The storm finally over, the sky began to lighten somewhat as Stone sat crouched beside Blackie. He’d searched the entire night. Juliette, sweet, sweet Juliette, where are you? If only I would’ve told you how much I love you!
He stared at the sky as streaks of red, pink, and blue lifted themselves above the horizon. She always loved the sunrise, he reminded himself as the splendor of the new day dawned before him.
Wearily, he rose and mounted his horse. “Which way now, Blackie?” he asked, stroking the horse’s mane. As he turned to take one last look at the sunrise, something caught his eye. Something moved by a huge fallen log several yards ahead of him. It looked like a wolf or a coyote. He couldn’t be sure.
Curious, he slowly edged Blackie closer. It was an animal of some sort, all right, and it almost looked like his big dog. He blinked and looked again. It was his big dog! But why would Kentucky be out here in the woods? Did he follow me?
He called to him, but the normally obedient dog didn’t come. He just sat there, staring at his master. “Kentucky, come here,” Stone ordered firmly, but the dog ignored his command, turned, and walked away from him, disappearing behind the huge fallen log. Fearing the dog might be injured, Stone quickly dismounted and rushed toward the log as Kentucky pawed at the ground and began to whine.
Stone stooped to see what the dog had been digging at, and there, tucked into the rotted-out area of the fallen tree, he found his precious Juliette.
“Oh, Stone. I knew you’d come,” she said in a mere whisper. “I’ve been asking God to send you.”
“God led me to you, my beloved.” As he squatted and leaned close to her, the sight that greeted him made his stomach lurch. He barely recognized his wife. A huge knot distorted her forehead, and she was covered with blood. He gently kissed her wounded face. “My darling, I’ve searched for you all night.”
“I’m fi–fine,” she whispered through chattering teeth, so softly he could barely hear her. “Th–thanks to Ke–Kentucky.”
He tried to pull her from the log, but she winced in pain. “M–my a–arm. It—it’s br–broken.”
“Oh, Juliette, if it weren’t for me—”
She gave a slight shake of her head. “No, d–don’t s–say it,” she whispered. “N–not your f–fault.”
“I’ve got to get you to Doc Meeker. That nasty cut on your head and your broken arm both need attention.” New energy filled his body as he tenderly scooped his wife from the log’s crude opening, lifted her in his arms, and kissed her face. God had answered his prayers. He’d kept her safe. Even with her injuries, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen—far lovelier than Lucy had ever been.
Lifting his face to God, he called out loudly, “I praise You, God, for answering my prayers and leading me to my dear wife. Forgive me for ever doubting You!”
Turning to Kentucky, he asked, “Gonna make it, Boy?”
The big dog barked, then began ambling along behind them as they rode toward town to find Doc Meeker.
❧
“She’ll be fine, Stone. Just make sure she gets plenty of rest. She’s been through quite an ordeal,” Doc said. “You take good care of her, you hear me?”
Stone nodded as he carefully gathered his wife up and lovingly placed her in the buggy John had brought for him to take Juliette home. “I will, Doc. She’s precious to me.”
Juliette’s sound arm circled her husband’s neck as he carried her up the steps and into their home.
“Da-da,” Andrew called out in his baby voice as he reached his arms toward them.
“Looks like my son wants me,” Stone said with a grin as he tenderly placed his wife on a chair and took the smiling child from America. “Look who I brought home, Andrew. It’s your mama.”
Eric reached out and touched the heavy layers of cloth that covered the knot on Juliette’s forehead. “Does it hurt, Mama?” he asked with a look that tore at her heart.
She slipped an arm around the boy and pulled him close. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” Noticing Will staring at her, she reached out a hand.
The little boy came running to her and leaped onto her lap. “Ma-ma h–h–hut?”
Juliette bent and kissed the boy’s sweet cheek. “Yes, Will. Mama hurt. But she’s going to be all right, now that she’s home with her three boys.” She sent a loving glance toward Stone, who appeared to be trying to mask his tears.
Later that night over a cup of hot tea, Stone told Juliette how he’d prayed in the woods that morning and had asked God to forgive him for his sins and asked Him to save him.
“I’m so glad, Stone. We both needed to get our lives straightened out. God has been so patient with us. Neither one of us deserves His love.”
Stone gazed into her lovely face. “I know.” Then, he and Juliette held hands, bowed their heads, and thanked the Lord for keeping each of them safe and bringing them home to their family.
❧
Two days later, after a nourishing supper of potato soup prepared by America, Stone put the boys to bed, then carried his wife into her room. He placed her on her bed and propped her up against a pile of pillows, then sat down beside her, took her free hand in his, and kissed her palm. “If you’re up to it, we need to talk.”
She gnawed at her lower lip. She’d been dreading this since the moment Stone had angrily stormed out of the house with the quilt under his arm. “Yes, we do.”
He gazed into her eyes and blinked several times before speaking. “I need to apologize for my actions on Christmas Day.”
She wanted to scream out, Yes, you need to apologize! I did nothing to deserve your wrath. I only wanted to make you happy! Instead, she kept her silence.
“I–I haven’t been totally honest. When I was out there looking for you and asking God to help me find you, I promised Him I would tell you everything. Even if you hated me for it. There’s so much you don’t know. I hardly know where to start.” He gulped hard. “Maybe I’d better go back to the beginning.”
She nodded, knowing as angry as his words might make her, she could never hate him. Nothing could make her hate him. She loved him too much.
“My father, and his father before him, owned huge tobacco plantations. We had a fine house and many servants. All of them were slaves, bought by my father and my grandfather. Even as a small child, I hated watching the slaves working so hard and being mistreated by my father. Although the other wealthy people of Kentucky thought of him as this fine, upstanding man, he wasn’t! He was cruel. He used to get drunk and beat my mother. She never told anyone because of the shame she felt, but the slaves and I knew.”
Juliette gasped as her hand rose to cover her mouth. “How awful!”
“I used to tell her of my big plans to leave and take her with me, but we both knew it’d never happen—not with my father being so rich and powerful. We’d never get away from him. When he’d beat her, I’d put cold cloths on her bruises, trying to make her feel better. She’d always smile and say it helped, but I doubted it did.”
“Didn’t your friends and neighbors see her bruises?”
“No, she’d stay in the house until they disappeared, cover them with powder, or make up stories about falling down our staircase. She never told anyone. No one would’ve believed her anyway. Many times, I heard my father tell his friends she drank heavily, but that wasn’t true. She never took a drink. He said that as a cover-up for the way she looked, all bruised and sad.”
“Oh, your poor mother. How awful it must’ve been for her. For both of you.”
“Well, one night when I guess I was about sixteen, I found my mother lying on the floor in her room in a pool of blood. My father was standing over her with a heavy candlestick in his hand. He’d been beating her with it. I grabbed it from his hand and hit him once. Real hard. On his head. He clutched his chest and fell across the bed. I didn’t know what to do. My mother screamed for me to go get help, but I didn’t. I just stood there, almost hoping he wouldn’t make it.”
> Juliette let out a slight moan. “Oh, Stone.”
“Moses went for help, but by the time someone arrived, Father was already dead. To protect me, Mother told them she’d hit him. But the doctor said the blow hadn’t been enough to kill him. He’d died of a heart attack. Still, I knew better. I’d killed him. If I hadn’t hit him, he wouldn’t have had that spell with his heart. I’m sure of it.”
“You were only sixteen at the time?”
“Yes. My mom and I did the best we could to run the place after my father died. She died about five years later—from her illness they said, but I always thought it was from a broken heart. As their only child, I inherited everything: the plantation, my father’s business, his bank accounts—” He paused. “Everything. I freed all the slaves when my mother died, and I became the legal owner.”
“That’s when you freed Moses and America?”
He smiled. “Yes. Most of the slaves stayed with me. I improved their housing and gave them an honest wage for their labors. I ran that plantation until about nine years ago. That’s when I decided to sell out and come west. I needed a change in my life, a new challenge.”
“And America and Moses came with you?”
He shook his head. “Not at first. They stayed behind with the new owner. I brought the few possessions I wanted to keep with me to St. Louis. I made my home there for a year or so. I’d never planned to stay in Missouri. My sights were set on Kansas and the open prairie.”
Juliette tilted her head. “What about Alice?”
“Alice? Oh, she’s maybe my half-sister. Father just showed up with her one day. He said he thought she might be his daughter and moved her in with us. We never knew her real mother’s name, and Father wouldn’t tell us. He said he’d been paying some woman to look after her since the day she was born. The woman had died, so he’d brought her home to us. That’s another reason my mother died of a broken heart. If the truth were known, some of the slave children were probably my half-brothers and sisters too.”
He sucked in a fresh breath of air and continued. “Alice is five years older than me. When she got old enough to be on her own, she left us and moved to St. Louis to get away from my father. That’s one reason I stayed in Missouri—because of her. I’d always loved her, almost as much as if she’d been my real sister.”
“Is that where you met Lucy? In St. Louis?”
He rubbed at his chin and stared at the wall as if seeing a vision of his deceased wife. “Yes. I met her at a dance one of my new friends took me to. She was beautiful—the prettiest and wildest girl I’d ever met. She took a shine to me too. I used to think she really liked me. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if she’d learned about the money I’d banked from the plantation’s sale and only tolerated me because of it.”
Juliette shifted her position with a frown as pain shot through her arm. “Stone, surely you don’t mean that.”
“I might’ve been wrong, but I guess I’ll never know for sure. Anyway, I fell for that woman in a big way. She hung all over me. Kissing me and making over me like I was the catch of the century. No woman had ever done that before. In two weeks we were married. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“She must’ve really loved you, to marry you so quickly.”
“Well, I know she spent my money like there was no bottom to the barrel. And she never wanted to move west, even though she knew from the beginning that’d been my plan. I promised her a fine house and servants. Finally, she agreed to give it a try. I came on ahead and bought the land and turned it into Carson Creek Ranch. After I built the house, I brought her here. Since I’d promised her servants, I wrote to America and asked if she and Moses would like to come to Kansas.”
Juliette smiled. “Oh, but she had to have been pleased when she saw this fine house. She must’ve loved moving to Kansas, to the new frontier, and being with her husband again. I’m sure she missed you.”
Stone let out a long, deep sigh. “No, she hated it. She complained about everything. The house wasn’t formal enough for her. It was too isolated. Too hot. Too cold. Too far from a big city where the elegant parties were held. Nothing I did pleased her.”
“But—you loved her,” she inserted softly. “You’ve told me so, many times.”
“I did love her—or I thought I did. I remembered watching the way my father treated my mother. I vowed then that I’d never marry a woman I didn’t love. And when I did marry, it would be forever. I took my marriage vows seriously.”
“I’m sure Lucy did too.”
Andrew stirred in his bed.
“Let me nurse him. I’m sure he’ll go right back to sleep,” Juliette told him as she smoothed the covers beside her.
Stone bent over the crib and lifted the sleepy baby, placing him at his mother’s side. “I’ll go after a fresh cup of water while you nurse him.”
❧
He moved to the other room and sat down in the chair beside the fireplace, cradling his head in his hands. God, can You ever forgive me for deceiving Juliette? I don’t want to hurt this wonderful woman anymore, but she has to know the truth. I need Your help. Give me the right words. I can’t put this off any longer. He rose, plunged the dipper into the pail of water, and filled her cup. She’s been through so much these past few days. Dare I heap any more on her? With a heavy heart, he moved back into her room with the cup.
She smiled as he came through the door, motioning toward the sleeping baby, a trickle of milk still evident on his rosy little cheek. “Would you put him back in his bed, please?”
He nodded, took Andrew from her side, and carefully laid the sleeping baby in his crib.
As soon as he was seated again, Juliette reached out and cupped his chin with her hand. “Poor Stone, I never realized you’d been through so much.”
With a heavy heart filled with guilt, he hung his head. “I don’t want sympathy, Juliette. Please know I’m not telling all of this as an excuse for my behavior. I’m telling it because you deserve to know. What I’ve done is inexcusable.”
She shook her head. “Nothing can be that bad. Go on. I’m listening.”
He settled himself beside her and began again. “I even took Lucy back to St. Louis several times to purchase some of the fine items you’ve seen here.” He grinned. “Some I didn’t know you’d seen.”
“I’m sorry. I never meant to—”
He put a finger to her lips. “You did nothing wrong. You only wanted to please me.” He paused. “For awhile, she seemed happy. But she was soon as discontent as ever, saying her life with me here in Kansas bored her. She constantly threatened to leave me and find another man who would take her back to St. Louis. Then, she began to be sick around the clock, and Doc Meeker said she was with child. That news really upset her. She blamed me and said she’d never fit in her beautiful clothes again because of what I had done to her. She even talked about doing away with the baby.”
Juliette gasped. “How could she?”
He shrugged and let out another deep sigh. Telling her all of this was harder than he’d ever expected, but he couldn’t stop now.
“I finally talked her out of it. When Eric came into this world and she had a pretty rough delivery, she swore she’d never have another child.”
“But she loved Eric, didn’t she?”
“Maybe. When he wasn’t crying or wet. Then America or I had to take over. Lucy would go into hysterics, run into her room, and lock the door. She wouldn’t come out until one of us had put him to sleep.”
He stole a glance toward Andrew, sleeping peacefully in his bed, his stubby legs tucked up under his little bottom. “She never even considered nursing him. We lived like that for about three years, I guess. Those years were pretty miserable for both of us.”
“But—I always thought you two were so happy! You worshipped that woman!”
“I misled you. My pride wouldn’t let me reveal the truth. I don’t know how one man could’ve been so stupid.”
He continued. “To k
eep her from brooding, I took her to St. Joseph or Topeka several times a year to shop for the newest fashions. Sometimes, I think promising her those trips was all that kept our marriage together. She’d hug me, kiss me, and tell me how wonderful I was. Like an idiot, I believed her. When we were visiting in St. Louis, her friends would give grand parties. Lucy would pile curls on her head with those fancy ribbons, and she’d wear low-cut gowns that cost me a small fortune. She’d parade herself back and forth in front of all the men. They’d make over her and whisk her about the dance floor, while all the ladies watched and envied her and her beauty. She loved it.”
“If she treated you so badly, why did you put up with it?”
He swallowed hard. He had to answer her question as honestly as he could, no matter how much it hurt him to verbalize the words. “Be–because I saw my father in me. I felt the same hatred and discontent that he felt for my mother. Oh, not for the same reasons. Lucy and my mother were nothing alike. But I knew I had the same power my father had. The same—”
“Same what?” she asked, her eyes wide.
He paused and nibbled at his lip. “The same anger. It scared me. I never wanted to see that anger unleashed. I kept it all buried inside me. I’d turn my back on the jealousy and the things that made me mad. I made myself believe the attentions those men paid her were really compliments for me because I’d been able to convince such a beautiful woman to become my wife. In truth, I deceived myself.”
“But you had two children—”
“Oh, yes. That was the blow that nearly sent Lucy back to Kentucky. We had—” He bit his lip. How can I say this?
“I’m your wife, Stone. You can tell me anything,” she whispered softly.
“We were together as husband and wife. Often. It was her way of controlling me. And, to be honest, I never complained.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I–I think I understand. You needn’t explain.”
“Anyway, when Doc Meeker diagnosed her second pregnancy, again she turned on me. She was even more upset than the first time. She considered having the baby taken from her. Although she never admitted it, I’m sure she tried some home remedies her friends had told her about to get rid of the baby. I’ve always thought that’s why Will was born deaf.”
Lucy's Quilt Page 16
