Texas Angel, 2-in-1 (20 page)

“I could not with a clear conscience condone your actions.”

“But it’s all right now that you’ve taught me a lesson?”

“Have I taught you a lesson?”

Her lip curled as if she would hurl some insult, then she just shook her head. “I’m taking this only for my baby.” She snatched the package from his hand.

“I am giving it only for the child,” he replied pointedly. “I do not condone who you are or what you do.”

“You know nothing about who I am or what I do.”

She strode away, still with a step that made Benjamin gape in wonder. Who was she indeed? She was certainly like no woman he had ever seen before. Part waif, as innocent and tender as the child she cared for, but certainly part temptress as well, a she-devil in the guise of an angel.

CHAPTER

24

R
EBEKAH LIFTED THE EDGE OF
the rawhide window covering. A draft of cold air struck her face, and she fastened down the cover once more. She must accept the dreary darkness of the cabin over the chilly spring morning. Sucking in a ragged breath, she turned back toward the room, wondering how she would face another day.

Leah was crying in her cradle, but Rebekah ignored the child and went to the hearth and tossed in another log. She would have to cook breakfast, not that she had any appetite, but the children needed to eat.

“Micah, get the pail and fetch water.” The boy was playing with his tomahawk, swinging it in the way his uncle had taught him the Indians used. “I don’t like you using that thing indoors, son.”

“But it’s cold outside, Ma.”

“I know. But someone could get hurt.”

Micah put down the tomahawk and headed toward the water pail. He was a good boy. Too bad his father refused to see it. Too bad Micah hardly had a father.

With a bitter sigh, Rebekah began to mix cornmeal and water to make bread. Corn and a few sweet potatoes were all they had to eat with the wild turkey and venison Benjamin had jerked. It was a sign of how bad things were when sweet potatoes became a delicacy. Benjamin earned less than fifty dollars a year, in addition to occasional gifts from his parishioners. But even if he still earned the princely two hundred dollars a year he had in Boston, it would not have mattered. Supplies were simply hard to come by here. Benjamin told her things would be better after she planted a garden in the spring. It was spring now, but she had no idea where she’d find the energy to plant a garden.

She rubbed her protruding belly. At seven months, her unborn child was large and heavy and seemed to be sapping all life from her. Not that she could or should blame her melancholy on the child. If only it were that simple. If only she had the hope that once the child was born she could be happy again. But Rebekah had come to the point of knowing she would never be happy as long as she was in Texas and, though she could barely admit it, as long as she was with Benjamin. She was miserable when her husband was gone, but she was just as miserable when he was home. He refused to understand her plight, and thus the only person she had to confide in was of no help at all.

Sighing, she wondered once again how she would survive another day. Pouring the batter into a pan, she thought how automatic were her actions. She went through all the motions of life as if she were dead rather than alive, which is how she felt in her heart and mind. Placing the pan on the rack over the fire, she returned to the sideboard, took a hunk of jerky, and began slicing it.

The knife in her hand caught a flicker of the lamp by which she worked. Not for the first time, Rebekah wondered what it would feel like to take the knife and cut herself, letting the blood flow from her veins until she was dead not only in mind but in body as well.

Only one thing kept her from such an act: her children. They would surely perish if she were not here to care for them. And she would not dream of doing anything to harm her unborn child. So for their sakes she forced herself to face each lonely, miserable day.

Oh, the loneliness! Day in, day out, no one to talk to but children. They could never understand her feelings, nor would she burden them by babbling to them. She kept it bottled up, and when Benjamin came home, it still remained corked safely inside. When she did try to reveal a little of her pain, he would only admonish her to trust God and be faithful in prayer. She was left to believe that all her troubles were from her own lack of faith. Benjamin told her she had a friend and compan.ion in Jesus and she need not be alone. But that didn’t help. It brought her no release. For the first time in her life, Jesus felt as far away as her nearest neighbor.

Only once in six months had she a visit from her neighbor, Mrs. Hunter. John Hunter looked in on her occasionally, but it wasn’t the same as having a woman friend, a confidante. Mrs. Hunter, however, could have been those things. She was a kind woman but still a stranger, and Rebekah was not about to unburden herself to a stranger. Maybe if she came again . . . but who knew when that would be? She had little time to make the fifteen-mile trek very often. And Rebekah was certainly in no condition to do so. At least Mrs. Hunter had told Rebekah to come to their home when her time came near, so she could have help with the birth of the baby. But that was two months away!

Rebekah ran her finger along the sharp edge of the knife and a plan began to form in her mind—a sick, demented plan. She would wait until the baby was born and Benjamin was home. He’d be there to care for the children after the birth of the baby. He had promised. Then she’d do it. Yes, she would miss her children, but they would be better off with no mother than with the empty shell they now had.

Feeling a tug at her dress, Rebekah awoke from the near trance she had been in.

“Mama,” came Isabel’s plaintive voice, “can’t you do something ’bout Leah? She’s crying awful-like."

“Oh!” Rebekah had indeed retreated so far into herself that she had deafened her ears to the child’s cries.

As she picked up Leah, she reminded herself again that her children would indeed be better off without her.

Micah was not alone when he returned with the water. But Rebekah could not even find enthusiasm within herself for the guest he brought.

“Why, Haden, this is a surprise.” She did not rise from the chair she had taken as she held Leah.

Haden strode to her and kissed her forehead. “Are you not well, Rebekah?”

“I’m fine,” she intoned the meaningless words.

“Don’t lie to me.” He sat on the bench opposite her. “Something is wrong. The children seem well. Is it Benjamin?”

For the first time in all her depressing thoughts, she faced the idea of the very real possibility of Benjamin dying out in the wilds while he rode his circuit. It sickened her to think it would make no difference to her at all if that should happen.

“How would I know about Benjamin?” she said. “He’s gone like always.”

Haden reached out and took her hand in his. She realized how pale and bony her hand was, but more shocking was the unsettling sensation she had from Haden’s touch. The warmth, the strength, the tenderness— those were the things she wanted from her husband. She lifted her miserable eyes. Haden had always been these things, but he had been a wild one. Even when they had been children together, he’d had an adventurous spirit, constantly getting into trouble. Yes, she had been drawn to him because of this aspect of his nature, but she had been a practical girl and realized he was not the kind of man to offer a woman security. He left home at eighteen, but by then Rebekah had already chosen the older, more responsible brother, the one who had, after a fairly wild youth himself, given his life to God. She now wondered how much her choice had influenced Haden’s leaving. She wondered, too, how much Benjamin’s spiritual conversion had to do with Haden’s decision to leave.

But Rebekah had made her choice nevertheless. She chose security and the life she knew she’d have with Benjamin as a minister’s wife. But she had loved Benjamin. Back then he, too, had been tender and strong and warm. How could she have known it would all change and turn to bitter dregs?

“I could kill him for what he has done to you,” Haden was saying.

“Don’t talk that way,” she rebuked, but with little bite.

Haden turned to Micah. “Boy, take your sister outside and play a bit. I would like to talk to your mother alone.”

“Yes, Uncle Haden.” Micah responded so well when he was spoken to in an understanding manner, almost like an equal. Rebekah wondered how Micah would have turned out had a man like Haden been his father. Surely he would smile more and talk, and perhaps even laugh a bit.

When the older children were gone, Haden shook his head. “I fear for you, Rebekah. I have heard of women on the frontier falling to pieces because of the harsh, lonely life. Some have—dear God! You can’t be thinking of . . . of escape. Your children need you.”

“And what of my needs?” she countered in a shrill, barely controlled voice. “I . . . don’t know how much longer I can stand it.”

Neither of them spoke the word
suicide
, but it hung clearly palatable, like a gaping, fetid wound, in the air around them.

“What can I do for you, Rebekah?”

“There is nothing to be done.”

“Do you hate him? You should,” Haden seethed.

Haden had loved her once, she knew. He was now rising up as if to protect her from evil. “He’s my husband,” she reminded herself as well as Haden.

Haden moved from the bench and dropped to his knees before Rebekah, pressing her hand to his lips. “Where is he?”

“He is doing what he believes to be right.”

“How can you defend him?”

“That is the irony of it. I do hate him, or at least I no longer feel love for him. Yet I know he isn’t a monster. I know all he does is from his heart—the way he believes a heart toward God should be. All he does springs from noble motives, however much I may hate those motives.”

“He’s a blind, dirty—”

“He’s your brother and my husband.”

Haden leaned closer to Rebekah. She stood up as quickly as her lumbering girth would allow and walked several paces away. He followed and, facing her, put his hands on her shoulders. She kept Leah between them.

“Put the baby down, Rebekah,” he entreated.

She could feel the urgent warmth of his hands through the fabric of her dress. She looked into his eyes and realized how desperate she was to feel anything!

In the most defiant act of her life, she laid Leah in her cradle, then turned back to her brother-in-law. He took her in his arms, sending thrills through her being she had not felt in years. Yes, it had been years. Long before Texas had become the final straw in her perfunctory life. Her own arms wrapped around Haden, and she did not flinch away from his kisses. To feel passion, to feel love, uncluttered, unconditional. That was all she wanted. What did it matter that the price came so high?

Yet it did matter. She knew that when she felt the child kick inside her. Benjamin’s child.

“No, Haden!”

He pulled reluctantly away. “What am I doing? Forgive me, Rebekah.”

“Dear Haden, there is nothing to forgive. But we both know we cannot do this to Benjamin.”

“Bah! I don’t care about him. But I know it would kill you to do such a thing. And I never want to hurt you. Still, it tears me apart to see you so miserable. I wish there was something I could do.”

“It just feels good to have someone here . . . besides the children.

I’m so—” her voice caught on a sudden sob—“so lonely!”

“When will Benjamin return?”

“In a couple of weeks.”

“I can’t imagine he’s very good company.”

A slight smile quirked her lips. “Hardly.”

Rebekah, in an attempt to release nervous energy, went to the hearth to check her corn bread. She took a hot pad from a hook and started to lift the pan from the rack. Haden hurried to her side, took the pad, and lifted the heavy pan. She hardly knew how to respond to such attentiveness.

“Thank you, Haden. Put it over on the sideboard.” She followed him there, took a dish, and placed the sliced jerky on it. Noticing the knife, she gently brushed it with her fingers. “Are you hungry?”

“I suppose I could eat.” But he was looking at the knife. He then raised eyes filled with fear to stare at her.

“You always had a healthy appetite,” she said quickly, dismissively. She motioned toward the table. “Come and sit down.” He obeyed, and she set a plate before him.

“What can I do for you, Rebekah?”

She took the coffeepot from the hearth where it had been kept warm. She wanted to say that what she must do, she must do alone. Then she realized that perhaps there was another way of escape, a way that only Haden’s timely arrival could have allowed.

“Take me away from here.” She said the words lightly, hardly even realizing what she was saying until they were out. Then, with the words heavy in the air, she knew that was indeed what she wanted. It was probably the only thing that would save her. She truly did not want to end her own life. She wanted to live. It was just impossible to do so where she was. She turned beseeching eyes to Haden. “Take me from here, Haden.”

“But, Rebekah, we just said we couldn’t do that to Ben. . . .”

“Not in that way.” Absently she poured the coffee into Haden’s cup. Then it became very clear to her what she wanted, what she needed. “Take me back to Boston.”

“I would do anything for you, Rebekah, but what you ask is not a simple thing.” He stared at his coffee a moment, then back up at her. “Perhaps if I spoke to Benjamin, told him how desperate you are, insisted that he should take you back to Boston himself.”

“Do you think he would listen to you, the voice of the Devil himself? But even if he did, how could I take him from the work he believes God has called him to do? He would hate me for that as much as I hate him for bringing me here.”

“So you want to just up and leave him? He’d come after you.”

“If I had a two-week head start . . .” She paused and sank down on the bench next to Haden, her mind trying to sort out all the implications of this new and frightening plan. “I will write him a note, tell him not to come after me, that I will be all right. I am just going to Boston for a visit. I will leave hope that we will be reunited soon. I will adjure him to continue with God’s work. That it must not suffer because of me. I think he will see the logic in that. Many men left their wives behind in the States to come here. Benjamin should have done that in the first place. He will see I am right.”