Wolf Creek Wedding

by Penny Richards

  “I see,” she said in a low voice. She pushed away from the table and stood, hoping he did not see the shaking of her hands. “I’ll get your clothes ready. Will you need your suit?”

  “Don’t bother.”

  The coldness of the two words snatched away her breath.

  “I can get my things together,” he said. “I’ve been doing for myself for a long time.”

  Yes, she knew he had. Knowing how much of himself he put into his work and those who worked for him, it had given her much pleasure to do for him for a change.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  His gaze shifted from hers and he spoke to the doorway behind her. “Possibly a week.”

  He drew in a deep breath, and Abby had the distinct impression that he was trying to fortify himself for something. Finally, he brought his gaze back to her. “I want you and the children to be gone when I get back. It shouldn’t be too painful for Ben to travel in a few days.”

  A pain so sharp that she actually felt as if she’d been struck in the solar plexus knocked the air from Abby’s lungs. The room began to spin. She swayed and pressed her palms hard against the tabletop. She would not faint. She had never fainted in her life.

  If he noticed her distress, he never let on. “I’ll buy your train tickets to anywhere you like. Don’t you have a brother in Springfield?”

  She nodded. She wanted to tell him she would buy her own tickets but it was hard to talk when you couldn’t even breathe.

  “When you get settled, you can let Nate know where you are, and he can transfer the money from the sale of your farm and what I’ve put into savings for the children to a bank of your choice.”

  There were so many questions churning around in her head that Abby could not seem to grab hold of any coherent thought.

  “Betsy?” she managed to squeak out.

  Caleb rose and set his coffee cup on the counter. He leaned back against it, crossing his arms over his chest in a gesture of finality. “I’ll have Mary come and get her. She’ll just have to get used to the bottle.”

  “I see you’ve thought of everything,” she said.

  The words hung in the air between them, the same words she’d spoken the day Rachel had explained why taking Betsy to her place would not work. She could see that he remembered by the stiffening of his shoulders.

  “I hope so.”

  She drew herself up straighter and lifted her chin. “What about the children? What about Ben?”

  For the first time, Abby thought she saw a softening in his attitude. Imagined she saw a glimmer of pain in his eyes.

  When he spoke, his voice was huskier than it had been. “Tell him the truth. That I would not make him a good father. He got over losing William, and he’ll forget me soon enough. It isn’t as if we were close.”

  But you were! Abby wanted to scream. She could see the closeness growing between them every day. Despite her breaking heart and an aching sense of loss, Abby felt the first stirring of anger.

  “I won’t do it.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  The tears she’d kept at bay spilled over her lashes and down her cheeks. “I will not do your dirty work for you, Caleb Gentry,” she spat out, swiping at the tears with her fingertips.

  “What?”

  “You heard me! I’ve thought you many things these past weeks—stubborn, hard, fair, even kind and gentle, but I never thought you were a coward. I will not have you do to Ben what your mother did to you. You will tell him goodbye, and why you’re forcing us to leave here.”

  There was no compromise in her voice, or the gemlike hardness in her blue eyes. “I mean it, Caleb. Either tell him yourself, or be man enough to stay.”

  * * *

  He left on the afternoon train as planned, but as per Abby’s demands, he had told Ben himself that he was going. Caleb had not known what to expect from Ben, but the boy had listened to what Caleb had to say, and then nodded and turned his head away. There had been no reproach in his eyes, no discernible emotion. Unlike his mother, Ben had not argued that they were growing closer, and he had not cried or begged him to stay, as Caleb expected. Hoped? Feeling a bit let down by Ben’s lack of emotion, Caleb considered the possibility that the medicine Rachel was giving Ben for the pain must have dulled his senses.

  Caleb left the room feeling as if he had just lost something irreplaceable. When he’d carried his bags to the wagon where Frank waited to drive him to town, he’d had to pass through the parlor. Laura was in her pen. Abby was holding Betsy at her shoulder, her face buried against his daughter’s soft dark hair. She didn’t look up as he passed, but Laura called to him. He didn’t stop. Didn’t even look at her. Couldn’t. He had to let them go. For their sake and for his.

  * * *

  “You’re a dad-blamed fool, is what you are, Caleb Gentry,” Frank said.

  “I didn’t ask your opinion, Frank.”

  “Well, you’re gettin’ it, anyway!”

  Caleb cast him a sideways look. “You might remember who you’re talking to, old man,” he growled.

  “You don’t scare me none. And maybe you should remember that I tanned your hide many a time when you were a snot-nosed whippersnapper and did something stupid.” He slowed the wagon a bit to go around a pothole. “And tellin’ Abby and the kids to leave is about the most dim-witted thing you’ve ever done.”

  Caleb had had no choice but to tell Frank and Leo what was going on, since he would be leaving Abby’s and the children’s departure in their capable hands.

  “Frank...” Caleb warned.

  Frank was wound up. “You need that woman and those kids like roses need sunshine. Lord knows I thought the world of Emily, strange as she was, and I was more’n sorry she died. But she did, and ain’t nothin’ we can do about that. Sarah VanSickle aside, Abby Carter and her younguns are the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  Frank wasn’t telling Caleb anything he didn’t know, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear it.

  “You’re crazy about Laura, and you and Ben have got about as close as dirt to a fence post since you started teachin’ him about the woods and all.” Frank cut a sly look at Caleb. “And unless these old eyes are worse off than I think they are, you’re sweet on that wife of yours, too.”

  “I do care for them,” Caleb said on a sigh, giving his longtime friend that much. “But all that aside, it’s better for everyone this way. Better to send Abby away now before she gets fed up with me the way my mother got sick of Lucas. I don’t want to come home one day five or six years from now and see that she’s packed up and took off to—to Springfield. I don’t think I could stand that, Frank. I don’t want Betsy to have to go through what Gabe and I went through.”

  Frank scowled. “And why would she do that?”

  “Because I’m just like my father.”

  Frank croaked a hoarse laugh. “You’re nothing like Lucas Gentry,” he said, “but at least we’re gettin’ somewhere—I think.” He looked at Caleb across his shoulder. “Let me see if I got this straight. You sent her away, even though it’s tearin’ you apart, just so you won’t fall for her any harder and have it tear you apart later?”

  Caleb nodded.

  “Like I said, son, this is one of the most brainless things I’ve ever known you to do. And what did you mean about not wanting Betsy to go through what you and Gabe did?”

  “No child should come home and be told that their mother didn’t care enough for them to take them with her when she walked away.”

  A frown furrowed Frank’s wrinkled forehead. “And where did you hear that load of nonsense?”

  “From my father,” Caleb said bitterly.

  “I always knew Libby’s leavin’ hurt Lucas to the bone, and I always knew he was a ruthless son of a gun. Never knew him to
be a liar until now, though.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Libby got a hankerin’ to go back east for a few months,” Frank said thoughtfully, “seein’ as it had been years since she’d gone for a visit. Said she wanted to take you boys to visit your grandparents, since they’d never set eyes on either one of you. Lucas said no. Maybe he was scared that if she took you boys with her, she’d never come back.”

  “So she left without us.”

  “Nope. She didn’t go.” Frank took off his hat and scratched his grizzled head. “That next spring, her brother, Tad, and his wife, Ada, came and brought Ada’s brother with them. Do you remember your mama, Caleb?”

  Caleb shook his head. “Not much.”

  “She was a looker, Libby Gentry was, and I knew she was really unhappy, but even so, I never knew her to look twice at another man, least not until then. Long story short, your daddy claimed he caught them together in what they call a ‘compromising situation.’”

  “Go on,” Caleb said in a voice that sounded like he was talking around ground glass.

  “Lucas beat Ada’s brother, Sam, to within an inch of his life. Edward Stone can vouch for that. Lucas told her to pack up and go back east. Said he’d handle the divorce.”

  “Divorce?”

  “Yep. Pike County scandal of the year. Libby denied everything and tried to talk him around, but you know how ornery yer daddy could be. She and Gabe were up front, and the wagon was loaded, ready to head out—we were supposed to pick you up at school, Caleb, and then put you on the train—and your daddy, he walks out of the house as calm as you please, smokin’ one of them cheroots he was so fond of and tells me and Micah—” he shot Caleb a questioning glance “—you remember Micah?”

  Caleb nodded.

  “Well Lucas tells Micah to unload the trunks with your and Gabe’s stuff in ’em, and told me to get Gabe down ’cause she ain’t takin either one of you nowhere.”

  “What!”

  “It was a dad-blamed mess, let me tell you. Your mama is a-cryin’ and screamin’ and Lucas just takes Gabe and turns around and starts back to the house, lookin’ all pleased with hisself. Your mama jumps down and starts trying to get me and Micah to reload the trunks, but Lucas says that if we do he’ll see that we never work in these parts again, so we did what he said.

  “Then she goes and grabs your daddy’s arm and starts screamin’ at him that she can’t leave you boys— she won’t. He just takes hold of her hand, moves it off his arm, all the while he’s callin’ her a few choice names. Then he sets Gabe down, slings Libby over his shoulder, dumps her back in the wagon and tells her to never show her face back here again, or he’ll see to it that her family loses everything they have.”

  “Could he do that?” Caleb asked, shocked to his soul by what he’d just heard.

  “Probably.”

  * * *

  Abby spent the next four days packing the bare minimum of what she and the children would need in Springfield. Let Caleb do what he would with what she left behind. Her emotions ranged from fury to a sadness that eclipsed what she’d felt when William died. Was it because she and William shared a loving relationship, and even after his death she’d been sustained by memories and the children they’d had together? Did her suffering seem more acute because she felt as if she’d failed Caleb and this marriage somehow?

  Prayer brought no answers or peace. Convinced always that God was in control, she had no idea why He would bring her and Caleb together only to rip them apart.

  She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. The only decent rest she’d had since the afternoon he’d left was the day she’d climbed into his bed and breathed in his familiar, beloved scent. Ben was surly; Laura was whiny and seemed to watch the back door for Caleb’s return. The essence of him haunted the house, bombarding her with dozens of recollections of him throughout the day. Cutting his hair. Him kissing her. Seeing his dry sarcasm slowly become teasing. When she forced the memories away, tangible reminders of him tormented her: his rain gear hanging in the pantry. His coat hanging near the back door. The smell of his woodsy soap that clung to the clothes and sheets.

  On the second day of his absence, she decided that she was going crazy worrying. There had been no compromise in Caleb, and unable to bear the idea of never seeing him again, of never having the hope of him loving her and feeling his arms around her, she knew there was no sense putting off the inevitable. She’d packed in a frenzy. There were still three days until Caleb’s week was up and he came home, but they would be long gone when he did. They were leaving this afternoon, with Abby praying she could run far enough away to forget. Knowing it was impossible.

  * * *

  “Are we going back to our old house?”

  Ben was propped up in bed where he’d been reading his new horse book. Abby was scurrying around the room, stacking his clothes so she could pack them in the trunk Frank and Leo had brought down from the attic.

  “No. Someone else...owns it now. We’re going to see Uncle Phillip and Aunt Zoe in Springfield. You’ll like it there.”

  “Can I hunt and trap there?”

  “Oh, no,” Abby said, keeping her voice deliberately light. “Uncle Phil lives in the city. There are other things to do there. Theater, and museums, and libraries, and parks with lots of trees where you can run and play.”

  “If I can’t hunt, I don’t want to go.” His voice was firm and his lower lip stuck out in an all-too-familiar pout, something she’d not seen much of the past couple of months but that had made regular appearances since Caleb had left.

  Abby saw one of his stubborn spells on the horizon. “We have to go, Ben.”

  “Why?”

  “Remember when you were so unhappy about living here and I told you it was only until Caleb could find someone else to take care of Betsy, or she got a little older?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Well, Betsy’s grandmother and another lady in Wolf Creek will be taking care of Betsy from now on, so there’s no reason for us to stay.” She could not tell him that Caleb had demanded that they be gone when he returned. It would break his heart.

  “Why would he do that when he said...”

  Hearing his hesitation, Abby paused and turned to look at him. “What did he say, Ben?”

  “That he loves us.”

  Abby kept her silence. Where on earth had Ben gotten such an idea? If Caleb loved them, he had a strange way of showing it.

  “Benjamin Aaron, you know what happens when you tell a lie.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Tell me the truth now. Did Caleb really tell you he loved us?”

  Ben’s fair eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Not in those words, but that’s what he meant.”

  “And when did you have this conversation with him?”

  “The night I got hurt. I woke up and he was sitting beside my bed.”

  Abby’s heart stumbled. She’d had no idea that after sending her to bed, Caleb had sat up with Ben in case he needed something. “Exactly what did he say?” she asked, her voice a thread of sound.

  “That he was sorry. That he didn’t mean to hurt us, or for me to get hurt.”

  No surprise there. Abby knew Caleb was not a monster. “That’s all?”

  Ben looked as if he were about to burst into tears. “He said he couldn’t stand it if we left him, but he had to let us go because it was the best thing to do.”

  Abby felt the prickle of tears beneath her own eyelids. “And what did you say?”

  “Nothing. He didn’t know I was awake.”

  “I see.”

  “He was crying, Mama,” Ben said, and burst into tears himself.

  Abby went to the bed and gathered him close. If what Ben said was true, Caleb no more wanted them to go than she wanted t
o leave him. She recalled him telling her that he wasn’t good husband or father material. By some twisted reasoning that only a man like her husband could concoct, he’d convinced himself that he was undeserving, that it would be better to end things before... What? His inexperience hurt one of them? Or was it because he was falling in love with all of them and feared that he would somehow lose them?

  Trying to control another sob, Abby wiped at the tears running down her cheeks. Oh, what a muddle they were in!

  Ben drew a shuddering breath and sobbed, “We can’t leave, Mama. We can’t.”

  Abby placed her hands on his cheeks and tipped his head back to look into his eyes. “Darling, we have to. It’s what Caleb wants.”

  “It’s not what he wants, and besides, when you guys got married, you said it was until death do you part. You promised. Both of you promised in front of God.”

  Being reminded of that sacred vow by a six-year-old drew Abby up short. Out of the mouths of babes...

  Abby kissed away his tears and gave him a brief, hard hug.

  “You’re right, Ben,” she said offering him a shaky smile. “We did.”

  * * *

  It was just getting light the following day when Caleb guided the rig he’d rented in Gurdon down the lane toward home. He’d gone to Fort Worth and bought his equipment, but his heart and mind were in Wolf Creek. He’d spent the four days he’d been gone thinking about what Frank had told him. When he’d asked the older man why he’d never said anything before, Frank told him that Lucas had forbidden anyone to talk about it and that Caleb had never asked.

  Caleb had no reason to doubt the story, and Frank was right, he had not asked, and he had not talked about his mother because Lucas had forbidden him and Gabe to even mention her name. With no one to offer the other side of the story, it had been easy for Lucas to poison their malleable minds against the woman he and Gabe had both adored.