The Touch of Sage

by McClure, Marcia Lynn

  Copyright © 2007, 2010, 2012

  The Touch of Sage by Marcia Lynn McClure

  www.marcialynnmcclure.com

  All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, the contents of this book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any part or by any means without the prior written consent of the author and/or publisher.

  Published by Distractions Ink

  P.O. Box 15971

  Rio Rancho, NM 87174

  Published by Distractions Ink

  ©Copyright 2012 by M. Meyers

  A.K.A. Marcia Lynn McClure

  Cover Photograph—“Nate and Andrea”—by © Mark Perkes

  and Sara Robinson/Dreamstime.com

  Cover Design and Interior Graphics by Sandy Ann Allred/Timeless Allure

  First Printed Edition: July 2007

  Second Printed Edition: May 2010/ November 2012

  All character names and personalities in this work of fiction are entirely fictional,

  created solely in the imagination of the author.

  Any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.

  McClure, Marcia Lynn, 1965—

  The Touch of Sage: a novel/by Marcia Lynn McClure.

  ISBN: 978-0-9827826-0-6

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010929424

  Printed in the United States of America

  To My Mother,

  Patsy Christine…

  You are the truest heroine!

  Thank you for giving me life, joy, and love…

  and for making everything a beautiful adventure!

  I love you!

  And

  To My Friend

  Patricia “Patsy” Maureen…

  For gifting me one of the most

  serene and peaceful memories of my life…

  For our moments together in Ruth’s pasture.

  Prologue

  “Rummy! I win!” Rose Applewhite announced, laying her cards faceup on the table. “Rummy, rummy, rummy!” Pushing her chair back, she jumped up and began prancing about the parlor like a proud, gray-haired pony. “Rummy, rummy, rummy!” she sang.

  “For pity’s sake, sit down, Rose,” Mary Anne Farthen grumbled. “It’s one hand.”

  “Oh, let her dance, Mary,” Livie Jonesburg chuckled. “She so rarely wins,” she added under her breath.

  “Rummy, rummy, rummy!” Rose sang again, swishing her skirts this way and that like a French can-can girl.

  “I can see all the way to yer knees, Rose,” Mary scolded. “And they’re as wrinkled as an ol’ elephant’s.”

  Rose Applewhite quirked a once-blonde eyebrow. Her blue eyes sparkled brightly with mischief just as they had at age eighteen some forty years before. Smiling, she continued, “Rummy, rummy…” and turning her back to Mary shouted, “Rummy!” as she whipped her skirts and petticoats high over her back, revealing the seat of her lacy, ruffled bloomers.

  “For cryin’ in the bucket!” Mary moaned as Livie burst into giggles. “The girl has no shame.”

  Eugenia Smarthing smiled. She knew Mary delighted in Rose’s antics as much as she and Livie did. However, Mary was a well-weathered, leathery old woman and used to guarding her smiles like a rare treasure. Still, Eugenia wondered how anyone could resist smiling at the sight of Rose Applewhite’s brazenly displayed bloomer ruffles.

  “And you quit eggin’ her on, Eugenia!” Mary demanded, pointing a withered index finger in Eugenia’s direction.

  Eugenia bit her lip to stifle another giggle as Rose returned to her seat at the parlor table. Leaning over to Mary, she whispered, “Rummy!”

  “Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Mary mumbled. She gathered up the cards and began reshuffling.

  Eugenia chuckled, purely delighted with her friends. What a blessing it was to have one another—four elderly widows living together at Willows’s Boarding House. A blessing indeed, and Eugenia pondered each of them for a moment as Mary dealt the next hand.

  Rose “Rosie” Applewhite had been an actress—a golden-haired song lark in San Francisco, where she had caught the eye of a wealthy young silver miner from Leadville. Johnny Applewhite married his “Silver Rose,” as he called her, sweeping her away to a life of fanciful privilege in Denver.

  Now Rose was in her midfifties—a fine and respectable age to obtain. Even though her darling Johnny had been gone for nearly ten years and her own hair was as ashen as granite, her blue eyes still sparkled as brightly as the heavens—as did her spirits.

  Mary Anne Farthen led a far different life than Rose. At the innocent and tender age of fourteen, she married an older man of nearly thirty. Archibald Farthen was married twice before, both wives having died in childbirth. He was left with three small children and a painfully demanding farm in Oklahoma. He needed a wife, and when Mary Anne’s parents were both taken with a fever, Archibald married the young orphan. To become an instant mother at such a young age, Mary, out of necessity to survive, grew stern and guarded.

  Archibald was good to Mary Anne, and they had three more children of their own. He worked hard, too hard for his heart, and Mary Anne had been a widow for more than sixteen of her sixty years. Yet she was a good, caring old woman—even if her perpetual frown and rather ratty-gray hair caused folks to think otherwise.

  At fifty-three, Livie was the youngest of the widows who boarded at Willows’s Boarding House. Olivia “Livie” Jonesburg, the third of Eugenia’s dear companions, was a cheerful white-haired old gal. Her husband, Clive, died only the previous spring. Eugenia knew how cruelly Livie still struggled with the loss. The feelings in her heart quite often showed blatant on her face.

  Clive had come from Europe and fallen madly in love with Livie, a society girl, a debutant of the highest caliber, in New York. Upon meeting Clive, Livie had forsaken her family, abandoned her home and its luxury to spend her happy life with her beloved husband on his bean farm in Cortez. Life had been grand, full of happiness and loving—until last May when Clive was kicked in the head by a frightened foal and died from the trauma.

  Eugenia’s husband, a local cattle rancher named Buck Smarthing, also passed on the previous year. He was the friend and lover of Eugenia’s dreams. Together they raised four children and enjoyed life to its fullest. She mourned to the very depths of her heart and soul when he was lost. She had been very thankful for her children—for the comfort they gave her, for their support in allowing her to remain independent and live in the boarding house she now shared with her friends. She had a good life with Buck—a wonderful life. Though forced to be without him, she was thankful for the good and happy life she shared with the other ladies of Willows’s Boarding House.

  Eugenia smiled as she watched Mary and Rose bicker over Mary’s dealing of the cards. Livie was grinning, amused at the antics of the other two. Yes, these were the best of women—true friends—the kinds of companions any widow would wish for in her later years. She was ever thankful for the entertainment they lent to her life.

  “Who’s winnin’?” Sage asked as she entered the parlor and set glasses of sweet lemonade in the middle of the table.

  “Well, Livie’s winnin’ all around…but Rose just won a hand,” Mary stated.

  “Miss Rose!” Sage exclaimed. “You won?”

  “Why, of course I did,” Rose boasted with a smile.

  “Well, good for you,” Sage giggled.

  “Ya missed the victory dance, Sage,” Mary grumbled. “Thank yer lucky stars ya didn’t have to sit through that parade of nonsense and lace bloomers.”

  Sage glanced to Eugenia who winked, indicating Rose’s display had been quite entertaining.

  Sage pulled up a chair, planted
her elbows firmly on the tabletop, and rested her chin in one palm.

  “What’ve you been up to this afternoon, Sage?” Livie asked.

  Sage shrugged her shoulders and sighed. “Oh, I got the bread baked and the hens fed. Worked on my quilt a bit…thought I might take Bullet for a walk in a while.”

  “That dog,” Mary growled. “Ya know, that’s why they geld horses, Sage…calms ’em down. That dog could use a good—”

  “Oh now, Mary,” Eugenia interrupted. “Bullet’s a good dog. Just needs some direction through his pup years.”

  “Hmph,” Mary breathed. “Ya shoulda made Karoline take that pup with her when she married Joel.”

  Sage shook her head. “No…Karoline is too busy with a new husband. She doesn’t have any time for a spoiled puppy.”

  Eugenia studied Sage Willows. Her young friend seemed too youthful to have the responsibilities of running a boarding house heaped so heavy on her shoulders. Sage should be somewhere being adored by a good-looking husband and raising babies of her own. But life had dealt her a hard hand. Like Mary, responsibility came early to sweet Sage.

  Matt and Susan Willows died in a tragic accident when Sage was only sixteen. Their wagon had lost a wheel and plummeted into Raven’s Canyon, and Sage suddenly found herself responsible for three younger sisters.

  Rose was already boarding at the Willows’s house when the accident occurred. It was with Rose’s help Sage was able to keep the house running, thereby providing a way of life for herself and her sisters.

  As it so often happened with older daughters who found themselves rearing their siblings, all of Sage’s time and efforts were put into providing for her sisters’ care when they were younger—then seeing them happily married—ensuring they were provided for further. This left Sage with little or no time to consider her own future—let alone chase after it.

  As a result, with her three sisters wed and moved away, Sage sat at the table in the parlor, twenty-three years to her name—unmarried and watching four old widows play rummy.

  Eugenia smiled as she considered the girl. What a pretty little thing she was. Her hair was the color of an acorn’s lid—soft, silky, and unusually long. Most of the time the length went unnoticed—for she wore it in a rather spinsterly knot at the back of her head. Sage had green, almond-shaped eyes, guarded by thick, black lashes, which curled up to meet her sweetly arched brows. Though her eyes were her most striking feature, the rest of her face was pleasing as well. A small nose, somewhat heart-shaped lips, and high-set cheekbones combined to make a very lovely girl. Her frame was average in height and her figure properly curved as to attract the admiration of the men in town.

  Yes. There seemed no reason on the face of the earth for Sage Willows to remain unmarried and unhappy. Yet Eugenia knew very well why Sage remained unattached. The poor child had married off the only decent men in the county to her sisters. Those left were rather ancient widowers and tattered undesirables—men who had fewer teeth in their heads than Primrose Gilbert’s new baby, or who were perhaps younger but ugly as mud fences with temperaments and dispositions to match. Certainly, old Forest Simmons had proposed marriage to Sage several times. Forest was just that side of fifty, bowlegged, and smelling of whiskey and mule apples. Sage hadn’t reconciled herself to the slop bucket yet—thank the heavens.

  Still, it was wrong—unfair. And it troubled Eugenia that such a darling girl should be left with such a lot. It had troubled her so much that, in weeks past, she had spent quite a lot of time trying to fix on a remedy for Sage’s dull, hopeless, and romance-less situation.

  But now—now Eugenia grinned impishly. For a possibility, an answer, had presented itself just that very morning by way of a telegram she received from her niece in Santa Fe. The idea had set her mind aflame—burning with mischief and pompous pride at having hatched such a brilliant scheme.

  Yes, she thought. It was time to address her niece’s request.

  “Ladies,” Eugenia announced, rising from her chair. “I’m out.”

  “Out?” Rose and Livie exclaimed simultaneously, as Eugenia laid her hand facedown on the table.

  “Ya can’t be out. We’re not finished,” Mary scolded.

  “I know. But I’ve somethin’ to do. I need to answer Bridie’s telegram,” Eugenia explained.

  “I’ll play your hand, Miss Eugenia,” Sage offered, slipping into Eugenia’s chair.

  “You do that, sweetie,” Eugenia said with a smile. “You do just that.”

  Chapter One

  Sage gently poured water from a bucket onto the dry ground at the base of the little rosebush.

  “There now,” she said. “Your roses should take to bloomin’ in just a few weeks, Ruthie.” Crouching down in front of the small tombstone, Sage reached out, letting her fingers tenderly trace the roughly engraved letters of little Ruth’s name. “I’m bettin’ they’ll be smellin’ like heaven itself this year.”

  She rose to her feet then, smiling at the tiny marker once more before stepping through the weathered picket gate and latching it securely behind her. “I’ll be back in a few days,” she said, more to the air than to anyone else—for in reality there was no one else anywhere near to hear her, and she preferred it.

  Exhaling a heavy sigh, Sage strolled a ways away from the tiny, lonely little gravesite, closed her eyes, and inhaled the fresh, sweet fragrance of the pastures. Oh, she knew some folks might not call these rather plain grazing fields pastures, but to Sage Willows they were the most beautiful and serene place on earth.

  Reaching back, she pulled the pins from her hair, letting its length fall down about her shoulders and back. The cool, soothing breeze played among the silken tresses. Sage smiled. There was nothing—nothing but the soft breeze around her—the faint trickle of the creek just over the hill—the quiet hum of soothing bug music in the grass.

  Inhaling deeply, Sage caught the scent of piñon trees—of dry soil and sagebrush. The fragrances of the pasture filled her senses with serenity, joy, and an odd feeling of freedom. This was Sage’s pasture—the one near where the creek ran—the one where Buck Smarthing’s cattle had once grazed—the one where little Ruth States had rested in heavenly peace for over forty years. How she loved the space—dreamed of it in moments of despair. She was thankful her father had kept his grazing lands, choosing to rent them to local ranchers when their family moved into town to run the boarding house. She was filled with gratitude that the pastures were now hers—that she could continue to visit little Ruth, tend to her solitary grave, and find rare moments of joy and serenity in the quiet expanse of the pastures.

  At last, Sage opened her eyes and began walking toward the creek bed where she had tied Drifter’s reins to a small piñon tree. The late spring rain was past due and the creek ran low, but Drifter seemed contented enough with one final drink from its refreshing water. Sage hooked the bucket handle over the saddle horn and mounted.

  “Creek’s a bit low, isn’t it, Drifter?” she said to the buckskin, leaning forward to stroke his jaw. “But you wait and see. The rain will come soon. Then you can get good and wet, and I can have a good cry.”

  Pausing to twist her hair into a bun once more, Sage clicked her tongue twice, nudging Drifter’s belly with her stirrups to urge him toward home. As melancholy as the moment left her, Sage couldn’t help but smile, wondering what in the world the ladies at the boarding house had been up to during her absence.

  Oh, how she loved the widows! All of them—even cranky old Mary. Sage often wondered what she would do without them. Not simply because the money for their board at Willows’s was her one source of financial means, but because they were her friends—her true, loving, and faithful friends. Ofttimes it felt to Sage as though she had four darling grandmothers to love and care for. And now—now that her youngest sister, Karoline, was also married—the ladies at Willows’s would be her only company. Gifts of heaven they were, and Sage was grateful for them.

  

  “Ya simply
cannot deal that way, Livie,” Mary was scolding as Sage entered the boarding house by way of the parlor back door.

  “I can so if I want to, Mary,” Livie argued. “It doesn’t matter how the cards are dealt.”

  “It does too!” Mary argued. “If ya go and deal ’em that way, they don’t get mixed up enough. Ya have to give one to me, one to Rose, one to Eugenia, and one to yerself. Then start it all over again. That’s how it goes, Livie, and ya know it! They don’t get mixed up proper if ya don’t deal ’em that way.” Reaching for the deck of cards, Mary tried to take them away from Livie. “Give ’em to me if ya ain’t gonna deal ’em right. I’ll do it.”

  But Livie pulled hard too, attempting to retain possession of the deck. “I’ll do it, Mary! It’s my deal, and I can do it whichever way I see fit!”

  “What’s the matter, ladies?” Sage asked, smiling at the scene before her. Her four friends sat around the parlor table—obviously engaged in a heated game of cards. As Rose sat, twisting a stray lock of hair around one finger, Eugenia read a telegram she was holding in her hand. Mary and Livie were ready to tear each other’s hair out over a difference of opinion as to how the cards should be dealt.

  “She ain’t dealin’ ’em proper, Sage!” Mary stated. “Ya know they don’t get mixed up good if ya don’t deal ’em right.”

  “I can deal them however I see fit! Can’t I, Sage?” Livie retorted. Sage shook her head. As usual each woman made a legitimate point.

  “Why not let her deal the cards the way she wants, Mary?” Sage suggested. “Maybe the lack of proper mixin’ up will turn out in your favor.”

  “She’s spoilt rotten, Sage. That’s all there is to it,” Mary grumbled. Still, she let go of the deck of cards and sneered at her friend when Livie stuck her tongue out and continued to deal.

  “They’ve been squabblin’ like children ever since you left, Sage,” Rose sighed. “It’s a plain miracle that we’ve managed to play even four hands.” Sage smiled, amused by Rose’s relaxed manner. She sat one arm draped over the back of her chair, lounging indecorously—legs crossed and ankles showing for all the world to see. Though an older widowed woman, the traits of the relaxed proprieties of the stage were still often apparent in Rose Applewhite’s mannerisms. Sage loved Rose’s free spirit—for it gave her cause to feel free and somewhat rebellious herself, if only by proxy.