Chapter Twenty-Eight
A Puzzling Dilemma
Eventually, Trick brought Cal back to the house and left her in the care of Miss June, while the three of us strolled back to the barn.
“Do you suppose Albert’s—bits—are buried here somewhere?” Oscar said with distaste, as he gazed at the barn and its surroundings.
I glanced his way. “I did think it strange that there was fresh straw o’er the floors in there, when Cal had said they didn’t use the barn and that nobody had been in there for so long.”
Trick murmured something.
“Huh?” Oscar said.
“She threw him in the river. Well, she threw what was left of him in the river,” Trick said, kicking at a stone with her boot. “Anyway, ’twould stink if she’d put him under the floorboards in the barn. Cal’s not that stupid.”
“But how—?” I couldn’t picture it, what with the children around.
Trick stopped walking and stood there, giving us a steady look as she related what Cal had told her.
“She took the children to the well and cleaned everyone up, put them to bed and told them everything was fine, that she had to do what she did and that their lives would be much better for it.”
Our somber gazes flitted between each other, as we thought about that.
Trick continued after a minute.
“I doubt those children were all that upset about Albert’s death, only the glimpse they got of their kind and loving momma bein’ so…efficient.”
I stared at the ground. “Did she tell you how he was? How he threatened and maligned them at every opportunity?”
“Uh-huh.”
My heart wept at the cruelty of it all. That Cal had been forced to do something so awful for the sake of her own survival…and the children’s.
“Once the children were in bed, Cal snuck back out to take care of it. She must have been exhausted, but she got rid of all the evidence of her husband’s demise, cleaned up the barn and spread the fresh straw on the floor to hide any stains that were left.”
Trick gazed into the distance, toward where the Stikine River cut through the valley. “Nasty business, but from what Cal and the children say, ’twasn’t much else they could do.”
The three of us were silent for a long while, as we stood in the grass by the old barn.
“Well,” I said, finally, “if there ain’t nobody’s bits buried in the barn, I reckon we should think about makin’ it weatherproof and gettin’ Cal a milk cow and, maybe a horse and small cart—and some chickens.”
Trick grinned and pulled her hat down on her forehead.
“I reckon that’s a good idea. We don’t gotta say nothin’ more about what happened to Cal’s husband. Nobody’s come lookin’ for him. I bet he ain’t got no friends around here. Sounds like a right nasty piece of work.”
“Trick, I gotta ask you somethin’. Were you suspicious at all, when he came to see Cal at The Angel? What I mean is, did he seem like he was a good man who might make all of Cal’s dreams come true?”
Trick frowned. “He put on a pretty good show of caring for her—though, in retrospect, all the showy stuff might have been a giveaway that he was tryin’ to hide something.
’Tis easy to bring flowers and pretty words for someone, and make them care about you, ’specially if that person ain’t got much in their life already.
Anybody can do that. Takes a real good man to fulfill his promises, I reckon. ”
Trick kicked at the ground and shoved her hands into the pockets of her trousers. “I could murder the bastard myself for turning Cal into this— husk of a person. She ain’t the same as she was.”
“No, she ain’t,” Oscar said.
“She’s got the children now. They seem to mean a lot to her,” I said.
“That’s true,” Trick said.
She looked at the house, then at me and Oscar. “Well, now that the truth has come out, she and the children can put it behind them and get on with their lives.”
I nodded. But I wondered what kind of lives they could have, without a working man to bring money in. All they had was the small house, the old barn and the land, with no means to farm it.
We were all thinking that, I figured, as we stood by the barn and waited for Miss June to join us.
Eventually she did, striding across the grass in her long skirts and pretty blouse. She was carrying the broad-brimmed hat she wore by its strings, and the expression on her face was sober and sad.
“Everything all right?” I asked as she approached, which seemed like a silly thing to say, what with everything we’d recently learned.
Miss June shrugged.
“I suppose. As much as it can be,” she said. “Although I reckon it’ll be good for all of them for the truth to be known amongst us. We can give them more support, now that we know the full extent of the situation.”
I nodded, but Oscar seemed unconvinced.
“How we gonna do that?” he said. “Cal can’t go back to work at The Angel. There ain’t no room for the children, and it ain’t a proper place for ’em to be,” he said, glancing at Miss June and Trick. “No offense.”
“None taken. You’re right. ’Twouldn’t work,” Miss June said.
“And she can’t turn tricks outta the house, here.”
“Well, she could,” Trick said slowly. “But, no, ’twouldn’t be ideal.”
Miss June nodded. “Those poor children have been through enough without worrying about strange men coming over to sleep with their momma. No. That’s no solution, either.
Plus, word would get around, and folks wouldn’t like it.
’Tis one thing for me to set up The Angel and have all that going on.
But for women who do it on their own? Well, it’s a complicated business. ”
“What are we gonna do?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Jimmy. My head’s spinning with everything that’s come out today.” Miss June turned to Trick. “Did Cal tell you what she did with what was left of her husband? I couldn’t get that out of her.”
“The river,” Trick said. “I reckon he’s been eaten up by the fish by now.” She shrugged, as it none of it mattered. “Me and Jimmy and Oscar reckon we can fix up the barn enough that they could keep some animals there, but we’ll need money for supplies, and money to buy a cow and some chickens.”
Miss June nodded. “Don’t worry about the money.
We’ve got enough funds at The Angel to provide all of that.
I reckon Cal can count on me helping out financially over the long term, but it won’t be enough to keep them all out of rags.
Let me think on it for a few days. You all think on it, too, and we’ll see what we can come up with. ”
“All right,” I said, glancing at Oscar.
I toyed with the idea of the two of us staying here and trying to provide for Cal and the children, but we were gonna be hard pressed to provide for ourselves, and we had a house and a home in Port Essington that we wanted to go back to.
I knew Oscar wouldn’t be keen on staying in Telegraph Creek and, honestly, I wasn’t either.
I was glad we could help Cal and the little ones in the short term, but Miss June, Trick and the girls would have to think of something else to make Cal’s life easier.
We rode back to The Angel with sober thoughts and a clearer understanding of what had happened to Cal.
My heart broke o’er the turn her life had taken, for only dreaming of having a husband to care for her and love her.
She’d been such a carefree and happy soul when we’d first met her.
I’d no doubt she’d had her share of troubles by then, being the person she was, but nothing compared to thinking she’d found love and finding cruelty and maltreatment instead.
And Trick was right. Cal was a husk of herself.
It seemed the only thing keeping her going was those three kids.
But maybe, if we could let her know we didn’t hold what she did to Albert against her, and if we could help her make a life for herself and those children, Cal would come back to us.
’Twas all we could hope for, I reckoned.
* * * *
As we got ready for bed, Oscar seemed sad and forlorn, and I felt a weight in my chest, as well.
“I don’t know why people gotta be so mean,” Oscar muttered.
“What?”
“This Albert Webster, what tricked Cal into trusting him then led her into such a—a vicious act.” He gazed at me. “You knew Cal, like I did. She didn’t have a nasty bone in her body! I never even thought she’d have been capable of something like that.”
“I reckon she didn’t think so, either. But when a person gets beaten down like that, on a daily, unrelenting basis, and they don’t know how else to escape it, they do desperate things,” I said, thinking back to our encounter with Spook and Whitlaw, and how I’d not hesitated to kill them in cold blood in order to save Oscar.
Oscar must have realized where my mind was turning.
“Yeah, that’s true,” he said, in a soft voice, as the angry look on his face dissipated. “They make murderers outta good, innocent folk.”
I shrugged, not enjoying where this conversation was leading.
“That’s true in Cal’s case. But I ain’t innocent. I was never innocent.”
Oscar walked o’er to where I’d sat on the edge of the bed, in my shirtsleeves and nothing else.
He stood before me, pressing against my knees until I moved them apart to let him slide himself between them.
He was still in his trousers, but he’d taken his shirt off.
The pale lines of his shoulders and chest shone in the moonlight.
“I reckon you was, Jimmy. You musta been pretty innocent before the gang got hold of you.” He reached out and ran his fingers through my hair. It needed a trim, but Oscar didn’t seem to mind it on the longer side.
I closed my eyes, enjoying his gentle, loving touch.
“Maybe. Sure, I guess,” I admitted. “But that was a long, long time ago.”
Oscar nodded. He was quiet for a moment, then his mouth quirked at the corner.
“Well, I reckon you were pretty innocent before I gotta hold of you,” he said, in lustful, low tones.
The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach lifted like fog blown away on a crisp breeze, and I gazed at him with gratitude for changing the subject.
“Oh, I know that’s true,” I said, reaching forward and pulling him against me. “You and your wicked wiles… You done turned me into a wild, ravenous beast.”
Oscar laughed and took my head between his hands, guiding my mouth to his. He kissed me—soft and sensuous—to show me what good care he would take of me, like he always did.
Oscar could be a lewd and adventurous fella in the sack, ’twas true, but when he was in this kind of a mood, things ran more to the soft and romantic. We were married, after all. I supposed we had a right to be sweet and gentle together.
Sure enough, Oscar pulled back and gazed down at me, still holding my face between his hands.
“I ain’t in the mood for anythin’ rough or rude tonight, Jimmy. But I wanna lie with you, with no clothes on, and just see where that leads. All right?”
I blinked, my heart bursting for this man.
“All right. Of course.”
We finished getting undressed then slipped under the blankets and cuddled up together. Oscar was still so slight compared to me. I liked it, and he did, too. He said it made him feel protected and cherished, to be close to a big fella like me. And I felt good to be able to shield him from things.
Cuddling with no clothes on led to other things, but ’twas languid and lazy, and only involved moving together and taking each other in hand, until we were spent and able to sleep.
But as I drifted off, the difficulty and cruelty of Cal’s situation lingered, and I truly wondered what would happen to her and the children, if we couldn’t think of something.