For a second Cassie felt sorry for Wade. Wade had grown up weak because his will had been broken by his father.
Cassie knew in that instant that Mort might respect Red and leave him alone, because Mort was the kind of man who would face anyone head-on. But Wade would turn to deviousness—like poisoning a water hole or manhandling a woman or shooting someone in the back. Mort couldn’t promise anything for Wade and Cassie knew it. She hoped Red did, too.
“It’s over, Red.” Mort turned to Wade. “You hear that, boy? There’ll be no feudin’ with the Dawsons. You stay off his land and keep away from the china doll. She ain’t for you. Not anymore.”
“I hear you, old man.” Wade sneered and started for the door. “I hear you bawlin’ ’cuz you’re afraid of the preacher here.”
Mort snapped at his son. “Remember what I said, Wade. It’s over.”
Wade jerked the door open and left the store, slamming the door much as he had the Sunday before.
Mort turned to the gathering of people around him, and stepping past them like they were stray dogs beneath his notice, he went up to Seth. “I’ll be back for my order in an hour, Bates. Have it ready.” Mort thrust a piece of paper at Seth and left the building.
The second he left, Cassie rushed to Red’s side. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to start all that. I didn’t mean to be so bad-mannered. I’m the cause of—”
Red leaned down and kissed her. He didn’t kiss her for long, but she quit talking to try and catch up with the kissing. He pulled away and said flatly, “Don’t go anywhere alone, Cassie.” He looked up and said to Seth, “You see she minds me, Seth. You have to watch her every second. She’s a wily little thing.”
Several people laughed, and some of the tension in the room fell away.
Red looked back at her. “And don’t you dare take the blame for Mort and Wade Sawyer. There’s not another man in this place, maybe in the whole
territory,
who would grab you like that even if you spit on him and told him his lacy pantaloons were showing under his skirts. Why, most of us would thank you for the insult and keep the spit for a memento of having a moment of your attention.”
Several men surrounded them and they all added their agreement to Red’s statement.
One of them said, “I’d be much obliged for you to spit on me, ma’am,” and the crowd laughed.
“No decent man hurts a woman, Cass.” The way Red was looking at her, she knew he was talking about Wade, but he was thinking of Griff, too. And these crude, uncivilized men who had always been beneath Griff ’s notice felt the same way. There was silence between her and Red for a second until she nodded slightly.
Red rubbed her arms as he did sometimes, as if she were chilled and he wanted to warm her. “The Sawyers were pestering the people around here long before you or I came, and a sweet little thing like you can’t make ’em better and you can’t make ’em worse, so don’t bother to try.”
Red’s tone lightened and his smile took on a teasing quality. “Anyway, even if it’s all your fault, it doesn’t make any difference.”
“Why not?” Cassie asked suspiciously.
Red leaned so close his lips brushed against her ear. “ ’Cuz, I knew when I married you, you were gonna be trouble.”
Cassie pulled away slightly, trying to conceal her hurt.
Red caught her chin with two fingers and leaned in close and spoke so nobody could hear. “Now’s when you’re supposed to say, ‘Red, you low-down, worthless excuse for a man, I’m not trouble. You are. And if I am any trouble, I’m worth every minute of it.’”
Cassie could feel her cheeks turning pink at the very thought of speaking so to her husband. She whispered something completely different than what he’d ordered her to say. “Red, I think you’re about the finest excuse for a man I’ve ever known.”
Red’s eyes looked deep into hers. For a long moment Cassie felt joined to another human being in a way she never before had. Then he seemed to remember himself because he shook his head a little. “You are one disobedient woman. All this niceness is a big disappointment to a man who likes sass.”
“I promise I’ll try to be meaner,” Cassie said demurely.
Red laughed and tapped her on the tip of her nose. “You do that.”
Cassie had a sobering thought. “Mort can’t control him, Red,” she warned softly.
“I know. But I had to give him a chance to try. I’ve never killed a man, and I never want to. I don’t want it to come to that. It’s about more than wanting something like that on my conscience. I don’t think it’s too judgmental of me to suspect that if Wade died now, he’d never make it to the Pearly gates. In some ways it would be better for
me
to die than him because of what he’s facing in the afterlife. I don’t know if I’d have the courage to die to save the life of a man like Wade Sawyer, but it would be the right thing to do, I reckon. But I have you and the babe to consider. I have to protect the two of you. Maybe Mort can do something. Maybe he’ll send him to Denver like you said.”
“Oh, but the poor woman who’ll end up married to him.”
Red smiled. “Maybe he’ll marry someone like Belle Tanner. She could handle him.”
Cassie arched both brows. Belle
could
handle Wade. “But Belle’s already married.”
“True, but her husbands don’t seem to be permanent, exactly.” Red looked out the door as if seriously considering introducing Wade to Belle. Then he shrugged. “Let’s don’t worry about the imaginary woman he marries now. I’ve got food to deliver and the windows to wash at Grant’s and a few more things to do before I can quit for the day.”
“I wish I could help you with the food, Red.”
Muriel interrupted. “I can’t spare you, Cassie. Red’s gonna have to do it alone.”
A look passed between Muriel and Red, and Cassie knew Muriel had special instructions to not let Cassie overdo. Cassie’s heart warmed to think people were taking care of her.
Red headed to the back of the store, and, to Cassie’s surprise, a dozen men who had gathered to get supplies while Mort and Wade made their fuss filed past her, each tipping his hat. They followed Red back and each hefted an armload of the goods that were sitting there, gathered to fill Libby’s order. Cassie hurried to the hallway to watch and saw the men follow Red across the street.
Red was ahead and didn’t notice them until he was opening Libby’s door. He turned enough to see he was leading a parade, and he started laughing. Cassie smiled to see Red’s shining white teeth and generous smile. Then, although he had two fifty-pound bags of flour on his shoulder, he held the door for the whole long line of men.
The men filed straight back out and came to be waited on at the store. Cassie made sure to thank each of them personally and did her best to call each by name.
Mort knocked Wade into the wall. His head cracked against the rough native stones of the fireplace in the huge Sawyer dining room and he sank, stunned, to his knees.
His father drew back his fist. “I’m not telling you again, boy!”
That huge club of a hand hammered Wade’s jaw. Wade flew sideways, landing with a
thud,
stretched out flat on his belly. His head reeled.
“You leave that woman alone!” Mort’s boot slugged Wade’s chest, flipping Wade to his back. “I’m sick of you sniffing around her!”
Another kick made the room go dark. Wade struggled to remain conscious. Through blurred eyes he saw a smear on the floor where blood dripped from his nose.
He was a man. Eighteen just last summer. Wade lay there and wished his father dead. He hated himself for not having the guts to kill him.
He struggled for air. In his muddled brain he heard the china doll cry for help. She’d been done wrong, too. Wade had seen the marks Griff left on her porcelain white skin. Now Dawson had her. Wade’s head spun and he clearly saw Dawson raising his fist to poor Cassie. She’d told Wade to go to Denver. Now he heard the real meaning.
Go to Denver and take me with you.
“Get up! Stand up here and take it like a man!” Mort taunted.
Wade didn’t move. He knew his father in a mood like this, and only abject submission would make him stop.
Wade swore it was the last time.
“You’re a little coward. How’d a man like me raise such a weakling?” Mort leaned down and grabbed the front of Wade’s shirt and lifted him until his feet dangled above the ground. “The hands laugh at you to your face.”
Mort threw Wade against a table. He crashed to the floor. A broken pitcher slashed his skin.
“They sneer at you right in front of me and I can’t even call them on it because they’re right.” Mort kicked him in the stomach. “I’m ashamed to call you my son.”
Wade coughed and spit up blood. He didn’t move. His vision blurred and the blood seemed to be doubled and tripled. He lay there, trampled into the floor like dirt and knew every word his father said was the sheer truth.
He was weak. He didn’t have the nerve to pull his gun. If he could kill a man, his father would respect him. Maybe even fear him. And maybe, if Wade ever found the backbone to use his weapon, his father
should
fear him.
Mort finished his tirade and stormed out, slamming doors. Wade laid there, a whipped pup.
The cowhands, when Wade had been knocked down by Tom Linscott, had called him a pup.
Gertie, their housekeeper from the time Wade’s mother had died, came in as soon as the door slammed and sank to her knees beside Wade. She already had a wet towel to wipe away the blood. “I’m so sorry, Wade. Poor baby,” Gertie crooned as she bathed his face, bathed his face like an infant that had made a mess eating his food.
“Poor baby,”
Gertie called him.
“Ashamed to call you my son,”
his father said.
“A poor excuse for a man.”
That’s what Red had said in front of nearly the whole town.
He couldn’t fight his father or the cowhands, and Gertie meant no harm. And anyway, all he wanted was to get away from them. They had nothing he wanted.
But that wasn’t true of Red Dawson. Red Dawson had Wade’s woman. His china doll. Wade needed to save her from a life like the one Wade lived. She’d asked him today to take her with him and go to Denver.
And there was only one way the china doll would be free to go with Wade.
Red Dawson needed to die.
Cassie kept getting better at the chores, and Red was less afraid she was going to kill herself. Or him.
He let her do more without supervision. As winter closed in around them, Red brought all the cattle down from the rugged high pastures to the grasslands that opened up in front of his home. He’d saved back the lush prairie hay that grew there and let it cure on the stem. It simplified his chores in the bitter cold and kept the cattle fat and contented through the winter.
Red scouted more carefully around his holding than usual and found a dozen spots where Wade had stood for long stretches of time and watched the house. He never caught Wade lurking around and he didn’t see any new tracks—which would have been impossible to hide in the almost daily dusting of snow. Red stayed as close as possible to the cabin, but he made a quick check of his cattle every day and no more water was poisoned.
He kept up his guard until the next Sunday, when on their ride home from the church service, Cassie said, “Muriel saw Wade get on the stage for Denver. He’s gone for the winter, the Sawyer hands all said. Maybe for good.”
Cassie turned to look at Red, holding her on his lap like always. Red had offered to take the buckboard, but it doubled the time it took to reach Divide, and Cassie found it no hardship to be held in Red’s arms. “Muriel said he was so battered she could barely recognize him. He’d taken a terrible beating.”
Red closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. “Mort. I know Mort raises his hand to Wade. I’ve heard talk.” Red’s eyes flickered open. “Can we say a prayer for him, Cass honey? I know he’s a bad man, Wade, but I—I shouldn’t have turned Mort against him that way. That’s my fault. What is wrong with a man that he could do that to his son?”
“Mort’s a strong man, Red.” Cassie rested a hand on her husband’s cheek. She’d made herself some bright red mittens, taught by Muriel, and the yarn earned with her own work. She loved them, but the joy went out of her when she thought of Mort turning those huge hands on his son.
“Everyone thinks of Mort as strong, but he’s not. He’s a weakling.” Red looked angry and troubled.
“No he’s not. How can you say someone with his wealth and power is weak?”
Red leaned down and kissed Cassie on the forehead. “It’s pure weakness to hurt someone smaller than you. It’s a weakness of the mind and the soul. It has no bearing on how strong his back is.”
They rode silently for a moment, then Red looked down at her. “Let’s pray. I know we’re scared of Wade, and I’m glad he’s gone, but it’s right to pray for your enemy. It’s right to bless those who curse you.”
Cassie lifted her shoulders a bit. “Sometimes the Bible doesn’t make much sense.”
Red’s grim expression lifted and he managed a small smile. “That’s when I like it best, honey. When it makes no sense, that’s when it’s telling us something really important.”
Cassie frowned. “Well, that makes no sense either. But I’ll be glad to pray along with you.” It was the least an obedient wife could do.
Despite his compassion for Wade, knowing the man had left the back country was a relief. Red finally began to relax.
Wade had taken Cassie’s hint and left for Denver, or that’s what he told everyone. Truth was, he’d climbed off the stage at the first stop, untied his horse from the back of the stage, bought a pack horse and a winter’s worth of supplies with the money he’d saved up, and rode back to Divide.
He settled in with a spyglass high above the Dawsons’ place. Dawson had increased his vigilance for a while, and Wade had stayed far into the back country. He’d even found a line shack not too many miles from the china doll and set himself up for the winter.
Wade watched carefully and he could tell when Dawson finally relaxed and began staying away from the ranch for longer stretches of time.
The occasional glimpses of the china doll were like drips of water to a man dying of thirst, and the day came when Wade couldn’t stand it anymore. He took a long draw on his whiskey to try and quench that thirst and reached into his pocket to stroke the handkerchief he’d stolen from the Griffin place. He longed for it to be her he touched.
Wade had gotten his hands on the china doll in town for just a few seconds before Dawson had humiliated him. His fingers still burned from that touch. The need to feel her again was a fever in his blood.
She’d never agree to come away with him. The enormity of leaving her husband would stop any respectable woman. He would make the decision for both of them. After awhile she’d thank him.
Often enough he’d watched from a hill near the Griffin place. He knew plenty about how the china doll had suffered under Lester Griffin. Just as Wade had suffered under his father’s brutal hands.
Wade had found a way out. He’d get her out, too. She’d thank him when Dawson was dead.
Wade emptied the flask down his burning throat then switched to drinking straight from the bottle as he waited for Dawson to ride away after the noon meal. He’d be gone for at least an hour. Wade watched the china doll stand at her door, then she turned and seemed to stare right at him. Wade gasped, jerked the spyglass away from his eye, and dropped behind a rock, breathing hard. But then he realized she’d known he was here. She was saying, “Come for me.”
He lifted himself up, looked through his spyglass, and saw she’d gone inside. But he knew it was time.
Wade didn’t hesitate.
“Can I speak with you, Anthony?” Belle had been working up the courage to talk with her husband for quite a while.
It went contrary to everything she knew about husbands to try and speak honestly with the man. But she felt goaded into trying by what she’d seen between Cassie and Red Dawson.
Anthony looked up from where he sat, morose and sulking, under the Husband Tree. “My back hurts, Belle. Don’t start in nagging about chores. That’s all I ever hear—”
“I’m sorry you’ve got a bad back.” Belle swung down from her horse and tied the animal to a low branch of the Husband Tree.
She was pretty sure her bay was standing on top of Gerald.
She sank down onto the cold ground, wondering how Anthony could endure it up here for hours. Surely working would keep him warm.
“I didn’t come up here to nag you.”
Anthony arched his brows in surprise.
Belle didn’t blame him. She’d never gotten this close to him before by choice. Even now she didn’t touch him. She didn’t even consider wanting him to kiss her like that strange Cassie had spoken of.
“Well, what else would you ever have to say to me, Belle?”
Belle looked sideways at him. He was a beautiful man. The curls were out of control on his head and shining black in the cold sunlight. His eyes were a gleaming blackish brown, his nose strong and straight. Belle had seen a picture of a statue chiseled by some ancient Italian artist once, and Anthony, true to his Italian heritage, looked like that carved stone.
David,
that had been the name of the statue. King David from the Bible.
God, why did I marry him? Not because he’s so handsome. Please, dear heavenly Father, don’t let it have been for something so shallow.
After Gerald died and the men had come a-courtin’, she’d balked and said no and done her level best to discourage the stream of suitors. Then one day she’d been tired of it all, worn out from running the men off. And Anthony, who’d been persistent, had come along, and she’d said yes just to make them all stay away. She’d married Anthony because he’d been the first to come along that day.
She rested her hand on her growing baby and knew this child—
please, God, let it be a girl
—would be beautiful. “I came up here because I want us to try and figure out a way to get along.”
Anthony wrinkled his perfect brow. “Since when?”
Belle shrugged. “I’ve never given you much of a chance. I know that. But I quit even pretending to care when I caught you coming out of the Golden Butte stinking of perfume.”
Anthony picked up a stick and began poking at the hard ground. He sat with his knees pulled up to his chest, scowling, refusing to look at her. The very picture of a sulking child. “I told you that was your fault.”
“Yes, you did. And I told you we were done. I meant it. I won’t be with a man if he’s not faithful to me. So we live here, and I do as I please, and I don’t care what you do.”
“So why are you up here?”
Belle sighed. Why indeed? Because of Cassie Dawson wanting advice on how to get her husband to kiss her. Because Red Dawson acted so worried that Belle’s house might be cold in the winter. That visit left Belle with the terrible knowledge she was missing out. She couldn’t be a true wife to Anthony, not when he’d betrayed their vows. But was Anthony right that it had been her fault? She’d only met his manly needs grudgingly and infrequently, she knew that. She didn’t like that part of marriage. Had she driven him to unfaithfulness?
Ultimately it didn’t matter. She’d done what she’d done and Anthony had done what he’d done, and now they were left with the third wreck of a marriage in Belle’s life.
She didn’t trust him for good reason, and she had no intention of starting. But they could be civil. She could try to make their marriage some tiny bit normal. Having him lurk up on the roof or on that hill like a huge bird of prey was unsettling.
“Come on down and join the family. We won’t make you do anything that’ll hurt your back.” Belle had to fight to keep her voice sounding sincere. Anthony’s back had started hurting the day after their wedding and he’d never done a lick of work since. “Maybe you could just talk with us, even ride out with the herd with us.”
“Riding hurts.”
Belle didn’t mention that the man managed to ride hours to the Golden Butte at least once a week. She also knew they were snowed in now. He wouldn’t get out again all winter. She wished fervently he’d have been snowed on the wrong side of the gap.
“Fine, no riding. But Anthony, I’d like a chance to make our marriage better.”
He finally looked up. Something flared in his eyes and he reached for her hand. She flinched away.
Anthony’s hand clenched into a fist. “I thought you said you wanted to make things better.”
“There are other ways things can be better. As far as...” Belle rested her hand on her baby and held his gaze. She was used to looking a man in the eye, and it didn’t come natural to be submissive or act demurely. She only knew how to take charge and speak her mind. And those skills weren’t of interest to most husbands.
“I get it.” Anthony’s hand lifted to rub his head. “The skillet stays beside you.”