by Judith Pella
It felt as if the silence would crack right down the middle. Then Benjamin spoke.
“I’m glad to see you, son.”
“Guess it’s time I came back.” Micah was yanking words, it seemed, from his very guts, past a lump in his throat as large as a boulder. “I’m glad I’m welcome.”
“You were always welcome. No one made you leave.”
“Didn’t you, Pa?”
Sudden tension sparked like flint striking rock. Then Benjamin smiled, a gesture both ironic and sad but devoid of ire.
“I guess there are ways of pushing a person away without actually doing so. I did make you leave, and I have never stopped being sorry for it.”
Micah did not know how to respond to that. He wanted to reach inside himself and find that anger and hatred that had sustained him for so long. But now he knew, if he hadn’t before, that he had not come home to stir old flames. God only knew, he could. He wouldn’t have to reach down too far to find them and fan them into a mighty conflagration. This man had hurt him—even Benjamin himself did not deny it. The wounds were deep and some even as tender as the arrow wound in his side. The past could not disappear in a word or a gesture.
Yet if Micah had learned nothing else from Lucie and from the painful realities of life, he knew it did no good to cling to the destructive forces of hate. He’d come home to make a start at least of quenching flames, not fanning them.
“We’ve both made mistakes, I reckon,” Micah said.
“You were but a child, and I made you learn to hate—” Benjamin’s voice broke with emotion. His eyes glistened.
“Don’t, Pa!” Micah softly entreated. “We don’t need to dwell on the past. Why don’t we just start over?”
“The past will always be between us, son. We can’t hide from it. Perhaps we don’t have to talk about it right now, but we will need to sooner or later. Nevertheless, Micah, I want you to know I love you. Did I ever tell you that . . . except when I was beating you into submission? May God forgive me for that! I love you and always have.”
Sudden moisture rose in Micah’s eyes. He blinked hard to push it away. Was this new path of his going to turn him into a blubbering idiot? He turned his attention to the bucket of oats, placing it where Stew could easily get to it. He rubbed the mule’s face.
In another moment, confident of his control, he said, “I guess we’re part of each other, Pa. We can’t change that or what it means, for good or ill. I’m sorry I refused to see the love that was always there. I’m sorry I never told you the same.” He looked at his father. Still, the words “I love you” were difficult to speak.
Benjamin seemed to understand that. He approached the mule and laid a hand on its flank. “So is this the famous mule that saved your life?”
“You heard about that?”
“Quite a bit after the fact, or I might have come to see you while you were ill. But by the time I heard about the exploit, you were on your feet, and I didn’t want to upset you by showing up.” He looked over the animal’s neck at his son. “You’ve become fodder for legends, Micah.”
“How much have you heard?”
“Enough.”
“I ain’t proud of any of it.”
“I don’t judge you, son. Honestly, I don’t.” They were silent for a few moments, then Benjamin added, “I think supper is nearly ready. Why don’t we get back to the cabin?”
In the next three days it was fairly easy for Micah to keep interactions with his father on a safe, light level. Six children offered ample distractions, and all wanted a piece of Micah’s time. And he was quite willing to give it. He wanted to get to know his brothers and sisters. He went on walks with them, swam in the creek, and joined them in their daily chores. Oliver, especially, wanted to dog Micah’s every move. He nagged Micah about his guns until Micah finally relented and let the boy handle them. That wasn’t quite enough, and he got Micah to take him hunting.
The boy’s fascination about these things disturbed Micah. Finally one evening after all the children had gone to sleep and he was sharing a quiet cup of coffee with his father and Elise, Micah broached the topic.
He tried to speak casually and lightly. “That Oliver sure has a powerful attachment to my revolver. I found him playing with it the other day, so I hid it up on a high rafter in the barn. It wasn’t loaded, but still . . .” His voice trailed away, for he didn’t quite know how to verbalize his disquiet.
“Thank you, Micah,” Elise said. “He is a bit young for such things.”
“I’ve tried to teach him a bit about guns,” Benjamin added. “But, if you remember, I am practically hopeless at shooting, or at least hitting a target. I manage to keep us in meat, but it isn’t easy.”
“You are better off that way,” Micah said grimly. “Sometimes I wish—” He stopped and shook his head. “It ain’t no use wishing for what’ll never be. I just wouldn’t want Oliver to follow in my footsteps.”
“I think it might only be that he is enamored with you,” Elise said. “He’s never had a big brother. And well, with three older sisters, I am sure he is simply in heaven to be around you. He’s heard about you. You are kind of a hero to him.”
Micah gaped at her with incredulity. “That’s terrible!” He jerked his gaze around to meet his father’s. His eyes were filled with sudden fire. “You can’t have told him about the things I’ve done! And I can’t believe you would have held them up as heroic! I’ve lost count of the people I’ve killed, and I certainly can’t say now if them or me was on the right side. And even if I thought I was right, no one—no one!— should be as proficient as I am at killing. I’m not a hero! Please tell him I am not a hero!”
“No matter what we tell him, he hears things,” Benjamin said. “I’ve tried to impart to him a sense of right and wrong. But, Micah, I am proud of you, of what you have become in the last few years, especially. It is good to hear that you don’t enjoy the taking of life, but you have been a protector of this republic. You have sacrificed greatly to keep this land safe for folks like me and my family here. Perhaps you have crossed some lines and had to deal with matters that were not always black or white, and I see clearly the toll it has taken on you. But because men like you faced these demons, men like me can live in peace. I thank you for that, and that is why you are a hero.”
“You don’t know everything about me, Pa,” Micah murmured, shame still nagging at him.
“I don’t need to know,” Benjamin replied with intense confidence.
Micah was silent for several minutes as these profound words sunk into his head and his heart. He thought about the things Lucie had told him about God’s mercy. He’d been wrestling so with wondering if he could really be accepted by God, if he could ever deserve peace and the genteel life Lucie offered. Then it suddenly occurred to him that his father, if anyone, would know. Micah understood now a little more about how Benjamin had suffered when Rebekah had died and how he’d finally been humbled and changed. If Micah could accept the change in his father, then perhaps it was indeed possible for him to change as well.
“Pa,” he said, knowing that the time had finally come to impart to this man what lay on his heart, “Lucie told me that God loves me no matter what I’ve done. I know she doesn’t lie and that she truly believes what she says. But . . . I’ve done some bad things. It just can’t be that easy.”
“We punish ourselves far more than God would ever think of doing,” Benjamin answered. “And the worst way we punish ourselves is by our inability to accept the simplicity of faith. There is only one requirement to embrace God’s love, and that is to believe in it.”
“But ain’t there some things that are even too much for God?”
Benjamin and Elise exchanged an odd expression, then Elise reached out and laid her hand on Micah’s.
“I know for a fact there isn’t,” she said.
He shook his head, his skepticism obvious that this near saintly woman could not possibly have even a hint of what he meant.
All he knew, he admitted to himself, was that she showed up one rainy day with a half-dead child in her arms. He knew there were some unsavory men after her at one point, and they had kidnapped her. He’d heard the word “slave” mentioned in undertones, and at fourteen he had come to the conclusion it had something to do with that. But he’d been far too wrapped up in his own misery at the time to take much interest in anyone else’s.
He continued to eye her skeptically, almost daring her to shock him. She did.
“I was a prostitute before I came to your home,” she said quietly, with a hint of shame in her tone.
Micah’s mouth fell open, and he quickly snapped it shut. Then he said, “I thought I’d seen and done it all, that there was nothing out there that could discombobulate me.” And he didn’t know what stunned him more, the fact that God had accepted Elise or that his father had.
Amusement twitched at her lips, but her eyes remained solemn. “I did not think even God could wipe clean the filth of my life, my very body. But look at me now, Micah. I am clean! Not perfect by any means, but clean. And if that wasn’t enough, God also gave me happiness. Have you heard that God’s love covers a multitude of sins? Well, I am proof those are more than mere words.”
Micah glanced back and forth between his father and Elise. He did not doubt that what she said was true. But for him? Lucie had said so, too. It must be so.
He focused on his father. “Pa, you are sure, then? All I got to do is want that love, that peace, and believe?”
“I am positive, son.”
“Then I want it.”
Micah stayed on at his father’s house for two more days, then felt he was ready to go back south. He saddled Stew and led him out into the yard where the family was gathered to see him off. He hugged his brothers and sisters and promised he’d come back to visit more often. Elise gave him a packet of food, then encircled him with a fond embrace. He put the food in his saddlebag and turned toward his father. There was still a reticence between them. It could hardly be helped after so many years, but Micah was certain he’d be back often now and the healing between them would continue.
He held out his hand, and Benjamin shook it stoically.
“I’ll be back,” Micah said. He paused, then added, “And you can come south anytime to visit me. In fact, it might be in a few months”— heat began to rise in his neck, but he went on—“well, I might be getting married, and I’d like it if you came. Maybe even . . . you could perform the ceremony.”
By the look of joy on Benjamin’s face, Micah’s halting, awkward words might have been a boon from a king.
“I’d be proud and honored to do so, Micah!”
“I guess I’ll be going, then.” Micah started to mount the mule, then stopped. He jerked around to face his father once again. “Pa! I do love you!”
Now Benjamin’s jaw went slack, but he recovered quickly. “Forgive me, but I’ve got to hug you, son!” And he did so.
Micah had never felt such a thing in his life. There was power and fierceness in that embrace, but a tenderness, too, as can rarely be found except between two men who are part of one another, bone, blood, heart, and soul.
CHAPTER
39
MICAH WATCHED LUCIE RIDE AHEAD. She had challenged him to a race, but he had slowed so he could take a moment to observe her gallop across the grass. He remembered the time he had first seen her riding with the herd of horses he had been intent on stealing. So much had passed between them since then, but Lucie had not changed. She had been the gentle constant over the years, the light beckoning him through the abyss.
She slowed to a trot and, turning in her saddle, called to him, “What are you doing, slow coach! Don’t you dare try to humor me! I can win you in a fair race.”
He smiled and spurred his mule up alongside her. “You have won, Lucie! You’ve won my heart, fair and square.”
“Have I? Well, it is the first time you have admitted to it.” Her eyes held an impish glint.
“I thought you knew.”
“You have been acting mighty peculiar since you came back from your folks’ house. But you know me. I never want to be pushy.”
He laughed outright, unable to contain his mirth.
She stared at him, a look of utter astonishment on her face. “Micah, I have never seen you laugh before, not like this.”
He tried to control himself. When he spoke, just a few bubbles of amusement escaped. “And at your expense, no less. I am sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. You must know I love it.” Her eyes swept over his features, seeming to see him for the first time. “For a minute there you looked like a boy.”
“Maybe I ain’t a twenty-three-year-old wizened old man after all. Leastways, I don’t feel like it anymore.” He stretched his arms out wide and gave a whoop. Stew, misinterpreting the sound, reared, then lurched off at a run. Micah had to fight the reins to get him under control. “Why, you addlebrained, no-account, poor excuse—”
“Micah!” Lucie interrupted in a scolding tone as she rode up next to him. “Don’t you say another unkind thing to this dear mule! I won’t hear of it!”
“Harrumph!” Micah snorted. “And she says she ain’t pushy!” Then he grinned, and his eyes filled with the overwhelming love that was filling his heart. “Lucie, let’s ride over to those trees and get off for a spell. I want to talk to you.”
They dismounted, tied their mounts, and found a level place in the grass to sit. Lucie brought her saddlebag. Micah brought nothing—no gun in his belt, no rifle in his hand.
The afternoon was warm with a light breeze carrying a fragrance of prairie grass. A flock of white-winged doves flew overhead.
“A feeding flight,” Micah said. “We used to hunt them by firing into the swarm. They make good eating if you are hungry enough.”
“I like better ‘La Paloma,’ ” Lucie said. “The old Mexican ballad about the doves.” She hummed a tune, then in Spanish softly sang a verse.
Micah gazed at her and was reminded of her other heritage. How naturally the Spanish language flowed from her tongue. He had come to have a fair understanding of the language of his old enemies as well. But he felt no enmity for them now. That had all seemed to die with his other old hatreds. He felt no hesitation at all in reaching out to this woman. She represented only love and life and peace to him.
“Micah,” she said softly as he continued to stare after she had fin.ished the song, “you look like you have swallowed one of those birds whole.”
“I feel a bit like I have, too. Not since I told my father I loved him has there been such a lump in my throat.”
“Why is that?”
Her impish grin indicated she must already know the answer to her question. But she had a right to hear it with her own ears, just as his father had.
“Words like that don’t come easy to me, Lucie.”
“I well know!”
“Anyway, I been wanting to tell you since I came back yesterday. But there was so much else to talk about regarding those amazing days I spent with my family. I still can’t believe it went so well.” He caught a new glint in her eyes. “You needn’t look so smug, even if you knew all the while it would be so. Though I do think you are the wisest, smartest woman—no, person!—I know. I probably won’t always listen to you even when I should.”
“You probably won’t.”
“It’s already been established how thick-skulled I am.”
“Yes . . .”
“You don’t have to agree so quickly!” He shook his head and laughed. “All right. See if you agree with this. I love you, Lucinda Maria Bonny Maccallum! Ya hear?” He paused long enough to gasp in a breath as the full import of his own words struck him. “I do love you!”
“And I love you, Micah!”
“But you always have, haven’t you?”
“When I wasn’t angry at y
ou or confused about you.”
“Same here. I’ve loved you from that instant you fainted in my arms.”
“I didn’t faint!”
“Oh, maybe you was just faking so I’d hold you.” He reached toward her, gathering her into his arms. “Like this . . .”
“Very likely!”
She melted into his embrace, and he marveled at how well they seemed to fit together.
“Only now there is no confusion,” she added.
He nodded his agreement.
“Do you want to hear when I first knew I loved you, though I was afraid to admit it?”
Micah nodded his head, his cheek still pressed against her soft hair.
“It was when you gave that little Hornsby baby to Mrs. Wendell. She thought you ran out because you were so glad to get rid of a little nuisance. But I knew better. When you rescued me, I thought there was more to you than a rough horse thief. But in that moment with the child, I was certain. It’s funny, but in spite of all the confusion you have caused me in the last couple of years, I was always certain of your tender heart, Micah. You tried so hard to hide it, but you were never very successful.”
“That’s one thing I’m glad I failed at, then.” Reluctantly, he let his arms drop and moved a safe distance from her. “I wish I was better—” Stopping suddenly, he shook his head. “No, I won’t go down that road again. I know now I’ll never ever be deserving of what God gives me. I’m just gonna accept it.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“Lucie, I want to marry you. You know that?”
“That’s also good to hear,” she replied just a bit dryly. “Especially since I want to marry you as well.”
“I would have been back sooner from Cooksburg, but I made a little side trip. I went by the capital to file some papers. I made claim to a parcel of land.”
“You did!” She beamed, then tried to temper it as she added, “I wouldn’t have required it of you. I mean, if you felt as if you should continue to be a ranger—”