Maybe his sister knew some likely women. He wouldn't mind keeping company with an educated woman, one who didn't care he was mostly self-schooled. Surely there were some single lady teachers in the schools.
Somehow the notion of courting a woman, no matter how lovely, how young, how educated, felt more like duty than desire.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Aboard the Oregon Short Line, Idaho Territory
July 1884
"Is he really my father?"
Callie should tell Gwennie to stop bothering Mr. Dewitt. The terrible lethargy that had overtaken her when she'd realized she had no choice but to go to Idaho with the Dewitts prevented it. For two weeks, while she'd helped close Tilly's house and get both it and the Mother's House ready to be put on the market, she'd moved through the days like an automaton, doing the tasks assigned to her, eating when food was on the table, going to bed when everyone else did.
Gwennie had attached herself to Mr. Dewitt as soon as he had told her that her father was alive. She seemed in awe of Mrs. Dewitt, an awe Callie shared. The tiny Chinese woman was a force to be reckoned with.
She half-listened as Mr. Dewitt told stories of Merlin's childhood, paid more attention when he related how Merlin had lost his eye. She had heard that story before, and it still seemed incredible he had fought a panther and won when he was scarcely fourteen. The train slowed for a town and the Conductor called out "Shoshone. Transfer for Wood River."
"'We will get off here and have supper," Mrs. Dewitt said. "Come."
Gwennie bounced out of her seat and latched onto Mr. Dewitt. He chuckled and said, "I think it's time you paid your mama some attention. Maybe you can get her to eat more than two bites."
Her daughter started to pout, but a raised eyebrow sent her to Callie's side. "C'mon, Mama. Uncle Silas says they make the best navy bean soup in the whole world here."
The very thought of navy bean soup made her ill. I know I can't be pregnant, but my stomach hasn't felt this way since I was. She forced herself to smile as she took Gwennie's hand and followed her down the aisle.
"Only about four more hours," Mr. Dewitt told her when they were on the way back to the depot after supper. She had managed half a dozen spoonfuls of the soup before her throat closed. "It's been a long journey."
"Yes," she said. "It has." When they reached their seats, she took the window and hunched toward it, hoping everyone would take the hint and leave her alone.
Four hours! In four hours she'd face the man she'd loved more than life, the man who'd abandoned her, just as her father had.
"He was shot, beaten and left for dead. It was pure luck young Rye Bates found him," Mr. Dewitt had told her, when she'd demanded to know why she had to go to a husband who'd forgotten her.
"He didn't remember a thing, not even his own name, until they got back to Boise. Even after that, he had only sketchy memories of anything from the time he left home in October of 1869 until when Rye found him." Silas had sounded sincere and honest when he said that. He'd looked her straight in the eye.
Pa had looked folks straight in the eye when lying to them. He'd sounded honest and convincing when he swindled and cheated them.
If Merlin had loved me, he would have come looking for me.
"Mama?" Gwennie had chosen to sit with her when they reboarded, and was now leaning against her. She sounded half asleep.
"Yes, sweeting?"
"Did you wear a pretty dress when you married my father?"
Closing her eyes, she thought back to an event she'd done her best to expunge from her memory. "Yes, I believe I did. It was..." Her fingers remembered before she did. Remembered the sensuous texture of bottle-green velvet, the metallic scratchiness of gold soutache braid trim, the sleek silk of stockings that were the first, other than wool or cotton, she'd ever worn. Her fingers curled as if around a bouquet of green leaves. A lump grew in her throat, threatened to choke her. "It was green, with gold trim." If she had tried to say more, she would have wept.
I was so happy.
Gwennie wormed her way under Callie's arm. "Tell me about him." She never seemed to hear enough about her father. "Uncle Silas didn't know him after he was grown up. He only went to Boise four times since my father went home."
"He wasn't grown up when I first met him. Not really. He was only sixteen." Somehow speaking of Merlin as she'd first known him was easier than speaking of him as a man. She told Gwennie about their journey to Virginia City, of how he had saved her from the grocer who would surely have beaten her, of how Merlin had helped hold off the men who'd tried to charge the freight train a toll. "He was a really good shot."
Glancing down, she saw Gwennie had fallen asleep. Just as well. She didn't want to admit how foolish her mother had been to prefer a father who owned whorehouses and saloons to a valiant, smiling boy who would have taken her to his home, expecting his parents to take her in.
I believed my father would take care of me. How wrong I was.
* * * *
Nampa, Idaho Territory
July 1884
"Any idea why Silas sent me the telegram instead of you?"
His father shrugged. "Nope."
"Did he telegraph you, too?"
"Nope."
"Pa! What the dickens is going on?"
"How should I know. You sent a note in, saying we had to come to the station with you. Didn't say why. We're here. Even Regina. I reckon when Silas gets here, we'll find out." Pa sounded irritated, and Merlin guessed he didn't blame him.
I'm jumpy as a cat on a hot stove. It can't have anything to do with the woman they went to see. I never knew Tilly, never visited her house.
"Yes, I guess we will." He pushed through the door and paced the length of the platform and back for maybe the twentieth time. Inside his small office, the telegraph operator was hunched over a chattering key. Merlin walked over and leaned an elbow on the narrow ledge. He tapped on the glass.
After a minute or so, the man stopped transcribing the message and came to the window. As soon as it was open, he said, "Thirty minutes."
"Huh?"
"Train'll be here in about thirty minutes. Anything else?"
"No. Thanks. That's all."
The window slammed down.
Merlin resumed pacing. Eventually he heard a faraway whistle. Finally.
He would have sworn the train came the last five miles at a walking pace. When it finally pulled into the station, it took the Conductor an age to get the vestibule door open and the stool set down.
He forced himself to stand still and wait. Ma and Pa stood on either side of him, with Regina just behind. The Conductor got the stool set to suit him, and turned around to help folks down.
Silas came out first. As soon as his feet landed on the brick platform, he turned and held out a hand. Soomey appeared and quickly descended. She looked straight at him. "Oh, very good. You are here, Merlin. We have such a surprise for you."
He would have sworn there were yellow feathers in the corners of her mouth.
The woman who came out next was taller than Soomey by a good head. She wore a plain dark green dress and a straw bonnet trimmed with yellow ribbon and green leaves. Her face was shadowed by the bonnet's deep poke. No sooner had she set foot on the platform than she turned and said, "Hurry, Gwen. There are people behind you."
A girl, young, but not a baby, came into view. Coltish, skinny and long-legged, she wore a dark red pinafore over a pink dress and a bonnet with ribbons to match both. Black braids hung down her back. She stepped past the woman and looked around. Looked right at him.
And smiled.
It was like looking into a mirror.
Behind him, Pa whispered, "Great God."
The world spun around and his legs gave way. The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the hard bricks, leaning against Pa's legs. Ma was crouched before him, wielding her fan.
Images and words tumbled thorough his mind like bubbles in a splash pool, swirling, spinning, colliding, witho
ut rhyme or reason.
He felt someone take his hand, someone else his opposite arm, and pull him to his feet. Blinking, he tried to make sense of the sounds around him, a cacophony of words, spoken by several people, all jumbled together into meaningless noise.
"He's sick."
He heard that clearly and wanted to say, No, I'm not, but his tongue was thick in his mouth and wouldn't obey him.
He saw a woman standing in a cabin door, waving, as he rode away behind two freight wagons, felt his regret at leaving her, for they'd had too little time together.
Her hair was a black cloud blowing in the cold wind, her eyes as green as spring grass.
He heard, "All my life, I'll take care of you," and knew he'd spoken those words. To her? But when?
Again someone was guiding him, pushing him up a flight of stairs. "It's been a shock. He'll be better in the morning." The words made sense, the voice was familiar. He wondered who his uncle was talking about. Somebody who'd drunk too much, he reckoned.
His wrist was gripped and his arm slung across a wide set of shoulders. "Turn loose, Rye. I'll walk if it kills me." he said. But those weren't Rye's shoulders. Too wide, too tall. "Who are--"
"Sit." Silas sounded tired.
He fell back onto a soft bed when someone pushed on his chest. "...last time I drink absinthe. Tastes like piss."
"I'd sure like to know where you got to in your adventures, lad. Sounds like you had yourself a wild time."
He wanted to tell Silas that mostly he'd been sober as a judge, but the words fell into the maelstrom and were lost.
* * * *
Emmet took charge. "Let's get to the hotel. We can sort this out then." He and Silas handed the women into the buggy.
"We had a couple of trunks shipped. Even if they came in on our train, they'll wait for morning." Silas paused, his hand on the door handle. "I handled this poorly."
"Even though I've only a suspicion what 'this' is, I have to agree. Why'd you spring a surprise on him?"
Silas waited until they were both mounted on the high seat. "I guess I'd hoped seeing her would make him remember."
"It still could, if she's who I think she is."
"She is."
"Where...? No, let's wait. The little girl looks asleep on her feet. Let's get her and Merlin into bed, gather in the lobby. I'll have Hat see if they'll make us a pot of coffee."
Once at the hotel, he let Silas take care of Merlin while he unloaded the women and drove the buggy to the livery stable. As he walked back, he wondered what sort of woman Merlin's long-lost--and very much alive--wife was.
And why she had never come looking for him.
The women were on two facing settees in the lobby Hattie and Regina on one, Soomey and the woman she'd brought on the other. They all looked stiff, as if posed for a photograph.
Soomey beckoned when he started their way. "Come and meet your daughter-in-law, Emmet."
She went to stand, until he said, "Don't get up." Putting on his company manners, he bowed. "I'm pleased to meet you, ma'am, and a little discombobulated that nobody's told me your name."
"I'm Callie...ah, Calista Ev--"
"She is Callie Lachlan, Merlin's wife. Sit down, Emmet. You are making her afraid."
Without looking away from the young woman whose green eyes were wide and scared, he said, "Soomey, you and Silas must have had good intentions, but it might have been kinder all 'round if you'd given us some warning."
He took the chair next to the woman who claimed to be his daughter-in-law. "Ma'am, it's late, and you've had a long journey. Right now I'm more worried about my boy than anything else, so I'll ask you to wait until tomorrow to tell us why it took you more than eight years to come lookin' for your husband. So let's all go to bed and get a good rest. Come morning we'll have some questions for you." He turned his head. "No more tonight, Soomey. You've managed this affair so far, if I know you. Now I'm takin' over. He is my son."
To his very great surprise, she nodded meekly and rose. "Come Callie. I will walk with you to your room."
When they were gone, he sat beside his wife. "Well, Hattie, what do you think?"
"I think there's no question the little girl is Merlin's child. She's the spitting image of my sister Sarah, the one I always said he took after. But she's her mother's child too. No mistaking that black hair or those long legs."
"I was thinking the same. But what if Merlin can't--or won't--accept her?"
"We'll worry if it happens. Right now, more than anything else, I want to know why she never came looking for him." Her sigh went right to his heart. "Oh, Emmet, so many years wasted. My poor boy."
* * * *
A knock woke Merlin. Before he could say a word, his father entered and sat on the edge of his bed. "You doin' all right?"
He took stock. Aside from a feeling like he'd been on a week-long drunk, he was in pretty good shape. "I think so."
"Did you recognize her?"
"Who?" He was pushing himself up to lean on the headboard when the night's events came back to him. "Cal," he whispered. "Was she really there?"
Pa's expression was intent. "You haven't spoken her name, to my knowledge, since you came home eight years ago. How much do you remember?"
"I-- Oh, God, Pa, it's all a muddle." He buried his face in his hands. "I think... I need time to sort it out."
"I reckon you do. Want company?"
"No, I don't think so. But coffee would be good. I feel like my head's stuffed full of wool batting."
"I'll have coffee and some food sent up." Pa stood, but stayed standing beside the bed. "It's eight-thirty. We've got business to take care of this morning, so I'll leave you alone. But come noon, you'll either have to have everything straight in your head, or put it off. We need to get on home."
Despite his confusion, Merlin had to smile as his father left. Wasn't it just like pa, to tell him, in a roundabout way, that he had only so much time to wallow in his miseries before he had to stand up and face them.
While he waited for the coffee, he pushed all his questions and confusions to the back of his mind. The water in the ewer was still warm--I've never slept through a maid coming in before--but too cold to shave with. He washed the sleep from his eye and called it good. He put on yesterday's clothes, even though he'd packed a clean shirt, and flipped the bedclothes up.
All too soon it was time to face the turmoil in his mind. Time to look at the long-buried memories that still circled like puzzle pieces that wouldn't fit together.
Time to accept that the woman he'd married eight years ago was still his wife--and a total stranger.
He had the door half open when he remembered.
I have a daughter.
A daughter. A notion he couldn't get his mind wrapped around. One so far fetched it felt like a fairy tale.
So often lately he'd been thinking of the future. Of what he would leave behind. His thoughts had grown more solid over time, until he'd almost convinced himself that there'd be none of him left when he departed this earth. A man who'd let one wife be killed wasn't a good candidate for taking another, nor for fathering children.
His life, his mundane, every-day-the-same life, had turned upside down. He had a wife. He had a child. He had responsibilities, and he wasn't sure he was man enough to live up to them.
What kind of man would let his wife--albeit one who'd he'd thought dead--raise his child alone? In a whorehouse? A man who wasn't fit to be a husband or a father.
Once he'd heard Pa use those very words about a fellow who spent his time and his meager pay in a saloon.
What would his father say about a man who'd never even thought to go looking for a lost wife?
For a lost child?
A child I didn't know I had.
Did that matter? The girl was his, no doubt about it. And he'd not taken a single step to be a father to her. Hadn't made a home for her.
He forced himself to step into the hall, to close the door after himself. At the top of
the wide stairs, he paused, looking down into the lobby. Ma and Pa were just walking into the dining room. The girl walked quietly beside Ma, holding tightly to her hand.
She is my daughter.
Her grin was his, even though her coal black hair came from Cal. He'd bet it was as straight as his, though, from the look of those long braids.
My daughter. Mine.
And Cal's.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Merlin descended the stairs, knowing where his duty lay. Even though he hadn't yet entirely sorted out his memories, enough were in place that he no longer had a blank hole in his life.
To his relief, no one was in the hall and only strangers in the hotel lobby. When he entered the dining room, Ma and Pa were just joining Regina at a table near the windows. He made his way to them. "Where are Silas and Soomey?"
Pa took out his pocket watch, his movements deliberate. "They went up to fetch..."
"Callie. Oh, Merlin, you'll never guess what Gwen's whole name is." Ma's smile was the one she pasted on when being polite to folks she didn't think much of.
His gut tightened. Maybe Ma was just worried about what he'd do. "No, I reckon I won't. What is it?" He took the chair next to Regina, turned his cup over, caught a waiter's eye.
"Guinevere. Isn't that just perfect?" she smiled across at the girl, who hadn't yet taken a chair.
Ma didn't usually gush. He turned to stare at her, and saw, just entering the dining room, his wife.
Great God, she doesn't look a day older. Familiar heat pooled in his gut and he felt himself growing hard. He snatched his napkin and dropped it into his lap. When Soomey and Cal reached the table he stood, but held the napkin where it would do the most good.
Pa held a chair for Cal between his and Ma's. Soomey sat beside Silas, and the little girl--Guinevere--came over and put her hands on the empty chair to Merlin's right. "Can I sit here?"
He had sisters, so why did she make him skittish? "Sure." He held the chair like Pa had taught him to do.
"Does it hurt?" she said, as soon as he'd seated himself.
"Hurt? What?"
"Your eye. Does it hurt?"
Reminding himself she was just eight, and as curious as any kid that age would be, he said, "There's no eye there to hurt. And no, the place where it was doesn't hurt. It hasn't for a long time."
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