Cole had a wonderful voice, deep and melodic and full of emotion.
She supposed Conn had the same sort of voice, though she couldn’t imagine him singing like that.
She had suggested church today for a few reasons.
Mainly, in light of all that had happened, she wanted to draw closer to God. And she had felt the Holy Spirit filling that small place and working in its humble congregation.
She’d also wanted to shake things up with her brothers. George had barely spoken since the marshal’s visit, and noweven James was growing quiet, probably because his brother had been so gloomy.
Then, the Mitchell family, folks they’d never met before, had invited them to a meal, and Mary had accepted. It was a nice way to pass the day, and she was happy to know some of her neighbors a bit better.
When it was finally time to head home, she had asked George to drive, thinking it would do him good and might bring him around, but it hadn’t.
As he turned into the lane to the homestead, he remained silent, gripping the reins and staring straight ahead.
She had been patient with him, but she was tired of his pouting, and as he pulled wordlessly up to the corral, she was ready to do something about it.
“Where’s the dog?” James asked.
“I don’t see him,” Mary said. “Where do you think he is, George?”
George just shrugged.
Which annoyed Mary greatly. It was time to confront his sulky silence. But not with James around.
“I’ll bet the dog’s down by the creek,” she said. “He likes to lay back in the willows. James, be a dear and feed the mules. I have to talk with George.”
“Okay,” James said and scampered off to do her bidding. He seemed excited, and knowing James, he was probably hoping she would shake George out of his glum stupor.
Which is exactly what she intended to do.
George just looked at her and raised his brows.
Mary only knew one way to handle such problems. She didn’t have the patience for subtlety, never had, so she went directly at him.
“Why are you acting this way?”
“What way?” George said.
Mary felt a spike of anger. “Don’t play stupid, George. It’s childish.”
“I’m not a child anymore. I’m a man.”
“You’ve got a man’s height, and you work like a man, and you drive the wagon well enough, but no, you’re not a man. Not yet.”
Now, he was cross. “I am so a man. You just can’t see it. You can’t see anything.”
There it is,Mary thought. He’d come up close to what’s bothering him.
And she realized it wasn’t the manhood thing after all. It was something hidden just beyond the thin veil of those words he’d just uttered:you can’t see anything…
“A man doesn’t lie,” Mary said. That wasn’t strictly true, of course, but it was in the way she meant it. “A man doesn’t pout for days on end then claim nothing’s wrong when his sister mentions it.”
“Well, that’s my business.”
“Why didn’t you say that, then? Why didn’t you just say, ‘Don’t worry about it, Mary. It’s my business’?”
“I didn’t want to be rude.”
