The Bridegroom

by Linda Lael Miller

  Seeing the three of them, presenting a happy domestic tableau as they did, Lydia felt her fear for Gideon—for all of them—intensify. Rowdy had been worried enough, when he’d learned that Gideon was armed, to immediately send a messenger for Wyatt and Sam O’Ballivan and then rush away so quickly that he hadn’t even taken the time to stop and tell his wife he was leaving town. Gideon was in real danger—and now Rowdy and Wyatt would be, too.

  “Lydia, your face,” Lark said, moving as if to rise from her chair. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “H—I—J—K—” Marietta continued.

  “Please, don’t get up,” Lydia told Lark quickly. She stood just inside the back door, as though her feet had turned to stone, wringing her hands, and she knew she must be an alarming sight, since she’d cast aside all decorum, lifted her skirts and run along the lane to the Yarbro house. Her hair, neatly plaited and then wound into a bun and pinned at her nape before she left the bedroom that morning, was dangling down her back now, the braid starting to come undone.

  Lark used her schoolmarm voice then, the one Lydia hadn’t heard since she was a child, and even then it had never been directed at her, but at the bigger boys who’d dared to roughhouse in her classroom. “Lydia, sit down before you drop, and tell me what’s wrong.”

  Lydia forced herself farther into the room, pulled out one of the chairs at the table, dropped into it. “Maybe nothing,” she said, trying to sound brave. Maybe everything.

  Carefully, she explained the facts as she knew them—that Gideon had left early, riding a horse he’d borrowed from Rowdy and armed with a pistol. She related that Rowdy had decided to go after him the moment he’d learned that Gideon was carrying a gun, and asked that she come and tell Lark where he’d gone.

  Listening, Lark’s eyes widened, and some of the color she’d so recently regained after her travail seeped from her cheeks, leaving them mottled.

  “He sent a boy for Wyatt, too,” Lydia finished. “Wyatt and Sam O’Ballivan.” She’d leave the news of Nick Yarbro’s death for Rowdy to relate, as it was his place to do.

  “Dear God,” Lark murmured.

  “What shall we do?” Lydia whispered.

  “What wives have always done,” Lark said, with some irritation. “Wait.”

  A tear slipped down Lydia’s cheek, but she quickly wiped it away, lest Marietta see. The child had already stopped playing with her blocks, and sat gazing worriedly up at her mother.

  “Is—is there anything you need?” Lydia asked Lark, afraid that her sister-in-law, her dearest friend, might suffer a setback. She’d nearly died, bearing little Miranda, after all, and a serious shock might compromise her recovery. “I could make tea—”

  “Kitty will be coming by to look after the children in a little while,” Lark broke in, with a shake of her head. “As soon as church is over.” Suddenly her eyes widened, and she put a hand to her mouth. “As soon as church is over—”

  “What?” Lydia asked anxiously.

  “The reception, Lydia,” Lark said. “The wedding reception! The whole town and half the countryside will be heading for your place as soon as the services let out—”

  Lydia closed her eyes. Sarah and Lark had planned to hold a party for her and Gideon—she’d known that since soon after the hasty ceremony in the Yarbros’ parlor—but she’d assumed, because of Lark’s recent ordeal, that the event must have been cancelled. And she had never thought of the reception again after that.

  Now she recalled the large variety of cakes and pies she’d seen in Wyatt and Sarah’s kitchen the night before, when she and Gideon had paid that unexpected visit. More, surely, than even two grown, hardworking men, their women and a brood of active children could eat.

  She heard the echo of Sarah’s voice. “Shannie and I have been baking all afternoon.”

  Of course, the wide variety of baked goods had been intended for the party.

  “Oh, no,” Lydia whispered. “No.” As frightened and anxious as she was, she simply could not face a party, especially one meant to celebrate her and Gideon’s marriage. It seemed incredible that, as recently as that morning, the prospect would have delighted her.

  “Lydia,” Lark said, employing her school-voice again, “I am sorrier than you will ever know that things turned out this way—I should have told you that Sarah and I had decided the reception ought to be held no matter what—but there is nothing to do now but carry on. It’s too late to stop people from coming—we’ll just have to make the best of this.”

  Lydia could see that saying “I can’t” would get her nowhere with Lark. Finished nursing the baby, she was closing the bodice of her dress, the shawl resting across her lap now, and raising her infant daughter to her shoulder. She rocked gently in the chair, patting the baby’s tiny back.

  Slowly, Lydia stood. Whatever her own reluctance, she couldn’t leave Helga and the aunts to deal with the entire town of Stone Creek and, as Lark had put it, “half the countryside” on their own. Somehow, she must get through the festivities, all the while silently praying for Gideon’s safe return, and Rowdy’s and Wyatt’s and Sam’s, as well.

  “Sarah will come by for me later,” Lark told her quietly. “We’ll help you, Lydia—Sarah and Maddie and I.”

  Lydia nodded, stopped by Lark’s chair, bent to kiss her sister-in-law on top of the head before leaving.

  Helga had known about the party, of course, Lydia realized. The aunts, too. Either they’d thought she knew it was still being held, or they’d hoped the surprise would lift her spirits.

  As for Gideon, well, he’d gone to Flagstaff—if Rowdy’s guess was correct—to do something that might require the use of a gun. A wedding reception—even his own—was clearly less important.

  When Lydia turned into their street, she was taken aback to see a line of buggies and buckboards already parked in front of the house—tables were being set up in all parts of the yard, under Helga’s busy direction, and the aunts stood huddled together on the porch, clad in the bright dresses Gideon had bought for them in Phoenix. People streamed through the front gate, carrying baskets full of food, bouquets of flowers and wedding gifts—these last heaped on one of the tables and in the grass surrounding it.

  She saw a butter churn and several brightly colored quilts, pots and teakettles and fine embroidery work.

  Entering by the gate, Lydia nearly turned and fled, despite Lark’s insistence that the celebration must be gotten through. She might have, if she hadn’t been afraid poor Snippet would be terrified by all the ruckus—and if the aunts hadn’t spotted her and left the porch to come and meet her.

  “Lydia, dear!” Mittie cried, sweetly dismayed. “Your hair!”

  Lydia rummaged within herself for a smile, found one that might do, though it was flimsy, and shut the gate behind her.

  She nodded to well-wishers as she passed, moving one-foot-in-front-of-the-other toward the steps of the kitchen porch, doing her best to ignore their curious glances.

  “I put little Snippet in your room,” Millie confided in a whisper when they were all in the kitchen. “In his basket.”

  “What happened to your hair?” Mittie persisted, fluttering like a colorful little bird flapping its wings to rise off a windowsill.

  “Don’t fret,” Lydia said, kissing the old woman’s lightly rouged cheek. “I’ll make myself presentable in no time at all.”

  “Oh, good.” Millie beamed. She’d always been a stickler for good grooming, especially when there was company to entertain.

  Lydia proceeded to the stairs, climbed them, and walked slowly along the hallway to the room she’d awakened so happily in just a few short hours before.

  Gideon’s absence seemed to pulse there.

  She remembered the expression of proud admiration on his face after he’d stumbled across her watercolor portrait of him.

  She remembered their lovemaking and, most of all, she remembered his words.

  I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you.

&
nbsp; If you’ll have me, I’d rather stay.

  Lydia raised the knuckles of both hands to her eyes and pressed hard, in an effort not to cry. Snippet whimpered piteously in his basket, near the foot of the bed, probably alarmed by all the activity in and around the house, but possibly sensing her grief, too.

  Had Gideon been lying when he’d said he loved her?

  Had he intended, when he left their bed and their house that morning, to keep on going, to put her and Stone Creek behind him, for good?

  He’d left town very early, and Rowdy had said Flagstaff was two hours away on horseback. It was nearly noon now.

  Gideon could be far beyond Flagstaff, even on board a train, headed for parts unknown. He’d have taken his gun, surely, if he wasn’t planning on coming back.

  Lydia almost hoped he had lied about staying, and gone elsewhere, because as terrible as that would be, it was better than what Rowdy must have feared, given his haste in going after his younger brother.

  In the near distance, church bells began to peal, signaling the end of that week’s services. Lydia hadn’t even heard them before, when they must have rung to call worshippers to their pews.

  Now, the joyful exuberance of the sound made her cover her ears for a few moments, but when Snippet gave a puny howl of terror, she went to him, lifted him from his basket, soothed him until the bells stopped ringing.

  Reassured, he immediately slept when she put him back a few moments later.

  Lydia summoned up all the resolve she possessed then. She straightened her shoulders. She went to the bathroom down the hall, fixed her hair, and smoothed her dress. She even pinched a little color into her cheeks.

  That done, she marched herself downstairs and outside and joined the party, accepting congratulations at every turn, and enduring the unspoken question she saw in everyone’s eyes.

  Where was Gideon?

  Lark arrived, as she’d promised, with Sarah and Owen and Shannie, Owen looking glum at the reins of the buckboard. Clearly, he would rather have gone along with Wyatt and Sam to help Rowdy look for Gideon, but someone—most likely Sarah—had prevailed upon him to stay behind.

  The Yarbro children, Lydia soon learned, were all to remain at Lark and Rowdy’s place, with Kitty Venable watching over them.

  Despite her profound agitation, Lydia was greatly comforted by Lark and Sarah’s arrival and, soon after that, Maddie O’Ballivan’s, too, but she would still have preferred to be wherever Gideon was.

  In heaven or in hell—or in Flagstaff.

  Such grand occasions as this one were rare in Stone Creek, of course, and folks seemed to enjoy themselves. There was a great deal of laughter and happy talk, and no sooner than the tables had been emptied of food more appeared.

  Lydia played the part of a welcoming bride, shaking hands, trying to remember names, even choking down part of a piece of cake at one point. Someone brought a chair for Lark, while Sarah and Maddie served food and greeted new arrivals and bid farewell to those who had to leave early because they lived on distant farms and ranches and had livestock to tend. Sarah, Maddie and Lark must have been as worried as Lydia was, but one would not have guessed it to look at them.

  And not one person, at least in Lydia’s hearing, said a single word about the conspicuous lack of a bridegroom.

  AFTER HE LEFT RUBY, GIDEON whiled away some time walking up and down Flagstaff’s main street. The shops were all closed, since it was the Sabbath Day, but he spotted a clerk lurking toward the back of a jewelry store and, suddenly inspired, rapped hard on the display window.

  The clerk did his level best to ignore Gideon, but to no avail.

  Gideon kept rapping on the window, a little harder each time, and gesturing for the man to unlock the shop door, until he finally did.

  Even then, though, he barely poked his head out. “Sir, I’m afraid we’re closed,” he said prissily. “It’s Sunday, after all.”

  “Well, you’re here,” Gideon argued affably. “So you might as well work.”

  “It just so happens I am working,” the clerk replied indignantly. “I’m taking inventory.”

  Gideon pointed toward a golden band in the corner of the window, gleaming with tiny stones and displayed to considerable effect in a rose-colored velvet box set atop a miniature replica of a Grecian column. “I want to buy that ring,” he said.

  The clerk shook his head, tried to shut the door.

  Gideon stuck his foot in to prevent it.

  “It is the Sabbath,” the clerk protested in a hissing whisper.

  “Seems to me,” Gideon interrupted, his right boot still firmly planted between the door and its frame, “if you’re worried about going to hell for working on a Sunday—selling me a ring, I mean—well, that horse is already out of the barn, isn’t it? If you’re taking inventory, after all—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” the clerk sputtered. “That wedding band costs twenty-five dollars. It has diamonds in it. Garnets, too. And since I don’t know you from Adam, I certainly don’t plan on extending credit.”

  Gideon took the necessary funds from his shirt pocket, held it up for the clerk to see. And did not withdraw his foot.

  The clerk went beet-red, finding it hard to resist a cash sale, even if it meant spending eternity up to his neck in hellfire. “Wait here,” he instructed.

  “Oh, believe me,” Gideon drawled. “I will.”

  The inventory-taker left the doorway, took the ring and box from the window, and held them practically under Gideon’s nose for inspection. His knuckles were white, though, his grip was so tight in case there was skulduggery afoot.

  Gideon handed over the twenty-five dollars with one hand, and grabbed the ring-box with the other.

  “Much obliged,” he told the flustered clerk.

  The fellow slammed the door in his face and made a show, through the glass in its center, of turning the lock and pocketing the key.

  Gideon laughed, admired the ring once more, snapped the box shut, and dropped it into his pants pocket.

  He found another shop open just down the street—the proprietor must have been a heathen—and bought a piece of rock candy the size of his fist.

  Rose had loved rock candy above all earthly pleasures—not that she’d had a chance to know many of those, living only four years the way she had.

  The shopkeeper put the chunk of crystallized sugar into a brown paper bag and, a friendly sort, inclined to chat, allowed as how some little girl or boy would be glad to have it. Solemn now, Gideon merely nodded, paid the two-penny price, and left the store.

  He made for the churchyard, arriving there some fifteen minutes ahead of schedule—he’d planned it that way.

  Church was just letting out as Gideon opened the gate, and folks were visiting out front, the way they might be expected to do after being penned up for an hour or two of somber reflection upon their sins, but he paid them no mind.

  It took him a couple of minutes to find his sister’s grave, once outside the cemetery proper because Rose had had the temerity to be born to a saloon woman and, though the parishioners couldn’t have known it then, an erstwhile train robber, but then he spotted the white marble angel Ruby had told him about.

  He looked around, without appearing to do so, as he approached the grave, but he was alone in that part of the churchyard.

  Reaching Rose’s final resting place, he crouched. Blinked a couple of times. “It’s been a while,” he said hoarsely.

  The breeze whispered in the tops of the cottonwoods and oaks sheltering the graves in that quiet churchyard. It was, for all its sadness, a peaceful place.

  “I’m married, Rose,” Gideon went on, after a few moments spent dealing with the emotions that always attended these visits. “Her name is Lydia, and I think you’d like her a lot.”

  He smoothed away the dried petals of a bouquet Ruby had probably left there at the base of Rose’s headstone. Ruby would have visited at night, most likely, or very early in the morning, when nobody was aroun
d to disapprove of her setting foot on sacred ground.

  The brown paper bag crackled a little as Gideon opened it, took the rock candy out, placed it carefully where Ruby’s flowers had been before. It was crazy to bring presents to a dead child, he knew that, but he’d always done it anyhow. And as long as he had breath in his body, he always would.

  “Gideon Yarbro?”

  He turned, squinting a little, and chagrined that he hadn’t heard anyone approaching, to see a stranger standing over him. His contact—and right on time.

  Gideon stood up. Nodded.

  The man had a long scar on his right cheek, and he was in want of a bath and barbering. He’d didn’t look much like a messenger for a bunch of rich mine owners but, then, that was the point, wasn’t it? The men with the big cigars and the private railroad cars liked to conduct this kind of business in secrecy.

  “Matthew Hildebrand,” the man said, by way of introduction, putting out his hand but not smiling.

  Gideon hesitated. The back of his neck prickled. But he finally shook Hildebrand’s hand.

  “I don’t think we ought to talk here,” Hildebrand said, glancing toward the church where folks were still milling around. “Too many people.” He frowned. “Seems all the saloons are closed, though.”

  Gideon gave a spare grin, a Yarbro grin. His gut clenched in warning. “I know of one that will do for our purposes,” he said, knowing full well that trouble had just found him, as it so often had before.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  RUBY HADN’T SURVIVED in business for so long—or thrived—because she was slow-witted. The moment Gideon stepped through the side door again, and their gazes met, a clear response to his silent warning registered in her eyes.

  She slipped behind the bar, glanced over Gideon’s shoulder at the tall man walking behind him.

  “Pour you gentlemen a drink?” she asked hospitably, with a smile that said she didn’t give two hoots in hell about the Sunday laws or the consequences of breaking them.