Mary Connealy (83 page)

At last Wade quietly dropped her hand. “Thank you, Abby.”

They rode forward, and it was as Wade had said. The second she rounded the outcropping of rocks, she saw the massive log house. “What kind of fool builds such a house in this cold land?”

Wade turned to face her, his brow furrowed. “A fool? You’re calling my father a fool?”

Not the best way to get along with Wade, but she reminded herself that she didn’t want him touching her hand. She didn’t want to look deeply into his eyes again. She had no wish to get along with Wade, so it mattered nothing if she insulted his home. “How many hours a day does he spend chopping wood to keep a fire going to warm such a monstrosity?”

Considering he was wound tight as a coiled rattler, that Wade managed to smile seemed akin to a miracle. “That’s good for me to hear. My father does struggle to keep it warm. And even with hired men chopping the wood for it, it’s never really comfortable in the winter.”

“And winter lasts half the year.” Abby sniffed her contempt. “Better to live in a tepee. One small fire would warm your entire home.”

Wade squared his shoulders. He appeared to have relaxed a bit. Perhaps she should insult his father more. It seemed to agree with him.

“How many trees were cut down so your father could be so…so…grand?”

“Too many. My pa was never one to worry about what he took from the land, only what it could give him.” He looked her straight in the eye. “I’m glad you decided not to stay with Belle.”

“Your offer of a job was the only way I could think to take care of myself right now. I have nowhere else to go.”

They rode up to the house, Wade on his chestnut, Abby on a roan mare.

Dismounting, Abby followed Wade up the four steps of the porch that stretched the length of this monster of a house.

The door swung open. A woman as wide as she was tall moved with startling speed for one so elderly. She darted across the broad porch and flung her arms around Wade.

Her weight and enthusiasm nearly knocked Wade down the steps. He grabbed for a sturdy pillar and caught himself in time.

“My boy! My boy is home!”

Wade hugged the woman close, leaning his tall frame down to press his cheek on the gray head.

Abby had to wonder if Wade was correct about his mother being dead. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing a man would be mistaken about.

“I heard about Pa.”

The woman nodded her head but didn’t speak, her face still buried in Wade’s chest.

Abby came up beside Wade and watched the reunion. The longing she felt for this kind of contact was stunning. Her Salish…no…Flathead—that was the white word—mother had been kind to her, but the woman wasn’t given to hugs. Her Flathead father had been as quiet as Wild Eagle. Abby had no memory of her own long-lost ma.

A fleeting image of a woman as thin as a sapling pulling Abby onto her lap was there in her mind. Was that her white mother?

Ma…Yes, thinking of the woman as Ma fit. But what other name? What first or last name? It itched inside Abby’s mind that she’d so completely left her white family behind. Perhaps more would come back to her now that she had reentered the white world. As she thought of that, her anger welled up. The white world had killed her Flathead family. But now the rest of her tribe didn’t want her. She belonged nowhere.

The woman pulled away from Wade, wiping her eyes on her apron. Finally, she looked up. “Mort’s fit to be tied. Laid up in bed, near to thrash anyone who comes within reach. He’s spitting mad that he can’t move his legs. The foreman comes and takes his orders and gives reports. Besides him, I’m the only one who goes in his room. It’s like trying to talk to a wounded grizzly.”

Wade’s shoulders slumped. Abby knew he was dreading this meeting.

“He’s been shouting for someone to find you and bring you home. He won’t be happy to see you, though. He’ll just take more of his temper out on you, son. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll see him and give him a chance, Gertie.” Wade slid his arm around the stocky woman’s shoulders. “That’s all I’ll promise.”

“No.” Gertie’s hand clamped on Wade’s. “Give me more than that. We need you here, Wade. The men aren’t working anymore. Most of the old reliable hands have left. And new ones have come in that…that scare me.”

She looked hard into his eyes. Abby felt the force of the woman’s will and knew this one was strong. Despite the tears and the hugs, there was an iron core in the woman.

“I can’t leave your pa, and I’m afraid to stay. Afraid for both him and myself. Please promise me you won’t leave, at least as long as your pa is alive. Once he’s gone—the doctor says he can’t live long like this—we can let the jackals take the ranch.”

“Take the ranch?” Wade shook his head quickly. “It’s Pa’s ranch. Who’s gonna take it?”

“Anyone who’s strong enough, Wade. This is the West. There’s no law outside the city limits of Divide. And precious little there.”

“Divide’s a quiet little town, Gertie.”

“Not since the rustling started.” Her tight bun quivered as she shook her head. “People are on edge. Mort’s new hands are too quick with a gun. The old sheriff quit and moved to Helena to live with his son. The new one isn’t strong enough to keep the peace. Mort either holds this place or loses it with the strength of his back and his will. And his back doesn’t work anymore.”

“Let’s go see him.”

“Promise me first.”

Wade fell silent.

They stepped inside the house.

Abby’s eyes widened at the huge living room stretching to her left. A set of stairs rose up along her right. Doors opened on the left side and at the far end of the massive room. Foolish whites to close in the outside then be forced to heat it and clean it. Waste. Pride. She was ashamed of the color of her skin. “Foolish.”

Wade turned to her.

The old woman did, too.

“Excuse my manners. You taught me better than this, Gertie. Let me introduce Abby. We found her along the trail. Her…uh …”

Abby saw him flounder. They hadn’t discussed what to tell people. Did she want the whole world to know she’d spent years with the Flathead tribe? In the gingham dress Cassie had given her, with her hair neatly braided, she outwardly fit in with the white world, even though her soul boiled with contempt for the whites, for their violence and lust for her blond hair and their stupid, immovable homes.

“My family died.” She could hear the stilted tone of her voice. She had rediscovered her white language almost completely. She wondered if one day soon she wouldn’t be able to remember her Indian family just as she had forgotten her white family. How did her mind do that? Separate her from her past like this? “Wade came along and helped me. I have nowhere to go.”

“I told her there would be work for her. What about it, Gertie? Could you use a hand?”

Gertie looked Abby up and down. Her eyes had the sage look of the oldest women of the Flathead village. Finally, Gertie nodded. “I can always use help. I’d be glad to have you, Abby ….” Gertie fell silent, letting the phrase hang.

Abby shrugged.

“Salish.” Wade gave Abby a look of apology like it was his fault that she’d been cornered into telling a lie. “Her name is Abby Salish.”

Gertie nodded. But Abby saw those sharp eyes and knew the strange exchange between Abby and Wade hadn’t been missed.

“Well, Abby, you might as well go on into the kitchen. No need for you to listen to Mort’s poison.”

Wade’s arm snaked out and grabbed Abby. “No, I’ve told her about Pa, and she’s been giving me a hard time for not honoring my father. I want her to see Mort Sawyer in action.” Wade turned, challenging Abby with a look.

Abby lifted her chin. “I would love a chance to have my father back. You should appreciate him more.”

A roar sounded from upstairs. “Gertie! Get this slop away from me!ȍ

Wade arched his brows at Abby as if daring her to honor that angry man.

“Let’s go meet your father.”

O
nce when he was a young teenager, Wade and a couple of cowhands he rode with had surprised some rustlers using a running iron on a calf. Wade’s horse had been shot out from under him in the chaos. He’d used that dead horse as a shield from flying bullets.

Now he was the horse. Or at least he felt like the poor beast must have as he led the way up to his father’s room with Gertie and Abby hiding behind him.

Pa’s shouting got louder, maybe because they were closer, but Wade thought the rage was building, too.

Abby straggled behind. Wade already knew she wasn’t one to hide. But Gertie very definitely had Wade smack in front of her.

The coward.

Wade reached for the doorknob.

“You get up here!” The door seemed to shake under the impact of his pa’s anger.

“Gertie! Gertie, you’re fired. You worthless—”

Wade stopped as the tirade grew more hateful. He looked behind him at Gertie’s wide eyes.

“You get fired often?” Wade whispered, as if, if Pa didn’t hear his voice, he still had a choice of running. The threats and insults continued.

“About six times a day,” Gertie whispered back. “Until he needs something. Then he starts in shouting for me to fetch for him.”

Mort let loose a stream of language that made Wade want to cover Gertie’s and Abby’s ears. His own, too. But he was short on hands. Wade shook his head in disgust.

Then he noticed Abby’s contemptuous expression. “This is how a man speaks to his woman? This is what passes for strength in a white man’s world?”

Wade noticed she didn’t whisper. He also noticed his father quit hollering.

“I’m not his woman,” Gertie said.

Wade thought he saw a pained expression in Gertie’s eyes. Had she nurtured dreams, ever, that Pa would marry her? He should have, Wade realized. Gertie had cared for Pa, his child, and his home faithfully for over a decade. But Wade had never seen so much as a breath of romance pass between the two.

Sucking in a deep breath, Wade twisted the knob and swung the door open. His father sat up in bed. Their eyes met.

Silence.

Wade stepped in, braced for the insults and threats. He decided to start first. Chances were, once Pa got wound up, he wouldn’t hear anything Wade said anyway. “I heard you sent for me, Pa. Well, I’m here. Here to help if you’ll have me, with your care or your ranch, wherever you need me.”

Wade hadn’t meant to say that. In fact, until Gertie’s pleading at the front door, Wade had fully intended to come, listen to whatever spiteful things his pa had to say, and leave. Most likely he’d be ordered to leave. But Gertie had asked, and the sight of his pa in that bed was shocking. Pa’s strength of will was still there, but he no longer had a body to back up his threats.

Pa was a shadow of his former self. He’d lost weight, his shoulders were narrowed, his chest caved in. Jowls hung from his cheeks. His legs were as slender as twigs under the single coverlet.

“Wade?” Pa was nearly six and a half feet tall, but his prone position stole even that commanding height from him.

Bracing himself for the explosion, Wade advanced into the room.

“Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I fear?”

Wade knew exactly whom he did fear as he watched his father’s expression go from surprise to anger. He shouldn’t have, not according to the Bible, but he feared his own earthly father, God forgive him.

“Decided to come home, huh, like a whipped pup?” Pa’s fists clenched as if he were dreaming about throwing punches.

Doing his best not to flinch, as he would have in the past, Wade prayed silently for the courage he’d gained from knowing a better, kinder Father. God in heaven was on his side. He turned as always to Psalm 27.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

An almost supernatural calm eased into Wade’s muscles and bones. “I came home because there is a God-given commandment to honor you, Pa. I am here out of obedience to God. Now, do you want to spend the first moments we’ve seen each other since you threatened me on the trail last fall telling me what a disappointment I am? Or, since I’m your only living family, should we try and talk to each other?”

Pa’s fists opened and closed. His jaw clenched as if he was physically trying to hold back the rain of words. It might be the first time he had ever exerted an ounce of control over his temper, and, even doubting it would last, Wade was encouraged.

“I cut you out of my will.” The words were harsh, but Pa didn’t shout. “If you’re here to watch me die then take over my ranch, you’re wasting my time.”

“Good, I’m glad you did.” Wade crossed his arms to cover up the deep pain in his belly. Not because he’d been disinherited, but because he had a father who would do such a thing. “Keep it that way. Then you’ll know I’m here to help, not for the money. That’s settled. Now, do you want to tell me what you need done around the ranch?”

“You don’t know how to run a ranch. A ranch takes strength and guts. You’ve got neither.”

“If you’re happy with your foreman, I’ll just help care for you. Give Gertie a break. I also brought someone home to help. She’s—”

“You’d stay to the house like a woman?” Pa roared.

The clenched jaw hadn’t held.

“You’re the one who sent for me, remember? You just said you don’t want me working the ranch.”

“I didn’t say that. I said you don’t know how. I said you don’t have any guts. And you just took it like a weakling.”

“Being cruel to your son isn’t a sign of strength, Pa. It’s a sign of weakness, to my way of thinking. Being kind to an old tyrant who doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t want it, and doesn’t thank you for it—now,
that
takes strength.” Wade felt his temper slipping. His pa had taught him that anger was strength, but God had taught him better. Yes, Jesus got angry, but mostly He stood right in the face of powerful people and remained calm. There was great strength in self-control.

Pa fell silent.

Wade waited.

Gertie began straightening the covers on the massive oak-framed bed.

That’s when Wade looked back at Abby. She stood by the door, studying Pa with narrow eyes.