Cassie and Catherine left Caully a few days after the new year began. With everything turning out so surprisingly well where Charles’s neighbors were concerned, Cassie knew she could come back for another visit next fall if she wanted to. What she hadn’t expected was her papa’s parting remark, that he’d probably be coming north himself for a visit in a month or two—and her mama’s secret smile when she heard him say that.
Obviously, something had happened in that barn. And unraveling the mystery of it was just what Cassie needed at the moment to take her mind off Angel. Not that she had been successful so far in getting any information out of her mama. Perhaps she’d just been going about it the wrong way.
She remembered being so amazed when she’d first realized that the Catlin and the MacKauley children didn’t know what had started the feud they were so deeply involved in. But Cassie was so used to not meddling in her parents’ lives that it hadn’t occurred to her at the time that she was just as ignorant of what had caused her own parents’ rift. She decided to start with that.
But a crowded stagecoach was no place to have a private discussion, so Cassie waited until they reached the rail lines farther east, which offered much more comfort in traveling and some relative privacy. In fact, she began her conversation in the dining car their first day on the train, deliberately lingering over dessert and coffee until the tables around them had vacated.
By then, more than a week since leaving Caully, Cassie was eager to try out her new strategy. Innocently she asked her mother, “How come you and Papa stopped loving each other?”
Catherine nearly choked on her last bite of cherry cobbler. “What kind of question is that?”
Cassie shrugged. “Probably one I should have asked a long time ago.”
“Your little party in your papa’s barn that night has made you bold, Cassie—or should I say impertinent?”
“Do you think so? I do try—”
“Don’t you dare be catty with me, young lady.”
“Then don’t be evasive, Mama. It was a simple question, and one I figure I have a right to ask.”
“It’s too... personal.”
Catherine was still evading. Cassie knew the signs. She wasn’t giving up this time.
“I’m not some nosy neighbor. I’m your daughter. He’s my papa. I should have been told a long time ago what happened, Mama. Why did you stop loving him?”
Catherine looked out the window at the dull winter landscape that held little of interest. Cassie knew from experience that she wouldn’t get another word out of her. That was her mama’s way. If she couldn’t intimidate people to end whatever they were doing to bother her, she simply ignored them.
So Cassie was amazed when a few moments later her mama said, “I never stopped loving him.”
Cassie could have imagined a dozen answers. None of them would have been that one. In fact, she was so incredulous, not a single reply came to mind.
Catherine was still looking out the window, but she could guess at the shock she’d just caused. “I know it probably never seemed that way,” she said.
“There’s no ‘probably’ about it. There isn’t a single person who knows you, Mama, who ever doubted how much you two hated each other. I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t. I don’t, either, to tell you the truth.” Catherine sighed. “Anger can be a powerful thing. So is fear. Both can make you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do. And both had control of me for a long time.”
Cassie couldn’t accept that, either. “Fear, Mama? We’re talking about the woman who stood out in the middle of the street in Cheyenne, without cover, with bullets flying every which way, and shot two out of four bank robbers, one of whom happened to be holding the money they’d just stolen. You can’t tell me you’re not one of the most fearless women I know.”
Catherine finally looked across the table, her lips turned up in a half smile. “I had a lot of money in that bank. I wasn’t going to see it ride out of town if I could prevent it. But I never said I was afraid of dying.”
“Then what were you afraid of?”
“Cassie—”
Cassie knew that tone and quickly said, “You can’t stop now, Mama. It’ll drive me crazy if I don’t hear the rest of it.”
Catherine gave her an exasperated look. “You get that stubbornness from your papa.”
“I get it from you.”
Catherine sighed again. “All right, but first you need to know how much I wanted children. After your papa and I married, I used to cry every month when—when I knew I wasn’t pregnant yet. Then when it did finally happen, I was the happiest woman alive. I think I went around with a smile on my face those whole nine months.”
Cassie found that hard to believe, too, since it was rare that her mama ever smiled. “What’s that got to do with being afraid?”
“That came after. You see, I didn’t know what it was going to be like, the birthing. My mama had died when I was young, so she never told me. Your papa and I had only just moved to Wyoming, so I didn’t have many women friends who might have warned me. And I’d never witnessed an actual birthing. I was so ignorant, I thought I was losing you when my water broke. But then the pain started.
“You wouldn’t know it to look at you, but the doctor told me afterward that you were one of the biggest babies he’d ever delivered. It took nearly two days. During that time, I thought I was going to die at least a dozen times. Fact is, I wanted to. Even the doc gave up on me at one point, I got so weak. But somehow you got born. I don’t remember exactly how. I was out of my mind with the pain by then.
“And there were complications after. I’d been pretty ripped up. The bleeding wouldn’t stop ... now don’t look like that.” Cassie had gone quite pale. “It wasn’t your fault. If you want to know the truth, I wouldn’t have fought to recover if it weren’t for you.”
“But, Mama—”
“No buts,” Catherine interrupted sternly. “You see now why I didn’t want to tell you? But it certainly wasn’t your fault, and you have to believe me, baby, I never once blamed you. I did, however, blame your papa. I know I shouldn’t have. Things like that just happen. It’s no one’s fault. But that’s not the way my mind was working back then.”
Catherine suddenly laughed, though it was a bitter sound. “To this day I wonder if things would have been different if what I’d learned afterward would have come my way just a little sooner. My, how quickly ignorance can end, whether you want it to or not.
“It’s amazing. Another woman sees you with a baby, even one who doesn’t know you, and they start telling you all about their own birth experiences. All the things I should have been warned about beforehand that might have prepared me better, I was told about after, that the first baby is always the hardest, that the pain is soon forgotten, that women with narrow hips like me usually have an even more difficult time of it—things like that, and, unanimously, that it’s worth it.
“I agree wholeheartedly with the last. I’ve never regretted for a minute having you, Cassie. But after what I went through, I wasn’t going to have any more children if I could help it, and I could. I told your papa I’d shoot him if he even thought about climbing into my bed again.”
Cassie’s eyes widened. “I don’t suppose he took too kindly to that?”
“I reckon be didn’t.”
“And that’s it?”
“Only what started it. You see, I didn’t ask him to give me time. I said flat out never again. And he was extremely patient in the beginning, thinking I’d change my mind. I might have—the memory of that pain really does diminish. But eight months went by and he finally blew up about it.
“I suppose I can’t blame him now, though I sure did at the time. I don’t know. I guess the way I was thinking was that if I was never going to make love again, he could damn well abstain, too. That was unrealistic of me, I know. But I was young and emotional, and like I said, my mind wasn’t working quite right back then.”
&nbs
p; “Then that’s what did it, his getting angry?”
“No, what did it was my finding out he went to Gladis’s place.”
Cassie knew about Gladis’s place. It had burned down about seven years ago and Gladis had moved on to some other town. But in its day it had been one of the finest whorehouses in Wyoming. To this day men still talked about Gladis’s place—and Cassie just couldn’t picture her papa going there.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“ ‘Course I am. You don’t think I’d end a marriage on mere suspicions, do you? There was this man lived in Cheyenne back then. I don’t remember his name now, but he’d taken a fancy to me and was always teasing me about when I was going to leave your papa for him. He even pestered me when I was full-blown pregnant. Well, he figured he was doing me a favor by telling me that half the town had seen Charles visiting that brothel.”
“Some favor,” Cassie remarked dryly.
“I agree. If I recall right, I think I broke two knuckles on his jaw to thank him. And I never did see him again. But anyhow, I was mad enough when I confronted your papa and he admitted it that I told him to get out. He wouldn’t. So I told him never to speak to me again.”
“And he didn’t—nor did you.”
“I can’t help my temper, Cassie,” Catherine said defensively. “I’m an unforgiving woman. I know it. What that Dotty woman said is perfectly true. Your papa’s lucky I didn’t shoot him for what he did. I did go to Gladis’s late one night to find out who he was visiting there. Her I would have shot. But Gladis protected her girls real good. She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Yet you say you never stopped loving him,” Cassie reminded her.
“I can’t help that, either. And I know that I drove him to it, but I just couldn’t forgive something like that. The fear and the anger— they’re a terrible combination. Don’t ever let them get hold of you like they did me.”
Cassie shook her head in bemusement. For it to have been something as simple as jealousy. She wished she didn’t sympathize with both sides, but she did. There were simply no winners in that sort of situation. Yet they were talking now, she reminded herself. Something had gotten them beyond that long bout of anger.
“Mama, what happened in the barn that night?”
“None of your business.”
After everything Catherine had just revealed, Cassie had to laugh at that answer. And she retained her good humor until a few hours later. It was that evening when she discovered that she had no reason to deny Angel his divorce. She wasn’t pregnant.
Chapter 29
With a population of over three hundred thousand, St. Louis was right up there with Philadelphia and New York City in size. Though Catherine preferred Chicago for their annual shopping excursions, they had come to St. Louis twice over the years.
Their last visit had been back in ‘75, not long after the completion of the East Bridge, which crossed the Mississippi. The suburbs had expanded greatly since then. In fact, the whole city had grown noticeably in the past six years. But Catherine was a creature of habit. Wherever they went, she always stayed in the same hotels, which were usually the best the cities had to offer, not necessarily the newest.
So Cassie had assumed they would be staying at the same hotel as they had before, and that was where she had asked the detective from the renowned Pinkerton agency to find her. She only hoped he could do so without alerting her mama to what she was up to.
Catherine hadn’t mentioned seeing a lawyer again, but Cassie knew she would just as soon as she got bored with her shopping. That would give Cassie about a week, maybe two, to decide what she was going to do about a divorce. Of course, there was nothing really to decide. She had to get one. She had no reason not to now. Just because she might like to stay married to the husband she’d unexpectedly gotten didn’t mean she could.
He’d have something to say about it, and none of it would be nice. Her mama would have a fit, too, if Cassie even hinted that she liked Angel enough to keep him. All the reasons would be trotted out why he wasn’t suitable for a husband. Cassie didn’t want to hear them. She already knew them, and they had nothing to do with feelings.
The old-timers in the city were predicting snow any day now, but the sun continued to shine. It didn’t warm things up much— St. Louis in January was more what Cassie was accustomed to in winter than Texas was— but it made getting around the city much more pleasant than snow would have. And they didn’t have far to go. It hadn’t been hard to find the most highly recommended dressmaker in town. She still happened to be Madame Cecilia, the same one they’d used before, and her shop was located only a few blocks from the hotel. They’d even walked there a few times when the wind wasn’t too brisk.
This afternoon, for the fourth visit and last fitting, Catherine hired a carriage. Cassie would have preferred to walk, since she didn’t feel like participating in her mama’s usual chatter. She was brooding again. They’d been in the city for five days now, but the Pinkerton man hadn’t arrived yet. Cassie was already thinking up reasons to delay their departure if he still didn’t show up during the next week.
Finding Angel’s parents was no longer just a whim. It had become quite important to her for the simple reason that if she was successful, she’d have a valid excuse not only to see Angel again, but to talk to him. And she wanted that. She could always see him, after all. She imagined she’d be going to Cheyenne a lot more than she ever had before, just to catch glimpses of him. But he wouldn’t talk to her unless he had to. She knew that. Even if it wasn’t because he wouldn’t want to be bothered, which he wouldn’t, he’d be thinking of her reputation. They were both well known in their town. There’d be talk of the scandalous sort if she were seen in the company of Cheyenne’s notorious Angel.
“You’re moping again,” Catherine remarked a block away from Madame Cecilia’s.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“All right, I miss Marabelle.”
The ranch hands whom Catherine had brought with her to Texas, in case she needed a show of force, had taken Marabelle home with them, since fine hotels frowned on putting up pets of that sort. And it was only a half lie of the evasive kind that Cassie had just told. She did miss her pet. She simply missed Angel more.
“I know I wired for our private sleeper car to be transferred here,” Catherine said, “but we don’t have to wait for it if you want to go home already.”
“No!” Cassie said a bit too forcefully. She quickly amended her negative response. “I mean, I can get along without her for a few weeks, and vice versa.”
“I’m not so sure about the vice versa,” Catherine remarked. “You weren’t the one who had to chase her halfway to Denver the first time you visited your papa, and explain to all those good folks along the way that they weren’t hunting a wild panther, but my daughter’s pet, who didn’t know enough to stay home where she didn’t scare people half to death.”
Cassie grinned, remembering the long, vituperative letter that had accompanied Marabelle to Texas in the large cage Catherine had been forced to have made for her so she could ship her to Cassie. Marabelle had tried to follow Cassie, but had lost her scent after the first train stop across the Colorado border, not halfway to Denver as her mama had exaggerated. But Catherine had most definitely been put out with both daughter and pet at the time.
“She stayed home okay last summer when we went to Chicago,” Cassie reminded her.
“We were gone only ten days that time, and she was locked up tight in the barn with a constant companion in old Mac, to keep her from ripping up the walls.”
Cassie took exception to that. “She doesn’t rip walls, Mama. But if you want to talk about walls and pets, let’s talk about Short Tail, your sweet elephant. Do you think the barn will still be standing when we get home?”
Catherine gave her a sour look. “I’m beginning to think that man was a bad influence on you.”
“What man?” Cassie asked innocently.
r /> “You know which one,” Catherine admonished sternly. “Your impertinence is getting worse.”
“I thought it was getting better.”
“You see what I mean?”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Mama, if you haven’t noticed lately, I’m all grown up. When are you going to stop treating me like a child?”
“When you’re sixty-five and I’m dead, and not a day sooner.”
If Catherine hadn’t sounded so serious, Cassie wouldn’t have laughed. “All right, you win, Mama. I’ll keep my impertinence to myself. But could you at least not call me baby in public?”
Catherine’s lips twitched slightly. “As long as we’re making allowances, I suppose I can manage—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence. Their driver suddenly hauled back on his reins, stopping the carriage and jerking them both nearly out of their seats. A large delivery wagon had come out of a side street and moved in front of them, apparently intending to turn in the opposite direction they were headed. But traffic was heavy going in the opposite direction and its driver couldn’t move out into it, so he ended up stuck where he was, blocking their path.
Their driver was angry enough at the near accident he’d had that he started yelling. The other driver looked over at theirs and flipped him a rude gesture, at which point their driver retaliated with a string of curses at the top of his lungs.
Catherine’s face went red-hot at some of the words coming out of his mouth that could be heard half a block away. “Close your ears, Cassie,” she admonished and tossed a dollar on the driver’s seat. “We’ll walk.”
“But this is just getting interesting,” Cassie protested.
“We’ll walk,” Catherine repeated with more force.
She really was embarrassed. Cassie found that amusing, especially since she’d heard worse out of the cowhands on the Lazy S, and words nearly as bad out of her mama when she was upbraiding those same cowhands about something. But then that was one of Catherine’s eccentricities. Unlike Cassie, who only wore her Colt on the ranch, Catherine was never without here—except when she headed east. Then she turned into a model of fine etiquette and elegance befitting a high-society matron, with an attitude running in the same vein.