Among the Fair Magnolias

by Tamera Alexander

  Once he’d removed the old straw and smoothed the dirt, he breathed a sigh of relief. But fresh oats and hay would have to be found soon. Because even though Candy was not real fancy, he didn’t have the heart to let her stay in such a dirty place for even a few minutes.

  When the stall was as good as he could get it, he took off the saddle, found her some water, and rubbed her down. “Come on in, Can,” he said, gently pulling on her bridle. “It’s not good, but it’s all we’ve got.” When she planted a somewhat skeptical eye on him, he chuckled. “We’ve had worse. You know that.”

  After he closed the stall’s door, he faced the inevitable. He couldn’t put it off anymore . . . it was time to see his mother. Russell turned and walked to the house, finally admitting to himself the awful truth. He hadn’t come back to see the land or a ramshackle barn or an old house on the verge of ruin.

  No, he’d come back to see his mother.

  He had no idea if she was going to let him in. There was a pretty good chance she wouldn’t. After all, only a cold woman without a heart would cast out her son when he was fifteen.

  There was a real good chance she wasn’t going to feel any kinder toward him even after all these years. Especially since he never sent her a single note or card since he’d left.

  He could only hope that she’d tell him what happened to Nora before she asked him to leave. It would ease his mind to know that she was happily married and looking over a slew of kids.

  Steeling his shoulders, he marched to the door and knocked twice. When no one answered, Russell jiggled the handle, fully prepared to bust open the lock if he needed to.

  Instead, the handle turned easily. The door swung open on well-oiled hinges, allowing him entrance to a bare entryway.

  “Hello?” he called out as he stepped over the threshold. He felt like a fool, calling out the way he did. No one did that. Not returning sons. Definitely not men who’d ridden with an outlaw gang.

  For a moment he considered turning around and retrieving his treasured Colt out of his saddlebag. That was the smart thing. But though every man in the Walton Gang would have cuffed him on the side of the head for walking into a place unarmed, facing his mother with a pistol in his hand didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

  After all, there had to be somewhere in the world where a man could let his guard down. Somewhere a man could go without looking at it through the narrow confines of a weapon.

  But as a telltale itch traveled up his spine, he began to think he had seriously misjudged the situation. His gut told him something was wrong. And though he hadn’t been an especially good outlaw, he had learned a thing or two.

  Cautiously, he entered the kitchen. To his relief, it lay still and ordinary. Recently used and recently tidied. But what, really, did he know about such things anymore?

  “Hello?” he called out again. Now he found himself fighting a lump in his throat. He pretended it was from nerves instead of raw emotion. “Anybody here?”

  When only silence continued to meet him, Russell swallowed and tried to think on the right side of things.

  Maybe it was good he wasn’t calling out for his mother. Maybe she was long gone, and all that remained of her here were his memories.

  The suspicion that had curved around his brain started to take hold. That had to be it. She had passed. Made sense, he supposed. A lot could happen in seven years, and times had been hard. Very hard.

  A weak call came from the back. The bedroom his mother had shared with his mean-as-a-snake stepfather. “Who’s here?”

  Even after so long, he knew that voice. Recognized it as easily as if she’d called him to come in for supper.

  Relief made him close his eyes. His mother was still here. He was going to see her one more time.

  Russell needed to get a grip on himself, as he was currently fighting the urge to both cry and run. But he was no longer a stubborn, dreamy child.

  And his mother was no longer a person he feared disappointing.

  “Who’s here?” she called out again. This time panicked. Suspicious.

  Swallowing the lump that threatened to cut off his air supply, he rushed through the short hallway and burst into the room.

  Only to come face-to-face with the wrong side of a pistol.

  As he heard the trigger click into place, two things came to mind.

  One was that his homecoming wasn’t going to be the happy occasion he’d hoped it would be.

  The other was that Scout Proffitt had been right. Russell really should have brought his gun.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “WHO ARE YOU?” HIS MOTHER ASKED AS THE WORN-OUT PISTOL in her hand looked to be in danger of either bouncing on the mattress ticking or firing. If the latter happened, Russell sure hoped it would end up hitting the wall behind him. It would be a real shame to die at his mother’s hand.

  As she glared at him through rheumy eyes, she rasped, “What do you want?”

  He didn’t know what he wanted anymore. So he made do with telling her the obvious. “It’s me, Ma. Russell.”

  She blinked in the dim light. “Russell?” The pistol in her hand wavered.

  He held up his hands. Whether it was a gesture of surrender or an attempt to calm her, he wasn’t really sure. “How ’bout you set that gun down?” He attempted to smile. “You’re scaring me.”

  After staring at him for far too long, she lowered her right hand and loosened her hold on the weapon.

  Russell breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I can’t believe I’m seeing you again,” she said. “I just can’t believe it.”

  She hadn’t yet said that she was glad to see him. That was notable.

  “I can hardly believe I’m here either.” Not daring to walk any closer, he remained where he was. Hands hanging loose by his sides, staring at the woman who’d birthed him. One of the two women he’d loved beyond all else. The one whose betrayal had cut him the most deeply.

  Her hair was pinned up. And though she was in bed, she wasn’t in a white linen night rail. Instead, it looked to be a faded and worn calico. Her eyes were the same though. Like his, they were dark brown and framed with thick, dark lashes.

  She said nothing as she looked her fill. He did the same thing. Then, at last, she spoke. “Russell, you’re a grown man now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I had hoped you would do all right. I had hoped . . .” Her voice drifted off as if what she was thinking was too painful to dwell on. After a brief shake of her head, she said softly, “I’m fair surprised you even recognized me as your ma. I reckon I look a sight different than I used to.”

  Although her eyes were the same, much was different. Her skin had always been supple and ruddy, the consequence of being a rancher’s wife. Now, her skin was pale and papery. As delicate looking as tissue paper. While he remembered her hair a chestnut brown, the same shade as his own, it was now liberally lined with gray.

  But her tentative smile? That looked almost exactly as he remembered. After marrying Emmitt, she’d been too afraid to trust herself. Too afraid to do anything to cause her husband’s meaty hand to strike.

  “Your smile’s the same,” he said, because he couldn’t bear to lie to her. “Your voice is too.”

  “You think so?” That smile deepened, bringing with it a spark of light in her eyes before she looked at him like he could give her everything she’d ever wanted. “Law, Russell. I can’t believe you’re standing here at the foot of my bed. It’s like I conjured you up in a dream.”

  There were so many things he should say. So many things he wanted to. But none felt right. He wasn’t in any hurry to bring up his last day at home, though most of the time that last day was all he ever remembered of this place.

  Instead, he stuck to the present. “Why are you in bed? Are you ill?”

  She shrugged. “The doctor don’t know exactly how to classify my illness. About two or three years ago my muscles started getting weak. I seem to be wasting away.”
r />   In spite of his best intentions, her words pierced his heart. “Wasting away?” And it had been going on for years?

  “It’s been a progressive thing. Used to be, I needed to sit down frequently. Then I had to cut back on my chores.” Not meeting his eyes, she said, “Then about eight months ago that became too much.”

  Pity for her circumstances slid into him with the stealth of a viper. She had been hurting for some time. For quite some time.

  She, too, had suffered.

  Unable to focus on that, he again guided the conversation to an easier path. “The house looks clean. How do you manage that?”

  Her brow wrinkled. “The house? Oh, a woman comes in for a couple of hours every day. She helps me bathe. Runs a mop now and then. Keeps things good enough.”

  “Does she bring you meals?” Russell couldn’t tell much about her weight under the voluminous faded dress and pile of quilts and covers. But she seemed to have wasted away, especially given the warmth of the season.

  “She brings me food.”

  “Enough?” Though why he asked he didn’t know.

  “She brings enough. I, um, don’t eat much anymore.”

  “I’m sorry about that.” To his surprise, he actually was. After all the bitterness and all the hurt, he never would have imagined that he would feel anything toward her but disappointment.

  Those first words of kindness seemed to do everything his presence had not. She looked away as her voice turned hard. “Don’t you start feeling sorry for me, Russell. We both know my suffering ain’t nothing I don’t deserve.”

  He gaped at her. “What are you saying?”

  “You heard me. We both know God saw fit to punish me for my behavior toward you.”

  Her words were so surprising that he did the very last thing he thought he’d ever do. He defended her. “Emmitt beat you.”

  “He did. He beat my son as well.” She looked at the pistol lying next to her hand.

  He stepped closer, snatched up the gun, and placed it out of her reach. “He catted around on you.”

  “Yes, he sure did. That was never a secret, I’m afraid.” Her lips tightened. “He was a difficult man with many faults.”

  He’d actually known his fair share of difficult men plagued by faults. Emmitt Johnson hadn’t been like that. He’d been cruel. Heartless. “He was far worse.”

  “I know that too. Only a man who was far worse would ever try to force himself on his stepson’s girl.” She winced. “In this very house.”

  Even now, seven years later, the agony of hearing Nora’s cries, of seeing Emmitt with his rough hands tearing at the collar of her dress, practically forced every last bit of air from his lungs.

  If he’d been alone, Russell would have closed his eyes tight, done anything he could to push away the image. But he was a grown man in his mother’s house.

  And, it seemed, she expected him to be able to talk about it.

  Therefore, he looked directly in her eyes. “Yes. Yes, he did. He tried to force himself on my girl. On Nora.”

  The pain in her eyes reflected the stinging in his heart. “It wasn’t right, what he did. Nora was special, of course, but no girl deserved that.”

  “No, it wasn’t right,” he agreed. But it had been more than that. It had been so very, very wrong.

  Remembering that moment, remembering Nora’s face, Russell knew that while what he’d done wasn’t right, he would have done it again. If Russell hadn’t stabbed Emmitt, if he hadn’t struck him hard through his ribs with that bowie knife, Nora would never have been the same.

  “It wasn’t right. And that is why I killed him.”

  “Yes, you did. You killed my husband, the man who’d given me nothing but shame and pain from the day I said my vows. You stopped him from hurting me further. From hurting that sweet Nora Hudson.”

  The tension in her voice accentuated the tremors in his muscles. All the anger and frustration and pain returned tenfold. “I had no choice,” he said.

  “No choice at all,” she whispered, staring at him with wide, pain-filled eyes. “You did what you had to do. And for that, I sent you away.”

  The words were unadorned and plainly spoken. Said quietly without added guilt or hurtful blame or excessive emotion.

  Which was why Russell was able to stand stoically at the foot of his mother’s bed and hold the tears at bay.

  It was why he was able to hold her gaze and at long last come to terms with what he’d always secretly believed to be true but had never been brave enough to admit out loud.

  He didn’t regret murdering Emmitt Johnson. Fact was, he would have done it again in a heartbeat.

  It seemed he, like this poor, broken-down ranch and his ailing mother, was in no great hurry to get fixed.

  Perhaps it wasn’t even possible.

  After Russell composed himself, he brought a chair in from the kitchen and sat down next to his mother. He had no idea what was going to become of the two of them. All he knew was that he needed these next couple of minutes with her. He needed it like food and water. Needed it like the comforting hand of God’s healing grace.

  When she gazed up at him in wonderment, a true mixture of disbelief and joy, he realized he felt very much the same things. Never would he have thought to see his mother smile at him, or to look at him the way she was, as if she was doing everything she possibly could to refrain from clutching his hand to her side.

  “I know I keep saying it, but I truly can’t believe you’re here,” his mother said after the silence between them began to pull a bit. “I hoped and dreamed and prayed, but I never thought that the Lord was going to forgive me enough to give me this gift.” Wonder filled her tone.

  “I never thought it would happen either,” he allowed. “However, I needed to return. One last time.”

  Something in her eyes faded. “Ah.” After visibly regaining her composure, she spoke again. “Is that what brought you here at long last? You wanted to see everything before you moved on for good?”

  Russell wasn’t really sure. He’d wanted to ease his mind. Come to grips with what had happened. Maybe even a part of him yearned to feel justified. Maybe he simply wanted to be able to sleep at night.

  But all of that would reveal too much.

  “I happened to be nearby,” he murmured. “Figured I might as well stop and see the place.” What a coward he was! He wasn’t even able to speak the truth.

  A little more light extinguished in her eyes as it became evident that she believed every word he said. “I see. Well, as I’m sure you noticed, everything here is older and more worn down. Worse for wear.” With a grimace she ran a hand along her brow. “Myself included.”

  Guilt slashed through him, though he had no cause for that. After all, he hadn’t left by choice. “Saw you don’t have any horses.”

  “The expense grew too dear. Plus, it wasn’t like I was riding. I figured they needed something better.”

  “I guess so.” His collar started feeling tight. Constricting. He needed to get out of this room. Heck, he needed to get off the land. Away from the hope that was teasing them both.

  But responsibility clawed at him. Maybe underneath his violent ways and lies there really was some of his father’s goodness inside him. “Would you like me to do something for you before I leave?”

  Her expression fell. “You . . . you’re leaving? Already?”

  “Well, within the hour. No reason for me to stay.”

  She closed her eyes. “No, I guess there isn’t. I mean, not anymore.” She cleared her throat. “You can go ahead and leave now. Like I said, a girl comes in once a day to help me. I’ll be fine.”

  Feeling like he was being sent away again, though it made no sense because this time he was the one doing the leaving, he jerked his head into a nod and got to his feet.

  Then, just as he was picking up the chair and turning away, she spoke.

  “Do you ever think about that day, Russell?”

  Glad his back was t
urned, glad she would never see the pain that was now surely shining in his eyes, he replied, “All the time.”

  “I think of it too. Quite a bit, actually.”

  He was sure she did. Though he ached to leave it alone, the silence hanging between them practically begged him to respond. Feeling as if each word choked him, he muttered, “It was . . . it was a hard day to forget.”

  “I know I said things I shouldn’t.”

  He reckoned that was true. But for some reason, he couldn’t bear to remind her of what she’d done.

  Therefore, instead he said softly, “A lot happened that day that shouldn’t have.”

  “Emmitt was a difficult man. He often let his temper get the best of him.”

  No, it was more than that. And while Russell might be okay with covering up a lot of things, he wasn’t okay with remembering Emmitt any differently than the way he was. “He was mean and selfish. Violent. Cruel.” Still afraid to turn back around, he continued. It seemed he was unable to stop saying things she didn’t want to hear, but he was too tired of keeping them to himself. “We both know he beat you every chance he got.”

  “He treated you the same way.”

  “I know.” As violent, painful memories flashed in his head, he forced them away. “He was an evil man.”

  “You took his life.”

  He heard it. Even though his back was turned, he heard her condemnation. And even now, after all this time, he found himself being surprised that his mother still didn’t understand why he’d done what he’d done.

  “I killed him because he was going to taint the only thing good in my life, Ma.” Stealth-like, those memories forced him to recall the name. Nora.

  Nora Hudson, with her honey-golden hair and bright-blue eyes and pretty, sunny smile. His girl.

  Emmitt Johnson had been just seconds from forcing himself on Nora. The collar of her dress had already been torn. So many worse things had been about to take place.

  “He was going to hurt Nora,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. As if that reminder wasn’t capable of clawing deep marks of regret inside him.