Taken for English (44 page)

“It seems to me a great many people depend on you,” Joseph said. “Who do you let yourself depend on?”

Maura had no response. She was supposed to say God. She was supposed to depend on God, but she was not sure she could honestly say she did. And she had come to depend on Joseph, though she hesitated to admit this.

“Come with me,” Joseph said, “or let me come back for you after I speak to the bishop.”

“What would you tell the bishop?” And what would he tell Hannah Berkey?

“The bishop is a kind man at heart.” Joseph touched her arm, causing her to slow her steps and turn toward him. “A simpler life without fearing violence from your own people—do you not want that?”

“Well, yes, I do, but—”

“And a life of faith, where your hope for peace could fill your heart?”

“In your church?” Maura asked. “Is that what you mean?”

“Do you think you could join us? We would follow the Lord together.”

Maura nodded, her throat thickening.

“And a husband,” he said. “Do you not want that? Do you want me?”

This was indeed a proposal.

“Joseph, I greatly admire you and have become deeply fond of you.” She nearly lost her nerve in his violet-blue eyes. “But my father…”

“Even the widowers among our people hire someone to keep house.”

“It won’t be the same.” She broke the gaze and resumed walking. “And Belle. How can I leave Belle right now? She hardly knows her own mind from one day to the next. In a few weeks she is supposed to return to her duties teaching school, and I am afraid she will not be strong enough.”

“Can you make her strong?” Joseph asked.

“I suppose not. But I can let her know I care for her while she makes herself strong again.” Maura raised her eyes to look down the block then reached to clutch his arm. “There’s Belle now. Something’s wrong.”

Belle hurtled toward them on foot.

“An accident.” Belle put one hand on her chest as she gasped for breath. “There’s been an accident.”

“What happened?” Maura and Joseph spoke in tandem.

Belle looked from one to the other, seeing something between them that she had never seen before.

“A cow went over the side of a bluff.” Belle focused on Maura. “My father and your father are there trying to figure out how to get to it and haul it up. But it’s a full-grown cow. They need longer ropes and leverage.”

“I’ll go immediately,” Joseph said. “Where are they?”

Belle described the location. She had run for two miles to get back to town, but a horse could close the distance in minutes.

Joseph and Maura pivoted, and the three of them marched back toward the milliner’s shop.

“I’ll get some rope from the livery,” Joseph said.

“I’ll take my cart,” Maura said. “Belle, you can ride with me.” Joseph mounted his horse in one swift motion and thundered down Main Street toward the stables. Belle lifted the hem of her skirt to keep pace with Maura as they cut down a side street to the Woodley home, where the cart and the horse occupied a small barn behind the house. Maura went through the familiar motions of hitching cart to horse, and they clattered back through town, meeting Joseph on the way.

At the bluff, Joseph jumped off his horse, a coil of rope over each arm.

“I’m going down,” Belle heard her father say as he squatted at the edge of the bluff.

Belle stepped to the edge and peered. The cow lay on its side, moaning in protest. “Can’t she stand up?”

“I’m going to find out.” Leon Mooney tested his footing on the steep slope.

“Wait for a rope, Daddy.” Belle scrambled over to Joseph, who was securing one end of a long thickly braided length to the harness of his horse. As he then tied the horse snug to a tree, Belle ran with the loop at the other end.

When she saw her father disappear from sight, she screamed.

Woody Woodley and Maura were on their knees, reaching down with their arms. Leon was beyond their grasp, caught in the branches of scrub growth.

“Daddy.” Belle dangled the rope over the edge. “You should have waited for the rope, you old fool.”

“I cannot afford to lose this cow.” Leon’s gruff reply rankled in Belle’s mind. When would her father learn to think things through?

Joseph was beside her now and had taken the rope from Belle’s hand. Below them, Leon wrestled with the branches and abruptly fell several feet lower.

“I’m fine,” Leon reported.

Belle watched as he gripped a bush and got his feet into secure footholds.

“I’ll swing the rope down,” Joseph called out.

Belle held her breath as Joseph stood and wound up his arm to throw the rope wide of the bushes on the side of the bluff. As it passed him, her father reached to grab it—and missed.

This time he fell solidly on his back with a leg bent behind him, next to the groaning cow.

Belle leaned over the side precariously herself. “He’s not moving.”

“Give him a minute,” Joseph said. “He’s had the wind knocked out of him.”

Finally, Leon Mooney pushed himself up on one side and attempted to stand. Instantly he howled and sank back down. Belle saw the bone protruding below his knee.

Joseph sighed. “Looks like we’ll have to haul them both up now.”

“If he had just waited two more minutes,” Belle said, “we could have gotten him down there safely.”

“Belle,” Joseph said, “we’ll get him up. Don’t worry.”

“What about the cow?”

“Let’s worry about your father.”

“He won’t want to come up without the cow.”

Joseph looked over the ledge. “Neither of them is in immediate danger, but your father is going to need a doctor to look after that leg.”

“I’ll go for Dr. Lindsay,” Belle said. “I’ll take Maura’s horse.”

“He’s out of town.” Joseph decided not to tell Belle that Dr. Lindsay was escorting Jimmy Twigg out of the county. “You’ll have to go for Doc Denton.”

“Doc Denton! You want me to ask a Denton to look after my father after what they did to my John?”

“It’s the best thing for your father.” Joseph glanced at Maura, who nodded.

“I’ll go with you,” Maura said.

“No.” Belle looked down at her father again. “I can do it if you’ll let me take your horse.”

“Of course.”

Belle was swiftly astride the horse with knees in its flanks. As she thundered down the road, Woody Woodley stood up. “Get another rope ready. I’ll go down.”

“Let me,” Joseph said. He was a good forty years younger than Woody Woodley and trusted his own reflexes against Leon’s rash impulses.

July 1892

M
aura watched her father pick up his newspaper from the sideboard in the dining room and shuffle into the front room to sit in the chair that had been his favorite since before she was born. A few years ago her mother had insisted on sending it out for new stuffing and fresh fabric, and Maura was glad she had. The alternative had been to haul the chair to a trash heap. At least this way Woody Woodley got to enjoy its familiarity.

She saw the stoop in his shoulders, more pronounced since Leon’s rash retribution against the Twiggs had drawn her into harm’s way and his equally impulsive attempt to single-handedly rescue a fallen cow had raised Woody’s heart rate for an entire afternoon. From the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, Maura watched him settle into the chair, pick up his glasses from the end table that had been a wedding present from her grandparents, and scan once again the same newspaper he had read from start to finish over his breakfast five hours earlier. He was likely to spend the entire afternoon there, and she would never know what thoughts passed through his mind.

He was tired. And alone. He had plenty of longtime friends in Baxter County, but Maura knew they did not fill the void her mother’s death had left. She did not pretend that she filled it, either, but she was his daughter. As much as she could not stand the thought of Joseph’s departure, neither could she imagine leaving her father. Joseph would have to understand. After all, the ties of family bound his community together.

Maura was not entitled to any hold on Joseph. Already he had stayed several days longer than he should have, hoping for a change of her heart. But there would be none.

She could not leave her father.

She could not leave Belle.

Perhaps Joseph would return to Tennessee and find happiness with Hannah Berkey after all.

Maura pushed the swinging door open and went through to the kitchen. Leon Mooney’s leg was broken in two places. Belle had hardly left his bedside in the last four days, refusing several offers of assistance from Gassville residents. Maura could not do much to make Belle’s emotional tumult easier, but she could at least spare Belle having to worry about food. She laid a towel in the bottom of a basket and began to arrange small covered dishes in the flat bottom.

She glanced at the clock. In five hours Joseph Beiler would appear at her front door for the meal to which she had invited him.

Outside her father’s bedroom, Belle took the sodden handkerchief from her skirt pocket and dabbed at her eyes for at least the twentieth time that day.

How could she have thought that caring for her father while he recovered from his injury would somehow bring them closer? She had been a fool about so many things in the last year.

The bell to the front door rang.

“Whoever that is, tell them to go away,” Leon barked.

Belle straightened her shoulders and stuffed her handkerchief back in her pocket. “I will make sure you are not disturbed.”

“Take these dishes away. I don’t want to eat this rot.”

Belle went into the bedroom to retrieve the tray she had only brought up only ten minutes earlier. The bell rang again.

“Didn’t I tell you to make them go away?”

“One thing at a time.” Belle lifted the tray from the bed.

“Don’t give me back talk.”

“No sir.” Belle left the room as swiftly as possible. In the hall, she set the tray on a table and flew down the stairs to answer the door before the bell could ring again. She opened the door to Maura and another basket of food.

Belle forced a smile. “Hello, Maura.” She stepped aside so Maura could enter.

“You must think I’m trying to feed an army.” Maura lifted the basket, and Belle took it from her. “I just want to help, and I don’t know what else to do.”

Belle burst into tears. “You’re trying to fix something that can’t be fixed.”

Maura enfolded Belle in her arms, and Belle did not protest.

“Is he not any better?”

Belle wiped her tears with the back of one hand. “He has only been immobile for four days, and already he has pointed out my every failure in how I care for him.”

“He is lucky he has you.”

Fearful that their voices would waft up the staircase, Belle led the way to the kitchen. “I thought he would calm down. He hated the thought that I wanted to marry John Twigg, and that’s impossible now. Then he made sure I could never have anything to do with Old Man Twigg and chased off John’s brothers.”

“I’m sorry that he cannot see the tenderness of your heart,” Maura whispered. “I’m sorry that
I
could not see the tenderness of your heart.”