“Watch the pins,” one of the women cautioned.
Colby managed to remove the diaper without doing damage to himself. “You youngsters should observe while Naomi rinses the diaper so you’ll know what to do when you have your own kids.”
Ted Drummond looked toward Amber Sumner. “I’m not washing any diapers. That’s for my wife.”
“If you can find any girl desperate enough to marry you,” Amber replied.
The chorus of laughter didn’t dent Ted’s spirits any more than the noisy teasing and shouted responses bothered Colby.
“Being on the lazy side, I like to take the easy way out.” Colby waded into the river and lowered the baby until his bottom was submerged. “Once the diaper is off, the river makes a quick job of it.”
Some people laughed while others jeered. Little Abe slapped the water with his hands. After swishing him around a bit, Colby lifted the baby from the water and announced, “All clean. Once he’s dry, he’ll be as good as new.”
Nearly every female above the age of two converged on Colby. One took the baby while another dried him. Once he was diapered, everyone wanted to hold him.
“They act like they didn’t know he existed until now,” Colby said to Naomi. “What did they think Cassie gave birth to, a groundhog?”
“You did that.”
“What?”
“That.” She indicated the women and children around the baby. “I don’t know how it worked any more than I know why it worked, but you made Little Abe a part of our community.”
“By washing his butt in the river? It’s got to be more than that.”
“He’s a baby without a father and a mother who’s little more than a child herself. Everybody knew that before, but he wasn’t ours. Now he is.”
Colby stared at Naomi, then the women, then back at Naomi. His expression was one of complete bafflement. “I think every woman in the train has bats in her belfry,” he said finally.
“Careful,” Naomi said when she stopped laughing, “or you’ll destroy your image of a rough, untutored man of the wilderness.”
“We have churches with bell towers in Santa Fe,” Colby retorted. “Even untutored men like myself know what they are.”
“Don’t tell Ben. He likes to imagine you were reared by wolves.”
Colby scowled. “More like a snarling mountain lion and a two-faced coyote.”
“Do coyotes have two faces? It must be hard to keep two mouths fed and two faces clean.”
Colby burst out laughing. “You’re as crazy as the rest of your crowd.”
Suddenly the Hill boys burst from the group and headed back toward the wagons at a run. Colby grabbed Bert by the collar. “What’s the hurry?”
“Mama started talking about when we were babies.”
“That made all the girls laugh,” complained his brother.
“I was never cute.”
“You forgot adorable,” his brother reminded him.
“I wasn’t that, either.”
“I’m sure you were a pesky little urchin with dirt behind his ears and a rip in his pants,” Colby said.
“Did that happen to you, too?” the youngest boy asked.
“Got my head dunked in the horse trough I don’t know how many times.”
The boys grinned at the thought of a big man like Colby getting dunked.
“Now you’d better finish your nap,” Colby said. “It’ll soon be time to hitch up the wagons.”
“I don’t need no nap,” Bert insisted.
His brothers were equally adamant they didn’t need naps.
“Why don’t you watch the mules to make sure nobody steals them? If you hide under the wagon, nobody will see you.”
“Morley Sumner is watching the mules,” Bert said. “Ain’t nobody going to steal anything from him.”
“You’d better watch just in case someone sneaks up behind his back.”
The boys trudged off trying to decide who would watch first.
Naomi turned to Colby. “I never heard such nonsense come out of your mouth. And you had me thinking you were serious all the time. First you sweet-talk every female in the camp into being nutty over Cassie’s baby, then you gull those boys into thinking they need to guard the mules.”
“They’ll be sound asleep in less than ten minutes. I was a boy at one time, you know.”
“Somehow I find that hard to believe, at least not a boy like Reece’s boys.”
“No, I wasn’t like these boys, but I knew some who were. We got into trouble together then had to think of a yarn that wasn’t so far from the truth nobody would believe us.”
Naomi shook her head. “I’ll never be able to look at you the same way after this.”
“Considering what you used to think of me, that’s a relief.”
The easy, relaxed feeling disappeared immediately.
“I’ve already told you that my feelings have changed.”
“But you haven’t told me what they are now.”
Naomi was saved from having to answer by a gaggle of women and girls heading toward Colby. “Get ready for a little halo polishing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They do have churches attached to those belfries, don’t they?”
“Of course. I’ve even been inside one or two.”
“Then you know saints have halos. You earned yours by saving Opal. Changing Little Abe’s diaper warrants a polishing. You also gave him a name. He’s going to be Little Abe no matter what Cassie decides.”
“You can’t be serious about that halo thing.”
“Wait and see.”
Within moments Colby was surrounded. Having proved himself adept at handling medical and everyday emergencies, they bombarded him with a multitude of questions that would have caused an ordinary red-blooded male to turn tail and run. Naomi was amused at first, but gradually her amusement turned to admiration. It wasn’t that Colby could answer the questions. He couldn’t. It was the way he encouraged them to evaluate the problems and come up with their own answers. The whole community, he said, was more likely than any one person to come up with the best answer. He said there was rarely one answer for everybody, that each person should look for the best answer for them.
Pearl Sumner and Mae Oliver were the first to leave the group. “He’s a remarkable young man,” Pearl said as she placed Little Abe in Naomi’s arms. “You should convince him to stay with us once we reach Santa Fe.”
“Why would he listen to me?”
“He likes you,” Mae said.
“And you like him,” Pearl said. “Don’t try to deny it,” she said when Naomi opened her mouth to object.
“He’s not the kind of man I would have wanted for you if we’d stayed in Kentucky, but he’s what a woman like you needs out here.” Mae was Naomi’s mother’s second cousin, but she treated Naomi like a daughter after her mother died.
“He is interesting,” Naomi admitted.
“And attractive,” Pearl said. “Just what any woman would want.”
Mae wasn’t in total agreement. “Maybe after a fashion.”
Pearl motioned Sibyl and Laurie to join them. “Do you find Colby attractive?” she asked.
“Sure,” Sibyl said then laughed. “He hasn’t a penny to his name or a change of clothes, but he’s completely outshone Norman.”
Pearl turned to Laurie. “What do you think?”
She looked stricken. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“You don’t have to pretend with us,” Mae said.
“I really haven’t thought about it,” Laurie insisted. “I sometimes swear Noah can see inside my head.”
“Well think about it now,” Mae said.
Laurie turned to where Colby was talking to Elsa Drummond. “I think he’s perfect. If I we
ren’t married, I’d chase him down and tie him up.” She laughed, a little hysterically. “If you hear Noah shouting at me tonight, it’ll be your fault. Now I’d better go.” She hooked her arm in Sibyl’s and the two cousins walked back to the wagons.
“I’ll never understand why her father insisted on marrying her to that dried-up shell,” Mae said.
“Money,” was Pearl’s succinct answer.
“Money wouldn’t have been enough to get me to marry him, and he’s my age.”
“With that body, her parents were afraid she might get in trouble.”
Naomi envied the lush curves and blond prettiness that compelled the attention of every man who laid eyes on Laurie. Unfortunately nature’s bounty hadn’t brought her happiness.
“Colby is coming this way,” Pearl told Naomi. “You can change his mind. I know you can.”
“The only reason that would give me the right to try would be that I wanted to marry him. He fell in love some time ago, which I gather didn’t end well.”
“Why would he tell you about that?”
“I was trying to avoid him in the beginning. He told me so I wouldn’t be afraid he might make improper advances.”
Pearl subjected Colby to a moment’s scrutiny. “He doesn’t look like a man suffering from unrequited love to me.”
“He wouldn’t be if he was interested in Naomi,” Mae said.
“He’s not interested in me, and I won’t try to talk him into changing his plans.”
Pearl sighed. “It seems such a waste to let some other female get him.”
They couldn’t say more because Colby and Elsa Drummond came to join them.
“He’s a perfect baby,” Elsa said of Little Abe. “I’ve never heard him cry.”
“Hopefully he won’t until I take him back for Cassie to feed him,” Naomi said.
“Why isn’t he with his mother?” Elsa asked as they headed back to the wagons.
“She needed a break. She’s had a horrible week and no one to help her with the baby.”
“We can help,” Elsa offered. “There are a dozen females with nothing to do most of the day.”
By the time they reached the wagons, the women had organized a week’s help for Cassie.
Colby shook his head. “At this rate, Cassie will barely have time to feed him.”
“And all because of you.”
“It’s you,” Colby said. “You’re one of them, and they trust you. You reached out to Cassie so they felt free to follow your example.”
Naomi was distantly related to a third of the people in Spencer’s Clearing, but that had never given her any influence. She couldn’t imagine why that should have changed now. “It doesn’t matter who did what or why things changed. I’m just glad they have.”
“Maybe it will give people something to think about other than why they hate each other.”
“Nobody hates anybody.”
“Have you seen the way Frank Oliver looks at Norman? That’s hate.”
“He’s just upset over Toby’s death.”
“Everyone’s upset over Toby’s death. What Frank feels is something else.”
“Do you think he’ll go after Norman again?”
“I don’t know, but if I held a man responsible for my only son’s death, I’d want to kill him in the slowest and most painful way I could devise.”
The coldness, the biting edge to his voice, caused Naomi to stare at Colby. “Could you kill a man in cold blood?”
“I wouldn’t hesitate.”
She shuddered. “It’s a good thing you don’t have a child.” When something inside Colby seemed to go dead, she asked, “You don’t have a child, do you?”
He answered between gritted teeth. “You know I’m not married.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“I know what it doesn’t mean, but I don’t have a child. Do you think I’d leave it if I did?”
“I don’t think you would. No, I know you wouldn’t.”
“Now that we’ve settled that, let’s forget it. You need to get out of the sun, and I need to check on the livestock.”
Okay, he didn’t have a child, but there was more to his having fallen in love than he’d told her. She told herself to stop trying to come up with answers. It was none of her business. Yet she couldn’t stop wondering if Colby was still in love with that woman.
***
Except for Paul Hill, whose turn it was to watch the livestock, everyone was taking advantage of the opportunity for a nap. For the last three days, a cloudless sky had allowed the sun’s rays to beat down on them unmercifully. Colby had announced that they were to take a longer midday rest and drive later in the evening when it was cooler. Naomi had tried to sleep, but she was too restless.
“Make use of that energy and see if you can find some wood in those trees along that wash,” her father suggested when her fidgeting kept him awake. “My appetite fades when I know you cooked with buffalo chips.”
Naomi didn’t like it, either, but wood was so scarce the collection of buffalo chips had almost become a daily ritual.
“I’m asleep,” Ben mumbled, “so I can’t help.”
Naomi left her pallet, pulled a sunbonnet from her trunk to protect her from the sun, and started toward a grove nearly half a mile away that looked to be made up of cottonwoods. She wondered where Colby had gone. Usually he rested near their wagon.
The tall grass pulled at her dress as she pushed through. By the time she reached the edge of the trees, she was hot and irritated. She didn’t understand why Colby hadn’t had the wagons draw up under the trees. It would have been cooler than the open prairie. She was about to walk through a gap in the trees when she came to an abrupt stop.
Colby was there, kneeling beside two mounds of stones.
Beside two graves.
There were markers at the head of each grave, but she didn’t need to read them to know they were the graves of Colby’s birth parents.
She still missed her mother after all these years, but she was certain that couldn’t compare to Colby’s loss. He had no family to comfort him, no community to support him, no history to give him a sense of belonging. The loneliness had to weigh heavily on his soul to drive him to travel so far to visit the graves of parents he couldn’t remember.
“Come under the trees. It’s too hot in the sun.”
Naomi didn’t respond because she didn’t know what to say.
“It’s all right, Naomi.”
Naomi moved closer, the dried cottonwood leaves crunching under her feet. “How did you know who it was?”
“You packed lavender in the trunk with your clothes. I can smell it.”
She moved closer until she stood next to him. “How did you find them? You said you were a baby when they died.”
“All my adoptive parents would tell me was that my parents had been buried in a cottonwood grove alongside a creek on the Cimarron. For years I asked everyone who traveled this trail about graves they passed. Finally I found a man who told me he’d passed fresh graves here late in the summer twenty-six years ago. When I got here, I knew this had to be their graves. The mounds were so small I almost missed the graves. I covered them with stones I brought from the river. I carved the markers myself.”
The markers read: Mother, Died 1839. Father, Died 1839.
“I don’t know which is my mother and which is my father. I don’t even know their names. My name. My adoptive parents wouldn’t tell me the name of anyone who was with them. It was early years for settlers. Many people were killed by Indians, the weather, and each other. Others gave up and went back east. I had two brothers who were adopted by other couples, but I’ve never found anybody who knew what happened to them.”
Naomi couldn’t think of anything to say.
Colby stood. “It may seem foolish t
o visit the graves of people I never knew, but it’s the only link I have to anyone I feel must have loved me just as I was.” He turned to her. “It probably seems like a weakness for me to be so sentimental over graves.”
“I visited my mother’s grave regularly. I’m going to miss doing that.”
“You’ve got your father, your brothers, your cousins. You’ll never feel like you could disappear from the face of the earth and no one would notice.”
“I would notice.”
After a long moment, he said, “You ought to go back. It’ll soon be time to leave, and you won’t have had any rest.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll stay here a while longer. I always feel better afterwards.”
She wanted to stay, but she understood he was asking her to allow him some moments of solitude to draw what strength he could from his parents’ graves.
“I don’t think it’s foolish to be sentimental about parents you can’t remember. It shows strength of character not to forget them and strong loyalty to tend their graves. If you can love them so much without being able to remember them, think how much more they must have loved you when they could see you, hold you, make you part of their lives. You’ll never be alone because you’ve never lost their love. I know because that’s how I feel about my mother after I visit her grave.”
Colby stared at her so long she started to worry she’d said something that hurt him.
“Thank you. That was a kind thing to say.”
She was spared the need to reply when he turned back to the graves. She left the grove and headed back to the wagons. This time she wasn’t aware of the clinging grass or the stifling heat. Her mind was filled with the image of Colby kneeling before those graves. Never before had she seen such bone-deep sadness. It would take a lot of love to lift that burden.
***
“Is this rain ever going to stop?”
Ben was huddled inside the wagon with Naomi and their father. They had stopped for the midday break. It was too wet to prepare food so they settled for cold stew eaten directly from the pot. The women and children tried to stay dry while the men put the livestock out to graze. Some of them huddled on the lee side of the wagons to avoid the worst of the wind and rain. Some crouched under the wagons, water up to the ankles and wet grass up to their knees. Others gave up the battle and wandered about in the rain with their slicks pulled tightly around them.
To Have and to Hold (Cactus Creek Cowboys) Page 14
