Shelter from the Storm

by Patricia Rice

  Her various female relatives broached the topic later that evening, when Cash had disappeared from the crowd. Once Laura had firmly convinced them that the farm was Cash’s, she was offered homes with several relations, but she couldn’t bring herself to make that decision right now. None of her relatives had chosen to live in Stone Creek, and to move away would be to deprive Cash of Mark. Somehow she would have to discuss that sensitive subject with Cash before making any decision.

  But when she next saw Cash, he wasn’t in any condition to discuss anything. Long after everyone else had retired to makeshift beds in the rooms that could be termed habitable, Laura still lay awake on her narrow mattress. The muffled sounds from the front hall drifted up to her, and, ever vigilant, she was up and into her robe before anyone else could be roused.

  Jonathan was just closing the front door when she appeared on the stairs. Braced across his shoulders was a sadly disheveled Cash, and Laura gasped at the gash across his cheek. Wordlessly she ran to Cash’s other side and helped Jonathan guide him into the study, where a leather couch would provide a bed. Leaving Jonathan to examine him, she ran for warm water and bandages.

  From the fumes of whiskey rising from him, it was easy to judge that Cash had been drinking, and his unconscious state could as easily be from the drink as any blows to his head. But Laura bit her lip in anxiety as Jonathan finished cleaning and bandaging him. She could see dull bruises forming along the tanned expanse of Cash’s chest and ribs, but since Jonathan didn’t seem inclined to wrap them, she had to assume they weren’t serious. Only the gash on his cheek and a stab wound in his upper arm appeared to need treatment.

  She waited for Jonathan to finish, then turned her questioning gaze to him as he stood up. He took the blanket she held and covered Cash, then gripped her elbow and led her out.

  “Let him sleep it off, that’s all you can do. He’ll be sore in the morning, but I wager Cash has suffered worse in his time. Go on back to bed and don’t worry about it.”

  Pensively Laura removed her arm from Jonathan’s grasp. “What happened? Do you know?”

  Jonathan shrugged. He had seen Laura in her nightdress before, but she still looked helplessly young with the long braid down her back and her slender figure wrapped in the old robe. He didn’t want to lay any more burdens on her frail back, but it was better she hear the story from him.

  “He was gambling down at the tavern, apparently he’s been losing as much as he’s been winning lately. Did you know that?”

  Laura shook her head. “I only hear whispers of where he’s been. I’m supposed to surmise what he’s been doing from that. He’s been like this since Sallie returned from the Springs. I don’t know what’s got into him.”

  “Drink, mostly. He was drunk when he accused another man at the table of cheating. That started the brawl. He did a pretty good job of finishing it, too, but someone hit him over the head with a chair from behind. I’m going to stay here and wake him every so often to make certain he’s all right, but his head is harder than a rock. He’ll be fine.”

  Laura threw an anxious look toward the study door, but recognizing her place, merely nodded and took Jonathan’s advice. She had no right to do anything else.

  Cash wasn’t available in the morning to wave farewells to the departing company. Laura was urged to join them as friends and family took carriages and wagons back to the train station, but she murmured polite words of staying with the Breckinridges and seeing that the farm was set to rights before she could go anywhere. They accepted her excuses, made open invitations, and left without anyone offering to stay with her.

  This state of affairs couldn’t last, but Cash wasn’t in any shape to decide anything at all. Cursing her inadequacy, Laura set the servants to cleaning up the aftermath.

  Jonathan had made himself at home on the parlor sofa until the guests had departed. Then he, too, had left. She was grateful for his presence and his aid and wondered for the hundredth time why she had ever turned down his offer of marriage.

  When Cash finally stumbled from his study, Laura had his bed made up and fresh water carried to his room along with a tray of black coffee. He grimaced at her through a swelling eye and didn’t argue when she sent him upstairs.

  But he was back down shortly after, dressed for the fields, his wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his face to disguise the worst of the bruises. At any other time Laura would have given him wide berth, but there was a topic that had to be discussed, and she wasn’t going to let him escape any longer.

  “I need to talk with you, Cash.” She stood in his path, ignoring his grim expression and the inches towering over her.

  “No, Laura, you don’t. I’m not fit for talking to. I’ll be moving back to the Watterson place tonight. When there’s time, I’ll bring in some lawyers to make arrangements. You just stay here and do what you have to do to keep the place together.”

  Stunned, Laura allowed him to escape. She was half-tempted to race after him, but it would be fruitless to argue when he was in this mood. She was the one panicking.

  She wasn’t certain what she had envisioned, but it had never included Cash leaving Stone Creek Farm. Vaguely she had contemplated leaving with Jonathan. She had also considered inviting some perfectly respectable widow to come here and act as chaperon. She had thought of finding her own house in town. Dozens of thoughts had flitted through her head, but none had been like this.

  Perhaps she hadn’t heard him right. Or understood his intent. The thought that perhaps she ought to hire lawyers of her own passed through her weary mind, but that wasn’t the kind of thing a lady was brought up to do, and it wasn’t the kind of relationship she wanted with Cash. She wasn’t certain what kind of relationship she wanted with him, but it certainly wasn’t one that involved lawyers. On the other hand, she didn’t want to be indebted to a man who intended to spend the rest of his life drinking and gambling away the only home she knew.

  Uncertain of where she stood or of what Cash wanted, Laura couldn’t order further work done on the house. She greatly suspected the cash flow that had once renovated Stone Creek had dried up. She had salvaged some of the draperies and bed hangings, and they were already back on the beds and windows. Mattresses soaked by the rain had been taken out, dried, aired, and returned to the beds if still usable. Scorched and stained wallpaper would have to be ripped from the walls and whitewash applied until something else could be provided. Laura turned to the next task on her list, refusing to sink into grief.

  She was helping Jettie Mae feed the children in the kitchen when she heard Cash’s boots on the front stairs that evening. She couldn’t drop what she was doing and run after him, so she waited with increasing impatience for him to make an appearance. She hoped he would call her to his study and explain things to her.

  Instead, he arrived in the doorway with satchel in hand, hat on his head, prepared to walk out. Laura stared at him in incredulity and couldn’t speak a word.

  “If you need me, I’ll be at the Watterson place tonight. I’ll be going into town tomorrow. I’ll set up an account for you at the bank so you can buy what you need without having to ask me for it. We’ll work out some kind of arrangement once I know the law and what I can do. Have Jake keep an eye on that foal in the far stall, and in the morning have someone take a look at that elm and see if it shouldn’t be taken down. It looks like the fire killed it, and I don’t want it falling on the roof.”

  Laura choked on the words crowding her throat. Cash was looking at her, but he wasn’t seeing her. He looked like some stranger just stepped off the riverboat with his broad-brimmed hat and light-colored coat, his cravat abandoned and sticking out of his pocket. She could see the bronzed base of his strong throat through his open shirt, and she had the urge to place her fingers there, but a caress wasn’t what she had in mind. She wanted to strangle him.

  There were ten dozen things she wanted to say to him. She wanted to scream and rage. She wanted to cry and plead. She wanted to heave dishe
s at his head and fall on her knees and catch his legs. But he had staged this confrontation in front of a room full of servants, and she was left speechless. She didn’t even know how to argue.

  In the face of her silence, the servants remained mute. Cash gave them little time to recover their speech. He stalked out without another word, slamming the back door after him.

  It was over. He would be returning to California soon. Laura read it in his face. Here she had been worrying herself silly about how she could stay close so he might see his son, and he was planning on moving two thousand miles away. So much for her understanding of men.

  Quietly she said to Jemima, “Put some of that chicken in a basket with a pot of those green beans. If the biscuits are done, put them in there with whatever else you have that he might eat. Send someone over to Watterson’s with it when you’re done. He has to eat something.”

  Jettie Mae looked as if she might speak, but Laura quelled her with a look. She didn’t want to hear any more opinions this night. She’d had one too many forced on her already.

  ***

  Lounging on the old horsehair sofa that had come with the house and hadn’t been worth giving away, Cash propped his boots on a barrel of molasses and tried not to look too closely at the empty house around him. It echoed hollow in the nighttime darkness, and he wondered if he believed in ghosts. He could think of plenty that might come back to haunt this place, including the lost spirits of his parents.

  The smell of fried chicken still wafted from the basket on the floor, although he had demolished most of the contents. He had wondered how he would eat after he burned his bridges and walked out. He should have known Laura wouldn’t let him starve. He wasn’t certain if the basket was a pagan sacrifice to keep the devil away or just Laura’s innate kindness; whichever, he felt better for it.

  Sinking his head back against the sofa, Cash contemplated the cobwebs on the ceiling. He felt as hollow inside as this house. He knew he was doing what had to be done, but it pulled at his gut to do it. There for a little while he had come to learn what a home was about. He’d almost had that once with Doc and his wife, but then Kate had died and Jonathan’s had become a bachelor household, and the memory had lapsed. Laura had brought it all back again. Laura, not Sallie.

  It wouldn’t do to think like that. He should never have married Sallie in the first place, he knew that now, but it was too late. Far too late. He’d been fulfilling a childhood fantasy, believing in rainbows when he had married Sallie. It hadn’t taken long for the fantasy to crumble, about as long as it took a dreamer to wake from sleep.

  Cursing, he fished a cheroot from his pocket and lit it. He’d had a life in California that he could have made something of. It had been pure stupidity to return here and imagine that he could crush his past and rise to the Bluegrass gentry by the simple expedient of wealth.

  The only question now was what he would do for the future. He blew a smoke ring and tried to think through that question. Emotions jumbled the usually clear logic of his mind. He saw Sallie and his stillborn children in the coffin, and unbidden tears filled his eyes. Sallie of the laughing eyes and golden hair, gone, because of him. He cursed and sought safer topics, settling on the gurgling laughter of Laura’s son, only to realize he was allowing his heart to guide his thinking and not his head.

  It would be a damned sight better if he had never known the Kincaid women or Stone Creek Farm. Then he could just pull up his few roots and move on. But the weight of the yoke was in place and he couldn’t shake it.

  Grimly he turned his thoughts back to the vicious attack by Marshall’s marauders and his plans to terminate the danger once and for all. There was something he could sink his teeth into. To hell with women and babies and homes. Action, he understood.

  Chapter 31

  “He’s down at the tavern drinking every night; almost got himself kilt just the other day. Don’t see as how he’s any problem at all. Wouldn’t’ve minded having a taste of that wife of his, but now she’s gone, there ain’t nothin’ left but your wife, Brown. Where’s the sense in raiding the place again? Just go in and take what you want.”

  Marshall sent his cohort a furious look and turned back to his bottle. He didn’t like anyone getting too close to his plans, particularly not a loudmouthed bastard like Andy. If he hadn’t needed the manpower of Andy and his Raiders, he would have left them alone, but he needed real thieves and murderers, not the puling country bumpkins who got their jollies wearing sheets and pulling their pants down for every female that crossed their paths.

  Andy was a true son of Satan, and he helped attract more of his kind. Filling their own pockets was all that mattered to them, not the damned Kentucky politics that kept the other splinter groups of marauders going.

  “Keep your tongue in your mouth where it belongs, Whitlow, or it’ll get the pox before your cock does. I owe that son of a bitch, and he’s going to pay before he dies. That’s all you need to know. I’m keeping your pockets lined, ain’t I?”

  Marshall drank deeply of the whiskey, ignoring the filth of his surroundings. Only he knew he would have to break that devil’s spawn they called his wife before he could collect the debt owed him. Once that was done, he wouldn’t need these murdering bastards again.

  He could see himself now, the glorious Union hero who put period to the depredations of the notorious Raiders. They might even name a school or somesuch after him one of these days. After he rid himself of Wickliffe and claimed his rightful wife.

  Seeing the Stone Creek mansion from the master’s chambers was going to be a distinct pleasure, and the sooner, the better.

  ***

  “Before I do anything, tell me what your intentions are toward Laura.”

  “What in hell business is it of yours?” Grumbling, Jonathan turned away from his former ward to pour himself a drink. He had no intention of making this easy for Cash. It was time the man woke up and faced the truth.

  “I’m making it my business.” Cash took the bottle from Jonathan’s hand and refilled his own glass. It was too early in the afternoon to be drinking, but he needed fortification.

  “If you don’t know the answer, Wickliffe, you haven’t got the sense I gave you credit for. The only question here concerns your intentions. Laura might not be given to many words, but she’s never lied to me. I think your intentions are of most importance to her right now.”

  Cash glumly accepted that fact. Jonathan would know about Mark. Steeling himself to the inevitable, he replied, “I’ll support Mark, you know that. That’s why I’m here. I just want to make certain Laura gets everything that’s due to her, but I want some rights too.”

  “You gave up your rights when you married Sallie. Most of the town thinks Mark is mine. I’m fully capable of taking care of both of them. You can leave town with a clear conscience if that’s what you’re after.”

  Cash wasn’t certain what he was after. He glanced around the cold hotel room where Jonathan was staying. He’d seen many of these in his day and he wasn’t looking forward to going back to them. There was always the California ranch. He could install some cute little Mexican maid, and after a while maybe he’d even teach her to speak English and marry her. Anything was possible.

  Grimacing, he sipped his drink. “That’s not what I’m after. I don’t know why I’m even talking to you. I’ll just do what I should have done in the first place and let Laura decide. But there’s a few things I’ve got to take care of first.”

  Jonathan watched as Cash rose from the chair. When it became apparent more information wasn’t forthcoming, he spoke. “You can’t go proposing marriage to her now. Her cousin’s barely cold in the grave.”

  With a snarl Cash gave his former mentor a look that defied argument. “Marriage is the last thing on my mind. Do you think I want to destroy any more innocent lives? I’m going to give Laura what she wants— freedom.”

  The door slammed as he stormed out, leaving Jonathan to regard the wooden panel. Perhaps Cash h
ad the right of it, but he felt fairly certain that Laura wouldn’t agree.

  Sighing, he left for Burke’s office. If he had to stay in this forsaken place, it wouldn’t be at that hotel any longer.

  ***

  If he were the right sort of cad, Cash thought, he’d sign over the farm, consider he’d done his duty, and walk off. He’d let Laura deal with the problems of Marshall and the lost tobacco and the damaged house and the crop that needed to be harvested. But Cash still retained too much of his mother’s conscience to consign Laura to that fate.

  He would solve the problems that he had caused and hand the property over free and clear of any further obligation. He had already poured a fortune down that drain—what difference did it make if he dropped a few more coins? He didn’t need much money any longer. It hadn’t accomplished anything he’d wanted to do anyway.

  Not daring to contemplate what he wanted, Cash frowned and strode down the street. Several of his white field hands had already quit, refusing to work any longer with the black men he had hired. He’d heard the epithets thrown in his direction. Nigger-lover was the least of them.

  The short-term solution would be to fire the black hands and hire only white, but that wouldn’t last in the long run. Most of the whites thought working in the field like slaves beneath their dignity. They would quit at the first opportunity. And if he left for California, leaving Laura in charge, they would grab that excuse to quit. They would never work for a woman.

  He needed to build up a strong and loyal force that would stay under any pressure. It sounded impossible, but there were enough unemployed people in the state to eventually find the ones he sought.

  Marshall and his bunch were the worst problem. By spending time drinking with the vigilantes who hated Marshall as much as the Raiders, he’d been able to learn enough of both groups to stem some of the worst offenses to his workers.