Wolf Creek Wedding

by Penny Richards

  Caleb made his way across the barren, fallow fields to the tree line, his booted feet squelching through the mud as he headed toward the big pine that marked the spot where they usually went into the woods. Entering the copse of trees was like stepping into another world. The fog was denser beneath the shelter of the trees, as if their overarching branches held it close to the earth. Seeing beyond a few yards was all but impossible. Silence ruled the gray day; all the forest critters must be snug in their nests. The misty rain had become a light drizzle that dripped from pine needles, bare tree limbs and the brim of his hat, the only sound to be heard besides his ragged breathing and the soft soughing of the rising wind.

  Caleb picked up his already-hurried pace, refusing to let himself think of what might happen if Ben was not found soon. Picking his way through the sodden ground cover, stepping around muscadine vines and over moss-covered trees and lichen-scaled rocks, Caleb moved closer to the spot along the creek where he and Ben had placed their first trap the day before. The creek was bordered by banks so steep they were almost vertical in some places, dangerous on a good day. Now, slick with rain and fallen leaves, the softened edges prone to crumble, they were downright treacherous. Swollen from all the rain they’d received recently, the water of the usually placid brook rushed headlong to the Little Missouri. Thank goodness all the traps were set on high ground.

  Caleb located the animal trail and the trap, saw that it was empty and scanned the area for sign of Ben’s blue plaid coat. Nothing. He did see leaves that had looked as if they’d been scuffled through and followed the trail to the next spot.

  No sign of a trapped animal, no sign of Ben.

  Caleb trudged on, filled with a sense of urgency and that nagging, growing guilt.

  * * *

  Ben opened his eyes slowly and blinked against the rain falling into his face. He was cold. Freezing. And his leg hurt like the very dickens. He’d lost his cap somewhere. Rain plastered his hair to his head and ran in icy rivulets down his neck. With his teeth chattering like the Morse code the telegraph man sent through the lines, he lifted his upper body to his elbows to see what was wrong with his leg. His stomach roiled, and he lost his breakfast. Broken, he reckoned, from the look and feel of it.

  When the queasiness passed, he lifted his head again to look around. He lay at the bottom of the gorge where he’d tumbled after slipping on a pile of slick leaves. Water raced pell-mell over rocks and boulders just feet from where he lay. He realized his shoulder ached, and his head. He reached up to check his forehead and found a big goose egg. Drawing back his hand, he saw that his fingers were covered with blood.

  He had to get home. His mom would be worried sick, as she always said. He could stand the pain...Caleb said men had to be tough, and blood had never bothered Ben, so he had to try to get home. Gritting his teeth, he tried to get up, but realized pretty fast that even if got to his feet, which he didn’t think he could do, there was no way he could climb up the steep bank.

  A wave of worry and self-pity settled over him. No one knew where he was. The realization was soon followed by a reassuring thought. As soon as his mother realized he was gone, she’d send Caleb to find him. He was good at tracking. He was good at a lot of things. Course his father had been good at a lot of things, too, Ben thought loyally. Just different things.

  Though he’d tried not to, Ben liked Caleb more all the time. He’d felt ashamed at first, but Caleb had been right. Even though his father would always be his father, he and Caleb could be friends. He thought his mama was starting to like Caleb, too, but something had set her off today. Probably something Mrs. VanSickle said. Caleb hadn’t looked too happy, either. He hated when his parents argued, hated that his mom and Caleb were at odds.

  Ben gave a violent shiver. He was so cold, and it was raining right into his face. He tried to turn onto his side and cried out in pain, but managed to turn just a bit. His hands felt like ice. He blew on them and then tucked them beneath his armpits, the only halfway dry place on his coat.

  A new worry surfaced. What if his mother didn’t tell Caleb? What if they were too mad to talk to each other? What if no one came looking for him? How long until dark? A rush of panic sent him scrambling backward, and loosed a scream of agony. Grinding his teeth together, he tried to curl into a ball, and the tears started up again. He didn’t think he was brave enough to stay here all night by himself.

  * * *

  Only two more places to check. If there was no sign of Ben, he’d gotten off the trail in the fog and was lost. Caleb’s jaw tightened. Trudging through the woods, he’d called out for Ben periodically, but heard no answer. Once, he caught himself mumbling beneath his breath, and when he’d realized what he was doing, he’d stopped dead in his tracks. Praying? Had he really been praying to find Ben? Well, why not? There was no doubt that Abby was calling on God for help and strength. And it couldn’t hurt.

  A sound, the first he’d heard since stepping into the foggy emptiness of the forest, stopped Caleb midstride. What was that? An animal of some sort? Ben calling out? Caleb cocked his head, listening for the slightest sound.

  An agonized cry sent his head up, like a hound catching scent of its prey.

  “Ben!” he cried, running farther along the ridge of the creek. “Ben! Where are you?”

  “Caleb!” a muffled voice shouted. “Over here!”

  Holding the .22 rifle at his side, Caleb slogged over the mushy leaf-strewn ground toward the sound of Ben’s voice. “Ben!” he called again.

  “I’m down here, at the bottom of the gully. I slipped and fell.”

  Caleb located Ben a minute later. He was lying flat of his back no more than five feet from the rushing waters of the creek, and it was clear from the pain lingering in his eyes that he was hurt. The expression of joy that flashed on Ben’s face when he saw Caleb almost broke his heart. “Where are you hurt?” he asked, scanning the sheer embankment for the safest, fastest way to descend.

  “I’m pretty sure I broke my leg.”

  Caleb didn’t miss the slight catch in the boy’s voice.

  “Hang on. I’ll be right there.” He leaned the rifle against a nearby tree and edged sideways down the sharp incline, grabbing small saplings and bushes for handholds. He was soon squatting next to Ben, who reached up and flung his arms around Caleb’s neck. A feeling of love so intense he could barely breathe surged through him. He closed his eyes and hugged Ben close. “What happened, bud?” he asked, hearing a catch in his own voice.

  Ben pulled back to look into Caleb’s eyes. “I was checking the traps and slipped. You told me we could come and check them and then you and Mama were arguing, and...” His voice trailed away, and his eyes grew wide with apprehension. “Is she mad?”

  “No,” Caleb said, pushing a lock of wet hair from Ben’s eyes. “She’s not mad. She’s worried. You shouldn’t have come out here alone. Not in this weather.”

  “I know.” He looked toward the top of the ravine. “How are we gonna get back to the top?”

  “I’m going to carry you.”

  “Is it gonna hurt?”

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Ben. I’ll try to be easy, but when I pick you up, it will probably hurt pretty bad. If you feeling like yelling, yell.”

  He did. Loudly.

  * * *

  A baby in each arm, Abby looked at the clock. Almost two hours since Caleb had disappeared into the darkness of the woods beyond the cornfield. She pressed her lips together and blinked fast to hold back the tears. Where could they be? To make matters worse, both babies seemed acutely attuned to her mood. She fed Betsy, who was usually content once her tummy was full, but not today, and sunny Laura refused to play in her pen and wanted every bit of Abby’s attention, which was impossible with Betsy in her arms.

  She felt another tear slide down her cheek when she heard someone at the back doo
r. Setting Laura into her playpen despite her angry protests, and laying Betsy in her cradle, Abby ran to the kitchen.

  Caleb stood in the doorway, rain dripping off the brim of his felt hat, holding Ben in his arms. Both were sopping wet and shivering. Ben’s eyes were closed; Caleb’s were haunted.

  “What’s wrong?” Abby wailed. “Is he all right?”

  “He’ll be fine. I think he fainted, which is probably the best thing he could have done.”

  “Fainted? What happened?”

  “He slipped down the creek embankment and broke his leg,” Caleb told her. “He’s got a giant bump and a cut on his head, but he isn’t talking crazy. Right now he’s chilled to the bone.”

  “Bring him to his room. I’ll get him stripped down and under the covers, so he’ll warm up.”

  “While you’re doing that, I’ll ride into town for Rachel.”

  “Change into something dry before you go,” Abby told him, wifely concern in her voice. “I don’t need you sick, too.”

  She hurried ahead of him down the hall to turn back the blankets on Ben’s bed. “Your rain gear is on a peg in the pantry,” she said over her shoulder.

  She rushed into the room ahead of Caleb. “Just put him on top of the quilts until I can get him out of these wet things. That way, he won’t get the sheets wet.”

  Caleb did as she instructed, and Abby made fast work of cutting Ben out of his pants and his other wet clothes and then Caleb eased Ben beneath the blankets and left the room while Abby was still fussing over him.

  * * *

  Assured by Rachel that Ben would most likely sleep through the night, Abby had been persuaded to go to bed in her room to be near the girls if they needed her.

  Tormented by the day’s events, more specifically his part in them, Caleb was unable to sleep. The house was silent except for the chiming of the clock in the next room and the hiss and clunk of the wood burning in the fireplace. He sat in the rocking chair next to Ben’s bed, his elbows resting on his knees, his clasped hands dangling between his thighs, his weary gaze focused blindly on the rag rug beneath his feet.

  Rachel had come and gone, working her healing power with bandages and splints and pain medication. Ben had cried out once, probably when she’d set the leg. Caleb wasn’t sure there was a medicine on earth that would help his pain; as far as he knew, there was no cure for guilt.

  He’d made a mess of everything—his marriage to Abby, his feeble attempts at learning to be a father...all of it. Ben’s accident was his fault. Caleb should not have let the boy see the anger directed at his mother, and Ben should not have been sent away as he had been. Not when Caleb had made a promise.

  Beyond that, he never should have let Sarah VanSickle coerce him and Abby into marriage. He should never have become entangled in Abby’s and her children’s lives. He’d had no experience with children to fall back on, and even though he and Emily were married for six years, he had scant knowledge of how marriages worked. He was not good husband material. He was definitely not father material. He’d let Ben down, let himself down. Caleb dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, pressing hard to try to drive away the pain. He didn’t remember being so miserable in his entire life.

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” he choked out in a low, emotion-clogged voice. “I never meant to hurt you or for you to get hurt. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

  He rested his forehead on the edge of the bed, and sobbed, huge gulping sobs...the first time he remembered crying since the afternoon he and Gabe had come home from school and were told their mother had gone to live in Boston, that she hadn’t cared enough for either of them to take them with her.

  * * *

  The first thing Abby did when she woke up was check on Ben. He was sleeping deeply, no doubt due to the pain medication Rachel had given him. After laying the back of her hand against his forehead to check for fever, Abby headed for the kitchen. She rubbed at her gritty eyes and prayed Caleb had made the coffee as he usually did before she woke up.

  She smiled when she saw the coffeepot sitting at the back of the stove. Her gaze drifted to the door. His coat was gone. He was probably doing not only his chores, but Ben’s this morning.

  Abby poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table, resting her chin in her hands. How could she approach Caleb about their argument the day before? What could she ever say to make him realize that she must have temporarily taken leave of her senses?

  Even knowing the horrible woman had come to stir up some kind of trouble, Abby had fallen for her lies—hook, line and sinker. Well, it hadn’t exactly been a lie, but she had manipulated the truth enough to make it sound plausible...like saying that Lucas wanted the property, a statement that meshed perfectly with Abby’s knowledge that someone had been interested in it before William died. Adding that Viola Haversham had been told the truth by her husband seemed likely, too; otherwise how could Sarah have found out?

  Stating that she should have checked on the sale also made sense—most people would—except that as Caleb reminded her, she had given him her power of attorney and therefore she’d felt no need to check on the sale. Which brought her back to the certainty that Caleb would never have cheated her in any way. Yet she’d all but come out and accused him of just that.

  Even her argument that he should have talked it over with her held no real weight, because she had trusted him with the task. Once again, she’d let her quick temper put her in an awful spot. All the time Caleb had been looking for Ben she had prayed that he would be found, that he would be all right, and for God to give her the right words to fix the mess she’d made of things. But morning had arrived and her mind was still a blank. She wasn’t sure she could talk herself out of this one, but she had to try.

  How would Caleb act this morning? Would he still be angry? Cold and distant? Or, like her, would he feel remorse and a soul-deep need to make things right again?

  As if thinking of him conjured him up, she heard his step on the porch. She sat very still, her gaze focused on the doorway, barely breathing. He strode into the room, bringing in cold air and vitality and a quiet strength. Blinking back tears, she wondered why she had fought her feelings for him for so long and knew that she had never loved him more than she did at that moment. She watched as he hung his coat on the hook and then turned to look at her, his gray eyes devoid of emotion. “How’s Ben?”

  So, she thought, his attitude was to be the polite cordiality he’d displayed during the first days of their marriage. Fine. She could deal with that until she had the opportunity to change it.

  “He’s resting well and doesn’t seem to have any fever. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “I’ll get it.”

  She watched the play of muscles across his shoulders as he reached for the cup he must have used earlier. She noticed that his hair was already brushing his collar. She sighed. He would need another haircut soon. Filling his mug, he sat down across from her.

  “Caleb, I don’t know how to say this, but—”

  “Then don’t.” He words were hard. Harsh. Like the expression in his eyes.

  “But I said things to hurt you, and I didn’t—”

  “You said what you felt,” he said. “There’s no need to apologize for your feelings. Ever. It probably happened for the best.”

  “How can you say that?” she asked, frowning. “I know you would never do the terrible things I all but accused you of, but Sarah made it all sound so...so logical, and I...” She stopped, drew a breath and took another tack. “And you’re perfectly within your rights to refuse to discuss your business with me. I had no right to expect you to, just because William did.”

  “It won’t work, Abby.”

  “What?” She blinked in surprise. Was he going to refuse to accept her apology then?

  “This marriage.”


  “What?” she said again, unable—or unwilling—to believe what she thought he was saying. Their marriage wouldn’t work? But it was working.

  He shook his head. “It won’t work, and we knew it wouldn’t, but we let Sarah VanSickle manipulate the situation. Face it, Abby. I’m not husband material, and God knows I’m not father material, as I’m sure Ben will tell you.”

  Was he saying what she thought he was? Abby felt as if her whole existence were in jeopardy, as if her world were about to collapse and there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Actually, I think you’re adapting to fatherhood very well.” Her voice shook as she tried to make her argument. “You and Ben have been getting along so well and Laura...”

  “Loves me. I know.” He gave a bitter laugh. “And what about me as a husband? If I’m adapting so well, why is it that we quarrel so much?”

  “But we don’t. Not really. Not any more than any husband and wife.”

  “I like peace and quiet,” he said brusquely. “I’m not used to being in the midst of chaos.”

  She felt the blood drain from her face. He was saying that he didn’t like the confusion and disorder that was their family dynamic. Had all the changes she thought she’d seen in him been an act, then?

  “What are you trying to tell me, Caleb?” she asked, her troubled gaze probing his, as if she could find the answers she sought there. “Just spit it out,” she commanded, not realizing she had stolen one of his favorite phrases.

  “I’ve been planning on making a trip to Fort Worth to see about buying some new equipment. I’d planned on leaving after the first of the year, but I’ve decided to leave this afternoon.”

  Abby opened her mouth to tell him that he’d never mentioned that he was planning to go anywhere, that she had no idea he was even thinking of buying more equipment, but then she remembered that he was not William, that he felt no need to confide in her, or talk over his plans...or his dreams. Her mouth snapped shut and she pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. She imagined she saw a sardonic smile in the calm depths of his eyes. Something in that look told her that the conversation was over, that there was nothing more to be said, nothing to gain by saying anything.