by Martha Hix
Besides, she had neither the reason nor the energy to go downstairs for breakfast. Her hand reached for her husband and came up empty. Swallowing her disappointment, she clutched his pillow to her. It smelled of bay rum and Gil.
Then Hermann awakened, shoved her bladder. “Naughty boy, won’t you leave me any peace?”
He would not. By the time Lisette used the chamberpot and had freshened herself with the water from a pitcher, she heard a knock on the door. It was Maisie.
“I’ve brought you something.” She produced a trio of boxes. “Maternity dresses and all the gear t’ wear with them.”
Three Mother Hubbards, all of gingham and roomy enough for Hermann, though none would win a contest for appeal. A pair of kid slippers–oh, they were lovely. A tent of a chemise, very practical. At the bottom of the third box, pantaloons.
Lisette blushed upon holding up a pair. “I haven’t worn these since I left Fredericksburg.”
Maisie plucked them from her fingers. “Then you won’t start. My grandson will be expecting you to stay as you’ve been, and I won’t be starting any family feuds.”
Lisette laughed. “Oh, Maisie, you are a card.”
“My Sandy used t’ say I was a whole deck.”
“I think Sandy was a very observant man.” Lisette put an arm around Maisie’s shoulders. “Thank you for shopping. How much do I owe you?”
“Owe me? Lass, this is your big day. Happy birthday!”
“Thank you for remembering. And for your generosity.”
“Don’t you be telling a soul! I won’t have it bandied aboout that I am fast with my coin.” Maisie tapped a finger against her face. “Now give me a proper thank you.”
“Gladly.” She kissed that dear cheek.
“Get into one of those dresses, m’lass. The train will be here in a couple o’ hours, and you don’t want t’ miss it.”
“You are right there. I’ve never seen a train.”
Maisie walked to the door, kept her hand on the knob. “I will meet you downstairs. I told the cook t’ hold some food.”
“Is Gil in the dining room?”
“At this hour? Good gracious, no. He’s been over at the bank since it opened for business.” She winked. “He’s gotta get me my money, you know.”
“Of course,” Lisette came back with a wink of her own.
Thirty minutes later, she and Maisie were in the sunlight. The two women strolled down the street to stop at the Kansas Pacific depot, a small building.
“Train gonna be late?” asked Maisie.
The attendant, a nonchalant fellow of middle years wearing a visor and a white shirt with yellow galluses above tweed trousers, stood behind the window and made a notation on a piece of paper. “Train’s on time.” Giving a cursory look at the two women, he craned his neck and said, “Next?”
A skinny matron elbowed Lisette out of the way. “One ticket to Chicago.”
Following Maisie to a bench that hugged the depot’s outer wall, Lisette sat down. “There was a time when I thought I’d be buying a ticket to Chicago. Gil changed all that.”
Maisie remained quiet. Too quiet. At last, she said, “There’s something I need t’ tell you. Last night I popped off to Gilliegorm, and I want t’ apologize for it. I shouldna hinted the two o’ you were intimate ’fore marriage.”
“We weren’t, well, you know, until after the wedding.”
Maisie looked over at her stomach, saying, “Aye. If that’s what you’re wanting people t’ think. But you needna be shy around me, lass. I can tell you, I’ve a secret or two in my past. Sandy and I, we got a head start on the Church o’ Scotland. Never regretted those times in the heather.”
“Maisie, Gil and I did not know each other in the Biblical sense until after we were wed.”
With lips pursed, the woman’s wise eye assessed her. “Then I’d say you carry two instead o’ one.”
“Twins?” Lisette squeaked. “Surely not.”
“Any o’ them in your family?”
“No.”
“None in ours, either. But there’s always a first time.” Maisie patted Lisette’s stomach. “Twins.”
God in heaven, what would they do with twins, should Maisie’s prediction become fact?
A whistle, faint in the distance, came from the east and drew Lisette’s attention away. She was on her feet in a split second, was saying in wonder, “Oh, Maisie, it’s the train.”
“Be a while ’fore it arrives.”
“Good, then I’ll find Gil. I want him with me when I see a train for the very first time. And you, too, of course.”
“You go find your husband, and I’ll keep the bench warm.”
He was nowhere to be found. Dejected, she returned to the depot. “I couldn’t find him,” she said to Maisie.
“He’ll be along. Just sit tight.”
“I prefer to stand.”
By now she could see the train engine, a plume of black smoke puffing into the air, leaving a trail across the bright sky. More than a score of slatted boxcars followed behind the engine, as did a couple of passenger cars.
People collected on the platform, each craning to get a closer look at the pride of the Kansas Pacific. Seeing the train had lost its significance for Lisette. Gil wasn’t with her.
With nothing else to do, she turned her attention to the tracks again. The engineer leaned out of his window, waved to the appreciative crowd, and pulled the whistle in quick succession. The cow catcher was the first to reach the station, nothing on its grids. Looking up at the engine, Lisette couldn’t help but be awed.
“Oh, Maisie, it’s so big. And powerful.”
Someone walked up beside her. “And as soon as it loads up my cows, it’ll be turning back for Chicago.”
“Oh, Gil, I’m so glad you’re here! Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Lisette,” he said, taking her hand and emitting a whiskied breath, “Let’s go back to the hotel.”
Something was wrong–very wrong.
“All right,” she whispered in reply.
Husband and wife returned to the hotel.
In their room, Lisette asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Plenty.”
She dropped down on the settee and studied the rug, figuring he had plenty to say. He placed an envelope on the seat beside her.
“Your pay,” he announced.
She eyed the fat white envelope. “I don’t expect pay.”
“That’s what you’re getting. And I’m going to get the truth about you.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Now what?”
His fingers dug into his palms. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re naive, stupid, or just plain conniving.”
Shocked and appalled that he thought so little of her, she asked and pulled out each syllable, “What are you talking about?”
“That child in your belly.” He took a backward step. “It couldn’t be of my making.”
She flinched, horrified that the man she trusted with all her heart and soul could even think, much less speak, such a horrible charge. She surged to stand, pushing his chest and sending him another step backward. “That is a lie!”
“Is it?” His eyes cold as ice, his mouth slashed with rancor, he looked her up and down. “I don’t think so.”
“How can you stand there–reeking of liquor!–and denounce your child?” She rushed across the room to close her arms protectively around the child and to keep her back to Gil’s cruel, cruel eyes. “Damn it, when are you going to get over the hurt of Betty?”
“The day Fate proves me wrong about you. Which I doubt will happen.”
Lisette whirled around. “Time will prove you wrong. You wait and see.”
“Brave words. But then, you’ve had to be tough.” He walked to the window, placing his hand on the top casement and leaning into it. “I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I’ve come up with the truth. You showed up on the trail and said you were in desperate straits. You wasted no time in huddling with Mat
t, if you’ll remember. Tried to pawn it off as friendship, but the wool is off my eyes. Another thing: your brother isn’t such a bad fellow, and you couldn’t have been unhappy enough to the point of striking out, unless you were in desperate straits. Such as knowing you wouldn’t have a name for your baby.”
Her teeth chattered as she said, “For a smart man, you haven’t a brain.”
“You’d like to think so. But I’ve got enough gray matter to figure out you were sick too soon, Lisette. And you got big too soon.”
She tried to make sense of insanity. She could mention the twins theory, but somehow she didn’t figure it would carry too much weight. “You’ve had too much to drink.”
“Not nearly enough, sweetheart. Not nearly enough. There isn’t enough booze in Kansas to drown my troubles.” Pushing away from the window, he marched over to the dresser, poured a large quantity from the bottle atop it. “Who’s the papa, Lisette? Otto Kapp? Perhaps the squaw man Matt Gruene? Maybe you don’t even know.”
The blood drained from Lisette’s face, and she ached to slap him, but tried one more time for reason. “And you believe there’s no chance this child is yours?”
“There’s a chance all right, but I wouldn’t put money on it.” He drained the whisky-filled glass. “If you give birth short of term, I’m divorcing you.”
Divorce. Once before he had threatened it. Once before he had done it. Words came back to her, words hurled at her in a Texas meadow. “I’m capable of doing it again.” Her heart went as bleak as his eyes. This was the man she’d thought noble and good? She saw him in a whole new light.
Always, she’d excused his rotten behavior. No more.
“I think you’d better leave,” she managed to say.
“When I’m damned good and ready. After you’ve told the truth.”
“I said–leave!”
“I don’t follow your orders.”
“Well, then, follow this!”
She reached to the rear and grasped a hard object. All her hurt giving strength to her motions, she pitched the lamp at Gil. As it connected with his shoulder, she felt a strange sensation in her stomach. Not a pain, just a feeling that everything had changed.
She laughed at her ludicrous thought. Of course everything had changed. Nothing would ever be right again.
Liquid gushed down her legs, pooled at her feet. Gott in Himmel, she had embarrassed herself by urinating. Was there no end to today’s humiliations? Clutching her knees together, she saw her husband raking a hand across his shoulder. Crimson blotched it as well as the sleeve of his shirt.
He glanced down at the floor and muttered a base oath before advancing on her. “Lisette, the birthing has started.”
“Stay where you are.”
She withdrew a step, the back of one knee connecting with the bed; she fell and landed hard on the mattress.
A voice from the corridor shouted, “What’s going on here?”
At the same moment, pain–as brutal as that of being kicked by a mule as a child–clamped like the fist of Satan in her stomach. The devil hadn’t called her; it was . . . “Mein Gott, das Baby.”
The desk clerk barged through the door. “What is going on here?” he repeated.
“Looks like we need a doctor.”
“You do look pretty messed up, Mister McLoughlin.”
“Not for me, damn it, for my wife. She’s in labor.”
“I’ll get Doc Koch.” Rushing away, the clerk closed the door in the dust of his promise.
Depleted, Lisette turned her face to the damnable pillow that held the scent of her husband. Her tears wetting the linen as the fluid of birth had stained the carpet, she cried, “It’s too early for Hermann.”
She heard Gil moving toward the bed. “I’d better get Maisie.”
Thrusting the pillow aside, she looked up at his ashen face. “Tell me, Gil, will you fetch her before or after you file for your precious divorce?”
“One or the other.”
She tossed the pillow to the floor. “If you do anything–anything–to deprive our lawfully conceived child of his father, I’ll make your life a living hell.”
“Calm down, Lisette. Calm down.”
She barely heard him; agony–was it physical or from the heart?–clutched her again. Whatever it was, it grabbed from her womb to the top of her head and seared to the ends of her toes. Her bodily torment receded, but the one in her heart did not.
She and the baby didn’t need him.
“Forget I threatened you.” Her voice seemed as if it were outside her body. “I want nothing of you.”
“Lisette, calm down. You need your strength for Hermann.”
“Go to hell, Gil McLoughlin.” She put her arm over her child. Her child. “If you want a divorce, fine. If you don’t file, I will. You no longer mean anything to me.”
He picked up the pillow and placed it beside her. “I’ll get Maisie.”
He left. The door’s closing resounded in Lisette’s ears. She wept. Life was not hearts and roses. Death would be preferable to this hell called earth.
I’m sorry, Hermann I have no more strength. For his father, she had no regrets. About anything.
Chapter Thirty-nine
With the local physician in charge, Maisie McLoughlin, sat praying at her granddaughter-in-law’s bedside. The light from the window faded; she lit the lamp and saw shadows on the chalky features of the unfortunate Prussian girl. Maisie ran a finger under her tired eyes and choked back tears.
“It doesn’t look good,” Wilhelm Koch, doctor of medicine, announced on a blown-out breath. “This should’ve been easy for her, what with her height and wide hips. The child is breech.”
A noise from the bed drew Maisie’s attention. The dear lass’s eyes rolled, the whites showing as she reached unsuccessfully for the bed post. A weak cry issued. When the convulsion passed, she dropped her hand.
The physician placed his stethoscope on the bedside table. “Do you know if she’s Bavarian? They’re Catholics, you understand,” he whispered. “Where is her husband? He should know if her religion demands a priest.”
Maisie ground her teeth. “I doona know where the bloody fool is. If I did, I’d crown him for not being here. And I will, when he shows his face.”
“Search for him. I have done all I can. We need God at this point. God, and the husband of this woman.”
“I’m not a great believer in the Almighty, Doctor Koch. And right now, I doona have much faith in my grandson, but I will find one or the other.”
On a barstool in Ma Pinter’s Saloon, Gil McLoughlin avoided a tall glass of Scotch. Smoke, whores, and cowboys filled the tavern. A piano player pounded the ivories. Someone approached Gil: Matt Gruene. Bile rose in his throat.
“Give me a beer,” Matthias ordered the barkeep, then said to Gil, “You look like hell.”
Looks were not deceiving; Gil was in hell.
Matthias lifted his beer, took a slow sip, and lowered the glass. “I won’t be leaving with T-Bill and the remuda.”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Why aren’t you with Lise?” Matthias asked.
“You tell me.”
“I’m not a mind-reader. What are you getting at?”
Every muscle in his body hankering for a fight, Gil abandoned the bar stool. Glaring, he asked with a grate, “How many months have you been sleeping with my wife?”
Brown eyes hardened. The glass got set aside. “If Lise hadn’t told me about the trouble you’d had with your former wife, I’d beat the living hell out of you, McLoughlin, for a remark like that. Lise–”
“Give it a try.” He raised his fists. “Come on.”
“Sit down, McLoughlin.”
“Like hell I will.”
With all the fury of damaged pride, he charged Matthias. But the big German was lightning quick, and Gil was slowed by his injured shoulder. Matthias hauled back and struck his jaw. Pain exploded. Another punch caught his stomach, drawing a groan. He tum
bled, but righted himself. Thrusting his left elbow into Matthias’s gut, he plowed a puny right hook into his opponent’s face.
“Out,” the barkeep shouted. “No fighting in Ma Pinter’s.”
Two customers grabbed Gil from behind. Another couple of them seized Matthias. The brawlers were tossed outside, the former strawboss into the dirt street, Gil into a horse trough.
Spitting water, he tried to heave himself to his feet. A heavy board whapped against his right arm, sending him sprawling onto the saloon’s porch, barely missing the window.
Matthias tossed the board aside and stood above him. “Are you ready to listen to reason?”
“Y-yeah.”
Gil swiped mud from his face and followed after his ex-strawboss. They crossed the street to the depot, and sat down on opposite ends of the bench.
Matthias spoke. “This morning I had a few minutes with Lise. She told me you’re divorcing her. And I’m glad to hear it. You see, once she’s free, I’m going to marry her.”
Jealously, Gil said, “A little soon after Cactus Blossom, isn’t it? Or was she just a diversion while you couldn’t get to Lisette? Tell me, Gruene, are you the baby’s father?”
“Not yet.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Being a child’s blood father means nothing. It’s the rearing that makes a father. I will do that for Lise’s child.”
Gil took a long look at Matthias. “You’re serious.”
“Never more so in my life. I appreciate, love, and respect her, and–”
“So do I.”
“No, you don’t. You may love her, but you don’t appreciate or respect her.” Matthias leaned back against the bench. “And you’ll never be able to ... unless you quit fighting yourself over that first wife of yours.” Matthias pointed to the right. “There’s another horse trough. Clean yourself up, Gil McLoughlin. Inside and out.”
Matthias left the bench, disappeared into the night, and Gil studied the ground. Thoughts tumbled over and over in his brain, but he sorted them. And tried to clean his soul.