Pamela Morsi
Authors: Sweetwood Bride
HarperChoice
Sweetwood
Bride
P
AMELA
M
ORSI
For my talented and helpful assistant, Merrily,
for making my life so much easier
And for my fellow Bandidas Laura Bradley,
Jo-Ann Power, and Evelyn Rogers
for making my life so much fun
T
HEY
’
D
come for him a little after noon. He’d been boiling with sweat and hitched to the back end of a plow. Company was as welcome as a cool dipper of water, and he’d greeted the men with a smile. It hadn’t taken long for it to fade. He had been completely dumbfounded by the accusation. It was all a mistake, he’d assured them hurriedly.
Mosco Collier had never been guilty of a crime in his life. He’d never said a word untrue, never cheated in a poker game, never borrowed a chicken from a coop he did not own. Any wild, rebellious streak of youth had been sweated out of him by hard labor tilling rocky ground and shouldering a man’s responsibilities on a boy’s young shoulders. His whole life had been lived on the straight and narrow.
Nonetheless, he stood accused. He was innocent, yet he was found to be guilty. His punishment, it was determined, would be a life sentence.
Condemning eyes surrounded him. As he stood in the meetinghouse doorway, the words were read aloud.
“… for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”
Moss hesitated only a moment as he stood on the
pine plank steps. Through his thin summer work shirt he could feel the cool metal of a shotgun barrel between his shoulder blades.
“I do,” he replied.
Moss glanced at the young woman at his left.
“And do you, Eula Orlean Toby, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband,” the preacher continued, “to …”
Moss glared at her. The conniving little Jezebel looked extremely pleased with herself. It was her word against his. And what kind of woman would lie about being dishonored?
The kind to whom Moss was about to be married.
Couldn’t they see she was lying? It was very obvious to Moss. Her tone was strangely high-pitched. She was talking very fast. And she was unable to look him in the eye. She was not a very good liar, yet everyone believed her.
“By the power vested in me by our Father in heaven and the state of Tennessee, I pronounce you man and wife.”
There was a collective sigh of relief. The shotgun was lowered from Moss’s back.
He turned to look at the face of the woman he married, or rather to stare at the freckles upon her face, which covered it completely. How could he have thought her pretty? That day by Flat Rock Falls, he’d actually thought her pretty. She’d been all golden hair and sweet innocence. That innocence had proved to be a mercenary ploy, and her hair … her hair was just stringy blonde.
“You may kiss the bride,” Preacher Thompson told him.
“No thanks,” he replied. “That’s what got me into this mess in the first place.”
He turned to face the half dozen other men crowded around the church steps to see justice done. They were subdued, satisfied, and self-righteous. They were not strangers. These men were his friends, his neighbors, his occasional drinking companions, and his hunting partners. Moss glared at them, openly furious that they believed Eulie and thought so little of him.
They accepted the story that he’d played fast and loose with a fresh young gal, laid with her out in the open woods, and then refused to offer for her. A man who’d do such a thing was too worthless to waste plugging with buckshot. That is what Moss had always believed. And that is what these men believed of him.
The female was standing beside him now. Moss didn’t even glance at her, but he saw that everyone else was looking in her direction.
“We wish you happy, Mrs. Collier,” Enoch Pierce said to her formally.
It had been Enoch who’d held his shotgun between Moss’s shoulder blades. Obviously,
Moss’s
happiness had not been Enoch’s concern. Moss pushed through the crowd angrily, unable to speak, unwilling to display the anger that he felt. If these men could believe the worst of him, well, then so be it. He’d never give them a thought once he was far away. Once he was on his own in the West at last.
“Thank you, sir,” he heard his new wife answer behind him. “We appreciate your good wishes.”
Good wishes! Moss was seething inside. The whole
lot of them had wished him into a hell on earth. How would he ever get West with some no-account woman at his side?
Moss stormed across the clearing in front of the meetinghouse and grabbed up the dragging reins of his rust-colored gelding.
Red Tex was the finest saddle horse ever seen in these parts. And like a fine mount anywhere, Red Tex easily picked up on the temperament of his rider. He’d stood through the whole ceremony, calmly munching a tall bunch of fresh spring grass. Now, with an angry Moss beside him, he was skittish and alert.
It was one bit of extravagant luxury for a plowing man to own a fine riding animal. But Moss was willing to endure the criticism of his neighbors in exchange for the pure pleasure of sitting tall and proud in the saddle. And a man headed west needed a good horse. Moss Collier, in his most fervent plans and dreams, was headed west.
He mounted with an urgency born of the need to be away from this place, these people, the embarrassment of being judged as a liar and seducer, the humiliation of being forced against his will to take a wife. He wanted to be in the saddle, racing into the wind. He wanted to leave all this behind him. Red Tex sidestepped nervously, his head high and taut, his ears twitching to the side expectantly.
“Ransom,” Moss heard his new bride say to her younger brother, “you gather up Clara and the twins. I can stop by and get Little Minnie on the way to Mr. Collier’s farm.”
Moss reined the horse in tightly and turned to stare at the woman in disbelief. He was not alone. Every
man among them was equally dumbstruck by her words. The silence in the little hillside clearing of the Sweetwood was broken only by the rustle of breeze through the oaks and elms and the muted barking of gray squirrels.
The old preacher gave Moss an anxious glance and then spoke softly to the stringy-haired blonde gal.
“Perhaps you needn’t take your whole family with you today, Eulie,” he suggested urgently. “It is your honeymoon, after all, and—”
“How much family you got?” Moss asked her coldly, not caring if he interrupted the preacher’s calm advice.
He hardly knew the woman, this Jezebel that was his bride, but he vaguely recalled having heard it said that Virgil Toby had left this world with nothing to call his own except a passel of children.
“I’ve got five youngers,” Eulie answered him, her chin lifted in pride as if it were some personal accomplishment. “My brother here and four sisters.”
Moss’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped in shock.
“Five!” He was incredulous. “Five new mouths to feed. Six, counting your own.”
The shouted words made the big horse uneasy. He pranced with agitation, and the men around him, unaccustomed to such a high-strung animal, moved back, giving him a wide berth.
Yeoman Browning, one of Moss’s most frequent hunting companions, was the first to speak up. He was a quiet, fair fellow, and Moss had often relied upon his judgment. At the current time he, at least, had the good grace to appear ill at ease.
“The boy is pretty near growed,” he assured Moss
quickly. “He must be ten or twelve year at least.”
“I’m thirteen,” the boy spoke up, his chin raised in challenge. “But I work as hard as a man. Ask Mr. Leight, he’ll tell you the same.”
Moss glanced assessingly at the boy, who favored his sister, he supposed. They both had that wan, stringy blond look. He appeared to be tall enough and strong enough to do a bit of work. But he was still just a boy, and one that seemed to have a chip on his shoulder and an inflated idea of his own value.
Yeoman nodded hopefully. “The boy can be a help to you, Moss. And the girls …” he hesitated momentarily. “They’ll … be good company for your wife.”
Moss felt the anger flash through him once more. He dismissed Browning’s suggestion and the proud young boy in the same condescending gesture. These men were expecting him to feed and clothe six more people on a rough piece of rocky hill that could hardly support him and his old uncle alone.
“Maybe it’s best if you wait a while, Eulie,” the preacher said once more. “You can get settled in and—”
“Bring the whole dadblamed lot of’em.”
Moss directed his words angrily to his new young bride. “If they are coming to starve at my house, they may as well start today.”
Eulie smiled pleasantly and turned to squeeze her brother’s arm in obvious delight. Her cheerfulness in the face of Moss’s bad temper was jarring.
For his part, young Ransom didn’t appear nearly as elated by the words as his sister.
Preacher Thompson stepped up next to Red Tex and patted the horse’s withers with an aged, gnarled hand, settling him down before gazing up at his rider.
The preacher’s voice was no longer stern and strident, as it had been before the wedding. His tone was now conciliatory.
“It’s a big bunch to take on,” he admitted to Moss quietly. “It may well taste a hard and bitter cup today, son. But I promise you’ll feel differently about this and her and everything after that baby comes.”
“I told you, they ain’t no baby coming,” Moss answered between clenched teeth.
The preacher’s gray brow furrowed and he tutted in disapproval. “You’re married to her already. It makes no sense to persist in denials.”
Moss jerked at the reins, pulling his horse back away from the man. He wanted to be away from this place, away from these people, away, so far away. That’s all he’d ever really wanted, to get away. Now the dream seemed further in the distance than ever before.
“Get your whole family,” he ordered Eulie angrily. “And have them out to the farm by suppertime. I got plowing to do this afternoon.”
His young bride was still smiling, still happy. She must be feebleminded, he thought unkindly.
Moss dug his heels in the horse’s flanks. Yeoman called out to him.
“Ain’t you going to give the gal a ride back to your place?”
Eulie was still standing there, smiling as if this were a truly happy wedding day. That sweet, innocent smile—it was the same one she used when she was lying through her teeth.
“Red Tex don’t ride double,” Moss snarled back determinedly. “And she’s plenty used to walking.”
It was, without a doubt, the most conniving, low-life, sidewinder trick ever played on a man. Eulie was not proud of it. But it was for a good cause, and at least it had worked. By nightfall her entire family would be safe and cared for under one roof.
Of course, the husband-man was in a near bleeding choler about it. But it was best for him, too, she assured herself. Every fellow needed a wife, and Moss Collier had nobody. Eulie might not be the best candidate for wife in the Sweetwood, but she was absolutely certain that she was better than nobody.
She grinned at the uncomfortable men standing all around her. Moss Collier’s anger was embarrassing. And her own cheerfulness seemed to disconcert them even more. Eulie didn’t want to ride the husband-man’s big horse anyway. She much preferred to walk out to the farm with her brother and sisters. And she flatly refused to worry about the future or take offense at anything that was said.
A woman’s wedding day was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. If this was the happiest she was ever going to be, Eulie was determined to enjoy it.
She was Mrs. Moss Collier. Now and for all time. She’d just vowed it before God. And she had no intention of taking such a thing lightly. He was her husband-man till death to part.
She suspected that she’d known of Moss Collier most of her life. But he had come to her attention for the first time one Sunday morning last winter outside the meetinghouse. Not that Moss Collier had been attending the service. He avoided the monthly preaching with a regularity dependable as sunrise. But Eulie had spied him riding by tall in the saddle on his big
red horse. He never hesitated on his way, but he tipped his broad-brimmed wool hat sort of vaguely in the direction of the churchgoers. His hair was the thickest, blackest, shiniest hair that she’d ever seen on a man. His face was weathered and determinedly strong-jawed, but somehow handsome in its own way. Eulie had felt almost a shiver at the sight of him.
“Who’s that fellow on the horse?” she’d asked Mrs. Browning.
“Why, that’s Mosco Collier,” the old woman had answered. “From up on Barnes Ridge. You know him.”
Eulie thought that vaguely she did, but she’d never given him quite a look before.
“Has he got a woman?” she asked.
“No, and more’s the pity,” Mrs. Browning answered. “He lives with his old uncle that was injured in the war. The man is a hermit, and Moss has taken care of him since he was little more than a boy himself. A fine, good fellow he is and a good friend to my son.”
Whether it was his good looks or Mrs. Browning’s high opinion, Eulie knew right then and there that when looking for a husband-man, she wouldn’t do much better than Moss Collier.
She glanced at the guilty-looking men standing around her. Shifting from one foot to another, they were embarrassed on her behalf and uncomfortable with what they knew of her most intimate life.
Eulie grinned broadly at them and tossed a hank of tow-colored hair back over her shoulder. The sun was shining, the breeze was warm, spring was in the air, and she was a married woman.
Preacher Thompson patted her hand, looking worried.
“You don’t have to go out there to his farm if you’re afraid,” he said.
Eulie gazed at him, incredulous.
“Afraid? Why would I be afraid?”
The husband-man was angry for certain. But Eulie was not in the least afraid of him. She considered herself a pretty good judge of the basic decency of people. And Moss Collier, mad as he could be, was basically a pretty decent man.
In truth she was excited to go, anxious to start her new life. She’d sneaked up to his cabin a couple of weeks ago and had a good look around. It wasn’t the most prosperous place on the mountain, but it was bigger than she had hoped. The wall timbers looked sturdy, and the roof was in good repair. A couple of the outbuildings were pretty disreputable, but nothing that couldn’t be patched together with a half dozen board feet and a hard day’s effort.