Catch a Shooting Star jd edit 03 12 2012 html Read online

  Having taken several trains and riding when a train would not transport his mount, he finally found his way back to Galveston Island where his cattle ranch covered a small portion of the island just a few miles from the City of Galveston and was located on Sweetwater Lake. The last leg of his journey took him over the causeway which linked Galveston Island to the mainland by railroad. Skirting Blazer around the city to avoid the traffic of some thirty thousand inhabitants, he finally made his way around the southern horn of the lake and onto the long and lonely road to his diminutive ranch.

  Looking around at the land as he passed, he suddenly felt a familiar tug of longing for this seemingly barren land. With its marshes and grass-filled elevated terrain, it called to him upon a salty southeastern breeze. The deer that hunkered down around him in the waving saw grass rose to bounce away as if remembering his expert marksmanship from long ago. The snakes that sometimes slithered about in a tangle of scaly clusters glided toward cover as the stallion’s hooves plodded beneath him. And the birds that made this island a stopover for their bi-yearly migration looked cautiously at him before either settling down again or flapping away in fear.

  Now, as he rode beneath the iron arch that bore the ranch’s name, he pulled on the reins to reflect on his past. He had met his bride only seven years ago when he had relocated here to Galveston, Texas in an effort to expand his family’s catalogue industry to the lower southern states. Melody Marks, whose parents had owned a furniture store, had caught his eye one sunny morning when he had called upon them in order to drum up more business. And, after several more visits on a personal basis, he had asked her to marry him.

  They had bought the small forty-acre ranch on the lake and had built the modest home on the sandy ground where they had nurtured their love for almost two years until he was compelled by his parents to continue to find more outlets for their products and he had left his pregnant wife behind in the care of his foreman Tom and the man’s wife Abigail.

  While he was away, however, Melody had offered a room in their home to a stranger whose ship had been forced into the bay for safety against an oncoming hurricane. She had met the unfortunate man in the seaside diner where she had taken her lunch one day after shopping with her mother and, being a compassionate woman, had suggested that he stay on the ranch. Diego Fernandez had seemed to be polite and grateful to her in the beginning, but to her surprise and horror, he had tried to force himself upon her one night after Tom and Abigail had gone to bed in their little cottage next door. Melody had resisted and Diego had beaten her until she was unrecognizable by any who had known her and had left her for dead at the bottom of the stairs in her home. As his calling card, he had slit her arm from the wrist to the elbow with the point of his saber before he had stolen her prized mare and had boarded his ship once again, continuing his journey to the glorious shores of Georgia where he would make a financial arrangement with a plantation owner.

  When Travis had gotten the telegram that told him to hurry home to be with his dying wife, his heart had fallen but he had rushed home as fast as he could. When he had arrived, Melody had been within a few moments of dying and the doctor had stood by, waiting for her to take her last breath in order to deliver the child by surgery, which would have certainly killed the mother. Refusing to take his tiny daughter into his arms, Travis had turned away from the only reminder of his beloved wife. He had waited to attend the funeral out of respect for her parents, but then as soon as it was over, he had given the child to his caretakers and had raced away from the ranch determined to never return. Since the child had been brought into the world prematurely, he had been certain that she soon would follow her mother on her journey to Heaven and he had neither the stomach nor the heart to watch her die as he had his sweet Melody. And without even giving the baby a name, he had turned his back on her as if she were a sickly calf and had made his way toward the man who had brought this misery upon him.

  Ignoring his parents’ advice to continue to work in order to ease the pain, he had turned his back on them and their business as well. He had cut all ties to the people who had urged him in the dawn of his marriage to leave his beloved wife in order to bring in more money for the company. And, for five long years filled with livid vengeance, he had followed lead after unyielding lead to find the man who had brought such anger and grief into his life. But now, putting that vengeance to rest, at least for the moment while he wrestled with wondering what the confounded emergency at home was, he turned his attention to answering that burning question.

  Returning at long last to the house that had caused his pain, he hesitated instead of urging his mount forward. Nightmares, memories and agonizing doubts rushed back to him, sweeping him into a whirlwind of immeasurable dread and unfathomable fury as he unconsciously spurred the stallion into a canter. Thrusting aside all that troubled him, he pulled his hat low on his head and hunkered down in the saddle as the Palomino carried him back home.

  While he trotted into the yard, he looked about for his foreman Tom, but saw no trace of him as he had expected. So he dismounted, tied the horse to the rail of the covered porch and stepped onto the wooden planks. A rush of visions assailed his mind as he passed the rocking chair that Melody had sat in many times, but pushing them aside, he purposefully strode through the screened door and into the kitchen.

  The old woman sitting at the table dropped her knife and screamed in surprise at his sudden appearance, but recognizing who had intruded, she lowered the hand that had gone up to her chest and crumpled the apron as she wiped both hands clean before she screeched, “Mr. Corbett! You’re here!”

  She rounded the table and met him before he took another step towards her. She wrapped her spindly arms around his neck and patted his shoulders as she exclaimed, “I was hoping you would get here quickly.”

  Travis pulled her to arms’ length and looked into her wrinkled face, almost demanding, “What is the emergency?”

  Sighing sadly and sliding her palms against her skirt, she shook her gray head and clucked before admitting, “I need you to take over here.”

  As he guided her back to her chair at the end of the table, he removed his Stetson and hung it on the back of the chair beside her as he folded his large frame into it and inquired, “Why do you need me? Tom is capable…”

  “Tom is dead,” she blurted out as she dabbed the corner of her apron to her eye and continued. “He died two months ago and I am afraid that my own heart is failing. The doctor said that I am to take it easy now or I’ll join Tom in Heaven.”

  A dagger of sadness ripped through his chest as he heard the news about the older man who had taken care of his ranch since the day that he and Melody had bought it. He covered Abigail’s hand with his and he whispered, “I’m sorry. It must have been hard for you.”

  “It was,” she started while sniffing and blinking away the tears. “And that little one is such a handful. Why, I can’t take care of this place and that one too.”

  A blank and dumbfounded expression passed across his face as Travis wondered of whom on earth she spoke and with his forehead furrowed in question, he queried, “What little one?”

  “Why, the girl,” Abigail said as if he should have known. “The child that you left with us.”

  Still numb with confusion, he shook his head and then stopped suddenly as he realized that he had completely forgotten about the baby that Melody had given her life for. Placing his palms on the table top in order to prevent them from shaking, he asked incredulously, “She lived?”

  “She did. And thrive she did. Why, she’s as healthy as a horse and as spry as a grasshopper,” the older woman said with a chuckle.

  Whistling and shaking his head once again, he looked around the large room and asked, “Where is she?”

  “She’s down at the creek fetching me some water,” Abigail said as she resumed her potato peeling.

  “She could only be five years old,” Travis mused, scratching his head.

  “She will be
in May,” she agreed nodding once.

  “Can she handle a heavy pail of water?” he asked almost accusingly.

  “She can and does,” Abigail snapped, and then softening her voice, she continued, “She has to. I need someone to help me around here.”

  Feeling sorry for the feeble old woman, Travis scooted the chair from the table and stood over her as he declared, “Well, I’m here now. It’s time you take it easy. I’ll get supper for you.”

  “I wouldn’t hear of it,” the woman said, shaking her head in the negative. “I’ve done it for forty-seven years. I can do it until my last breath.”

  “I can understand that you want to feel needed, but you said yourself that the doctor said you should relax.”

  “Well,” she started with a sigh. “I’ll start tomorrow. You’ve been traveling for a long time. Besides, you need to get to know that little one.”

  As if being summoned from the yard, the child in question backed her tiny body into the screened door and sloshed the heavy pail into the kitchen, her miniscule face a mask of determination. She set the wooden bucket on the floor at Abigail’s feet then wiped her small chubby hands on her miniature apron. Glancing at the strange man as she hurried to the stove and threw open the heavy door to check the fire. Dropping to her knees, she reached for a piece of wood and thrust it into the fire, tapped down the coals and then shoved the wood into the rolling flames.

  “That’s a good girl,” Abigail praised, never looking up from her work. “Now, come over here and meet someone.”

  The girl swiped her palms together to remove the soot and then rubbed them on her apron when black marks still remained. Her black ringlets dangled around her face as she looked at one hand and then the other and satisfied that they were fairly clean, she raised her green eyes to the man who sat in front of her. Her dazzling smile revealed tiny straight teeth and twin dimples in her cheeks at the corners of her full lips. The freckles that speckled her nose as she scrunched it in apprehension at the stranger were a testament to the hard work that this tiny creature must have had to endure.

  “Hannah Claire, this is your father,” Abigail blurted out as she waved a hand in his direction.

  The little girl’s expression changed from distrust to disbelief as her tiny mouth opened into an excited ‘O’ before she sucked in a breath and thrust her hand out toward him and exclaimed, “Finally, my father!”

  Travis couldn’t help but chuckle at her statement as he took the small callused hand into his own. A tug of sadness for her made him want to take her into his arms and promise that he would never make her work so hard again. But, knowing that she had been the only help that Abigail had, he squeezed her hand gently and nodded, saying, “I am very pleased to meet you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the little girl said as she pulled her hand from his and took her skirt into her fingers and curtseyed.

  “My, how polite you are,” Travis marveled as he settled back in his chair and smiled.

  “I am pleased to meet you, Father,” she said as she let her skirt fall back around her ankles and touched a forefinger to her chin. “Should I call you Father?”

  Travis thought for a moment and contemplated what his daughter should address him as, then in a sudden burst, he said, “When I was young, I called my father Poppy. You may call me that if you wish.”

  “Poppy,” she rolled the word over her tongue before nodding in agreement and threw her arms toward him and squealed, “Poppy!”

  Without a second to think or to ward off the girl she was in his arms, wrapping her chubby arms around his neck and squeezing with all her might. Taken by surprise, Travis’ first instinct was to repel her familiar show of affection, but his heart made him wrap his arms around her and squeeze her right back.

  The smell of her hair against his cheeks brought back so many thoughts of his Melody and he was suddenly assailed by the anger that had taken up residence in his hateful heart for so many years. Wrenching her intertwined fingers from behind his neck, he pulled her onto his knee and, with the warmth that he knew that the little girl expected but not what he felt, he scooted her from his knee to the floor and said, “Poppy needs a towel to wash up for dinner. Can you go and find one for me?”

  With a bright smile, she nodded and with her mission established, she skipped down the hallway and disappeared into a room.

  As she rounded the corner, Travis took in a deep breath and declared with a heavy heart, “I can’t do this.”

  “You have to,” Abigail said matter-of-factly, never looking up from her work. “As I told you, I am not healthy and there is no one else.”

  Travis thought for a moment. Remembering that Melody’s parents were probably too old to care for a child, if they had not died already, he knew that this little girl had no one else to care for her but him.

  “What about your daughter?” he asked pleadingly.

  “She moved up north with her family. And, now that you are back, I’ll be moving up there with her so she can take care of me in my old age.”

  “But, I can’t,” he said, his voice cracking in his excitement. Without the courage to say his wife’s name, he groaned, “She’s too much like her.”

  “I see that every day,” Abigail agreed with a nod. Then, she shook her finger at him and scolded, “She is your responsibility.”

  With a heavy sigh, he agreed, “I know. I just need some time to adjust to this, to her.”

  “I’ll telephone my daughter in the morning and it should take them a few days to arrange for me to get there. That should be enough time, I think.”

  Without a word, he nodded and stood up. He made his way to the porch where he let his body fall into the rocking chair and then he put his head into his palms in defeat.

  Tears, which he had forced away for so many years, now came rolling down his arms to his elbows and dripped onto his pants. His shoulders racked with sobs while he finally released the anguish of losing the only woman that he had ever loved. His chest very nearly burst with the throbbing of his grief-swollen heart as he rocked the chair to and fro in his overwhelming misery. Finally, his breath came in exasperated gasps as he expended the last of his energy and all that remained was an exhausted heap of the man that he once had been.

  He sucked in a long, hard breath and wiped his sleeves against his cheeks as he gained control of his emotions once again. Knowing that it would take every ounce of courage for him not to jump onto his horse and ride away from this devastatingly distressing situation, he rubbed his palms on is pants legs and rose to re-enter the house. A sniff of resolution gave him the fortitude to realize that he was all that little girl had and she was all that he had as he swung open the door and stepped into the life that he had avoided all of these hate-filled years.

  “Why are you crying, Poppy?” a shrill voice greeted him in the darkness of the kitchen.

  “Dust in my eyes,” was all that he could think of to say as he swept her into his arms and blinked away any further sorrow. “Now, let’s get some supper on the table!”

  Hannah’s face lit up with excitement and she clapped her chubby palms together as she squirmed from his arms and jumped to the floor, her feet skipping into action as she hurried to do her father’s bidding.

  Following her animated lead, Travis strode toward the stove and dropped a heavy pan onto the top, asking of Abigail, “What is on the menu for tonight?”

  Taken by surprise, the older woman chuckled under her breath and then announced, “Bacon and eggs, fried potatoes and biscuits. That’s about all that we have left.”

  “Well,” Travis said as he washed his hands in the basin and dried them with the towel supplied by his daughter. “I’ll just have to take care of that, won’t I?”

  He touched a forefinger to the freckled little nose and asked, “What are your favorite things to eat?”

  Without a thought as to her answer, she blurted out, “Chicken and dumplin’s!”

  “That sounds wonderful,” he said as he clappe
d his hands together. But, as he remembered that there had not been any chickens in the yard, he asked, “Where are the chickens?”

  “We ate ‘em,” Hannah said, shrugging her shoulders as if he should have known the answer. “The eggs were a gift from our neighbors, the Greens.”

  “Well, I’ll get us some chickens and a pig…” he started.

  “And a cow. That child hasn’t had milk since she was a baby,” Abigail interjected.

  “And a cow,” Travis agreed. Then, he thought for a moment before he added, “And we’ll all go into town and get some flour and sugar and other supplies.”

  “Sugar!” Hannah repeated, rubbing her palms together in anticipation.

  With the room aglow with excitement at the prospect of replenishing the pantry, Abigail’s mood rose to a new cheerfulness as she set about making the evening meal. No matter that she was using the last of the flour and the final three eggs for supper, she regaled in her mind. Tomorrow, along with more staples in the house, there would be someone else to take over the responsibilities. As if renewed in her strength and vitality, she sashayed to the stove and urged Travis to leave her to her duties.

  “You take the little one into the parlor and get to know each other while I finish up here,” she offered with a smile on her youthful looking face.

  In the parlor, Hannah guided her Poppy to the worn settee and then scooted herself up beside him. She reached for a box on the table beside them and placed it into her lap as if it held her most valuable treasures. With a smile of excitement and a gleam in her apple-green eyes, she whispered, “I’ve been saving these for so long. Now, I can finally show you.”

  In awe at her words, Travis nodded and drew her closer to his side with his arm and waited for her to slowly open the lid of the unadorned wooden box. As the contents were revealed, he drew in a breath and then let out a sigh of affectionate amazement at the items that the little girl had kept for so long and now felt the necessity to include him in the unveiling of her most secret possessions.