The Heart of Joy_A Short Story

by Vikki Kestell

  Their first stop, at O’Dell’s insistence, was the U.S. Marshal’s office. His old friend, Marshal Pounder, took the Rottweiler’s owner into custody.

  Pounder agreed that the marshals had jurisdiction. “It happened outside of Denver city limits. We’ll hold him.”

  He eyed O’Dell. “I’d say you look like a ghost, Ed, but you’re a mite too green. Better get to a doctor pronto.”

  “No. I must take Joy home first.” O’Dell’s words were slurred, but he was resolute.

  “Right you are. D’ya trust me to do that for you?”

  O’Dell blinked in slow motion, stupid from shock and blood loss.

  “I’ll see to Mrs. Michaels. Your friends here will take you to the doc’s.”

  O’Dell acquiesced with one jerky nod of his head.

  “Marshal, if you please, I choose to accompany Mr. O’Dell.”

  Joy stood in the doorway of Pounder’s office. Her hair was a disheveled mess, her dress sullied and blood-soaked. The first horror of Blackie’s death had worn off.

  “As you wish, ma’am.”

  Marshal Pounder thanked Nathan and Pete, and the two good Samaritans went on their way. Pounder then telephoned Palmer House and gave Rose the short version of the events. The marshal and Joy trundled O’Dell into his car and, following Joy’s directions, Pounder drove them to the offices of Palmer House’s physician, Doctor Murphy.

  O’Dell was as pale as death when they arrived. Dr. Murphy’s assistant and Pounder more or less carried O’Dell into the doctor’s office.

  “Take him straight back to the surgery,” Doctor Murphy instructed. He and his nurse followed Pounder and the orderly through to the surgery and began organizing the supplies and instruments he would need.

  The doctor looked up when Joy entered. “No, Mrs. Michaels. This is no place for you. Please wait in the reception area.”

  His nurse scooted Joy out of the surgery and closed the door behind her, leaving Joy blinking at the door’s unyielding panels.

  “But . . .” Joy did not know how to speak, how to articulate what she felt.

  But I belong with him.

  ~*~

  Sometime later, the door to the doctor’s offices opened. Rose entered followed by Breona.

  Joy fell into her mother’s embrace. “Mama. Breona. Thank you for coming.” She was glad to see them but too emotionally spent to express anything other than muted relief.

  She looked from Breona to Rose. “H-how did you get here?”

  “Pastor Carmichael. Breona called him, and he brought us. He should be in directly.”

  “How ist Mr. O’Dell?” Breona asked.

  “I do not know. They would not allow me to stay with him.”

  Rose nodded, looked around the waiting room. “And where have you left Blackie?”

  Joy began to shake and weep. “Oh, Mama—he is dead. Blackie is dead! The other dog killed him!”

  “Oh, my darling, my Joy!” Rose wept with her daughter and held her close. Breona, tears glimmering in her own eyes, placed her arms around Rose and Joy.

  Breona’s husband, Isaac Carmichael, found them that way.

  Soon after Joy’s tears had subsided, Marshal Pounder slipped into the room, and Joy looked to him with expectation.

  “How is Mr. O’Dell?”

  “The doctor is stitching up his wounds.” Pounder breathed a little laugh. “He sent me out, too, as I was not necessary. I may be a lawman, but frankly, the sight of so much—”

  He caught himself and cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon, ladies, for speaking indelicately.”

  Joy nodded. “There is no need to apologize. I thank you for your assistance today, Marshal. We are most grateful.”

  ~*~

  Yet even later, the doctor himself came out. “I have finished what I can do for Mr. O’Dell. The superficial wounds were easy enough to stitch up. He has, however, sustained some deeper, more serious injuries to muscle and nerve. I will not know if he will suffer permanent damage to his arm until everything heals.”

  He looked from Rose to Joy and included Pounder. “He is going to be weak from loss of blood and in great pain. He will require nursing for a few days until he regains some strength. If you cannot accommodate his needs, I will place him in the hospital.”

  “We will take him,” Rose answered.

  “Yes,” Joy agreed.

  “Very good. Bring him back first thing in the morning. I will change the dressing on his wounds and show one of you how to do the same. Someone must care for his wounds and keep them clean for the next several weeks. We do not know the health of the dog that bit him, so the greatest precautions are necessary to prevent infection.”

  Joy looked to Marshal Pounder. “We will ride home with Pastor Carmichael. Would you be so good as to drive Mr. O’Dell’s automobile and follow us to Palmer House? I am certain Pastor Carmichael will then return you to your office.”

  The door to the surgery opened again, and O’Dell appeared, supported by the nurse and orderly. O’Dell was conscious, but barely so. His forearm, bound in layers of gauze and bandaging, was twice its normal size.

  Doctor Murphy followed and handed Rose a sheet of paper. “Follow these instructions, please, the most important of which is to telephone me immediately should his wounds soak through the bandages—copious amounts of blood would signal a bleeding vessel. You may see some staining, but you should not see a great deal of fresh blood. And I have painted the wounds with iodine to prevent sepsis. A dog bite can be quite problematic. Call me also if he becomes feverish.”

  He handed Rose a brown bottle. “One teaspoon for pain every three hours whether he feels he needs it or not. I wish for you to keep ahead of his pain rather than behind.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Rose murmured.

  “I will see you in the morning,” Doctor Murphy told O’Dell.

  O’Dell moved his head side to side in slow motion. “Not sure . . . how I’ll manage that.”

  “Your friends will be caring for you until you are a bit farther down the road to recovery,” Murphy told him.

  “They will?” O’Dell was too dazed to put it all together.

  “Come along, O’Dell.” Pounder motioned to Isaac Carmichael and the two men took over from the nurse and orderly. They assisted their friend from the office and into the back seat of Pastor Carmichael’s vehicle. Breona took the front seat next to her husband. Rose climbed in on one side of O’Dell, Joy on the other, to keep their patient upright.

  Pounder followed them in O’Dell’s automobile. The ride to Palmer House did not take more than a quarter of an hour, during which time O’Dell’s chin nodded on his chest and he occasionally groaned when the vehicle ran over a rough patch of road.

  ~*~

  At Rose’s direction, Breona and Joy made up a bed for O’Dell in Palmer House’s library. Marshal Pounder, aided by Isaac Carmichael, steered an unsteady O’Dell into the room and got him undressed and under the covers. Pastor Carmichael administered a dose from the brown bottle Rose had handed him.

  “Whole lotta fuss over a small dog bite,” O’Dell grumbled.

  “There was nothing small about the dog or the bite, from what I hear,” Isaac replied. “And you are weak as rain water from loss of blood.”

  The only response Pastor Carmichael and Marshal Pounder received was the sound of deep, even breathing.

  “Out like a candle,” Pounder noted as they crept away. They joined Joy and Rose in the great room.

  “Someone will need to fetch a few items from Mr. O’Dell’s rooms,” Rose said. “Several nightshirts, socks, razor. A change of clothes.”

  Pounder was the first to volunteer. “I’d be happy to go for you, Miss Rose, but I’d feel better if you or Miss Joy rifled through his things to get what you think is needed.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  Joy surprised herself by how quickly she volunteered.

  ~*~

  O’Dell’s two rooms, a simple bedroom a
nd sitting room in a modest boarding house, provided an intriguing glimpse into the man’s private life, but that glimpse was a disappointment to Joy. She studied the sitting room, noting the threadbare furnishings and lack of personalization. Only the Bible and a stack of books on the table by his easy chair piqued her interest or told her anything about O’Dell’s private, everyday life. His bedroom, while tidy, was no more revealing.

  Everything seems so . . . impersonal. Temporary. And a bit impoverished.

  While Pounder looked on, Joy located O’Dell’s toiletries. She selected three clean nightshirts and two changes of clothes and placed them in a carpetbag she found at the top of his wardrobe. She added his Bible atop the clothing and toiletries. Before she told Pounder that she was finished, she glanced around the apartment again.

  I suppose I believed Mr. O’Dell to be more prosperous, Joy admitted to herself. As chief of the Denver Pinkerton office, I assumed his living quarters would have a bit more . . . substance. His personal dress contradicts the sparseness of these rooms.

  Joy’s thoughts wandered down a dark path. Is Mr. O’Dell a spendthrift? Or a secret gambler? Could he be indebted?

  Almost as quickly, she rejected those accusations. No, I cannot believe any of those things of him.

  What she did not allow herself to voice inwardly kept creeping and pushing into her thoughts anyway: I assumed he would be able to take a wife.

  Appearances seem to indicate that I was wrong.

  ~*~

  Joy handed off the carpetbag to her mother as Marshal Pounder and Pastor Carmichael said their goodbyes. Marshal Pounder would leave O’Dell’s automobile at Palmer House and ride back to his office with Pastor Carmichael.

  “Miz Michaels?” Mr. Wheatley, deferential and apologetic, waited for a private word with Joy. The grizzled old man looked as weary as Joy felt.

  “Yes, Mr. Wheatley?”

  “Would you, that is, shall I . . . shall I dig a little place in the rose garden for Blackie?”

  Over the last chaotic hours, Joy had been distracted from the horror of Blackie’s demise. It crashed upon her afresh at Mr. Wheatley’s soft query.

  “Ohhh . . .”

  Faintness swept over her.

  “Here, miss. Sit down now for a minute.” Mr. Wheatley helped her onto a sofa.

  Rose rushed to her side. “What is it?”

  Joy shook her head, too overcome to answer.

  “It was me. I-I asked if I should . . . prepare a place for good ol’ Blackie in the rose garden.” Mr. Wheatley’s countenance was downcast. As defeated as Joy’s.

  “Oh, my darling! In the commotion surrounding Mr. O’Dell’s wounds and getting him settled, I confess I had, for the moment, forgotten about dear Blackie.”

  Joy swallowed and ground the heels of her hands into her eyes in an attempt to curb her tears. “I had, too.”

  “Are you able to give Mr. Wheatley an answer?”

  “Yes, of course.” Joy lifted her face. “The rose garden would be perfect, dear friend. Thank you.”

  Mr. Wheatley nodded. “I am honored to do this last service for him.”

  When he had shuffled from the room, Rose sat beside Joy and took her hand. “If you are able, will you tell me what happened?”

  “Oh, Mama. It started as such a lovely day, a perfect day. The weather was beautiful. We stopped at an overlook and saw all of Denver spread below us. The view was all we had hoped for.

  “Afterwards, we chose to hike a trail into the trees. Blackie was on his leash, of course, and was so eager to explore. He and I were a bit ahead of Mr. O’Dell on the trail. We had not gone far when a giant of a dog rounded the curve before us. He s-saw Blackie, and-and h-he attacked.”

  Joy sobbed. “Oh, Mama! I cannot rid myself of the sight and sound of that brute tearing into Blackie, snapping at his throat. My poor boy! How he cried! He was no match for the other dog, no match at all.

  “When that beast charged Blackie, of course I tried to throw myself into the fray and save him. Mr. O’Dell held me back. He beat the other dog with his walking stick, but it was as though the monster had no sensitivities, as if he could not feel the beating.

  “When Mr. O’Dell saw that his efforts were in vain, he straddled the dog as one mounts a horse. He put his arms about the dog’s throat and pulled him from Blackie. That is when the dog turned on him. He sank his teeth into Mr. O’Dell’s arm with the same ferocity as he had ravaged poor Blackie.”

  “But how in the world did Mr. O’Dell escape him?”

  “I was not aware that Mr. O’Dell carries a gun at all times. He reached within his jacket and brought it out. He fired it into the monster’s head.”

  “Oh! Oh, my dear!” Joy’s narrative conjured images that stunned Rose.

  “I ran to Blackie, of course. That awful dog had mauled Blackie so badly that my poor boy could not even whine. He just stared at me, as though begging me to help him. I sat in the dirt and pulled him onto my lap. He-he licked my hand, just once. And then he was gone. I saw the moment the light faded from his sweet eyes.

  “Mama! Blackie is gone! Oh, Jesus, please help me!”

  Rose tugged Joy to her and Joy buried her face in Rose’s lap as she had done as a child. She wept and grieved for the loss of her companion, but also for the loss of her last tie to Grant.

  She cried for some time. When the storm eased and passed, Joy sat up and wiped her eyes. Rose rubbed her daughter’s back as Joy composed herself.

  “I am quite grateful for one thing in this tragic day, Joy, one thing very near to my heart,” Rose whispered.

  Joy was distracted, but she asked, “What is that, Mama?”

  “I am grateful for Mr. O’Dell. Even though he was seriously injured, my mind cannot help but wonder what might have happened to you had he not been there, had he not prevented you from trying to save Blackie.”

  Joy stared at the carpet. “I would have been savaged, just as Blackie was. And I-I could not have prevailed. There is no knowing how I would have fared.”

  “Mr. O’Dell saved you, my daughter,” Rose whispered. “I know how precious Blackie was to you . . . but you, Joy, are my only surviving child. I owe Mr. O’Dell a great debt.”

  Joy sniffled and turned over her mother’s words. After a moment, a frown drew her brows together.

  “Mama, do you not find it . . . difficult to understand, hard to fathom, how everything dear to me is always taken away?”

  While Rose tried to frame an answer, Joy sighed. “Perhaps I was mistaken to encourage Mr. O’Dell, to even consider encouraging him. I lose those whom I love. He could be the next to be taken.”

  “No, Joy. That is most certainly wrong thinking,” Rose protested.

  “Why is it wrong, Mama? Do I wish something ill to befall Mr. O’Dell? No, I do not.” She shook her head. “I must break with him, the sooner the better. I-I could not bear if—”

  Joy’s spine stiffened with resolve. “Please do not ask me to assist in Mr. O’Dell’s care, Mama. I must not embolden him further.”

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 5

  “If Tabitha were here instead of at nursing school in Boulder, you would be receiving quality care, Mr. O’Dell, rather than my poor ministrations.” Rose finished changing the bandages on O’Dell’s arm. “I apologize for our less-than-professional attention these past three days.”

  “Not at all. Doctor Murphy is pleased with my progress. Marit has fed me like a king, you and Breona have kept my wounds dressed, and Mr. Wheatley has seen to my personal needs and honed my skill at checkers. What more could I ask for?”

  Rose smiled and her gray eyes watched him. “Perhaps a little more appreciation from my daughter?”

  O’Dell flushed. He wanted to avoid Rose’s attempt to steer their conversation toward Joy, but the note he’d received from Joy burned with cold fire under the pillow of his makeshift bed in the library. He had read the unexpected and painful missive so many times that he had committed it to memory.
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  Dear Mr. O’Dell,

  The tragic event that wounded you has prompted me to think upon our friendship with fresh light. I confess that I was weak in spirit and mistaken to allow your suit to progress. I see more clearly now, and have arrived at the settled conclusion that we must not pursue a deeper friendship than that which we have enjoyed these last years.

  I thank you for your care and for your every effort to locate my son. I owe you a continuing debt of gratitude.

  I ask you, please, to respect my wishes in this.

  Sincerely,

  Joy Michaels

  O’Dell chose to be frank with Rose. “Joy has asked me not to court her.”

  Sorrow swirled in Rose’s soft gray eyes. “She said this to you?”

  “She wrote it.”

  “I see.”

  O’Dell snorted. “I do not see. What is she so afraid of?”

  Rose touched O’Dell’s hand. “You are correct, dear Edmund. Fear is the problem. She is afraid. Afraid she will lose yet another soul she has grown to love.”

  The few words Rose spoke were laden with so many revelations that O’Dell’s head spun.

  Joy’s mother addressed me by my Christian name? What does that imply?

  Joy is afraid? What does she fear?

  Wait.

  Joy has grown to love me?

  Only one question made it to his mouth. “She loves me?”

  “I believe she does.”

  “But?”

  “But Blackie’s death and your injury have made her, again, more aware of how fragile life is. Think on it: She lost her father, her husband, and her son in less than two years’ time. She is afraid to hope for happiness. She is frightened that something will befall you and she will, again, be left alone.”

  He stared, his brows drawn down, at the pattern in the carpet.

  “I can attest that you are a gentleman, Edmund, and I believe you would honor Joy’s request despite the pain it would cause you. However, that does not mean I believe her decision is the right one or that you should give up your suit entirely.”