Threads of Change (31 page)

Thomas had picked up his pen and began to write:

Thomas read the letter over again and folded it into the envelope. He addressed the outside and sealed it shut.

“Where can I post this letter?” he asked, and the clerk motioned with an ink-stained finger.

“Down the street a ways.” He rubbed his nose, and now it had ink on it. Thomas smiled as he tipped his hat to bid goodbye.

Samuel asked Tex a question, bringing Thomas back from his daydream.

“We’ll be in Fort Worth within the hour,” Tex answered.

Thomas began to recognize the countryside, and he enjoyed the landscape as much as he had the first time. His own land looked much like this, and he could hardly wait to begin construction on a homestead there. He felt like a real Texan-in-the-making as he mulled over his plans of breeding fine horses and cattle and thought about where exactly he would place their house. Did he want it to face the west or east? He even pondered where Liz might want to put the henhouse.

It was easy to think on the back of a horse.

Tex yanked the reins and exclaimed, “Hey, men! I think that’s gunfire!”

The three riders jabbed their spurs at the flanks of their mounts, leaned close to their mares, and took off. They rode hard over the last hill toward Fort Worth.

Suddenly, Thomas realized shots had indeed been fired.

As Thomas, Tex, and Samuel rode into the dirt streets of Fort Worth, they saw a commotion in front of the mercantile. Immediately, Thomas’s heart lurched. Horses stood silently without riders, and people that Thomas didn’t recognize turned to look at them. Thomas instinctively knew something bad had happened. He could feel it hanging about the crowd and over his gut like a steel beam. Everyone in the street watched as the three rode up, and Thomas leapt from his horse first.

Tex pulled his gun and cautiously looked around. Gunpowder hung in the air, and Thomas drew his weapon as well. The red doors swung open and Pastor Parker came out with a stunned look of disbelief. He scanned the crowd, noticing that Tex, Samuel, and Thomas had returned.

Thomas took the steps of the mercantile three at a time and stood there facing the pastor. When instinct propelled him toward the front door, Pastor Parker placed his hand on Thomas’s shoulder.

“Liz is inside and she needs you, Thomas. Lucas was killed, along with two strangers.”

Thomas shoved through the doors and searched for Liz. He stepped over a dead man and found her crumpled in the back corner of the room beside Lucas’s still and motionless body. She rocked back and forth, weeping with no sound. Only the occasional gasp of breath on her lips betrayed her, and her shoulders convulsed.

Blood covered his beautiful Liz. He couldn’t tell if it was hers or not, and Thomas fell to his knees beside her.

Megan was on her knees at her grandfather’s head, with one arm on Liz’s shoulder and the other arm under Lucas’s neck, weeping quietly. Abby and Emma stood by the back door of the mercantile, quietly in shock, tears streaming down their faces. Abby held the edge of her apron and used it to stop the tears at her chin. A thick trail of blood trickled past them on the wood floor and dripped down the back step. Thomas knew they had never witnessed anything like this in their young lives.

Luke stood like a fence post just beyond Abby and Emma with his hands jammed down in his pockets, his face ashen in color. When his gaze met Thomas’s, he kicked at a rock and took off running to the woods by the cavalry barracks.

Thomas saw his mentor, a man he loved and respected, lying on the crimson-stained wooden floor. He looked to his left at the register and saw another dead man he didn’t know with the copper-colored register bag lying open on the floor next to him. A few coins had spilled out. After surveying what he saw, it didn’t take him long to figure out that the men had tried to rob the mercantile. Thomas looked back to Liz and saw that her dress had been torn. He prayed to God that the men hadn’t done anything to her, and anger began to swell inside him.

Thomas helped her stand and she became limp in his arms. She had no words, and he couldn’t blame her. She buried her face in his chest and whimpered.

Thomas stepped back for a moment and looked her over. Covered in blood, from her face to dress, she looked as if she’d been painting that red door of hers. She looked small and broken, almost unrecognizable, and Thomas wrapped her up in his arms and held her close to him, rocking her from one side to the other.

“Thomas—oh, Thomas—” she croaked, and the pain in her voice was enough to break Thomas too. He worked hard to hold back his own tears as she continued to repeat his name again and again. “Thomas—oh, Thomas—”

When she started to trail off to silence, he reached one arm out to comfort Megan, and the two Wilkes cousins who hovered at the back entry moved toward him as well.

“Come here,” he reassured them. “Come to me.”

He unexpectedly found that his arms were long enough to encircle all four women, with Liz at the center of the circle pressed against his pounding heart. The women felt wilted in his embrace, and Thomas felt slightly wilted himself. Shocked by the scene in front of him, he made a conscious decision to stuff his own personal grief deep down inside in order to help this family survive this tragedy. He was now responsible for them. They were in shock and would feel the loss of Lucas Mailly for the rest of their lives. Thomas knew he would feel the loss almost as horribly.

Tex timidly approached the group and offered his sympathy to the Mailly family.

Thomas looked to Tex and asked, “Will you go after Luke? He ran off in the direction of the old barracks. Make sure he’s all right and bring him here to me?”

“I’ll see if I can find him and make sure he’s okay.” Tex nodded his head and walked to the door and spoke to the pastor and Samuel before the three of them headed off with conviction in their eyes. Thomas spoke softly to his group of women. He knew they needed to get to the house and out of the mercantile.

“What can I do?” Anna blurted, and Thomas sighed out of sheer relief.

“Do you think you can help me get the women out of here? And Liz will need a hot bath and a change of clothing. Megan, too.”

Anna nodded, and she looked more than ready to take on a task in the name of helping her new friends.

“Abby, Emma,” she said with her arms outstretched toward them. “Come with me, darlings.”

“I want to leave this place and never come back,” Abby wailed, and she wriggled into Anna’s embrace.

“Let’s get you and your sister over to the house,” Anna said, and Thomas marveled at her ability to remain calm in the midst of such a horrendous storm. “Liz, Megan? Can you come with me?”

Megan followed silently, her eyes wide, and Thomas realized how shocked she was. When Anna tried to nudge Liz along with them, she whined and tightened her grip on Thomas.

“Go ahead,” he told her. “I’ll bring Liz along.”

Megan took one last look over to her grandfather and asked, “Thomas, can we go out the front?”

Thomas nodded and wrapped his arm around her shoulder before leading both of the sisters through the front door. Anna led Abby and Emma ahead of them, and Abby reached for her sister’s hand as they passed the first dead intruder. Emma stopped for a moment and angrily spat on him before she continued.

A group of people gathered on the street as the evening sun faded to twilight. The night sounds began their somber prairie symphony. Women dabbed their eyes and men held their hats in their hands. One small boy hid in his mother’s skirt. Thomas observed all of this in slow motion as he led Liz and Megan home.

At the back door of the small porch, Thomas stopped in his tracks as he saw the quilt spread out across the chair. Abby saw him as he noticed it and she managed a weary, fragmented smile. His mind went back to the morning that he had saddled up and left Fort Worth, and his heart heaved under the heavy weight of the memory.

“It’s been there the whole time,” Abby told him, and Megan lifted her head and looked him in the eyes, simply nodding her agreement.

Inside, Emma started the teakettle while Anna went with Liz and Megan to help them begin the arduous task of removing the last living traces of a man so deeply imbedded in their lives from their clothes and skin.

Anna turned back to him at the door. “Thomas, I will see about things here. I’m prepared to stay the night. Parker and Tex could probably use your help back at the store.” She leaned toward him and touched his arm. “There was nothing you could do, even if you had been here. God is good, and He will get us through this tragedy.”

Thomas stood on the back porch in the new darkness. His chest felt close and heavy. He had let this family down with his own stubborn foolishness. He hung his head and took a deep, shaky breath. As he started to the mercantile, he stopped at the quilt and ran his hand over the catalyst, the reminder of the chain of events that led to such disaster.

If it had been on the porch, would he have been here to save Lucas? The thought made him sick and full of misgivings.

T
he group around the breakfast table remained silent when Tex and Samuel tapped lightly at the door. Liz flooded with relief when Anna opened it to let them inside. She poured steaming cups of coffee and offered them a chair.

Thomas walked in just as they cautiously took their first sips. He leaned on the cupboard behind Tex.

“We know of those two outlaws, suspect them in two other robberies and three murders. Never thought that they would be put down by a woman and her grandfather.”

Tex paused for a moment before he continued. He looked away, and Liz saw that he held back his own emotion. He tapped his boot and twisted his mouth around the words of loss that followed.

“I’m real sorry about your grandfather, ladies. I enjoyed working with him. He thought highly of all of you.” Tex smiled. “I thought for the longest time that he had all grandsons. I would have never known from the way he spoke that you would be women.”

Samuel spoke next. “Parker and Smithy have Lucas at the church.” He swallowed and cleared his throat. “He looks real peaceful.”

Liz swiped at the unyielding rivulet of tears that washed her face. Abby handed her a fresh, embroidered hanky with an “A” on the corner.

“Pastor Parker is planning to have a prayer service at the church before the burial. Will that be fine?” Samuel asked soberly.

“Thank you, Samuel,” Megan replied. “Just let me know the time and we’ll be there.”

A few gray clouds lumbered across the sky as Lucas Mailly’s friends and family stood by the open grave. Lucas had not been in Texas long, but the local folks had already come to care about this new family. Pastor Parker opened with words of praise that pinched Liz’s heart.

“Blessed by God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. God shall wipe away all sorrow, crying, and pain.” Parker paused for a moment and cleared the huskiness from his throat. “If you have a relationship with Jesus, you will see Lucas again. We can rejoice in that. If you do not, you have a real reason to mourn, for you will never see Lucas Mailly again.”