Blackjack sent forth a small whinny. Of agreement, of course.
“Hardly wants to know anything about what I went through. Not that I’d tell her any details—that’s nothin’ for a lady to hear. And it’s over. Still, Jack, I’d appreciate my future wife havin’ a care as to the bad things in my past…”
Actually, he would appreciate a wife who treated him as his mother did—with attentiveness, concern, solicitude, and enjoyment. Although he certainly had never seen an example from his own parents over the years, he wanted a wife who could be a full partner in their marriage. So they could dream the same dreams, work toward the same goals, support each other through times both happy and not so happy.
He wouldn’t even mind a minor quarrel, now and then, just to show that both were independent human beings who could be strong and forceful as well as tender and sweet.
Did Jessica Clark meet any of these expectations, never really even thought through until just now? He’d have to admit she didn’t.
Then why would he so tamely submit to the whole idea of some fool union just because a few other people demanded it? Because it was easier than making a big fuss? Because it just seemed the thing to do, and he would simply fall in line?
No. He didn’t want it. At least, not with a girl who hadn’t proven herself.
Folding all these bits of paper and memorabilia together inside the rucksack, Sam climbed back to his feet. He wasn’t sure how he felt. In some ways, as if an enormous burden on his shoulders had just been added to in weight and size. In other ways, as if the whole thing had been thrown off and he was free.
He grabbed the Stetson to slap against his thigh, brushing off twigs and moss.
Time to put his foot down and make a stand.
“All right, Jack,” he said, grabbing hold of the stallion’s reins to set one boot into the stirrup. “Let’s head on back and face the music. Thinkin’ time is over.”
* * * * *
Except that his father didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. Refused even to listen.
After all those hours away Sam found the old man in the same seat in the same place, half-soused, half-asleep. Lord only knew where Matthew was. Probably out tending to stock or pasture or water tanks, all on his own, deprived of even a modicum of help from his next-to-useless parent.
“I ain’t doin’ it,” Sam announced, clumping onto the veranda with hard, defiant steps.
He had unsaddled Blackjack, given him a good brushing and a lump of sugar before turning him loose into the corral, and stomped up to the house loaded for bear.
Buckley gave a slow, lazy blink, like some great land tortoise.”Huh? Whatcha not doin’?”
“Not gettin’ married, that’s what. At least not to Jessica Clark.”
His father had been awkwardly balanced, with the back two legs of his chair braced against the wall and the front two in the air. Now those hit the floor with a thump. “The devil you say!”
“Yeah, I do. It’s my life, my choice, my decision. I ain’t about to have you makin’ up my mind for me.”
“Think again, boy.” Buckley squinted up at his son, whose tall broad figure seemed more a shadow than human being against the brilliant rays of the sun. “You couldn’t find your way out of a hole in the ground. I got you set up for life, just by marryin’ into that almighty Clark family. You’d oughta be showin’ me an ounce of gratitude, after all I done.”
“All you done,” repeated Sam bitterly, “was announce to the whole dang town that I was secretly betrothed to Jessica. I’m still findin’ my way here now I’m back, havin’ gone through a whole whale of stuff you yourself will never know. But I’m pretty sure I never set my sights on Jess, before I left for the War. And all you done is complicate my life.”
“And made it harder for Sam to adjust,” Mariah interceded quietly.
She had joined these two on the veranda, soundless as always, to listen to the discussion and lend support to her son, if she felt he needed it. But he was a man now, no longer a boy; he seemed to be doing just fine on his own.
“Go back inside, old woman,” ordered Buckley, with the flap of one hand as if he were shooing away a fly. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“It concerns all of us. You already made one big mistake when you blurted out an engagement announcement that Sam wasn’t aware of. And I won’t stay still when you’re making another mistake if you try forcing him into an unwanted marriage.”
Sam, watching the two of them go at it hammer and tongs as they had for so many years, had planted his posterior firmly upon the wide porch railing. Clearly, he was going nowhere until this matter was settled, here and now.
“I’m gettin’ back bits and pieces of my memory, Ma. Nothin’ real straight yet—there’s too much fog for me to figure out what’s goin’ on. But I know enough to understand that Jessie and me—well, we sure ain’t a good match. And I don’t recall ever havin’ much to do with her before I left.”
“It’s that head wound.” Mariah moved a step or two forward, yearning over this child of her heart who had suffered so much. “It never healed properly, and things inside got messed up. It’s no wonder you can’t recall parts of the past.”
Scooting his chair sideways, Buckley laughed with derision and took a last long pull at the bottle. Now empty. He tossed it carelessly aside. “Oh, boo-hoo. Poor little mutt, can’t remember nothin’. Lucky you came home in the shape you did.”
A tight, set expression had taken over Mariah’s face. “You miserable old coot,” she hissed. “One of these days I’ll take a frying pan to your noggin and knock you out cold. That should teach you to keep a civil tongue in your filthy mouth. Too bad you didn’t go off to war. You never would have survived what this boy did. And then I’d be rid of you.”
“Ma!” Shocked, Sam reached out one hand to detain her. Bad as things had been between these two, he had never heard her voice such vitriol. Such utter hatred. “Ma, calm down. No need to go that far.”
She shot him a look leftover with fury that, even as it connected, softened. “You’re right, son. And we got way off track here. So you are refusing to marry Jessica?”
“I can’t. Not—well, not with the way I feel.”
“Which is?”
“Which is—nothin’. Everything is just a big blank where she’s concerned. Can anybody build a marriage on that?”
Buckley guffawed. “Your maw and me did. Got me four sons outa the deal.”
Disgusted, Sam had to turn away to get his own emotions in order. It was hard to believe that this man, this rude, dirty, drunkard of a man, could claim paternity. Only two sons left, after this country’s bloody and fearsome conflagration, and Buckley Marsden had no problems with casting aspersions on both.
Mariah laid a gentle hand on her boy’s forearm. Still thin, with ropey muscles needing much building up, but warm and healthy under the blue-checked shirt that added so much to his good looks.
“Sam, a betrothal is almost as binding as marriage itself. Thanks to that—that premature announcement, I’m afraid you’re just about locked into it, with few options ahead. Have you any plans as to how you might break it off?”
“No plans. I’ll just meet up with her, tell her it won’t work out, and we’re done.”
“Oh, Sam, that’s far and away too harsh,” his mother immediately protested. “You may not break her heart if you inform her of that, but you sure enough will destroy her pride. And I think she might be vindictive. Besides, you know how much pull Riley Clark has in this area. He could make life very miserable for you if you jilted his daughter.”
Even worse, thought Sam with a shrug, if it were to be known he was considering nuptials with the younger daughter instead of the elder. Talk about news not sitting well!
How had he gotten himself embroiled into this mess anyway?
The answer was sprawled in his wicker chair just a few feet away.
His father. Always it came back to his father, at the root of the pr
oblem, Sam bitterly realized.
He sighed. “You’re right, Mama. And I dunno how to go about this. I only know that it needs to be done. What did you think of her, that day you all were invited to Sunday dinner?” He carried the disagreement into the opposing camp.
“Well—um…very pretty. But probably just a bit—well, spoiled, I guess.”
“Spoiled,” said Buckley, interjecting himself once again into the conversation. “Huh. That gal can wrap her ole man right around her little finger, betcher boots. Ain’t no flies on her. And with you as her husband, Samuel, you can pull any string to have just what you want.”
Feeling angry and frustrated, he could only glare at his father. “Get it through your head, Pop. I’m comin’ round to the fact that I don’t wanna wed Her Royal Highness, no matter what kinda wrappin’ she can do. Maybe you can explain it to him in a way he’ll understand, Ma,” he appealed to the saner half. “B’cause he sure can’t seem to hear anything I say!”
“Sam—”
“No. I’m done talkin’. You don’t like my decision, deal with it.”
With a slap of his hat against one thigh, he slid off the wide railing and stomped away.
Chapter 11
High-heeled cowhide boots are meant to secure their wearer’s feet in the stirrups, and thus the wearer himself in the saddle. They are not meant to be used for a good deal of striding about. Especially over rough terrain.
But Sam went on striding anyway. He was too mad to take time to change into low-heeled work boots, and he needed to stomp off some energy. Funny how he’d just assumed surviving the deathly prison camp at Rock Island and somehow making it home in one piece would mean the magical end to all strife and stress. Instead, he’d run into a whole new set of complications that liked to drove him crazy and made his head hurt.
“Relative,” he muttered, cutting through a whole grove of small trees and brush on the peak of a hill. He must keep repeating to himself that, “It’s all relative.”
Settlers moving into a new area looked first for water, then for good pasture for stock. Access to water was an all-important feature on any ranch or farm; without it, things could literally get quite sticky. Burned out.
The beautiful, bountiful Vestigo River meandered along the boundary of Yellowstar and actually intersected a good many acres, providing plenty of lush green grass and that vital moisture so necessary to wild creatures, domesticated beasts, and human beings alike. While the main flow moved on north and south as it would, various tributaries and offshoots delved deep into the land of the Marsden farm.
Since childhood, Sam had taken his troubled heart and rankled soul to the woods. Nothing could soothe him more completely; nothing could offer a sense of more peace and harmony than the wilding trees, the rushing rivulets and streams, the far horizon whether formed of dawn or dusk.
He could spend hours reaffirming himself as a worthy individual. When he disappeared—which happened infrequently, but often enough to cause annoyance for his father and concern for his mother—he always returned with mood settled and nerves un-jangled.
It was, as the Good Book promised, what sometimes held him together. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”
Right now he was headed for the creek named Marsden.
Close enough that he could easily walk there and back, even in these infernal tight boots. Far enough away from the house and its outbuilding to guarantee privacy.
He remembered the lay of the land. Which way this open field ran, which way that line of sycamores grew, what blended with what on the rather insignificant holdings of the Marsden farm. Insignificant that the place didn’t even rate a name, in this portion of Texas where all ranches deserved some sort of designation.
So. If he could remember that much from early childhood on, and the faces of his family, why could he not remember the more recent past?
He wasn’t quite ready to consult with a physician. That would require lowering the barriers he had so carefully built up, as a protection for his more vulnerable self. At one time he had thought that he might actually allow someone special to see the real Sam Marsden. At one time he had thought she would be part of his life.
But that had slipped away, into the fog of recall that could not be recalled.
A crow squawked suddenly overhead, complaining that some intruder had invaded his space.
Then a squirrel took up the complaint, chattering in squirrel language that clearly ordered, “Go away. Leave now. You have no place here.”
“All right, all right,” said Sam, smiling despite his dour mood. “I’m headin’ on through, fellahs. No need to be upset. In case you weren’t aware, I am considered part-owner of these here woods.”
Water could be heard in the distance. Splashing water. From some cascade, newly formed by nature during his time away? Or from some trespasser, being where he shouldn’t, doing what he shouldn’t?
Then there came a small gurgle of laughter, and a quiet chiding voice that admonished such noise in the trees. Maybe as to the same crow and squirrel he had already encountered. Territorial rascals.
And the trespasser wasn’t a he.
Deliberately he stepped onto a slender branch, which broke and snapped like the shot of a pistol. Startled, possibly alarmed, Vickie Clark whirled. She was barefoot, wading in the shallow part of the stream, and the skirt she had been clutching to mid-calf fell loose, dangling its hems back into the cool ripples.
“You!” she gasped.
“Yes, ma’am, me. Miss Clark, ain’t it?” Taking note of the fair brows that drew together into an immediate frown, and the mouth that was turned down with displeasure, he approached warily.
“You know very well who I am. Not that it has mattered,” she added bitterly.
Ignoring the unreadable look on his face, she came slowly from the water, having a caution for the smooth slippery pebbles underfoot. A towel had been spread out upon the up-curved bank; she made her way to it, sat down to dry off, and reassumed her thin stockings and little buckled shoes.
Seeing her careless position, as if he were entirely beneath her notice, he turned his back so as to provide her the privacy for which she had not asked. Nor, being proud, he gathered, would she.
“I think you’re trespassin’ on Marsden land,” he finally offered, turning to face her once again.
“So?” Finished, she climbed upright, spurning the offer of his outstretched hand in assistance. “Where do some boundaries begin and others end? Many people trespass; it seems to be a fact of life, without recourse or repercussion.”
“Uh. Ma’am, you’re gettin’ a little beyond me, with them big words. I’m just a simple country boy, not used to speakin’ so.”
“Really?” She stooped to grab the towel, folding it into meticulous squares. “Then perhaps you ought to invite your affianced here to translate for you.”
The irritation that had eased during his walk toward the creek was beginning to return, full force. “I said I was simple, Miss Blake. I didn’t say I was stupid.”
“Couldn’t tell it by me. Would you excuse me, please? I have better things to do than stand here attempting to converse with a bumpkin.”
“Much of what you’re throwin’ at me has already been done, ma’am,” he said quietly. “Not so much in words, but in more demeanin’ ways.”
Vickie’s busy fingers paused in their task, and her body went very still. Across her vulnerable face one emotion chased after another, until a myriad merged. Shame, worry, resentment, disdain: all shifted into one, as if she were unsure how to react to any one in particular.
An Endless Love to Remember: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 18