The Diary of Jerrod Bently by J.W. Osborn (large ebook reader TXT) 📕

Pot and trusted Sam and my own instincts instead of acting like a jealous fool, I might not have gone to our wedding wearing the scars of battle or having to attend to Ely whose eye so blacked that even beef steak didn’t help. He was no better, with his war wounds but at least we’d walked way from that fist fight over Sam, as friends. But that had not happened yet, and before I get ahead of myself, I better get into what led up to all of this between, me, Ely and my Sam.

It had been two or three weeks since we moved on to the Flying S and the judge was on his way from the next county to hear the case and to award ownership of the ranch to Sam and her husband. Just who that was going to be, had not been determined, but I was still praying and hoping for an answer. Every time I got my nerve up to talk to her about my proposal, something happened that prevented me from doing so. Then finally I made up my mind that I’d argued with myself enough and like Doc had said, “You will know the time, boy and then it will just come out.” I wondered how he’d proposed to Victoria, and when I’d asked, he just grinned that famous grin of his, and walked away. Well, I had to do it. So, I headed for the main house. It was all most sundown and Esparanza, the Mexican cook, would be ringing the dinner bell soon. I had not seen Sam since that morning. She was a little nervous about seeing the judge, since she wasn’t a married woman yet. I had plans to fix that right away if she was willing. Yes, sir. I was ready to ask the woman I loved to be my wife for the fourth time. I didn’t have a ring to give her, but this was the West and unlike New York, there was no jewelry store down the street , so I would just offer myself and hope that she would finally say yes. She had to say yes. I knew she loved me, even though she didn’t say it much, and I also knew she wanted to marry me, so I stepped up onto the front step of the ranch house porch, thinking of all the things I could say, but “Will you marry me Samantha Dodge,” was what came to the front of my thoughts. That was just like she was, no frills and to the point. Yes, that was my Sam. I heard the porch swing creaking, and figured she was sitting there like she had come to do in the evening. I was on the porch now and glanced to the left. There she was, but she was not alone. Ely Jax was sitting way too close to her, his arm resting on the back of the swing. She was looking at him, the same way she’d looked at me when I got back to Portersville. I could not hear their quiet voices, but when I saw Jax kiss her, I chose to walk away instead of making a scene about it. It seemed that Sam had made her choice and obviously it wasn’t me. I slunk away, feeling a little sick. But had I listened, I could have saved myself a lot of pain. I had seen her in his arms, kissing him. I wanted to kill Ely Jax, but that was not the way. I would back off and go home to New York and maybe forget Sam and all we had been through together and the love I thought we had shared.
“I understand, Ely,” Sam said as she settled back on the swing. “I was wanting to talk to you too, about Jerrod.”
“He loves you, Sam,” Ely said “and for months I have been trying to find away to convince you to marry me and not him. I love you too, but not in the same way he does. I did not understand that until I met someone else.”
Sam smiled back as the misty look in the young man’s blue eyes. “It’s strange , isn’t it,” she said “Some how from the day I met Jerrod I knew we’d be together one day. ”
Ely laughed “You sure put him through it,”, he said “But he never gave up, not one time and he learned fast. I will always admire him for that.”
He looked away for a moment , it was hard for him to think about Sam’s accident or to speak of it. “He saved your life,” he said quietly “a life well worth saving.” She smiled and reached out to take his hand. “Ely,” she said “It is all in the past. I am fine now, and it was because all of you were there and I knew you had faith. I am hoping Jerrod will bring up the subject again and then the ranch is ours. I love him, and I have been waiting for him to talk to me about us marrying, but he hasn’t. Not since Portersville.”
Ely lifted his hat from where it had been sitting on his knee and put it on his head. “I am sure he will,” he said “I am going to tell him to come and see you tonight. That is if he didn’t go into town with the rest of the boys.”
“I hope you and Ellen will be happy,” Sam said “I have known her family since I was a child. She comes from good people.”
“I love her Sam, and I am going to be a good husband to her as soon as I can afford to buy some land,” Ely said with conviction in his words. Sam smiled “Good luck, Ely,” she said. Then his arms were suddenly around her, and she leaned into his kiss feeling the fire and passion that would belong to someone else. Ely broke away, “Sam,” he said “I am so sorry. Please forgive me.”
She smiled “Good bye, Ely.” she said as he rose and walked away. He disappeared into the dusk and left Sam sitting on the swing alone. She felt to happy and excited when she thought of Jerrod Bently, and now that the air had been cleared between her and Ely Jax, there was nothing standing in the way of she and Jerrod being together for ever. She sat there on the swing for quite a while, waiting for him, but Jerrod never showed.
Disappointed, Sam rose and went into the house. Her grandfather sat on the floor in front of the fire place. “You must sleep, granddaughter,” he said , never moving from his place. “Tomorrow things will be settled and you must be alert and ready.”
Instead of climbing the stairs to her room, Sam deviated from her course and joined him by the warm fire that blazed in stone fire place. She sat down beside him.
“What troubles you, child?”, he asked as he reached out and touched her shining auburn hair.
“Jerrod,” she said quietly “I love him so much and surely by now he would have come to talk about us getting married, don’t you think Grandfather?” The old man chuckled quietly. “Have faith, Samantha Ann,” he said “he will come around.”


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The Grant County Court House
Grants Creek, Texas


“The ranch is yours, Miss Dodge,” the judge said “Free and clear. Mr. Hinkley has signed over all rights and there are no leans.” It had been quiet in the court room, except for a few coughs and snickers. Everyone knew why Hinkley had signed. We had given him no choice and in his terror of dying and fear of Indians, the man never realized that the coal oil he thought was in that bottle Sam threatened him with, was only water. I sat in the front row of the jury box, next to Scrub Pot and Doc and watched her sign the papers that made the Flying S Ranch hers. Sam was happy, and I was happy for her. The dream of having a horse ranch had come true for her and she’d done it against odds that may be even some of the toughest men would have run from. She was smiling, as the clerk handed her the official deed to her property, but I felt like the bottom had fallen out of my life. I could have likened my state of mind to the rain that was pouring down outside and the nearly black sky. Sam walked over to us. “I guess that is all there is,” she said happily “Shall we go home?”
Home. It sounded good to me, but it was her home, not mine. I’d all most worked up the courage to asked her one more time, but when I saw her sitting on the porch swing with Ely, I figured that she would not want to hear it. May be I’d been fooling myself the whole time? I’d kept my promises. I’d seen her through the worst after the accident. I’d finished the drive and brought her the money that was due her when she was recovering in Portersville. I thought we were getting closer during the time we had spent in Portersville with Doc and Victoria. Sam was different there. She wanted me with her, and heck, I always wanted to be with her. Everyone seemed to approve of me courting her like I was, but there was Ely and I knew he was in love with her too. Well, there couldn’t be two of us so I decided it would be best that I take my good memories of the long hot summer of seventy five and return to New York. I could not work on that ranch along side her and not have her belong to me and me to her. I would tell her when we got back to the Flying S that I was going back East. Ely was Texan through and through. He was