The Vegetarian 2

by baqaqi

 

 

Part 1

 

“Coo. . . soo. . .cow. . .cow. . .errrr. . .”

Susie lay on the floor, only her head and elbows sticking out from under the bed as her mouth slowly twisted its way around the letters on the paper. Her forehead furrowed with the mental effort involved. Many of the little words she knew by sight, but sounding out the bigger ones was tricky. By the time she got to the end of the word, she’d forgotten what was at the beginning of it. And, too, sometimes the letters played tricks on you. They didn’t always sound like they were supposed to.

Martha whirled into the room and nearly tripped over her as she went to throw herself onto the bed. “There you are!” she huffed. “You know I had to fold the laundry all by myself? Aunt Jan said we were BOTH supposed to do it, and then she wouldn’t let me even look for you.” The mattress above sagged beneath the older girls’ weight but not quite so low as to squash the younger one beneath it.

“Have you been in here all this time?”

Yellow braids flapped to an fro as Susie’s head shook, their unbound ends fraying a bit. “I was brushing Petey,” she said.

“Brushing him?!” Martha scowled. “Why?”

“He was dirty.”

“Duh! He’s a calf. They’re supposed to be dirty.” Martha waited a while for a response, but none came. Susie had returned her attention to the paper.

“Cow. . . errrrrr. . .tttt. . .” she tried again. “What does cowert mean?”

“A coward is someone who hides under beds.”

“’in early May. Still I am opp...tom...tom...isssss...tic that given the ev. . . ide. . . ide. . . unkey.”

“Spell it,” Martha said, and Susie complied. Martha closed her eyes. “That’s ‘evidence’ stupid.” She rolled over on her back, sprawling in an attitude of exhaustion from the grueling afternoon’s labor that had been unjustly imposed on her and her alone.

“Evidence,” Susie repeated, then continued, “the jud. . .judeg will have no choice but to dek. . .dekl. . . declare a mis--”

Martha’s eyes popped back open. “What are you reading?” she demanded, scampering off the bed. Without waiting for an answer, she snatched the document from Susie. “This is a letter, from Jarrod Barkley!” Jarrod? “Where did you find this!!!”

“On Grandpa’s desk?” Susie answered, cowed.

“You little sneak! Does Aunt Jan know you have this? You have no business poking into people’s private letters! That’s a federal crime. You could go to jail for that, you know!”

“Are you going to tell on me?” Susie whispered, her eyes blinking worriedly.

Martha paused a moment, looking thoughtful. “It depends,” she answered, her eyes flicking to the text of the letter. From the words Susie had spoken it sounded almost. . . well. . . she didn’t dare to hope. . . .


“Dear Mr. Wallace,” she began reading silently.

“I have made inquiries into Danny’s situation, interviewing several of the parties involved in both the incident and the trial following. Everything I have heard concurs with the story you have related to my brother, Heath.”

Her lips began to move as she whispered the words.

“In addition there is evidence that some form of jury tampering has taken place. A representative of the bank has agreed to testify to that effect. Unfortunately, he is currently in Maryland conducting business, and Judge Hammet has denied my request that a deposition be allowed in lieu of his testimony, so we must wait to bring the matter to court until early May, when he returns.”

By now, Martha was reading fully aloud, her voice rising with every word.

“Still, I am optimistic that given the evidence the judge will have no choice but to declare a mistrial. I have every confidence that your son will be released from prison.

“Susie they’re going to let him GO! THEY’RE GOING TO LET HIM GO!” shrieked Martha. She ran from the room screaming wildly, “CATHERINE! AUNT JAN!! THEY’RE GOING TO LET HIM GO!!!”

******

A week later

The front door opened with a boom, and the two tired and dirty cowboys tumbled inside.

“You two appear to be in very good humor,” Jarrod observed, coming down the stairs. “Does this mean you’re all finished?”

“We sure are!” Nick beamed, headed for the sherry cart. “Can I get you something, Jarrod?“

“We got ‘em all cut and branded in half the time it took last year thanks to those new chutes,” Heath nodded.

“Well now, that is cause for celebration! Thank you, Nick. I will have a sherry. Yes, I’m sure our guests will appreciate not having to be here in the middle of all that.”

Nick frowned and appeared to chew his whiskey before swallowing it and picking up the sherry bottle to pour for Jarrod.

“What guests?” Heath asked, taking a cautious sip from his own glass.

“Danny Wallace’s hearing is scheduled for next week. Janet wired us that she’d bring his little girls up. They want to be there the moment he’s let go.

Heath frowned. “Isn’t that counting chickens before they’re hatched?”

“Isn’t what counting chickens before they’re hatched?” Victoria asked, entering the room with Audra. She politely waved off Nick’s silent offer to pour her a glass of sherry as well.

“The Wallace ladies, coming up for Danny’s hearing,” Heath replied shortly.

“Oh, I don’t think so, Nick,” Audra answered. “Didn’t you say Judge Hammet was a fair man, Jarrod?”

Jarrod scowled. ”He is a fair man, though a stickler for the formalities. I would have been happier if he had been willing to take the deposition from Frances. Danny has been waiting long enough for this. But a mistrial is not the same as an acquittal. There is a possibility of there being another trial and him being found guilty again.”

“You don’t think that will happen, do you?” Audra asked, aghast.

“No, I don’t. The bank is not anxious to bring this out again, and Judge Drury, that teller’s father, will find things very uncomfortable for himself if he persists. He’s already going to be in hot water for jury tampering. All the same it pays to be on the cautious side.”

“Even given the worst possible result, Daniel will at least get to see his children for the first time in nearly a year, and we’re going to see to it everything is done to make their stay here a pleasant one.”

“You’re going to have to see to that without me,” Nick said. “As you may recall, I have a wedding to get ready for?”

“Relax, Nick. I’m sure they won’t be any trouble at all,” Victoria chided him.

Nick shrugged it off, then gave his younger brother a hearty slap on the back. “Well, I know Heath will make ‘em feel right at home, won’t ‘cha?”

Heath managed a half smile.

“What’s the matter, boy? I coulda sworn you’d taken a shine to that Jan. I’d have thought you’d be turning cartwheels at the idea.”

“Yeah, It will be good to see her again,” Heath replied quietly into his nearly full drink. He set the glass down and glimpsed furtively at Victoria and Jarrod before excusing himself. “I’m feeling kinda tired. I think I’ll just skip supper and head off to bed.”

The others watched silently as he turned his back to them and marched up the stairs.

“Now what’s gotten into him?” Nick voiced the question in the forefront of all of their minds. His puzzlement, however, quickly gave way to a sudden tangent thought. “Say, Mother, did that wire happen to mention a hundred dollar calf?”

 

 

Part 2

 

It was a long ride from her dad’s house up to Stockton. From time to time along the trail they would stop and rearrange themselves. The steady, slow gait of Circe, the milk cow they brought with them, insured that they went at a pace that Martha, Catherine, and sometimes little Susie could easily manage whenever they decided they’d had enough bumping about in the wagon. Only Jan, who drove the wagon, rode the entire way. Even the calf took stints at walking, trailing behind the wagon with Circe until it would tire. Then they would stop, drag out the ramp Johnny had kindly assembled for them, and with only a little beckoning, the little black would scramble back into the straw filled wagon for a rest. It made for slow progress and several stops.

By her side in the driver’s seat, Jan carried a rifle. Her Dad had voiced his concern over four females undertaking such a journey without a single male to protect them, but they really didn’t have much choice. Dan’s health was not good, and even well, he would not have been able to contribute much to their defense. Johnny McGowan would have come, but with all his spring responsibilities he could not afford to leave his farm.

Still, Jan had no occasion to use the rifle. The trip was unremarkable, plagued only by frequent complaints:

“The road is too bumpy!”

“This is boring!”

“How come she always gets the best seat?”

“My legs hurt!”

“I’m hungry!”

“ She’s taking up all the room!”

“Why couldn’t we have taken a stage coach instead?”

She tried her best to accommodate all three girls, but there were limits. The road was bumpy. The games she had them play to pass the time grew old rather quickly. It would have been nice to take a stage coach with nice springs to even out the ride, but they hadn’t the money for such luxuries. Besides, bringing the cow and calf would have been awkward, she reminded Martha.

Martha shrugged. “We didn’t have to bring it with. Maybe they’ve forgotten about it?” she reasoned.

“ I haven’t forgotten about it,” Jan chided her. “He doesn’t belong to us. Keeping him would be stealing.”

“Hmmph!” Martha replied, sounding very much like her grandfather. “If they want him so bad they could come and get him themselves when he’s weaned!”

What a joy it was, when after several days travel, Jan and the three girls arrived at their destination. She knew from the descriptions Heath had given her during their several late night discussions this was the right place. There weren’t that many ranches this size in the valley and there certainly wasn’t another house like this one. Gleaming white in the afternoon sun, the Barkley mansion was a beautiful sight. As they approached she could make out the magnificent, two story columns accented with a green filigree of ivy.

There were plenty of hands here to keep the Barkleys’ home well maintained, she noted with just a hint of jealousy as she passed through the iron gate in front of the house. Ah well, with the help of Johnny and the girls, she’d finally gotten around to giving the exterior of her own family’s house a fresh coat of whitewash, and it had done wonders to make the place look more cheerful. It in no way rivaled the palace before them, but neither was it so shamefully neglected any longer. Now that the school term had ended she would have more time to attend to the garden as well. Gazing at the lovely rose bushes in the court yard, she wondered if Mrs. Barkley might be willing to part with a cutting or two.

She hadn’t much time to marvel at her surroundings before people began to pour from the house. In the lead was a petite, white haired woman in a split skirt, arms opened wide, followed quickly by a much younger blond lady and two dark haired men. Jan hopped down from the wagon and was immediately treated to a welcoming embrace.

“You must be Janet!” the older woman exclaimed. “I’m Victoria Barkley. And here are the girls! Your father will be so glad to see you. Jarrod tells me it’s all he talks about.”

Victoria Barkley turned back to her entourage. “This is Jarrod, my eldest son.”

“Miss Wallace,” he took her hand in greeting.

“Mr. Barkley, I don’t know how I can ever thank you,” Jan began.

“Well, the hearing isn’t for another week. You can thank me afterwards,” he smiled.

Jan introduced the girls all in turn. “Here are Danny’s daughters Catherine and Martha, and this is Susie.”

“My daughter, Audra,” Victoria continued.

Audra gave her a hug as well. The young woman turned her attention to the girls. “I’m so glad to meet you,” she said, and added gleefully, “It looks as if the ladies in the house will finally outnumber the men for a change!”

“My son, Nick.”

She did indeed recognize Nick Barkley. “Ah, Nick!” Her face shifted, adopting an expression of concern. “Did you make it back to your fiancee in time?”

Nick’s mouth split into a grin. When he smiled she could see the points of his canine teeth. It was an honest, good natured grin, and yet she could understand how people could find it intimidating, especially compared to Heath’s gentle smile. She wondered where he was.

“Close enough,” Nick chuckled amiably, but he was more preoccupied with what was in the back of the wagon. “Well now he doesn’t look half bad, does he!” Nick said.

“Where’s Heath?” Martha blurted out. She had been looking around ever since they pulled up. Jan might have scolded her for the abrupt question, but she was almost grateful her niece had saved her the embarrassment of asking herself. She did not wish to appear over eager, but for the entire duration of their long journey she had been looking forward to seeing him again, and worried too. Their parting had been awkward. His not being there at her arrival made her worry more. Perhaps he didn’t wish to see her again.

“Heath is out checking on some of the fencing, I believe,” Jarrod explained, “but he should be back soon.”

“Now that introductions are over, why don’t we all go inside while the boys unload the wagon?” Victoria took Jan’s elbow in hers. “You can tell me all about your trip.”

**

“So this is your famous hundred dollar calf,” Jarrod surmised, looking the little animal up and down. It couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds or so, and -- the edges of his mouth curled up in amusement -- it had a red ribbon tied to it’s tail. “Well, Brother Nick, I believe I’ll take the bags and leave you to this. . . aaah. . .”

“You got something to say about my calf?” Nick challenged.

“Noooo, no, no!” Jarrod’s eyes twinkled as he reached for the luggage. “I don’t pretend to be as experienced a judge of prime livestock as yourself. Doubtless this little fellow is worth every penny. Let me see, per pound that would be--“

“Would you get outa here?!”

 

 

Part 3

 

Jan was just about to sit down in the parlor when the front door opened and Victoria Barkley’s eldest son entered.

“Let me take those, Mr. Jarrod,” the elderly black servant offered.

“No, no, Silas, I can manage. You have the rooms prepared?” Jarrod asked.

“Yes, sir. The two guest rooms on the left.”

Just then there was a terrific bellow from outside. Little Susie’s jaw dropped open and she looked up horrified.

“It’s all right, Susie. Mr. Barkley isn’t hurting him.”

Jan felt an insistent pressure against her leg where the little girl clung. “Victoria,” she frowned slightly, “perhaps we might offer a little help unloading the calf?“

“I’m sure Nick can handle it himself,” Victoria laughed, lifted the teapot, and began to pour. “So, Janet, you didn’t tell me. How was--”

A crash, and then a cuss. Blinking, Victoria set down the teapot.

“Really, the girls are quite good with him.” Jan arose from her seat, and with the girls in tow hurried back outside.


The animal had looked pretty docile and light enough, Nick had figured on just lifting it down. But that small size was deceptive. That calf had all the wriggle of a strong, three month old. It bawled and quickly struggled itself free of his grip. He noticed the wide board, with slats nailed to it as crosspieces about a foot apart, lying on the wagon bed and quickly guessed its purpose. However, once the ramp was set up, the calf refused to disembark of its own accord. There was no rope on it, no harness on him to grab it by. With a shake of his head, Nick climbed onto the wagon after it. “Hyah!” he called out, giving it a slap on the rump. It scampered away from him, but not down the ramp. Not about to let a little runt of a calf get the better of him, he tried grabbing it again, pushing it toward the back of the wagon. It kicked and squirmed, and just as Nick thought he might be getting somewhere, he lost his footing and tumbled off the back.

Having gotten to his feet, Nick glimpsed back toward the house only to see the doorway filled with women. He gave a weak, embarrassed smile.

“Susie, would you like to help Mr. Barkley get him down from there?”

Susie took one fearful look at him and dived behind Janet’s skirt, shaking her head.

“I suppose not,” Jan sighed. “Martha?” The older girl rolled her eyes and grumbled, then brushed by Nick, giving the full grown cowboy a scornful look.

“Come on, fella,” she told the calf in a bored, disinterested tone of voice, and the animal scampered right down the ramp.

**

“Heath! There you are!” Victoria called.

He had been standing in the entryway, hat in hand, for some time before he was noticed. He hadn’t been sure what he would feel upon seeing Jan again, or how she would respond either. He shouldn’t have left so abruptly. He shouldn’t have taken what she said so much to heart. She had been understandably distressed.

As he walked into the parlor, her face flushed visibly as he approached, and in spite of himself he felt his own heart begin to beat a little faster. For a while they just stood there, silent.

“Heath?” It was almost a question. One that begged for reassurance -- and gave it.

A warm smile spread across his face. “It’s good to see you again, Jan,” he said. He started across the parlor to her, and only then notice the girls springing toward him. They intercepted him before he was halfway there.

“Mr. Barkley! Mr. Barkley!” chatter chatter chatter! The effusive greetings flew at him as he was nearly tackled to the ground.

He greeted them as well. Catherine and Martha each had one of his arms, and Susie’s arms -- was this SHY Susie? -- were wound tightly around his legs. But. . .

“Is Mary here, too? I thought all the Wallace ladies were coming.”

“No,” Jan said. “Mary stayed behind. Dad hasn’t been well, and --”

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“I don’t think so, but he doesn’t travel well these days. And. . . Mary is no longer a Wallace! She and Johnny are married now, so she’s now Mary McGowan.”

Was he imagining the terseness in her voice?

“Aunt Jan said they should wait until she was eighteen like they were going to, but Grandpa made them get married,” Martha declared tactlessly.

“Well, I’ll have to send them my congratulations,” he replied. A gift as well. So young, and a forced wedding, too. He didn’t doubt there were a lot of things the young couple could use.

“I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear from you,” Jan smiled. His eyes became bound to her again. It was good to see her again, and little Susie!

He crouched down to her level. “Have you been a good girl?” he asked.

Susie’s little blond head bobbed up and down.

“Been taking good care of ol’ Nick’s calf?”

More enthusiastic nodding.

He looked at her seriously. “I knew we could count on you!” he said.

Susie blushed full in the face then ran back to hide again. She peeked out from behind Jan and smiled, then again hid her face in the voluminous skirt.

“And you, Heath? Have you been taking care of that arm?” Jan asked.

“Good as new!” he said. Martha grudgingly released her hold of him as he demonstrated a full range of movement.

Catherine, still holding his other arm had something she wanted to say as well. “Heath,” she said, “I know how disappointed you were that we didn’t have time to finish that book. I thought you might like to know. . . I’ve brought it with!”

Heath flicked a glance at Victoria, and then back to Catherine. “That was real thoughtful of you. Say, has anyone shown you the library yet?”

“Library?!” the girl’s eyes sparked to flame. “You have a library?”

“Why yes, dear!” Victoria, quick to take the cue -- and both older girls’ arms -- smiled. “Come, I’ll show you!”

Nick and Jarrod, who had watched the whole scene with much amusement, started at the sound of Audra clearing her voice. She made a motion with her head.

“You got a little twitch there, Audra?” Nick asked, feigning misunderstanding.

“I believe our little sister is trying to suggest we give leave the room as well?”

“Aaaaah!”

“Susie,” Audra looked to the little girl. “Would you like to come with me to look at the chickens?”

Susie looked nervously up at Jan.

“It’s all right, sweet. You go on with Audra. I’ll be right here.” Reluctantly, the little girl left her side.

Heath looked at Jan, and Jan at Heath. They were alone. They had a lot of catching up to do.

 

 

Part 4

 

Nervously Jan smiled at Heath. “How, ah, how have you been?”

“Good,” he nodded. He was coming toward her.

Looking down, she started, “I wasn’t sure I--” The words were not coming out well. “I didn’t know if. . . you’d. . . want me to come.” She was blushing like a schoolgirl.

“I’m real glad you did.”

“You’re not just being polite?”

He chuckled then. “No, when I say a thing, I mean it. But when I left, I thought maybe you didn’t want to see me. I’d been kinda hopin’ that you’d write and say different.”

“Oh, but I did!” she insisted. “I wrote you about a dozen letters about Dad, the girls. . . other things. I . . . just never got up the nerve to mail them. I didn’t want to be too forward, especially after the way I behaved. I was very rude. If I said anything to offend you--”

“You were upset. I’m just sorry I couldn’t do anything to help.”

He was leaving something out. She HAD said something that offended. Over the course of his stay with her family, she had noticed one thing about how he handled the girls. While he might not say anything he didn’t mean just to be polite, he certainly refrained from saying a lot.

So what had she said? Jan could not remember; it was all so much a blur. Mary’s indiscretion brought about such a turmoil within her, all the things she herself had done wrong and their consequences.

“I was very upset.” You have no idea. Or did he? Perhaps he had guessed more than she told him? Was that the source of offense? She scanned his face for any trace of hesitancy, and saw none. He was not put off by her now. Not at all. He reached up a hand and pushed a lock of hair from her face. “I’m glad that everything worked out all right. Johnny is a good kid -- a good man,” he corrected himself. “He’ll treat her right.” The backs of his fingers were warm as they brushed against her forehead.

“And I hope you’ll forgive me?”

Jan blinked her eyes, baffled.

“Well, there’s no rule saying I couldn’t have written to you!” Heath clarified, adopting an air of concern.

“Oh!” Jan exclaimed, then frowned in mock severity. “I don’t know, Heath.” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think I could possibly--”

She was unable to continue, as her mouth had been stopped by another. Warm lips pressed against hers in tender assault. After a brief breathless eternity they came up for air. “You’re forgiven,” she whispered quickly before they resumed their embrace.

***

Catherine viewed the packed shelves in awe. “How many books do you have?” she asked in wonder.

Victoria cocked her head thoughtfully. “I’m not entirely certain. Jarrod?”

“About seven, eight hundred maybe?”

Martha did some quick mental arithmetic. There were about thirty books on one shelf, six shelves per bookcases and one, two. . . seven, eight bookcases. “More like fourteen hundred,” she opined.

Jarrod nodded. “Could be.”

Catherine’s hands were still behind her back, as if she were afraid to touch anything. Her younger sister had no such qualms. Martha reached out to take a beautiful gold embossed, leather-bound volume from the shelf, and was surprised when a larger hand stopped her removing it.

“I think you’d find the California Penal Code a little beyond you,” Jarrod commented.

“Oh I can read it! I used to read Daddy’s veterinary books all the time. I’m very smart for my age, you know.”

Jarrod raised his eyebrows. “I see.” She wasn’t certain, but she thought maybe he was mocking her.

Mrs. Barkley gave him a look. A behave yourself look, and to a grown man! And it actually seemed to have an effect. “Those books are very important to Jarrod’s work, dear,” she explained. “But you’re welcome to have a look at any of the others here. We have history, poetry, fiction. . .”

Catherine observed as Mrs. Barkley indicated the shelves. It wasn’t long before something caught her eye. “Oh! You have Wuthering Heights!”

“Would you like to read it?”

“Not for me, but I never got to finish reading it to Heath. Won’t he be excited? I bet with all these other books here he didn’t even know you had it.”

Martha was just opening her mouth to give her opinion on the subject, when Mrs. Barkley answered. “No, I don’t imagine he did.”

Very sly Martha noted. This Mrs. Barkley impressed her terribly. She’s probably laughing inside about that because she KNOWS Heath would hate that book. Somehow, while the notion of Jarrod laughing inwardly at her was intolerable, the idea that Catherine should be the source of amusement was hilarious. And silly old Catherine didn’t even KNOW she was being made fun of. She gave Mrs. Barkley a knowing, collaborative sneer. She expected a similar smile in return, but the woman merely blinked blankly at her and continued on to the kitchen, the next stop on the tour of the house.

Meanwhile, Audra had found something to entertain the youngest Wallace girl: the chicken coop. Martha always said that chickens were dumb birds that deserved to be eaten, but Susie loved them. At home, ever since Thanksgiving, she was only allowed around the layers, never the fryers. Not even the hatchlings. Now she lifted a golden chick to her face, and felt its soft down on her cheek. This one is Peck-Peck Junior she thought to herself.

 

 

Part 5

 

The silver haired matron smiled knowingly at the young woman next to her in the buggy. She didn’t seem to know what to do with herself. “You don’t have to feel guilty about coming to town with me. The girls are just fine with Audra, and Nick’s fiancé, Isobel will be there soon as well. Silas is teaching her to make his favorite dish.”

“I don’t feel guilty, exactly,” Jan replied. “I feel. . . light.”

Victoria chucked. “I remember the feeling well. Tell me, how long has it been since you last went out of the house without children?”

The younger woman shook her head. “I don’t know. Years.”

“I imagine it does feel like years.“ Victoria watched Jan as intently as possible while still paying attention to the road ahead. When no response was forthcoming, she continued, “Of course when my children were young there wasn’t much town to go to, nor was there anyone I could leave them with. Even now that they’re grown it can be difficult to go anywhere without at least one of them. Of course now I’m they insist needs looking after,” she smiled.

Jan looked at the petite yet self-confidently robust woman comfortably commanding the team. Victoria was a good deal more competent to look after herself than Dad was, even on a good day. “Mrs. Barkley, you don’t strike me at all as a woman who needs looking after.”

Victoria laughed and then became somewhat serious. “Oh, I think every woman needs some kind of looking after. Almost as much as a man does.”

****

Martha folded her arms across her front. “I don’t believe this. We’re guests. We’re not supposed to have to work!”

“Nick and Heath helped out a lot more while they were our guests,” Catherine reminded her.

“That’s different,” Martha said. “The Barkleys have servants to do this kind of thing for them.”

“Look, if you don’t make your bed I’m telling Aunt Jan.”

There was no call for her to be getting so high and mighty. Catherine had only done a so so job on her own bed. Didn’t Aunt Jan say it was better not to do something than to do a shoddy job of it? But if that was how it was going to be, that was how it was going to be. “I’ll make half the bed. Susie slept on the other half, Susie can make the other half.”

“Where is Susie?” Catherine asked.

“I dunno. Probably with the calf. It’s not my problem. She’ll just have to do her half later.”

Martha set out to do precisely what she suggested. She spread the top sheet, tucking only the left side of the end under the foot of the mattress and executing one neat French corner, neater by far than she would have bothered with under normal circumstances. On top of that she threw a blanket, fixed the corner and turned the sheet over half the top. Over it all came the bedspread. The end result was a bed perfectly smooth on one half and a horrible mess on the other. It was rather more difficult to accomplish than doing the whole would have been, but that was quite beside the point. It was a matter of principle. Martha prided herself on being a lady of principle.

There was a little knock and the door opened. “Are you girls ready yet?” Audra asked, coming in. “I thought we could take a little ride. . . oh!” She looked perplexed at Martha’s odd handiwork. “You haven’t made your bed yet. Do you need some help?”

“Susie’s supposed to do it with me,” Martha said, “but she’s run off.”

“She hasn’t run off. She and Heath are out in the barn. She felt a little nervous without your aunt here, but felt more comfortable with him.

Who wouldn’t? Martha thought watching in disbelief as Audra yanked at the bedclothes.

With one swoop, the bed was laid bare again, all her hard work undone, and Audra was ordering Martha around. “You take that end,” she said in that disgustingly sweet voice, “and we’ll do it together. First we start with the top sheet--”

“I know how to make a bed,” Martha interjected.

“Now we tuck it in at the foot. Make sure you get it all the way across. Oh, now see the way you’re stuffing it there? That will make it all wrinkled. Let’s pull it out and try again, okay?” Audra smiled brightly, blinking her big sappy doe eyes like a, like a. . .doe.

Exasperated, Martha yanked the end out and tried again. It took two more tries before Audra was satisfied with it. She then suffered the indignity of being instructed in the French corner. “There! Isn’t that lovely?” Audra exclaimed when they were through. “You did such a good job. Do you think you can do the other one all by yourself?”

The other one? Catherine’s? “NO!”

“I can show you the corner again.”

Martha was appalled. Did Audra think she was daft? “I can do it,” Martha insisted haughtily. “I can do it better than this one.”

*****

Catherine declined the ride. She had found an interesting book she just couldn’t bare to put down.

“Your sister is quite a reader,” Audra noticed. “I bet she’s a very good student.”

“She’s okay,” Martha said. Catherine was a very good student. She always got the highest marks, better than Mary even. Of course Martha could have gotten the highest marks if she really wanted to. It wasn’t as if she weren’t smart enough. Really, if Catherine could do it, anybody could, Martha reasoned. But school, Aunt Jan especially, didn’t teach the things she wanted to learn, and there was all that homework she couldn’t be bothered with.

Let Catherine and Audra worry about the girlie stuff, like embroidery, penmanship and French corners. Of the interesting things, the things worth knowing, Martha was queen.

“Wait a moment, Martha,” Audra said. “Let me help you with that bridle.”

“I can do it myself,” Martha insisted, fumbling with the complicated tangle of leather.

“I think you have it upside down.”

“That’s the way I always put it on Jack and Lumpy,” Martha protested. She was not going to be showed up by this bubble headed girlie pants. Time and again she tried, but with no success.

Audra’s patience was beginning to wear through. Still, she was able to maintain a kindly voice. “Why don’t you just let me show you--”

“I CAN DO IT!” Martha snapped back hotly. It was very frustrating. The design was a little different from the ones they used at home.

“You all right, ladies?” Heath appeared in the stables.

“We’re getting the horses ready for a ride,” Audra said. “Martha wanted to do hers herself.”

“Here’s your problem,” Heath said after a quick appraisal. “You’ve been trying to put the bridle on upside down.”

Martha flushed a brilliant red. “Thank you, Heath,” she said shyly. “I knew you would be able to figure it out for me.”

“Don’t mention it,” he replied, tipping his hat and smiling amiably. She had forgotten just how sweet he was. He really did prefer helping people to the other way around, didn’t he? Maybe that’s what she had been doing wrong before. A man wants to feel needed.

“Do you think you could help me with the saddle, too? It looks awfully heavy.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure thing.” Martha stood back while he finished readying the horse for her.

“There you go!” Heath said when he had finished. He gave her a leg up into the saddle. “You ladies enjoy your ride!”

“You could come with us,” Martha suggested hopefully.

“Yes, Heath, you could come with us,” Audra echoed in a lilting voice. Her smile was subtly different from the vacuously sweet one she usually wore.

“Thanks, but Susie and I are going to hang out around here for a while.” He nodded toward the barn, where Susie stood grasping her dolly tightly. Suddenly, Martha didn’t want to go riding any more, but after all Heath’s help, she didn’t have much of a choice.

“Come on, Martha,” Audra said.

 

 

Part 6

 

Even for a besotted five year old, watching a calf chew grass only held its appeal so long before becoming wearisome. After a while, Susie and her baby-sitter moved on to the other animals close to the house. Heath held her up so she could pat each and every one of the horses in the stable, then off they went to take a peek at Queenie’s most recent litter of puppies. They were too little to play with yet. Their eyes weren’t even open, and their mother was very protective of them. Susie obediently kept her hands to herself, though there was such a wistful look on her face, it was all Heath could do to keep from promising her one on the spot. He would wait and speak to Jan about it first.

Just when they were returning from the kennels behind the house, Heath saw Silas coming out the back door wearing a large apron. In one hand he held a slaughtering knife, and he was headed for the chicken coop. Quickly he tried to divert Susie’s attention. He took her by the hand and led her off in a different direction. “Did you get to meet old Billy yet? A farmer gave him to Jarrod last year for helping him out of a pinch.” It was too late, though. The girl stood fast and craned her neck back to see.

“Where is he going with that knife?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Much as he knew she would hate the truth, Heath couldn’t lie to her.

“Silas is making preparations for dinner tonight.”

“Dinner?” All at once Susie broke away and ran hell bent for the chicken coop. “NOOOOOO!!!!” she cried out.

Heath ran after her. By the time he got to her she was pressed up against the chicken wire. “Not Fluffy!” she begged. “Please not Fluffy!”

Poor Silas was at a loss. He was not accustomed to this kind of interference with his duties. “Mr. Heath, maybe you’d best take the little Miss.“

“I’m sorry, Silas. Come on Susie. Let’s go back to the front of the house.”

Susie was unrelenting. “ Please don’t let him take Fluffy,” she pleaded.

Silas’ eyes pleaded as well. He was only trying to do his job.

Heath had to think fast. “All right,” he said quickly and calmly looking over the couple dozen identical birds in front of him. “Which one is Fluffy?”

The little girl stopped bawling and looked around, sniffling. “That one. . . no, no that one,” she replied, pointing to a hen in the corner.

“Are you sure?”

Susie nodded. They all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“You got that, Silas? Fluffy’s got a stay of execution.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Heath. I’ll leave that there Fluffy right where she’s at.” Swiftly he reached down and grabbed another chicken by the feet.

“Oh no! Not Beatrice!”

“Mr. Heath--”

“Hang on a minute, Silas.” Heath knew where this was all going.

“Mr. Heath, I need to get two chickens plucked and hung for Miss Isobel to use tonight.”

“I know, Silas--”

“I don’t know about any Beatrice or Fluffy or Spot--”

“That one is Spot,” Susie said, pointing to another one.

“--but you can’t make chicken creole with no chicken.”

The commotion was stirring up the birds into a clucking frenzy.

“And that one is. . .” Susie continued, desperately trying to think up more names. “Victoria!”

Both men turned to look at the proud strutting bird thus christened. She lifted her head high, fanning her wings.

“Silas, you can go on back to the house,” Heath said after a moment’s respectful silence. “I’ll take care of the chickens,”

“Thank you, Mr. Heath.” Silas beat a hasty retreat.

******

“Martha, are you alright?!!” Audra called out, quickly bringing Pantomime to a halt at the sound of the scream, and climbing down. She couldn’t believe Martha could have taken a tumble. Polly was one of the sweetest animals they owned.

“Oh help!” Martha wept profusely.

“What happened?” Audra asked, rushing to the girl’s side.

“There was a rattlesnake. The horse spooked and threw me! I. . . I think I’ve broken my leg!”

Audra looked up at Polly. The gentle sorrel stood calmly in the path. She lowered her head to nibble on a bit of grass.

“Which leg is it?” Audra asked.

“The left one. NO don’t touch it!”

“It’s all right, Martha. I’m just going to take a look.” She lifted the girl’s skirt to her knee. The leg looked all right, but she couldn’t be sure. “Where does it hurt?”

“All over!”

“Does this hurt?”

“OW!”

“How about this?” she asked, barely touching the leg.

“OWWW!!”

Audra pressed her lips together. She had a strong suspicion the injury, if there was one, was a good deal less than Martha was making out.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not broken,” Audra said, “but you may have a sprained ankle.”

“It’s your fault, you know, for going so fast. I could hardly keep up. That’s why I fell.”

“I thought you said there was a rattlesnake.”

“There was, I mean, if we weren’t going so fast I would have been able to hold on.” Her story was getting thinner by the moment. “I don’t know. It all seems so fuzzy. I think I hit my head when I fell. Maybe I have a concussion.”

Maybe you’re full of beans, Audra thought, but what she said was, “Oh dear. I’d better get you back to the house so you can lie down.”

“NO! My leg! I. . . I think maybe you should get your brother.”

So that was it. Fine. She’d had just about enough anyway. “Are you sure you’ll be okay here alone? With that rattlesnake still nearby?”

“Yes. . . yes.”

“All right. I’ll go and get my brother.”

 

 

Part 7

 

Audra sure was taking her time getting help, Martha thought to herself. She was getting thirsty, and her position on the ground was uncomfortable. Was Heath coming or wasn’t he? Bored, Martha picked the petals from a poppy. The low hills here were covered with cheerful bits of gold sprinkled with blue lupine. Susie would have a grand old time here, making chains of wild flowers and putting them in her hair, and of course everyone would say how sweet they made her look.

She stretched her arm out to pick another, and then another, but the ones on the hill looked nicer. After scanning the horizon for anyone that might see, she tucked her legs under her and rose to her feet. She pranced among the wildflowers, carefully picking only the very finest blossoms of California poppy, purple owl’s clover, and pretty yellow cream cups. By a bush under a rocky outcroping, she spied a stand of bird’s-eye gilia, whose red-violet petals would have completed the colorful bouquet she was gathering. She’d just reached it when she tripped and twisted her ankle for real.

There being no one around to hear, she didn’t bother to cry out, but she was surprised at what she saw. Just beyond the bush was a large hole in the side of the hill. Her foot had snagged on a piece of board--a barrier that blocked what appeared to be a tunnel. Not a terribly effective barrier, for her foot had broken clear through the rotted wood.

***

“So which one did you like the best?” Isobel asked Nick as the buggy ambled down the road.

“Which what?”

”Which what? Nick, we just spent the entire morning looking at upholstery samples.”

“Oh, those.”

“Yes, those. Did any of them in particular strike your fancy?”

“Whichever one you like is fine with me, Iz.”

“This is for the furniture we are going to have to look at every day for the rest of our lives. I don’t want to order something you can’t stand.”

“I trust your judgement,” he said casually.

“Okay. I think we’ll go with the second one then.”

“Great!” Nick nodded. “The second one it is.” After a moment his face screwed up. “Now wait a minute. You don’t mean the pink one, do you?”

“No, it’s more of a mauve.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“But it’s not so important yet, I suppose. It will be a while before we have anywhere to put furniture.”

“Not all that long,” Nick smiled. “Just two more weeks.”

“Two more weeks before the wedding. It will be longer than that before I can start furnishing, won’t it?”

“Nope. All I have to do is move a few things up to the attic and there’ll be plenty of room for anything you want to put in the bedroom. Chair, dressing table, curtains, you name it!”

Isobel looked at him unblinking. “The bedroom.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Just the bedroom?”

“Well, I’m sure noone would object if you want to add anything to the parlor or anyplace else in the house. It’ll be your house, too you know.”

“For a while.”

“Huh?”

“Until our house is built? That is what we agreed, isn’t it?” she reminded him.

“What do you mean?”

“You did say we wouldn’t be living with your family for ever.”

“Of course not! Audra’s bound to get married before too long. And Jarrod -- well he spends half the time in San Francisco anyway. He’s already got a place there. . .”

“No.”

“Just hang on a minute. I--.”

“No. That’s not what we agreed.”

“Oh ho! I don’t know what you thought we agreed to, Isobel, but I helped my father build that house. When he died and I took over running the ranch, I took over the master bedroom, too. There’s never been any doubt in anyone’s mind that kingdom come I was going to stay in that house.”

“What about Heath?”

“What about him?”

“Don’t you think he might have a problem with that?”

Nick smiled, trying to reassure her. “You don’t know Heath like I do. When he gets ready to settle down, he’ll want to build his own house from the bottom up, though uh, I don’t figure he’s above taking some of the furniture off our hands if you really want to get some new. Say, maybe you and Mother should have a look at those upholstery samples together.”

Isobel continued to watch him, speechless.

Assuming the question was settled, Nick returned his attention to the road ahead. A black horse was approaching from the direction of the ranch. From the bright attire, Nick quickly identified the rider. “Now where do you figure Audra’s going? I thought she was supposed to be babysitting.”

 

 

Part 8

 

They went from the mercantile to the blacksmith’s to the saddler’s and then picked up Jarrod for a small lunch in the dining room of the Star Hotel. He had driven to town with Nick that morning, but would be riding back with them along with Mr. Morgan come evening. The stores were interesting, and the company was stimulating, but Jan couldn’t get her mind off one thing.

“I love the tomato soup here,” Victoria said. “I must ask for the recipe.”

“You always say that, Mother,” Jarrod observed, “but you never do. You realize why, don’t you?”

“Because it wouldn’t be the same at home.”

“Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous in all your life?” Jarrod asked Jan.

She had to tell him. She had put it off way too long already, and he was going to find out eventually.

***

Of all the deceitful things a body could do. Audra had brought a brother -- but the wrong one! She’d brought that awful Nick, and with him a woman. Martha knew right away who it had to be. That ugly crazy woman he and Heath had been talking about. Well, she wasn’t exactly ugly, but she certainly wasn’t pretty, and she had to be crazy if she agreed to marry him.

“I’m afraid Heath was very busy. Luckily Nick and Isobel happened to be riding in from town.”

“Here, let’s have a look at that leg, Martha,” Nick said, squatting next to her.

“It’s feeling better now,” Martha said with a scowl and pulled away from his big, rough hands. She winced involuntarily at the pain, as he caught her anyway.

“Yeah, that’s swollen all right. You been waiting here long?”

“An hour or so,” Martha muttered as he picked her up and carried her over to the buggy.

“An hour or so! It’s not five minutes ride to the house! What was Heath so busy with he couldn’t take ten minutes to help out?” he demanded.

“He wasn’t at the house,” Audra defended herself.

“Then why couldn’t you have gotten one of the men? Or gotten the other buggy yourself for that matter?”

“Mother took the other buggy into town this morning.”

It gratified her to see Audra dressed down. She knew Audra thought she had been faking injury and suspected the woman had told Nick as much. Martha felt vindicated.

“Never mind!” Nick said, not allowing his sister to answer. “We’ll talk about it at home. Go ahead and take the horses back. Isobel and I will bring Martha.”

The ride back to the house felt like more than five minutes, and the entire way she felt that lady’s eyes on her. She felt as if she were being examined like some oddity in a store window. It wasn’t either mean or friendly, just unashamedly curious and a little unnerving. Well two could do that, and Martha figured Isobel was more of an oddity than she was.

First off, she was short. Not much taller than the eleven year old herself, and yet everything on her looked like it was meant for a normal sized person. No -- those ears and nose were meant for someone bigger still.

“Did anyone ever tell you you look like a troll?” Martha scowled.

“A troll. Hmmm. No, I don’t believe so.” Then she smiled big as if it were a compliment. Her teeth were big, pointy, evil looking things. Crazy woman all right.

“Did you know that trolls eat little girls?” Isobel said quite pleasantly.

“What’s that?” Nick called back.

“Oh nothing, Nick. We’re just having a friendly chat.”

***

Not long after Audra reached the house, the buggy pulled up. While she held the door open, Nick scooped Martha up from the seat and brought her inside. He disappeared into the billiard room with her without so much as a grunt.

“Audra, Audra, Audra,” Isobel scolded, coming in. “How could you?”

Even knowing she was being teased, Audra felt remorse. “I was expecting Heath to be at home. I didn’t mean to be gone so long. I hope she’s all right.”

“I’m surprised you left her at all! Poor defenseless thing, and with a vicious rattlesnake nearby?”

“I was sure the leg was fine. There was none of that swelling before. You know I never would have left her if I thought she were hurt. And even so I wouldn’t have, but she was so--”

“Disagreeable?”

“Determined. I knew she wanted to get Heath’s attention. I didn’t think she’d actually hurt herself to get it, though.”

“OW!” they heard Martha’s yell from the billiard room, followed by a juvenile tirade. A moment later Nick came bursting back through the french doors.

“I take it back, Audra,” he said red-faced. “I don’t blame you a bit. One of you want to bring her an ice pack for that ankle? I’m liable to smack her with it.”

He leaned over to kiss Isobel lightly. “I’ll be outside if you need me. I know you want to get to work, and Silas doesn’t like me hanging around the kitchen. ”

“All right. We’ll finish our discussion later, right?”

“What discussion?” Nick asked ignorantly.

“The one we were having on the way back from town,” Isobel replied seriously.

“Ah. I thought we’d finished that.”

“No.”

Nick grimaced, grunted, and without another word left. Martha moaned dramatically from the billiard room.

“Keep your shirt on, Martha,” Isobel called back, frowning. “I’ll go get you some ice.”

“Never mind, Isobel. I’ll take care of her,” Audra offered, accompanying her to the kitchen. The disgruntled scowl had not left her friend’s face. “Is something wrong? I hope you and Nick weren’t having a fight.”

“Not a fight. More of a disagreement.

“I hope it’s nothing serious.”

“It’s something we need to work out.,” Isobel answered shortly.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry if it’s something personal. But Nick can be awfully stubborn. Let me know if there’s any way I can help. I’m really looking forward to finally having a sister in the house.”

Isobel blushed. “I’m looking forward to having you as a sister, too,” she said. “Silas! There you are!” she said, catching the old servant coming out of the pantry. “I’m ready to learn if you’re ready to teach.”

“Good day to you Miss Isobel. I’m all ready except for one little thing.”

***

Exhausted, man and little girl finally returned to the house. Heath prided himself on finding such a grand solution to their little problem. Susie had been a great little helper. Without Martha hanging over her like a dark cloud, she really shined, too. They trudged around to the back with their booty, boots sloshing with every step.

“Oh, my word!” a voice exclaimed from the kitchen door. “Look at you two!”

Heath looked down at his muddy self, and shared a guilty glance with the little girl, who was almost, but not quite, as muddy as himself. “Howdy, Isobel! This here’s my friend Susie.”

“Pleased to meet you. Uh, Heath, Silas mentioned the, ah, difficulty you had earlier. He said you promised to take care of things?”

“Yup! Got it all taken care of.”

“You’ve got a couple chickens for me?”

“Well not exactly. But some say they taste just like chicken.”

Isobel looked quizically at the large burlap bag he'd thumped down on the back porch. It appeared to be moving.

“Careful now. If they get out we’ll have a hard time catching ‘em again.”

Heeding Heath’s warning, she took a cautious peek. Her face lit up. “Ooooh!” she exclaimed, her voice filled with awe.

“Heath Barkley, you are an evil, evil man.”

Susie cocked her head sideways at the rather peculiar epithet of praise.

“Come on, Sunshine! Let’s you and me get ourselves cleaned up before we get in trouble.”

 

 

Part 9

 

The buggy carriage tilted visibly on its springs as the blacksmith disembarked. He politely offered Jan a hand down after him, and she accepted with a smile, while Jarrod gallantly gave his mother an arm.

“I don’t know when I last had such a good time, Victoria,” Jan said as Mrs. Barkley came around. They’d gone from the mercantile to the saddler to lunch at a lovely little restaurant to the dressmaker’s for a fitting before returning to the ranch with several packages and their extra passengers. “That gown for Nick’s wedding is just lovely. Audra’s too. I hope you have other opportunities to wear it.”

“I’m sure I will. I do have more than one son living with me.” She smiled first at Jarrod, and then at Heath who with Susie and Nick waved back from the far side of the corral. Susie immediately broke loose from their sides and flew toward them.

“Is Winnie making your daughter’s dress as well, Dai?” Victoria asked.

“Ah, no, Isobel has her mother’s old dress. She’s about the same size as my Genevieve was, so it seemed the practical thing to do,” Dai replied in his deep basso. For a man of his striking stature, he was amazingly soft spoken.

If Victoria was a little surprised by that revelation she did her best not to let it show. As father of the bride, Dai Morgan insisted on paying for the wedding expenses. It was no light burden for a man of his means, especially considering the number of people Nick had invited to attend. Cutting out the cost of a wedding dress would extend the budget considerably. Still, if she remembered correctly, because of their religious differences Isobel’s parents married in an informal civil ceremony. She made a mental note to ask Winnie to forgo the beadwork Audra wanted, at least until she got a look at Isobel’s dress. It would not do to outshine the bride.

Like a little rabbit, Susie bounded up. Victoria watched, amused as Jan caught the little girl with wide open arms then hugged her tight.

“Did you have a good time while I was gone?” Jan asked. Clinging tightly to her, Susie nodded her head. “Weren’t you were wearing your blue calico dress this morning?”

“’Afternoon, Dai!” Nick called, walking up from the corral with Heath. He shook Isobel’s father’s hand. “Busy day?”

“Pretty busy. Been working on a bench for my niece. She’s badgered Zack into putting up a gazebo and wanted a place to sit.”

Nick suppressed a grimace. Vivienne Morton was not one of his favorite people in the world. She had used him as a decoy for her father while secretly meeting with the not quite respectable Zack Morton, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she then held a rifle to him while Zack bound him in an abandoned sawmill while they made their escape to elope. He might have died when the place collapsed on top of him, and had never quite forgiven either of them. Luckily, Vivienne was now ungainly pregnant, and Isobel had agreed to forgo having her only female relative in the wedding party, asking Audra to be her maid of honor instead.

The blacksmith looked around. “Where’s my daughter gotten herself to?”

“Isobel’s inside workin' on dinner with Silas. I’m, ah, keeping out of the way. Been working with a couple green broke horses.” Dai Morgan knew about as much about horses as Nick knew about blacksmithing -- enough to steer clear and leave it to those better suited. “Oh yeah. Jan,” Nick said, just remembering. “Martha had a little accident while you were gone.”

“An accident?!” The woman’s carefree mood crashed.

“She fell off a horse and twisted her ankle.”

“Oh no! I shouldn’t have left her--”

“Now don’t worry. She’ll be fine. It’s just a little swollen.”

When they entered the house Catherine stuck her head out of the library. “You’re back!” she said.

“Where is Martha?” Jan asked, concerned.

“She’s in here with me, sulking because she couldn’t go out and watch with Susie.”

“I am NOT sulking!” Martha pouted loudly. Jan’s face relaxed some. Everything sounded normal.

***

There was time before dinner for a little sherry in the parlor. Martha was refused a glass, even for medicinal purposes, but after a word to Silas, a small pitcher of blackberry cordial was produced for the children. The drink was tasty she supposed, but it wasn’t what she wanted.

The whole day had been one disappointment after another. After all the effort she had gone to in order to see that Heath was comfortable when he was sick, she would have thought he’d reciprocate just a little bit. But no. No sooner had he and Susie gotten themselves cleaned up then they were outside again. Aunt Jan would never, ever have stood for that if it were her who had muddied up her clothes. On more than one occasion Martha been ordered to stay indoors in nothing but a shift because clothes didn’t grow on trees or wash themselves, but she didn’t seem to mind at all Susie getting her second and only extra dress dirty.

Silas stepped into the room. “Dinner is ready,” he said.

“It’s about time!” Nick answered lustily. “I’ve been smelling it for the past half hour.” He inhaled deeply through his nose to demonstrate. “Mmmm! At first guess I’d say you’ve taught her well, Silas.”

Silas shook his head warily. “I won’t take any of the credit for this meal, Mr. Nick.”

They sat down at the table and said grace, though she didn’t feel very thankful. Nick might have enjoyed the smell, but Martha found the unfamiliar spice unsettling. Mama used to make spicy food, but her Mexican seasonings were very different from this, and that was a long time ago. She’d become accustomed to plain cooking. She looked across the table and saw Aunt Jan looking at her, a warning in her eyes. The words were there, though not spoken. You must taste everything. You may not complain.

Two tureens were placed on the table. The first of them she was relieved to discover, contained nothing but yellow rice. Mama used to make rice like that. The yellow came from a spice that was so strong and so expensive you only used the teeniest bit of it. The smell Nick was raving about and which near gagged her came from the second tureen. The lid was lifted off, revealing a kind of stew with tomatoes, peppers, and teeny, tiny pieces of white meat. Isobel made her way around the table ladling out the concoction on every plate, until she got to Susie.

“Susie doesn’t eat meat,” Martha said.

“So I hear. That’s all right, Susie. I made something else you might like instead.” The bean dish she spooned from a smaller vessel looked a lot more appetizing than the foreign slop on Martha’s plate. “Bon appetit!”

With that, everyone tucked into the meal. Martha poked at a chunk of tomato, rolling it off some of the less polluted rice.

There seemed to be three different conversations going on around the table. Nick was talking to anybody who would listen about the horses he was working with that afternoon, Audra and Catherine were discussing the Bronte sisters, and Aunt Jan and Mrs. Barkley were telling Heath about their day downtown. Nobody thought to ask her about her ankle. Just then, she noticed Isobel wasn’t eating any of her dinner. Instead, the woman was watching Nick eat, an odd smile on her face. Martha looked suspiciously back down at her plate then back up.

“So, Nick. Does it pass muster?” Isobel asked.

The man nodded, reaching for a sip of water to wash down his last mouthful before answering. “It’s great,” he said, “but something’s different somehow. It doesn’t taste quite like Silas’ chicken creole.”

“That’s because it isn’t,” she replied.

“What -- you changed the recipe a little?”

“Just a little. There was some difficulty getting one of the ingredients so we improvised.”

“Oh yeah?” Nick scowled. “Silas told me yesterday he got everything you needed.” He took another bite, looking thoughtful, trying to figure out what it was that was different.

“Yea, well, he hadn’t counted on Susie giving the chickens names,” Heath said, picking up on the conversation. “You can’t eat an animal that has a name. Everybody knows that.”

“What are you talking about?” Nick looked down at his plate now. “Isn’t this. . . ” he picked up a small bit of meat with a fork and appeared to examine it for the first time.

“That’s okay. We found something just as good,” Heath said. “I never saw a girl as good at catching bullfrogs.”

Nick burst into a coughing fit. He grabbed the napkin from his lap and spat the unswallowed mouthful into it before gasping, “What are you trying to do, poison me Woman?” he croaked.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Nick,” Isobel returned. “A moment ago you were telling me it was delicious.”

Martha looked around the table in disbelief, then in horror at her own food. She had nearly eaten some of it. “That’s DISGUSTING!” Jan was giving her another of those warning looks, but she didn’t care. “I am NOT eating this!”

“Settle down, Martha,” Jan started. “Have you even tasted it?”

“NO I haven’t tasted it, and I’m NOT GOING TO! You didn’t make Susie taste it!” She turned to nail the little girl with a venomous piercing glare. “Are you proud of yourself, Susie? Catching poor little froggies for people to eat?” she spat in sarcastic tone. “Did you kill them with your bare hands?” Susie looked like she was about to cry.

“Here now!” the big blacksmith spoke up. “That’s no way to speak to your little sister.”

Martha screwed up her face in distaste. “She’s not my sister. She’s just Aunt Jan’s little bast--”

 

 

Part 10

 

"She’s just Aunt Jan’s little bast--”

Martha would have taken back the word if she could, but it was too late. Once she had begun, there was no way to stop. It hung in the air half-said, and the only way to break free of that awful, awful, eternal moment was to finish it. “--ard.”

The silence that followed was even more excruciating. Something was needed to fill it. “Well she is” leaked sheepishly, almost apologetically from her lips. She could feel their eyes on her. It felt as they were all seeing her, really seeing her.

“It doesn’t matter whether she is your sister or your cousin,” Mrs. Barkley said. “We do not speak that way at the dinner table.” Her voice was so calm, it was frightening. “I am sure there are plenty of beans if you would prefer that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Martha meekly answered. In the lingering hush, the serving spoon clinked audibly against the porcelain dish.

“I believe I’ll have some of that myself,” Jarrod Barkley said. “It’s no criticism on your cooking Isobel. I’m afraid I just don’t feel quite adventuresome enough.”

“No offense taken, Jarrod,” Isobel replied uneasily.

The murmur of conversation was slowly returning to the table. She could hardly believe her fortune. Could it possibly blow over this easily? There had been a flash of lightening, but. . . no thunder?

As it turned out, it was the rain that started next. Susie’s tears began to flow in earnest.

“Please excuse us,” Aunt Jan said, standing up awkwardly. She and Susie had not quite left the room when Heath dropped his napkin and pushed out his chair.

“Give her a moment, Heath,” Mrs. Barkley said. He payed no mind, dropping his napkin ruthlessly on the table and sparing Martha such a condemning look, that she felt her heart break in two. In a moment Audra also had risen, and then Catherine.

Mrs. Barkley sighed then laid her own napkin down gently.

Nick shoved his dish away. “Seems to me the wrong people are leaving the table.”

Martha could take a hint. She didn’t need to be hit over the head.

“Frogs,” Nick muttered.

***

Jan dabbed at her daughter’s red cheeks with a handkerchief. It was very wet with tears that kept flowing. It wasn’t the name which had upset Susie, but the accusations. “You didn’t know they were going to be part of dinner when you caught them?”

“I did!” Susie replied remorsefully, and threw herself against her mother.

“Oh dear Susan Elizabeth.” She stroked the little girl’s blonde hair, empathizing with her pain. The words had stung because they were true, at least in part. Susie didn’t kill the frogs or eat them, but she had none the less participated in their eventual demise.

“It wasn’t as bad as chickens, though,” Susie murmured into her shoulder. The little girl was a dead weight leaning against her, and Jan realized how tired she must be. Jan stood up, holding her in her arms, cooing soothingly to her as she shifted weight from one foot to the other in the same sort of rocking motion she’d used when Susie was a baby.

She thought Susie was asleep. It was hard to tell, as she could only see the top of her head, so she gently lifted a limp arm then let it go. It flopped limply down to her chest.

“Her eyes are closed,” Heath offered. She had felt him standing there for some time, but didn’t say anything or acknowledge him for fear of rousing her precious burden. Carefully she set the girl down on the bed. Susie didn’t budge a bit.

“She’s worn herself out,” Jan concurred. She had a sense of deja vu, remembering that last day at her father’s house when she’d struggled so hard with the idea of telling him and chickened out.

“I should have told you,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed, “you should have.”

“You and Susie were getting along so well, I thought. . . I hoped it mightn’t matter to you.”

“You’ve been lying to me since the day we met. Why wouldn’t that matter?”


She could have answered that she hadn’t really lied. She never said that Susie was her niece, but then she didn’t deny it either. She allowed him to go on believing it, which was as much contributing to a lie as Susie’s afternoon frolic contributed to the bullfrog creole.

“I’m sorry,” was all she could say.

“Yeah. I’m sorry, too.”

She took a deep breath. “You must think me a terrible hypocrite, Heath. After the things I said -- about Mary? But who better to know? I wasn’t much older than her. I didn’t want her to make the same mistake I had.”

He walked up to the bed, and lightly pushed a golden lock of hair out of the sleeping girl’s eyes. “She’s a great kid, Jan. I don’t know how anyone could ever be ashamed of her.”

“Not her. Never her. Only what I did to her. I gave birth to her out of wedlock. She is going to have to pay for the consequences of my actions for the rest of her life.”

“A life she wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Heath pointed out.

“Maybe she would have been born to someone better able to take care of her.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, Jan, and I don’t think you’re doing such a bad job of it. No worse than my mother did. Except my mother never tried to hide the fact that I was her son.”

“Victoria never would have had reason--”

“My mother’s name was Leah.”

 

 

Part 11

 

Martha rolled over for the hundredth time. The bed felt cold and strange, and she could not get comfortable. In the other bed, Catherine was fast asleep, her breath buzzing soft and even. How did she do it? Ever since Grandpa and Aunt Jan started looking after them, Catherine and Mary had slept in the same bed. Then Mary married Johnny, and Catherine had a bed to herself, and from the first night had slept like a baby. It wasn’t fair.

These beds were bigger than the ones they were used to. Too big for just one person. A body felt like an island in a sea of covers. In the dim moonlight she could see Catherine was all the way over to the far side of hers. Slowly and quietly Martha got up, limped over to the other bed, and crawled in next to her big sister. Not carefully enough, though. Catherine stirred in her sleep, and rolling over, bumped into her. “What? Martha? What are you doing here?” she asked groggily.

“I can’t sleep!”

“Well then go not sleep in your own bed instead of making me not sleep too!”

“I was lonely.”

“So what?” There was no sympathy in her voice. “It’s your own fault.”

“Can’t I just sleep with you tonight?” Martha whimpered.

“No, you can’t! If I had my choice, I’d be in the other room with Susie and Aunt Jan! Now get out before I push you out.”

“But I can’t sleep!”

“Then read for a while. Just let me be.”

Dejectedly, she got out of the bed and went back to her own. “Can I put a lamp on then?”

“If you must.”

The moon was bright, but not that bright. She struck a match from the bedside table drawer and touched it to the wick. Sitting down, she picked up a small embossed red cloth bound book Mrs. Barkley had selected for her days before and recommended highly.

“It’s not a girlie book, is it?” she remembered asking, and the woman assured her it wasn’t., that actually it had been acquired for Nick. “Oscar” was the name on the binding, but when Martha opened it, the first page held a longer title. “Oscar: or The Boy Who Had His Own Way.”

She felt her stomach harden, but ventured on to the preface regardless.

Quote:

In the story of OSCAR is portrayed the career of a bright but somewhat headstrong boy, who was over-indulged by his parents, and who usually managed to “have his own way,” by hook or by crook. The book is designed to exhibit some of the bad consequences of acquiring a wayward and lawless spirit, and of falling into indolent, untruthful, and disobedient habits. These are its main lessons, intermingled with which are a variety of others, of scarcely less importance to the young.*

* Oscar: or The Boy Who Had His Own Way, by Walter Aimwell. Published by Gould & Lincoln, Boston 1857.

Martha snapped the book shut then threw it across the room. Catherine, who if she wasn’t asleep again yet was at least pretending to be, didn’t rouse enough to even scold her for brutal usage of a book.

“Catherine?” Martha said, and then again “Catherine?”

“What.”

“Do you really think the judge will let Daddy go?”

Catherine mumbled something.

“What?”

“I said Mr. Barkley says so!” the older sister huffed. “But I wouldn’t count on it. That’s what the public defender said, too.”

“Don’t you even care?”

“I care,” her voice was tired and irritated.

“Then how come you don’t act like it?”

“You really want to know?” Catherine rolled onto her side to face Martha, leaning on her elbow to prop herself up. “I like living with Aunt Jan. She’s nice, and she took good care of us. She doesn’t just think of herself like some people I know. She’s like Helen Burns in Jane Eyre, except for having a baby. What you said at the dinner table was just plain mean, and I wouldn’t blame her if she never forgave you. Or Heath either.”

Catherine was right. Heath would never ever forgive her. But how could she have known? It wasn’t as if he had ‘bastard’ tattooed on his forehead. All was lost. “I want my daddy.”

“ She wouldn’t go off and get herself arrested and leave us like orphans. I’d rather not have a father, than have a father in jail.”

“Everybody hates me,” Martha sobbed.

“Well they should.” Catherine rolled away, showing Martha her back. “If you’re not going to read, then put out the lamp.”

“I want my daddy,” she repeated plaintively.

Martha waited, hoping her sister would eventually roll back again, flip down the covers and sigh, ”All right, Martha, climb in. Just this once.” Or at least say, ”I don’t hate you

After a while she heard her sister’s breaths change to that level even rhythm of sleep, and she was alone again. She scanned the room and located the book she’d thrown. That book Mrs. Barkley had the gall to recommend. A not so subtle criticism. She scooted out of bed and picked it up. She had no intention of reading any children’s morality tales. There was a big library downstairs. There had to be one good book in it and better company to read it in. Down the steps she made her way to find them.


Part 12

 

Nick also was having a hard time sleeping. While it was an emptiness in Martha’s heart which gave her trouble, Nick was bothered by an emptiness slightly below and to the left of that spot. It drove him from the comfort of his bed all the way to the kitchen. When he got there, he found a lamp already lit, and a woman seated at the table with a steaming cup.

“Well now, fancy meeting you here! I believe Jarrod would call it the criminal returning to the scene of the crime. Is your conscience keeping you awake?”

“Nope. My father’s snoring.” Isobel explained. She and her father had stayed the night rather than ride the long road to town in the dark. Unfortunately, even the large Barkley house had a limited supply of bedrooms, and with other guests about they had been obliged to share.

“I’ve made myself some tea. Would you like some?”

“No thanks. Never touch the stuff.“ He continued on to the ice box, lifted the latch and pulled the door open to examine it’s contents, and grumbled over what he found.

“There’s heaps of creole left,” Isobel offered.

“Very funny. You know I’m holding you responsible for the fiasco this evening,” he told her brusquely while poking over the perishables.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you! Just because you’re mad at me that doesn’t mean you get to take it out on my whole family.”

“I wasn’t taking anything out on your family.”

”FROGS?”

“”Hey, the frogs were Heath’s idea, not mine,” Isobel reminded him, “and they were just fine. Your mother didn’t even bat an eyelash.”

“That’s what she does best.”

“Well my father liked it. He recommended a whole batch of it for the wedding reception.”

“Not if you want me to be there. Besides, you and Heath would have had to have started two months ago to catch enough to serve all the guests. Better stick to roasting the steer like we planned.” That was one expense Dai had been willing to let him cover, a steer from his own herd. “Too bad I didn’t have that angus calf a little earlier. I would have fed him on corn for six months and then we’d really have a wedding feast.”

“If you like, we could put off the wedding.”

“Not a chance!” He could definitely go for some roast beef now though. He’d had his heart set on a bit left from a couple days ago, but then remembered eating it when he came down for a little something the previous night. Then he had only been a little peckish. Now he was ravenous and regretted the indulgence.

“You’re melting the ice, Nick,” Isobel said, getting up. “Sit down, and I’ll make you a sandwich.” She shooed him away from the icebox, quickly selected a small bowl, a half used lettuce, and a couple other items, then shut the door and brought them back to the table. He plopped himself in a chair and watched as she retrieved the bread from the cupboard, plate from the cabinet, and a knife from the correct drawer on the first try. He’d been coming down the stairs for midnight snacks for nearly twenty years, and she already knew the kitchen better than he did. She looked right here, at home in this house.

She cut two slices of bread, and began assembling his sandwich on the board before her. He never took many pains with his own, just threw everything together, but Isobel carefully buttered the bread and layered the ingredients. Lettuce first then a slice of cheese and bit of the beans she had prepared for Susie. His eyes traveled from the work surface up her arms to her face. She looked so serious, as if she were constructing a bridge instead of a simple snack. His gaze continued along the curves of her nose and chin then down her slender neck. The dressing gown she had borrowed from Audra had loosened some, revealing her collar bone and a bit of gently sloping cleavage.

On a sudden inspiration, he reached out and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her down into his lap.

“NICK!” she exclaimed in surprise.

“Sorry,” he said, nuzzling her ear. “You just looked so delicious, I couldn’t help myself!”

“I have a knife!”

“Better put it down then, before someone gets hurt.”

“I was going to slice onions for your sandwich.”

“Hunh uh. No onions,” Nick said with a grin. “My girl doesn’t like me to kiss her with onions on my breath.”

“What makes you think she’s going to let you kiss her even without onions on your breath? Eek!” Isobel let out a little squeal as he nibbled her neck.

“Shhhh! You’ll wake up Silas,” he warned.

“If you don’t behave yourself, I’m going to scream and wake up the whole house!” she threatened.

Nick was willing to take that risk. She wouldn’t really do it. He lunged in for the kill, but before he had a chance to find out, there was a sound from the room beyond the pantry. Silas was awake.

Damn.

Isobel took that opportunity to struggle free. She quickly pulled the robe together, slapped the second piece of bread on the sandwich, cut it in two and transferred it to the plate. “Here’s your sandwich,” she said, sliding it over to him. He looked from the sandwich to her then back to the sandwich and grimaced. Well, if he couldn’t have the one, he might as well have the other. He picked up one half and took a bite.

While he chewed, she put the bread away and returned the other things to the ice box. With a damp rag she wiped off the knife and the table. By the time he’d wolfed down the first half, she was back at the table leaning over her tea. She waited until he was about to start the second half and said “You know I put frog legs in that.”

He knew she was kidding. After all, he’d just watched her make the sandwich, but all the same he hesitated for a second before taking a bite. He shook his head slightly. This woman was going to drive him crazy, but he’d sure enjoy the ride. “After next Saturday, you can scream all you want, and I won’t care who you wake.” The flush of embarrassment across her face was gratifying.

“In a house of our own, we wouldn’t have to worry about waking anybody.”

Oh brother. Not that again! he thought, exasperated, then thought again. She could be surprisingly bashful at times. If that was her objection to staying in the house he could put her mind at ease right off. The master bedroom was set off from the others for a reason. Even Jarrod, in the one closest betroom would hear the men snoring in the bunkhouse before anything from the other side of the stairs. “Is that all you’re worried about?” Nick asked.

Isobel’s blush became a deeper red. “That’s only part of it,” she said. “I’m just not used to living with a lot of people. Just me and my father.”

“What about boarding school?”

“I hated boarding school. I’m used to running my own house and having my own schedule.”

“You’re not going to have to change any of that.”

Isobel raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“All right, maybe a little, but you and my mother get along just fine.”

“Like you and my father.”

“I don’t have a problem with your father,” Nick hedged.

“Great! I’ll go upstairs now and invite him to come live with us too!”

“Hey, if he wants to come, I’d be glad to have him! I’ve told you before I’d love to have him run the smithy. Since Keno left we haven’t had anybody. We haven’t had a good blacksmith since Yankee left, and your father’s a good sight better than HE was. He won’t have to work so hard, and you could see him whenever you wanted. Hell, he can have the house the Archers were in before Ben died till we can build him a new one.”

Isobel crossed her arms. “Nick, are you listening to yourself?”

“Oh come on, Izzy. You know your father wouldn’t want to live in the house with us. I like him all right, I respect him, but I’m not exactly his first choice for a son in law. He’s probably still hoping you’ll change your mind and marry old George instead. And you said yourself he wouldn’t live in a house with guns.”

“But if he would?”

“He wouldn’t, so there’s no point arguing about it.”

“What if he were bedridden and didn’t have a choice?”

Nick didn’t get this. Why did she keep bringing up such ridiculous points?

“Then of course he’d live with us!” he said.

“But you wouldn’t like it.”

This was getting crazy. “I thought you liked my family.”

“I love your family. They’re wonderful people.”

“But you don’t want to live with them.”

“No.”

“Tell you what,” he said exasperated. “Why don’t WE just go and live in Archer’s shack? Will that make you happy?”

“Sounds good to me.”

He dropped his head in his hands. “I didn’t mean that seriously.”

“Why not? We’d be close to your family. We could see them whenever we wanted!” she threw back at him.

“You want to live in a leaky roofed two room shack next to the bunkhouse?”

“Well, I’d prefer the other one.”

“What other one?”

“The nicer one you were going to build for my father.”

“Then what about your father? Where’s he going to live?”

“My father? Oh he wouldn’t want to leave town anyway. You know that!”

He took a deep breath. “Isobel!”

“Yes, Nick?”

“All right, all right,” he sighed, giving in. “You’ll get your house.”

“Our house,” she corrected him.

“Our house,” he closed his eyes and nodded in agreement, wondering how she always seemed to do this to him. “It’ll take a while, though -- I’m not living in any two room shack. I’ll get an architect to draw up the plans.”

“Thank you, Nick.” Isobel reached across the table and touched his hand.

“You’re welcome,” he said, taking her fingers and raising them to his lips. “Can you bear living with your in-laws for six months or so?”

“I think so.” When she leaned over to kiss him, and when he slid her around the table to him, wrapped his arms around her, enjoying the way she moved in response to his touch, he reflected that the privacy of their own house would definitely have its benefits.

“Oh, Nick?” Isobel breathed heavily when their lips parted.

“Yes?”

“I really did put frogs legs in the sandwich.”

 

 

Part 13

 

The book was a disappointment. It was as dry as anything she ever saw before and one out of every three words was unfamiliar, but after bragging to Mrs. Barkley and Jarrod that she was smart enough to read it she was determined to prove it. Curled up in the hay, she studied the words until her eyes began to droop. After half an hour of reading the same paragraph over and over again her eyes drifted shut. Suddenly, she jerked awake. Opening her eyes, she saw little licks of flame dancing before her across the open book. Horrified she realized the lamp had somehow been knocked over. Luckily there had been only a very small quantity of kerosene left , or there would have been no chance of containing the fire. Instantly she was on her feet, and before the flames could reach the huge volumes of dry tinder she had beat them out with her blanket.

Breathing heavily over the narrowly averted disaster, she assessed the damage. Aside for a few scorch marks, the blanket was intact. The wool had been a fortunate choice. She didn’t think the quilted bed spread would have fared nearly so well. The lamp glass was broken, but the lamp itself appeared undamaged. The book, however, was ruined. The blackened, kerosene scented pages crumpled at the slightest touch. It could have been so much worse though. In minutes the whole barn could have been up in flames.

Disturbed by the smell, the animals stirred. Someone was liable to wake up if they didn’t quiet soon. Quickly, she threw open the loft window to let some of the smoke escape, then wrapped the lamp and book in the blanket and tried to think of a suitable place to hide them.

**

Finally, after going through them for the third time, Jarrod was satisfied the papers were all in order. He gathered them neatly together, ordered by source and relevance to the case, and closed the folder around them, securing the ribbon with a tight slip knot and stowed it in his brief case.

“Mr. Snell!” he summoned his clerk.

His clerk, a young man of medium height, with thick eyeglasses perched at the end of his pointy nose, entered. “I’m sorry, Mr. Barkley. I haven’t been able to find it. Are you sure you didn’t take it home with you?”

Jarrod frowned. “No, I am not sure. As a matter of fact, I don’t recall bringing it to the office recently in the first place,” but he hadn’t been able to find it at home. When he went to the shelf there was a hole where it had been, sandwiched between it’s two brother volumes. He’d taken a precedent from that book and meant to bring it to Sacramento with him. Hammet was not likely to question the reference, but it was necessary to have the text in the court room nonetheless. It was one of several books Jarrod frequently carried to and from the office, and he thought it possible he’d brought it and forgotten about it. Perhaps he left it on the desk at home then. He was usually meticulous about not leaving things about, but that was the last logical place to look. He buckled his case shut.

“I will see you on Monday. Never mind the filing. It will keep, and I’m sure your wife will be glad to have you home early for a change.”

“Thank you, Mr. Barkley. I’ll just finish sweeping and lock up. Have a good trip.”

***

It wasn’t on the desk either. Blast! he thought slapping the dark mahogany surface. In the morning he was going to get on a train with a man’s hopeful family who had placed their faith in him, and he didn’t have all the necessary materials. He had another copy at his San Francisco office, but that did him no good in Sacramento. So where was it? Thinking logically he reasoned it wasn’t at the office, not on the shelf, not on the desk, he wasn’t in the habit of removing things from the library and taking them to his room. The only conclusion one could come to was that someone else must have removed it.

***

“Why are you asking me?” Martha said defensively. They were all ganging up on her. Mrs. Barkley, Jarrod, Nick, Heath. They were all looking at her with angry, accusing stares. Except Aunt Jan. She just looked tired

“You appeared interested in those books,” Mrs. Barkley said. “Nobody else had any reason to take one, and nobody else was in the library since yesterday afternoon.”

“That doesn’t mean I did it. What makes you think I was even down here?”

“I noticed you put back the book I found you.”

“So?”

“Martha,” Jarrod put a hand on each of her shoulders and looked her in the eye, “I am doing all I can to help your father. That book is very important for his case. I’m going to ask you again. Do you know where it is?” She dropped her head to her chest, unable to meet that shocking blue gaze. She nodded soberly.

“Thank heaven!” Aunt Jan gave out a sigh which was echoed around the room.

“Where is it?” Victoria asked again.

“I’ll go get it,” Martha mumbled. A few minutes later, she returned with the remains of the book in hand.

“What on earth?” Even Mrs. Barkley could not contain her shock.

“It was an accident,” Martha said.

“An accident?!!” Nick was more than shocked; he was livid. “What kind of ‘accident’?”

“I was in the barn, and. . .”

“IN THE BARN???!!! What the HELL were you thinking??” Nick grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Victoria asked.

“To the woodshed. I’m gonna do something that should have been done a long time ago. I’m gonna get me a switch and give her a tanning she’ll never forget!”

“Nick!”

He halted. “She set a fire! In the BARN! I don’t need to tell you what could have happened.”

“Regardless, she is not your responsibility.” She turned to Jan.

Shaking in terror, Martha looked to her aunt in appeal. Jan’s eyes were as hollow as two wells in a drought. “No,” Jan said. “You’re right, Victoria. I’ll take care of it.” An ocean of relief washed over her, but only for a moment. After what she did the night before. . . .

Nick had not yet let go. “Hold on. I wanna make sure she gets what’s coming!”

“She will,” Jan assured him. She took Martha’s other arm a little more gently, and he released his own grip.

“Do you need any help?” Heath offered.

“No, I can manage. Come.”

Martha stumbled after her out the door. A couple hands standing about watched with some curiosity as the yard. They’d heard about the brat who had been staying at the ranch, and found this highly amusing. Ignoring them, Jan paused at a birch, where she snapped a long, thin switch, then marched on to a small building.

Turning back she called out sharply, “I am sure you men have other things to do.”

“Wyeth! Hopkins! Back to work!” Martha heard Nick’s voice faintly before the door shut.

And then it was just the two of them. Martha flinched as Aunt Jan swished the switch through the air. “I assume you know how this works.”

She did. She’d been disciplined in her school in Elk Grove several times, though she had never heard of her aunt taking a switch to anyone before. There was a first time for everything. Turning around, she lifted her dress and waited for the blow. It was a long wait.

“What am I to do with you, Martha?” Jan sighed at length.

“You’re not going to whip me?” she asked unsure.

“Do you think it would help?”

“No.” What was she expected to say?

“Neither do I.” Relieved, Martha let her dress fall back down and turned her head to peek. Jan was holding the stick in both hands, feeling the bark with her thumbs.

“I’m all out of ideas. I’ve tried being patient; I’ve tried being understanding; I’ve tried giving you responsibilities to be proud of. I’ve loved you like my own daughter. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. I sure hope this hearing goes well, because frankly if your father can’t take you back. . .” she shook her head.

If my father can’t take me back, then what? Martha wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She’d never heard Aunt Jan talk like that. “It was an accident,” she insisted.

“You ought not have taken the book to begin with.”

She knew it was true, and was fearful what the consequences of her actions might be. Was Daddy going to have to stay in jail?

“I can’t turn my back for two seconds before you get into more mischief. I hate to do this, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay here when Catherine and I accompany Mr. Barkley to Sacramento.”

“What?? No!!”

“I’m sorry, Martha, but if I can’t trust you to stay out of trouble here, how can I possibly take you with me?”

“No! No! Please!! I promise I’ll be good.” Any punishment would be better than that. “You can give me a dozen switching every day for a week!”

“I’ve made up my mind.”

“But what if they don’t let him out of prison? I might never get a chance to see him again!”

“He’ll be released. You’ll just have to wait a few more days to see him.”

“You can’t do that to me!” Martha fumed, changing tactics. “If you leave me here, I’ll. . . I’ll . . .”

“You’ll behave yourself, or your father will hear about it.” Jan was firm. “He’s not going to be happy about what you’ve done already. On top of everything, I’m sure that book will be expensive to replace.”

“It’s not fair! You’re not doing this because of the book; you just want to get back at me for embarrassing you! I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU!!” She ran from the woodshed bawling all the way.

From the front porch, Nick saw the sorry youngster and nodded with approval. “Looks like she did a proper job of it,” he assessed.

“Looks like that ankle is all better,” Heath replied.

 

 

Part 14

 

“Is the train often late?” Jan asked, looking apprehensively down the track.

“Only about half the time,” Jarrod answered. “It won’t be too much longer though. I asked the station manager, and he said it was running right on time today.”

Catherine was seated on a bench, nose in a book as usual. The notion of seeing her father for the first time in several months did not seem to excite her in the least, not like it did her younger sister. Perhaps she would have preferred to stay at the ranch, except that it galled Martha so much that she was going. Were all sisters like this? Jan wondered, constantly at each other, delighting in each other’s discomfort? She’d only had brothers herself, and all of them older. They’d been competitive, sometimes violently so but she couldn’t recall any of the kind of vicious, vindictive behavior the girls exhibited at times.

She didn’t notice it in Susie either, but she wasn’t so sure now whether it wasn’t just her own personal bias. Much as she told herself she loved her nieces as much as if they were her own, Susie WAS her own and had been for five and a half years. Was Jan less generous to the older girls than her? If it had been Susie who had nearly set the barn on fire, would Jan have succumbed to her frightened, sad puppy eyes? But Susie would not have done such a thing in the first place. Would she?

“I am so sorry about what Martha did with your book. I can’t tell you how much, only will there be a problem with you not having it?”

Jarrod shook his head. “No, I have associates in Sacramento. I should be able to borrow a copy without too much trouble.”

That was a relief. She hated to think what would happen if Martha’s stunt put Danny’s case in jeopardy.

“I meant to thank Victoria again for looking after her and Susie. I hope there won’t be any more trouble.”

“Not to worry. Mother will watch Martha like a hawk, and Heath says Susie wasn’t any trouble at all. But I don’t think Silas will be preparing any chicken while we’re gone.”

Jan had been hoping Heath would come with to see them off, but he did not. He’d barely even looked at her since the previous night. He didn’t show anger the same way her dad did. No snide comments to anybody who happened to cross his path. No comments at all. At least he wasn’t taking any of it out on Susie. It was hard enough on herself to be parted from her daughter for a few days. If Susie were not so comfortable in his presence, it would not be possible.

It was ironic. Finally she knew what it was that offended him so back in February. Not that he blamed her for what happened or that he’d guessed Susie was hers, but what she’d said about Mary, about giving birth out of wedlock. Well she angry, too. Furious even. She couldn’t articulate how, but as soon as she could, she was going to talk to him, and she was going to make him listen.

Off from the distance came a long whistle. “There she is!” Jarrod said. “Right on time.”

***

Victoria went to rouse the children bright and early in the morning. She turned the key in the lock and opened the door to find Martha awake and sitting on the edge of her bed. The covers were messed, and she had made no move to dress.

“Good morning, Martha,” she said, walking in and setting a fresh pitcher of warm water on the wash stand. “I hope you had a good night’s sleep.”

“You didn’t have to lock the door,” Martha said angrily.

Victoria smiled softly and sat down on the bed next to her. “I know we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, Martha, but if you let us we can make this a very pleasant visit for you.”

“Yeah? How? When you treat me like a prisoner.”

“You’re not a prisoner here, Martha,” she said seriously. “You’re our guest. Your aunt asked me to look after you, and that’s what I intend to do. I would like to be able to trust you, but first you need to demonstrate that you are worthy of that trust. When that happens you will have as much freedom to go about as any other guest.”

“I’m trustworthy,” the girl pouted, looking away.

Patting her lightly, Victoria smiled again. “I’m glad to hear that. Now,” she said, standing up, “I’m going to see how Susie’s doing. You go ahead and wash up, brush your teeth, get dressed and make the bed, and I’ll come get you for breakfast.” Unhurriedly she walked from the room, shutting the door behind her.

That went reasonably well she thought to herself, letting the smile fade from her face. Nick had strongly and recommended removing all items of value from the room, particularly the breakable ones, before confining Martha for the night, but Victoria knew that would not be necessary. She believed the burning book incident had truly been accidental, and not a deliberate act of destruction. While she agreed the girl needed a firm controlling hand, she wanted to show some degree of trust.

After she turned the key in the lock, she looked up to see Susie warily watching her from the doorway of the next guest room over, where Jan had been up until the previous evening. Susie had spent the night alone there. The little girl looked at Martha’s door and then back at Victoria before ducking out of sight.

Victoria tucked the key away and followed Susie. “Good morning!” she said, peeking in the door. The bed was a little lumpy, but made, and Susie’s face showed evidence of washing. She had also pulled her dress over her head, but was unable to manage the buttons up the back.

“Let me help you with those, Sweetie” Victoria offered. Susie stood still as a fawn while she crossed the floor to assist, but she could sense the tension emanating off the little girl with each button she fastened. For some reason, Jan’s shy daughter was just as terrified of her as she was of Nick. A mother of four, she generally had little trouble inspiring trust from children and found it puzzling.

“Hey there, Sunshine!” Heath called, hanging from the door frame. “Ready for breakfast?” Susie ran to him without hesitation.

“I haven’t braided her hair yet,” Victoria said. Susie’s golden tresses were quite tangled. “Perhaps you’ll keep us company?”

“Yup. I can do that. Come on, Susie. You don’t want to go downstairs looking like an old sheep dog, do you?”

Susie nodded, and Heath laughed. He picked her up and carried her back to the bed. Victoria was grateful for his presence as she drew the brush through the long blond hair. He had such a relaxing effect on the little girl. As the tangles resolved themselves she could feel her little shoulders loosen up and unhunch.

“It’s been a long time since I last braided Audra’s hair,” she said, smiling genuinely as she twisted one thick bunch around another. “I used to do it every day, did you know that?” Susie didn’t answer, but she didn’t mind. Just keep talking to her gently, and she’ll eventually get used to you. “Yes, her hair is just like yours, but she would never stop moving. It wasn’t until she was all grown up that she learned to sit still, and now she doesn’t need me to braid her hair.” She finished up each pigtail with a fresh red ribbon and sent them both downstairs.

She knocked before entering Martha’s room. “How are you doing in there, Martha? Are you ready for breakfast.”

“Yes.”

Victoria unlocked the door. Martha was waiting, dressed, hair braided, but alas, she was not as ready as one would hope. The bed had not been touched.

“I see you need a few more minutes to finish up,” she said. “I’ll wait while you make the bed.”

“You don’t have to watch me, you know.”

“That’s all right, Martha. I don’t mind.”

 

 

Part 15

 

“One more cup of coffee’ll do me, Silas,” Nick said, pushing his plate away. “Then I want to get rolling.”

“Oh? Are you going to town again?” Audra replied surprised. “How many times does that make this week?”

“Got a lot to do before the wedding,” Nick explained, standing up.

“What is it this time? Flower arrangements?”

“Nope, Mother and Dai are taking care of all that, isn’t that right?”

“And Ingrid,” Victoria added. Ingrid was Isobel’s uncle’s housekeeper.

“What then, if I may pry?” Audra pried.

“Gotta find me an architect.”

“An architect? I didn’t know you were planning to build a house,” Heath said, taking sudden interest.

“I’m not. Well, I don’t think so. Isobel’s got a bug in her ear is all. Last minute wedding jitters. She’s worried about settling in, you know, with a house full of people when she’s only ever lived with her father really. Nothing serious, though. Once she’s had a while to get used to living here, she won’t even think of living anyplace else.” If he missed the dubious look on his mother’s face, Heath didn’t.

“You sure about that, Nick?” Heath questioned. “It’s a big adjustment.”

“Big adjustment nothing. You managed it pretty well, eh Heath? By the way, I’d like you to personally oversee the repair work on the line shack. I don’t trust Gradey to handle it on his own.”

“Sorry, Nick. I promised I’d stay close to the house.”

“The house? What are we running here? A ranch or a nursery? I need you at the line shack!”

“What about Wyeth?”

Nick shook his head. “Wyeth’s good, but I’d rather it was you.”

“If it’s so important, Nick, maybe you can skip the architect and go yourself?” Audra suggested.

“No, no,” he grumbled. “I told her I’d look into it today. Besides, she wanted me to look at some kind of fabric or something again. Wyeth it’ll have to be.”

“Looks like our brother is being henpecked already,” she snickered.

Ignoring his sister, Nick laid his palms on the table and leaned across toward Heath. “Do you think you can you see your way as far as the corral to put the gray on the lunge? Or would that be straying too far from the house?” he continued in sarcastic tone.

“Why sure, Nick. No problem,” Heath replied unintimidated.

“Well I am very glad to hear that.” With that he took his leave.

***

When the breakfast was finished, Victoria announced that Martha and she would be very busy today. Silas was but one man, and there were so many preparations to be made for the upcoming nuptials. There were so many things that needed extra cleaning and polishing: floors, silver, crystal, the list was endless. Amid Martha’s protests, she recommended that Heath take Susie outside where she could watch as he worked the horses.

“Would you like that, Susie?” she asked.

Susie shrugged, looking down. Heath had yet to hear her utter a word to anybody but Jan or himself. Even over the matter of “Fluffy” it was with him that she implored, not Silas.

She dragged her feet going out, and wasn’t even interested in giving the more seasoned horses the treats Heath had snuck from the kitchen.

“Is something wrong?” he asked her, setting her down outside the corral fence. “You miss your momma already?”

“A little bit,” she admitted, but that was not what was bothering her. “It’s because of Martha.”

“Well you don’t need to worry about her. Mother will see she doesn’t bother you any more.” It seemed every other word out of Martha’s mouth was an insult aimed at her young cousin. Just Aunt Jan’s little bastard, she’d said. He’d run into plenty like her when he was a kid. His mother had always told him to ignore them, and they’d get tired of it and look for a more interesting target, but that didn’t really work. Some folks just never get tired of it. Sockin’ ‘em didn’t do much good either. Got you in trouble, and it made your mother cry to see you hurtin’ others. They’ll be looking for reasons to pull you down. Don’t make it easy for them, she insisted. So you just put up with it until you can’t and then you knock ‘em silly or get yourself beat up trying, and thank heaven when for a little while people forget to give your grief. With Victoria keeping Martha busy, Susie was going to get a little respite.

“Will you play dollies with me?” she asked, holding up her rag doll.

“Well, I really need to do some work with the horses now,” he said regretfully. “But you and Dolly can watch.”

“Dolly doesn’t want to watch. Dolly wants a story.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t--”

“How about the one about the princess?”

“I don’t know what one that is,” he apologized.

“Martha knows. I was reading it from the book.”

“You know how to read?” She nodded. Heath was impressed. She looked too little to be literate. “I guess your mother must read to you a lot, being a school teacher and all.”

Susie shook her head. “No, Mama is too busy all the time. Martha reads to me, and Martha got sick of it so she kept changing the stories and making them scary, and she said if I didn’t like it I have to read to myself. She helps me with the big words, but I like it better when she reads anyway, even if it scares Dolly sometimes.”

A curious thought came to Heath. One that hadn’t occurred to him before. “You. . . really like Martha, don’t you?”

“She’s my best friend!” Susie agreed.

He felt bad for her, that she was so lonely that that would be the case. A kid with nobody else to play had no choice but to cling to any available, even someone who insulted her at every turn. She deserved to have better friends than that.

“She’s the smartest person I ever met,” Susie continued, animatedly. “She’s the one who showed me to catch frogs so good. She plays dollies with me too, when she’s not mad at me. But don’t tell anybody I said that because she says only babies play with dolls, and she said she’d pull my hair if I told.”

“I won’t tell,” he promised. Tousling her hair, he stood up and slid over the fence.

“Do you have to work?” she asked wistfully.

“’Fraid so, Sunshine.”

“Otherwise Mr. Nick’ll get mad at you.”

“Well, those green horses need to get worked with regular, or they don’t learn so well.

“He’s very loud,” Susie said, awed.

“Who is? Nick?” She nodded. “You should hear him when he’s angry.” The little girl tilted her head, perplexed.

“He sounded very angry at breakfast,” dubiously she replied.

“Naw. ‘Fact I reckon he was in a pretty good mood this morning. He just sounds kinda rough that way. It’s a little off puttin’ at first, but you get used to it. Kinda like your grandpa.”

“Grandpa’s aaaaaalway’s angry,” Susie replied seriously.

“Well, Nick’s bark is a lot worse than his bite,” Heath assured her. “You just gotta learn to get past what he says and how he says it to what he does. You and your dolly gonna be okay here?” Susie nodded. “Good girl.”

 

 

Part 16

 

It was all Susie’s fault. She never would have taken the book out to the barn to read if everyone else didn’t hate her, and everyone else wouldn’t hate her if it weren’t for what happened at the dinner table. But it was the truth! It wasn’t her fault the little brat was a bastard. Why did everybody blame her? And now she was going to spend the day as a slave. It wasn’t fair.

Still, there was something about Mrs. Barkley. Martha started the day comfortably disagreeable, but bit by bit was sucked, quite against her will, into the woman’s enthusiasm. She could actually feel it happening, and fought against it tooth and nail. When, polishing a candelabra, she found herself delighting in the way the silver gleamed at her touch, she frowned and forced herself to purposely smudge it, but then wiped it clean again before showing the finished job to her overseer. The praise she received sent a warm rush through her which she hurriedly shook off, only to seek hopefully for another.

Without coming any closer to understanding it, Martha was getting a taste of the influence Mrs. Barkley seemed to have over everyone. She could not help but be awed by it’s power. As much as she had wanted Heath’s affection, she was now craving this woman’s approval, receiving it in dribs and drabs, and fighting to keep from lapping it up like a starving puppy. Worst of all, she knew that Victoria could see right through her. That Mrs. Barkley was purposely manipulating her. And still, knowing, she was unable to alter that desire for approval.

Was the praise genuine? she wondered. She wanted to test it. To do something wrong and see if she would get the praise anyway. If Mrs. Barkley complimented her on a job poorly done then she would know it was just empty flattery. But that would be humiliating. Better to suspect it then to test it and be proven the idiot for feeling that rush that came with the praise. Besides, she didn’t want Mrs. Barkley to think that she couldn’t do any better.

“That’s very good Martha, but I see you missed a spot here,” the woman interrupted her thoughts.

“Where?” Martha asked, taken aback. Mrs. Barkley showed her. It was just a little strip of tea colored tarnish on the underside of the tray. “I didn’t miss it,” Martha insisted darkly. “I. . . I just didn’t get to that part yet.” She was a slave driver. That’s what she was! What did that matter anyway? It was on the bottom, where nobody would see it. She became keenly aware of the ache in her fingers from her exertions, and the smell of the polish was giving her a headache, but she was afraid to stop without leave. Mrs. Barkley was still going strong.

The enthusiasm her jailer was showing was starting to feel more and more like mockery.

“Is something wrong, Martha?”

“No,” she glowered, and rubbed all the harder, her fist clenched about the polishing cloth.

Surely Mrs. Barkley noticed how tired she was getting. She must notice. A nicer person would tell her she could stop. If Mrs. Barkley was so good at it, she could finish all by herself. “Can’t we rest for a little while?” Martha finally whined.

There was, however, no respite. “There’s only a little left. It would be a shame to not to finish up, and it’s always more difficult to start again once you’ve stopped.” They continued the work until it was finished.

Despite her pain and fatigue, when they were all through Martha felt a sense of accomplishment. They had gone through a lot of silver, and it shined so brightly. She had done a good job. Gratefully, she pulled off the gloves and looked at her red and wrinkled fingers.

“Now you go ahead and wash up, and go on into the kitchen. Silas will have a sandwich for you.”

“What about you?” Martha asked.

“I’m just going to put these things away,” Mrs. Barkley smiled.

The water felt good on her hands, though even after a soap and rinse they still smelled of silver polish. No matter, she was hungry. She followed the hall to the room at the back of the house. On the large table she found a plate all made up for her and a tall glass of milk. Even in the informality of the kitchen there was a full place setting complete with napkin ring. Next to the generous sandwich was a helping of potato salad, and there was a bowl with a selection of fruits nearby. Sliding into the chair, she lifted the top slice of bread to inspect the sandwich’s contents. Tomato and cheese, her favorite! How had she known? It seemed Mrs. Barkley knew everything.

As she took her first bite, something struck her as odd. There was only the one place set. What about everybody else? Silas, the servant didn’t seem to pay her any mind as he carried a laden tray out of the room. Setting the sandwich down, she rose from her seat and quietly followed him back toward the dining room. Mrs. Barkley was still there. She hadn’t even taken off her polishing gloves. She was polishing the candelabra. “Shall I call Mr. Heath and the little Miss in for lunch Mrs. Barkley?” he asked as he laid the plates on the table.

“Give them a few more minutes, Silas,” she answered without turning around. “I think it would be wise to have Martha busy elsewhere when they come in.”

“Yes’m Mrs. Barkley.” He turned to come back into the kitchen and saw Martha in the doorway. He should have looked embarrassed, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything, just walked by her as if she wasn’t even there. Even the servant thought she was dirt.

If that wasn’t a new low, she didn’t know what was.

Stupid, stupid, stupid she thought, skulking back to the kitchen. They all hated her. She wasn’t fit company to share a lunch table with, and all the hard work she’d done was for nothing. Mrs. Barkley was going over every piece of silver she’d touched and repolishing it herself. So much for “Good job!” So much for everything. Everything!!!

And it was all Susie’s fault.

 

 

Part 17

 

“You’re up late, Heath,” Victoria observed coming down the stairs in her nightgown. Her son in spirit if not in blood was sitting pensively in an over stuffed chair, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, apparently studying every detail of his thumbnails. She walked up and stood by his side.

“Is it late? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Quite. Is something bothering you?”

Heath frowned and shrugged. “Just thinking about things.”

Victoria waited patiently. She knew if he wanted to talk and she stood there long enough he would be forthcoming. She was not wrong.

“I don’t get it,” he said finally, looking into the cold fireplace beneath his father’s portrait. “Did you catch that look Martha kept giving Susie at dinner tonight?”

Raising her eyebrows slightly, she cocked her head and nodded. It would have been difficult to miss the venomous glares. Victoria had hoped some of the girl’s anger might have dissipated over the day, but she’d made an error in judgment, or perhaps just timing. In her zeal to have the silver done perfectly, Victoria got a little sloppy with her. Instead of joining her in the kitchen she chose to forgo lunch altogether to finish the job properly. Martha was too clever a girl to be sloppy with. A tough nut, to be sure, but there were cracks through which kindness and persistence could seep over time and work their magic. They’d had a setback, but one that was not insurmountable.

“Did you know Susie considers Martha her best friend?”

“No,” she replied then paused dramatically, “but I can’t say that I’m surprised.”

Heath turned his gaze from the fireplace to her. “Oh?”

“Prior to the girls coming to live with them she didn’t have anyone near her age around.” Heath began nodding before she finished the sentence. He had apparently considered this already. But he hadn’t considered everything. “But there’s more than that.”

“I can’t see what.”

“No, I suppose not,” Victoria replied airily. “After all, how could someone quiet, sensitive and contemplative possibly ever come to think highly of someone loud, bossy, temperamental and somewhat self-absorbed who has the unfortunate habit of speaking before thinking?”

The analogy was not lost on Heath for even a moment. “That’s not at all the same.”

“Not the same as what?” She asked, affecting a lack of intent or comprehension.

“Nick has a lot of good qualities to him.”

“What makes you think I was talking about Nick?” she smiled, knowing she had him. It would not take long for him to begin to see things the way she did. But then perhaps he was already half way there.

“Yes,” she admitted. “Nick is a little like that, isn’t he? You certainly thought so when you first got here, didn’t you?” she folded her arms atop the back of his chair. “Susie is a very careful little girl, and she has known Martha a little longer than you have. I think if she finds something admirable in her, it must be there somewhere. But. . . that’s not what’s really bothering you, is it?”

The lack of a response said as much to her as any response could have. “Little Susie is something special, isn’t she?” she ventured. “I think Jan has done a wonderful job with her.”

“I would really rather not talk about it, Mother.” He seemed to catch himself after “Mother.”

“It’s a hard thing for a woman to raise a child without a father, but then you would know that even better than I.” A few years ago he could not have listened to her say that without grinding his teeth. He knew she, second mother in his heart, intended no disrespect toward the first who bore and raised him. Still, there was a twitch about the jaw. She was stepping onto hallowed ground. “Nobody is perfect, Heath.” Not even Leah.

“She lied to me,” Heath said unwavering.

“Did she? Or did she just not come out and say the truth?”

“Same difference.”

She let it go for a calculated moment then sighed loudly. “It’s a shame she was afraid to say anything about it. I know you would never have hidden your past. Not deliberately.”

His ears pinkened a bit. “I. . . hadn’t mentioned it,” he confessed. “But it wasn’t because I was trying to hide anything. I’m not ashamed of where I came from.”

“Perhaps not now, But for a long time you had a lot of scorn for your father.” She held up a hand, keeping him from speaking. “I know, I know. We ALL know Tom Barkley was not a perfect man. He had his faults. He had his secrets. But he was not a bad man. And your mother was a good woman.” She shook her head lightly to emphasize, “She must have been to have raised her son to become such a wonderful, wonderful man. Do you think, though, that she never questioned herself? Do you think she never felt lonely herself? Or badly about the disadvantages you had?”

“My mother taught me, taught me by example to be grateful for what we had. She always said she was never lonely. Not as long as she had me and Rachel and Hannah.”

“Mothers say many things to their children,” she replied in a motherly tone. “They tell them what they need to hear.” It was not that she believed a woman could not feel whole without a man by her side, or that a good friendship could not be as fulfilling as a marriage. She knew from experience one could and must stand on her own feet, and she had known many women who would have been better off with friends such as Leah had than their abusive, irresponsible or indifferent husbands. “If you believed that, completely believed that, you would not have born such righteous anger toward your father. The fact that he left her to raise you on your own meant sacrifices for her and for you.”

While he mulled this over, she added, “Would you have felt the same things for Jan had you known from the start that Susie was her daughter.”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.

“Do you love her, Heath?” she asked, point blank.

Heath took a deep breath. “Yes,” he answered. “Yes, I do.”

 

 

Part 18

 

Nick was more insistant the next day that Heath make it up to the line shack. Heath agreed despite having reservations. While Susie seemed a little more comfortable than she had, and while Martha appeared to actually want to play with her for a change he was suspicious. There was something about the uncharacteristically sugary smile she was wearing that morning that he just didn’t trust. Still, he went. The thing was this: After finding out the poor condition of the shack, Nick really wanted to boss the job himself, but he just didn’t have the time. Not with the wedding coming up faster than the preparations. He was becoming manic about making sure the ranch in such a condition that he could leave it for a month’s honeymoon.

If this business of the line shack was going to be a bee in his boot, Heath figured he’d best humor him. Helping the groom keep his head on was his chief duty as best man. It sure beat suit fittings. He’d originally balked when Nick asked him to stand up for him. Jarrod seemed the right choice. Jarrod had been his older brother from the get go, and Nick looked up to him. Jarrod also knew all the more obscure, hoity toity details folk didn’t bother with back in Strawberry. ”Jarrod’s also liable to be in San Francisco or too busy with his neck deep in a case,” Nick had countered. Or Sacramento, Heath thought looking back. “I’d like you to if you’re willing.” The tone in his voice had been about the same as if he’d asked Heath to fix a patch of fencing or pick up something from the mercantile, but his eyes told a different story, and Heath accepted the honor in the spirit in which it had been offered.

When he got to the line shack, Heath could see Nick’s concerns were completely unfounded. As expected, Wyeth had everything well in hand. Heath didn’t like the idea of giving a man a responsibility and then taking it away from him without good reason, but standing around doing nothing like a damn fool didn’t suit him either. He’d stick around an hour or so--just enough to justify the long ride and prove he was taking the matter seriously--and then head back in.

**

The grown ups were busy again. The loud Mr. Barkley and the strange lady were there talking to Mrs. Barkley and Audra. The strange lady wasn’t quite as scarey as Mrs. Barkley or the loud Mr. Barkley, but she didn’t want to be too close anyway. Susie stood close to her cousin. Martha held her hand too tight. So tight it hurt, but it was better than not holding hands.

“We’ll have the tables right here in a “U” shape, and I thought Mr. Richards and the others might set up right here by the gazebo.”

“Mr. Richards?” Mrs. Barkley inclined her head slightly, questioning.

“Yes, he’ll be bringing his banjo,” the strange lady explained. “And many of Father’s other friends also play instruments. Mr. Daniels plays the fiddle. Mr. Hanson, the flute. They’ve been practicing together every Wednesday for a month. Now over here I thought we could--”

The grown ups moved on and Martha jerked her along.

“Stay with me,” Martha hissed, “or you’ll get in trouble, too.” Susie stumbled behind, trying to keep up. She had visions of being shut up in her own room, and Mrs Barkley turning her little key in the lock and tucking it into her sleeve. What if they lost the key? What if they forgot about her? What if she had to go and there wasn’t a pot?

“Mother,” Audra said glimpsing sympathetically over at them, “Maybe the girls could go and play for a while by themselves. I’m sure they won’t get into any trouble.”

Susie didn’t think she would agree. Mrs Barkley hadn’t let them of her sight all morning, but surprise, surprise: “I was going to have them help me select the flowers for the arrangements, but. . . . Yes, all right. You’ll keep an eye on them, Audra?”

“Yes Mother,” she promised. The girls followed her around the side of the house and away from the others.

And they were free. Martha let out a terrific “WHOOP!” grabbed Susie’s dollie from her arms and threw it up into the air. It sailed up high and came down on the roof of one of the bunk houses. It slid down the gentle slope then tumbled off the edge to land in the dirt. The little girl quickly seized it up to check it for boo boos.

“Uh oh!” Martha said, snagging it back. “She’s hurt! Look Susie!” She shook the doll, making it’s head wobble back and forth. “It’s broken!”

Concerned, Audra gasped. “Martha, you shouldn’t take Susie’s things from her. Is it damaged?” She put out her hand and Martha relinquished the doll. “Why, it’s all right,” she said, not understanding the nature of the game. “She’s just a little dirty.” Audra produced a dainty handkerchief and brushed off the dust from the ragged toy before handing it back.

Susie shook her head and looked mournful. Dollie was not just fine. Dollie was sick. Terribly, terribly sick.

“Oh dear, sure she is,” Audra tried to comfort her, still missing the point.

Martha rolled her eyes. “She wants bandages.” Susie nodded. “ Lots of bandages.”

“Bandages?” Audra asked. “Oh! I see!” she said, a light finally kindling in her eyes. “Do you want to put a bandage on your dollie to make her all better?” she asked.

Susie nodded vigorously.

“Of course! You sit down here and take care of her, and I’ll go and get one for her right away,” Audra said seriously.

Both girls watched her until she disappeared into the house.

“I thought she’d never leave,” Martha said. “Let’s go hide and see what happens when she comes back and we’re gone!”

Susie scowled and shook her head. “Dollie is sick,” she said. “I have to look after her.”

“You wanna go look at Petey?” Martha asked. “It could be your last chance,” she added in a lilting voice, intimating something.

“My last chance?” Susie asked worriedly.

“Yup.”

“Why? Why is it my last chance?”

“You know,” Martha taunted.

Susie shook her head.

“Mr. Barkley is getting married in a week,” the older girl said, her dark eyes becoming narrow and wicked. “Do you know what veal means?”

She told her.

The little girl’s eyes widened and her cheeks paled.

“They’re gonna eat him, Susie,” Martha whispered. “I heard Nick Barkley say it. They’re going to eat Petey at the wedding party!”

 

 

Part 19

 

Martha knew it was even less than half a truth. She’d overheard Nick and whatshername talking about it and understood he meant to eventually butcher the calf, but not for the wedding. He was much too small, but Susie didn’t know that. She took a vicious glee in the horrified look that spread over her young cousin’s face, reveling in the power she wielded.

That ought to fix her, she thought.

“He has a name,” Susie contradicted her. “You cant eat something if you give it a name. Momma said!”

“Aunt Jan said you’re not supposed to name something you might have to eat, not that you can’t eat it if you do. Anyway, it wasn’t Mr. Barkley who named him,” she reminded her.

“What are we gonna do?” Susie whimpered.

“What can we do, Sus?” Martha shrugged. “He’s not like those chickens you know. He’s worth a lot of money and it’s a special occasion. They’re not going to serve their guests frogs legs.”

“I won’t let them!” Susie spoke boldly.

“What are you going to do Chicken Feet? Cry?”

“I’ll hold him and I won’t let them take him!” she asserted, surprising Martha a little with her determination.

“You’re just a kid,” Martha said scornfully. “They’ll just pull you off, and Mrs. Barkley will take you and lock you up in a room while they do it. There’s nothing you can do about it.

“Unless--” she hesitated.

“Unless what?” Susie said.

“Well. . . they can’t take him if he’s not there”


“Where is Susie?” Audra asked, looking around when she returned. In her hand she held real cotton bandages. Susie would love those. Dollie usually had to make do with old knotted hair ribbons wrapped around her injuries.

Shrugging, Martha replied “She decided she didn’t want to play that any more. She’s gone to sing to that stupid calf again.” When Audra started toward the barn, Martha spoke up again. “Aw, let her be. Aunt Jan let her do it all the time, and she’ll just shut up if you go in.”

“I suppose its okay,” Audra replied, sounding not entirely certain.

Suddenly feeling magnanimous, Martha announced that she didn’t really want to play after all. She would be more than happy to help Mrs. Barkley in any way possible.

 

 

Part 20

 

One hour became two, and two turned into three. Heath stayed up at the line shack, putting his own shoulder to the wheel alongside the men, then remained to share a pot of beans before heading back to the house. As Charger approached the road leading leading out of the ranch, Heath noticed a cloud of dust from the direction of town. He stopped and waited while the rider approached. He recognized the paint that belonged to Clive Ebert in the telegraph office before he recognized the man’s young apprentice.

“Howdy there, Marcus!” he hailed the boy.

Marcus reined back and pulled to a stop. “Howdy, Heath!” he replied. “I was just on my way to your house. I got a telegram from your brother in Sacramento.”

“Here, lemme take it and save you the ride.” Heath took the note, then shifted his weight in the saddle and dug into his pocket to pull out a coin. He tossed it to Marcus.

“Thanks!” the boy beamed at the generous tip. Then with youthful haste he tipped his hat and spirited back to town.

Heath turned the telegram over in his hands, hesitating a moment. Would it be better to open it here, or take it home first? Jarrod had promised to send a wire as soon as a decision came down, but this was a little early, Heath thought. It could be the case was delayed. Maybe that bank teller didn’t show. Maybe the judge refused the appeal. If that were the case it might be better to know ahead of time, so Martha could be prepared for bad news. That her father’s appeal had been denied, or possibly worse--delayed again. He’d wondered if it wasn’t the just doubt over the whole situation that was making Martha crazy mean. She didn’t look worried about it ever, never seemed to talk about it. She seemed far more concerned with other things. Really unimportant, petty things. Involuntarily he thought of Nick. You always knew when something was bothering Nick, because the tension would invade everything he did. When Nick was under stress, he piled it on to everyone around him, too, whether they had an inkling what was wrong or not. You learned not to take it personal of course, to understand that despite appearances it was not the downed portion of fence that brought the froth to his mouth, nor the pickers’ lack of speed in bringing in the crop, nor the condition of the line shack. These were just convenient opportunities to vent a little spleen. Someone who didn’t know Nick so well wouldn’t understand that.

He tore open the envelope and tucked it under his arm as with a flick of the wrist he shook the folded paper open. A relieved smile worked it’s way across his face. He refolded the telegram, stuffed it back into the envelope and tucked it into his shirt pocket before nudging Charger homeward.

When he arrived at the house a quarter hour later, Audra ran up to him before he’d even dismounted.

“Oh Heath!” she cried dismayed “Thank heavens you’re back! I was about to come after you!”

“Why? What’s the matter?” he asked.

“It’s Susie. We can’t find her anywhere!”

“She been gone long?”

“I don’t know exactly how long,” Audra confessed. As Heath swung a leg over she continued. “The last time anyone saw her was about four hours ago. She was in the barn brushing Nick’s calf. She seemed safe enough, and we were all busy, and then when I went to check on her she was gone!”

“She probably just fell asleep somewhere,” he reasoned, frowning. “Did you check the hayloft? She’s pretty small, it’d be easy to miss her.”

“Yes, yes. We’ve checked everywhere!” Audra insisted. “And the calf is gone, too.”

He shrugged. “Maybe she took him for a walk?” It seemed like the kind of thing she might do. The little girl treated the animal like a pet.

Audra sighed. “Nick and Ciego and Jeff are out looking for her now,” she said, “since the rest of the men are up at the line shack.” Heath could just imagine the stable hand and the toothless old man combing the pastures. “We were hoping maybe you had some idea which way she might have gone.”

“What about Martha?” he asked, suspiciously. “What did she say?”

“She didn’t say anything. She’s been with us the whole time; she didn’t see any more than I did, and she’s been helping Mother and Isobel and me search here, indoors and out. We’ve looked everywhere, even the attic and the root cellar. . . but she couldn’t have taken the calf either of those places, could she? She must have walked off.”

“Well I didn’t see her on the road, that’s for sure.” Heath shook his head and walked toward the barn. He looked down at the dry ground. The hard tamped dirt wouldn’t take a print. She wouldn’t go far, he didn’t think. It ought to be someplace she was familiar with. Maybe the creek? Where they caught the frogs?

“I think I know where she might be,” he said, then remounted.



She was not at the creek. Not where they had caught the frogs and nowhere near it as far as Heath could tell. As the sun crept down toward the horizon, the search became even more frantic. All the men were called back from the line shack to be sent outward in every direction. Heath came inside again to think and to consult again with Mother, Nick, Isobel, Audra, and Martha and ask the same questions over and over again. Was she upset about anything? Where could she have gotten to? No one had any idea.

“She should have been spotted by now,” Heath asserted. “They can’t have gotten far on those short little legs.”

Nick agreed. “She’s gotta either hiding somewhere or,” he paused, not wanting to say it, “or something’s happened. But even if somethin’s happened to her, we should be able to find that calf.”

Heath nodded, the sweat on his brow creeping down toward his eyes. “You’re right, Nick. I don’t think the calf would have left where she was. I think he kinda sees her as his mother.” He reached into his pocket for a kerchief to wipe himself, and the telegram fell out.

“Oh!” he said, remembering. “I forgot I had this. Jarrod sent us a telegram from Sacramento.”

 

 

Part 21

 

Heath picked up the telegram and dropped it on the silver side table tray where they often set the mail. The note hardly seemed to matter to him so much now. Only it was a reminder that Jan would be coming back the next day, and what if Susie had not turned up? How could he tell her?

“What is it?” Martha asked all alert. “Is it about Daddy?” She looked as if she wanted to grab it up, but was afraid to.

Victoria picked up the telegram, took it from the envelope, and read aloud. “HAMMET HAD AN OPENING AND HEARD CASE EARLY STOP DECLARED MISTRIAL STOP WILL RETURN HOME TOMORROW EVENING STOP DANNY SENDS LOVE TO MARTHA I KNOW YOU ARE BEING A GOOD GIRL I’VE MISSED YOU SO.”

Martha could not suppress her elation. It overrode any concern she might have had over her sister. She rushed to Victoria’s side, as if wanting to see the words for herself to make sure they were true. Victoria quietly handed her the paper.

Heath forced himself to acknowledge Martha. “I’m real glad for you,” he said, but was unable to imbue the words with much enthusiasm.

Nick shrugged. “It’s no more than we expected,” he remarked with intentional disinterest. He jammed his fists on his hips and hung his head. “In another hour it’ll be sunset, and we’re no closer to finding that girl. Instead of wasting our time with telegrams we should be out there finding her before she dies of exposure.”

***

In the silence that followed Martha could hear only the ticking of the clock until she couldn’t take it any more.

“I. . . I’m sure Susie will be all right,” she said, faltering. Again the clock ticked as the little hand approached the seven. “I mean, she’s probably holed up somewhere, right?” All eyes turned to her, and she looked furtively around. “You yourself said she had to be hiding.” She glimpsed at Nick, then away, unable to meet his steel hard eyes. “And if she’s hiding, she’s probably got a blanket or two. . . .”

Nick’s features twisted into a suspicious snarl. “What do you know?”

“I. . . I don’t know anything,” Martha protested meekly. “I’m just saying that maybe she, maybe she ran off on purpose and . . . “ The stress was causing little beads of sweat to form on her temples.

“Why would she have run off?” Victoria asked, her tone neither rising nor falling but flat and heavy as the business side of an iron. “Why would she have run off with the calf?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she wanted it for company?” By contrast the girl’s voice was as thin as an excuse. “Or maybe. . . she got it into her head you were getting ready. . . to slaughter him? To serve at the wedding reception?”

“Where would she get an idea like that?” Heath demanded.

As Martha fiddled with the telegram, something akin to guilt sitting heavy in her stomach. I know you are being a good girl.

This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Susie was supposed to eventually get tired of hiding out, let Petey go and then come back. Martha knew she wouldn’t tattle about whose idea it was. Heck, Susie probably thought she came up with it herself. But now nobody would believe that.

“I heard Nick saying something about it,” she waffled, rubbing her ear with her shoulder. “I. . . might have mentioned it to Susie.”

“ MIGHT have?”

“It was just a joke!” Martha continued plaintively. “She should have come back by now.”

“A JOKE?” Heath fumed. The scorn and disgust in his voice were palpable. “She worships you. She thinks you walk on water. God knows why, but she trusts you and you do this? You think sending a five year old kid wandering around lost and alone at night is a JOKE?”

“She’s not lost,” Martha said. “She’s perfectly safe.”

“Then you know where she is,” Audra exclaimed, relieved.

“Son of a--,” Nick cut himself off and threw up his hands in anger. “You let us go looking all over kingdom come, when you’ve known all along!” He turned to Mrs. Barkley. “I don’t care whose responsibility she is. I’m going to give her a tanning she’ll never forget.”

“Where is she?” Heath asked seriously.

“She’s in the cave,” Martha said.

“Cave?” Heath asked, looked at his family confused and then back at her. “What cave?”

 

 

Part 22

 

“It’s not far. It’s in that field on the way to town. The one with all the flowers. I twisted my ankle when I tripped across it,” Martha said, apparently forgetting about having supposedly injured herself when she “fell” off her horse.

Nick jerked his head up. “You don’t mean the Queen Victoria mine?!”

Heath shuddered. That mine was boarded up decades ago, and with good reason. A few years back, Mother was trapped in there with some others after an earthquake. She barely survived the experience. The pregnant Modoc woman with her did not. Sheer luck guided them through the miles of treacherous tunnel to bring Victoria and the new motherless babe back into daylight. The thought of Susie in that realm where a sneeze, or hand placed on the rotting support timber could cause tons of earth to collapse on top of her turned his blood cold. And she had brought a calf in there with her.

“We’ve got no time to lose,” Heath said. “That whole hillside could have fallen in on her by now.”

“Let’s go,” Nick agreed, grabbing his hat.

“I thought it would be safe,” Martha said earnestly, as they rushed out, but nobody had any time to listen to her protestations. No one was in the least interested in her excuses or apologies, or indeed anything she had to say at all.


It had taken painful hours to find the mine entrance before. Of the old timers who had been around long enough to have worked in the mine, only Old Jeff was left, and his memory wasn’t that good. Fortunately, while they had not had occasion to revisit the mine opening or even think about it in the intervening three years, they remembered where it was.

Heath spurred Charger on and arrived at the spot before anyone else. He leapt from the horse’s back and examined the ground. While they saw little in the way of prints, the greenery outside the mine entrance showed definite signs of recent grazing.

“They’re here,” he affirmed to Nick just arriving.

Nick slid quickly down and joined him. “Susie!” he called tentatively into the hole.

“SHHH!” Heath shushed him, then started in. Nick grabbed him hard by the elbow.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Nick said. “The slightest wrong move and--”

“I’m going in,” Heath interrupted. His face was hard with determination. There would be no talking him out of it. He didn’t wait for the inevitable challenge but plunged into the darkness.

“Hang on a minute! I’ll get a lantern.” He heard Nick’s hoarse whisper behind him. He continued a ways, blinking rapidly as he tried to adjust his eyes to the conditions. Gradually, things started to take shape, and he went in a few more steps. With luck she wouldn’t have gone far.

“The air smelled of mold and dry rot, and just a little bit of cattle. “Susie?” he said softly. He thought he saw something up ahead. A shadow a little lighter than the shadow surrounding it. Suddenly, light bounced from the walls around him, blinding him for a moment. He heard a brief scuffling. When his eyes opened again, it was gone.

“Thanks, Nick,” he sighed, taking the lantern. In the wash of light, he saw numerous prints, both small bovine and small human in the thick, gritty layer on the floor. There was a creaking sound, and a bit more flitted down from above. That was the biggest problem in this mine thirty years ago. The ground was so sandy it didn’t adhere well to itself. Even when the supports were in good condition, the ceiling was in a constant state of erosion. Now after years of neglect the hillside was a veritable soil covered dune being held up by timbers near as brittle as charcoal. “You better go on back,” Heath warned his brother. “The more of us in here, the greater chance it’ll all come down.”

***

Martha paced the bedroom, not knowing what to do. She felt like running. She felt like throwing up. For the hundredth time, she reached for the door knob, only to find the door just as locked as the previous time.

She had meant for Susie to be miserable. She had meant for Susie to get in trouble, but she had never intended for her to get hurt, at least not much. The little pest. Did she even go to the cave? Of course she did. Susie always does as she’s told. She always does what I tell her, and she should know by now--I can’t be trusted.[ Martha sniffed, swallowing down the hard, dry lump in her throat. Why did Susie like her, anyway? Martha didn’t like her. She was a sucker, who believed everything you told her, and she was scared of her own shadow. You could make her cry just looking at her cross-eyed. She was always following Martha around, asking stupid questions, getting in the way, making her look bad. Everybody liked Susie. Heath certainly did. Even Grandpa, who didn’t like anybody, who thought Susie was spoiled rotten and hated her for being a bastard, still liked her better than Martha. Even her own sisters did. Even that stupid calf. It was only natural Martha should do everything to put the brat down. Susie should have more sense.

She might never have to worry about Susie following her around again.

Her mind told her to settle down. She was locked in. Whether Susie was all right or not was completely out of her hands. The only problem was something else was still demanding she do something about it.

Finally, she could not take it any more. Throwing the window open wide, she made her escape onto the roof and then down the trellis before scampering across the yard. As luck would have it, Audra’s Pantomime was saddled and ready. She wasted no time. She put a foot in the stirrup, and with a double hop, pulled herself onto the waiting horse.

She slowed down as she approached the spot, not wanting to call attention to herself. A group of men were waiting outside the mine entrance, most, including Nick, with their attention directed toward the hole in the hillside. One who happened to be looking her way pointed and tugged Nick’s sleeve. He looked up, following the line of the man’s arm to see her.

“Get out of here,” he told her.

“I. . . I want to help,” she replied.

“You’ve done enough already. Get out.”

“I didn’t know it would be dangerous,” she said again.

Nick kicked at the board which had covered the opening, turning it over with his foot. “This didn’t give you a clue?” The words “DANGER ! DO NOT ENTER!” were painted in large scrawling letters.

“I didn’t see that,” she answered meekly. “Where’s Heath?”

“Gone in after her. You better be praying hard they come out of this all right.” He shook his head as if he were wondering why he was bothering talking to her. “Wyeth? Do you mind!” He gestured to a white haired cowboy then turned back to the mine.

“Sure thing boss,” the cowboy replied. He took a hold of Pantomime’s bridle and started leading her about. “Go on Girlie. Nothing you can do here but get in the way. Go on back to the house before Audra notices you’ve taken her horse.

Just then Heath emerged dusty and coughing. “Nick, we got a problem.”

 

 

Part 23

 

“The tunnel’s blocked a ways in.” Heath held up a hand. “I’m pretty sure that it’s been that way a long while. There’s a little gap she must have crawled through, but it’s gonna take some doing for me to get past it.

“Damn,” Nick replied, shaking his head.

“Looks pretty small, but if she got that calf through there’s gotta be a way I can fit.”

“Heath, are you sure she’s--”

“She won’t answer me, but I could see some light back there. She’s in there, Nick.”

“I’ll get her.”

Heath turned around and saw Martha pulling away from Wyeth.

“What’s she doing here?” He jerked his chin in her direction.

“Leaving,” the elder spat.

“Please!” she croaked, swallowing hard. “It’s my fault she’s there in the first place. Let me go get her out!”

“It’s too dangerous,” Nick snapped back, then added pointedly. “I wouldn’t even think of letting a child go in there, no matter what she’d done. You better get on back to the house before I get me a plank and start paddling your backside!”

“If you go after her you’ll just scare her. She’s just going to keep going back farther into the mine. She’ll listen to me,” Martha continued. She hung her head. “She trusts me.”

Heath looked from her back to his brother. Much as he hated to admit it, she had a point. “She’s right, Nick.”

“What? You can’t be serious.”

“Look, I don’t like this any more than you do, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“No.”

“I’ll go in with her as far as the cave in.”

“Heath--”

“We’ll be careful,” Heath answered. At his word, Wyeth stepped back, allowing the girl to get down. The two of them disappeared into the mine.

“Aaah hell!” Nick grumbled and ducked in after them.

The tunnel went on quite a ways, and the pile of debris Heath had been referring to was not the first they came upon. They had to step carefully over fallen timbers, lest disturbing them upset the delicate balance that held the ceiling up. Then abruptly, the tunnel seemed to come to an end. Martha started to climb up the pile of fallen earth, but Heath stopped her.

“Just talk to her,” he said.

“SUSIE!” Martha called out. The yell was followed by a creaking noise and a light shower of dust.

“shhhh!” Heath warned. “Not. . . quite so loud.”

“Susie, it’s me!” Martha said in a somewhat more subdued tone, aiming her voice toward the gap.

“Martha?” the muffled voice came from beyond. Nick was relieved to hear it.

“Yes, it’s Martha. You can come out now.”

“Nuh uh. I can’t.”

“Are you stuck?”

There was no answer.

“I’m going to come in there, okay?” Martha asked.

A pause and then, “Okay.”

Martha waited a moment, half hoping the Barkleys would tell her no, and giving her a way out.

“Be careful climbing up,” Heath cautioned her. “Don’t touch any beams, and make sure your footing is solid.”

She nodded numbly and started up, carefully placing one foot at a time. When she got far enough up, she saw the opening was larger than it appeared from below. Coming down from above there was room to pass if you weren’t too tall. Someone big and broad like Nick or Heath would have a more difficult time of it though.

More debris flitted down from above as she crawled down on the other side. The dirt stung her eyes, and she swore.

“What? What happened!“ she heard Nick more faintly from beyond the barricade.

“Nothing. I’m through,” she replied, as she painfully blinked away the grit.

“How’s Susie?”

How was Susie? A little dirty, a little nervous, but otherwise she looked just fine. The lantern she’d brought with was running low, however. There was only a little flame left sitting placidly on the wick.”

“What’s the matter, Sus? Why don’t you come out?”

“They can’t eat Petey!” Susie replied vehemently.

“They’re not going to eat him.”

But Susie was not so easily swayed. “Yes they are.

“No they’re not. I was just teasing you.”

Susie, who always believed everything she said, didn’t believe her. “They want to eat him at the wedding. You said so. Now you’re just trying to trick me into coming out,” she said wisely.

“I’m not trying to trick you. Honestly. Okay, you don’t believe me? Ask them!” Of course she wouldn’t. Not timid little Susie.

“YOU CAN’T EAT PETEY!!” Susie yelled up the opening. The sound echoed around them.

“SHHHHH! Are you crazy?” Martha slapped a hand over her mouth.

***

‘Petey?” Nick winced.

“Nobody wants to hurt him, I promise,” Heath told her. “But it’s dangerous in here. If you don’t come out he could bump into something there and be hurt real bad. You don’t want that to happen now, do you?”

There was a kind of silence. He could hear the girls whispering, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Hopefully Martha was making some headway. At least Susie hadn’t gone any farther. How long had they been in there. Time seemed to have no meaning underground. There was no sun with which to mark the passing of the day. Had the sun set yet? Were the first stars out?

Finally, Martha’s head popped through the opening.

“She doesn’t believe you,” Martha said.

“Aw for Pete’s sake,” Nick said, missing the irony of the expression. He checked himself, and switched to a more gentle tone. “Honey, I promise you we’re not going to eat the calf.”

“HIS NAME IS PETEY!”

“We’re not going to eat . . . Petey anytime soon.” He had to work hard to push the name out.

“YOU CAN’T EAT HIM EVER! HE HAS A NAME. THAT MEANS YOU CAN’T EAT HIM EVER!”

“She’s got a point, Nick,” Heath agreed in a reasonable tone. “You can’t go eating things with names.”

Nick looked over at him. Had he lost his mind? Then he noticed the wink. Ooooh. Right.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right there. Can’t go around eating something you put a name on.” Then shooting Heath a dirty look he muttered, “even if it did cost a hundred dollars.”

Martha looked sharply down and back. “Hang on a minute, Susie wants to talk to me,” she told them. She disappeared a moment, then came back.

“She says she’ll come out, but only if she can be sure you’re not going to kill Petey.”

“We just told her we won’t,” Nick replied. What more did she want?

“The only way we can be absolutely sure. . .” Martha said, the lamplight reflecting as a sly gleam in her eye, “. . .is if you sell him to us."

 

 

Part 24

 

Nick blinked. Then he blinked again. “Sell him?”

“Susie only has four cents, but I have twelve, and we can pay you the rest in installments.”

He dropped the soft tone he’d used with Susie to respond to the older, less tractable cousin. “Ah, for. . . this is ridiculous. We’ve had enough of this foolishness. Martha get her out here.”

“She won’t come unless--”

“I don’t listen to ultimatums from grown men or little girls.”

As Martha shifted her weight on her perch, a loose timber rocked and the sound of wood cracking echoed down the tunnel. Martha froze with fear.

“You hear that? That’s about a hundred tons of dirt and rock pressing down on those supports. This isn’t some kind of game, Missy. The longer we’re in here talking and moving around the more likely it is to let loose. You got me?”

Martha nodded and retreated to the other side again.

“Susie,” she said. “We’ve got to get out of here now!”

“You can go,” the younger girl pouted.

“I’m not going without you.” She took hold of her little cousin’s arm and pulled, but Susie wouldn’t budge. When she grabbed her around the waist, Susie went completely limp, and the loose weight was too much for her. Where did she learn that trick? Martha wondered. And when did she get a backbone? As frustrated as she was, Martha felt a little surge of pride for her.

Martha was forced to return to negotiations. “I tried,” she said, but she’s not coming.”

“Nick,” Heath sighed, “Let her have it. It’s not that important.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay fine. Just send her out.”

Martha hesitated. “How do we know you really mean it?”

“What?”

“You got a pencil on you Nick?” Heath fished around in his pockets and pulled out a piece of paper.

“Why?”

“Never mind, I got one.”

“What are you doing?” Nick asked.

“Drawin’ up a bill of sale, of course,” Heath replied. He motioned for Nick to turn around, flattened the paper against his brother’s shoulder, licked the tip of the pencil and began to write. “I. . . Nicholas Barkley, sell. . . one. . . black male. . . calf. . . to Susie. . . and Martha. . . Wallace. . .” the unhappy writing surface craned his neck as Heath scribbled. “. . . for the sum of. . . sixteen. . .cents. Okay Nick, you sign right here at the bottom.”

Nick turned around and snagged the pencil from him. “You’re enjoying this too much, Little Brother,” he muttered, dotting the “i” a little harder than necessary. “That good enough for you?” he asked, handing the paper to Martha.

She had to tilt the paper to catch the light to read it. Satisfied, she ducked back and showed it to Susie. “Now let’s get him and get out of here. Where is Petey anyway?” Martha asked, squinting into the dark depths. It was something that had been bothering her, as she’d neither seen nor heard the animal.

“I let him go outside.”

“You what?”

“He didn’t like it inside the cave. He was scared.”

“Then. . . why did you--?” No. Never mind. Asking would do no good. She would never understand the five year old’s reasoning. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” she just said, chuckling affectionately and shaking her head.

She gave Susie a boost, and the little girl disappeared.

“There you are, Sunshine! You had us all worried,” she heard Heath say. The contrast between the way he received Susie and the way she knew she would be received made her wonder if it wasn’t better to just stay there in the mine.

“Come on, Martha. Don’t take all day,” Nick said.

If she refused, would they be begging her in soft tones? Could she make them worry about her?

“Martha?”

She could. It came as sort of a surprise to realize it, but once she did, she believed it with all certainty. And she knew with the same amount of certainty that it wouldn’t change anything. She could not make them like her. Once she was back out in the sunlight (or the moonlight, rather) it would all be the same again.

The lantern flickered on the last kerosene fumes then died, and it was pitch black this side of the cave in.

No. Not quite the same. Daddy was coming back. The only person in the world who loved her--would he still love her when he found out what she’d done?

Oh grow up! she told herself suddenly. She could hide and scheme for sympathy, make them come after her or she could walk out on her own two feet with her head high and accept whatever she had coming.

There was a small light from the gap. “Martha?” It was Heath this time.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”

 

 

Part 25

 

The first thing he was conscious of was the pounding. Huge and rhythmic, like the ocean. He’d seen the ocean once--not just the Bay, but the Pacific itself. He’d watched the giant swells of water hit the breakers and curl forward, the sound growing louder as they drove toward the shore then, spent, receded fizzing back to the infinite depths. It wasn’t just something you heard, he recognized. It was something you felt course through you as easily as it did the water, so that you started to feel that your own heartbeat was only a faint echo of the great pounding of the waves. You got used to it, so that you didn’t notice it any more, but then after you left, for a long while you had that weird numb feeling that something as essential to the workings of your body as a heart beat was missing.

The pain came next. At first it seemed to come only with the pounding of the waves, but then he realized it was there all the time. Only the pounding. . . kinda accentuated it. Sort of. He wasn’t sure, if the pounding stopped, whether the pain would be better or worse, but the combination was pretty bad. He couldn’t even say rightly where the pain was. Maybe the question should have been where wasn’t it? He tried to open his eyes, but they just wouldn’t open.

Heath swallowed, and became conscious of the taste of dirt in his mouth and nostrils. Involuntarily he breathed in and then coughed as the dust stung the inside of his skull. Not soil, but sandy dirt like he’d tasted. . . like he’d tasted. . . when? His mind strained. Dirt had all kinds of flavors. There was dirt from a dust storm and dirt when you hit the ground when you’ve been thrown from horseback. On the trail you can get dirt mixed with your beans if you’re not careful. And then there was the damp clay tang of the dirt under Carterson prison--no, the taste was all wrong for that, but there was a similarity there. The stillness of the air. Where were the rest of the prisoners? Bentell had his men open fire and they fell, unable to go back the way they’d come. But that was different dirt.

“Susie?” he heard a voice, a small voice call timidly. “Susie, are you all right? Susie?” He knew Susie. A little girl with blond hair. Looked just like her mother. Dumb, dumb, dumb. He knew that. Jan hadn’t told him, but all along, on some level he must have known it. Those other girls, Mary, Catherine, Martha were all dark eyed, dark haired, just like their own mother in the photograph. Susie looked no more Mexican than he did.

Lord, it hurt. Why couldn’t he open his eyes?

“Susie?” A little louder. He wasn’t Susie but he tried to respond anyway. It came out as a quiet moan.

“Who is that? Mr. Barkley? Where are you? Ow!” Heath heard a shuffling sound. “I can’t see,” Martha complained. “The lantern, is it broken?”

Lantern? It was then Heath realized there was nothing wrong with his eyes. They were opening and shutting just fine. It was just so dark, it didn’t make any difference. Where was he indeed? Slowly, his memory began catching up with his consciousness, and where his memory flickered he could guess the rest. “Nick. I had Nick take her.” The words took a lot of effort.

“Susie got out?” Martha asked anxiously.

Heath nodded slightly, then, realizing how foolish such a gesture was in the pitch black of the mine added, “’Think so.” He could hear her take a slow, deep breath as she digested that information.

“Good.” She was quiet again for a time, and then after a little while he heard a sniffling, and then one tiny whine and then another. The whine stretched out into a whimpering cry interrupted by short, sharp breaths.

“Shhhh,” he breathed. “’S’alright.”

“I’m scared,” Martha sobbed back.

“Well. . . don’t you worry none. Nick’ll. . .get us outa here.” You will, won’t you, big brother? Don’t you go makin’ a liar outa me now. His diaphragm spasmed and he coughed. Pain wracked his body at the sudden jerky movement. An’ you better make it quick.

“I’m afraid of the dark,” she confessed, embarrassed.

Heath closed his eyes again, for what good it did him. Nick had traded him the lantern for the little girl, but what had become of it he did not know, but he did not think it could be far. He only hoped it was not broken. If not, and they could find it, he had the means to light it again.

“If you can. . . make it over this way, I’ve. . . got a couple matches. . . in my shirt pocket.”

“Why?” he could imagine the perplexed look that must be on her face. “Can’t you get them yourself?”

The half laugh he couldn’t suppress cost him another wave of agony. He was starting to identify centers of pain. His leg was one, his rib cage another, but oh that shoulder! That same one he’d hurt a few short months ago. What he wouldn’t give for Jan’s small but strong hands now. Or Nick’s. Nick would do in a pinch. Where was he?

She was stumbling in the dark toward him. When she bumped into the support that had fallen across his legs, the pain was mindnumbing.

“What?” Martha asked, drawing back. “What ‘d I do?”

“Don’t. . . do that again!” Heath agreed.

“I’m sorry!” she apologized. “I’ll try not to. I can’t see where I’m going.” She was a little more careful steping over it. And then he could feel her hand on him.

“Is that you?”

“Yeah. Careful now.” Her hand was on his chest, her fingers searching for, then finding the pocket.

“I got it!” she said triumphantly, and fumbled for the matches. He heard the little snap as she separated one wooden stick from the small block. A scratch and a sizzle as the end of the stick burst into tiny flame and seemed to flood the chamber with it’s relative brightness. Above him Martha’s face was a mask of light and shadow. As she looked at him, her jaw dropped open, and the look of joyous triumph was replaced by one of shock and horror.

The match dropped from her fingers to the dust of the mine floor and was immediately extinguished.

 

 

Part 26

 

She was startled was all. While she’d guessed he might be hurt, she hadn’t been prepared for the blood She even hesitated a moment before lighting a second match. So long as she couldn’t see it, she didn’t have to acknowledge it. But the fear of the darkness so quickly overrode her fear of his injury. That horrible black nothingness was one thing when you chose to envelope yourself in it, and quite another when it came upon you unbidden. Besides, it was fumbling about in the dark that caused her to grab hold of that support, and that shifting of the support that triggered the cave in. She was very lucky not to have been buried herself. Heath was not quite so lucky. Another match flared into life in her fingers, and she made herself look at him. She even made herself smile a little.

“That’s better,” she said nervously. Head wounds can bleed a lot without being serious,” she reminded herself of her father’s instruction. After all, if it were as bad as it looked, he would not be able to talk. She could see the beam where she tripped. He’d cried out. That meant he could still feel his legs, and she knew that was good, but there was blood there, too.

“The lantern,” he reminded her. She’d wasted--no, used up--precious moments of light. Quickly she rose from her knees and looked around. There was dust and rock everywhere, but she didn’t see any sign of a lantern. As she searched, the flame crept down the length of the match until it bit the tips of her fingers, and she let it go. That was two down. Only two left

By the light of the third match she searched furiously about, turning over rocks in desperate hope. Just as it was going out, she thought she saw something shiny a few yards away catch the light. In the darkness, she crept over, crossing the fingers of her empty hand. She did not want to waste the tiny tinder that was their last chance for light. Amid the rock and dirt, a sharp edge caught her attention. Carefully, she explored farther and discovered a smooth surface that could only have been manufactured. Barely daring to hope, she lit the last match. . .

. . . and breathed a sigh of relief. It was the lantern. the globe was broken, but the fount was intact. She touched the match to the wick and was rewarded with a growing glow as the flame hungrily fed itself on the rich fuel.

Only reveling briefly in it’s radiance, she propped the lantern in a secure spot, and turned quickly back to Heath. Turning consciously away from his head, she looked to see if there was anything else that needed immediate attention. His pant leg was soaked with bright red blood. The beam had to come off, but first she wanted to get a tourniquet on him. If she didn’t, then lifting the support might actually cause him to start bleeding even more.

“No,” Heath said, shaking his head in response. “Nick’ll get through.”

“It won’t matter one bit if he does if you bleed to death first,” she cautioned. She eased the cloth under his pinned thigh, apologizing all the way as he groaned in pain. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to.”

Funny, she’d fantasized something like this before, back when he was sick and Aunt Jan was looking after him, and then later in that intervening time, but this wasn’t at all how she’d envisioned it. In her fantasies, she was calm and comforting, offering her strength to him through her warm touch. In her fantasies her hands weren’t cold and clammy. Having to bend into an uncomfortable position, and being unable to find the end of her pinafore from the other side of the leg were not part of the dream either, nor was the fear that she might be making matters worse, especially when he cried out. For all she knew, he might have a broken leg, jagged end of bone protruding causing the bleeding in the first place. The thought made her queasy, and she prayed for a clean cut. So scared her hands actually shook, she could hardly stand to touch him.

Got she grabbed a firm hold on the cloth and pulled it through and knotted it loosely. A splintered piece of wood served as tourniquet stick. She slipped it in the loop, twisted it tight, and secured it temporarily. ”Tourniquets are tricky business,” she remembered Daddy telling her. ”You’ve got to make sure to loosen it regularly to let the blood flow.” Daddy had shown her on a hunting dog which had gotten its foot caught in a bear trap. The dog lived, but it was useless for hunting anymore. It had lost the leg.  Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it, and it won’t happen.

Lifting the beam came next. She managed it inch by painful inch, and when it was off, she had splinters in her hands, and was still wondering whether she’d better have left it alone. She loosened the tourniquet a moment, allowing blood to flow a while, and then tightened it again, but she did dare do anything further to the leg. Not even pull the pant leg aside to examine it closer. Especially not that. By comparison, the head wound didn’t looks so bad.

It wasn’t. Direct pressure alone stopped the bleeding, and once she’d wiped what she could from his face, it hardly looked frightening at all.

Having done all she dared she was wiped out, both physically and emotionally, but she couldn’t rest. If she rested she would be thinking about how she should be looking at that leg instead, so she diverted her attention from him entirely. She had to be doing something. She might as well dig.


***

“Heath!” Nick yelled, tearing at the dirt. “Can you hear me?”

 

 

Part 27

 

Nick had not taken even a moment to think when it was clear what had happened. Immediately he turned to Wyeth. “I want one man sent for the doctor and another to take Susie back to the house. The rest dig!

“I don’t want to go,” Susie replied, bravely standing up to him. “Martha’s stuck! She might be hurt.”

Martha. The little so-and-so who had caused it all. If anybody’s hurt, it better be her. He would have said it and thought nothing of it if it had been a man standing there instead of a little girl, but under the circumstances, he recognized the cruelty of the words and caught his tongue before they were out.

He held Martha personally responsible for everything, no two ways about it, but if she was hurt, he didn’t want Susie present to see her injured or worse. Nick crouched down to talk to her. Impatient as he was to get to the rescuing, he knew it was something that had to be done.

“We’re gonna do everything we can to get her out, you understand? But I need you to go back to the house with Wyeth here so you can help get everything ready for when we bring her there, okay? Besides, we don’t want you to get hurt, too. You understand?” Despite his efforts to speak softly, he could not remove that edge of brusqueness from his voice. His own concerns and anxiousness tightened the words so they came out clear but hard. Heath was better at this kind of thing, and Susie was one of those kids easily spooked.

She surprised him by nodding her head soberly. Relieved he turned to the white haired hand. “You take her back yourself, you hear me Wyeth?”

“You got it boss.”

“Mr. Wyeth here’ll get you there safe, and we’ll get Martha and Heath out in no time flat.” That done, he at once shifted gears and was hollering the rest of the man on toward industry. He himself took the lead point, farthest in the mine lifting stones and beams, and scrubbing at the dirt with his fingers until a shovel was passed in to him, and then he dug with a shovel. At odd intervals he would call out to Heath, and the whole tunnel would shush, listening for an answer, but they heard none.

Nick refused to believe the worst, and the other men, less hopeful themselves, worked on, propelled by the strength of his determination. Only Victoria, when she arrived in the night with Wyeth on his return, dared suggest that he rest while another took his place for a spell. She suggested it, but he refused to stop for more than a moment.

“I can’t, Mother. You know that. Every minute they’re stuck in there is costing them air.” He slid his hand back over his scalp, his fingers dragging through dirt snarled hair.

“I know that, Nick, and believe me I’m just anxious to see your brother out as you are, but I also know a man can’t keep laboring non stop at peak proficiency. Make room for someone who else who hasn’t been at it as long while you get your wind back.”

Nick shook his head. When he stopped digging he started thinking, and there were too many thoughts he didn’t want to be thinking. “I’m just getting into my second wind. If I stop now I’ll lose it.”

Victoria went on heedlessly. “And if you get too tired, you might get careless and--“ her voice cracked “I don’t want to lose two sons!”

**

“HELLO!!” Martha yelled again. The sound hurt Heath’s ears, but he didn’t ask her to stop. Hell, if he’d a been up to it he would likely have been yelling right along side her. It embarrassed him, that yelling. Yelling for help was bad enough for a man who prided himself in his ability to look after himself, but not even being able to yell for help--to have someone do it for him: Better not to ask at all. Better to just drift off. For the longest time he really wanted nothing better than to go asleep, but every time he started she roused him again.

“Hey! Hey! Wake up!” Martha said, pinching him again. He groaned, but she was insistent. “I don’t remember, but I don’t think you’re supposed to sleeping. I mean I don’t know, but . . . but I don’t want you to go to sleep and then maybe not--” Flustered, she couldn’t continue, and changed the subject. “I found Susie’s canteen. I’m going to give you some.”

“Nnnn,” he closed his eyes and rolled his head side to side. He didn’t feel thirsty.

She tipped the canteen way up. The water poured from the lip and dribbled out of the corners of his mouth.

“You’re wasting it!” Martha complained, and he realized she probably really was pretty thirsty. She’d been digging a long while without drinking herself, and Susie’s canteen was just about empty.

“You--” Heath flicked his wrist, indicating she should go ahead and take it herself, but it only made her angrier.

“Aunt Jan will be mad at me if you don’t. She’ll think I just wanted it for myself. I know you need water. You’ve lost blood, so you need water. I remember that much.” Jan. Jan wouldn’t be mad at her, she’d be mad at him, and rightly. He’d behaved like an ass. He was still behaving like an ass. He wanted to tell her something.

“Come on!” Martha insisted, and he could almost hear Nick’s voice superimposed on hers. Not an exact match, but there was a similarity, he had to concede. A person with more savvy would not have complained of sacrifice, but the desire to help was no less sincere, for coming from someone unaccustomed to putting others first. Nick could be just as awkward. Heath had had to learn to ignore it when Nick muttered over discomfort or inconvenience. Some folks wouldn’t help you even when it caused them no trouble at all, but were so pleasant about it, you’d almost thank them for doing absolutely nothing, while others could give you the shirt off their backs and sound so grudging about it you didn’t want to take it. Some folks, he thought fuzzily, just didn’t want you to know when they were being nice. Which was better? The reverend in Strawberry said you gotta give with a free and happy heart if you want to get to heaven. You gotta give without wanting to get back, but if people start treating you nice because you give happy, isn’t that getting back? Or do you have to give with a happy heart but look unhappy so you don’t get the earthly benefit, like he said for Momma. That all the good she did was to try to make up for the evil, and the motive canceled it out. That she had to embrace the shame heaped on her. That she had to hate him to hate the sin. No, that didn’t sound right, and Momma tried to put it in different words, but he still didn’t understand, and they didn’t go back to that church again. He wondered if Jan talked to that same reverend.

“Wake up, Heath! Wake up!” His body jolted with another pinch. Martha was slapping at his cheeks. Once his eyes were in focus, Martha again tipped up the canteen and this time he took it. Once the water coursed his throat, it awakened his thirst. Where he had not wanted to even think of drinking before, he now actually lifted his head for another sip. He drank again, but would have stopped, leaving the girl the last sip had she not turned it on end, making sure he got all that was left.

“Thanks,” he said, when he’d swallowed it down. The water made his mind just a little more crisp. “Martha, I. . . want you to know somethin’. . . I was wrong. . . about a lot of things. You got a lot of good in you. Just don’t be afraid. . . to let it show.”

She answered him in an uncomfortable voice, “I don’t think you should talk now.”

“I want you. . . to do something for me. . . If I don’t get out of here. . . I want. . . I want you to tell Jan. . .”

“SHHHHHHHHHHH!” Martha said at once. “Don’t say anything more.”

“Tell her that I lo--”

“Listen!” She slapped a hand over his mouth. In a moment he understood. It was a tiny buzz compared to the ocean waves still sounding in his head, but he still recognized what it meant.

Martha rushed to the rubble pile. “We’re here!” she called. “We’re here!”

 

 

Part 28

 

It was another grueling fifteen minutes before the tiny gap in the rubble turned into a hole large and stable enough for a man to wriggle through. Nick could hardly wait for the men to help Martha worm her way out before plunging headfirst into the tight passage.

“Hang in there, Heath! I’m coming for you!” he called ahead, then again to himself, “I’m coming for you.”

Hand over hand he dragged himself forward, oblivious to the scraping of rock against his arms and shoulders, or the taste of the dirt in his nostrils and teeth, or the tightness that constricted his chest to allow only shallow metered breaths. His head emerged into the open space, but he couldn’t see anything but more dirt until his shoulders were through and he could twist his body around. In the shadows he made out the shape of his brother. He wasn’t moving.

Quickly Nick dragged himself the rest of the way out and hurried to Heath’s side. He dropped down next to the prone form and touched a dirty cheek. “Heath!” he whispered.

An eye fluttered and opened a crack.

“Nick?” Heath croaked, “That you?”

“Yeah, it’s me, brother,” Nick replied, gratitude registering in his still anxious eyes.

“Good.” Heath’s lips crept into a lopsided smile. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me,” he joked.

“Not a chance, little brother. Not a chance. We’ll have you out of here in no time.”

Heath’s gaze flicked up and down, taking in Nick’s dirt and sweat matted hair, scratched face, torn shirt and knuckles. “You look like hell.”

“You look--” Nick stopped himself. Heath was pale, bruised and bloodied, as close to the edge of the abyss as Nick figured he’d ever seen him. “You look great.”

“’Scuse me, Nick.” While the two brothers were exchanging words the doctor had made his way into the chamber. “I’d like to get a look at Heath before you move him.”

Nick stepped aside. After a thorough evaluation of the situation, the doctor frowned. He drew Nick aside. “I don’t like the look of that leg,” he said. He opened the main compartment of his medical bag and withdrew a cloth bundle that made a soft metallic clank as he set it down. He loosed the knot, unrolled the bundle and lifted the protective flap. The lantern light glinted of the bright steel instruments of the amputation kit, and Nick blanched.

“You’re not gonna take the leg?!”

“You know I’d rather not have to, Nick, but I may have no choice.”

“May. Then there’s still a chance--”

“The beam’s heavy and cut deep into his leg. Lifting it off him could cause him even more harm than is already done. Amputation’s the only safe way to go.”

“Doc please!” Nick pleaded. “I know my way around a saw. I know can cut him loose without hurting him.”

The doctor shook his head. “Even if we could remove it without tearing up the artery the wound’s dirty. If it festers and goes to the blood it could kill him.”

Nick grabbed his wrist. “It could be too late to prevent that anyway,” he said. It had been hours since the mine collapsed.

“Talking about me. . . behind my back?” Heath asked. “Something maybe I oughta know?”

Nick looked back at the doctor. “We’ll ask him,” he said. “Whatever Heath says I’ll go with.”

They returned to Heath’s side, and Nick explained the situation. “It’s up to you,” he said.

Heath thought only a moment before giving an answer.

“Are you sure?” Nick asked.

“I’m sure,” he answered.

****

Each draw of the saw was excruciating. Heath thought he could feel every tooth of the blade.

At least it’s not my leg he’s sawing through, he reassured himself, though at that point it was little comfort. Nick was being as gentle as humanly possible, but even loaded up on laudanum the pain was so intense, that he would almost have preferred a bullet in his brain.

“We’re almost through!” Nick warned. The doctor gripped tighter on his leg, and Heath braced himself for the finishing strokes. There was a crack as the saw broke through the final 1/16th of an inch of beam. The pressure changed drastically. It felt as if someone had grabbed the wood embedded in his leg and jerked it hard. Heath screamed, and blacked out.

 

 

Part 29

 

“You’re a very lucky girl, Martha,” Mrs. Barkley said, entering the bedroom where the two cousins had been sitting, waiting since arriving back at the house. It was about the first thing anyone other than Susie had said to her since being rescued. They were all so busy with Heath and his injuries, that after discovering she hadn’t anything worse than a couple scratches they didn’t pay her any more mind. That was just as well. She was dreading the confrontation.

“Yes, Ma’am,” she agreed, subdued, and contrite. “Will Heath be all right?” she asked.

Victoria lowered her eyes momentarily as she slowly nodded. “The doctor said he had several injuries. His shoulder was hurt again, some ribs, and that leg--”

“Is it broken?” Martha interrupted. “I wasn’t sure. He was bleeding and I didn’t know if because the bone had--” she choked off. Usually she not only was adept at, but delighted in describing such things in the most gruesome detail, especially to Susie. She remembered taunting her sever times at the dinner table over her the contents of her plate You know what kidneys are, don’t you? Kidneys make pee! Now she felt a little woozy just thinking of it.

“No, thankfully it isn’t broken. The wound is bad enough though. He lost a lot of blood. The doctor said that tourniquet may well have saved his life.”

Martha felt her face flush with self conscious pride. “He won’t lose it?”

“I don’t think so. Only time will tell. With luck he should regain full use of it, but it still might fester. ”

“That’s good,” Martha replied, biting her lip. “Not the festering part,” she added hurriedly, “I mean the getting. . . full use.” The last words petered out slowly. Victoria was looking at her oddly. It took her a moment to follow the woman’s gaze.

Embarrassed, she slid her hand over her tightly wrapped forearm. The dressings were rather disproportionate to the scrapes they covered. As a rule she never let Susie come within ten feet of her with a bandage, but she made an exception this time. It kept Susie out of everybody else’s way, and maybe, just maybe that annoying compassion that constantly oozed from the runt was just the tiniest bit comforting. Really, Susie was kind of an all right kid, everything considered. Stronger than she had thought. Smarter than she had thought, too. But she was still pretty wicked with a bandage.

“Can we see him?” Susie asked, taking Martha’s hand and squeezing it for the courage to speak. Martha resisted the urge to correct her grammar.

“Perhaps in the morning,” Victoria replied. “It’s very late, and he needs his sleep, as do you two.”

“Mrs. Barkley, may I stay with Susie tonight?” Martha asked. “She gets lonely.”

“Is that what you’d like, Susie?” Victoria asked, and Susie nodded vigorously. “All right then. I suppose you may.” Martha got the impression that Mrs. Barkley wouldn’t mind locking her in a room and throwing away the key. She gave consent for them to stay together, because it was what Susie wanted. Ordinarily that sort of thing would have incensed Martha, but she knew it was no more than she deserved. She was grateful for the decision no matter what the reasoning.

“Thank you,” she said.

Victoria did not say “you’re welcome” but nodded an acknowledgment and retreated from the room. As she was pulling the door shut, Martha started again. “Mrs. Barkley?”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering. When my daddy comes tomorrow?”

“Yes, Martha. He has to be told,” Victoria said jumping the gun.

“Yes Ma’am.” Oh well. It didn’t hurt to ask.

****

“DADDY!”

As Jan’s foot came down from the train she turned in the direction of the voice. From behind her, Danny had taken off and was already halfway down the platform. By the time she let go the hand rail he was scooping Martha up in his arms and squeezing her tightly to him.

“He looks almost as happy as he did when he saw you,” she said, nudging Catherine, who only looked only the slightest bit jealous of her little sister. When father and older daughter were reunited at the court house, Catherine had tried her best to maintain a disinterested air, but after but a moment’s hesitation the tears were streaming down her face, and she’d hugged him as tightly as Martha was now. Whatever anger the girl had toward him over his long absence, Jan knew she was glad to have him back.

“Mama!” Jan felt Susie pelt into her legs almost before she saw the blond blur running toward her. She scooped up her little girl and hugged her.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” Martha repeated over and over again, sobbing. Watching, Jan found her own eyes filling so that by the time she and Catherine, and her own daughter caught up with them, salty streams were flowing down her cheeks. “Daddy don’t you ever ever go away again!”

“I promise I won’t, Angel. A team of wild horses couldn’t drag me away from my girls. I love you so much.”

Then Martha did something surprising. She pulled herself back, away from him.

“What is it, Martha?” her father asked.

Martha looked down. “You might not any more,” she said softly.

“What?” he scowled in disbelief. “That can’t be.”

“I haven’t been very good,” she confessed. “In fact, I’ve been downright awful.”

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that,” he tried to comfort her.

“Yes it is! I think the Barkleys want me to be locked up in jail for years and years! I set the fire and tricked Susie into running away and Heath got hurt and might even die because of me, and I wouldn’t blame you if you never want to see me again!”

Heath? Hurt?! Jan was startled out of her empathetic tears. She looked around. While she hadn’t expected Heath to meet her at the train, she’d maintained a small hope that he would. Instead Victoria Barkley stood there, stolid in powder blue, hat perched primly on her head. Her face, a hard mask, told her there was truth in what Martha said.

Danny regarded his daughter seriously. “Martha, first and foremost I want you to know that no matter what I will always love you. Do you understand?”

Martha nodded slightly, not entirely convinced.

“What happened to Heath?” Jarrod asked, before Jan had the chance.

“I--” Martha’s voice caught in her throat. The girl drew guiltily back, taking shelter once more in her father’s arms.

“Heath was injured in a mine cave in,” Victoria replied.

“A mine cave in?” Jan asked, surprised.

“The Queen Victoria mine.”

“What on earth was he doing in that death trap?” Jarrod demanded.

“It was. . . an accident,” Victoria sighed. “We can go into details later. He seems to be out of immediate danger. Only time will tell.”

Susie squeezed her arms around Jan’s neck. “We’re taking good care of him, Mama. We’ll make him better!”

 

 

Chapter 30

Heath didn’t want a glass of water, he didn’t want to play checkers, didn’t want to talk, and he didn’t want his pillow fluffed again.  He ached all over, most especially his leg, but he didn’t want to comment on it or Nick would start pushing the laudanum again.  Heath preferred the pain to the mind numbing effects of the drug.

“If it’s all the same to you, Nick, I’d like to get a little more sleep,” he said.

“Sure Heath.  Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you awake.  Rest!  The best thing for you the doctor said,” he jabbed the air to accentuate the point.  In doing so he jostled the board sending a shower of checkers to the floor.  Nick knelt down to pick them up.

“It’s okay, you can just leave ‘em,” Heath said.

“No, no, I’ve got them,” Nick protested, arms rapidly filling with red and black pieces.  Another dropped with a series of plings as it bounced on the wooden floor.  He poured his armload into the box then retrieved the last.  ”You, ah, you’ll let me know if I can get you anything.“

“I’ll let you know.”

“Like a sandwich or something.  The Doc said you need to eat, too, you know.”

“I’ll let you know, Nick.”

“Right.  Okay, you get your rest,” Nick said backing out of the room.  “I’ll make sure nobody bothers you.”

Just as the door was swinging shut, something occurred to Heath.

“Nick?”

“Yep!  What is it?”  Immediately his brother’s eager face reappeared.

“I’m real sorry about Saturday,” he said.  “About the wedding.  I don’t think--”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Nick replied.  “If  I have to put it off a week or a month I’ll do it.”

“I don’t think Isobel will be real happy about postponing the wedding for a month.”  He didn’t think Nick would be real happy about it either.

“By hook or by crook you’re standing up for me.  You gave me your word!” Nick said.  “Izzy’ll understand.  And if she doesn’t, you’re gonna just have to get better by then, you got me, Boy?  Why, who’ll run the ranch while I’m on my honeymoon if you’re flat on your back, you want to tell me that?  Jarrod?”  Nick smirked and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling to show what he thought of that.

It was that much hot air, and Heath knew it.  Nick would put off the wedding.

“Wyeth can handle things till you get back,” he said, “and I sure Jarrod can fill in--”

“After all that money I spent getting that suit fitted for you?  Not a chance.  Now get some sleep.”

The door closed, and Heath relaxed back into his pillows with a heavy sigh.  He smirked as a thought came into his head.  Mother was right--Nick and Martha did have a lot in common.  It was a thought he decided to keep to himself.

Nick.  He either left you to your own devices or he was all over you.  There was no middle ground. 

Heath willed the pain in his leg into uncomfortable submission and invited sleep to drag him off for a couple hours.  He was going to need the sleep if he expected to be recovered enough by Saturday.

He’d only managed a light doze when he heard the front door close and creaking on the stairs.

“I promised him I wouldn’t let anyone bother him,” came Nick’s muffled voice through the door.  “He’s having a rest now.”

Good for you, Nick. Heath thought lazily, but when he heard the worried woman’s voice his eyes popped open.  Jan!

“It’s all right.  She can come in,” he called back.  He struggled to pull himself into a sitting position, but that old shoulder spasmed.  The shock of it made him jerk, jarring his leg.  When Jan entered the room his face was contorted in pain.

“Oh Heath!” she exclaimed, rushing to his side                                                                                                                                                                            .

“It’s all right,” he choked out.  “It’s not so bad as it looks.  I just moved wrong, that’s all.”

“Let me help you.”  She reached under his good arm, wrapped hers around him and began gently lowering him to the bed again.

“I wanted to sit up,” he said, resisting her.

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

“Yes, please.”

She altered her grip slightly and helped him into a sitting position.  When he was upright she rearranged the pillows to help reduce the strain.

“Thanks.”  He  relaxed back into the pillows.

“You do look a little more comfortable,” she noted with some measure of relief.  He felt a warm tingle follow her golden flecked blue eyes as they traced his face, down his injured shoulder to the line of his covers and then down the length of his leg.  “How do you feel?”

He reached out to smooth the rivulet between her sandy eyebrows. “A whole lot better than I did five minutes ago.”

“And here I thought you wouldn’t want to see me,” she replied.  An odd look shadowed across her face, almost angry, but dissolved into compassion. 

“I reckon I was thinking the same thing about you,” he confessed, “but the fact is I’ve been wanting to see you since you left.”  Again a brief flicker.  “What is it?” he asked

“I. . . nothing.  It’s not important.” 

For a moment they just looked at each other quietly.  “I should go and let you get some sleep now,”  Jan said.

“I’m not tired.  Here,” Heath said, dragging over the checker board.  “How about a game of checkers?”  It only took a little arm twisting before she agreed and they set up the board.  As they played they fell into easy conversation, just like the ones they had shared while he had been staying at her father’s house.
He asked about Danny, and she happily related what she remembered of the proceedings, and then his release.  Her joy at having her brother back made the room twice as bright.  She paused in the story looking guilty.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “Here you are hurt, and all I can talk about is my brother.”

“I’m really glad for you,” he reassured her.  “For you and Danny and Martha and Catherine, your father. . . all of you.  You should be happy.”

She stroked his forehead gently. 

“Fever?” he asked.

“No,” she blushed and smiled, “no fever.”

She took his hand in his, and biting her lip looked down at it.  “These past few days,” she said, “I’ve only had two things on my mind.  Danny’s release and what I was going to say to you when we got back.”

Heath cocked his head.  “Oh?”

“Yes,” she said.  “I was really going to tell you off.”

“Well go ahead,” he urged.

“No,” she chuckled.  “It’s not important.”

“If it weren’t important, it wouldn’t be bothering you.”

“Well--” she took a deep breath.  “I thought you were being just a little unfair.”  She waited a long time after that, so that after a while he figured that was going to be the end of it, but then she started again.

“I love my daughter very much.  I have never been ashamed of her.”  Her voice gained strength and heat as she proceeded.   “I am grateful for every day I’ve had with her.  But yes I have regrets!  I regret that I didn’t give her the kind of family she deserves.  I regret the way people judge her based on something she had no control over.  What I did was a sin.  It was wrong.  Maybe your mother felt different about what she did.  I don’t know.  I’m not your mother, but neither are you, and you have no business judging me on the basis of how you think she felt.  Now I’m sorry for leading you to believe something that wasn’t true, but I won’t apologize for my morals!  If you want to go on thinking your mother was a saint wronged by a man you just go ahead, but, but--”

Her voice had risen nearly to a yell when she stopped herself.  “Well,” she said quietly, “that’s what I wanted to say.”

 

Chapter 31

What have I done? Jan asked herself, appalled at the words coming out of her mouth to a sick man.  She covered that horrible outlet with her hand.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.  “You don’t need to hear this.  Not now.  I. . . I should leave!”  She turned to go, but he grabbed her other wrist.  With more strength than she would have guessed of a man in his condition, he held her there.

“My mother,” he said in slow measured syllables, “was the most decent woman I ever met.  Now maybe she wasn’t a saint, but I don’t believe what she did was a sin.  My father did do her wrong, and Susie’s father did YOU wrong.  I wouldn’t hold that against either of you.  You didn’t have to lie.”  She could not see if there were tears in his eyes, because her own clouded her vision. 

“You and Susie were getting along so well.  I didn’t want that to change.  I wanted to protect her.  I didn’t know how you’d react.  People can be. . . very cruel.”

“I don’t understand all of the things you feel,” Heath continued.  “You’re ashamed--you’re not ashamed.  You say one thing and then the opposite.  It doesn’t make sense to me.   I know one thing though.  I care for you and Susie very much.  I don’t want this to come between us any more.  I’m sorry for how I was the other day.  Will you forgive me?”  He urged her toward him.

“Only if you’ll forgive me,” she said, dropping to her knees at his side.  She put her arms around him and buried her head in his chest.

“AH!” he yelped.

“Oh!  I’m sorry, I’m sorry!   I’ve hurt you again!”

“It’s okay,” he said stroking her hair.  “it’s worth it.”

****

It was a beautiful day for a wedding reception.  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  Only a light breeze fluttered the corners of the table cloths and took the edge off the heat.  With the outdoor buffet and banjo ensemble it was not the most elegant celebration ever to have taken place at the Barkley estate, but what it lacked in pageantry it more than made up for it in liveliness.  Everything and everyone was moving.  The roses swayed happily in the garden and the cut flowers trembled likewise in their vases.  Guests milled about tasting champaign,  visiting and enjoying themselves.  The only things that didn’t move were Nick’s expression, which appeared to be glued into a goofy grin and the hair pomaded into submission atop his head. When the music played in earnest, Dai Morgan surprised everyone by claiming the first  dance with Isobel. 

“A man may dance at his daughter’s wedding,” he said simply in response to Isobel’s look of dumbfounded stupor. 

The reception was more interesting than the wedding, Martha thought.  She’d been to a couple weddings, including Mary’s and found them boring.  The only interesting thing was Heath.  Somehow he’d managed to get well enough to put in an appearance.  He said it was on account of Aunt Jan’s massages and Susie’s bandages that he was recovering so quickly.  Maybe there was something to it.  After all, they seemed to spend an awful lot of time in his sick room.   Martha was having to do most of the looking after Petey all by herself.  But then she heard Jarrod say that was just the way Heath was.  A quick healer. 

Not so quick a healer that he hadn’t retired directly after the service, however, and Aunt Jan was keeping him company, so that the rest of the family could go on with the party without feeling bad about him being left out.  Martha had expected to feel incredibly jealous over this, but was surprised to discover that she didn’t really mind.  Anyone could tell just by looking that Heath and Aunt Jan were in love.  Martha had entertained her own fantasies, but in the end it was hard to argue with the obvious.    Besides, while Heath was still undoubtedly the most handsome man on Earth, he really wasn’t in her league.  It wasn’t just the bastard thing.  She thought she could overlook that.  It was just that. . . well. . . he wasn’t exactly an intellectual. 

The scent of  beef, roasted over an open flame pervaded the air.  Martha maneuvered through the crowd, searching.  She’d made three trips to the buffet table, but after seeing the meat carved from the spitted carcass she hadn’t been able to bring herself to touch the main course.  Even the smell of charred flesh was disturbing her.  Drat that Susie.  Some of her was rubbing off.  Maybe it was just that under different circumstances the unfortunate steer might have been the beloved Petey.  Whatever it was, Martha seriously hoped the effect was temporary.  Thanksgiving was only half a year away, and she loved turkey. 

Presently she spotted her quarry at the punch bowl.  Tall, black haired like her father, and nattily dressed in coat and tails, he was chatting it up with some important looking person, but what she wanted to talk about was much more important.

“Mr. Barkley,” she said, interrupting them, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Yes, Martha?” Mr. Barkley said patiently. 

”Can I talk to you privately?  I need your professional opinion,” she replied.  “On a legal matter?”

“A legal matter!” Jarrod’s eyebrows rose appreciatively.  He turned to his companion.  “Simonds, do you mind if I take a moment to consult privately with Miss Wallace on a legal matter?”  The corner of his mouth was turned up in a bemused smile.  It reminded her of Heath’s crooked grin.

“Certainly, certainly,” Simonds replied waving them off.  “I’ll just help myself to some more of that fine Champagne.  You know where to find me!”

Jarrod offered her his hand, and led her past the tables.  When they were out of the crowd, he bent down to meet her eye to eye.  “Now, what can I do for you?  Do you have a question about your father’s case?”

“No, not that.  It’s this.”  From her sleeve she withdrew a tightly rolled piece of paper.   It was the bill of sale Heath had written out.  She opened it up, and flattened it against her thigh before handing it over.  Jarrod studied the paper briefly and looked at her questioningly.

“Aunt Jan said that it wasn’t legal.  That we had to give the calf back.”

“It’s legal,” Jarrod said.  “That’s Nick’s signature all right.  A little messy, but definitely recognizable as his.  You and Susie are the proud owners of one black calf.”  He handed the paper back to her.

Martha breathed a sigh of relief.  Petey WAS safe then. 

“What do you think you’ll do with him?”

“Raise him, I guess.  I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“Well it seems to me Heath said something about being mighty impressed with the herd he came from.  He just might be interested in breeding some black cattle himself.”

“Nick said he wanted to stick with the hereford breed,” Martha said.  “And he’s the boss, right?”

“Ye-e-es, but some day  Heath may want to boss his own herd on his own ranch, maybe after he gets married.”  He looked up, and Martha followed his gaze to a window on the upper level of the large house.  She saw two figures waving.  Maybe that some day wouldn’t be so far off.

“So, is that it?” Jarrod asked.

“No, there’s something else,” Martha said.  “It’s about that book of yours I ruined.  I’m really sorry.  Was it very, very expensive?”

“It was reasonably expensive.  I’ve sent away for a replacement.  I understand your father had a discussion with you about it.”

Indeed he had.  With a switch.  Between that discussion and the one about the incident at the mine, Martha hadn’t been able to sit comfortably for a whole two days.  But that wasn’t all the discussion entailed.

“Daddy said I needed to find a way to pay you back,” she said, “and I’ve been thinking.”  She bit her lip.  “Maybe I could come by and help you out at your office.”

Jarrod’s face paled slightly.

 “I have very neat handwriting,” she continued eagerly. “I could copy things for you or run errands, make you coffee, sweep up. . . “

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” he reassured her.

“I wouldn’t mind.  Really I wouldn’t!”

“I already have an assistant to do all those things.”

“But you wouldn’t have to pay me,” Martha insisted.  “I’d do it for free to make up for the book.”

“I appreciate the thought, Martha.  Look, I forgive you for ruining the book.  I know it wasn’t intentional, and you won’t do anything like that ever again.”

“No!” she agreed, shaking her head furiously.

“All right then, I’ll tell your father not to worry about paying for the book.  Fair enough?”

It was more than fair.  Jarrod Barkley was a true gentleman.  The truest gentleman there ever was.

“Oh thank you, Mr. Barkley!” she exclaimed, and threw her arms around him.

“Now, if our business is complete, I’d like to find the congressman again before he’s had too much more Champaign,” he said, gently extricating himself from the enthusiastic embrace.

With her heart as light as a feather she set off to find Susie and deliver the wonderful news.  As she did, she continued to marvel at what a marvelous man Jarrod was.  Distinguished and clever, kindhearted and forgiving.  He’d saved her beloved father from prison, and for that he would have her eternal gratitude.  Perhaps he was not quite as handsome as Heath, but he was more intelligent, more sophisticated, a true kindred spirit.  And his eyes, when they had looked into hers were the deepest, most heavenly blue she had ever seen.  Her feelings for Heath had been mere infatuation.  This was definitely love.