THE HEART OF GOD

PART THREE:

She stooped quickly, retrieving the spoon, trying to cover how flustered she was that he had  used Ben's exact words. But when she was squatted, spoon in hand, she had to brace herself by putting her other hand flat on the floor. More clearly than the floor she was staring at came

the image of Ben lying on the pallet, his hands folded behind his head as he waited for her to wash him. She saw his eyes watching her, the firelight in them, felt the tremble of his flesh under her fingers. Less than three hours later the Apaches had come.

She put one knee down, released the spoon, and moved that hand to cover her face. Usually she managed better than this. It was him, she knew; it was the presence of Cort that was doing this to her.

Concerned, he'd gotten up from his chair and squatted beside her, his left hand lightly on her arm. "Elizabeth? Are you all right?"

She dropped her hand, swallowing hard. "Isn't that what I usually ask you?"

"Is something wrong? Have I...?"

"No, Cort. It's nothing...new. Just a sudden memory."

"I know about those." His eyes were level with hers and she could see in them he was speaking the truth.

"Eggs are much better warm," she said, taking hold of the edge of the sink to help pull herself up. He stood, too, just looking at her a moment. "Don't you think?" she added.

Silently he went back to the table, finishing his meal. Elizabeth pulled open a curtain just past the sink, revealing a tiny room with a large metal tub. "A good soak is what you need. Should help with that stiffness."  With that, she put a large kettle of water on to heat. Her eyes traveled to the old basin. She didn't use it any more, but had it sitting on a shelf where she could see it.

His eyes followed where she was looking then back to her face, wondering at her expression.

She was a lovely woman but there was this wistfulness about her, as though just behind her

were some chasm filled with sorrow and memory. "I don't aim to be intrudin' on your hospitality, Ma'...Elizabeth. I could clean off out in the barn."

"This is better," she replied softly. "The water will be warm and the curtain will give you privacy. It'll be just fine."

He spread a thick layer of jam on his last biscuit. Food and a bath. Literal heaven compared to the last few days. "Much obliged," he mumbled. "More'n I can say."

She poured several buckets of water right from the pump into the tub then added the hot water from the stove, dipping in her hand. "Want to test it?"

He came and immersed the fingers of his left hand. "Just right," he smiled.

She stepped back out into the kitchen, pulling the curtain. "Soap and a sponge are on the little shelf. If you toss your clothes out, I'll see if I can clean them a bit. Are they all you have?"

"Had a jacket and vest. Don't know where they are right now. Think the building they were in burned down."

She could hear him moving around in the little room and soon his pants, shirt and socks appeared under the bottom of the curtain. She picked them up, memories of another shirt, a

pair of amazing black pants filling her thoughts. Don't wallow, Elizabeth, she reprimanded herself. You're not a buffalo. But since Cort had come, memory after memory had flooded through her and she seemed unable to stop them. "I'll take these out to the wash tub, see what

I can do. You'll be alone in the house."

Though she managed to get out a lot of the ground-in dirt, the wet clothes were still quite tattered and needed the attention of a good needle. She hung them on the line where the hot, desert sun would dry them quickly, then went to a shed where she could see Frank and Benjamin. "When you finish what you're doing, Frank, would you take as many of the men as you think right into Redemption and see what you can do to help? And you, young master Benjamin, you wait out in the yard until I come get you."

"Why can't I come inside?"

"Mr. Wells is in the bath. Let's give him time to finish that first, ok, and get his clothes back

on."

"I've still got the badge, Ma."  He pulled it out of a pocket.

"I'm sure that's fine. Just don't lose it. He may decide he wants it."

She went off to walk the rows of her garden, stooping to pull an errant weed here and there. When she checked his clothes, they were dry, so she took them off the line and went back into the kitchen. The curtain was still pulled. She stood quietly, listening, but there were no sounds

of splashing water. Folding his clothes, she lay them on the table, then sat down with a glass of milk, waiting. After ten more minutes of silence, she called his name softly. "Cort?"

There was no answer. "Cort?" she tried more loudly. "Are you all right?" Then she smiled to herself. That seemed to be the main thing they said to one another.

The silence bothered her. She had no idea how seriously injured he might be and so she stepped to the curtain, pulling it tentatively back just enough so she could see into the room. He was still in the tub, his arms resting along its top edge, his head tipped way to the right, resting on his shoulder. He was sound asleep. He'd washed his hair and long strands of it, dark and shiny, clung wetly to his face. His knees were bent because the tub was too short for him to stretch them fully out, and she noted the purple and blue bruising on them both as though he'd been knocked to them over and over. What was his story? Why would Herod want so terribly for

him to be in the contest that he'd have this done to him?

She started to let go of the curtain, but he was somehow so almost beautiful to look at that she lingered. Bruises marked him here and there and with the dirt washed off, the abrasions around his wrists looked more raw and red than ever. The way his wet hair parted, she could see a large welt in his scalp that had to have been made by something other than a fist. What had been done to him seemed to her flat-out torture. Ben had had those black marks high on his chest. Why did men do such things to one another? But, then, Herod was responsible for what had happened to this man. Herod. She could hardly believe he was gone. He'd plagued her life ever since she'd arrived.

She leaned her left temple against the doorframe, absolutely lost in her contemplation of Cort. Then suddenly she realized what she was doing and blushed furiously. Maybe eight years was too long for a woman her age to be lonely? Sitting at the table again, she leaned her elbows on

its top and rested her chin on her hands. How strange after all this time that the first man in her house other than a ranch hand on business, would be one who reminded her so of Ben. Cort was much leaner and quite a few years younger, but the similarities were striking nonetheless.

When he woke up would he get dressed and simply ride away? That was probably the most likely thing he'd do. But she didn't want him to. A loud splash jarred her from her reveries.

She heard Cort mutter something about the water being cold. Of course it would be after how long he'd been in the tub.

"Cort?" she called. "I'm here. I have your clothes. I'll just slide them under the curtain.

There's a towel you can use on that little table."

"Thanks, Elizabeth."  As she pushed his folded clothes under the curtain, she could see his wet feet, a small puddle forming around them. The sight made her smile then made her realize how much she'd missed by not having a man by her side all these years, the little homey things a man and woman shared...even little puddles around freshly-bathed male feet. Sitting at the table as she waited for Cort to dress, she wondered what would life have been like if Ben had not died? Would they have come here...together? He was wanted by the law, though. Would he even have been able to come here? Would they have had to go to Mexico? That would have been all right. Anywhere would have been all right just so long as he was there. That aching for him filled her up again and she tipped her head back, squeezing her eyes tightly closed.

Cort came through the curtain just then, pausing only a half-step into the kitchen. She looked exactly like he felt, like an inner pain was welling so full and so high that he wasn't sure he could keep it inside. He crossed to her in four long strides, coming up behind her chair and silently
placing a hand on either of her shoulders. He wasn't exactly sure why he felt free to do that, but he did. Perhaps it was the obvious pain in her that made him feel some connection. He didn't stop to examine it, to form words to explain it, he simply lay his hands on her shoulders. There was nothing he even wanted to say; he just wanted to touch her and let the silence of that say,

"I know."

No one had touched her in a gentle, masculine way like that, not since she and Ben had made love after his bath. Now, so very, very long after that, there had been another bath, a very different bath, but when she felt his hands on her, offering their warmth and comfort, she began
to tremble and the desperately contained tears slid freely down her cheeks. She didn't know what to say, what to do, so she sat there and cried in absolute soundlessness. She cried for the loss of Ben, for the loss of years with him. She cried for her aloneness, for not having wet feet making puddles on her floor. She cried for all the yearning, aching hours over all the long years. And she cried because this man was about to walk out her door after he'd made her yearning a freshly piercing thing again.

He stood behind her all the while, his fingers tightening somewhat on her shoulders. He'd schooled himself for years not to cry but that didn't mean there weren't tears aplenty inside his soul. And what had happened to him the last few days, the utter profoundness of the losses one atop the other, seemed to find some outlet in this woman's tears. His hands on her shoulders connected him to her and as she wept, somehow he wept with her, through her. It was a thing he'd never experienced before, had not known was possible.

When she was done, still silent he moved to sit across the table from her, locking his eyes on hers. She let the tears dry on her cheeks, lost in what he was letting her read in his gaze. It was not coherent thought that passed between them. It was something deeper than that, some
wordless acknowledgement of the understanding of pain. And when he finally lowered his eyes

to where his hands rested on the tabletop, she knew nothing need be said, not right then, about it.

"I'll get the salve."  She stood and walked to the pantry, returning with a short, fat, brown jar

in one hand and a roll of thin, white cloth in the other. Pulling a chair closer to his, she sat and lay the back of her left hand on the table. He lifted his right hand and rested it on her waiting palm. As gently as possible she smoothed the gel-like salve over the injury there then wrapped some of the white stripping around it several times. She did the same with both wrists while he watched her face, her dark lashes making shadows on her cheeks. Then, standing, she smoothed some on the deep cut on his left temple, almost in the hairline. Wiping her hands on her apron, she parted his hair here and there, looking for the place he'd been clubbed. His hair was almost dry and had fluffed up, thick and full under her fingers. He didn't even think to wonder how she knew he'd been hit there; he just sat quietly accepting her ministrations. Her fingers in his hair felt wonderful and he closed his eyes, trying to keep in mind this was another man's wife.

Benjamin came in the door then. "Ma, I'm hungry. You got...." He paused when he saw all the bandages on Cort. "She didn't use the stingy stuff on you, did she?"

Cort smiled. "No, she used the not-stingy stuff."

"That's good, mister, 'cause you got more hurt places than I've ever seen all at once before."

Cort lifted his hands. "I think you may be right."  He looked at Elizabeth, who was gathering up the left-over bandaging. "He's your son?"

"Benjamin, yes."

"Benjamin, eh. You wouldn't happen to have a big brother named Joseph, would you?"

Elizabeth had been heading for the pantry, but stopped at his words, turning to stare back at him.

Benjamin had been well-taught by Elizabeth. "My Dad's not named Jacob, mister. My Dad's named Benjamin just like me."

"And where is your father, young Benjamin?"

Elizabeth cleared her throat. "His father died before he was born."

Cort looked quickly from the boy toward Elizabeth. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Apaches killed him," Benjamin explained. "They was going to kill Ma but he talked 'em into killin' him in her place."

Cort blew out a long breath, watching Elizabeth's face, then turned again to Benjamin. "Your father was a special man, Benjamin, a brave man and one to be proud of."

Elizabeth had turned to a side table and was slicing bread, spreading a thick layer of butter and jam on it for Benjamin. "Wash your hands, Benjamin," she said quietly, not turning around. "Then sit at the table."

Benjamin washed then sat across from Cort. "You want your badge back?"

"I don't know yet. Why don't you keep it for a while? I'll let you know if I need it back."

Benjamin smiled widely. "Could I wear it on my shirt?"

"I don't see why not. Well, if it's all right with your mother, that is."

"That'll be fine, Benji. But like I said, just be sure you don't lose it." She set a plate with two slices of the bread in front of him. "I know you just had breakfast not long ago, but would you like some bread, too?" She looked at Cort, one corner of her mouth tugging up in a smile.

"That just might be a fine thing," he replied. He had a lot of not eating to make up for.

Elizabeth wiped the side table, watching the two of them eat. "What are you planning on doing, Cort?" She really wanted to know. "I know there's not much left of the town, but what there is could really use someone to watch over it, get it back on its feet. With Herod gone, everything's going to be different. The townspeople were so used to him even though they hated him, they might not know which way to turn right now."

"I'll have to think about it. I don't know, not yet, if I should just try to go back where they found me."

"Is there something left there for you?"

"They burned it to the ground, Elizabeth. There's nothing left of it."

"Your house? They burned your house?"

"I lived there," he replied vaguely, "but it wasn't my house. I...worked...there, you might say."

"Are you thinking, then, you should go back and help build it up again?"

"I'm not sure I can do that."  He looked grimly toward the door. "Things have changed. I've done things, made choices I didn't know I could still make. I...I just need time to think."

"You're welcome to stay here, Cort. For as long as you need." When he looked at her questioningly, she added, "I don't think there's any place left in Redemption where you could

be put up. And I've got plenty of room here on the ranch."

"You wouldn't mind?"

"No," she murmured, her voice low, "I wouldn't mind at all." 

ON TO PART 4

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