Her Silent Burden_Seeing Ranch series Read online

  “A bit.” Thea tilted her head. They stood beneath the front yard’s canopy of cypresses, and the dappled sunlight danced across Emily’s face. “I wish I had a photograph of you.”

  Emily sniffed, tears on their way. “Daniel spoke of having our portrait taken when that photographer man comes through again. He might be here this autumn. We could send one to you.”

  Thea squeezed her arm. “You would do that?”

  “Oh, Thea. I would do anything for you.” Emily’s voice cracked, and she threw her arms around Thea’s neck. “You can still stay.”

  Thea squeezed her eyes tight to stop from crying. “I cannot be a burden. Daniel would tire of me before too long, and as kind as he is, he would never let me know about it.”

  Emily drew away, wiping her eyes.

  “Let’s enjoy our last morning together.” Taking her friend’s hand, Thea walked away from the house.

  She’d been lying to Emily when she said the home’s presence did not haunt her. The one thing that had brought her comfort while living in it—the piano—was now gone. She would never set eyes on that cabin again, and good riddance to it.

  They walked in silence as they made their way to the river, passing the school they had gone to as children and the meeting house where they’d attended their first dance. Each step of land she passed, Thea felt she knew so well it would be impossible to forget.

  For the rest of her life, she was sure, she would be able to close her eyes and see the Spanish moss dripping from the trees and feel the sticky heat against her cheeks and hands. She would be able to hear her siblings playing in the yard near the mill and her mother singing as she worked on the laundry or preparing the next meal.

  “We will see each other again,” Emily said suddenly. They were right at the dip in the road before Thea’s parents’ home. Her home, really. Emily had spoken as if she were more comforting herself than telling Thea anything.

  “We will,” Thea confirmed, turning and embracing her friend once more.

  They stepped apart, and Thea could see in Emily’s face that she was doing her best to be strong.

  “Send me that photograph,” Thea said. “If you can. And I will write you the moment I arrive in Whiteridge, although I am not entirely sure how swiftly mail leaves such a reclusive area.”

  Emily nodded, her chin trembling. “I will pray for you every night.”

  “And I for you.”

  A tear slid down Emily’s cheek. “Everything is fine with me. It is you I worry about.”

  Thea’s stomach twisted. Was it the rough wilderness that worried Emily or the stranger Thea had already promised herself to?

  “I know I will be fine,” Thea said, only half-believing the words. Though she had faith, there was also a great deal of fear present in her heart. But this was the choice she had made, and she would not be backing out.

  “Goodbye, Thea.”

  “Goodbye, Emily,” Thea whispered.

  She stayed where she was as Emily turned and walked back down the road, heading in the direction of her home. Thea wanted to ask her to stay up until the very last minute she climbed into her father’s wagon, but they both knew why Emily had left then. Dragging out their goodbye any longer would only make it hurt more.

  Before she disappeared around the bend, Emily turned back and waved, and Thea vigorously waved back. Emily took a few more steps, and then… she was gone.

  Tears burned Thea’s eyes. She brushed them away, not wishing for her family to see her cry. Drawing her shoulders back, she crested the hill and made her way to the house.

  The wagon had already been pulled up front, the horses waiting with their tails swishing. Bobby came around the side of the house, casting Thea a mournful look. His face was puffy, betraying that he had been crying.

  Little Angela and Tennessee sat in the grass near the front door, playing with their corncob dolls. At three and four, they seemed oblivious to what was going on. Would they even remember Thea once she was gone?

  Again, Thea blinked hard. She knew what she was doing was right. She just needed to continue to remind herself that was the case.

  As she stood there feeling she might perish from sadness, her mother appeared in the doorway, Baby Todd on her hip.

  “Oh, Thea,” she murmured.

  “Ma.” Thea closed the distance between them in one stride. In an instant, she was a small child again, her face buried in her mother’s soft shoulder. Her ma patted Thea’s head and kissed her cheek.

  “You can always come back,” Ma said. “We will be here for you.”

  Thea did not respond to that. Instead, she pulled out half of the money she’d made from selling the piano, cook stove, and her wedding ring. The bills were folded and then tied in a handkerchief, which Thea placed in her mother’s palm.

  Ma felt the weight of the money. “You need this,” she protested.

  “I have some. This is for you and the children.”

  Ma’s lips pursed and her eyes reddened with the strain of unshed tears. “You are a wonderful daughter.”

  Thea lightly touched Ma’s cheek. “And you are the most wonderful mother.”

  A throat cleared behind them causing Thea to turn. Her father stood by the wagon, his face solemn. Bobby stood nearby, leaning on his crutch.

  “We best be going,” Pa said. “You’ll miss the train if we wait any longer.”

  Thea nodded. She embraced her mother once more, kissed the baby, and then made the rounds with each of the other children. All of who had come to hover near their mother after realizing that something serious was going on.

  Ann-Marie, at sixteen, was the oldest next to Thea. The sisters squeezed each other until it hurt, and Thea had to force herself to let go. She had said farewell to all her siblings… save for Bobby.

  “I’m coming out there, too,” Bobby said as Thea approached him. “Soon as I get old enough. I’ll find a job doing whatever. I heard a story about a cowboy who had a bum leg just as bad as mine.”

  Thea smiled. “I believe you, Bobby.” She rested her hand on his shoulder. “And I will see you there.”

  Bobby swallowed hard, pushing back tears. One more hug. Another wave at her family. Then Thea was climbing in the wagon, Pa settling in next to her and taking up the reins.

  She turned around on the bench and watched her childhood home and the people who had loved her all her life shrink away as the wagon bumped and rattled down the road. It took the same turn that Emily had disappeared around, and then the house was gone.

  Her heart sinking into her stomach, Thea faced forward. “Am I doing the right thing, Pa?”

  Silence passed. Thea waited. This was Pa’s way when he was thinking hard about something. She watched his profile as he guided the team, his cheeks tanned and sagging and a frown pulling at his lips. He’d always seemed so young and full of energy, compared to the other fathers she knew.

  Had she imagined that? Or was her leaving making him age before her eyes?

  “Seems to me,” he said, each word dripping out slow and purposeful, “that a person needs to follow their… what do you call it? Intuition.”

  “I think I understand,” Thea prompted.

  Pa turned slightly to her. “Cause that comes from God. Your head...” He tapped his temple. “That’ll tell you all sorts of things. Things you can’t trust. Things you’ve heard. Ideas and schemes you’ll be thinking will pan out when they won’t really. There’s a lot of thoughts running through any person’s head, and it’s hard to know which one to believe. But that intuition, that deep down knowledge… that comes from God. Go with that.”

  Thea sat in stunned silence, the wagon creaking beneath her. She could probably count on one hand the times she’d heard her father say that many words in one sitting.

  She supposed that was a sign that she should listen and take heed.

  “I am afraid,” she said, rolling each word across her tongue as it came out; testing them, making sure she meant them all. “But I stil
l feel that going is the best choice.”

  Pa nodded in satisfaction. “Then do that.” He looked sideways at her. “And I’ll be proud of you no matter where your life takes you.”

  Gratitude filled Thea up, and the tears she’d been working hard to keep at bay all day spilled forth. “Thank you, Pa.”

  Chapter 6

  churning in his gut

  6. Wakefield

  Chapter six

  “It’s too many buttons,” Wakefield complained, undoing the top one.

  “Well now you look rugged,” Noah said. “I suppose the ladies like that.”

  Wakefield scoffed. “Where’d you hear that? You reading those love novels now?”

  “Only for instruction. For, you know, when I meet a gal.” Noah swept some more dirt off the saloon’s front porch.

  “None of them in that paper caught your eye?”

  “Not really.” Noah stopped sweeping, leaned against the broom, and looked over at the general store. The door was flung open, its shopkeep Chandler Mullins hoping for a breeze just like everyone else in the mountain heat.

  July had rolled in slower than it ever had. Each night, Wakefield fell asleep with Theodora on his mind, and each morning he woke up with her still there. Weeks of waiting turned into days, which had now turned into hours.

  The time had finally come. That afternoon, his bride’s train would roll into Pathways, the closest railroad town, and Wakefield would be there to meet it and her.

  He swallowed hard, thinking of her photograph once more. He regretted not having a photo of himself to send her and hoped that he’d be good looking enough for her tastes. He’d never given his looks much consideration, but now that he thought about it, wherever he went women did tend to watch him. That had to mean something.

  “What’s on your mind?” Noah asked.

  “Nothing,” he answered.

  Noah’s eyes narrowed, and Wakefield realized he was being too gruff.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I’m a tad worked up, I suppose.”

  Admitting it out loud made him even more nervous, and suddenly he was pacing back and forth across the porch, his arms unable to decide whether they wanted to cross or go into his pockets.

  “Don’t worry,” Noah said. “She knew what she was getting herself into.”

  Wakefield stopped pacing and glared at him.

  “With the town, I mean,” Noah explained with a laugh. “I wasn’t disparaging you.”

  Wakefield relaxed and even offered a brief smirk. “Thank you for coming here with me.”

  Surprise flashed across Noah’s face, but if he had something he wanted to say, he didn’t. He only nodded and looked serious.

  Wakefield had never properly thanked his friend for coming with him to the middle-of-nowhere to open a saloon that might or might not have succeeded. There was nothing to do in Whiteridge unless you counted working or traipsing through the woods hunting—both necessary things. And there certainly weren’t any single, young women.

  Why a healthy, young man who’d had the gals fawning all over him in Cheyenne would follow his friend to a place such as Whiteridge had always baffled Wakefield. He almost hadn’t bothered asking Noah to come along. He’d only decided to in the end because he knew how much he’d miss the scrappy hustler.

  Looking at Noah now, Wakefield realized the other man had come to the mountains out of pure friendship. He liked being by Wakefield’s side just as much as Wakefield liked being by his. Shoot, maybe they even needed each other.

  “You’re welcome,” Noah answered. “You don’t have to thank me, though. I couldn’t let your sorry hide come up here all by itself. Who knows what kind of trouble you’d get into without me looking out for you?”

  Wakefield snorted. “Watch your tongue. I still have ten years and several inches on you.”

  “Oh, now the gloves come off, old man?”

  Wakefield didn’t have time to think of a response. Shouting erupted in the saloon, followed by the sound of furniture scraping across the floor.

  Cursing under his breath, Wakefield spun on his heel and strode into the saloon. He’d gone out to the porch for a few minutes, thinking the four men in the saloon couldn’t possibly cause any trouble while he stepped out. As it turned out, he’d been dead wrong.

  Ed Vang stood next to a tipped-over chair, holding a miner by his collar. The captured man’s jaw was set in determination, but the look in his eyes relayed fear. The two others stood nearby, hands hovering in the air, ready to move at any moment. They were the associates: Vang’s friend Lyman and whoever the random miner had brought with him.

  Lyman’s fingers flexed. Wakefield could all but taste their eagerness. They wanted to wrap around the slick metal of a revolver.

  “Enough,” Wakefield snapped. Three heads turned toward him. But, Vang kept his gaze on his prisoner.

  “You all are done drinking for the day,” Wakefield said. “Pick up the chair and get out. If you have personal matters to attend to, do it somewhere else.”

  He waited for the protests, but none came. Vang made the first move, letting the miner go, and the others moved to follow suit. Lyman righted the tipped over chair, and they filed out the door, Vang last.

  Right before stepping onto the porch, Vang tipped his hat at Wakefield, and Wakefield nodded back. It didn’t take a genius to unravel what had been happening in the saloon. When you combined men with alcohol, there were sure to be occasional problems.

  Wakefield had seen a number of instigators while running his saloon in Cheyenne, and he figured he’d gotten pretty good at picking them out from a crowd. Ed Vang was one of those men. He had an air of discontent wafting off of him. It was like he walked around day in and day out looking for a fight.

  Wakefield stepped back onto the porch, watching as the two miners went up the hill and Vang and Lyman went down the hill, headed for the abandoned miner’s cabin they’d taken over.

  “Believe me now?” Noah asked under his breath.

  “About Vang?” Wakefield asked, still keeping his eye on the man’s back.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “This is the first time he’s caused trouble in the saloon.”

  Wakefield could feel Noah’s disbelieving gaze.

  “But, yeah,” Wakefield said, turning to look at him. “He’s a troublemaker. I already got that sense from him. I heard he started a fight with Jimmy Monroe cause the man looked at him funny.”

  “He’s got a lazy eye!”

  “Exactly,” Wakefield said. He sighed and rubbed his jaw. His stomach was twisting up, and he couldn’t stop thinking about all the new glasses and tables in the saloon. The four-pane windows he’d had shipped in from Cincinnati. The shelves of whiskeys and rums, each more expensive than the last.

  An all-out brawl in Outpost could be downright disastrous. Who was to say that Vang, Lyman, and the miners wouldn’t come back and finish what they’d started? Or come to Wakefield with a bone to pick over his tossing them out?

  “Why are they here anyway?” Noah grumbled. “They’re not working in the mine. Got no jobs as far as I can see.”

  “Guess they’re looking for fresh mountain air,” Wakefield joked, though he couldn’t find it in himself to laugh.

  Vang and Lyman hadn’t given much of an excuse for their sticking around through the summer. And no one had asked for one. Whiteridge was a nose-to-the-grindstone place, a spot where people did what they needed to do and didn’t ask much out of each other unless they had to. One might have thought there would be real comradery in such a secluded area, but if that sense of community was on its way it hadn’t arrived yet.

  Other than Noah, Daniel Zimmerman, and the general store owner Mullins, Wakefield trusted everyone in Whiteridge about as far as he could throw them.

  Metaphorically speaking, that Vang looked the heaviest of them all.

  He and his little crony had set themselves up in that mining shack about two miles from Wakefield’s place. The first week he’d heard
the ringing of an ax coming from that direction, and since then it had been the occasional bang of a gun piercing the air.

  Obviously, their initial plans to stay only a few days in Whiteridge had changed.

  “I can’t leave the saloon right now,” Wakefield said. “I need you to go to the station and get Theodora.”

  He hated the words as soon as he said them. He had a bride waiting for him down in Pathways. She was expecting him to be on the platform when her train pulled in, and he abhorred the thought of disappointing her.