He dropped his chin to his chest. "He told me I wouldn't have to hunt him because he'd come straight to my door. My boy was going off to face death, and my final words to him were spoken in anger. I didn't tell him I loved him, didn't tell him how proud I was of him. All the words a father should say to his son, I let pass. Now, I can't tell him anything."
Wiping his eyes, he stepped down from the stool. "I
talked them out of lynching you because I couldn't bear the thought of shooting my own son."
The man stood with slumped shoulders and a bowed head. Clay didn't know if Kirk's father expected him to drop to his knees and thank him for sparing his life. He didn't know what to say, couldn't think of anything appropriate to say. "Here's the marker."
Kirk's father hefted it off the table. "I appreciate it" He headed for the door and stopped. "I was here that night."
Most of his life, Clay had paid a great deal of attention to silhouettes and shapes. The flour sacks had hidden their faces the night of the attack, but the midnight shadows had revealed their identities. "Yes, sir, I know."
"Kirk told me you weren't a coward, and I called him a damn fool. I was wrong. It'd mean a lot to my ma if you'd come to her funeral tomorrow."
The steady rain began at sunset. The thick branches laden with their autumn leaves shielded Clay from the force of the storm. All he felt was an occasional raindrop as it traveled along a leaf and fell to the earth.
His arms shielded Meg as she pressed her back against his chest. She hadn't come to see him today, but then he hadn't expected her to. He knew she'd be helping the Warners deal with their loss, would be grieving herself. She'd been as close to Mama Warner as he'd been.
But he'd also known he'd find her here this evening, waiting on him. They had shared their deepest emotions at the swimming hole. In spite of the rain, they had felt a need to come here to grieve. They'd wept, held each other close, and now they watched the rain fall.
"Did she go peacefully?" he asked quietly.
"Yes. It was as though she just went to sleep."
"I'm glad, but I sure do feel her loss."
"Mr. Warner showed me the headstone. It's beautiful with the buffalo grass carved in it, so simple and down-to-earth like she was."
"I couldn't carve the date."
"Maybe in time"
"Maybe."
The lightning flashed and its brilliance revealed the place where they'd first made love.
"Will you go to her funeral?" Meg asked.
"Haven't decided. She doesn't deserve to have hatred surrounding her when she's laid to rest."
"She'd want you there."
"I don't know, Meg."
Turning in his arms, she laid her head against his chest. "We could go together."
"No," he said gruffly.
"I thought after last night"
"Last night didn't change anything, Meg. Just like the night we spent together here didn't change anything. I'm still the coward of Cedar Grove. That's all these people will ever see. I've been fighting their opinions and hatred for years now. It hasn't made a damn bit of difference, and it won't make a damn bit of difference tomorrow. It's best to just surrender. Hurts less that way. Hurts those I love a lot less, too. When we finish the monument, I'll be moving on alone. If you were smart, you'd start spending your mornings with Robert."
"Do you love me?" she asked softly.
"More than my life."
* * *
Chapter Nineteen
Meg's hands trembled as she played the organ. She thought she'd released all her tears last night as she stood within Clay's arms. But she was wrong.
Now, she yearned for his compassionate embrace more than she longed for Reverend Baxter's words of solace.
Her tears increased as she unexpectedly pressed the wrong keys. The resounding chords more closely resembled the wail of lost child who suddenly realizes she's alone than the comforting strains of "Amazing Grace," which she was supposed to be playing in memory of Mama Warner.
The last notes lingered as she clasped her hands in her lap and bowed her head. Tears clung to her eyelashes. She remembered the touch of Mama Warner's gnarled fingers as she gathered Meg's tears the day she cried because Kirk had grown a beard. She remembered the woman's smile as Clay lifted her into his arms, and the peace that radiated through her as she trailed her hands over Kirk's features carved in stone. She held the remembrance of Mama Warner even closer to her heart because woven throughout the memories were moments shared with Clay.
Quietly, the minister eulogized a woman who had touched the hearts of many and helped to shape the destiny of Texas.
Glancing toward the back of the church, Meg saw the door open slightly. Clay slipped in as quietly as a snowflake falls to the ground. With his hat in his hand, he slid into the last pew and bent his head until his hair fell forward and obscured his eyes.
She had little doubt that he had closed his eyes and fought his tears and grief as strongly as she did. When the final words of the eulogy drifted into silence, Meg would receive comfort from Kirk's father and Robert, from her father and Daniel, from Helen, and Sally and every other person to whom she'd ever given comfort.
Who would comfort Clay?
With his large scarred hands, he had cut the names of their children, their parents, and their loved ones into wood or stone so they would be remembered. He'd rescued their slain sons from a mass grave and buried them with dignity.
The monument she'd asked him to carve paled in comparison to the testimony of his love that he'd already given them, that he continued to give them. He had touched the people of this town in a way more profound than the sculpting of any monument, and yet none of them knew of his actions, and if they had known, their hatred would not have allowed them to acknowledge the gift.
Just as her hatred had prevented her from daring to reach beyond the wall of despair to grasp another chance at happiness.
She knew Clay would leave after the closing prayer, before she played the final hymn. He held within his breast a deep respect for people, a respect that had been denied him.
Searching the mournful faces of the congregation, she wondered how many men believed in anything as strongly as Clay believed in his convictions. How many would stand alone?
How many women believed strongly enough in the man
sitting by their side to stand beside him when the whole town stood against him?
These women had surrounded her, their fingers working as busily as hers, to sew gray uniforms for their husbands and sons. They had ripped the seams on silk gowns they'd worn on happy occasions to make a flag honoring the most terrifying day of their lives. In the lamplight, they'd gazed into each other's eyes and known that none of (hem wanted their men to leave.
With meticulous stitches and perfect seams they'd sewn their doubts into the cloth, so that when they met the gazes of their soldiers that final morning, nothing was visible but their love and their belief in that love.
Clay was right. Meg didn't know what had driven Kirk to enlist. She knew only that he believed in what he was doing, and his belief was all she had needed to stand at his side. The bench scraped across the floor as she moved back. The reverend stopped speaking and snapped his head around to stare at her. Meg took a deep shaky breath, gave him a tremulous smile, and rose from the hardwood bench. If possible, the congregation became quieter, and she felt their silence wrap around her like a heavy suffocating shroud. Her legs trembled and her knees felt as though they'd turned into the sandy bottom of the swimming hole in which she swam at midnight.
Skirting the bench, she somehow managed to descend the stairs without tripping. Each step she took echoed off the rafters and vibrated against the stained-glass windows as she walked down the center aisle. She halted beside the last pew, and she could have sworn she heard necks pop as people strained to see what she was doing.
Clay stared at a knothole on the back of the bench in front of him.
"I'd be honored to si
t with you," Meg said in a voice that rang through the building.
The brown depths of his eyes pleaded with her as eloquently as his words. "Don't," he rasped with raw emotion. "Don't do this, Meg. Not here. Not now."
"I said those same words to you once. I was wrong to say them then. You're wrong to say them now. I love you, Clayton Holland."
Gasps sounded, hymnals thudded to the floor, groans, moans, and sighs rose from the crowd like a psalm thrown toward the heavens.
Clay sprang to his feet "You're grieving today. You don't know what you're saying." He strode past her to the door.
"I know exactly what I'm saying," she called out, but he closed the door on her final words. She rushed through the door after him, with the disbelief of the congregation echoing in her ears.
She staggered across the porch as someone pushed past her. She glanced over her shoulder. "Daniel!"
"I'll take care of it, Meg!" he called as he stalked toward the waiting wagons.
Meg felt a moment of panic and then relaxed. They never brought rifles or guns with them to church. Clay was striding toward the muddy road that went past the church and through the center of town.
Meg stepped off the porch. With a force that caused her to bite her tongue, she found herself jerked back and held in her father's ironclad grasp.
"What the hell is going on here, girl?" he bellowed as people gathered around them.
She twisted but couldn't break free of her father's hold.
"Meg, are you crazy?" Helen asked. "The town coward"
"He's not a coward." Stretching her neck, she peered over her father's shoulder to the road. She was afraid she'd see
Daniel attacking Clay, but Daniel was nowhere in sight. Clay was trudging away alone once again.
"Clay! You've never run away from anything in your life! Don't run away from me now! Don't run away from our love!"
He came to a dead halt in the middle of the road and hung his head.
"I won't have you running after a coward," her father growled, tightening his grip on her arm, and giving her a small shake as though he could shake some good sense into her.
The voices and words swarmed around Meg as people surrounded her, blocking her view. "He wouldn't fight"
"Coward's what he is"
"Why's she chasing him?"
"Yellow streak a mile long"
"Didn't enlist"
"Coward"
Through the ragged gaps left between elbows and shoulders, she saw Clay raise his hand, and although his back was to her, she knew he'd slipped his fingers between the buttons on his shirt and was rubbing the "D" they'd burned into his chest.
"I love you!" she cried over the reminders of his cowardice that people continued to throw at her.
He spun around. His voice, deep with pain, carried his words across the churchyard even though he didn't yell. "I have nothing to offer you, Meg, but loneliness, and I love you too much to give you that."
His words effectively parted the crowd, and Meg had a clear view of him standing in the road. She wanted desperately to be at his side. "I'd rather spend my life with one man surrounded by love than the ignorance and hatred surrounding me now."
Slowly, he shook his head. "You can't imagine how much it hurts to be ignored by people you respect. You don't know how loud the silence is or how deeply it cuts. It's bad enough watching the hatred touch my brothers. I'd rather die than see it touch you."
Thunder rolled in the distance. People turned their attention toward the sound. Standing in the wagon, Daniel urged the horses through the water-logged road toward Clay.
"Daniel, no!" Meg screamed as she jerked free of her father's grasp only to be caught by someone else.
For a brief moment, indecision crossed Clay's face, and then he began running toward the barreling wagon, toward Helen's daughter, Melissa, as she played in the muddy road, oblivious to the approaching danger.
Meg heard a scream and didn't know if it was hers or someone else's. Clay flung himself over the child as the wagon neared.
She heard other screams and wails as Clay and Melissa disappeared beneath the hooves of the horses and the wheels of the wagon. When the wagon passed, all she could sec was Clay lying face down in the mud.
Fear gave her the strength to break free of the man holding her.
Fear drove her to rush to Clay's side and drop into the mud beside him.
"Don't move him!" Dr. Martin cried as he threaded his way through the silent crowd casing to the center of the road.
Helen knelt beside Meg. "Oh, God, my baby."
Dr. Martin worked his way to the ground. Gingerly, he rolled Clay over to reveal Melissa's tiny mud-covered body.
She started blinking her eyes and turned her mouth down before she released her first wail. Helen lifted her from the mud and pressed her against her breast, rocking and cooing to her daughter.
Using her skirt, Meg gently wiped the mud from Clay's face. "He's bleeding," she whispered as she watched the blood mingle with the mud.
"Looks like the mud shielded him somewhat so nothing's broken, but he took a blow to the head," Dr. Martin said, his hands busily looking for signs of injury.
"How bad?" Meg asked.
"I don't know."
"Did I kill him?" Daniel yelled as he ran toward the crowd. "Did I kill the yellow-bellied"
Meg rose to her feet, spun around, and slapped Daniel across the face with a force strong enough to send him staggering back.
"How dare you!" she hissed. "How dare you judge this man and condemn him to death!"
Daniel regained his balance, squared his jaw, and took a step toward her, his blue eyes blazing. "How dare you defend him!"
She angled her chin. "Who better than the woman who loves him?"
He jerked back as though she'd hit him again. "You don't mean that, Meg. You can't fall in love with a man by watching him sit in the back of the church."
"No, you can't," she admitted softly. Her stomach tightened, and her mouth went dry. How often had Clay felt this slight trembling of nerves and continued on, standing his ground? "I fell in love with him by spending my days in his company. I asked him to carve a monument to honor our heroes. I thought the task would serve as a punishment for
him. I thought it would make him face his cowardice. Instead it made me face my own.
"Every day, I went to his farm and watched him work, waiting for that moment when he'd drop to his knees and ask for forgiveness." Sighing deeply, she glanced at the still figure lying in the mud. "Eventually, I realized there was nothing to forgive."
"My brothers are turning in their graves," Daniel said vehemently.
"No, they aren't, not in the graves Clay dug for them. He got to Gettysburg after the battle. The Yankees were dropping the Southern soldiers into mass graves. Clay buried every man from Cedar Grove in a separate grave away from the battlefield."
"I swear, Meg, if you're telling the truth, if he touched my brothers, I'll shoot him dead before the sun sets."
"Why?" she asked softly.
"Why?" He took a step toward her. "Why? Because he's a coward, and I know they'd rather lie in a mass grave than have his hands touch them."
"I don't think so, Daniel." She placed her hand on his arm, and he wrenched free. So much bitterness, so much anger, so much hatred. "Mama Warner left me a letter that Kirk wrote her. He told her that he wrote Jefferson Davis asking that he exempt Clay from serving the Confederacy. He said every man in his company signed the letter. Every man, Daniel. That includes our brothers. They knew Clay wasn't a coward."
"That's a goddamn lie! He didn't fight!"
"He did fight, but he fought for what he believed in, not what they believed in. And he fought as bravely as they did."
Meg swept her gaze over the gathered people. "When was the last time any of you talked with Clay? Who among us
asked him why he didn't enlist? I know I didn't. I assumed he was a coward because he didn't follow my husband and my brothers. Lik
e your sons, they were soldiers, yet they saw honor where we didn't. Clay would lay down his life for any one of us. He just won't kill for us."
Meg didn't think it was possible for the crowd to become more somber. People shifted their gazes as though they didn't know whom or what to look at.
"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," Dr. Martin said in reverence. He twisted in the mud and planted his arm across his thigh, leveling his gaze on the silent crowd. "Those were the words Clay spoke as he stood awaiting his execution. Funny thing, though. After he said his prayer, they couldn't find a soldier willing to shoot him."
Meg knelt in the mud as Clay's eyes fluttered open. Dr. Martin held up two fingers. "What do you see. Clay?"
Clay shook his head slightly. "Nothing. It's too dark, but I want to thank you for coming. Doc."
Dr. Martin's worried gaze met Meg's before he turned his attention back to Clay. "It's always a pleasure treating you, you know that"
"I don't want to die," Clay said quietly. "I don't think you're gonna die."
"One might miss, maybe two, but not all six. Not six Southern boys with rifles." He closed his eyes. His face grew ashen, and Meg felt the icy fingers of death wander slowly along her spine.
Pulling himself free of the mud, Dr. Martin stood. "I need someone to carry him to my office."
"I'll carry him," Robert said.
"He's always been like a son to me. I'll help you," Kirk's father said.
Meg watched Robert slip his arm beneath Clay's knees as
Kirk's father took Clay's shoulders. Together, they carefully lifted Clay out of the mud.
She glanced one last time at the somber faces surrounding her, then followed Clay in silence alone.
Sitting beside the bed in Dr. Martin's office, Meg made herself loosen her grip on Clay's hand. He'd lose use of it as well if she continued to hold it so tightly.
"Meg?" a quiet voice asked behind her.
She twisted and looked toward the door. "Hello, Tom."
Uncertainly, he stepped into the room, holding a bundle. "Sally sent me with some clothes. We thought you might want to get Clay out of those muddy clothes."
Always to Remember Page 27
