by Kate Whitsby
Alma set the lamp on the table next to her bed and sat down. Across the room, Allegra lay on top of her bed, fully clothed, with her back to the room. Amelia reclined against her headboard, chewing on a dry grass stem. She didn’t look at Alma or Jude as they approached Alma’s bed.
Jude walked over into the circle of light. He peeked at Amelia in the next bed and across to Allegra and the other way to Clarence’s empty bed on the other side. “Where will I sleep?”
“Here.” Alma patted the quilt next to her.
Jude looked around again. “Here?”
“Where else?” she asked. “Aren’t I your wife?”
Jude shrugged. “I guess so.” But he didn’t move.
“Where would you rather sleep?” she asked. “These are the only beds, and this one is mine. Now it’s ours.”
“Where would I rather sleep?” he repeated. “How about the Monte Carlo in New Orleans?”
She smiled. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Jude chuckled. Then he sat down next to her. “Shall we order room service?”
“I’ll have the lobster bisque and battered catfish,” Alma replied. “And bring a bottle of your best Madeira, too, while you’re at it, garçon.”
Jude raised his eyebrows. “You’re good. Let me just get my wallet out.”
They looked across the gap between the beds. Amelia stretched out right in front of them. Without acknowledging Jude and Alma, she stood up from her bed, grabbed her flannel night dress from the bedpost, and disappeared into the closet. When she came out, she tucked herself under her quilts and blankets and rolled over with her back to them.
Jude sighed and took off his hat. “No time like the present, I guess,” he muttered. He hooked the hat over the bedpost and kicked off his boots. With his sock-covered toe, he pushed them under Alma’s bed.
“Why don’t you take your guns off?” she suggested.
Jude shot her a crooked grin. “Why don’t you take your guns off?”
Alma laughed. “Okay. I will, if you will.”
They stood up together and unbuckled their gun belts. They hung them side by side on the other bed post. Jude sat down again. “Now what should we do?”
“I’ll change into my night dress,” Alma decided. “That should simplify things.”
Jude nodded. “By all means.”
Alma disappeared behind the curtain and came out in her checkered flannel night dress. She sat back down next to Jude.
“Now I begin to recognize you,” Jude told her.
“Recognize me?” she asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he dropped his eyes to her dress. “That this is more the person I married at the church than…that other person.”
A flush of pleasure flashed across Alma’s cheeks. “I’m glad of that. I’m glad she’s in there somewhere.”
“Now that I can see you this way,” Jude told her. “I know I’ll see you this way every night. I know that other person isn’t really the woman I married.”
“Do you think so?” Alma asked. “I was worried you would only have the memory of me in my wedding dress to remember me by, to remember that I could be something more than a rough cattle puncher.”
“I don’t have to remember,” Jude told her. “You’re right here, in flesh and blood, in front of my eyes. You aren’t a rough cattle puncher. You’re a soft, beautiful woman, and now that I can see you, I’m glad I married you.”
Alma smiled, but her eyes brimmed with tears. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Jude raised his hand and traced the outline of her cheek and jawbone with the tip of his finger. He pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. He turned his face toward her, but at the last minute, he glanced around the room.
Alma followed his gaze. Amelia and Allegra breathed peacefully in their beds with their backs to the newlywed couple. Somewhere off in the darkness, Clarence Goodkind made no sound from his chair by the fire. He would be asleep by now. He might rouse himself and stagger to his bed later in the night, but he followed the same routine of falling asleep in his chair once quiet descended over the rest of the house.
“Don’t pay any attention to what my father said before,” Alma told Jude. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“He seemed pretty serious about it to me,” Jude murmured.
“He spouts off about the past every now and then,” Alma continued. “He can’t help it. He’s old. His mind wanders back in time sometimes, and he starts reliving things that happened to him. Sometimes he thinks the war is still going on.”
“Where do you think he got the idea I was hiding something from you?” Jude asked. “I’m not, you know. Everything I told you in our letters was the truth.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Alma replied. “It’s like I said. Just ignore him. What he said about you lying to me—it doesn’t mean a thing.”
“I wouldn’t want to start out my life here on a bad footing with your father,” Jude maintained. “We all have to get along here. He could make my life very unpleasant if he persists in making accusations against me that I’m making myself out to be something I’m not.”
“I believe in you,” Alma told him. “That’s all that counts. And Amelia and Allegra understand how Papa is. They won’t hold it against you. Just go about your business. Let him say and think whatever he wants to. He can’t hurt you with words or thoughts.”
“It’s easy to say,” Jude muttered. “It’s not so easy to do.”
Alma laid her hand on top of his in his lap. “Listen. Tonight is our wedding night. Let’s not give any of them another thought. Let’s just concentrate on us, you and me.”
Jude glanced around the room again. “It’s a little difficult with all of them right there. How can I not give them another thought?”
“They aren’t exactly watching us,” Alma told him.
Jude’s eyes skirted around and he dropped his voice to a whisper. “How do you know your father isn’t watching us from over there? He could be watching us right now.”
“He wouldn’t,” Alma whispered back. “Anyway, he can’t see very well. I don’t think he can see from there to here even in the best of light. We’ll blow the lamp out, and then he won’t be able to see us at all.”
Jude didn’t reply, but he kept glancing over his shoulder toward the fire. Alma blew out the lamp and the whole room plunged into darkness. Chirping insects outside raised their voices to fill the void left by the light. The night noises grew to a din on the other side of the thick adobe walls.
Chapter 15
