Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men)

Thin spirals of a ghostly mist rose from the deep, verdant hollows
and, creeping opaque and white along the uneven ground, steadily inched their
way toward the towering hemlocks that marked three corners of the small family
plot.

For two days and two nights, almost since the moment of Evelyn
Dawes Garrett’s passing, the rain had fallen steadily in one form or another...
gentle spring rain, drizzling mist, and drenching downpour. Just now it came in
shimmering sheets over the western mountains, dampening the cheeks of twenty-year-old
Reagan Dawes, blessedly hiding her tears from view.

It was hard for Reagan to believe that the ailing mother for whom
she had lovingly cared these past few months was truly gone, and harder still
to accept the fact that the trio slouching a few feet away from the Right
Reverend Wells on the opposite side of the newly dug grave were all she had
left in this world.

At a signal from the minister, Reagan’s stepfather, Luther Garrett,
and her half brothers, Luck and Lafe, scooped up a few handfuls of mud and
hurled them into the grave, where they landed on the simple pine box with a
hollow thud.

“Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,” Reverend Wells intoned
solemnly. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.”

Reagan sniffed into her handkerchief. With her mother’s passing,
the last bit of softness and gentility had gone from her life. Evelyn Dawes
Garrett had been a true lady, and just how the slovenly Luther had managed to
marry her remained one of Bloodroot’s greatest mysteries.

Yet if the gentle Evelyn, the widow of Raymond Dawes--the only son
of Blanchard Avery Dawes, the founder of the settlement—had ever felt the pinch
of disappointment in her second husband’s total lack of manly attributes, she
kept her own counsel on the matter. Over the years she had proven herself a
worthy wife to Luther and a loving mother to Reagan and the twins, Luck and
Lafe, who had just turned sixteen the previous autumn, and who were the mirror
image of their father.

Ever the soul of patience, Evelyn had made a valiant stab at
bringing education and refinement into the lives of her three children, at
least as far as her limited circumstances would allow. Yet where Reagan
exhibited a penchant for cleanliness and excelled at reading and learning her
letters, the boys had mulishly balked, preferring to spend their days and nights
roaming the woods that surrounded their simple country home, wild as Indians.

Reagan might have been able to tolerate her half brothers’ total
lack of initiative had they not taken such a perverse delight in ridiculing her
for attempting to better herself, a circumstance that usually resulted in
Reagan soundly trouncing the twins in the mud-clogged dooryard.

Almost from infancy, Reagan’s temper had been legend in Bloodroot,
and whatever polish Evelyn had managed to bestow upon her was little more than a
thin veneer.

Her
saucy, unbridled tongue had often been a bone of contention between mother and
daughter, as well as a source of frustration and fury for Luther, whose views
on a female’s appointed station in life were somewhat anti
quated.

“A woman yer age ought to be married,” Luther had said more times
than Reagan could recall.

Evelyn, ever the buffer in a raucous household, counseled
patience. Grudgingly Luther complied, but his patience, unlike his wife’s, was
limited.

In the years that followed, a long string of suitors trickled
through the Garretts’ parlor, promising young men with bouquets of wildflowers
in hand and hope shining brightly in their hearts, and each with a killing
flaw: too little ambition, a disdain for personal hygiene that rivaled that of
Luck and Lafe, teeth missing in front, or the fact that Reagan could best her
potential husband in an Indian-wrestling match. No man seemed to suit until
Arley Pratt, smelling of cologne and surrounded by an air of worldliness and
sophistication, had arrived in Bloodroot... and Reagan lost her heart.

On the opposite side of the open grave, Luck snuffled loudly and
wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve, dragging Reagan from her musings.

The misting rain came harder now, and within seconds dissolved
into a proper deluge. Reverend Wells put a hasty end to the service and, with a
glance at the lowering sky, closed his Bible with a snap. “God be with you
all,” he said in parting, slogging through the sea of mud to his piebald mare,
which was tethered to the low-hanging branch of a nearby tree.

Luther turned to Lafe, the sturdier of the twins. “See to yer
mama’s grave, son. We need to git movin’. We gotta lot o’ ground to cover
’twixt now and full dark.”

Lafe’s expression grew sullen. “Gee, Pa, can’t Reagan do it? She
does everything else around here, an’ it’d save us daylight.”

“Whist, boy!” Luther said in an aside. “Have ye forgot so quick
what we talked about last night?” A nod of his head indicated the jagged gash
in the earth that was Evelyn’s final resting place. “Do as yer told.” He then
turned to Luck, who stood snuffling and scratching his ear, and gave the youth
a hearty shove. “Stop that snivelin’, boy. We’ve done our duty by your ma, and
there’s no lookin’ back. Go see to the task I gave ye. Yer sister and me need
to have a little talk.”

With a sly, darting glance at Reagan, Luck shambled off toward the
barn, his bare feet making sucking sounds in the mud.

Luther took a firm grip on Reagan’s arm, propelling her toward the
house. “I expect you know that it’s long been my dream to venture west and seek
my fortune, and with yer ma in her grave, there ain’t nothin’ left for me in
Bloodroot.” Reagan said nothing, just hunched her shoulders beneath the old
woolen coat she wore, shoving her fists a little deeper into the pockets of her
brother’s cast-off breeches. She wished that she could say that she would miss
Luther and the boys, but the hard truth was that she would not. As a family,
they had never been terribly close. Evelyn had been the common bond that had
held them together, but sadly, Evelyn was gone.

Striding along beside her, Luther fixed her with a frowning
glance. “Have ye given any thought to Jim Singer’s proposal?”

“I have,” Reagan said tightly, wishing her stepfather had never
broached the subject, “and I have no intention of marryin’ that crackbrained
old codger. He’s buried half a dozen wives already, and I ain’t about to be
number seven.”

“A woman yer age can’t afford to be choosy!”

“Choosy?” Reagan snapped. “Jim Singer’s eighty years if he’s a
day!”

“He’s the last in a long line of beaus,” Luther said in a growl.
“And we both know there ain’t likely to be no other.” Breaking off abruptly, he
shook his head. “Lord knows, I have tried to be patient! I have waited and
watched and chewed on my tongue whilst ye turned up your nose at the local
swains. Not a one of all those who come here could please ye, except for Arley
Pratt! And him ye couldn’t catch!”

Reagan’s slim shoulders shook with indignation. How dared he
mention Arley’s name, today of all days? Arley, with his smooth city ways and
winning smile... dapper in his starched white shirt collars, hair pomade, and
pencil-thin mustache.

“Jim Singer is a well-to-do man,” Luther went on, “a good
provider. He’ll keep a roof over yer bullet-hard head and food in yer belly!”

Pulling away from her stepfather’s grasp, Reagan planted her feet
wide, bracing her balled fists on her hips. “You can’t make me marry that
gnarled old bastard! The thought of his hands on my person makes me want to
retch!” Taking a deep breath, she let it go slowly, forcing herself to calm
down. “I don’t need no man to survive, Luther. I can do well enough on my own,
and you well know it!”

Luther eyed her narrowly, his mouth a thin, unforgiving slash in
his hawkish face. “I can see that I’m wastin’ time on this talk. At twenty,
ye’re too old and set in yer ways to take a wiser head’s counsel, yet I give ye
fair warning that, all in all, I can’t in good conscience leave ye alone and
unprotected. I owe yer ma’s memory more’n that.”

Luther gave a curt nod. At the same time Reagan caught a blur of
movement at the edge of her field of vision. Her spine prickling in warning,
she turned toward it, watching warily as Luck emerged from the barn and
approached her, a burlap sack clutched in his grimy hands. From the opposite
direction came Lafe, armed with a length of hempen rope, a menacing grin on his
face.

Luther just folded his arms and looked on, while Reagan’s blood
turned cold.

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