Echoes by Erin Quinn

got to know some time."
    "Know what?" Molly asked, finally swallowing. Rosie skewered a piece of pork and popped it in her mouth where she daintily chewed it with her front teeth.
    "We're not staying on here," Adam answered.
    "You are not staying on? What do you mean?"
    "Me, Brodie, Ma and Arlie. We plan on pulling up stakes in a few weeks. That's why I sent the letter."
    She frowned, certain she would have remembered mention of an intended move—but she could not very well argue the point over a letter she had pretended not to receive. She took a drink of water, giving herself a moment to gather her wits.
    "Have you found a new property?" she asked at last, pleased to hear the note of calm curiosity in her voice.
    "Not exactly. Like Brodie said, we're going west. To California."
    Brodie let out a yee haw at that. Rosie shushed him.
    Fork poised halfway to her mouth, Molly finally registered exactly what was being said. Going west… A few weeks… California…
    The Reverend's voice resounded through her thoughts. "If you go to that house of heathens, Margaret Louise Marshall, this house of the Lord will not welcome you back."
    "Why would you move to California?" she asked in a stunned voice. "I've heard that nothing has been settled there yet. It's only wilderness and, and savages that will kill you."
    It was Adam's turn to look uncomfortable. Using her ploy, he lifted his glass and took a long drink of water. In his case, however, he was not forced to then illicit a calm response.
    Before Adam's glass had returned to the table, Brodie exclaimed, "Sure it's wilderness but that's not all it is. Hell, there's gold laying around in chunks just waiting for some lucky son of bitch—pardon, ma'am, just waiting for someone to scoop 'em up. And land. So much land all for the taking. Families are pulling out all over for California."
    Molly had only heard horror stories about the West. Stories of savagery and hardship and starvation...her father had told her how the heathens would as soon scalp a man as look at him and he wouldn't even say what they did to women. Not that she took everything the Reverend said as gospel.
    Still… She looked at her nephew playing on the floor. It was one thing for the adults to test fate, but to drag an innocent child into the unknown seemed unconscionable. And if they went to California, what was she to do?
    The anger came on her so quickly she had no chance to consider or contain it. It was just there, suddenly, irrevocably, burning hot and furious. After all she'd risked in coming, now this?
    Brodie jammed a huge bite into his mouth and waved his fork in the air. "Once we hit Independence we'll hitch up with all the others heading out. Ain't that right, Adam?"
    She faced Adam. "And what of Vanessa?"
    He looked at her as if she'd sprouted horns and a pitchfork tail. "Vanessa is dead."
    "I know she is dead, but you've buried her here and now you intend to just leave her?"
    "It's not like she's going to know," Brodie said, a look of genuine confusion on his face.
    "But I know," she answered, looking right into Adam's cold gray eyes. "I know that you took advantage of my sister and compromised her so that she would have no choice but to marry you and go away from her friends and family. And now she is dead and you will just leave her behind like your garbage."
    "Vanessa never went anywhere she didn't want to go," he said in a soft, steely voice.
    "Had she stayed, her life would not have been worth living. Nothing she could have done short of dying would have condoned for the sin of conceiving out of wedlock. But she would not have suffered alone. The Reverend would have hunted you down, Adam Weston, and he would have killed you even if it meant spending eternity in hell and damnation for it."
    Her words hit the taut silence like a whip and Molly was instantly horrified by the sting they left behind. Adam's face turned the color of paste while her own flamed. But deep inside a part of her felt