Sixteen Brides (16 page)

“You never know.” Caroline grinned. “The folks in Plum Grove don’t seem to always observe the rules when it comes to the Sabbath. After all, Martha’s going to open the mercantile after the service. I suppose if Bill Toady shows up with his fiddle, there’ll be more than just you hoping for a dance. Although”—she smiled—“it might depend on whether or not the preacher stays in town. It wouldn’t do for an up-and-coming town to offend a man of God.”

As the two worked together arranging chairs, Will Haywood stacked up three empty crates for a makeshift podium. Linney came in with a bunch of wildflowers she’d collected and tied with a bit of ribbon. “It’s for Mrs. Smith,” she said.

“What a sweet thing to do. Helen will be so touched.”

“I saw her a little while ago and she looked nervous. I thought maybe some flowers would make her feel more like a real bride.”

“Marriage is a big decision,” Caroline said. “It’s only natural to have second thoughts.”

“Would you do it?” Linney asked abruptly. “Marry a stranger, I mean?”

Caroline smiled. “Well, in a way I did. As it turned out, I didn’t really know my husband. But he looked so brave and so dashing in his uniform—”

“My pa was in uniform when he first saw my ma,” Linney said.

“He says he wasn’t the most handsome one in the room, but I think he was.”

Caroline turned away and began to straighten the row of chairs Sally had just arranged. “I’m sure he was very handsome,” she said, in as noncommittal a tone as possible.

“You can’t really tell,” Linney said. “He’s all scraggly right now.” She sounded wistful. “But you should see him in their wedding picture. He’s . . . beautiful. Oh, not like Ma was. But still—”

Sally broke in to suggest Linney seek out Mrs. Smith and deliver the bouquet personally. Then, as soon as the girl was gone, she made a show of fanning Caroline to help her “cool off.”

Caroline waved her away. “All right. Enough of that. Point taken.”

She avoided Sally’s eyes. “Maybe we should see what else we can do to help Martha.” She glanced toward the kitchen.

Sally called her back. “I don’t mean no harm when I tease you,” she said. “I hope you know I just like joshin’ with ya.”

“I know,” Caroline said.

Sally rubbed her arm. “I married a stranger, too, when it comes right down to it. And I won’t make that mistake again, I can tell you that.”

“Well, don’t say that too loud,” Caroline teased. “All those men who danced with you last Friday will be crushed.”

“Aw, I was just havin’ fun. I like to dance. Don’t mean I want to get hitched. Don’t mean I don’t. But it ain’t likely to happen anytime soon is all I’m sayin’.” She shook her head. “How’s a woman supposed to know what a man’s really like, anyway?”

Caroline sighed. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, I hope Helen don’t regret what she’s doin’ today. Mr. McDonald seems nice enough, but—”

“I think we can believe the best for Helen. Little Davey McDonald loves his pa. If his child loves him, that’s a very good recommendation for a man.”

Sally grinned. “Linney sure loves her pa.”

Caroline shook her finger like a schoolmarm scolding a naughty student.

“I’m just sayin’,” Sally said, and sashayed toward the kitchen.

“You go on ahead,” Matthew said, hopping down almost before Cooper’s wagon came to a halt in front of the livery. “I’ll see to the team. Then I’m going to take the small box of things on up to Martha’s. We can unload the trunk and the sewing machine later. Depending.”
Depending on how Linney reacts.

“Linney might just be so happy to see you in church that she’ll forget she’s mad at you.”

“She isn’t likely to forgive quite that easily. Besides, I don’t begrudge any man’s personal religion, but God isn’t doing me much good these days. I don’t see the point in pretending I believe when I don’t.”

Cooper seemed to accept the answer, but then after only a few steps in the direction of the dining hall, he turned around and came back. “What you said about God not doing you much good. Does that mean there was a time when you thought he did—do some good in your life, I mean?”

Matthew shrugged. “You could say so. I was grateful for Katie. And for Linney. It felt like God was smiling down at times.”

“But you don’t feel that way anymore.”

Matthew shoved his hands into his pockets. Looked toward the far horizon. Shook his head.

“I’ve had some of the same feelings. And for all the reading I’ve done—I have read most of those books you helped me unpack—I’ve yet to understand what philosophers call ‘the problem of evil.’ Some of the vilest men in my company sailed through the war with nothing worse than a powder burn. Some of the best died in horrible ways. None of it made much sense to me and most of it still doesn’t.” Cooper held up his stump. “And this? I don’t understand why God would allow this at all.”

“And yet you’re still headed up the street to church.”

Cooper thought about that for a minute, and then he smiled. “I’m not smart enough to have answers to all your questions, Matthew. I’d be lying if I said I did.”

It was hard to believe a man who read Hawthorne didn’t think of himself as being smart. “But you do have some kind of an answer.”

Cooper sighed. “I’ll tell you what. Someday when you’ve time for it, you stop by my place, and I’ll let you read the book that helped me the most. Those questions you’re struggling with—a man has to find his own way to the answers. Mine might not suit you at all. Besides, you already told me you’ve got no need to hear a sermon today. I respect that.”

Cooper nodded toward the wagon. “Don’t forget to ask Linney about the sewing machine, just to make sure. I’d like to settle with Mrs. Grant about it one way or the other before I leave town today.” He smiled. “If things go really well and you want to bring her out to the homestead, maybe Ermisch would let us borrow a horse. We could hitch him to the wagon, drive home together, and then Linney and you could ride back to town in the morning.”

“We’ll see how things go.”

Cooper took his leave and Matthew lounged beside the wagon, watching the considerable number of folks driving or riding into town. There was a flash of red hair up the street, and he caught a glimpse of Linney walking along with that boy whose mother was part of the “Desperation Society.” Jackson. That was it. Jackson Dow. And his mother was Ruth. Katie had been married at seventeen. Linney would be seventeen in less than three years.

He looked down at the box in his hands, pained by how little remained on the earth to prove that Katie Ransom had lived. Oh, the trunk was full of clothing and quilts and such, but it was so very little to represent a life. A cracked teapot. A little quilt Katie’d been making for the new baby. A matching doll quilt she’d worked up for Linney, hoping to keep the little girl from being jealous. Her wedding veil. The set of silver spoons she’d brought from home. The elegant china cup and saucer—the only ones of the whole set that had survived the trip west. She’d cried over that. And then in the next month she’d created that framed needlework.
Hope On
Hope Ever.

Hope.
He glanced up at the implement store sign. He might not have much in the way of hope, but he could give Linney some. He could tell Vernon Lux he’d give building wagons and living in town a try. And if things went well today, he would take Cooper up on his offer to take Linney out to the place. They could ride back to town together, just like Jeb suggested. Linney could help him set up the room at the back of the implement store.
Maybe she could help me pick out a lot in town. A place to build a house.
Maybe, just maybe if he did all those things, maybe Katie would forgive him from beyond the grave. Maybe the demons would die.

Now
that
was something to hope for.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

He that hath no rule over his own spirit
is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.

PROVERBS 25:28

A
ll right. He didn’t plan it. He couldn’t have planned it. After all, that one seat next to Mrs. Darby right at the end of the row in front of the row of Caroline and her friends was the only seat left. Well, almost the only seat left. And Frank Darby was a rancher, so that made sense, didn’t it? A person liked to sit near their friends, even in church. After all, she was right here in the row with her friends. But
laws o’massey,
Caroline was having trouble paying attention to what was going on up front, and after all, Helen Smith was signing over her future to a near stranger. Never mind that he seemed nice enough, and never mind that little Davey McDonald had caused a chorus of
ooh
s and
aww
s when he slipped out of his seat and went to stand between the bride and groom and then slipped one hand into Helen’s and one hand into his pa’s.

Never mind all of that. This was a serious moment and Caroline could not pay attention. And why? All because of the varmint sitting right there a few feet away dangling a Stetson on his knee and making it a point, Caroline thought,
not
to look her way. And didn’t Lucas Gray look fine today, with his hair all wavy and his beard trimmed close enough to accent that square jaw and—
Stop it, Caroline. Just stop it right now.

She looked away. Stared straight forward. And she didn’t even notice that Gray had a passably good singing voice. Nor did she pay any mind when he actually pulled a little New Testament out of his coat pocket and followed along when the preacher started his sermon. She barely noticed that Gray seemed somewhat familiar with the contents of that little testament, or that he could find the Scripture reading without an undue amount of flipping of pages.
You’d be lost trying to find Thessa—Thessa—whatever.

Gray was just showing off. It was just a self-righteous kind of vanity, that’s what it was. There weren’t four men in the entire dining hall who had their own Bible. Caroline noted that Jeb Cooper was one of them, and that it wasn’t a little testament, either. Cooper had a full-sized well-worn tome that settled across his knee like it belonged there, not some little sissy book a pretender could hide in his coat pocket.

She turned slightly in her chair, just enough to put Lucas Gray where he belonged, far in the periphery of her vision. And when the service concluded, Caroline slipped past Ella and Zita, Sally and Ruth, Jackson and Mavis, and escaped out the door and toward the mercantile without so much as a glance Mr. Gray’s way. After all, she’d promised Martha Haywood to help out over at the mercantile. And she wanted to meet Alice Bailey and see to it that Alice decided to make her next quilt “shimmer” with bits of pumpkin-colored fabric.

Matthew slipped in the back door of the mercantile, his heart pounding. Even proposing hadn’t made him this nervous. After all, there’d been no doubt that the woman he loved was going to say yes. Today was another matter. The results weren’t guaranteed. Linney might not even listen long enough to hear the news about his moving to town. She might refuse to open this box of Katie’s things, refuse to ride to the homestead and see the beautiful fence Jeb had erected around Katie’s grave. In fact, it was quite possible Linney wouldn’t let him say much more than one sentence before throwing a fit.

He hesitated in the storeroom, mentally rehearsing his speech one last time. At the sound of laughter, he set the box down atop a stack of crates.
Mrs. Jamison. Caroline.
Her voice was unmistakable, and she was just the one to discuss
shimmer.
Everything about that woman shimmered. Maybe he’d come back later. He could walk down to Lux’s store and start clearing out that room in the back where he’d be living now. He’d leave Katie’s things right here, and maybe catch up with Will Haywood somewhere in town and ask him to tell Linney— “The older you get the more you look like your mother. Although the red hair is from your pa’s side.”

“It is?”

“Definitely.
His
ma had red hair. Didn’t he ever tell you that?”

Matthew stepped into the doorway and took it all in. Luke, leaning on the counter across from where Linney stood with that hungry look in her eyes. The look she always got when there was any mention of Katie.
Luke.
Talking about things he had no right
—smiling
as he spoke Katie’s name. And even as he smiled, he was aiming it all right past Linney toward Mrs. Jamison. Of course he would. That was how Luke did things. Use one to get to the other. Be nice to the toddler so you can lure the mother— It all came back. In one instant the hurt and regret and doubt and guilt of the past few years all balled themselves up into Matthew’s right fist. Emotion launched him across the mercantile toward Luke. Just as the tall cowboy turned toward the sound of fast-moving feet, Matthew planted his fist on that square jaw. Luke’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell backward into the washtub of fabric. Landing on his back, he lay sprawled out on the mercantile floor, his body peppered with rolls of varicolored calico.

Linney screamed “Pa!” and at the sound of her voice, Matthew’s rage departed. His hand hurt. A lot. He spread his fingers and shook his hand out. In the silence he was only aware of the eyes. Linney’s filling with tears. Caroline’s, dark and troubled. Alice Bailey’s communicating disapproval and, he supposed, already formulating a good story to spread about town. And then from behind them, Martha’s voice sounding from the storeroom door. “Oh, Matthew.” A world of sadness collected into two words.

Caroline moved first. She went to Luke, of course. The ladies always did, didn’t they?

Matthew did what he always did. He ran.

Someone pounded on the door. Matthew didn’t answer, but neither did he drink the whiskey he’d smuggled out the back door of the saloon on his way here. Instead, he stretched out on the bare cot in Vernon Lux’s back room and tried to ignore whoever it was.

“It’s Martha, and I’ll stand out here and beat on this door all night if I have to. Or get Will to help me break it down if it comes to that. You
are
going to talk to me.”

Matthew sat up. Raked his fingers through his tangled hair.

Martha rattled the door latch. “Open this door. I’ve got some things to say that I should have said years ago, and by gosh and by golly, they are going to be said. But not until I’m looking you in the eye.”

He set an empty box over the whiskey bottle.

“I’ve raised your daughter for you, Matthew. You owe me this. And you owe it to Katie, too. For Linney’s sake.”

With a groan, Matthew scooted off the cot. He unlatched the door and, backing into the room, motioned for Martha to sit on the cot while he perched on a chair-high block of wood in the corner.

“I don’t need to sit down. This won’t take long. But we should close the door. So you light that lamp. I want to see you when I’m talking to you, and Lord knows
you’ve
been living in the dark for quite long enough.”

Matthew lit the lamp. “All right,” he said, and sat back down. “Let’s get it over with.”

“By all means, Matthew. Let’s. It’s time
someone
got over it, don’t you think?” Martha took a wavering breath. Swallowed. When next she spoke, her voice was almost gentle. “There was a time when Katie Ransom thought she loved two men. Cousins she’d met at the same ball. Maybe she did love them both. I don’t know. But, Matthew, Katie chose
you.
And she gave you a beautiful daughter.”

“Did she?” He let the anguish sound in his voice. The question was almost a keening as he freed his pent-up emotions. “Did Katie give
me
a beautiful daughter? Or did Luke do that?” He stared at Martha, his heart pounding, his eyes filling with tears as he finally translated the anguish of years into words.

Martha just stared back. For a long while, she just stared. And then understanding dawned. “You think Linney isn’t yours.” She sat down on the cot and repeated the words, more slowly this time. “You think Linney isn’t yours.”

Instead of relieving the burden, the act of speaking it aloud only served to make it more real. An almost palpable weight settled across Matthew’s shoulders, and he leaned forward and put his hands to his head. He took a deep, wavering breath and spoke without looking up. “The day of the accident . . . she’d left me. Taken Linney and gone . . . to
him
.” He groaned the rest of it. “I went after her. We had a terrible fight. Linney screaming, Katie crying, and Luke . . . denying everything.”

“What do you mean, ‘denying everything’?”

Martha’s voice was calm now. Matthew looked up at her and shrugged. “He said the girls were out picking chokecherries. Said Linney got stung or some nonsense, and he ‘just happened’ to come along. He said he took them over to the ranch so that Chinaman of his could treat the stings.”

“That sounds very plausible.”

“Well, there wasn’t any sign of a sting on Linney’s person.”

“Wah Lo’s remedies can be very effective, Matthew. You know that. Maybe you just couldn’t see it all those hours later.”

“She loved him, Martha. She
told
me she loved him.” He waited for that to sink in before continuing. “But she said she wanted to make it work between her and me. And so she got in the wagon and we started for home. But—” He broke off. Shook his head.

“She chose
you
, Matthew.
She chose you.
”

He got up and began to pace. “Did you know he built that house of his hoping she’d come to him? The house, the ranch—everything a woman could want . . . and she . . . she . . .” His voice broke. He let the tears come. “And still, she chose
me.
And the best I could do . . . the best I could do was . . . drive like a madman and risk our lives and . . .” He covered his face and began to sob. “I killed her, Martha. I killed her and I loved her and I hated her and . . . oh . . . God . . .” He leaned away from Martha, into the wall. He made a fist again, but this time he didn’t use it. Instead, he stood weeping.

Martha came to his side. Leading him back to the cot, she sat down beside him and took his hand. “All right, Matthew. It’s going to be all right.” She held on.

“I don’t even know if she’s mine,” he groaned.

“She’s yours in every way that matters. You have to stop this. That girl thinks the sun rises and sets in you. The
only
thing she wants in this life is to keep house for her pa. She used to talk about it all the time. How she had to learn to cook really well so she could take good care of you. How she had to learn to sew so she could make your shirts.” Martha paused. “She stopped talking like that two years ago, and do you know why? Because she stopped believing it’s ever going to happen. She doesn’t know why, but for some reason the one person she loves most in this world can’t seem to stand being around her all that much. She sees the pain in you, Matthew, every time you look at her. And as all children do, Linney thinks it’s her fault. Well, it’s not. And you know what? It flat-out doesn’t
matter
which of you sorry men made that child, because
you
are the one Katie chose to raise her.”

She stood up. “It’s time you forgave the past, Matthew. Katie and Lucas and yourself. And most of all it’s time you forgave Linney for reminding you of the few moments in your life when you made a terrible choice and terrible things happened.
Yes,
your recklessness caused a wagon to overturn. But you didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Are you going to let one bad decision ruin the rest of your life? Are you going to let it ruin Linney’s life? And Luke’s? Hasn’t he done everything a man can do? Don’t you think he grieved Katie, too? Don’t you think he’d take back a few of
his
decisions if he could?”