She later came to call them the undefeatable team of Nate Powell and Zachariah Keene. They were the best of friends and were apt to step in for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves. Together they’d put down many a fight without raising a fist, because Zachariah was the tallest and brawniest boy in school, and for those not scared off by his size, there was Nate.
No one argued with Nate Powell. Not when he could outsmart them all.
~*~
Hattie was feeling melancholy. “Why’d he have to come back, Zachariah? Why couldn’t Nate have just stayed away?”
“I reckon he hoped he’d make you fall in love with him again,” Zachariah said with tenderness.
“Doesn’t he realize I never stopped loving him?”
Zachariah crossed his arms and stared out the window. Whatever had gotten his interest was nothing she could fathom. There was nothing out there but sunset and headstones. He sighed and then kissed her on the forehead. “You rest up now, Hattie.”
34
Nate read the name inscribed on the headstone before him. I don’t know if I can do this. He shifted his weight as he looked up toward where the sun was getting low in the sky and a swatch of clouds took on a purplish hue.
Even though he’d lost Hattie, maybe the cleaning woman was right. Maybe he’d come back for something else. Maybe he did have some unfinished business here in Ramsden. A breeze blew through his hair as he looked back down at the name MARCUS POWELL.
Where to begin?
He’d start with a deep breath. “I didn’t know that you had died. I was in no state of mind to receive that news. As a matter of fact, if someone had told me about your passing a month ago, I would have come back just to spit on your grave.”
He stepped closer. “I don’t know why I’m not spitting on it now. You sent me to an asylum where the doctor was crazier than the patients. Do you know what they did to me? They gave up on me. Just like you did. I came out of my melancholy because of a cleaning woman. That’s right. A woman who came into my room and dusted the window sills and mopped the floor. She came in day after day, and she cared enough about me to talk to me while she worked.” His voice cracked. “She was the only visitor I ever had.” He tried to clear his throat, but it was an ache lodged deeper, like a jackknife in his heart. “Do you know that I don’t have it in me to call you father?
“Marcus. That’s all you are to me. Marcus Powell, the boss man. Marcus Powell, the rich man. Marcus Powell, the man who thought he knew everything because he’d worked his way from a cowhand to the most successful rancher in the county. But now that death has shut your mouth for good, let me tell you a thing or two, beginning with the fact that all your money is gone. Your home is gone. You left Mother destitute and at the mercy of a hard-nosed banker. But don’t worry about her, because I made sure she’ll be well provided for. Because everything you’ve worked your entire life for is gone. Your business failed. It’s as dead as you are.
“And let me tell you something else, Mr. ‘I Know Everything.’ You didn’t even know your own son. Do you know that I haven’t read a poem since the day you took my book away? The teacher chose me to teach school because she thought I was intelligent. I read poetry because I understood it.” His voice tightened. “Didn’t that mean anything to you? Because it meant the world to me. I was honored. I was proud of myself. I thought you would be also.” He spewed, “You hurt me deeply, Pa.”
Had he said Pa?
He fell to his knees in the scraggly grass in front of the headstone. “All I ever wanted was for you to brag on me as much as you did Zachariah. All I ever wanted was for you to see what I could do.” He held his hands to his chest for a moment and then dropped them.
“Maybe you had the wrong son all along. Maybe Zachariah should have been born to you instead. A natural cowboy. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? But it was never who I was. You tried to force me to drive cattle and then settled for making me an accountant for your business. I guess you figured working with books was good enough for me. You sent me to school for it. I quit. You pressed me to go back. Then things got even crazier.” He looked into the purple and then back at the name.
“Well, I’m back from earning my accounting degree. You were right in the sense it turned out to be a good way to make a living. As a matter of fact, I’m the vice president of a bank. I wear a suit and tie to work; I have men twice my age calling me ‘Sir.’ You’d be amazed at the house I live in. It’s three stories high, and there are two maples taller than the roof. Their leaves turn red in autumn, and they bow like two giant doormen over the front stairs. The house has a foyer with a chandelier, and the banister along the stairs is made of cherry wood so smooth it’s like running your hand over warm ice. I have a kitchen fit for a chef, a dining room grand enough to hold a dinner party for the governor, two parlors, ten bedrooms, and−” He abruptly looked down. “And there’s no one to share it with.
“Wealth without love is loneliness, and loneliness is the worst kind of poverty. So what good is boasting about a fine house that only makes me feel like a pauper? And worse, bragging about it to someone who’s dead? You’re dead, Pa.” A sob escaped him. “Guess you thought cowboying was the only way to make a living out here, and out here was the only place to live. I thought I was a city man. But now I know why you loved Ramsden.
“And I know why you appreciated Zachariah. You knew about Sally all along, didn’t you? That it was me who’d slacked off on his responsibility, and she fired up the stove so I wouldn’t get the switch. I saw the smoke. I just couldn’t get to her in time. I held her in my arms, Pa. I held my little sister in my arms, and there was nothing left to her but char and blisters. All her hair had been burned off, and when I looked into her face−”
Nate wiped his eyes. “So I guess that’s what made Zachariah your son. If things hadn’t gone the way they did, he’d have been your son-in-law, because Sally loved him. And so does Hattie, just in a different way. She loves him the same way you did, I suppose. Come to think of it, the way I did once.” Nate smiled at the long-ago memory of playing hide-and-seek in the ravine with Zachariah. “I can’t blame you for taking to him the way you did. He’s a good man. There’s a lot about him to respect. But I’m trying, Pa. I’m trying hard to be a better man, too.”
His sobs came out unrestrained. “I’m sorry for blaming Zachariah for Sally’s death. I’m sorry for all the times I mocked you, Pa. I never thought you were stupid, I just wanted you to see that my strength wasn’t in my arms, it was in my head. I wanted you to be just as proud of me as you were of Zachariah but in the ways that were my own.” He fell on the headstone and cried himself out.
A hand came to rest on his shoulder. “Hattie wouldn’t be alive were it not for you. Good plan, Nate.”
Nate came to his feet but held his gaze away from Zachariah and onto the darkening sky. “You did some fine shooting, Zachariah. You saved my neck today.”
“I figured I had a minute or two to spare, so why not?”
Nate smiled. Zachariah had always been a banterer.
“We made a great team out there today,” Zachariah said.
Nate nodded. It was strange talking with Zachariah again, instead of at him. “How’s Hattie doing?”
“She’s at Doc’s, resting. She’s got a broken leg, some cracked ribs, a concussion, but she’ll make it. Be a while before she’s on her feet again. She’s not as mad at me as she ought to be. As for you—” Zachariah looked at the nearby house where one window glowed and the vegetable garden outside had become shapes in the dusk. “—She ain’t never going to be happy without you.”
That made two of them. Nate sidestepped the subject. “I saw that you and Clayton got three of the gang.”
“Yup. Got them locked up.”
“It’s too bad we didn’t get Joe Krugar.” Nate’s was an understatement. All on account of Cadwell being weak for a woman. Maybe Nate had an inkling of what it felt like to forever be in love; however, the object of Cadwell’s affectio
n, that ogress who hurt Hattie, was another story. But it was a story Nate would keep secret.
“The important thing is, we got Hattie back,” Zachariah said. “I should have listened to you in the first place and never let her do it, Nate.”
“And tell headstrong Hattie what to do?” Zachariah’s hand felt warm and friendly on Nate’s shoulder. “Do you really think she would have listened to you?”
Zachariah offered back a grin that needed a shave. His scar didn’t look so ugly. Then Zachariah sighed. “What happened to us, Nate? We were best of friends once. Why, we could stand against anything. I remember back when some boys were picking on Hattie, and we were willing to take on all four of them.”
Nate thought back on that day in the schoolyard. “It was five boys,” he corrected.
Zachariah frowned. “Whose big idea was it to take on five?”
“Yours.”
Zachariah rubbed his jaw. “It was a good thing nobody called our bluff. We’d have gotten whopped good.”
Both men laughed at their childish fortitude.
“So why can’t we overcome what stands between us now?” Zachariah asked. “I remembered spitting in our hands and clasping them in a vow that even death wouldn’t separate us.”
Nate remembered too well. “Sally’s death happened, and I blamed you.” He shook his head. “Why didn’t you defend yourself? Why didn’t you tell the judge it was all my fault? Why did you let everyone believe—”
“Because you loved your sister, and I loved my friend. I saw what was going on between you and your pa. I didn’t like the way he favored me over you, but I didn’t know how to be less than I was.”
Nate had never considered that Zachariah had lost both parents by the time he’d turned eleven, and life required him to become a man instead of a boy. “Life must have been hard on you.”
“I think life’s taken its toll on the both of us, Nate.”
“So is that what’s come between us?” Nate asked. “Life?”
“I reckon so.”
“Then let’s make another vow,” Nate said, “that life won’t come between us, either.” He spat on his hand and offered it to Zachariah. As they shook hands, Nate fell on Zachariah’s shoulder. “Forgive me, my friend.”
~*~
Hattie lay in bed, her mind in a dreamy mist as she looked out the window at something more beautiful than the lavender sunset. Her eyelids were heavy as anvils, but every time they dropped, she pulled them back open. Though they were getting heavier, she didn’t want them to shut for fear the picture of Zachariah and Nate hugging one another would disappear forever.
Prudence came in and scolded, “You’ve got a lot of healing to do. You’re supposed to be resting and letting the laudanum do its work.” She drew the drapes shut and tucked in Hattie’s bed sheets, which she’d already tucked in perfectly before. She kissed Hattie on the forehead and whispered, “Sweet dreams, Hattie.”
“Yes, Prudence.” Hattie’s eyelids drifted shut, and she tugged at them but could no longer pull them open. “I just had the sweetest dream I’ve ever…ever…had.”
35
Hattie leaned toward Nate. “I love you,” she whispered, “and I always will.”
“I love you too, Hattie,” Nate whispered back. “In a whole new way now.”
Hattie couldn’t keep her eyes off Nate in a black cutaway coat, wing tip collar and tie, and a yellow boutonniere.
His gaze didn’t budge from her either. But then again, she’d never felt more beautiful wearing the ivory satin wedding dress he’d bought her. The skirt was layers of lace, and the veil was silk tulle trimmed with pearls so that she felt like a jewel. She had a dozen yellow roses in her bouquet. A beam of morning sunlight smiled in on them from the east windows of the church, and a fresh breeze poured in from the west, making it the most perfect day ever.
However, the wedding had hit a lull due to a not-so-unpredictable glitch.
Reverend Everton, who was presiding over the ceremony, had gotten into a pickle when his “Dearly beloved” had been interrupted with a plop.
“But if two imperfect people get together,” Hattie whispered during that lull, “doesn’t that make things twice as bad?”
“Negative one plus negative one equals negative two.” Nate frowned. “It’s an accounting disaster, and I’d advise any stockholder against it.”
With butterfingers, the Reverend was still fishing his eyeglasses out of his glass of water while two deacons scrambled on all fours mopping up the puddles with their handkerchiefs so the Reverend wouldn’t slip. But for every drop they sopped up, he spilled two. Nate stepped in closer to Hattie to allow one deacon to scurry by and catch another spill. Meanwhile, the men in the pews were wide-eyed and the women held hands over hearts in hopes that the Reverend wouldn’t trip over the deacons. Hattie, however, wasn’t worried one bit, because she knew the Reverend’s secret.
“Still think he’s a deadeye?” she whispered to Nate.
Nate smiled as the Reverend splashed, groping for his eyeglasses. “I don’t know what got into me.”
The Reverend’s secret was that it took not only two deacons but also a dozen harried angels to keep him from a catastrophe. Heaven only knew what would have befallen the poor fellow had God not sent help.
“I always wanted a righteous man,” she whispered. “I’m sure glad it turned out to be you.”
The Reverend retrieved his glasses and put them on his nose, but there was another delay as one of the deacons took them off, wiped the droplets off the lenses, and put them back on the Reverend. Then one deacon refilled the water glass, offered it to the Reverend, and while the Reverend took a sip, the other deacon took charge of the Reverend’s eyeglasses by standing behind and holding them in place. The first deacon received the water glass back, and with a drink successfully accomplished, the ceremony continued until the Reverend asked of best man, Zachariah, “Do you have the ring?”
Zachariah handed the ring to Nate. And then there was another hiccup. But this time, it wasn’t the Reverend’s doing.
Nate dropped the ring.
Hattie gasped.
Jaws fell as everyone in the pews gasped.
Did courting Hattie turn a man into a stumblebum?
Nate plucked the ring off the floor. “I hear it’s a blessing to drop the ring during the ceremony. It’s supposed to shake out all the bad things that could happen.”
Instead of appreciating the irony, Hattie set a hand on her hip. “If you ever do anything like that to me again, Mr. Nate Powell…” His wink softened her heart. “So if the numbers say that you and I equal disaster,” she said, “how will we make this work as a couple?”
“By making a couple three,” he said. “We both have Jesus in our lives now.”
Nate slipped the ring on her finger, and the Reverend put the frosting on the cake by announcing, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
The kiss that followed was so sweet and tender, Hattie wanted it to go on forever. Nate promised he’d continue the kiss that night, and she bound him to it.
Everyone stood and applauded, although Hattie wasn’t sure if it was to congratulate her and Nate or to express relief that the ceremony was completed without further disaster.
Outside, the church grounds had been set up with tents and tables, each with a white tablecloth and a centerpiece of roses. The food came from Kate’s, including a cake five tiers high, and Kate and the chef Nate brought in from Boston cooked up a tender roast beef and topped it with a sauce Hattie couldn’t pronounce but had no trouble savoring. Nate had hired a band from Kansas City to complete the grandest party Ramsden had ever seen.
While people were dancing, Nate’s mother hugged Hattie. “Thank you for making him stay,” Mother Powell said.
Then Nate tugged Hattie away. “There’s someone special I’d like you to meet.” He brought her over to a woman sitting with Hattie’s father, who had walked her up the aisle during the ceremony.
Th
e woman came to her feet and clasped Hattie’s hand between two brown hands. “Why Nathan, so this is the woman you came back for. No wonder. She’s as beautiful as you said she was. I waited for your invitation, you know. I waited for it because I knew you would get married. I prayed for it every single day.”
Hattie’s father came to his feet and said to Hattie, “You have no idea who this lovely lady is, do you?”
Nate had told her about a cleaning woman at the asylum who’d helped him, but Hattie answered more discretely, “She’s a dear friend of Nate’s from back East.”
“A dear friend of Nate’s, you say.” Hattie’s father chuckled. “Indeed, this lady is even more dear to you. Why, this is Henrietta Brown.”
Hattie touched her chest. “But that’s my name.” Then it occurred to her that this woman was her aunt. “My mother’s sister?”
Henrietta was just as surprised. “My sister’s little girl?”
They fell into each other’s arms.
~*~
Nate stepped back. Watching two special women cry happy tears was like seeing the square of a miracle. He walked back into the church and his eyes glistened with pure joy as he looked up at a coarse wooden cross. It was learning to see himself through Christ’s eyes, and not Marcus’s, that had fixed everything.
Cadwell came up from behind. “You’ve got yourself a good woman, Nate.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Nate said. “Love can be a good pair of eyeglasses making you see things clearer, or it can be a blindfold.”
Cadwell paused. “I see you figured out my weakness.”
“It was obvious when you let Josephine escape.”
“You know.” Cadwell looked at his shoes. “This wasn’t the first time I’ve let her get away from me.”
“Who are you exactly?” Nate asked. “A bounty hunter gone soft?”
“More like a U.S. Marshal gone soft. Which, by the way, is why you saw me in the ‘Wanted’ poster. I was infiltrating the gang. Josephine’s a woman on the run with good reason.”
“Care to elaborate on what that reason is?”
Divided Heart Page 20
