Echoes (24 page)

"Look at him go. He's all ready for it, ain't he?" Brodie said, grinning as he watched his nephew.

"I suppose if we all took a nap in the morning and again in the afternoon, we would have equal stamina."

They watched him chase a bright yellow butterfly from a patch of daises that lay like snow in the green pasture. Arlie squealed with delight when he got close to it. He looked over his shoulder at Molly, checking to see if she'd observed his stealth efforts. His smile brought with it a warm rush of emotion.

"Adam said we'd be to Indian Creek tomorrow," Brodie said.

Indian Creek sounded quite docile, but the mention of it brought Molly's thoughts to the rivers they must cross between here and California.

"I am praying for an uneventful crossing."

"Shoot, yes. And after that, we'll be home free to Independence."

"And rest on the Sabbaths."

They grinned at one another.

"I must admit that I do not look forward to crossing the
Missouri though. I have never learned to swim and the thought of being bereft on so much moving water...."

"I'm a good swimmer. I bet I could swim across the
Mississippi if I had to. I can teach you how if you want."

"I appreciate the offer, Brodie, but I'm not so bright a pupil that I could master it before then."

"I bet you could. I've never met no one as smart as you. No one as pretty either."

He gazed at her with limpid blue eyes until she felt her own face grow hot. "Oak Tree is a very small town," she said, "or you surely would have met many others far more intelligent and pretty. I couldn't hold a candle to my sister, you know."

He scowled and looked away. "You're a lot prettier than
her
."

She didn't like his tone but it seemed ridiculous to argue with him. Vanessa had been an uncommon beauty and they both knew it.

"Anyhow, you won't have to worry about swimming across any rivers tomorrow. Indian Creek won't hardly get your feet wet. You'll be on the wagon and the ox will make it across fast. And when we get to the Missouri, well if something happens there—
if
you find yourself in the river, I'll be there to save you."

He smiled at her with childish earnestness, but the gleam in his eyes made her uncomfortably aware that Brodie Weston wasn't nearly so young as he might appear.

Blushing, she said, "I am much reassured. Thank you."

"You know what else?" he said suddenly. "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put a swimming pool in that mansion I'm building for you so you can practice."

"A swimming pool?" Molly laughed. "Oh my, Brodie, I will need a title to go with my grand palace."

"We could get married and then you'd be my wife."

Feeling as awkward as an adolescent herself, she said, "I am much too old for you, Brodie. You should be thinking of the young girls you'll meet in California. I'm sure they will be all too eager to make your acquaintance."

He shook his head. "I don't want any stupid young girls who ain't interested in anything but my money."

Money he had yet to make, Molly thought with a smile. Prudently, she kept it to herself.

"I know you don't think of me as a man yet, but I am. I've got two strong hands and a good head on my shoulders. I'm a hard worker and I aim to prove myself to you."

"Brodie, I don't doubt for a moment that you will be—that you are a wonderful young man. But my feelings for you are of friendship only. There can be no other bond between us."

The look he gave her then made her realize that he must have had this conversation in his mind many times before and that her response now contradicted his imagined replies. Brodie stared at her silently, mired by his bewilderment.

"I am sorry, Brodie, but I would do you a disservice were I not honest with you now."

Arlie chose that moment to voice a complaint. He'd conquered the daisies and moved closer to pillage the tall grasses that bordered their path. Realizing that no one was paying attention to him, he'd tried to eat the waving stalks and now he stood crying with green globs sprouting from his open mouth. She took the opportunity to step away from Brodie.

"Arlie, what have you been up to?" she said, using her handkerchief to wipe the mess from his tongue. After he'd rinsed with water, he raised his arms and opened and closed his small, pudgy hands. "Holju."

She reached her own arms out to him. "You want to hold me or do you want me to hold you?"

"Holju," he agreed.

Molly scooped him up and settled him on her hip and he immediately laid his little head on her chest. Small though he was, his weight would multiply with each step until her arms felt wrenched from their sockets. She could not carry him across the country. She was not strong enough. However, if the beginning of the journey were anything to measure by, she understood that she would most likely do it all the same.

Brodie had recovered his equilibrium and fallen in step with her again. "You'll change your mind about me after I teach you to swim," he said with an irresistible grin.

She had to laugh. Arguing the point appeared to be futile, anyway. "You are most certainly as obstinate as any man I've ever met."

And almost as charming as your brother, she thought with a sigh. She couldn't help imagining how different the outcome would have been had this conversation taken place with Adam instead. Each day she spent in Adam's company made her long for another.

"Hey, Arlie. Want to ride my horse?" Brodie asked.

Arlie popped his head up immediately and nodded. Arlie's fascination with the horses and his love of riding had been the only savior for Molly's arms thus far. She hoped the enthrallment would not wane before they reached California. Brodie fetched his mount from where it was tethered at the back of the wagon and placed the boy up on the saddle. Happiness restored, Arlie held onto the saddle horn while Brodie kept hold of the reins.

"I believe he looks more like Vanessa each day," she murmured. "Not much like his father though."

Brodie gave a wry snort at that. "At least he doesn't act like her. Your sister wasn't anywhere near as nice as you."

"I'm sorry."

Brodie shrugged, deliberately casting his gaze out to the fields. In the distance thunder rumbled and a sprinkle of rain touched her face.

Ignoring it, she said, "May I ask you something about my sister, Brodie?"

He hunched his shoulders, looking wary. "If you want."

"It's just that...well, since the day I arrived, it's been painfully obvious that Vanessa endeared herself to no one. At times I've wondered if even her husband cherished her. Yet I've been disinclined to speak of her after my uncalled for outburst on my first night...but I long to know how…it was here."

"I guess you have that right," he said solemnly.

Molly let a few moments pass, waiting for Brodie to continue. Their footfalls made soft thumps against the damp earth. He waited so long that she feared he'd changed his mind about confiding in her. Then at last, he spoke.

"When Adam brought Vanessa home, I thought he'd gone and married an angel," he said. "She was so pretty. I'd never seen anyone so pretty. And at first she was real nice, too. The way she talked and the way she looked…" His lips curled into a small smile. "Ma fussed around her like she was royalty and Vanessa just ate it up. Course, after awhile, it wasn't so great no more."

No, Molly imagined that it hadn't taken long for them all to grow weary of having the queen to visit. She'd been Vanessa's lady in waiting many more times than she cared to admit.

"Adam, he don't have no patience for laziness and I kept waiting for him to lay into Vanessa about it, but he never did. Sometimes it takes me awhile to figure things out." He gave a rueful shake of his head. "I didn't know she was going to have a baby until Ma told me. Then it made sense."

So Adam had been a doting husband to his expecting wife. Having seen him as a father, Molly did not have trouble picturing him nurturing his son's mother.

"I imagine Vanessa was a beautiful mother-to-be," she said, picturing her sister, glowing with the love of her husband and the excitement of carrying his child.

"Oh, she was."

Something in Brodie's voice contradicted his words. "But?"

He looked down at his feet. "I don't think I'm supposed to talk about this. I don't want Adam to be mad at me about it."

She took a deep breath, feeling underhanded for pressing him but needing to know all the same. "Your confidence is well placed in me, Brodie. I will not betray it. Vanessa was my sister, and as you said, I have a right to know what her life was before it ended."

Perplexed by his decision, he scratched his head and continued to look at his feet. Behind him Arlie rode with a contentment that rarely lasted long. She feared if she let Brodie delay the telling then she would never know the truth. A few more scattered rain drops fell around them, but still the storm held at bay. As if on cue, however, Arlie began to fuss. Quickly she reached for him and settled him once again against her body.

"What happened once the newness faded from Vanessa's arrival?" she asked.

"Well, there ain't a lot to do in a working man's house but work. She didn't want none of that."

His pause said nearly as much as his words. Vanessa had grown bored yet had refused to contribute to the household and the Weston family had become tired of her idleness. Molly glanced up at Brodie. There was more.

"What did she do all day?" Molly asked.

"Not much at first. And then later she was getting big and she slept a lot. And after Arlie came…" He looked at Arlie with a pained expression. "Well, look at him, Molly."

Frowning, Molly followed Brodie's pointed stare down to the child, head nestled beneath her chin, face angelic in its peacefulness.

Look at him. He doesn’t look anything like Adam.

She shook her head, but denial was not an option because at that moment Arlie turned his face to look back and the shadows played on his features like music on the senses. Suddenly she saw what she'd been previously blind to.

No…oh dear Lord, no. How had she missed it before?

Brodie remained quiet while the revelations rolled over her.

"Things just kept getting worse after that. Vanessa, she didn't want nothing to do with the little guy. She'd let him cry all the time and.... I don't really remember what all happened after that."

Molly peered into Brodie's face, knowing that he was lying but confounded as to how to make him tell her the truth. "Did she never take interest in her new family?"

Glumly, he shook his head. "Then one day Adam came home early and he caught her doing what she shouldn't have been."

"What was she doing?"

Brodie inhaled deeply and slowly let the breath out. "She wasn't alone."

Molly was glad they were walking. Walking kept her legs from realizing that the rest of her had fainted.

"She got all crazy then, I guess. She was hitting and scratching and using language that had no place in a woman's talk. Then she told Adam that Arlie ain't his son."

Molly looked down at Arlie's face pressed against her. It was like a veil had been lifted and now she could see clearly. The child she held so dear not only resembled her sister. He also bore a striking resemblance to someone else she knew, someone who had stood at her father's side each and every Sunday and assisted with the rituals of the church. His wife and six children invariably took up the first pew. His youngest son would be just a few weeks older than Arlie. The two could be twins.

"Adam knows that he is not…"

Miserably, Brodie nodded. Thunder, closer now, seemed to punctuate the gesture.

"How did he…what was his reaction?"

Brodie simply shrugged. The magnitude of the disguised understatement implied an outcome so fierce that Molly shuddered to even imagine it. She waited for Brodie's next words, wishing with all her heart that she didn't have to hear them at all. But of course, she did.

When he spoke, his voice was low and charged with emotion. The timbre resonated through Molly's heart like a quaking of earth. She clutched the baby tight to her bosom as she listened.

"It wasn't more than a few days later Vanessa had her accident," Brodie said.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The next day emerged reluctantly. Cold and gray, the low hanging clouds inched down on them and blocked out the feeble sun. Like torchlight gliding through the darkest of dungeons, lightning flashed deep within the solid bank above, stealthily traveling from one black chamber to the next. Deep, guttural thunder followed close on its heels like the echo of slamming doors.

The small Weston party trudged below. They would reach Indian Creek by mid morning if the rain held off, but with each minute that seemed less likely. Molly dreaded the thought of another day spent trapped by fierce weather more than she did traipsing into the cold creek water, and she dreaded that more than she cared to admit.

Adam walked ahead of the rest, his worry as evident as the rumbling sky. He had seen the creek yesterday and returned from it tight lipped and silent. Arlie, ever the barometer of his father's emotions, had become fractious until sundown when exhaustion quieted him. The first morning's light, however, began with his whining and fussing until Molly finally capitulated and carried him as they began the day's endless walk. Now her shoulders, arms and back felt as wretched as the growing trepidation inside her.