Chapter 52 – The Once and Future Mrs. Maverick
They were all on the train to Denver, and nothing felt right. Bart knew something had occurred between Bret and Ginny on Monday night, but he didn't know exactly what. Ginny sat and stared out the train window, leaving her seat only occasionally, and slept where she sat. Bret chose to occupy a seat in the next car back, and neither ate nor slept. The younger brother could only come to one conclusion, and it was not a pleasant one.
More than halfway to their destination he couldn't take it anymore and sat down next to the Pinkerton agent. She ignored him until he finally spoke. "This isn't doing either of you any good. There has to be a way to work it out." He sat next to her patiently, hoping that she would answer him – eventually.
It took several minutes of silence, but at last she turned her head from the window and looked at him. Her eyes were red and full of tears, her voice quiet but steady. "There isn't."
"Tell me about it."
She shook her head. "It won't help."
"It might."
Even in her pain she had to smile. It was just like Bart, to try and take care of whatever seemed to be wrong. There was no taking care of this. Her heart was broken, and there was nothing in the world that would fix it. He looked so sad; she couldn't feel better, but maybe she could make him understand. Something she hadn't been able to get his brother to do.
"Bret asked me to marry him."
'So,' Bart thought, 'Big brother actually proposed. What went wrong?' Out loud he questioned, "And you turned him down?"
"No," came the one-word answer.
More waiting. He wasn't the most patient man in the world, but patience was the only thing that was gonna work here. So he sat, determined to let Ginny explain without pushing or interrupting her. When she began to talk he had to strain to hear her. "I . . . I told him that I loved him, and talked about my life, starting when I was fourteen years old. And I told him why I couldn't marry him until I did something I've been working towards for a long time."
Until she . . . until she did what? "What is it you have to do, Ginny?" She turned away from him, back towards the window, before she gave him her answer. He didn't hear her. "Come again?"
"I have to take Arthur Stansbury's job, Bart. I have to be the first female Regional Director for Pinkerton."
Had he heard her correctly? Regional Director for Pinkerton? That could take . . . years. And she wouldn't marry Bret until then? No wonder his brother wasn't eating or sleeping. He'd finally found the woman he wanted to spend his life with, and she told him to wait – for how long? For something that might never happen? Did she realize what she was asking? And the worst part of it was that Ginny looked as miserable as Bret seemed to feel.
"Ginny?" No response. "Ginny, honey? Beauty?"
"What?"
"You want to explain that to me?"
She shook her head 'no.'
"If you want me to help, I have to understand."
This time the response was swift. "How can I expect you to understand? Bret says he loves me, and he doesn't understand."
Bart thought about getting up and walking away; leaving Ginny and his brother to try and work it out for themselves. He couldn't do it. The girl was miserable; his brother was miserable. He couldn't leave them both in such pain. "I love you, too, and I'd like to understand. Please." Slowly, haltingly, stumbling at first, Ginny did her best to explain to the younger brother what the older brother couldn't or wouldn't comprehend. How she felt. What she had to do. Why she had to do it. When she finished her tears had stopped and she felt stronger, more sure of herself and her reasons. There was a light in Bart's eyes, a clarity that she hadn't found in Bret's. There was a smile on his face; a tenderness in his voice. "Beauty, let me tell you about my brother and love."
The next hour was spent in deep discussion. Bart ran down the list, starting with Mary Alice Tompkins and ending with Nora Garrity. Bret's love life had been complicated and difficult. He didn't love often, but when he did he loved deeply. It had taken a long time after the humiliation of Althea Taylor for him to open his heart again, and when he truly did – he found himself competing against something he didn't recognize, but should have. The importance of a promise made long ago, a promise that held sway over one's own heart.
"He loves you, Beauty. But he's forgotten what it's like to need somethin' so bad that you'll give up almost anything to get it – includin' that love." He patted her hands, folded in her lap. "He needs a little remindin'. Don't you quit on him just yet."
"I . . . " she started to say, but he had disappeared from the seat before she could finish the thought. The next sound she heard was the door closing at the back of the car. He was gone – to see Bret, she assumed. Heaven help all three of them.
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"Bout time for you to eat somethin', ain't it?"
Coal black eyes looked up from the deck of cards for just a moment, and Bart could see the pain in them. "Not hungry," came the quick reply.
"Eat anyway." The younger brother handed over something wrapped in a tortilla that he'd bought from the Mexican Señora selling them on the platform the train was just pulling away from. Bret took the food and bit into it, willing to do almost anything to keep Bart from arguing with him. It had no taste, just like everything else he'd put in his mouth for the past two days, but he chewed and swallowed obediently, hoping it would discourage his brother from sitting down. No such luck. Bart took the seat opposite him and waited for Bret to finish.
"Now what?"
"Now we talk."
"Got nothin' to say." Stubborn, thy name is Bret Maverick.
"Let's talk about Ginny."
"Definitely got nothin' to say." Bret shifted his eyes from his brother to the window, giving the passing mountains his full attention. He fervently hoped this wasn't one of those times when his brother refused to leave things well enough alone. He quickly discovered it was.
"I know you asked her, and I know what she told you." Bart's voice was soothing, comforting somehow. He made the words sound better than they felt.
"Then you know why I got nothin' to say."
"She didn't say no, Bret."
Those black eyes shifted position quickly, staring holes through his younger brother. "Might as well have."
Bart sat still, not moving or talking, and waited until Bret turned back to the window. Then he waited a few minutes more in silence. When he finally began speaking again, it was in that same soothing tone of voice. "You remember when we was kids, all we could think about was leavin' Little Bend to go and play poker? You remember all the conversations we had, how we plotted and planned and couldn't hardly wait till we was old enough to go out on the road and make our livin' with those cards you got in your hands? You and me, that's all we talked about after momma died."
Bret never said anything, but Bart could see his shoulders shift and heard the audible sigh. Bret remembered it all too well. "Day an night, if we weren't playin' cards we were talkin' about where we were gonna go to play cards, or how long it was gonna be before we could leave. And then . . . " Bart stopped, waiting to see if Bret responded. Finally, he heard his brother's voice.
"Then Mary Alice's father got killed, an she got sent to her aunt's house in Louisiana."
Bart nodded. "That's right. And you didn't talk to Pappy for almost three months. Hell, you barely talked to me. But the closer you got to bein' sixteen and bein' able to marry the girl when she came back for the summer, the more you started talkin' about poker again. And when Mary Alice finally got to Little Bend . . . "
"I knew I had to get away from Texas, no matter how much I loved her."
"And you did love her, didn't you?"
"You know I did."
Bart remained still and let the last few minutes sink in. "But you had to go, because leavin' was somethin' you'd been waitin' your whole life to do."
"Uh-huh."
"Just like Ginny has." Bret's shoulders shifted again, and his brother was the one to sigh this time.
He could see Bret's eyes, and there was just a little less pain in them now. "What if . . . "
"Don't do that. If you hafta go your separate ways, go your separate ways. But do that still lovin' each other, and keep an open mind about what's gonna happen tomorrow, or next year. Don't throw it away forever because you can't have it all right now."
Bret shuffled the cards and turned back towards his brother. "How did you get to be so smart?"
Bart laughed and took the deck away and began dealing a hand. "By listenin' to my big brother."
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"You don't have much time, Malone. The train for Laramie leaves in an hour." So pronounced Arthur Stansbury to Agent Malone as she stood in front of his desk. "Better get a move on if you're going to change clothes before you go." He wasn't used to seeing her in a dress, and it was a disconcerting picture.
"I have to go now, Bret," she told the man standing at her side.
"I'm gonna take you to the train," Bret Maverick told her.
Bart leaned over and kissed Ginny on the cheek. "Take care of yourself, Beauty. And say hello to Jeb Coughlin when you get to Laramie."
"He'll be there?" she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
"He will," Bart answered.
"I won't be long," Bret informed his brother, who tipped his hat to Pinkerton agent Ginny Malone and sat down in one of the chairs in front of Arthur Stansbury's desk.
"You don't get to keep her forever, Arthur," Bart informed the director.
"I can see that," Stansbury retorted. "Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to send the two of you with her to St. Louis."
"Oh, I don't know," the gambler replied. "Adolph Busch got to keep his beer empire, Pinkerton cracked another case, and my brother and I made a tidy sum of money. What am I missin'?"
"Malone."
Bart thought about his dream and smiled. "Oh, I'm not missin' her. Somehow I think this isn't the last you'll see of Bret an me. I believe there's a good chance someday her name's gonna be Maverick, for real. Mrs. Bret Maverick."
The End
