Behaving Herself

by Yvonne Jocks

  “Bank robbing,” Jack corrected.

  Lowe's visible amusement deepened. "Son, you must've played an honest game or my friend Harry would've noticed, drunk or not; he's got a worse temper than you'd think. And you have a good head on your shoulders. I see potential in you."

  Jack became immediately wary. “And?”

  "I doubt you listened to your preacher father about sin any more than I heard my bishop grandfather. But if you'll allow me to offer some advice from a bit more experience?"

  Still wary, Jack nodded.

  Lowe leaned his elbows on the table, closer and more confidential. "Son, what the hell do you think you're doing with your life?"

  Jack sat back, as offended as the older man seemingly expected. Maybe more so. He'd been thinking the same thought so often lately that hearing it from a stranger felt like nagging.

  “Al I'm saying,” Lowe insisted, without insult, "is that it's worth the trouble to notice the trail you're riding now, maybe consider if it's Really where you want to go. It's a sight easier to start over if you don't have to leave the country to do it."

  Leave the country? Jack narrowed his eyes and asked the one question men in the Acre oughtn't ask. It suddenly seemed important enough to risk. “Who are you, anyhow?”

  “Someone with debts to pay.” Lowe grinned, tired. “You got some time, son?”

  February became March, March crept by, and Texas welcomed spring far earlier than Wyoming did.

  Though the pupils played outside for recess on all but the coldest days, their restlessness increased with the yellow-green buds on the trees. Smaller children played hide-and-seek and blindman's bluff. The older children played crack-the-whip and catch, or hunted down snakes or rabbits. Thank heavens for the weekly story paper! Its continuing adventures, full of mistaken identities and dramatic rescues and lost loves, were one of the few things that could settle Audra's pupils from physical to mental enjoyments after a romp in the fresh air.

  Aunt Heddy protested the “inferior quality” of such literature, but Audra decided to wait until a parent or school board member complained. None did. In the meantime, Audra often used the

  historical stories to increase interest in history lessons. She enlivened arithmetic problems by couching them in favorite story themes, pirate gold pieces or missing cattle.

  And despite increased contentment with her work and with the Ladies' Aid, she felt increasingly restless. She had Jack Harwood to thank for that.

  Sometimes, in private moments, she did.

  With spring came flowers, both cultivated and wild. Of the two, Audra found she liked the wildflowers more. Bluebonnets, peach and crimson Indian paintbrush, and a mist of goldenrod might grow amid tangled weeds, but they wore bolder colors than Aunt Heddy's roses. More important, with spring came the end of the school year. Audra taught her last class on a Friday, with only Monday's school entertainment and picnic to prepare for. Then, as soon as her father could arrive from Wyoming to collect her, she would go home. Home!

  “I do want to go home,” she admitted to Melissa that Friday as the two of them walked the path where Jack had once met with her, once kissed her. "In fact, I—I believe that once I get there, I shall stay. I'm ready to defend myself against public opinion now, instead of just accepting it. Even if I don't succeed, there is more than one way to teach. But I'll miss Candon. I'll miss you." She squeezed her friend's hand.

  When Melissa said, “And ... ?” Audra could not fib by pretending she did not understand, so she said nothing. "If he's willing to come back here to find you, he'll be willing to go to Wyoming. He had enough chances to read the address off your letters."

  “You,” said Audra fervently, “are such a wonderful friend!” And they hugged each other.

  Then Melissa abruptly ended the embrace by asking, “Even if I dyed your hair?”

  They were still chasing each other along the path like children, sometimes dodging behind trees in an attempt not to be caught, when Claudine Reynolds ran toward them from Aunt Heddy's house.

  “Miss Garrison! Miss Garrison!”

  Ever since her false elopement, and the danger Audra had faced for her sake, Claudine had behaved with at least a little more respect—for a spoiled, self-centered girl, in any case.

  Audra turned, momentarily concerned—then saw the sparkle in Claudine's eyes.

  “You've . . .” Claudine almost doubled over, panting. “You have company. Come see!”

  Company. Jack?

  Audra walked as far as Claudine and put a hand on her arm in silent thanks for the summons; her world had gone so still, she couldn't shatter that hopeful expectation by speaking. Then she began to walk toward the teacherage. Then she began to run.

  Until she rounded a turn in the path and beheld the first two of her visitors—and neither was Jack Harwood.

  Was it possible to feel disappointment and joy at the same time? She had not guessed just how fervently she'd hoped Jack would return until she saw that he had not. But that didn't abate the pleasure of beholding her two younger sisters for the first time in over half a year.

  “Kitty!” Although she'd stopped in shock, for that half moment it took to recognize the two girls hurrying toward her, Audra broke into a run again. “Elise!”

  And in a moment she had an armful of both girls and kneeled on the path, holding them to her tightly. Oh! No matter what hopes she might leave behind when she left Texas, she would not regret going home to her family! She loosened her embrace only to draw back and examine them both, half-afraid the months had changed her youngest two sisters beyond endurance.

  They had not. Kitty, twelve now, looked solemn as ever, with brown braids and spectacles and half-moon dirt marks on her skirt. Kitty wasn't graceful even before a badly broken leg gave her a slight limp, but her gentle spirit compensated. Blond Elise, already the beauty of the family at eight, knew her powers as the cherished youngest child, chattering to Audra even now about the train ride and her new dress and Audra's short hair.

  Audra smiled over Elise's head at Kitty, who shyly smiled back.

  Only when Elise's chatter included something about Papa did Audra realize that the girls would not travel to Texas alone. She looked up sharply toward the teacherage, and sure enough, two more people strolled toward her, arm in arm, watching her reunion with her sisters.

  Audra launched herself toward her parents. Her pretty mother stepped forward to meet her halfway; then Audra was in the arms that she had longed for through more than one heartbreak this year. Mama still smelled of vanilla and orchids. As small as Audra, and only slightly heavier despite bearing seven children, she held Audra tightly enough to break her.

  “My sweet girl,” Mama whispered, kissing her cheek. Then, ever fair, she turned Audra toward her white-haired cowboy father.

  Papa took off his dark hat. “Audra Sue,” he greeted stiffly, gray eyes sweeping her from head to toe with concern his formal posture belied. When Audra hugged him, she felt a completion of

  something that had broken when he left her. He circled a strong arm around her and held her to him for a satisfyingly long moment.

  Then when he released her, and after he ducked his head in response to the kiss she planted on his white-bearded cheek, he said, “I recall teachers showin' a mite more reserve.”

  “Way back when you were a schoolboy?” teased Mama, in a way that made her appear younger than any matron approaching fifty should.

  Somehow the act of sliding a sarcastic look down at his wife undermined Papa's assumed dignity. It didn't help him that Elise began to bounce up and down and ask, "When was that, Papa? Are you as old as Bible times?"

  Then he had to glare at his youngest, too, with as heavy an undertone of amusement as he had bestowed on Mama. “Just New Testament,” he told her solemnly, which made even Kitty smile.

  By then Melissa and Claudine arrived. As Audra made the introductions, she began to sense her mother watching her with unusual curiosity. She thought little of it un
til, as they started toward the teacherage, Mama held her back several paces behind the others.

  “You are all right, aren't you, Audra?” Mama asked, a supportive arm still around her.

  Al right? Only one thing could make her happier.

  “I'm fine,” she insisted. “It's so wonderful to see you again!”

  Mama did not look satisfied. "There's a different look about you. And I don't mean your hair; actual y, that's nicely daring. You seem ... changed, is all."

  “Well, I have grown up a great deal,” Audra offered.

  “That's what concerns me,” murmured Mama. Then Elise ran back to see what kept them and she let the subject go.

  Mama's curiosity returned when Papa, making himself useful by cleaning Heddy's stables that Saturday, found a cuff link under the hay. Audra could see— -feel—disapproval as soon as he came in from his work, even without his aiming it at her in particular. He sent Kitty and Elise outside, then asked with simple authority, “One of you girls recognize this?”

  Since only Audra did, Claudine and Melissa said nothing.

  “Where did you find that?” asked Mama for the rest of them, and Papa said, “Barn.”

  A year ago, Audra might not understand the significance of a cuff link in the hay. Now she not only understood, she remembered vividly. Jack's overhasty discarding of his shirt had provided her first and only view of a man's naked chest... and, oh, what a chest it had been! Now, even at the moment of disgrace that she had feared since before she'd even done something disgraceful, Audra couldn't regret her indecent behavior.

  But she deeply regretted having to confess it.

  “Asked a question,” prompted Papa, and Audra drew a miserable breath.

  Claudine said, “I do. I recognize it from when Audra caught me with Jerome Newton last fall.” She looked at Audra. “Back when I thought he loved me.”

  Papa's expression froze into a mask of his initial anger—it might be his duty to treat his sister's boarding pupils as strictly as his daughters, but the thought that he'd uncovered proof of an already settled scandal hadn't occurred to him.

  Mama swept in to save him then, taking the cuff link from his hand and patting his arm. "Thank you, Jacob. Why don't I take over from here?"

  He nodded at her, purposeful y not looking at the three young ladies before him, then escaped back to the barn even if he didn't need to. Quickly.

  Mama waited until he'd left, then said, "I'm sorry, Claudine, to have resurrected that. So that you needn't revisit painful memories, shall we have Audra give this back to its rightful owner?"

  “Perhaps Melissa,” suggested Claudine quickly.

  Melissa widened her eyes at the younger girl. “Me?” Then: “Oh! Certainly. I can give it to Early and he can give it to Jerome.”

  Mama said, "But I remember that Audra wrote that Claudine and Jerome were found behind the barn, not in it. Would you excuse us? I have something to discuss with Audra."

  “Audra?” whispered Claudine in amazement as they scurried toward the door.

  “You thought it was me?” demanded Melissa.

  Then Audra, face aflame, stood alone with her mother. She hardly knew where to start, what to say. She'd think more clearly if the image of Jack's chest were not so immediately vivid.

  “I assume you'll want this,” said Mama, pressing the cuff link into Audra's hand. She did not let go of her hand when Audra took it, either. “Are you certain you're all right?”

  And when Audra looked up, she saw no censure on her mother's face at all . Then tears of relief blurred that face beyond recognition. “I...”

  “Shhh.” Mama led her into an empty bedroom. “I'm not angry,” she insisted now, sitting with Audra on the bed, holding her hand. “Just concerned. I needn't know how far it went.”

  Audra gasped. “Mother!”

  Mama's playful smile disproved her previous statement. "Well, thank goodness for that. I assume you loved him, whoever he was?"

  “I still do,” insisted Audra.

  “You do plan on coming home with us, don't you? If you don't—”

  “Of course I do! He's . . . he's gone now. It was the right thing to do, and he did it.”

  Mama gave her a quick hug. “You always were so concerned about the right thing.”

  “But I didn't tel you,” Audra admitted, and Mama laughed.

  “Did you Really think you should?”

  Amazingly, Audra realized she did not. What she and Jack had done was their business and theirs alone. especially since they'd been responsible ... more or less.

  "Just know that if you ever do want to talk about it, I'm here. And once we get home, any one of your older sisters would be glad to ... um .. . advise you. Al right?"

  Audra nodded, then—independent or not—felt ill again. “Will you tel Papa?”

  Her mother almost choked on the idea. “I love him far too much to do that.”

  Audra thought her revelations were finished after that. But then, settled in church with her family the next morning, she heard excited whispers from the door. She'd heard that murmur before.

  Twice.

  Somehow, just turning to look became the biggest gamble Audra had ever taken.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  A teacher who performs her labor faithful y and without fault for five years will be given an increase of fifty cents per week in her pay, providing the school board approves.

  —Rules for Teachers

  God didn't strike Jack down this time either. But beyond the threat of lightning bolts and whatnot, it wasn't God's opinion that concerned him.

  He stood there in the doorway and let the townsfolk stare at him, whisper to each other, and general y appreciate the drama of his prodigal return. Hat in hand, he reminded himself that their opinion did matter—if only because, if he still mattered to Audra at all , public opinion would too.

  Besides, most were decent enough folks, respectability aside. So he nodded toward all and sundry, touching the gazes of folks who'd frequented the mercantile, and he tried not to smile too charmingly, not to do anything that would brand him as a scoundrel.

  Not that he wasn't still a scoundrel. He didn't regret how familiar he'd gotten with Audra that night he left. .. though if she regretted it, which wouldn't much surprise him, that would surely tarnish things. For another, he still believed that a person had the God-given right to ruin her life in whatever manner she saw fit, even someone as special as Audra Garrison. He'd never appreciated anyone calling the shots for him. So who was he to cal the shots for her?

  The least he could do was stay long enough to give her what he'd said she deserved all along—the right to make up her own mind, by her own rules.

  A teacher oughtn't keep company with men, so he'd stayed away until her term was about over.

  He'd even used that time to raise his own odds, at least some.

  Now he couldn't wait any longer to cal .

  At his entrance, folks in back turned first. Then, like water rippling outward, people in the middle turned and, finally, those in front. Not Audra.

  Jack caught only the barest glimpse of her beyond Whitey Gilmer's shoulder, past Nora Parks's hat

  —the curse of loving a short woman. But he knew her too-stiff back when he glimpsed it. Along her bench, Melissa Smith and Claudine Reynolds both turned and recognized him. Even Hedda Cribb turned and narrowed her eyes. Two little girls on either side of Audra looked too. One wore dark braids and spectacles that magnified her eyes; the other one, golden-haired, stared with candor. Even an elegant matron whom he couldn't place and a fierce-looking, white-bearded cowboy—or lawman—looked to see what had caused the disturbance.

  Jack prayed, and not to God. Look at me, Audra. Please.

  And, with seeming reluctance, she turned.

  In her fine eyes, even half-hidden by Nora Parks's hat, he saw that same pain he'd seen in her from the start: the pain of a gal imprisoning herself. She had her feelings under tight rein, and nothing he could d
o would ever spring her without her cooperation.

  But even while he watched, his hopes sinking, those fine eyes began to shine, as if at sight of him her icy control melted. He still saw hesitance war with hope; relief battle fear. But at least she was letting herself feel those things. At least he did have a shaky chance.

  Jack would get nowhere by making a scene in church. So he nodded to her, wishing that single nod could tell her the things she might yet refuse to hear in words. Then he found a seat toward the back, where one fellow actual y stood up and moved rather than sit beside him.

  But nobody kicked him out. Jack decided to be grateful. It might still be all he got.

  Light from the windows crept across the wooden floor of the church. Birdsong and the smell of growing things from outside added to the sleepy, springtime feel of the morning. Jack didn't relive a single moment of haunting childhood sermons . . . though neither did he listen closely to the pastor's offering today. He was too busy hoping he wouldn't create a whole new breed of

  haunting, church-related memories.

  When services ended, he hurried out, lest his presence keep Audra holed up. The girl had once regretted kisses! How could she not be regretting their more extreme abandon?

  Several folks eyed him warily as he waited, including the preacher. This was a risk.

  When Audra emerged from the church, Jack saw his stake doubled as the obvious struck him—the little girls, the handsome woman, and the severe-looking rancher were Audra's family. Sisters.

  Mother. Her father resembled a judge or lawman too closely for Jack's comfort.

  If the man had any inkling of what Jack had done to Audra, let her do to him, Jack might not be long on this earth. Jim Lowe, a.k.a. Robert Parker, a.k.a. Butch Cassidy, sure had the right of it there. Life was risk.

  And Audra was worth the gamble. At least, in the presence of her father, Jack had extra incentive to keep his hands to himself . . . assuming the man didn't separate them from Jack's body. Even now, when the littlest girl visibly tired of their chat with the reverend, their father caught her by the shoulder and held her still instead of letting her run off to play. He didn't look like one who suffered misbehavior lightly.