The Listening Sky

by Dorothy Garlock

  Chapter 28

  “UNCLE Colin!”

  Stella jumped out of the swing and went running toward him, Buddy close behind.

  “Hello, punkin.” Colin swung the child up in his arms, then set her on her feet and took her hand.

  “Me’n Mamma don’t have to go back to Laramie. Uncle T.C. told the old judge not to come back, and Uncle Herb hit him. I didn’t get to see it. They made me and Aunt Polly stay upstairs.”

  “It seems a lot has been going on while I was gone.”

  “Aunt Polly and Uncle Herb sleep together now.”

  “That’s exciting news, punkin.” Colin looked at T.C. and lifted his brows in question.

  T.C. shrugged. “You’ll know it all by the time we get to the house. Our little Stella has turned into a regular chatterbox.”

  Stella giggled. “You say that all the time. Aunt Sunday sleeps in Polly’s bed,” she announced, hardly taking a breath.

  Buddy, wanting to be included, shyly wiggled his fingers into Colin’s other hand. Colin looked down at the small freckled face looking up at him.

  “Mr. Banks made a swing.”

  “You don’t say? Would it hold me?”

  “It holds Mr. Banks. Did ya go to fight Indians?”

  “Naw.” Colin pulled a penny from his pocket and gave it to Buddy. “You and Stella run up to the store and tell Mr. Jenson to give you a penny’s worth of candy.”

  “Gee-whillikers!”

  “Say thank you,” Stella reminded him sternly, when Buddy started to run away. “And wait for me.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Tallman. C’mon, Stella—”

  Colin watched them run toward the store.

  “I was about Buddy’s age when my sister and I went to live with Addie Hyde. Until then we had been passed around like a couple of unwanted pups.”

  “The new teacher came in yesterday. School starts next week. Buddy swears he isn’t going, but he’ll go because Stella’s going.”

  “Lettin’ a woman lead him around by the nose already.” Colin chuckled. “What’s the teacher like?”

  “He’s a dressed-up little dandy—about this high.” T.C. held his hand up to his shoulder. “If some of the rowdy boys get the upper hand, he’ll fizzle out.”

  “You goin’ to let Jane help him?”

  “Hell, no. He’ll sink or swim on his own. If he sinks, I’ll send for another. Rowe pays well. There shouldn’t be any trouble finding one.”

  They were almost to the house when Colin asked the question T.C. had been waiting for.

  “Sunday moved to your place?”

  “I asked her to help me keep an eye on Jane. She kept Bob Fresno from carrying Jane off. Shot him with that little pistol she carries in her pocket. I owe her a big debt. Treat her right, or you’ll have not only me on your tail but all the women in the house and nearly every man in town.” T.C. grinned.

  “I meant it when I said I was goin’ to marry her. This has been the longest month of my life. I’ve cursed a hundred times the day I met Patrice.”

  T.C. grinned. “Ramon probably has, too.”

  “Well, thank God, he’s the one stuck with her.”

  They stepped up onto the porch. The door was flung open and Jane rushed out to welcome him.

  From the upstairs window Sunday had watched the two tall men as they came down the street. She saw Stella and Buddy run toward them and Colin toss the child in the air. She lost sight of them when they stepped up onto the porch but heard their voices in the downstairs hall and opened the door so that she could hear what was being said.

  “Mrs. Kilkenny, you’re prettier than I remembered.”

  “Get your hands off my wife.” This was T.C.’s mockingly harsh voice.

  “After I kiss her. Don’t be so stingy.”

  “Stingy? You’re lucky I don’t shoot you.”

  It’d save me the trouble. Sunday opened the door wider.

  “There ya are, ya big sabot! Soon as I turn my back, ya up and get yoreself a wife. Pretty one too. Do I get to kiss the bride, Herb?”

  Sunday let loose a snort of disgust. Do I get to kiss the bride? Kissin’ wives is all ya been doin’, ya horny toad!

  “Get ya a woman a yore own to kiss, Tallman. This ‘n’ s mine.” Herb’s voice overrode the laughter from Jane and T.C. and Maude.

  “You didn’t get married while I was gone, did ya, Mrs. Henderson?”

  “No. I was waitin’ for ya to come home to see if ya’d been asked for.”

  “Not yet, but I will be. Want me to ask Bill for ya?”

  “You do, and I’ll put croton oil in your gravy.”

  I’d give him a load of buckshot in his rear!

  “Where’s Sunday? Is she hidin’ from me?”

  Sunday stepped back from the door. Hiding? From a fornicating, wife-stealing mule’s ass? That’d be a cold day in hell!

  “She’s upstairs.”

  Maude, you traitor!

  “Do I have your permission, Mrs. Kilkenny, to go up to my girl’s room if I leave the door open?”

  My girl! Sunday’s breath came from between her teeth in an angry hiss.

  “I trust you’ll act the gentleman?”

  “I won’t promise not to kiss her.”

  Just try it, ya suck-egg mule!

  Sunday heard a step on the stairs, then T.C.’s voice.

  “Check her pocket to see if she has the pistol.”

  “She won’t shoot me. She loves me.”

  The pig-ugly, wife-stealing, conceited ass!

  Sunday stepped back and slammed the door so hard that the house shook. She looked for something to push in front of the door. The only thing was the washstand. She groaned when she picked it up because it was so light. The first rap on the door came as she was putting it in place.

  “Sunday, open the door.”

  Silence. She’d not answer if the blasted house was on fire.

  “I want to talk to ya, Sunday.”

  Go talk to Patrice Guzman Cabeza.

  “I know what Patrice told you. I can explain.”

  I bet you can. You’ve had a month to make up a story.

  “Patrice will be going back to New Mexico with her husband.”

  That’s too bad. You’ll have to find another whore, you rutting moose!

  “I don’t want to break down this door, but by God, I will. Now open the damn door. There’s things I want to say to you in private.”

  “Ya just try to break in that door. I’ll shoot you,” she yelled.

  “At least ya haven’t forgot how to talk.”

  “I’ve not forgot a dad-blasted thing, you… you chicken shit!”

  “If you think a little old door will keep me away from you, you don’t know me very well.”

  “I don’t know you a’tall. Now get the hell away from my door.”

  BANG! The door flew open. The washstand tipped over, the tin basin went rolling, the pitcher hit the floor and bounced. Water splashed on Sunday’s feet.

  Colin stood looking at her. His blue eyes burned into hers.

  “See what you made me do?”

  “Oh, sure! I forced ya to break the door!” Her voice was tight and strained.

  “Hello, Sunday,” he said pleasantly, as if they had just met.

  “What do you want?” She eyed him with a peevish glare.

  “You.”

  “Ha!” she snorted, her lip curled in contempt

  “I’m not the father of Patrice’s child. I’ve never been with her that way.”

  “Ha!” Sunday snorted again, this time with disbelief. “Ever’ time ya open yore mouth, Tallman, I get a earache.”

  He crossed the room in two long steps. He caught her in his arms and held her in a tight grip. She strugged like a wild thing caught in a trap.

  “I’ve thought of you every minute for more than a month that seemed like a year! Now, if I have to throw you down on the bed and sit on you to make you listen to me, I will.” Catching her flailing hands in his as s
he swung to hit him, he forced them behind her. She was strong, but he was stronger. “Why are you fighting me, for chrissake? You’re as glad to see me as I am to see you.”

  “Damn you! Let go of me.”

  “Kiss me first.”

  “I’d… sooner kiss a warthog!”

  He laughed. “I’m crazy about you.”

  “Horse-hockey!”

  “I want everyone of our kids to be just like you.”

  “Yo’re not gettin’ in my drawers if that’s what’s on your mind.”

  “It is, and I will. But it’ll be after my name is tacked to the end of yours.”

  “I’d sooner wed a… crazy three-legged buzzard.”

  “I’m crazy about you,” he said again. “It’s been a hell of a month. I couldn’t wait to get back here to see you again.” His voice lowered to a husky whisper. “Put your arms around my neck so I can kiss you.”

  Joy began romping up and down her insides. The misery of the past few weeks began to fade.

  “Tallman, yo’re—”

  “Colin, Sunday. Sunday and Colin. That’s how I want it to be. Say you forgive me for leaving without a word. But you were in no mood then to believe me, and I had to find Ramon and convince him I’d not slept with his wife.” “How’d ya do that?”

  “I didn’t have to. He’d been having her followed. He knows, I imagine, who fathered her child, and he knows it wasn’t me. Sweetheart, you’re all I want. The first time I saw you, I fell m love with you.”

  Sunday looked searchingly at him, not yet believing, and then believing.

  “Ya’ll have to turn loose my hands.” Her voice smiled. “If ya want me to kiss ya.”

  When she was free, her arms moved up and around his neck. She felt a deep singing joy. Did he fed it too? Then she knew. His hungry kisses covered her mouth and she returned each and every one. They went on and on in a rapturous union of eager mouths and tongues. When she could catch her breath, she laughed at the urgency of his tips.

  “Did yon miss me? Tell me,” he whispered insistently, but she could not speak with his mouth tight against hers. His hands moved through her hair, down and over her back in soft rhythmic caresses.

  Her hands stroked his cheeks; she nuzzled her face into his neck, inhating the masculine scent of him.

  “Did you miss me, sweetheart?” he repeated.

  “Yes, damn you! Yes, yes, yes. I misted you,” the de-dared with shameless intensity.

  A grin lifted the comer of his mouth at her response; his eyes were soft with love for her.

  “I love you. Does it shock you to hear me say it?”

  “I ain’t easy shocked, Tallman. I been a waitin’ for ya to say h again.”

  He held her so tight, she could feel every hard line in his body. He rubbed his face in her mop of blond curls. She was so pretty, so sweet… so damned exciting. He was sure she could feel the hardness of his arousal against her, yet she hadn’t shied away from it.

  Sunday put her palms against his cheeks and looked into his eyes. “I love you, Tallman. Welcome home.”

  The following weeks passed quickly. A stout warm cabin for Sunday and Colin was built in a week’s time. They were married in the new church on a Sunday afternoon. Jane thought it fitting for Sunday to be married on a Sunday. The church was full of well-wishers because Sunday was so well liked. Theda Cruise played the violin. No one seemed to think it strange that the saloon keeper—she had become partners with Mr. Parker—was in the church playing sacred music.

  After the elaborate wedding dinner prepared by Maude and Polly and a send-off from the family, Bill, and Tennihill, the couple left for their cabin.

  That night Jane was introduced to another custom that was even more foreign to her than the picnic that had been held after Doc’s funeral.

  The night was cold, the air crisp. Jane was bundled up in one of T.C.’s sheepskin coats. They stood with the group of townsfolk that surrounded Colin’s and Sunday’s cabin to beat on tin pans and ring cowbells.

  Some of the men shouted advice to Colin.

  “Hey, Colin. Air ya needin’ help?”

  “Did ya take a bath, Colin? Yo’re sure to stink like a hog.”

  “Don’t forget to take off yore britches—”

  “—And yore boots!”

  “Want me to show ya how, Colin?”

  The noisy serenade continued with hoots and whistles.

  “It’s called a shivaree,” T.C. explained to Jane. “I put out the word you were not well so that they’d not do this when we were married. Herb was sure such a racket would scare Polly to death. He put the kibosh on it by paying them off ahead of time. He left money with Theda at the saloon to buy drinks.”

  “They do it to get free drinks?”

  “It’s a good-natured form of blackmail.”

  “How long do we keep this up? My ears hurt.”

  The lamp inside the cabin had gone out shortly after the racket began.

  “It won’t be long now. Colin will come out and pay us to go away.”

  “Why, that’s terrible!” Jane giggled and clung to T.C.’s arm.

  He looked down into her smiling face, then dipped his head and kissed her warm lips. She had not had much pleasure in her life, and so small things were joys to her.

  “Let’s go home.” He put his lips to her ear so that she could hear him. “I know of more interesting things to do.”

  “Like what?” Her eyes teased him.

  “Get you in bed, take off your nightdress—”

  “Sir!”

  “Kiss your soft breasts—”

  “How you talk!”

  “Go into that warm, sweet place that’s known only to me,”

  “Stop that talk right now!”

  “Want me to show you how much I want to go into that special place?” He took her hand and pulled it under his coat. She jerked it away.

  “Don’t you… dare! T.C., someone will see you. I swear to goodness. You’re as randy as a two-peckered goat!” Her hand went to her mouth. “I can’t believe I said that! I’m picking up Sunday’s expressions.”

  His mouth went to her ear again. “You’re… adorable.” He bit her ear lobe. “I’m waiting to hear you say you want me to”—he pressed his lips closer to her ear and whispered a word.

  She gasped. T.C. Kilkenny! I’ll never say… that!“

  They were laughing into each other’s eyes, completely oblivious to everyone else, when the shot sounded.

  BOOM! Colin came to the door with his double-barreled shotgun and fired into the air. The racket stopped.

  “Ya done already, Colin?” Murphy yelled.

  “What’s the hurry? Ya got the next twenty years.”

  “—If a ya don’t wear it out.”

  “That you, Murphy? I’m not forgettin’ this!”

  “Well, I hope not Wouldn’t be sayin’ much for yore bride if ya forgot yore weddin’ night”

  A roar of laughter went up from the crowd. Jane could see Sunday peeking from behind Colin and knew that she was enjoying this.

  Colin took a few steps away from the door and set a cup on the ground. He sprang back to the safety of the cabin when two lumberjacks made a grab for him. If they were able to separate the bride and groom for an hour or two they would consider the shivaree highly successful.

  “Theda, you out there?”

  “I’m here, Colin. Does Sunday need me to tell her what to do?”

  Thanks,” Sunday called. “I think I can figure it out.”

  Theda, take these brayin’ jackasses to the saloon and buy’em a drink.”

  “It’s about time, Tauman. I was thmkm’ I’d have to stand out here all night while ya decided if ya’d rather bed your bride or part with a com or two,” Murphy yelled.

  Colin and Sunday went back into the cabin and dosed the door. Theda picked up the cup of money and the laughing, rowdy men followed her up the street to the saloon.

  Jane and T.C. walked arm in arm back toward their ho
use. “Are you happy, Mrs. Kilkenny?”

  “Happier beyond anything I ever imagined.” She looked up at him. “Sometimes I worry that it can’t last.”

  “It will, sweetheart. You’re not still concerned about that threat, are you?”

  “I think about it. If it was just the notes, I wouldn’t worry so much. But the other. The person who did that to me hates me very much. Yet if they had wanted to kill me, they had the chance.”

  “Sweetheart, it tears me up that I’ve not been able to take that load off your mind. It’s been a month and a half since the last note. Whoever it is may have given up and left town.”

  “I hope so. Oh, I hope so.”

  They reached the porch and stopped to look up at the star-filled sky. He pulled her back against his chest and wrapped his arms around her.

  “You’ll love the sky out at the ranch. The stars are so close you can almost reach out and pluck them out of the sky.”

  She turned in his arms. “Do you ever pinch yourself to see if you’re dreaming?”

  “Sometimes.” He dropped a kiss on her nose.

  “I know somewhere I’d rather be… right now.”

  “Why, Mrs. Kilkenny, ma’am. You mean you want to take me to bed?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean, Mr. Kilkenny, sir.”

  Chapter 29

  BY Thanksgiving two feet of snow covered the ground. The branches of the pines and spruce sagged low under the weight of the snow and ice piled on them. The sharp odor of woodsmoke was strong in the cold, still air that hung over the town.

  With Jane seated in front of him on his horse, T.C. took her with him when he visited the cutting camps to the north and to the south. The men were working thirteen hours a day and would do so as long as the ground was frozen. Swampers had prepared the roads by using tank sprinklers to ensure a heavy coat of ice in the ruts made by the sleds that carried great loads of lodgepole pines to the mill.

  The men in the camps lived in a forty-foot-long building with side walls scarcely two feet above the ground. The walls were built of logs, the roof of shakes covered with evergreen boughs. Rowe Lumber Company provided the men in these camps with the best food that could be had in order to keep up their energy for the hard work.