by Cheri Chaise
I couldn’t fault that kind of loyalty – or love. From everything I’d gleaned from our wife over these last years, Edna Barker had been more of a loving parent to Essie than either of her natural parents.
Which connected me with this woman in a whole other way – even more unexpectedly. After all, Jacob Carston had been more of a father to me after my own had disappeared.
But mention of her husband’s death had my full and undivided attention now. Deep in my bones, I felt we were getting to the crux of her treatment of me.
I leaned forward. “How did your husband die?”
Her shoulders stiffened. Spine straightened. Still she fussed with the bed linens and felt Sean’s face again to avoid the answer, the knowledge of which crept up from deep within my soul.
“He made it to the end of the war, you know. Alive.” Fingers threaded through Sean’s sweat-plastered hair as if trying to set it to rights when it needed nothing more than a good washing. “But on a march through Texas on their way into Louisiana, his unit was attacked.”
Only then did she look at me again, the pain nearly as raw as the day she’d received the news. “By Comanches.”
I didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t speak. Didn’t say a word about how aggrieved I was at her loss – and the understanding that settled like a weight on my chest. About how she must’ve felt to have everything come rushing back when she first laid eyes on me.
There was no need to say anything. The tears swimming in her eyes revealed her sorrow, fear, shame, and guilt over the situation and how she’d treated me since her arrival.
A single tear streaked down her cheek as she reached across the gulf separating us to grasp my hand where it rested on top of the quilt.
“Can you ever forgive me for speakin’ so ill against you? Against yer mighty fine character, Bret Carston?”
I’d been hoping to hear it. Angrily waiting to hear it. But in that moment, every ounce of bitterness and anger sloughed from me like a snake shedding its skin.
I smiled tiredly – then lifted her hand to kiss chapped knuckles. “I already did, Edna Barker.”
The quick chuff of laughter ended on a hiccup, then she swiped at her eyes with her apron. “Ye’ll make a fine husband to a good woman someday.” A twinkle appeared in her eyes before she offered up a wink. “And I know just the right one for you to cleave to.”
She meant Abby no doubt. I hadn’t been ignorant of the glances and touches she’d sent my way since our time on the reservation. But my heart – and cock – were already cleaved to another.
A knock sounded on the bedroom door and thankfully interrupted any further discussion in that uncomfortable vein.
“Lunch,” Evan called through the wood. “What else do ya need?”
Sean stirred but didn’t cough as I checked through my supplies, washed my hands in the last little bit of carbolic acid that Edna ran over them, then opened the door.
Evan stood away from the sickroom toward the center of the commons area as I quickly shut the door behind me. The lunch tray sat on the side table just beside the door. But I wasn’t worried about that right now.
“His fever has broken.”
The edges of Evan’s lips twitched upward from beneath the thick layer of beard he’d been letting grow for the upcoming winter trapping season.
“Seth’ll be glad to hear.”
“Is everyone else still...?” I couldn’t bear to think of my loved ones suffering as Sean had these last few days. The endless coughing. The raging fevers. The struggle to even breathe.
“Everyone’s fine. Been drinkin’ that fucking belladonna tea shit like you said.”
I couldn’t help the tired chuckle. “I guess Dr. Hahnemann was right about its prophylactic effects.”
“Doctor who?”
“Nevermind.” I waved my hand then picked up the tray. “Tell Essie we can stop the belladonna tea now and send you up with some fresh linens to change out all the rooms up here. As soon as Sean wakes up and eats, we’ll get his bed changed and the room cleaned too so Seth can come up and see that his brother is okay.”
“I’ll let Ee know when she gets back.”
I stopped with one hand balancing the tray and one hand on the door knob. “Back?”
“She and Abby took the kids on a picnic.”
I swallowed down the bile that threatened to come up as I suddenly remembered why I was so low on carbolic acid. Someone might still be out there.
“Alone?”
“Nah, Seth and Drew went with them.”
“And Cole?” I set the tray back down.
“In the downstairs bedroom. Told ‘em to take the noisy kids out so he could sleep.” He gave me a curious look. “They’re just up the trail. Near the bend in the creek.”
The distant echo of gunshots sent me careening down the stairwell with Evan hot on my heels. Cole would’ve never let them go without him. Not if he’d been thinking and in his right mind instead of delirious with exhaustion. Not when there was someone out there, robbing us of house and home.
Or family. The sick lump in my throat grew into a boulder that settled on my heart.
And threatened to crush it.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Estella
There was a decided chill in the air that hadn’t been present when we’d first set out from the homestead that morning. Even the sun struggled to keep us warm as the freshening breeze picked up.
But my children were content, unaware of the falling temperature as they ran in joyful abandon, chasing Seth and Drew across the prairie before playfully collapsing as if spent, thereby allowing the children to pile onto them before racing away again from tickling fingers. My little ones would end up sleeping for days after all this exertion.
Or so I could dream.
I pulled my shawl a little higher on my shoulders and laughed at the antics playing out before us. Abby sat on the opposite side of the repacked picnic basket closer to the tree line, struggling to hold down the paper in the rising breeze as she sketched a vignette of the scenery in charcoal.
I leaned back to better study the landscape picture – and found a portrait.
“That’s…that’s quite a good likeness of Bret.”
“Do you think so?” The charcoal stopped scratching as she viewed it at arm’s length. “I’m just having so much trouble with the eyes. They’re so…dark.” She pulled in the drawing and softly smudged an edge along the cheekbone with her fingertip. Thoughtful strokes as if she touched the real thing. “And beautifully mysterious.”
I couldn’t deny it any longer. The proof was right before me. My sister was most definitely enamored.
With my husband.
“Do you think he’s okay?” she asked, a long, languid stroke across his forehead as if smoothing away a lock of his long hair. “He’s been locked up there in that room.” Stroke. “Surrounded by all that sickness.”
I took a deep breath to calm the jealousy stirring in my heart. “Bret is well versed on the latest achievements in medicine. He knows how to protect himself as well as care for his patients.”
But that knowledge didn’t stop me from worrying day and night. Was he keeping up his strength? Getting enough rest – unlike Cole? Bret always said it was the best defense against illness.
Plus I’d made certain to send up belladonna tea each time I made it for the rest of the household and the hands. Thus far it’d proven effective at preventing spread of the disease, though I jumped and made a fresh pot every time anyone so much as sniffled.
“Bret is as intelligent as the finest doctors back east, I’d say.” Abby stared again at the portrait she’d drawn. “And so very handsome.”
I cringed and looked away. For too long I’d left the subject of my relationship with Bret to fester between me and my sister. Too long I’d avoided the difficult conversation of the child I’d borne him – and the child we’d created that now nestled in my womb.
Abby sighed. “I think he’d be the pe
rfect specimen to immortalize with my oils.”
I closed my eyes tightly shut, willing the courage that had escaped me thus far to simmer to the surface. Then I opened my mouth, prepared to confess all.
Until a scream stopped me – and made my very blood run cold.
I lurched to my feet to see an ungodly sight. Papers Abby had been holding fluttered away in the breeze like birds taking flight as my past confronted my present.
Abby stumbled backward, deeper into the trees. An arm clung around her waist, poorly bandaged with dirty, hanging cloths and smears of dried blood and green infection. The trembling gun at her temple stopped me from racing to her aid.
But it was the wild eyes and matted mop of unkempt hair that drew my eye away from the weapon poised to steal away my sister’s life. Eyes that had always stared down the bulbous nose with a haughty air. Hair that had always been primped and polished to a sheen nearly as high as the buckles on his belt or shoes.
“Alan?” I blinked back tears that blurred the image until I focused more clearly. “Alan Westford?”
Abby’s stare pulsed with abject terror – and pain, as the gun my long-ago suitor held bit deeper into her scalp.
“Don’t come any closer,” Alan said, a voice that was no longer high-pitched and whiny but pinched with pain. “I’ll kill her, you, and those filthy kids of yours.”
My heart leapt into my throat as his gun jiggled toward my children before pressing again against Abby’s head. My children. My sister. My children. My sister. I stole a glance at where Seth and Drew had been playing with my precious babies to see them hunkered down in the grass.
“Mama?” Meghan cried. My sweet, little girl’s stormy eyes peered above the stalks.
“Stay down!” I yelled. “All of you.”
The grass did little to hide them after all the small feet trampled it down as they’d chased one another. I could only pray Alan was as poor a shot as he was a kisser.
Drew crab-walked an inch at a time toward me. Ever so slowly. But even his honey-colored hair didn’t hide him in the tall grass – and he was now right in the line of fire as the report of a gunshot and spit of dirt between us stopped his momentum. Abby and I both filled the air with our screams.
“Don’t move, damn you!” Alan screeched.
“Stop! Stop this madness!” I cried. “Please, Alan!”
I wasn’t sure if he’d missed Drew on purpose or if my former suitor was simply a bad shot. But I wasn’t interested in finding out.
Seth’s hand hovered over the six-shooter in his holster, as if debating the wisdom and accuracy of his own shooting skills. But with my sister between them, and my children hunkered down nearby, any attempt might have disastrous results.
And I wasn’t about to risk it.
My knees barely held me up, but I was determined to stand my ground. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here, Alan? What do you want from us?”
“Your father promised me money and a wife.” Crazed eyes darted rapidly back and forth between me and my guarded brood. “Since you’ve proven time and again to be such a loose woman, I figure second best will just have to do.”
Abby finally found her voice, though it warbled through her trembling lips. “As I’ve said before…I have no interest in you as a husband, Alan Westford.”
“Shut up.”
“Our father already sold his business to yours so you should have more than enough money to take someone else to wife.”
“That business wasn’t worth the paper my father signed. Your father had indebted it so deeply, there was no bringing it back from the brink.”
“Then your father wasn’t the businessman he pretended to be.”
His grip on her tightened as he pressed his mouth closer to her ear. “A good wife knows when to shut the hell up, Abigail.” And with that, Alan smashed the butt of the gun into my sister’s temple.
My cry reverberated across the prairie as my sister sagged in her captor’s arms, dazed but not unconscious. But it still made holding her in front of him more difficult and placed a lot more pressure on his injured arm as indicated by his grunt of pain.
In the split second as Alan juggled her, Seth drew his weapon. But my former suitor was quicker, cocking the pistol and pointing it at the Carston cousin – and toward my children.
“Don’t shoot…!” But my horror-filled cry was lost among the screams and the echoing blast that rang louder than a cannon to my ears.
I couldn’t breathe. Everything moved like thick molasses. Smoke curled slowly into the air from the end of the gun barrel. The ringing shot jolted Abby from her stupor with a scream of pure terror as Seth’s name ejaculated past her lips. My skirts tangled in my legs as I tried to run toward Seth’s falling body.
But it was Alan’s voice, not Drew’s missed grab, which drew me up short. “Stop right there, Estella, or I swear the next person I shoot will be your fucking sister.”
My breath came in rapid gasps and pants as I held fast, scanning the ground for movement from my babies, who still seemed so far away. Their wails of fear were enough to let me know they were alive.
But Alan wouldn’t be for long. Not if I could help it.
I gritted my teeth and slowly pivoted around to take in my sister’s whimpers and the hateful man who my family had once considered a friend.
“I was right to reject you all those years ago,” I spat. “And I’d do it all over again…exactly the same way.”
“Once a whore, always a whore.” His heavy, round face splotched red with rage. “Tell me, Estella, do you only ride your husband’s brothers, or do you fuck the help too?”
My face flamed. Had he been inside the stables to see Bret, Cole, and I? Watched through the house windows as I shared with Cole and Drew?
“Oh, I’ve seen how you spread your legs all over that ranch,” he sneered, confirming my suspicions. “How you let them all fuck your pussy…your ass.” He licked his lips. “And that mouth.”
Abby stared at me through the tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t have to say anything. Her face said it all.
This wasn’t how I’d wanted to tell her. Wasn’t how I wanted to reveal the truth. Alan’s words sullied the love imparted in our acts. The life-giving devotion we shared with each other.
As a family.
But before I could say anything, Alan went a step too far. “I’ll bet you’ve even let those horses fuck you with their huge cocks.” His eyes took on a glassy look as if the so obvious infection in his arm had brought on a sudden fever. “Now that’s something I want to see. How about you, Abby?”
How dare he! “You’re a sick and twisted man, Alan Westford.”
“You fuck a bunch of brothers, and I’m the sick one?” His laugh was deranged as he scanned the grass where Seth had landed after being shot. “Never took you as an Indian lover…matter of fact, I’ll bet that little girl of yours is his too, huh?”
I gritted my teeth together. Abby obviously had been having suspicions in that vein over the course of these last weeks, but I wouldn’t give Alan the satisfaction of a response.
His stare slid back to lock with mine. “Must be pretty good, huh Estella…to fuck a savage?” The grin that slowly took over his face was nothing less than pure evil. “Guess I’ll just have to settle with fucking your little half-breed.”
“No!”
But neither Drew nor I were the ones to react first. A blur came racing up the grassy trail with a smattering of barks and growls of needed distraction. It only took one step toward my daughter for Alan to stumble over Abby’s well-placed foot. Her elbow to his ribs sent him collapsing backward as she leapt toward my outstretched arms.
But it was the savage war cry coming through the trees that redirected Alan’s aim as he fell. The tall brave from the reservation raised his tomahawk above his head as he flew through the air and hacked down at the same time a gunshot echoed across the prairie for the final time.
And as the smoke cleared in the
crisp breeze, only one face stood out from the rest.
Epilogue
Estella
“Are you sure you’ll be warm enough?”
Edna hugged me again before Evan helped her swaddled form up into the wagon seat. The cover glistened in the rising sun under the layer of frost, while the ground sparkled like diamonds with the thin dusting of new-fallen snow.
“My dear, you’ve packed more quilts back here than any of us will be able to use.”
“It’s just so late in the year to be traveling.”
“Under all these layers, I’ll be snug as a bug, I assure ye.” Edna’s cheeks were rosy already. “Besides, if’n I could survive for months on end in the storm-tossed sea on the trip from Ireland as a child, I can surely handle a day or two in a wagon as an old woman.”
“You’re not that old, Edna,” I chuckled.
She offered up a mock groan. “I’ll certainly feel it in my bones though, after riding in this here wagon.”
“Well, you make sure and complain to Cole if you get chilled,” I instructed the steam of my breath dissipating in the frosty air. “Long and loud if you have to.”
Cole came alongside me and wrapped an arm around my expanding waist before dropping his lips over mine. “You’re never gonna let me live that one down, are ya?”
“Not when you so readily offered all those years ago, husband.” I leaned into his warmth and responded to Cole’s kiss with additional fervor.
We were nearly a month behind in getting Edna back to town and on the train headed east. I was grateful that the only snow we’d had thus far had been light and hadn’t been accompanied by the torrent of bitter wind that usually whisked down from the north this time of year.
Even so, we had to get the old cook on her way while the weather held out. Pretty soon we’d have a real snowstorm coming our way, heavy enough that no carriage or wagon would be able to cut through, stranding Edna out here through the long winter.