A Place Called Harmony, page 27
“Won’t you need it for cattle or crops?”
He shook his head as he pulled out the badge Lightstone gave him. “We’ll raise apples and a garden and even chickens if you like, but I don’t want a plow scarring across this land or cattle tromping the natural grass down. I plan on living here the rest of my life and watching the sun rise and set on this land. I’ll make a regular wage from being sheriff, so we won’t starve. Would that kind of life interest you, Mrs. Truman?”
She nodded. “I think I’d like that kind of life just fine, Mr. Truman.”
For the first time in five days the letter from her father didn’t weigh heavy in his pocket. He’d show it to her tomorrow. Today, and tonight, he wanted it to just be the two of them.
When he stepped into the bedroom, Clint saw a huge bed, long enough to hold his frame without his feet hanging off the end, and a cradle for Danny rested in the corner. “What’s all this?”
“Patrick and Shelly made the bed out of an old cottonwood they had to cut down, and Shelly made Danny a cradle. It’s so fine, when he wiggles it rocks him gently back to sleep.”
“It’s all fine. I’d thought we’d have to make do with a pallet until I had time to hammer something together.” He’d thought of buying a table and chairs, a chest, even a cutting board, but he’d forgotten about the bed until he was halfway home.
When he showed her the sewing machine, she whirled with delight, hugged him quickly, and ran back to examine every detail. Clint simply stood watching her. She looked so happy, truly happy. He told himself she would read her father’s letter but never go back home. Only, he’d been a last choice, an only choice over two months ago when she’d left prison. Her father was rich. Keeping her father’s house in order wouldn’t be near as much work as homesteading with him.
He’d tell her about the letter tomorrow, he told himself again. Now wasn’t the time.
Much as he wanted to hold her and touch her, he knew now wasn’t the time for that either. They climbed back in the wagon and headed to the trading post for supper. A last meal, he thought, before he’d spend his evenings coming home to her.
The evening held the sun’s warmth as a huge pot of stew with corn bread and desserts was set out back behind Ely’s place on long tables. The group had outgrown the kitchen.
The four retired army men who came a month ago looked like carpenters now, with wood shavings in their beards. Other new people were there too: a blacksmith who’d already set up the forge and a young preacher who was looking for a church. No one seemed to know what religion he claimed, but he had a little organ in his wagon so he must have been real. He’d gladly agreed to help with the building in exchange for his keep. There were others too: a few families living in their covered wagons, more soldiers who must have retired now that they had somewhere to go. And of course the four McAllen sisters.
Clint watched everyone moving around. Old Ely was inching his way past thirty on his population sign. The founder of this soon-to-be town had pulled his chair up near a play fort someone had built about two feet off the ground. Clint walked over to the man.
“You get the prisoner delivered?” Ely asked without turning his head toward Clint.
“Yep.”
“Anything interesting happen on the trip?”
“Nope.”
“From the looks of it you took on the job of sheriff. When Lightstone told me you were coming we both figured if you could stay sober, you’d take the badge.” Pounding sounds came from inside the play fort, drawing their attention for a moment.
When Clint didn’t comment, Ely continued, “From the profits off all these houses and businesses I’m going to sell and rent out, I’ll have McAllen build you a sheriff’s office.”
He pointed to a barrel-chested man in his midthirties. “Blacksmith just wants to rent from me. Already got several orders lined up.”
He gestured to a tall, thin man with his collar buttoned to his Adam’s apple. “The preacher and I’ve been talking. He says he’ll pay what he can and work for me for room and board if we’ll build him a church. I figure we can have a school there on weekdays. Patrick’s got another crew coming in at the end of the week. Men coming back from a cattle drive stopped by needing work until the next drive comes along. As soon as they take their money home, they said they’ll be back.”
“Good. Momma Roma told me she knows men in Dallas who can lay brick when we’re ready.” Clint didn’t really want to get into the town-building part or he’d be talking to Ely forever, but he needed to say something to the man. “We’ll need solid buildings for the square. Ones that will last a hundred years or more.”
Ely leaned back in his chair. “Of course. We ain’t got many kids yet for a school, but it should be brick. I’ll have a talk with Momma myself about the bricklayers. If she recommends them, I’ll hire them.”
Ely watched the boys play awhile and continued, “I was thinking of asking one of the McAllen sisters if they’d like the schoolmarm job. They all look like schoolteachers to me. What do you think?”
“About what they look like or about one teaching?”
Ely scratched his beard. Since the women made him bathe a month ago he couldn’t seem to stop scratching. “Daisy tells me Jessie needs schooling, and these four Matheson boys have been raised by wolves up to now. I say we pick the biggest one of the McAllens to be the teacher.”
Losing interest in Ely’s dilemma, Clint leaned down to look into the fort. “You boys in the army?”
“I’m the captain,” Abe the four-year-old said.
“And I’m the supper,” Ben added.
Clint smiled. “You mean the sergeant?”
Ben started crying, “No, I’m the supper.”
Clint tried distraction before Daisy blamed him for upsetting her three-year-old. “Who are those two?”
The twins were both sitting in the dirt. With broken spoons they appeared to be trying to bury their knees.
“They’re the troops,” Abe answered for Ben. “New recruits.”
Ben joined in. “Don’t know where their own asses are yet.”
Ely laughed so hard he almost fell out of his chair.
Clint went back to the adults, swearing his son would never act like those twins or cuss like Ben Matheson.
Patrick and his brother were standing next to their sisters as if protecting them from all the single men coming in to eat. In truth the single men didn’t look all that interested. Only the preacher talked to the old maids. It occurred to Clint that if the preacher was Mormon he might take them all on.
“I guess you’re glad to have more family here?” Clint asked McAllen.
“Sure am. They said they knew my father was heading after me when he sent them to Dallas to stay with our grandparents, and the minute they got away from our stepmother they all agreed they were never going back.” Patrick shrugged and pointed to his silent brother. “Shelly’s worried about what we’re going to do with them. Annie and I are moving into our place and we’ve only got one bedroom.”
“They can stay here at the trading post,” Clint offered.
“They could. Ely can use the help, at least until his family comes. All of them are educated.”
“Until his family comes,” Clint echoed, wishing he’d never learned Harmon Ely’s secret.
Chapter 37
Annie watched her tall, thin husband circling around his sisters. He might be the youngest, but he was taking care of them. When everyone settled down at the tables for dinner and talk, Patrick moved in beside her.
“How you feeling, Annie?” he whispered as he patted her arm.
She frowned. “If you ask me that every day for the next six months, you’ll drive me crazy, Patrick.”
“All right. I won’t ask, but you got to promise to tell me if you’re feeling poorly. This is my first baby and I don’t know what to do.”
“Me either, but I have a feeling we’ll manage.”
Annie ate a few bites as she watched Patrick eat two bowls of soup and half a pan of cornbread. They talked about Truman being a sheriff and where the sisters would stay and all the little things that had happened in their day. Every now and then he’d pat her arm, or knee, or shoulder. By dessert she was starting to feel like old Davy.
When dinner was over, the sisters offered to do the dishes and Patrick took her hand. As the spring warmed they liked to take a walk down to where the two streams crossed. Both were silent for a while as they watched a beautiful sunset spread along the western sky.
Something was on Patrick’s mind. She could feel it. The silence. The constant touching as if he feared she might disappear at any moment.
Annie finally turned to him, knowing one of them had to say something. “I’m going to be fine.”
“I know,” he answered, quickly telling her that the baby wasn’t what was bothering him.
She tried again, deciding it could be only one other thing. “Your sisters told me that your father came here to kill you. You saw him, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. “That night you left after supper and didn’t want me to come along. You hadn’t left something at the site. You were going out to meet him.”
Her husband, for once, had nothing to say. He stood, staring out into the darkening night. Finally, when his voice came, it was low and full of heartbreak. “I didn’t lie to you, Annie. I swear I was going to tell you. I just didn’t want to upset you, what with the baby and all. I planned to tell you all about it after we’d settled into our own house.”
She watched him talk. He looked like his world was shattering before him. They both knew the lie lay in his silence, not in something he’d said.
He told her he was sorry. He never meant to wait this long. He’d never lie to her again. He loved her and if she left him because of this, he might as well have let his father kill him.
Annie listened and watched Patrick. He looked so young. They both were. He was doing all he could to be a man . . . to be her man. When she’d said she wanted to go with him, she’d liked him, known he was a good person, but she’d never dreamed how much she’d grow to love him.
He couldn’t sing. He talked too much. He worried about everyone like he was grandfather to each person in Harmony and not a man of twenty. He thought he could read his brother’s mind, and he loved her.
“We got to find a way around this, Annie. I know I said I’d never lie, but you have to give me a chance to make it up to you.”
“Patrick.” She finally got a word in. “I forgive you. I believe you. I have no doubt that you thought you were protecting me.”
He froze, his mouth wide open. “You forgive me?” He grinned when she smiled at him. “I’ve been worried for days about how to tell you and what you’d do. I even had a plan to drive you nuts begging if you left me. Now, you just forgive me, as simple as that.”
Annie nodded. “As simple as that, Patrick. Only now, I’m allowed one free lie to use anytime I want. And when I lie, you have to forgive me just as easy. You’ll never know when it will come or what it will be, but someday I’ll lie.”
Patrick frowned. “You know that will torture me. You know how I worry. Now I’ll be double-thinking everything you tell me.”
Grinning, she nodded. “I may save my free lie for years, Patrick, and no matter what it is, you’ll have to forgive me.”
“So, you’re going to stay with me and drive me crazy?”
She looped her arm in his. “That was my plan all along.”
“There’s a wicked spot in you, Annie Truman.”
He rubbed her nicely rounded bottom and told her she was beautiful, and Annie believed him, for he’d used his one lie.
Chapter 38
Clint tried to talk to everyone, but his gaze kept turning to his bride. He wanted to be alone with Karrisa more than he needed to breathe. The young preacher was funny, the soldiers interesting, and the blacksmith polite, but he wanted the quiet peace of being with only one person.
When Harry and Ely broke out a bottle to pass around, the women moved inside with the children.
Clint took Karrisa’s hand. “Let’s go home, dear,” he said simply.
She lifted Danny from where he slept in Momma Roma’s arms and walked out beside him. With all the people talking, no one seemed to notice them leave.
When they reached the wagon, he lifted her up and headed toward the first little house along Lone Oak Road. His place. The Truman farm.
As always, they didn’t talk. The moon rose, a giant ball blinking between the cottonwoods. The wagon swayed. His leg bumped against hers and she didn’t move it away. Carefully he let his hand rest on her skirt just above her knee. He liked touching her like this, almost as if he’d done it a hundred times and knew his slight advance was welcome.
Her fingers brushed over his hand, lightly pressing until he felt the warmth of her beneath the layers of cotton.
He was half drunk on wanting her when he pulled the wagon close to the house and helped her down.
“I’ll unhitch the horses and be in,” he said as she walked inside.
The letter in his pocket rested heavy against his chest as he hobbled the horses so they could feed on the tall grass. When there was time, he’d build a barn and put up a windmill.
She had a right to know that her father had gone to Huntsville looking for her. Clint had no intention of telling her what he had told the sheriff, though. Maybe Karrisa’s father had been kinder in the letter when he asked her to come home. She was his only child. Surely she meant more to him than just someone to keep his house.
Clint knew he had to tell her before he touched her again. He had to be honest. Whether the father was kind or harsh didn’t change the fact that he had to give her the letter. She now had a choice to make.
He couldn’t offer her much more than her father did. Passion, he thought. He could offer her that. In time, passion might be almost the same as love.
The cottonwoods down by Lone Oak Road swayed in the night as if calling him near.
Clint walked toward them feeling like his mind and heart were at war with one another. He still loved his Mary and his little girls. They still filled his heart. He could tell himself that the need he felt for Karrisa was just a physical thing, but he knew it was more. He just didn’t know what. She deserved better than him, but he couldn’t walk away from her.
The trees were tall here but not as old as the ancient cottonwood on his land down by Huntsville. There, the frequent rain and the wet soil made the trees grow wide with roots running along at ground level. Here, with the earth so dry and rain far less frequent, these trees grew tall and the roots dug deep down in the soil.
He seemed to be changing in this land as well. Part of him wanted to grow so deep into this place that he’d be one with the land. One with Harmony.
Shadows began to dance between the cottonwoods. Shadows he’d clung to for three years. He could almost hear his daughters laughing as they blinked in and out from behind the trees.
Clint lowered himself to the ground and watched them. Their sunny curls bouncing, their smiles contagious. They’d been with him all this time. Just beyond his reach, but there.
He loved this haunting memory as much as he hated the one that sometimes came of them crying, begging him to hold them and not go for the doctor. If he’d stayed, he would have been with them when they passed. The doctor had been no help. Heaven had already called their names by the time he’d returned.
As he watched, he saw Mary walking toward the girls, her hands outstretched. He rarely saw her in the cottonwoods, and always before she’d been in the background, only a faded silhouette watching their daughters.
Hand in hand they stepped from the cottonwoods and walked toward him. Clint didn’t know if he was dreaming or had gone completely mad. He didn’t care. They were coming toward him. Maybe to take him with them. They’d all be together again.
He stood, wanting to run to meet them, but his feet stayed rooted in the earth. Mary stopped a few feet out of his reach and smiled. She seemed to understand. One at a time she released the girls’ hands and they ran to their father. Clint hugged them tightly, feeling as if his heart were being pulled from his chest.
“Good-bye, Papa,” they both whispered in his ear as they kissed his cheek.
Mary reached out, her hand almost brushing his face as she nodded once. A silent salute. A forever farewell.
He tried to follow, but his feet wouldn’t come loose from the earth. He could only watch as the girls danced on either side of Mary as she walked back to the trees.
When they melted into the shadows, Clint knew he’d never see them again. The vision he’d held in his mind for three years had vanished. He’d had his chance to hug them good-bye.
He hadn’t been able to go with them. He’d already planted his roots too deep in this soil.
He walked back to his house feeling light-headed. They’d always been in the back of his thoughts, dancing, smiling, helping him make it one more day. Maybe he couldn’t go with them simply because he wasn’t finished here yet.
When he walked into the house, Karrisa was just putting Danny in his cradle. She looked up at Clint with those beautiful blue eyes. All the fear was gone. She trusted him. He’d won that battle with her at least; now he had to let her know that she had choices to make about her life.
He wasn’t her only chance, her one chance to survive. If she wanted to go live with her father, she could.
Unable to say anything, Clint handed her the letter, then crossed over to hang up his gun belt on a nail by the kitchen door. Everything they had was in order in their little home. They had no pictures or china or frilly things sitting around. This place must look pretty plain compared to where she’d grown up.
Her traveling jacket that she’d walked out of prison wearing lay on the kitchen table. She must have cut the sleeves and cuffs open while she’d waited for him. Tiny apple seeds were lined up in rows of ten as if she’d been planning exactly how she’d plant them.
