The Cedar Tree (Love Is Not Enough) (22 page)

"Oh, c'mon, Gil." Impatience edged Will's tone. "We both know tough old farts who could get hit by a bulldozer and never blink, and think doctors are for sissies. That's not what I'm talkin' about. It's a matter right in here—" he tapped his chest—"where Katie's never compromised as long as I've known her. D'you really wanna make her go against everything that's made her who she is?"

"She's the one—" He bit off the words then rubbed his hand over his mouth. "I've never asked her to compromise."

"You don't have to. She's doin' it."

He didn't reply.

"Katie's made a big change, Gil. All the Campbells are a little short tempered, but she's always been sweet and a good girl—"

"For God's sake—" he jerked to his feet, ignoring the stab of pain that shot through his knee—"she's not out layin' around with guys she picked up at the bar. I've known some bad girls, so don't try to tell me she's one of 'em."

"I'm not sayin' she is. I'm sayin' she's changed. Her sneakin' around with a guy is weird enough on its own, but one that's not of her faith? It's just not…her."

He rubbed his hand agitatedly through his hair. Reaching for his crutch, he leaned on it, staring down at the stained gold carpet. Wood planking showed through separated fibers.

"You've read the Bible," Will said, a challenge in his tone. "Is she compromisin' for you?"

He looked up. "I told her I'd keep goin' to church with her. It'll work out. Besides, there's a lot of people get married who don't believe the same."

Will's eyebrows rose. "Married?"

"Yeah. Married."

The two of them stared at each other.

"It won't work," Will said, at last. "Her faith means too much to her. It's who she is. If you two get married, pretty soon she'll be puttin' pressure on you to change to her way of thinkin'. Maybe you will, but maybe you'll plant your feet and it'll come to be the sorest spot in your marriage. And—" his gaze didn't waver—"goin' to church with her don't mean didley-squat if you're just goin' through the motions."

He moved to the stove. Grasping the coiled wire of the lid lifter, he yanked off one of the round lids. Jaw tight, he eyed the glowing coals inside then reached for a stick of cedar. He shoved it in then replaced the cast-iron lid with a clank.

"You're no good for her without the Lord, Gil."

"Y'know what?" He turned on Will. "This ain't any of your business, but tell me somethin' I don't already know. I'm workin' on it, but I don't know what I'm doin'. I don't know what I'm feelin'. I don't know if it's her that makes me want to be different or if it's the Lord, but I'm not jackin' around about any of it. If you knew me you'd know that's a miracle in itself."

"Why don't you do somethin' about it, then?"

He moved to sink back into his chair and lean back his head. A dull pain thudded through it. Slowly, his anger drained away.

"Because I don't know if I'm ready for the Lord. I don't know if I can do it. I was never good one day in my life until I met her." A lump swelled his throat. He swallowed it down. "She's the best thing that's ever happened to me."

The stick of cedar popped in the stove. A tendril of fragrant smoke drifted from the crack in the pipe. Will sat with his elbows on his knees, staring down at his work roughened hands, too big for the rest of him. Finally, he looked up, his gaze steady.

"My business as a preacher is savin' souls, and what I want most for you is your salvation. Without Jesus your life won't mean anything, Gil. With Katie or without her."

He didn't reply.

A minute later, Will slapped his knees. "That's all I came to say." The other man rose and headed for the kitchen, returning with his coat and hat.

He struggled to his feet and followed Will to the door.

"No hard feelin's?" Will held out his hand.

"No." He shook Will's hand.

The door closed with a quiet thump, leaving a thin sliver of snow melting on the threshold. He stared down at it, his stomach knotted. Turning, he started for his chair, but a few feet later, he slumped on the crutch breathing in ragged gasps.

Why couldn't everybody just mind their own business?

He hurled the crutch at the wall with an inarticulate roar. The crutch clattered to the floor.

He loved Katie more than anybody. He wouldn't do anything to hurt her.

He stood on one leg staring blindly at the crutch, his stomach churning. Would he?

Slowly, he dropped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stop the unfamiliar sensation of tears burning behind his eyes.

What if Will was right about any of it?

Or worse…all of it?

Chapter Thirteen

"Son, give it another day or two," his grandfather said that night, worried. "I don't mind sleepin' in your bed."

"I can make it." Gil gritted his teeth and started up the stairs. He needed his notebook.

In his room, he collapsed onto the side of his bed. His breathing slowly returned to normal then he turned on the lamp on the nightstand. He reached for the notebook, but instead of writing to Katie, he stared down at it opened on his leg, a long buried memory surfacing.

Eight years old, he had perched on the top pole of the weaning pen under a blue autumn sky. A snowstorm had blanketed the jagged Sawtooth Range in glittering white a few days earlier, but at the ranch's lower elevation the snow had melted, leaving six inches of soupy mud in the pen. The mud sucked at the hooves of twenty calves circling in a nervous scramble below him, but he had eyes only for the biggest calf, a black one with stubs of horn and floppy, Brahman ears. The calf drew near. He tensed. An instant later, he leaped, landing on its back.

He regained consciousness in his father's arms as Roy kicked the door of the ranch house.

"Irene," his dad yelled. "Hurry up."

His mother's hurried footsteps sounded inside. She jerked open the door. His dad shouldered past her and a stab of pain shot through his arm. He grabbed it, yelling, as his dad lowered him to the sofa. His mother fell to her knees beside it, her freckles standing out across her nose like they did when she was scared.

"I told the little devil to stay off the calves," his father said, the lumpy muscle in his jaw working. "I think he's broke his arm."

His dad eased off his coat and it dripped stinky mud on his mother's couch. She ran her hands over his arm. He yelled some more.

"Gil, honey. Shhh…" She looked up at his father, her eyes wide and frightened. "It's broken. What'll we do?"

"What do you mean, what'll we do?" his dad snapped sarcastically. "Pray for him? My prayers ain't worth horse crap and neither are yours, Irene."

She flinched like his dad had slapped her, her gaze filling with anguish.

His father looked away. "Take him to the emergency room."

"No!" he yelled from the sofa. "Call Gramps. I want Gramps to pray for me. It'll stop hurtin', then."

His father's dark eyes glared at him, hard, like the lumpy muscles on his jaws. He'd already made up his mind.

"No!" he had yelled, anyway. "I don't wanna go!"

"Shut up," his father roared. "If you hadn't been ridin' the calves like I told you not to, this wouldn't have happened. Your Gramps ain't here…"

Gil, the man, roused with a start. He rubbed his hand over his face, remembering most the anguish in his mother's eyes at hearing her prayers weren't worth anything. Somewhere along the way, she had compromised for his father and she'd paid a high price.

And paid.

And paid some more…

He shut the notebook without writing anything. Too tired to undress, he scooted into bed and switched off his lamp.

He awoke sometime later, yelling, and with pain exploding through his arm. He fought upright on the soft mattress. The bedsprings squalled and his heart choked him with the terror of his nightmare clawing frantic and deep in his belly. He glared wildly around the room. His dresser and a chair crouched in the darkness at the end of the bed.

But nothing else.

Katie wasn't watching him from the back of a white horse, her eyes wide with horror. Darlene wasn't standing between them in her Stetson with its sparkling tiara, clutching a limp, grey baby in one bloody arm while her other arm writhed and whipped about his neck like an angry snake.

"Son?" His grandfather's steps pounded on the stairs. A moment later, he burst into the room. "What's the matter?" 

Shaking, he reached for the lamp and snapped it on. "Bad dream, I guess," he said, his teeth gritted with pain.

"Hurt yourself?" the old man panted, looping his bare arm through a suspender strap and pulling it over his shoulder.

"Must've hit it on the bed post."

His grandfather carefully rotated his shoulder then held the cast as he examined it, eyeing Katie's stamp of ownership over the bicep.

"I don't think I'd be wavin' that around Jon was I you," his grandfather said dryly.

"I like it a lot more than he would." He managed a slight grin.

The old man chuckled. "The cast's okay." He gave him a probing look. "You were really carryin' on."

"I'm okay, now. Go back to bed."

His grandfather hesitated, but then made for the door.

He swallowed. "Gramps?"

The old man turned.

"Have you ever—" he wiped a film of sweat from his upper lip—"have you ever done somethin' real bad you wish you could un-do?"

His grandfather eyed him then crossed back to the chair at the end of the bed and sat down. "Most of us have, I reckon."

"Not…like this."

The old man waited.

"I…" He swallowed hard. "I ruined somebody's life just before I came here. Not just ruined it. She's dead."

The statement hung in the dim light of the cold room, heavy and bleeding. Then, staring blindly at the wall, he told his grandfather about Darlene.

At last, only the ticking of the clock beside the bed disturbed the silence.

The old man cleared his throat. "When you're alone with yourself…that dream's where you end up?"

He nodded. "Will thinks I'm gonna ruin Katie's life, too."

"Are you?"

"I don't want to."

Minutes ticked away like a heart beating.

"I was never happy until I met her, Gramps. That's when everything shifted."

"That's not when everything shifted."

He stared at the old man, questioning.

"Everything shifted when you realized you were unhappy with your life and yourself. That's when the Lord first started whisperin' in your heart. It wasn't Katie."

Suddenly, he remembered the day of Darlene's funeral. He had needed comfort and answers and he had unconsciously recognized his grandfather could give him both from his preacher's pulpit.

"Son, this ain't about you findin' Katie. It's about you findin' Jesus. Katie's a beautiful girl, but you love her because she's different. Take Jesus away from her, she'd still be beautiful, but she'd be like the others. She wouldn't be able to make you happy, either."

He met the truth in his grandfather's steady gaze.

The old man's eyes softened. "Forgiveness is what you're really cravin', ain't it, Son?"

A lump rose in his throat. He turned his gaze to the antique print over his dresser, an Indian warrior sitting his horse in a dejected pose—
The End of the Trail.

He nodded.

"You can get it, but Katie can't give it to you."

He met his grandfather's gaze. "What do I do?"

The old man rose. "You been readin' that?" He nodded at the Bible on the nightstand.

"Some."

His grandfather headed for the door. "Then read some more. It's in there."

***

The next three days and nights passed in an unhappy blur while he read the Bible on his nightstand, searching for answers. Conflicted and miserable, he wrestled with the Lord, even getting on his good knee beside his bed to pray.

Finally, he opened the notebook.

Katie, before I say any more, I've never loved anybody but you and no matter what happens I'll love you until I die. It's too late for anything else.

When I was a kid, Dad had me start most of the horses we raised, but there was this one filly that was special. She was a dark palomino with a real blonde mane and tail. She was fast, and she was smart. I never had to tell her anything twice, but she made sure I understood she wasn't doing me any favors. She was a tease, just out of my reach in some way, but at other times, when I didn't expect it she'd come push her head up against my chest and stand there letting me love on her. Underneath her sass, she trusted me. If a horse can be like a girl, she was like you.

If she'd come to me for love and I'd whipped her, she never would've trusted me again. Everything between me and her would've been ruined and that's why I haven't told you this before. I've been scared to, afraid nothing will ever be the same between us.

I know there's a good chance you won't understand all this. You might tell me to get lost for good, but I have to tell you. I can't let you marry me without knowing everything. I thought maybe I could just move on, but I can't. I've developed a conscience since I met you and I can't risk you finding out later when it might ruin our marriage. You mean too much to me. 

I know the way you've been raised, sheltered and protected, and rightly so. You can't even comprehend a guy like I was before I met you. Your dad called me a worthless, fornicating, barroom punk. That was a pretty accurate assessment.

Katie, I wish I had known about you all my life. I wish I could have been here while you grew up and waited for you, but I didn't. I was looking for you in other girls, but I couldn't find you. I promise there hasn't been anybody else since I met you, and there never will be. Please believe me.

Right before I moved here, I was with a girl one night. We'd been to a party and were both drunk. I think she was hopped up on some kind of pills, too. A few weeks before, she'd told me she was pregnant, said the baby was mine. I don't know if it was or not. It could've been. We'd been fighting about it, but that night I told her to get rid of it because I was through with her. She drove into a tree trying to kill us, but she was the one that died…