To Have and to Hold (Cactus Creek Cowboys)

by Greenwood, Leigh

  “If that’s your idea of an apology—” Ethan sputtered.

  “It’s not a very good one,” their father said, “but it’s better than nothing. Now everybody needs to eat their breakfasts. We’ll never get to Santa Fe if we sit around talking all morning.”

  Ben opened his mouth—probably to mount a defense—but his father forestalled him.

  “Not another word until the wagons are hitched up and we’re rolling.”

  Apparently Cassie didn’t think that applied to her. “I think it was a very nice apology. Nobody has ever apologized to me before.”

  “I’m sure they never had reason,” Ethan said.

  Naomi wanted to slap that mooncalf expression off his face. She had seen other boys go loco over a pretty girl, but she’d never expected him to be one of them.

  “I didn’t have many girlfriends, but all the boys were very nice.”

  Naomi was starting to wonder if Cassie was as silly as she seemed. She had certainly captivated Ethan, and Virgil Johnson’s two boys hovered around when they could find a free moment.

  A gurgle from the baby drew their attention.

  Cassie looked down and smiled. “He looks so much like Abe, I’ll never be able to forget him.”

  She started to tear up, which made Naomi feel crummy for her uncharitable thoughts.

  “You shouldn’t forget him,” Colby said. “Your son will want to know all about his father when he gets older. Do you have a name for him?”

  “I thought about naming him Abe, but I cry every time I say his name.” She heaved a sigh of resignation. “I guess I’ll stop crying someday.”

  Cassie might be a little shallow and a lot clingy, but it was apparent that she had loved her husband. From now on Naomi decided to make an effort to be more charitable.

  As long as Ethan didn’t ask Cassie to marry him.

  Colby set his plate down. “Time to round up the stock, hitch up the wagons, and get moving.” He looked to where the first rays of the sun had begun to edge over the eastern horizon. “Looks like it’s going to be a hot day.”

  Cassie sighed. “It’s always a hot day inside the wagon. The baby gets fretful.”

  “Maybe I can take him for a while this afternoon.” Naomi didn’t know where the words came from. It was certain her brain was appalled to hear them come out of her mouth.

  “That’s very generous of you,” her father said.

  She couldn’t take it back, not with Colby looking at her with approval in his eyes. She’d gotten spoiled riding with him each day. She was going to miss that.

  “Do you know how to take care of a baby?” Cassie asked.

  “It’s been a while, but I took care of Ben.” She grimaced at her younger brother who returned the favor. “I remember it all too well.”

  “I never had a younger brother,” Cassie said. “My mama said I was all the children she could handle.”

  Seemed like Cassie was even more alone than Naomi had thought.

  “Come on,” Colby said to the boys. “Time to go to work.”

  “Want me to help clean up?” Cassie asked Naomi after the men left. She laid her baby in a basket. “I guess I have to learn to take care of a baby and a house at the same time.”

  “It’s not so hard. The older he gets, the more time he can spend on his own.”

  “I guess so, but I like to hold him. He’s all I have left of Abe.” Cassie gathered up the dirty plates. “I have to learn to put him down and leave him. I have to marry as soon as I can find a husband. He won’t want me spending all my time with another man’s baby.” As Cassie walked away, she said, “Men aren’t much interested in babies.”

  Naomi had been embarrassed about her feelings before, but now she was disgusted with herself. Nearly every word out of Cassie’s mouth made her feel like a selfish woman with no concern for anyone but herself. If she ever lost her husband, she wouldn’t be alone with no one to turn to. Her sons would have a grandfather and two uncles to initiate them into the secrets that for centuries had been turning perfectly reasonably young boys into quarrelsome, self-centered, and unfathomable creatures called men.

  What if she were to marry a man who already had children? Could she love them as deeply as her own? Wasn’t that too much to expect? Naomi was struck with the sudden question of how Colby felt toward babies. Did he ever think about a son of his own?

  She shook her head to dislodge the unwelcome thought.

  Ben ran up to the wagon. “Papa told me to help Ethan hitch the mules. As soon as I finish, I’m to come back and help him with our oxen.” He scampered away without waiting for Naomi to respond.

  “I’d better go,” Cassie said when she returned. “I like to get settled before we start.”

  “You don’t have to hurry.”

  Cassie looked at her with bird-like curiosity. “Why are you being so nice to me? You invited me to eat breakfast with your family, you offered to take care of my baby, and you’ve talked to me like I’m a normal person. Nobody else has.”

  Naomi had underestimated how isolated and alone Cassie felt. “I’m sorry everybody has been so standoffish. We’re such a close community we have trouble opening up enough to include other people.”

  “I’ve never had a baby before. I wish I had somebody I could talk to.”

  “Why don’t you talk to Pearl Sumner? She has three girls. The oldest, Amber, is about your age.”

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “When we started, we didn’t think of your family as part of our group. Mr. Greene was just a stranger hired to take us to Santa Fe. Now you’re one of us. I’ll take you over and introduce you at the midday break.”

  “I’d like that. Now I’d better go. I see your father is coming with the oxen. I wish I had oxen. Mules are so big. I think Ethan is very brave. He doesn’t act scared at all.”

  Naomi watched Cassie walk away and wondered what kind of life she had led before she came west. Neither Ethan nor Ben would any more think of being afraid of a mule than they would of a pig or a cow.

  Ben came running up just as their father was ready to put the yoke on the first ox. “I wish we had mules,” he said, slightly out of breath. “Oxen are so boring.”

  “The last thing we need is exciting oxen or mules,” their father said. “Now stop chattering and help me with these harnesses.”

  Having put everything away, Naomi went to join them.

  “We can do this by ourselves,” Ben announced.

  “I’m always glad of a little help,” their father said.

  “Harnessing the team is a man’s job.”

  “Who told you that?” Naomi asked.

  “Ethan. He said he’d never ask Cassie to help him hitch up the mules.”

  “That’s because she has a baby and she’s afraid of big animals,” their father said. “Naomi doesn’t have a baby, and she’s not afraid of big animals, even Colby.”

  Naomi was shocked her father would make such a comment.

  “Nobody’s afraid of Colby except Indians.” Ben pantomimed Colby using his repeating rifle.

  “If you don’t back that ox into the traces, you’re going to have more to worry about than Indians.”

  Ben took his father’s remonstrances with good grace. “When I’m grown, I’m going to have nothing but mules.”

  “As long as you can pay for them, you can have anything you want.”

  They’d almost finished when Colby came up leading an ox.

  “Whose ox is that?” Ben asked.

  Colby looked unusually solemn. “I don’t know. It joined our livestock sometime during the night.”

  “Why was it wandering around out here?” Naomi asked.

  “I expect it’s because of some tragedy.”

  “You mean Indians?” Ben asked, subdued.

  “It co
uld be that a wagon broke down so completely it couldn’t be repaired and they let their oxen loose.”

  “Cholera has been reported all across the country this year,” Dr. Kessling said. “It can wipe out whole families.”

  “Can that ox make us sick?” Ben asked.

  “No.”

  “Can we have it?”

  “If you want it,” Colby said.

  “It would be nice to have three full yokes,” Dr. Kessling said. “I’ve been worried we might be asking too much of the ones left to pull this heavy wagon.”

  “I’ve been watching them,” Colby said. “They’re still okay. I was going to stop for a day if they needed more rest.”

  “That wouldn’t have been fair to everybody else,” her father protested.

  “The best interest of the train is served by making sure everyone’s stock and equipment is equally fit. You wouldn’t have left anyone behind who suffered a broken wheel, would you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then we wouldn’t overwork any single team.”

  The ox preferred freedom to the harness, but it didn’t take Colby long to get it yoked and hitched to the wagon. “Think you can handle three teams?” he asked Ben.

  “You bet.”

  “I’ll make sure he does,” his father said.

  “Is there anything else?” Colby had turned to Naomi when he asked that question.

  “I need to talk to some of the women about making Cassie feel she’s a part of this group. I didn’t realize no one was talking to her.”

  “I can help with that,” her father said. “There’s nobody like a doctor for giving advice. They’re used to us telling them things they don’t want to hear.”

  Ben had no interest in Cassie or her baby. “Can I have Papa’s horse?”

  “Maybe this afternoon,” his father said. “This morning you have to teach this ox how to be part of our team.”

  “I’ll tether the horse to the back of your wagon,” Colby said.

  “That’s a mighty thoughtful man,” her father said to Naomi after Colby left. “I wish he were going all the way to Santa Fe with us.”

  “Me, too,” Ben said. “I like him.”

  “Everybody likes him,” his father said. “Considering our group, that says a lot.”

  Naomi wondered if her father would be so sanguine if he had any idea how much she liked Colby.

  ***

  “Are you sure you want to take care of the baby the whole afternoon?”

  Colby was grinning at Naomi.

  “You looked like you were about to swallow your tongue when you offered. I’d have sworn you spoke before you thought.”

  “I did,” Naomi confessed. “I was feeling so guilty about an uncharitable thought I overcompensated.”

  “What uncharitable thought?”

  “Never mind.”

  She had cleaned up after the midday meal. The men were either watching the livestock as they grazed or trying to catch a nap in the shade of the wagons. There wasn’t a tree in sight.

  Rather than stay in Cassie’s wagon, Naomi had brought the baby back to her wagon. She was sitting in the shade cast by it. “Why aren’t you taking a nap?” she asked Colby

  “I’d rather watch you take care of this baby.”

  “Are you waiting for me to make a mistake?”

  “Would I do that?” He could keep a straight face, but he couldn’t hide the merriment in his eyes.

  “Don’t you believe every woman is a natural mother?”

  “I don’t believe everybody is a natural anything.”

  “Okay, do you believe every woman should be a mother?”

  “Definitely not. My mother should have been barred from going anywhere near children.”

  “Let me try once more. Do you believe every woman should be married?”

  “No more than I believe every man should be married.”

  “Everybody in Kentucky expected to be married and have a family.”

  “There are several times as many men as women out here. In some places, there are no women at all, nice or otherwise.”

  “Then why do the men come out here?”

  “Adventure and excitement. Freedom from traditional restraints. To make their fortune or just find a place of their own. Some intend to go back. Others left something behind they hope won’t follow them. Still others are bad men who would be dead or in jail if they’d stayed east of the Mississippi.”

  Naomi settled the baby into a more comfortable position. “You don’t make the West sound like a very attractive place for a woman.”

  “It’s a perfect place for a certain kind of woman. I think it might be the perfect place for you.”

  Unsure how to interpret that, Naomi asked, “Why do you say that?”

  “We need women with the strength of character and independence of spirit to match the men who are trying to tame this wild country. At the same time, we need the civilizing influence and settling habits of women who want to have families and build something permanent. I think you have just the right combination of those traits.”

  Naomi didn’t know what to say. She’d never attempted to analyze herself in the manner Colby obviously had. While she was sure he meant it as a compliment, it reduced her to a list of impersonal traits, much the same way you would list the strengths and faults of a horse you were thinking about buying. She’d always viewed herself as a single personality, not a collection of traits that may or may not mesh into a satisfactory whole.

  “I’m not sure I like the West. Even without the Indians and snakes, it’s not a pleasant place. It’s hot and dry, water is scarce, and trees are virtually nonexistent. The land is flat and the wind blows all the time. I’ve hardly seen any birds or flowers, while wolves lurk in the tall grass. I haven’t seen a town or village in more than a month, and there’s no such thing as a house, school, or church. People are free to indulge in violence without fear of retribution. If you can’t grow it or make it, you have to do without it. Strength rather than virtue is respected, and force rather than right rules the day.”

  “I can see why you wanted to go back to Spencer’s Clearing. Do the others share your opinions?”

  “I can’t see how they could feel otherwise. You’ve lived your whole life here, and what do you have to show for it?”

  She hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but there was something about holding Cassie’s baby and seeing the world as Cassie must be seeing it that caused her to feel vulnerable. What about this miserable land could make her want to settle here, induce her to squander her strength of character and independence of spirit in an effort to build a life in a land that lacked nearly everything she considered good about being alive?

  His faint look of surprise and disappointment told her she’d offended Colby, but she didn’t know what else he could have expected her to say.

  “I didn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, but you have only the clothes on your back. How could you support a wife and family?”

  Before he could answer, the baby made a grunting sound and a frightful odor assailed her nose.

  Ten

  Naomi held the child away from her body.

  “What’s wrong?” Colby asked.

  “What do you think? There’s nothing wrong with your nose.”

  Colby laughed. “Want some help?”

  Naomi looked at him like he was crazy. “I’ve never met a man who wouldn’t rather do the roughest, most dangerous and disagreeable work he could find rather than change a baby.”

  “Give me the baby.”

  “You might drop him.”

  “I’ve held newborn calves and foals. I expect a baby is a lot easier.”

  Naomi reluctantly handed the baby to Colby who wrinkled his nose.

  “The sooner we take care of
this the better. Come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Down to the river.”

  Colby held the baby out in front of him and Naomi followed. What would have been an innocuous and uninteresting ritual became embarrassing when every person they passed knew exactly what had happened. The men laughed, but the women and children, hungry for anything that promised to be entertaining, abandoned their naps and followed. Soon Colby was leading a noisy parade to the river.

  “You going to toss him in?” Bert Hill, Reece’s oldest boy, asked.

  “He’s going to build a boat like it says in the Bible and let him float away,” said another.

  “I can’t wait to see this,” Elsa Drummond said to Mae Oliver. “In more than forty years, I have yet to see a man change a diaper.”

  “I’ll lay you odds he sticks his fingers with both pins,” Alma Hale said to Alice Vernon.

  “Is he really going to change the baby’s diaper?” Sibyl asked Naomi.

  “That’s what he said.”

  Colby took no notice of the loud, curious, and disrespectful audience. “I never realized changing a diaper could be so interesting.”

  “It’s not,” Pearl Sumner told him. “Seeing you change a diaper is.”

  Naomi was relieved to see Opal was one of the laughing children gathered around.

  Colby joined in the fun. “As you see,” he announced, “the problem is a baby with a stinky diaper.”

  “You don’t have to tell us that,” Bert called out. “We all got noses.”

  “So what are we going to do about it?”

  “Toss him in the river,” Bert suggested.

  Colby laid the baby down on the riverbank. “I can see why your mother would have been tempted to toss you in the river, but we actually like Little Abe.”

  Bert’s little brothers pounced on him with glee, the three of them roughhousing like frisky puppies.

  “The idea is to get rid of the stink and keep the baby,” Colby said, “but first I take off the diaper.”