Chapter 42
Mary bounced along in the wagon, looking forward to getting home and getting out of her dress. It was pretty enough but uncomfortable, the first store-bought dress she’d worn since learning to sew when she was just a girl.
People had been nice at church, very welcoming and not too gossipy, which was a relief. Mary would go back again next Sunday.
When Cole had been alive, they had never bothered to attend. They had spent the sabbath quietly. They would read and pray and sometimes sing hymns together.
Cole had a wonderful voice, deep and melodic and full of emotion.
She supposed Conn had the same sort of voice, though she couldn’t imagine him singing like that.
She had suggested church today for a few reasons.
Mainly, in light of all that had happened, she wanted to draw closer to God. And she had felt the Holy Spirit filling that small place and working in its humble congregation.
She’d also wanted to shake things up with her brothers. George had barely spoken since the marshal’s visit, and now even James was growing quiet, probably because his brother had been so gloomy.
Then, the Mitchell family, folks they’d never met before, had invited them to a meal, and Mary had accepted. It was a nice way to pass the day, and she was happy to know some of her neighbors a bit better.
When it was finally time to head home, she had asked George to drive, thinking it would do him good and might bring him around, but it hadn’t.
As he turned into the lane to the homestead, he remained silent, gripping the reins and staring straight ahead.
She had been patient with him, but she was tired of his pouting, and as he pulled wordlessly up to the corral, she was ready to do something about it.
“Where’s the dog?” James asked.
“I don’t see him,” Mary said. “Where do you think he is, George?”
George just shrugged.
Which annoyed Mary greatly. It was time to confront his sulky silence. But not with James around.
“I’ll bet the dog’s down by the creek,” she said. “He likes to lay back in the willows. James, be a dear and feed the mules. I have to talk with George.”
“Okay,” James said and scampered off to do her bidding. He seemed excited, and knowing James, he was probably hoping she would shake George out of his glum stupor.
Which is exactly what she intended to do.
George just looked at her and raised his brows.
Mary only knew one way to handle such problems. She didn’t have the patience for subtlety, never had, so she went directly at him.
“Why are you acting this way?”
“What way?” George said.
Mary felt a spike of anger. “Don’t play stupid, George. It’s childish.”
“I’m not a child anymore. I’m a man.”
“You’ve got a man’s height, and you work like a man, and you drive the wagon well enough, but no, you’re not a man. Not yet.”
Now, he was cross. “I am so a man. You just can’t see it. You can’t see anything.”
There it is, Mary thought. He’d come up close to what’s bothering him.
And she realized it wasn’t the manhood thing after all. It was something hidden just beyond the thin veil of those words he’d just uttered: you can’t see anything…
“A man doesn’t lie,” Mary said. That wasn’t strictly true, of course, but it was in the way she meant it. “A man doesn’t pout for days on end then claim nothing’s wrong when his sister mentions it.”
“Well, that’s my business.”
“Why didn’t you say that, then? Why didn’t you just say, ‘Don’t worry about it, Mary. It’s my business’?”
“I didn’t want to be rude.”
“What do you think you’re being, acting the way you have been?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Yes, you did. You wanted to make us uncomfortable. You wanted us to know you were upset. That was important to you. And you wanted me to ask.”
She wanted to add, It’s all so very childish, but she restrained herself. She didn’t want to punish and belittle him. She just wanted him to stop, and she still wanted to help him embrace the ways of men.
George frowned. He knew his position was indefensible. “I’m just worried about you.”
She took his hands in hers. “Talk to me, George. Don’t make me guess at your thoughts. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“It’s, well… everything, Mary. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Yes, I have. But I’m holding up.”
“You’re tough. No one knows that better than me. But you’ve been through a lot, and you’re making all these decisions on your own.”
“And you think I’m making mistakes?”
He shrugged.
“Talk to me, George. What mistakes am I making? Do you think I’m foolish for rebuilding?”
“What if I do?”
“Well, then, you’d better tell me why. You’re my brother, George. If you think I’m making a mistake, I want you to speak up.” Which, again, wasn’t exactly the truth, but she did prefer his speaking up to this intolerable pouting.
Besides, she knew her brother and understood that regardless of his feelings concerning the homestead, something else was bothering him, too, and that she wouldn’t uncover that until he’d had his say about rebuilding.
“Well, it’s an awful lot of work,” he said.
“You don’t have to do it,” she said. “You can go back to Pa’s farm. James will stay. And neighbors will help.”
“That’s not what I mean. You know I don’t mind work. But I stand by what I said. It’s a lot of work, no matter who does it. And all for what?”
“It’s my home.”
“It was your home. Cole’s dead, Mary.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Now, you’re the one being childish, Mary. You know what I’m saying.”
“You’re saying I shouldn’t bother rebuilding since my life here is over.” In the silence following her words, they resonated with her more gravely than she would have anticipated.
She realized suddenly that this terrible thought had been knocking around in the back of her own mind, not as an opinion but as a doubt. Was her life over here? Was she being foolish?
She never would have guessed at the rush of near panic she felt in that moment.
Was George right? Was this all a foolish blunder? Was she living in denial? Was she ignoring what was to everyone else common sense?
“What will you do?” George asked. “Let’s say you build the house and the barn and you even manage to plant the crops and get some new stock. What will you do, Mary?”
“I will live my life,” she said defiantly.
“Alone?”
Suddenly, she felt like crying. But she wouldn’t do that, couldn’t do it, not now, not in front of George, especially not while discussing these things.
If she cried now, it would weaken her and strengthen him, and she might concede and go back to Canon City and never finish what she and Cole had started here.
And just like that, powerfully, she understood that she wanted that. She wanted to finish what they had started. She had been saying that all along, but it had all been assumption. No one had really questioned her until now.
And she had her answer.
“Yes,” she said, feeling instantly stronger. “Alone if necessary. Besides, Conn said he will come back. He said he will help me rebuild.”
George frowned. “That’s the other thing.”
“What?”
“Conn.”
“What about him?”
“You heard what Marshal Mayfield said.”
“That was a bunch of nonsense. Conn didn’t draw those men here.”
“How do you know?”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“Maybe not on purpose. But what if that’s why they killed Cole? What if they’re Conn’s old associates? What if they had a score to settle with him? And what if they thought Cole was Conn?”
This line of questioning threatened to knock her off-balance again, but she stayed strong. “No.”
“Why not? Because you don’t want it to be true?”
“Because Conn would have told me.”
“What if he didn’t even know?”
Mary crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you even hear yourself, George? That doesn’t make sense. If they were his old associates, he’d know them, right?”
“Yeah, I guess, but still… you don’t know him.”
“Not really, no, but I was married to his brother, and I sure knew him.”
“Conn’s not Cole.”
“No, but maybe he’s not so different from Cole as you think.”
“You told me before. Conn led a fast life. Drinking, fighting. He’s been in trouble, Mary. Real trouble. You said he was wild, the dark to Cole’s light.”
“Then the light went out of the world,” Mary said. “Maybe now, Conn is going to fill that void.”
“That’s not a good thing. You don’t want darkness to take the place of light.”
“Maybe he will become the light.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt, Mary.”
“I’ll be fine, George. I can take care of myself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get out of this dress and into my dungarees and shirt.”
“You’re going to work on the sabbath?”
“No. But I have to get out of this uncomfortable thing. It’s too tight in the chest and under the arms and four times too big around the waist. Now, you and James stay here. I’ll carry my things down to the creek and get cleaned up.”
“All right,” George said, looking suddenly sheepish. “I’m sorry, Mary.”
“For what?”
“For arguing with you.”
She smiled. “George, this wasn’t arguing.
We were hashing things out. It’s the way folks are meant to do things.
When we have different ways of looking at things, we need to go back and forth and figure things out.
If you disagree strongly with someone, it’s wrong to just politely pretend all is well.
If you love somebody, you should care enough to challenge them.
So thank you, George, for questioning me. It made me stronger.”
George smiled at this. “I’m glad.”
“But George?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time, just tell me. Don’t pout for a couple of days first.”
George turned red at that but laughed. “All right, Mary. Go get changed.”