Page 97 of Texas Splendor
“I don’t want to cause you any embarrassment, Becky, but is that all you said?”
“That’s all I said.”
“You didn’t say anything specific, anything that might have … hurt her?”
“Nothing. I am so sorry.”
Austin settled his hat onto his head. “It’s not your fault. For some reason, this damn thing won’t go away.”
“You and Loree break a fence?” Houston asked.
Austin glanced toward the front porch of Houston’s house where his wife sat in the rocker. He couldn’t tell if she was talking to Amelia. Damn he wished she’d talk to someone.
He hefted the board for Houston’s new corral and held it in place while Houston hammered one end to the post and Dallas hammered into the other end. “I don’t know what happened. It makes no sense to me. She married me, thinking I’d killed someone. She found out I didn’t and now she won’t talk to me. I can’t figure it out.”
“That’s ‘cuz she’s a woman,” Dallas said around the nail protruding from his mouth. He removed it from between his teeth and pointed it at Austin’s nose. “You can’t figure women out so don’t even try. I was married to Dee for weeks before I realized when she said something was fine—it wasn’t fine at all.”
“But wouldn’t you be happy if you discovered that you weren’t married to a murderer?” Austin insisted.
“It’s the baby,” Houston said.
Austin jerked his head around and glared at Houston. “What’s Grant got to do with it?”
Houston gave the nail a final whack and stepped back to inspect his work before waving the hammer at Austin. “Whenever Amelia has a baby, she gets …” He scraped his thumb over the scars on the left side of his face, just below the leather eye patch. “She gets … difficult. Yep, that’s the best way to describe it.”
“Can’t imagine Amelia being difficult,” Dallas said. “She wasn’t when I was married to her.”
“She didn’t give you any young ‘uns either. Trust me. She gets difficult.”
“In what way?” Austin asked, thinking maybe Houston had hit upon his problem.
“Well, as you know Gracie was born in November. About a week after she was born, Amelia hollers for me. Almost broke my neck gettin’ to her, and you know what she wanted?”
Austin glanced at Dallas who was shaking his head.
“She wanted me to sit down right then and there and order Christmas presents from the Montgomery Ward catalog. Got it into her head that we had to order them that day or they wouldn’t get here in time. Had to take the blasted order into the post office in Leighton—that day mind you. It didn’t matter that I had horses to work—”
“You coulda just told her no,” Dallas said.
Houston looked at Dallas as though the man had gone loco. “I suppose you tell Dee no all the time.”
“Never tell her no, but we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you—”
“Actually, we’re talking about me,” Austin reminded his brothers with disgust.
They both snapped their attention to him. Houston rubbed the side of his nose. “That’s right.” He squinted. “How’d she find out she was wrong about you after all this time?”
Austin dropped his gaze and kicked the toe of his boot into the dirt. “Becky. She visited Loree and somehow it came up in conversation that she and I were together that night.”
“She’s probably just feeling slighted then,” Dallas said.
“Why would she feel slighted? That was six years ago—”
“Like I said earlier, you can’t figure women out. They make no sense.”
“Then what do I do about it?”
“Talk to Dee.”
