The Shepherd's Voice (5 page)

When the Macauley wagon turned north, leaving the town behind them, Gabe saw the mansion on the hillside and knew it had to be his father’s. Hudson would never allow anyone to have a greater house than his own.

“When did he build that?” he asked Akira.

There was a moment’s silence before she answered, “Right before he married again.”

Ah, yes. His stepmother. The third Mrs. Talmadge.

“What’s she like?”

“Mrs. Talmadge? I don’t know. I’ve never had the pleasure of her acquaintance.” Akira sounded amused.

He turned from studying the Talmadge mansion to look at Akira, wondering what she found funny.

“Women like Pauline Talmadge have little to do with the likes of someone like me. A simple shepherdess.”

“Then I suspect she’s the poorer because of it.”

At his words a blush climbed the back of Akira’s neck, spilling into bright patches on her cheeks. Her gaze darted away from his.

Gabe might have said more, might have tried to explain what
her kindness meant to him, only the lumberyard came into view at that precise moment. Memories assaulted him, none of them pleasant. A cold hand squeezed his heart. Dread iced his veins.

“Stop the wagon, Miss Macauley.”

She did so.

“I’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind —”

“I’m sure.” He gripped the side with one hand, then dropped to the ground.

This is a mistake. I never should’ve come back.

But something forced him to put one foot in front of another, propelling him forward, toward the Talmadge Mill.

And toward the man who’d sent him to prison fourteen years before.

THREE

Hudson watched the man walking toward the lumberyard.

Another tramp looking for work.

And unless he was mistaken, Akira Macauley had brought him.

His eyes narrowed. There weren’t many men who dared stand up to Hudson Talmadge. That his plans continued to be thwarted by a mere female galled him beyond measure.

They were his curse, the weaker sex. They’d always been his curse. Akira Macauley. Jane Sebastian. His wives—first Clarice, then Harriet, and finally Pauline.

He clenched his jaw as he turned away from the window and sat behind his desk.

He had one thing for which to be glad this morning. Pauline was on her way to Boise. For the next two weeks, Hudson would have the house to himself. He wouldn’t be forced to participate in small talk over supper or listen to his wife’s constant yammering.

A light rap sounded at the door a second before it opened and his secretary, Rupert Carruthers, slipped through the opening. A wiry, bookish sort with a boyish face that belied his true age, Rupert had worked for Hudson since they were young men in Minnesota.

“Sir”—Rupert never failed to be formal, despite the years they’d been together—“there’s someone to see you.”

“What’s the matter, Carruthers?” Hudson snapped. “I don’t have time to talk to every hobo who comes looking for work. Handle him as you’ve handled the others.”

“But —”

“You heard me.”

“You don’t understand.” Rupert lowered his voice. “It’s Gabe.”

Hudson rocked back in his chair. “Gabe?”

The secretary nodded, peering at his employer through the glasses perched on the end of his birdlike nose.

Hudson stood. “He’s
here
?”

“Yes sir.”

Like a bad penny, returned.

“Sir?”

Hudson sat down again, then cleared his throat. “Send him in.” He swiveled his chair toward the window, leaving his back to the door.

Odd, it wasn’t memories of Gabe he recalled at that moment. Nor was it Max, his firstborn son. It was Clarice, his first wife, Max and Gabe’s mother.

As clearly as if it were yesterday, he remembered the first time he’d seen her, walking into the bank in Chicago on a sunny Wednesday morning. She’d been a girl of seventeen, come to visit her father, the president of the bank. Hudson had been twenty-eight, a cowboy from Texas by way of Montana, with all the rough edges still intact. He’d thought Clarice Wainwright the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on.

He’d soon discovered her beauty was more than physical; hers was a beauty of the heart and soul. There’d been a peace about Clarice that soothed something inside Hudson whenever she was near. He supposed he’d loved her. All he’d known then was he had to have her, had to possess her, had to make her his, had to keep her
with him so he could share her peace. He would have kidnapped her if he’d been forced to, but he hadn’t been. She’d willingly married him, and he’d taken her to Minnesota where he’d bought his first lumbermill.

Their son Max had been born before their second anniversary. By the time Gabe arrived, three years later, Hudson’s peace had been shattered, and with Clarice’s death, he’d lost all hope of finding it again.

Behind him, the office door closed. He took a deep breath and turned his chair around.

His father hadn’t changed much, which was strangely comforting.

“Well, well,” Hudson said. “So you’ve come back.”

“Yes.”

“I wondered when you would.”

“Did you?” Gabe couldn’t keep the hint of surprise from his voice. He’d doubted Hudson thought of him at all.

His father’s gaze raked over him. Gabe endured the stare without flinching.

“Sit down,” Hudson ordered at last.

He did.

“Why’d you come?”

He met his father’s gaze. “I need employment and a place to stay. There isn’t much work for any man these days, let alone an ex-con.”

“And you thought I’d give you a job? And a home?”

“I hoped you would.”

“Why should I?”

Gabe’s chest was tight, making it hard to breathe, harder still to speak. “Because I’m your son.”

“You heard your little brother died, didn’t you?” Hudson stood. His eyes were like ice, his words filled with venom. “You figured I was getting old and there’d be no more sons for me after Leon. You thought you’d return, like a dog to its vomit, to inherit what I’ve built.” He turned away and stepped to the window. “Get out. You’ll get nothing from me.”

Into the sudden silence came the same hate-filled voice, speaking from across the years:
You killed your mother when you were born, and now you’ve killed your brother. May you rot in prison.
Until a few minutes ago, those had been the last words his father had spoken to him.

He should have known nothing would change.

Gabe rose from the chair, turned, and left the office. He kept his gaze lowered, staring at the floor so he didn’t have to make eye contact with Rupert or anyone else. He didn’t know where he would go or what he would do. It didn’t much matter. There’d been a time, when he’d first been sent to prison, that he’d asked God to kill him, to take pity and strike him dead. But he’d stopped asking long ago.

Just like Hudson, God wanted nothing to do with Gabe.

When Akira saw Jane Sebastian coming out of the small Ransom Methodist Episcopal Church at the edge of town, she drew the team to a halt. “Good morning.”

The heavyset woman, a spinster-lady in her fifties with rosy cheeks and thinning gray hair, smiled as she returned the greeting. “Good morning, Akira. What brings you to Ransom?”

“An errand at the mill.”

A cloud momentarily covered the sun, casting a shadow across the earth, not unlike the shadow that passed across Jane’s face.

“Mr. Talmadge’s son has returned,” Akira added.

Jane pressed a hand to her heart. “Gabe? He’s here? In Ransom?”

Akira nodded. “That’s why I was out at the mill. I drove him there. He went to see his father.”

“Oh, sweet God in heaven.” The woman’s softly spoken words could not be mistaken for anything but a prayer.

“What is it?”

“He won’t find a welcome there. Or absolution.”

Akira twisted on the wagon seat, staring back toward the mill.

“There’s no mercy in the man’s heart and no love for that boy.”

“But he’s his son.”

“And it was Hudson Talmadge’s own testimony that sent Gabe to prison. He would’ve seen him dead if he’d had his druthers.”

“Surely you’re mistaken.”

“I’m not mistaken. I raised the boy, and I know the wickedness of the man who sired him.”

Akira faced Jane again. “You
raised
him?”

“For twelve years. From the day he was born.” Jane approached the wagon with determined steps, pausing only long enough to drop the basket she carried into the bed of the wagon. Then she grasped the seat and hauled herself up beside Akira. “Will you take me to him, please?”

“Of course.”

It took Akira only a few moments to turn the wagon around and head up the road toward the mill a second time. All the while, questions whirled in her mind, and it took great resolve not to ask them. Curiosity was part of her nature, but she knew how quickly curiosity led to idle gossip. She was determined
not
to gossip about Gabe.

It was Jane who broke the silence. “He was a delightful youngster, so eager to please. He had a good heart, and he always did his
best.” Her voice lowered. “But Gabe’s best was never good enough for Mr. Talmadge.”

“Why?”

“Why?”
Jane harrumphed. “There’s no cause for it. At least none a reasonable person can understand. The man has the devil’s own heart, pure and simple. He wanted nothing more than to make Gabe rue the day he was born. It was always that way, from the very beginning.”

Akira had seen how the elder Talmadge mistreated his employees, so she harbored no illusions about Hudson’s nature. But she found it hard to believe he could be so cruel to his own son.

Jane’s hand grasped Akira’s forearm. “There he is. Stop the wagon.” Her voice broke.

Gabe walked with his head slung forward, his gaze on the ground before him. He hadn’t heard the wagon’s approach, or if he had, he’d ignored the sounds.

Akira glanced toward Jane. Tears were running down the older woman’s cheeks, unchecked. Akira looked ahead again.

What’s the truth about him
,
Lord?

The question had barely formed when he glanced up, saw the wagon, stopped walking.

“Gabe,” Jane whispered.

He showed one of his rare smiles, a brief curve of the mouth as heartbreaking as Jane’s tears. Then he strode forward. When he reached the wagon, he stretched out an arm. “Miss Jane.” They clasped hands.

“I’d nearly lost hope of seeing you again, dear boy. God was good to bring you back.”