“Me, too. We need to get some rest.” Alex leaned in and kissed her again.
Mandy was awakened with a kiss.
She made a poor princess because she’d have rather stayed asleep. The jerking, huffing train had beaten on her until it felt as if she’d walked into the middle of a fistfight. She’d finally fallen asleep, after trying futilely to sleep sitting up in the uncomfortable seats most of the night.
And now Sidney smiled into her barely open eyes as if waking up a woman half-dead from exhaustion was a romantic idea.
And her Winchester was close enough to grab.
Shocked at that unworthy thought, Mandy forced herself to smile. She also quit breathing because Sidney’s breath was foul enough to raise blisters on her skin and his odor was the worse for having ridden all day yesterday in the sweltering heat.
It was still almost completely dark. There was a bit of a cast of gray to the train car so she could see Sidney … and smell him.
“Good morning.” Her voice sounded as rough and rocky as ten miles of mountain trail.
Sidney pulled her into another kiss. Mandy did her best to hold her breath and kiss at the same time, hoping the kiss ended before her lungs exploded.
“Honey, I found a luggage car near the end of the train.” Sidney’s eyes were warm, coaxing. His voice was sultry and suggestive. A voice Mandy loved in the normal course of things. “Why don’t we go back there and spend some time alone?”
Uh-oh. Alone had gotten to be one of Mandy’s least favorite words. The man had suggested it many times since they’d met. Propriety had always been a sufficient excuse.
She wanted to be Sidney’s wife in all regards. And she would be. As soon as they found some quiet, comfortable, clean spot. With a bathtub.
No luggage car. And she knew all too well that Sidney didn’t like the word no. She braced herself for the pouting to begin.
“Good morning.” An elderly woman moved up beside them. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. Nothing more tedious than a long train ride.” She lowered herself onto the bench seat facing Mandy and Sidney as if her joints ached.
Thank You, dear Lord.
Mandy had a moment of pause at that thought. She wasn’t sure escaping a time alone with her grimy husband should be such a relief. Certainly she smelled rather—travel worn—herself. But then if she did, why was Sidney so eager to be alone with her?
“We’d be pleased for the company, ma’am.” And when Mandy said “we” she meant “I” because Sidney did not look pleased. “Have you done a lot of train travel?” Mandy nodded at the seat that faced her.
Sidney was on her left, crowding her up against the window, but he eased away as the woman settled in. A lucky break for Mandy and her assaulted sense of smell.
“Oh my, yes. I’m an old hand. I’ve got children spread here and there along the rail lines. And I’m always on my way to see one or the other of them.”
“Are you riding all the way to Denver?”
“Why yes, dear, I am.”
Mandy smiled. “Where are you from?”
The elderly lady, grimy from travel, smiled with the kind eyes of an angel as she began knitting and chattering away.
The woman really had been everywhere and her stories were so interesting Mandy barely minded her sullen, moping husband.
Beth had gotten precious little sleep. She was exhausted and groggy. Which is why she remained calm when she noticed a hand on her stomach.
A man’s hand.
Not calm after all.
Beth launched herself to sit up straight. The hand remained resting on her belly.
It all came flooding back … the hand belonged to her husband. She’d gotten married last night.
Her eyes warily turned to follow that hand up to Alex’s eyes, wide open. She caught his hand and returned it to him.
Alex smiled.
Finding a smile curling her own lips, Beth was shocked at the impulse. She’d been out of her mind. What other possible reason could there be for marrying a lunatic? She must be one, too. But at around midnight last night—Beth shifted around in her head and couldn’t remember exactly what time it had been—marrying Alex had seemed like a really good idea.
To her surprise she still liked it. She was truly delighted to find herself married to the lunatic. Terrified, too, and the two—delight and terror—were an uncomfortable combination. But still she smiled. She had definitely lost her mind.
“Good morning, Mrs. Buchanan.” Alex’s voice was gravelly with sleep. His eyes were heavy-lidded. He had a bristly morning set of whiskers.
“Good morning, Alex.”
Having him take a bath, shave, and get into clean clothes had made a world of difference in how she reacted to Alex. She hadn’t wanted to slug him for hours. Well, there’d been a few mild moments of temptation. Bathing seemed like a really shallow reason to marry a man, but honestly, he’d cleaned up very nicely. Now he had morning whiskers.
An odd thing to be waking up for the first time with a husband.
Alex sat up. He was close enough that it brought up memories of last night’s kiss. And then he reminded her of it in an unmistakable way. He kissed her again.
Beth wondered at her willingness to let this near stranger kiss her. It couldn’t be a sign of good character on her part. But she let him anyway.
His arms came around her waist and she found her own entwining his neck.
“I’m well, Beth. Let’s go home.” Sally was awake.
Alex pulled back, grinned down at her, and then turned to her sister.
Beth moved out of Alex’s way and went to Sally’s other side.
“You had a hard day yesterday, Sally.” Alex took Sally’s hand. “I think you’re going to be fine, and your ma and pa will be in to see you soon, but for now …” He took her hand and guided her fingers to the tiny cut in her neck. Alex was careful not to let Sally touch the actual wound, but he let her touch close enough that it helped her understand the source of her main discomfort. “I had to perform a very small operation. You got stung by bees. Do you remember that?”
Sally’s fingers were slow-moving and careful, two words Beth had never used to describe her active little sister. A sure sign she was still feeling poorly. The bee stings had mostly gone down, but there were still tiny traces of each and every one of them.
“Now let me explain exactly what I did. Because I need you to understand why you have to lie very still for the rest of today. And not talk unless you absolutely must. I’m not going to let you eat either. A few sips of water is all. I know that will be hard, but Beth, and soon your parents, and I are here if you need any help. Okay?”
Sally nodded cautiously. “Okay.”
As well as possible, Beth concealed a sigh of relief to hear Sally speak clearly.
“Your voice sounds good. You can talk if it feels okay, but no yelling, okay? We’re trying to be very gentle with your throat today.”
Sally smiled and nodded.
“Good. Now, you had a bad reaction to so many bee stings.”
Alex went on to explain with his soothing voice in very simple terms what he’d done. It was so clear that Beth suspected that, if it was ever asked of her, she could now perform this procedure herself.
The baby started to cry, and Alex glanced over his shoulder at his other patient. Then with one last pat of Sally’s hand, he got up quickly and rushed to the infant.
Beth knew without being told that he was trying to let Mrs. Radcliff sleep awhile longer.
“It’s a very good sign that you’re wanting to go home, Sally.” Beth took up the task of distracting Sally from her natural inclination, which was to run wild.
As she soothed, Beth took occasional glances at her husband, handling a baby so comfortably, so calmly. She’d helped him find this part of himself. And he still needed her, even more than she needed him.
How strange to be married to a man she’d just met and actually feel good about that. She didn’t love
him—that would be a bit much—but she felt connected in a way that reminded her of God’s words, “The twain shall be one. “Then she flinched as she thought the verse all the way to the end. “The twain shall be one flesh.”
Beth had an inkling of what that meant. Well, that wasn’t for her. She and Alex were partners, business partners.
Except for that kiss. That had felt like more than partners. And she couldn’t say Alex had stolen that kiss, either. He’d given her plenty of time to duck. But there she’d stood, like a brainless sheep, and let him kiss her. In honesty, she had to admit she’d kissed him back and enjoyed every moment.
Not as much as she’d enjoyed whacking him with his hat after the stage wreck, but almost. Very close to as much.
“Doc, come quick!” Mrs. Farley, who’d run the general store by her husband’s side for as long as Beth could remember, slammed through the door yelling, “My husband fell. Bart knocked himself insensible. And his head is bleedin’ something fierce.”
The loud entrance woke up Mrs. Radcliff. She rose to her feet, a pioneer woman after all. Having a baby, even with a sprained ankle, didn’t keep her down long. “Give me the boy and go, Dr. Buchanan. Go along with him Beth. I can mind Sally.”
“No, your ankle—”
Alex grabbed a chair and sat it with a loud clatter next to Sally. He then swept Mrs. Radcliff into his arms, baby and all. The surprise of it shook a giggle out of the woman. Alex sat his passenger down at Sally’s side.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Alex grabbed Beth’s hand while he rushed for the door. “Appreciate it. Sophie and probably the parson will be along anytime. I can really use Beth’s help. Sally, you lie still.” They hurried on Mrs. Farley’s heels toward the store. The woman was round and her dark hair shot through with gray, but she set a fast pace.
“Alex, I should stay and—”
“There’s your ma.” Alex jerked his head toward the hitching post outside the doctor’s office as they swept past.
“Ma, help keep Sally still,” Beth yelled over her shoulder. “Mr. Farley’s hurt. We’ll be back as soon as possible.”
Beth caught a glimpse of Ma’s startled face as they rushed across the street, but she left it to Mrs. Radcliff to explain. The town was small and the general store was across the street and only a few doors down from the newly created doctor’s office. Alex dragged her inside before she could tell her ma anymore.
Bart Farley was on his hands and knees, groaning. A good sign that the blow hadn’t knocked him cold for any longer. A ladder lay toppled over next to the gray-haired man.
Alex was at the man’s side instantly, dropping to his knees. “Lie back, sir. Just let me look at you.”
Bart resisted Alex’s touch, his eyes glazed and unfocused.
His wife knelt beside Alex. “You heard him, Bart. Now you mind the doctor.”
“Don’t need no doctor, Gina. No sense fussin’.” He sounded groggy, his voice faint and unsteady.
Alex got him onto his back despite the resistance and started talking. “You’ve gone and split your head clean open, Bart. Just stay still. It’ll take me but a minute to check you over.”
Beth saw at a glance that the man needed stitches. “I’m going for my bag.” She whirled for the door.
“Beth, wait!”
Freezing, she looked at Alex and saw his panic. She said, “You go for the bag then.”
Alex’s throat worked as if he were trying desperately to swallow. His eyes went from Bart, still struggling to sit up, to Beth. “N–no, no, that’s fine. You go.”
“I’ll hurry.” Beth wanted to shake the man. But being needed like this had an amazing effect on her heart. She ran.
Panic seemed to blow straight out of the top of Alex’s head.
Beth was gone. All he saw was blood.
He reached for the man’s shoulders and tried to get him to lie back. The blood had flowed down the side of Bart’s face. It coated his neck and shoulder, and now Alex’s right hand. It was a titanic battle to keep from jumping away.
Light wavered. Bart faded, replaced by another man in another time and place. The man under Alex’s hands moaned in agony. An explosion blasted dirt into Alex’s back. He reeled forward. Maybe shrapnel instead of dirt. He couldn’t feel any pain. The impact blasted him like bullets. The force of the explosion knocked him onto his hands and knees, so he sheltered the man beneath him, covering the horrible wounds from flying debris.
The scene before him widened from the bleeding man. He was outside. Blazing hot, arid, deafening noise, inhospitable sand stretching in all directions. Men, dead men, dying men lay bleeding, limbs severed.
Alex needed to get up, go to them. He looked back at the man he shielded with his body and scrambled back onto his knees. A shredded, blood-soaked United States Cavalry uniform. The soldier’s disemboweled stomach gaped open. The man cried out, as if Alex had slit him open with a knife instead of the Comanche Indian who lay dead only feet away, a half dozen bullet holes ripped through the Indian warrior’s chest. Blood seeped into the thirsty sand. The earth drinking up life. Feeding on men too foolish to avoid war. The man bleeding and moaning by Alex was dead. He just didn’t know it yet. Alex had to fight back vomit as he watched the man try to stuff his guts back into his own belly. Death was imminent, but the man was beyond pain, acting on instinct, mindless.
Like war.
More explosions, bullets whizzed in all directions. Alex’s back burned with pain. He’d been hit.
“Stay down!”
Alex hunched low over the man. Ignoring the dead. Protecting himself like a coward while life spilled, crimson and hot, out of Comanche and cavalry alike. Alex couldn’t help. He was too terrified, too selfish, too stupid and cowardly. The smell of blood was like a drug, leaving him unable to think of anything but surviving this madness. Weak beyond salvation for letting everyone bleed and scream and die while he cowered and did nothing.
Alex groped for his doctor bag. Lifted it. Gore dripped from it, and entrails and stinking foul blood. He threw the ugly thing aside with a cry of horror. Threw it hard and far as if he could throw away failure and death. But no one could throw that hard. Failure and death were like a stench soaked into his soul. They never left.
“Alex!” The voice cut through the smoke.
The explosions stopped sharply, as if Alex had gone deaf. He looked up into blue eyes. Pretty, living, wise, compassionate eyes. Annoyed eyes.
The room came back into focus. The battlefield left behind.
Beth.
The general store. Bart. Another patient he failed.
Alex’s eyes fell shut. He dropped his head in shame as Beth ministered to this man. Not badly hurt at all.
How long had he been gone? How long had it taken Beth to restore him to fragile sanity? To pull him back to the present? How much of a madman had he appeared to be in front of Bart’s wife?
Tears burned in Alex’s eyes. He hadn’t cried in a long time. He’d learned how to cry in war and spent a lot of time fighting that show of weakness. Then finally the tears had dried up and turned to stone in his heart.
Alex’s prayers had gone, too. That ugly battle, toward the end of what they called the Red River War, was when Alex knew he couldn’t do it anymore. That blood-soaked bag represented everything he’d failed at. It represented the day he’d walked away from his duties as an American, betrayed his country, his fellow soldiers, his wounded patients. He’d walked away to let them all die.
Only days later did he even notice the shrapnel in his back and arms. He was soaked with blood from his neck to his knees. A shocked man in a town with no name cared for Alex. The wounds didn’t kill him. But he was dead just the same. Just like that eviscerated soldier, Alex was dead but still moving, too stupid to lie down.
He started to rise to his feet and get away from this single bleeding man. No decent person would want him if he knew the whole ugly truth.
Beth grabbed his hand. “Can we be alone for a few min
utes, Mrs. Farley?”
“Well, I suppose. You’re sure you don’t need me?”
“We will need you in a bit, but for right now, we need things absolutely quiet. Just step outside. I’ll call you back in.”
“Is … is the doctor all right?” Mrs. Farley asked unsteadily. “Is Bart hurt seriously?”
Alex wondered what in heaven’s name he’d done. He opened his mouth to ask, but before he could speak, Beth did the talking for them.
“Yes, the doctor’s fine. Bart’s going to be fine, too. We just need a minute alone.” Beth’s voice soothed Mrs. Farley and Alex, too.
His senses seemed to heal. He finally had the presence of mind to look at her again.
That’s where my strength lies. I have none of my own. I can’t find my way back to You, God. Only with Beth can I be a doctor.
A prayer.
Alex had prayed more in the days since he’d met Beth than he had in the years he’d spent wandering the West since he’d run, a broken, cowardly traitor, from that brutal, ugly, senseless war.
The United States Government had allowed the decimation of the Indians’ food source, turned a blind eye to the ruthless near-extermination of the buffalo. Then they’d made promises, food in exchange for the native people going to a reservation. The promises were largely broken and the Indians faced starvation if they stayed within their treaty borders, so they returned to their hunting grounds, more out of desperation than defiance.
Cattlemen came along with their herds of longhorns, and the Indians, hunters for countless generations, considered the cattle fair game. Clashes came, as was bound to happen.
The United States Army had turned its attention to the Civil War, and for a while the native people had been allowed to live their lives, which had included harassment of white settlers. Finally, with peace restored in the East, the government turned to settle the West. The time for treaties and talks was over and the cavalry was given the assignment of ridding the West of Indians. They went to the reservations and died or they left the reservations and died. The devil’s own bargain.
Alex had been there to watch them die. His commander had insisted Alex focus on wounded soldiers first, and heaven knew there were plenty of them. Alex stood by during the deaths of so many.
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 11