Sixteen Brides

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  Hope. He glanced up at the implement store sign. He might not have much in the way of hope, but he could give Linney some. He could tell Vernon Lux he’d give building wagons and living in town a try. And if things went well today, he would take Cooper up on his offer to take Linney out to the place. They could ride back to town together, just like Jeb suggested. Linney could help him set up the room at the back of the implement store. Maybe she could help me pick out a lot in town. A place to build a house. Maybe, just maybe if he did all those things, maybe Katie would forgive him from beyond the grave. Maybe the demons would die.

  Now that was something to hope for.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.

  PROVERBS 25:28

  All right. He didn’t plan it. He couldn’t have planned it. After all, that one seat next to Mrs. Darby right at the end of the row in front of the row of Caroline and her friends was the only seat left. Well, almost the only seat left. And Frank Darby was a rancher, so that made sense, didn’t it? A person liked to sit near their friends, even in church. After all, she was right here in the row with her friends. But laws o’massey, Caroline was having trouble paying attention to what was going on up front, and after all, Helen Smith was signing over her future to a near stranger. Never mind that he seemed nice enough, and never mind that little Davey McDonald had caused a chorus of oohs and awws when he slipped out of his seat and went to stand between the bride and groom and then slipped one hand into Helen’s and one hand into his pa’s.

  Never mind all of that. This was a serious moment and Caroline could not pay attention. And why? All because of the varmint sitting right there a few feet away dangling a Stetson on his knee and making it a point, Caroline thought, not to look her way. And didn’t Lucas Gray look fine today, with his hair all wavy and his beard trimmed close enough to accent that square jaw and—Stop it, Caroline. Just stop it right now.

  She looked away. Stared straight forward. And she didn’t even notice that Gray had a passably good singing voice. Nor did she pay any mind when he actually pulled a little New Testament out of his coat pocket and followed along when the preacher started his sermon. She barely noticed that Gray seemed somewhat familiar with the contents of that little testament, or that he could find the Scripture reading without an undue amount of flipping of pages. You’d be lost trying to find Thessa—Thessa—whatever.

  Gray was just showing off. It was just a self-righteous kind of vanity, that’s what it was. There weren’t four men in the entire dining hall who had their own Bible. Caroline noted that Jeb Cooper was one of them, and that it wasn’t a little testament, either. Cooper had a full-sized well-worn tome that settled across his knee like it belonged there, not some little sissy book a pretender could hide in his coat pocket.

  She turned slightly in her chair, just enough to put Lucas Gray where he belonged, far in the periphery of her vision. And when the service concluded, Caroline slipped past Ella and Zita, Sally and Ruth, Jackson and Mavis, and escaped out the door and toward the mercantile without so much as a glance Mr. Gray’s way. After all, she’d promised Martha Haywood to help out over at the mercantile. And she wanted to meet Alice Bailey and see to it that Alice decided to make her next quilt “shimmer” with bits of pumpkin-colored fabric.

  Matthew slipped in the back door of the mercantile, his heart pounding. Even proposing hadn’t made him this nervous. After all, there’d been no doubt that the woman he loved was going to say yes. Today was another matter. The results weren’t guaranteed. Linney might not even listen long enough to hear the news about his moving to town. She might refuse to open this box of Katie’s things, refuse to ride to the homestead and see the beautiful fence Jeb had erected around Katie’s grave. In fact, it was quite possible Linney wouldn’t let him say much more than one sentence before throwing a fit.

  He hesitated in the storeroom, mentally rehearsing his speech one last time. At the sound of laughter, he set the box down atop a stack of crates. Mrs. Jamison. Caroline. Her voice was unmistakable, and she was just the one to discuss shimmer. Everything about that woman shimmered. Maybe he’d come back later. He could walk down to Lux’s store and start clearing out that room in the back where he’d be living now. He’d leave Katie’s things right here, and maybe catch up with Will Haywood somewhere in town and ask him to tell Linney—

  “The older you get the more you look like your mother. Although the red hair is from your pa’s side.”

  “It is?”

  “Definitely. His ma had red hair. Didn’t he ever tell you that?”

  Matthew stepped into the doorway and took it all in. Luke, leaning on the counter across from where Linney stood with that hungry look in her eyes. The look she always got when there was any mention of Katie. Luke. Talking about things he had no right—smiling as he spoke Katie’s name. And even as he smiled, he was aiming it all right past Linney toward Mrs. Jamison. Of course he would. That was how Luke did things. Use one to get to the other. Be nice to the toddler so you can lure the mother—

  It all came back. In one instant the hurt and regret and doubt and guilt of the past few years all balled themselves up into Matthew’s right fist. Emotion launched him across the mercantile toward Luke. Just as the tall cowboy turned toward the sound of fast-moving feet, Matthew planted his fist on that square jaw. Luke’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell backward into the washtub of fabric. Landing on his back, he lay sprawled out on the mercantile floor, his body peppered with rolls of varicolored calico.

  Linney screamed “Pa!” and at the sound of her voice, Matthew’s rage departed. His hand hurt. A lot. He spread his fingers and shook his hand out. In the silence he was only aware of the eyes. Linney’s filling with tears. Caroline’s, dark and troubled. Alice Bailey’s communicating disapproval and, he supposed, already formulating a good story to spread about town. And then from behind them, Martha’s voice sounding from the storeroom door. “Oh, Matthew.” A world of sadness collected into two words.

  Caroline moved first. She went to Luke, of course. The ladies always did, didn’t they?

  Matthew did what he always did. He ran.

  Someone pounded on the door. Matthew didn’t answer, but neither did he drink the whiskey he’d smuggled out the back door of the saloon on his way here. Instead, he stretched out on the bare cot in Vernon Lux’s back room and tried to ignore whoever it was.

  “It’s Martha, and I’ll stand out here and beat on this door all night if I have to. Or get Will to help me break it down if it comes to that. You are going to talk to me.”

  Matthew sat up. Raked his fingers through his tangled hair.

  Martha rattled the door latch. “Open this door. I’ve got some things to say that I should have said years ago, and by gosh and by golly, they are going to be said. But not until I’m looking you in the eye.”

  He set an empty box over the whiskey bottle.

  “I’ve raised your daughter for you, Matthew. You owe me this. And you owe it to Katie, too. For Linney’s sake.”

  With a groan, Matthew scooted off the cot. He unlatched the door and, backing into the room, motioned for Martha to sit on the cot while he perched on a chair-high block of wood in the corner.

  “I don’t need to sit down. This won’t take long. But we should close the door. So you light that lamp. I want to see you when I’m talking to you, and Lord knows you’ve been living in the dark for quite long enough.”

  Matthew lit the lamp. “All right,” he said, and sat back down. “Let’s get it over with.”

  “By all means, Matthew. Let’s. It’s time someone got over it, don’t you think?” Martha took a wavering breath. Swallowed. When next she spoke, her voice was almost gentle. “There was a time when Katie Ransom thought she loved two men. Cousins she’d met at the same ball. Maybe she did love them both. I don’t know. But, Matthew, Katie chose you. And she gave you a beautiful daughter.�
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  “Did she?” He let the anguish sound in his voice. The question was almost a keening as he freed his pent-up emotions. “Did Katie give me a beautiful daughter? Or did Luke do that?” He stared at Martha, his heart pounding, his eyes filling with tears as he finally translated the anguish of years into words.

  Martha just stared back. For a long while, she just stared. And then understanding dawned. “You think Linney isn’t yours.” She sat down on the cot and repeated the words, more slowly this time. “You think Linney isn’t yours.”

  Instead of relieving the burden, the act of speaking it aloud only served to make it more real. An almost palpable weight settled across Matthew’s shoulders, and he leaned forward and put his hands to his head. He took a deep, wavering breath and spoke without looking up. “The day of the accident…she’d left me. Taken Linney and gone…to him.” He groaned the rest of it. “I went after her. We had a terrible fight. Linney screaming, Katie crying, and Luke…denying everything.”

  “What do you mean, ‘denying everything’?”

  Martha’s voice was calm now. Matthew looked up at her and shrugged. “He said the girls were out picking chokecherries. Said Linney got stung or some nonsense, and he ‘just happened’ to come along. He said he took them over to the ranch so that Chinaman of his could treat the stings.”

  “That sounds very plausible.”

  “Well, there wasn’t any sign of a sting on Linney’s person.”

  “Wah Lo’s remedies can be very effective, Matthew. You know that. Maybe you just couldn’t see it all those hours later.”

  “She loved him, Martha. She told me she loved him.” He waited for that to sink in before continuing. “But she said she wanted to make it work between her and me. And so she got in the wagon and we started for home. But—” He broke off. Shook his head.

  “She chose you, Matthew. She chose you.”

  He got up and began to pace. “Did you know he built that house of his hoping she’d come to him? The house, the ranch—everything a woman could want…and she…she…” His voice broke. He let the tears come. “And still, she chose me. And the best I could do…the best I could do was…drive like a madman and risk our lives and…” He covered his face and began to sob. “I killed her, Martha. I killed her and I loved her and I hated her and…oh…God…” He leaned away from Martha, into the wall. He made a fist again, but this time he didn’t use it. Instead, he stood weeping.

  Martha came to his side. Leading him back to the cot, she sat down beside him and took his hand. “All right, Matthew. It’s going to be all right.” She held on.

  “I don’t even know if she’s mine,” he groaned.

  “She’s yours in every way that matters. You have to stop this. That girl thinks the sun rises and sets in you. The only thing she wants in this life is to keep house for her pa. She used to talk about it all the time. How she had to learn to cook really well so she could take good care of you. How she had to learn to sew so she could make your shirts.” Martha paused. “She stopped talking like that two years ago, and do you know why? Because she stopped believing it’s ever going to happen. She doesn’t know why, but for some reason the one person she loves most in this world can’t seem to stand being around her all that much. She sees the pain in you, Matthew, every time you look at her. And as all children do, Linney thinks it’s her fault. Well, it’s not. And you know what? It flat-out doesn’t matter which of you sorry men made that child, because you are the one Katie chose to raise her.”

  She stood up. “It’s time you forgave the past, Matthew. Katie and Lucas and yourself. And most of all it’s time you forgave Linney for reminding you of the few moments in your life when you made a terrible choice and terrible things happened. Yes, your recklessness caused a wagon to overturn. But you didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Are you going to let one bad decision ruin the rest of your life? Are you going to let it ruin Linney’s life? And Luke’s? Hasn’t he done everything a man can do? Don’t you think he grieved Katie, too? Don’t you think he’d take back a few of his decisions if he could?”

  “I’ll never forgive him.” Matthew was surprised by the lack of venom in the words. Still, he had to say them. Didn’t he?

  “You must. Because you will never have any kind of life as long as you are carrying this rottenness inside of you. Don’t you see, Matthew? It’s robbed you of the only thing that keeps us all going. It’s robbed you of hope. Linney hopes for a normal life with her pa. You hope for happiness. And I’d stake a lot on the idea that Luke hopes you’ll forgive him someday.”

  Matthew curled his lip and made a sound of disbelief.

  “You two grew up together. As close as brothers. Don’t you think he misses you? And if you’re right, if he built the ranch house with Katie in mind, can you imagine what’s it like facing that every single day?” She paused. “You abandoned the house that reminded you of Katie. Luke faces his every day unless he’s chasing after cattle. In fact, it could just be that riding trails and chasing cattle is his way of doing penance.” She waited a moment. “And perhaps, just perhaps, he isn’t the only one guilty of what happened between you and Katie.”

  Matthew took a deep breath. Memories reeled in. Memories he’d avoided, except in the night when what he called his demons came to visit. Luke telling him to spend more time with Katie and less time out in the fields. Luke telling him Katie was lonely. Luke telling him how lucky he was to have a woman like her. And Katie. Crying. Her expression when he said no, he was too tired to go to the neighbors’ for the dance tonight. No, he couldn’t drive her to town for another piece of that pink calico. No, he didn’t think it was a good idea for her to invite the ladies over for a quilting party. No…No…No.

  Martha sighed. Her voice was weary when she next spoke. “Well, I’ve said what I came to say and then some. Plain and simple, you are breaking Linney’s heart, and she’s done nothing to deserve that. She’s done nothing but love you. Please, Matthew. Find a way to let some light into those dark corners in your heart. Jesus said—” she held up her hand—“and I know you don’t want to hear a sermon, and I’m not about to preach one. But Jesus did say that anyone who was weary could come to him, and he’d give them rest. Maybe you could start there. Ask Jesus to help you put the past to rest. Just think how good it would be to lay all that down, Matthew.”

  Matthew gave a wry smile. “I knew the name of Jesus would have to come up.”

  “You mean the Jesus who asked God to forgive the men pounding the nails into his hands? The Jesus who asked God to forgive the men gambling over his clothes while he dangled above them in agony?” She shrugged. “All right. I suppose I am giving a little bit of a sermon after all. But you know, Matthew, it just seems to me that what Jesus forgave was a bit harder than your possibly forgiving your own cousin for loving a beautiful, gentle, kind woman.”

  She stood up. “If you care to know, Luke rode north a while ago. He made a bad joke about you two always seeming to get tangled up and said to tell you he was sorry. That he didn’t know you were in town. I take that to mean he’s trying to be mindful of you, Matthew. I don’t think he expected Linney to be at the store. She was helping serve wedding cake at the dining hall when I saw him leave. I think he was looking for Caroline. He never intended to talk to Linney, and that comment about Katie—well—she does look like her mother. And it probably just slipped out. He’s not an evil man, Matthew. There’s no plot to steal your daughter away from you. Surely you know that.”

  Matthew took a deep breath. Martha was likely right. About a lot of things.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  And I will restore to you the years the locust hath eaten….

  JOEL 2:25

  Grateful for Will Haywood’s presence in the store, Caroline busied herself wiping down the display case glass and dusting shelves as far away as possible from the raggedy men who’d come in on the heels of Matthew Ransom’s attack on Lucas Gray. As the men settled near the storeroom door arou
nd the upended barrel supporting a checkerboard, Caroline wished for Martha’s return even as she worried about Linney and wondered over what had happened earlier.

  If Matthew Ransom was given to outbursts like the one Caroline had just witnessed, perhaps it was a good thing Linney wasn’t keeping house for her father. And for all Caroline’s negative thoughts about Lucas Gray, she’d been impressed by the way he handled the attack. Most men would have been raving mad when they finally came to. Not Mr. Gray. He rubbed his jaw and made a lame joke, and then took his leave without saying one unkind word about Mr. Ransom.

  Caroline had gone to the front window and watched Lucas mount up and ride away. She half expected him to head for the saloon and apply whiskey to his wounded pride, but he hadn’t done that, either. Instead, he’d urged his gelding into a lope and headed straight north. None of it seemed to fit with the cocky cowboy who’d flirted with her and Ruth on the train. And now, as the men around the barrel glanced her way, Caroline wished him back. With him in the room, she was fairly certain those men would mind the checkerboard instead of watching her every move.

  At least there were a few customers in the store. Nancy Darby had just had Caroline cut two yards of a soft flannel. When she selected a card of tiny buttons, Caroline smiled to herself. Mrs. Darby must be in a family way. A woman who introduced herself as “Mrs. Homer Peterson of the Lazy J Ranch” bought every remaining roll of the orange fabric, commenting as she did so that Alice Bailey wasn’t the only quilter in the county who knew how to use a challenging color to its best advantage. After the ladies left, Caroline picked up the feather duster again, working as far away from the checker game as possible. She scolded herself for judging by exteriors, but laws o’massey, how’d a man stand smellin’ like that?