“Father, thank you for this meal before us, prepared with loving hands. Thank you for the family that surrounds us and keep them safe from harm. Thank you for the sturdy roof over our heads and the land that feeds us… and thank you for Emma Whittaker, the best cook in the great state of Kansas. Amen.”
For a moment there was stunned silence as Morgan picked up his fork, eager to dive into his meal. Then Emma started giggling and Mead and Matthew laughed outright.
“Well, if that ain’t the truth,” Matthew said as he began buttering a biscuit, “I don’t know what is. There’s not a woman around that can hold a candle to Ma’s cooking. Even that pretty little widow down at the Blue Bonnet doesn’t come close and she makes a mighty fine meal.”
“I hear you and Mead have been stopping in there quite often,” Emma drawled as she sliced a piece of ham off the bone. “If I’m such a good cook, why are you eating there, Matthew?” she teased.
“Well gee, Ma, now that Floyd Dixon’s gone and got himself killed and left his wife with three children to support, I figure she needs all the customers she can get.”
“Is that what you were doing when you were out back chopping wood for her last week, being a good customer?” Emma asked with a twinkle in her eye.
Matthew blushed and was silent for a moment. As the youngest he was used to being teased, but what he felt for Laurie Dixon was no teasing matter. Straightening in his chair, he spoke in a voice none of them had heard before.
“No, Ma, I was chopping wood for her because I like her,” he said firmly. “She’s a hardworking woman and those children of hers are sweet as can be. Laurie is about the prettiest gal I’ve ever seen, and I’d court her if she’d let me.”
“Why won’t she let you court her?” Emma asked in shock, appalled that any woman would find a flaw in one of her sons.
“I don’t rightly know for sure. She talks a lot about women’s rights and how she needs to be independent of a man. Says she’ll never marry again, and that she’s had enough of men’s nonsense to last her a lifetime. I asked her what nonsense she was talking about, but she just blushed and said for me to forget she said that.”
“Does she have any family to help her?” Emma asked from behind her napkin where she was hiding a smile.
“Her family is back East and she’d starve before showing up at their door, a poor widowed women with three little ones.”
“How old are her children?” Morgan asked, finding this conversation very interesting.
“Three, four, and five,” Matthew replied. “Three boys: Jonah, Josiah, and Jacob.”
“Well, having a baby every year for three years would certainly give a woman pause about getting married again,” Emma said with a snort. “How old is Laurie, Matt?”
“She’s twenty-two, but she doesn’t look a day over eighteen, ‘cept if you look at her hands. Then you can see how hard she works.”
“Maybe you should invite Mrs. Dixon and her children for Sunday dinner soon. I’d like to get to know her a little better. Floyd Dixon kept her isolated out on that straggly piece of land he called a ranch. It wasn’t until she sold it after his death that she bought the café and moved into town. I imagine she’s had a hard go of it and would appreciate someone cooking for her for a change.”
“I’ll ask her, Ma.”
“Do you think she’ll come?”
“Oh, she’ll come alright, if I have to hogtie her to get her here. I’ve almost had enough of her stonewalling me about every little thing. It’s a funny thing how a girl can be pretty as a picture and as stubborn as a mule, all at the same time,” he mused, chewing slowly.
“Morgan can tell you all about that,” Mead offered dryly. “He went to see Callie Mae today.”
“How is Callie Mae?” Emma asked with a smile. “Did you get a look at any of the fancy ladies she brought in from St. Louis?”
“Ma, shame on you for listening to rumors,” Morgan said, wiping his mouth and hiding his grin. “They aren’t fancy ladies. They’re orphans and were about to be put out on the street. They’re all just eighteen years old and needed a job.”
“Orphans and only eighteen? Whatever was Callie Mae thinking? It’s not like she’s able to chaperone, being single herself. Oh, the ladies in town will have a lot to say about this! Poor Callie Mae…”
“Poor Callie Mae, my as… my foot,” Morgan interjected. “She should have known better and I think she’s going out of her way to stir things up, as if buying a saloon wasn’t bad enough. Someone ought to… well, someone should just… ah, never mind,” he sighed, shooting down his napkin.
“When are the girls coming?” Matthew asked.
“Why do you care? You’re sweet on this Laurie, aren’t you?” Morgan demanded, feeling riled up and not liking it a bit.
“Sure I am, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun while I’m waiting for her to come to her senses and realize what a catch I am,” Matthew replied with a laugh.
“They’re supposed to arrive on the afternoon train. I’m just glad there’s not a herd coming in until later in the week, at least that’s what I heard in town today. Nothing like letting a pack of hounds loose on a group of little foxes,” Morgan said, shaking his head.
“Oh, like over in England,” Emma crowed. “Yes, that does seem rather cruel. At least here we only hunt what we eat, or something wild that is attacking our stock. I don’t see much sport in chasing a fox just for the fun of it.”
“Well, I don’t plan on chasing any, but I think I’ll ride into town tonight and have a look,” Matthew said smiling. Finishing his dinner, he ran his hand through his honey blonde hair and rose from the table. “I’ll be down at the creek, making myself presentable,” he said over his shoulder as he went out the back door and grabbed a bar of soap and a towel from the back porch. “Either of you want to ride in with me?” he asked, poking his head back in the door.
“I’ll ride with you,” Mead said, handing his mother his plate and taking another from her that had a substantial piece of cherry pie on it.
“What about you, Morg? You ready to cut loose and have a little fun?”
“I don’t think so,” Morgan replied. “Not tonight. I’ve got some thinking to do. Ma, I’ll have my pie later if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, and don’t think you have to stay home and keep an old lady company,” she added as she carried his plate to the sink. “I’m fine here on my own.”
“I know you are,” Morgan replied, stooping to kiss her cheek. “That was delicious, thank you. I’m going out to the barn to take care of a few things. See you later, Mead.”
“Yeah,” Mead answered as he scraped the last of the pie off his plate. Looking around, he began to scowl. “There, they’ve done it again,” he sighed as he carried his plate to the sink.
“Done what?” Emma asked.
“Left me to help with the dishes,” he said as he began to roll up his sleeves.
“Oh, it’s good practice for you,” Emma said, grinning. “I have a feeling you’ll be doing more dishes than your new wife,” she teased, slapping a towel into his hand.
“Humph,” Mead replied. “I just hope she’s learning to cook. When I bought her basket at the church social, I had a belly ache for two days.”
Chapter Six
Cara picked up her glass of wine and wandered slowly through the house. It was strangely quiet without the constant drone of the TV spewing out canned laughter from old sitcoms. The living room had been professionally cleaned and it no longer reeked of body order and stale food. Apart from a few personal items of Morgan’s that were tucked away in the guest room, all traces of him had been removed from the house.
Even if he came back, which she had serious doubts about, they could no longer live together. Their marriage, if one could even call it that, had been over for years, almost from the beginning. He wanted children, she didn’t. She was an intellectual, practical and methodical in everything she did. He’d been impulsive a
nd spontaneous. The country music he enjoyed grated on her nerves, and if she wanted him to go to the opera, he just laughed at her. “Find someone else to go. You know I hate opera and I can’t understand a thing they’re saying.”
No, they were a mismatch from the start and she’d known it, but she’d admired his perseverance and single-mindedness, traits she also had. For a while, the physical side of their relationship burned hot, a raging fire that threatened to consume them both, but it had quickly sizzled out and no amount of fanning could bring it to life again. With nearly no mutual interests, their marriage became a sham that neither of them wanted to admit to.
The loss of his brother stopped her from ending their relationship, as she was not willing to add more pain to an already grief-stricken family. Then when Morgan immediately enlisted, his mother nearly had a nervous breakdown. The only thing that kept her going was planning their wedding and anticipating the birth of grandchildren. While Cara couldn’t go through the farce of a big wedding, she had agreed to a civil ceremony. It made no difference to her, really. There was no one else in her immediate future and Morgan would be gone a great deal of the time.
The grandchildren would never appear, but she’d deal with that later. In her opinion, the world was a fucked up place and she didn’t feel the need to populate it with offspring. Her work was her life and nothing would be allowed to interfere with that.
The house fire that took his parents’ lives made children a moot point. The fire started in the basement and Cara suspected it began at the shrine Morgan’s mother maintained down there. She frequently kept candles burning in front of pictures of her dead son. It was a morbid little room, the walls covered with memorabilia from Matthew’s birth to his death. Cara disliked going down there intensely, but on occasion she had to when Helen Whittaker wanted to show her something she’d recently added.
The smoke detector was always hanging open with the battery dangling from the small wires. When Cara mentioned how dangerous that practice was, Helen scoffed. “My candles set it off now and then and I don’t want to disturb the neighbors. I always blow them out before I go back upstairs anyway, so what’s the harm?”
Yes, Cara thought, slowly flipping thought her Cd’s, what was the harm? Two lives lost, a home destroyed, and another devastating blow to Morgan, a man already dealing with more than he could possibly handle.
Cara had arranged a speedy and tasteful funeral for her in-laws, dealt with the estate issues, and tried to be supportive of her husband when he flew in for two days. Morgan was home long enough to see his parents lowered into the ground and long enough for her to see what he was becoming. Hopeless.
She told him good bye and to stay safe as she kissed his cheek the day he got on the plane for his return to duty, but she knew she was looking at someone with a death wish. In fact, it surprised her when she got word two years later that he’d been injured, but survived. In all that time he hadn’t written one letter or picked up the phone, and then he was home, physically intact, but mentally depleted.
A great sadness filled her as she selected La Boheme, inserted the disc into her stereo, and stared out the window at the lights of D.C. Tomorrow Morgan would have been gone two weeks and was supposed to return to the access point. At that time he could choose to come home or merely send back information. Her biggest fear was that there would be nothing from him and she would forever wonder if he had survived. She needn’t have worried.
*
After spending the evening with Emma, Morgan retired to his room. There were so many things he wanted to tell Cara, and it was hard to write quickly enough. The pen was a step up from the quill he’d been expecting, but it still took some getting used to and he made quite a mess on his first two attempts. Finally, he was able to compose a reasonably readable letter:
Cara,
I arrived relatively intact and the experience was not unpleasant. I have been absorbed into the Whittaker family as a long lost son, taking the place of one Morgan Whittaker who has not, as of now, returned from the Indian War where he was fighting with Sheridan’s army. Please use all your resources to find out what happened to this man and if I can expect his return in the near future. Parents are Emma and Henry (deceased). Children are: Morgan, Mead, Melissa, and Matthew. Also, Mead has a leg injury that prevents him from leading an active life. Please gather any information that may help him. Are there any natural products to relieve his pain and stiffness that haven’t been discovered in 1880? Is there anything I can do, using items that are available to me in this area to help him? I also want everything you can find out about Callie Mae Walker. I don’t have her birthday, although I think she’s in her early twenties. Her father is a preacher in a town called Sully’s Bend. I want to know what happens to her in the future if possible. I will return in one week. Anxiously awaiting your response,
Morgan
P.S. I’m having the time of my life. Emma’s cooking is unbelievable. I would sell my soul for a pair of sneakers and some sweats.
*
It was nearly sun up when Morgan knocked on the door of Missy and Cole’s farmhouse.
“Good Lord, Morgan, what is it?” Cole asked, answering the door in his long johns.
“I need you to do something for me,” Morgan replied, removing his hat when Missy appeared behind her husband, holding a shotgun. “Morning, Misfit.”
“Why can’t you do what you’re told, woman?” Cole demanded, turning around and snatching the gun from Missy’s grasp. “I told you to stay in the bedroom until I seen who it was. Confound it! Traipsin’ around in your nightgown isn’t proper.”
“It’s my brother,” Missy snapped. “I’m certain he’s seen me in my nightwear before and I have a robe on.”
Morgan in fact had not seen her in her ‘nightwear’ before and she painted a pretty picture indeed with her bare toes peeking out from her blue robe and her long dark hair pulled forward over her shoulder.
“Don’t matter. It coulda been anybody and you need to learn to heed what I say. Just suppose it was someone up to no good? What then, miss smarty pants?”
“Then I would have shot him,” Missy sighed. “I’m going to make some coffee. You’re welcome to stay for breakfast, Morgan. I’ll make sure I’m properly attired,” she said with a curtsey. “I didn’t know we had such high-fa-luting ways around here when it comes to family,” she said saucily as she took the shotgun from her husband’s hands and sauntered off to the bedroom, her little nose in the air.
“See what I mean? She don’t pay no never mind to a thing I say. Clear as day I said, ‘Missy stay here until I see who’s a knockin’, but no… she comes sashayin’ out here like she’s some mountain woman instead of a well brought up Kansas farm girl.”
“Cole…”
“I tell you, Morg, they don’t make women like our mamas anymore, no sireebob. I bet when your daddy told your ma to do somethin’ she…”
“Cole, I…”
“Pretty soon, if they get their way, women will have the vote and then they’ll be runnin’ things around here. It’s plumb scary if you ask me. Why, I remember one time…”
“Cole!” Morgan bellowed.
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” Cole replied, rubbing his head. “Come on in and have some breakfast.”
“I don’t have time. I need you to help me, Cole.”
“Why, sure I will. Whatever you need Morgan, you just name it.”
“Remember the day you found me on the road?”
“Sure I do, you got throwed and…”
“Well, I want you to show me exactly where that was. Can you do that?”
“It was by the turn off to the Stanford place. You been by there plenty of times.”
“I need you to take me there,” Morgan insisted. “I know where it is,” he lied, “but I want you to show me exactly where you spotted me. I must have hit my head when the horse bolted and I’ve lost something very important. Can you do it?”
“Sure I can. Just let me throw on
some clothes and saddle my horse.”
“Thanks,” Morgan said, sighing in relief as he walked back down the steps.
“Don’t you want some coffee, at least?”
“No, I’m kind of in a hurry and I need to get back to drive Ma to church. Tell Missy I appreciate the offer though.”
“Okay, I’ll be with you in two shakes.”
Climbing on his mount, Morgan shook his head. Cole seemed to be a good man, but if he thought he had problems with women, he should get a glimpse into the 21st century. Getting the vote was only the first step in women’s rights and that was a good thing in Morgan’s opinion. He also supported equal pay for equal work, a woman’s right to choose what happens within her body, and deplored violence against women.
On the other hand, there were a great many women who had mouths like a toilet bowl. They wore extremely revealing clothes and informed you that you were a disgusting pervert if you looked at them. If you offered advice, you were likely to be told to fuck off; they didn’t need a man to tell them what to do. The line of political correctness was getting narrow and a man had difficulty walking it. Multiple sexual partners made sexually transmitted disease a very real concern for all parties involved. Not that he’d ever worried about Cara. She rarely swore and sex was at the very bottom of her list of priorities. Her job consumed her and now that he was clear about what she was working on, he could understand why. Just being here was incredible. As a military man, he had to marvel at the possibilities.
Could men like Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin be eliminated before they murdered millions of innocent people? Alerting the fleet to the imminent attack on Pearl Harbor would have given the US Navy time to prepare a much more suitable welcome for their uninvited guests and the retaliation would not have taken place, killing thousands of civilians in Japan. The twin towers might still be standing and all the lives lost in terrorists attacks saved. Presidents would not be assassinated. Who knew how the world could be changed.
Callie Mae and the Marine Page 5