Chapter 10
Marta and Grady walked up to the house to get into dry clothes and take a hot bath.
They didn’t realize that their lives had changed today just from kissing each other.
The hot bath felt wonderful and so did putting on clean clothes.
Marta helped Kyra with dinner and Grady went and milked the cow, gathered eggs, and cleaned the barn for his Pa and Brody.
They had worked hard today, and he wanted to do something where he could think, and no one would interrupt his thinking.
Dinner was a quiet meal. They all knew that Grady would be leaving tomorrow.
They had enjoyed having him back home where they felt he belonged.
They all went to bed early…even Marta and Grady.
Her feelings were all mixed up. Could Grady still want her even knowing what those men had done to her?
What if she were pregnant with one of their babies inside of her?
Would he still want her then? She didn’t want him to leave, and yet she needed time without him there to confuse her.
Tim Collins arrived while they were still eating breakfast. Kyra invited him to join them. He wouldn’t turn her down.
“You look a might better than you did when I put you on that train to get here. How’s the leg?” Tim asked digging into the scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy, and coffee Kyra offered him.
“It’s back to normal. It’s sore by nightfall, but nothing I can’t handle. Who are we tracking and where are we heading?” Grady asked him quietly.
“There’s some shipments from the railroad going to the Army in Denver that they want us to chaperone from Independence, Missouri.
It seems like several different gangs of outlaws want these shipments of guns and money.
We’ll be joined by three other groups of partners.
They figure with six of us together, we should be able to get it done.
We take the noon train out of here to Missouri.
” Tim answered them between bites of food.
“Mrs. Harper, you should sell this food. You’d make a mint.
This is sure good eating. No wonder Grady got so big, and I can see that Brody is just as big. ”
Kyra laughed. “I just kept feeding them, and they just kept growing. Marley ate just as much, but she didn’t get any bigger. Grady if you’re going into town to catch the train, you’ll be able to stop and say goodbye to her and the babies.”
“I thought so too, Ma. I haven’t been able to get into town yet, and I sure don’t want to get on her bad side.
Tim you’ll be able to meet my sister and her triplets before we leave.
” Grady told his mother and smiled. He was glad that he would be able to keep his promise to Cooper to see them before he left.
He was sitting next to Marta, and he was holding her hand under the table.
He squeezed her hand and she squeezed his back.
Neither one of them knew what was going to happen between them with him leaving, but they both knew that their feelings were new.
Neither wanted Grady to leave…but that didn’t seem to matter.
After breakfast, Grady hugged every single one of his family…
then he hugged Mattie and then Marta. He whispered into her ear that he was going to write to her and hoped she’d write back to him.
She nodded and kissed him on his cheek. Then, he and Tim saddled up and were off to Sheridan.
Grady looked back and waved. He didn’t like leaving his family behind.
Marley’s cabin was on the outskirts of town. She was out in the yard canning everything that Cooper had picked for her that morning and putting it into jars. Her three babies were in a buggy. She saw them ride up and stood up from the stool she was sitting on.
“I told Cooper that you had better come and see me before you left.” Marley told him and hugged him to her.
Tim couldn’t believe this tiny woman was Grady’s sister.
Grady was over six feet tall, and Marley was barley five feet tall.
Standing there hugging his friend, she looked even smaller…
and she just had triplets. He didn’t know anyone who had three babies at one time.
He looked into the buggy holding the three babies.
They were cute little buggers. They were awake and trying to eat their fists.
Two were dark-haired and looked to be bigger than the white-haired baby next to them.
“Marley, this is Tim Collins, my partner. We’re getting ready to ride out on the train to Missouri.
I wanted to see you and the babies before I left.
Ma is training Marta and Mattie just like she did all of us.
Marta got her first deer yesterday and I had to show her how to skin it and cut it up.
All that blood and mucus was a shock to her.
Field dressing it made her gag, but she made it through.
I threw her in the stream in the corral to clean her up quickly.
It was hot and the flies were rough. We both laughed about it by the time we were finished.
Carson came over and about had his eyes pop out of his head to see her, but she doesn’t want any male interest after what she went through as a hostage.
I told Pa she wants to be left alone, and he said he’d keep them away with his guns if need be.
” Grady told her as he picked her up and swung her around as if she were a little kid.
Marley laughed and just hugged him even more.
“How do you put up with him as his partner?” She asked.
“I made you two packs of pemican bread to take with you and your partner. Cooper told me that a marshal came in on the train. I figured it had to be your partner, and it was about time you were leaving. I thought you might get hungry as the train took you to wherever you had to go. I love you, Grady. I don’t want you getting shot anymore, you hear me! ”
“I hear you, and I’ll do my best to abide by your decisions.
You take care of Charlie, Cass, and Lyra.
I’ll write when I can and you keep me appraised of how the folks are doing.
They won’t tell me if they get sick and need me on the ranch.
Love you…” Grady told her and kissed her on the cheek, then he picked up each and every one of the triplets and kissed them, too.
Tim laughed at him but thought he was lucky to have so many people who loved him.
“Nice to meet you, Marley, and all your babies, too!” Tim told her as they rode toward the depot to get their horses boarded and taken care of for the noon departure.
He had never had pemican bread before, but it sure looked and smelled good.
As they were going toward the train, they passed the jail and stopped to talk to the sheriff.
“Taking off, Grady?” Sheriff Tanner asked him and came out to shake his hand and his partner.
“Yeah, they’re sending us to Missouri to watch over a shipment of guns and money they’re sending to Denver.
We’re being met with four other agents. The six of us are in charge of getting it safely to the Colorado Territory.
It seems that there are several outlaw gangs that keep holding up the trains heading that way and already have made threats that those guns and money are theirs.
We aim to stop them.” Grady told him and saw him shake his head.
“I’ve got wanted posters on some of those outlaw gangs…
Jesse James, Cole Younger, are only some of the ones responsible for teaching the ones who broke off and started their own gangs.
The west is full of them. You be careful.
They’re using downed trees to stop the trains, jumping on and threatening them with dynamite if they don’t turn over the trunks they want.
I don’t want you to be blown up or shot handling these men.
” Tanner told them. “One of my deputies is moving to Casper and becoming their sheriff. I’ll have a deputy opening soon if you ever want to stop being a marshal…
the opening is yours. Just say the word.
I’d like nothing more than to have one of Nimrod’s sons as my deputies here on the force.
I always wanted Nimrod as my backup, but you couldn’t tear him off that ranch with dynamite.
I’m glad that Brody is staying to help him run it. He’s not getting any younger.”
“We thank you for all the information, Sheriff Tanner. We’ll use it to keep the train safe and get it to Denver safely.
I appreciate the offer to be a deputy. If I ever stop being a marshal, you’ll be the first one to know, and you’ll also be the first place I’d like to work.
You take care. Hope to see you soon.” Grady told him and they left for the depot.
“You thinking about stopping being a marshal, Grady?” Tim asked him. He wanted to know if he needed to look into getting a new partner.
“Not really, but every time I come home, I realize how much I miss everyone in Sheridan and how much my folks are getting older. I feel guilty not helping with the ranch and leaving it all on my younger brother’s shoulders.
He’s up to the task, but I still feel guilty.
I like the fact that Marta and Mattie are there to help my mother with the garden and even in helping to fill that smoke house.
My mother has always filled it, but she’s getting older, too.
With Marta learning how to shoot, she can help fill it up with Kyra’s help.
” Grady told him. “I like being a marshal and I like being your partner. If I were to stop, I’d let you know first.”
“I appreciate that, and I’d do the same to you.
I like working with you. I didn’t like working with another man while you were injured.
I’m getting too old to break in someone else.
Being a deputy in a small town, or even one the size of Sheridan would be a sweet job when you finish being a marshal and want to settle down.
I don’t plan on being a marshal for the next ten years or dying with my boots on.
Someday, I’ll find a little town that needs a sheriff or a deputy, and I’ll send in my badge.
But not yet.” Tim told him and Grady nodded.
They got their horses loaded and taken care of and their own tickets. They went on board and sat down. Neither were looking forward to the long train ride to Laurence, Missouri. Grady was already missing Marta.
Marian came to help Marley with the triplets and just missed seeing Grady and Tim say goodbye to Marley. She took over feeding and changing them while she worked in the garden. Marian told her all the changes she had made in her life since she had last seen her. Marley couldn’t believe it.
She started laughing. “Marian, I can’t believe that you left here and went looking for a house with the sheriff.
I also can’t believe that you found one in such good shape.
When we found this one, it was in such disrepair, it took Cooper’s whole family and mine three days to get it livable for us.
We all had to work long days to get it put back to together.
It needed a new roof, a floor, a cellar with walls and a floor, a cookstove, furniture, a washstand, rinse box, half the smoke house had to be rebuilt, and the barn was in just as bad of shape.
And then we had to get animals to put in the barn…
not to mention what we had to buy at the resale and general store.
It was a mountain of stuff, and that was with all the jars of vegetables that my mother gave us after canning with her all summer and all the meat she made us take since I was the one who had shot it all. ”
“That’s how I felt when I went into the house.
The man had died and just left it. I bought it from his son who didn’t want to come here and sell it.
But I did need to make a new mattress and throw away all the food he had in his cellar…
mice had gotten to it, and there were bugs in it, too.
It hurt to throw away all that food and burn it up.
The sheriff’s son came to my rescue and helped me carry it all out and helped to climb up and clean out my flues.
If he hadn’t, I would have burned down my house!
There were bird nests in them, and then he cut all my grass and started chopping wood for my wood pile.
He also carried all the supplies that Helen and George gave me to start out on.
It was everything I would have bought if I had the money.
I was just going to buy a little at a time as I needed it.
But Helen and George got me hundred-pound bags of flour, sugar, rice, beans, corn flour, potatoes, onions, carrots, sweet potatoes, cases of green beans, corn, beets, vats of sauerkraut, lye, cases of cherries, peaches, applesauce, yeast, baking soda, baking powder, salt, pepper, vanilla, sewing supplies, an oil cloth…
everything I could imagine to need they had all stacked up and ready to take to my home.
Tom and George loaded it onto a wagon and brought it to my new home with my trunks of my own sheets, blankets, quilts, and pots, pans, dishes, and such.
It was wonderful. I can’t thank them enough.
” Marian told her. “I spent all day putting everything away. I even sent Tom to get me a half barrel; some rubber and a stopper so I can take a bath. He stopped and brought back a scythe and a drill from his father’s tools to install the barrel and to cut my grass.
He was wonderful. I put in a roast and started a batch of bread to cook as I worked.
Just as I finished, Doctor Flynn come by and shared my dinner with me.
It was lovely to have someone to eat with. ”
Marley stopped canning and sat up. “Have you had dinner with him again?”
“Why yes, he came over last night and we had chicken and dumplings. He had mentioned that it was one of his favorite dishes, so I made it and a cobbler to go with it.” Marian told her quietly.
Marley didn’t say anything, but she smiled. She hoped that there was a romance beginning between the doctor and Marian.