The Telling

By jfclover

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The day has been long, but will the night be even longer?  Tonight is Adam’s night, not mine, although if I don’t say something soon, his future will be in shambles.  Is it my place to ruin his life?  Is speaking up the right thing to do?

Sam’s fiddlers play a merry tune, and Pa’s fire roars in the fireplace.  People dance, drink, and eat, and wish Adam a happy life.  After all, this is his engagement party, and everything should be roses and apple pie, but I have a secret to tell, and I come outside to get away from all the smiling faces.

She’s a beautiful woman.  She has all the charms a man desires.  With her silky black hair, dark eyes, and fair complexion, she turns men’s heads.  She turns Adam’s, and they’ve been together since the day she disembarked from the stage and ran right into him as she fought to steady herself on the boardwalk. 

Adam tells the story when he returns home that night …. “I’m staring at the papers in my left hand when she steps off the stage. We meet rather awkwardly.  It is my fault, of course, but she forgives me and lets me buy her lunch.”’

With his interest piqued, Pa wants to know more about his eldest son’s new lady.  “Go on.”

“There’s not much more to tell.”

“No?”

“Okay.  If you must know, I’m taking her to the opera house Saturday night.”

“Does the lady have a name?”

Adam seems put out by all the questions, but he answers anyway.  “Angelina Boseman.  What else do you need to know?”

“Am I intruding?”

“I’m sorry.  It’s been a difficult day.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

That conversation happened several weeks ago, and a Saturday Night party is planned so that Pa can introduce his eldest son’s fiancée to his friends.  When my father raises his glass of champagne, we’re all supposed to be happy and congratulate my brother.  Instead, I set my glass on Pa’s desk and slip out of the room.  I can’t say the words and mean them, and I can’t look Angelina in the eye.  She isn’t the woman Adam thinks she is.  She will never make him happy.

I don’t know if I was the first, but I was one of many men she approached with her charms.  The spider and the fly.  That’s how I feel.  I can’t speak for any of the others, but when she caught me off guard and pressed her lips to mine, all I could think of was my brother and the life he planned with a woman he didn’t really know.  A conniving woman who was enchanted by any man who came along. 

After seeing her with our foreman and then with one of our longtime hands, who’s older than my father, I don’t kid myself.  I’m not anyone special.  She’s a brazen woman, and she doesn’t hide the fact that men are her specialty.  Angelina is an evil, despicable woman.  Everyone knows except my family.  As far as I know, Hoss and Pa and Adam are all oblivious to her conniving ways.

So what am I supposed to do?  Adam has to be told, but I don’t want to be the spoiler, the brother he will hate for the rest of his days.  I don’t want to be that guy.  Angelina will be a thorn in our sides forever.  There’ll be no way to get around the fact that I’ve ruined his life.

And so I spend most of Adam’s party hanging out by the water trough.  Silly, maybe, but I can’t take part in the celebration.  I can’t pretend all is well, and when I think I hear a shuffling noise, I turn toward the barn, then realize who has ditched her own party to come outside and walk my way.

“Little Joe?”

My heart races.  I know the voice, and it scares me.  “What are you doing out here?  What do you want?”

“What do I want?” Her hands press against my clean, white shirt.  “Don’t you know?”

I push her hands away.  “What’s wrong with you?  Why are you doing this?”

Although I don’t think it’s possible, she steps even closer.  “We’re almost family, Joe.”

“Yeah, and this isn’t what families do, Angelina.”

“Call me Angie, Joe.”

“Where’s my brother?”

“He’s busy with your father.”

“Go find him.”  The woman is too bold for her own good.  My brother may show up any minute, and her hands are on me again, skimming my hips and reaching for my backside.  I  don’t want to think what might come next, and I grab her wrists.  “Did you hear me?  If you don’t find him, I will.”

After she palms her hands to the ground and then smears dirt on her cheeks and across the bodice of her ivory-colored gown, she runs toward the front door.  Like a China figurine, I stand my ground and witness the insanity of a woman my brother plans to marry.  Within minutes, Adam charges across the yard toward the trough, and with his right fist, he knocks me at least three feet from the pump, but his anger doesn’t stop there.  Before I can gain my footing, my brother is on top of me, yelling and bashing me with his fists.

Boots pound the ground as Hoss and Pa surround the two of us.  Hoss grabs Adam, and Pa grabs me.  Each brings us to our feet.  Though I haven’t fought back, Pa doesn’t know that, and the reprimand is for both of us.

“What in God’s name got into you two?  What’s this all about?”  Adam stays silent.  I do the same.  “I asked you both a question.”

Adam’s eyes burn with hate.  “Ask him.”

Telling the truth seems worthless now.  My brother will believe his future wife, not the boy she put her hands on.  Not the kid brother he thought would do such a thing.  Not a kid like Little Joe Cartwright.

The End

3 – 2026