The Reluctant Bridegroom (31 page)

Closing her Bible, she went to bed, though it wasn’t late. She knew Sky and Joe would be in by dark, but she could not face another evening of Joe’s coldness. Long after they came in, she lay there listening to them talk until she finally heard them go upstairs to the loft. They were laughing about something that had happened, and she felt cut off and left out. The utter isolation gripped her and the tears that she had been too proud to shed during the day burst forth and flowed unchecked down her cheeks.

****

“Well, we don’t have a big meeting like Brother Finney has,” Lot Penny said, “but it’s a beginning.” Satisfaction crept into his bright blue eyes as he looked over the crowd that had come out for the Saturday night meeting. Potbelly stoves glowed at each end of the room, sending waves of warmth radiating from their cherry-colored sides; those who sat closest to them perspired profusely, while those in the center drew their coats closer around them.

Sky surveyed the congregation. “Looks like you got a good start, Lot.” He glanced over to where Rebekah was surrounded by a group of her friends who were admiring the baby. “Hope you have a good meeting tonight.”

“Wish you’d stay for the service, Sky,” Penny said sadly. His face was still scarred from the beating he had taken, but his spirit was as strong as ever. “Brother Truitt is a fine preacher—in fact, don’t know if I’ve ever heard better.”

“Maybe some other time, Lot,” Sky replied. He had brought Rebekah and the children in three days earlier, but had gone back to the farm, claiming that someone had to watch the stock.

Penny didn’t argue, for he knew the futility of it. He watched Winslow leave and saw that Rebekah’s eyes had followed him as he passed through the door. She had been a cheerful woman on the trail, he remembered, but now there was a heaviness in her that dimmed all the gaiety. She met his gaze and he smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.

He went to the front and sat down beside Henry Sellers. “Well, I couldn’t get him to stay for the meeting.”

“Too bad! Too bad!” Sellers shook his head, taking out a red bandanna and wiping the perspiration from his brow. “Maybe when he gets settled into his marriage, he’ll get more sociable. And I’m still hopin’ he’ll jump into this election and give Sam a hand.”

“Maybe—but somethin’s eatin’ at his insides, Henry. He’s out of step with God—and until he bends his neck to the Almighty, Sky Winslow ain’t gonna have any peace.” He would have said more, but the door opened and Rev. John Truitt came in and the two men rose to greet him.

“He sure ain’t much on looks, is he now?” May Stockton whispered behind her hand to her husband, referring to the preacher. May had married a prosperous merchant named Larry Prince, but marriage had not changed her outspoken ways. She and her new husband were well satisfied with their match, though their personalities were quite different. Prince was soft-spoken and not at all outgoing, while May was sociable to the roots of her red hair. “I get him to goin’—and he puts the brakes on for me!” May had laughed when asked
about her marriage. But Prince was pleased with his bride, and smiled at her observation.

Rebekah was sitting between Edith and May, and had overheard the remark about the preacher. “Beauty is only skin deep, May,” Rebekah chided her friend gently.

“Well, let’s skin him, then!” May giggled. “No, I’m just joking, Rebekah. He’s just about the best preacher I ever heard—not that I ever heard many!”

Edith and Sam listened as May and Rebekah talked, and when the song leader got up, Edith leaned over to her husband. “Try to get Sky to come to the meeting, Sam. It’ll mean a lot to Rebekah.”

“I did everything but put a gun at his head. He’s a hard case, Edith—but I haven’t given up.”

Outside, Sky made his way down Elm Street toward the center of town, aware that he had been the target of almost every eye in the church. There had been much pressure to get him to attend services, but he had known it would be one of the penalties he’d have to pay for being in town. Passing Seth Long’s blacksmith shop, he wondered if he should move the family into town for good. He’d never lived in a town, and the decision to move would be solely for Rebekah and the children. As the time grew near when he’d have to decide, he had the feeling that life was closing in on him. He put the thoughts aside for later as he walked along the plank walk.

To his amazement, he was greeted by almost every man he met. He had never been involved in the activities of Oregon City, and had known these people only through his rare visits. He realized that the recognition was because of the way he’d faced Ingerson down and out-gunned Del Laughton, though the thought gave him no pleasure. Politics had never held any interest for him, and now he was being drawn into the heated cauldron of political warfare that stirred the entire town. It was another pressure that pushed at him, and he shook his shoulders angrily, determined to avoid getting
more involved—yet knowing he would probably be drawn deeper still.

He stopped at Mike Stevens’ house, and found no one at home. He remembered then that he’d seen Mrs. Stevens at the meeting, and made his way to the Silver Moon. As he’d suspected, he found Mike at a table with Judd Travers and Clay Hill. Hill’s face lit up, and he kicked a chair back with his boot. “Sit down, Sky, and help me pound some sense into this hide-bound Yankee!”

Judd Travers was a staunch abolitionist from Boston, and his verbal battles over slavery with Clay Hill, who was from Georgia, were legendary. He snorted disgustedly and waved a bony hand at Hill. “How a man can be as smart as you are in some things, Clay, and be so infernally
dumb
in a thing like slavery is beyond me!” Travers was not religious, but he was a zealot over the antislavery cause. His deep-set black eyes glowed as he pounded the table with a hard fist. “England had sense enough to set her slaves free—and sooner or later in this country we’ll do the same!”

“Not without a war, you won’t, Judd,” Clay shrugged. He took a drink from the glass in front of him. “The South will pull out of the Union before
that
happens.”

“Pull out of the Union!” Travers scoffed, declaring fiercely, “That would be treason!”

Clay smiled at the older man, but there was a dead seriousness in his eyes. “There’s a good precedent for it, Judd,” he pointed out. “The thirteen colonies pulled away from England because they didn’t want anyone telling them how to run their business. I don’t see any difference between the king of England trying to put a tax on me, and some abolitionists in New England telling me what I can or can’t do. No, the South won’t be ruled over by the North. It’ll mean war if you folks push it.”

“Don’t believe it,” Travers stated flatly. He turned to Sky. “Your people—they’re from Virginia, didn’t you tell me, Sky? What’ll
they
do if it comes to a fight?”

“There’s some Winslows in Virginia—but there’s some in the North.” As he thought, the dark streak of fatalism in him knit his brow. “Hate to see it come. Be brothers against brothers all over this country. Families split right down the middle.”

Clay said, “I’ll worry about that war when it gets here.” He took another drink, then added, “We got a war on right here, Sky. I’m set on winnin’ it before I take on another one.”

“Think Sam will win?” Sky asked.

“It’s up for grabs right now.” Travers took an ancient pipe out of his pocket, then filled and lit it. When it drew well, he looked around the room. “Here’s the bunch that wants an open town. The other side’s in church, I reckon. Always like that: the black and the white.”

“You and Clay and me, Judd, we’re here,” Mike Stevens remarked pointedly. “Sky, too. Are we the sheep or the goats?”

“We’re not saints,” Travers decided flatly. “But we’re better than Poole and Ingerson and their lot.”

They bantered back and forth for two hours, and slowly the tension drained out of Winslow. The men around the table were not outdoorsmen, but there was a solidness about them, and Sky knew their word was good. They started a mild poker game and the time passed unnoticed. Their group made a little island in the saloon, and once Sky noticed Dandy Raimez staring at him from his place, but Sky paid no heed to it.

He was not a drinking man, but the others were; and although he drank only one to their five or six, by the time Hill and Travers got up and left, Sky was feeling the effect of the alcohol. “No more for me, Mike,” he said when the other offered him the bottle.

Stevens hiccoughed loudly. “I’d not be walking the streets alone if I were you, Sky.”

“Why not, Mike?”

“The word is out.” Stevens looked at the bar where Poole and Dandy were still engaged in talk. “Poole is going to pull out all the stops to stay in power. You made an enemy out of
Ingerson when you faced him down—and Raimez, too. Way the talk goes, they’ll stop your clock if you stick your oar in.”

“They’re welcome to try.”

“What about your family if you go down? You thought about that?”

“I won’t go down.”

“You won’t go down.” Stevens got to his feet and rolled his eyes. “You’re tough, man—but anybody can die. Don’t get me wrong. I’m against Poole and his crowd all the way—but just be sure you count up the bill before you jump in.”

He turned and walked out of the saloon without looking back, leaving Sky wondering. Stevens had not been so outspoken earlier, and his new belligerent attitude seemed to be a warning.
Things are getting warmer,
Sky thought.
I must be crazy getting myself pulled into this thing.

He rose to leave, and a voice said, “Hello, Sky. Got time for a drink?”

He turned to find Rita standing just behind him; her presence was like a physical touch. She was wearing a red dress that set off her figure, and her smile brought back old memories that stirred him. “Guess I’d better not, Rita. I’m an old married man now.”

“From what I hear, you’re not all
that
married, Sky,” she retorted with a crooked smile. “Sort of an in-name-only sort of thing, isn’t it?” She saw his jaw harden and said, “Dance with me, Sky. Please—I’ve got to tell you something.” She stepped closer and he had no choice. They moved to the small dance floor where half a dozen other men had claimed partners from the Silver Moon’s girls, and the two began to move across the floor.

“Be careful, Sky,” she whispered, moving closer to speak in his ear.

He didn’t like the way her perfume and the slight pressure of her body against his stirred old hungers—it made him dissatisfied with himself and angry at his weakness. “Be careful of what, Rita?”

“I guess you know. I was hoping you wouldn’t be involved in this, but everyone knows that you’re Birdwell’s friend. And any friend of his is in Poole’s little book.”

“I’m not running for office.”

She pulled back so she could look at him and asked, “And if they go after Sam Birdwell with guns, what’ll you do, Sky?” She saw his reaction. “See? It’s not in you to run out on a friend. But you don’t have a chance, Sky. I’m Dandy’s girl now, and I hear things. And what I hear is that anyone in Birdwell’s camp will be killed—if that’s what it takes to keep ’em in line.”

Sky knew all this, but he asked quietly, “Why are you telling me all this, Rita?”

She didn’t answer at once, but just as the music stopped, she whispered, “I’m a fool for a man I like.” She turned and left, saying, “Get out of it, Sky!”

He walked back to the table, laid down the money for his drinks, and left the saloon. When he got back to the church, the service was over and most of the crowd gone. Going inside, he found Rebekah talking to Edith. “Ready to go?”

Both of the women were looking at him in a peculiar way. “I’ll get the children,” Rebekah replied quietly.

Edith waited until she left. “You’re a fool, Sky.”

“What?” He was taken off guard by her harsh words. “What’s the matter?”

“You come into this place for your wife, half drunk, smelling of cheap perfume, and with this—” She reached out and pulled a long black hair from his shirt collar. She glared at him. “If you have to go to that woman, you could at least clean yourself up before Rebekah sees you!”

The attack was so unexpected and the anger in her face so strong that he could not think of an answer. Turning, he left the building and waited until Rebekah came out carrying the baby. Joe was with her, holding Timmy. Sky got them inside the wagon and started for home. Rebekah said nothing, and soon the children were all asleep—Joe bundled
up with Timmy on the floor and the baby held close in her mother’s arms. The lights of the town faded as they moved into the thin timber. A quarter moon threw faint silver beams on the snow, and the horses’ hooves made squashy noises in the half-melted slush.

Sky had rarely felt so uncomfortable. Edith’s words burned in his mind, and even if he knew that his intentions had not been bad—at least as far as Rita was concerned—he felt guilty. Winslow looked at Rebekah. Her face was sharply outlined by the faint moonlight, and he admired the classic simplicity of her face, though he could not see her expression. After several miles of silence he could not stand it anymore, and made his apology.

“I shouldn’t have come into the church after drinking, Rebekah.” He wanted to say more, to explain to her what had happened, but her silence built a wall, and he could not go on.

She thinks I’ve been with Rita,
he thought, and for a long time he tried to find some way to tell her what had happened, but he couldn’t. Not only that, the memory of how Rita had stirred his longings grated against his conscience. Finally he settled down to the long ride home.

Rebekah was waiting for him to speak again, and when he didn’t, she steeled herself against the mounting silence. One word from him, and she would have turned at once with understanding—but he did not say that word. He helped her get the children inside, hoping at the last moment to find a word to ease the situation, but nothing came.

They went to bed without speaking to each other, and long afterward, Sky heard the mournful cry of a timber wolf far off in the woods. The sound stirred him deeply. He lay there thinking of what the days ahead held, but found nothing to soften the blank wall of despair that shut him in.