Then turning to face the townsfolk who awaited his godly presence, the preacher's voice changed as it lifted in sonorous benediction: “Thank the Lord for this beautiful day, good people! Shall we partake of his plentiful bounty?”
Jesse felt his gut roll with the bile of disgust.
IX: The Unexpected
Just before Christmas, Jesse received a telegram from his stepfather that would bring another unexpected change to an already turbulent life. The message contained two words: “Come home.” He knew something was amiss, to have Mr. Baumgartner send for him under any circumstances; so he rode up to Dallas on Belle, boarded her, and caught the train southwest to San Antonio. Mr. Baumgartner met him in the Watkins wagon and brought him farther west to Mt. Mission. The ride home was not as discordant, as Jesse had expected. In fact, his stepfather was almost cordial, and it didn’t add up. It was if Mr. Baumgartner was struggling to think of words to say , stalling for time; and Jesse was grateful for the delay.
Upon entering town, the two of them went about delivering flavorings and spices to housewives for last minute holiday cakes. It was, after all, the Christmas season in his hometown, a time he had anticipated with excitement as a boy. As they rode through the heart of the village, they stopped to see the manger scene at the courthouse and the cedar tree in the square, which, for lack of a better evergreen, was draped with paper chains and wooden ornaments. All the shops were decked with tinsel, bells and bows, just as had always been done. The weather was the same as ever in the western part of the state with its warm and dry mid-winter, while back east in Morgans Bluff, the chill had already settled within the piney thickets. But it was Christmas time in the giant state of Texas, no matter where.
Jesse knew his stepfather was allowing him to relax and enjoy his evening before the news fell; but now, weary beyond words, Jesse asked to be taken home to see Kate. His heart leaped at the sight of the old German style house with the wide front porch where he had spent many a summer's day. He was home at last, eager to see the heirloom decorations that had been part of the German tradition for generations. Strangely, the holiday wreath was not on the front door but lay in an open box on the porch; and the candles that had always shone from the windows were left unlit.
Before Jesse could open the front door, Mr. Baumgartner gently took Jesse by the arm and looked him in the eye: “Wait...not yet...before you go in...we need to talk.” Mr. Baumgartner paused, his mouth working silently, as if the words were stuck in his throat.
“She's dying, Jess. She wouldn’t let me tell you she was ill for fear of worrying you. She kept saying she was strong as a horse, that it was just a little cold settling into her chest. Well...turns out, she has lung fever, and both lungs have filled. She's struggling , Jess. The doctor said he may have been able to save her had she allowed him to treat her early on. Lord only knows why she's so stubborn. I never could understand that in your mother.”
Jesse simply stared at the undecorated front door, unable to speak; and then he knelt to unpack the Christmas wreath and hung it in its rightful place, and he somehow felt better. “I'm ready now,” he said. “I'm ready to see my mother. He found Kate in the four poster bed upstairs, where the moonlight streamed through open windows to cast eerie shadows against the walls of the old familiar house. Under the garish light of a kerosene lamp, Kate's features seemed as if they had been chiseled into jutting bones and deep hollows, and she was pale and blue-lipped. She smiled at the sight of him. Gone was the woman of iron will and limitless strength. In her place was this shrunken ghost of her former self.
“Mama, everything's going to be alright. Don't you worry. I'm home now, and I'll take care of you.” Unexpected tears trickled down his cheeks. Kate was the one person who had always been there for him: that sure bet, that constant force, that would soon be there no more.
Her voice came breathless and raspy as she struggled to speak: “Jesse...son...wanted to tell you...I know your father is alive. It no longer matters. Ease your troubled mind.”
“But how could you know?”
“You didn’t tell me...didn’t write...as you said you would...be he alive or dead...because you hadn't the heart to do so.”
“How could I...knowing you would feel it necessary to end this marriage on grounds that it was illegal...just as you ended the first one because it was something your church deemed “unscriptural”? Knowing how you feel about the right and wrong of things...how could I bring you shame...yet again?”
Moments passed, and Jesse could not force another word past the lump in his throat. Sensing his discomfort, Kate filled the void with carefully chosen words she knew would be her last:
“Do you know I have loved you from the moment you were born...and even more now as you stand before me a man.? Forgive me...forgive me if I was unable to show you the affection you craved.”
“You showed me Mama...you showed in the ways that counted,” Jesse whispered as he wiped his mother's fevered brow. Her breathing grew more labored, and he would have given her his own breath had it been possible.
Three agonizing days later, Kate's still strong and determined heart beat stoically; but her lungs refused to function, and so, at last, she took her last ragged breath. The funeral was held in the church that , in life, had brought her both comfort and misery. Jesse was inconsolable. Somehow he had never thought of his mother's death or the possibility of an afterlife called Heaven and Hell, even though he had been steeped in those beliefs all his life. Now he faced what everyone on earth faced in such moments: their own mortality. He considered his mother's careworn life as he stood at her headstone in the Kessler family cemetery. He read the words she herself had chosen: Here lies Kathryn Kessler Mc Cann, a simple woman gone to meet her reward. The name Baumgartner had not been added, since Kate, at last knowing her first husband was alive, felt no right to another's name. And Jesse knew, had he not been born, she would have also dropped his father's name as well. Proper to the very end, Kate upheld her sense of values her entire life and beyond.
X: New Beginnings
A week after Kate's death, Mr. Baumgartner decided to return to his own place, since the status of his marriage to Kate had been called into question. After all, her first husband was apparently alive, even though he had hidden that fact for twenty years. Jesse was almost relieved to hear of his stepfather's plans, as it gave him time alone to sort out his thoughts and accept the finality of his mother’s death. Besides that, there were hundreds of little loose ends to tie together.
He found, hidden from view, an unfamiliar, ornate jewelry box that he knew been a gift, since his mother would never have bought anything so lavishly impractical. Turning it over, he found an inscription: “To my darling Kate, forever yours, Clint.” How strange indeed, and how little his father knew his mother who cared nothing for baubles and luxuries. Yet how well did Jesse know the girl she once was?
There was very little inside the box: a brooch, a pair of earrings, and a locket with two pictures, one of a young and pretty Kate and one of a dashing and handsome Clint. He was dumbfounded to see that she had kept such a personal reminder of the man she sent away forever. He caught another glimpse inside his mother's youth when he looked through her dog-eared bible. Between the pages were a photograph of himself as a baby, a pressed yellow rose and a valentine from none other the Clint of long ago. His no- frills, hard-shell mother had once been romantic and sentimental. Imagine that.
At last, the remnants of one woman's earthly existence had been sorted and packed away. Jesse allowed Kate's nieces to go through her clothes and the jewelry box and take what they wanted, but first he tucked the locket into his vest without knowing, at the time, why it seemed so important to him.
On his last day in Mt. Mission, on a crystal clear morning, Jesse sat on the porch and considered his future. Thinking back to the day of the funeral when the Kessler family had gathered in that perennially stuffy parlor, he remembered his Uncle Adam's advice:
“This house and
land is yours to do with as you please...and Jess, you can always come and work along side my boys at my ranch. You found what you went in search of there in East Texas. That search is over, and that so-called preacher will never reveal his true identity... or accept you as his son. I've no doubt that the real reason Clint changed his name was to avoid prosecution. Your Grandma Kessler thought he had gone farther west, and sent a posse in that direction in hopes of reclaiming her horse. The woman was beside herself with grief over it, and she wanted him caught. You know...we're quick to punish horse thieves in this state. I've seen several men hang for just that. Any way, your future is not there in East Texas. Your business there is finished. That man will deny your existence 'til the day he croaks!”
Jesse knew his Uncle Adam was probably right, but it changed nothing. After asking the family to keep an eye on the home place for him, he asked Mr. Baumgartner to take him back to San Antonio to catch a train headed east. Whatever lay ahead of him in Morgans Bluff, he still had a job at the mill. And then there was Annie. His absence from her had cleared his mind on one matter: he wanted to pursue her as a man should pursue a woman, not as a sport in which a man would hunt game, but with gentle understanding . He missed her bright face and the way she made him feel as if he were floating on a cloud , oblivious to all on earth but her. Other eligible girls gave him their smiles as the passed in the streets; but there was something about Annie that made his heart soar. Yes, he had unfinished business in East Texas, even if Annie would not have him, even if bringing his father to justice was all that was left.
On the trip back to San Antonio, Mr. Baumgartner grew introspective as he came to terms with life as well:
“You know, Jess, your mother was a hard woman at times,” he began as he flicked the horses into to trot. “...but I think I may understand why. Life wasn't kind to her, but she faced it head on...and when a woman has to do that...alone...well, she gets as tough as an old boot. Men play a big part in changing women, and we go on our merry way, doing as we please clueless. They just grow bitter and cold. I see it now...I see lots of things now.”
Too little,too late!
Upon arrival in Dallas, Jesse climbed down from the wagon at the stable where he had boarded Belle and bid Mr. Baumgartner farewell. He had one thing left to ask, because he knew he might never see his stepfather again: “Tell, me... sir...did you love my mama?”
His stepfather looked down at him from the wagon seat, and Jesse could see the truth in his eyes before he answered. “I cared about Kate and she about me...but no, Jesse...I don’t suppose I ever really did. Clinton McCann was the man who loved her. I believe you were conceived in love...no matter how it seems to you now. But whatever was between your mama and me, it was not love.” He then signaled the horses to turn in the road to take him back to Mt. Mission.
“ Good luck to you, son,” were Mr. Baumgartner's last words. Jesse smiled, as he watched him leave, thinking that the one thing he would remember, other than Kate, was the first time he rode in the Watkins wagon, and that was the highlight to the entire relationship with his step-father. As he turned toward the stable he heard Belle's neighing before he saw her, and when he brought her out of her stall, she nuzzled his neck. “Glad to see me girl?” he laughed. It was the first time he had laughed in weeks. A loyal horse was worth more than any other possession.
The ride back to Morgans Bluff seemed endless, as a cold drizzle began in the lower Texas plains, heading south. The solitude and brisk air cleared his mind like a new straw broom taken to cobwebs. There was much to face if he chose to live in Morgans Bluff. He was convinced that Domingo was out to intimidate him, or worse, by any means possible. Yet he was unsure whether the ruffian received orders from Elias Wyatt, as he was known, or Reese Morgan who just maybe knew his son-in-law's history or even someone else! Trouble like storm clouds gathered on his horizon, but Jesse would not run; for if nothing else, money was owed to his grandmother's estate for the stolen Palomino.
Within three days, he had arrived at the same hill from which he first saw Morgans Bluff almost a year ago. There he stood again, now a full-fledged man. Looking down on the bustling little town, he saw the Hotel Excelsior where Annie had just ended the breakfast shift in the dining hall; and next door was the Mercantile where the ladies were, no doubt, complaining about the price of sundries and gossiping merrily. Next to the store was the barber shop where their husbands told tall tales and planned so called “hunting trips” away from their wives, knowing they would never go. Then there, at the edge of the forest, loomed the magnificent saw mill buzzing with the life force of the entire woodlands. He imagined the ordinary lives that were being lived out to their ordinary endings and imagined how things would change if the railroad came through.
Soon Belle began to fidget, becoming as jittery as a colt, anxious to go toward town.
“Settle down girl,” Jesse murmured as he patted her neck. “For better or for worse, we are home.”
XI: Unsettling Changes
“Don't say I didn't warn you! Those folks down in Shanty Town won't give up their land to a railroad. The mill means nothing to them. It puts no food on their tables and no clothes on their backs.”
Jesse walked into Buck Hennessy's office in the middle of a heated conversation; and that exchange ended abruptly as he entered and acknowledged both men: “Mr. Hennessy...Mr. Morgan.”He nodded courteously at Reese Morgan, remembering he was, after, all the mill's owner and Annie's grandfather as well.
“Guess you came for your pay,” said Buck in a sudden change of subject. “Seems you left in an awful hurry. How'd things go in West Texas?”
“Not well, sir. Just buried my mama. Do I still have a job here?”
“For as long as you want. Sorry to hear of your loss, Jess. I was telling Mr. Morgan here that you were a damned good hand...though at first I thought you'd fold like an Arabian tent in a sand storm. Looks like you've bulked up a bit in my estimation.”
Reese Morgan now peered at Jesse with what passed for mild curiosity; and it was left to Jesse to break a sudden awkward silence: Sorry to interrupt your discussion, gentlemen. I'll collect my scrip and get to the hotel. It's been a long day...and a rough two weeks.”
Buck handed Jesse his pay and winked: “I sneaked in a little extra since you missed some time. Consider it a late Christmas bonus...with a few tokens to buy some New Years spirit so to speak.”
“Much obliged. Good day, gentlemen.”
Jesse stopped on the steps outside Buck's office to listen discreetly as Morgan picked up where they had left off: “Listen, Buck. These people who live in the projected path of the rails owe years of back taxes that no one bothered to collect. That land can be confiscated for nonpayment!”
“Wasn't nothin' to collect! These old settler families ...all they have is their land. They barely eke a livin' out of growin' cotton, and that's all you can grow down in those bottom lands. They haven’t the cash to pay taxes. If you seize their land, where will they go? How will they feed their kids? I may be more expensive to lay, but I say bring the rails down through the hills away from their property.”
Then Jesse heard the scrape of a chair and Morgan's voice rising: “I will put this rail through where I need it to go...or die trying. And I suggest you remember who owns this mill and start thinking like a company man!”
Upon hearing that, Jesse headed straight for Belle, just as the door flew open. A red faced Mr. Morgan stormed past him on the way to his buggy and looked neither left nor right. The situation was heating up thick and dark like day old coffee.
On the ride back to town, Jesse thought about this man who, when you got down to it, owned the town. He figured Reese Morgan was a business man above all else; and he didn't get where he was by considering the interest of everyone. Yet, on the other hand, the man did not shy away from either discomfort or ridicule. He had even allowed it to become common knowledge that he and Minna had been involved some forty yeas ago and that Minna had Morgan's child,
the future father of Annie. So it was that Morgan's son and granddaughter had become an open secret. According to Mr. Percy, the lineage had been recorded in the Morgan bible, with Minna's name listed when a “full- blood” was ignored in public record.
Jesse supposed Morgan's admission of his second family was more of the “I -can- do -as- I-please” mentality of the rich and powerful. While Jesse's father, on the other hand, not only hid the truth about his background but changed his identity to avoid ridicule and punishment. In Jesse's mind, that made Reese Morgan superior to Clinton McCann, however slightly.
Upon passing the loggers' camp, he spotted Annie leaving one of the tents. She gave him a quick smile as he rode up to her.
“Jess! I didn’t expect to see you again. I figured you had gone back home for good.”
“Not yet, at least. Out on an early round?”
“I am. Some of the mill hand's children are down with the croup. Spreads like wildfire in the winter...spread as far as Boggy Slough. I'll be over there in Shanty Town this evening.”
“Annie, I missed you while I was away. I'd like to spend time with you. Do you think I might walk with you on your rounds later?”
“Sure you can. I would like the company. Meet me at Dead Mans Creek bridge around sundown?”
Jesse watched her leave on horseback, sitting erect and proud in the saddle and glancing back over her shoulder to grace him with one last smile. He had seen that secretive, promising smile at the dinner on the ground social at the church. He remembered that day and the confrontation with his father; but most of all, he remembered Annie with her red curls peeking out from under her bonnet. He remembered the womanly way she looked in her Sunday dress. He shook those thoughts from a mind still guided by his puritanical upbringing; so he went to the hotel to satisfy what basic needs he could fulfill: food and sleep. He had along night ahead while halfheartedly searching for Tahsha, knowing he had no real inclination to take the beast's life after it had spared his own.
Jesse McCann: The Journey (The McCann Family Saga Book 1) Page 5