“I’m sure it is, but Jack Parker stopped by yesterday and he let me know.”
Jake was puzzled because he couldn’t imagine any reason for Jack to visit the bakery.
He was about to ask her when she said, “I can tell that you’re curious about why he would ride into town to tell me what had happened. I guess that he hasn’t talked to you yet”
“I am curious and now I’m even more so about what he needs to tell me.”
She smiled and replied, “When you made Jack the foreman, he was ecstatic when you told him that he could have a wife now. He proposed the same day that you and Sara married, and I accepted. Of course, we’ll have a much longer courtship than yours. But next May, when Robert has been gone a year, I’ll divorce him for abandonment.”
Jake shook his head as he said, “I guess I was too focused on Sara to give him a chance to tell me. Then it was the next day when Sara and I found my father’s gravesite in the forest.”
“I’m sure he’ll tell you when you return.”
Jake then asked, “Mrs. Kemper, are you sure that your husband took a riverboat when he left?”
“No. I just assumed he’d taken one because we didn’t have a horse. Have you heard something?”
“When I was in Helena, I found an entry in the register for an R.L. Kemper. At the time, I thought my father had used his name rather than his own. What was your husband’s middle name?”
Margaret slowly replied, “Louis. But he always signed his name as R.L. Kemper because he thought it made him sound important.”
“The stage only runs twice a week now, but riverboat traffic is even more unpredictable. Did you ever ask Mister Hibbert at the Overland depot if he boarded the coach to Fort Shaw? He could have gone there and then bought a horse to make the ride to Helena.”
“I never asked anyone about him. I was embarrassed that he’d run away and worried that he might return.”
“After things settle down, maybe I’ll take Sara to Helena for a delayed honeymoon. I’m sure she’ll be able to identify him, then I’ll give him fifty dollars to give you a divorce.”
“Jake, you don’t have to do that. Jack and I can wait.”
“But if you can marry Jack sooner, I’d have a much happier foreman and Sara would have a friend on the Elk.”
“I admit that I’m sorely tempted by the idea, but you have to ask Sara, and only after the law catches Dave Forrest.”
“I’ll probably ask her about it when I return, but I’m not going anywhere until I get word from the sheriff that they found him.”
Margaret smiled and said, “Sara is already keeping you from doing foolish manly things.”
“Yes, ma’am. I wish I’d visited her and not Kay when I was a teenager. She probably would have talked some sense into me, and I wouldn’t have enlisted. Then none of this would have happened.”
Then after a short pause, he said, “You knew my father better than I did, Mrs. Kemper. I trusted Dave Forrest because he was nice to me. But I guess that only made my father seem even harder than he was.”
“You were just a boy, Jake. Young people think they know everything, and by the time they realize that they don’t, they aren’t young anymore.”
Jake nodded and said, “You’re right about that. I’m not even twenty-one but at least I already know how ignorant I am.”
“You’re far from ignorant, Jake. Now you have Sara to help you, too. I swear that sometimes I believe your young lady is older than I am.”
Jake laughed then said, “I feel the same way. Thank you, Mrs. Kemper. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”
“There is one thing.”
“Just name it.”
“Please stop calling me Mrs. Kemper. I may be Mrs. Parker one of these days, but I’d be much happier if you called me Maggie.”
Jake grinned then said, “I’ll do that, Maggie. Hopefully, it won’t be a year before you join us on the Elk.”
When he left the bakery, Jake was in a much better mood than he’d been when he left the sheriff’s office. He crossed the street, mounted Mars and turned him west. He’d thought of asking Maggie to come to the burial, but she still had a business to run.
_____
When Jake returned to the Elk, he didn’t see Jack as the men were preparing for the burial service. After unsaddling Mars, he left the barn and spotted the gravediggers already at work in the family cemetery. He didn’t see the need to verify that they were digging in the right spot as he was sure that Isiah Redmond had passed along his precise instructions.
He entered the house though the front door and headed for the hallway. As he left the main room behind, he almost bumped into Sara as she left the front bedroom carrying his light gray Stetson which was now adorned with his father’s elk band.
He stopped before they collided and said, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Sara.”
She smiled as she handed him his hat and said, “Is it okay?”
He took a few seconds to examine her handiwork even though it wasn’t necessary. He didn’t want her to think that he was just paying her an empty compliment. He did notice that she must have thoroughly cleaned the band after removing it.
“It looks as if it came from the factory. Thank you, Sara.”
“Are you going to bury the hat with your father?”
“Yes. I know that he wouldn’t mind losing the hat but would be spitting nails if I left his elk
