OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 57: Should I Stay or Should I Go--d'd'd'd'd'd'd' dum (Lillabit)

Halfway through my lunchtime argument with Garrison, I felt ashamed.

My disillusion with him and his choice of the camp racists over Amos was not his fault. It was part of his world. I had to stop treating him like he'd done something deliberately wrong. Other than leaving me out of the decision process with Amos, he had not.

This unhappy new way of seeing him?

That was on me.

"You need lunch," I told him, and took his hard, strong hand. "C'mon."

"Do not antagonize my men," he warned, again. But he followed me around the wagon to where the food waited.

I couldn't promise that. They'd threatened to kill Amos! Still....

"Keep them from antagonizing me, and I might manage that," I hedged.

He did not look satisfied. But that was all he'd get, for now. That, and a plate of beans carefully dished out for him, with two sourdough biscuits and a small glob of yesterday's softened butter. I'd thrown out the morning's milk, but that just meant no butter for tomorrow.

"Obliged," Garrison said, with his usual stiff manners.

"You are very welcome." But I felt sad, saying it. I felt like a liar. Maybe I'd been lying to myself, and thus to him, for months now.

What if the man I'd thought I loved was just an illusion that I'd embodied in Jacob Garrison?

What if the man I loved didn't exist at all?

God, could I ever use a friend just now. But even if Amos had been here, or if Benj and I were on better terms, this wasn't something I could take to any of Jacob's circle.

I kept myself busy washing and drying dishes and pans for Schmidty, before the chuck wagon headed out. Then I walked ahead--but armed and still in sight of the cook--with Sundae on her lead, stopping now and then when we found a particularly nice patch of grass. And I struggled with my dilemma.

I'd known better.

I'd learned early on that Garrison was a Confederate veteran... but I guess I'd just wished that detail away.

The competence he'd gained by being a soldier? That, I approved of.

The fact that he'd taken up arms against the United States, fighting and killing for the right for whites to beat and rape and own human beings? No. I'd ignored that part completely... or I'd rationalized it. He hired a diverse collection of cowboys, after all, and treated them more or less the same. That made him open-minded, right?

At least until he had to choose between racist whites and loyal blacks.

I felt certain that the Jacob I thought I'd married would have backed Amos.

And then there was my position as his wife, his partner--his equal? Clearly, this Jacob Garrison saw me as a subordinate. He didn't include me in the big decisions, he resented my access to money, and he only "let" me wear pants to protect me from imminent death. If I followed this behavior to its logical end, instead of just lying to myself that surely he wouldn't do this or that, grim possibilities loomed. He could as easily decide to sell my cow or horse as he had decided to send Amos away. He could choose to pull up stakes and move again, and just expect me to go with him wherever that might be. And what about the children?

As long as I was excusing Garrison's prejudices with that's the world he grew up in, how would that apply with child-rearing? He was a hard man. He'd probably been raised as a spare-the-rod, spoil-the-child type, but if he came at any of my children with any form of rod, I would not be held accountable for my marriage-ending actions.