by Holly Bush
Eleanor raised her brows. “Someone must be the decision maker. We cannot flounder when decisions must be made quickly concerning the herd. I would fully expect you to listen to your brother and sister and include them in all pertinent discussions, but the final decision must be made by you, and your brother and sister must follow your decisions. It’s the way of leadership.”
“I don’t understand the horse-breeding business, Adam,” Olivia said. “You do. You learned from Daddy and have an instinct for it.”
“But Paradise is no longer just horses, as you know. We’ve invested in a company that’s producing sewing machines for home use called the Sewing Machine Combination. It’s been profitable, and we may want to consider expanding our investment. Olivia has been researching a very young gentleman named Thomas Edison, brilliant we are told and making great strides in telegraphy I don’t understand it all but am not blind to the opportunities it could present,” Eleanor said. “There will be roles for Matthew and Olivia to play in those areas if they wish and perhaps a controlling interest in a separate enterprise that our family would own or invest in.”
Matt listened as his mother and Adam and Olivia continued to discuss matters he’d never given any consideration. He’d been off in the army or meandering around the countryside rather than facing responsibilities. What a fool he’d been! And how could he even begin to consider any of the ramifications of his life that this business structure implied when nothing was settled with Annie? He’d been at Paradise almost three full weeks, and he’d not stopped thinking of her; however, he was beginning to drag himself out of the mental fog he’d been in. He was going to have to pick a path and take a chance, he supposed. But how could he do it without her?
Eleanor closed her notes a short time later. “We will continue all of these discussions in two months when we meet like this again.”
“I am going to bed,” Olivia said. “I’m exhausted and going into town tomorrow.”
The door closed behind her, and Adam carried the writing desk to its proper place. “Anyone care for a cordial?” he asked.
“I’ll have a small glass of wine,” Eleanor said.
“I have asked you if you’d care for something for longer than I can remember and you’ve always said no,” Adam said as he poured.
“I’ve been worried about this meeting. I don’t want to cause trouble where there is none, but . . .” she began.
“I have to talk to Annie. I can’t think about all that was said tonight in any rational way without speaking to her first.”
Eleanor’s mouth was still open, as if anticipating finishing her sentence, and Adam stopped midstride on his way to be seated. He continued slowly and sat down.
“Annie?” he said.
“Good morning, Ezra,” Annie said as she stepped into the butcher shop.
“Annie! Dear Lord! What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to buy a chicken.” She smiled.
“You’ve got to get home. I’ll take you through the alleys until we get to the edge of town.” Dinson pulled his bloody apron over his head. “Papa? I’m stepping out for a moment.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” she said with an anxious laugh. “I’m not sneaking out of town, Ezra. I live here. I’ve got shopping to do. Do you have a chicken to sell me?”
Dinson pulled the apron back over his head and leaned over the counter. “You know Gilly’s gone, don’t you?”
“I do.” She stared at him.
“And doesn’t that give you pause? Doesn’t it make you wonder how much trouble will be coming to this town if Thurman decides to be bolder than he already has?”
“I won’t be a prisoner. I’ve done it for the last two years, and I’m just done with it. I can’t change the past but I’ll be damned if I’m forced to relive it day after day after day.”
“You shouldn’t have to, and what happened to your brother should never have happened, but it did. We best leave things quiet, I think,” he said.
“Maybe that’s exactly what Gilly did, Ezra. Maybe she just quietly left.”
The butcher smiled sadly and leaned forward to whisper to her. “Maybe it is, Annie. Maybe that’s all it is, but I’ve never believed in coincidences. I find it hard to believe that in one day, Gilly was beaten so badly she nearly died, Jeremiah Thurman disappeared after telling his father he was going hunting near the North River—near your property—and Madeline found you covered in blood, a knife still in your hand when she came to check on you.”
“I was slaughtering a pig.”
“We can’t help you, Annie. We can’t protect you if you won’t listen to us.”
“I’ll take care of myself, until I can’t, Ezra. I appreciate you being concerned, but I’ve got to live my life.” She leaned over the counter. “And I’ll never, ever, ever ‘leave quietly’ because of the fact that townsfolk hung my brother in my own barn. I’ll never forget it, and I’m determined that they don’t forget it, either. Do you have a chicken you want to sell me or not?”
Dinson stalked out the back door and came in carrying a chicken wrapped in newsprint. “He’s fresh. Just dressed. Be careful, Annie,” he said and walked away from her.
Matt left the room abruptly after realizing he’d interrupted his mother and spoken aloud. Maybe he wasn’t sane after all, he thought to himself as he left the house and headed to the woods. The dark of the tall, thick trees was cool and calmed his racing heart. He found the stone slab near the old springhouse and sat down to think. There was no fooling himself. He had spoken aloud and spoken foolish words as well. I have to talk to Annie. I can’t think about all that was said tonight in any rational way without speaking to her first. He’d been feeling as if his life would settle down now that the war, the drifting, the river, and, perhaps, his acceptance that some of his angst had been magnified in his youth were all mostly behind him.
But the truth was he couldn’t move ahead. He couldn’t choose a path within his family or outside of it for a future without her. She was his woman, he believed, his near death bringing the chance meeting of two souls meant to be together for all time. He couldn’t say he loved her, but perhaps he did. It did make him recall a time when he and Adam had been in the barn loft, when Daddy had followed a woman and a man to their wagon from the house. He could hear his father’s voice as if he were speaking at this moment.
“I told you before, and I’ll tell you again. Eleanor Gentry is the soul of propriety, and kindness, and charity. I am not, but she is mine to care for and cherish. Don’t ever insult her, don’t ever speak to her again, for that matter. And if you do, I’ll let you know now that I would kill you with my bare hands and hang by the neck ’til dead before allowing her to be hurt or her name sullied, especially by the likes of the two of you. Get off this property and don’t ever come back.”
Daddy had loved Mother with every bit of himself and the anger and righteousness of his voice was that testimony. She was his to care for and cherish. But Mother had allowed it, loving her husband right back. What would Annie say if he told her she was his to care for and cherish? Even though he’d drifted away from what he’d been taught at Paradise, he was still a child of Eleanor and Beau Gentry, and was born confident. Why was he so terrified of what she would say?
He sat up when he heard rustling on the forest floor and his brother calling his name.
“You over at the springhouse?”
“Yeah.”
“Mother would like you to come back inside.”
“It’s late. Why don’t we all go to bed?”
“Brother, if you think Mother is going to let you go to bed after what you said, you have been gone too long.”
Chapter 10
“I’ll be going up to bed,” Adam said at the foot of the staircase after following Matt inside.
“You better hear, too. I’m not saying it twice.”
Adam sat down in the main room, and Matt walked to the fireplace and turned to face his mother. She was staring at
him in the way that all mothers could, he imagined, making him feel like the lowliest scum that had ever walked the earth.
“Would you care to tell us who Annie is, Matthew?” she asked.
“I’m sure Ben Littleship told you who she was, Mother.”
“I’m not speaking to Ben right now, though, am I?”
“Annie found us that day. She saw Chester and came to see why a saddled horse had wandered onto her property and found us. I don’t know how she did it, but she hooked a cart to Chester and somehow dragged us into it. She took us back to her cabin and put Ben in her bed and me on a pallet in front of the fire. I had a pretty nasty bump on my head didn’t wake up for fourteen days.”
“Fourteen days? You were out for two weeks?” Adam asked.
Matt nodded. “I was, and Ben didn’t wake up for a good bit longer after that. I wasn’t sure he’d ever wake up.”
“You were unconscious for two weeks, Matthew?” his mother repeated.
“I was. I think I hit my head when Chester was dragging us out of the river. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up on the floor of Annie’s cabin.”
“How did she keep you alive?”
“She had a healer named Gilly come set Ben’s leg. I’m glad we both slept through that. Annie spooned broth and water in our mouths and moved Ben’s arms and legs around like Gilly told her to. That’s what she told me anyway, and I watched her do as much with Ben, although I took care of Ben for a while after I’d woken up. I was too weak to do much else, and Annie had her pigs and her property and Chester to look after.”
“She saved your lives,” Adam said.
“She did. We would have frozen to death if we hadn’t died from our injuries. We were lucky we were near her cabin.”
“What was she like?” Adam asked. “Young, old? Is her farm prosperous?”
His mother stared at him, and he looked away to Adam when he replied. “Close to my age, I’d say. Her property is not really a farm, although she keeps a couple of hogs that will be going to market and she has a large garden.”
“What was it like when you woke up?” His brother again.
“I had no idea where I was and didn’t immediately remember the river. The first day I was awake I was determined to get up but could only take a step or two before I sat down, exhausted. I’d lost about forty pounds, mostly muscle, I think, because I was weak as a new foal.”
“Did she live there alone?” Adam probed. “Even if it’s not a working farm, there still must be quite a bit of work for a single woman.”
“She does live alone.”
“It wasn’t a family property?” his mother asked.
“Yes, it was,” he replied.
“We owe her an enormous debt of gratitude,” she said.
“We do,” Matt whispered and walked to the long window to stare sightlessly at the cobbled walkway. He had a sick feeling rising over him then, apprehension and worry, followed by the vision of Annie standing in the rain. Did townsfolk know he and Ben were no longer there? Had she done something foolish? And what of her story she had never told him? He knew there was more to it. He knew it.
“What is it, Matthew?”
“Her father took issue with a family of some power in her town, Bridgewater, the Thurmans. Her mother had died in fifty-five giving birth to her brother, Teddy. She said her father was never right after that and that she had raised Teddy virtually alone. About five years ago, her father went to see the Thurmans, who acted as the conscription agents for a Confederate encampment, to complain that they were taking too much from his farm. While he was there he saw one of them beating a Negro and made a fuss about it. They shot him on the street and killed him.”
Adam blew out a breath and sat back in his chair. His mother stared at him grimly.
“Leaving Annie alone to continue raising a brother and now care for a property as well,” she said. “Why isn’t the boy there helping his sister? Why is she alone?”
“She told me Teddy was not right. That even at twelve years old he was still like a child. But he is not there anyway.”
“He’s gone out on his own? How old is he now?” Adam asked.
Matt looked up at his brother. “He’s dead. The Thurmans came looking to hurt Annie, and he tried to defend her and they hung him by the neck from the barn rafters.”
“Dear God,” Adam said.
“Was Annie hurt?” his mother asked after a few quiet minutes.
“They’d stripped her naked and intended to, but after the boy was killed their original intent died away. Perhaps it satisfied their urges.”
Adam swore and apologized to his mother, who was looking steadily at Matt without appearing to have heard any of Adam’s words. She was thin-lipped and would most certainly not stop with her questions until she had every answer.
“I offered to bring her here several times but she would have no part of it.”
“Why ever not?” Adam asked. “What was there to tie her there?”
“She didn’t think you would be appreciative of her and might think she was angling for money or maybe something else. There’s more to her story yet, although she wouldn’t tell me the whole of it. One of the Thurman sons went missing, and I can’t shed the feeling that Annie was part of it somehow. She scares easily, doesn’t go to town unless it’s necessary, and relies on a neighbor to get her supplies and take her animals to market. No one in the town will tell me anything, either. I asked several storekeepers and they all acted as if they’d not even heard me speak her name, other than the butcher, who scolded me for speaking of her and maybe bringing her trouble.”
The three of them sat silently, Adam shaking his head and tossing back his second whiskey of the evening. His mother was still staring at him, sitting straight in her seat, her back not touching the chair, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Matt sat down on the couch, waiting for more questions.
“Am I to understand, Matthew, that the woman, unmarried woman and living on her own in the backwoods, who rescued you and Ben, nursed you, fed you, and cared for you for weeks, even months, you have left behind?”
“She was unwilling—”
“I don’t care about unwilling,” his mother said, her voice rising. “You have left a young woman you owe your life to, who has already been abused, at the mercy of cruel powerful men? Is that what you are saying?”
“I-I . . .”
“Where did you stay once you were well and tending Ben? Please do not say you stayed in her cabin. Women’s reputations are fragile things even in the wilderness, it is unfair, but still true.”
“As soon as I was able, I slept in the barn loft.” As he said it, he thought of Annie standing before him, naked and beautiful beyond belief, of touching her and kissing her and spreading her legs. He looked at his mother and couldn’t stop the color rising in his face. He looked away quickly and licked his lips.
“It’s possible Annie is carrying my child.”
“Jesus and Mother Mary,” Adam said and smacked his palm on his forehead.
“Need I remind you that your father killed four men single-handedly to save me from a life of slavery? He did not do so in order to marry me, even though he asked me very shortly after. He saved me because it was the right and only thing to do when faced with a person being treated violently. He also saved my virtue.”
“You needn’t remind me of anything, Mother,” Matt said, his voice rising as he stood. “I’ve heard the story many times. But the lessons of those stories surely were tested on the battlefield and after. The cruelty I’ve seen, the cruelty I didn’t stop!” he shouted. “How can I call myself moral or able to identify right and wrong when I made decisions day in and day out that were not moral. That were heinous!”
“It was war,” Adam said softly.
“And you feel the responsibility of those actions?” his mother asked.
“Of course I do! I was raised a Gentry, was I not? The foolhardiest thought I ever had was to think joini
ng the army was honorable. I wasn’t defending my home! I wasn’t fighting for a cause that I believed in! I ran away from home like a schoolboy. I don’t even deserve the name Gentry, let alone the heritage!”
His mother stood and sat down close to him. She gathered his hand in hers. “Surely most men, at least the honorable ones, have the same self-doubts and guilt as you after spending so many years at war. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t wonder and even chastise yourself, but you have got to right your ship.”
“What does that mean, Mother?” He shook his head and looked anywhere but at her face.
“Look at me, Matthew. Now, tell me, what is the right thing to do? Not what you think Annie wants you to do, but what is the right thing for you to do?”
He stood abruptly and flung the coffee cup in his hands against the stone fireplace, sending a shower of china shards onto the hearth. He was breathing heavily.
“The right thing is for me to keep Annie safe! The right thing is for me to ride there with no expectations other than to punish the men who have hurt her, and make her safe and comfortable. That is the right thing to do! That is all I want to do!”
He finally looked at his mother. She arched a brow.
“Then why, Matthew, are you still here?”
“Hello, Bertram,” Annie said as she walked into the post office. “It is a fine day out, is it not?”
The other customer at the counter took a quick look at her and then at Bertram Miles and hurried out the door.
“What are you doing in town, Annie?” he said and walked away to lift a bundle onto the counter.
“I wanted to see if I had any mail. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do at the post office?”
Bertram leaned across the counter and shook a finger in her face. “You best be careful with that smart tongue of yours, girlie. Old man Thurman’s already got you in his sights.”
“I can’t imagine why,” she said and wondered if he could hear her heart pounding in her chest and realize she was barely taking in enough breath to stay standing. He smiled at her then, a wicked, cruel look even for him. He made her want to vomit.