Mary Connealy (9 page)

Anything she’d been going to ask fled her mind when she pondered the question that seemed to come out of the blue. “I am, Clay. God is who has helped me through these last hard years.”

Clay nodded again as he sat on Hector’s back and seemed to consider all the great questions of the universe. Finally he quit nodding as if he’d worked it all out. “I’m a believer myself. I reckon it wouldn’t have mattered. Taking care of you and the girls…well, I have it to do. But it’s for the best, as far as raising the girls, that we agree on doing right by God.” He nudged Hector, and the old mule obeyed Clay like the gentlest of lambs. Hector turned and Clay rode into the thicket.

He was gone before Sophie thought to call out, “What is it you have to do?”

There was no answer, but she assumed he meant something about helping with the chores later on. Sophie sniffed. She wasn’t about to wait around for him.

She dusted her hands together. “Girls, let’s get on with our day’s work.”

Sally set up a clamor about Clay leaving. Laura picked that moment to start crying her lungs out.

Beth’s shoulders drooped as she headed for the house. “I’ll get some dinner cooking.”

Mandy bounced Laura and rubbed Sally’s back and exchanged a very adult look with her mother. “Whatever he’s up to, I’m planning to go along with it if it means we don’t have to keep that mule scarf in the cabin no more.”

Sophie shrugged and nodded. “Stay with the girls until they cheer up, Mandy. I’ll go see to tidying the house.”

She and the girls spent the next few hours pretending things were normal. They did their chores and ate a noon meal none of them wanted. Sophie scrubbed Clay’s torn-up, muddy clothes and draped them over a bush to dry. Mandy and Beth explored downstream of the now-receded creek for over a mile, looking for any lost possessions that could be Clay’s. They found nothing of his, but they did bring back a decrepit wooden pail with no handle and a tin coffee cup. Treasure.

The day wore on and Sophie was preparing their biscuits for supper when she heard a wagon come creaking into the yard. Branches from the bramble slapped back as the wagon squeezed though the thicket trail. The wagon had two horses tied on the back.

She pulled her biscuits out of the fire and ran out to see who’d come by. It was Clay with Parson Roscoe and his wife. Clay rode Hector like the old firebrand was a house pet.

She walked out to meet the parson, with the girls scrambling past her sedate walk. As she passed the unusually obedient Hector, she whispered, “Traitor!”

Speaking normally she said, “Howdy, Mrs. Roscoe. Parson.”

“Get the house packed up,” Clay said brusquely. “We’re getting out of here.”

Sophie opened her mouth and looked from Clay to the parson to Hector. None of them were any help.

“Where are we going?” Mandy, always calm and sensible, asked.

“I went to town looking for a better place for us to live. It turns out Cliff’s ranch was for sale, so I bought it back. We’re moving. I want to be over there before sunset.”

Sally squealed and ran into the cabin. “I’ll have my stuff packed in ten minutes, Uncle Clay.”

Sophie was abstractly aware that she kept opening and closing her mouth, not unlike a landed catfish. She just didn’t know what to say. Sally ran past her with her arms full of clothing, and Sophie realized they could indeed leave this place in about ten minutes.

“Y–you bought the ranch back?” Sophie finally managed.

Sally dumped her things in the wagon and ran back in the house. The other girls were hard on her heels.

Clay was wearing new clothes. There was no sign of Cliff’s old clothing anywhere. He swung down off Hector’s back and yanked the front of his new Stetson in an abbreviated tip-of-the-hat to her. “The owners had taken off a few weeks back, owing on the mortgage. No one else has shown any interest in it. I bought it.”

“With what money?” Sophie asked. “You left here in borrowed clothes with no horse or saddle.”

“I had my bank in Denver telegraph the one in Mosqueros confirming my draft was good.” Clay headed into the cabin. Sophie followed after him. She was slowed by her girls passing her with the kitchen pots and Laura’s crib. By the time she got inside, Clay was carrying the kitchen table outside. She almost got knocked back down the stairs. She stepped inside, and the girls dashed past her to grab bedding and the kitchen chairs and anything else that wasn’t nailed down. Beth even thought to grab the cooling biscuits. Sophie noticed Mandy pull up the loose floorboard and take out the meager family purse.

Beth disappeared into the thicket for a minute, and when she came back, she said, “I tore down the snares so’s we won’t catch a rabbit and leave it to starve to death.”

Clay came back in to the nearly empty little house and grabbed the milk pail with Sophie’s Hector scarf in it. He pulled open the lid and dropped the pail with a gasp of shock.

He looked wildly around the room. The girls were stripping the last of their things out and running past him.

“Leave it and get out while you can,” Beth yelled as she dashed past him.

Clay grabbed Sophie’s arm and dragged her out of the empty cabin.

Sophie found herself plunked into the back of the wagon. The parson and his wife sat on the bench. Sally sat in front of Clay on Hector, chattering away. Clay had untied the horses from the back of the wagon and put Mandy and Elizabeth each on horseback so they could ride along beside him. Sophie held Laura.

Sophie heard Clay say to Sally, “What do you mean ‘disguise’?” as they disappeared down the trail.

The steady rocking of the wagon lulled Laura to sleep almost immediately. Sophie sat quietly so the baby could sleep, even though she was fuming at being moved without being consulted.

Of course, she’d have gladly moved. She wanted to move! She couldn’t wait to get out of that shack they were living in. But couldn’t Clay have said something? Talked to her like she was a competent, thinking adult instead of just issuing orders?

They were thirty minutes down the trail when Sophie’s jaw finally unclenched enough that she could say to Parson Roscoe, “Where did you meet up with Clay?”

The parson chuckled. “Word travels fast around a town the size of Mosqueros. I came out to see Cliff Edwards come back to life, and by then he’d been to the telegraph office, the general store, and the bank to buy his ranch back. I approached him and asked him who he was. He laughed and asked me, ‘Don’t you think I’m Cliff? Everyone else seems to believe he’s back.’”

“I was right beside him,” Mrs. Roscoe said in her peaceful voice. “I said, ‘We saw Cliff Edwards buried, and although we are believers in Jesus Christ and as open to miracles as the next person, we aren’t about to believe God resurrected a man after he was two years dead and buried.’”

“Clay said,” Parson Roscoe continued, “‘It does seem like if God’s going to resurrect someone, He’d do it right away when it’d done some good. By two years later everyone’s gotten used to the idea of him being dead.’”

Mrs. Roscoe reclaimed the story, “So Irving said to him, ‘Are you family?’ He said, ‘Twin brother. I’ve come to see about his death and care for his family.’”

“Then I said,” the parson interjected, “‘We heard Cliff didn’t have any family.’”

Mrs. Roscoe added, “Clay said, ‘You heard wrong.’ And since there he stood, big as life and as surely a twin brother as any man could be, we welcomed him to Mosqueros. Then he said you were all moving, which is a good thing and high time. We’ve worried about you something fierce out here, Sophie,” Mrs. Roscoe said severely. “So we offered to help, and he said you’d be moving immediately. He said he’d bought a wagon to haul you and could use a driver.”

“I see,” Sophie said weakly. It wasn’t that she minded moving. The thought of getting back the lovely home that she’d been forced out of made butterflies soar around in her stomach. But it was a little overwhelming to just be whisked away. Why, it bordered on kidnapping!

Then Parson Roscoe distracted her from the house. “Now you know I’m a Christian man, and if my time is up and the Lord calls me home, I expect to go praising God’s name. But that doesn’t mean I need to be a reckless fool. Time was, a parson’s collar would protect a man of God from most everybody, but those days are gone. You and Clay will have to say your ‘I do’s’ quick. I don’t want to be on the trail after dark. Those vigilantes were out riding again last night.”

“I do’s?”
Sophie stopped listening or caring about anything, except getting her hands around Clay McClellen’s arrogant neck! There was a roaring in her ears by the time they reached the ranch house.

Clay was already dismounted and coming out of the barn. Sally skipped along beside him, holding his hand, and Beth stood in the front door of the house wielding a broom. Mandy ran from the corral to take a groggy Laura into her arms. For just a second Sophie forgot her need to beat some sense into her brother-in-law and admired the ranch she and Cliff had built.

She’d had some money when she left Philadelphia. Her father owned a large farm. He felt the need to be generous to his only child and her new husband. It had been her father’s money that had made the down payment on the ranch and built the house.

Adam, one of her father’s farmhands who suddenly confessed he’d always wanted to move west, was persuaded to drive the second team and stay with the Edwardses until they were established. Adam, a black man with emancipation papers, did more than help. He did everything. Cliff and Sophie wouldn’t have survived without him.

Cliff had come to resent Adam. That was Cliff’s way. Out of loyalty to Sophie, Adam stayed as long as he could stand Cliff’s rudeness. Before he moved on, shortly after Elizabeth was born, the Edwards ranch had seen itself off to a good start.

She looked at the large one-story ranch house and remembered the adventure, excitement, and occasional disappointment of coming west as a new bride. Then she remembered her high-handed brother-in-law.

“Let’s get this marriage over and done, Sophie,” Clay said as he removed his Stetson to whack some trail dust off his pants. “Parson, if you don’t want to climb down, you can just do the pronouncing from where you’re at.”

Sally giggled and whirled in a little circle without letting go of Clay’s hand. The mention of marriage didn’t seem to come as a surprise to her, so maybe Clay had gone so far as to mention there was going to be a wedding while he’d been riding with the girls.

“Clay!” Sophie hadn’t really meant to yell, but her ears hurt just a little from the single word, so she supposed she had. The girls all froze and looked at her.

Sally’s happy smile turned down at the corners. Beth quit sweeping. Laura woke up. Mandy said, “Marriage?”

“I need to talk to you.” Sophie started marching toward the house, but she didn’t go in. She went around the side of the house and was almost out of sight when Clay grabbed her arm.

“We can talk later, Sophie. The parson needs to get home. Let’s get this out of the way.”

Sophie wrenched her arm loose and whirled to face him. “We will talk now, Clay McClellen.” Sophie glanced over Clay’s shoulder and saw all four of her girls watching in fascination. The parson and his wife were mighty interested, too.

“Sophie, there’s nothing—”

“Not here,” Sophie snapped. “In private!”

Clay narrowed his eyes. They were cold, blue, gunslinger eyes, and if she hadn’t been so furious, she might have backed down and married him just to get him to quit looking at her so angrily. But she was furious, and it gave her the courage of a west Texas cougar.

“Back of the house. Now!” she roared. She jerked her arm, and he must have been agreeable to letting her talk, because she got loose, and she knew she never would have if he wasn’t willing.

She marched on around the house. He was right behind her. When she thought she was out of earshot of the girls, unless she started ranting of course, she turned. “Where did you get the outlandish notion that we were getting married?”

“Outlandish notion?” Clay’s brows shot up. “We talked about it. You said yes. What do you think I went to town for?”

“The parson?” Sophie screeched.

“Yes,” Clay answered in a sarcastic drawl. “The parson!”

“We have not talked about getting married.” Sophie jabbed Clay in the chest with her index finger. “I think I would have remembered a proposal!”

Clay grabbed her hand. He must not like being poked. Good. She’d remember that if she ever needed his attention again.

Clay got a very thoughtful look on his face. “I asked you if you knew what we had to do.”

“Yes, but I can’t imagine how you got, ‘Yes, I’ll marry you’ out of that brief exchange.”

Clay released her hand, lifted his Stetson, and ran his fingers through his hair, tousling it before setting his hat back on. “I asked you if you were a God-fearing woman,” Clay added.

“And I am one.” Sophie crossed her arms, stiffened her jaw, and waited for the man to make some sense.

“Well, we have to get married!” Clay said tersely. “So that’s what I meant when I asked you if you knew what we had to do. What did you think I meant?”

“I had no idea!” Sophie could hardly remember him making the comment.

“Then why did you say you knew what we had to do?” Clay asked indignantly.

Sophie tried to think what in the world he was talking about. Clay waited as he stared at her with growing belligerence.

At last she fetched around what she could of the memory. “I guess I thought you were telling me we had the usual chores to do around the place.” She snapped her fingers suddenly and said, “That’s right. I said, ‘Of course I know!’”

“And you said you were willing.”

“‘Of course I’m willing,’” Sophie said with vicious sarcasm, “to
do the chores
. I thought you had a lot of nerve telling me that since I’ve been doing all the chores for two years now!”

“Why would I try and tell you to do the chores you’d been doing alone for so long? That would be stupid!” Clay bellowed. “Do I strike you as a stupid man?”

Sophie arched an eyebrow and didn’t respond.

Clay’s gunslinger eyes got even narrower. “We talked about having the same faith.”