Page 68 of Wherever My Heart Roams

"Beat her?" Beth's eyes widened. "And Pa didn't do nothing about it?"

Again her mother hung her head, "The reason he beat her was she was out flirting with other men."

"Flirting with other men?" Beth nearly hollered but remembered Mother Cahill was in the other room.

"I went to see her, after I heard, I wanted to make sure she was all right."

"Was she?" Beth asked her face screwed up in a frown.

"Yes, but she admitted she had been flirting. She blamed us for encouraging the marriage when all she meant to do was flirt with John a little. She said because she was bored she wanted to see if she could entice a man to court her. It worked well with Savage and with a few others. I think she went a little out of her head when you left. We had no idea she would act that way. And because she admitted she was flirting around with other men after she married, there wasn't much your Pa could do about it."

Beth flopped in a chair at the table, numbed by what her mother said. "I need to go see her…."

"That might be a good idea, because she sure doesn't listen to me anymore." Her mother said with a slight rasp to her voice.

Beth glanced at her mother and saw real distress. "If what you say is true, I may have caused all of this. I know Martina like the back of my hand. I put the fear of God in her that you and Pa were going to marry her off. I told her if she liked someone she better be letting them know. It sounds like that's exactly what she did, only…I didn't mean after she was already married."

"She's not been herself since you left." Her mother told her, as she wiped a tear from her eye.

"Oh Mama, why didn't you just encourage her to go to work or something. Anything is better than marrying us off to strangers. I mean, yes, I was lucky. I'm in love with Wade, but that doesn't mean all the other girls will be. I know times are hard, but maybe I can send money to you off and on."

Her mother glanced at her. "That would be a great help as long as you don't send

it to your Pa. If you send it to me I can put it on the account at the store."

"Mama, Wade set up that account, you haven't gone through it already, have you?"

"No, but I'm just saying that if you give your Pa cash he might gamble it away again."

Beth nodded, "That's true."

"Why would you want to marry the girls off, Wade gave you enough to last a while."

"It was your Pa's idea. He's got it in his head you would all be better off, married to someone. He said he couldn't take care of you proper but a good husband would."

"That may be true, but did he ever stop to ask us if we would be happy? John Savage is all right, except when he's drinking, but if she's acting like that, he might be driven to drink all the time." Beth shook her head.

Sarah came in and saw Beth and hugged her. "What are you doin' here?"

"I brought my mother-in-law here, thinking it was safer here than on the boat, now I'm not so sure."

"We sure had us a time. All us girls reloaded the guns and the boys were all shootin' with Pa." Sarah said.

Beth looked at her sister, Sarah was about to turn thirteen and she was quickly growing into a pretty young woman. Beth shivered, she hoped her father didn't get any ideas about her. She needed to talk privately with her Pa too.

"Where are the others?" Beth asked.

"They're comin' they were dragging their heels so I ran off and left them on the road." Sarah laughed.

When the others came in, Joan, Janet, James and Luke all crowded around her to hug her and tell her how much they missed her. Beth took Joan and James on her knee, the two youngest children. "I've missed all of you, so much." Beth glanced around to mess Luke and Mark's hair up and Matthew and Daniel just stared at her, almost as though they didn't know her. She was dressed nicely now and she wore lipstick and had her hair done up, so she guessed she did look like a stranger to them.

"You sure look nice Sis," Daniel remarked.

"Thank you Daniel."

"Yeah, I didn't hardly recognize her," Matthew spouted.

Mark was quiet, he didn't talk a lot, but he was smiling which Beth was glad to see.

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