Perfecting Amanda, page 14
“Hey, Rufe.”
A grunt came from the other cell.
“Have you ever…done something you were ashamed…I mean, that you didn’t feel too good about later?” There was a pause. “I’m freezing my ass off in prison talking to a moron like you, what do you think?”
Spence’s chattering teeth stilled long enough for him to grin. “Okay, besides that. Maybe something you did to hurt Laverne that you were sorry for after.”
Another pause. “Yeah. I could have treated her better.”
“There’s this girl…this woman I can’t get out of my mind.” He spilled the story of his seduction of sweet, innocent Amanda McCormick for Rufus’s examination. When he finished talking, there was another silence.
“You did that?” Rufus’s voice was as deep and gravelly as a quarry.
“Fucked some poor virgin while posing as her fiancé?”
“Yeah.”
“You got some balls. How’d you know you’d be a close enough match to this Baxter?”
“Brown hair, blue eyes, that’s all she seemed to know about him.” Spence couldn’t explain his need for the rush of tempting fate. “I took a chance. It was a gamble.”
“Jesus, you’re a mean son of a bitch.”
“I didn’t want to hurt her. I was just having fun.” He sounded like a spoiled child even to himself.
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“And now you want to go see this woman and try to make it right?” Rufus said. “Just how the hell did you think you were going to fix it? By showing up and wrecking her marriage, if you haven’t done that already?”
It was Spence’s turn to pause.
“Haven’t you done enough to this lady? Where’s your head, boy?
Leave her alone.”
“I can’t. I have to see her again.” He didn’t want to share his dreams of the little girl. He’d sound crazy.
Rufus laughed harshly. “So you can try and get another piece of tail?”
“No. It’s not like that.”
“What? You think you’re in love. Son, you don’t know the first thing about it. If you did, you’d be putting this woman’s needs above your own.”
He thought of the little girl telling him to go to Amanda. “Maybe what she needs is me.”
Rufus made a scoffing noise. “A woman needs a man who’ll stand by her, be there through hard times and good. From what you’ve told me these past months, this is the longest you’ve stayed put in one place in your life and that’s only ‘cause they won’t let you out.”
“I just want to do the right thing.”
“Then do like I say. Leave her be. You think she’s going to be happy to see you again?”
Spence pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders and watched a gray cloud puff from his mouth.
“You still there, boy?”
“Where else?”
“Don’t take it too hard. Everybody does things they’re sorry for.
Sometimes there’s just no way to make it right.” He leaned back against the wall and reviewed the stupid chain of events that had landed him in jail. Maybe Rufus was right and there was
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no way he could ever apologize for what he’d done to Amanda. He should let the whole thing slide and leave the woman in peace.
Spence’s eyes drifted closed. The little girl appeared against the dark screen of his closed eyelids. Her hair was in pigtails this time and she wore a blue and white gingham dress. Her solemn eyes nailed Travis down and held him tight. “Find us. We need you.”
“Fuck!” Spence’s eyes flew open and he sat up straight on his narrow cot. “Goddamn it, she’s back!”
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Chapter Eleven
Amanda got a clean bill of health from Dr. Litton and by February she was swollen with her pregnancy. It worried her that she was so big so soon. It seemed likely this baby would be born two weeks earlier than it should be, which wasn’t enough time to tip anyone off, but was significant to her. Her fears about the child’s paternity resurfaced with a vengeance until it was all she could think about.
Some of that agonizing might have had to do with the fact that winter blizzards had trapped her indoors for weeks. Travis at least went out to care for the animals twice a day. Amanda was restricted to the house.
She could only sit by the window, scratching a patch of frost away from the glass to stare out at whirling whiteness while she knitted one article of baby clothing after another.
One afternoon in mid-month there was a bright, beautiful day. The temperature was up and the snow melting. Amanda was delighted when she glanced out the window and saw Marilyn trudging through the heavy, wet snow toward the house. She opened the front door to welcome her inside, but the look in the other woman’s eyes told her something was wrong.
“What is it?” She ushered her into the hall.
Marilyn unwound the muffler from her face and unbuttoned her coat.
“It’s my ma. She’s real sick. Ted and I are going to take the kids and go to Missouri to visit her. We’re leaving tomorrow.” Her voice was thick and she swallowed hard before continuing. “Mama’s never even seen little Pearl yet. I don’t want…” Her voice broke and she bit her lower lip.
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“Oh, Marilyn.” Amanda hugged her tight. “I’m so sorry. I’ll pray for your mother.”
“We got the telegram just a couple of hours ago. Ted’s out in the barn talking to Travis about looking after our livestock. His ma is at our house with the kids.”
“Have some coffee,” Amanda urged, taking her friend’s arm. She led her to the parlor and settled her on the sofa before the fire then went to the kitchen to brew a fresh pot. Likely the two men would be in soon and would appreciate a hot drink too.
Marilyn warmed her hands on the steaming mug Amanda handed her. “I don’t know how long we’ll be gone. It might be a few weeks or even several months.” She glanced at Amanda’s protruding stomach. “I hope we’ll be back before your due date, but I just don’t know.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. When the time comes, Travis will fetch the doctor and we’ll make it through.”
“It’s not the birth I’m thinking about. Afterward you’ll be needing some help and with no relatives here to help you out… Well, I wanted to be around. But I’ll ask Ted’s mama and sisters to check in on you.
They’re all real nice.”
“Thank you.” Amanda smiled weakly. She didn’t want to think about the birth. Her feelings about the baby were contradictory; a growing love for the little lump kicking inside her mixed with fear about its origins.
What if the child was a spitting image of Teague so she could no longer fool herself? Could she live with the lie for the rest of her life?
“What’s the matter?” Marilyn looked at her, eyes narrowing. “Are you afraid of the birth? It hurts, but you forget about the pain once it’s over.
Don’t worry yourself. Just let it happen.” Amanda nodded. The secret she’d kept to herself for so long choked her. She had a crazy urge to tell everything, to share the burden with someone at long last.
“Is there something you want to ask me or to talk about before I leave?” Marilyn prodded. “You can say anything.”
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She opened her mouth then closed it again, shaking her head. “You have enough to worry about with your mother.” That only piqued Marilyn’s interest. “What is it? Tell me. I could use the distraction.”
Amanda’s hands were shaking. She had to set aside her coffee cup before she spilled it. Her heart pounded as she realized she was about to confess. The words were on the tip of her tongue. Marilyn had become her advisor and friend over the past months and it had always eaten away at her that she couldn’t be truthful with her. Amanda bit her bottom lip then began to speak. “If I tell you, can you keep it a secret…even from your husband, otherwise he might feel obliged to tell Travis?”
Marilyn frowned, beginning to look worried. “Yes. You can trust me.” Glancing toward the front door, she wondered how long they had before the men came in from the barn. “Last summer when I arrived in Kansas City, Travis wasn’t at the station to pick me up right away.”
“The cow and the wagon wheel. I remember.”
“I waited for a long time. The station agent finally came by and asked if everything was all right and I told him my whole story.” Amanda’s gaze dropped to her hands twisting together in her lap. “Someone else was listening… A man. He… Oh, Marilyn it sounds so preposterous you aren’t going to believe how foolish I was.”
She leaned forward to cover Amanda’s hands with her own. “Go on.” Speaking in a rush she spilled out the story of her seduction by the false Travis Baxter and the following morning’s revelation that she’d been duped.
“My God,” Marilyn whispered when she’d finished. “What kind of crazy man does something like that?”
“I should have told Travis right then, but I couldn’t. I didn’t speak and then it was too late. I convinced myself I could erase the truth from my mind and it would be like it had never happened. It wasn’t fair to him. I should have given him a chance to call off the wedding.” Her chest ached and she realized she’d scarcely drawn breath since she started
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talking. “But I didn’t. And it might have been all right. I might have learned to live with myself, but now…” She couldn’t go on. She bit her cheeks from the inside to keep her mouth from trembling.
“The baby might not be his. Oh, Amanda.”
“You must think I’m a terrible person.” Her voice was tiny and tight.
“No. No.” Marilyn wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they began to shake. “No. I don’t. I understand.” Marilyn patted her back and while Amanda wept.
Finally she gathered herself enough to speak again. “I should tell him now, shouldn’t I? I should tell the truth before the baby is born. Whether it’s his or not, he has the right to know, doesn’t he?”
“No! I wouldn’t.”
Amanda looked up in surprise, wiping tears from her bleary eyes. She had been sure Marilyn would counsel her to tell the truth. “You wouldn’t?”
“I know Reverend Jamison wouldn’t advise you to keep a secret like this, but he isn’t a woman who had a horrible thing like this happen to her. You should’ve told Travis before you got married, but, since you didn’t, I wouldn’t tell him now. He’s a kind man and maybe he’d eventually accept it, but you’re pregnant, Amanda, now is not the time to upset the apple cart.”
Before she could say more, the front door opened and Travis and Ted clomped into the house, their snowy boots thumping in the front hall.
Amanda didn’t get to talk in private with her again until just before they left.
“Good luck,” Marilyn said as she hugged her goodbye. “Hopefully Mama will be well soon and we’ll be back before your due date.
Meantime, you take care of yourself.” She leaned in close and whispered.
“Don’t worry until there’s something to worry about. Likely the little one is Travis’s anyway, but you may never know the truth. Don’t let it eat at you.” Pulling away, she gazed into Amanda’s eyes with a stern warning in her own.
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Amanda nodded and smiled, embarrassed to find herself close to tears once more. She’d never been much of a crier until she came to Kansas. “Take care, Marilyn. I’ll pray for your mother.” Travis wrapped his arm around Amanda’s back, his hand resting on her thick waist. They stood on the front porch and watched the Landers walk up the road. “I know you’ll miss your friend,” he commented. “But I’ll try to fill in for her—even if I’m not much good at quilting and crocheting.” He glanced sideways at her and grinned.
She laughed and took his large, rough hand in hers. “It’s knitting and I’ll teach you how. It’ll fill those long winter evenings.” There was a thaw in the weather at the end of February. All the snow melted and for two days straight cold rain instead of snow pelted down from the leaden gray sky. A leak developed in the corner of the bedroom.
They woke to water dripping from the ceiling onto the dresser top.
Amanda cleared it of the two photographs, her hairbrush, hand mirror and face powder and Travis’s shaving kit, while he went to get a bucket to catch the drops.
A little later in the afternoon there was a lull in the rain so Travis climbed up on the roof to repair the shingles. The wind had torn away a few and he hoped a piece of tarpaper and some new shingles would solve the problem. Once a roof developed a leak sometimes it was hard to stop the water finding its way in, as though there were now mysterious channels it followed that no amount of repair work could fix.
It was freezing cold up on the roof with the wind whipping straight across the prairie and cutting through his clothes like a knife. His hands were red, chapped and stiff as he wielded the hammer. The roof was wet and soon his denim-clad legs were soaked through. He shifted his way along the peak, moving to a new spot and almost dropped his hammer.
He forced his frozen fingers to grip it more tightly as he fit the last shingle in place and nailed it secure.
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His face felt like stone and his eyelashes had a glaze of ice on them.
He pictured the warmth of the fireplace in his snug house with Amanda sitting near it knitting baby things. His stomach rumbled in anticipation of the hot, meaty stew she had bubbling on the stove for dinner. Could life get any better? As much as he usually hated the winter months, this winter had been the best of his life.
Travis looked out across his land, the brown, barren fields sleeping now. He could stand another couple of months of cold because soon it would be spring, plowing and planting time and his child would arrive to make their little family complete.
Tucking the rest of the nails back into his pocket and hooking the hammer into his belt, he shimmied backward along the ridgeline. He’d placed the ladder at the peak of the house. It was just long enough to reach all the way up. Icy rain was falling again as he climbed from the roof onto the ladder. His foot slipped on the wet shingles and he gripped the ridge tight to keep from slipping. “Damn!” Moving more slowly, Travis extended his leg to the top rung of the ladder and maneuvered off the roof. And then, in the moment he was balanced between roof and ladder, it happened. His foot slipped off the icy rung and he started to fall. He scrambled for purchase on the roof, his hands slipping all over the shingles finding nothing to grip, while his boot sought a secure foothold on the ladder. His heart jolted in his chest yet he didn’t really feel afraid, he was so positive he’d regain his balance.
The moment seemed like a picture he was watching from afar as suddenly he realized that wasn’t going to happen. His fingers gripped the very edge of the roof and then air. His foot never found the rung it had been seeking and in a second Travis was falling to the ground.
The breath rushed from his lungs. He didn’t even have a chance to cry out before he hit the ground and the world went dark.
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When Spencer walked out of the jail into the weak winter sunlight, he didn’t have a dime in his pocket or anything besides the clothes on his back. His meager possessions had been left behind at the Wayside and he doubted Beacon had held onto them for him. Spence was unshaven and had lost several pounds from the scanty prison diet. He was sure he looked like a bum. Without a stake, he couldn’t even get in a game to win some money. He had no idea how he was going to survive let alone travel to Kansas City.
But the drive to find Amanda McCormick—Baxter by now—was relentless. He could no more stop himself from searching her out in Reederville than he could stop the phases of the moon. It was imperative that he find her and do whatever he was destined to do.
In the end he hopped a boxcar traveling west. He crossed the great state of Missouri lying in a pile of straw and dung between the warm bodies of a couple of cows.
In Kansas City he made some money pushing broom at another bar then doubled it by suckering a shopkeeper with the twenty-dollar change scam. He earned more money playing pool, bought a cheap suit to improve his appearance and pulled a pigeon drop, netting over a hundred dollars.
With some cash in hand and fresh clothes on his back, Spence was ready to take the stage coach to Reederville and find Amanda.
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Chapter Twelve
At least there wasn’t any snow. Amanda had to remind herself to be grateful for anything that made life a little easier, because right now it was all she could do to keep from becoming overwhelmed, sitting down and crying her eyes out several times a day. As her numb fingers struggled to fasten the strips of harness leather, she tried to be glad that the roads were clear and she could drive to town today.
Since Travis’s accident two weeks ago, the church congregation had been a pillar of strength and support for her. Gordon Hinglefeld, a bachelor who the Landers family had hired to take care of Ted and Marilyn’s place, also tended the Baxter’s livestock for a small fee.
Amanda’s labors were limited to cooking and caring for Travis.
Women from the community had rallied around her in the days after Travis’s fall, cooking meals and staying to clean house or help her tend her helpless husband. Even Carrie Nordstrum had come by to offer sympathy. The pretty woman had given Amanda a pitying smile as she offered her covered dish. Maybe Carrie was feeling grateful she wasn’t in Amanda’s shoes after all, nursing an invalid husband.
Dr. Litton’s prognosis about Travis’s recovery was vague. He’d set his shattered legs in casts that covered him from hip to heel. The bright light in the midst of the misery was the fact that Travis could move his toes.
His spine wasn’t damaged. Dr. Litton thought Travis would walk again one day, but the healing process was going to be long and slow. The blow to Travis’s head was what seemed to worry him more. At first the doctor had diagnosed a concussion, but on his last visit had hinted that there might be more brain damage.
