Journey of the Heart

“Gabriel?”

“I’m here, Ma.” The tall, thin, fifteen-year-old moved closer to the bed where his mother lay dying.

“You tell your pa I tried to wait till he came home,” she whispered, with a tired smile.

“You tell him yourself, Ma,” said the boy, leaning forward in his chair and slipping his hand under hers where it lay on the coverlet.

One finger weakly tapped him, as though to say, “You know better.”

“Help your pa take care of the young ones,” she added. “And Gabriel?”

“Yes, Ma?”

“The good book says it’s not good for man to be alone. If your pa should bring another woman here, you be good to her, hear?”

* * * *

The fever took Mary Ann Hart in three days. It was a week before James Hart returned from driving his cattle up to Abilene and his wife was already buried in the little cemetery outside of town, next to her third child, a daughter who had lived only one day.

“She fought hard, Pa,” Gabriel told him as they stood, hats in hand, in front of the new grave.

“She was a fighter, Mary Ann,” said Hart in a low, raspy voice. He reached up to put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “You take after her, Gabe. And you took good care of her, like a man would do. We’ll miss her.”

They all did miss her, the tall, freckled, rangy woman who had made their small cabin a home.

“I would have thought Pa would miss Ma a bit longer,” said twelve-year-old Sadie eight months later when James Hart announced he was bringing home a bride. “A new mother for you all,” was how he’d put it. “We don’t need no new mother, Gabe. I can take care of the little ones just fine.”

“Shore you can, Sadie. Ben and Jamie are doing fine. I suspect it’s Pa that’s not doing so well. Ma wouldn’t have wanted to see him lonely, you know that.”

“But May Lockridge? Why, she’s not that much older than you, Gabe.”

“She’s twenty-three if she’s a day, Sadie.”

“And Pa’s near forty, Gabe!”

“Well, there ain’t much to choose from around here, Sadie. Would you rather Miss Parker from the dry goods store?” Miss Parker was fifty and had three black hairs growing out of a bump on her chin, so Sadie knew her big brother was joking her. Sadie sighed. “I
miss
Ma, Gabe,” she said, her voice quivering.

“So do I, Sarah Ellen, so do I.”

* * * *

James Hart brought home his new bride a week later and for the first few months things seemed to go well. May was young and pretty and energetic and made an obvious effort to win the hearts of the little ones. Ben, who was five, was easy. He missed his mother so much that any woman who had shown him affection could have won him. Jamie, at eight, was a little harder, but after a few weeks he couldn’t resist her charm either.

Gabe couldn’t blame them, or his pa either, for that matter. She was a charming little thing. Real different from his ma, of course. His ma had pitched in like a partner on their small ranch. She wasn’t above doing anything outdoors, unlike May, who confined her energy to the house. It wasn’t that she acted weak so much, or reluctant to pitch in on rougher chores. It was as if the idea had never entered her mind. She didn’t
have
to say anything about not wanting to get her dress muddy or hands too raw; you just knew she wouldn’t ever consider feeding the calves or chopping wood.

James Hart was a taciturn man, but it was clear to his children how taken he was with May. It was in the way he looked up from his coffee in the morning, appreciating her trim waist and curved bosom. It was in the way he hurried her off to bed at night, just after the little boys had been put down to sleep but before Gabe and Sadie went up to the loft space they shared.

“I don’t like her, Gabe,” Sadie whispered one night after they’d climbed up to bed.

“Now, Sadie,” he drawled.

“And you don’t either; you can’t fool me!”

Gabe was silent. She didn’t miss much, Sarah Ellen. Just like Ma: smart as a
whip about people and animals. And with the same ability to put her feelings into words. He shared that sixth sense, but not the words. “Well, Sadie, I don’t know that it matters so long as Pa likes her. And the boys.”

“Maybe you’re right, Gabe. Anyways, you’ll be out of here soon enough, and I’ll just have to find me someone to marry real quick.”

“Marry! Who’s going to marry a scrawny thing like you, Sarah Ellen Hart! Why you ain’t even got a curve yet.”

Sadie scooted over from her side of the loft and pinched her brother in the ribs. “I’ll get curves faster than you think, Gabe. Faster than you fill out, boy!”

* * * *

It took three years, but by the time she was fifteen, Sadie Hart was quite pleased with her figure. She was tall, like her mother, it was true, but a little less rangy. Gabe had filled out too. He was a long and lean young man, but his thighs and his butt filled his denims very well, thought Sadie one hot afternoon, and his muscles rippled quite satisfactorily across his back as he chopped wood. She grinned when he turned around and looked at her inquiringly.

“You might haul your little butt over here and take in this wood, Sarah Ellen.”

“I’m too busy looking at yours,” she teased.

At that moment, May came out of the cabin, her hand shading her forehead. Making out like she’s looking for Pa, thought Sadie, when she’s really admiring Gabe. It was one thing for his little sister to objectively admire his good points. It was another for their father’s wife to be looking at him the way she did. Too often for comfort, thought Sadie. She wondered if Gabe had noticed his stepmother’s attention.

* * * *

Gabe was well aware of it and very glad he no longer slept in the house. When Sadie began filling out her overalls and dresses, he’d gone to his father and suggested they turn the last stall in the barn into a room for him. James had blushed and nodded when he understood the reason and at least Gabe was out of the house. It had grown uncomfortable this year, what with his pa and May not retiring early like they used to. Not that his pa didn’t want to occasionally. But May, she seemed to have lost some of her desire to please him. She acted put upon when he got up from his chair early and where before she’d be saying in front of him, “Why, James, he’s the strong and silent and handsome type, isn’t he?” now she’d complain behind his back about him. “Your pa, he never has two words to say to me at dinnertime.”

Gabe reckoned she was getting bored of her older, quiet husband. Pa
didn’t say
much, and Gabe could understand that. But Ma had known how to read his silences. Not that she let them wear her down. Not Ma. She understood James Hart and loved him for what he was.

Pa hadn’t noticed anything yet, Gabe was sure. And Gabe didn’t intend for him to notice. He kept out of May’s way, volunteering to ride fence as often as possible, though he’d much prefer working the horses and cattle over mending barbed wire. But one day he was well and truly caught.

Sadie had taken the two boys to town to outfit them for the fall and Pa had ridden out to the east pasture. Before he left he’d called Gabe over to him. “I want you to ride that little bay mare, Gabe. She needs some more gentlin’ before we can give her to Sadie for her birthday.”

He could hardly refuse. And he loved nothing better than working a green horse. He worked them slowly and gently, unlike many horse breakers who just got on an unbroken horse and rode it hard till it stopped bucking. Or till the wrangler was thrown. Gabe could ride a mean one as good as any, but he’d never seen the point to it.

Sadie had had her eye on the mare since they’d gotten her some months ago. She’d been hinting six days to Sunday that she wanted the bay for her own. Short of outright begging, she’d made her preference for her birthday gift clear. But James had merely turned his head and winking at Gabe, said: “She’s too good a mare to be wasted on riding to school and back, Sarah Ellen.”

Gabe had been working her on a lunge line with the saddle on but the stirrups tied up. Today he was going to let them hang free so she’d get used to something bumping her sides. The mare was sweet-tempered, but had spunk too. At a walk, she merely shook her head a few times at the unfamiliar weight brushing her sides. But at a trot, she stopped short and gave a pretty demonstration of bucking while Gabe urged her on with his voice and light touches of his whip.

“You have a way with horses, don’t you, Gabe?” said a voice behind him.

“I guess I do,” he said, his voice flat.

May stood next to him, not so close that they were touching, but close enough that he had to watch out that their arms didn’t brush when he flicked the whip.

“She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?” May whispered softly.

Somehow Gabe was sure she was angling for him to say something like: “And so are you, May.” He just grunted and urged the mare into a canter, which set her to bucking again and required him to shorten the line and walk toward her and away from his father’s wife. He brought the mare down to a trot and then a walk. She was high-stepping and shaking her withers as though she wanted to shake the saddle off.

“Do you think she’ll be ready in time for Sadie’s birthday?”

“I’ll be sure she is,” Gabe replied as he approached the mare’s head. He pulled her nose down to his chest and scratched her ears, saying, “That’s my good girl. You did real well today.”

“Here, let me hold her for you, Gabe.” May moved in beside him and her hand covered his before he knew it. He let go of the reins instantly and moved down to unsaddle her. The mare sidestepped a little as he pulled the saddle off, but she gazed at him calmly.

“Here, loop the reins over my arm, May, and I’ll bring her into the stable.”

“Nonsense, Gabe. You have that heavy saddle to carry. I’ll lead her in.”

Damn, thought Gabe. He and his pa had been unsaddling and settling down horses for years. Now, all of a sudden, May wanted to be helpful? Not damn likely!

May just hung quietly on the stall gate while Gabe wiped the mare down. He didn’t know whether to be grateful or worried. Maybe he was making this all up in his head.

When he finished brushing, May climbed down off the door so Gabe could lock it. The barn was warm and smelled of hay and horse manure, a smell Gabe liked but May had never spent much time appreciating. She was standing in front of him and he tried to go around, muttering, “I have to hang up the brushes.”

“Gabe,” she whispered, “I am sure you know how I feel about you?” Her arms were snaking around his waist and he raised his own as though she were an outlaw who’d called out “Hands up.”

“Put down those brushes, Gabe, and hold me.”

Gabe’s mouth had gone so dry it felt like cotton wool. “You…you shouldn’t be doing this, May. What about Pa?”

“Let me worry about what we should or shouldn’t be doing, Gabe. Your pa need never know.”

“There ain’t no
we
here, May,” Gabe protested, stepping back. That only pulled her with him. He finally dropped the brushes and put his hands on her arms.

“You have such strong hands, Gabe. And arms. It’s been driving me crazy watching them all tanned and sweaty while you chop wood.”

Had she been any other woman, perhaps her words might have moved him. He was still young and just coming into his manhood and had only stolen a kiss from Molly Preston at the town dance. And sometimes, when his shirt was stripped off and he’d been sweating, he’d preened himself before an imaginary girl who’d admire him and want to put her arms around him. But this was his pa’s wife and a woman he didn’t even like very much.

He took her arms and pulled them from his waist and held them tight in front of him before he pushed her away. “This is not going to happen, May.”

She rubbed her arms where he’d grasped her and said with a knowing smile: “Maybe not today, Gabe. But it will, believe me it will. I’m too young to be drying up in an old man’s bed.” She turned and walked slowly out of the barn, leaving Gabe standing there, suddenly very conscious of every mote of dust floating down in the beam of light streaming through the window.

He’d start riding fence more. He’d stay away longer and she’d forget this craziness of hers. It would all blow over in a month or so, he told himself. But that night, she was looking at him again and talking to him in such a way that he was sure his pa would notice her tone and wonder at it.

Sadie noticed it. When he excused himself after dinner, Sadie was right behind him and followed him into his room.

“Don’t bother to knock or anything, Sarah Ellen!”

“We have to talk, Gabe.”

“What about, Sadie?”

“About May.”

“What about May?”

“You know damn well what about May. About the fact that she’s always following you with her eyes. About the fact that she sounded like poured honey tonight and Pa right there.”

Gabe groaned. “I’d hoped nobody else had noticed.”

Sadie’s face paled. “You aren’t…doing anything with her, are you, Gabe?”

Gabe’s hand was out and slapping her face before he even realized it. He looked at the red imprint on her cheek and said, “I am sorry, Sarah Ellen. I didn’t even know what I was doing. But you shouldn’t even think something so shameful.”