Always and Forever

  “Yesterday. This is my wife, Grace.”

  The thin little man with the light brown skin and the muscular arms turned to her and gave her a gap-toothed smile. “Pleased to meet you, Grace. What’s a fine woman like you doing with this old rattler?”

  Grace smiled.

  “Come on inside so we can get out of this sun,” he urged. “It’s not even ten yet and it’s blazing already.”

  Grace agreed. Texas in July was much hotter than Illinois. Her blouse sticking to her skin was enough to prove it.

  He ushered them into his large parlor and they took a seat. Grace noted the coolness of the interior and portraits on the wall. One held the likeness of Riley, a woman, and a child. “Is that your family?” she asked.

  “Yep, that’s my wife, Ann, and my boy, Riley the second. They’re down in Austin visiting her mother. Miss them terribly.”

  The conversation then turned to the reason for their visit.

  “We need a wagon and a team,” Jackson told his old friend.

  “I’ve a few you can look at, but first, have you seen Iva?”

  “Spent the night at her place last night.”

  Riley nodded. “So are you back for good?”

  “Depends on how things go.”

  Riley stared into Jackson’s eyes. “You’re not here to take up with Lane Trent again, are you? It’s been a long time, Jack. Best to leave it alone. You got a wife now.”

  “I know, Riley, but I can’t have it hanging over my head for the rest of my life.”

  Riley looked to Grace. “If you love him, you’ll take him back north, Grace.”

  The seriousness in his eyes made the hairs stand on the back of her neck.

  “I mean it. All he’s going to find down here is death. Lane Trent is Satan. Not even his wife can stand him.”

  Jackson interrupted him. “He’s married?”

  “Yep. Married a young thing from Abilene about a year after you left. Gossip had it that when he first asked for her hand she refused, so he bought up the note on her daddy’s land and threatened to call it in unless she agreed, so she did. The folks who work for him say she hates his every step.”

  Grace was disliking this Lane Trent more and more. “Do they have any children?”

  “No, she can’t seem to carry to full term. She’s lost at least three, according to the rumors and he’s fit to be tied. He thinks she’s taking something that’s causing it.”

  “Is she?” Grace asked.

  “Nobody knows but her.”

  Grace couldn’t imagine hating a man so much that you’d abort your own children. If Trent’s wife were indeed ingesting something so foul, her hate must run deep.

  Riley then asked, “How’s Griff, Jack? Have you heard from him?”

  “Not in a while. He’s still robbing trains, far as I know.”

  Riley smiled and shook his head. “That brother of yours always was a handful.”

  “Yes he was. I just hope he doesn’t wind up in prison.”

  “Knowing him, that’s probably the only thing that’ll stop him.”

  Jackson nodded. “That, or the shotgun of some woman’s irate husband or daddy.”

  Riley grinned. “Come on, let’s go see if we can find you a wagon and a team.”

  Riley took them out to the livery and she and Jackson looked over the conveyances he had for rent. They decided on a buckboard that looked to be in fair shape and a two-horse team.

  Jackson asked, “Have you heard anything about Champ, Isaac, or Drew? Iva said Lane paid them to leave so they wouldn’t reveal the truth.”

  “I heard that too, but no one’s seen them since, far as I know.”

  “Their folks still around?”

  “Drew’s daddy died about eight months ago, but Isaac’s mother and Champ’s sister are still living in the same place.”

  “I need to talk to them.”

  Riley shook his head sadly. “Go back north, Jack. Folks around here are not going to like you stirring up the past.”

  “I don’t care what they like or don’t. I owe it to Royce and I’m tired of looking over my shoulder.”

  Riley turned to Grace. “Try and talk some sense into him, Grace.”

  “Jackson has to follow his heart.”

  “He’s gonna follow it right to a lynch rope, mark my words.”

  With their business concluded, the men spent a few more moments talking about acquaintances still living nearby, then she and Jackson left with a wave and a promise to come to dinner when Riley’s wife and son returned from Austin later in the week.

  “So, where to now?” Grace asked, as she drove the wagon while he kept pace on his mount.

  “I want to see if I can get some information on my deputies. Let’s go and see Champ’s sister.”

  The journey took them a few miles north to a small farm. There was a mixed race crew working in the cotton field. The White woman Jackson pointed out as the sister looked up at their approach, stared at them, then bent back over her hoe. She didn’t appear to be happy.

  He left the horse with Grace and walked out to where the crew worked. Before he could speak, Champ’s sister Maybelle said, “Get out of here, Jack. I don’t want no trouble from Lane.”

  “I’m not here to cause trouble. I just want to know if you know where Champ is.” “No.”

  “Maybelle, please, this is real important.”

  She straightened and snapped angrily. “Important? Having my brother by my side is important, but he disappeared right after you did and nobody’s seen him since. Go on back to where you’ve been and leave my family in peace.”

  She went back to her hoe.

  A tight-lipped Jackson turned and walked to his mount.

  “Let’s go,” Jackson said angrily, as he swung up into the saddle.

  Grace slapped down the reins and followed him back to the road.

  Chapter 11

  Jackson stopped them a few miles away and slid from the saddle. He’d expected resistance, but not from folks like Maybelle Champion. Jackson, Maybelle, and her brother Champ had grown up together; they’d hunted frogs together, swum together, and tipped over privies together. He and Champ had been such good friends, there’d been no question about him being named deputy when Jackson was elected sheriff. Jackson trusted Champ with his life, but now Maybelle treated him like a Reb.

  How would he get justice for his father in the face of such fear? If she did know her brother’s whereabouts, she’d given one hell of a performance, but the desperation and anger in her voice and eyes seemed too real to be an act. Had Lane really paid Champ to leave town? More than likely he’d threatened Champ or Maybelle’s life to get him to comply. During the height of the killings during Reconstruction, Texas rivers had run red with Black blood, yet he’d come here, one lone Black man trying to bring down single-handedly someone as powerful as Lane Trent. Like Iva said, there’s dreams and then there’s foolishness.

  Grace watched her husband staring off into the distance and imagined him weighing all that had occurred since his return. Everyone seemed to think Jackson would find only death in this quest to avenge his father and to clear his name. Grace had no trouble admitting that she too felt wary of being here. This was the South, after all, and the stories of the hate and killings were well known by members of the race nationwide. Were it not for Jackson, Grace would not have willingly journeyed here. The idea that at any moment a group of men could ride up over the next rise with the intent of taking her life and do so without fear of reprisal scared her to death. She’d vowed to follow Jackson into hell, and now it appeared that she might be forced to do just that.

  “Where to now, Jackson?”

  He turned back and the bleakness in his eyes tore at her heart.

  He shrugged. “If Maybelle won’t talk, there’s no sense in going to see Isaac’s mother. She lost her Reb husband during the last days of the war and holds the race responsible. Never heard her say one kind word about Black folks. Always made me st
ay outside whenever I came to see her son.”

  “What about the man you called Drew?”

  “Drew’s daddy was the last of his kin. With him dead there’s no telling where Drew went. Probably north. He was my only Black deputy, and like the others, a real close friend.”

  Grace wanted to find a way to raise his spirits, but couldn’t think of anything.

  He asked her, “Is all this talk about me being lynched or killed scaring you?”

  She held the eyes of the man who’d stolen her heart and fathered her child and did not lie. “Yes.”

  He walked back to where she stood and for the first time in a long time took her in his arms and held her close against his beating heart. “Don’t let it. Your aunts will be real angry at me if you return home a widow.”

  “So will I.”

  He drew back and looked down at her. “Really?”

  “Do you honestly think I’d come to Texas with a man I cared nothing about? Being here scares me to death. The sooner we head back north, the happier the baby and I will be.”

  He ran a gentle hand over her still flat stomach. “How’s he doing in there?”

  Grace shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. Since I’ve not done this before, I’ve no clear idea on what’s supposed to happen or when. I’m assuming I’m going to get big and fat, but at what point, your guess is as good as mine.”

  He smiled down at her.

  “I can’t imagine you big and fat.”

  “Neither can I, but it’s going to happen, so be prepared.”

  “Do you think you’ll get so big you’ll have to sleep in the barn?”

  A show of mock outrage claimed her face and she punched him in the shoulder. “If I do, I’m going to make you sleep beside me so I can roll over and squish you in the middle of the night.”

  The amusement in his eyes faded and was replaced by love. “I’ve missed you, Banker Atwood.”

  Her heart began to tighten and expand all in one motion. “It’s Banker Blake now,” she responded softly. “I’ve missed you too.”

  “Then how about we make up for lost time.”

  “How about we do that.”

  The kiss was the sweetest they’d ever shared; sweet, tender, and filled with longing, silent apologies, and most of all, love. Her arms slid up his arms as the kiss deepened and he gathered her in possessively. Neither felt the heat beating down upon them from the hot Texas sun; they were too engrossed in one another. Grace wanted to make love to him right here and now, but knew she probably couldn’t convince him because she was the wanton one and he was the one with sense. “I want to make love to you, Jackson.”

  He chuckled as he eased his mouth away. “Out here?”

  “Out here, over there, it doesn’t matter.”

  Her sultry reply matched the fire in her eyes and instantaneously hardened his manhood. He drew a slow finger over her parted lips. “Let’s see if we can’t find a more secluded spot but first…”

  He looked around for anyone approaching, but seeing nothing but miles and miles of rolling land and silent blue sky, slowly began to undo the buttons on her blouse.

  “I thought you wanted to go somewhere hidden?” she said, feeding on the heat in his eyes as that same heat touched her in all the places she knew he’d touch. They’d not made love since leaving the wagon train.

  He opened her blouse and filled his hands with the soft, soft yielding flesh. When he brushed his lips across their tops and teased his thumbs over the nipples, they hardened as if on command, and she sighed as her inner fires began to climb.

  He asked huskily, “Tell me about this man who made you change your name…”

  He pulled her camisole down and sensually helped himself to the twin goblets of her breasts. “Does he do this…?” He suckled one dark tip.

  “Oh, yes…”

  “And this…?” He gave the other the same torrid treatment.

  “Yes,” she breathed. “And he’s very good at it…”

  “Good as this?”

  He toyed and lingered until waves of desire filled her core.

  Grace moaned low in her throat.

  “Does he like it when you moan that way?”

  Grace’s breathing heightened. “Yes, but he likes this as well.”

  She boldly reached down and ran her hand over the hard bulge of his manhood. Two could play at this game. A brazen Grace slowly slid her hand over him again and again. This time the moan was his.

  “Let’s get out of here and go someplace where you can show me what else he likes…” he murmured against her mouth, but instead they spent the next few moments silently arousing each other with heated kisses and roving hands. They eventually parted but most reluctantly. He tied the reins of his horse to the buckboard, then drove them away.

  They were like two adolescents in love, stopping the buckboard again and again to share kisses and intimate caresses. By the time they reached their destination, an old abandoned cabin, they were both fairly bursting with need. They never made it inside, however; he pulled the buckboard around to the back of the structure and took her right there on the seat of the buckboard, and she rode him until completion shattered them like glass.

  Once they came down to earth, he left her to try and find a way inside the cabin. Still pulsing from her lusty ride, Grace asked, “Was this the home of someone you knew?”

  “Yep,” he told her as he grabbed at a piece of the plywood covering one of the small square windows and pulled it free. “Me. This is where the Blakes lived.”

  Grace sat up and looked at the wooden cabin in a whole new light. Holding her still opened blouse closed with one hand, she hopped down from the buckboard to join him. They were at the back of the place. To the right stood a small corral that must’ve held animals originally, but from the look of broken-down crossbars and the overall weathered condition of the wood, it obviously had not served that purpose in a long time.

  Across the hilly field she saw two weathered crosses sticking up out of the red earth. “Who’s buried out there?”

  “My parents. Griff and I buried my daddy two days before we left.”

  He peered into the dark interior through the now freed window. “Looks fairly clean, from what I can see. It doesn’t look like varmints have taken over.”

  A few well-placed kicks from his booted foot brought down the flimsy plywood door and she followed him inside. It was as silent as a tomb. There were a few pieces of furniture in the gloomy two-room place: a small table, a few chairs, a sideboard with a broken glass front. Everything was coated with a thick layer of dust.

  The breeze followed them in and began to ruffle the air. “How long did you live here?” she asked. She could see what appeared to be bedding in the other room.

  “All my life. I was born here, right over there in that corner. It’s where my ma’s bed was, according to my daddy.”

  He watched her look around. “Pretty humble place compared to what you’re used to, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” she admitted, and tried to imagine spending her whole life in a two-room place such as this. “Were you happy here?”

  He nodded and smiled. “Yes, I was—very happy. We didn’t have a lot, but I never went hungry and Daddy gave me and Griff lots of love. Of course he worked us like the devil in the garden and on his carpentry jobs, but once he turned us loose we fished, hunted, chased the girls.”

  Grace grinned.

  His eyes became serious. “Do you mind staying here until we get this mess settled? We could probably find us a room to let in Marshall that would be more in line with what you’re used to, but the less people know I’m here, the safer we’ll probably be.”

  She didn’t lie. “No, I don’t mind where we stay, as long as we’re together.”

  She yawned.

  “Sleepy?”

  “Yes, and I don’t know why. I tire out so easily these days, and all I want to do is sleep.”

  “It’s the baby you keep saying you’re not ha
ving.”

  “I’m not having a baby, because Lord knows you’ll be impossible to live with if I am.”

  He smiled. “Well, how about I bring in the bedroll and you lie down while I go hunt us up a few rabbits for dinner?”

  “Sounds fine.”

  He left her with a rifle and a lingering kiss. Smiling, a content Grace snuggled in and went to sleep.

  A few hours later, as the mounted Jackson came over the rise, he looked down on the cabin where he’d been born. He remembered the good times he and his brother Griffin had had: the marble games and the duck hunting; the swimming and the tree climbing. Although they hadn’t had much materially, their father Royce had made sure they were well fed and clean. He made them go to school when the town had one and taught them at home when it was burned down by angry Rebs a year or so later.

  And now he was back after ten years of drifting and hiding because he was tired of doing both. He had a wife and a child on the way. This mess with Trent had to be settled one way or another because he had to move on with his life.

  The rabbits he’d caught for dinner hung on a string from his saddle, and he was heading down to the cabin when he heard the sound of horses. Turning in his saddle to investigate, he spied four riders bearing down on him like spectres from hell. He didn’t know how, but instinctively he knew that they were after him. His first thoughts were of Grace, but trying to outrun them back to the cabin would be fruitless, and more important, alert them to Grace’s presence. He also refused to run, because doing so would only add to their fun; they’d love to be able to hunt him down like prey. Yes, he was afraid, but he drew out his rifle and waited.

  When they rode up and surrounded him, Jackson did not recognize the four riders, but the familiar face of the man driving the fancy buggy was one that had haunted his dreams. Lane Trent. He’d gotten older but no taller, and the fancy gray suit looked expensive. The blond hair was streaked with gray and there were weather lines at the edges of the ice blue eyes, eyes that held Jackson’s smugly and triumphantly. Seated beside Trent was a small, distant-eyed woman dressed in black. Jackson wondered if she was the wife Riley had mentioned.