Gradually the trembling began to subside and Will got control of himself. He stepped back from his mother and wiped quickly at the corners of his eyes. Caroline gasped softly and one hand shot out to grab Will’s chin. She turned his face. In the doorway, his back had been to the light and she had not seen his face clearly. There was a smear of blood beneath his nose, and one cheek had an ugly abrasion. The shirt he had put on clean this morning was soiled on one side, and she saw that the knees of his trousers were brown with the dirt of the schoolyard.
She let go of his chin. His head dropped immediately, and he tensed for her reaction. Fighting against every motherly instinct that was tugging at her, she bit back the words. She reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you go wash up,” she murmured, “then we’ll talk about it.”
* * *
Joshua looked up in surprise. Caroline was still adjusting to her first real winter in several years, and she didn’t like to be out in the cold. With the baby now due in about two months, she also found it uncomfortable to walk very far. And she definitely did not like the freight yard with its smell of oxen and horses and sweating men. So when he came out of the stable leading a team of horses and saw her standing there outside the office door, it took him aback a little. He handed the tether to his yard foreman and went to her.
“This is a surprise,” he said. He reached out and touched her arm.
She was huddled against the cold air, holding herself tightly against the chill. She smiled faintly. “I thought it would be.”
“Let’s go inside.”
She shook her head. “I need to talk with you, Joshua.”
His face fell a little. “Right now?”
She nodded, the smile completely gone.
“Look, just go inside for a few minutes. Cornwell and I have got to get this team hitched up. There’s a load of lumber—”
“Will was sent home from school today.”
That stopped him. “He was?”
“Yes. He’d been fighting.”
He grinned. “Did he win?” She just watched him steadily, and the grin slowly faded. “Who was he fighting with?”
There was a quick, impatient shake of her head. “That doesn’t matter. He was fighting over you.”
His mouth opened, then shut again. He couldn’t remember when her eyes had been quite so grave. The emerald green had gone almost gray now. He turned to Cornwell, who stood waiting with the horses. “You’d better go ahead. Get Bart to help you.”
Without waiting for an answer, Joshua turned, took her arm, and steered her toward the street. Once out of the yard, he turned south, away from the center of town. “All right,” he finally said. “I’m listenin’.”
But Caroline didn’t answer. They walked on for nearly a block until they came to the framework of the large two-story house that stood near the outskirts of the town. Finally she stopped. This was the home Joshua was building for her. There was no question about it, it was going to be the finest that Independence had yet seen.
She just kept staring at the house, still not speaking. He felt a stirring of alarm. He had never seen her quite like this. “Caroline, I’m listenin’,” he said again.
She looked down at the ground. “For your own reasons, you’ve chosen not to tell me anything about your first marriage.”
His head came up sharply.
“But it’s no longer just between you and me, Joshua.”
* * *
Joshua stood for a moment in the doorway of the barn, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light, then he stepped inside. “Will?”
The milk cow in one of the stalls looked up. Her large brown eyes watched him with curiosity for a moment, her mouth rotating slowly as she chewed her cud. Beyond her, Joshua’s horse swished his tail, then again. But other than that, there was no sound, no movement.
He walked in farther and raised his voice. “Will, are you in here?”
Above him, in the loft, something stirred. Joshua turned, walked to the ladder, and climbed it slowly, his mind going four or five times faster than his feet.
Will was in the far corner, half lying, half sitting back against a pile of dried meadow hay. Joshua noted that the loft window was slightly ajar—which meant that Will had seen him coming.
“Hi.”
The head did not raise.
“Mind if I sit down?”
There was an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Joshua moved over and sat down, putting his back up against one of the beams that supported the roof. He picked up a long stem of prairie grass and began to chew on it slowly. Will raised his eyes without lifting his head; then when he saw Joshua was watching him, he looked down again quickly—but not quickly enough that Joshua missed the look of betrayal that filled the brown eyes.
Joshua smiled sadly as an image flashed in his mind. It was of an impudent young lad standing on the cobblestone streets of Savannah, knickers held up with suspenders, a French beret perched jauntily on his head. “I know everything there is to know about Savannah,” he had said with a boyish swagger. From almost the first moment they had met, something had clicked between Joshua Steed and William Mendenhall. Over the past nine months, that bond had deepened into something that meant a great deal to Joshua. He was surprised now how badly it hurt to see the disappointment on Will’s face. And what hurt even worse, he wasn’t sure he could say anything that would make it go away.
“Can we talk about it?”
Again there was no answer, but one shoulder lifted in a brief shrug.
Joshua tossed the stem of grass aside. “Look, Will, I’m not very good at guessing. Why don’t you just ask whatever questions you’ve got tumblin’ around in your head?” He blew out his breath. “I’ll try and answer them as honestly as I can.”
The silence stretched on for well over a minute. Twice Joshua thought about trying again, saying something else, but something told him to give it time. So he waited. Finally, Will shifted his weight. He brought his knees up, hugged his arms around them, then rested his chin on top of them. He was no longer staring at the floor, but neither did he look at Joshua. He was staring at a knothole in one of the boards of the barn wall.
“Is it true?” he finally murmured.
“Your mother said your friends told you a lot of things,” Joshua responded after a moment.
Will’s voice was low and still carried hurt. “They weren’t tryin’ to be mean to me. They were braggin’ on you. They said you were one of the bravest men in Jackson County. When they told me what you did, I said they were lyin’, that my step-pa wouldn’t do those kinds of things.”
“And that’s when you fought?”
He nodded quickly.
“So, ask your questions.”
“Did you really beat your wife up?”
Joshua winced. When Caroline had chosen a word to describe what the boys said about him and Jessica, it had been
hit.
He had hit his wife.
Beat
was a much more brutal word. But he forced a nod. “Yes, Will, I did.”
The brown eyes, nearly black in the dimness of the light in the barn, seemed to be trying to drill the knothole out of its board.
“You ever seen a drunk, Will?”
There was faint disdain at the inanity of the question. “Of course.”
“I mean someone who is really drunk? Out-of-his-head drunk?”
“Yes. My buddy, John Watkins, and I used to sneak down to the saloon and watch the men come out sometimes.”
“Well, liquor is a poor excuse for anything, Will, but it’s the only one I have. Jessica—my first wife—and I had a lot of hate building up between us. It seemed like everythin’ we did just fanned that hate all the hotter. One night, she did something that really made me angry. Now, as I look back on it, I guess I can’t say as I blame her, but that night I was furious with her. Instead of lettin’ it burn out, I went to the saloon and got mean, out-of-my-head drunk. Then I went lookin’ for her.”
He shook his head. “If there was a kind God anywhere in this world, he’d let us go back and undo some of the stupid things we do, Will. But that isn’t part of life, it seems.”
For the first time, Will was looking at Joshua, watching him closely, eyes wide and vulnerable. Joshua met his gaze. “Words are cheap,” he said softly. “But right now, Will, there’s nothing else to offer you. All I can say is that I’m deep-down shamed at what I did—enough that I made myself two promises.” He shook his head angrily. “No, more than promises, solemn vows.”
“What are they?”
“First, I vowed that I’ll never let whiskey take me over again. Not ever. It’s a terrible master, Will. I know that now.” He paused, then added. “That’s been almost five and a half years ago now, Will. I haven’t been drunk since. Not one time.”
Will’s wide eyes blinked once, then again, and Joshua sensed at least some acceptance of that. He took a quick breath and went on. “Two, I’ve vowed I’ll never, ever, lift my hand against a woman again. It was a cowardly thing, and I’ll carry the shame of it to the grave.”
He stopped, wanting to see if Will would respond. He didn’t. Instead he looked away again. “Other questions?” Joshua finally asked.
Will turned. “Why do you hate Mormons so much?”
Joshua’s lips tightened. “Because they’re bad people, Will. Evil people.”
“What did they do?”
“They—” Joshua stopped. “Well, it’s not so much what they do, but what they are.”
Will looked faintly disgusted at that.
Joshua felt an urgent need to help him understand. “They came in here trying to change everybody, claimed all of us Missourians were going to have to leave so they could build up a perfect society. They’re high-and-mighty, filled with all kinds of ideas that are rubbish.”
“Mama says it’s not good to hate people simply because they’re different.”
Joshua nearly flashed out with a quick retort, but caught himself. “Your mama’s right. I don’t hate Mormons just because they’re different. They’ve done bad things. That’s why we drove them out of the county. Sometimes a man has to take a stand against bad things.”
Will seemed lost in his own thoughts. “When we moved to Savannah, lots of people warned us to stay away from Negro people. They said they were bad. Couldn’t be trusted. They called them ‘niggers’ and all kinds of stuff. Mama said it’s not right to judge people like that. There were two black boys down on Factors’ Walk who were my good friends. I didn’t think they were niggers.”
Joshua smiled, his eyes softening. “Your mama is a very good woman, William. A strong woman. You listen to her.”
Will nodded. He unclasped his hands from around his legs and stretched. Joshua sensed a softening but knew the crisis hadn’t passed yet. “Do you have other questions you want to ask me, Will?”
He looked away.
“Go on, Will. We can’t let this be hanging between us.”
He took a breath. Finally he turned and looked Joshua full in the face. The look in his eyes wrenched Joshua like nothing he had ever felt before.
“My friends said you drove your wife and your baby out of their house. They said it was a cold night and you drove them out with whips. Made them walk all night across the prairie. They said some people died.”
Joshua closed his eyes, leaning forward, his head down. The words had brought back memories that knifed through him with terrible pain.
“Is it true?” Will asked.
After a long time, Joshua looked up. “Sometimes, Will . . .” His shoulders lifted and fell. “Sometimes we start things that we can’t control. I . . . we, a bunch of us, had been fighting the Mormons. There was a battle out near the Big Blue River. Two of my men were shot and killed. One of the Mormons was killed. Several on both sides were wounded.
“Emotions were very high. My men wanted revenge. And I’ll be honest. I did too. It was like we were on the verge of an explosion. We decided to drive the Mormons out so no more trouble could happen.”
His voice became distant, far away, as if he had moved back into the past again. “I was leading a group of about a hundred men out to the Mormon settlement. It was night. I knew that Jessica . . . actually she was not really my wife by then; we had been divorced. But anyway, I knew that Jessica and our little girl were there. Jessica’s father was with me. I sent him on ahead. Told him to warn her to get out fast. But I couldn’t hold the men back. They broke loose and went riding in, shooting and hollering and sending everybody running.”
He shook his head, and his voice dropped to little more than a whisper. “Turned out it was mostly women and children. The men had gone off somewhere.” There was a long pause. “It wasn’t a great night for bravery.”
Will’s eyes were wide. “Did you whip them?”
He looked up, a little surprised, as though he had forgotten Will was there. Then he shook his head firmly. “No. I didn’t whip anybody that night. Will, once things calmed down some, I turned around and went home.”
For a long time they sat there, Joshua waiting, occasionally watching Will’s face for some clue as to his feelings, letting him think about all he had heard. Finally, Joshua stood up. “I’m sorry you think less of me, Will. That hurts a lot. A real lot. But I understand. All I can say is that those things happened a long time ago. I’m sorry now. But like I said, you can’t go back and undo things you did, no matter how much you want to.”
Will’s face was unreadable as he considered Joshua’s words. “You ready to come in now?” Joshua asked softly after a moment. “Or do you want to stay out here for a little longer?”
Will dropped his head again. “I think I’ll stay.”
Joshua nodded. “I’ll tell your mother where you are.” He flashed a weak grin. “Probably beats goin’ back to school anyway, right?”
“Yeah.” Will didn’t smile.
Joshua moved slowly across the loft to the ladder. He started down, but stopped after two or three rungs. “Will?”
The boy’s head came up.
“I . . .” Suddenly Joshua’s tongue was thick and heavy. Will was looking at him curiously. “I . . . I just wanted you to know that I think of you as if . . . well, it’s like you are actually my own son.”
Flustered now, he rushed on. “I know you loved your real pa, and all that. And I’d never want to take that away from you, but . . .” He shook his head. This was worse than taking a ten-mule team down the side of a muddy riverbank. “One of the things I wish for most in this life is that, someday, you’ll feel like you can . . . like maybe you could call me your pa, too.” He shook his head, giving it up. “I’d be right proud if you ever did, Will. Right proud.”