by Linda Ford
I don’t suppose you would. “The Hewitts and Littletons provide the help they need.”
“Good to know.”
“How did you enjoy your first day traveling with the wagon train?”
“It’s beastly slow. And dusty enough to choke both man and beast.”
Ben laughed. “I saw you begging Miles to take over the wagon so you could ride your horse. You had the misfortune of having to ride toward the back today. Tomorrow you’ll get a turn to ride closer to the front. It won’t be so bad.”
James grew serious. “Oh, but I wasn’t trying to escape the dust. I needed to check on the various groups. Look for anything that would indicate the Plante wagon.”
Ben raised his eyebrows. Seems James was a bit too serious. “Oh, of course you did.”
The skin around James’s eyes crinkled, then he tipped his head back and let out a roar of laughter. When he could speak, he said, “It was a very welcome excuse.”
Ben chuckled along with him as they returned to their respective wagons. He was still chuckling when he joined the others for supper, the late day meal.
Rachel stuck her face close to his. “What’s so funny, big brother?”
He opened his mouth then closed it. He couldn’t reveal why James was riding with them. “I’m just enjoying the day,” he murmured.
He felt the others studying him. “What? Can’t a man enjoy a private joke?”
“Seems rather selfish not to share,” Rachel murmured.
“Especially when the day has been so hot and dusty,” Abby said with sorrow.
Emma sighed softly. “I bounced along on the wagon seat all afternoon with the only interesting thing the swing of the oxen tails before me.”
Ben laughed. “My, my, aren’t we a sorry bunch?”
The girls had the good grace to laugh.
Mrs. Bingham’s scowl was enough to make the sun run and hide, but the sun continued to shine blissfully.
Ben shrugged. He’d give the woman the same amount of concern. No need for everyone to be miserable because she was determined to be so.
Over the meal they shared observations of their day. The crows that had scolded them as they passed. Three of the dogs fighting over a bone they found. Emma reported no new measles cases.
“Those who were exposed here won’t show any signs for a week or two.”
Ben continued to sit and visit as the girls washed the few dishes.
“Abigail.” Mrs. Bingham made her name sound like an order and Abby jumped like an obedient soldier. “I need help preparing for bed.”
“Coming, Mother.” Abby hustled away.
Ben sighed to himself. Or so he thought until he felt his sisters watching him. He gave them a challenging look, silently informing them he didn’t want to hear their opinions.
Rachel turned to Emma and whispered, “I don’t know whether to admire Abby’s patience with her mother or pity her for being under such strict control.”
Emma hushed her.
Not that Abby would have been able to hear over her mother’s complaints. A repeat of what she said every night. The trail was dusty and rough. The food unpalatable. The company beneath her dignity and the entire journey doomed.
Abby emerged a few minutes later, her expression tight.
Ben’s heart went out to her. Caring for her mother had to be a trial. He pushed to his feet. “I’m going to check on things. Abby, would you care to go for a walk?”
Her eyes drawn at the corners, she nodded agreement.
He wanted nothing more than to pull her to his chest and assure her everything would work out. If freedom was what she craved, then he hoped she’d achieve it, even though the idea pinched his heart.
They crossed to the outside of the circle and set a leisurely pace. He had to remind himself he meant to watch for any clues as to the thief and any suspicious activity, but his attention kept wandering to Abby.
“You look upset,” he said after they moved away from the hearing of the others.
She shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
He wanted to assure her if it upset her it was not unimportant. “You’re concerned about your mother.” She had every right to be. It was only natural. Except in Abby’s case there was something not quite normal.
Again she shrugged. “She can’t help being the way she is.”
“You don’t think she can change?”
She gave a sound of half amusement, half exasperation. “She would laugh at any suggestion she should.”
He tried to think how to respond. “You are very patient with her.”
“She’s my mother.” A beat of silence. “I owe it to her.”
Odd how she’d connected the two thoughts...as if they were two separate things. He understood fidelity to one’s parents. “I promised my father I’d make sure our family was reunited by taking my sisters to Oregon.”
“Then you understand.”
“I suppose. But it wasn’t a promise I made reluctantly. I was eager to move on. Start a new life.” Except his old life had followed him on the journey. What was God trying to teach him? Hadn’t he learned his lesson well enough? Don’t be giving your heart to a fickle woman.
James unwound from the side of the Cavanaugh wagon and trotted out to join them. “Evening Ben, Mrs. Black.” He touched the brim of his hat in a respectful way.
Ben darted a look at Abby to see how she responded to this man.
She murmured, “Good evening.” Dare he hope she looked as disappointed by the man’s appearance as he?
“Mind if I walk along with you?” James asked.
What could Ben say? It was a free country. “Sure, why not?”
They walked the distance of two wagons, slowing their steps at each as both James and Ben glanced over the wagons and the travelers.
“Wait up.” Miles Cavanaugh trotted after them. “Can I speak to you men?”
“Excuse us.” Both Ben and James murmured apologies to Abby and turned aside to join Miles.
Miles spoke softly. “I thought we had a plan. It looks perfectly innocent for Ben to be out walking with Abby. No one would suspect he is looking for a thief. James, I thought the plan was for you and I to walk together.”
“You’re suggesting I wait until later to take a walk?” He shrugged. “Seems reasonable I could walk with anyone and not raise suspicion.” James’s voice remained neutral. “But if you think otherwise...” He saluted a goodbye to Ben and spoke to Abby. “Miles needs my help. I’ll see you later.”
“Good night,” she said.
Ben watched the pair walk away with decided relief. Now he’d get a chance to ask Abby how Frank had treated her.
They walked on past two more wagons. He gave each careful study, but again saw nothing to indicate a stolen wagon, stolen money or a guilty thief. The vast majority of these people were simply hardworking folk looking for a fresh start.
He slowed his pace. “You were telling me about Frank before we were interrupted last night.”
“Was I?”
He stopped to face her. “Abby, my mind has been in turmoil since you said he was different at home. Please tell me the truth. Did he hurt you?”
Chapter Fourteen
Abby forced herself to inhale and exhale calmly. Something she’d learned in her marriage to Frank that helped control her emotions. Part of her cried out to tell Ben all the details. But pride held her words back. Her marriage had been a failure beyond anything she could ever have imagined possible.
Ben again caught her arms.
His touch ignited painful, fearful memories of Frank hurting her. Surely he must feel her trembling.
He lifted one hand and caught her chin, tipping her face up.
She waited for the pain she’
d come to expect. Instead, his hands were gentle and warm on her arm filling her with a fearsome ache for more of the same.
She knew she should close her eyes and shut him out, clamp down on her weak, needy feelings, but she lacked the strength and looked into his eyes. In the lengthening rays of the sun, they appeared almost black. And brimmed with concern.
That look loosened her tongue.
“He was a cruel, vindictive man.” Each word was bitter gall on her tongue.
His palms pressed against her shoulders in a way that felt like a hug, that rooted her in an invisible embrace. She felt safe. A foolishness she would deal with later.
He didn’t say a word. But his mouth pulled into a hard line. It further opened her heart to release more details.
“He delighted in tormenting me. He’d mock my desires. If I wanted something, he would deliberately withhold it. He’d take away anything he thought I valued.” Her lungs felt like Frank held them in his fists. “I had a little dog, Perky, who gave me so much comfort.” She shuddered as the memory flooded her mind...pictures she’d tried unsuccessfully to erase from her thoughts. “Frank killed her.”
Ben rubbed his hands along her arms.
She leaned her head against his chest. Her hands clenched together between them.
“Did he—?” Ben coughed. “Did he hurt you?”
“Not at first.”
She felt him stiffen. “But when he realized he could no longer hurt me by taking things away, he found other ways of hurting me.”
His hands pressed to her back but she flinched at his touch, remembering instead Frank’s cruel hands.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, and pulled his hand back to her shoulders.
She continued to rest her forehead on his chest.
“Why didn’t you leave him?”
She shuddered. “Where would I go? Mother saw him as the man who would save the Bingham family. Father’s business had already begun to falter because of the depression.”
“I would have thought your father would take you away, never mind the money.”
“They never knew. Still don’t.”
He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
She stiffened for a second then allowed him to hold her, finding sweet comfort in telling him, certain he would not hurt. Not now. Not here. Perhaps never? “The irony of it is, Frank had no money. He’d lost it in foolish investments. His life was nothing but show. Three days after he was buried, officers showed up on my doorstep and told me I must leave. I took only what I could carry. The rest belonged to the creditors.”
She exhaled until her lungs protested. She felt a sense of release from that part of her past by telling Ben.
He had always been a kind, generous man who offered sympathy out of the goodness of his heart. But she knew better than to trust a man’s embrace to remain gentle.
She eased back.
At first he resisted her effort to escape his hold and then he dropped his arms and allowed her to step away. She put six inches between them but couldn’t force herself to do more. “I’ve never told anyone about Frank. I wouldn’t want my parents to know.” She studied her entwined fingers, not wanting to look at him and see pity and worse, condemnation. He could ask if marrying for money and status had been worth it.
And if he did, she would have crumpled to the ground in a weeping mess. No, it wasn’t worth it.
Would marrying for love be any different? The only way to find out would be to enter into a binding relationship she could not escape. She shuddered. It wasn’t a risk she would take.
She didn’t need marriage again. All she needed was to find a way to take back her promise so she could live a life of independence. Oh, Lord, change Mother so she’ll be more concerned with my happiness than status.
Ben curled his finger and caught her chin to bring her attention to him.
Rather than accusation or pity, his eyes revealed only concern. “I wish I’d known,” he said.
“What would you have done?” She knew she sounded surprised and annoyed at the same time. No one could help. Marriage gave Frank the right to do as he pleased with his wife.
His expression grew fierce. “I would have taught Frank not to hurt you.”
That brought a smile to her face as she imagined Ben riding up on a big white horse and frightening Frank so bad he ran away. Her smile departed. Frank would not have left. He would not have learned a lesson. “I’m ashamed to say I was relieved when he died. I didn’t even care I was left penniless. I’d sooner have my freedom any day.”
“And you believe you have that?”
“What do you mean?” She could guess but she had to make sure.
“Do you have your freedom? I’m not criticizing but it appears that your Mother controls you.”
“I wish that weren’t true.” She stepped aside and continued their journey around the wagons. How I wish it weren’t true.
Ben walked at her side. “As I recall, she’s always had this control over you.”
Of course he would remember it that way. He’d met her after Andy’s death. After she’d promised she’d do anything Mother said in order to make up for it. If Mother knew all the details, she would be even more demanding, though perhaps that wasn’t possible.
It was her guilt as well as her promise that made Mother’s control possible. She hoped to gain her freedom from the latter but would never escape the former.
“She didn’t always.” Only perhaps she had and it had only intensified after Andy’s death.
“Then why now?”
“Things happen. Things change.” She could say no more though she felt his demanding look upon her.
It wasn’t as though she owed him anything just because he’d heard her confession about Frank and comforted her.
Nor did she owe him anything because of their past. She’d ended that with complete finality.
* * *
Frank had been cruel to her. Ben ground his teeth together. He realized his fists were squeezed so tight his knuckles protested, and forced himself to relax.
Abby had paid an awful price for what she’d deemed to be social status and financial gain. Instead, she’d ended up with nothing and was back home with a mother who had an unnatural control over her.
It hadn’t always been. Things happen. Things change. What could she possibly mean? It didn’t make sense.
“Abby, what happened?”
“To Frank? He was thrown from his buggy when it overturned.”
“I’m sorry that a man died, but not that Frank is gone. But that isn’t what I mean. What happened between you and your mother to make her so overbearing?”
Abby stared straight ahead and walked on at a furious pace.
He didn’t intend to be ignored and stayed in step with her. “You said things happen. Things change. What did you mean?”
“It’s just a manner of speaking.” Her voice was cool, dismissive.
He knew it wasn’t the truth. “Abby, can you look me in the face and say that?” He stepped in front of her forcing her to stop.
She lifted her head, but her gaze went past him as if he wasn’t there. He caught her shoulders. Wanted to shake the truth from her but at the way she trembled beneath his palms, he stopped himself. Whatever had happened held her in the grip of some dark emotion. He had no desire to make it worse.
“Never mind.” Why did it matter to him? Yes, he felt terrible that Frank had been so cruel. No one deserved that. Yet she planned to marry again for advancement if what her mother said day after day meant anything. No wonder she talked about freedom and independence. Would her mother ever allow it?
He wanted to comfort her, remove that fear from her eyes when he touched her. He wanted to understand why she allowed her mother to cont
rol her.
But he did not mean to go beyond that. She would never see him as anything but a convenience and he didn’t intend to be hurt again.
He thought of something that might turn her mind from the darkness of her past and again fell in at her side. “Do you recall the time we decided to visit old Mrs. Gunther?”
“Of course. Pastor Macleod had been challenging us to put the verses we learned into practice. ‘Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only.’” He could hear the smile in her voice and congratulated himself on achieving that victory.
She continued. “We decided to follow the verse just below that. ‘Visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation.’ Mrs. Gunther was the poorest widow we could think of.”
“And the crankiest.”
She chuckled. “Nothing like a good challenge.”
Her laugh was better than a drink of cold water on a hot, dusty day. “As I recall she didn’t exactly welcome our visit.”
“No, she said, ‘Ain’t you got nothing better to do than go around bothering an old lady?’ I was about ready to turn around and run but you were behind me, so I couldn’t.”
At the time he had been prepared to always be behind her to protect her. When she’d chosen Frank over him, he had expected Frank to take care of her. He knew it didn’t make sense, but he felt he had somehow failed in fulfilling his duty to Abby.
He shook his head to chase away the thought..
She continued to recall the event. “I remember what you said. ‘We don’t mean to bother you, but we brought you these flowers.’” They’d picked a large bouquet from Abby’s mother’s garden. Abby had thrust them toward Mrs. Gunther.
The woman had stared at the flowers and then at Abby and Ben. “What good are flowers?”
“They’re nice to look at.” Ben had stepped forward with a box of cookies. “And these are nice to eat. God bless.”
They’d turned and hurried away, but once outside the gate had paused to glance back.
“When Mrs. Gunther thought we were gone, she buried her face in the flowers and smiled.”
Ben and Abby looked at each other and smiled too, the shared memory sweet and happy.
