A Place Called Harmony, page 12
At first the fort was close and he could come home often, but as he was reassigned farther and farther away, he saw her less and less. Another fort always needed building. Finally the fights and arguments over where to live came down to two words every time he had to leave.
“Come,” he’d say.
“Stay,” she’d answer.
“Someday,” remained their compromise.
Both their hearts would break as he rode away. He’d spend his nights at the barracks studying law and missing her. He had a feeling she did fine in the middle of her family, but he hoped at least when Daisy was alone in her bed, she missed him too.
Tonight she was beside him. Gillian grinned. He knew he wasn’t dreaming because if he were she’d be under the covers and nude. He had no idea what day it was, or even where he was, but she was with him and that was enough.
“Daisy,” he whispered. “You awake, honey?”
She opened sleepy eyes. “No,” she muttered.
He smiled. “I love you, you know. You were pretty when I first saw you. Just a girl not old enough to know better than to fall in love with me. But now, Daisy, you’re not just pretty anymore. You’re beautiful.”
“I know,” she said, sounding more asleep than awake. “My husband tells me that every time he comes home.”
“We’re not home now, Daisy, but I’m still telling you.” He brushed his fingers along her soft cheek. “You know, honey, anywhere you are is home to me.”
“I came to be with you, Gillian. I packed up everything and came to Texas. I don’t want to be without you.”
“I know, you told me. We got boys to raise together.”
She leaned forward so that her head rested close to his. “Gillian, is your mind with you?”
“I believe it is, Daisy, but then if it’s not, I’d probably be the last one to ask.”
She smiled at him, and as always he wanted to make her happy. “I can tell by that look in your eyes that we need to talk. So whatever you need to tell me, go ahead and get it out in the open.”
“Promise you won’t get upset?”
He laughed. “That sounds like something your mother would say to your dad. I don’t think I have enough brains left to blow my top; besides, who could ever get mad with a woman like you so close?”
She nodded, almost bumping her forehead against his bandage. “Well, I remember you said your tour was up in January and you would have to reenlist.”
“Right, but I haven’t been there long enough to sign the papers. It’ll mean more pay and there would be a nice house for the captain and his family, once they get Fort Elliot built.”
She interrupted. “I was thinking you might want another job. One where you’d come home at night. One where I wouldn’t have to worry about you being shot.”
“I’m not moving back to the farm. I could handle my own place with you, honey, but for a guy with no living relatives, your clan frightens me. Plus, there’s no challenge in waking up every morning and having one of your big brothers tell me what to do every day, all day.”
A slow smile moved across her face. “I’m not going back to Kansas, Gillian. We came here to be with you. We can start that farm of our own right here and a lot more.”
He wished it were true, but he didn’t have near enough money saved to buy land. Plus, he wasn’t sure he knew enough to make a go of farming. He understood army life in wild country and he knew a little about blacksmithing. He even knew law. But farming seemed like a hundred simple jobs that, if they weren’t done just right, would cause total failure.
Lying back, he rested, wishing he didn’t have to tell her that the dream they’d once talked about during their honeymoon days wasn’t going to happen. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
In a calm voice she began to talk, telling him about seeing a small ad in a farmer’s journal, describing how she wrote and asked for an application. Month by month she’d exchanged letters with someone named Harmon Ely. He wanted families and was willing to give up land to get them to stay.
Finally, she ended her story by saying she’d sent word to the fort for Gillian to come here to meet her the day she’d left Kansas with their boys. She knew she’d arrive early, but she wanted to be waiting for him.
He listened but he wasn’t sure he believed.
“I’ve two wagonloads of furniture and equipment that we’ll need to start. By the end of spring we’ll have a house and land to live on. In two years there will be a town and we’ll own the land.”
Gillian didn’t know whether to believe her. The offer Harmon Ely made sounded too good to be true.
“He hired Patrick McAllen, a carpenter, to lead the building, and a man fast with a gun to stand if trouble comes. Mr. Ely said you were the perfect man in the middle. You understand blacksmithing, which will come in handy early on. You’re a soldier, so you’ll know how to handle a gun, and, when the town forms, there will need to be a man to organize the town, maybe even run it so no corruption takes over.”
She cuddled closer. “You could be the first mayor, or lawyer or county judge. I told Ely that you studied law. At first I didn’t see how you’d be needed to start a town, but Mr. Ely said a captain in the army is exactly the kind of man he’s looking for.”
Gillian didn’t answer. She was right, he did know the law, but this job would mean leaving the army, the only life he’d ever known.
“Just think, Gillian, we’ll build a town. One of the first this far north. We’d be together.”
He closed his eyes, picturing the life he’d always lived. It had an order to it, a routine. He’d be giving that up. He saw the outline of the first fort his dad took him to. No grass grew in the square of buildings and barns. Wooden walls framed everyone in and blocked the sunsets and sunrises.
He wanted more than what he’d grown up with for his boys. He wanted them to be able to ride free without worrying about making it through the gate before sunset. He wanted them to walk to the fishing hole and go to school with the same kids for years. Maybe he wanted too much.
He thought of all the men he’d known. Some strong leaders. Some dependent on the order of army life to keep them in line. Friends he’d known who rode out one day only to return draped over a horse. He remembered their widows’ wails long into the night, and he remembered the men who died without anyone to stand at their grave to mourn their passing. Gillian thought of the thousands of dull days with little to do and the long nights on the road when fear kept him awake.
He’d known great men and he’d known men who stayed too long in the army. Old men broken down who were given odd jobs around the fort because they had no family to go to when they retired. Men who’d hardened from one too many battles until nothing was left inside.
Gillian thought of all he’d be giving up if he didn’t reenlist, but most of all he thought of the one thing that he’d never had and would never have if he didn’t step away.
He’d never have his family. Daisy would grow old waiting for him to come home, either at her family farm or at some remote post with the other wives.
All his life he’d known that being a soldier was making the world a safer place, but maybe there were other ways to make the world better. There were just so many times he could dodge a bullet or recover from a wound. One time he might not. He’d be one of the crosses beside the fort that no one visits. He’d be the crippled-up old soldier who never leaves because he has nowhere else to go.
“We could stay here, Gillian,” Daisy whispered. “We could help McAllen and Truman build Mr. Ely’s town. Our children and grandchildren will watch over this place and take care of it for hundreds of years.”
He took her hand as he drifted back to sleep. Half dreaming, he whispered, “All right, Daisy, we’ll give it a try.”
She squeezed his fingers and he smiled, wishing her dreaming could be real.
The sun was up when he woke, but Daisy was gone. He tried to figure out if he’d really talked to her in the night, or if he’d just thought he had. She’d had a crazy idea of how they could live together.
The bed moved. A little head, chin level to the mattress, smiled at him.
“Morning, Abe.” Gillian greeted his oldest son.
“I’m over here, Papa,” a voice from near the window answered.
Gillian forced himself more awake. The little boy he’d left over a year ago had shot up. He sat in the windowsill. How could it be possible that Abe had grown to be four? “Sorry, son, I guess I was remembering you when you were younger. My brain is a little foggy.”
Trying to focus on the head bobbing up and down at the end of the bed, he said, “You must be Ben. You were just walking good when I left.” Over a year, Gillian thought. He’d been gone so long and they’d changed so much.
“Papa. You awake. Mom says we have to be quiet ’cause you sleep. I see your eyes. You are not asleep.”
Gillian glanced at another boy sitting in the chair next to his bed. He was swinging his feet so the buckle of his shoe clicked like a clock on the leg of the chair.
“Ben talks too much, Papa,” Abe announced as he slid off the windowsill. “Mom swears he was born talking.”
“Do not,” Ben shouted as he banged his feet into the wood of the chair.
“Do too.” Abe joined in the shouting match.
Gillian’s head was starting to pound in time with Ben’s feet. “If you’re Abe and you’re Ben, who is that?” He pointed to the head that kept popping up and down at the end of the bed like a turtle in shallow water.
Both his sons moved closer and watched as if studying something foreign to their world.
“Hell if I know,” Ben, the three-year-old, said.
Abe turned on his brother. “Mom told you not to say hell.”
“Uncle Fred says hell,” Ben defended.
“Momma says Uncle Fred was kicked in the head by a mule and isn’t right. She says cuss words dribble out of him like snot. You don’t want folks to say that about you, do you?”
Ben didn’t back down. “If Uncle Fred can cuss, it must not be a bad word. Grandma wouldn’t let him do it if it was.”
“Just because Uncle Fred says them that doesn’t mean you can say any of them. Momma says so.” Abe straightened, as if his extra three inches made him more the adult.
Ben looked at his father and pointed at the bandage. “Papa was shot in the head. Will he say hell?” He leaned closer. “Papa, are you gonna be right in the head or go around dribbling bad words like snot?”
“Probably not, son, but who is that smaller version of the two of you at the foot of my bed?”
Abe answered, “I don’t know, Papa. I never can tell them apart. It’s either Charlie or Dylan.”
As Gillian watched, two heads popped up at the same time. One was crying and one was laughing.
Ben wiggled his chubby little body off the chair and leaned close to Gillian. “The one crying is probably Dylan. Momma says he’s always crying. She says she probably should have named him Dam because water’s always flowing.”
Before Gillian could comment, he was saved by Daisy. She ignored her older two boys arguing over whether dam was a bad word and the baby’s crying. “Morning, darling,” she said sweetly as she met his stare. “I see you’ve met the Matheson gang.”
Gillian frowned and pointed at the end of the bed. “Where’d these two come from?” Since they looked just like Abe and Ben, he didn’t plan on denying them, but still she could have told him.
“They came about six months after you left. I was pretty sick after I delivered them earlier than the doctor said they were due to come out. For a while, they were so small I feared they wouldn’t make it, but once they started growing they’ve caught up. Since then I just didn’t have time to write.” She tugged Dylan’s arm. “Come meet your papa. And be good. Your papa has had quite a shock already.”
Gillian tried to think of which shock she might be referring to. He swore his life was tied to a lightning rod.
The boys only wanted on the bed. They showed no interest in Gillian as their mother pulled them up.
“I have four sons,” Gillian whispered. He’d only been married five years. At this rate, if he stayed home and worked on it, they could have a dozen before Daisy saw her first gray hair. He’d be outnumbered. Maybe going back to the army and fighting outlaws wasn’t such a bad idea. “Four sons,” he repeated, lost in the reality of it.
Daisy laughed. “You’re used to handling an army of men. How much trouble can four boys be?”
Gillian frowned. “Why do I feel unprepared for the assignment?” He raised an eyebrow. “There aren’t any more surprises hiding under the bed, are there?”
“No.” She picked up the twins. “I’ll go feed these two while you visit with Abe and Ben. They’ve been asking me questions about you since we left Kansas.”
Gillian didn’t have time to argue. She left him alone with Abe and the cusser.
They just stared at him.
Finally, Abe said, “I remember you, Papa. You’re a soldier.”
Gillian smiled. “I remember you both. I’m thinking of giving up being a soldier and coming home to live. Would that be all right with you two?”
Ben nodded, but Abe just leaned his head sideways. “If you did, Momma wouldn’t cry at night when she thinks we’re all asleep. So I guess it would be all right.”
Just like that the decision was made. Gillian would write his letter and resign. He had a town to build and boys to raise. He’d better get well quick. There was no time to lie in bed.
“Men,” he said in a formal tone. “I’ll need your assistance in getting dressed.”
They rushed to follow orders.
Fifteen minutes later the captain sat down at the breakfast table with his wife at his side. The other two men already at the table stood and introduced themselves. Gillian caught himself almost saying At ease, men to them. Truman looked a few years older than him and far more serious in his black clothes, but McAllen, though tall, couldn’t have been more than twenty. Patrick had an easy smile and a way about him that made folks like him right away.
“We’ve a town to build,” Gillian said to everyone at the table, “and I plan to be strong enough to help within a few days.”
The younger man, named Patrick McAllen, started going over ideas, but the one called Truman sat back and watched. Gillian had a feeling that Truman would get to know him first before calling him friend.
By the time breakfast was over, Gillian wasn’t sure he could make it back to the bedroom alone.
Daisy must have sensed something was wrong. She held to him as they walked together to the bedroom. “I’ll put the boys on the porch to play. Jessie likes to sit at the door and watch them. Don’t worry, they won’t bother you the rest of the morning. You can rest.”
“I’ll just lie down until the world settles a bit. Who is Jessie?” He thought hard, trying to put pieces of a puzzle together in his mind. “Jessie, the girl who was with me?”
Daisy lowered him into bed. “Yes, that Jessie. She brought you to me. She ate early with Mr. Ely this morning. She likes to help him open the store. He pays her a dime every morning for the hour’s work, so don’t worry that he’s taking advantage of her time. Mr. Ely says a girl her age needs a bit of her own money.”
“I had orders to take her to the mission.”
“If she wants to go, that’s one thing.” Daisy pulled a blanket over him. “If she doesn’t, you’re not taking her anywhere. She’s part of our family if she wants to be and that’s final. Now, you rest, Captain.”
Gillian leaned back on the pillow. “Whatever happened to the sweet little Daisy I married?”
Daisy kissed him on the cheek. “You left her alone with four kids, Gillian. She had to become a sergeant to survive.”
Chapter 16
For two days Patrick worked with his brother on the smokehouse. The primitive one built against a rise in the ground was little more than a cave. He and Shelly laid out the plans for one that would hold a winter’s supply of meat, and then they went to work. The first two buildings would be the smokehouse and the forge. The brothers knew each other so well, folks often said that the two of them could build a house faster than most teams of six men.
Truman drove a wagon back and forth with supplies from the barn, but he wasn’t a carpenter, or a talker, it seemed. Working with him was like having two Shellys around, Patrick decided, only one couldn’t build much of anything.
Patrick tried to guide Truman and not tease him, but once he learned Truman took the teasing in fun, he let him have both barrels. Truman would cuss and swear and then laugh at himself. Patrick often told him that while he might be teaching Truman a few tricks, Truman was teaching him a whole new vocabulary.
Once, when Patrick was alone with his brother, he whispered, “What do you think of Truman?”
Shelly made a sign as if riding a horse.
Patrick agreed. “I know, he’s good with horses. Talks more to them than he does to his wife. It bothers me that he always wears a gun, even when we’re eating breakfast. I’ve heard it’s wild out here, but does he really need a weapon to tackle pancakes and eggs? I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes a bath with that gun strapped on. Now that would be a sight I wouldn’t want to see, and if I accidentally did, it would probably be the last sight I saw. He’d use that Colt and I’d be on my way to the hereafter with an image of Truman naked tattooed on my brain.”
As always, Shelly listened, and Patrick continued, “I’m going to keep my eye on him. He’s not much of a carpenter and, strange as it sounds, I don’t think he cares. It’s like he knows he was hired for some other reason.”
They heard the rattle of rigging and knew Truman’s wagon was delivering more supplies.
As they unloaded, Truman told them that he’d already picked out his forty acres and knew exactly where he wanted to build his house. “I’m going to take my wife out to see the land before dark.”
When he told them the location, Patrick shook his head. “I don’t want to discourage you none, Truman, but that land has more than its share of trees. Land ripe for farming or ranching is a few miles farther out.”
