The Cowboy's Enemy

by Jessie Gussman

  Shutting the refrigerator door, he turned.

  Cora stood in the doorway.

  Maybe they’d declared a silent truce at breakfast, but from the vitriolic look on her face, he figured they were back to full-blown warfare. Hardly fair, since it’d been Jason who’d uttered that last comment.

  But Abner hadn’t defended her.

  His silence implied tacit agreement.

  It was too late now.

  Their eyes met across the kitchen. His resigned. Hers narrowed and shooting poisoned darts.

  “Erin walked out to your car. She said to send you out when you were done talking.” Cora stepped into the kitchen and moved away from the doorway, almost like she was making sure Jason wouldn’t brush her on his way out. Andrew followed her in and stood close to her side.

  Jason set his coffee down on the table. “Come on, Sean.”

  Sean sauntered out, lanky and long, as fifteen-year-old boys had a tendency to be. Andrew looked up at him, and Sean looked over and down.

  In that moment, something about the line of their noses and the curve of their cheekbones hit Abner, and his eyes snapped to Jason.

  Same line. Same curve.

  Jason’s lascivious smile was back in place, though muted just a bit, and his head was turned, his eyes roving over Cora. She ignored him. Her gaze was focused on Abner.

  There was fear in her eyes, and a pleading he couldn’t ignore.

  He pressed his mouth closed. Claire gave an especially hard yank on his hair, but he barely felt it.

  Jason didn’t know that Andrew was his son.

  Andrew was the child she was pregnant with when she’d told the town it was Abner’s.

  Supposedly, she’d been using Abner to get Stephen to notice her, so...how did Jason fit in?

  Abner’s chest tightened, and tension sizzled up his backbone. How could he have carried a torch for this woman for years? How could she be the one that no one else compared to? What was he doing, standing in her kitchen, holding her kid?

  He wanted to shove the baby in her arms, leave, and never, ever come back.

  Because, even though there were years between the betrayal that was even worse than he’d originally thought and now, it still hurt, in a wrenching way that felt like screws being hand-turned into his heart.

  The door slammed behind Jason, but Cora hadn’t moved. Like she was waiting for him to say something.

  Well, she could wait forever, because there wasn’t anything for him to say.

  Finally, she moved, her hand resting on Andrew’s shoulder in a loving gesture that made Abner long for a loving mother of his own in a way he hadn’t for years and years. Not since he’d stood in his Amish home after the accident that killed his father and half-brother and had the woman who’d been raising him tell him she didn’t want him anymore.

  She’d had her hands on two of her “real” children just like Cora did now as she spoke. The pain of losing her husband and son was in her face and her heart, too, Abner knew. It’d been real. Of course.

  But the pain of her words had cut his soul just as deep as the death of his father and best friend and half-brother. They’d been more like twins, partners in good works and crimes alike. Becoming the dependable men their father had wanted. His heart had been broken, shattered, because the accident had been his fault.

  His stepmother had multiplied that pain.

  “Andrew, take Claire from Mr. Coblantz, and we’ll put coats on and go outside for a while.”

  Mr. Coblantz? Really?

  It was her way of putting distance between them, knowing he’d just seen something that, as far as he knew, no one else knew. Still, it hit him, probably as she intended.

  Claire tried to hold onto him as he handed her over to Andrew. He pulled his eyes away from Cora. He’d known it was a bad idea to come back. And even though he disliked her, maybe more now than he had before, he wanted to fix everything, ease her load, carry her burden, walk with her, holding her hand and making her laugh.

  She turned and walked out of the kitchen with her head up. Something about her posture reminded him of a fact he’d forgotten: she hadn’t had a mother who cared about her, either.

  Chapter 6

  Abner had a sponge in one hand and a small bucket of water in the other, wiping down the spackling he’d put up last night, evening it out. It was going to take another coat. It’d been years since he’d done work like this.

  His father had owned a construction business, and he and his half-brothers had worked in it from a very young age. Roofs had been their specialty. Hot, dirty work that could kill a man. No one wanted to be on a black house roof in the middle of a ninety-degree summer day.

  Metal roofs weren’t as hot, but the pieces were slippery and sharp. Especially in the winter. Drop one of those, and it’d slice your buddy in half on the way to the ground. Or you’d slide off it.

  That’s why it was so profitable for the Amish. They did what no one else wanted to do. And they did it wearing black, long sleeves and long pants.

  No safety harnesses.

  If he could spend all day, summer and winter, putting roofs on houses, he could do pretty much anything. It was the mindset he’d grown into.

  The front door opened. Abner didn’t look to see if it was Cora. She’d been out then in with the little ones for an hour or so to do laundry and make sandwiches, which she took back outside. He’d eaten lunch alone, without saying anything to Cora.

  He told himself he didn’t care.

  “Hey, Mr. Coblantz.” A voice came down the hall as the door clicked closed.

  Andrew. Derrick beside him.

  “Call me Abner.” Their mother probably wouldn’t approve, but he didn’t care.

  Lie.

  “Abner.” They moved closer. “Can we watch?” Andrew seemed to be the designated speaker. “Mom’s not in a very good mood, and she said we were standing on her last nerve.”

  Derrick spoke for the first time. “She threatened to take us back to prison. Uh. I mean, school.”

  Abner grunted. “Your mom has a hard job.”

  “I guess.” Their skinny shoulders shrugged.

  Maybe it was because he’d been raised Amish, with work that had to be done in order to survive. Or maybe it was because he’d never really belonged. But he’d been very aware of how hard his mother worked. He remembered looking for opportunities to do things that would help her, but maybe he just remembered his good side. Surely, she’d looked at him and wished he’d stop picking on his siblings and making them cry and just help her instead.

  Probably not. His dad would have beaten his butt, and that’d have been the end of it.

  Might not be the way the rest of the world was being raised, but if he hadn’t had the rod of instruction applied to his seat of knowledge, he’d probably be in jail now. He’d been pretty headstrong. That application had helped him learn to funnel his stubborn and bullheaded tendencies into perseverance, determination, and steadfastness. Taken vices and turned them into virtues, for the most part.

  He still had stubborn and bullheaded tendencies.

  “I’ll do you one better.” Abner stood up from the spackling bucket he’d been sitting on and swiped the flat edge off the floor. “Hold this.” He held the edge out to Andrew then pulled the lid up.

  It’d have been better if Andrew had done the first layer. With one more, Abner could have been done and ready for paint. By letting Andrew do it, it would take three coats or more.

  Didn’t matter. He wasn’t in a rush.

  Derrick had the sponge and Andrew was into the spackling up to his elbows when Cora walked in with the little ones. He didn’t have to look to know it was her. He could feel the heat of her gaze on the side of his head and caught a whiff of her scent.

  “I’m taking the little ones upstairs for a nap.” She paused, as though she’d just looked at them and realized what was going on. “You boys don’t need to be bothering Mr. Coblantz.”

  “They’re n
ot bothering me.”

  He wasn’t going to, knew it was dumb, but he turned his head and looked at her, windblown, with rosy cheeks and a little one in each arm.

  His cheek bunched and twitched, but he wouldn’t allow himself to be swallowed up in longing for what might have been, could have been, if Cora had been different. Even though he’d found out this morning about Andrew’s true father, he couldn’t convince his stupid heart that he was better off without her.

  She was feeling something, too, because her jaw jutted out. “Send them up if they start to be a pain.”

  An hour later, they were done with the second coat, and there wasn’t anything more to do until it dried.

  Well, there was plenty to do. No one had done any maintenance on the house in what looked like decades. Cora hadn’t shown her face again, and while his mother had stirred herself to the restroom and the kitchen, she’d not been in a talkative mood, so Abner told the boys to put their coats on and took them to the hardware store with him.

  He didn’t mind. Kind of enjoyed having them. Before the accident that killed his dad and half-brother, he’d have figured by the time he was as old as he was, he’d have had six or seven kids of his own. Wanted them. Just something about a big house with activity and laughter. He’d always viewed it as a good thing. Couldn’t wait until he had his own boys following him around the way he followed his dad. Had loved helping the eight little ones that had come after him.

  Then the accident, leaving the Amish, and public school with the English. Then he’d fallen for Cora.

  He’d never been able to look at anyone else.

  “What are we getting?” Andrew asked, shoving his hands down in his pockets as a gust of wind kicked up. Looked like rain. Fitting for the viewing tonight, he supposed.

  “Couple of doorknobs, and we’re gonna see if they have the piece we need to fix the toilet to keep it from running all the time.”

  Andrew nodded thoughtfully, like he was considering the cost.

  Both boys had told him they’d never been in the hardware store.

  Brown leaves blew across the sidewalk along with an empty plastic bottle and someone’s receipt as they turned the corner and headed down the main street in town. Clinton, OH, wasn’t big enough for a stoplight, but it did have a hardware store, a post office, and a small diner. A gym. Several churches, one that looked like it was closed and one that had been turned into a craft store. A bar. A small convenience store with no gas pumps.

  The boys walked beside him, looking around like they didn’t usually walk down Main Street. Or maybe they hadn’t lived here that long. He didn’t know, and he wished he didn’t care.

  A horse with a wagon buggy was tied at the end of the street. It’d been years since he’d seen any of his Amish family, and of course, he didn’t recognize the horse or the buggy. But chances were it’d be someone from his old community.

  It was three buildings down from the hardware store, but it was also the only place he saw on either side of the street where a man could tie his horse, so whoever had the buggy could be anywhere.

  Abner steeled himself. He’d killed his father and brother just as sure as if he’d put a bullet in them. The Amish weren’t supposed to hold grudges, but they were human. He’d not been back to know how anyone felt.

  The bell jingled overhead as he pulled the door open. The boys walked in and waited for him, sticking close to his side.

  He nodded to the cashier, who, he suspected, was also the owner.

  “Back for more?” the man said by way of greeting.

  Abner jerked his head. He saw a straw hat sticking up over the shelves in the aisle he needed to go down. His gut wasn’t giving him a good feeling about this, and he was tempted to leave. Maybe if he hadn’t had Andrew and Derrick with him, he might have. But they were watching, and he needed to act like a man and not a coward.

  He turned down the aisle that held the doorknobs. An Amishman with three small boys crowded around his legs stood looking at hinges. His face looked up, giving a neighborly nod, typical of small towns, before his gaze went back to the hinges. His face jerked back up, his eyes narrowed at Abner.

  Despite the beard and glasses, Abner was almost sure it was one of his half-brothers. The man looked like a carbon copy of his father. And of Abner. Abner even had the beginnings of a beard to match him.

  Eli, maybe.

  “Ya look like my half-brother,” the man said, his words heavy with the Pennsylvania Dutch accent typical of Amish but not colored with the twang that Abner had picked up.

  Andrew and Derrick looked at him. He felt their gazes but focused on the man in front of him. “Abner,” he said.

  The man’s gray eyes crinkled, then his teeth showed out of his hairy face. “It’s Iddo. You remember me?”

  The brother after Eli. “’Course I do. I taught you how to pound nails. You blackened both of my thumbnails, split the one clear in half. Man doesn’t forget pain like that.”

  Iddo laughed, walking forward and holding out his hand, his kids crowding close behind. “Never met anyone with more patience than you.” He clasped Abner’s hand. “You never even looked annoyed. Had to’ve hurt.”

  “Did.” Abner couldn’t believe Iddo wasn’t even a little standoffish. Like he didn’t hold Abner responsible for two deaths in his family.

  “Where ya been?”

  “Out west, mostly.”

  “Back for the funeral?”

  Abner nodded, not even surprised that Iddo knew his grandmother had died. There were things that had probably changed since Abner had left, but for not having phones or cars, there was a huge sense of community and everyone knew everything about everyone else. And the town.

  “Sorry to hear about that.” Iddo shook his head.

  Abner wasn’t going to beat around the bush. It was time to stop wondering. “I thought you’d be mad at me since it was my fault Dad and Abraham died.”

  Iddo’s brows scrunched down. “You know we don’t hold grudges.”

  “I know you’re not supposed to.”

  Iddo grinned a little, admitting that Abner had insider knowledge. “I don’t know anyone who is.”

  “Mamm?” Abner said, the first word he’d uttered as a small child coming easily to his tongue, though he hadn’t spoken the PA Dutch of his childhood for more than a decade.

  Iddo shrugged. “I’m sure somewhere it still hurts.” Losing a child couldn’t be easy. “But she married again and had her seventeenth baby just last spring.” Iddo nodded. “She doesn’t blame you.”

  “It was my fault.”

  “It was an accident.”

  Abner’s lips tightened, but he didn’t argue. It was an accident. One that he caused.

  “I don’t have any plans of visiting, but good to know,” he finally said.

  “You’ve got some half-brothers that would love to see ya.” One of his boys moved against his leg, and he put a big, work-hardened hand on the boy’s little hat. “We lost a dad and two brothers that day.”

  “Mamm told me she didn’t want me.”

  “She was hurting. I think we all say things we don’t really mean when we’re in pain.”

  That was true. He’d done it himself. To Cora. But his Amish mother had not come and asked him to go back. Of course, what right did she have to ask him to leave the home of his “real” mother?

  “You’re right, but I don’t see any point in going back.”

  “We’re all scattered around, married, anyway.”

  “Good to hear you’re doing well.”

  They talked for a bit more, but Abner didn’t linger. It was getting late, and they needed to get ready for the viewing. Cora had a lot of work to do to get six small children fed and bathed and ready. He might not like her, but he could still help her.

  Chapter 7

  Cora woke with a start. Groggy. Not quite sure where she was. She hated that feeling.

  Weights on her arms that were sticky with sweat reassured her that her
children were snuggled next to her, sleeping. Summer and Kohlton. They were on Aunt Sandy’s bed, with Claire in the crib beside them. Luna was curled in a ball at the bottom.

  Cora’s arms were numb, and her nose was itchy, but she didn’t want to move and wake her kids. A mother with six children didn’t wake them unless the house was on fire.

  Her eyes flew open wide, and she yanked her head around, looking at the clock.

  The viewing.

  She’d overslept.

  Rats. Rats. Rats.

  She forced herself not to jump up. It was best to figure out first what she could do in the time she had left.

  Baths. Everyone needed to be cleaned up.

  Food. The kids would need to be fed.

  Clothes. Had she figured out the underwear situation?

  And the thought that made her sit up with a start: where were Derrick and Andrew?

  Summer and Kohlton moaned and stretched as they slid off her arms. Cora scooted to the corner of the bed, careful to avoid Luna. She needed to make sure the boys were okay before she started dealing with the little ones.

  Hurrying to the other bedroom, she peeked in. Empty.

  Her heart pounded. Usually, the boys were in school, and she didn’t have to worry about them. They’d been with Abner, but he hadn’t said he would watch them. For all she knew, he could have left.

  Pounding down the steps, she raced by the living room, noting that Aunt Sandy was at least sitting up, and into the kitchen.

  She screeched to a halt.

  Abner turned, spatula in hand. The table was set, and Andrew and Derrick were sitting at their places, eating.

  “You slept forever, Mom,” Andrew called from across the table.

  “Yeah. We went up to check on you, and you didn’t even wake up.” Derrick held a spoonful of fried potatoes in front of him. “You were snoring.”

  Cora’s cheeks heated. Why did she care that Abner might have heard her snore? She put a hand to her head. Her hair stuck out all over the place, straggling out of her messy bun. No worse than open-mouthed snores. She wiped her lips. Or the drool track on her cheek.