Courage to Love (Flynn Family Saga) (11 page)

Sam nodded.  For a moment, compassion softened his expression.  “I know, honey.  Ben sent me a telegram.”  Then, his expression hardened.  “But that’s no excuse for imposing on the good nature of two people who don’t have a lot to share.  Now get dressed.  There’s a stable that needs mucking out and cows to be milked.”  He turned and left Maggie alone.

Fury spurred her.  Angrily, she pulled on her dungarees and work shirt.  She stomped down the stairs and into the barn.  For a moment, she didn’t recognize the strange horse that stood in Patches’ old stall.

Then, she remembered.  She sank to her knees and started to cry.  “Patches!”

Strong hands lifted her to her feet.  Sam held her while she mourned the little horse that had carried her through so much, but she couldn't face the loss of her child and her husband.  Not yet.

Finally, she stopped crying.

Sam handed her a brush.

Maggie drew a deep breath and began to curry Lady.

And to her surprise, the motion eased her grief a little.

That night, Maggie helped Emma with dinner.  She sat at the table and peeled potatoes.  She cut her finger, and her blood dripped onto the worn table.

Emma took the knife from her.  “What’s wrong, Maggie?”

Maggie looked away.  “Flynn.”  She turned back to Emma.  “How could he do that?  How could he leave me?”

Emma sat down at the table and continued to peel potatoes.  “You know, I asked Ben that question when he came back.”  Emma sighed and set down the paring knife.  “Men and women grieve differently, Maggie.  Women need company.  That’s what comforts us.”

Maggie swallowed hard.  “What do men need?”

Emma smiled sadly.  “Solitude.”  She reached across the table and squeezed Maggie’s hand.  “I know Flynn.  And I’ve seen the way he looks at you.  He’ll come back.”

Maggie looked down at her hands.  “I don’t believe that.”

Emma smiled and patted her hand.  “Then I’ll just have to believe it for you.”  She got up and went to her ragbag.  She handed Maggie a strip of clean linen.

Maggie wrapped her injured finger, but her hands still shook.  “Emma?”

“Yes, Maggie?”

Tears filled Maggie’s eyes.  “Does it ever stop hurting?”

Emma was still a long time.  Then, she shook her head.  “No, Maggie.  There are still days when I wake up and remember.  I go to their graves and put flowers on them and try to imagine what they would have been like if they had lived.”  She drew a deep breath.  “And then I come back and fix breakfast for Ben and the children or do something else useful.”

“Something worthwhile with your life,” Maggie murmured.

“What?”

Maggie smiled faintly.  “Something my grandmother used to say.  The best memorial for someone you love is to do something worthwhile with your life.”

Emma nodded.

Maggie picked up the knife and finished peeling the potatoes.

*  *  *

Flynn rode steadily eastward.  He rode Wakta as hard as the little horse could stand.  Whenever he stopped, pain loomed over him, like a black storm cloud from the west.  For several days, he didn’t sleep at all.

Finally, five days after he left Maggie, he fell into an exhausted sleep.

He dreamed of Manassas.  He dreamed that he lay on his belly on the side of Matthews Hill overlooking the Stone Bridge.  His rifle felt heavy and cold in his hand.  Fear made his hands slippery with sweat.  He saw the ranks of the Union soldiers advancing toward him.

He hadn’t been this scared since his first day at the Lewisburg Academy when he was five years old.

Colonel Evans walked down the line.  He stopped beside each man.  “How ya doin’, son?”

Flynn licked his dry lips.  “Just fine, sir.”

Evans laughed.  “Well, I’m so scared that I can’t spit.”

Flynn smiled faintly.  “Me too, sir.”

He clapped Flynn on the shoulder.  “I’ve seen you shoot in target practice, son.  You’ll do fine.  Just pretend they’re a bunch of blue turkeys, and your family’s hungry.”

Flynn’s smile broadened.  “Yes sir.”

Evans moved on.

The battle began at sunrise.  Cannon balls whined overhead.  Flynn just wanted to run and hide, but he held his ground.  When Evans gave the order, he fired, but the Union line continued to advance.  A young soldier in a dark blue uniform topped the rise.  Flynn’s finger squeezed the trigger on his rifle.  Blood blossomed on the boy’s chest.  He looked surprised, surprised and scared.

“No!”  Flynn woke with a start.  He waited for Maggie to come and comfort him.

And then, he remembered.

Maggie was dead.

Pain stabbed Flynn’s heart like a dagger.

He sat for a long time, staring at nothing.  As soon as the sun rose, he broke camp and continued to ride east.

The nightmares grew worse.  He dreamed of Camp Sumter.  He watched, helplessly, as Sam fell ill and grew weaker and weaker.  Corporal O’Malley handed him a small vial, and Flynn ran toward his friend, but his wooden leg dissolved beneath him.  He fell, spilling the precious medicine into the hot, dry desert sand.

Flynn frowned.  That was wrong.  He had two good legs when he was a prisoner in Camp Sumter.

The dream faded.  Then, it returned.  He dreamed that he was in the Hole.  He was cold and hungry.  His ribs ached with every breath, and rain dripped down the sides of the Hole, turning the floor into a foul mixture of mud and excrement.  He heard Maggie’s voice, calling to him, but he couldn’t climb out of the Hole.  The walls were too steep, too slippery.

And he only had one leg.

He woke with a start.

The prairie grass hissed softly around him.

Flynn shut his eyes.

He heard laughter, and opened his eyes.

Nick Vaughn stood over him, laughing, as if he knew something Flynn didn’t.

Flynn drew his pistol and fired.

The apparition vanished, and Flynn remembered.  He remembered that Nick Vaughn was dead.

Maggie shot all of the Vaughns the night she rescued him.  His hand was shaking too badly to aim at all.  Only Flynn never told her, because he felt ashamed of his weakness.

Flynn holstered his pistol.  His hands were shaking again, and he hated it.  He saddled Wakta and rode on.

But he could hear Nick Vaughn behind him, laughing, knowing that he could never get away from him.

Finally, he reached the cabin he had built with Alexander Ridgeton.  His stump throbbed, but he didn’t care.  He didn’t have any salve with him anyway.

Maggie always carried it.

Maggie.

His chest ached, and he closed his eyes.

He unsaddled Wakta and went into the cabin.

A different kind of ghost haunted the place.  He remembered the winter he spent there with Maggie.  He remembered the delight on her face when she saw the books on the shelves he had built himself.  He remembered the feel of her body beneath his hands, the touch of her hands on his body.  He remembered the sound of her voice, the scent of her, lavender and soap.

His eyes burned with tears he could not cry.

He lay down on the mattress with his face to the wall.

Outside, cannons began to fire on Matthews Hill.

*  *  *

Sam and Maggie took the train eastward to St. Jo.  Maggie sat at the window and watched the desert glide by.  She remembered each painful step.  She remembered the courage and persistence of the people she shepherded across the land.

That night, Maggie dreamed of her parents’ death.

“Give me that jug, Lucy!”  Her father’s voice was slurred.

“I am not going to let you throw away our last chance at a better life!”  Lucy’s voice was shrill.

“I need it, Lucy!  You know that!  I can’t sleep without it!”

Maggie scrambled into the wagon just in time to see her mother hurl the jug of moonshine to the floor.  The liquor ran across the floorboards.

Maggie tried to step between them, but she couldn’t move.  She watched in helpless horror as Michael started to beat his wife.  Michael had beaten Lucy many times before, but there was something terrifying about his rage this time.  Lucy fell, hitting her head on a crate with a thump, like the sound of pumpkin when it hits the ground.

And then blood mingled with the liquor that flowed across the floor.

Michael’s face went white as the rage drained out of him.  His hands shook as he grabbed his shotgun.  Maggie reached for the gun, but she was too slow.  Michael put the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, spraying her with blood and brains.

“No!”  Maggie sat up.

Sam laid his large, strong hand on her shoulder.  “I’m here, Magpie.  I’m here.  Nothing is going to hurt you.”

Maggie shook her head.  “I hurt inside, Papa, and you can’t protect me from that.”

Sam looked away.  “No, Maggie, I can’t.”

“Papa, why did Flynn run away?”

Sam looked back at her.  “I don’t know, Maggie.  I just don’t know.”  He smoothed her hair.  “Try to get some sleep, sweetheart.”

Maggie nodded.

Sam pulled the covers up to her neck and kissed her on the forehead.  “I’ll stay here and read, just in case those nightmares come back.”  He lit the lantern and sat beside the bed.

Maggie shut her eyes.

Sam cleared his throat.  “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...”

Maggie fell asleep, comforted by the sound of her father's voice..

*  *  *

They reached St. Jo a week before Christmas.  Kate met them at the station.  She frowned.  “Where’s Flynn?”

Maggie opened her mouth and shut it.

Kate’s mouth thinned to a hard line, but she said nothing.  She merely wrapped her arms around her adopted daughter and held her.

Side by side, they walked to Kate’s house while Sam took care of the horses.

Without a word, Maggie ran up the stairs to the room she had shared with Flynn.  Her hands shook as she opened her old, battered carpetbag.  Martha, the rag doll she had carried with her from Manhattan to St. Jo to California, stared up at her from the depths of her bag.  Maggie picked up the doll and hugged it tightly.

*  *  *

The days passed slowly, but they passed.  Each day, Maggie felt a little stronger.

On Christmas Eve, she lay in her room and stared out of the window.  She wondered where Flynn was and what he was doing.  In the morning, she helped Kate prepare Christmas dinner, but she was distracted.

She kept listening for Wakta.

Kate laid her hand on Maggie’s arm.  “Be careful.  You’ll cut yourself.”

Maggie looked down at the knife in her hand.  It was dangerously close to her finger.  She dropped the knife and ran to her room.  She heard footsteps and a knock on her door.  “Go away!”

Kate opened the door and stepped in.  “No, Maggie.  Not this time.”  She sat down on the edge of Maggie’s bed.

Maggie looked away from the concern in Kate’s gaze.  “Go ahead.  Say it.  He left me, just like Richard.”

“Oh, Maggie.”  Kate put her arms around her adopted daughter and rocked her.  “I’d never say that.  Besides, I kept hoping I was wrong.  And I may be yet.”  She turned Maggie to face her.  “I’ve known Flynn a long time, Maggie.  He had a reason.  He wouldn’t have left you without a reason.”

Maggie bit her lip.  “But why, Mama?  What possible reason could he have?”

“I don’t know, child.  But when you’re well enough, you’ll go looking for him, and you’ll find out the reason.”

Maggie looked away again.  “I can’t, Mama.”

“Why not?”

Maggie bowed her head.  “I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”  Again, Kate turned her so they faced each other.

Maggie shut her eyes.  “That he’s with
her
.”  She opened her eyes and looked at Kate.  “With Jennie.”

Kate was silent a long time.  “That’s not the Robert Sean Flynn I know.”  She stood up and went down the stairs.

A little while later, Frank arrived.  He came into the kitchen and rolled up his sleeves.  He washed his hands and took over from Kate.

Maggie smiled, remembering other Christmases, other meals that Frank had prepared for them.

And then she remembered Flynn, and her smile disappeared.

Dinner was a desultory affair.  This time, even Frank was silent.  Finally, supper ended.  They went into the parlor.  Maggie felt distant, cut off from her friends and family.  Kate exclaimed over the cameo Maggie gave her.  Sam smiled at the knife she had found in Cheyenne.  Frank laughed as he unwrapped a cookbook.  Maggie opened her presents, but she didn’t really see them.

She didn’t really care.  All she wanted was Flynn.

And he wasn’t there.

That night, Maggie dreamed of rescuing Flynn from the Vaughns.  She watched, helplessly, as Nick Vaughn tortured him.  She saw the agony in his face.  She tried to draw her pistol, but her hand wouldn’t move.  She woke with a cry.  She dressed quickly and ran down the stairs.

Sam followed her.  “Where are you going?”

“The livery stable.  Flynn’s in trouble.”

CHAPTER
NINE

Sam hesitated.  Then, he nodded.  “I’m coming with you.”

Maggie shook her head.  “No, Papa.  Your heart...”

Sam sighed.  “All right, Magpie.  But wait until morning.”

Maggie nodded.

In the morning, Maggie rode out of St. Jo alone.  Near nightfall, it began to rain.  Then, the temperature dropped, and sleet pelted her.  She found a stand of trees and camped for the night.

Maggie woke before dawn feeling better than she had in months.  Kate’s cooking and months of rest had worked their magic on her young body.  She saddled Lady and rode on.

Maggie waited until the sun melted the thin sheet of ice on the ground.  Then, she saddled Lady and climbed onto her back.  She headed north toward Alexander Ridgeton’s cabin.  She rode until sunset and dismounted.  She felt tired and discouraged.  She was moving on blind faith alone, and she felt like a fool.  She turned and saw nothing behind her but grass, rippling in the ever-present wind.

Maggie stopped and ate cold rations.  She sighed.  “What I wouldn’t give for a bowl of Frank’s stew.”

At the sound of her voice, the silence seemed to deepen.

Maggie shivered and was still.