Here's the next chapter! It's 1:30 am here because I'm waiting for the latest episode to download. We'll see how that goes.
Still own nothing, and (as usual), apologies for the wait!
"Should we stop here for the night?"
Jane's head jerked around to look at Kimball. "Here? We could get another half mile tonight if we pushed it."
"We're on a slight incline right now," Kimball said. "Hence the waterfall that we can hear up ahead. If we go too much farther down, we'll risk sinking into mud overnight and the oxen will have a heck of a time pulling us out in the morning, especially with the fact that the rain that hit us this morning looks like it came through here.
"He has a point," Grace said, still looking a bit angry. Her mother assumed it was left over irritability from the unexpected rainfall from that morning. The girl's dress was still damp, clinging to her frame so her shoulders jutted out.
"I agree," Wayne said, turning to face his mother and Jane and standing with his feet apart, almost in a confrontational way.
"You kids make good points," Jane said. "We'll stop here tonight. Give the ground another sleep to dry out."
Teresa was a bit surprised her children had such strong objections to continuing on when it didn't really seem like a realistic option in the first place. "It's settled, then," she said, accepting her husband's hand when he offered it as aid to getting out of the wagon. "Grace, you gather fire wood. Kimball, make sure we don't eat any toxic plants. Wayne, help Grace. Jane and I will go find a rabbit or two.
"You're going hunting?" Grace asked, looking surprised. "With all due respect, Father Jane, my brothers are much handier with a gun."
"Don't worry, Grace," Teresa said, smiling. "I'll be with him."
Grace bit her lip while Kimball and Wayne exchanged looks. Teresa noticed.
"Let's go," she said, turning to her husband with a smile. Grabbing his wrist, she jogged toward the trees.
"You think you're going to out shoot me?" Jane asked her, almost playfully.
"I always have before," she said. "If you weren't a man no one would let you within a hundred miles of a gun."
"It's the frontier," Jane said. "Society's views on what men and women should and should not do and be let near mean nothing out here."
"We're still under the law of the United States of America, are we not?" Teresa said.
"We're in a territory, far from the Rule of Law," Jane said. "Anything goes in this place…" he jumped when Teresa's gun fired. "What was that?"
"That," Teresa said, jogging forward and lifting the dead rabbit by the ears, "was me earning the pants I've got on under this dress."
Jane raised his eyebrows. With her free hand, she hiked up her skirt to her hips, revealing the men's pants underneath. Grinning, she dropped the skirt back down and tossed her husband the rabbit.
After dinner, Grace changed into her other dress and left the damp one by the remains of the fire in the hopes that it would dry come morning. The boys sprawled out under the wagon, their guns at the ready in case the smoke that could be seen on the horizon was in fact an Indian camp.
Teresa fed the remains of their gathered vegetation to Erica and Krystina, and jumped, nearly spooking the animals, when Jane appeared almost out of nowhere. "Walk with me?"
"Sure," she said, smiling at him in the dark. He took her hand and led her farther West, her bare feet sinking into the mud until they reached a higher spot. "The terrain is strange here," she said. "The river bank is higher than it was back there."
"We're nearing the mountains," Jane said. "Lot of strange stuff in the mountains, I hear."
"Do you believe those rumors?" she asked. "About the half man, half beast? The dinosaurs?"
"It's malarkey," Jane said. "If those creatures existed, they'd exist in the Eastern mountains too."
"I suppose you're right," she said, sinking down next to him as he lowered himself into a sitting position near the water fall. "Look at that," she said, shaking her head.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he asked, looking over and smiling at her. The moonlight coming off the water provided a little more light. "This is the West, Teresa. Welcome to it."
She wanted to retort, much as she would have when they were beginning their friendship, that he couldn't very well welcome her to somewhere that he had just arrived to himself, but she didn't. She'd almost lost him twice in the past two months; she refused to risk upsetting him.
"Look at this," she said, brushing the dirt away from the large rock that they were leaning against. "Calvin and Mary."
"A grave?" Jane asked, looking a bit disturbed as to what he and his wife might be sitting on.
"No," she said. "A wedding. Right here."
"Well, it is a perfect place," Jane said. "The open sky, the trees, the river. The waterfall. It's quite the romantic spot."
"What do you think?" She asked him.
"About what?"
"Calvin and Mary. Did they meet on the trail? Or were they childhood friends? Had one or both been married before? Or were they kids?"
"They met on the trail," Jane said. "Or back in Independence. He's older than she is…not by much. Three years at the most. They're kids. They both had two parents alive at the time of the wedding. And she was pregnant when they exchanged vows…but no one knew but her and him."
Teresa cocked her head, mesmerized. "How do you know?"
He shrugged, looking toward the waterfall. "I don't, really," he said. "No way of knowing out here. Too many unknowns." He looked back at her. "A nice story, though. Isn't it?"
She smiled at him. "Yeah," she said softly. "A really nice story."
Jane got up. "Come on."
"Where we going?" she asked him.
"Just come on," Jane said, pulling her up and leading her farther down the river.
"Jane," she said. "What is going on?"
He stopped her and pointed. "We get a really good view of the moon here," he said. "And the water."
"It's beautiful," she said. "Jane, why?"
"I know we lost track of the date months ago," Jane told her. "But back home, Rachel told us that our anniversary would fall on a full moon. Now I don't know about you, but that moon looks pretty full to me."
She looked at him, and he offered a smile. A corner of her mouth went up. "Patrick Jane," she said. "You know how to make someone forgive you for preventing them from resting."
"I don't have any gift for you," Jane said when they sat down. Teresa took a couple of small pebbles from the ground and tossed them toward the river. "But, you know. As usual. You…you saved me, and I almost can't remember what horrors laid at the bottom of the cliff I was on before you brought me back. These past two years have been so much better than I ever thought they could be after Red John came into my life. Even the sad parts. So…as usual, thank you."
"You're so good with words," she teased. "Jane, I…" she trailed off, looking down at her hands and shaking her head slowly. "These two years haven't been what I thought they'd be, and Lord knows I wish some things could have gone differently, but…" she looked over at him. "But you're there for me, and of course you bring some crazy into my life. I think I needed that and didn't know it." She smiled fondly at him. "Happy anniversary."
"Happy anniversary, Teresa," he said, smiling back and leaning over to kiss her.
"What now?" she asked him playfully. "You gonna lay me out on this river bank?"
"Do you want me to?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow.
"We're not fifteen," she said, turning pink.
"There are no rules out here, remember?" he asked, grinning.
Lisbon looked back. With the grass, the slight variance in the terrain, and the darkness, she couldn't even see the wagon. And it's not like the good Lord cared, even if there was a full moon. They were husband and wife, after all.
She didn't bother with her disclaimer about not being able to have another baby. He knew good and well, and he loved her anyway.
People said that the full moon made people crazy. Teresa didn't know about that, but tonight was the first time that she felt so emotionally near to her husband when there wasn't a tragedy driving their closeness. It was a nice kind of feeling.
"Ma," came the whispered voice when Teresa and Jane returned from the river.
"I'll be pitching our tent," Jane said quietly, squeezing her hand before letting it go.
"Yes, Kimball?" she asked.
"I need to talk to you," her son told her. "We need to talk to you."
Teresa saw her other boy crawl out from under the wagon. "Of course," she said. "What is it?"
The brothers exchanged looks, then glanced over to where their step father was making the tent. Kimball looked back at his mother. "It's about him."