The Diary of Jerrod Bently, J.W. Osborn [the false prince series TXT] 📗

asked a proud grin crossing his face.
“How would I know?,” Victoria answered “We will just have to wait and see.”
Doc was surprised,, but very happy about Victoria’s news.
“We’re going to be a family.,” Doc replied “We need room and the cottage is to small. My son will need to have his own room.”
She lay her head on her husband’s shoulder “You are mighty sure it’s a boy, Doc. Will you be disappointed if it is a girl?”
He kissed her on the forehead. “No, Honey,” he said “Because that girl will be just like you.”
“Vic?”
“Yes, Doc.”
“Can I tell Scrub Pot?”
“If you want to.”


Doc was on his feet in seconds and dancing around the porch. “I love you, Vic,” he cried “We are going to have a baby!! Praise God!!” Several of the wedding guests who were passing by looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Anything wrong Uncle Elliott?” It was Brian Dodge who joined them on the porch, followed by Aunt Lillie Stevens-Black.
“No,” Doc replied with a happy smile “Nothing could be more right.” He looked at his sister’s sour expression. “You all right, Lillie?”, he asked “You look a little green.”
“Disappointed, Elliot.,” Lillie complained, “I am just mortified! Samantha looks like a savage, and on her wedding day no less.”
“Now Aunt Lillie,” Brian cautioned “You need to keep those opinions to yourself. You don’t want to offend any of our Indian friends here.”
“You know Brian, you are right.,” Doc agreed as he put his arm around his sister’s shoulders. “I don’t think Wolf Standing or Scrub Pot have scalped anybody in years. That’s cause no one has offended them.” Victoria tried to stifle the giggle that rose in her throat. “But with that uprising and all a week or so ago,” he added “ I don’t know. May be you ought to high tail it back to Philadelphia, Lillie.”
“You forget, Elliot,” Lillie defended “I grew up in Texas too.”
“Could have fooled me. ,” Doc teased. “Now go on, sister and get over the thing with Sam’s dress. Sarah would have loved seeing her daughter wearing it on her wedding day.”
“I’ve thought about Sarah many times today.” Lillie said quietly “Samantha looks so much like her.”
“She does,” Doc agreed “But that dark hair is Joe.”
“I have to agree,” Victoria interjected “Sam is a beautiful girl. I don’t know how she got away with passing herself off as a boy to go on that cattle drive?”
“She dressed so no one could tell she was a girl.” Doc replied proudly “and even fooled Jerrod. But not for long.”
“Oh Elliot!,” Lillie scolded “Surely you are teasing. A cattle drive is no place for a proper young lady.”
“That was why the old coot and I went along,” he defended. “Now Lillie, if you will quit being so upset over this stupid social hoo haa, Victoria and I have something to tell you.”
Lillie glanced over at her sister in law. “How do you stand him?”, she asked “He was unruly as a boy and never stopped.”
“That’s one of the many things I love about him.,” Victoria replied. “What Doc was going to say is that you are going to be an aunt again.”
Suddenly Lillie forgot all about her pet peeves with the Texans in her family. “Oh! That is wonderful,” she cried “Congratulations! And if it is girl, you can send her to me. I will see she is properly educated as a young lady should be and...”
“Lillie Belle,” Doc interjected “It did not work with Sam and I won’t be sending any of my children away. One day Oklahoma will be a state and then may be you will think Portersville will be more civilized and come to visit.”
The sound of a wagon being brought around to the front of the house caught everyone’s attention. There was a shining team of bays, hitched to a buckboard that had been decorated with flowers and about a hundred old shoes and tin cans tied to the back of it. One of the ranch hands had tacked a big sign on the tale gate that read “Just Married” in crude painted letters. Doc leaned over and kissed his wife. “Better go get the old man,” he told her “ The bride and groom are getting ready to leave.”
“No wedding carriage?”, Lillie complained “This is uncivilized!”
“All right Jerrod,” Brian called out “It’s time for you and Sam to “get on out of here.” The revelers escorted Sam and me to the buckboard and saw us seated on the driver’s seat, then the men of the Flying S , some of their wives and sweet hearts along with, Little Fox, Lillie Greyhorse and several other friends from Bear Claw mounted up all around us. Scrub Pot appeared on the front porch smiling at us as we waited in the buckboard . As I reached for the reins of the team, the old man raised his hand for a blessing, “Go with God first, family second and a good fast horse under you,” he said “Bless you, my children.”
I gathered the reins and took up the buggy whip. “San Francisco, here we come,” I said as I kissed my bride. From behind us rose a series of raucous Indian war cries and a lot of hooting and hollering from the ranch crew, then the procession was off ! The thunder of hooves and clouds of dust filled the air as we left. Lillie Stevens-Black all but fainted into the arms of her nephew again. How terribly uncivilized she thought. That night, we drove as far as the Grants Creek Hotel, and then on a stage the next day over to Three Forks and then on a train bound for California. Our life together was just beginning.

It was quite at the Flying S Ranch. It was getting late and the last of the guests had gone. The wedding was over and the bride and groom were off on their honeymoon. Tired, but happy with the out come of all her hard work, Victoria Stevens sat down on the front steps next to Scrub Pot. He had been very quiet since the wedding and had been upstairs with the stranger for hours.
“The children are gone.,” he said quietly “May God be with them as they travel.”
“Yes. , ” Victoria replied “It all went so well. I was so proud of them both. I will never forget how they both wept and Sam wiped Jerrod’s tears away.”
Scrub Pot smiled “We all wept, Victoria,” he admitted “Even me. She is happy and he will be good to her.”
Doc walked out the door and joined them there on the porch. He had not had much to say about the stranger who’d arrived during the wedding reception. Joe Dodge was dead as far as he knew. But since the events of the afternoon, Doc had been questioning the past and the part he played in it. The body he buried was so badly burned, and he had seen Joe’s ring on its blackened hand, on the very same finger Joe had always worn it on. But now, Scrub Pot seemed so sure the man was his lost son, Joe, returned from the dead. But Doc was not convinced.
“I am tired,” Victoria declared as she rose to her feet “It’s been a long day.” She kissed her husband on the cheek. “Good night,” she said to Scrub Pot as she walked to the door. The old man smiled up at her. “Good night to you, Golden Hair,” he said.
“I’ll be up in a little while, Honey,” Doc added as she disappeared through the double doors of the ranch house. Scrub Pot looked over at Doc, his expression tired and worn by the events of the day. “You are troubled, Elliot.,” he said.
“I guess I am,” Doc replied as he leaned against the white washed post that supported the roof of the long porch. “I buried a man whom I considered a brother all those years ago, and now this drifter shows up and I don’t know what to think.”
“Sit,”, Scrub Pot said as he motioned for Doc to join him on the step. Doc lowered himself to the steps next to his old friend and fished in his pocket for a half smoked cigar he’d stashed