Montana Rose

by Mary Connealy

  “Should you feed her first?” Red asked.

  Cassie looked up at him when he asked. He could see he’d startled her. Then, inexplicably, she was crying. Through her tears she said, “I’m the worst mother who ever lived!”

  “I’m sorry, Cass. I didn’t mean...” He knew she couldn’t hear him over her tears, so he quit talking. Her body was battered with the force of her sobs. Red hugged her awkwardly as she lay on her back with the baby still between them in his arms.

  The crying eased a bit, and he said, “You don’t have to feed her yet if you don’t want to.”

  She snarled at him so savagely he was reminded of a mountain lion he’d come face-to-face with his first year in Montana. “I will, too, feed her. And I’ll do it right now!”

  The baby jumped wildly when Cassie yelled. She still lay half on Cassie’s chest, half in Red’s arms. Both arms and legs flew out, her whole, tiny body jerked, and she howled as if someone had stuck her with a pin.

  “I scared her.” Cassie started crying all the harder.

  ***

  Wade heard the baby cry.

  The child had been born. Something cracked into pieces in his heart to know that the little one had come. Wade didn’t know much about birthing a child, but he knew it was a long, hard business for a woman, and he hadn’t been there to help or protect his fragile china doll.

  He’d crept up to the cabin in the vicious weather early this morning when Red didn’t emerge to do his usual chores. He had to know what was going on inside.

  He might get caught, coming this close in the daytime, but if he was careful, the storm would cover his tracks and he could have a moment to be close to the china doll.

  He crouched by the door to the soddy and ached from the awful cold.

  He’d traveled into the high country to keep Red from discovering him. He rarely came down close enough to even spy on his china doll from the high hills. But yesterday the storm had given him enough cover to risk getting close enough to where his spyglass worked. And he’d seen no sign of anyone all afternoon and evening yesterday, nor anyone this morning. With the security of the storm to shield him, and starving for a tiny bit of his woman, he’d crept down close.

  The only shelter Wade found big enough for himself and his horse was a miserable cave that seemed to catch the wind. The gale whipped around inside and moaned until Wade heard voices in the howling current. Sometimes his father’s, sometimes the china doll crying for help, sometimes ... maybe ... God’s.

  Wade had taken money from his account in Divide before he’d laid the false trail out of town, but he’d spent almost none of it. He could afford to live better, but he’d have to go to town to spend it. There was warm food and light at his father’s ranch. But Wade refused to take another beating in exchange for shelter.

  He listened to that baby cry and felt himself transported to another time, another baby born in a lowly place. He remembered the prayers and lessons of his mother and wondered how he’d been brought so low as to crouch in this cold, hurting all the way to his soul for a woman who’d been stolen from him.

  He sank to the ground, his head bowed, and he tried to clear the traces of whiskey and hate from his thoughts. Behind that he found fear and hopelessness and terrible, aching loneliness. It was too much to bear, and he pulled his bottle from the pocket of his coat to drown the pain.

  One thing did become clear. He loved that new baby as much as he loved his china doll, and he couldn’t take them away in this cold. He hated to do it, but there was no way now to rescue them until the cold eased.

  The strange, tinny crying stopped, and all that was left was the wind, biting into Wade’s coat, laughing in his ear, telling him he’d sunk as low as a man could sink.

  Thinking of that badger hole of a cave he slept in, Wade tried to figure out how that was any better than taking his father’s fist. His father would laugh to know Wade had been reduced to such lowly straits.

  He couldn’t be close enough to protect his china doll.

  He couldn’t work up the guts to kill Red Dawson.

  He was worthless.

  A poor excuse for a man.

  Finally, in desperation, he lurched to his feet and staggered into the woods and up the treacherous slope to where he’d concealed his horse. He’d leave.

  His horse seemed eager when Wade swung up onto his back.

  “We’re gonna find a warm place for a couple of months, boy. But then we’ll be back. We’ll get the china doll and hightail it to Denver. Live there till the winter weather breaks.”

  The horse snorted and shook his head, the metal in his bridle clinking. White breath whooshed from the impatient animal.

  Wade clapped the horse on the neck. He’d taught the bay to lie down in the cave, and Wade had learned to use the big animal’s body for warmth. It had been awhile since Wade had met anyone whom he cared for more than this big, gentle horse.

  How had Red managed to turn that cave he lived in into a place so welcoming?

  Wade rode his horse down the mountain, far from Red’s cave. While he rode, Wade planned. He’d go somewhere and find his backbone. He’d catch a man drunk and he’d learn how to kill.

  The thought made him shudder, and Wade believed he heard the soft whisper of his mother’s voice, full of gentleness and love. Or maybe it was someone else. Someone who might be near, watching, caring. Wade’s mother had taught him about God, but Wade’s father had taught him it was foolish to put hope in some fancy.

  Wade drank deeply to silence that voice and the pain that came with hearing it. The whiskey separated him from the hurt inside and gave him liquid courage. He’d go to Denver and face down a man who wasn’t a danger to him. Once he won a shootout, pulled that trigger for the first time, the next killing would be easier.

  The wild air howled at him that he was a coward and a failure.

  A poor excuse for a man.

  CHAPTER 25

  Cassie sobbed as she fumbled with the tiny buttons that ran in a row down the front of her nightgown most of the way to her waist.

  Red caught both of her hands in one of his. “Stop, Cassie. Don’t cry. Don’t be upset. Please, I didn’t mean to make you cry, Cass honey. Please.”

  Red’s crooning comfort took awhile to penetrate the maelstrom raging out of her. He prayed silently for patience, afraid praying aloud would make her cry again. Then he said softly, “You’re just tired. You didn’t hurt the baby. You’re fine. The baby’s fine.”

  Slowly the latest outburst of tears eased, and Red, thinking feeding the baby was what had started all of this, propped a folded blanket behind Cassie’s shoulders and adjusted it until she was nearly sitting upright. He’d shared such total intimacy with Cassie today that he hoped she wouldn’t demand modesty between them. But Cassie wasn’t exactly reasonable right now. He hesitated for a split second before he slipped the buttons of her gown free and pushed the fabric aside. Then he laid the still-uncovered baby against Cassie’s bare skin until the little girl’s face pressed against Cassie’s breast.

  Cassie didn’t protest, but she was still so upset, he wasn’t sure her acceptance of his touch meant anything.

  He moved Cassie’s arms until she held the baby in her own arms. The first time she’d completely supported their little girl. The baby was cuddled securely against her. With a move so sure it was startling, the baby turned its head toward the warmth, latched on, and began nursing vigorously. Cassie jumped and Red noticed with relief she had quit crying.

  “Look at the little sweetheart go,” Red said with awe. “She knows exactly what to do.”

  Cassie nodded, but she didn’t take her eyes off her baby girl. “She knows how to feed herself. It’s impossible. And she knew how to grab your finger.”

  Red watched as, with aching care, Cassie touched her baby’s hand, and the petite hand grabbed hold just as it had with Red. Cassie started crying again.

  Red groaned softly, then kissed Cassie’s tear-streaked cheeks and hel
d her face cradled in his hands. He lifted Cassie’s hand with the baby still clinging to her index finger and kissed both hands together.

  Red murmured a prayer against their interwoven fingers. Red asked God to make him good enough to be a father and husband. He asked for patience and wisdom and unshakable faith, and he added silently a request for God to make Cassie stop crying because it was breaking his heart. He also thanked God Seth had warned him about the emotional upheaval a woman goes through during and after the birth of a baby.

  Cassie spent the next hour focused totally on her perfect little girl while Red straightened the room, and, lifting Cassie and the baby from one side of the bed to the other, put on clean sheets.

  Red brought in warm water and a soft cloth and gave the baby a bath as it lay in Cassie’s warm arms. Cassie protested that the room was too cold, but Red told her to keep the baby close to her and she’d stay warm enough. Red carefully exposed one small part of the baby at a time, cleaned it gently, and then covered her again. He even bathed the baby’s head while she was still nursing and fumbled around until he’d put on his first diaper.

  It was Red’s idea to switch the baby to the other breast. He said it was so he could more easily wash her other side, but Cassie said something about feeding her baby on only one side and not thinking to change to the other, and she started crying again.

  Red kept up a sweet, meaningless one-sided conversation as he saw to it that Cassie was adequately bathed. She squirmed with embarrassment, but considering the details of birthing a baby, she allowed it. Red even scooted her forward a bit and slid in behind her, unbraiding her hair and combing it. He spent long minutes coaxing the snarls out, intent on sparing her one more instant of pain.

  When it was finally a smooth, silken mass in his hands, he tried to braid it, but he made a botched job of it, so he draped it over Cassie’s shoulder and said, “I’ll hold the little tyke. You braid.” Cassie’s hair hung down until it was a curtain around the feasting baby. Red circled his arms around Cassie and held the baby to nurse while she did her hair with trembling hands.

  Finally, the room was neat. The baby and Cassie were tidy and tucked in warm. The baby fell asleep in the midst of her energetic suckling.

  Red eased the baby out of Cassie’s grasp, smiling at her reluctance to let go. He had pulled the cradle up to the side of the bed, but before he could lay her down, Cassie said, “Muriel said to hold her against your shoulder and burp her before you lay her down.”

  Red shifted the baby around, carefully asking just how to do it. The babe slept limply against his shoulder as he patted her back, and finally she burped to suit Cassie. Then Red laid the baby on her stomach in the crib. The baby curled her knees under her belly until her bottom stuck up in the air. Red covered her with Cassie’s thickly knitted coverlet. Cassie groaned as she rolled onto her side to stare at the baby as it slept.

  Red sat on the bed beside her. He rested one hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right, Cass honey?”

  Cassie glanced at him. “I’m fine, Red. Wonderful. Just tired. Can you believe how beautiful she is?”

  The two of them looked at the little miracle that had been added to their lives that day. Red reached through the wooden slats to rub the back of a fist that was curled up near the baby’s face. “What are we going to name her?”

  Cassie seemed sure about one thing. “I want her name to be Dawson. We haven’t talked about it, and I suppose she could be named Griffin, but I want her to be ours, Red. Both of ours. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Red had thought about it, and he wanted the babe to carry his name so badly that he hurt. But he thought Cassie would want to give this honor to Griff. Now, at her simple request, he felt tears burn in the back of his eyes. “I would be proud for her to carry my name, and it would be good for her to share the name we have.”

  He looked away from the baby, and the two of them nodded, in complete accord. “What about a first name? Do you want her called for your ma? Or if there was someone in Griff ’s family who—”

  Cassie interrupted him. “I’ve pictured this baby being a girl from the first. Of course I couldn’t really know, but it was just a fancy that took me. I’ve imagined a girl and I’ve always thought of her as part of these mountains. This new land. I want her to have a name as strong as the land. I want her to be strong, Red. Stronger than I am.”

  Red looked at his little daughter, enchanted by the little rosebud mouth that even now suckled as if she dreamed of nourishment.

  He smiled at Cassie. “It’s hard to see her, so delicate and pretty, and think of a strong name for her.”

  “I’ve heard Susannah means ‘courage.’ My mother told me about an ancient story where Susannah was a woman who defended herself courageously. I’d like a daughter who had courage, Red.”

  “Susannah is beautiful. We’ll call her Susannah Cassandra Dawson,” Red said firmly.

  “Not Cassandra,” Cassie protested. “The poor thing will have a whole alphabet to learn with a name that long.”

  But Red thought he saw a pink tinge in her cheeks that looked like pleasure, and he brushed aside her objection. “You get Susannah. I should get to pick the middle name.”

  “You get Dawson,” Cassie said pertly.

  “I think this little one is goin’ to be as beautiful as her mama, which doesn’t seem possible. She’s goin’ to be smart as a whip, so she can learn all the letters there are with no trouble, and she’ll be as sweet as my Cass honey ever can be. I’d like her to share your name.”

  “Red,” Cassie breathed his name on a sigh, “I’m not sweet.”

  Tears began to trickle from Cassie’s eyes. She was lying on her side with both hands tucked under her head, watching the baby, so tears pooled in the corner of her right eye and streaked out of the corner of her left eye to drip on the bed.

  Red wanted to sigh, but he contained it because he didn’t want to sound impatient. He said, “Cassie, you’re about the sweetest li’l thing I’ve ever seen. I tell you all the time to holler at me and call me a polecat, but you just don’t have an ounce of mean in you anywhere.”

  “Oh yes, I do, Red. I ... I don’t think it’s fair of you to go on thinking I’m a nice person when I’m not. I have so much anger churning around inside me sometimes that, even if I don’t say so out loud, I know God judges me for a sinner. The things I want to say sometimes...” Cassie shook her head and swiped at her tears. “The stupid, childish tantrums I want to throw. No, I think we can do better than to hang my name on the innocent baby.”

  Red thoughtfully rubbed the side of his jaw where Cassie had given him a stiff right cross during one labor pain. She’d have nailed him several times if he hadn’t gotten on to ducking. He’d bet his whole ranch she didn’t remember doing it, and he had a good idea about exactly what boiled inside her, because he thought he’d heard every word of it the last twenty hours while she delivered the baby. “If you think you’re confessing a sin to me, you’re wrong. I couldn’t be happier to hear you’ve got strong feelings about things. I’ve told you before I want to know what you’re thinking.”

  “No, you don’t.” She shook her head frantically. “Trust me, Red. You wouldn’t like the person I am inside.”

  She was so tired that Red felt guilty about talking with her about this right now. But maybe, while she was so exhausted she barely knew what she was saying and so twisted up inside with her confession, she’d be more open than ever before. Red decided he had to try. “Didn’t Griff like the person you were inside?”

  “Oh, no. Nobody would,” Cassie said vehemently.

  “And did he ... hurt you when he was displeased with you?”

  “Only when I was bad.”

  Red had to control himself from flinching at the calm acceptance in her tone. How could he make her understand that no man had the right to hurt a woman, especially when she claimed all the fault for herself?

  Cassie continued, “He had to teach me how to be a woman. I was
such a child when he married me, not near good enough to be his wife.”

  “Griff ’s way isn’t my way. I believe it’s wrong to hurt another human being. I’d never hit you. I’d never treat you like I had to teach you to be good enough for me.”

  “I want you to.” Cassie looked away from Susannah and blinked guilty eyes at Red. “You’re already teaching me so many things. I’m not fit, not yet, to be your wife, but I’m trying hard to learn about the cattle and the hogs and Buck. There’s so much I have to learn.”

  Red did teach her all the time. How was that different from Griff? He knew it was, but how did he explain the difference? Then he had an inspiration. “What about all you teach me, Cassie? You know all sorts of things I don’t know. That’s what makes a marriage. You knew things about having a baby I didn’t, and you run the house so much better than I ever did. And you’re educated. You read and write.”

  Red brushed a wispy strand of dark hair off Cassie’s forehead. “And you’re kind. Griff was never kind. Did Griff ever ask you to teach him how to treat people with kindness and respect? He should have, because he was terrible at that, and you are so good at it. All the ladies in town love you, and all the men would die for you. Griff never inspired anyone the way you do. You could have taught him a lot.”

  “Me teach Griff?” Cassie asked in a bemused voice. “But he knew everything already.”

  Red reached both hands down to Cassie and gently turned her onto her back.

  She looked up at him curiously.

  “He didn’t know that it was a sin to hit you. He liked the part of the Bible that said a wife should submit to her husband, but he didn’t know about the next verse that said a man should care for his wife and love her as Christ loved the church. We talked about this at a Sunday service once. You know how Jesus treated people, don’t you? We’ve been reading the Bible together long enough. He was always kind. He always acted out of love. In the end He died. He sacrificed His own life as a way to save your soul, Cass. Yours and mine. Jesus would have never looked favorably on a man hitting his wife. He’d have told Griff that the way he treated you was a powerful sin.”