gone from this place and he wished it was tomorrow not three weeks from now! Thomas realized that Jessica had been saying something to him and turned to look at her. Damn but she was a beauty and soon, very soon, she would be his. Now he turned his full attention on her and asked her what she had said.
“I knew you hadn't heard one word I have been saying to you about Papa!” Jessica said, feeling more than a little irritation that he was not paying attention to her important news.
“I'm sorry, Jess, I just have a lot on my mind with this move coming.”
“Oh, I know that, but this is important, Thomas. What I was saying is that Papa is right as rain! Yes! I just can't believe it! Yesterday he came into the kitchen and was just like his old self. I still have a hard time believing it, but it is true! The boys and I were never so happy!”
“Just like that he came around, Jess?”
“Yes, just like that!”
“Hmmm. Strange isn't it?” He asked, not liking this news at all!
“Thomas if I didn't know better I would think that you weren't a bit happy about it!”
“Aw, no, that isn't it at all. I just find it strange that it just happened so sudden after all of these months. Did something happen to bring it on?”
“No. I told you, I can't explain it myself, it just happened! Why, just a few hours before that I had been in the bedroom trying to ask him if he had any way for us to buy some provisions for this trip! I told him it would be just the bare necessities, nothing extra at all, but now that we hadn't paid any of our accounts in town for so long we couldn't put anything else on credit.”
“YOU DID WHAT?” Thomas exploded at her.
Jessica jumped in her seat when he turned on her and yelled. “Thomas, whatever is wrong with you?” Jessica couldn't believe he had yelled at her like that, no, not yelled, bellowed at her. What on earth could be wrong with him this morning?
“Uh, oh, I'm sorry; I didn't mean to holler at you like that. It’s just, well, uh, it’s just that when a man has been in the condition your Papa has been in its sort of ill advised to be talking to him about what he's let happen to his affairs. See what I mean? That's all! I just think that talk like that would just do more to upset him. No, Jess, I don't think you should be talking to him about these things, I mean, I can handle everything, and you don’t need to worry about everything so much. Just leave all this to me!”
“But Thomas this is our problem not yours! I can't let you take care of us, besides, Papa can do that now. He was always a good manager and Mama used to remark about that quite often!”
“Well, for now Jess, I think you should just let me handle it! When John gets back on his feet entirely, that's fine. Why, he probably can't even remember what he has done these past months. After all he has been right near crazy.”
“Thomas, don't you ever, and I do mean EVER say that about my Papa again, do you hear!” she ground out, green fire flashing from her eyes, showing the fury surging through her veins.
He didn’t like the tone she was taking with him and damned sure didn’t like being hollered at, but now was not the time to teach her what doing that could mean so he tried to mollify her instead. “Oh, come on Jess, don't get so riled up! I didn't mean to make you mad, but half the country has known that he's been anything but sane these past months, even you know it if you would just admit it!”
“Let’s just not talk about any of this anymore.” She said, trying to quell her anger and lighten the mood. “It’s our first really nice morning in months, why it’s almost warm, so let’s just enjoy the ride!”
Thomas cast a sharp look at her. He didn't much like being told what to do, but he guessed that this wasn't the time to say much to Jess about that either. He damned well had enough to think about anyway. So...old John had suddenly gotten well had he? Thomas just hoped that he wasn't going to have any problems about John. Oh hell, if anything came about with John he could handle it. Nothing else mattered as long as he got Jess out of all of this damned mess.
The rest of the trip was spent mostly in silence. Everyone trying to enjoy the morning it seemed. Tommy and Jessica exchanged some small talk about the wagon Papa was getting ready, but other than that it was a quiet trip.
Jessica was in a pensive mood on the return trip, which did not make Thomas happy in the least. She was upset about what Thomas had said, more directly, the cold blooded way in which he had said it. A caring person would not think of having said such a thing about one's father. At least not if one had feelings! Yet that was not the only thing that had disturbed her. She could feel in Thomas the need to totally dominate her in all matters. Many marriages were exactly this way, certainly it was not unusual. Her parents had more of a partnership and deep mutual respect for the opinion of the other. She truly felt this would not be the case with Thomas. His word would have to be law. They had not rushed into anything but she suddenly felt rushed by Thomas.
Thank God, that Papa was back, she thought, only to realize that she had to make this decision herself, not Papa. She didn't need Papa to tell her what to do like a child any longer. He could protect her when she did make her decision if it wasn't to Thomas' liking, however. Suddenly she realized what she was thinking. Was she afraid of Thomas? Oh, surely not! Still, she had felt the need to be protected from Thomas for some reason. It was as though she had glimpsed something in Thomas on the ride into town that she had not been aware of before. Like viewing a stranger. This needed some long hard thought she realized. Much thought and the long journey on the wagon train should the ideal time to do such thinking, and a great deal of observation.
CHAPTER SIX
“Cougar, what is it you do when you go from here for long periods of time?” Winter Woman had finally asked her son. It was a thing she had wondered if he was ever going to share with her. She knew without knowing, that he went to the white settlements, sometimes it must be even farther due to the length of his absence.
“I travel to many places Mother, mostly to the white settlements. Then, there have been other times I have gone to two of the Forts. You have not asked me this before when I know that you have had a great deal of curiosity about my absences. I do not discuss where I travel with the men in the village. I do not wish for them to know where I go. But you, Mother, could have asked me at any time and I would tell, but only you.”
“I did not think it my place to question your actions my son.”
“Yet now you do? Or did your curiosity become too much?”
She snapped her head up to look at him. Ah, he was teasing her she could see! Her son had the most beautiful grin, even if it was a most wicked one aimed at her right now. It was good to have him to talk with, to share things with. She had felt much loneliness of late, and she was glad for the company of her son.
“What is it you do when you visit the white settlements and forts? Do they welcome you, an Indian, into their lodges?”
“Mother... I do not go to the white settlements or forts as one of The People. I go as one of them, as a white man.”
She looked up at him again to see if he was teasing her yet once more, and was startled to see he was very serious. “Cougar, how can this be? How could you become a white man?”
“You have to remember I lived among them for years. I know well which way to behave, in
