There was a lot he didn’t understand, he’d be the first to admit that, “Vera, s’far’s I know, there’s not that many people left in the valley.”
“Well, there’s me. And our son.” She waited. Jed was starting to sweat. He’d had a bad feeling from the moment he’d recognized her. It wasn’t getting any better.
“Your son. Yeah, I think George mentioned you and Pete had a son. Is that the only one?” Maybe that explained the added weight. She might be breeding right now. She didn’t look anything like Lorly, but then, Lorly was tall and skinny—used to be skinny. Vera was built more like one of George’s part-Angus heifers, low to the ground and blocky.
She teared up, and he thought, God alive, not now! “Look, Vera, maybe we can get together before I leave the valley, but right now—”
“He’s yours! Little Petey is your son, not Pete’s. I found out I was expecting right after you ran away, and Daddy made me marry Pete, but I hate him! Now that you’re back, we can—”
Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. “Look, Vera, I can’t talk about that right now. I need to think. But first I need to see your father before he gets away.”
She beamed, her damp eyes miraculously clear again. “Fine, you talk to Daddy, tell him you’re willing to take over your rightful responsibilities. I’m sure we can work something out.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jed’s head was still spinning when he pulled up before Stanfield’s square, yellow house. It was the only painted house in the valley. Biggest one, too. You’d think the man had a whole herd of young’uns instead of one daughter and one grandson.
A grandson.
Was it possible? Could Vera be telling the truth?
He had no idea whether or not he could trust her, as they’d both been young back when they’d known each other. Neither of them had done a whole lot of talking. He didn’t know…he just didn’t know.
Hitching McGee to the rail, he strode up the front walk and banged a fist on the door. While he waited, he reminded himself that she’d lied to her father about slipping out all those nights when she’d met him at the lineshack. But that didn’t mean she was lying now.
Someone was home, he could hear footsteps. Hear the sound of a door slamming somewhere inside, and then a querulous voice muttering, “Awright, awright, I’m coming, dammit, I’m coming!”
No maid to answer the door? “How the mighty have fallen,” Jed muttered. He remembered reading it somewhere. Couldn’t recall just where or when, much less who’d said it.
Sam Stanfield had changed. The same eight years that had broadened Jed, both physically and mentally, turning him into—well, at least not the same ignorant fool he’d been at age seventeen—had had another effect on the old man. The last time he’d seen Stanfield, he’d had to look up. Way up. Jed had been lying on the ground with a ring of grim-faced men surrounding him; one holding a buggy whip, two others rubbing raw knuckles and another one, Pete Marshall, coming at him with a red-hot iron.
“Heard you were back. Whatya want?” Never tall, the old man was now stooped, his lined skin a sickly shade of yellow that hinted at liverishness.
“Business,” Jed said, surprised at the lack of emotion he felt. He would have his revenge, all right, but it wouldn’t be physical. “Can we set up a meeting in a couple of hours? George and a friend of ours will be waiting at the property line.”
“Heard you went off and robbed a bank or something. You want to pay off Dulah’s loan, bring the money to me here. I ain’t riding out nowhere.”
Jed could think of a dozen things he’d like to say. He said none of them. Some scars remained forever, others faded. At least his was in a place where he didn’t have to look at it. This poor shell of a man faced his own scars each time he looked in a mirror to shave.
The smell of burning bacon drifted into the front hall. Stanfield yelled over his shoulder, “Take the damned pan off the stove, you idiot!” And then he mumbled something about not trusting anyone to do a damned thing. “Where’s Vera?” he yelled.
“Out,” someone—a man, Jed thought—called back.
“I passed her on the road,” he said. “I think she was headed over to see George’s wife.”
Stanfield eyed him as if he’d turned into a jackass. “Why’n hell she do that? Got no call to go running all over the neighborhood.”
“She said something about having a son. I didn’t realize you had grandchildren.” What ailed him, Jed wondered. He was almost feeling sorry for the old bastard.
“Boy’s all right, I guess. No worse’n most young’uns. Girl sent him off yesterday to stay with Pete’s folk, like the plague was coming or something. Plumb dotty.” The old man twisted his neck to glare up at Jed. “Well? You gonna go get the money or stand here wasting my time?”
Just then Vera wheeled into the yard. Glancing over his shoulder, Jed said quickly, “I’ll be back with George, a witness and the money,” and then he hurried out to where he’d left McGee while Vera was handing the trap over to a hired hand.
She called out for him to wait. He tipped his hat—his new hat, bought along with new boots, new Levi’s, two new shirts and a bolt of the very finest dress goods—and kept on going.
From the open doorway he heard Stanfield yell after him, “What witness? We don’t need no goddamned witness, just bring me the damned money!”
The sun was blazing down with a vengeance by the time Jed reached the post that marked the line between the two properties. In past years the thing had had a habit of moving farther onto the Dulah side until Loran had caught Stanfield’s men in the act of digging up the post to move it yet again. He’d held a gun on them and forced them to plant it back in its original position, then sent his own hired man out to pour a slab of cement around it.
So far as Jed knew, the marker hadn’t moved since. Hard to tell, though. Eight years was a long time. Bushes grew into trees, trees blew down or broke under a coating of ice. Winters weren’t always easy this deep into the mountains, but the valley was sheltered from the worst winds. Up on Mount Mitchell, it was nothing to have winds of over a hundred miles an hour.
Jed wondered idly how anyone could tell how fast the wind was blowing. Something else to look up once he got close to another set of encyclopedias.
And then he wondered what the devil Vera had been talking about. Could it possibly be true that he’d fathered a son with her? What the hell was he supposed to do about it now?
Thank God she was already married, he thought, swallowing a feeling of guilt.
“What took you so long?” George met him halfway between the house and the property line.
Jed reined in. “He won’t come. We’ll have to go there.”
“When?”
“Sooner, the better, I guess. Is Pepper up and around yet?”
“Oh, yeah. Him and your lady are talking about starting up a school. Lorly’s ragging ’em on.”
George wheeled his mount around, but Jed called him back. “Wait up a minute, will you? Listen, I heard something that’s got me worried. You know anything about this kid of Vera’s? I met her on the way there and she said—she claimed—” Dragging out a handkerchief, he lifted his hat, mopped his forehead and then shook his head. “You happen to know when the kid was born?”
George looked thoughtful. “It was a long time ago, I know that much. She was already married by then, else I reckon there’d have been talk. Why?”
Jed was too worried to keep it to himself. At any other time, he might have tried to work things out alone, figuring times and ages. Come to that, he wasn’t even certain of the date when he’d left the valley. Early August, he seemed to remember, but he sure as hell hadn’t been in any shape to look at a calendar.
“She claims he’s mine. Said her pa made her marry Pete before the baby started showing, but he’s not Pete’s, he’s…mine.”
He had a son? Sweet Jesus, no—not this way, he thought, seeing all his dreams collapsing like a house of cards. Like that burned out t
ool shed.
After a silence that lasted several minutes—lasted until McGee grew impatient and tried to take a bite of Jed’s new boot—George said, “Let’s get this other thing over with first. Then I’ll go with you to talk to Pete.”
“What the hell good will that do? Who do you think used a red-hot iron on my ass?” Jed rode on ahead, his shoulders hunched as if he were in pain.
George pulled up beside him. “What are you talking about?”
“Guess I forgot to tell you that part. Stanfield not only had his men hold me while they beat the shit out of me, the old man himself planted his foot on my neck and held me down while Pete—I’m pretty sure it was him—burned a Bar Double S on my sitting part.”
“Pity he didn’t think to bring a pattern, but we can cut it from one of my old dresses and pin it on you to fit the bodice. The hem’ll be easy. I can lay it out on the parlor floor if you’ll keep the young’uns out.”
“Lorly, you’re not going to crawl around on the floor,” Eleanor scolded. “Don’t you dare even think of doing such a thing. I’ve cut down and made over more dresses than I can remember. Schoolteachers don’t earn enough to keep body and soul together.”
The women talked of practical matters like thread and buttons—Jed hadn’t thought to bring any—and shoes. He had brought her a pair of lovely shoes that fit perfectly. They were red kid.
“White cotton thread’ll be close enough, and I’ve got aplenty of that. We’ll use the lace overskirt from my dress. I can soak it out and put it in the sun, either that or use it like it is. If we cut off a few medallions and sew them on the bodice, the different color won’t look out of place at all.”
And on it went, all morning, while the three men dealt with Sam Stanfield. They had left more than two hours earlier. Jed hadn’t even come inside, sending George in to get Pepper while he hitched up the buggy.
From time to time Lorly would pause, her gaze drifting to the window. “Nothing can go wrong, can it? I don’t see how it can when they have the money and a witness to see that Stanfield doesn’t get up to any shenanigans.”
“Jed can take care of it. Stop worrying.”
“What if I start having my baby just as Pepper’s getting ready to perform the ceremony?”
“Why then, he’ll just do a christening first. We’ll celebrate that and get on with the wedding later. Another day’s not going to matter.”
“Ha,” Lorly said, and Eleanor blushed. The house was large for a country farmhouse, but there was little privacy to be found, not even out in the barn.
On her hands and knees, Eleanor crawled around on the floor, measuring and cutting first the bodice, then the sleeves, a band to double over for a collar and another, narrower one for piping. The rest of the material, a rich ivory sateen, would be used for a simple gathered skirt, which would be much quicker to make than a paneled skirt.
From time to time, Lorly struggled up and went to the door to look out. “It shouldn’t be taking this long. Something’s gone wrong, I just know it has.”
“It takes as long as it takes. They’re probably talking, that’s all. Maybe Jed’s explaining that the railroad’s not coming here anyway, that they’ve already bought land from him on the other side of the ridge. I know he’s been looking forward to telling Mr. Stanfield that.”
“You know about Jed and Vera, I suppose?”
With a mouthful of straight pins, Eleanor nodded. “His old sweetheart. He showed me her letter. It was…sweet.”
“She came here looking for him.”
Eleanor glanced up at that. “I know. I was here, remember?”
“Wits gone begging, as usual.” Lorly shrugged. “I told her Jed was gone. She said she’d see him when he got back, but she hasn’t showed up yet. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“She’s married now, isn’t she?”
Lorly nodded. “Married her father’s foreman. I reckon he’ll take over the place until the boy’s old enough. Little Petey takes after his father, thank goodness. Vera’s not got the brains of a hat pin. Spiteful female, I never did like her, even when we were children. Papa used to hold services at Stanfield’s place for his hired hands and their families once a month when we came through the valley. I remember once when the cook made rice pudding for dessert and Vera spit in my bowl when no one was looking. She couldn’t have been more than five years old.”
Eleanor laughed. “What did you do, tell her mama?”
“Her mama died when she was born. I was scared of her daddy, he had mean eyes, so I waited until we went out to play again and put a caterpillar down her back.”
The two women fed the children and settled them for a nap. Eleanor urged Lorly to go to join them. “You need to get off your feet. Just look at those ankles.”
From her place on the sofa, Lorly peered over the swell of her belly to her bare feet. “I know, it’s disgraceful. They look like sausages. I couldn’t sleep, though, even if I went to bed. I’d just lie there wondering what was going on. Go look out the front door again, will you?”
From the doorway, Eleanor searched for a cloud of dust. The air smelled faintly of manure, faintly of sweet shrub and mountain ash. Several dozen steers grazed peacefully in a pasture bordered on the far side by a narrow creek. How could one valley be so different from another, she wondered, when they were scarcely more than a hundred miles apart? Less than that, as the crow flew.
She straightened, squinting against the sun. “They’re coming,” she called softly so as not to wake the children.
“Oh, glory be, how do they look? Can you see their faces yet?”
“Jed’s riding, George and Pepper are in the buggy, and no, I can’t see their faces.”
By the time the men pulled into the clearing between house and barn, both women were standing on the front porch. George waved, and Lorly whispered, “It’s all right, thank God. What did I tell you?”
“You told me Stanfield was going to claim you owed him twice that much, and he wouldn’t take Jed’s money. You told me the buggy was going to throw a wheel and they’d be late, and—”
“Oh, hush, I had my fingers crossed.”
Everyone talked at once. Everyone except Jed.
Pepper said, “My, my, that’s a thirsty ride, isn’t it?”
Eleanor said, “I’ll pour cold tea…unless you’d rather have water. Or coffee?”
George said, “Honey, you need to get off those feet. Come on in the front room and…what the devil is that all over the floor?”
So then they laughed and Lorly explained about the wedding gown they were cutting out, and Jed still didn’t say a word. Looking at him, Eleanor felt herself grow cold. He looked as if he were coming down with something.
She busied herself gathering up the dress parts while Lorly set out tumblers for the cold sweetened tea she favored. “If you want coffee, George, you’ll have to stoke up the fire again. I let it go out, it’s just so blessed warm in here.”
Eleanor’s gaze followed Jed as he went outside and stood, his back to her, staring out in the direction they had just come from. She joined him there. “Jed? Is something wrong? Did you get the deed, or whatever papers were necessary?”
He drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Cancelled note. Signed by both parties and duly witnessed. Once I told him—Stanfield, that is—where the railroad had bought land, all the fight seemed to drain right out of him.”
“Then…is everything all right?”
It took forever, but finally he replied. Without looking at her, he said, “I don’t know. We might have to postpone our wedding for a while, or even…”
Or even call it off. The words echoed as if he’d spoken them aloud.
He turned to her then, and she was reminded of the wounded man she had dragged up the hill and into her home again. This time there were no obvious wounds, but his tormented eyes told their own story. Something bad had happened.
“Jed, tell me,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “No
t yet.” He clasped her face in his hands and said, “Tell George I’ll be back by nightfall. One way or another, we’ll work this out, I promise.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
There were several men working in the area, two loading hay into the loft, two more running cattle through a chute. Jed found the man he sought in the equipment shed. To be sure he had the right man, he called him by name. “Marshall?”
Pete Marshall had aged more than eight years would account for. “Heard you were back,” he said by way of greeting. He’d been sharpening a disc harrow. Laying aside his file, he straightened, his eyes watchful.
Jed stood, feet braced apart, sizing up his opponent…if it came to that. “I’m back,” he allowed.
“Heard you went off and got rich.”
He hadn’t exactly gotten rich, but he wasn’t about to say so. “Heard you and Vera got married after I left.” After I was beaten, branded and run the hell out of the valley. I hope she was worth it.
The other man nodded. His hair was still thick, but more gray than blond now. He couldn’t be much older than George. Late twenties, early thirties. He looked older. Bitter. “You come to pay me back for what I did?”
“I’ll fight you, one on one, but that’s not what I came for.”
Pete nodded toward the personnel door. “Come on out back where we can talk private. There’s things I’ve wanted to say to you for a long time. Might as well get ’em off my chest before you beat the shit out of me.”
Outside, Pete led the way over to a five-rail fence. Hooking a boot heel over the bottom rung, he leaned his elbows on the top rail and commenced to talk. “I live to be a hundred, I’ll never quit thinking about it. Man, I was so sick after that, I puked up my guts, that’s the flat-out truth. I quit that same day, but I ended up coming back when Vera…” He broke off and shook his head.
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