Chapter 4

© Copyright 2011 by Elizabeth Delayne



A week passed, then a few more tumbled by like weeds blowing across the plains. Each week went by like the one before. She helped Rachel out at the farm then headed into town when she did. A trip to town meant spending time in Barton's store. It was a starting point as Rachel always stopped to see Millie before running errands through town. For Crystal it meant seeing Jeff. He was always there and always working under the eye of his father. Always, Crystal thought, a little nervous.

Jasper Barton was a nice man, and a good man. He was a business man, and an excellent father. No one would have contested that part of him. Not even Jeff.

Crystal remembered that several times her father had called Jasper Barton a straight arrow, and Jeff a lasso. As she spent time in the store, she began to understand the metaphor. Jasper wanted his store to look a certain way, he wanted his business handled in a particular manner, and he expected Jeff to follow his lead. Sometimes he explained himself, but most of the time he just tossed Jeff out with an order and expected Jeff to grab and get.

The order was one way. Like an arrow. Perfectly shot out, with skill and finesse.

The lasso … it was Jeff through and through, but not in a skilled, perfected way. Jeff wasn’t the most ... balanced person. He didn't always stop to think things through.

Half the time, he seemed to forget that she was around.

But he was easy to be around. Maybe it was because he had known her in Cartersville and had been there that day. Maybe it was because she felt he shared in the secret, even though he knew nothing of it. Or maybe it was just because he could laugh. He had a great sense of humor. His hazel eyes missed little, and shimmered like raw gold. Where Matt was silent all the time, Jeff was more took part in life. She didn’t have to wonder what he was thinking. He participated in a conversation.

And sometime she wondered if his attention was just for her, if maybe he might feel something for her.

She found her place in town with Lila, as well. They usually went to lunch or worked on some project here or there. Lauren was another matter. She grew increasingly distant at times, even on the occasions she joined them. She spent less time with Matt, or seemed to, even as she stopped mentioning Africa all together.

Back at the farm, Matt simply worked. If maybe he would look toward town, his mind clearly on Lauren, he said nothing bad of her. He turned his attention toward his horses and even patiently shared some of his craft with Crystal, as he did with his younger brother, Brian.

Over time Crystal found herself feeling part of Lenox.

Still, she never forgot her promise. She didn’t have to think about the secret, or the darkness, she held from her father, from everyone.

Don’t ever tell him the truth.

She hadn’t, not in the two years he’d stayed home with her in Cartersville. Not even as he rode away.

It was easier now, to not think about it ...

Even though he was out there ... he didn’t know.

Still, when she saw the Judge ride up toward the Forester’s house, she could not contain her joy. She tossed the cleaning rag on the table and ran out the door. She was laughing when her father slid off the horse and threw his arms around her.

She was crying when he let go.

“I’ve missed you,” she told him, and smiled through her tears.

“My girl,” his look was tender, as he looked at her, but he looked ... vibrant, more vibrant than when he had left.

This was what her mother had seen in him, why she had supported his life away from home. He had a calling, her mother had said.

“Forester home?” he asked as he turned to his horse and took off his bag.

“He will be soon. We were just getting dinner started.”

“Judge,” Rachel had stepped out on the porch, held out her arms to him. Crystal watched her father stepped up, returned the warm embrace.

“Heard I was in time for dinner.”

“You have always had impeccable timing.”

Matt came over from the corral, wordlessly took her father’s horse.

“Come on in with me girl,” her father said and she slid her arm in his to walk with him inside, Matt and his volatile emotions forgotten. “We’ve got some catching up to do.”



With the Judge there, Rachel wouldn’t let her help with dinner, so Crystal sat at her father’s side and listened; her father always had stories to tell. He met people out on the trail, and he picked up details about them, and shared the conversations in a way that brought in meaning behind the words. It was more than talk. He loved people, loved their stories, and while he could tell a good story, he was also a champion listener.

Maybe that’s why he felt called to protect the people of the territory, defend it, and establish a sense of justice in the wild west.

Now more than before, she listened. She listened for details of his journey and filed them away in her memory. He’d always tried to protect her, but he told her more than he realized.

The stories he told her continued as they ate. Still, she was prepared for it to come to an end, prepared for him to send her away from the table. He hadn’t come by simply to see her. The table was cleared. She took Brian and Michael outside, engaged them in a game, while inside her father talked to James—with Rachel and Matt there too—about his search for Shatler. He never left them out of his plans or kept the details away from him. They were his prayer partners, but they had also been victims.

If only he knew ...

She sat on the porch and listened to the steady rumble of voices through the open door. From her perch, she could listen, take in the details of her father’s quest. He didn’t hold anything back from the Foresters.

And yet, he didn’t trust what he knew.

She looked up from her seat on the front steps as Matt joined her.

“Did they excuse you too?”

He let out a soft snort, then shook his head as he settled on the steps beside her. “No. It’s nothing he hasn’t said before. He’s picked up new members, but he does that. Seems he’s on the outs with his brother and has moved south. It means your father’s going to have to go down, follow him. It could be true, it might not be, but he trusts the source.”

“It’s hard to believe you can trust anything related to Shatler,” Crystal murmured. She knew that at times her father had been wrong about Shatler’s location ...

And others, just moments behind him.

“He’s believed to be connected with a recent bank robbery. All evidence points in that direction.”

“If it was recent, than he’s gone into hiding again.”

“Planning his next move.” Matt reached down to his boots, brushed off some dirt that was on the toe. Crystal watched him, even as she marveled that they spoke of the outlaw so matter-of-fact. They had both grown up and lived in his shadow.

They had both seen his mark.

“Rachel gets unsettled any time the rumors move in this direction.”

From her time as a captive of Shatler.

Crystal shivered. Her father had been on Shatler’s trail since before he knew the Foresters, for most of his time as a Marshall and judge. The outlaw would come and go, destroy and kill.

And stay outside the reach of the law.

In Matt’s silence that she was used to now, she turned and watched the boys play with a pigskin ball. They threw it back and forth, lost in their own game. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her legs. Behind her, she could hear the soft flow of conversation from her father and the Foresters.

“Your father tells a good story.”

“He does.”

“He meets a lot of interesting people out there. I thought I could ask him if maybe I could go with him sometime. You think he would let me?”

“I don’t know. He lets men ride with him at times, but I suppose it depends on where he’s going and what he needs to do. Why?” Crystal frowned. “You’re not thinking of joining him?”

Matt simply stared at a distance. “Did you ever think about leaving Cartersville? I mean, before your mom died?”

She turned her head, studied Matt. He wasn’t looking at her, but looking out toward the mountains in the distance, thinking, she figured, of Lauren.

She shrugged a little. “I dreamed a little of the places my father told me about, but I never really thought about going. Cartersville was home. It had been my mother’s home for most of her life. We lived in town, my mother told stories of the farm. She didn’t like farming, so I never romanticized living anywhere else. Have you?” she asked.

“I try ... I try to see myself somewhere else, but why? You go in the house and you know them. You go into town, and you know those people. So maybe I should try to meet new people. Try to see Lenox as just a place. Not as a home.”

“But Lenox is home. And the people here, you can talk to them if you want, but you don’t have to talk to them,” she smiled at the sharp glance he gave her. “You’re a quiet man, Matthew Forester. You take after your father.”

He shrugged, but neither agreed or disagreed.

“You love Rachel as your mother. And she had that sense of adventure in her. She came here because she wanted to go somewhere new. And your mother and father came here. They made a big move.”

For a moment, he sat there, lost in his own thoughts. She wasn’t even sure that he heard her, though there was no reason he shouldn’t. He eyes strayed and she looked, saw that his eyes had followed one of his horses as it moved around the corral.

This was his home, she thought. He had his place, his horses. He had a natural sense to do what needed to be done with them.

Crystal wondered if Lauren understood.

“They were moving away from something,” he said at last. “From the war. From the memories. Why would I want to move away from this?”



After awhile, Crystal slipped inside and headed up to her room. She carefully shut the door behind her and went to the small shelf that was fastened to the wall. She reached for the tattered book of etiquette that no one would open, and pulled out the folded paper.

At her desk, she spread it out, studied the map she’d purchased not long after her mother’s death. On it, she’d circled places where Shatler had been spotted, made notations of his crimes, of the rumors, of the leads her father had followed. She dated them.

And she underlined only the information that her father was sure about.

She added the information she’d heard tonight, but none of it was for certain.

Then she leaned back and took a few moments to simply study the map. With her eyes, she traced the places she'd marked, the notes she'd made.

And she began to wonder.

To worry.

She thought of Rachel, of the scar that ran down her cheek.

It was her father's life that was on the line.

And he was chasing a ghost.

Don’t ever tell him the truth. If he knew, it would change him.

If he didn't … he would never fully understand that Shatler’s focus was on him. That Shatler knew the truth.

* * *

In town, Lauren came down the stairs as her father helped her mother on with her coat. Her mother picked up a wrapped loaf of bread even as she adjusted the collar of her coat.

“Your father and I are heading out to the Guiesspie’s. The baby was born this afternoon.”

“We may stop by the Foresters. We heard the Judge dropped in this afternoon. Since the Guiesspie’s live not far from the Foresters, I’d like to stop in, see what news he has.”

It was clearly still a point of contention. That the Judge would not come into town and speak to the Reverend himself. Lauren was beginning to understand her father's gripe with the Foresters and had not brought up Matt's name herself in weeks.

Still the mention of the outlaw gave her pause as she thought of her own new found life and the adventure that awaited. She should know just in case she needed to ward him.

“Is Shatler ... nearby?” she asked.

“Is he ever really far?” her father asked as he adjusted his hat.

“James,” her mother said sharply, then looked at Lauren. “Your father just likes to stay up to date, make sure the town is doing all it can do.”

Lauren nodded, smiled when her father smiled at her. She curled her fingers into her skirt and waited.

The door closed behind them. She waited until she heard the wagon shift, then slowly, very slowly, counted to twenty.

When she was sure they were gone, she went to the back and took her shawl down from the peg beside the door. With one look back, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, she hurried out.

He’d left her a note, told her he was in town. She still had time, she thought, to see him tonight. If he was in town, he would let her know that he would be waiting for her.

Even when she couldn’t promise she’d come. But she tried to find a way. Little Lauren Peterson, the reverend's daughter ... people assumed she always did the right thing.

But ... it nearly stopped her, not the expectation, but the sense that she was rebelling from it. She wasn't doing anything wrong... This was the right thing, for her.


HEY! and don't forget to e-mail me if you have a comment!




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