Mail Order Bride- Summer

by Sierra Rose

  “We’ll do our best, Ben,” he could only offer quietly.

  Even Diablo’s magnificent strength was beginning to decline, thanks to the amount of travel over such unfriendly terrain. The summer’s heat had been dissipated by the storm, turned upside down in temperature from hot to cool; judging by Camellia’s anguished account of this afternoon’s events, Molly had nothing of outdoor wear to protect her from the downpour. Unless her husband were carrying along a coat or poncho (which Paul seriously doubted), she was being exposed to a multitude of unfavorable conditions. In her weakened state, that alone could be dangerous.

  “Can’t imagine any man treatin’ his woman in such a way,” the mayor said then, conversationally. Ben was not a talker, choosing action more often over words. But at the moment, for some reason (to pass the time, so as not to think?), the speech fairy had decided to loosen his tongue. “Me and Camellia, we have our battles, now and then. Never seen a couple that didn’t. But she’s a strong-willed individual—”

  Paul felt he could safely agree to that.

  “—and she don’t take guff from nobody. Not even me. Keeps life interestin’, y’ know?”

  “The sheriff wouldn’t know, Ben,” Austin, trailing behind, piped up. “He ain’t married.”

  Paul snorted. “He knows I ain’t married, Aus.”

  “But, with Cam—” This was Ben, still pursuing his own ruminations, “—the thought has never crossed my mind to fetch her a clout. Never once. No matter how mad I get.”

  “Wise man,” said the deputy in as cheerful a tone as possible under the circumstances. “She’d fetch you one back, wouldn’t she?”

  The timber had, some time ago, closed in around the three travelers. Wind-whipped branches sliced through the sky, attempted to claw away hats and slickers, sent sinister scrapings and tappings—even something that sounded very like human wails—into every unfriendly nook and corner. This was not a locale to explore during the best of weather; now, at the height of this tempest, even less so. The forest did not want them there, these interlopers, and was doing all in its power to keep them from progressing farther.

  “Don’t mind sayin’ I don’t like this place,” muttered Austin, casting a wary look around through the dark and dimness. “Not a’tall. I ain’t scared, y’ understand. But I don’t like this place. Not one bit.”

  “Ahuh. So, if I take your meanin’ properly, you don’t like this place.”

  “Nope. I don’t think we’re s’posed to be here.”

  “Close to the river, anyway,” Ben, who was listening to the rush of cascading waters nearby and the occasional crash of falling limbs—or more—commented. “Wanna watch the Juniper don’t overflow its banks, and us get caught up by the flood.”

  No moonlight shone down from the sullen skies, through the almost impenetrable mantle above of shadowy things interlaced and shadowy things intertwined. Even without the silent gray haze rising about the ground, the atmosphere felt uncanny enough to raise the hair on the back of one’s neck, and to realize the necessity of keeping one’s firearm within easy reach. They might have been transplanted from the hills of east Texas to some distant Scottish moors.

  “Listen!” Again Paul halted, raising one hand.

  They obeyed. Sounds carried freakishly above the slight sucking pull and drag of mud from the horses’ hooves, the soft rattle of harness, the shake of one stallion’s head, the gust of another’s breath.

  “Hear that?”

  “A bronc. Comin’ slow, on three legs.”

  Into the murkiness of the timber ahead they moved warily toward what was approaching. Unearthly. Surreal. Phantasmagorical.

  Waves of mist and murk separated into tatters, like shreds of floating gauze, to reveal the form of a large buckskin. His reins were loose and dragging, his coat was rippling from head to tail with fear, his eyes were rolling to show the white, his noseband and cheek piece were half-torn away.

  “Recognize him?” Paul, dismounting slowly so as not to further spook the animal, asked tersely.

  “Yeah, that’s Painter. He’s owned by Norton, at the livery. Good fellah; deserves better’n whatever has happened to him.”

  “Easy, boy,” said Paul, smoothing his gloved hand over the trembling neck and shoulder, past the flank, along the hip. “Easy, there. Blood on the saddle,” he reported.

  “Ahuh. Reckon we’d better move, then. Bound to be worse up ahead.”

  There was.

  Trailing the recovered horse, who was understandably reluctant to return to a place of such terror yet drawn inexorably along, they continued for another half mile or so before coming to a slow stop.

  The monstrous tree lay completely across the track, blocking further access.

  For a split second, the men could only stare, transfixed with shock.

  Somewhere, beneath the tangle of leaves and welter of shattered branches, lay human life just as weltered and shattered as the cruel hodgepodge surrounding, as when a violent earthquake fells everything around into rubble. At the very bottom, nearly buried, the rescuers could catch glimpses of a snatch of color that shouldn’t be there, a snag of pattern, a fold of cloth.

  Paul swallowed hard. His voice, when he spoke, came out croaky and unfamiliar, even to himself, as he worked to gather every reserve of strength for the ordeal ahead.

  “Under there. Under that mess. We’ve gotta start diggin’.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “—BYE...” THE SINGLE word came out as a mere breath, almost a whine or whimper. It had been the first word managed so far, and the sole word, only to be repeated occasionally. “—Bye...”

  Still, it was enough to give one the faintest ray of hope. How the broken, bloodied body lying motionless beneath the quilt could even yet be living was a miracle of Gabriel Havers’ potions, patience, and persistence. There was, also, the miracle of strength, and the will to survive.

  Camellia, form severely buttoned into an apron and hair trimly tucked under a scarf, passed to and fro, up and down, a dozen times a day. The question always came from haggard lips: “Any change?” And she must always quietly, despondently report, “No. No change.”

  She had expected to leave the worst of encroaching troubles behind in St. Louis, when she had moved to take up a new life in Texas. She had expected marriage to provide the safety and security so absent from everyday existence. Apparently, none of that mattered.

  Camellia still held the position of matriarch of their little Burton clan, and she would always assume responsibility for their welfare until her sisters could finally be considered settled.

  For this past week, ever since the afternoon of Molly’s abduction, she felt she had been stuffed into a bell jar, helpless to escape, stumbling around in a nightmare fraught with fear, fury, and desperation. She had paced enough, following the posse’s departure, to wear a hole in the rug, according to Gabriel.

  His behavior couldn’t have been faulted, for he had done his best to keep her occupied. Once he had treated the raw burns on her wrists, caused by her savage attempts to break free, he had actually pottered around in the kitchen to prepare tea (heavily sugared, for shock) and rustled up a plate of bread and honey. Amazingly, she had been too awash in the worry over this latest tragedy to even take exception to his efforts. And the mess he had left behind.

  They had, upon his insistence, played endless games of whist (she had lost every one, proving again her lack of concentration). Once that had palled, he convinced her to take up her sewing. Finally, when he had had his limit (a craw full, was his expression) of her fussing, he donned hat and coat to brave his way to the McKnight boarding house, where he broke the news to Letitia and Hannah about all that had transpired during just a few momentous hours.

  “What did they say? Did they want details? How exactly did you tell them?” she had demanded, when, some time later, he had braved his way back to Camellia’s warm and comfortable kitchen.

  He wasn’t about to divulge any incidentals as to his
conversation with her sisters. Blood completely drained away, anxious tears, and even a near-swoon. Gabe had forced them to remain where they were, due to the unspeakable weather conditions, only by the force of his own grumpy personality. And, of course, Hannah had seized upon that, just as he expected.

  “You have absolutely no bedside manner at all!” she had spat out at him. “Is that any way to tell a suffering family member such horrific news?”

  “The only way I know is to blurt out the worst,” the doctor responded mildly. “I’ve found it takes a while for someone to absorb it, at the very least.”

  “Well, perhaps you need to go back to medical school and learn better manners! Never mind, Letty.” She turned to the recovering occupant of the settee in their private sitting room, whence Gabriel had won grudging permission from Mrs. McKnight to carry on a private chat. “We’ve come too far to let this bring us down. Don’t listen to him.”

  Wide-eyed, Letitia had considered the two of them, and the animosity that seemed always to exist whenever both were within sight of each other. “No, he’s right, Hen. It’s best to know, and get it over with, so we can go on from here. Thank you, doctor. We shall await your further—enlightenment...of the situation. And a change in the weather, so that we can see Camellia.”

  “In the meantime,” Hannah added, rather stiffly, “please convey to her our love and prayers.”

  Somehow the hours passed. As did the lingering storm, at last.

  True darkness began to gather in, with a few tiny pinpricks of stars overhead to show the clearing sky. Camellia was puttering. She had lit lamps and candles; she had read a few pages of some nameless book; she had stabbed the needle through her fancy work with as much venom as if it were a knife she was plunging into Quinn Hennessey’s black heart.

  Gabriel, who had cleaned out his medical bag on the kitchen table, to Camellia’s disgust, was now involved in hefting small chunks of wood and kindling to the parlor. “I just figured a fire would be nice,” he explained, retrieving several matches. “Y’ know, Cam, it’s way beyond suppertime.”

  “I might have assumed,” Camellia, throwing aside her embroidery, immediately snapped, “you’d work a meal out of this somehow.”

  My lands, thought the doctor, watching her warily over his shoulder, I can certainly understand why Miss Hannah Burton is often in such a testy mood. That same strain of spunkiness must run through every one of the girls.

  “Ain’t there some kinda statement said somewheres about idle hands bein’ the—”

  “Shut up, Gabe. I don’t need Proverbs quoted at me, as if you were some student of the Bible.”

  When Camellia made up her mind to do something, she did it. With her whole heart and soul and every drop of energy in her blood. Thus, Gabe, his fire-making efforts a distinct success, was soon being treated to wonderful, appetite-enhancing aromas from the kitchen.

  Beef steaks pounded to exquisite tenderness and fried with flour and sliced onions. Potato chunks cooked and thickened and flavored by fresh green peas. Warm corn bread, stewed carrots,

  spinach wilted in vinegar, and peach cobbler.

  “You are killin’ me here, girl,” groaned Gabe from his parlor chair. “Can you spare a few crumbs of what you’re fixin’ to save the life of a starvin’ man?”

  Camellia, her emotional state as always tempered by the physical, managed a small smile. Just as he had intended. “Of course, Gabe. Tuck up to the table, and we’ll have a bite.”

  The bite included more than one. In fact, the doctor was consuming, with relish, the last of his entrée, when the rattle and sprangle of horses approaching at the front caught their attention.

  He was first to the door.

  It was a weary, muddy, bedraggled cavalcade that had arrived, and it took quite some time, and a mass of confusion, before individuals could be sorted out and facts presented.

  Paul, carrying what seemed to be a limp, unmoving bundle of old clothing, followed Camellia’s lead to the bedroom upstairs, and he was immediately followed by Gabriel toting the re-stocked satchel and harrumphing with every step.

  Both Ben and Austin had discarded wet outer clothing onto the kitchen floor, semi-washed, and were in the process of wolfing down leftovers at the table when the sheriff returned to join them. He sank down onto a chair and watched with dull eyes. “I’m just about too wrung out to eat.”

  “And that, my friend, is exactly when you need to get some food in your belly,” said Ben, handing over an empty plate. “Have I taught you nothin’ over the years?”

  “Not much.” There could be no smile from the stubbled, rough-hewn face, having lived through today’s earthshaking events. But there was, at least, a very faint lightening of tension. “All right. Some corn bread, maybe. And coffee. I got a lot still to do.”

  Paul hastily swallowed enough to bring just a bit of color to his lean cheeks (too much gobbling would not, he felt, have been seemly in this house, at this time). Then, packing up his gear, he and Austin made their farewells. He would, he told Ben, come back later this evening if it would be convenient.

  “It will be, son, no matter how late,” Ben quietly acquiesced. “I’ll be awake. You come on over, and leave Colton in charge of county troubles. I’ll break out a good bottle of bourbon.”

  It was an unusual—somewhat odd, in fact—scene to which the sheriff returned shortly before midnight. The air surrounding Turnabout smelled, as it always did after a drenching rain, fresh and clean as laundry pegged out onto its line. A moon apologetic for having hidden itself for so long hung in the night sky with an extra order of brightness, as if it, too, had just been washed.

  A fire still burned low on the hearth, and lamps added a mellow glow not to Ben’s library, as expected, but to the parlor. There he found Ben sprawled half-asleep in one chair and Gabriel half-asleep in another. Camellia, unapologetically dressed in a soft cotton wrapper and satin slippers, had taken possession of the settee.

  All three held glasses that were empty or nearly so. On a small side table stood, as promised, a good bottle of bourbon. Also almost empty.

  Camellia’s greeting surprised him almost as much as had this parlor scene.

  “Join us, Paul.” She lifted her goblet in salute; as he somewhat warily approached, he realized that her expression seemed muzzy, and that around her very definitely wafted the gentle fumes of alcohol. Amazingly, the woman was on her way to being inebriated. He guessed, given the circumstances, if anyone deserved the temporary solace of liquor, it was Camellia Forrester. “It has been a rough—a very rough day.”

  “Uh—yes, ma’am. I gotta admit, it has that.”

  Pressed by invitation, he helped himself to a generous pouring of that warm, soothing libation, swallowed, and sighed.

  Ben roused. “Take a seat, Paul. You wanna report first, and then we’ll tell you what’s been happenin’ here?”

  “Fair enough.”

  It took him a minute. Like everyone in the room, he was so exhausted as to be running on his last dregs of energy. With that excellent bourbon warming its way downward from gullet to gut, he was about to topple over.

  Quinn Hennessey’s body now lay in the coroner’s back room, waiting to be prepared for his funeral tomorrow. Nothing elaborate, of course, and with probably very few attendants. He hadn’t been around town long enough for residents to get to know him very well. And what they had known, they hadn’t really liked.

  But it was necessary. Couldn’t hardly just throw him out in somebody’s old hog lot and wait for Mother Nature to take her course.

  “I don’t see why not,” muttered Camellia. The interruption was not intentional, but involuntary and she gave Paul a glance full of contrition. “I’m sorry. Please, go on.”

  Paul had done the best he could in writing up the official account, although he was unfortunately missing a lot of pertinent information. Cause of death, from what anyone could tell, was accidental. Beyond that, any further developments were on hold, until...

/>   “Reckon you’d like to hear our part, now,” said Gabriel, stretching across his friend to snag the bottle for, in his opinion, a much-deserved refill.

  Leaning forward, Paul draped both elbows on his thighs, bracing for the worst. How was she faring, that pathetic boneless victim he and Diablo had transported so carefully all the way back to her temporary home from the edge of nowhere? Was there any hope for her survival? And, from there, her recovery?

  Together, the doctor and Camellia had cut away the rags of Molly’s clothing, had washed her poor body with warm water, had set bones and bandaged wounds and administered medicaments. Emotion must be put aside for now; a breakdown could come later, when the work was done.

  Finally, finished, Camellia turned at the bedroom door on her way into the hall. Molly was desperately hurt, with injuries about which, at this point, even Gabe was uncertain. Who knew what internal damage might have been done? She lay motionless and unconscious, unaware of anyone or anything.

  But she was home. She was home, and she would never be bothered by that odious devil Quinn Hennessey again.

  Blinded by tears, Camellia blundered down the last few stairs straight against Gabriel’s substantial body. He could take great pleasure in holding her, for just a minute, before shoving her into Ben’s surprised arms. “Here. I believe this is yours.”

  “And your—prognosis?” Paul’s voice sounded rusty and ill-used, like a pump which must be primed to bring up water.

  Gabriel had scrubbed at his weary face. “Can’t give you one yet, my friend. Too soon. What I’ve seen on the surface—and treated, best I could—is a serious blow to the head, lotsa cuts and scrapes and bruises, a skinned-up arm, and a broken ankle. That fallin’ tree did her a world of hurt.”