Chapter 17
Cassie woke as Red lowered her to the ground.
This time, Libby and Leota and Muriel were ready for her. Leota came hurrying up to the front door of Bates General Store before Red had completed his brief hellos to Muriel and Libby and rushed off to work.
Cassie said, still half asleep, “I can stock shelves if there aren’t any customers.”
Muriel laughed. “I’ll work you like a mule later, Cassie. I’ve got a pot of coffee on the stove, and I’ve pulled up four chairs. Sit.”
She waved all the ladies toward her heating stove, and Cassie welcomed the warmth.
The fall weather had lingered more than usual this year, but the wind bit as if to warn them winter was coming.
The cold didn’t keep Cassie from sleeping.
In fact, she seemed to need a nap most afternoons.
It was one of the things she’d wanted to ask the ladies about.
It was actually one of the few questions she had the nerve to ask outright.
She hoped to slip the other, more embarrassing questions in later.
She held her hands out to the stove until some of the chill left, then headed for the rocking chair the other ladies had left vacant.
Libby pulled yarn out of a cloth bag she was carrying, and Leota began stitching on quilt blocks, each only an inch square. Muriel had a basket sitting beside her chair and lifted a half-darned sock out of it.
“I should have some handwork to do, too,” Cassie said awkwardly.
Muriel smiled up at her. “You just sit there, young lady. You’re growing a baby. That’s work enough.”
Cassie sighed as she sat, still slightly groggy and bemused from her long rest in Red’s arms. “I declare, I take an afternoon nap just like a child. It doesn’t mean I’m sick, does it? Or could something be wrong with the baby?”
Muriel laughed. It was such a pleasant sound. Cassie hadn’t heard much laughter in her life. At least not for a long time.
“Seth’s mother was such a sweet lady.” Muriel sighed, and her eyes were looking at far-off memories no one else could see.
“I remember once, before I knew my eldest was coming, I was at her house helping her with threshers. Ten starving men, and they ate like mules—as much and with as many manners. It was right after the noon meal. The men were gone back out, and we’d cleaned the kitchen.
I sat down at the table to visit with her, and I fell asleep.
Four hours later, Seth was there, waking me up to take me home.
I’d spent the entire afternoon with my head lying on my arms at the table.
My mother-in-law must have tiptoed around that whole time, but she let me sleep.
I tried to apologize for it, and she smiled so kindly at me and said, ‘A baby takes a lot out of a woman.’ And I said, ‘What baby?’”
Leota and Libby laughed, and Muriel joined in. Cassie’s heart eased some. At least she wasn’t the only woman who’d had to be told she was with child. “I didn’t know there was a baby coming until July.”
“That’s four months. You must have been feeling some movement.” Leota laid two little squares together and began a row of tiny, neat stitches.
Cassie said, “I remember some now that I’m feeling it a lot, but back then, I didn’t recognize it as anything but muscles twitching.”
Libby’s needles clicked efficiently. “That’s just what it feels like at first.”
“I only found out in July when I mentioned it to Griff because I was worried about my…my time not coming for several months. I might not have said anything then, except he was…he wanted to…” However did she end up going down such personal paths?
Muriel had told everyone about finding out she was expecting without having to refer to marital intimacy.
“It was time for the one in the summer?” Libby asked lightly without looking up from the dark-red yarn in her hands.
“Yes.”
All three women started laughing.
Cassie had to explain. “It’s just that, at first, Griff said I was too young.”
“Too young for what?” Leota asked blankly.
“Hush, Leota,” Muriel said with her lips quivering suspiciously. “Too young to be…umm…together as man and wife, right, Cassie?”
Leota looked at Muriel, then quickly returned to her sewing.
“That’s right.” Cassie spoke so softly, her voice almost squeaked. “I was fifteen when we married. Griff said that was too young. So it’s only been the last year he’s…”
Muriel cocked her head. “Decided you were old enough?”
“Yes,” Cassie said with a sigh of relief. “And then he wasn’t… that is, I wasn’t…” Cassie was suddenly exhausted and wanted the whole conversation to end.
Muriel set aside her darning and got to her feet to pour coffee. “You weren’t old enough very often?”
Cassie nodded, and the ladies started laughing again. Muriel had to lean on her chair until she got control of herself.
Cassie’s cheeks warmed. She’d embarrassed herself again but she wasn’t sure how. Just the reference to such a personal topic, probably. “I thought he should know before…before… lest there be anything wrong with me. And it was a good thing, because a man isn’t to…”
Leota lowered her quilt blocks and exchanged a quick glance with Muriel and Libby that somehow left Cassie out. “He said you were unclean.”
The ladies all sobered.
Given their reaction to that last Saturday, Cassie hurried to change the subject before they began to once again berate Griff. “Red taught me how to milk his cow this week, and I’m caring for the chickens and our sow and her piglets.”
“A mama pig is a fierce critter.” Muriel grimaced. “Take care around her.”
“She attacked Red once.” At the ladies’ urging, she told about Harriet and Red’s accident, and the struggles she’d had trying to feed the grouchy mother pig. They seemed delighted with her tales of life with Red, so she talked more than she could ever remember talking in her life.
On occasion, Muriel would have to get up and help a customer, but she hurried them through ruthlessly and came back to the stove.
Leota finally slipped her needle securely into her growing quilt and got to her feet. “My husband will be hauling the children on his back through town, screaming my name, if I don’t get home.”
Libby rolled the scarf around the ball of yarn and pinned the whole thing together with the two long knitting needles. “I have baking to see to before suppertime.”
Cassie sat up straighter. “I don’t think I’d better carry anything over to your diner, Libby. I don’t feel right about the help I got last week.”
Libby winked at her. “Carryin’ for you last Saturday and hearin’ your sweet ‘thank you’ was the highlight of those men’s lives. You shouldn’t deprive them of the pleasure.”
Cassie laughed. If only she could do this job for Red, but she didn’t haul the groceries.
The general store got busy as the afternoon wore on. Muriel said menfolk didn’t buy anything ahead. They just noticed they needed something when they ran out, so right before supper-time every night, she had a crowd.
Red appeared briefly out of the back room and said, “Hi.” He hurried away with a wooden box of supplies for Libby.
After that, Cassie was aware of every movement from the back of the store, but Red never came up front again.
Mort Sawyer came in with an order and seemed surprised to see Cassie folding a bolt of cloth in front of the counter. He greeted her gruffly.
Cassie inhaled slowly and said, “I heard you bought the spring, Mr. Sawyer. I know you wanted it. I’m glad it worked out.”
Mort studied her with narrow eyes. Somehow, he’d taken her comment as offensive. She opened her mouth to apologize for she knew not what, but Red came from the back at that moment. He’d come to lend support. She smiled gratefully at him.
“Afternoon, Mort.” Red stood beside Cassie, with one hand resting on her lower back.
Mort had been annoyed with her, but surrounded with people as she was, Cassie hadn’t really been afraid of him. When Red showed up, Mort seemed content to refocus his temper on Red.
“Your interference cost me over a thousand dollars. There were two other bidders on that worthless spring, and it should have been mine along with her.” Mort tipped his head at Cassie as though she was nothing except a part of the bargain.
“You know that’s not true, Mort,” Red answered mildly. “Cassie no more belonged to you than that spring. And a thousand dollars is a fair price for a good water source like that. You can afford it. Plus, you got the house?—”
“That house is worthless and you know it. No one can live in it back in there!”
“Rip it apart for the wood, then.” Red shrugged casually. He tightened his hold on Cassie’s back just a little as if to apologize for Mort’s dismissal of her beautiful house.
Cassie stood calmly beside Red, determined to make him proud of her. She didn’t even flinch when he suggested tearing down Griff’s house.
Wade stepped into the store at that second and came to stand beside his father.
At Mort’s side, Wade gave his father the look of an aging wolf.
Some of Mort’s strength was gone, but he’d replaced it with a lifetime of brutal lessons.
Wade looked like a fox, with shifting eyes and a mind that turned to slyness.
He had none of his father’s strength of character.
Even though Mort used his iron will to solidify power at the expense of others, no one could deny that Mort had what it took to conquer this unforgiving land.
Wade would have never made it out West without his father’s wealth and power to ease the way.
In a moment of insight, Cassie knew Mort was the cattle baron Griff had always wanted to be.
She had an urge to smile as she thought how far from Mort’s vicious ruthlessness Griff had been.
Griff had been more fox than wolf, too, but without Wade’s sadistic streak.
Then again, there were the times Griff had raised his hand harshly against her, so perhaps Griff had more in common with Wade than she wanted to admit.
What about Red? He’d said he had five hundred head of cattle. Did that make him a cattle baron too?