THE HEART OF GOD

PART TWO:

Cort swayed in the saddle as he rode, blinking back a fog that seemed determined to settle over his eyes.  He hadn't  slept at all the night before,  unless he counted  a brief  period of unconsciousness, and had slept all too little the previous several. He lost track of where they were going, doing nothing more than trying to keep his horse near hers. Finally...hours, days ...he had no idea...she stopped just outside a large barn. He closed his eyes, letting the scent of
fresh hay settle over him.

"Mr. Wells?" The man was simply sitting in his saddle, eyes closed, making no effort to dismount. "Mr. Wells, we're here."

Heavy-lidded, he managed a look down at her where she was standing near his horse."Hmmm?"

"The ranch, my ranch, we're here. You can rest in the bunkhouse now."

He moved his gaze to the barn again, inhaling the hay. The idea of a crowded bunkhouse, beds  in a row, didn't appeal to him. It was the hay he wanted. "Mind...mind if I just settle for a bit in the loft?"

"All right," she agreed. Benjamin wouldn't be up there now. He'd be with Frank. He'd better  be with Frank! She watched Cort slowly dismount, stumbling as he took his first step toward

the barn door. She grabbed his elbow, offering quick support, and he looked at her with that gone-inside expression of his, as though he wasn't quite sure who she was or if she even...was. How would the man make it up the steep wooden ladder to the loft?

"Over there," she said softly, guiding him across the main floor of the barn to the ladder.

He put both hands on the rung above his head then leaned his forehead on the one in front of his face. She was afraid he'd get half way up and fall. His jaw squared, though, and hand over hand he pulled himself up to the loft while she stood at the bottom of the ladder, hardly breathing.

He took about three steps away from the ladder and just let himself drop forward into a pile of loose hay. His eyes were closed before his face touched the straw and he emitted one long sigh then fell asleep.

Elizabeth waited a moment but didn't hear a sound from him once he'd disappeared from her view in the loft. "Mr. Wells?" she called. "You all right?"

When he didn't answer, she climbed the ladder herself, pausing when her head and shoulders were above the loft flooring. He was right there, face down in the hay, a cloud of freshly-disturbed motes filling the air above him. She watched him a moment, not sure if he'd passed

out or was simply asleep. Looking at him pricked a sharp memory of a long-ago pallet where another man had fallen in exhaustion and pain. She folded her arms on the edge of the loft, resting her brow on them, Ben's face utterly vivid in her mind. Nearly eight years. Yet still the joy of him, the anguish of him, was immediately there.

Blinking back a few determined tears, she looked again at this man in her hay, felt again some movement deep in her toward him. The way his head was lying, she thought it might be hard for him to breathe, so she came all the way up into the loft and knelt beside him. Using both hands, she turned his head more to the side so that his nose and mouth were clear of the hay. He sighed, a low, soft whisper of a sound, but didn't wake. She knew she should leave, but instead sat down beside him, watching a few thin wisps of straw move back and forth as his breath came and went.

Breath. Yes. Fingers spread wide, she placed her palm over her abdomen. Ben's breath. Sometimes in the quiet moments of her life she could feel it there. She'd thought that was all of his livingness she'd be taking with her when she left. She'd been wrong.

When she'd awakened by Ben's grave the next morning, the Indian was sitting cross-legged nearby, regarding her seriously. Her hand closed convulsively around the cairn rock she still had cupped in her palm and the Indian flinched almost imperceptibly. He had a scarf tied around his head where she'd hit him just over a day ago. His eyes traveled over the cairn and back to her. "Tomahawk promise Wade. Woman go to Redemption. Promise."

She shuddered in a mixture of cold and relief. He didn't mean to harm her. She sat up, releasing the rock, which rolled part way down the cairn, making that dull clonking sound she feared would haunt her forever. Looking at the cairn under which she'd buried him, she remembered all too well the rock after rock after rock she'd piled atop the dirt. Now all she wanted was to

see him again, to look upon his face one more time. But she knew it had gone past that. Now the sight of him would be locked in her heart alone. With the back of her hand, she wiped tears away, forcing herself to move her eyes from the grave to the Indian.

"Now?" she asked.

Tommy nodded and stood.

"I need to get some things from the cabin," she said. The Indian nodded again, silently following her, waiting outside as she entered alone. What did she want to take? His saddlebags, of course, but what else? What here meant something to her?  She took the small, flat pillow where his head had lain. And the basin. That was silly, taking the basin, she figured, but it had such associations with him for her. His small sketchbook lay on the table. Yes, that. And her Bible. Nothing else. The four items went into his saddlebags and with one last look at the pallet, she closed the door behind her.

The two ponies were waiting down by the boulder. Before mounting, she knelt at the foot of Ben's grave, praying again, then lay her palm on the nearest rock. "Good-bye, my love," she whispered. "Wait for me." Then trying not to split in half, she picked up his hat, settled it firmly on her head, and swung up onto Greyfeather's horse.

This time her hands didn't need tying, her mount didn't need leading. She followed silently. For several days they rode, camping at night, Tommy hunting small game for food.  She'd never heard of Redemption before, was not even sure where it was, only that Ben had been there, had liked a certain parcel of land enough to buy it, and that now that was where she was going, where Ben wanted her to go. Leaving his grave would have broken her but for that certain sense she had of going toward something he wanted. She felt somehow that he would know, even where he was, he would know that she'd be there.

Tommy knew right where Ben's land was. Ben had never really lived there, not with his life style. It had always been a 'someday' sort of place, though he suspected even that was hardly likely. Yet, still, he liked knowing he had the deed to the place. There was a one-bedroom house on the land, not much to look at, but at least it was a roof for the rare days he got to spend there. No one in his gang, not even Charlie, knew about the land. He liked it like that.

A small crick ran smack dab through the middle of the place less than a quarter mile from the house. Someday...that elusive someday...he thought he might rig some sort of waterwheel to get water directly up to the house. He'd sat there on Ranger one time beside the crick, chuckling at himself for his ridiculous plans.

Tommy took her right to the door and without a word left her. The world spread flatly, brownly away from her in all directions, a low range of mountains on a distant horizon, a bit closer the little, brown town of Redemption itself.  She felt utterly alone, more so in all this space than she had in the tiny hut.

"Oh, Ben," she murmured. "Do you know? Do you know I'm here?"  It would be so good to know for sure he was aware of it. Sighing, she opened the door and went inside.

Now almost eight years had passed. The money in the secret pocket of Ben's saddlebag had been all large bills and there had been a lot of them. The deed was for a thousand acres of land, not really all that much because of the dry scrubbiness of the area, and she'd added three hundred more to it over time for the cattle she ran. The house had been expanded to two stories and had

a wide porch that wrapped around three sides. The barn and several sheds had been built, ranch hands hired, and a waterwheel constructed on the crick to bring water more conveniently up to the house and also to irrigate the large vegetable garden she kept. Always she found herself wishing that Ben could see it, could see what she'd made of what he'd given her.

She had, however, been taken quite by surprise by the most important thing he'd given her, had not even known at first that she carried far more than his hat and his saddlebags as she rode away from his grave. Benjamin. She had carried his son with her. In those early days in the small house when she'd felt so alone and then had discovered she was pregnant...ah, the difference that had made. She lay in bed at night, her hands moving over her belly, talking to

the unborn child. Sometimes she even imagined the baby enveloped in that last breath of its father's. She had not left all of him behind, under the rocks. No, she had a living part of him

with her, inside her.

Close to term, a deep fear had taken her. Her first baby had been stillborn. What if she lost

Ben's baby, too? Now at night she lay, her hands clasped over her mounding abdomen, waiting

for each kick to assure her that the baby was still all right.

Benjamin, now seven. The older he got, the more he looked like his father, his hair thick and chestnut brown, his eyes that same green that changed their shading with the light. He had the cleft chin, the straight brows, that way of grinning with his lips closed. He was old enough now to ask questions about what had happened to his father, and so she told him how it was to love

so well that you would lay down your life for another. He liked to walk around the house in the black hat that was way too big for him, coming down over his eyes so that he bumped into the furniture. Elizabeth liked to wear it, too, and it was often on her head as she rode out to the further reaches of the ranch. She'd made a real life here on Ben's land with Ben's son. Still, as she lay alone in her bed, she often ached with the need to feel his touch again, to hear herself called LizzieBess. Sitting there now beside the sleeping Cort, she rested her elbows on her bent knees and buried her face in her hands.

"Ma? Are you up there?" The small voice came up from the main part of the barn.

Elizabeth stood quickly, brushing clinging straw from her skirt, and descended the ladder. "Why were you in the loft, Ma? And why's there another horse with Darcey outside the barn? And what happened in town?"

She smiled fondly at her son. Benjamin was always full of questions. "I was in the loft because

we have a guest, Benjamin, who is right now asleep in the hay, and that's his horse. Well, I guess it's his horse now. And I don't know what happened in town except that it seems to be mostly blown up."

"Why's the guest in the loft, Ma?"

"Because that's where he wanted to be. I think he just wanted a place quieter than the bunk house."

"But it's morning still. Why's he sleepin' in the morning?"

"He was very tired, Benjamin. I don't think he's gotten much sleep for a long time. So you leave him be, you hear me? Let him get his rest. I'm going in the house now and see if I can salvage any of the bread I was making. Will you go tell Frank what I told you. And tell him I'd like for everybody to keep away from the loft until the man comes down and to please put the horses away quietly."

"Who is he, Ma? Do you know him?"

"His name is Cortland Wells and he might be the new marshal. I don't think that's really settled yet, but he might be."

Benjamin's eyes widened. "A real marshal? With a badge?"

Elizabeth smiled. "Well, he does have a badge, but it's in his pocket right now."

About two hours later, Benjamin couldn't stand it any longer. He simply had to see the man in the hay who might be the marshal, so as quietly as possible, he climbed up the ladder to the loft. Cort hadn't moved and lay exactly as Elizabeth had left him. To Benjamin he didn't much look like his idea of a marshal. The man had on a dirty white shirt and brown pants that were not only dirty, but almost raggedy. And he looked like someone had beaten him up pretty bad. In

his mind, a marshal would be strong and clean and have a nice jacket. And he wouldn't go around getting himself all beaten up, either. He frowned, greatly disappointed. He sat down at the edge of the loft, his legs dangling down the ladder, and stared at the man. A marshal would have a fine gun belt with maybe two holsters and gleaming silver guns in them. The man did

have on a gun belt, but it wasn't fine at all and the gun in the holster looked old and almost rusty. Ma must be wrong. This man could never be a marshal, not a real one anyway. He bet

the man didn't even know how to shoot good, especially not with a gun like that one.

He leaned forward on his elbows, his eyes hooded, trying to get a good look at the man's face, wondering how long he'd sleep. It was broad daylight. People weren't supposed to sleep in daylight unless they were babies or really, really old, or maybe very sick. Then he noticed the
man's chin. It had a cleft just like the one he had. Frank didn't have a cleft and neither did any of the other men who worked the ranch. He'd studied his own in Ma's mirror sometimes, wondering if it was ok to have something like that in the middle of your chin. But this man had
one and that fascinated him. He squirmed his way closer until he was lying on the hay facing Cort with only about a foot between their faces. After a long study, he reached out and touched Cort's chin with his fingertip, right in the middle of his cleft.

Instantly Cort jerked awake, his hand moving instinctively to his holster. Then he saw the little face so close to his, eyes wide and just as startled as his own. What in...?

His mind seemed blank. He had no idea where he was, why he was there, why some boy was staring at him. He sat up, his mouth slightly open, staring back at the child, trying desperately

to make some sense of this.

Benjamin sat up when the man did. He was used to kindness from adults and wasn't afraid, not even if the man was a stranger. "Are you really gonna be the marshal?" It was the most important thing he wanted to know from the man.

"What...?"

"The marshal. Are you gonna be the marshal?"

Cort wiped his hands across his face, his brain still heavy with sleep, not yet able to focus on what the boy meant.

"Ma says you got a badge. Do you really have one? A real one?"

Cort fumbled in his pocket. "This?" He held it out on the flat of his hand. "You mean this?"

"Oh!"  Benjamin was impressed. It was real! "Can I hold it?"

Wordlessly, Cort extended his hand a bit further and the boy almost reverently took the badge from it. Cort watched him, lost in confusion, his tongue licking across his dry lips. "Is...is there water?" he finally asked.

"Sure, mister," Benjamin said brightly. "Come with me."

Cort, still not terribly steady on his feet, followed the boy down the ladder and out of the barn, then across a well-kept yard to the back door of a house. Elizabeth was upstairs, making a bed, when Benjamin led Cort into the kitchen and pumped some water into a clay pitcher from which
he poured a tall glassful that he handed to Cort. "Ma had a waterwheel built," he said proudly, "so we've got water right here inside."

Cort sat down on a wooden chair, holding the glass in both hands, trying to keep it from shaking as he gulped the water. "More?" Benjamin asked, and when Cort nodded, the boy refilled the glass for him.

"Thanks," Cort murmured, wiping his mouth along the back of his forearm. He'd ended up with the glass in his right hand then found he couldn't hold it with that hand alone and had to grab for it with his left, almost dropping it. After he'd set the glass on the table, he held his right hand cradled with his left and leaned forward, blowing short breaths out his mouth.

Elizabeth, returning to the kitchen, had paused in the doorway in time to see this last scene. At first she'd been surprised to see Cort there, thinking he'd still be asleep in the loft, but since Benjamin with with him, she correctly calculated that her son had been curious and had awakened him. Well, there was no help for that now. The man was obviously up and in her kitchen.  She entered the room, cocking one eyebrow at Benjamin as she passed him, enough to
let him know she was aware he was responsible for this.

"I hope the bit of rest you got, helped, Mr. Wells."

He looked up at her. "I'm better, thank you, Mrs. Wade."

She sent Benjamin on an errand to Frank. "Do you think it's broken?" She nodded toward his hand.

"I don't know. Could be."

"Mind if I take a look?"

He lay the hand on the table between them as she sat, his fingers visibly trembling. The entire back of his hand was swollen, the flesh purpled and raw. "How'd something like this happen, Mr. Wells?"

"Gun butt."

Her breath hissed in. "Somebody did this to you deliberately?"

"Quite deliberately, yes."

"Why?"

"Slow my draw. Make sure the other fellow could...."

So, he had been in the gunslinging contest Frank had told her about. Pretty pitiful gun he had, though, to enter something like that. "And who was the other fellow?"

"Herod. John Herod."

Her eyes flew from his hand to his face. "You the one killed him?"

"No, that wasn't me."

"Because of your hand?"

"Because there was someone needin' to kill him more'n I did."

"What happened to the town?"

"Gunpowder."

"You do that?"

"No, I was aware of it, but wasn't...free...to do it myself."

"Why'd they blow up the town?"

"Herod had his men all along the rooftops, the balconies, windows. It was the last fight and they were supposed to take me down if Herod didn't."

"I thought you said you didn't face Herod, didn't kill him."

"I did face him. No choice about that. Just wasn't the one doin' the killin'."

"You had no choice?"

"None," he replied grimly, glancing at his wrists.

She saw the quick look and her lips parted in something like horror. "You mean...your wrists ...they...."

His eyes met hers. "Wasn't my idea to come to Redemption, Mrs. Wade."

"They...they made you come?"

"That's one way of puttin' it, Ma'am."

"But...but...why?"

"Herod wanted me in the contest."  He shrugged, just barely. "Guess that was pretty much what the whole thing was about."

"It was about...you?"

"Pretty much. He said he'd wanted to face me down ever since he'd known me."

"Was...?"

"Fourteen, Ma'am. Since I was fourteen." (Note: See "One Day At Fourteen" here)

"But Herod's been in Redemption a lot of years. I've never seen you here before."

"Never been here before, Ma'am."

"Could you not call me Ma'am, Mr. Wells? For some reason it sets my teeth on edge when you do that."

"I was only...."

"I know. You're being polite. And I can't really explain to you why it does that, but it does."  She couldn't say that he reminded her so much of Ben that the formality of it, of it from...him, caused her a little stab of pain somewhere near her heart. That his mere presence jangled all

her memories and made them ram into each other. She could feel them inside her, bouncing around, glancing off her ribcage.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Wade. Perhaps it would be better if I...." He started to rise.

"Oh, no, that's not what I meant at all! It's just...just...that you remind me so much of someone ...and the 'Ma'am' kind of seems too formal because...because of that."

He looked at her silently, waiting. "Elizabeth," she murmured.

He dipped his head a bit. "Then I guess that means you'll have to call me Cort and not Mr. Wells."

He smiled, his lips curving but remaining together, just the way Benjamin smiled, just the way....

"I bet you could use some scrambled eggs, maybe a biscuit?"

It had been days since he'd had more than a few scraps to eat. "That sure sounds good, Ma'...Elizabeth."

Within moments the smell of frying bacon filled the room and he wasn't sure he could stand it. He was so hungry the mere scent of it had his stomach almost convulsing with need. Yet when she set a plate in front of him, a mound of scrambled eggs with half-melted lumps of cheese mixed in, five thick slabs of bacon, and three truly giant biscuits, he still paused a moment and closed his eyes. Elizabeth did rather a double take. The man was used to saying grace at table. Now how in the world did that fit with him being in a quick draw contest?

Cort tried to manage the fork with his right hand, but it hurt too much to grip the utensil no matter how lightly he held it. Giving up, he switched it to his left.

"I have some good salve," Elizabeth offered. "Might help with all those abrasions you've got."  He had quite a layer of dirt on him, though, and it wouldn't do to put salve on over dirt and dust. "You'll probably need to wash up some first, I expect."

"Thank you, Elizabeth," he said, pausing with a biscuit halfway to his mouth. "I always did kinda like keepin' myself clean."

The spoon she was holding as she stood near the sink dropped with a clatter to the floor.

ON TO PART 3

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