Page 69 of My Darling Clementine

Perching on her lap, Kizzy’s head sagged as she muttered, “Oh God, the scandals I was in in Rocheport never bothered me, but this… this is embarrassing.” Her cheeks flamed bright pink. “I can’t attend services tomorrow.”

Clem cradled her, caressing her blushing face, brushing away stray tendrils of hair. “Sure you can if you want to. Go to the church meeting in the morning, watch Mr. Cushing while he preaches at you, and thank him for the sermon after, just as you would if he never stopped by. He won’t mention it to you, he’s not that kind of man. It’s none of his business what happens in private between married people, which he knows as well as anyone.”

She kissed the top of Kizzy’s head, smoothing her braid. “You,” she added, wrapping her in a warm hug for emphasis, “are the same incredible person I married and no one, not even you, Keziah Walker Dennison, may say anything against my wife. I know how lucky I am, and won’t allow you to think any less of yourself. I’m proud of you, and even prouder to be your husband.”

“What?” Kizzy whispered, growing still and stiff in Clem’s arms. Then she squirmed, struggling free of her embrace.

Startled to see tears in her eyes, she let go. Both of Kizzy’s arms flew around her neck in a tight squeeze as she buried her face in Clem’s neck.

A small voice muffled by her shirt asked, “You’re p-proud of me?” The arms tightened around her neck. “D-don’t say it if you don’t m-mean it.” A strangled whimper escaped.

“Oh, darling, don’t cry,” crooned Clem, holding her. “I do mean it.” She rubbed soothing circles on Kizzy’s back. “I am very proud of you, the woman you are, and the wife who puts her trust in me.”

Hot tears wet her skin as a low moan rose between them. This isn’t about getting caught in an embarrassing situation.

Kizzy had laughed when she told Clem about the series of ‘scandals’ she’d faced at the church in Rocheport, everything from theft (she took a pencil from the church registry to draw with), laziness (caught taking a nap when she should have been cleaning the pews) and raising her hand against her father (who failed to mention to his spellbound congregation that his wicked daughter had yanked the belt he was beating her with from his hand, and turned it on him). As she grew older and blossomed into maturity, the accusations grew more frequent, and even more absurd; egregious vanity (a charge leveled by the mother of a plain spinster), reading pornography (those silly penny dreadfuls), and animal cruelty (she’d forgotten to feed the Sunday School goldfish for a week, and a class of toddlers grew hysterical when they found it floating belly up). The list was so ridiculous, long, and creative Clem wondered if it was the prurient moral rigidity of both church and community that found sin in everything Kizzy did, or if it was her physical beauty they came to admire while she was compelled to repent before them.

Shuddering sobs wracked the poor girl’s body as her arms clutched Clem around the neck. She rocked Kizzy and hugged her close. But this goes far deeper than that.

“Shh, shh…” Clem rose with Kizzy in her arms, kneeled on the floor of the wagon, and laid her on their bed of blankets. “It’s all right …” she soothed. Soft cries wrung her heart as she hurried to undress, blow out the candle, lie beside her, and pull the bedclothes over them. “I’m here …” she crooned to her love, gathering her into her arms, kissing her forehead as they nestled. “You’re safe, Kizzy. I’m here. No one will hurt you.”

When she calmed, Clem leaned up on one elbow to look down at her, smoothing stray hair from wet cheeks. She broached the subject of the Sunday sermons delivered as parental discipline, disguised by her father as church doctrine, and locked eyes with Kizzy. With restrained strength, she said, “Sweetheart, please listen to me.”

Clem bent close, nose to nose, eye to eye. “I am proud to be chosen by such a kind, adventurous, and brave soul. You are smart as a whip, good-hearted, and the best company I’ve ever had, bar none, even Barney.” She kissed Kizzy’s forehead. “I don’t believe in a god but I do believe in miracles, because I married one.”

Her words fell on deaf ears.

Kizzy’s tortured eyes turned inward. In an almost silent whisper through tight lips, she recited a vile litany without breathing. “I’m Satan’s spawn, an abomination, a pervert, un… unnat…” she gasped for breath, “an unnatural freak,” she spat out. Forehead wrinkled in a scowl, she shrugged with a hopeless sigh and shudder. “And unfit to live among decent folks.” Cold eyes glazed with unshed tears.

“Kizzy,” Clem said, caressing her soft cheek until she focused, “darling, that’s one man’s opinion, and totally untrue. I haven’t met my father-in-law, the so-called Reverend Walker, but I already know he’s a stupid lout.” She shrugged at Kizzy’s startled look. “He’s a weak, fallible man; even though he claims to speak for your god, his nasty choice of words is his own.”

She leaned down and grazed along soft lips, murmuring, “I’m not an idiot, and I will tell you the truth so often it drives out his evil lies.” Clem kissed Kizzy with everything in her heart, wrapping her in strong, gentle arms. “I’m proud of you, and will tell you every day.”

It took a while, and several repetitions, but as her words sank in, Kizzy’s eyes cleared. She sighed, blinked, and then focused on Clem with a returning hint of her playfulness. “You don’t need to tell me every day,” she suggested with a slight smile. “Maybe twice a month would be better.”

“Twice a week, twice an hour, whatever it takes for you to know your own worth.” Clem kissed her dimple and rolled Kizzy onto her side facing away. She offered her arm for a pillow as if about to spoon, then tugged the nightgown up over Kizzy’s bare bottom to feel her heat. “And I haven’t forgotten what we were doing before we were interrupted. Let me check that emptiness you complained of earlier.”

Clem arranged them so her free hand could caress between Kizzy’s thighs at their juncture. Leveraging her top leg, Clem leaned her forward and tugged her warm bottom close. As she entered Kizzy with a supple finger, she flexed the arm pillowing her head, and tilted her back enough to give her shoulder a little nibble. Kizzy’s gasp, and the sudden arching of her back, shot spikes of pleasure along Clem’s spine.

Maybe she couldn’t kick Kizzy’s asshole father to hell and back, but she could help her forget him and relax. With soft words and subtle caresses, she made slow, tender love to her wife until she climaxed, shuddering in her arms, and then a while longer just for comfort. When finished, they spooned.

Long after Kizzy’s breathing evened and warm body relaxed, Clem basked in the glow of holding her. She had become more important than anything else in life. Nestling Kizzy close to her heart, she fell asleep, lulled by her soft snores.

Chapter twenty

Opportunity

The next morning, after eating a breakfast of cold fried fish, Clem shooed Kizzy off to the dawn church service. Gathering a supply of wood, she started a fire to boil water for their laundry. Once it was well lit, she carried enough water to fill the cauldron halfway, then spent the morning cleaning her rifle, adjusting and securing everything in their wagon, and moving their mules, tethering them in a fresh patch of grass.

Molly came up and nosed her shoulder, asking for attention. She laughed and stroked the long velvety nose, scratching between her ears. She’d grown fond of the mule, a quick, intuitive animal needing very little guidance. When it was Clem’s turn to ride, she often walked beside Molly, shoulder to shoulder, talking or singing to her. Looking her over, she seemed smaller than when purchased, but her eyes were bright, gums pink, and her hooves healthy. She fed her a piece of dried apple she brought for her, then hobbled her among the others.

When Kizzy got back around eight, the sun was well up in the sky; the water was boiling, and Clem was filling the cooking kettle from the boiling water. She had soap scrapings and their pile of laundry ready to put in the rest of the water in the cauldron. “How was the service?”

Eyes twinkling, Kizzy fetched a handful of coffee beans and fed them to the grinder. “At first Mr. Cushing wouldn’t look at me, but as I stood among the others and listened to his sermon, he eventually met my eye. He made no acknowledgement, neither smile nor nod. I didn’t either, and then it was the same as it’s always been between us. He called me Mrs. Dennison when I thanked him for the service, shook my hand along with everyone else’s, and that was it.” She turned the crank with vigor, and the beans ground to powder, filling the tiny wooden drawer. “You were right, and it was a whole lot better than skulking around feeling guilty, embarrassed, and judged.” She emptied the grounds into a brown-stained bag of thin linen and pulled the neck tight, then poured boiling water from the kettle into the coffeepot, dipped it in until it soaked, then hung the drawstring around the knob on the pot lid and placed it on a stone set in the fire to boil.

“Don’t go looking for trouble, you’ll always find it.” Clem smiled. “My father used to say that.”

“You speak of him fondly, considering,” Kizzy noted, tying her apron around her waist, then pulling the ingredients for bread from the chuck box.