12

Murdock Ranch

TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1906

Hattie had never known time to drag on so long. The passage of time from that horrid day at the creek made poured molasses look like a raging waterfall.

Fall hadn’t seemed that far away when Augusta first set out for San Francisco. Hattie’s festering disappointment in Jake might have chipped at their relationship, but having righteousness on her side had made time fly. With her new doubts over her right to pass judgment on his actions, however, the days dragged unbearably.

It didn’t help that Jake wasn’t even around to revile. That at least would have sped up the tempo of her days; she was sure of it. But less than a week after their confrontation, he accepted an increasingly rare case from an old client, and it took him away from the ranch to the county seat. He’d been gone for a little under two weeks now. And she missed him. She was still furious with him, and she still despised his lack of fidelity to Jane-Ellen. Yet, she missed him.

Dang, she hated to admit it. After all, with Jake out of the way, she was finally free to once again roam the stables and barn. Naturally, she took full advantage of the opportunity. She thoroughly enjoyed having the run of the ranch for the first time this summer, instead of being cooped inside with Jane-Ellen for hours on end. And yet . . .

Below the surface of her enjoyment lay a restlessness she couldn’t shake, couldn’t soothe, could not control. She found herself watching the ranch road at odd moments, searching for his return. She’d give a bundle to convince herself she was merely anxious for him to get back so she could tell him to go whistle in the wind. Except that hound wouldn’t hunt, as Doc Fielding liked to say. Aside from little social niceties like stretching the truth to save another’s feelings, Hattie had a lifelong habit of not lying. Neither to herself, nor to anyone else. She couldn’t wrap her mind around starting now.

What Jake did was wrong—dead wrong. And her knowing about his infidelity created a giant rent in the once-golden fabric of high regard she’d long held for him. A rip, moreover, she wasn’t certain could be mended. Yet, the longer he was away, the more Hattie wanted back her old laughing Jake. She wanted back the man who had teased her and rumpled her hair. The man who had listened to her opinions seriously, with every indication her thoughts on an issue mattered. As if they were, perhaps, actually every bit as important as those of the men with whom he conversed.

She rued the day she and Moses had pedaled down the shortcut past Mamie Parker’s stables. If Hattie had the ability to turn back time, she would have one hundred percent handled things differently. She would’ve taken the long way home that day, as Moses had suggested.

Wishing for the impossible was a radical departure from Hattie’s usual approach to life, and had anyone told her weeks ago that ignorance was bliss, she’d have screeched a denial. Now she wasn’t so sure. She sure as shootin’ didn’t care for the situation as it currently stood. And against her better judgment, she longed for a return to her old, uncommonly close relationship with Jake. She hated their new, stiff formality and had no idea how to relate to the man whose hazel eyes were newly cool. His lanky appearance was as familiar to her as her own. Yet he was suddenly a stranger who treated her with impeccable politeness—and not a speck of his old breezy warmth.

It was all such a dreadful mess. Nothing was the same as it had been a few weeks back. Would it ever be again? She no longer possessed the conviction that it was her God-given right to feel righteous indignation in the matter. That, at least, might have warmed this frigid hole of loneliness carved in her chest. Did she have the right to pass judgment on Jake? She’d thought so, the day after commencement. Heck, she had taken one look at Jake’s horse blanket and saddle—damning proof his horse was in the local bawdy house stable—and felt it as an instinctive right to judge and try him. Her hero turned out to have feet of clay, and she couldn’t have been more disappointed or disillusioned if he’d been her husband instead of Jane-Ellen’s. She had been angrier, in all probability, than Jane-Ellen would be, did she know what Hattie knew.

She still was. It was disgustingly clear the men of Mattawa were cognizant of Jake’s infidelity. Moses had known, even before that day. Even through her own shock, Hattie had recognized his lack of surprise. And her suffragist heart had rebelled.

She was not a radical, chain-yourself-to-the-courthouse-pillar suffragette. She was, however, genuinely outraged by the inequality existing between the sexes, and she’d never hesitated to say so or tartly state innumerable examples. The tendency had alienated her from half the people in Mattawa.

Well, if this wasn’t a prime example of inequality, she didn’t know what was. Not that she would breathe a word of it to anyone, for to do so would shame Jane-Ellen beyond bearing. But, dang, it made her blood boil! A man’s unfaithfulness had the effect of grouping men together to protect one of their own. Boys will be boys and all that rot.

But just let a woman be unfaithful in the exact same manner as Jacob Murdock, and she would be labeled a whore and forever ostracized. Now, there was equality and justness for you.

With that lack of fairness factoring into her reaction, Hattie had taken one look at Jake’s horse blanket at Mamie Parker’s stable that day and made an immediate, instinctive judgment.

She had judged, tried, and convicted her once hero—and felt perfectly justified in doing so.

And yet . . . Judge not, the Bible preached.

It wasn’t a passage Pastor Stone dwelt on at Sunday services, being more of a hellfire-and-brimstone sort of preacher. But Hattie knew her Bible, and that had always struck her as the essence of Christianity. Hadn’t she herself run afoul of unjust judgments, of character assassinations hastily made and too numerous to count? Didn’t she know how it hurt? Still . . .

Lest ye too be judged. Well, there you were, then. She would never be unfaithful to her husband. So, she could judge away. Which wasn’t actually the point, though, was it?

Lord, she was confused. As she went over it again and again in her ever-whirling mind, watching for Jake’s return—wishing he would come back to the ranch, wishing he’d stay away indefinitely—what Hattie wished for more than anything was for Aunt Augusta to come home.

A futile hope, that one, since Augusta’s return wasn’t scheduled until the end of next month, two weeks prior to Hattie’s own departure for normal school. But it would surely be wonderful if, for whatever reason, Aunt Augusta cut her trip short.

She rarely even had Moses’ company these days to alleviate her grinding loneliness. Ever since that day at the creek, they had seen darn little of each other. Only three times in the past two weeks. Compared to what time she was accustomed to spending with him, it wasn’t much.

For a while she’d thought a bit of distance between them was just as well. Two of the times they’d managed to spend together were filled with painful awkwardness. She’d always found solace in Moses’ company, but in both of the recent encounters, he’d spent most of the time they were together telling her he really should get going. Hattie didn’t understand what was happening between them. She was used to being unwelcomed by a lot of people. She had never expected to feel that way with Moses, and it hurt. Everything hurt these days.

But then the last time she’d seen him, it had been as if nothing had ever come between them. And she’d thought things might be all right after all. But it had been several days now since she’d seen him. Twice she had called him on the telephone to ask if he wanted to come out to the ranch, or if she could come into town to see him. He’d had an excuse both times for putting her off. His rejection, on the heels of believing their relationship had finally regained its normal steady footing, hurt something fierce—even worse than before.

She felt so darn alone. For seven years, she’d pretended she didn’t care what the inhabitants of Mattawa thought of her, a self-deception difficult enough when Aunt Augusta, Jake, Mirabel, and Moses were her only champions. They were the solid core of people who hadn’t disapproved of her at one time or another. Four people who knew all her faults intimately, and loved her anyway. Out of all the individuals in the world, four wasn’t an overabundance of friends. Yet it had been enough. Until now.

Because now she feared she might only have two. And they were out of town.