If he’d seen the yacht from the shore and knew it was sinking, how had he not seen both tenders leave it? There was no way she was telling him about Professor Tim. She shook her head.
“Are you sure? We don’t want anyone else getting hurt.” He stood almost toe-to-toe with Bailey and looked down at her. With Suspenders Guy standing behind her, she felt trapped between them. She almost shoved the leader to get him out of her face, but the other three men stepped out of the cottage one by one, each carrying a body wrapped in a sheet. When the last man passed them, Micah’s feet dangled out of the bottom of the sheet.
Bailey sucked in a breath. “He isn’t dead!”
“They all are,” the leader replied. “The doctor pronounced all three men dead on arrival.”
She clenched her fist. It was still sticky with Micah’s blood. Those idiot crewmen were to blame. They shouldn’t have fired first. She told them not to.
Professor Tim would be devastated. He would blame himself for Micah’s death. Tim had lost his wife and sons to the water poisoning. Micah had been his last living relative.
And she had his blood on her.
She lowered her fist and wiped her hand on her thigh, but her jeans were wet as well. His blood must have drenched her leg when he landed on her. She’d been too overwhelmed by the firefight to realize how badly he was hurt.
The horses never raised their heads from the grass while the local men loaded Micah and the crewmen’s bodies onto the wagon. She couldn’t let them cart off her dead. Professor Tim would want to say goodbye to his nephew. She had to stop them.
She tried to sidestep the leader, but he moved quickly and stayed in front of her. She tried again. He lifted a hand to stop her, but she knocked it away before he could touch her.
His nostrils flared. “Do not test me. I won’t let you hurt these people.”
“I’m not going to hurt them.”
With his eyes still on her, he pointed his chin at the cottage doorway. “You need to have the doctor look at your leg.” Then he said to Suspenders Guy, “Take her inside and stay with her, Revel.”
She fixed her gaze on the three white bundles lying inert on the back of the wagon. She’d brought those men to the Land. This was her fault. A gentle tug pulled on her elbow.
The man called Revel escorted her into the cottage. He lowered her backpack to the floor by a narrow staircase then took off his flat-brimmed hat and motioned with it, his voice hoarse with suppressed emotion. “This is our doctor.”
A woman in her mid-twenties wearing a white blouse and long blue skirt stood in the center of the wood floor. She smoothed her light brown hair, tucking a loose strand into her bun. She looked like she’d just walked out of a frontier library, if there even was such a thing. “Right, well,” she pressed a hand to her middle. “Let’s have a look at your injury.”
Bailey took a hesitant step forward, and Revel didn’t follow her. He closed the door, sealing them into the doctor’s office, then leaned his hand on a ladder-back chair beside a neatly arranged writing desk.
The doctor pointed at a cot behind her. “Lie down there, please.”
A rumpled wool blanket covered the cot’s mattress. One of the three men had been lying on it when the doctor had pronounced him dead just moments ago. Maybe it had been Micah.
“No, thanks,” Bailey answered, wanting to open the door. “I can stand.”
“Please, have a seat.”
“I’m fine.”
The doctor pointed at Bailey’s thigh. “You are not fine.”
Bailey looked down at her jeans. The once faded blue fabric was now soaked in a wide swath of dark red liquid. “It’s not my blood. It’s Micah’s.”
“Micah,” the physician repeated on a breath, as if putting a name with one of the men she probably considered heinous invaders made him more human. “Your trousers are ripped.” She stepped to the desk and picked up the smallest of the three oil lanterns burning in the room. She held it near Bailey’s jeans. “Your leg is lacerated. It’s still bleeding.”
Bailey touched the rip in her jeans. Her thigh muscle jumped when her fingers contacted the torn flesh. “Oh.”
“Come, lie on your right side.”
Bailey looked at Revel, and he glanced away. Neither of them saw her as a threat even though she’d been with the men who had opened fire. Probably because she was a woman. Big mistake. Their clothes and houses weren’t the only proof that a bygone era was still alive in the Land.
As Bailey took a step toward the cot, the doctor touched her with a compassionate hand. All at once, she couldn’t block out the pain any longer. With one kind touch from a caring woman, Bailey’s guise weakened. Her blood-drenched leg refused to bend. She limped to the cot and moaned when she sat.
The doctor placed the lantern on a doily-covered table beside the cot then knelt and examined the wound. “You took a deep graze.”
“Graze? From one of the arrows?”
“You will need gray leaf medicine immediately.”
“Gray leaf medicine?”
The doctor nodded. “It will remove your pain, speed healing, and prevent infection.”
Bailey remembered what Justin had told her about his experience in the Land and how the gray leaf medicine cured him of tuberculosis. She let her hands relax onto the cot. “Okay.”
The doctor looked up at her and raised a thin brow.
The door opened, snapping Bailey’s attention from the doctor. A young woman with similar prairie girl clothes and a blond chignon stepped into the office. She closed the door behind her.
The doctor glanced back at the blond woman briefly. “Sophia, we will need that gray leaf tea after all. This patient…” She looked at Bailey. “What is your name?”
“Bailey—” She stopped before saying her last name. These people might recognize the Colburn name, and she wasn’t ready for more chaos.
The doctor continued talking to the woman she called Sophia. “Bailey sustained an arrow wound and needs gray leaf tea.”
The young woman backed out the door obediently. “Yes, ma’am.”
When the door closed again, the doctor stepped to a cabinet on the wall over a counter between the cot and the desk. “Revel, kindly wait outside for now, please.”
“But—”
“I know what you were told to do, but this is my office and my patient needs privacy.”
Revel flopped his hat onto his sweaty head and frowned. He glanced from Bailey to the doctor and back to Bailey. “If you need me, I’ll be right outside the door.”
Bailey wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to. He’d looked at her when he spoke, but why would she need him?
The doctor drew a clear jar from the cabinet. She shook its dried gray leaves into a stone mortar. “Do you want to remove your trousers or shall I cut them?”
Bailey bent down to peel off her sand-caked reef shoes. The pain in her leg intensified. Some of the blood was drying and gluing the denim fabric to her skin. She wanted to take her pants off but didn’t want to sit in her underwear while strangers traipsed in and out of the doctor’s office. “Just cut them. I have another pair of jeans in my backpack.”
“Jeans,” the doctor repeated in the same faint way she’d repeated Micah’s name.
“Yes, jeans. Pants made of denim.”
“Oh, yes of course.” The doctor ground the leaves with a pestle then returned to the cot with a pair of silver sheers. Her touch was light but confident as she cut away the material, leaving Bailey with only one pants leg. After pouring water into a ceramic basin, the doctor washed the area around Bailey’s wound with a wet cloth. “The arrow cut deeper than skin.”
Bailey sat up to look at her injured leg.
“No, lie back, please.” The doctor left the bloody cloth in the basin and stepped back to her cabinet. “After you drink the gray leaf tea, I will clean the wound, then coat it with salve and dress it.”
“How long is this going to take?”
“Not long. Your pain will be gone soon. Lie back, please.”
Bailey complied and stared at the dark wooden beams in the ceiling. She had to get back to the beach and find Professor Tim. Not that the leader here would make it easy for her. The doctor had disregarded the leader’s command to Revel. Maybe Bailey could get the doctor on her side. She raised herself onto her elbows. “What’s your name, doctor?”
“Lydia Bradshaw.”
“Bradshaw?” She remembered Justin’s co-pilot’s name. As she opened her mouth to ask Dr. Bradshaw if she knew Connor Bradshaw, the door opened.
Sophia stepped inside, holding a steaming kettle. Revel was standing outside the door as he’d said he would. He closed the door behind the doctor’s young assistant. His remorseful eyes met Bailey’s before the door closed.
Dr. Bradshaw poured the steaming water over a tea strainer, and the gray leaf’s potent aroma filled the room just like it did when Bailey was analyzing the saplings Justin had raised from the seeds he’d procured in the Land. She was in the right place, and if Dr. Bradshaw knew Connor, she was close to finding the right people. But she was being held prisoner, Tim was missing, and the others were dead.
Dr. Bradshaw returned to the cot and offered Bailey a porcelain cup of the steaming tea. “Drink this, then lie back. The effects of the gray leaf tea can be quite overwhelming.”
Chapter Seven
Eva stepped away from Solo’s closed door feeling like she had swallowed a brick. So maybe he hadn’t taken advantage of her father’s failing memory when he made this deal, but he was still taking advantage of the inn. This house was supposed to be a place of rest for weary travelers, not a long-term destination for boorish horse breeders. Didn’t he have a job at a ranch in Riverside to get back to?
She delivered the last set of guest towels then walked to the other half of the house where her family’s rooms were. She passed Sybil’s door and almost knocked. It would be so nice to stay up late talking like they did when they were younger—long before Revel left and their mother left and their other brother James left, long before the sad truth set in that half of their family was gone and their world would never be the same. But it was half past ten now. Sybil would be sound asleep. She would be awake at five in the morning and be happy to talk while she started her work in the kitchen, but there was no way Eva was getting up that early. Six came too soon as it was.
Eva walked to the end of the hall. Her parent’s room was on the right. It was really just her father’s room now, but they all pretended along with her mother that she would return to the inn when her elderly parents passed away and her duty with them was fulfilled. She wouldn’t. She’d always struggled with being out here in the middle of the Land, away from village life.
Turning the knob as quietly as possible, Eva opened her door and peeked in at Zeke, who was curled up under his red blanket on the double bed they shared. He was big enough to need his own bed and would soon need his own room. The thought of him being in a separate room at night added dismay to the ever-growing pit in her stomach. What if he died in his sleep like Ezekiel did? The doctor had said the heart condition that killed him was probably something he’d been born with. What if Zeke had inherited that defect?
Before she went back downstairs to turn out the lights for the night, she had to make sure Zeke was breathing. She tiptoed in—bypassing the one squeaky floorboard—and glimpsed his sweet face, relaxed and cherub-like. Of course, he was breathing. He was fine, just like he was fine when she checked on him an hour ago.
The white and brown puppy Solo had given Zeke was curled up on an old blanket on the floor by Zeke’s side of the bed. The dog raised its head at Eva, and she backed out of the room before it fully roused.
Downstairs, the lamps had been extinguished in the kitchen and dining hall. One wall sconce was still burning in the reception room, so she turned its knob to kill the flame. The only lights still burning were a sconce in the hallway and the lamp in her office. Expecting the room to be empty, she jolted at the sight of her father sitting at her desk. He looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. “Hello, Peach.”
“Father. What are you doing up… and in here?”
His gruff voice was barely above a whisper. “It’s still my inn, isn’t it?”
“Of course.” She leaned against the edge of her desk. Maybe posturing herself above him physically would empower her, even if she had no real authority here. “I came down to close up for the night.”
“Heard you up there knocking on guest room doors.”
“Claudia forgot to put towels in the rooms again.”
He yawned but managed to point a crooked finger at her. “Don’t talk bad about your elders.”
“I’m not. She has too much to do. We all do.”
He scratched his chin through the thick white whiskers of his beard. “Tomorrow at breakfast I’ll find out if any of the traders are heading to Good Springs and send them with a message for Revel. It’s time he came home.”
She looked away, wishing she didn’t have to tell him about the letter she’d received. “Revel isn’t coming home. He should, but he isn’t. He is happily living his own life. So is James.” When her father’s expression drooped, she decided there was no sense in mincing words now. “We need more workers. If you don’t hire men or let me hire them, we will have to start turning away guests. Especially if you’re going to give away forty-night stays to horse breeders. We can’t handle extra burdens.”
“Solomon Cotter isn’t a burden. He is paying for his board, fair and square. You’ll treat him like any other paying guest.”
This was pointless. Why did she try to reason with her father? He only ever listened to her if she was doing exactly what he said or expected. Who knew what he expected of her now. Maybe to run the inn and pick up all the slack since the aging farmer, aging stable manager, and aging housekeeper could no longer keep up with their chores. She used to tell herself her father would soon see the error of not taking her recommendations, but the more his mind slipped, the less he could see reason. “It’s time for bed,” she said as she turned out the chamber lantern. The only light in the room came from the hallway sconce and the moonlight coming through the windowpanes.
Frederick pushed himself out of the chair with a grunt then stood wobbling for a moment as he got his knees to hold his weight. “You’re right, Peach.”
At least he agreed with her that it was time for bed. She turned and walked to the office threshold, waiting to close the door behind him. When she turned back to look at him, he was still standing by the desk.
He leaned his knuckles onto the desk’s paper-covered surface. “You are right.” His voice held a sadness that made her regret being annoyed with him.
She crossed the rug and touched his back. “Come on, Father. I’ll take you upstairs.”
He patted her hand but didn’t look at her. “They aren’t coming back. None of them. It’s just you and me and Sybil. My knees pain me so and the gray leaf medicine does nothing for them. I need another man to take over the stables soon. I can’t wait the years it will take for Zeke to grow up. And… my cousin…” He snapped his fingers impatiently. “What’s his name?”
“Leonard.”
“Thank you. Leonard needs less work, not more. His back hurts him so badly he can hardly stand upright. We have to hire some help.”
Though he said the words Eva had been desperate to hear, a lump rose in her throat. She didn’t want her father to be too old to work, too old to remember what he was doing. The silence between them called for her to respond, but her jaw clenched on emotion, so she waited. If she cried in front of him, it would make things harder.
He stroked his beard. “I guess this is what I get for marrying a woman twenty years my junior. When I was ready to settle into my golden years, she was still young and wanted to go back to her village.” He turned his face toward her then but still didn’t look her in the eyes. “As for Revel, well I don’t know what got into that boy. H
e knows the tradition. He knows he should come back here and take over his inheritance.” His voice quaked. “It’s fine for James to take a job shepherding the Fosters’ flock in Good Springs; he’s my second son. But not Revel. No firstborn son should ignore his family obligations like this.”
The shock of hearing her father speak ill of Revel squeezed her already heavy heart. “I’m so sorry, Father.”
He patted her hand again. “It’s not yours to be sorry for, Peach. You’ve done more than most daughters would for their family.” He cleared his throat then looked at her. “If you find a man or two I would approve of, hire them.”
Chapter Eight
Steam mixed with the sharp gray leaf scent and rose from the teacup as Bailey lifted it to her lips. She sipped slowly at first, testing the tea’s temperature. Its taste matched its aroma, which was rich and slightly bitter, reminding her of mint and earth and eucalyptus. It was unlike anything she’d ever tasted. With each sip she wanted more. Her sips turned to gulps, and the teacup was soon empty.
Dr. Bradshaw held out a hand to take the teacup. Bailey passed it to her and started to speak, but before she could say anything, her diaphragm jolted, forcing her to inhale audibly through her mouth. Fire rose in her belly as the gray leaf tea swirled with the bile and the fear and the regret inside her. The heat radiated from her core down to her legs, dissolving the pain in her wounded flesh, and then up to her heart, her arms and neck, and finally to her head. Specks of light darted through her vision, blurring everything—the doctor’s caring expression, the quaint medical office, the silhouette of the man who stood guard outside, the reasons why she’d come to the Land, the shock over the death of the crew, the barrage of all that she’d lost…
Her mind froze on that thought.
She’d lost Tim to the waves, lost her mother to prison, and lost earning her degree to the world war. Gone was her chance to get a job as a plant biologist and make enough money to buy a house far from the city like the one she’d briefly lived in with a foster family when she was ten.
Uncharted Journey (The Uncharted Series Book 6) Page 5