“Sure. Reckon that might be possible. But it don’t feel right, somehow. And somethin’ like this, me askin’ somebody’s hand in marriage—wouldn’t that be important enough to jolt my recollection?”
She sighed and spread open the paper again to peer down for a closer look. “I don’t know. You’re asking the wrong person. And some of these words are so faded, or so worn away, that they’re hard to read. Look, your letter has been signed. But I can’t—it’s really hard—”
“Just initials, ain’t it? Sorta looks like a J. Maybe. And that last is sure enough a C.” Leaning forward, he peered at that which was so difficult to decipher.
“So, let’s palaver.” Mariah paused for a bracing sip, while Sam gladly bit into a biscuit smeared richly with butter and jam. “You know any girls around using J.C.?”
Chewing methodically—he did, indeed, his mother noticed with dismay, seem to have lost quickness of thought; that agility of intellect that marked him so surely as Sam—he pondered. “I think there’s a Jasmine Cartright in town. I can all that much to mind. Worked at the general store, last I heard. But she’s forty if she’s a day; can’t exactly see myself romancin’ someone so much older.”
“I can’t either. The same for Johanna Cooper, the seamstress.”
“Oh, Ma!” He gave her a disparaging look, with downturned mouth and narrowed eyes. “You’re goin’ off the deep end now. Ain’t she the widow? With grandkids?”
“Or…” Using a dampened forefinger to move crumbs from table top to plate, she studied her reticent son. “Jessica Clark, at the Yellowstar.”
Leaning back in his wooden chair, he stared. “You gotta be joshin’ me.”
Her thin shoulders in the worn dark brown dress lifted. “Who else? And why not?”
“Why not? Ma. Because she’s her and I’m—me. What in tarnation would Jessica Clark see in a two-bit run-of-the-mill country bumpkin? Two families, one rich, one poor. One with everything handed to her on a platter, and one with no prospects at all.”
From somewhere outside, off in the distance, Buckley’s voice could be heard raised to berate his elder son. A criticism, a snarl, a blasphemy. Typical. After so many years of observing such behavior, Mariah no longer even flinched.
“That might be true at the moment,” she told him, rising. “It doesn’t mean things have to stay that way. You think about it, Sam.” Passing by, she stopped for an instant to lay her hand on top of his head, smoothing the rumpled hair just as she had during his childhood. “If you bring the hip bath in from the porch and put in your old room, I’ll start heating water so you can relax and get cleaned up. Then I want to look at that bullet wound you tell me hasn’t healed.”
Chapter 3
Buckley had made up his mind, and his mind would not be changed. Refusing to be gainsaid on any detail, he made his elaborate plans for a welcome home party to celebrate his youngest surviving son’s return from the dead.
Sam, slowly and distantly recuperating over the next few days, did his best to dissuade the man. Matthew, disgusted (and perhaps a trifle jealous by the attention being piled upon his brother over the whole affair), protested loudly and vehemently, until he realized his father was ignoring his complaints anyway. At that point he gave up. Mariah, who normally avoided any involvement in her husband’s grandiose schemes, voiced a strenuous objection, all to no avail.
Even an argument that the young soldier had not yet regained his health or his strength carried no weight with Buckley, who was determined to show the town just what a sacrifice the Marsden family had made. (Never mind that many others could make the same claim.)
“Pop, don’t even go there,” warned Sam, wearied beyond words by his father’s nagging. “Toldja, I just ain’t interested. Leave me be.”
Still carrying the burden of that curious withdrawal from the realities of life, he refused to admit any possible weakness to one who didn’t know the meaning of the word.
Sam desperately craved the silence of everything about him. When he was more physically able, he wanted to walk the land where he had been born and raised; to feel the healing power of whispering trees and a tumbling creek and fresh green grass beneath his feet.
He desperately craved some sense of isolation from the rest of humanity. Crowded into a prison camp full of filth and bugs and disease with thousands of others in similar shape, he had dreamed of the clean, cool place he had left eons ago. Dreamed of that much, at least, when he wasn’t giving in to despair and the beckoning arms of death that would free him from so much misery.
He desperately craved the chance to sleep long hours between pristine sheets (provided, as always, by his watchful mother), to sink into welcome velvet blackness far removed from the netherworld of Rock Island.
But trying to explain any of that to his father would be like trying to talk to the barnyard bull. No sense of empathy, no sense of understanding.
Worse, he could not tell all this to Mariah, and lay the burden of his own hurt and pain on her slender shoulders. Such relief would come at a price he refused to pay.
And so he stayed withdrawn, brooding, recovering, and drawing upon inner strength just to make it through each day.
“You got some medals, didn’t you, son?” Buckley was very much aware that the boy had come back with a handful of Confederate honorariums clinking together in his pack. After all, Buck had already rifled through its contents to see what might prove itself worthwhile to his own concerns. “Fancy ones, with red and blue ribbons.”
Sam’s dark eyes had narrowed. “Whaddya know about any medals?”
“Huh. Just figgered that was only my own business, you doin’ right by your country and all.”
His expression went bleak. “Me and everybody else in the south was seen as a traitor, in case you hadn’t realized it.”
Upon his mother’s insistence, and despite his father’s frustrated grumbles, he was taking his ease upon a rather rickety rocker on the front porch. The house, small and poor though it was, sat upon a knoll with a fine view for miles; one of the most positive features, as far as Sam was concerned, of this place buried off in the hills.
Since Mariah was determined to fatten him up, he now sat in the sun, digesting the huge dinner she had served him, like a crocodile at rest after swallowing some giant prey. Chunks of beef and potatoes slathered in gravy, cinnamon rolls dripping with butter, garden tomatoes cooked with leftover bread and sugar (pooch, of chuck wagon fame); the table had almost groaned in protest.
Certainly Buckley had. For all his fine talk of killing a fatted calf, he was distinctly displeased to see so much money spent just on food.
Mariah had glared at her husband from the stove and bade him hush. He finally subsided, mainly because her hand was gripping a substantial wooden spoon that might be used as a weapon.
After all that, in case Sam was still feeling famished, she had set a plate at his elbow holding a giant slice of chocolate cake and another cup of coffee. Sam didn’t have the heart to tell his well-meaning mother than he could barely move as it was. He simply relaxed, enjoying the day’s warmth, the quiet, and a set of marvelous clean clothes that smelled of being line-dried outdoors and being laid away in packets of lavender.
How often he had dreamed of such simple luxuries! Fresh corduroy trousers and a thin flannel shirt and wool socks, all attire not worn for months on end until mere rags remained. Hot water and a cake of soap—precious, blessed soap—with which to wash a grubby, grimy body, with which to shave away an itchy, unruly beard. Food newly cooked and served on a plate, instead of dumped onto a plank or into outstretched palms. More to the point, food absent of squirmy things or wiggly things.
At one time, pre-war, he had taken all of these for granted. He would never do so again.
Hearing the voices, with Buckley still heckling his son, Mariah emerged with fire in her eyes.
“I told you to leave him alone.”
Gradually Sam was regaining a bit of the spirit he had lost. He was
no longer a boy, after all; he was a man, having gone through bloody battles in support of the Cause, and ordeals that had broken or killed many others. He raised a peaceful palm.
“It’s all right, Ma. We’re just havin’ a—discussion.”
He wondered how deeply she had grieved the loss of both Elijah and Jacob. Probably he had inherited his innate reserve from Mariah, as she had said little about those terrible times here at home, how she had coped, and the effect of overwhelming sorrow upon an already faltering marriage. Certainly she would have received little or no comfort from her husband who, Sam guessed, had just buried himself further into the depths of his bottle.
“Buckley, he doesn’t want this party you keep talking about. He’s told you time and time again. It’s only for your own ego that you want some big hoo-rah.”
“Woman,” sputtered her husband, from the railing where he had perched, “You keep your views to yourself. This is man talk.”
Her muffled snort could not have been more contemptuous. “Oh, yes, I’m sure it is. Understand this: you can’t bully him anymore. Sam has a mind of his own, and he’ll do as he wants.”
“Not much of a mind, from what I can tell,” Buckley scoffed. “Can’t recall stuff worth a hilla beans. Gimme somebody what’s got a brain to think things through.”
The unfairness of the assault would have roused Sam’s ire had he been in a mood to take offense. But more than two years of combat and prison had killed the spark that might have been lit for further conflict. He merely let the insult slide over him and wash away. Words. What were words?
Mariah swished her skirt with displeasure. “Matthew’s out in the fields. Why aren’t you out there, working alongside him?”
“Just havin’ a little palaver with my son. What’s wrong with that?”
“Hmmph. You’re only trying to set up anything that will come to your advantage, Buckley Marsden. As for this celebration you want, we’ve all told you a thousand times that it will cost money we don’t have. You talk about a faulty memory!”
“My memory is fine and dandy. Don’t plan on takin’ anybody else’s word for anything, that’s all. Who runs this family anyway?”
With a rare show of animation, and the tiniest of grins, Sam glanced toward his mother. “Ma does.”
Buckley pretended hurt. “Why, that ain’t true, a’tall. Now, I’m thinkin’ we could arrange this shindig for about a week from now. A Saturday. Invite the whole town; tell ’em they’re welcome to show their gratitude for your service…”
“Oh, Buckley. I might have known you’d have an ulterior motive. And with you standing at the door, holding your hand out to rake in any cash presents, is that it?”
The hurt shifted into enormous—and unusual—dignity. “It seems only fair, Mariah. The boy has lost more’n two years outa his life. And you and me, we lost two other sons b’sides. Seems somebody’d oughta pay for that.”
“You old fool.” In this mood, Mariah was not about to mince words. “It just isn’t—”
“Fitten, you were gonna say? And why not? Deprived of three men’s labor, I was. So, the way I see it, I’ll just—”
“The Clarks,” interrupted Mariah, desperate to sidetrack her husband off this one single issue, so he would leave their son alone.
“Huh? What Clarks?”
“Don’t be stupid. Riley Clark, at the Yellowstar, and his daughters and sister.”
Discomfited, from atop the railing, Buckley shifted from one haunch to the other. “Yeah. Rich folks. What about ’em?”
“If you want some sort of celebration then we ought to have a quiet one, with only the Clarks.”
He shook his head, apparently in wonderment. “Woman, you don’t make sense. What in tarnation are you talkin’ about?”
Mariah leaned against the doorframe, arms folded. “Because Sam and Miss—”
“Ma!” Sam, suddenly aware of where this was going, cut in. From indolence, he shot straight up in his seat. “Don’t let—”
“—Because Sam and Miss Jessica Clark are betrothed to be married.”
Buckley nearly fell face forward onto the porch floor in shock. “What? What’s that you say?”
“I said…” Carefully she repeated the announcement, with an edge of pride in her voice, and briefly described the letter they two had read together and what they had gathered in its meaning.
Then paused, letting the words sink in for her husband. Letting the very idea sink in for herself. Imagining, very likely, the powerful and influential Clark family aligned, through marriage, with humble Marsdens, from a ranch not even grand enough to deserve a name.
For a moment, Mariah seemed to be dreaming. Who knew what her son might accomplish, with financial backing, prestige, and ambition, away from his dirt-poor surroundings?
And, hopefully, a good wife at his side to provide support and encouragement.
Errant thoughts chased back and forth across her usually reticent face, but Sam could guess at what she might be considering.
Of course, Mariah knew little of the elder Clark daughter, this Jessica who had mailed a letter that might have been so easily lost along the way. Oh, she’d caught a glimpse of her here and there in Whistle Creek—the general store, the tailor shop, the bank; and spied a pretty blonde girl who seemed to have maturity and easy-going ways.
But she must be wondering about the young lady’s personality and character. Was she a good match for her son, who had come home from war not broken, but needing repair? Could Jessica provide that? Would the fanciful love she had professed in her creased and faded letter stand up to the demands of reality?
There should be no question, as far as that went, and Mariah gave herself an angry little shake. After all, if Sam had known his own mind before he went away, she figured she ought to be able to trust his judgment. She ought to be able to welcome Jessica into their family without reservation. Oughtn’t she?
Buckley’s eyes had begun to shine, and his chest to swell with anticipation. Not for what his son might achieve, but what he himself might gain. Suddenly, he chortled and slapped his thigh.
“Gawdalmighty, son! Of all people to hook yourself up with, you shore nuff chose a great one! What a way to make a man proud! And, here, we wouldn’ta known nothin’ about it if you hadn’t come home like you did.”
The irony of that statement didn’t even touch him. Mother and son exchanged significant glances. The man was positively obtuse.
“Well, then. Happy, are you?” With an air of ending the matter then and there, she lightly swept one palm against the other, as if brushing away dust or crumbs. “Now, as for this jamboree you have in mind, we’ll hear not another word about it.”
Buckley popped up like a child’s jack-in-the-box. “No such thing, Mrs. Marsden! Take my word for true when I say this is gonna happen. I’m headin’ into town right now to talk to the Mayor. Wanna see about securin’ the town hall. We’re gonna do this thing up brown, see if we don’t!”
Chapter 4
“Well, well, fancy runnin’ into you here.” Cheerful and full of vim and vigor as always, Valentine approached a table in the corner where Vickie had taken refuge.
Given her shyness and timidity, it wasn’t surprising that she was hiding out from the crowd that swirled around Whistle Creek Town Hall. Oh, the hubbub was jovial enough; everyone in attendance seemed to enjoying him- or herself. But the more people arrived, the higher the noise level rose, until anyone hopeful of seeking out a quiet place would probably feel the jar of too much frenetic commotion all the way from the soles of their feet to their back molars.
“I beg your pardon?”
He looked startled at her raised voice. “Makin’ a point, are you? Hey, Vic, okay if I siddown?”
An Endless Love to Remember: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 5