by Indiana Wake
Katie didn’t look back, she didn’t want to see him leaning against the fence and she certainly didn’t want to see him limping away. She felt upset finally, truly upset. As she walked through the warm and bright late afternoon sunshine, tears finally began to roll down her face.
But even as she lay in her bed that night, Katie still couldn’t quite discover the source of those tears. Perhaps it was the awkwardness of the afternoon, the exhausting nerves and embarrassment. Perhaps it was the discovery that she really didn’t know who in the world she could trust to give her friendship to. Even the idea that she had the capacity to fight back the way she had was unsettling when she finally thought about it properly.
Maybe it was a mixture of all those things, every awful part contributing to a feeling of sadness. Or maybe it was the thought of him standing there alone, a friendless man in a place he had once called home, staring after her as she walked away from him.
Katie shuffled down in her bed and pulled her blankets up around her neck. She closed her eyes tight and tried to clear her mind, even though she was already sure that she would get no sleep at all.
What had it been about him which had first drawn her? There might have been a little pity, but she was certain it wasn’t fully that. It might even have been his handsomeness if she was the sort of person to whom such things really mattered.
But she knew it was that silent part of him that had drawn her attention. An air of loneliness about him, the deep and abiding kind. And maybe she had been so drawn to it in the first place because it was something that she recognized.
As much as Katie had no interest in the pursuits of her old friends, she knew that she still missed having friends. She longed for just one person who understood her, who didn’t try to mold her into what they thought a young woman of her age should be. She had an otherness which made her different and she wondered if Arlen had the same.
Maybe it was his own otherness which had seen him walk away from a life he had loved, even work he had loved, if Mary’s assertions were anything to go by. Maybe that was the very thing which had led him away from Oregon and down into the south, into war and pain and regret.
But if that was what they had in common, it wasn’t just a simple little thing. It was fundamental and deep, and she felt on unsteady ground to think that she was anything like Arlen at all.
Still, she supposed that none of that mattered now. After everything she’d said to him, how roughly she’d chastised him on the edge of his own home, it was unlikely that she would ever be in conversation with him again. And in the end, perhaps that was for the best.
She had pushed to be his friend and he had rejected her. If nothing else, Katie thought that she had learned a little lesson.
Chapter 9
Things at the Bryant ranch had been quiet for a couple of days and Arlen knew he fully deserved a little slice of silent treatment.
Although in truth, David was much the same as he had been since Arlen had returned home from the war. Awkwardly uncommunicative and smiling through it as best he could.
He supposed that it was Mary’s subdued demeanor which had affected him the most, because she was almost always in the house when he was. And Mary was a woman who never ran out of conversation, not ordinarily.
“Are you ever going to forgive me for your ruined meal?” Arlen asked on the third morning as he made his way into the kitchen for breakfast.
“I don’t know, are you ever going to apologize for your behavior?” Mary stated and scowled at him with her dark, brooding eyes.
“I suppose you got me there.” Arlen chuckled, although he didn’t feel as at ease as he would have her believe. “And I am sorry, Mary. I should have kept my feelings to myself and just sat there smiling politely.”
“Would that have been any better?” Mary began to make his breakfast without any discussion on the matter.
With the skillet loaded with bacon, she poured him a mug of coffee from the pot and set it down on the table silently.
“I suppose it would have been a little better?” He raised his eyebrows and tried to give her a charming grin.
“Only a very little. It would have still been awkward, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m sorry, Mary. I really do regret making things uncomfortable for you and David,” he said and stopped grinning, looking at her with the old honesty that had always existed between them.
“While you sure did make me uncomfortable, and David too, I can’t begin to imagine what Katie felt. She’s so young, Arlen, and so sweet. She didn’t deserve any of it. I know I was wrong inviting her, but maybe you should have taken it out on me and not her.”
“Sweet?” Arlen said, wide-eyed and incredulous. “Are we talking about the same woman?”
“What?” Mary narrowed her gaze and looked suddenly interested. “What are you talking about?”
“Your sweet little young’un marched out of this house and right into my path to tear strips of flesh off me,” he said in a humorously shocked manner.
“She did what?” Now Mary was wide-eyed and incredulous. “Where were you?”
“I was down at the gate, leaning on it and staring out down the road to town. Then I heard her coming towards me, stamping her little feet with a furious expression on her face.”
“What did she say?” Mary was all interest, leaving the skillet full of bacon on the stove as she poured herself a mug of coffee and perched on the chair opposite him.
“I can’t remember exactly, there was so much of it.” He shook his head. “She told me I was rude and mocking and that I didn’t deserve the consideration that you and David give me. She said I didn’t only make her feel awkward, but I’d made you feel awkward too.”
“Well, my goodness!” Mary said, and Arlen clicked his tongue as it looked for all the world like his sister-in-law was impressed with young Miss Lacey.
“You sure aren’t leaping to my defense, Mary,” he said and laughed.
“Why on earth would I? If that young lady gave you a piece of her mind, I reckon you deserved it.”
“I suppose she was right about some of it.”
“Some of it?” Mary said and laughed before taking a drink of the hot coffee. “I would say all of it.”
“All right, all right. Thank you,” he said and looked significantly over to the stove where the bacon hissed and splattered in the skillet.
Mary set her coffee down and hurried back to the stove, turning the bacon and adding some slices of tomato to the pan. She stayed where she was, concentrating finally. She set out a plate ready with thickly buttered bread and, when the bacon was done, she set it out on the plate with the scalding hot cooked tomatoes.
“There you go,” she said in the old indulgent tone of voice she always used on him.
Arlen hadn’t heard it for days and realized then just how much he’d missed it. Mary really was a sister to him and her withdrawal of care in the last days, however subtle it had been, had affected him more than he’d realized.
He felt suddenly relieved to have her back, emotional even, and he busied himself looking down at his plate and cutting his food until the feeling had passed.
“What else did she say?” Mary probed, returning to the subject as soon as she was settled down at the table again with her coffee.
“That was more or less the gist of it. She said I’d mocked her, which I suppose I did.”
“Yes, you did.”
“And you know, it isn’t because I don’t like her. I don’t even know the girl, certainly not enough to say I can’t take to her.”
“Then why?”
“Because I don’t want a child coming into my world to hand me a big old slice of pity. I’ve got enough to deal with without that.”
“She’s not a child,” Mary said gently, “she’s young, yes, but she’s a grown woman.”
“What is she? Seventeen? Eighteen?”
“I think she’s eighteen. But she’s not dull, is she? She’s a bright girl with a go
od mind.”
“Oh yes, she reads.”
“Well, you read! Isn’t that what led you to war in the first place? Reading the very same things that Katie has read herself? I would have thought that gave you something in common.”
“I suppose her reading didn’t lead to lifelong deformity.”
“So now you’re angry with her because she’s not a soldier?” Mary said in a teasing tone that was still a little chastising nonetheless.
“I don’t really know what I’m angry about.”
“Well, I reckon you need to give that some thought, Arlen, or you really will end up an angry and bitter man. And I know that isn’t you, you’re better than that.”
“Am I?” He sighed and knew that he could hardly explain how he felt in words. “Mary, I know I’m not the man you remember me being, and there’s a reason for that. I’m not the same man anymore, the last three years have changed me into somebody even I don’t recognize.”
“But if you managed to change, surely you can manage to change back,” Mary said a little cautiously. “For your own sake,” she added.
“I honestly don’t know where to start. There’s so much that is wrong now, so many reasons why I don’t fit here anymore. But I’ve got nowhere else to go, I don’t fit anywhere.”
“Of course, you fit here, Arlen. You’re family, and a busted leg doesn’t make you any less family.”
“I know it doesn’t, I can’t explain,” he said and purposefully stuffed a great forkful of bacon into his mouth to put an end to the conversation, for a few minutes at least.
He knew he was still family, and he knew that his brother cared for him as much as his sister-in-law did. But he felt like a ghost now; the ghost of Arlen Bryant. A man who was set to hover about the house uselessly until the end of his days, watching his brother have a life and a wife and a son. All the things he was sure now he would never have.
“I know I’m still family, Mary. I guess I just need to find a way to feel at home again.”
“I suppose I thought I was helping you, inviting Katie here. I just liked her, her awkward sort of courage when she marched up to you in the street to apologize for staring. Now, what other person in town would you imagine could do that? I know they all stare, honey, and I know that’s why you’re not so keen on church anymore. But, which one among them would do what she did? Come right up to you and apologize to your face?”
“I guess she’s kind of bold in her own peculiar way.” Arlen laughed.
And that was just it, Katie was peculiar. Not unpleasantly peculiar, but rather interestingly peculiar. And while he hadn’t been what she’d been expecting, she most certainly wasn’t at all like he’d imagined her to be.
When he’d looked at her that day in church, so determined to put her silently in her place for staring at him, he had imagined her to be nothing more than the town beauty with a big opinion of herself. He’d thought her to be the sort of young woman who considered everything her right, even the opportunity to stare at a crippled man.
But everything he’d learned about her since was contrary to that. And Mary had been right, she had apologized absolutely and without trying to give herself any kind of excuse for her behavior. She stared at him, she owned up to it, and she apologized. That really did set her apart if he thought about it.
“I think she is a little different, honey, but I thought you’d be more understanding of that.”
“She doesn’t have a ruined leg, Mary. She doesn’t limp.”
“You don’t need an injury to make you different. And whatever it is that makes you different, I can’t imagine it has any effect on how it makes you feel when other people turn away from you.”
“No, I guess not,” he said and continued with his breakfast in silence.
Once Mary left the kitchen to hang one of the rugs over the line outside so she could beat it into submission, Arlen finished the dregs of his coffee and stared across the table to the seat where his fiery little adversary had sat just days before.
What a difference from the shy woman tripping over her own embarrassment outside the diner when she had apologized to him. For a moment, he wondered which Katie was the real one, or if she really was a mixture of the two.
Maybe if he hadn’t been so arrogant, so keen to throw everybody’s kindness back in their faces, he might have found out.
Arlen had known at the time, of course, that his behavior was well below his old standards. He was giving into the self-pity which he’d fought off out in the field. As he’d lain painfully on the back of wagons and coaches on his way home, Arlen had managed to keep it all at bay. He’d survived, and that was enough. He still had his life and it was still there to be lived.
But somehow, arriving back home again had changed it all in a heartbeat. He wasn’t sure just how grateful he was anymore, and everywhere he looked seemed to remind him of the man he once was. And to be reminded of the man he once was seemed to him the same as being confronted with the man he had become.
A limping, useless man, the object of so many curious stares. It was like he was resisting it, resisting something that had already happened and couldn’t be changed. And it was truly exhausting. But even seeing his own attitude for what it was didn’t make it any easier.
As he sat at the table, he recognized that his few moments of self-reflection had given him some insight but hadn’t changed him at all.
Maybe change didn’t just happen, maybe it was something you had to do yourself. It didn’t happen to you, it happened because of you.
And with that thought in mind, he got up from the table and made his way outside.
Mary was still beating the living daylights out of the rug from the sitting room, so intent on what she was doing that she didn’t see him standing there. In the end, he reached out and tapped her on the shoulder, startling her so that she turned around suddenly, appearing to brandish the carpet beater.
“Don’t shoot,” Arlen said, and Mary immediately relaxed into laughter.
“Arlen, you startled me!” she said, breathless from her exertions.
“Look, will you help me do something?” he asked, getting straight to the point.
“Sure, what can I do?” Mary immediately put the carpet beater down and wiped her hands on her heavy apron.
“Can you help me hitch up the small wagon? Just the one-horse wagon.”
“I sure can,” she said and the two of them immediately began to make their way to the large stable. “Do you want me to come with you, wherever you’re going?” Mary asked in a wheedling fashion as the two of them worked together.
“Which is your way of asking me where I’m going, isn’t it?”
“Well, I am helping. Just humor me, honey.”
“I’m going down to Lacey’s lumberyard,” he said on the wave of a long sigh.
“To see Katie?”
“No, to buy lumber.” She scowled at him. “Yes, to see Katie.”
“To apologize?”
“Yes, why else?”
“I just thought I’d check,” she said and bit her bottom lip as if to stop herself from saying any more.
“Right, now to get myself into the driver’s seat,” he said under his breath as he contemplated his climb up onto the front of the wagon.
“You want a hand?” Mary said gently.
“I reckon I ought to be sure I can do this myself. After all, I don’t want to be trapped in Lacey’s lumberyard with no way of getting back up, do I?”
“I guess not,” Mary said and stood sentinel over him, watching as he awkwardly clambered his way up into the driver’s seat and reached out to take a hold of the reins.
This was the first time he had handled the horse at all since the very day of his injury and, although he wasn’t actually riding it, he still wondered if the passage of time had robbed him of the ability.
“Well, here goes,” he said and looked down at Mary’s concerned face.
But as soon as he rattled the reins and the
horse began to slowly wander away in front of him, everything felt so familiar. He’d ridden horses and wagons his whole life and he could hardly believe now that he’d ever assumed the skill would be lost to him.
By the time he turned down onto the road which would lead him into town, Arlen felt his spirits soar. He was doing just fine, he was managing.
Of course, the hard part would be climbing down again when he arrived at Lacey’s lumberyard. And then he laughed to himself and shook his head, his thick hair moving in the breeze. Getting in and out of the wagon was most certainly not going to be the hardest part about that day.
The hardest part was going to be apologizing to Katie.
Chapter 10
When he drew up on the large flat of ground outside the lumberyard buildings, Arlen looked all around him. He was relieved that there was nobody else around and hurriedly clambered down out of the wagon before anyone arrived to witness his cumbersome performance.
There were no other wagons or horses, so he gathered the store front of the lumberyard would be quiet. It would do him some good to be able to apologize to Katie without an audience, that was for sure.
He walked a little better than he had been of late, although it was true that his right thigh was always much less painful in the mornings. By mid-afternoon, the pain was often excruciating, especially if he did the full quota of walking that Doc Brown had advised him to do.
Well, at least he would be able to lift his leg as he walked and wouldn’t be dragging his foot along as he often did nearer the end of the day. Small comfort, but it meant less by way of embarrassment and the almost ever-present feelings of humiliation.
Arlen had only ever been to the lumberyard a handful of times in his life and that last time was surely some years ago. Still, he reckoned nothing much had changed in that time, except that Katie had not worked there back then.
He remembered how he had sneered at the idea of her working in the lumberyard and winced with embarrassment. How he wished he had not said that. How he wished he had not said any of it.
