Broken Vows (51 page)

      
Michael didn't really feel hungry, but the sympathetic smile of the old man made him feel better. “I—I'd be much obliged for some biscuits. I could take them with me down to the corral. I'm going to see my pony,” he added, wiping his runny nose on his sleeve. Miss Ahern would scold, but he did not care.

      
“Reckon I kin fetch a few carrots fer yew ta feed ta yore pony. Mr. Madigan give him ta yew, didn't he?” Joe asked, seeing if the boy wanted to talk.

      
Michael's heart constricted as he remembered the angry stranger upstairs arguing with his mama. “Yeah, he did.”

      
“Yew miss yer pa?” Joe asked as he placed a small sack full of carrots on the table.

      
“No! I don't need a father,” the boy replied, grabbing the sack and heading for the back door. “I'm going to see Snowball.” With that, he was gone, leaving the old man scratching his shiny bald pate in puzzlement. Maybe, it was best to leave the boy to grieve with his pet for a while before awakening his mother.

      
Michael headed to the barn where Snowball was stabled. The saddle was too heavy for him, but he had learned how to bridle the pony. He'd seen other boys ride bareback and thought it looked like fun. But fun was the farthest thing from Michael's mind as he ran into Snowball's stall.

      
“Here boy, have a carrot,” he said. When Snowball was finished with the treat, Michael struggled with the bridle.

      
Upstairs in the ranch house, Rebekah and Rory faced each other, their angry epithets all spent now. He rounded the bed and reached out for her. She tried to pull away, but he held her firmly by her shoulders.

      
“This is no good, Rebekah. I don't want your father standing between us. Not after all we've survived just to be together. I love you. I want us to be a real family—you, me, and Michael. I'd like to have brothers and sisters for him, wouldn't you?” He waited with his heart on his sleeve.

      
She swallowed the lump in her throat, wanting desperately to throw herself into his arms. How long she had waited for this declaration. She read the earnest love in his eyes and knew he meant every word. “I love you, too, Rory. More than anything. I will choose you over my family if I must...but if my father did do what you believe...couldn't you forgive him? It would mean so very much to me.”

      
He looked into the fathomless depths of her eyes and read the pain and the longing reflected in his own. “You've suffered more than I, Rebekah. You were the one who was forced into that nightmare of a marriage with Amos Wells. If you can forgive, how can I not?”

      
She could see the tears glistening in his eyes, and her heart turned over. “Oh, Rory, my love, tell me nothing will ever separate us again.” She melted against him.

      
He enfolded her in his arms, feeling the weight of the world drop from his shoulders. “Nothing will ever separate us from each other or Michael. We'll go slow explaining to him about Amos, about us. He's young and resilient. He'll accept, Rebekah.” In his heart, Rory prayed that the boy's self-righteous old grandfather would be half so willing.
I'll meet him halfway
. Hell, he'd do whatever it took and he knew it.

      
“Let's go see if Michael is awake,” she said at last and there was a joy, a new sense of freedom in her heart that she had not felt in years.

      
Just then, they heard the sound of a carriage pulling up in front. “That must be your father.” At the flash of concern in her eyes, he smiled and said, “Don't fret. I'll talk to him and make my peace, Rebekah. You see to Michael.” He kissed her softly, then headed downstairs, shrugging on the shirt he had borrowed from one of the hands to replace his own mud- and blood-stained clothes.

      
Ephraim was waiting in the kitchen, where he had just poured himself a cup of Joe's inky coffee. The old cook was out back gathering fresh eggs from his chickens for breakfast. The two men greeted each other warily as Rory helped himself to coffee also.

      
“How is Leah?” Rory asked.

      
Ephraim sighed. “She took it better than I expected. I guess she's suspected something was wrong for a long time now. She wants to take the boys and go back east to spend some time with my brother Manasseh and his family. They may decide to live there permanently. Leah has always put a lot of stock in what folks think. The scandal of Henry's killing Amos and all the rest...she wouldn't bear up well under that, not well at all.”

      
Rory nodded at the old man, who looked so broken and defeated.
He's losing a daughter and two grandsons, and he's afraid I'll cost him Rebekah and Michael too.
“Ephraim, we need to make a new beginning.” The reverend's eyes met his with surprise, and perhaps hope.

      
“I want that very much, but first there is something I have to—”

      
“Rory—Papa! Michael's gone!” Rebekah came running into the kitchen, her face pale and distraught. “He must've awakened early and dressed by himself. Patsy thought he might have come downstairs.”

      
“Maybe he's out with Joe gathering eggs,” Ephraim said.

      
The three headed out the back door just as the fat old cook was waddling up the porch steps, egg basket clutched in one meaty red fist.

      
“Have you seen Michael?’ Rory asked.

      
Joe scratched his shiny pate. “‘Bout half hour 'er so ago. He come into the kitchen. I give him some carrots fer his pony. He'd been cryin' 'n didn't say much. Just that he wanted ta talk ta Snowball. Is everthin' all right?”

      
Rebekah gasped and looked at Rory. “What if he overheard us arguing?”

      
Rory's face was grim. If the child only heard the first part of their conversation, how might he have interpreted it? “I'll check the corral. Rebekah, you and your father search around the grounds.”

      
Within minutes they had discovered that the boy and his pony were both missing. “But how could he have ridden off bareback?” Rebekah asked incredulously, wringing her hands.

      
“He's a natural with horses. It's in the Madigan blood,” Rory replied as he threw a saddle on Lobsterback. “I have the hands all searching. He can't have gotten far, Rebekah. Don't worry. We'll have him back safe in a little while.” He swung up on the big bay and headed out.

      
Ephraim put his arm around Rebekah’s trembling shoulders.

      
“We were arguing about how to tell him...about Amos...and that Rory is his real father,” she said haltingly.

      
Reading between the lines, Ephraim knew there was more. “Rory knows what I did, Rebekah. He figured it out as soon as he learned why you were forced to wed Amos,” he said gently. “I committed a terrible, unforgivable sin.” His voice was raw with anguish as she turned to him.

      
“Oh, Papa, you of all people, a minister of the Lord, know there's no such thing as an unforgivable sin.” She placed her arms around his waist and hugged him.

      
“The Lord forgives, but can you? I caused so much pain when I destroyed those letters. You all paid the price for old hurts and hates that I've let fester inside since my youth.”

      
“Don't, Papa. It's over and done with now. You made a mistake, but you did it out of love for me. You were...misguided, perhaps, but you always wanted me to be happy. You tried to protect me, I know that. Rory and I talked it over. He said he'd forgive you, too.”

      
“Yes, I believe he will. I've misjudged Rory Madigan. He was the man for you all along, wasn't he, Rebekah?”

      
She smiled through her tears. “Yes. And now that we're back together, we'll be a real family, and you're part of it, too. If only we can find a way to explain to Michael,” she said as worry rushed over her again. “With the wind up, there are no tracks for the men to follow. Where could he have gone?”

      
A sudden light flashed in Ephraim's eyes. “Rebekah, I may know! There's a place where I took him a few times. We called it our special place. Let me try—” He hugged her, then rushed out to where his shabby old buggy stood and climbed aboard it.

      
Rebekah could not bear to stay behind, but if Michael should return home, someone had to be there waiting for him. “Oh, please, Lord, please keep my son safe,” she prayed more fervently than she ever had in her life as she watched her father drive off.

      
Ephraim took the old road across the ranch that headed southwest toward Wellsville. Ever since Michael had stayed with him as a very little boy, the two of them had shared a special hiding place that Ephraim had discovered years earlier. It was in pretty rough foothills, so he had not felt the cave was suitable for girls. Leah would have hated it, but now he realized that Rebekah would have been delighted with it. Leaving the buggy at the edge of the rocks, he began the climb up.

      
By the time he reached the summit by the small, shallow cave overlooking the valley, Ephraim was sweating in the morning heat. Snowball stood patiently at the entrance. The minister said a prayer of thanks as he called his grandson's name.

      
He found Michael sitting on the cool floor of the cave by the old, burned-down ashes of their long-ago campfires. “Would you mind some company, son?” he asked as the boy rubbed a grimy little hand across his eyes.

      
“Hi, Grandpa. I sort of guessed you'd find me.”

      
“Maybe you hoped it'd be me,” Ephraim said as he sat down beside the boy and they gazed out on the valley spread below them. The view was spectacular, but he knew the boy was thinking only of his parents.

      
“I guess I did. I don't know.” He scratched circles in the dirt with a stick, refusing to look up into his beloved grandfather's eyes.

      
“You want to talk about why you ran away?” Ephraim prodded gently.

      
“They were fighting—over me. He's my father, not Amos Wells, isn't he?” He dared to meet his grandpa's kindly hazel-green eyes, and the old man nodded.

“Yes, son. He's your pa.”

      
“But Mama married Amos Wells. He never liked me. I could tell. I don't think anyone likes me. All I do is cause trouble. They were yelling at one another. It was all my fault.” Michael began to hiccup, and Ephraim put his arms around the boy.

      
“No, no, son. It wasn't your fault at all. Sometimes, even people who love each other have arguments.”

      
“If they love each other, then why didn't they get married? Why'd he leave us?”

      
Ephraim steeled himself to do the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life. “He didn't leave you, son. He went to Denver to earn enough money so he and your mother could get married. But then...” His voice broke and he hugged Michael. “Some very bad things happened, and in part I was responsible.”

      
Ephraim told the boy the whole story about how Amos Wells and Henry Snead had conspired to keep Rebekah from marrying Rory and how he himself had destroyed the letters the boy's father sent to his mother. When Ephraim finished the rest of the story leading up to the near-tragic events of the preceding day, he was trembling. He looked down into the small, trusting face of his grandson.

      
Michael digested all the incredible facts for several moments. Finally, he said, “Then my father was mad at you because you didn't give Mama his letters. He wasn't mad at me?”

      
“No, Michael, he's never been angry with you. He loves you very much—and your mother, too.”

      
“Is that why they got married?” he asked innocently. Any idea of lack of propriety in Rebekah's sudden remarriage was lost on the boy.

      
“Yes, son. That's why.”

      
“If they aren't mad at me, do you think they're mad at you?”

      
“I deserve it, Michael; but no, they've forgiven me for a terrible mistake and I'm grateful. But above everyone else, you're the one I should beg forgiveness of.” His thin, gnarled hand caressed the boy's face, searching.

      
Michael threw his arms around the old man's stooped shoulders. “Oh, Grandpa, I could never be mad at you!”

      
Ephraim Sinclair closed his eyes tightly, squeezing out the tears as he hugged his grandson and offered a fervent prayer of thanks for the Lord's goodness shown through this small child.

* * * *

      
Rory was making one last sweep to the southeast when he saw the carriage with Snowball tied to the back of the battered old rig. He tore across the dusty ground to meet Ephraim and his son. “Where did you find him?”

      
“Pa?” Michael asked uncertainly as his father leaped from his horse and reached for the boy.

      
“Yes, Michael, I'm here, I'm here,” Rory said as he hugged Michael.

      
“I told him everything, Rory,” Ephraim said quietly. “He'd overheard a small bit of your argument with Rebekah and misunderstood. Now, he knows the real reason why you've been separated until now.”

      
Rory nodded with respect as he met his father-in-law's forthright gaze. “Thank you, Ephraim. I think from now on things are going to be fine for all of us. Is there room enough in that old rig for three?”

      
The old man grinned. “Tie that big red devil to the back with Snowball and climb aboard.”

* * * *