The Shepherd's Voice (32 page)

Gabe whipped his head toward his father.
“What?”

“It’s a simple question. How do either of us know it’s your child? Women throughout the ages have cuckolded their husbands. She could have done it to you.” He leaned back on the sofa and crossed one leg over the other. The right corner of his mouth lifted in a self-satisfied smirk.

M
OTHER.

One simple word, and yet he understood the meaning. Gabe’s anger quieted, calmed by the Spirit’s voice speaking to his heart.

“You’re talking about my mother, aren’t you?”

Hudson’s grin vanished.

Gabe stood. “You’re talking about me.” He spoke softly, wondering why he’d never guessed it before. It explained so much.

A kaleidoscope of memories flashed through his mind, the countless times Hudson had called Max “son,” and the endless times he’d called Gabe “boy.”

“That’s why you’ve hated me.”

Hudson stood. “She lied. Right to the bitter end, she said you were my son. But I knew better. She couldn’t fool me with her pious ways. She loved that preacher. I could see it every time she was with him. She loved him, not me.”

Gabe felt pity for Hudson Talmadge, a pity so strong he thought it might break his heart.

“I should have put you in an orphanage,” his father went on. “Max would still be alive today if I had. You killed my wife, and then you killed my son.”

Gabe turned toward Akira. “We should go.”

She nodded as she rose from the chair. There were tears on her cheeks.

“You’re no good,” Hudson ranted, his voice rising. “You’re no good. I never should’ve let you carry my name. I should have let you die with her. You can hide behind religion all you want. Won’t change a thing.”

Gabe met Hudson’s gaze. “You’re right. Religion doesn’t change a thing. But knowing Christ changes everything.” He took hold of Akira’s arm and drew her close to his side. “Knowing Jesus saved me from what I was.”

Hudson called him a foul name.

“Maybe that’s what I was,” Gabe answered quietly. “Once. But I’ve found something better.” He extended one hand in a gesture of supplication. “You could know that same peace, if you chose to.”

“Get
out
!”

Gabe glanced at Pauline. She was still staring at the floor, her expression taut. “I’m sorry,” he said, although he doubted she knew he spoke to her. Then he escorted Akira out of the Talmadge mansion.

Akira prayed in silence for a long while, seeking peace in her spirit. Finally, she looked at her husband, seated beside her in the wagon.

“He loved your mother,” she said softly.

“I don’t think he knows what love is.”

“Not as we know it, no. But as much as he is able.” She laid her hand on his forearm. “He loved her, and he was jealous of her devotion to something or someone other than him. It wasn’t the preacher who was the problem. It was your mother’s love of Christ—that’s what he was really jealous of.”

Gabe stared into the distance, squinting his eyes against the harsh gray light of a cloudy day. “What if she
was
unfaithful?”

“That’s useless speculation. Would it change who you are, either way?” She sighed. “And besides, I don’t believe it’s true. Like it or not, I can see your father in you.”

“No, I’m not sure I like it.” His scowl deepened. “There’s a part of me that hopes I’m not his son. I’d almost rather believe my mother was an adulteress, that there’s another man out there who fathered me.”

“Forgive him, Gabe. For today and for all the years gone before.”

The silence that followed was punctured only by the creaking of the wagon wheels and the clomping of the horses’ hooves against the hard surface of the road.

Father God
,
only You can heal the hurts life sends our way. Gabe and I have put all our hope in You. If You don’t help us
,
no one can.

“All those years,” he said at last. “All those years I wondered why I could never measure up, why I wasn’t as good as Max. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I did, Hud never approved of me, never praised me. Now it begins to make sense.” He looked at her, his eyes filled with sorrow. “It even makes a crazy kind of sense why he accused me of murdering my brother, why he wouldn’t believe it was an accident.”

She nodded, the lump in her throat making it impossible to speak.

“Back there, when we were at the house, I pitied Hud more than any man I’ve ever known.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve lived with drunks and thieves and men dressed in rags in the dead of winter, but it occurs to me they were all better off than my father. There he is, in that fancy mansion of his, with a fine car and a bank full of money and servants to tend his every need. But all I can feel for him is pity because he’s got nothing that matters.”

“Nothing,” she whispered.

He turned his gaze forward again, saying, “He’d hate being pitied almost as much as he hates me.”

TWENTY-THREE

A bitter wind bent the tall row of poplars, whistling an eerie melody through the leafless branches. Standing beside Brodie and Gabe near the stack yard, Akira turned up the collar of her coat before stuffing her hands into her pockets.

“Ye’ll need to bring the sheep to the feed yard by December, lass. Those lower pastures won’t support them until January. The grass is near gone.”

“But have we enough hay to see us through to March if we bring them in early?”

“Aye. I believe so.”

“How can you tell?” Gabe asked.

Akira answered before Brodie could. “It normally takes six hundred tons of hay to winter feed a band of two thousand before the spring grasses come in. Our alfalfa fields did well this year. We’ve more than that here.”

“’Tis irrigation that saved the crops,” Brodie interjected. “Dundreggan’s underground springs have never run dry.”

Akira continued, “The question is, how much more feed than usual will we need?”

“There’s no answer for that, lass. And what choice have ye, enough or not?”

“None, I suppose.” She glanced over her shoulder, looking toward the Wickham cottage. “Mrs. Wickham will be glad to have her menfolk at home again.”

After turning the bucks loose with the ewes for five weeks after their return from summer range, the band had been driven to the southernmost grazing lands. It wasn’t far in terms of miles, but far enough to require the shepherds to live in their sheep wagon.

Akira turned to Gabe. “Maybe you and I should relieve Mr. Wickham and Mark for a week or two.”

He looked surprised by her suggestion.

“When I was a girl, I loved to accompany my grandfather. I thought it grand fun, cooking meals in a Dutch oven over a campfire and sleeping on those tick mattresses inside the wagon. Or under the stars when the weather permitted.”

“I’d say it’s too cold for that now.”

She nodded but wasn’t dissuaded from her pleasant memories. “I loved walking about with Grandfather’s staff in hand, calling commands to the dogs.” She grinned. “I even learned to use a slingshot. I’d pretend I was David of the Bible. Sometimes, I’d sit up late into the night, slingshot in hand, waiting for a lioness to attack the sheep so I could slay it with a pebble. It never happened, of course. Grandfather always ended up putting me to bed after I fell asleep.”

“Ye’ll not be going out with the sheep in your condition, lass. Not with winter hard upon us.”

“Lachlan’s right,” Gabe chimed in. “This isn’t the time for that.”

She sighed, knowing the men were right. She hadn’t gone out with the sheep in years; she’d been too busy with the day-to-day business of running the home farm. And if she were entirely honest, she probably wouldn’t find camping in the sheep wagon nearly as comfortable as she had as a child.

She shivered as another gust of wind cut through the fabric of her coat.

“You need to get inside.” Gabe settled a protective arm around her shoulders. “I don’t want you taking a chill in this weather.”

All this coddling was going to spoil her rotten, she thought. Then she smiled, deciding she would enjoy it while it lasted.

Gabe looked at Brodie. “I’m going to ride out to the Jones’s place. I’ll be passing by the sheep camp. Do you need me to take anything to Charlie? Pass along any news?”

“I’ll ride with ye.”

Gabe chuckled as he gave Akira’s shoulders a squeeze. “He thinks I’ll get lost if I go on my own,” he confided in a stage whisper, his lips near her ear.

“I know.”

Brodie harrumphed.

“Actually, I’d be glad for your company, Lachlan. If the Widow Jones is as strange as folks say, I may be glad for it.”

“She’ll not shoot ye dead, if that’s what ye fear.” The Scotsman almost revealed a smile. “But she might wing ye if she gets a chance.”

“Why, Brodie Lachlan!” Akira exclaimed, grinning at him. “You’re actually teasing my husband.”

“Ach! I never
tease
.” He said the word with complete distaste. “’Tis a woman’s tool, that.” Before Akira could respond, he added, “If we’re goin’, let’s be about it. I’ll see to the horses.” He strode away, only a slight limp evident.

“I knew it would happen,” Akira said. “He likes you.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“But he does.”

“Well, he won’t if I keep him waiting.” He gave her a quick kiss. “You get inside out of this wind.”

“I will as soon as I’ve looked in on Mrs. Wickham. She’s been rather listless the last week or two. I hope she isn’t in for another bad spell.”

“Take her some of your stew. It’s good enough to cure whatever ails her.”

She grinned. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am.” He gave her another quick kiss. “We’ll try to be back before dark.”

“I’ll keep your supper warm.”

He started to walk away.

“And Gabe?”

He stopped and looked back at her.

“Be careful.”

He smiled, nodded, then headed for the barn.

Danny Peck looked at least a decade older than his twenty-five years, Hudson decided. Hard drinking did that to a man. He was about average in height and weight, probably average in appearance, too, when cleaned up. Right now he wasn’t clean. His jaw was covered with dark stubble, and his clothes looked as if he’d been sleeping in them for weeks.

When sober, which he rarely was, he was said to be a skilled carpenter. He’d come to the valley about five years before. No family that anyone knew of. No friends, except the men he drank with in the bar. He was a loner. An angry loner. And a drunk.

“Have a seat, Mr. Peck,” Hudson said in a cordial voice while motioning toward a chair.

Danny mumbled an indiscernible reply as he complied.

“I’m glad you came.”