Blood and Iron Ch. 05

Long seconds later that the tides of rapture started to recede, before he felt the protestations of his weary muscles and let them slacken once again, gently crushing Alice there beneath him with his weight. Still lost in her own ecstatic fit, her arms wrapped trembling behind his back, her mild bosom mashed against his chest, slippery with their commingled sweat. Her heart beating there against him, rapid as a swallow's wings. Incoherent words in a jumble on her tongue - he could make out just a few, repeated often in her breathy murmurs of hysteria. 'Pa.' 'Love.' 'Yours...' How sweet they sounded, as thought began to stir again in the golden glow of his release. Looking down at her, his little girl, made into a woman by his hand. Errant strands of red-brown hair plastered to her sodden scalp, blissful tears glittering about her shuttered eyes - there had surely never been a woman more beautiful than this, more deserving, more divine. His lust now was burned away, revealing beneath a love so powerful that his own eyes felt a subtle sting. Oh, this girl. What man would dare to turn her down? What kind of food would lay with her, and not then strive with all his soul to stay with her forever?

She was already beginning to recover when he craned his neck to kiss her softly on the forehead. Her eyes fluttering open once again - as he gazed into those lambent pools of muddy green, as he looked upon the joyous little smile that sparkled on her lips, he instantly forgot whatever clumsy words it was that he had thought to say. Could only stare instead, spellbound, his rapid breath slowly recovering from his exertions, until eventually she ventured first. A whisper. Tender, soft, adoring. "I found you, pa."

He could not help but laugh at that, a trifle. Affection beating almost painful in his heart to hear her silver voice, to gaze upon her lightly freckled features. To clasp his hand upon her cheek, his thumb stroking slowly just beneath her eye. "Aye, little rose." The sound of love, a husky, vibrant rumble in his chest as at last he answered back. "I reckon you did."

---

"Been a while, Molly."

The ground beneath his boots was hardly more than sandy grit. Dry and lifeless but for a scattering of yellow weeds, a gnarled tree a dozen feet away. Crouching there beside a simple wooden cross, a few short words etched into its surface, the cheap black paint within already worn away by wind and dust. 'Molly Blake.' A pair of dates. 'Wife and Mother'...it seemed no fitting tribute to the woman he had known. "Never really figured I'd be back here, tell the truth." His voice was hollow, somber, fingers gently resting on the earth. "Certainly didn't figure it'd be like this, if I did."

It was almost an answer, the icy evening wind that briefly blew across the boneyard. Alike the welcome that he would expect, returning to his wife this way. He swallowed softly, wet his lips before he spoke again, quietly sincere. "I know there ain't nothin' I can say to make up for what I done, to explain it. Ain't even gonna try. I been a fool so many times, in so many different ways...was just one more mistake. Worst I ever made, I reckon." A shadow of a smile let to flicker on his lips, before vanishing again. "Weren't no fault with you, if'n that's what you maybe thought. I ain't deserved a woman half as fine. Ain't even really realized the kind of strength you had, tryin' to get by just on your own, to raise up Alice by yourself."

Another pause, silent, struggling to force his thoughts and tangled feelings to take the shape of words. A distant aching in his throat, cracking slightly as he spoke. "She's turned out pretty fine herself, Alice has. Figure that's got plenty more to do with you than it does with me. She..." Hesitation. Gazing at the bottom of that crudely-crafted marker as though seeking its forgiveness. "I know if you been lookin' down on us, you wouldn't be too happy, seein' what we done together. What I done to her. As if runnin' out on the two of you ain't enough, I should go and do a thing like that..." He bit a moment at his sun-cracked lips before continuing, quietly imploring to the grave. His voice a whisper on the wind. "I wouldn't, for myself. I ain't a good man, Molly. We both know I ain't. Done my share of dreadful things, and s'more besides. And maybe I'd look at her sometimes a way a father oughtn't, maybe I'd think about her, but I promise you I wouldn't never do this thing with her if it didn't make her happy. If she weren't so damn near begging me to-"

He softly sighed, cut off the thought as it drifted to excuses. This wasn't for that. Wasn't to defend himself for what he'd done, what he was still doing. It was a greeting, a farewell. His last respects. "She wants this. And god knows I ain't got no idea why she does, but if you could only see the way she smiles at me when we're layin' down together..." He shook his head a trace, the feeling of that adoring, blissful smile still glowing in his soul. "After everything I done, I figure maybe that's what I ought to shoot for. To make her happy. Even if it ain't near nothin' most folk would say is proper. Even if the Lord wouldn't look too kindly on it, neither. I know you're up there to put in a good word for Alice with the man himself, let'm know what she's had to go through, how it really ain't her fault, the way she feels. And me..." A little shrug. "Don't figure I can ask for no forgiveness. I just hope you don't hate me too bad for what I done. That you can maybe understand the way it's going to be, with me'n Alice."

No answer. The grave still cold and quiet - he touched his fingers to the marker, gently grasping on the rough and sun-bleached wood. "I love that little girl, Molly. And I love you, too, even if you wouldn't think it from the way I done you wrong. Don't rightly know what it was you ever saw in me, but you gave me the finest years I had. You was one of the two people I cared most about in this world, and you gave me the other one." Another tiny smile, bittersweet. "Don't imagine I'm ever gonna follow you up there, so I reckon all I can do is let you know I'm sorry. That I know plenty well how big a heel and a fool I been, and that I regretted what I done most every day that I was gone."

Finality. The chilly breeze still blew across the cemetery, whistling almost silent across the rocky earth and through the jagged branches of that old, dead tree - but it did not feel quite so much a judgment as it had before. Rising to his feet. "Goodbye, Molly." Hat respectfully in hand, looking down upon the grave, until at last he turned, tread slowly back towards the gate where a solitary figure stood before a pair of horses. A slight and solemn smile on her face, gazing soft and tender. The deep, expressive eyes and lovely features that carried so much of the woman buried there behind him in the dirt, that ached with such devotion in his heart. Desire, love, affection, still mingled with a distant worry. What future could there truly be, with the two of them together? What life for her, unwed, a lover to her father? A wise and sober man would surely not permit it, would not begin to walk with her along this path.

But he was not such a man. And the smile curving brighter on her lips as he drew closer, the lambent bliss that seemed to spark and shimmer in her gaze was a potent answer to his doubts. So long as she was happy. So long as she wanted him beside her, he could not do less than to accede. To accept his blessings, however undeserved, and show her the finest life that he was able. To wrap her gently in his arms, stroke a hand along her back, let her lean against his chest without a word. If what she felt here with him was even just a shadow of his own emotion, his fulfillment and his joy...perhaps it would be enough.