Before the boys could respond, Lindy raced down the stairs, ran to the back screen, and peered out. “Who were those men?”
“Boarders,” Molly said.
“Jeff?”
Molly heard the eagerness in Lindy’s voice. It so echoed the hope she’d felt the night before, seeing the Rangers on her front porch, that she couldn’t speak. She shook her head.
“Who are they?”
Molly watched the back staircase, waiting for the boys’ footsteps to reach the second floor. “No one can know.”
“Mol-ly! You can trust me.”
“They’re Texas Rangers. They’ve come to…uh, to finish the job Rubal was doing.”
“Catch the—?” Lindy’s words stopped.
Molly turned back to the window. “Just don’t tell anybody. The little boys might not be able to keep the secret.”
Behind her Lindy stared into the backyard, toward the barn. “Jeff’ll come back. I know he will.”
“Oh, Lindy.” Molly wanted to go to the girl, to hold her and console her. But she dared not; her own emotions were too fragile. “Life is full of disappointments, Lindy. You just have to keep going. You’ll get over him.”
“Go ahead, Molly. Talk like that if it makes you feel better. But we both know it isn’t true. Look how miserable you are.”
“Lindy. Sit down. Eat. We have work to do today.”
Lindy headed for the back stairs. “I’ll go upstairs and see that the boys get dressed.” She frowned at Molly. “Since you ran Rubal off.”
The rest of the day only got worse, what with the constant reminders. Cleaning the Rangers’ rooms was difficult, since their extra clothing reminded her of Rubal’s. Ranger Ringgold’s room evoked especially painful memories. This was the room Rubal had used.
She stood in the doorway, reluctant, yet strangely eager, to step inside. The bed he had slept on. The window where he’d stood that first day, looking out at the surrounding forest, asking out of the clear blue sky whether Cleatus were her husband.
Her eyes went back to the bed. She hadn’t dared come to this room while he was here, relegating its care to Sugar. And afterwards she avoided it for the very reason she wanted to today. It was but one more painful reminder that he was gone. That he had been here, down the hall from her, for weeks. And now he was gone.
He would never sleep in that bed again. Never dream in that bed. She wondered curiously whether he had dreamed of her while they slept but a hall’s length apart.
Taking tentative steps forward, she tested the mattress, then sat down on it, enveloped in the past, assailed by emotions she could no longer hold in check.
She had run him off. The children were right about that. And nothing would ever be right in her life again.
But what would it have been like otherwise? How could she have lived with a man who lied in the most personal way of all. Why, he allowed her—encouraged her, she fumed—to make love to a man she thought was someone else.
Did he regularly share women with his brother? She heard again his denial of such a thing. Yet his actions and his words had been so far apart. And now he was gone and she was left with nothing but painful memories.
Nothing.
Not Rubal. Not the timber. Soon, if she didn’t find another solution, not even the Blake House.
Or the children.
Sugar found her sitting on the edge of the bed that had been Rubal’s, tears streaming down her face. Settling beside her, Sugar drew Molly to her ample bosom. “Now, now. No use cryin’ over spilt milk.”
“Oh, Sugar. This is so much more than spilt milk.”
Sugar continued to pat her back, allowing her to sob out her disappointment without chastisement. When Molly’s tears began to subside, however, Sugar drew her back and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.
“It don’t have to be this way, missy.”
Molly blinked, confused.
“You could send word for him—”
“No.”
“No? You like bein’ miserable an’ out of sorts with all the world?”
Molly bit her bottom lip. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been hard to get along with. But I’ll get over it.”
“No, missy, I’m afraid you won’t. Folks don’t generally get over sickness in the heart.”
Molly didn’t deny it. It was true. She did feel sick at heart. But Sugar was wrong. She would get over it.
“Those little boys’d sure nuf like to see the mister again.”
“I can’t do that, Sugar. Don’t ask me to. That man has taken advantage of me twice. I’d be a fool to allow it again…much more so to ask for it. Look how he worked his way into the boys’ lives. That proves how black-hearted he is. I won’t set them up to be hurt again.”
“Ah, honey, hurtin’s part of life. You can’t go protectin’ others from life’s hurts. Else they won’t grow strong.”
At length Molly smiled. “If you’re right, we should be the strongest people in Apple Springs.”
Sugar frowned. “Don’t you go feelin’ sorry for you’self, Miss Molly. I won’t stand for that. You don’t have no way of knowin’ how hard other folks’ lives is. If you go to thinkin’ the world’s treatin’ you any different from other folks, you’ll never get your wits back.”
The Blake House was closed to diners—“A mishap in the kitchen,” was how the Rangers wanted the story told—but since Cleatus already knew the truth, he was allowed to continue coming up the hill for meals. Even though the Rangers never returned until well after dusk, Cleatus lingered. Molly wondered whom he trusted less—the Rangers or her. Quickly, she admonished herself. He’d apologized for calling her a tramp, and she accepted his explanation that he had spoken in a fit of jealousy.
But it chagrined her to think he might not trust her with men in general. The fact that she had deceived him about her relationship with Rubal didn’t ease her guilt. More and more, lately she was coming to see how difficult it was to get through life without imparting falsehoods.
With the sudden departure of Rubal and Jeff, and now Travis away at school, the little boys clung to the women’s skirts. They seemed uneasy anytime Molly or Lindy or Sugar were out of sight.
And Cleatus was almost as bad, although Molly knew the Rangers’ presence had something to do with that. By the second evening of the Rangers’ stay, things had gotten out of hand. Even after the dishes were done, everyone hung around the kitchen. Molly finally gave up trying to get the boys and Lindy upstairs. She would have needed a team of twenty mules to do that. They were all still in the kitchen when the Rangers returned.
“Makes no nevermind now,” Ranger Ringgold told Molly, while she and Lindy hastily set three plates at the kitchen table for the boarders. “We left the culprit off at the hoosegow on our way here.”
Sugar carried bowls of mashed potatoes, sawmill gravy and a platter heaped with fried venison, which the Rangers had provided for the Blake House their first day in town. On whose orders, Molly had no doubt.
“You arrested the thief?” she questioned them.
Everyone gathered around the table.
“A thief?” Willie Joe asked, wide-eyed. “Here in Apple Springs?” Little Sam’s mouth gaped. A quick look at Cleatus, showed him to be as bewildered as the boys.
“Was he the one who cut my timber?” Molly inquired.
“Don’t know yet, ma’am. From Rubal Jarrett’s preliminary work, I’d say we caught your thief.”
“He’s down there ajawin’ his head off right now,” Ranger Walters added. “Should know the details come morning.”
They dug into Sugar’s warmed-over supper, finishing what was left of the two berry pies Molly had baked earlier in the day.
“So he wasn’t scouting for a railroad after all,” Cleatus mused. “Another of his bold-faced lies.”
Ranger Ringgold settled back with a second cup of coffee, frowning at Cleatus. “It’s Rubal’s twin, Jubal, who’s the Ranger,” he explained. “Jubal was assigned th
is job in the first place.” Ringgold sipped his coffee with no idea of the turmoil he was causing in this room, Molly thought.
“Don’t know the particulars on why the switch was made,” Ringgold continued, “but I’ll tell you one thing, Rubal Jarrett did a bang-up fine job, and in record time. Without his work, we might never have caught this feller.”
Molly allowed herself to feel a measure of pride. Actually she couldn’t have stopped it swelling in her breast if she’d tried.
“You know Rubal?” Willie Joe asked.
“You bet we do, proud to say.”
“When’s he coming to my house?” Little Sam wanted to know.
The Ranger laughed, covering Molly’s distressed sigh, she hoped.
“You’d have to ask him that, son. I figure it might be a spell, though. Word when we left out of Orange was that Rube’s headin’ out for California.”
“California?” the boys cried in unison.
Molly caught Lindy’s eye. Their gazes locked, transmitting melancholy the length of the table. In desperation, Molly stood and began clearing the table.
California? She knew Lindy’s thoughts—was Jeff going, too. Well, she couldn’t do anything about Rubal, but she could try to ease Lindy’s mind.
“Did you hear anything of a logger named Jeff Harmon?” she asked. “He left here with Rub—uh, with Mr. Jarrett.”
“Sure did, ma’am. Ol’ Jeff’s a hero, sure as shootin’. Boy’s in for a hefty reward once the judge comes through an’ passes sentence on that feller Haslett.”
“Haslett?” Cleatus’s jaw went slack. “Victor Haslett is the timber thief?”
“That’s what we arrested him for,” Ranger Pettis acknowledged. “Don’t rightly know if he’s the only feller involved.”
“Like I said,” Ranger Walters added, “he’s down there right now ajawin’ his head off. By morning we might have a few more suspects to round up.”
Morning brought news no one at the Blake House expected, although it wasn’t until afternoon that Molly learned of it. When the morning’s post arrived, Snoopy trudged up the hill with an unrelated, but equally disturbing, message. A special-delivery letter from Aunt Charlotte saying she and Uncle Thomas were delighted to accept Molly’s invitation to spend Thanksgiving at the Blake House. She added that Uncle Darrell and Aunt Sarah were coming, too; and that since this would be their last chance to visit the old home place before Molly sold it, they were looking forward to a visit of several days. Aunt Charlotte’s letter closed by saying they all felt this would be a good opportunity to settle things concerning the boys’ future.
Molly was indignant. She stormed into the kitchen, waving the letter in front of her.
“Lordy mercy, missy, that’s the first color I’ve seen on your cheeks since the mister left.”
“Color? There should be color. Listen to this.” She read the letter to a startled Sugar.
“Maybe I’ll just take myself down to the quarters for the week,” Sugar responded.
“Not on your life. You can’t leave me here with…with them.”
“Guess you’re right about that. But it won’t give us much to say grace over. I never did cotton to that Uncle Darrell and Aunt Charlotte of yours, nor to the folks they married. What they think, comin’ in here on our holiday, when they never come before? Why the day we buried your mama, they didn’t even stay the night.”
“We weren’t good enough for them,” Molly said.
“It’s the other way aroun’, honey, and I don’t min’ sayin’ so. Why’d you go askin’ ’em in the first place?”
“I didn’t.”
“The letter said…”
“I know what it said. And I know who’s responsible.” Jerking her sunbonnet from the hook beside the back door, Molly pulled it on and tied the strings beneath her chin. “I also know what I’m going to do about it.”
“What you doin’, missy, goin’ over to town in your weedin’ bonnet?”
“I’m going to the bank in my weedin’ bonnet. I wouldn’t give Cleatus Farrington or his meddlin’ mother the satisfaction of dressing up for them.”
But when she entered the bank several minutes later, Cleatus was not around.
“He’s down at the jail,” Cleatus’s secretary, Miss Inez, explained. Her eyes riveted on Molly’s tattered calico bonnet. It didn’t even match her dress. And it was soiled with muddy fingerprints from working in the garden.
“Mr. Cleatus and his father, both,” Miss Inez added. “The Texas Rangers came in here bright and early and dragged them both down to the jail.”
Molly’s expression mirrored that of the astonished secretary’s. But all she could think at the time was “Good riddance.” She didn’t say it. Not aloud in the bank.
She didn’t think she said it aloud. Stomping the block down and two blocks over, she entered the sheriff’s office, which fronted the jail, and stopped dead in her tracks. Cleatus and his father were huddled in one corner of the room with the three Rangers standing around them. Mr. Farrington’s face was red and livid. Cleatus wore his usual hangdog expression, designed, Molly always suspected, to evoke sympathy. Well, he would certainly need someone’s sympathy when she got through with him today.
Seeing her, Cleatus rushed across the small room. Before she could stop him, he took her shoulders in hand and peered earnestly into her eyes. “I didn’t do it, Molly. Honest to God, I had nothing to do with it. You have to believe me.”
Without knowing the first thing about the problem, Molly understood Cleatus Farrington all too well. Same old Cleatus. No matter how bad her life was, his was always worse. No matter how wrong he was, he expected her to take up for him. Before she could respond with the briefest question, he turned her toward the Rangers. “She’ll tell you.” He looked down at her. “Tell them, Molly. Tell them I had nothing to do with cutting your timber.”
His words didn’t make sense, but, then, that wasn’t unusual, she thought, sucking in a lungful of smoky air.
“You know I didn’t, Molly. Tell them.”
As it turned out, Victor Haslett cleared up Cleatus’s involvement in the crime, by admitting that Cleatus hadn’t actually instructed him to cut Molly’s timber.
“But you said you’d like to see it done,” Haslett added. The group had retired to the back of the sheriff’s office and stood around the cell where Victor Haslett was incarcerated.
“That’s a damned lie,” Cleatus returned.
Haslett shrugged. “Maybe those weren’t your words, but you indicated it’d be worth something to you for Miss Durant to turn up empty-handed.”
“Empty-handed?” Molly stared dumfounded at Cleatus. When he reached for her, she stepped away, shrugging off his arm. “Cleatus, how could you?”
“I didn’t do it, Molly. I’m telling you I had nothing to do with cutting that damned timber.”
“It was that last conversation we had about the loan,” Haslett reminded Cleatus. “You know, when we ran into each other down at Morgan’s Bend. You was opinin’ how Miss Durant wouldn’t get rid of those kids, long as she had any means of supportin’ ’em. I recall you saying how you’d tried to convince her that the timber was worthless, then that Jarrett feller came to town and sweet-talked her into thinkin’ she could take care of herself without no need of you, long as she had the timber.”
Molly ran from the sheriff’s office without confronting Cleatus about the Thanksgiving invitations she was certain he and his mother had issued in her name. Another of his attempts to rid her of the children and the Blake House, of course.
The Blake House? That could be a problem. For the first time since they returned from San Augustine, she recalled him saying the Harvey House folks had made an offer.
He couldn’t have accepted it in her name? Surely…
Molly was still stewing over that an hour or so later, when the Rangers collected their belongings, and with Victor Haslett in tow, left Apple Springs. And for once Molly was grateful for her anger at Cleatu
s. It kept her from dwelling on the gaping hole in her life.
When Cleatus arrived for supper, hat in hand, she was prepared. But she waited until after the meal to confront him, because that wasn’t all she intended to straighten out with Cleatus Farrington.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he demanded when she followed him to the porch after the meal. With the Rangers gone, Cleatus would have no reason for hanging around until bedtime, as had become his habit, a habit Molly was determined to break this very night.
“That you asked Haslett to cut my timber?” she barked. “I know you didn’t. But the things you told him…”
“Molly, I’m sorry. Try to understand. I’m miserable without you. I want…”
“I’m not interested in what you want. Go tell your mother. She’s the one who will stop at nothing to fulfill your every wish. Prudence Farrington has spoiled you, Cleatus. She’s ruined you for an ordinary, low-classed woman like myself. I could never make you happy.”
“Aw, Molly, that’s not fair. We can work things out. You and I—”
“No, Cleatus. We can’t work things out, because I don’t want to. But before you leave, you owe me an explanation for the letter I received from Aunt Charlotte today.” When he didn’t appear to understand, she explained. “I suppose it was Prudence who wrote to her friend, who just happens to be my Aunt Charlotte, inviting them to the Blake House for Thanksgiving?”
Hands stuffed in his pockets, Cleatus studied the floor, sheepish.
“And she, who told them it would be their last chance to spend time here before I sell the house?”
His head jerked up. His eyes found hers, but Molly continued, giving him no chance to reply. “Your foster mother, who told Aunt Charlotte that this would be a good time to settle the boys’ future?”
“Molly, listen. Listen. You’re being bullheaded again. Why can’t you understand? You drive us to take such measures. I would have been well within rights to hire Haslett to cut your timber; you don’t have any business sense. You can’t stay here in this run-down old house, raise those children, and make any kind of life for yourself or for any of them. Why, you can’t even send Travis to school for another semester.”
Secret Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Four Page 30
