by Annie Boone
“Who’s wagon is that?” he asked, frowning at the side of the house.
“Matt’s. We started the garden today, and I asked him over to do the plowing,” Susannah replied. Lucas raised an eyebrow at her.
“Since when do I not have time to plow my own garden?”
“Since Ellie and Matt needed to spend time alone together.”
Lucas sighed and shook his head side to side. “Be careful, my love.”
“Pish posh,” Susannah said, flippantly dismissing his concern. “Matt wants to see her, too. He truly likes her. It’s two against one, now. If you’d join in the process it would be three against one.”
“I’m not sure I’m needed in the least. Poor Ellie. I wonder if she knows what she’s up against.” Shaking his head, Lucas headed into the house for lunch.
Chapter Seventeen
Matthew continued to appear at the Jessup household on a regular basis, helping to hoe or plant seeds, or even get down on hands and knees and weed. Eleanor was almost getting used to his presence, even though she still felt a prickle of annoyance at Susannah every time she heard his horse approaching.
She also felt a tiny bit of annoyance when Susannah invariably disappeared for the duration of his visit, leaving Eleanor alone with him. He would talk while they worked, speaking of what calves had been born and what cows were stubbornly holding out, all in a cheerful tone as though he didn’t care whether Eleanor responded or not.
At first, she didn’t. A few days after he’d told a particularly harrowing story about a weak calf, Eleanor asked how it was doing. The next visit, she admitted she’d never actually seen a newborn calf before, though she refused Matthew’s invitation to come and look at them.
Over time he coaxed her to say more on her own. Gradually, she began to tell him about what she and Susannah had been doing around the house, or the quilt she had begun sewing blocks for, or how one of the hens had hidden her nest and now had a whole flock of chicks.
It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
Eleanor and Matthew met every week at church as well, though Pastor Judd kindly refrained from making any more sermons about the benefits of married life. Matthew had originally come only to see Eleanor, but more and more he found himself appreciating the pastor’s words. He even brought his mother, sometimes, and they went to sit with the Jessups, near the front of the church. They made polite conversation before and after the sermon, and Susannah cheerfully invited the both of them along for supper.
“You don’t mind, do you Eleanor?” she asked, turning to her with a wide smile. Eleanor shifted a little uncomfortably, but didn’t refuse.
After that, it was a natural step for Matthew to start walking her home from church. His mother wasn’t fond of coming to town and didn’t always attend services, so when Matthew wasn’t needed to drive her home he accompanied Eleanor instead. They would walk slowly, talking over the day’s lessons. No matter how leisurely their pace, they always reached the house too fast. Eleanor even found herself looking forward to the next Sunday, when Matthew could walk her home again.
One hot, sunny Wednesday afternoon found Matthew at the Jessup’s, once again doing yard work with Eleanor. The pair knelt in the garden, pulling weeds from between the thriving potato plants.
“I think I know what you’re thinking,” Matthew said, glancing up at Eleanor.
“Do you?” Eleanor didn’t even try to be cold to him anymore. She couldn’t bring herself to do it, settling for friendly yet non-committal.
“Yep. You feel guilty, don’t you?”
Eleanor stopped and sat back on her heels, staring at him. Matthew continued weeding, unperturbed by her scrutiny.
“Just what is that supposed to mean?” Eleanor asked. Matthew took a deep breath before responding.
“When my pa died, my ma was beat down by it for a long time. I don’t think she got over it for years, not until after I’d gotten the ranch going.”
Eleanor watching him speak, the weeds forgotten.
“Right after I built the ranch house and got it all fitted up for her and my sisters, I found Ma sitting in her room just crying her eyes out. It took me a while to figure the problem, but I think I got it in the end.”
Matthew stopped his own weeding, looking directly at Eleanor.
“She was feeling guilty. Guilty that she was living this comfortable life, while her husband was dead. He’d wanted a good life, and now here she was, living it without him. It was like betraying his memory, she thought, to be so happy when he couldn’t be anything anymore.”
Eleanor found herself unable to meet his eyes, and she turned her eyes down to the garden soil. Matthew took another deep breath.
“I told her,” he said slowly, “that if Pa loved her at all, he wouldn’t have wanted her to be sitting in a dark room crying twenty years after he’d gone. He’d still want her to be happy, and have a comfortable life. More than comfortable, if he had his way.
“The way I see it, it was more disrespectful to his memory for her to not live her life. He brought us out west in the first place for her to have one.”
Eleanor narrowed her eyes, but kept listening.
“It took her some time to think it through, but once she took the time to reconcile it all, she started feeling better. I know your husband’s only been gone two years instead of twenty, but maybe it could help you to think of it that way, too.”
Eleanor was silent when he finished speaking. Matthew watched her from the corner of his eyes, trying to see how she reacted. After a long moment, she lifted her hand to wipe her eyes, and continued weeding. With a small smile, Matthew resumed weeding as well.
Now it was up to Eleanor and God.
Chapter Eighteen
“I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks. I leave tomorrow,” Matt said. It was Sunday afternoon, and he and Eleanor were slowly walking from church to the Jessup’s home. Lucas and Susannah had gone on ahead, leaving them to themselves.
“Oh?” Eleanor looked sideways at him.
“Heading over to Kansas City again. Going to meet a man there about a herd he wants to sell. It’s a big place in the cattle trade, Kansas City.”
“So you’ll be back around the fourteenth?” Eleanor asked. She was surprised to find how quickly she tried to calculate the exact date of his return.
“The fifteenth. I figure I might as well take care of as much business as I can while I’m over there. Saves my having to go again any time soon.”
Eleanor was silent for a moment. They had settled into a comfortable pattern, seeing each other on Sundays and once or twice throughout the week. She greatly disliked the idea of Matt’s being gone, even if it only meant she saw him a handful fewer hours.
“I was hoping,” Matt said, clearing his throat, “that once I get back, you and I could try having a talk again.”
Eleanor stopped in her tracks. They spent a great deal of time talking already, so there was really only one thing he could mean by that. She expected to find herself upset by the idea, or to at least feel guilty about it. To her surprise, she didn’t feel upset or guilty. In fact, Eleanor found that she was delighted.
“I think I would like that.” She nodded slowly as a brief smile came to her lips.
Matt didn’t respond right away, but he did smile broadly. Finally, he looked over at her. “I reckon Susannah is going to be pleased.”
Eleanor laughed. “I expect she will. Then she’ll think of something else to pester us about.”
“She wouldn’t be Susannah if she didn’t.”
The couple walked in companionable silence until they reached the house, where Matt kissed the back of Eleanor’s hand and bid her good day. Eleanor then found Susannah peering through the barely-open front door.
“I wasn’t looking out the window!” she exclaimed as Eleanor opened the door the rest of the way.
“No, I suppose you weren’t.” Eleanor was in too good a mood to be much bothered by Susannah’s nosiness.
“I take it that went well, then,” Lucas said. Eleanor was surprised to see that he was waiting for her return as well. “He mentioned he was planning to talk to you today.”
“I think it went well,” Eleanor said with a smile. “We agreed to talk things over once he gets back from Kansas City.”
Susannah bounced over to Eleanor and gave her a tight hug.
“Ooh, I’m just so happy for you, Ellie. I knew this was going to work out,” she said.
“You got lucky,” Lucas said firmly looking over at his wife.
Susannah rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t ruin my fun,” she said.
Eleanor settled into her favorite chair in the sitting room and took up her needlework. She’d never been quite so happy just to sit in one place and embellish pillowcases before. She would have been happy to go out into the yard and turn over another garden plot entirely by hand.
Matt had been right. It was time to move to the next chapter in her life.
Chapter Nineteen
Cigar smoke hung heavy in the air, dimming the already moody light, and the sound of glasses clinking mixed with the low murmur of men’s voices. This was the Bull’s Head, a favorite haunt of ranchers, both for pleasure and for business. The place was crowded, even early in the afternoon, with rich men and their lady friends eating lunch and drinking down their afternoon sustenance.
Cigars might have been the standard, but Matthew preferred his old whittled pipe. Sitting in a sleek, leather-upholstered booth, he puffed away quietly. He paired his steak with a glass of lemonade, despite whiskey being a more standard choice in a place like this.
He had to get on the train in a few hours, headed back to Colorado. It wasn’t the time for a drink. Matthew wasn’t fond of strong drink or the effect it could have on a man, anyway. He chose to keep his head clear at all times.
His companion clearly felt otherwise. Mason Stratford, owner of a massive stretch of land in Texas, and the man who has recently sold Matthew nearly a thousand head of cattle, was making his way through his steak with the assistance of a liberal amount of bourbon.
“You sure you won’t have a drink, Connor?” he said, cheeks already ruddy.
“Now you know I’m not a drinker, Mason.” Matthew looked at the man with a blank face.
“Not even a toast to our mutual prosperity? Cold, Connor, cold.” Stratford shook his head.
“I’d rather not wind up like those fellows.” Matt jerked his head toward a table nearby, where a quintet of young men sat, playing cards. They’d gone through more shots than Matt could easily count just in the time it took to order and receive lunch. They were the noisiest table in the room, loudly yammering at each other over their hands.
“Pff. You’re no greenhorn. You’re a man, you can hold your liquor.”
“That may be, but I’d still prefer not to,” Matthew said firmly. Stratford sighed and shrugged dramatically, giving him up as a lost cause.
“It’s too bad you’re headed back to the mountains so soon,” he said, cutting through his beef. “You should stay a while longer and enjoy the pleasures of civilization.”
“I’ve got to be getting back. I’ve got someone waiting for me.” Truth be told Matthew would rather have been back in the clean, fresh Colorado air with Eleanor the whole time, but he wasn’t going to say it to his friend.
“A woman, eh? It’s about time you settled down. Though I suppose that means we’ll be seeing even less of you ‘round these parts.”
“I might bring her over to the city every now and then.” Matthew said, considering the matter for the first time. “If she wants to come with me.”
“I’d like to meet her. She’s a lucky lady, snagging Matthew Connor.”
If she doesn’t change her mind again, the lucky one is going to be me, Matthew thought with a wry smile.
The young men next to them exploded into raucous shouts, one person cheering his triumph, another angrily shouting that he had cheated, and the rest of them urging them on. The floor manager nervously skittered up, trying to shush them without actually drawing attention to himself.
“I don’t know how young’uns like that get in here,” Stratford said with distaste. “This is supposed to be a respectable establishment.”
Matthew shrugged. “It’s some rancher’s son and his friends, no doubt.” He would be happy to be out of this club and onto that train, the sooner the better.
The losing party of the card game jumped to his feet, swinging wildly across the table. The room stilled, everyone watching, and the winner shouted and started swinging back. The poor manager wrung his hands, then ran off to find the manager.
While he fled, it finally occurred to the fighters that they could reach each other if they left the table, and they began wrestling in the space next to their seats. Their companions hooted encouragement, stomping their feet.
Matthew leapt from the booth, grimacing with displeasure. While Hartford shouted in alarm, he pushed through the crowd to where the young men were fighting and grabbed each one by the by the scruff of the neck.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” he growled. The two men continued to swing at each other, ignoring the fact that they were now suspended in midair.
“Hold still, you card-counting son of a gun!” the loser shouted. “I’m going to beat you so bad you’ll wish you were run down by a bull!” Rather than reply, his opponent kicked out, catching him in the shin.
“Hey!” Matthew gave them a shake. He was about to knock their heads together when a hand landed on his arm.
“Let ‘em fight it out, old timer.” It was one of men who’d been observing the game, a cigarette hanging from his lips. “I’ve got a hundred dollars riding that Chet’ll knock a few of Ted’s teeth out.”
“You’re just as bad as they are,” Matthew said, disgusted.
“I said, let them fight it out.” The man repeated his direction slower this time. He yanked Matthew back by the arm, forcing him to drop the two drunken fighters. Pulling his fist back, he aimed a punch at Matthew’s face, but Matthew ducked and the blow struck a large rancher standing behind him.
The innocent bystander shouted angrily, and punched back. Then the rest of the young men involved in the card game joined the fight, and before anyone knew what was happening the bar had devolved into a flurry of feet and fists.
Matthew knew when to pull out of a fight. Looking around, he tried to find a way to sneak toward the wall, but there was a metallic glint in the corner of his vision. One of the card players had pulled a gun. Matthew lunged at him, trying to knock the pistol from his hand, but he was tripped up by the crowd. There was a loud bang, the acrid smell of gunpowder, and Matthew heard no more.
Chapter Twenty
The fifteenth of August came, and Eleanor put on her blue suit. Matt’s train was supposed to arrive during the service, and he was supposed to come calling for her shortly after. She had never been happier to sit in a church pew, though she hardly heard one word out of ten that Pastor Judd said.
Eleanor was equally happy to sit in the buggy on the way home, watching the bustle of late summer roll by. Susannah watched her from the corner of her eye, smiling as broadly as if it was her own sweetheart returning that morning. Lucas merely rolled his eyes. Once they arrived home and the horses were unhitched, Eleanor sat herself in the parlor with some needlework to wait for Matthew.
The appointed time arrived, and Eleanor peeked expectantly out the window, but nobody was coming down the drive. It wasn’t unheard of for trains to be late. In fact, it was more normal than the trains being on time. She didn’t start getting worried until several hours had gone by, with no sign of Matt whatsoever.
Lucas, frowning, went into town around five. He returned while the ladies were preparing supper with the news that while the train had been on time, not a soul had seen hide nor hair of Matthew Connor. All they could do was share a worried look between them and go to bed. Eleanor knelt by her bedside, praying fervently that nothing te
rrible had happened.
There was no word from Matthew in the morning, either, and the ladies set about the day’s work with an air of anxiety. Eleanor dusted the parlor and swept out the kitchen, then stepped out to look for new weeds in the garden. She was beginning to relax, letting her thoughts drift away in the soothing rhythm of plucking and pulling when Susannah called her from the front of the house.
Wiping her hands on her apron, Eleanor headed around to see her. Maybe Matthew had arrived. The thought put a spring in her step, and she practically bounced around the corner. She was certain he’d have a good explanation and maybe even a funny story to tell.
Lucas and Susannah were wait waiting for her, looking very worried. Eleanor looked between their faces, concern beginning to flood the pit of her stomach again.
“What’s wrong?” she asked hesitantly. Susannah just turned to Lucas, letting him speak first for once.
“There’s been some news from Kansas City,” he said.
His usual gruff air had been replaced with gentleness, which only made Eleanor more nervous. He handed her a folded newspaper and she took it with chilled fingers.
“What?” she asked with a shaky voice she had no control over.
“There was a big fight in one of the clubs that cattlemen use to do business,” Lucas continued.
Eleanor unfolded the newspaper and looked at the headline. The paper shook in her hands as she read it.
TWO DEAD IN DRAMATIC BARROOM BRAWL
More Than A Dozen Injured When Fighting Breaks Out
Elite Ranchers From Five States Caught In Crossfire
Worry unfolded into cold, dread certainly in Eleanor’s gut.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said, her voice already rough.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Susannah said, quickly plucking the paper from Eleanor’s hands. “There’s got to be more than one place in a big city like that where ranchers do business. Right, Lucas?” She turned to her husband with a nervous smile, seeking his reassurance. Instead, he shook his head.