Down From the Mountain by Louis Charbonneau

Author:Louis Charbonneau [Charbonneau, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-936535-80-4
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2014-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

Cully got in the way of Gage’s wrath. “What’s up, Gage? You look like you’re gonna bring rain.”

“God damn it all to hell!” Gage growled back. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong at all!”

“Lot of noise about nothin’.”

“Nothin’ except women! That’s all.”

Cully nodded, as if this sage observation confirmed his own opinion and needed no comment.

“They’re all the same!” Gage snapped.

“Well, now, I might quarrel some with that notion. They’re all the same some ways. But on the other hand they’re every one different in other ways, seems like.”

“You think I’m gonna fall down laughin’, you have got another think comin’.”

“A woman is serious business,” Culley said, sober-eyed. “I’d be the last to say other.”

Gage stalked off. By chance he passed near Molly Paisley’s wagon. In the gray twilight, which softened the appearance of objects and people as if they were enveloped in a thin mist, he almost failed to see the widow. Gage was outside the wagon circle; Molly sat on a blanket spread by her wagon inside the ring. A voluminous skirt was gathered over her knees. Her head turned and, as her gaze intercepted his, Gage halted. The widow’s impact upon him was even stronger than usual. He felt an indefinable ache, at first more a vague longing than physical need, which quickly altered to a definite, prickly stirring in his loins. The suddenness of it caught him by surprise, diverting his anger. He took a step toward her.

Then he saw the black trouser leg on the far side of the wagon, ending in a black boot, and above it a cloud of cigar smoke. Violently Gage flung away, angry that the widow had seen him stop and start toward her, angry that the sight of her in that moment could have produced so strong a response in him. Certainly the need of a woman had been the last thing in his mind. As he drew off he heard a low, husky laugh which was unmistakably Molly Paisley’s. Something about that smothered laughter made the hairs stir on the back of Gage’s neck. His mind went dark and the pounding of his blood filled his head with a kind of thunder. He felt a strong thrust of emotion, anger that was more than anger, containing pain and disappointment and resentment and … envy. Amos Fogg, he thought, in his black trousers and black boots. Why should Gage be jealous of him? He was nothing to the widow—only helped her drive when her son wasn’t on hand, or when a grown man’s strength was needed on the reins, as it had been needed during the last crossing. This pairing of Fogg and the widow was only natural, Fogg being on horseback and without a wagon.

But a lone man being drawn to a widowed woman was only natural too, and Gage could not evade the cutting edge of this truth once he had left his mind open to it.

For a dozen stomping strides Gage Pardee thought of Amos Fogg. Little was known about him, but that was hardly unusual in a train, and a man had a right to his own business.

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