OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 14: Wives (Garrison)

By all rights, Miss Lisle Schmidt should have made a fine wife for Jacob Garrison.

They'd attended the same one-room schoolhouse, her five years after him. They knew each other's families to be steady and respectable.

"Hell," Cooper had remarked, when Garrison first mentioned calling on the young woman. "Put a beard and a Stetson on the gal, and she could be you."

But Lisle was not unattractive. Had the War not killed and crippled so many eligible men—including Johnny Huffman, with whom she'd had an agreement—Garrison would never have looked so high. Huffman's sad loss was Garrison's unexpected gain, for Lisle feared spinsterhood. Their families arranged a meeting, and then another. The pair found themselves of like temperament, with similar hopes for their future.

Once Garrison had earned enough on the McCoy drive to build a good house and start a small herd, the modest and soft-spoken Lisle Schmidt married him. That should have begun a life of domestic tranquility.

Instead, within a month, the thought of going home each night after working his cattle, or hunting, or helping neighbors build, had turned his stomach.

In contrast—

"Son of a BITCH!!!"

Because the wagons aimed to keep upwind of the herd's stench and dust, Elizabeth's shout floated right down to Garrison and several of his men, too.

Her timing could not have been worse.

He was sitting the blue roan mare his wife picked out, from the most gentle horses in the remuda. Side saddle. The availability of Murphy's string made the boys willing to trade out and, after four months on the trail, they knew these mounts well. Tomas had the mare wear the side saddle for several days, to accustom her to it, but now she needed a rider on the contraption. One who, unlike the wife, could risk being thrown.

Garrison could not ask the smaller boys to invite that kind of mockery without taking it himself, first. He did what must be done. But he immediately disliked the awkwardness of sitting a lady's saddle. It felt too small. Its stirrup could not accommodate more than the toe of his boot. One of its splayed horns curved dangerously toward his man parts.

He'd never felt so uncomfortable on a horse -- and the boys did laugh. They had that right, since he likely appeared ridiculous, but he did not have to enjoy the experience.

That was not the worst of the timing.

Garrison had just given Tomas the signal to flap a blanket in the direction of the mare, in imitation of blowing skirts. That was when they heard the faint, feminine shout, calling someone a son-of-a-gun.

But without the word "gun."

All heads turned toward the spot of striped calico by the distant calf cart, including Garrison's--

But Tomas flapped the blanket anyway.

The mare went one direction and Garrison went another, airborne. Only years of experience kept him from falling badly by holding onto the reins or flailing out or grabbing for the horse. He still fell. But he tucked into himself, landed on a shoulder, and rolled to a safe distance before sitting up.

Well... tarnation.

Now the boys laughed so hard, two of them fell down and the mare bucked off toward the remuda. They laughed at his spill, and they laughed at the side saddle, and some of them laughed in shock that a little gal like his wife knew such language.