“The next town is Burnet, Texas” Morgan yelled. “We take the Splitzgerber Stage there. The road is rougher than rub boards laid end to end.”
“Oh? I like stagecoaches. Not nearly as noisy as trains. I figured we’d have to go in by oxcart.”
Morgan laughed. “It can be arranged if you insist. I think you’ll find the ride to the end of the civilized world quite different from the smooth roads you travel in the east. This is Comanche country. Indians are thicker than pig bristles in a hair brush from here on in.”
“I read the papers,” Benjamin snapped, irritated. “Most are on reservations. Just a few renegades, I understand.” Morgan’s jibes were getting on his nerves. He decided to do some needling of his own. “Your lady seduced me in that romp in the tree house,” he sneered. “Her aim in life from the moment I took her to Larkspur was to arouse me. Ah, and how well Dayme knows how to arouse a man. This trip should be entertaining to say the least.”
Morgan’s anger was mounting as Benjamin continued. “This jerked up journey to nowhere could backfire, Morgan. The more I think about it, the more I think you have the wrong man. You’ve convicted me without a trial. Dayme flaunted herself like a strumpet. On that riverboat, she sang a dirty song, trying to excite me again. She did, I might add. Then she had the gall to tell the all male audience that she learned it in a brothel. She’s white trash, you know, your Dayme. She’s nothing like my cultured Molly. Nevertheless, old buddy, she will choose me. One way or the other, she will choose me. If all else fails, I’ll buy her affection. I can, you know.”
Morgan was inflamed. He sprang like a panther to the attack, his teeth bared. He clutched Benjamin’s shirt collar, ripping the ruffles and choking him. He held Benjamin’s head out the open boxcar door. “Don’t tempt me, you son-of-a-bitch!” The steep rocky gulch below and the desire to hurl the man off the train were almost overwhelming. Reason finally returned and Morgan released the grip. He shoved Benjamin across the boxcar to the other wall. “Don’t ever say that again!” he screamed.
Pale and coughing after almost losing his balance to certain death below, Benjamin muttered. “It wasn’t very sporting of me, old man. I’m sorry. Dayme is your wife…at the moment. But hell, Morgan, did you have to spoil my wedding? I would have seen that Dayme and her son wanted for nothing, had I known she was pregnant and there was even a possibility it might be mine.
“Why not,” Morgan grumbled. “You spoiled mine.” He tucked the valise under his head and pulled his hat down over his eyes. “Shut up. I’m going to sleep.”
Benjamin had to move to get in the shade. For a while, he watched the sleeping man and tried to figure him out. He cursed the cow manure on his shoe but had no pocketknife to scrape it off. Like he’d done many times before on the journey, he wiped at it with some loose straw. He knew that he smelled to high heaven, but the scent of the cattle car didn’t bother him as much as it did the first lap of the trip.
He wondered how he would handle the situation back home and how he could make it up to Molly and keep her happy at least until after the election. The chore will not be an easy one. Thank God, time is on my hands, he mused, chuckling to himself. What a turn-around Molly made when Thomas Warner and his millions slipped from her grasp. That wily, luscious creature turned abruptly to me. I think I can manage it. That little gold digger will come running when I’m ready. I’ll tell her that I need for her to charm more of the other Congressmen so I’ll have a few on my side when I get there. That way, perhaps we can have the wedding in Washington.
He laughed again, envisioning the pandemonium at the church after Morgan spirited him away. Knowing Molly and her pride, he mused, she told the wedding guests that it was her idea to cancel the wedding. I can just hear her, in that sweet, proper Bostonian accent… “Ladies and Gentlemen. I’m sorry. There will be no wedding today.” At this point, she lifted her head high and smiled. I’m certain there were no tears. “I’m just not ready to marry yet. I hope you understand. Poor Benjamin….” At this point, she probably dropped her eyes and daubed them with a dainty handkerchief. “He was simply devastated when I told him. The poor man cried. But I’m just not ready.” Yep, I’ll bet that’s what she told the guests. That’s my Molly.
Accustomed to smoking a pipe, Benjamin vowed to purchase one at the stagecoach inn in Burnet if he could talk Morgan into it. He fumbled with the tobacco sack Morgan had tossed to him earlier. Carefully, he sifted tobacco onto the paper, rolled it slowly, licked it and struck a match to light it. The smoke was too fat, and the tobacco spilled. He threw the paper away and proceeded to roll another.
Memories of Dayme engulfed him. Ah, the ecstasy in the tree house. She was so childlike, so eager and responsive, so innocent. I wouldn’t have ruined her virtue had I known. The way she came onto me in my bedroom. Dayme is a tease. She got a kick out of arousing me and then running away. My curiosity is aroused, Benjamin thought as the miles clicked off and Morgan slept. Naive little Dayme…set out to claim the world for the women. Untraditional, unconventional Dayme…she’s quite a gal. I’ve never had another woman quite like her. Of all the women I know, why does one look at her backside make my trousers fit too tight? He puffed studiously on the smoke for one last draw and tossed it out the open door.
If perchance, her son is mine, I’ll do the honorable thing. It seems highly doubtful. It happened only twice. I can’t have the boy in Washington until I can legally adopt him. The scandal would ruin me.
The countryside changed rapidly to rolling hills. The train passed a farmhouse. Benjamin wondered how on earth Morgan could sleep so peacefully on the hard deck floor with the clanging and chugging and whistle noises that echoed in his ears. He hadn’t had two hour’s sleep at a stretch since he left Boston.
It is flattering that after all these years that the woman still cares for me, Benjamin thought. Morgan said she does. Man, if this thing comes to light…a bastard son…my campaign will be down the drain. Surely, I can count on Martin to cover for me. Knowing his expertise, he’ll probably use my absence to further the cause.
Suddenly his eyes glistened with another possibility. Maybe Molly wouldn’t have to know. I think perhaps I know another way, at least until after the election, to have my cake and take a bite now and then. I can hide her away in Paris!
The train whistle caused Morgan to stir. He stretched and yawned.
“Where are we?” Benjamin queried.
“Coming into Burnet. Not too far to Mason. I have some business at the courthouse there.”
“Perhaps I’ll have time for a bath and can buy some more clothes.”
“Nah. Let the town folk wonder what kind of idiot I brought with me. All dressed up, you resemble royalty…King Bum.” Morgan laughed. “You must be real important on home ground, Ben, to have all those bigwigs at your wedding.”
Benjamin stiffened. He’d never become accustomed to chiding. “A simple telegram would have sufficed,” he said tersely. “You didn’t need a gun. Nothing could keep me away now that I know about the child. Hell, I’ll do the decent thing. I have some honor left.”
“Honor…an old lecher like you? Preying on innocent girls? Making promises you never intended to keep? Is that what you call honor?”
“You know damn well Dayme didn’t tell me,” Benjamin defended angrily. “If the tyke is mine, I damn sure don’t want you rearing him out here in the sticks in the backwoods of Texas. A fine father you must be, depriving your poverty-stricken family while you search for would-be treasure!”
Morgan shoved him toward the door again. “Go ahead,” Benjamin goaded, “The train is stopping anyway.”
It was a relief to finally disembark from the crowded stagecoach at the three-mile rest stop just east of Menard where Morgan had left his rig. The coach was loaded all the way from the red sands of Mason where a young army lieutenant based at Fort McKavett and his pretty, blonde bride joined them. A gunsmith rode on the seat with Morgan and Benjamin. There was little conversation and no co
mfort. The timid woman, wrapped up in the excitement of adding “Mrs.” to her name, whispered shyly to her husband, not wanting the others to hear.
A flood of unanswered questions crowded Benjamin’s mind. He found it difficult to envision the girl in this wild frontier setting. The prospect of fatherhood bothered him. A disturbed feeling gnawed at his insides the closer they came to the end of the journey. For four years, at least, he thought with a twinge of jealousy as he watched Morgan hitch the team, she’s slept with Morgan. How many more? She’s not the pure innocent I took to the tree house. A wave of pleasure swept over him, recalling that sunny April afternoon on Larkspur Plantation. His heart was confused. Yes, I’m still attracted to Dayme, but it’s Molly I need behind me in Washington. The little redhead makes a good bedmate though.
The hurt of losing the girl to Morgan was still there. He wondered if it would ever go away. I buried myself in business affairs, he thought in self-pity. Then Molly came back into my life, and fate sent me in another direction.
Benjamin sat sullenly silent, engulfed in his own thoughts, on the buckboard of Morgan’s wagon, not offering to help. His jaw set doggedly as he watched Morgan hitch the team and draw water from the well to fill two canteens. Anger erupted in his throat and words finally blurted out. “This is one bluff that will boomerang! You haven’t got a chance. I’ll teach you to Shanghai me on my wedding day!”
Morgan didn’t bother to reply. He hammered the cork into the last canteen with an open palm. There was something up his sleeve that he was counting on, the last ace in the deck. He draped one of the canteens around Benjamin’s neck. “Newcomers shouldn’t drink San Saba River water,” he explained somberly. “It takes a bit of getting used to unless you need a purgative, that is.”
“How far is the ranch?”
“Oh, I’d say twelve to fifteen miles, maybe more, considering the crooks and turns in the lane.” He cut across the river instead of taking the main road into the village.
“Hey! Aren’t we going into town? I’d hoped to bathe and shave and buy some clean clothes. I must….”
Morgan snickered. He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But I must smell awful.”
“A little dirt and cow dung won’t hurt you. Hell, I come home lots of times a little smelly. Dayme doesn’t pay any attention to it. She just heats me some bath water. It doesn’t keep her from giving me a hug and a great big kiss. You worry too much about your looks, Ben. Didn’t you know?” Morgan said with sarcasm. “You’re Dayme’s dream man. Why, with that curly black beard to match that dark wavy hair…and my, my…those pretty blue eyes…. How could she resist you? You’re dressed for the occasion right down to a tuxedo.
The matched team of horses splashed across the shallow shoals and up the bank through the pecan bottom. One of the wagon wheels passed over a bump in the seldom-used lane causing Benjamin to lurch and almost fall backward. He held onto the backless seat with one hand when Morgan cracked the whip to hurry the horses onward.
This was Benjamin’s first visit to the heart of Texas. He’d traveled the lower route to coastal cities—Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi and Brownsville. He’d been through Texas by train several times on his way to California, and twice he visited in San Antonio. As the shadows fell when the red sun sank behind a distant hill, he felt more and more apprehensive. He scanned oak thickets up ahead for Indians. It was an uncomfortable ride, being unarmed.
It was almost twilight when Morgan drew up on the reins in a flower-covered meadow. He proceeded to gather a bouquet of wildflowers that he thrust into Benjamin’s hand as soon as the man finished buttoning his trousers. “Can’t go callin’ on a lady without flowers, now can you?” His voice was matter-of-fact.
They continued on in silence. Each man absorbed in his own thoughts. Finally, they arrived at the wooden gate of the T-Cross Ranch where Morgan stopped the team again. “Hand me my luggage,” he commanded.
“I can’t see in the dark,” Benjamin replied sulkily, annoyed at being ordered around. “I am accustomed to giving orders not taking them.”
“Well,” Morgan drawled. “I’m not going to untie the lantern. You can feel can’t you? It’s the only valise in the wagon. Any fool could find it.” Morgan felt emotionally drained as he dug in the bag for the box. It was a difficult decision forcing Benjamin out here in a last ditch effort to save his marriage. It was a desperate move, he knew. He was tired, physically and mentally tired. I have no choice, he thought. I must play out the hand.
“What’s in the box?”
“Chocolates. You can’t go courting without bon-bons.” He shoved the melting candy into the man’s lap.
Murdock’s sharp barks alerted Lady Luck, the part-wolf shepherd who was heavy with puppies. Lady joined Murdock in a steady stream of rapid barks that awakened Dayme with a start. She leaped from bed and ran to the window to peer into the darkness. There was a waning moon in a starry sky. At first, she saw only the swaying of the trees in the wind. Then suddenly, she saw it round the bend, a lantern bouncing along the lane.
“Morgan!” She squealed in delight. “Thank God! I thought he had left me.” Down on her knees at the window, she watched the jiggling light approach the big red barn. She was puzzled though when the wagon continued on toward the ranch house. Strange? Morgan usually stops at the barn to unhitch the team, she thought, disappointed. It must not be Morgan. Who…?
Hurriedly, she lit the kerosene lamp and slipped on a faded bathrobe. She glanced at her dim reflection in the mirror. There wasn’t time to remove the rag curls.
Morgan stopped the wagon alongside the picket gate. “Get out, Ben,” he said dryly. “This is the end of the line. May the best man win.”
Benjamin stretched his long legs over the side of the wagon. “Aren’t you coming with me?”
“No.”
“You can’t do this to me!”
“I can and I have.”
Benjamin felt nervously foolish, not knowing what to do, what to say. All the words he rehearsed in his mind suddenly left him. “How will I explain why I…after all this time? Dressed like this…dirty, stinking, at this hour? What can I say to her, Morgan?”
“How the hell should I know,” Morgan muttered bitterly. He whirled the horses back down the lane toward town. Solitude and darkness hid the tears that begged to spill from his aching heart. “I forced him out here, but I can’t force him to love you, Dayme,” he said out loud. “Honey, I can’t share you with another man any longer. You choose, kitten. Oh, how I hope you’ll choose me and get Ben Farrington out of your over-crowded heart.” He cracked the whip again and reached under the buckboard for a bottle of whiskey and drank deeply. “I can’t go back to the cabin alone. Not tonight. I can’t bear to be alone. If ever a man needed solace….” He knocked on Ruby Blackmon’s door.
Chapter 34
Startled by the noise of the cracking whip, wagon wheels and horses hooves crunching in the rocky lane, Dayme dashed back to the window again. A tall stranger was opening the yard gate. “It isn’t Morgan,” she whispered. “Who on earth…?” Seeing the top hat, she panicked. “My God! He must be the undertaker! No! No, please…not Morgan!” Reason returned when she remembered there was no fancy dressed mortician in the village. Hurriedly, she carried the kerosene lamp into the parlor and took down the rifle from the rack above the fireplace.
The dogs’ barks changed to low, snarling growls as they kept the stranger at bay, away from the house. Morgan had trained the animals well. They barked only at drifters, gypsies, Indians or at people they didn’t know. With trembling hands, she checked the rifle, making certain it was loaded.
When Benjamin tried to get past them, the snarling animals charged, tearing his clothing. He kicked at Murdock and slammed the box of chocolates down on Lady Luck’s head, trying to keep the part-wolf shepherds from tearing off a leg.
Dayme eased the door open, leveling the gun. She opened her mouth to call out to the man who was causing
the commotion, but a voice from the other side of the rosebush spoke for her. “Raise your hands slow-like, Feller,” Ace Hopkins drawled, moving into view. He had a shotgun in his hands.
“Don’t shoot, Mister!” Benjamin shouted. “I’m Benjamin Farrington, a friend of Morgan and Dayme.” It was then he saw the gun in Dayme’s hands. “Dayme for heaven’s sake! It’s me! Benjamin! Call off these beasts before I’m torn to pieces.”
She lowered the rifle butt to the floor in an unbelieving daze, stunned and trembling. “Down Murdock! Down. Lady! Stay!” she ordered. She could say nothing to this man from the past. She could only stare with wide-eyed surprise. “It’s all right, Ace,” she finally murmured. “I know this man.”
“I knew it wasn’t Morgan when the wagon headed back to town,” Hopkins replied. “Then the dogs….”
“So did I,” Dayme replied in an incredulous voice, her eyes never leaving Benjamin. “He’s a friend from Mississippi. Go back to bed.”
Without saying a word to him, she held out her hand beckoning him to come in. When his hand touched hers, she felt the same old tingle, the sensation of a thousand fireflies streaking through her arm. Quickly, she pulled her hand away. Her long lashes blinked tears. “You finally came,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” Benjamin shrugged and handed Dayme the broken box of chocolates and the wilted wildflowers. “They say the Lord works in strange and mysterious ways, his wonders to perform,” he told her in a resigned, dead tone.
The woman took the candy and flowers like a sleepwalker. She smiled dreamily and smelled the mixed bouquet. Her mood changed abruptly when Benjamin’s greeting sunk in. Her eyebrows knitted, and she slung the battered box of melted chocolates across the room and whipped Benjamin across the face with the flowers, strewing them all over the floor. She was consumed with fury. “He sure as hell does!” she cried, clutching the faded bathrobe. “How dare you!” she shrieked. “How dare you sneak in out here in the middle of the night looking like a fool in that silly get-up with a canteen draped around your neck and smelling like a buffalo skinner, and catch me looking like a country frump! Why…?” She slapped him hard.
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