Authors: Joyce Wright
Chapter Five
As he had expected, the snow had taken the lives of more cattle. He met Big Jim at the corral early the following morning and gave him the news.
“At this rate, there won’t be a herd left. It’s the same for every cattle rancher; this winter will make us all bankrupt. There’s not a damn thing we can do about it except hope that we outlast the winter. You know, Jack, I never thought I’d want to live anywhere but Texas but between the droughts, the stampedes and now this, I sure don’t know why.”
“Texas tells a man whether he measures up,” Jack said. “I reckon that we all feel that if we can make our living out here with nothing but grit, we can hold our heads up high.”
“Maybe. Maybe we’re fools.”
Jack inclined his head in acknowledgment. “But we could be fools anywhere. This way, living in Texas, we’ve made the choice of where our foolishness will be.”
Big Jim laughed. “Reckon that’s so, too. Can’t say it’s much comfort to me, but I can’t argue it. Say, how’s that wife of yours? Is she settling in all right?”
“Fine. She said Oklahoma is having the same winter we are.”
“You must have gone to a fortune teller, knowing to fix up the cabin before this winter. Most years wouldn’t have made a lot of difference, but this one does.”
“Yep. That new roof makes it pretty snug inside. Not having to go outside for the privy is a lot less miserable now, too. It’s not fancy, but having it connected to the house is easier. I think, if it’s all right with you, that next fall I’ll build a passageway to the storehouse so that it’s easier to get to and has shelter.”
“Do what you want. That little wife of yours is pretty as a picture but she looks as if a twister would blow her away.”
“A twister would blow most of us away, Jim. I hope that after this winter, we don’t have a wild spring and summer. I’d like weather to settle down and get the madness over with.” Jack didn’t want to get entangled in a personal conversation about Etta and his ploy worked, bringing Big Jim back to the subject of the winter that was devastating the ranches and their cattle.
Just a few days ago, his life had seemed like it was heading out on a road he knew. He’d get married and settle down to a family; he’d save up his money so that he could buy a herd and a ranch. Now, nothing was certain. His wife was bearing the child of another man, but she wouldn’t tell him what had happened and in the meantime, he and Etta were sleeping in a bed as if they were lodgers sharing a hotel room. The drought summer and the snow-killing winter made ranching look like a mighty risky venture for someone who wanted to make his own way in the world in the business.
He didn’t feel much like talking that night at supper. Etta served the food that Lizzie had sent with them after the wedding and he ate without tasting what was on his plate. Several times, she attempted to start a conversation but his answers were short and after a time, she stopped trying. The house which had been so cozy last night when they were singing songs felt as if the outside cold had permeated the walls.
“I’m tired,” he said, pushing away his plate. “Reckon I’ll turn in early.”
“Good night,” she said softly as he left the table.
It was no lie that he was tired; the hard winter cold seemed to settle into his bones, making him feel as if he’d worked a week in one day. Cattle ranching wasn’t meant to be an easy life but there had never been a year like this, when it seemed to drain the youth and spirit from a man. All those dead, frozen cattle . . .
It was several hours later when he heard the door open and Etta entered the room. He feigned sleep, but as he heard the sound of her dress falling to the floor, followed by the soft whisper of the folds of her nightgown as she readied herself for bed, he felt his body tighten against the swell of desire that gripped him.
The mattress shifted as she got under the covers. Her presence seemed to occupy more space than her diminutive body actually took up in the bed. If they were truly married, he’d have turned over and reached for her and she’d have been willing. Instead, the distance between them was as much a barrier as if there were a wall separating them.
It was still dark when he arose the next morning. He wasn’t hungry and didn’t want company for breakfast so he left without eating, without even making coffee. Snow had fallen overnight, a thick layer of white that covered the ground and the walkways. Jack’s long legs had no trouble stepping through it and his boots kept his feet dry. Since Etta wasn’t going to be heading out anywhere, he’d leave the shoveling until he returned for lunch.
More cattle trapped and frozen by the snow. Doyle Blake had packed up his saddle and left; speculation was that he left before he was the first one to be let go since he had been the last one hired. How many of the cowboys would be left by spring, Jack wondered. And what would happen to the ones who decided to leave? Cowboys without work sometimes turned to rustling; it was a bad end but a man didn’t always measure the consequences when his pockets were empty and all he had to his name were a horse, a saddle and a gun.
He’d been young once, maybe just as reckless. Now he was settled, more or less, and he wasn’t leaving until Big Jim said he didn’t need him anymore. It would have been easier if his only woes were the weather and what it meant for his livelihood. But he had Etta. There’d be a child, not that there were signs of it yet, although he had no way of knowing; he’d never seen her except covered.
Jack cracked the ice covering the creek so that the cattle who were standing at the edge could drink. He went down the length of the stream, slamming his pick into the shelf of ice until it broke apart. The cattle moved slowly to the water, numb with cold and almost to the point where they didn’t care if they were thirsty or not. When it got this cold, it was too much effort to try to be warm. Living took energy and when that energy was sapped, life didn’t seem worth the bother.
He couldn’t sleep in the same bed with her any more. He’d sleep in the parlor. Desire had gripped him so forcefully last night that it had taken all his willpower not to turn around and touch her. That, he knew, he could not do. Whatever had happened in Oklahoma hadn’t left her, and it wasn’t just the baby that had been left inside her. She had memories, dark ones, he could tell. He didn’t know what they were and she didn’t seem willing to tell him. But he wasn’t going to add to them.
Chapter Six
Jack headed back to the cabin for lunch. He noticed that a pathway had been shoveled from the door and his first reaction was anger. She shouldn’t have done that; he’d have seen to it when he got back. He hadn’t done so because he hadn’t expected her to venture outside.
He entered the cabin and was instantly enveloped in the aroma of something cooking. Etta was at the fireplace, stirring a pot with smooth, measured strokes. She smiled at him.
He didn’t smile back. “You shouldn’t be shoveling,” he said.
Her smile faded. “I fed the chickens and brought in the eggs.”
“It would have waited for me.”
“I was here and you were gone and it’s no more than I’m used to doing,” she said.
“You could hurt yourself.”
“You mean I could hurt the baby,” she retorted. “I told you that I won’t be a burden to you. I’m grateful to you for marrying me and I’m going to hold up my end of the bargain.”
“Marriage isn’t a bargain, Etta! I’m not asking you to do yourself or that baby harm as part of it!”
They stood there, glowering at each other. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the fire and the light in her dark eyes shone with the reflection of the flames. But there was no denying that she was in a temper.
“I’m doing what a wife should do,” she answered him. “I’ve made stew for lunch; I thought you would be hungry. I’ve heated the biscuits. I’m minded to be a proper wife to you.”
Except in one thing, he thought, knowing that his unspoken response was plain.
“Don’t be shoveling,” he said curtly. “I’ll finish it now.”
He went outside and shoveled the rest of the path at an ambitious rate. If the snow kept up, he reckoned humorlessly that he’d be able to shovel out all of Texas just from sheer frustration. What was wrong with him, desiring a woman who, for all that they were married, had been the possession of another man? He wasn’t some green lad, boiling with sap. He was thirty years old and he knew right from wrong, and right wasn’t lying with a woman who was carrying a child from another man.
He went back inside when he had finished shoveling, took up a handful of biscuits and said he had to get back to work. “No more shoveling, mind,” he said as he shut the door.
When he was gone, Etta sat down at the table where the bowls were set, waiting to be filled. She had hoped that he would enjoy her cooking so that their marriage could have some semblance of propriety. She wanted to be a good wife. She wanted to love and respect her husband. Jack Carruthers was a man she would find it easy to respect. He was considerate and hardworking; she had seen the evidence of his preparation for marriage in the way he’d stocked supplies for winter. The mirror in the bedroom hadn’t been for his benefit, she knew; it was a gesture that some men would have thought foolish, buying a mirror to suit a woman’s vanity. She’d looked in the mirror when she was alone in the cabin, reassured that there was still no visible sign of the baby within her.
But the memory of that night back in Oklahoma was still too raw in her mind for her to think of intimacy with any man, even if she was a married woman now. She realized that Jack wanted to know the truth about her pregnancy but she could not speak of it; she wouldn’t even let herself think about what had taken place on that terrible night when her innocence had been wrested from her and she had nowhere to turn for help or protection. How would Jack react if she told him the truth? Would he blame her? Would he think that she should have been smarter? That she should have protected herself better? He would have no way of knowing what it was like to be an orphan and alone, nothing but a burden to those around her who had their own household to maintain without the added expense of a girl who, no matter how hard she worked, was always reminded that she was taking food from the mouths of others.
For so long, she longed to have a house of her own where she would be the one who fed others, and she would do so joyfully, eager to share, not begrudging people their bread. When she read the advertisement seeking a mail-order bride, she wasted no time in responding, even though she had to send her letter in secret and receive the answer covertly. Her hopes of a new beginning had been shattered when she realized that she was leaving Oklahoma, not to start a new life, but to carry the remnant of the old life with her all the way to Texas.
Clearing away the dead, frozen cattle was a grim task and even the most jocular of the cowboys kept silent as they all worked in the cold. How much longer Big Jim could keep all his hands when it was apparent that, after the summer drought, this killing winter would reduce his profits drastically was something that Jack didn’t want to think about. He had his savings, and as the trail boss, he’d be kept on after the others. But it was a sorrowful prospect.
By the time the workday was finished, he’d had time to take account of his temper and he realized that he was to blame for the argument with Etta. She’d done her part and more and he’d shown her no kindness.
He headed back to the cabin intent on making up for his harsh words, but when he went inside, the kitchen was empty. The bowls were still on the table where they’d been at lunchtime but the fire had gone out.
“Etta!” he called out.
Then he noticed that there were drops of blood on the floor. “Etta!” he cried with urgency in his voice.
He ran to the bedroom. Etta was in bed, lost in the mountain of blankets that covered her. She looked more like a child than ever.
“Etta, what’s the matter?”
Her face was terribly pale, the creamy skin drained of all liveliness. The dark smudges beneath her eyes were deeper and ominous looking.
“Etta, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have been so cross. What’s the matter?”
“The baby . . . “
“I’ll get Lizzie, she’ll know what to do.”
“There’s nothing anyone can do,” she said in a voice absent of intonation, too tired to express emotion. “I’ve lost the baby.”
“How—are you sure—what happened?” This was a world he didn’t know, the world of women and babies. She’d come here because she wanted a husband and whatever had happened before she arrived, Jack didn’t want her to suffer.
“It’s . . . there was pain and blood and I knew . . .I came to bed, but it was no use . . . I’ve stained the sheets, I’ll wash them.”
“Etta,” he pleased, climbing onto the bed and taking her into his arms. “The sheets don’t matter. You’re what matters.”
Tears glittered in her eyes. “I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. All my life I’ve been a burden, but I thought that here, I’d be a wife that you could lean on, as I would lean on you.”
“Who said you were a burden? Shhhhh, you can tell me later; please don’t cry. You’re not a burden. I shouldn’t have scolded you for shoveling the snow; I just don’t want to see you doing my work. If I’d shoveled this morning, maybe you wouldn’t be—maybe this wouldn’t be happening. Etta, please be all right. I need to get Lizzie.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“I’ll get someone from the ranch house to stay with you while I’m gone.”
“No, please, I don’t want anyone, I only want you.”