Springwater Seasons

by Linda Lael Miller

  “You’re worried that Rachel will be jealous of you,” Trey said, in a booming voice that made everyone from the bartender to the brooding drifter by the back wall look up, and thus brought stinging color to Savannah’s cheeks. “Don’t give that another thought. She knows I’m downright foolish over her.”

  Out of the corner of one eye, Savannah saw the hefty bartender, who was busily wiping out a glass, indulge in the sparest of smiles.

  She flung out her hands and let them slap against her sides in exasperation. “I give up,” she said. “Just don’t blame me if she starts peeling the hide off you the minute she gets you alone.”

  Trey looked damnably confident of his wife’s adoration. “It isn’t my hide—”

  Savannah cut him off. “Don’t you dare say it.”

  He laughed again, and let his eyes drift over her prim shirtwaist and skirts. “You aren’t planning to sing and socialize in that outfit, are you? Seems to me it would be better suited to pouring tea.”

  Savannah lowered her voice, and her hands found their way back to her hips. “I don’t need you or any other man to tell me what to wear when I conduct business, Trey Hargreaves. Furthermore, you’d better remember that I’m not selling anything but whiskey!”

  Trey raised both eyebrows and both hands. “Whoa,” he said. “All I meant was, I’ve been running this place by myself ever since it was built, and I’ve got a house to put up before it snows.” He grinned, cocky with pride. “It’s one of those sent-for places. Coming by train and freight wagon, all the way from Seattle.”

  Again, Savannah felt a strange stab of something she wasn’t sure she wanted to identify: sorrow, loneliness—envy?

  “Soon as the house is finished,” Trey went on, when she didn’t speak, “you can have the rooms upstairs.”

  Savannah raised her eyes to the ceiling. Oh, joy, she thought ruefully. An apartment over a saloon in a three-building town. In one and the same moment, though, she wondered what she’d expected. This was her life—saloons and rooms above them, gaudy dresses and singing to the strains of tinny pianos, sawdust on the floors. Nothing was ever going to change, not for her.

  *

  Jacob McCaffrey set the checkerboard down in the middle of one of the tables with a thump that should have served as a warning to Pres, but it didn’t. “What do you say we make things interesting?” the older man asked, taking a seat on the bench opposite. “Play for pennies.”

  June-bug was rolling out piecrusts nearby, her shining eyes watchful and intent. “Jacob McCaffrey, you know very well that I don’t hold with wagerin’. And here you are, a man of God.”

  Jacob passed Pres a humorous, beleaguered, and masterfully subtle look. “Now, June-bug,” he replied, already lining out the round, red checker pieces in front of Pres with a rhythmic clatter reminiscent of horses’ hooves on cobblestone. “It’s just a sociable little game, between me and the doc here. The good Lord don’t take issue with the like of that.”

  “We’ll see what you have to say when you find yourself playin’ checkers with the devil himself,” June-bug huffed, using extra force as she wielded her wooden rolling pin, although both her tone and countenance fell a little short of full conviction.

  “If the Lord’s going to throw a body into hell for bettin’ pennies on a round of checkers,” Jacob reasoned philosophically, aligning his own pieces on their proper squares, “then He and I probably wouldn’t get on together anyhow.”

  Pres stifled a smile. He’d long since decided that God was either hostile or totally disinterested in His own creation, if indeed He existed at all, but Jacob’s homespun faith was a lot easier to take than that of the Bible pounders and raging exhorters he’d encountered in other places. He laid the last of his money on the table, fool that he was, and after an hour or so of long, ponderous silences between careful moves, Jacob had relieved him of that and the stagecoach ticket.

  The Stationmaster wasn’t about to offer a rematch. He just put away the red and black pieces, folded the board, and gave Pres what was probably meant to pass as a grin.

  “Guess you’ll just have to stay on here at Springwater,” he said. Then he got up and walked off, and all Pres could do was stare after him. Damned if he hadn’t been had.

  CHAPTER

  3

  SAVANNAH WAS ALONE in the little room behind June-bug McCaffrey’s cookstove, a colorful tangle of silks and satins covering the bed before her like flowers tumbled from a garden basket. None of the gowns was suitable for dinner at Rachel Hargreaves’s table, even if the woman did live above a saloon, and yet Savannah chafed at the idea of playing the lady by attending the meal in her tidy skirt and shirtwaist. Her sins were many, by her own assessment, let alone that of society in general, but an attitude of pretense did not number among them.

  She frowned, tapping her chin as she considered the garments. The blue one was probably the most innocuous, with its wild spill of ruffles and rhinestone buttons, though the neckline was too low and the skirt hemmed only to midcalf. If she wore that, Rachel would think she was after her husband for certain, and that would not serve. The yellow was bright to the point of being brazen, the green flattered her hair and complexion, but left her back bare, except for a lattice pattern of grosgrain ribbon. The garnet plunged in front, and though the resulting V was filled in with black lace, the outfit seemed to bring out the worst in even the best of men. Whenever Savannah wore it, she made a point of carrying the derringer as well, tucked away in a hidden pocket.

  A light tap on the framework of the door caused her to turn, a little startled. Emma was standing in the opening, her brown eyes wide as she took in the dresses. The child let out a long, wondrous breath. “Silk?” she whispered, as though barely daring to murmur the word.

  Savannah nodded. Emma, like most frontier children, had probably never seen anything but buckskin, rough-spun woolens, and calico. “Satin, too,” she said. “Would you like to touch them?”

  Emma came forward tentatively, stood for a moment with the color of the dresses seeming to reflect off her face like light from a stained glass window, then stretched out a small brown hand. Her fingers were trembling slightly as she drew back, in a sudden motion, well short of the glimmering fabrics.

  “You won’t do them any harm, Emma,” Savannah said, putting an arm lightly around the child’s erect, solid little shoulders. “Go ahead.”

  With renewed courage, though visibly holding her breath, Emma reached out again, caressed one dress and then another, with a slow reverence that touched the warm, bruised place at the very center of Savannah’s long-hardened heart.

  “So pretty,” Emma marveled, in the tones of one offering a solemn prayer. “Like a cardinal’s feathers, or a blue jay’s …”

  “Indeed,” put in a masculine voice from behind them, “the plumage of a veritable bird of paradise, brightly colored, singing the sweetest of songs and none other.”

  Savannah whirled, though she had known that it was Dr. Parrish she would find, looking on. He was leaning with one shoulder braced against the door frame, his arms folded, his expression one of kindly disdain. She felt blood rise into her face and damned herself for reacting to him at all. “I do believe there is an insult hidden away in that statement somewhere,” she said, keeping her tones even for the sake of the child. “What a pity that I care so little for your opinion, sir.”

  He did not move from his indolent position, but merely raised his eyebrows. “An insult? Perish the thought,” he said. “Methinks you are too prickly by half, Miss Rigbey. That is the proper form of address, isn’t it? ‘Miss Rigbey’?”

  She’d never married; the scandal had ruined her chances. Burke Eldon—well, she didn’t even like to think about him, about what a mistake it had been to believe in him. About what she’d sacrificed.

  Still, all of that had happened so long ago, so far away, and it wasn’t as if she’d been the first woman to be badly used. It was past time to forget and move on, though it wasn’t easy doin
g that. “Yes,” she said, with all the dignity she could summon. “‘Miss’ will do just fine.”

  Emma, emboldened by Savannah’s invitation to touch the dresses, had taken up the blue one and was holding it in front of her flat little bosom, clearly trying to imagine herself grown up and clad in something so grand. Savannah grabbed hold of the present moment and held on, but the pit of her stomach was quivering and she wasn’t entirely certain she wouldn’t be sick. Forgetting wasn’t so easy, of course—the pain, the shame, the fear, the fury, all of it was still with her. “Do you make a practice, sir, of entering a lady’s private refuge without so much as a by-your-leave?”

  Emma watched with new interest, though no discernible alarm, looking from one adult to the other.

  Parrish inclined his magnificent head in a sham of abeyance. “My apologies,” he said. “Miss June-bug sent me to ask if you’d like to take a bottle of her elderberry wine along to supper tonight. She’d have come to make the inquiry herself, I expect, but she’s busy outside, helping Jacob put salve on a lame horse.”

  Savannah considered, then nodded in the affirmative. She did not indulge in wine, indeed did not take spirits of any kind, but without June-bug’s offering, she would have to present herself empty-handed that evening. She hated being obliged, even for something as ordinary as supper.

  The doctor’s gaze strayed over the jewel-toned tousle of dresses on the mattress. “Wear the red one,” he had the audacity to suggest. Then, while she was still foundering and flailing, awash in a strange, sweet aggravation, he pushed gracefully away from the woodwork, turned, and strolled off.

  “I like him,” Emma confided.

  Savannah sighed. “That brings the count to one,” she said wearily.

  “Oh, no,” Emma disagreed, her dark eyes serious and bright. “Jacob likes him, and so does Miss June-bug. They say he’ll be living at Springwater from now on—he just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Savannah couldn’t help smiling at that, though Dr. Parrish had left her feeling like a bird flapping its wings under a bonnet. She hoped it didn’t mean what she thought it did, because after Burke, she’d sworn never to trust, let alone care about, another man.

  *

  In the end, she wore the skirt and shirtwaist she’d had on all day, somewhat to Pres’s disappointment, actually, since he’d hoped for at least a glimpse of her in that red confection with the black lace. Instead, though, she went hurriedly through the main room of the station, a basket over one arm, a loose-yarned shawl around her shoulders. In the basket, of course, was June-bug’s elderberry wine, discreetly covered by a checkered table napkin.

  “Trey’ll walk you back home, I reckon,” June-bug commented. She was standing beside the front door as Savannah advanced upon it, and looking a bit fretful. You’d have thought Springwater was the heart of some crime-ridden metropolis instead of a mere wide spot along a remote cattle trail. “I don’t think you ought to be out alone after it gets dark.”

  Savannah smiled and at that Pres looked away quickly, annoyed at what it made him feel—like Lazarus coming awake in the tomb. He’d deadened his emotions on purpose, after all, and he wanted them to stay that way. His gaze immediately locked with that of Jacob, who was standing in his usual post before the hearth, unlighted pipe in hand. Miss June-bug did not allow the use of tobacco in her presence, though she had been known, it was reported, to take a measure of dandelion or elderberry wine on the occasion of communion or if her arthritic knees got to paining her beyond bearing.

  Pres brought his mind back to his own problems. He was effectively stranded, thanks to Jacob McCaffrey’s cutthroat skill at checkers, with nothing to call his own except the battered leather bag his father had left him. Even the proverbial clothes on his back belonged to someone else—his own had disappeared mysteriously, to be burned, he suspected, in Miss June-bug’s cooking fire. His money was gone, and so was the stagecoach, which had passed through on schedule early that afternoon, and set out again as soon as the driver had partaken of a meal and Jacob and Toby had exchanged fresh horses for spent ones. Up until the moment the coach thundered off over the rutted track, Pres had half-expected the old man to return the ticket so he could move on. Instead, he’d made a subtle show of tearing it up and tossing it into the cold grate.

  Pres pushed away from the table, agitated almost beyond his endurance, and began to tread back and forth like a fidgety horse looking for a break in the fence-line. By that time, Savannah had gone, taking those vague, joyful stirrings she’d roused in him away with her, mercifully. The children, Christabel, Emma, and young Toby, were outside, playing some noisy game. The Leebrook girl and her baby, both restless through the day, were resting quietly, and June-bug had returned to the stove, now wholly absorbed in preparing supper for her acquired brood. Many women would have been frazzled in her position, and justifiably so, but she seemed to thrive on cooking and generally “doing for” a houseful of people.

  “Good thing we ain’t got a rug,” Jacob observed. His mouth was as somber as ever, but there was a glint of humor in his eyes. “You’d wear a hole right through it, pacing to and fro that way.”

  Pres stopped, his hands resting on his hips, and glowered. “I suppose you’ve got a better suggestion?”

  Jacob actually smiled, though so briefly that Pres almost wondered if he’d imagined it. “Matter of fact, I do. You could ride up to the Johnson place and have a look at Granny’s rheumatiz. Miss June-bug says it torments her night and day.”

  Rheumatism. After the things he’d seen, after the battles and their horrendous aftermaths, such a trifling malady would be a lark. “Hot packs,” he said distractedly. “All she needs are hot packs and maybe a little—a very little—laudanum.”

  “Havin’ a real doctor come to call would probably go a long way towards making Granny feel better,” Jacob persisted, as though Pres hadn’t already outlined a method of treatment for the old woman’s affliction. “The idea of it, you know.”

  Pres thrust out a long sigh. In the first place, he didn’t know where the “Johnson place” was, and in the second, he didn’t have a horse. He’d lost a first-rate gelding at faro, back in Choteau, further proof of his sorry situation. Pres, he thought, furious with himself, with fate, and with Jacob McCaffrey, you’ve done the home folks proud.

  “I’ll take you up to Granny’s shack tomorrow,” Jacob announced, when Pres didn’t speak. “Provided things are under control around here, that is.”

  “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’ll give back my money if I agree?” Pres ventured.

  “Way too much,” Jacob replied with what passed for affability. “Takes a long while to earn even that much around here. Even for doctorin’, you’re not likely to get cash money very often. A chicken, maybe, or a mess of trout. A bag of turnips or potatoes. Yes, sir, it could be some time before you’ve got the wherewithal to put Springwater behind you for good. Course, June-bug and I will have to charge for your room and board, but you can work that off here at the station, grooming horses and the like. I ain’t as spry as I once was.”

  Pres’s jaw clamped down so hard that relaxing it again took a concentrated act of will. It wasn’t being expected to earn his keep that irritated him—he’d done that, one way or another, ever since he left home for medical college—no, it was the way Jacob had gotten the better of him with hardly any effort at all. Inside, Pres was chasing his tail like a fox stitched up in a burlap sack. He had that Lazarus feeling again, and his spirit was raw, having been atrophied for so long. “I can manage that,” he said. “I’ll sleep in the barn, though, and I don’t eat much.”

  Jacob assessed Pres’s lean frame and then focused that dark, somber gaze on his face again. “The loft’s still warm enough for a man to take his rest in of a night,” he allowed, “though the first frost could come at any time, summer or none. As for the food, well, it takes victuals to run a man’s body just the way it takes coal to power a steam engine. I reckon most of your sustenance
has been comin’ out of a bottle, the last little while. Time that stopped.”

  While Pres would not have brooked such familiarity, such downright presumption, from anyone else, he had little choice in this instance. He was broke, literally and figuratively, with no horse, no stagecoach ticket, and no particular place to go anyway. Inside, he was one big bruise. He might as well come to final ruination in Springwater, he figured, as anywhere else.

  “You may come to regret forcing me to stay here,” he said evenly.

  Jacob spared what might have been a smile on a less craggy and austere face than his. “I don’t reckon I will at that,” he said. “Come along. I’ll show you to the loft and lay out your chores while Miss June-bug finishes makin’ our supper. First thing in the morning, we’ll head up to Granny Johnson’s.”

  Pres wanted to pick up something heavy and throw it, but he didn’t give in to the impulse. Instead, he just followed Jacob out of the station and around back, to the stables, where it looked like he would be sleeping and working for the rest of his natural life.

  *

  Rachel had gotten out her lace tablecloth for the occasion of Savannah’s visit, and there were tapers flickering in the pair of brass candlesticks set on either side of a bowl brimming with fresh, fragrant wildflowers. Various lamps had been lit as well and the place smelled pleasantly of roasted fowl of some sort, turnips mashed with butter, and fresh biscuits. All of it would go well with the wine.

  Trey, proud as any peacock, welcomed Savannah, taking the basket and her shawl, and Rachel, his schoolteacher wife, smiled as she untied her apron and came away from the small potbelly stove where she had evidently prepared all or most of the meal. There was not so much as a trace of dislike or disapproval in Rachel’s eyes as she approached; happiness overflowed from her, an excess of the stuff, warm as firelight. Savannah had a desolate, shut-out feeling, just for a moment there.