Chapter 82

Cookie was the first one up the next morning, way before dawn. Eli smelled the coffee and rolled out, trying to keep from waking Catt and Eva. He pulled his buckskin breeches on, then his shirt over his head. He slipped his moccasins on before before standing to strap his gunbelt around his waist.

“Marshal get you a cup, the first pot is ready. Be careful now, it’s boiling hot,” Cookie said as Eli walked over to the back of his cook wagon to get a tin cup.

“Cookie, you must have been up all night to have this many bread pans full of biscuits made up.”

“I made up my dough and cut out the biscuits last night while the singing was going on, Marshal.”

“Where’s your woman this morning?” Eli asked.

“She likes to sleep in. She’ll be up at first light though to help with mixing the gravy and frying the salt meat. I sure got me a good’un, Marshal.”

“Then keep her happy, Cookie. Good women are hard to find.”

“I reckon you’re right. Took me most of my life to find one who puts up with me no matter what I do. Don’t make no nevermind what it is I’m doing either, she just falls right in and helps me with it.”

When Eli walked over to pour another cup of coffee, he glanced over to see Ezra sitting up beside Samantha in their bedroll. Both of them were naked to their waists.

Eli was relieved when Samantha pulled her shirt over her head and stood up with her denims on. He was afraid they’d already been completely naked together. Then he saw her pull the front of her denims closed and button them.

He saw Samantha look his way and wave to him. She was grinning when she poked Ezra and pointed toward Eli. Both of them were smiling when they walked over to Eli.

“Samantha, do you get up this early back home?” Eli said as she pulled her long loose hair back to tie it behind her head with a strip of leather.

“I sure do, Marshal. I love getting up when Dad does, drinking coffee and talking until Mom and Cecily get up. Ezra told me that he really liked that about me. He said all of you get up early too,” she told him as Ezra poured her and himself a cup of coffee.

“Yep, morning is the best time of day for me too. I hate to waste a minute of it by staying in bed.”

“Marshal, is there any way you could take a few minutes this morning to talk with Ezra and me? We really need to talk to you bad,” Samantha said as she took her cup from Ezra.

“Dad, we do need to talk. We saw you talking to the girls and their new friends last night. Eli and Kit told us you had talked to them earlier too. Both of them told us they feel better about being together than they ever have before, now that they’ve talked to you and you’ve explained a few things to them,” Ezra said, then looked at his dad with a grin.

“Uh, Dad. I know you saw Sam and me when we first woke up. We didn’t start out with no shirts, we just sort of ended up with them down in the covers. I hope you’re not upset with us about that,” Ezra said, wanting to get that off his chest before his dad brought it up.

Eli looked at Sam. She was grinning, but she wasn’t shamed at being seen naked to her waist with his son.

“Samantha, from now on, make yours and Ezra’s bed out a little ways from your momma and Ezra’s momma. They may not remember what it was like to be your age,” Eli told her, then looked at his son to see him smiling.

“I told Sam how you were, Dad. She was afraid you’d be mad at her because she wanted us to sleep close without our shirts on. I told her while we were putting them back on, that you may fuss at me, but you’d never get mad at us about it,” Ezra told his dad as they sipped hot coffee.

“Let’s walk out toward the barn. There’ll be others rousing up soon and I can see we do need to talk before you two get saddled up and ride out alone again,” Eli said as he stood, poured more coffee in his cup, then turned to refill each of their cups.

Samantha walked between them as they walked toward the barn. She was as happy as any day ever in her life. She knew she was in love with Ezra. He was just like his dad and just like his brother, Eli. When she looked at Ezra, she could see his dad and his brother too.

“Marshal, I don’t know if you realize it or not, but Ezra is you made over. He’s already explained to me how you were his real dad. He told me that his momma told him the truth about it, and that you also gave her Karly Jo because Mr. Jefferson couldn’t make babies. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a brother loving his sister that much before. I know that others wouldn’t see it the way I do, but I think you’re just about the biggest, baddest, and most loving man I have ever known. I told Ezra that I want our kids to grow up to be just like you.

“I’m going to marry your son, Marshal. We may drive each other crazy before we do and we may even drive you and our mommas crazy too, but Ezra and I will be married as soon as you tell us we can,” Samantha told him, talking in her slow Texas drawl.

Ezra felt his heart thumping in his chest. She had just made him so proud of her.

“Samantha, I see why Ezra loves you so much now. You’re not afraid to talk about what’s personal in your heart and you’re not afraid to look toward the future and see you and Ezra with a family. I like that about you. I like a lot of things about you, Samantha. I think you just may be the one woman who can make Ezra calm down and learn to control his temper. I hope you can, anyway.

“Ezra, I wasn’t sure what we would talk about today, but I already wanted to talk to you and Samantha first thing this morning. When I saw both of you sit up in your bedroll without your shirts on, like that was the most natural thing in the world to both of you, I realized you’re not a boy anymore, you’re a young man.

“I like that about you, Ezra. If you’re gonna do something like that, don’t make no excuses about it. Don’t apologize for doing what you feel is right between you and Samantha. Just do it, be proud of it and the world be damned!

“I do have one thing I need both of you to agree with me on,” Eli said, pausing as he sipped the last of his coffee, then dash the dregs out of his tin cup.

“What’s that?” Ezra and Samantha both asked. They laughed because they did that a lot.

“I want both of you to promise me that you won’t make any babies until you’re married.”

“Marshal, we’ve already promised my parents and each other that we’ll wait to have babies.

“I hope you know, just like my parents do, that Ezra and I will have sex together before we’re married. There’s no way I can go three and a half more years, loving him the way I do without making love with him. I hope you can accept that about me. I love him, Marshal. I love him and I want to have his babies, but we’ll make sure we don’t until we’re married!”

“Samantha, don’t you hurt my boy,” Eli said seriously as he looked at her.

She burst into laughter as he finally let a smile come to his lips.

“Dad, are you alright with what Samantha just told you? I don’t want to go against what you say, but I’m like her; we love each other too much to wait that long. Sam said her momma told her, Cecily and their cousins all about how a woman can put off having a baby. She’s tried to explain it to me, but I get lost just thinking about her and me being together like that,” Ezra said.

“Ezra, I’m alright with what both of you are saying. I thought about it long and hard after you Bucks left Crow Ridge to come over here. I thought about it and talked to Doc and Lettie about it a lot too. Doc and Lettie helped me make what I know is the right decision, and that was to not stand in your way, but make sure you knew how to prevent babies.

“When I’ve talked with the rest of your brothers and their girls, we’ll all meet with Doc and Lettie; girls and boys too, then we’ll make this official. I’d rather all of you know that I’m trying to help you, than for you to be sneaking off to do sex without knowing all you need to know about protecting against babies.”

“Dad, I’ve never heard you talk like this. When we left Crow Ridge, you didn’t even want Eli and me saying that word in front of the others. Now you sound like you’re glad we’re all making plans about our lives together and planning families too,” Ezra said as he looked at his dad’s smile.

“I thought about what Eli told me just before all of you left to come down here. I’ve been told the same thing by more than one person after that. I decided to get with the times and accept that this world is changing and people are too. I want all of you to always think ahead of what’s happening in the world today.

“Don’t be afraid to try new things and never be afraid to show your love for each other. Just be sure you keep your clothes on when there are others around,” Eli told them.

Maryanne and Karly Jo came running toward Eli, followed by Pepper as they ran to him. He scooped both girls up and hugged them as Pepper jumped up and down, barking at them.

He looked over at Samantha and winked at her, then turned to take the girls back over to where the others were helping get breakfast ready for the big crowd.

“Sam, didn’t I tell you what Dad was like when he talks private to all of us?”

“Yes, and I see why you Bucks and his girls love him so much too. Mom and dad would have fussed like hell if they had seen us get out of bed with my bare bosom showing. Your dad just told me to make our bed a little ways out from the others.

“Ezra, after talking with your dad, I’ve already made up my mind. I’m going to sleep naked with you tonight! I loved it when you held me while we slept. That was so special.”

Cookie and his woman had a big cast iron pot of gravy made up and hanging over the coals. As the members of the family and all the hired hands filed past, they ladled gravy over the open biscuits and pieces of fried salt meat on their tin plates.

Eli watched as his sons, Micah and Caleb filed through the line, each of them following his girl as they talked and laughed. He took pride in the fact that his sons were growing into young men and were falling in love with these pretty little Texas girls. Pike and Isaac were right with them as they made sure their girls had coffee and plenty of gravy and biscuits to eat.

He’d already made up his mind that he would have a talk with Isaac and Ruby. After all, Ruby was like his own daughter and he knew Duncan would never be able to have a man to man talk with Isaac. He wanted to talk with Pike and Cecily too. Moses had mentioned yesterday on the trail that he wanted Eli to talk with Pike when he talked to his sons, since he was better at explaining things like boys and girls courting and mating.

Eli sat over to the side, watching his family, friends, and his hired hands as they ate and visited back and forth. He saw Sissy, Amanda, Catt and Eva as they walked among the others, gathering up tin plates, forks, and coffee cups. He smiled as he watched the wives of the ex-Buffalo Soldiers jump up to help with cleaning up the utensils.

The whole crowd was abuzz with talk about the new lands and new babies that were about to be born.

He saw Ruby wave to him, then take Isaac’s hand as they walked over to sit with him.

“Dad, we know you’ve been talking to the others and we want our turn now. Isaac and me have some things we need to talk to you about and even more things that we need to ask you. Do you have the time this morning?” Ruby said as she and Isaac stood before him.

“Lets take a walk out past the barns and corrals. We’ll have a better place to talk, out away from the crowd,” Eli told them as he stood.

As they walked past the corral on the south side of the main barn, Eli started talking, “before we start, I want to let you know that Kit and Eli have already told me about your night at the hotel. I wasn’t one bit shocked to hear the four of you were in the same room without your clothes on. I don’t see how you’ve lasted this long really.”

“She didn’t tell me she had already told you about it. I was worried to death, trying to think of how I would tell you,” Ruby said in relief.

“I asked her and Eli not to talk about what we had shared. I’ll ask you and Isaac to do the same. This is between you, Isaac, and me. I know you and Kit are close, but this is one time you need to keep quiet. There may be some things we talk about that I didn’t talk about with them.

“Now that I’ve already told you I know about the night at the hotel, I want to ask just one thing of you. Don’t let yourself get pregnant before you get married.”