Life After Wife (20 page)

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.

“What did you do in the war, Elijah?”

“That would be Eli, ma’am. And I could tell you but then…” He left the age-old line hanging.

“I like Elijah better, and you’d better bring an army if you ever want to kill me. One man ain’t big enough.” She flirted back at him and it felt good.

“Oh?” He raised both dark eyebrows.

“That’s right, buster. I’m a tough woman like Aunt Maud. She bequeathed me half her ranch and all her sass. So stand aside if you think you can run over me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, not if she left you all her mean! Uncle Jesse used to say that she was ninety percent bluff and only ten percent mean, but no one wanted to test her mettle because that ten percent was deadly if she had to drag it out.”

Sophie leaned across the table and whispered, “He was a very smart man, and I got all of mine now plus hers.”

“Well then, sassy woman, eat your ice cream before it all melts, and we’ll go stomp around the old fort and work off the calories. You like to hike?”

Sophie shrugged. “I like outside.”

“You never been hiking?” he asked.

She shrugged again. “What’s the formal definition of ‘hiking’? I’ve been out walking in the pastures and sometimes in the woods.”

“I’ll take you on a real hike sometime and you can see for yourself. How about fishing?”

She nodded. “Boring! Went with my dad when I was a kid a couple of times.”

“Out to a farm pond?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll take you real fishing, in a boat out on a lake with the sun and wind.”

“Promise?”

“Sure, next Sunday we’ll ride the bike up to Breckenridge to the lake and rent a boat. You know how to cook catfish or bass?”

She shook her head. “Love it but never cooked it.”

“Then I’ll do the cookin’ if we catch anything.”

She pushed the clear plastic boat to the middle of the table. “My eyes were bigger than my stomach. I should’ve ordered a sundae. Help me finish the last scoop. Butterscotch is my least favorite of the three toppings.”

“It’s my favorite. I love butterscotch pie, too, but seldom find it in the restaurants. Piecrust is not my specialty. When I make it, it’s like shoe leather.”

He stuck his spoon deeply into the ice cream.

She did the same.

Sharing the banana split with him was sealing their partnership forever. They’d do just fine in the cattle business. Elijah had vision and purpose, and she appreciated that in him.

Elijah hadn’t meant to keep her hand in his when he helped her off the motorcycle, but it felt good and she didn’t jerk hers away. He’d never known a woman like Sophie McSwain. Any other woman would have crumbled when she discovered her preacher husband was nothing but a glory-seeking cheater,
but not Sophie. She held her head up, started all over in Baird, Texas, with Aunt Maud to guide her, and that had made her a stronger woman.

They had a battle of spoons over the last bit of butterscotch syrup. They were still laughing about who got the last drop as they left the Dairy Queen and mounted up to ride north. He’d ridden for years, had his first cycle when he was sixteen, and upgraded it every time he could until he had the Harley of his dreams. But seeing the world through Sophie’s eyes that warm September morning was a whole new vision. One that he liked very much.

It was a little over forty miles up to Fort Griffin, then another mile or so back down a winding, narrow road to the visitor’s center. They passed longhorn cattle weaving in and out among the mesquite. Big brindle bulls, spotted cows, and even a few calves bawling for their mommas when the big evil-looking machine shot past them.

The sun was high in the sky and pouring down enough heat that, when Elijah parked the cycle, sweat had moistened Sophie’s hair, making it kink up even tighter. She pulled the rubber band from the ponytail and shook her head. Red ringlets fell to her shoulders.

“Looks like you went swimming.” Elijah smiled.

“Yours is wet, too.”

“I like yours down and curly like that,” Elijah whispered.

“I like yours long and in a ponytail.”

He vowed that he wouldn’t cut it again, not even for the sale. He put a hand on the small of her back and guided her into the visitor’s center, where he pulled out a ten-dollar bill to pay the admittance fee. She hurried on past the clerk’s station to the restroom. Elijah pocketed the change and looked
around at the postcards, brochures, and souvenirs offered in the small store while he waited on Sophie. He bought a keychain with a set of silver longhorns dangling from it and shoved it down in his pocket. When she came out, he grabbed her hand again and they were off to explore.

Sophie looked out across the rolling hills and tried to imagine the days when Fort Griffin and The Flat, which was the town situated between the fort and the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, was in full operation. It was billed as a place so rough that even the army left. She didn’t have a bit of trouble visualizing a place that rough and tumble back in 1860, right before the Civil War.

“I read up about this place on the Internet. Seems it had the reputation for being one of the most lawless communities in the state. It was here before Shackelford County was even formed, so there wasn’t any law except for the military,” Elijah said.

“You like military history?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah! I’m standing here trying to picture exactly what it would have been like back then when Pat Garrett, Doc Holliday, and Wyatt Earp rolled into The Flat and tangled with Lottie Deno, Big Nose Kate, and John Wesley Hardin.” He waved out across the mesquite and scrub oak dotting the hills.

“Me, too. Today you are Doc Holliday, and I’m the schoolmarm. Let’s go take a look at The Flat and go back in time.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the walking trail that led down over the hill into a flat area that housed the town more than a hundred years before.

She stopped at the jail and said, “OK, Doc, tell me something. This jail isn’t much bigger than my bedroom. What in the world did you do when there was a real saloon brawl and you had a dozen men to lock up?”

“Why, Miz Sophie, we threw them all in there together. We didn’t care if they had to sleep standin’ up. In those days there was no prisoner’s rights. They gave up their rights when they disobeyed the law. Maybe if they didn’t smell too pretty or had to stand right next to the fellow that they’d been hittin’ on, they’d think twice about startin’ a fight next time.”

She smiled and shuddered when she touched the stone walls of the jail. It had no windows and the ceiling was barely high enough for her to stand up inside. A six-foot buffalo hunter would have to sit or keep his neck bent at a terribly uncomfortable angle if he wanted to stand.

“Over here, right next door, is the saloon,” Elijah said.

“You ever been in there, Doc?” Sophie kept the game going.

“Yes, ma’am. They served some good cold brew in there, and my presence kept the fights down some of the time. Between me and Wyatt and Pat, we could maintain a little bit of order. It helped if we were right out there among the people, our badges all shiny and flashing, instead of sitting behind a desk,” Elijah answered.

“And the place where I could buy staples is right next door.” She wiggled her fingers free from his and sat down on the wooden bench in front of the store. The general store and the saloon were one rough wood building. The saloon had a peak roof and the general store a tiny little three-step facade, but they shared the porch. If she shut her eyes tightly, she could imagine bawdy piano music and the smell of ale
coming from the saloon. She could see women in long skirts choosing fabric for a new dress and embroidery threads from the general store while their husbands had a brew next door. She could see buffalo in the distance and soldiers coming and going from the fort up on the hill.

Elijah crooked his arm and she stood up, slipped hers in it, and they continued on to the blacksmith shop. Another rough wood building with four posts, barely scraped clean of bark, holding up the slanted porch roof. In her mind it was busy and hot, with a raging fire going in a pit so the blacksmith could soften the metals before he beat them into shape. She could hear the ting of the ball-peen hammer and feel the heat finding its way out into the yard.

“What are you thinking about?” Elijah asked.

“I’m picturing it all in my mind. Would you have wanted to ride with Pat Garrett and Wyatt Earp?” she asked.

“What makes you think I would have been on that side of the law?” He chuckled.

She slapped his arm softly. “Elijah Jones, even in another era, you would have been the cowboy in the white hat.”

He smiled. “Why thank you, Miz Sophie. I appreciate your confidence. But I might have been the blacksmith or the general store owner.”

“Nope. You might have been the commander of the fort if you hadn’t been a lawman.”

“You got a higher opinion of me today than you did a month ago at the funeral,” he said.

“Today, darlin’, you’ve got a higher opinion of me, too. Would you have offered to let me buy half those ranches a month ago? I don’t think so. You would have bought them and tried to wear me down to sell my half of the Double Bar M.”

They walked back to the two-story building that now housed the Fort Griffin Lodge Hall. The historical marker outside said that it was chartered in 1878. Less than ten years later, the US Army vacated Fort Griffin and the Texas Central Railway bypassed the town. The lodge moved to Throckmorton, but school was held in the building until 1937.

“So this was your building, Miz Sophie,” Elijah said.

“Yes, we had a potbellied stove over there and long lines of desks with a center aisle so I could walk up and down to check my students’ work. I had the soldiers’ kids, the town kids, and even the children who were born to the ladies who worked for Big Nose Kate. They were a diverse group, but kids are kids. They learned, they grew up, and they left the school,” she said.

“You ever want to be a school teacher?” Elijah asked.

She shook her head. “But standing here and thinking about the primitive methods they used, I think I might have liked it back then.”

When they were back outside, they found another historical marker. It mentioned a newspaper called the
Fort Griffin Echo
. Sophie ran her hand over the raised lettering and asked, “If you weren’t a commander or a lawman, maybe you’d have been a newspaper man.”

He laughed. “Not me. I’m too controversial for that. I’d make someone mad enough to hang me in every single edition.”

“That’s the truth,” she agreed.

“So have we worked off our ice cream? You ready for a midafternoon late lunch or early supper?” he asked.

“Where you thinkin’ about?”

“The Eagle’s Nest in Albany. Church crew will be finished and gone. We’d probably have the place to ourselves, and they make a pretty good chicken fried steak,” he said.

Her stomach growled loudly as they headed up the hill toward the visitor’s center.

“Guess I got my answer.” He laughed.

“Chicken fried steak does sound good.”

Elijah stopped and looked down into her eyes. “Why aren’t you at the girls’ powwow today?”

“It’s not set in stone that we get together every single Sunday afternoon, but we do try. Today Kate has to be off at a family gathering with Hart, and Theron’s parents came to visit from Shamrock, so Fancy Lynn is busy with family, too.”

“What about next Sunday when we go fishing?”

“It’s on the way. I’ll spend half an hour with them and meet you at the lake,” she said.

“How about if I holler at Theron and we do something for an hour, and that way we can still ride the cycle together?”

“Sounds like a plan.” She picked up the helmet, crammed it down on her head, and mounted the back seat of the big bike. When Elijah crawled on she wrapped her arms around him and was amazed anew at the tingly feeling that danced up and down her backbone.

It only took fifteen minutes to reach the café in Albany and it was empty. They sat at a table near a window, and the waitress came right away with two tall glasses of ice water.

Elijah waved away the menus and told her they’d have two glasses of sweet tea and two of the chicken fried steak dinners. “I want ranch dressing on my salad. What about you, Sophie?”