Dorothy Garlock

by This Loving Land

  She watched the vanishing hills pick up colors of sun and sky, watched the prairie of bleached grass stretch into nothingness. She stared back over the trail until the sun’s glare caused the corners of her eyes to water. An eagle spiraled in the sky, climbing higher toward the sun until he was only a speck in the vast emptiness. Oh, to be an eagle!

  The worst part of her pain was buried in the back of her mind and she was determined not to let it surface. It was there all the time, on the periphery of her vision, tormenting her, reminding her.

  They splashed across a shallow creek and rolled into a stage stop. Because it was so hot, Bill said they would take a few extra minutes after the fresh horses were hitched, if anyone wished to get out. Everyone did, except Summer. She sat and waited, hardly conscious that the back of her dress was soaked with sweat and that rivulets ran between her breasts. The Mexican woman with the baby on her hip brought her a dipper of water. Summer drank it thirstily, greedily, and thanked the woman with a tearful word.

  Rolling again, Bill cracked the whip and shouted to the straining team to make up for the minutes lost. The afternoon wore on. No one talked. The baby slept. The coach was like a furnace. Summer felt lightheaded, like she was floating. The torturous ride was making every inch of the road known to her aching body. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, her mind too weary for thought.

  When the coach slowed and came to a stop, she didn’t bother to raise her head or open her eyes until the voice of the man opposite blasted forth.

  “Now what the hell’s the matter? We ain’t never gonna get nowhere at this rate.”

  Summer looked out the window, squinted her eyes, thinking she saw Jack sitting on his big sorrel talking to the driver. She blinked several times and looked again. He was still there. On this very hot day, in this steaming coach, she felt such a chill she clamped her jaws tight to keep her teeth from chattering. How could it be? He couldn’t have known she was on the stage. She shrank back against the seat, holding her hat in front of her as if to shield her face from the sun. She felt the coach sway as Bill got down off the high seat, heard the man opposite her curse the delay, heard the door of the coach open.

  “Miss,” Bill was saying to her, “Jack here says he’s come to take you off the stage.”

  “No! I paid my fare. I’m going to Austin.”

  “It’s up to you, miss, if’n you go or stay,” Bill said firmly, and banged the door shut.

  A few minutes passed, and the door opened again. Jack stood there looking at Summer. She wanted to die.

  “Summer, get on out now, ’n let these folks go on. I come to get ya, and I ain’t leavin’ without ya.”

  “No! I’m not getting out. You’ve no right to interfere.”

  “Hell, no, you ain’t got no right. The gal don’t have to go if’n she ain’t of a mind to.” This came from one of the men inside the coach.

  Jack ignored him. “It’ll save a heap of trouble if you step out. It’s that or the folks here’ll have to wait with ya.”

  “Leave me alone, Jack. I’m not going back, so go away and leave me alone.” Anger and humiliation caused the tears to stream from her eyes.

  Jack stepped back and motioned for Bill to move away from the coach. When they turned to face each other, Jack’s six-gun was pointed at his belly.

  “What’s . . . what’s this?”

  “I sure do hate to do this, Bill, but it don’t ’pear to be no other way. There’s a man a comin’ a few miles back. He’s been ridin’ in a wagon, a joltin’ over ruts and prairie-dog holes since two hours afore daylight. He got two bad holes in him and some broken ribs and hands what ain’t let him feed hisself in a week. He’s comin’ to see that gal and yore not movin’ till he gets here.”

  “You know yore settin’ yourself up for trouble a pulling a gun on me, Jack. My job’s to take this stage to Austin. If that little gal and her man had an out, it’s betwixt them. The law could come down real hard on you, Jack, for holding up the stage.”

  “Then it’s goin’ to have to do it, ’cause I’m holding you all here till Slater gets here. Won’t be long. I can see their dust.”

  “What did you do? Come cross-country? That’s a hell of a ride.”

  Jack grinned. “Tell yore helper to pull the coach over to the shade while we wait.” With his gun, he motioned toward a spreading pecan tree that was one of several along the stretch of shadeless trail.

  “Pull over under the shade tree, Gus. We’ll be waitin’ a spell, that is, if’n the lady ain’t changed her mind. The folk can step out and stretch a spell.”

  The helper leaned over and called to Summer, then yelled out to Bill. “The woman says no, Bill.” The coach moved to the shade.

  “Goddam women! Glad I ain’t married up with one.” Bill cursed and took off his dusty hat and beat it against his thigh.

  “It won’t be long, Bill. You and Slater will have to settle it. Ain’t nothing wrong with his mouth. Ain’t never heard so many curses come out of it afore. He’s fit to be tied since he heard it was Jesse that put her on the stage. That joltin’ ride ain’t done his temper no good, even if’n we did fix up a sling in the wagon and put a feather bed on it.”

  The three men and the woman got out of the coach, leaving Summer alone with the woman with the baby. The doors were left open and a breeze of sorts cooled them a little. Summer wiped her face on her sopped handkerchief. The woman held out a timid hand and touched her knee. The action of sympathy caused her to lift her head. Jack had no right to make them wait like this, thinking she would change her mind. She’d tell him so. She turned around so she could see him and thought she must be losing her mind. Did Jack have a gun pointed at the driver? Dear God, he did! What was happening? Had the world gone crazy?

  “Jack! Jack, what are you doing?” She scrambled out of the coach, almost falling in her haste. “Let him go. It isn’t right for you to hold him! Let me tell. . . .”

  “Ain’t no need for you to be a tellin’ me nothin’. The wagon’s comin’. You can tell Slater yoreself why you run off and left him and him all stoved up.” Jack’s voice was cold, hard, as if he were speaking to an enemy. “He’s goin’ to have his say . . . if’n one of them jolts ain’t drove a broke rib through his lungs.”

  A wagon was approaching at a fast clip. Dust surrounded it briefly before drifting away to be replaced by more dust. Summer stood in numbed silence. Slater was in the wagon! She wanted to run, but even her numbed mind knew it was futile.

  Bulldog pulled up hard on the team, slowing them to a walk and then brought the wagon to a halt a few feet from where she stood. Slater lay in a canvas sling in the back of the wagon. His face was streaked with dirt and sweat and his eyes blazed with anger. He raised himself up painfully and leaned on one elbow. His eyes raked her, narrowed, and his nostrils flared.

  “Get in the wagon!” He spat the words. “Get her trunk, Jack.”

  “No!” Summer started toward the wagon. “You don’t understand.”

  “I sure as hell don’t understand! Didn’t you have the guts to tell me to my face you’d changed your mind? Tell me to my ugly, scarred face?” He was shouting. “Couldn’t you tell me instead of slinking off with a bastard like Jesse Thurston? Some would say I’m lucky to be shed of you, but you’re going to tell me why, and you’re going to tell that boy back at the Keep that’s worrying and crying over your leaving him.”

  Summer couldn’t reconcile this Slater with the Slater of a few weeks ago. He was livid with anger.

  “Don’t! Don’t . . . please. . . .”

  “Don’t!” he mocked. “Get in the wagon!”

  “I won’t.” Summer tried to firm her quivering voice. “Didn’t Sadie give you the letter?”

  “I don’t give a goddam for a letter! Now get in the wagon or I’ll let loose with this shotgun and blast those horses to hell! Those folks will spend the night out here on the prairie.” He lifted the gun cradled in his arms, the muzzle pointed at the coach horses. “I
still got a thumb to pull the trigger.”

  The tension in him was so strong that she was shaking from the impact of it.

  “You wouldn’t! You couldn’t be so cruel.”

  “Cruel? You’ve put me through five days of hell. In about thirty seconds, you’re going to see how cruel I am.”

  “Don’t make me do this, Slater. Please, don’t make me.”

  For the first time, she looked him full in the face. It was a face she didn’t know, and her eyes widened as she stared at him. His eyes were sunken and blazed with bitterness. His cheekbones stood above hollowed cheeks shadowed with a day’s growth of beard, a vein in his temple stood out prominently and throbbed with each beat of his heart. It was the boniness of his face, the wolfish snarl of his twisted mouth that held her in acute fear. The scraping of metal, as he cocked the gun, put her weak legs into motion, and she moved to the back of the wagon and crawled in over the tailgate. Almost as soon as she sank down on the plank floor and covered her face with her hands, she heard the thump of her trunk as it was dumped down beside her. The wagon lurched, the team making a full circle, before beginning a steady, rolling pace.

  Summer sat crunched in the corner of the jolting wagon, her mind going in a thousand directions. How was she going to tell him? How was she going to spare him the shame and the hurt of knowing he had shared with his sister the most intimate act a man can share with a woman? How could she tell him that she was going to have his child? A human being that more than likely would be deformed, an idiot!

  The sun beat down mercilessly on her head and the soft skin of the back of her neck. She was so steeped in her own misery she didn’t notice. She was almost drowsy when Slater’s harsh voice broke the silence.

  “Put your hat on. You’ll be sick from the sun.”

  She raised her head and groped blindly for her hat because her eyes were blinded by the brightness of the sun. After a few minutes, she glanced at him. His face was turned away from her so she was free to look at him. He lay sprawled in the sling, one knee bent, booted foot resting on the floor, bandaged hands laying at his sides. An umbrella, of sorts, had been rigged to shade the upper part of his body. He was emaciated. It didn’t seem possible a person could have lost so much weight in so short a time.

  The wagon was moving slowly. Bulldog was letting the tired horses plod along. Jack rode a little ahead, slumped in the saddle. It was quiet. So terribly quiet.

  Evening came and it was a welcome relief from the merciless sun. An exhausted Slater had slept the afternoon away. Ignored by Jack and Bulldog, Summer leaned her head back against her trunk and tried not to think of the ordeal ahead of her.

  It was still light, but a few stars had made their appearance, when they reached the stage stop by the creek. Bulldog pulled the team to a stop and said a few low words to Jack. The wagon turned and they went alongside the creek for a few rods before stopping. Bulldog climbed stiffly from the wagon seat.

  “We’ll camp here,” be announced, to no one in particular.

  Summer had sat for so long that she moved slowly at first, stretching her legs out in front of her. She glanced at Slater. His face was turned toward her and his lids were not completely closed. He had been watching her, was watching her! Her face burned with embarrassment, then resentment, for being blamed for a situation that wasn’t any more her fault than his.

  Bulldog led the team to water. After waiting patiently for them to drink their fill, he staked them out. They immediately rolled in the dirt and stood on stiff legs, shaking off the excess dust. Jack rode up while Bulldog was building a fire. He had borrowed a coffee pot, utensils, and bought food from the man at the station.

  Summer didn’t know what to do. She was sure her offer of help would be spumed, and she didn’t know if she would be able to stand rejection without bursting into tears. The decision was made for her when Jack came to the end of the wagon.

  “You can go down the creek a ways. Me and Bulldog got to get Slater out fer a while.” He didn’t speak unkindly. She was surprised.

  Jack didn’t offer to help her down and she clung to the end of the wagon for a moment after her feet were on the ground, allowing the numb, tingling feeling to leave her legs. She held her back stiff and her head high until she was out of sight of the camp, then walked slowly on until she found a place to relieve herself. Close by, the bank to the creek was sloping, and she sat on a rock, and dipped the hem of her skirt in the water and washed her face. The water was so refreshing that she longed to remove her shoes and bathe her hot feet, but fear of snakes stopped her. Night had come and the darkness seemed a comforting cloak. A frog croaked. It was not a loud sound, but with no other it was more obvious. A squirrel, awakened by the frog, chattered inquiringly; then there was silence.

  Tired, Summer got to her feet. She would talk to Slater tonight. He would realize she could not live at McLean’s Keep or at the “little place.” She would make him realize it would be better for her to go where she wasn’t known, where she could pose as a widow and still keep some semblance of respectability. It would be easier talking to him in the dark. She wouldn’t have to see the shock of what they had done on his face.

  On the way back to camp, she met Jack. The glow of his smoke alerted her to his presence.

  “I wasn’t going anywhere,” she said drily.

  “I was makin’ sure.”

  With the help of the light from the campfire, she could see that Slater had been moved, tarp, feather bed and all, to a grassy spot beside the wagon. He lay flat on his back, arms and legs outstretched. His shirt had been removed and Bulldog knelt beside him putting a new dressing on his shoulder. She could feel his eyes on her and turned her back to fumble with the straps on her trunk, anything to be busy so she didn’t have to face him.

  Cornbread was cooking in a skillet and strips of meat hung from a spit over the fire. Fat sizzled as it fell, and the flames were constantly alive with small bursts of brightness.

  Later, she sat with her back to a tree, where she could see only the top of Slater’s head and he couldn’t see her at all. The silence between the four of them was terrible, but speaking was worse. Bulldog squatted beside Slater and dropped food into his mouth from time to time. If any words passed between them, they were so low she couldn’t hear them. Summer picked at her own food. The meat was too greasy and almost nauseated her. Not wanting to leave it on her plate, she flipped it into the grass when she was sure no one was looking. She ate the cornbread and drank the strong coffee, and felt surprisingly better when she had finished.

  Jack came and took the granite plate from her hand. His manner was so purposeful it immediately killed her intention to offer help. Calmer now than she had been all day, she decided to wait and let Slater make the first move. It wouldn’t be long, she reasoned. Part of her wished to hurry and get it over with, the largest part of her dreaded the scene.

  With plates and cups in hand, Jack went toward the stream. Bulldog kicked dirt onto the fire until the blaze was small, and stalked off toward the horses. Somehow, Summer knew this was the time. She was getting to her feet when Slater’s voice reached her.

  “Come down here where I can see you.”

  Calm and resigned, she moved to stand beside him, looking down at him, but not into his eyes.

  “Sit down. Here on this blasted feather bed that’s been like an oven all day.” Obediently, she sat down, her hands clasped in her lap. Time passed, it seemed years, but could only have been minutes. “I been thinking about that letter. The one Sadie didn’t give me. What did you say in a letter you couldn’t say to my face?”

  It was coming sooner than she expected, and for a second she felt acute panic, her tongue suddenly thick, her breath wanting to leave her. Slater’s voice crashed against her eardrums.

  “Tell me! I’ve got the right to know! I went through hell to get back to you . . . I’d have died out there, but I couldn’t die and leave you! You should be pleased to know, it was heaven when I opened my eyes and
you were there. What are you? A whore? A slut to go straight from me to another man? I’ll tell you this . . . I’ll kill you and I’ll kill Jesse before I’ll let him have you!” Slater’s anger, his humiliation and disillusionment were total.

  Summer recoiled at the verbal assault. For an instant, she was stunned by the viciousness of what he said, until she understood how he would be driven to say such things. He was easing his own pain by hurting her.

  “Don’t blame Jesse. I asked for his help.”

  “You what?” His voice echoed through her head painfully.

  She winced and repeated herself. “He’ll tell you. I asked for his help.”

  “Goddam right he will! He’d tell me anything, when I’m fixin’ to hack off his balls!” His nasty voice was blistering and her face reddened.

  “You’ll not blame him,” she said stubbornly. “He’s a good man, a friend when I needed one badly.”

  Hurt, anger and bewilderment surfaced in his smoldering eyes. Grim-faced and shaking with fury, he snarled:

  “You needed him, but not me? Is that what you couldn’t tell me?”

  “The letter,” she said softly; then, more firmly, “the letter was not from me.” Her eyes caught his and held them defiantly. “It was from my mother.”

  “Your mother!” His voice dripped with sarcasm and disbelief.

  “Yes, my mother.” Summer’s back stiffened at his scathing tone. “She wrote the letter to Sam McLean over five years ago. It came to the fort and was delivered to Ellen by mistake.” Her voice sounded like that of a stranger. “Ellen read it. She said Sam was killed before she could deliver it, but now we know he was killed because of the letter. She couldn’t stand the thought of Sam and . . . my mother.” With determination, she stilled her trembling lips. She had to finish, had to get this over with. “The letter was in my mother’s handwriting and on my mother’s paper. There’s no doubt in my mind that she wrote it.” She looked away from him, she couldn’t see him anyhow, for tears suddenly blinded her. “The letter said that I am . . . Sam McLean’s daughter.” There! It was out! She had said the words!