A Blessed Song for Their Love by Olivia Haywood
Chapter Seven
The others were already seated at the table when Thomas came in from riding two hours later. His father sat at the head near the fire, and Beuna sat beside Rosaline.
They had clearly been waiting for him, so he hung up his cloak and took his place at the table. The food was sitting ready in red earthenware pots, but their plates and cups were empty.
“Let us thank the Lord,” Arthur said as Thomas reached for a nearby plate and started to help himself.
Under his father’s patient gaze, he reluctantly put down the plate and sat back in his chair. His father knew his thoughts on God and prayers, but for the sake of their guest, he would relent for the night.
They bowed their heads and clasped their hands in front of them. Thomas joined in the gesture but didn’t close his eyes. He couldn’t participate in something he didn’t believe in.
“We thank you, Father, for the food we are about to receive. We thank you for your provision and protection throughout the day...” Arthur prayed.
Thomas watched as Rosaline smiled during the prayer. Her fingers were long and slim and her lashes lay against her cheeks when her eyes were closed. She had a look of contentment and peace. Yet he noticed her eyes were red at the corners as if she’d been crying. He wondered if it had been his abruptness from earlier that made her upset. He felt a pang of guilt in his chest.
“And Lord we thank you for our new guest that we invited into our home. May she feel welcome and loved. We ask this not because we deserve it, but because of your abounding grace. Amen.”
Thomas stiffened and clenched his jaw. His father’s words felt like an attack.
“Amen,” The ladies joined in.
Buena started passing the dishes so that everyone could fill their plates.
The hearty beef stew was warm and fragrant, served with a side of freshly baked bread and yellow ears of corn, topped with butter.
She had pulled out all the stops to make their guest feel at home. Not that she was ever a bad cook, this was just a bit more than they usually ate.
“Everything looks delicious and smells even better, Buena,” Arthur commented pleasantly.
“Not at all!” Buena beamed. “I knew our guest would be hungry and tired after such a long journey.”
Thomas kept his eyes on his plate as they tucked into their meal, glancing up from time to time to see if Rosaline was looking at him. Her eyes were always on her plate whenever she wasn’t addressing the others.
The long ride across the ranch had cleared his head. He would be honest with her in the morning. It would not be fair to her if he agreed to the marriage. No young woman should be tied to a man that could not love her, let alone to a man with a drinking and gambling problem.
They passed the rest of the dinner in comparative silence. Only Arthur and Buena had attempted polite conversations. Rosaline would reply but didn’t engage any further. She seemed much quieter than she had earlier in the evening.
Thomas felt another pang of guilt when she excused herself from the table and went to bed after offering to help Buena with the dishes. Buena had of course refused and told her to get some rest.
Just when he was about to stand his father placed a hand on his arm. “Whatever you decide to do please be kind,” Arthur’s said gently, his eyes pleading with Thomas.
Thomas was about to reply that it was his fault that she was here in the first place and that he would choose to address her in whatever manner he chose, but the memory of her puffy eyes stilled his tongue. He nodded and left the room.
***
Thomas awoke with a start. His body was drenched in sweat and his nightshirt was clinging to his chest. The room was dark, though the candle had been burning next to his bed when he had fallen asleep. Judging by the shortness of the wick, it had long since burned out.
He focused on his breathing and sought reality as he tried to calm his racing heart. The same nightmare had been plaguing him for weeks. It always started and ended the same...
He was dancing with his wife under the trees out in the yard. It was a perfect day with golden light that shone in her hair. She smiled and laughed as he spun her around and dipped her in his arms, just like he had done on their wedding day, and countless times thereafter.
A gentle breeze was rustling the leaves. Just as he spun her out of his arms, her hand went a little too far and left his, and a sudden gust of wind came out of nowhere and swept her away. He grabbed for her and yelled, but the gust swept her up and through the trees until she disappeared out of sight.
All he could hear was the pounding of wind in the trees as he frantically searched through for her, the branches scratching his face and tearing at his clothes.
The trees suddenly gave way to a clearing. Thomas stepped out and shielded his eyes against the sun. The scene was familiar, but he couldn't quite place where he was. He looked back, but the trees were now just a gaping black void. The land in front of him was dry and hot and weeds tumbled across the empty expanse of cattle pens.
Just ahead was a single pile of rubble, no bigger than a tumbleweed.
Pieces of the rubble glinted in the sun as he drew closer. They somehow seemed familiar. He stopped in his tracks when he realized where he was and what he was staring at.
This was his ranch. The empty pens were his pens. The animals were nowhere to be seen and the pile of rubble that lay in the scorching sun was his guitar. Thomas sank to his knees and tried to gather the pieces, but they sliced into his hands, making him recoil in pain.
A rumble in the distance made him look up. He could just make out the shape of his house in the distance. He shot to his feet and started to run, as all around him his home and his ranch crumbled into dust.
The faster he ran, the quicker the house crumbled. When he stopped running and looked down, he realized that he was still in the exact same spot. All of his running had only succeeded in tiring him out.
He stopped trying to reach the now-demolished house and turned back to the shattered guitar. There was a woman with her back turned to him dressed all in white with a white scarf covering her hair.
She bent over the pieces and picked them up. He tried calling out to her, warning her that the pieces were sharp, but his voice was gone.
He felt a growing peace as he realized she had picked up all of the pieces. She must not have felt the pain of the sharp edges as he had done.
Just as she was about to turn, he woke with a start, never having seen her face...
He sat in the bed and ran his hand over his face. He needed to get out for a while. His lips and throat were dry. There was only one thing that could slake his thirst and make the dreams go away. Throwing off the covers he got out of bed.
***
Music poured from the Three-Guns Saloon.
Thomas stood watching the building from across the street. It was no different from any other night. Patrons laughed, music played and people gambled. The atmosphere was lively. Most evenings he would already be in the thick of it. Or, more likely, he would be sleeping it off in the cell by now.
But something was different tonight. He had saddled his horse and thought about the beer and cards as the horse’s hooves beat their familiar path to the town, but Now that he was here, he felt glued to the spot, an inexplicable barrier holding him back.
As he stood beside his horse looking towards the saloon, Rosaline’s puffy eyes and his recent nightmare played through his mind. His tongue ran over his chapped lips as he hesitated.
He couldn’t explain why he was so hesitant. It wasn’t as though anyone was stopping him, yet, there was a growing unrest in the pit of his stomach, as if entering the saloon would make the house come tumbling down, and forfeit the peace he felt at the end of the dream.
If only he could see her face, he felt for sure that the meaning of the dream would be clear.
His attention was drawn back to the present when a drunken man came staggering out of the saloon. He fumbled forward with a bottle in his hand and toppled head over heels into the empty street. There was a roar of laughter from inside the saloon.
Was that what he looked like? Did people laugh at him when he fell into a drunken stupor? he questioned himself.
“Why don’t you go home, son?” a familiar voice asked from beside him.
Thomas turned to see Sheriff Ezrah Gideon watching him, wearing his uniform and wide-brimmed cowboy hat. He cut a neat picture compared to Thomas’ dirty boots and stained shirt, making Thomas even more aware of how far he’d fallen.
Ezrah’s eyes were kind. They held no judgment, only compassion.
He’d grown up around the sheriff. The families had spent many nights in each other's company. The thought of how the man who’d been like an uncle to him, seeing him as he was now, caused a pang of shame.
“Evening, Sherriff,” Thomas greeted him.
Ezrah walked forward and gently laid a hand on Thomas’ shoulder. “You don’t belong out here, son.”
Thomas bit back the anger he felt whenever anyone tried to help. He turned back to the saloon, the shame of how far he’d fallen spurring him towards anything that would ease the pain for a while. The reins dropped from his hand as he took a step forward and shook off the hand.
“I won’t stop you if you want to go. But I wish wouldn’t.”
Something in the way the man spoke made him halt in his tracks.
“What do I have to go back to, Sheriff? There’s nothing left.” His words were bitter and full of hurt.
“That’s not true son, you have a boy that needs his father now more than ever. Do you want him to grow up thinking his old man is a drunk?”
The words cut deep into his soul and he clenched his fists and started towards the saloon.
“You and I both know it's not true. You’re a good man Thomas, but how will Robbie know if you don’t show him?”
Thomas turned to address the Ezrah Gideon. “Maybe he will be better off without me, maybe they all will,” he said while he pictured Rosaline’s puffy red eyes. In his mind, he could see how things would be better if he wasn’t around.
Rosaline could move in and look after the house and his family. They could be happy and whole again if he wasn’t there.
Ezrah sighed sympathetically. “Hurt people, hurt people, Thomas. Think about that before anything else. Don’t let your own pain hurt those around you. Your disappearance will hurt the people you love. And I don’t just mean tonight.
Thomas knew that he was referring to the disappearance of the man he used to be. It took every ounce of his being not to walk across the street.
“Buena told me that your father has brought someone in to help. Why don’t you give her a chance Thomas? Maybe she could be the mother your son needs.”
Deep down Thomas knew that Robbie was in desperate need of a mother. The boy cried all hours of the night and refused to eat unless Buena forced him to.
“Don’t think of it as replacing your wife, Thomas. Nobody can ever do that. Just let her mother your son.”
He pictured himself with a drink in his hand and all he could hear was the sound of a crumbling house and his son crying at night. If he wasn’t willing to try for himself, the least he could do was to give his son a fighting chance.
Thomas turned around and climbed onto his horse. “Have a good evening, Sheriff,” he said to Ezrah Gideon before galloping away.