Without Words (14 page)

“And you, of course, have to remain faithful to your one true love, even though she drove a knife in your back as hard as she could and twisted.”

“Gabe....”

“All right, all right, if Belle sees me with another black eye because I dared to speak the truth to you, she’ll throw you and the widow out before supper.”

The two of them worked in silence for a while before Gabe spoke again. “Letters we get from Belle’s family and mine say you’ve got the farm back in better shape than it was before the war.”

“I don’t know about better. They built the house back a little bigger, but then Will has two children already. Vicky’s married and gone but Caroline’s still there and will be for a few more years. According to her she has absolutely no smallest chance of ever, ever finding a husband. Ever.” Bret imitated his younger sister’s dramatic tones.

“Maybe she ought to try an advertisement in a St. Louis paper.”

“Over Mother’s dead body.” Bret paused a moment. “And mine.”

“How is Will?” Gabe asked, his voice carefully neutral. “And Mary.”

“Same as ever,” Bret said, debating whether to tell Gabe about the loose horse shoes. After a moment, he did.

Gabe whistled. “He always envied you and Albert. Something about being the middle brother galled him. Sounds like that’s turned into something worse. He could have got you killed doing that.”

“He probably didn’t think of it that way.”

“Stop making excuses for him. He spent his war in the cavalry. He knew damn well what could happen.”

“It didn’t.”

“It’s easy to hate somebody you’ve wronged.”

“He didn’t wrong me, and he doesn’t hate me. It’s just brotherly—competition.”

“Cain slew Abel because of brotherly competition.”

Bret gave Gabe another change-the-subject glare.

Gabe shrugged. “The last letter from Belle’s sister said your father is buying race horses and hired some horse trainer from Kentucky to take care of them.”

Bret only just managed not to show a reaction to the news. Race horses? He carried rails to the last open gap in the fence and let them fall with a clatter.

“How long are you going to keep supporting them all?”.

“The farm is producing again,” Bret said shortly. “They’re not relying on me entirely any more.”

Race horses? Bret wasn’t sure he believed it, didn’t want to believe it. If it was true, this would be his last year tracking men for the bounties on their heads.

He and Gabe finished the fence work in silence and walked to the house as the first orange of sunset tinted the western sky.

F
OOLISHLY,
B
RET HAD
imagined once Mrs. Petty was with Gabe and Belle, word would go out on some grapevine, and prospective suitors would begin visiting in an orderly and eager manner. They’d drive to the homestead in their Sunday best, take Mrs. Petty for a walk or ride, and she would return smiling.

Belle disabused him of that idea the first evening over supper. In an area thinly populated with far flung homesteads, the only way to start news on the grapevine was to go to town. Everyone showed up there sooner or later for supplies, church services, and to catch up on news and socialize.

For socializing and courting, the best opportunities were at the barn dance held on the last Saturday of every month, and the last Saturday was only a few days away. Bret almost groaned.

Mrs. Petty didn’t make a sound, of course, but the way she held her left arm clamped to her side made him sure her hand was spread over her stomach. She probably didn’t know how to dance, probably had never been to one.

“Hassie and I will go visit the Browns tomorrow,” Belle said. “If they’ll keep Sarah and Gabriel for us and milk the cow while we’re gone, we can go to town Saturday and get Hassie decent female clothing. Then we can all go to the dance and introduce Hassie around a little, stay over, and attend church in the morning. There may be a few who come to town for services who weren’t at the dance.”

Hassie? They hadn’t even been here a day, and already Belle was tossing around Mrs. Petty’s given name as if they were old friends?

“And you’re paying,” Belle said to Bret as she passed the bread. “A decent dress and shoes and some other necessaries won’t be that much.”

“I don’t have to pay,” Bret said. “Mrs. Petty pointed out a five hundred dollar bounty I’d have missed on my own. I figure she’s entitled to half, and after we settle up, she should have about two hundred of her own.”

Bret enjoyed the astonished looks on all their faces, particularly Mrs. Petty’s, although a small twinge of guilt pinched at him. He should have told her about the money before this.

“So she has a dowry,” Gabe said, amused.

“It’s not a dowry. A dowry goes to the husband. This is her money.”

“When she marries, whatever she has is his.”

“Like he....” Just in time Bret remembered Sarah and Gabriel and managed to choke off the curse. “It’s hers, and it’s staying hers. She can sew it inside some unmentionable something no man would mess with.”

Gabe shook his head, but Belle didn’t find it amusing. “That’s ridiculous. Any decent wife would give it to her husband, and I’m sure Hassie intends to be a good wife.”

A good wife with no voice and only one arm and hand because the other one was spread tight across her belly as if she needed to hold her innards in place. Bret shoved a big chunk of potato in his mouth to keep from saying anything more on the subject.

B
ELLE DOUBLED
S
ARAH
and Gabriel up in one bed and made up the other in the room the children shared for Hassie. Bret was to sleep in the barn. Hassie wondered if he really would or if he would make a bed as they always did on the trail somewhere outside under the stars.

She lay quietly in the too short bed and wished she had the courage to throw off her nightgown, get dressed in the clothes Belle found so offensive, go find him, and make her own bed somewhere close. More, she wished she had the courage to saddle Brownie and ride away into the night.

Two hundred and fifty dollars. Did she really deserve that much? Anything? Once she repaid Bret every penny he had spent on her, she would surely still have a lot, not two hundred dollars, but a lot.

She imagined saddling up and leaving on her own. Imagined coming to a town, approaching strangers, and wanted to weep. Even before what had happened in Werver, she would never have had the nerve to do such a thing. The thought made her shrink in her skin.

No, she would do what they all wanted and expected, what Bret wanted, and marry the first man who asked. After that she’d sink back into the shadow life, doing what she was told, never even trying to communicate with someone who wasn’t interested in her thoughts and opinions anyway. A perfect dummy.

After her miserable night, Hassie’s spirits rose over breakfast when she realized Bret wasn’t going to ride off and leave her right away. The conversation at breakfast made it clear he visited Gabe and Belle for a few days at least once a year, and he was going to stay and visit now. Hassie’s relief was so enormous she managed to smile at Belle and eat an entire flapjack.

Helping with chores and the children kept Hassie’s hands busy through the day, and Belle’s constant chatter about plans for Hassie and every widower and bachelor for a hundred miles in every direction was easy to ignore.

According to Belle they were all the same. Perfect for a woman who needed a husband. Any husband. The only time Hassie gave Belle her full attention was when the woman told stories about growing up in Missouri next to the Sterling farm.

“Bret and his brothers used to sneak away and visit us all the time. By us I mean my family and Gabe’s. We all used to help each other out, work together, play together, squabble, make up. Albert and William liked to visit well enough, and that’s how my sister got notions she’d have been better off never to have about William. William and Albert were like all that family. They didn’t believe in getting their hands dirty, and they did believe they were better than us. They were raised that way. Bret never rubbed it in, though, and hard work never scared him. I always had a notion he got a few whippings over going home dirty and sweaty, but he never admitted it.”

By the time the two of them started preparing supper, Hassie knew in detail how stuck up Bret’s family was and how his mother believed she was descended from English aristocrats and named her children to reflect her supposed heritage.

“Bret figures he got off easy,” Belle said. “She didn’t latch onto royalty until after him. He’s the oldest, you know. His brothers are William and Albert. Only William now. Albert died in the war. His sisters are Victoria and Caroline.”

Hassie tried to picture it. A man and his three sons and a farm of thousands of acres. If only one son was willing to work, how had they farmed? As Belle kept chatting, a coldness spread through Hassie. She knew how men who didn’t believe in getting their hands dirty farmed.

“Bret was always the odd man out in that family. Why they were surprised at what he did when the war came is beyond me. Bret was never shy saying how he felt about secession or about slavery. I figure he spent so much time with us to get away and not have to even see what was going on at home, but that family acted like a viper cropped up at the supper table and they couldn’t figure out where he came from.”

Hassie almost cut her finger instead of the carrot on the cutting board. She thought about going to get her slate, but she didn’t need to ask questions. Belle kept right on going.

“Gabe was the same, but then so was his family. Gabe was all ready to join up right there in Missouri the day we heard the war had started, but Bret said he was going far enough east so’s he’d never find himself looking at anybody he knew over his sights, and off they went all the way to Ohio. They fought the whole war side by side and never got near Missouri the whole time. But facts don’t matter to that family of his. They act like Bret killed Albert himself when the truth is Albert died of dysentery right there in Missouri.”

By the time supper was on the table, Belle was through with the shortcomings of the Sterlings and every other bushwhacker, Southern-sympathizer, and Confederate veteran in Missouri and had returned to Hassie’s problem.

Gabe joined his wife in speculating about the men in the area in need of a wife. Bret was almost as quiet as Hassie. When Belle mentioned it, Bret shrugged.

“I’m not used to this kind of work any more, Belle. Tired is all.”

“Well, we’ll all get to rest Saturday and Sunday. It’s been a long time since Gabe and I went to town and did more than pick up supplies and head right home.” Belle reached a hand toward Gabe. He enveloped her hand in his massive paw for a moment and winked at her.

Hassie stared in wonder. She never would have reached out to Cyrus like that, even when they were alone, and she had never seen Mama do that with Ned Grimes. Had Mama and Papa ever had moments like that? Her father had died when Hassie was six. Her memories were all of a man ravaged by consumption, but she wanted to believe her mother had once shared moments like that with her father.

“We’ll all have a grand time,” Belle said. “For us there’s visiting with folks we don’t see often, a dance, and Sunday services, and for Hassie a new dress and maybe meeting the right man.” She sipped from her glass of milk and regarded Bret thoughtfully. “And if you stay here to get some rest, you can save Milo Brown having to ride over to milk the cow.”

“No, thanks”, Bret said. “I’d rather dance than milk a cow, so Mr. Brown is out of luck.”

Hassie swallowed the three peas in her mouth and smiled brightly at them all. At least he’d be there. If one of the men Belle wanted her to meet turned out to be like Pinto Man—or like Zachary—Bret would make him go away.

H
ASSIE EYED THE
small town of Hixton without any of the enthusiasm new places usually evoked. The town was as new as many of the homesteads it served. Buildings clustered around a rutted crossroads on the flat prairie, most built with lumber hauled from the north and a few from sod. An open-sided tent on the outskirts of town served as a saloon.

A room in the town’s only hotel would be a considerable expense for Gabe and Belle, and Hassie suspected Bret paid for all their rooms. Since Belle didn’t wait for the men to finish registering before tugging Hassie toward the stairs, Hassie couldn’t confirm her suspicion.

Washed and ready for the ordeal of shopping, Hassie gave a long, considering look at her slate. She really didn’t want to walk around town carrying the thing. She dropped it and the chalk pencil in the middle of the bed and went to meet the others.

Under different circumstances, a new dress would be a good thing. Right now it was just part of finding an unwanted husband, and the thought made Hassie tired. Something mustard-colored with gray buttons would suit her mood.

Belle was excited enough for the both of them and chattered happily as they all walked from the hotel to the store. “Now they won’t have many ready-made dresses, but I brought my sewing basket, and we can take up a hem or do a nip and tuck before the dance, and you’ll be the real belle at the ball.”

Making sure the dress had a high collar that hid her scar was Hassie’s only concern, and the sewing basket would take care of that.

“If we’re lucky, they’ll have something lavender,” Belle said. “Not old lady purple, but a summery lavender that will set off your eyes. You have the most extraordinary eyes. I’ve heard talk about violet eyes, but I never thought to see them.”

Bret stopped dead on the wooden walk. “Her eyes aren’t purple, and she doesn’t want a purple dress.”

“Of course her eyes aren’t purple. They’re violet, and I just said we don’t want a purple dress. Lavender. That’s pale....”

“Purple. Her eyes are bluish-gray, and she doesn’t want a pale, medium, or dark purple dress. Let her buy what she wants.”

Speechless for once, Belle stared at him with her mouth ajar. A ghost of the feeling she’d had when Pinto Man flew over the ferry rail rose in Hassie. She ignored the hard, tight look on Bret’s face and gave him a genuine smile, took Belle’s arm, and started down the walk toward the general store again.