Kate Wingo - Western Fire 01 (31 page)

“That makes three of us,” a voice chimed from the doorway.

Turning her head, Mercy caught sight of Prudence standing near the threshold. With an extended arm, she gestured to her sister, inviting her to join them.

“I take it you
that overheard what I told Mama?”

Pru nodded. “This means that Dewey and I will be the baby’s aunt and uncle, doesn’t it?”

Amused by the way that her sister had linked herself to Dewey McCabe, Mercy couldn’t help but chuckle. “Don’t forget about Ginny and Benjamin. They, too, will become an aunt and uncle.”

Though Mercy had not intended it
to happen, at the mention of her eldest brother, their smiles instantly faded. Each of them was painfully aware that Benjamin was far from home, fighting on the Virginia front.

Seeing the forlorn expression on her mother’s face, Mercy inwardly kicked herself for having brought up Benjamin’s name
. Her eldest brother had always held a special place in his mother’s heart. Widowed when she was a young woman, Temperance Strong Hibbert had always been grateful for the fact that her second husband had welcomed Benjamin into his family with open arms.

“I
must immediately write to Benjamin and tell him what’s happened,” Mercy said, hoping to break the sad silence.

“It’s a shame that Ben isn’t here to give you away,” Pru opined. “I’m sure
that he’d be only too happy to do the honors.”

A frown knitted its way onto Mercy’s brow.
Goodness only knows what Benjamin will think once he learns that I’ve wedded a Missouri bushwhacker.

Chasing the unpleasant thought from her mind, Mercy forced a smile onto her lips. “
If you will excuse me, I need to freshen up before Reverend Witherspoon arrives. The wedding is scheduled for twelve noon, and I wouldn’t want to keep the good Reverend waiting.”

“What
about Spencer?” Pru inquired.

“
Of course, I . . . I wouldn’t want to keep him waiting either,” Mercy assured her sister, not yet reconciled to the fact that she would soon become
Mrs
. Spencer McCabe.

With a parting smile, Mercy made her way to her room. En route, she hesitantly tested the new name aloud.

“Mrs. Spencer McCabe.”

To her surprise, it had a certain inviting ring to it.

A few minutes before the mantle clock struck the noon hour, the bride-to-be entered the parlor.

“You sure do look pretty,” Pru said
as Mercy stepped across the threshold.

“Thank you,” Mercy replied, touched by her sister’s compliment. Admittedly, she felt ill-
garbed for a wedding ceremony, outfitted as she was in one of Lydia’s black mourning gowns. Although the paisley shawl she wore around her shoulders – also on loan from Lydia – helped to lessen the severity of the stark black dress.

“Yes, siree. Nothing like a wedding to put folks in a state of high spirits,” Ginny McCabe loudly exclaimed, her face ani
mated with a wide-mouthed grin.

Not certain whether she was expected to reply to Ginny’s remark, Mercy pasted a polite smile on
to her face. Before entering the parlor, she’d succumbed to a severe attack of nervous jitters, her condition worsening with each passing second.

While the room was crowded with McCabes and Hibberts, Mercy’s gaze immediately settled on the hawk-nosed man who stood by the front window, a
Bible tucked under his arm.

“Mercy, I’d like you to meet our pastor, the Reverend Jackson Witherspoon,” Lydia said, introducing her to the man who would be officiating the ceremony.

“Miss Hibbert.” The Reverend Witherspoon acknowledged the introduction with a curt nod of the head. Then, to Mercy’s singular embarrassment, the man pointedly glanced at her mid-section.

And he wasn’t the only one.
Dewey and Ginny also stared unabashedly at her taffeta-swathed belly as though expecting a full-grown baby to pop out at any moment.

Dear God in heaven. How am I
supposed to get through this day with my dignity in tact?

Earlier, while dressing for the ceremony, Mercy happened to glance out her bedroom window,
horrified to observe Prudence excitedly whispering something into Dewey’s ear. Dewey, in turn, had run across the front lawn shouting his sister’s name. Mercy could only surmise that every member of the McCabe clan had been duly apprised that she was pregnant with Spencer’s child.

Did these people
– and she included her sister in that group – have no shame?

When, a few minutes later, t
he mantle clock struck the noon hour, an expectant hush fell over the wedding party. As the clock continued to chime, every head in the room anxiously turned to-and-fro, everyone acutely aware of the fact that the prospective groom had yet to put in an appearance.

Ginny McCabe stormed over to the nearest window.
“Just where in the blue blazes is Spencer?” she muttered in her typically irreverent fashion.

“I’m sure
that he’ll be along any minute,” Pru declared in a strident tone of voice, quick to come to Spencer’s defense. Temperance, standing beside her youngest daughter, nodded in agreement.

Clasping her hands at her waist, Lydia said,
“Unlike his brother James, Spencer has never been one for punctuality.”

Sparing Lydia a sideways
glance, Mercy could see that beneath her magnolia-white skin there lurked a displeased glower.

“You don’t th
ink he got cold feet, do you?”

Dewey McCabe’s innocent query met with
an onslaught of silent reproach from every female present.

Mortified, Mercy
endeavored to maintain a calm facade. As best she could recall, she’d not seen Spencer since breakfast. At that time, he’d made no mention of his plans for the morning. In fact, once the wedding announcement had been made, she couldn’t recollect that Spencer had said much of anything. Although given their heated quarrel the night before, his sullen behavior was not wholly unexpected.

So, where in the blue blazes
is he?

Lydia, unflappable as always, politely asked everyone to be seated
.

Shortly thereafter, h
aving exhausted their repertoire of small talk, an awkward silence descended on the room, each passing second punctuated by the steady
tick-tock
of the mantle clock. That, in turn, made everyone in the assembled wedding party even more acutely aware of the groom’s absence.

As she glanced around the room, Mercy noticed
that there were more than a few beaded brows. She was not alone in the observation. Acting on the whispered command of her mother, little Dixie picked up an ornately carved wooden box from which she removed a stack of palmetto fans. Oblivious to the disquiet that permeated the room, the child blithely skipped from adult to adult, handing each of them a fan along with a dimpled curtsy.

Several
more minutes passed, the only noise in the room being the soft
swish
of half a dozen palmetto fans.

“It is unseasonably warm for early April, don’t you agree, Reverend Witherspoon?”

Lydia’s polite question went unanswered. Mercy assumed that the minister’s aloof silence was on account of the fact that he’d already discussed this topic, and was disinclined to discuss it yet again. That, or he did not approve of the way in which the McCabe clan hosted a wedding ceremony.

“How about we eat dinner while we’re waiting?” Ginny suggested, craning her neck as she glanced into the dining room. “
There’s no sense letting all that food get cold just because Spencer can’t tell time.”

“We shall eat
after
the ceremony,” Lydia tersely informed her sister-in-law.

Once again,
a tense hush fell over the room.

Several minutes into the
funerary silence, Dewey loudly sighed just before he began to impatiently drum his fingers against the arm of his chair. Lydia, the limits of her ladylike poise having been sorely tested, reprimanded him with a chastising glance.

Dewey’s spine immediately straightened against the back of the chair. “Why are you looking at me like that?
” he asked petulantly. When he didn’t receive a reply, he glanced at Pru who pointedly nodded in Mercy’s direction.

Twisting
in her chair, Ginny crossed then uncrossed her legs. “Now I know what folks mean when they talk about being on pins and needles.” To emphasize the point, she glared at the mantle clock.

Ginny’s
remark then caused Reverend Witherspoon to pluck a gold watch from his vest pocket. Verifying that the mantle clock was, indeed, correct, he re-pocketed the watch with a disgruntled snort.

Pru
dence, so resolute in her earlier conviction that Spencer would be arriving ‘at any minute,’ forlornly slumped against the upholstered settee. Given that even Pru’s faith in Spencer had clearly faltered, Mercy’s apprehension began to crystallize into a damning certitude.

Perhaps it was her misgivings about marrying a man who did not love her. Perhaps it was because she was garbed in a gown of mourning rather than one of virginal white. Whatever the reason, since early morn
, she’d been seized with an ominous sense of foreboding.

And now she knew the reason why.

When the mantle clock struck the new hour, Mercy rose from her chair. Every head in the room immediately swung in her direction.

“Clearly, Spencer has changed his mind about getting married.”

With that said, Mercy turned to leave the room.

Ignoring the shocked
faces of everyone assembled, Mercy put one foot in front of the other, determined to exit the parlor as quickly as possible.

“Are you saying
that there isn’t going to be a wedding?”

Mercy stopped in her tracks, slowly turning to face Ginny McCabe. In an almost comical pose, the younger woman stood with her arms akimbo and her mouth agape.

“I’m certain that Reverend Witherspoon can attest to the fact that it’s impossible to hold a marriage ceremony without the groom being present.”

“Damn Spencer, anyway!”

Upon hearing Ginny’s blasphemous declaration, more than one woman gasped.

“Virginia Rose, how dare you use such language in this house,” Lydia reprimanded.

“And how dare that snake in the grass brother of mine leave a pregnant woman high and dry. Believe you me, when I get hold of him, it’ll be the last child he ever fathers!”

Mercy blanched at Ginny’s indelicate outcry.
Unable to look anyone in the eye, she hung her head, inundated with shame. If Spencer didn’t want to marry her, why didn’t he just come out and say so? Why put her through this humiliating ordeal?

Out of the corner of her eye, Mercy saw Ginny
suddenly lean over and frantically whisper something to Dewey. When the young man looked at his sister askance, she balled her fist and punched him in the arm. A few seconds later, she grabbed her brother by the shirt collar and yanked him out of his chair. Several heated glances passed between the two siblings before Dewey took a tentative step in Mercy’s direction.

“Mercy, I’ll, um. . . .” The adolescent’s Adam’s apple nervously bobbed as he cleared his throat. “I’ll marry you.”

At hearing that, Prudence let out a baleful wail.

Flabbergasted, Mercy stared at the youth
. Wondering if she heard correctly, she said, “I beg your pardon, Dewey. What did you say?”

Tongue-tied,
Dewey turned to his sister, his face and ears stained a deep shade of crimson red. Ginny, her mouth set in a grim line, nodded brusquely, silently urging her brother to answer the question.

“I said
that I’ll marry you. What Spence did isn’t right. He shamed our whole family and . . . well, it’s just not right,” Dewey reiterated.

I
ncredulity could not even begin to describe Mercy’s reaction to Dewey McCabe’s impromptu proposal. Her own shame momentarily shelved, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. As she peered around the room, she took silent note of each person’s facial expression.
Pity. Anger. Disbelief.
Each face bespoke a different, yet equally valid reaction to the day’s events. Each face told of a—

Suddenly realizing that there was one face missing,
Mercy pushed her way past Reverend Witherspoon. Poking her head through the open doorway, she loudly called Gabriel’s name. When she received no response, she turned and faced the derailed wedding party.

“Has anyone seen Gabriel?” she inquired
. As best she could recall, it had been several hours since she’d last set eyes on the boy.

“I shooed him out of the kitchen earlier this morning,” Lydia said. “But that was hours ago.”

Hearing that, Mercy’s mind raced from one jumbled thought to the next.

No Gabriel. No Spencer. What could possibly have happened to them?

Fearful that some calamity had befallen the missing pair, she turned to Prudence and said, “When did you last see Gabriel?”

“Well, I
can’t say for—”

“Think, Prudence, think!”

“Right after breakfast I laid out clean clothes for him.” Pru bit down her lower lip, clearly distressed that she couldn’t be more helpful.

“I’ll go see if he’s in his room,” Dewey volunteered, exiting the parlor before anyone could object.
Mercy suspected that the young man’s hasty departure was spurred by a fear that he might yet get hoodwinked into matrimony.

After instructing Pru to stay with their mother, Mercy
hurried out to the front hall, Lydia and Ginny close on her heels.

“He’s not here!” Dewey called from the top of the stairs.

“Are you certain?”

Dewey leaned over the upstairs banister
. Nodding grimly, he said, “The clothes that Pru laid out for him are still on the bed.”

Mercy turned to
ward Lydia. “Wh-where are they?” she asked, barely able to get the words past the tight knot in her throat.

“Quite honestly, I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”
Motioning for Dewey to come back downstairs, Lydia said to him, “I want you to ride into town and look for Spencer.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And make sure that you search the saloon,” Ginny ordered as Dewey charged down the stairs and headed for the front door. “I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that Spence is nursing his cold feet with a tankard of corn whiskey.”

Mercy’s eyes widened. Of all the fearful
speculations that had crossed her mind in the last hour,
that
scenario had not occurred to her. “But I’ve never known Spencer to be a drunkard.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be the first man to tie one on before tying the knot,” Ginny
retorted, her face still flushed with heated anger.

Overwhelmed, Mercy reached for the carved newel post at the foot of the stairs
. Suddenly lightheaded, she was afraid that if she let go, she might very well collapse onto the floor. Since rising at early dawn, the day had unraveled like a disconnected dream.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured, trying to make sense of it all. “First Spencer disappears
; and now Gabriel.”

Lydia, her
face a mask of Madonna-like composure, said, “There’s no need for you to worry about Spencer. He’s a grown man who’s more than capable of fending for himself. As for Gabriel, I suspect that he snatched a drumstick and a handful of biscuits, and is now off somewhere feasting like a lord.”

Although Lydia appeared calm, Mercy intuited that the other woman was
also deeply concerned by this latest turn of events.

“I’m going to look for Gabriel,” Mercy informed the other two women, determined to uncover the boy’s whereabouts.

Lydia put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Your place is with your family. I’ll search for young Gabriel.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ginny offered.
About to follow her sister-in-law out the front door, Ginny turned to Mercy and said, “Don’t you fret none. We’re gonna find Gabriel. And you tell that preacher to sit tight. There’s gonna be a wedding today, come hell or high water.”

Hearing that,
Mercy inwardly groaned. Clearly, Ginny still labored under the delusion that Spencer would be putting in an appearance.

Stepping
into the parlor, Mercy peered at her mother and sister. Although touched by their expressions of love and concern, she was also deeply embarrassed to be the recipient of their worried glances. At a loss for words, Mercy seated herself on the settee.

This was to have been my wedding day,
she ruminated sadly. A day that was, for most women, the happiest in their life. And though Spencer had seemed anything but happy about their upcoming nuptials, he was the one who had insisted that the wedding be held as soon as possible. Which made his absence all the more puzzling. If he was having second thoughts, why humiliate all of them, Hibberts and McCabes alike, in the bargain?

Lost in thought, Mercy belatedly realized that
the Reverend Witherspoon was openly staring at her, a dark scowl etched onto his face. Taken aback by his silent condemnation, she hurriedly rose to her feet.

“I
am, er, in need of some fresh air.” As she spoke, Mercy pulled the paisley shawl across her midsection. “Please excuse me.”

W
ithout so much as a backward glance, Mercy headed for the kitchen. From there, she exited the house through the back door. Although she feared that she was embarking on a wild goose chase, she nonetheless hurried toward the small shed that was adjacent to the house.

Opening the shed door, she rummaged through the various garden tools neatly hung on wooden pegs.
Yesterday she had seen Gabriel and Dixie place two fishing rods in the shed. To her surprise, one of the fishing poles was now missing.

Surely, the child
hasn’t gone fishing, today of all days?

Because
Gabriel was a bright, obedient boy, Mercy was at a loss to understand why he hadn’t apprised anyone of his plans to go fishing.

Snatching hold of her voluminous black skirts,
Mercy strode across the farmyard. She then headed for the stream that meandered along the back edge of the McCabe apple orchard. Leafed out in new foliage, the apple trees were covered in tight, pink buds. It was the first week of April, the glories of spring just around the corner. Soon the orchard would be in full bloom.

As she began her descent down the gently sloped hill
that led to the stream, Mercy came across a small graveyard enclosed in white pickets. Without being told, she knew that Spencer’s slain family members rested in that well-tended, peaceful plot. Slowly, her gaze traveled from tombstone to tombstone. Although Spencer had failed to mention the tragedy to her, she knew that on one fateful night, eight years ago, half of his family was felled by Kansas jayhawkers.

As she
stepped away from the McCabe burial plot, Mercy spied Gabriel no more than a hundred yards away. Seated on the bank of the stream, he had a fishing pole clutched in his hand. Upon catching sight of him, Mercy released a gusty sigh of relief.

Lifting her skirts
several inches, she ran the rest of the way down the hill.

“Gabriel, what on earth are you doing here?” she breathlessly exclaimed
a few moments later, too relieved to be angry. Later she would counsel him on the errors of his ways. For now, she was simply happy to have found Gabriel, safe and sound.

The boy’s dark brown eyes widened as he nervously licked his lips. Raising an arm, he pointed
toward a stand of towering pine trees.

“He said it was all right.”

Mercy turned her head, surprised to see Spencer astride his horse no more than twenty feet from them, man and beast hidden by the low hanging limbs of an old evergreen.

“Spencer!
What in heaven’s name are you doing here?”

“Go back to the house.”

Mercy recoiled, Spencer’s terse command like a verbal slap to the face.

How dare
he order me about in so high-handed a manner!

Incensed,
Mercy charged toward him. The fiend humiliated her and her family, not to mention his own family, by abandoning her at the altar. She was not in the mood to be trifled with.

Coming to a halt a few feet from
Spencer’s reined horse, she glared at him, her fists clenched at her sides. For the first time in her life, Mercy wished that she was a man so that she could give Spencer McCabe the thrashing he so richly deserved.

“Get down from that horse
this instant! I want to speak to you.”

Wordlessly staring at her, Spencer’s
whiskey-colored eyes momentarily gleamed with some unnamed emotion. Had circumstances been different, Mercy might be inclined to think that she’d just caught a glimmer of admiration in his eyes. But, of course, that was as far-fetched as believing that he intended to marry her.

Spencer grasped the wooden pummel and leaned forward in the saddle, the well-worn leather creaking beneath his weight. “I don’t have time to explain. Just do as I say and return to the house.”

Ready to give Spencer a thorough tongue-lashing, Mercy opened her mouth to speak. Only to clamp her jaw shut in the next instant, the heated words dying a swift death.

If the man didn’t
wish to marry her, so be it. And if he insisted on hiding out until the preacher left, that was his prerogative. But she refused to let him rob her of her dignity.

“I shall take Gabriel back to the house with me,”
Mercy informed him before spinning on her heel.

Mercy had
only taken a few steps when she suddenly heard the metallic
click
of a gun being cocked and primed. Turning around, her breath caught in her throat, horrified to find herself on the receiving end of Spencer’s revolver.

“The boy stays.”

Although Spencer made no move to pull the trigger, it didn’t much matter. The damage had been done.

“
I’m not telling you again, Mercy. Go back to the house.
Now!
”

Mercy stood rooted in place, refusing to comply with his brutish demands. “
Given all that has transpired today, surely I am entitled to the courtesy of an explanation.”

Evidently thinking that she
wasn’t entitled, Spencer stared at her in stony silence.