Diamond Duo by Marcia Gruver

should just go, obey him for once like she’d vowed on their wedding day. “I don’t want to go without you. I was so worried, Henry. You ain’t never just took off like that.” She pleaded with her eyes. “Can’t you go with me now?”
    He dipped his head and raised a finger toward the horizon. “Woman, them clouds are ripe. They ain’t gon’ hold off much longer.”
    “All the more reason for you to come now.”
    “Dandy’s back can’t hold us both, and you know it. Somebody be heading our way soon, and I’ll hitch a ride.”
    “We can take turns on Dandy. Better still, I’ll walk the whole way if you like. Since you already walked it once.”
    Henry sighed. The first sign of his dwindling patience. “Fine, Sarah. I guess I’d best go if I want any sleep tonight.”
    She cringed at the familiar sound of cross resignation in Henry’s voice. But it didn’t outweigh her relief. She needed her husband at home.
    Henry opened Dandy’s saddlebag and pushed the package he held deep inside. Then he took the reins from her and set off down the street leading the mule.
    Sarah watched his back with a mixture of pleasure and pain. Pain because of the wide sweaty blotch on his shirt, already dry at the edges, which meant he’d walked hard and fast into town despite the sultry heat. Pleasure because he’d agreed to return home with her.
    She glanced again at the white-rimmed stain. “Henry, come get up on Dandy. You’ve walked enough today. Your bunion must be throbbing.”
    He trudged ahead at a slow, steady pace. “That’s all right. I’m fine.”
    Sarah studied his feet but saw no sign of a limp. Still. . . “I don’t mind walking. Honest. I want to.”
    “I said no.”
    She bit her lip and focused her anxious energy elsewhere. “It’s coming up a mighty blow sure enough. From the north, too. There’ll be cold weather in behind it. I figured this heat couldn’t last.”
    Henry raised his head to the darkening sky and mumbled a reply, but she couldn’t make out his words.
    She tried again. “Guess I never will get used to the mixed-up weather in Texas. In St. Louis, you don’t see folks breaking a sweatin the middle of January. Most unreasonable thing I ever saw.”
    When Henry failed to respond, Sarah decided to hush. They made it a quarter mile in silence until curiosity won out over caution. “Say, what is it you got in this package back here?”
    “It’ll keep.”
    The tone of his voice said he’d abide no more questions on the subject, so she held her tongue. But whatever Henry had wrapped in paper and tied up with twine seemed to heat up inside the saddlebag and spread enough warmth through the bag to scorch Dandy’s fur, singe the leather saddle, and light a fire in her gut.
    She imagined every possibility, from the part Henry ordered for the plow to a new pair of trousers to replace his worn-out pair. He may have bought a bullwhip to keep his ornery wife in line. But knowing Henry, she doubted it.
    “Sarah?”
    She startled at Henry’s sudden, strident voice and all but toppled from Dandy’s back.
    Before she could answer, he continued without turning around. “I know you’ll want to talk things out like always. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather hash it out before we get home. I need myself some peace at the house.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, if it’s all right with you.”
    She winced at Henry’s guarded tone. It cast a shadow of condemnation squarely on her head. She’d heard Mama and her aunties whisper about a coarse, abusive wife who kept her husband on a short lead, carrying his dignity chained about her neck. Other husbands ridiculed such men and called them names behind their backs. The thought of herself as one of those women, of Henry as one of those men, made her blood run cold.
    “We don’t need to talk at all if you’d rather we didn’t.” Shame rendered her voice so low she wondered if Henry heard her at all.
    “No, Sarah, I’d rather