“What did you speak about? Did he plan to come straight home?”
Victoria proceeded to explain the events of the previous evening, including how Frank had found Bobby sick at his home and had taken him to the doctor and then to her place to convalesce. She left out their intimate activities and explained away the length of time he stayed as being spent eating supper and caring for Bobby.
“He planned to go straight home,” Victoria insisted. “He was so tired he fell asleep in the chair. And he told me he would come to check on me and Bobby before going to work.”
Clyde scowled and looked around the room again. None of them had moved any further than inside the front door, but after hearing Victoria’s account, Clyde strode in and began to search for clues with gusto, opening up drawers and moving aside furniture.
Benjamin opened the wardrobe. “I don’t see many personal belongings here. Just a slicker, nightshirt, and a few books. Maybe he no longer fancied being a teacher and decided to hightail it out of here.”
“No way. He loves teaching,” Victoria exclaimed, her voice rising. “He doesn’t have much because he’s not very well off. But he enjoys the children and likes the town and…” She hesitated. “And he likes me, quite a lot.”
Clyde grunted and addressed his deputy. “That means something happened to the man somewhere between the fabric shop and here. Better do a good search. Get Heath Wolfe involved, will you? The three of us can get this figured out.”
“The four of us,” Victoria corrected. “I will search too.”
The marshal studied her as if checking for the seriousness of her statement. After all, she wasn’t usually the sort to get involved with community activities, but she planned on changing that. Finally, he nodded, “Good. The more people searching, the better. Why don’t you go back to your shop and start there?” he suggested. “I reckon you have to check on the boy anyway.” When she agreed, he continued, “From the shop, walk slowly back here, on both sides of the street. Look for… well, anything out of order. Blood, ripped clothing, discarded wallet. We’ll do the same from the other direction.”
Victoria swallowed and nodded, ensuring her face was a mask of calm, though her heart was filled with terror. She turned and strode out the door, praying she would find none of the things mentioned by the marshal and instead would find him back at her home with a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Chapter Eleven
Frank cursed and clenched his hands into fists. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Those were the words he repeated to himself every time he felt like he couldn’t catch his breath. Nothing would be gained by succumbing to his fear. He had to remain hopeful that he would be found, though that possibility seemed less likely with every minute he spent in the deep, dark ditch.
After making love to Victoria, he’d planned to walk straight home and get some rest. He’d been tired, nodding off in her chair, but as soon as he’d stepped into the cool night air, his body and mind had become invigorated. He recalled that he’d left his copy of Chatterbox at Bobby’s house, and though he could have found another topic to discuss with the schoolchildren the following day at school, he had been looking forward to teaching something new.
For that reason, instead of walking home, he’d walked clear out of town toward Bobby’s house. He never should have tried to find the house at night, hobbling off the beaten path through the thorny mesquite, with only the moon to guide him. But he’d wanted that magazine, and he’d also wanted to pick a few roses for Victoria, for his thoughts had turned romantic after their amorous evening. He hadn’t been able to locate Bobby’s house. As he was limping along wondering whether he’d veered too far north, he’d stumbled into the pit.
What a fool I’ve been! he berated. He shifted over some sharp pebbles and leaned back against the clay siding. He tried not to look at the skeleton keeping him company in what he guessed he was a dried-up old well that someone had dug ages ago—perhaps the same settler who had planted the non-native roses.
He wondered with a great deal of sadness whether the skeleton belonged to Bobby’s missing mother, Susan Taylor. Whoever it was, she had met a tragic fate—the same fate Frank knew he was likely to meet.
The ankle on his good leg throbbed with every beat of his heart, no doubt broken, and his bad leg twisted in its typical uselessness next to it. By his estimation, the well was at least twenty feet deep. After first thanking his lucky stars for the drought that had dried it up, preventing him from drowning, he then considered how he might get out of it.
If his internal clock was still ticking correctly, he’d fallen into the pit nearly twelve hours ago. He’d spent the first half of that trying to climb out by using his cane to dig holes in the hardpan to get leverage. But every time he hoisted himself up, his arms proved too weak to support his crippled legs, and he would crash back down. With every failure, he would renew the strength of his mind, but the strength of his body was dwindling, and every time he failed, failing again became that much more likely. If he hadn’t injured himself before from the riding accident, he likely could have crawled out, but having neither leg in working order, saving himself proved to be an impossible feat.
He switched his focus to yelling out in intervals, hoping that someone would wander close enough to hear him. People would know by now that he was missing, and he hoped they wouldn’t think he’d merely absconded from Thorndale. Surely during his time in town, short though it was, folks had gotten to know him well enough to know he wouldn’t do that. He found some comfort in thinking about Victoria. She wouldn’t give up until she found him, and she would make sure others were searching for him too.
But he knew that even with the whole town looking, they probably wouldn’t find him until it was too late. Bobby was sick and wouldn’t be returning to his house anytime soon. Victoria wouldn’t know, and neither would anyone else, that he’d been so foolish as to leave the main path in the dark to retrieve a magazine and pick roses. Who did that, anyway? A man in love, he supposed, scoffing at himself.
When would he learn to stop taking foolish risks? From this point forward, he vowed, he would put his adventurous, daring days behind him. He would be less brave and more cautious, more prudent, more guarded.
More like Victoria.
But first he would have to make it out alive.
Chapter Twelve
Victoria sank into her chair next to the fire. As warm as the room was, a shiver went through her and her hands trembled. They’d been trembling off and on for days.
Bobby sat cross-legged on the floor, engaged in a game of jacks. His cough was all but gone. Given some new clothes that fit him properly and plenty of home-cooked meals, he had transformed from a sickly child into a sprightly little boy who liked to play marbles and jacks during his free time.
She tried to occupy her mind with Harper’s Bazaar, but after reading the first paragraph five times and still not being able to recall what it said, she gave up and set the catalog aside.
A low moan from the bed caused her to look in its direction. Frank was having another nightmare. His eyes remained closed as he moaned and thrashed about briefly before turning to his side and falling silent.
It had taken forty-two hours to locate him, and Victoria knew that every second of that had been agony for him. Not only had he gone without water, he’d broken his foot and endured complete helplessness and waning hope that anyone would find him. It was incredibly lucky that they had.
During an emergency gathering at the schoolhouse, the marshal had enlisted every volunteer he could find. He’d instructed them to scour the town, but after a day of searching, no one had found a single clue.
The next day, Victoria strode to the front of the search party, climbed up on the desk, and begged them not to give up. “Thank you,” she began, her voice shaking, “for offering your time to search for Frank. He’s the kind of man who would do the same in an instant if any one of you were lost.” She could hear it in her voice that she was about to b
reak down, and likely others heard it too. When she looked at the people whose gaze fell on her, she saw kindness in their eyes, and that was nearly too much for her to bear. She had done nothing charitable for any of them. “I know I don’t deserve your charity,” she continued. “I have not been a good neighbor, and Frank has shown me what being part of a community is supposed to look like. This—all of you right here—you’re proof that Frank was right. Please, I beg of you, don’t stop searching. Since we’ve looked everywhere in town, I recommend we start looking outside the border.”
Even as she’d made her case, a niggling hopelessness had tortured her mind. Frank had told her he was going straight home, and widening the search seemed like a wild goose chase. Most people thought he’d up and decided to leave town. Others guessed he’d been jumped, robbed, and his body left in the brush country for the coyotes. Still, because of Victoria’s plea, the townsfolk agreed to widen their search to a half-mile outside of town.
Some might think it mere happenstance that Victoria had been the one to hear Frank crying out for help. But Victoria suspected it was because she’d been one of the few who still believed he was alive. She had actually listened for a voice amongst the windy plains, whereas most everyone else had listened for buzzards.
At first she thought she’d only imagined his voice. But then, his cry, weak and distant, repeated after a short time. She’d yelled back, telling him to keep calling for her, while she followed the voice to an empty well. When she arrived at the spot where he’d fallen, she’d seen the tangled roots and dead leaves that made the hole nearly impossible to see in the daytime, let alone at night when he’d been wandering.
She recalled the sheer relief and elation that had flowed through her at discovering him. Every moment until that point had seemed shallow and irrelevant. Finding him alive, knowing she could take him home and hold him tight—that was all that mattered.
Later, Frank told her and the marshal about the skeleton. The marshal and his deputy returned to the well and retrieved it before rolling a border over the well’s opening to prevent the same accident from occurring for a third time. The marshal determined it to be Bobby’s mother based on a necklace, still dangling from the neck bone, that Susan Taylor had been known to wear around town. The poor woman hadn’t even made it to the road when she left home to search for a job.
Victoria couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Frank, sitting beside her skeleton for all those hours—a constant, macabre reminder that he would likely meet the same fate. And her heart ached for Bobby, who cried on her shoulder during Susan’s funeral, while Victoria patted his back and wished she had words to take away his pain.
The fire crackled loudly beside her, causing her mind to snap to the present. Her nerves were still on edge, especially when recalling the moment she discovered Frank.
In a perfect world, all would be well now. Frank was safe with her, and his broken foot was healing. He had all the water and food he could want. The schoolmarm who had taught the children before Frank came out of retirement to take over until he was ready to resume, so his job was safe. Bobby was happy to stay with her, and his presence there provided as much comfort to her as it did to him.
Victoria’s business was flourishing. She guessed that people visited her shop as much out of curiosity about Frank’s ordeal as to purchase material or clothing, but no one was rude enough to get the story out of her without also buying something. It had been a long time since she’d felt so connected to the community. People were solicitous toward her, and she found herself responding in kind.
She supposed it was one of life’s bitter ironies that Frank, the person who had opened her heart to love and compassion, was now the person who behaved toward her in the way she’d previously done toward everyone else—with coldness and indifference. Even when she cooked for him, brought him wildflowers, and washed his linens in lilac-scented water, he responded with about as much warmth as a flagpole in the dead of winter.
She would have preferred for him to be rude to her, to criticize the flavor of the food she cooked or complain about the chill in the air when she didn’t light the fire. Then she would have cause to speak with him on a passionate level. As it stood, all her attempts at conversation were met with grunts or silence. Whereas before his eyes had lit upon seeing her, now they were like two dull stones. She could hardly believe this was the same man who had coaxed out her most secret desires, who had brought her to ecstasy using humiliation and praise in equal turn.
Frank stirred in the bed. When Victoria looked over at him, she saw that he was awake. He did not even glance in her direction. He propped himself up using the strength of his arms. As soon as he situated himself, he stared at the wall opposite of him.
“Mornin’, Mr. Bassett,” Bobby said, hopping to his feet and heading in his direction. “While you were sleeping, I was able to make it all the way to ten jacks.”
Frank didn’t respond. He ignored the boy and closed his eyes, as Victoria guessed he would. Since the accident, Frank hadn’t been warm toward Bobby either. The boy’s efforts to talk to him, like Victoria’s, were met with detachment.
Noticing Bobby’s crestfallen expression over Frank’s lack of enthusiasm, Victoria rose from her chair and put the kettle over the fire. “Would you like some tea, Bobby?”
“No, ma’am.” He hung his head and sauntered back to the spot where he’d been playing. A boy of six years could not yet appreciate the comforting nature of tea with a dollop of honey. He sat cross-legged and hunched over, the language of his body echoing how Victoria herself felt.
“What about you, Frank? Would you care for some tea?” she asked.
His dull eyes moved to look at her and stared as though he was confused by her presence or her question. Finally, he said, “Yes, that sounds fine.”
She cheered slightly. He rarely took her up on any offer that was not bare minimum to his survival, even though she wanted more than anything to wait on him and give him whatever she could to make him comfortable.
She poured the boiling water into two tin mugs and submerged the dried black leaves. “I don’t know how you take it, Frank, darling,” she said cheerfully. “Let me guess. Milk and sugar?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said wearily, as though even making a decision such as that required too much effort on his part.
Her spirits fell, but she forced herself to continue with her singsong voice, as though nothing in the world was wrong. “I’ll just add some milk and sugar then, and you can tell me if you don’t like it.”
He didn’t respond to that, and Victoria performed the rest of her task in silence. She set the saucer and teacup on the table beside the bed and turned to walk away.
His voice stopped her. “You didn’t want to take care of a boy for one night.” He coughed a laugh without humor. “And now you’re stuck taking care of a boy and a man for a month.”
She rested her hand on his. “I don’t mind, Frank. Bobby is a good boy, and I’m happy you’re alive and well.”
He removed his hand from under hers. “Alive, yes. Whether I’m well is a matter of opinion. I’ve got two busted legs and can’t even get to the sofa without crawling.”
“Your broken foot will heal. You’ll be back to how you were in no time.”
“Still a crippled cowboy without a lick of sense.”
Victoria glared at him. Though she was glad he was speaking to her—that in and of itself was a rarity as of late—she didn’t like what she was hearing. “It’s not like you to feel sorry for yourself, Frank.”
“Things are different now.” He waved the back of his hand toward her, like he was brushing her away. “Go. Drink your tea in peace, and I’ll do the same.”
She wondered if there was a magic phrase, some order of words she could arrange and say that would get the man she knew back. But as the days passed into weeks with no change between them, her hopes withered. Perhaps this was her punishment for all the times she’d treated oth
er people with indifference.
Victoria applied herself to nursing Frank back to health. It took five weeks for his broken foot to heal. She lay beside him every night and felt as though she were sleeping next to a stranger. She could touch him easily, but he seemed miles away.
The minute Frank could put any weight on his foot, he moved back to the boardinghouse without so much as a word. After that, she knew from talk around town that he resumed teaching, but she saw him rarely, and only by accident from a distance. He no longer visited her at the shop, and he stopped attending church or eating at the restaurant, so she didn’t have the opportunity to speak to him, even casually.
Her heart was broken, but she did what she could to move on with her life. She spent her free time with Bobby. Before Frank’s accident, Victoria didn’t want to care for Bobby on a permanent basis, but now she couldn’t bear the thought of not doing so. Now knowing what it felt like to be abandoned by someone who previously cared for her, she couldn’t bring herself to do the same to Bobby. His parents and Frank had already abandoned him, by accident or by choice, and though she considered herself a poor substitute to either, Bobby did not seem to agree. He was more than happy to come home to her after school each day, and he showered her with affection and warmth that can only come from an innocent child.
Bobby was also Victoria’s one link to the Frank she loved. Though Frank was no longer involved, Bobby’s current health and happiness was living proof of Frank’s attention and warm heart. Frank had cared about the boy enough to feed him out of his own pocket and to check on him when he was absent from school. As long as Bobby existed in her life, so too could her memory of Frank as a brave and compassionate man.
Once when Bobby returned from school, Victoria asked, “How does Mr. Bassett seem, Bobby? Is he well?”
Bobby sat on his stool and placed his slate on the kitchen table, where he did his homework every afternoon. He shrugged. “He used to give me food every day. He doesn’t anymore.”
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