Forgetting Herself

by Yvonne Jocks

  Papa said again, his voice strange and raspy, “I will see him dead.”

  Mother said, “Jacob.”

  And finally, horribly, Mariah wondered if he might actual y mean it.

  "No! We've done nothing that would shame you! Just kisses—Papa, it's only been kisses. I love him, and he loves me. We've had honorable intentions from the very start." She grasped her father's arm, wanting him to face her again—

  To her shock, he recoiled from her touch.

  Mother said, “That's enough! Mariah, you join your sisters upstairs. Jacob—”

  But Papa was already stalking toward the back of the house. Mother went after him, and Mariah fol owed her mother.

  “Where are you going?” Mother demanded.

  Papa said, “Out.”

  “You are not to do anything rash. Do you hear me?”

  Papa continued out the backdoor toward the stables.

  Mama turned and pointed at Mariah. “Stay here.”

  Confusing cowardice and common sense now, Mariah let her own footsteps falter while her mother continued after her father—

  An angrier father than she'd ever, ever seen.

  He could not really want Stuart dead. The mere possibility made Mariah's head swim. If anything happened to Stuart because of this, it would be her fault. Her fault for loving him, and for keeping it secret for so long. Her fault for the family she came from....

  But no, such thoughts were inconceivable. Her father—even angry—was a good, decent man. Like Stuart. She had to trust that.

  What else could she do but trust it?

  That, and pray.

  Riding toward his family's ranch, where they would soon have Sunday dinner, Stuart felt good. He'd braved the lion's den and emerged with the greatest of prizes.

  Mariah loved him—loved him even more than she loved her family. She still meant to marry him, despite her father's protests.

  Leaning his head back, Stuart let out a foolish, exuberant whoop. What man wouldn't want to crow, with a woman like Mariah Garrison promising herself to him? He felt guilty for having doubted her devotion.

  Although really, seeing that house ...

  Rather than dwell on the riches Mariah would forsake for him, Stuart turned his thoughts forward.

  He had a great deal to do, in the next week, and plans to make. Few proper engagements lasted under six months. Despite his impatience, Stuart knew that the folks of Sheridan would be watching for any hint of scandal in their courtship. A short engagement would lead to rumors that they'd only married from necessity, and he would not stand for that slur on Mariah's reputation or his own.

  Spring would come soon enough, with all the work ahead of them. In the meantime, she must have an engagement ring. Stuart's mother had promised him his granny's. That meant letting his own family know his plans. Though Stuart felt confident of a better reception than he'd received at the Garrisons', he had some explaining to do as well .

  And then there was—

  The spray of dirt from the road in front of Stuart's horse surprised him almost as much as the gunshot that echoed it. A second fol owed the first, then another, each throwing up dirt, until Pooka reared back and almost unhorsed him.

  Stuart leaned forward in the saddle, drew his frightened horse in a tight circle and searched the horizon of the wide, rolling grasslands as he did. Johnson? he thought. Or...

  He had a shotgun on his saddle, more for unexpected hunting opportunities than safety. But without seeing where the gunman hid, it did him no good to draw the blasted thing. Especial y at a distance.

  To Stuart's relief, no more shots sounded. Pooka tossed his head and snorted, frightened even without having seen Garrison's murderous fury.

  The back of his neck itchy, a shudder building deep in him, Stuart nevertheless took a long, deep breath of qualified relief. He nudged the gelding into a trot, then a canter, to better escape this stretch of road before the gunman decided to sight a little better.

  He could almost hear Mariah's likely protests: Perhaps someone was hunting antelope. Perhaps the gunshots weren't meant for him at all.

  Ah, Mariah . ..

  The shots were meant for Stuart, all right. But the farther he rode unharmed, leaning over Pooka's neck at full gallop, the more he knew them for a warning. Repeating rifles held up to fifteen, sixteen, even seventeen cartridges. If someone had wanted to kill him, surely they wouldn't have stopped.

  He wondered if that eliminated Mariah's father from the list of suspects.

  Her father, Stuart thought darkly, would keep shooting.

  Chapter Seven

  “I don't want Marian to bake anymore,” announced little Elise on Tuesday, putting down the cookie she'd just nibbled.

  'Then you don't get cookies," countered Mrs. Garrison smoothly, touching Marian's arm before her oldest daughter, pretty cheek streaked with flour, could argue with her youngest.

  Evangeline Taylor took another polite nibble of her own cookie. It tasted a little burnt, but still ... it was a cookie! Had she dared speak up, she would praise it. But she would never be heard over the others, not on Elizabeth Street, not as the Garrison girls were vehemently debating the perils of courtship.

  The impossible had proven true: Mariah Garrison meant to marry a sheep farmer.

  “She has to learn wife skills,” Laurel told Elise, and not very nicely.

  “I can cook,” argued Mariah, as if saying the words would make them even more true.

  Laurel muttered something that sounded like, “For a sheep farmer?”

  “Enough,” chided Mrs. Garrison. “We have company.”

  Victoria said, “Evangeline knows, Mama. Everyone at school is talking about it.”

  Marian, mixing something in a bowl, tried to look nonchalant. “What are they saying?”

  Mrs. Garrison said, “Elise, eat your cookie or go to your room.”

  Elise contemplated her cookie as if weighing her choices.

  “Mollie Gregory said it's because you never kept company with proper men,” reported Victoria, as thrilled to share her copious knowledge as ever.

  “Proper?” Mariah stopped stirring.

  “She meant—” started Audra, then realized that nobody needed further explanation. “Oh.”

  Victoria nodded. "She said if Papa could get someone like Alden Wright to woo you, maybe you would come to your senses."

  Mariah and Laurel exclaimed, “Alden Wright!” and then blinked at each other, startled by their momentary agreement. Evangeline did not understand their objection. Alden Wright was considered one of the best catches in town, second only to Thaddeas Garrison.

  The older girls looked deliberately away from each other and Laurel added, “At least his family runs cattle. Me, I'll only keep company with cowboys.”

  Mrs. Garrison said, “Just have them talk to your father first, Laurel. Then they can sit with you in the parlor some evening....” On the excuse of checking Mariah's progress, she dusted the flour off her oldest daughter's smudged cheek. “Or walk you home from church.”

  Evangeline wondered if a gentleman would ever want to cal on someone like herself, with neither a father nor a parlor. She took another nibble of cookie.

  With a snort, Laurel fell back in her chair, folded her arms, and scowled. "What kind of cowboy would want to do something tedious like that?"

  Audra said, “A well-behaved one.”

  “You'll be amazed what a man will endure to spend time with a girl he's sweet on,” their mother insisted, smiling at Mariah.

  Victoria resumed her report. "Sophronia Pierce's mother says if Papa made you choose between a roof over your head and a sheep farmer, you'd come to your senses fast enough."

  Elise said, “May I go to my room?”

  “Eat your cookie!” snapped Mariah.

  Elise began to pout. Evangeline would gladly eat the cookie for her, if that could help.

  “Mercy James thinks that Stuart MacCallum just wants your inheritance,” added Victor
ia. “Do we get an inheritance, Mama?”

  Laurel said, “Not if we marry sheep farmers.”

  Mariah said, “Stop calling him a sheep farmer!”

  “If he'd stop farming sheep, maybe I would.” Laurel considered it. “But probably not.”

  “Laurel,” warned their mother, “that is enough. Kitty, you haven't touched your cookie. Does your stomach hurt? Would you like some bread and jam?”

  Kitty shook her head.

  “I want bread and jam please,” piped up Elise.

  Mrs. Garrison said, “The cookies are not that bad, Elise!”

  “Not that bad?” Mariah's pretty mouth fell open.

  Evangeline took a deep breath. “I like—”

  But Victoria was reporting again 'Then Carrie Benton said she fears Mariah might be in a family way, and Laurel—"

  “Vic!” warned Laurel, while Evangeline gasped. Victoria hushed, but too late.

  Mariah blushed deeper than Evangeline had ever seen anybody blush. “Oh!”

  Mrs. Garrison, eyebrows high, said, “Audra, please take your younger sisters upstairs.”

  Blushing herself, Audra said, “Yes, ma'am.”

  “In our family's way?” asked Elise, following Audra. “Or the MacMallumses?”

  As soon as they'd gone, Victoria said, “I'm sorry, Mama. I forgot who was listening.”

  “Mmm.” Mrs. Garrison folded her arms. “Laurel, finish Victoria's story, please.”

  Scowling, Laurel obeyed. “ 'And Laurel got Carrie Benton to take it back.' That's al .”

  “How?” demanded their mother.

  “I didn't touch her!” insisted Laurel. “All I did was tell her what I would do if she spread such vulgar lies about my sister again, so she stopped.”

  In fact, Carrie had burst into tears, but Evangeline hoped nobody said so. Laurel always stood up for the smaller children at school. She once kicked Cotton James for pulling Evangeline's hair.

  Mrs. Garrison said, “I'm going to get a visit from Mrs. Benton, aren't I?”

  Scowling down at her plate, Laurel admitted, “You might.”

  Victoria said, "But you might not. Sophronia Pierce said no respectable person in this town will have anything to do with us as long as Mariah persists in this dreadful perversion."

  Mariah slammed her mixing bowl down onto the table, “perversion!”

  Mrs. Garrison said, "Sophronia Pierce would not know what 'this town' intends if they wrote a declaration in India ink on her—“ She stopped, though it seemed to take effort. ”On her face,“ she finished. ”But we all know not to take gossip to heart, now don't we?"

  That surprised Evangeline almost as much as did the answering nods. But perhaps Mrs. Garrison had never known the suspicion and scorn that grew from the seeds of such slander.

  Should she warn them? But Mrs. Garrison excused herself upstairs, and the kitchen fell silent behind her. The stark contrast to previous afternoons made Evangeline's heart ache.

  Even when Mariah said softly to Laurel, “Thank you for standing up for me.”

  “I didn't do it for you,” her dark-haired sister insisted, standing. "I did it for the family honor.

  Something you seem to have forgotten!" And she stalked out the backdoor, her footsteps loud and clumping because she'd worn cowboy boots under her skirts again.

  Evangeline whispered, “I will go get our books,” and escaped the kitchen to the front hallway. But Victoria did not fol ow.

  Behind her, she heard Mariah ask, “Are things as bad for Stuart's brothers and sisters?”

  Evangeline decided to practice her piano lesson, even if it wasn't Thursday. Playing scales, she need not hear Victoria's answer. None of this made sense. Why would Mariah or Stuart cause their families such grief? If Evangeline ever had such a home, she would never ...

  But not even a MacCallum would deign ask for Evangeline's hand. So she concentrated on her practice, wondering if she would ever have the talent to play a piece of dance music that had haunted her dreams since Saturday night....

  Thaddeas Garrison was not, to Stuart's surprise, among the three cowboys who rode toward him and his flock Tuesday afternoon. He knew he wouldn't see the rancher himself so far east of town, where the range got dry. A benefit of age and power was the avoidance of this kind of dirty work.

  But he'd expected the man's son, Mariah's half-brother or not.

  He did not think the lawyer's absence bode well .

  Still , there was nothing Stuart could do but stand and await the approaching trio—and to gesture toward his two black border collies, Beauty and Buster, to stay with the flock. Sheep, when spooked, were more likely to bunch up than to scatter, which made them easy targets. The dogs' job, among other things, was to keep them from spooking.

  Best that Stuart let himself draw the attention. So he did not hike back to Pooka to collect his shotgun or, God forbid, to ride away. He walked in the direction of the riders, more to put himself farther from the sheep than out of any frontier courtesy—and he waited.

  The men from the Circle-T rode cow ponies, small and shaggy with winter coats. They wore the dusters, neckerchiefs, leather gauntlets, and Stetson hats of their trade. Coils of rope and rifles in scabbards hung from their saddles. Only one, the man in the middle, looked to have any age on him. The two backing him up were no older than Stuart.

  Their youth didn't bode well , either. But Stuart took a certain comfort in the fact that he had no dignified choice but to wait. At least it gave him the chance to show them that he was not afraid of cattlemen. Not enough to matter, anyhow.

  The younger cowboys sneered at the flock behind him—as if they owned anything more than their saddles and their clothes, much less over four hundred head of good Merino stock. Even their ponies likely belonged to their outfit—the Circle-T Ranch, of course. Their brands said so.

  Their leader, a blond man with bleached eyebrows and a face like leather, drew his pony to a halt not five feet from Stuart. His associates fol owed suit.

  “You're the oldest MacCallum boy,” he announced.

  Though no longer a boy, if the range wars had ever all owed him a real childhood at all , Stuart said,

  “I am.”

  The blond man nodded and swung easily from his horse, shrugged his shoulders to readjust to standing on the ground. The other two men stayed on horseback.

  “Hear tell you've been taking liberties with a certain rancher's daughter,” said the older cowboy, squinting at the unpleasantness of the words—and what would surely fol ow them. Garrison had figured everything out, all right.

  Stuart might've argued that he had to meet Marian in secret, or she'd been too inviting to resist, or that they planned to marry. But the truth was, he had taken liberties with her.

  The fact that a lowdown cowboy was saying it did not change that.

  So Stuart, trying to take a deep breath in such a way that the cowboys would not notice, said, “Yes, that's right.”

  Their leader shook his head. When a younger cowboy said, “You son-of-a—” Stuart tensed.

  Nobody insulted his mother, whether they outnumbered him or not. But the older cowboy raised one hand, and that was enough to command silence.

  “That weren't real smart,” he said then, and Stuart had no answer. He hadn't met with Mariah to be smart. He'd kept seeing her, kissing her, because ... well , because she was Mariah. He needed her like he needed water to drink and air to breathe. And she'd been worth it, was still worth it, even knowing what he faced.

  Stripping off one leather glove, then the other, the older cowboy asked, "We gonna need to hold you down?"

  Stuart just shook his head. But he did ask, “What's your name?”

  “Schmidt,” answered the blond man. 'The Boss is my uncle. We gonna have trouble with those dogs?"

  Stuart looked over his shoulder, saw Beauty and Buster watching him with their usual alertness. He whistled the command he'd only gestured before: Watch the sheep. The dogs' bright eyes stayed on him
, their ears up, but they would obey.

  He turned back to Schmidt, not unaware of the real bias here. "Leave the flock alone and they'll stay where they are."

  Schmidt said, “I don't give a damn about your stinkin' woolybacks.”

  Then he slammed a fist into Stuart's gut.

  “I don't get it,” said Dougie, Stuart's seventeen-year-old partner and brother. “After all that, you honestly think Old Man Garrison will stand by and watch you court his oldest girl?”

  “Nope,” said Stuart from where he sat at his pull-out table, and he wiped more blacking onto his boot. After four days, the worst of the pain from his beating had faded ... though it helped to sit inside at night, with the heat of the stove at his back.

  Dougie, who prided himself on his ability to sleep on the ground in any weather, often proclaimed his independence from walls and foundations—not that Stuart's home, a caravan-style sheep-wagon with an arched canvas roof and Dutch door, had a foundation. But that did not keep him from stretching across the wagon's single bed that Saturday night. "Then why are you slickin' yourself up for church?"

  “Because I mean to court her anyway.”

  His redheaded brother laughed. “You hold your life cheaply then, do you?”

  “Even Garrison won't come armed to church.” He hoped. And as for what might happen after...

  Well , he'd taken one beating and was still standing. More or less. The knowledge that he would do the same to any man who secretly kissed one of his sisters discomforted Stuart even more than the ugly purple bruises across his gut, his ribs. Since he intended to keep his dealings with Mariah aboveboard from here on out, any further violence would cross the kind of deadline you couldn't mark in the dirt. But whether or not Garrison crossed it...

  Focusing on what he could control, Stuart began to buff his boots with hard, short swipes. That only hurt a little.

  “Could be she won't be there,” added Dougie, as if Stuart hadn't considered the same thing.

  “Could be he'll lock her in her room or send her off to a convent.”

  The Garrisons were no more Catholic than the MacCallums, but his brother's predictions held a grain of truth. So Stuart said, “He might.”

  “You do know that Garrison could ruin you, or worse, and get away with it.”