Shelter from the Storm

by Patricia Rice

  “Welcome home, wife. I heard you had a bun in the oven and I’ve come home to restore your honor. Isn’t that what any Southern gentleman would do?”

  Chapter 15

  “Marshall!” Laura could scarcely remember his name or face, but she could remember the insolence in his voice with a clarity and a shame she would never forget. Her cheeks burned with more than cold as she regarded his sneer and wondered how she had ever imagined herself in love with such filth.

  The shreds of blanket he had wrapped around the soles of his disintegrating boots lay in dirty heaps upon her clean kitchen floor. He had apparently used the remainder of the blanket as coat, and it, too, lay where it fell. Scattered bread crumbs, bits of meat, and the smear of what she suspected was the last of her apple pie adorned his tattered shirt. Laura eyed the bottle in his hand with disfavor, then glanced to the enormous black pistol holstered to his side.

  Coldly she demanded, “What are you doing here?” although she already suspected the answer. It had been a filthy, cold winter. Marshall still had relations in town, and he wasn’t the sort to suffer in silence.

  He waved the bottle and eyed the waistline of her skirt. “I’m doing the honorable thing, of course. Your friend there was more than relieved to hear I’d returned from the dead. How thoughtful of you to wear black for me, dear Laura, when I can’t even remember our exchanging vows. But that’s all in the past. I’m here to right all the wrongs that have been done.”

  He lied. He was here to make himself comfortable for as long as he was able, but there was little Laura could say or do. Once shaved and made presentable, he would be easily recognizable as the beau she had presumably married. What would she say? Could she declare to all and sundry that she had been living a lie all these years? Could she throw the brave Union soldier all assumed to be her husband into the cold and snow? He had her trapped, and he knew it.

  “You’re here to cause trouble, Marshall Brown. I’ve got more of that than I can handle already. You’re welcome to clean up and get warm and borrow some of Jonathan’s clothes, but you better be gone by daybreak. I never want to see your face again.”

  He gave Laura’s overlarge coat a frown, grunted and took another pull at the bottle. She knew the coat didn’t cover her newly full figure.

  “Seems to me you ought to be damned grateful I showed up. Whole town’s been whispering about the disgrace of a Kincaid giving birth out of wedlock. Well, just tell them the kid’s mine, that you been helpin’ me fight those damned Confederate rebels that don’t give up, and you couldn’t say nothin’ until it was safe. That’ll take care of the gossip. I gave it plenty of thought while I was sitting here. You need a man around the house, and I need a house. Seems a fair exchange to me.”

  “You’re a pig, Marshall. You’ve always been a pig.” Apparently, she had gained enough courage to look him in the eye and speak her thoughts in the years since she’d last seen him. “Did you really think I’d let you stay here after what you did to me? I could have come home if you hadn’t stuck me with your hotel bill. It took me four years to get back here, and I’m not letting you ruin my life again. This is Jonathan’s home. You can’t simply take it over.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t look to me like you got any choice. The doctor won’t be coming back for a long time, as I understand it. When he hears your husband has returned, he won’t be coming back at all, I speculate. No, this looks fine and cozy to me. You’ll have to get rid of those damned kids in the loft, though. I don’t need a bunch of darkies jumping around and keeping me awake come morning.”

  Laura stood frozen, rapidly considering her alternatives, discarding all of them. She could turn around and run back out into the night, but where would she go? And she couldn’t leave Jettie’s children to this brute’s frustration. She would have to wake them and take them to their grandmother’s, but then what? There wasn’t room in that tiny cabin for her. She could run to Reverend Hammond or any of the ladies of the church, but when they heard she was running from the man they assumed to be her husband, they would turn her out again. A wife didn’t run from her husband, and no one would encourage such a thing.

  Besides, this was her home, and there was no reason she should have to leave it. Marshall would have to be the one to go.

  “The children stay with me until it’s time for them to return to the farm. If you don’t like children, you can find somewhere else to stay. I will be more than happy to take up a collection at church to finance your journey home, and I’ve already offered you some of Jonathan’s clothes. He scarcely needs his woolens in Arizona. I appreciate your offer to give the child a name, but the child isn’t yours and I’m doing quite fine on my own.”

  Marshall shot her a baleful look as she shed her coat and moved briskly around the kitchen, tidying up the mess he had created. “Damned if you haven’t grown as hard and cold as that pestilential uncle of yours. Should have known a chit who would cross half the state on her own didn’t have the soul of a woman. Now, that cousin of yours, she was a man’s woman. A man likes a little softness to cuddle up with at night. Didn’t take her long to find another, now, did it? And here you are, an old maid with no man at all. You’re damned lucky I came back here.”

  Wearily Laura wrung out the rag she had used to clean the table. “Why did you come back here? This isn’t your home.”

  “It’s gonna be. I like it here, where a man can do what he wants and there ain’t nobody to look down their nose at him. I’ve made quite a few friends here, and they don’t object at all to my claiming a Kincaid for wife. It could be right convenient sometime. But I’m tired of sleeping in the woods and filthy shacks. I’ve decided to set up headquarters here.”

  By that she understood he had joined the bands of roving soldiers terrorizing the countryside, and she shuddered, remembering that night out on the farm. Had he been there then? But no, those had been the ex-Confederates who styled themselves the Raiders. Marshall would be one of the Regulators, who took out their penchant for violence by hunting down the Raiders and “punishing” them by raping their women and shooting their children. Headquarters, my foot. Gossip central was what he was looking for.

  “You’re beginning to talk like the trash you’ve been associating with. If you think you’ll pass yourself off as respectable, you’re out of luck. A decent man wouldn’t keep his wife in another man’s home.”

  Annoyed, Marshall staggered to his feet and hovered over her. Although he was not a tall man, he had the advantage of more inches than she. “You’re beginning to rag my nerves, woman. I want a bath, and then I want a soft bed and some sleep. If you’ll shut your everlasting tongue, I’ll leave you alone. Otherwise, I’ll teach you what happens to shrews.”

  This was utter nonsense. This was her home. He had no right ordering her about. But the meanness in the glitter of his eyes and the hand on his pistol caused Laura to think twice. The flutter in her stomach reminded her she had more to worry about than herself. Perhaps in the morning she would come up with some plan to remove him from the house. At this hour, in a raging storm, she didn’t have much choice. And she certainly didn’t want him sleeping on her clean sheets in that condition.

  Feeling the weight of the day bearing down on her, she pumped the water and set it to heat. She dragged in the huge tin tub from the storage area between Jonathan’s office and the kitchen and pushed it in front of the fire while Marshall watched with a satisfied expression. She disappeared into the other room to fetch towels and cloths and soap. After laying them out on the kitchen table, she rummaged through Jonathan’s wardrobe. When she laid those over a chair and left the room one more time, Marshall didn’t object, but this time she didn’t return.

  Climbing into the loft with the heaviest blanket she could find, Laura was too tired to fear his ire. If he had some fool notion that she would wait on him hand and foot while he bathed, he might as well shoot her and get it over with. She didn’t have the strength to stand on her feet one moment longer. And in
his state of drunkenness, she doubted that he could manage the stairs to drag her down. She would be safe for this night, at least.

  She wished Cash would return. Falling into a deep sleep, she dreamed of Cash holding an armful of babies and roaring in outrage at some objectionable sight just beyond her field of vision. Marshall appeared as some grinning jack-o’-lantern, and Ward sat a horse and strummed a harp, while Laura scrubbed incessantly at some floor. The night wasn’t any more restful than the day.

  She rose the next day to discover Marshall hadn’t disappeared like her bad dreams. His filthy clothing lay scattered across the floor, and the cold bathwater sat where he had left it. The children stared at the jarring sight in the midst of Laura’s normally orderly kitchen and grew silent, watching her with wide round eyes.

  The baby felt achingly heavy in her abdomen this morning, and she couldn’t bear the thought of wrestling with Marshall’s maliciousness. Checking the window to see sun on the newly-fallen snow, she silently found their coats.

  They were thrilled at the expedition through the snow to meet their new baby brother. They forgot the menacing disorder that spoke of long-ago dark nights.

  Mrs. Jackson was surprised to see them so early, but as the children drank hot chocolate and exclaimed excitedly over the baby and the little presents waiting for them, she listened to Laura’s hurried explanations.

  “Well, there ain’t nothing much you can do,” she finally admitted when Laura’s words ran out. “Even if you could get out to the farm, which you can’t with the roads being what they are, you’d be worse off with no man ’round to look after you. Leastways, here in town he can’t do nothin’ much. You a Kincaid, after all. Folks’ll look after a Kincaid. You don’ know he means you any harm. Might be a little sweet-talkin’ will turn him ’round. That baby needs a daddy. Maybe this is God’s way of sendin’ one.”

  That was a depressing thought. She had turned away a sensitive, caring man only to be taken in by a violent brute. If anything, it was God’s way of punishing her for her sins. Or her stupidity. Perhaps carrying this child she hadn’t wanted wasn’t punishment enough, since she had actually begun to secretly look forward to it.

  After lingering as long as she could, Laura trudged back out into the snow, leaving the children behind. If this was her future, there was no use in endangering the children, too.

  The sun glittered on the crust of snow with all the hope and promise of a new day. At any other time Laura would have felt joyous at this sign of spring just around the corner. But knowing what she faced in what had once been the safety of her home dragged her spirits in the slush.

  Entering by the front door rather than face the mess in the kitchen, Laura felt the cold emptiness of an abandoned house. Glancing into her bedroom, she discovered Marshall had evidently made himself at home in Jonathan’s wardrobe, selecting what he preferred over what she had given him. His discards lay in crumpled heaps upon the floor, but at least he was nowhere in sight.

  Trying to keep her hopes from rising, Laura returned the house to order. She tidied the bedroom first, making the bed rather than stripping it. It would take more than Marshall’s absence to convince her he wasn’t returning.

  The kitchen was a little more difficult. She had given up the luxury of baths since pregnancy made heavy loads difficult. The only way of removing the filthy water was to lug it out one pail at a time. When she was done, she could do no more than collapse on a chair and hold her aching back.

  She was still wearing the clothing she had worn to bed the night before. She needed to find fresh clothes before Marshall took it into his head to return. The thought only made her more tired, and she closed her eyes and tried to absorb a little peace.

  A knock on the door woke her with a start, and Laura realized she had fallen into a doze. Brushing her hand through her hair to return some semblance of order to the strands escaping their pins, she shook out her rumpled skirts, and hurried to answer. Heart pounding with hope, she flung open the door, only to discover the preacher’s wife waiting on the porch.

  “Laura! I just heard the news, and I couldn’t wait to come over and offer my apologies. You poor thing, suffering under this burden, knowing your gallant husband couldn’t come out of hiding while he fought those terrible men. Why, you never even let us suspect he had returned. Tell me all about it. When did you know he wasn’t one of the unfortunate casualties? I can hardly believe it!”

  She chattered on as Laura led her to the parlor and offered her a chair. She seemed oblivious of the fact that Laura answered scarcely one question out of ten. Before there had even been time to put a kettle on to boil for tea, two more ladies from church showed up at the door, and Laura was resigned to her fate. She was too tired to fight.

  Marshall had wasted no time in ingratiating himself with the townspeople, but then, he’d done a fine job of it five years ago when he had first entered her life. He knew how to play the part, there was no getting around that.

  Aunt Ann had always said that everything always comes around full circle, and that seemed to be the case here. Five years ago she had been madly, passionately in love with a handsome Northern gentleman. Now he was back, claiming the marriage he had once denied. She now had what she had wanted then. The irony did not strike Laura as humorous.

  After the ladies had left, tittering about leaving the “lovebirds” to their nest, Laura forced herself to return to the bedroom and set herself to rights. Even as she stripped to her chemise to wash, she listened for the sound of the door and jumped at every creak and groan of the old wood. Maybe she had been wrong about Marshall’s character. Perhaps he was weary of fighting and wanted a home and family again. Maybe snowballs grew in hell.

  She dressed in a heavy brown velvet that had seen better days but seemed presentable. Its major asset was the high-necked bodice and concealing folds of material. She carried the child low, but even the heavy velvet could not conceal the thickness of her waist or her swaybacked walk. Still, the billowing crinoline hid much, and once she had her hair tucked into a net, Laura felt more in control again. It was just the weariness of her pregnancy causing this inertia. She would try reasoning with Marshall again.

  She stoked the kitchen fire and prepared a supper sufficient for two. She had no illusions about Marshall not returning. He would be here in his own good time, and he would undoubtedly expect his supper when he came. Perhaps she would win him over if she appeared quiescent. He could not really mean to go through with this. She had no money or belongings that he could covet. There was nothing for him here.

  When he walked through the front door without knocking, flinging Jonathan’s coat and hat over a chair and striking through to the kitchen with a bellow of greeting, Laura felt one more illusion slip away. He greeted her as if there had scarcely been a day since they first parted, kissing her cheek as if he had convinced himself he truly were her husband. When he flung himself into a chair and waited for her to serve his meal, she contemplated dumping the kettle over his head, but caution prevailed.

  Instead, Laura studied him warily as she removed the rolls from the oven, then took down the large bowl from the shelf and ladled the stew into it.

  He had obviously gone to the barber and had his hair and beard trimmed. A dash of gray through the dark brown added to his distinguished look. Jonathan’s conservative black satin vest, high collar, and black tie heightened the illusion. But even as she watched, he loosened the tie and removed the collar, and the illusion crumbled.

  “Why in hell aren’t you wearing something a little more cheerful?” he asked as Laura finally sat at the table. “I’m not dead, so you needn’t wear mourning anymore.”

  “Brown isn’t the color of mourning,” Laura answered, not really desiring the food she spooned onto her plate but not knowing what else to do. “And I don’t have a large wardrobe to choose. As you learned some years ago, I don’t have any money of my own. I live in this house free of rent, but I have to buy my own food and clothes, and w
hat I can earn at sewing is scarcely enough for one.”

  If that was meant as a warning, Marshall ignored it. He poured a large tumbler of the whiskey he had brought home and finished off a roll before replying, “That’s all right. I’ve got a hoard of silver plate stored out in the woods that we can sell for now. And something will turn up. I don’t suppose you had the sense to get money out of the brat’s father. Seems that’s the least he could do before he ran away.”

  Laura gritted her teeth and counted to ten. Temper would not get her anywhere. “Jonathan doesn’t know of the child. If you’ve kept up with the gossip long enough to know he’s in Arizona, then you know he’s a sick man. I’ll not have him worried about me. Besides, he has no wealth either. You’ve come looking in the wrong place if you want a life of leisure.”

  Marshall grunted and gave her a sardonic look. “I figured that out five years ago. But this damned war made me lower my standards some. A roof over my head and food in my stomach will suffice for the moment. We’ll see about the rest a little later. I hear Sallie has found herself another rich husband. I wonder how long it will be before she gets tired of a colored boy prodding her and starts looking for a real man?”

  That was disgusting. Laura gave him a look of revulsion and rose from the table. “If you will excuse me, I don’t feel well. I’m going in to lie down for a while.”

  “Fine idea. I’ll be in to join you shortly. You ain’t much, but at least you’re cleaner than those whores they have down at the hotel.” He contentedly sipped at his liquor as Laura turned around in the doorway.

  “I’m not your wife, Marshall, and I don’t intend to act as one. I’m near seven months gone with child and you’ll not touch me in that way or I’ll shoot you with your own gun. Failing that, I’ll poison your food. I know everything in Jonathan’s medicine chest, and I know just which ones to use. So I suggest you keep yourself happy with the charms of your whores and satisfy yourself with my cooking. That’s all you’ll get from me.”