hates him so much, he made his decision without thinking how it would affect the others.”

“I’m sure Lucian would be agreeable to an arrangement. He seems to dislike his brother as much as we do.”

“I can’t say I blame him.” Helen shoved the rest of the cookie into her mouth. “The men have stopped working. Guess we’d best see to filling their plates.”

Looking toward the barn, Meg watched the men wander toward the makeshift tables, which had been set within the shade of the trees to provide some respite from the heat. They’d eat. Then they’d nap or go to the river, waiting for the day’s heat to pass. They’d finish the barn in the late afternoon.

From the corner of her eye, she watched Clay walk to his wagon, where he’d find no shade.

Isolated.

Alone.

How simple it would be to prepare him a plate and walk to the wagon to give it to him.

How difficult to step into his world of loneliness.

Clay liked bluebonnets because they were well suited to carving. Any thick twig, with the gentle application of his knife, could become the delicate stalk with the dainty petals.

“Damned hot today!” Dr. Martin barked.

Shooting off the back of the wagon, Clay pressed his hand to his chest, trying to calm the rapid thudding of his heart.

“Where were you, boy?” Dr. Martin asked.

Clay grinned. “Lost in my thoughts, I guess.” He held out his hand. “Thanks for walking over.”

Dr. Martin shook his hand before dropping onto the back of the wagon. Clay sat beside him. “People aren’t gonna like that you’re over here talking to me.”

Dr. Martin withdrew an apple from his pocket and held it toward Clay. “You keep people well, they don’t mind what you do, and I’ve kept most of these people well.”

Clay took the apple and brought it to his nose, inhaling deeply. So sweet. He and the twins had already eaten the food they’d brought from home, but their meal hadn’t included anything this sweet. With his carving knife, he cut the apple in two. “Joe! Josh!”

The boys stopped their game of leapfrog and rushed over. “Dr. Martin brought you an apple.”

Grins filled their faces as they took the offering. “Thanks, Dr. Martin,” they said before running off. “They’re good boys,” Dr. Martin said. “Yes, sir, they are.”

“What were you thinking before I disturbed you?”

Picking up the small branch, Clay started whittling again. “Trying to figure out when walking away isn’t running.”

“Thinking of heading home before the barn’s finished?”

Clay peered over at the doctor. “No, sir. Thinking of heading a little farther than that.”

“Away from Cedar Grove?”

“Yes, sir. I’m beginning to see that Lucian was right. I didn’t realize the hatred ran so deep. I don’t like it touching the twins. It’s one thing for people to avoid me. I made my choice and was willing to accept the consequences. My brothers shouldn’t have to suffer because of it.”

Dr. Martin sighed. “I never cottoned to hatred, never understood the way it flowed or how to dam it up.”

Clay held out the flower he finished whittling. “You can give this to your girl.”

“My girl?” Dr. Martin turned as red as a sunset. “Is it that obvious?”

Lifting his eyebrows, Clay nodded and smiled. He’d noticed Dr. Martin trailing after Widow Prudence most of the morning.

Dr. Martin removed his hat and wiped his balding pate. “I’m set in my ways, never figured to take a wife, but Pru … well, she’s got three boys, and that oldest one needs a firm hand applied to his backside. And it’s gonna take more than one application.”

“I’m happy for you, Doc.”

Dr. Martin shoved his hat over his brow and slid off the back of the wagon. “Well, I gotta ask her first. Haven’t figured out how to do that yet.”

“By God, we could still hang him. Plenty of strong trees around here,” Thomas Crawford said.

Meg dropped the ladle into the pot of beans she held and stared at her father as he plowed his hands through hair that had once been as black as hers and was now as white as newly fallen snow. Women were heaping portions of food onto the men’s plates, but the men didn’t appear to notice.

The younger men were looking at her father. The older men had turned their attention to Kirk’s father. He sat at the end of the table, opposite Meg’s father. As the eldest son of one of the founding fathers, Mr. Warner and his opinion were held in the highest esteem. His blond hair had lightened over the years, but his blue eyes and the intensity of his gaze had yet to fade.

“Four years ago we all agreed—” he began.

Meg’s father slammed his hand onto the table. “We agreed to wait and see what the army would do. Well, we’ve seen what the army did—nothing. I say we hang him now.”

Mr. Warner shook his head. “I gave my son my word that I’d be no part of lynching. I’m not going back on my word now.”

Meg felt her knees quake with the realization that her father and the other men had planned to hang Clay four years ago. No one had told her then what they’d planned. Did men think that war and everything about it was their domain alone? She wondered at all the things Kirk might not have told her.

Daniel shrugged shoulders that had begun to broaden as his voice had started growing deeper. “If you don’t feel right about hanging him, then we could just shoot him.” Daniel jumped to his feet yelling, “God, Meg, you’re supposed to put the beans on my plate not in my lap!”

“I’m sorry. You’re just growing so much I can hardly see around you,” she lied, wishing she could change the course of the conversation.

Scowling, he sat down again, then leaned forward, addressing the man sitting across from him. “What do you think, Robert? You’re a war hero.”

Briefly, Robert lifted his gaze to Meg before studying the food on his plate. “I’m hardly a war hero.”

“But you fought. You gotta have some feelings on this matter. Don’t it curdle your gut to know we got a coward living among us?”

Robert glanced at the faces surrounding him. “Most Texans ignored the conscript laws—”

Meg’s father slapped his broad palm on the table. “By God, we’re not talking about the conscript laws. I was against the damn things myself. You don’t tell a Texan he has to fight.” He slapped his hand on the table again. “You just tell him where the battle’s to be fought, and by God, he goes. Our sons didn’t wait for no law to come around telling them they had to go. Soon as the call to arms sounded, they enlisted. All but that one out there!” He shook his fist in the air. “Our sons were men of honor, and they paid the ultimate price. It don’t sit well with me at all to see that one still breathing.”

The men had invited Lucian to sit with them, but he was staring at his food, shifting his backside on the bench. He clenched his jaw so tightly that Meg didn’t think he’d be able to eat if he tried.

“What do you think, John?” Meg’s father asked. “This is your land now that you’re married to Caroline.”

John shook his head. “I saw enough men die in prison to last me a lifetime. I don’t want to see blood shed on my land.”

“It seems to me,” Robert said quietly, “that you’ve lost enough men. I don’t see that you’ll gain anything by losing one more.”

“Peace of mind,” Meg’s father said as he shoved his plate forward. “By God, it’d give me peace of mind.”

“Anyway, I thought when the army came for Holland, he went with them,” Robert said.

“He went, but he didn’t fight. He ain’t even ashamed of that fact,” Meg’s father said. “He’ll tell you if you ask him.”

“Had a fellow in my outfit that didn’t want to fight,” Robert said. “They branded him a deserter and made him sit on the edge of his coffin. Then they shot him.”

“I could build a coffin,” Daniel said.

Meg dropped the pot on the table and beans splattered every man in the vicinity. With hands on her hips, she tapped her foot and glared at their slack-jawed expressions. “I thought today was supposed to help John and Caroline celebrate a new beginning. If I’d known you were going to spend the day mourning the past, I’d have stayed home.”

She trudged toward the dessert table. “Joshua and Joseph Holland! I need you!”

She reached the table, picked up three spoons, and buried the round ends in one of her apple cobblers.

Gulping for air, the twins stopped short of ramming into her side. Their brows were creased with concern. “What do you need, Miz Warner?” they asked at once.

“I need you to eat this cobbler,” she said as she handed the bowl to them. “And you can share it with anyone you want to.”

“Even Clay?” one twin asked.

“Anyone,” she repeated with a brisk nod.

“Thank you, Miz Warner,” they said before walking away, holding the bowl between them, and taking such small steps that she wasn’t certain they’d reach their destination before nightfall.

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. It wasn’t much. It probably wasn’t enough. Watching as the twins approached the large wagon where a man sat alone, she suddenly felt as though nothing would ever be enough.

Meg watched Helen pour water over the dirt. Her four-year-old daughter, Melissa, plopped on the ground.

“Give her a mud puddle, and she’s happy,” Helen said as she sat beside Meg and Sally Graham beneath the shade of the tree.

“Dr. Martin said there’s no reason Tom and I can’t have lots of children,” Sally said quietly.

Reassuringly, Meg took her hand. “I’m sure you’ll have more children.”

Sally blushed. “Tom is so good to me. I don’t know what I’d do without him. I don’t know how all you widows survived. You’re only a little older than me, but you all lost your husbands.”

Tom appeared with a glass in his hand and knelt beside her chair. “Here you are, Sally, honey. I brought you some lemonade.”

Tom’s tender expression caused the loneliness to surround Meg. Only a few years difference in ages had carved out different lives for the women in the area. While Daniel bemoaned the fact that he’d been born too late, she wished she and Kirk had not been born quite so soon.

As though her thoughts conjured him, Daniel strode toward them. “Tom!” he yelled.

With fire raging in his blue eyes, he glanced briefly at Meg before turning his attention to Tom. “Holland took the twins to the river. While he’s gone, some of us are gonna take down the boards he nailed up. You wanna help?”

“Why are you gonna do that?” Tom asked.

“So he’ll know he’s not wanted and he’ll leave.”

“I think he probably figured out he wasn’t wanted when we all walked away this morning. He’s not stupid.”

“No, but he’s a yellow-bellied coward. Hell, Tom, you enlisted as soon as you were old enough.”

“Yeah, but my regiment never left the state. We just sat at the Louisiana border waiting for the Yankees to come. They never did. I never even fired my rifle at a man.”

“That ain’t the point,” Daniel said. “The point is you were willing to do your part. He wasn’t.”

“Tom’s right, Daniel,” Meg said. “Just let him finish his side, and he’ll go home.”

“Damn it, Meg, I think you’re getting soft. Are you forgetting it was your husband and our brothers he didn’t stand by? I can’t believe you gave him your cobbler.”

“I didn’t give it to him. I gave it to his brothers.”

“Knowing full well they’d share it with him. I told you last night I wanted to do something to preserve the memory of my brothers. Well, this is it. You coming, Tom?”

“Nope, I won’t help him, but I’m not gonna undo his work.”

“Then we’ll do it without you.”

Meg watched her brother storm back toward the barn. She knew he harbored feelings of guilt because he hadn’t been old enough to enlist alongside his brothers, but until today she hadn’t realized the full extent of her family’s hatred. If they discovered she’d spent time with Clay …

She closed her eyes, not wanting to think about what they might do. This land had too many trees growing on it.

Someone took her hand. Opening her eyes, she smiled at Robert as he knelt beside her.

“I wanted to ask a favor of you,” he said. “I feel pretty useless now that the desserts are gone, and I no longer have to stand guard over them. It occurred to me that if I had someone to hold the nail, I could hammer it into place. I was wondering if you’d be willing to be that someone.”

“G
AWD
A
LMIGHTY
!” J
OSH SHRIEKED
. “W
HAT HAPPENED TO OUR
wall?”

Clay came to a dead stop as though he’d just slammed against the wall he had erected earlier that morning. The side of the barn they’d been walking toward looked as though no one had touched it all day.

He jerked off his hat and plowed his fingers through his hair. Taking the twins to the river so they could cool off hadn’t been such a good idea after all.