Jake Walker's Wife (6 page)

"I'm afraid I haven't been much of a father to them. What they know about farming they learned from the hired hands."

Jake remembered feeling a mite sorry for the man. But all too soon, pity was replaced by low-burning anger. That day, he'd had a mind to tell Micah that it would have been better for the boys if he'd fessed up about his grief; honest sorrow, he reckoned, would have been easier to bear than the distance Micah had put between himself and his sons.

But he'd learned long ago that a man seldom spoke what was on his mind, and
it was rarer still for him to speak what was in his heart. So he kept silent his opinions, telling himself Micah had been as good a father as he knew how to be. Jake wondered how well
he'd
have borne up, if he'd lost the love of a woman like Bess. Just a day later, he found a new insight into Micah's behavior, when he'd stood in Micah's parlor, staring at the row of silver and brass- and bronze-framed photographs on the mantle.

His favorite
? The tintype of the Beckley clan. In it, Bess and Mary sat on a red velvet settee wearing identical dresses and matching smiles. Behind them, Micah held his dark-bearded chin high, and in front of them, Matt and Mark—like miniature male versions of their mother—stared into the camera's lens. Just a typical family portrait, folks might say. But Jake knew better, because he'd seen what went unnoticed by most: There, in the shadows behind their children, where they thought no one would notice, Micah and Mary had clasped hands, proof to those who looked closely enough proof of their undying love and genuine affection for one another.

The photo had entranced
him, and he found himself making up excuses to step into the parlor, again and again, if only for a moment, to drink in the sight of true familial warmth. Sometimes, as he waited for sleep to rescue him from the snores and grunts of the bunkhouse, it was that picture, floating in his memory, that helped him drift off to sleep.

Mark
's sudden appearance beside him startled Jake.

"What did you do," the boy asked,
"roll over and thump your head on a rock during the night?"

Jake
shook off the last of his daydream and accepted the blue speckled metal mug from the boy's extended hand. He took a sip of hot coffee and frowned. "What in tarnation are you yammering about, boy?"

"Didn't mean to rile you."
Mark shrugged. "You seem a mite addlebrained this morning, is all."

Matt elbowed his brother. "Think maybe he's love-struck, little brother?"

Mark's eyes widened as he considered the possibility. "Sure looks that way to me." The boy drained the last of his own coffee before facing his twin. "And if you call me 'little brother' again," he challenged, grinning, "I'll stick your nose in the dirt and plow the bottom forty with you! Just 'cause you were born two minutes before me don't give you no right to rub my face in it."

Matt tossed several pebbles at his brother's booted feet. "Wipe the ground up...with
me?
Ha! I'd like to see you try!"

It was invitation enough, and before
Jake could open his mouth to forestall it, the brothers started wrestling in the dust like a couple of rowdy pups. He grinned, and wondered for a moment what it might have been like to grow up with a brother who really gave a hoot what happened to you, instead of coming to age in a house with no kin but the man who despised him. Jake frowned to smother the fury that always rose within him when he thought of Uncle Josh.

"You boys act more like four than fourteen," he said, forcing a sternness into his voice that he didn't feel. "I'll give you one minute to pack up this gear."

The playful jostling came to a grinding halt and their dark-eyed expressions changed from young-boy-happy to young-man-wise. Jake swallowed the lump of guilt that formed in his throat at having caused the abrupt change, and pretended to busy himself by saddling his horse.

He listened as the twins stashed tin pots and metal plates and utensils into
grub sacks and tied them to their saddles. "If we dig in good and hard," he said as he hung a coil of hemp rope over the saddle horn, "we can get this job finished up today."

"Good," Matt said, brushing dark curls from his eyes. "My belly is cryin' for some of Bess's corn biscuits."

"And a piece of her deep-dish apple pie," his twin added.

Jake
would have settled for a glance at her pretty face. But he stanched that mood before it could start. "Saddle up, boys, and let's head out. We're burnin' daylight."

They'd been riding for all of fifteen minutes when Matt spotted two riders on the horizon. "Who do you suppose that could be all the way out here?"

Jake stared hard at the spot where Matt pointed. Just as he caught sight of the distant silhouettes, one of the riders turned, and sunlight winked from something metal on his shirt. Jake's blood ran cold and his heart beat hard. The shiny thing, no doubt, was a badge. And it belonged, no doubt, to a U.S. Marshall.
So they've tracked you down again
, he thought miserably.

Neither man seemed to have spotted
Jake and the boys yet, however. If the three of them headed back to Foggy Bottom at a fast clip, maybe the marshals would never know he'd been in Freeland at all....

Just then, Matt smacked his horse's rump and thundered toward the marshals.

"Are you out of your mind?" Jake hollered.

"I'm aim to find out who's cuttin' through our property without permission...an' why," the boy shouted over his shoulder.

Jake spurred his own horse into action, yelling as he went. "That field is full of mole holes. Your horse is sure to—“

The warning came a heartbeat too late. Matt's horse went down, pitching the boy head over heels. He landed with a quiet
thump
on a grassy knoll.

"Ohmigosh," Mark said, his voice a childlike whisper. "That's just the way Ma died...."

Bess had told Jake about the night Mary's horse bucked, overturning her wagon as she rode home after delivering the Thomas baby. The agonized tone in Mark's voice made Jake's heart ache.

In seconds, Mark and
Jake were at Matt's side. They quickly dismounted and inspected the damage: The boy lay unconscious, his right leg bent at an awkward angle beside him, his right arm twisted beneath him.

"Looks like he busted himself up pretty good," Mark said, voice trembling.

Jake was far more concerned with the huge bump on the boy's forehead. "Get the canteen," he ordered, "and fetch my saddle bag."

As the boy ran for the supplies,
Jake scanned the horizon once more. The commotion must not have attracted the marshals' attention, for they were heading in the opposite direction now.

Like soldiers, most U.S. Marshals could splint broken bones and tie tourniquets with the best of medics. As
Jake saw it, he had two choices: Make tracks and don't look back, or see to it that Matt got the help he needed.

Run, and avoid the gallows.

Stay, and save Matt's life.

Jake
, still kneeling beside the boy's broken body, bowed his head.

T
hen he unholstered his pistol, and fired a single shot into the air.

"Trouble?" the biggest man asked as he reined in his beast.

"
Boy's horse threw him," Jake explained, pulling his hat low to hide his face from the marshal's view.

Both men stared down at Matt's twisted body. "Good Lord Almighty," the first one said. "I ain't never set a broken bone a-fore." He looked at his buddy. "How 'bout you, Richie?"

Richie shook his head. "Nope." He met Jake's eyes. "Guess that's what you was hopin' when you fired that shot, eh?"

Jake
nodded.

Only after the men dismounted did
Jake realize they weren't U.S. Marshals at all, but two of Freeland's border farmers. And what he'd thought had been a silver star badge was, instead, the cinch of the smaller man's black four-in-hand tie.

Relief flooded
Jake's veins and he exhaled the breath he'd been holding since he made the decision to put Matt's welfare ahead of his own.

The first man held out a big, calloused hand. "Name's Luke. Luke Elliot," he said. "Sorry to make your acquaintance this-a way."

He pumped the man's arm. "Jake Walker. This is Mark." Jake then gestured to Matt, who lay motionless on the ground, "and Matthew Beckley."

For what seemed like an eternity, no one spoke. Finally, Mark broke the endless silence. "So what're we gonna do about Matt,
fellers?"

Richie and Luke rubbed their bearded chins. "Well, we might
-could help you whack down a couple of those saplings over yonder," Richie said, nodding toward a thicket. "Wrap some blankets 'round 'em nice an' tight, and they’ll make a right passable litter."

Jake
placed a hand on Mark's shoulder. "Stay here with your brother," he instructed, handing him the canteen and a neckerchief. "Dribble a bit of water on his lips from time to time."

Mark immediately fell to his knees and began drizzling water over Matt's forehead and cheeks. "Hey, there, big brother," he said, his voice quaking slightly, "you'd better wake up and start thinkin' up some good excuses, 'cause when Bess sees that nasty rip in your britches, she's gonna give you the worst tongue lashin' of your life...."

The men walked several hundred yards due east in search of strong, young saplings. It took several whacks of Luke's hunting knife to cut the small trees down, but soon, they were with the boys again.

After placing all their blankets one atop the other,
Jake tethered them to the now-branchless trees with strips of cotton torn from his shirttails and cuffs.

Richie's contribution were two, long, leather bootlaces.
Jake cut each in half, and used the four strings to bind the litter to his saddle girth. Once he'd tested it for strength and durability, Jake gently eased Matt's unconscious body onto the litter. Even out cold, the boy moaned with pain.

"In his condition, it'll take us a day just to get him back to the house,"
Jake said to the group. To Mark, he added, "Ride on ahead and fetch the doc. See that he's waiting when we get there, y'hear?"

Mark climbed onto his horse and gathered the reins. "Yessir!"

"And mind that you avoid those confounded mole holes. We've only got one litter, after all!"

"Yessir!" the boy
said again as he rode off.

The men
mounted their horses, too. "We were on our way to Morris Meadows," Richie said. "Heard-tell that Isaac Junior had a wagon for sale. Luke, here, wants to buy it for his girl. She's gettin' hitched next week." Richie elbowed his friend. "He's gonna deck it out in baubles an' bows for the weddin', ain't ya Luke?"

The bigger man nodded. "Thought we'd take us a shortcut across Foggy Bottom. Sure would save us a heap o' travelin' time...."

Jake patted his horse's withers to keep the agitated animal calm and still. "I'm foreman here," he informed them. "Anybody gives you any sass, you just tell 'em I gave you the go-ahead to cut through."

Each man saluted with a fingertip to the brim of his hat. "Thanks, man," Richie said.

"Hope the boy'll be all right," Luke said over his shoulder as they trotted off.

"So do I,"
Jake said to himself. "So do I."

***

Every few minutes, Jake looked back to check Matt's condition. When the boy finally woke up—nearly an hour after he'd fallen from the horse—Jake told him he'd have to work an extra half day to make up for his lazy afternoon nap. Matt, despite being drowsy and in obvious pain, chuckled at Jake's joke. He apologized repeatedly for causing so much trouble. "Pa is gonna be mighty upset," he said. "He's already got so much on his mind...."

Jake
couldn't help but wonder if the pain in Matt's voice was only due to his injuries, or to the distance Micah had put between himself and his sons. But the boy had lapsed back into unconsciousness before he could offer a word of assurance.

He'd been two years younger than
the twins when his own parents died. "Get down to the root cellar where you'll be safe," his father had ordered him and his mother on that fateful day. "If I see your faces before I call for you, I'll tan both your hides but good!"

Immediately,
Jake had obeyed.

His mother had not. He'd never seen her cower at the sound of that deep, overpowering voice. So many times, he'd asked himself what she knew about his father that he didn't. What had she learned about the big man he so loved and respected that made her certain she could stoutly refuse to do as he'd instructed
without paying a price? Because on that day, if she'd gone with her son to the root cellar as her husband had insisted, she'd have escaped the oncoming flames.

The thick wooden door of the root cellar had blocked out all light
, all sound. Jake waited down there for hours in the dim glow of a single candle's flame, pacing the dirt floor as he'd waited for his father's signal, as he'd waited for his pa's permission to exit.