“I haven’t,” Caitlin said honestly. “She told me he beat her with his belt. That’s abuse!”
“What types of discipline consenting couples agree upon, is private between them. Val must have accepted that she deserved it. She’s still living with Blake,” Chase said carefully. “She didn’t pack up and go home.”
“Its abuse and brainwashing,” Caitlin worried.
“No, it’s Blake’s way of disciplining his partner,” Chase disagreed. “Did Valerie tell you about the mess she’s gotten herself into financially?”
“She told she had debts that had to be paid. She said he paid them off so the interest wouldn’t keep accumulating and that she’s working and putting every cent she earns toward paying him back. I’m not faulting Blake for helping her, although by doing that he’s made her dependent and obligated to him. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. On top of that, he beat her with his belt when she bought something that she didn’t have permission to buy. That’s insane. She shouldn’t have to ask permission to buy something! She earns a wage. He doesn’t have the right to control what she does with it.”
Chase continued to eat for a minute as he considered his answer. “Except that it wasn’t her money she used, it was Blake’s. Your friend is way over her head in debt. She’s accumulated thirty-six thousand dollars in debt in a little over two years. Blake paid off those debts, and they made an agreement. She broke that agreement.”
“But…”
“U.S. Marshal’s earn a good living, Cait, but we’re not rolling in dough. Blake paid off Valerie’s debts and it has almost wiped out his entire savings account. They made an agreement that she promised to abide by. She promised to stop the senseless buying. He had her get rid of an expensive vehicle she shouldn’t have been allowed to purchase in the first place. He gave her his second vehicle to drive. She was bouncing checks, so he sent her an additional thousand dollars to get her checkbook straightened out. Instead of doing that, she spent half of that money on one pair of shoes! She spent five hundred dollars on a single pair of shoes! If you’re that far in debt, you don’t spend that kind of money on whim. Blake had to send additional money so she could pay for gas to drive to Salt Lake. He was angered by what she did, and he had a right to be. He spanked her, and I don’t blame him. Valerie was totally at fault here.”
Caitlin took in that information, but she shook her head. “I didn’t know all the details. I agree she was wrong. Still, hitting someone with a belt isn’t spanking! It’s abuse!”
“It was considered a normal parental discipline until about fifty years ago. So, mankind has thousands of years of history of using discipline for behavior modification behind us, and only about fifty years with it being considered abuse. We also now have a fifty-five percent divorce rate and kids that are out of control. I see a correlation even if the experts don’t.
Cait, my parents, raised four boys and two girls. Getting taken to the barn for a licking from my Dad was normal in our home. They raised four rough and tumble boys, and we were always into trouble of some kind or another. We never considered it abuse. It was a punishment for doing something wrong. We boys got the belt occasionally, but my father never used anything more than his hand or the back of a hairbrush on my sisters. What elements a couple chose to use are private between them. Blake wasn’t getting through to Valerie by using his hand, so he took the discipline up a notch. That’s their personal choice of what is allowed between them.”
“It’s wrong. I know she was wrong to use the money he sent her to buy shoes, but there must be some other way to get her to stop. Maybe she needs counseling. Accumulating that kind of debt in only a couple years is crazy,” Caitlin said.
“She and Blake will work it out, and he’ll control her impulses to spend recklessly,” Chase said.
“There it is again,” Caitlin complained. “He’ll control, he’ll discipline. What gives him the right?”
“She does,” Chase said patiently. “Sweetheart, that’s what you don’t understand. If a husband is the head of his house, there is a hierarchy of authority in the home. The husband is the leader. If a man is a leader of his household, he has to earn respect from his wife and his children. He has to be the best husband and best father possible he can be. He has to take care of his family’s wants and needs before his own. With being the head of the house, also comes the responsibility of teaching, guiding, and sometimes disciplining. In my family, which is my example of how to live, the wives and children feel cherished, protected, and loved, but they are also disciplined when discipline is needed. ”
“Take a step back into the 1800’s,” Caitlin snapped.
“Maybe,” Chase admitted. “In our family it’s been working since the 1800’s. Do you remember the old Lucy shows, where Desi spanked Lucy? That was in the fifties, and it was considered normal and in some cases amusing. I’m not saying all women are ditzy. Women should be respected for the jobs they perform and for their intelligence. As women fought the war to be equal, they lost the battle of defined roles within relationships. Without those defined roles, both men and women are floundering around, which explains the high divorce rate and I believe a whole bunch of men who have lost their way. How can a woman respect a man if he dismisses his role as a man, if he doesn’t treat her with honor, and respect? Do you know why women marry into a dominant relationship?”
“I have no idea why anyone would be that crazy,” she responded honestly.
“Because she wants a man to treat her as a woman she is, where she is respected, treasured, and cherished. She knows that she’s loved above all else. She knows her man cares enough to set her straight if necessary. It all comes down to love.”
“I don’t have a clue about love, Chase,” Caitlin admitted. “I know how I feel about you, but I don’t know if it’s that forever after kind that you talk about. I’m not the little woman who will have your dinner on the table by six and meet you at the door with a cocktail and your slippers. I’ve learned to be tough and to depend on myself above all others.”
“Do you trust me?” Chase asked very seriously.
“Totally,” Caitlin answered without hesitation.
Chase’s smile was warm. “We’ll start with that, and rest will work itself out.” He picked up her uneaten bacon and popped it into his mouth. “We’ve still got a four hour drive ahead of us, so let’s get going.”
Chase drove, as Caitlin still seemed to be mulling over their breakfast conversation.
“I could help!” Caitlin said suddenly turning to Chase.
“With what?” Chase asked
“Valerie’s debt,” Caitlin said. “I could pay it off. I could figure out a way to do it without them knowing where it came from, an inheritance from a long lost relative or something.”
“No,” Chase said firmly.
“Why not? Money isn’t an issue for me. It would make her life easier, and get Blake off her back.”
“To start with it would be interfering,” Chase, answered. “The next thing is Valerie wouldn’t be learning a lesson, or modifying her behavior. She’d be getting a very expensive pass for irresponsible behavior.”
“Val grew up in a tiny town. She has a wonderful family and they work hard, but they’re still poor. She went off the deep end when she got a chance to get out. Credit card companies lure people in all the time. A lot of people get into trouble because they can’t see the danger in accumulating debt. I hate to see her struggling.”
“Stay out of it,” Chase repeated sternly. “I mean it.”
“Who died and made you God?” she demanded.
“I’m not the one that wants to interfere in another couples issues,” Chase snapped back. “Don’t forget I believe in spanking too. You’ve experienced my hand version of discipline. You haven’t experienced the back of a hairbrush yet. You’ve earned it, but you haven’t gotten it, yet!”
She squinted at him and made a face.
Chase chuckled the moment of anger defused. “Very,
mature.”
“You don’t want me to be mature. You want me to be a whimpering submissive,” she shot back.
“That’s your image of what your role would be, not mine,” Chase said. “I know you’re an exasperating pain the butt. Which reminds me - there will be no swearing at my parent’s home. My parents are there, my grandmother is there, and there are always kids running around. That’s been a rule in our house for well over a century, and we don’t break it. You start swearing, and there will be a reckoning.”
She rolled her eyes, but he gave her a steady, warning look that meant business. She felt her bottom involuntarily clenching again.
Henryville, Texas, was a small town of about forty businesses. The town had the feel of an old-fashioned western town, with false fronts on most of the buildings and the architecture of a bygone era. The streets were clean, the windows were bright and shining, and there were neat little trees planted at precisely measured intervals on the sidewalks. As they drove through, several drivers honked at Chase, and he gave his greeters casual waves. After driving another thirty miles, they drove through the gate under a sign proclaiming the ‘The Sassy Sal Ranch’.
Chase smiled as he went under the sign, as he’d done every time he’d returned home since he was a kid. He turned to explain to Caitlin. “Sassy Sal was my great-grandmother, times three, Sarah Agnes Murie. Jacob Bennett found her walking down a dirt road in 1882. She wasn’t wearing shoes, and her feet were wrapped in rags because they were blistered and bleeding. She was fifteen years old and had run away from her stepfather, who was a cruel man. Jacob told her to get in his wagon, and he’d give her a ride. She called him a dirty old man and said she wasn’t going anywhere with him. He told her not to sass him and get in the wagon. She picked up a rock, threw it at him and took off running. He chased her down, turned her across his knee and spanked her. He carried her back and put her in the wagon. Jacob cleaned up her feet, bandaged them and gave her something to eat. He told her if she caused him any more problems, he’d set her bottom on fire again. He took her to Liberty Hill, went into the country store and when he came back out she was gone. He looked for her all day while he was taking care of his business, but he didn’t see a sign of her. That evening he went into the saloon, and there was Sarah Agnes sitting on top of the piano. She’d been looking for a job all day and having had no luck had fallen for the saloon’s owners promise that he’d take care of her. He dressed her up in black stockings, a fancy short red dress, put her up on the piano and told her to sing. My great-grandfather Jacob said she was exposing her legs and singing a song that no decent girl should know. He tossed her over his shoulder and carried her out of there and straight to a Justice of the Peace. He told her he’d decided it was time for him to take a wife, and he’d decided that she’d do. He was going to marry her and take care of her. He told her going to buy her a new pair of shoes, some decent clothes, and a wedding band. And he didn’t want to hear any sass from her about it.”
Caitlin’s eyes were dancing at the tale. “She married him, on the spur of the moment like that?”
“She married him only knowing his name and that he promised to treat her better than her stepfather. He was twenty-seven, and she was fifteen. They were married for sixty-eight years and had eight children. According to family legend she never stopped sassing him. My great-grandparents died before I was born, but my Dad remembers them. He said they argued all the time and then they’d howl with laughter. They had three kids by the time they came here and started this ranch. I guess he knew her pretty well by the time he named the place Sassy Sal.”
Caitlin laughed. “1882 was a long time ago. So, the ranch has been in your family for a hundred and thirty-one years.”
“Bennett’s are raised to believe in family and our traditions,” Chase said. “There it is - the main house.”
Caitlin looked down the lane and saw an enormous western-styled log and stone home that was big enough to be a lodge, not a private home. The sprawling structure obviously been added on to time and time again. She turned to him. “Your real name is Ewing right?”
Chase laughed. “As in J. R. of Dallas? No. I don’t think anyone in our family has that kind of arrogance. Although there were oil wells in the old days. They have long since been pumped dry. We run cattle and horses and most of us have day jobs. Twelve years ago, my parents decided to section off the ranch into parcels for each of us kids. We each got about sixty-five hundred acres. They kept the main house and about thirty acres.”
“Your parents live in that place all by themselves?” Caitlin gaped.
“No, they only live in the middle section. It was built and added onto when families did live together. Someone would build a separate house and later someone would decide to connect it up with the main house. The house has been in constant construction since Sassy Sal and Jacob’s children grew up and married. It used to look a lot stranger than it does now. My Dad had my brother Blasé, who’s an architect, to smooth out the disjointed parts and at least make it look like it was supposed to be together. It’s actually three separate houses and that end part there was renovated into two separate apartments. Range moved his family back into the wing on the right after Mom got the last diagnosis so his family would be closer. My sister Shelley and her husband Bruce and their four kids are in the wing on the left. That little cabin that separates those two sections is the original cabin built in 1894. Sassy Sal and Jacob raised eight kids in that little cabin. It’s no more than pass through now, a piece of history that the family kept and built around. My grandmother lives in the first floor apartment in that section. That leaves an apartment open for whoever comes to visit or needs a place to stay.”
“You don’t live at home?”
“No, but my property is only fifteen minutes away. The two that built the farthest away moved back because it would have taken them over an hour to get here if anything happened. They wanted to be closer, especially now.”
“That’s nice that everyone lives kind of close together.”
“Relatively, we’re scattered over forty thousand acres which is equal to about sixty miles of land. My other sister, Rose, lives in Houston. She’s a psychiatrist, and she shares a practice with her husband. Before I left, she was planning on taking a leave of absence soon to come down.”
“Everyone is really pulling together to make your mother happy.” Caitlin said impressed.
“That’s what families do. Larson and Range are the ranchers of the family, and Dad still sticks his nose in their business enough to bug them. They’ve been handling the ranch since it was divided up. Those of us that aren’t using the land lease our parts to them. Larson lives about eleven miles in that direction, a little further by county roads. It helps that the main house was built to house parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. I put up a little pre-fab house up on my property about eight years ago. It’s not much since I still haven’t made up my mind what I want yet. When I do, I’ll have Blasé design it. I’ve built a really good barn though. I’ve bought some cattle, but I’m still going to let my brothers run the show,” Chase said.
“You’re not planning on ranching?” Caitlin asked. “I thought that’s why you turned in your badge.”
“No, I decided on a change in careers because I had one too many brushes with death. The last one was my fifth time in eighteen years, and it was too close, Cait. Only through the grace of God, was I revived.” He looked over to her. “I’m thirty-eight years old. It’s time to focus on someone besides myself. It’s time to start building a family.”
Caitlin flushed at his steady gaze. “I’m not sure I can do that.”
Chase grinned at her unease. “We have time. Right now, I’m kind of floating, taking the time to find out what I really want to do as a second career. It isn’t imperative for me to find work right away and I’m going to stick close to home for a while for Mom’s sake.”
Caitlin’s head was spinning from the onslaught of names, and ages a
nd connections within Chase’s family. She was good with names, but within a couple of hours she’d been introduced to more than a dozen adults, a mother, father and grandmother, brothers, sister and in-laws. There were so many children, and they looked so much alike that she wasn’t sure who belonged to which relative, and this was only his immediate family. Chase’s parents Marc and Karen Bennett promised a big family barbecue on the upcoming weekend. The entire family of uncles, aunts, and cousins could come and meet Chase’s girl. That was how Chase had introduced her. “Mom, Dad this is my girl, Caitlin.” The title had stuck.
Chases parents were in their mid-sixties. If she hadn’t been told, she would not have guessed that his mother was seriously ill. The only visible symptoms of her illness were that she was very thin, and had dark shadows under eyes that still sparkled with delight at her children and grandchildren. After all the excitement of her son’s arrival with Caitlin had settled down, Karen’s husband Marc tried to get her to lie down to rest. Karen was quick to tell him she would do no such thing.
It was then that Caitlin began to see the dynamic of the family hierarchy. Marc scolded his wife in a kind but firm manner, telling her she’d plenty of time to get to know Caitlin after a rest. He whispered something to her, helped her to her feet and escorted her out of the room. Karen didn’t attempt to stop him.
Once Karen was taken from the room, some of the brothers and their wives excused themselves to get back to their daily routines.
Caitlin was talking to Chase’s sister-in-law, Marie, - Blase's wife – and a stay-at home mother of four when the older children came home from high school. One teenager came into the room at a run and suddenly went to his knees and slid across the wood floor in front of Caitlin and bowed his head.
“Homage to the supreme queen,” the boy said. “Are you really Infinitius?”
“Wyatt!” Range snapped sharply.
Caitlin's Conspiracies Page 10