Page 59 of Always to Remember
“My girl?” Dr. Martin turned as red as a sunset. “Is it that obvious?”
Lifting his eyebrows, Clay nodded and smiled. He’d noticed Dr. Martin trailing after Widow Prudence most of the morning.
Dr. Martin removed his hat and wiped his balding pate. “I’m set in my ways, never figured to take a wife, but Pru … well, she’s got three boys, and that oldest one needs a firm hand applied to his backside. And it’s gonna take more than one application.”
“I’m happy for you, Doc.”
Dr. Martin shoved his hat over his brow and slid off the back of the wagon. “Well, I gotta ask her first. Haven’t figured out how to do that yet.”
“By God, we could still hang him. Plenty of strong trees around here,” Thomas Crawford said.
Meg dropped the ladle into the pot of beans she held and stared at her father as he plowed his hands through hair that had once been as black as hers and was now as white as newly fallen snow. Women were heaping portions of food onto the men’s plates, but the men didn’t appear to notice.
The younger men were looking at her father. The older men had turned their attention to Kirk’s father. He sat at the end of the table, opposite Meg’s father. As the eldest son of one of the founding fathers, Mr. Warner and his opinion were held in the highest esteem. His blond hair had lightened over the years, but his blue eyes and the intensity of his gaze had yet to fade.
“Four years ago we all agreed—” he began.
Meg’s father slammed his hand onto the table. “We agreed to wait and see what the army would do. Well, we’ve seen what the army did—nothing. I say we hang him now.”
Mr. Warner shook his head. “I gave my son my word that I’d be no part of lynching. I’m not going back on my word now.”
Meg felt her knees quake with the realization that her father and the other men had planned to hang Clay four years ago. No one had told her then what they’d planned. Did men think that war and everything about it was their domain alone? She wondered at all the things Kirk might not have told her.
Daniel shrugged shoulders that had begun to broaden as his voice had started growing deeper. “If you don’t feel right about hanging him, then we could just shoot him.” Daniel jumped to his feet yelling, “God, Meg, you’re supposed to put the beans on my plate not in my lap!”
“I’m sorry. You’re just growing so much I can hardly see around you,” she lied, wishing she could change the course of the conversation.
Scowling, he sat down again, then leaned forward, addressing the man sitting across from him. “What do you think, Robert? You’re a war hero.”
Briefly, Robert lifted his gaze to Meg before studying the food on his plate. “I’m hardly a war hero.”
“But you fought. You gotta have some feelings on this matter. Don’t it curdle your gut to know we got a coward living among us?”
Robert glanced at the faces surrounding him. “Most Texans ignored the conscript laws—”
Meg’s father slapped his broad palm on the table. “By God, we’re not talking about the conscript laws. I was against the damn things myself. You don’t tell a Texan he has to fight.” He slapped his hand on the table again. “You just tell him where the battle’s to be fought, and by God, he goes. Our sons didn’t wait for no law to come around telling them they had to go. Soon as the call to arms sounded, they enlisted. All but that one out there!” He shook his fist in the air. “Our sons were men of honor, and they paid the ultimate price. It don’t sit well with me at all to see that one still breathing.”
The men had invited Lucian to sit with them, but he was staring at his food, shifting his backside on the bench. He clenched his jaw so tightly that Meg didn’t think he’d be able to eat if he tried.
“What do you think, John?” Meg’s father asked. “This is your land now that you’re married to Caroline.”
John shook his head. “I saw enough men die in prison to last me a lifetime. I don’t want to see blood shed on my land.”
“It seems to me,” Robert said quietly, “that you’ve lost enough men. I don’t see that you’ll gain anything by losing one more.”
“Peace of mind,” Meg’s father said as he shoved his plate forward. “By God, it’d give me peace of mind.”
“Anyway, I thought when the army came for Holland, he went with them,” Robert said.
“He went, but he didn’t fight. He ain’t even ashamed of that fact,” Meg’s father said. “He’ll tell you if you ask him.”
“Had a fellow in my outfit that didn’t want to fight,” Robert said. “They branded him a deserter and made him sit on the edge of his coffin. Then they shot him.”
“I could build a coffin,” Daniel said.
Meg dropped the pot on the table and beans splattered every man in the vicinity. With hands on her hips, she tapped her foot and glared at their slack-jawed expressions. “I thought today was supposed to help John and Caroline celebrate a new beginning. If I’d known you were going to spend the day mourning the past, I’d have stayed home.”
She trudged toward the dessert table. “Joshua and Joseph Holland! I need you!”
