by Caryl McAdoo
“Texas! You, me, and my soon-to-be husband are leaving tomorrow if we can get everything ready. Amos, too, if he wants to go.”
The girl’s mouth gaped open. “To Texas?” She looked from Mary to Jethro then back. “You two—us three—we’re getting married?”
Jethro stepped forward. “Maybe.”
“Why maybe? You asked. She said yes, right?”
“That’s correct. But we’ve got to get her father’s blessing, and he’s in Texas.”
“Oh.” The girl nodded with much exaggeration. “I see. So how far is that?”
“It will take us about a month.”
“Will I still be ten?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Despite all the happy intentions, it took four days to make arrangements. It surprised Mary, but not Francy, that Amos didn’t want to go. Goodbye tears flowed with many last minute instructions, then the little skiff carried them to the Antelope.
Fitting to leave on the same steamship that brought her to California two years ago.
So much had changed.
Once she figured she’d never leave her new adopted hometown; now she had to, for her sake and her baby’s.
Texas. Confrontation with Henry Buckmeyer waited in the Lone Star State. An image of her father brought tears. She remembered something he often said.
She had sown to the wind. A tear trickled down her cheek. She had certainly reaped the whirlwind.
Lord, let the storm die now and blow it all away. Let what Jethro said be true. Move on Daddy’s heart to forgive me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jethro saw the tear. She’d said she had to get away. Was she now crying over leaving that no-good adulterer?
LOVE HER REUEL
Yes, Lord. As you love me, I will love her.
Once on board and settled in, his ladies right across the hall from him, he tapped on their door.
Francy’s little pumpkin head appeared, but not much else. “Yes? Did you need something, Daddy?” She tried not to—he could tell—but couldn’t hide the grin.
“Oh, is that my new name?”
“Figured it’s plenty right since you and Miss Mary are going to be my parents now. Do you like it?”
“I love it, makes perfect sense to me.”
“Yes, sir, plus Amos isn’t here to stop me!” She giggled.
“Anyone in there hungry?”
“We’re busy right this minute, Miss Mary is…” The grin vanished. “Well she’s uh... tending to Susie.”
“I see. Well, when she finishes her tending, you ladies come to the dining room. I’ll go get us a table.”
“Yes, sir, Daddy.”
He strolled down the stairs, smiling. His little girl was so, working so hard on being grown up. He fished out the two little boxes from his coat pocket. Hopefully, she’d prove mature enough for her present. No doubts she’d love it, not a one. Would Mary love hers, too? On that he wasn’t as sure, but hoped.
The cook put out a more than decent meal. It surprised him Mary finished her plate then Francy’s. But she was…pregnant. He might as well get used to it. He’d promised to love her unconditionally. Francy’s wasn’t his blood either, but he loved her beyond measure. He’d love the new baby, too.
“Lovely dinner.” She placed her napkin wadded beside her plate. “Thank you, kind sir.”
“My pleasure.” He put their presents in front of each lady then leaned back. Francy giggled. Mary only smiled, and a weak one at that. “Go ahead, look inside.”
The girl tore the paper off hers, while Mary unwrapped hers more slowly.
Francy held up her necklace. “Wow, can I wear it? It’s beautiful.” She popped out of her chair and handed it to him. “Will you put it on for me?”
“Happy to.” He looked to Mary, who obviously enjoyed the girl’s joy. Smiling, she nodded her approval. Why hadn’t she opened hers yet?
“Now you’re big enough for this present, aren’t you?” Mary faced Francy. “You’ll take good care of it?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am.” She patted the dangling bauble, then hugged him hard. “Is it real gold, Daddy?”
Checking Mary’s reaction pleased him. She seemed fine with the little girl calling him that. He spun his new unofficial daughter around. “Sure is. Came straight out of our mine. It looks beautiful on you. I’m proud you like it.”
“Oh no, sir, I love it. Thank you so much.” She bent over and kissed his cheek then put her hand over the little nugget hanging on the gold chain. “It’s wonderful, I really do love it.”
“It’s a special nugget, the very first one I ever found at the mine. Been saving it.”
“Oh, wow, the first one?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He looked to his love. She stared at her unwrapped jewelry box.
The last time she’d done this, it hadn’t worked out like Mary hoped. Boarding the steamer had been the first step, but if what she thought lay in here, then it would be the last. If she put his ring on her finger, was her life over?
The Bible did say for husbands to love their wives, but it also said for wives to submit to their husbands. As unto the Lord. Knowing how bossy he was, could she do her part?
As unto the Lord.
That meant immediate submission with no questions.
She studied Jethro. He was a good man, wise, kind. She lifted the little box and turned it one way then another. Generous, patient, and saved. He’d definitely gotten his soul right with God, the difference obvious from that day.
But could she stand him bossing her around the rest of her days? And at that point, did it make any difference?
“Miss Mary, open it! What’d he get you?”
She removed the lid Two fat gold bands with crystals encased in the little crevices of the precious metal. A single diamond sat atop the smaller one, each ring almost identical except for the diamond. One her size, the other his.
“Oh, Jethro, they’re gorgeous; I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“They’re both made from a single nugget, the biggest one I’ve ever found.”
She handed his to him. “Thank you.”
She slipped hers on and held it up. It fit perfectly. How did he know? But…it wasn’t perfect. Could she spend the rest of her life with a man she didn’t love?
Maybe her father would forbid her to marry again. He might try and make her stay there. With him. Except she wouldn’t. Once the baby was born… What? Go back to California? Oh, she chased rainbows.
Soon as Daddy found out she was in the family way, he’d be all for her marrying Jethro. He’d like Jethro. He was ten times the man Caleb had ever been. Why couldn’t she see?
“Want me to go put Susie down for the night?”
Mary glanced at the baby then Francy. “That would be great. Your daddy and I need a few minutes alone.”
The girl grinned. “Yes, Mama. Anything else, Mother?”
Laughing, Mary arced a brow. “Yes, ma’am, now that you ask. I could sure use a good hug.”
At first it hurt her a little that the girl called him Daddy but kept calling her Miss Mary. Francy obviously wasn’t sure her new mother would like the idea, at least not as confident as she was of her new daddy.
But she’d wormed her way deep into Mary’s heart, and she couldn’t love the ten-year-old any more if she’d given birth to her. She remembered being introduced that first time to Shorty and how the girl wanted no part of being female.
That hadn’t lasted long. Francy won the hearts of everyone she came across. A precious little doll. She came and hugged Mary long and tight, then turned and hugged Jethro before getting the baby.
Mary would almost swear she saw tears in his eyes; the big ol’ softie. She sighed. Her half-grown unofficial daughter would be so heartbroken if everything didn’t work out. She lifted the baby, and Francy took her.
“Go on now, before my milk comes down again.”
She shifted the baby, kissed Mary�
�s cheek, then strolled off with Susannah on her hip.
Mary faced Jethro. “I love my ring.”
“They did a wonderful job. I’m thrilled, too.”
She gripped the table in front of her and studied her fingers. What should she say? Was the die cast? If anyone asked, no way could she come up with a reason she agreed to the trip. Oh, wait. She remembered.
Edward’s baby, except she wasn’t his. Would never be. Mister Clinton would never know about her.
“Please forgive me.”
She looked up. “What for?”
“Being pigheaded. I should have sold you our interest in the Mercantile that first time you asked.”
Would he ever cease to amaze her? Or could the whole thing be his plot? Kill her with kindness? “Apology accepted. Why, pray tell, didn’t you sell? I would have paid a premium.”
He pulled his lips into a weird sort of smile, except not actually a smile at all. “It’s what you said. You hurt my heart, and well…it’s what I told my father the last time I saw him.”
“Is this a long story? Am I old enough to hear?”
He grinned, obviously genuinely tickled. “No, ma’am. You need to know it all.”
Jethro started at the beginning, hitting the highlights; his father’s wealth, the boarding schools, him wanting to please his mother above all. All his life he’d desperately wanted her to love him enough to stop sending him away.
The begging slowed down when he reached his sixteenth year. His last full, happy year.
“I was home for the summer, except she’d planned a hunting trip for me the three weeks before the fall semester. Anyway, this day she’d been in a tizzy. Father had some bigwigs coming for dinner, and everything had to be perfect. Her regular dinner parties wouldn’t compare to that one.”
“I guess all ladies are a little that way.”
He drained his water glass. “I tried to keep a low profile. When she got like that, no one was safe. Well, except Father. She never crossed him. Anyway, this young lady strolls into the library where I’m camped out, minding my own business.
She glides right up to me and sits on my lap.”
“No! Without a word? How young was she?”
He shrugged. “Maybe twenty. Could have been younger, but I didn’t know. I was sixteen and couldn’t believe it.”
“What’d she do?”
“Asked which room was mine.”
“She didn’t. Is this broad daylight?”
“Yes, ma’am. About three o’clock, but before I could find my voice and tell her second room from the main stairs, my mother stood in the doorway. In the nicest, sweetest-toned, lilting soprano, she says, ‘Jethro, could you help me in the kitchen?’ ”
“Could she see what was going on?”
“Oh, yes. Well, I excused myself and followed Mother out, except she doesn’t go to the kitchen. She led me straight to her sunroom and sat me down.”
“Good for her. What’d she say?”
“Told me the young lady was one of Father’s courtesans, and she didn’t want me to have a thing to do with her.”
“He was that brazen? Bringing harlots into your home?”
“Afraid so.”
“I didn’t know it until that day, why mother kept me away from the house so much. He asked me the next day if I had enjoyed his present.”
“He told that woman to come to your room?”
Jethro nodded. “After he lost all his money, and mother killed herself—the day before Moses and I left to work on the canal—I hunted him up and told him I hated him. That I hated what he’d done to my mother, and how I never wanted anything to do with a whoremonger like him.”
“Oh, Jethro, I’m so sorry I called you that. I didn’t know, but didn’t you and Meiko –?”
“No, never.”
“Anyone else?”
“No, ma’am. Mother sent me to boys schools, and father drilled it into me that a certain type of female used sex to entrap you and get your money; so with my serious aversion to soiled doves….” He chuckled. “I partnered up with Moses Jones the day I met him, and he always set the bar so high. Here’s this big burly guy who’s like a saint. Had no vices except me. How could I not walk the straight and narrow?”
“That’s good to know. If Daddy gives his blessing, you’ll be my third and last.”
Henry Buckmeyer loved sitting the head of his supper table. If his family got much bigger, he’d have to add onto the room and build a bigger table. Black walnut maybe. He studied on that notion for a while between bites, then Rebecca placed her napkin next to her plate.
“Daddy, Wallace and I have been talking about a trip to California.”
His wife spoke up before he could. “Oh, that’s lovely. I’ve always wanted to go there myself, but then I met your father.” He loved the way she looked at him.
Henry put his fork down. “California, huh?” He turned his gaze on his son-in-law. “The easy gold’s about played out if what I hear is true.”
Wallace nodded. “Yes, sir, but we don’t have the fever.”
“Exactly where in California?”
“San Francisco, maybe Sacramento.” His oldest smiled at him, but he could see it in her eyes. Rebecca had never been good at keeping secrets, leastwise not from him.
“This trip have anything to do with your sister?”
She pursed her lips, glanced at Wallace, then back at him. “Yes, sir. I miss Mary Rachel and want to go see how she’s doing. She’s still my sister.”
Her husband pulled a flyer out of his pocket and handed it over. The same Pinkerton poster he’d seen.
“Got this in Clarksville last week. Rebecca and I have been kicking around going ever since. Decided we would last night.”
“No need, I saw the flyer, too. I’ve sent letters of inquiry and figure we’ll be hearing soon enough if it was Mary Rachel’s Caleb.”
“I hope it isn’t, but even if it is, shouldn’t we be about finding her? Bringing her home? What if she’s broke, living in some hovel? I can’t stand not knowing. I still want to go.”
He shook away that image, the same one he’d rejected numerous times in the last week.
“No, not Mary Rachel. She’s fine, and yes, I understand. I want to see your little sister so bad I can hardly stand it sometimes, but it’s her choice. If she doesn’t want to be here, I’m not going to hogtie her and drag her back.”
The two years she’d been gone hadn’t been easy on his heart, but she’d come home when she was ready. His beautiful wife sat scooted back in her chair. “I think you ought to bless their trip west—not that they need your blessing, I mean they are adults and can go when and where they want.”
She stood and moved behind him, wrapping his head in an embrace with her arms folded across his chest. “It’ll be fun for them, and maybe we can find out about our precious girl. I hate not knowing as much as you do.”
“Can I go, Rebecca? I want to see Mary Rachel, too, and I was really good on the trip to Europe, wasn’t I, Mama?”
He smiled at his youngest daughter, the only girl who’d never added the May to Mama. “Very good, excellent I say.”
“You were wonderful, Bonnie, just perfect.” May squeezed him a bit tighter.
Of course, the begging was on then. Cecelia stood up and glared at her little sister. “I want to go, too, I’m older. Can I, Rebecca? Take me.”
“If any sister goes, it should be me, CeCe. I’m the oldest.” Gwendolyn put her bid in. “Can I, Daddy?”
Rebecca cleared her throat. “Actually, girls, as much as I hate to disappoint you all, Wallace and I were thinking of making it a honeymoon trip since we never really had one. So no, not this trip. If we find Mary Rachel, maybe we can talk her into coming home for a visit.”
How he would love laying eyes on his prodigal daughter again, but she had to be the one to decide. After all, she was the one who left.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mary watched until Francy and Susanna
h disappeared through the dining room door. She set her coffee cup on the table then smiled at Jethro. “Have you been putting her up to all this alone time she’s giving us?”
He grinned. “I’ve mentioned it a time or two.” The look on his face exuded pure joy.
What a little kid. Guess she might just be his new toy. But maybe not.
He didn’t seem to be tiring of her at all, and the past ten days had been wonderful; no responsibility to speak of, coupled with spending time with the man that would soon be her husband. That prospect became less distasteful by the day.
One thing that nagged at her though, actually two, on reflection. “Hey, I’ve been wondering about a couple of things.”
“Ask what you will.”
“You said that day when you proposed, that God told you to do it.” She leaned in and bore into his eyes. “Was it like God talking from the burning bush or…what exactly?
She would love for the Almighty to tell her what to do. As long as she could be certain it was Him.
He looked out the ship’s window then back. She admired the way he always thought about what he wanted to say, find the exact words.
“The voice comes from inside, I guess my heart. I can’t tell you how, but I know it’s Him; same voice that helped me get saved and has talked to me at other times. Like when Amos and Francy came to the mine. Her brother introduced her as his brother. God told me to take her to Mary, said, ‘She needs her.’ That’s how I knew Shorty was a girl.”
“God called me by name?”
“Yes, ma’am, He did.” He chuckled. “Do you know the story of Reuel?”
“Who?”
“Moses’ father-in-law.”
She searched her memory. “That’s not right; it was Jethro who gave his oldest daughter to Moses, not Reuel.”
He nodded. “The one and only time he’s called Reuel, is when Moses first comes to Median…” He closed his eyes, moved, then opened one. “Maybe the eighteenth chapter of Exodus? Anyway, the next time you hear about him, he’s called Jethro, which means large. Reuel means friend of God.”
