Montana Rose

by Mary Connealy

  On a soft sigh, she relaxed as she watched Red’s competent hands silently turn the tissue-thin page. She decided she liked Red’s Bible better.

  She fell asleep almost instantly.

  ***

  Red always got to sleep late on Sunday.

  It was something he’d been doing ever since he’d taken over the preaching at Divide, as if his body had a clock of its own and it knew he was miles from his stock and his morning chores. Usually he was outside on the hard ground, something he enjoyed. Although in the winter, it got a little rugged. Muriel had been known to let him sleep on the floor inside, since they held the church services in the general store. But this morning he woke in a soft feather bed. One he’d turned and beaten himself just yesterday. He could still smell the fresh outdoors on it from when he’d let it lie in the sunlight for a while.

  He didn’t think much about the smell and the fluffed-up feathers. They were just a little slice of pleasure added to how Cassie felt in his arms. She was hanging on him just like every morning. Red took a long time praying his thanks to God for how nice she felt. He marveled at how wonderful heaven must be if it was better than how he was feeling right now.

  He had plenty of time before he needed to get up for services. They didn’t hold them until real late, nine o’clock, so people could get their morning chores done and get in from out of town.

  The time at church was Red’s favorite time of the week. He wasn’t a man who believed you had to go to church to talk to God. He carried God with him in his heart all the time, but he loved the joy that rose up in his soul when he talked and sang with other believers. Sharing his faith as a preacher inspired him to study his Bible and pray to God a dozen times a day. He found something exciting every time he read, and God touched his life in a hundred ways during the week that he wanted to tell people about.

  He didn’t run a church service in a very normal way. He didn’t exactly preach a sermon like Parson Bergstrom did. He’d just start talking about something he’d read and how he’d reacted to it. He’d ask the people who were there what they thought about his impressions, and they’d all end up talking long and hard about the Bible verse he’d selected that week.

  He was especially looking forward to this Sunday morning. Being married had given him a new angle on a lot of the Bible. He was viewing love from a husband’s perspective now, and that had given a depth to several Bible stories that he’d never thought of quite the same way.

  He kept coming back to Ephesians and the directive from Paul for wives to submit themselves to their husbands. There were three verses that talked about wives, and Red figured that was where the wedding vows got the word obey for wives but not for husbands. Then for the next ten or so verses it told husbands all they had to do for their wives. Care for her as he would his own body. Love her as Christ loved the church. Die for her if need be just as Christ died for everyone. The Bible made far more demands on the husband than it did on the wife. And Red reckoned that if a man held up his end of the bargain, no wife in the world would have trouble obeying a man that decent.

  He hugged Cassie a little tighter and smiled to himself. Cassie didn’t obey worth a hoot. But then Red didn’t exactly order her around either. It just wasn’t in his nature to be bossy. His main goal in life was to protect her from one brush with death after another without hurting her feelings any.

  He kissed the top of her head as he did every morning and admitted she was getting a little better. She never made the same mistake twice. It was just that she kept coming up with new ways to kill herself and him with her. He thought if they could just live out the next couple of weeks, she might turn into about the best little wife a man ever had.

  He got kicked in the side, and Red almost trembled from the stunning sensation of a little life growing inside Cassie. The tiny assault drew him from his satisfying musing about marriage to a more personal inspection of his lawfully wedded wife.

  Cassie’s head nestled on his left shoulder. Her black hair had been braided when she went to bed, but as it did most nights, it escaped her ribbons. It was spread across his chest and her back all the way to her waist. Her left leg was hooked over his. Her warm belly rested between their bodies, and maybe the little feller was saying it was too tight a squeeze because he seemed to be trying to knock himself a little more space.

  Red’s arm rested across the top of Cassie’s stomach, and he didn’t resist the temptation to brush her hair aside, smoothing it over and over. Once in a while the babe moved so vigorously that Red thought he must be doing a somersault. He laughed silently at the energetic tyke and longed for the day he’d come on out and join the family.

  Red knew he ought to just slip out of bed as he did most mornings at home, but this was Sunday and they had a good hour to dress and eat breakfast before services. He had no excuse to tear himself away. So he smoothed her hair and held her close and decided Sunday, already his favorite day, had just become about a hundredfold better.

  Cassie’s breathing became slightly less regular, and he knew she was waking up. He watched her face closely, eager to memorize every nuance of her expression when she realized how she was clinging to him. Like the mornings when he hadn’t slipped away quickly enough, he expected her to pull back in alarm and put about a foot of space between them. He didn’t mind, not too much. He thought her trust in him and her desire to be close to him when she was sleeping was a good sign because her actions weren’t all clouded up with grief and embarrassment. She honestly liked to be held in her sleep, and he thought with time that would spread into the daytime. And he’d be glad to be the one to hold her for the rest of her life.

  She rubbed her cheek against the bristly hair that peeked through the top of his nightshirt, even turning a bit to lightly scratch her nose. She muttered a bit and the babe kicked again. Cassie’s hand glided slowly across Red’s waist to rest on her stomach. Her eyes fluttered open and she stared straight at Red.

  Quickly before she could pull away, Red ran one finger down the curve of her cheek and said, “I like feelin’ the babe move this way. Thank you for lying close to me like this.”

  Red felt her control that little jump of embarrassment that accompanied waking every morning. Instead, she let her hand rest on the baby, and Red’s hand joined hers and they stared at the visibly moving white flannel on her belly and just incidentally went on holding each other.

  After her muscles had relaxed against him, Red said, “Tell me what all Muriel and Libby and Leota said about babies yesterday.”

  Cassie surprised him by laughing. He thought that meant she was comfortable hugged up against him and that made him happy.

  “Oh Red, the things they said right out loud. Private things I’d never before heard anyone say.”

  Red tilted her chin up. “Now Cass, just because you’ve never heard it before doesn’t mean no one else has. You’ve been mighty sheltered, with your mama dying when you were so young and Griff being uncomfortable talking about such things. I want you to talk to me about this. I’m telling you right now, nothing is too personal for a wife to say to her husband.”

  Cassie nodded. “You’re right. It just seemed so ... sort of wicked, I guess. But they aren’t wicked ladies. I know that. So I decided to listen and learn and we ended up laughing at the whole business of delivering a baby into the world. Muriel asked me terribly personal questions and I answered all I could. She ... she wanted to know how evenly my l–lady’s time was spaced. When I told her sometimes months apart, she wanted to know how long before I missed my ... time had I been ... been...” Cassie stopped talking.

  Red rubbed one finger down the length of her nose. “Say it, Cass.”

  “She wanted to know when Griff and I had ... had seen to his...” Cassie had buried her face more and more in his chest. “His husbandly ... prerogatives.” She glanced at him when she was finished and her face was blazing red.

  Red wanted to blush, too. When he’d said they could talk about anything, he hadn�
��t expected this. He wanted to yell at her that he didn’t want to hear about her and Griff, but he stayed calm because he’d be taking back all he’d said about them talking about anything. “And what did you say?”

  “I said I wasn’t sure exactly but it was the one in the winter.”

  “The one in the...” Red choked his startled question.

  Cassie looked at him uncertainly and he struggled valiantly to keep a straight face.

  She looked back at his chest. “Yes, and very often the one in the winter was toward the end, so early to mid-March. Then, when I said that, for some reason they all three started laughing like crazy and they wouldn’t tell me why. I guess it’s because I don’t know anything and that struck them funny, but they didn’t want to hurt my feelings by saying so. Then Muriel said the baby would come in mid-December. That’s six weeks. And she told me how to know the laboring had started and that you’re to send word to the neighbors and one of the Jessup hands would come for her. Is that all right?”

  Red heaved a sigh of relief at the suggestion. He’d been terrified that he’d have to deliver the baby on his own. He’d seen a lot of baby animals born and even aided a few cattle that were having trouble, but he’d been having nightmares about being alone and letting Cassie and the baby die because of some stupid mistake. “Yes, that’s a good idea. The Jessups will be perfect. They’re good friends of mine.”

  Cassie revealed details about having babies that Red found extremely embarrassing. He realized she’d taken his order to talk about everything to heart. For a while he wondered if he’d started something he was going to regret because he didn’t want to know some of this stuff, but he’d made the rule. He couldn’t quite believe Cassie was telling him all of these amazingly indelicate things.

  Then with dawning delight, it occurred to him that Cassie had obeyed him. The more he thought about it, the more he remembered dozens of times when she’d quietly obeyed him in the last week. He’d just been lying here thinking that she didn’t obey worth a hoot, but that wasn’t true.

  She wasn’t disobedient. She was incompetent.

  Her attempts to help around the ranch were well-meant efforts to obey his pronouncement the first day that he’d like her to milk and garden and gather eggs. He hugged her a little closer and controlled a shudder at the graphic things she was saying to him. He wondered if women talked like this all the time or had Muriel taken his gruff edict that Cassie didn’t know anything about having a baby seriously and swallowed her own embarrassment.

  He did his best to ignore what Cassie was saying and decided the next week was going to be different. He wasn’t going to resist her attempts to help anymore. He was going to teach her, just like Muriel had done.

  Cassie took a break from her gory tales of blood and screaming women, tales that didn’t seem to be upsetting her at all, and Red said, “We have to get up and go to church now.”

  “Yes, Red.” She rolled away from him, got up, and began collecting her clothes.

  Red’s heart expanded at how instantly she’d submitted to him. It made him feel like a king. He wasn’t sure it was Christian to feel like a king, so he tried not to enjoy it too much.

  CHAPTER 13

  Cassie was surprised when Red went to the back door of Bates General Store and went in without bothering to knock.

  He went through the hallway that passed the living quarters without making his presence known to anyone and started moving things around in the store, clearing a space for people to gather around the stove.

  Cassie started to help, but Red said, “Not the pickle barrel, Cass. I’ll get that. It’s too heavy for you and it spills easy. If you want to help, pull the lighter barrels to one side, the crackers, and those crates of apples.”

  Cassie did as he directed but wished she was more sure of what all needed to be moved. Red never was one to give very good orders, leaving it to her to figure it out alone. She much preferred being told specifically what to do.

  She took everything light, which was a goodly share of the stacks of supplies in the store, and he took everything heavy. After just a few minutes, Red called a halt, saying there was room enough for everyone to gather.

  Muriel came in about then and stopped short. “I would have lent a hand, Red. I was poky this morning.”

  “Nah, we were fast. Cass did most of it.” Red smiled over at her and her heated cheeks told her she was blushing.

  Muriel went to the front door, picking her way carefully through the jumbled merchandise. She unlocked the door. “Cassie’s a worker, all right. She saved the day yesterday. I declare I would still be here filling orders if she hadn’t taken a hand.”

  Cassie thought her head would explode from the effort to contain her pride. “Cassie’s a worker.” She’d never heard it said about her before.

  Libby came in just in time to hear the last of Muriel’s comment. Her husband was just behind her and several more people were with them. “You should have seen her bring my supplies, Red. She carried a fifty-pound bag of flour in her arms like a baby and asked as sweet as you please where she should set it and that she’d be back with the rest. Every man in the place stood up from his chair as if they had springs in their backsides and just followed her back to Muriel ’n Seth’s.”

  Libby’s husband, Ralph Jeffreys, laughed, and Cassie looked at Red again, uncertain if she robbed him of his honest pay.

  Ralph said, “I was there when she came back, carrying, what was it, Cassie, a can of peaches or a...”

  “It was eggs,” a man just entering the store said. “We weren’t about to let this pretty li’l lady, with a baby on the way to boot, carry five hundred pounds of groceries for you. I’m right ashamed of you for asking her to, Libby Jeffreys.”

  Libby turned in outrage. “I never asked her to carry five hundred...” Libby saw who was talking, gasped out loud, and chuckled. “Sam, you scalawag! I didn’t know you were back from hauling.”

  The newcomer came and lifted Libby into a bear hug, laughing. “Howdy, Ma. Just teasin’.”

  He tipped his hat to Cassie, who had backed a little away from the growing crowd until she was standing pressed against Red. Red rested his hand on her waist and anchored her to his side.

  In the next ten minutes, the general store became crowded with people, friendly and happy to see each other. Red greeted each of them by name and shook hands. He introduced Cassie to them and she said, “Hello,” trying to put names and faces together. She recognized quite a few of them from yesterday in the store, and although she continued to greet them by name once they’d been introduced, she soon gave up any hope of remembering all these men, overwhelmed by the sea of strangers.

  She did know Norman York, and she tried to remember Leota Pickett’s husband and the little Pickett children. Children were a rarity in Divide and they were enchanting to her. She was sure she’d never forget their names.

  Then as quickly as the people began crowding in, everyone settled into silence, and Red left her side and stood close to the heating stove. He said, “Let’s start with a prayer.”

  Cassie found herself startled to have her husband in charge. Of course she’d known he was leading the service. He’d said so often enough. But somehow she hadn’t really thought what that meant. It had just seemed like another of his many jobs. Now a strong surge of pride in her handsome husband swelled in her chest as he took charge of this large group.

  She remembered the fire-and-brimstone preaching she’d grown up with in Illinois, and she waited for that kind of intensity to come out of Red. But Red just stayed his sweet, quiet self. He prayed in front of all these people with the same casual, loving manner he’d used before their meals.

  Halfway through his prayer—Cassie expected it was only halfway because she’d heard a lot of praying as a child and knew it was a lengthy proceeding—Red said, “Many petitions in prayer are pleasing to the Lord. Would anyone like some concern of his heart lifted up to God?” A deep voice behind her spoke to God
about his brother’s broken leg healing straight and strong. Another asked for his ailing mother in St. Louis to be remembered. And so it went. There were many needs in the West and many worries.

  She could sense burdens lifting as they all put their worries before God and prayed together. She didn’t speak out loud, but for the first time in a long time, she prayed, too. She prayed for her baby’s health and for Red’s safety and for more of the chickens to come back. Then Red surprised her by resting his hand on her shoulder. He’d moved away from her when he’d started talking, but he had moved closer to her during the prayer. He prayed for Griff, for God to shelter his immortal soul. Then Red thanked God for her.

  Cassie couldn’t contain a tiny gasp of pleasure. Red didn’t ask God to make her less clumsy and stupid. He didn’t pray for childlike Cassie Griffin Dawson to quit shaming him and grow up. He thanked God so kindly for making her his wife that she couldn’t help but believe he meant it. And he prayed for the baby and prayed quite fervently for Muriel to get there in plenty of time to help deliver it. That made everyone laugh, which Cassie didn’t understand, but the laughter, laced with the sweet prayer and Red’s kindhearted thanks for her, had lifted her spirits so that she laughed a little herself with the pure pleasure of the day.

  Then Red said his, “Amen,” and moved back to where he’d stood in front of everyone and started talking about marriage. He didn’t preach a sermon like any she’d heard before, and the congregation seemed to feel free to interrupt him as often as they liked. One man said marriage was a bad subject since so few of them were married.

  Red said, “Leave your cattle to the wolves and go find a wife. It’s worth it.”

  Everyone laughed and Cassie was so pleased with Red she was sorely tempted to cry.

  He talked about a wife obeying her husband and how all the burden lay with the husband, because he is called to love her more than his own body and to never do anything to harm her soul, so a man must never ask a woman to obey anything that is against her own ideas of right and wrong.