Firefly

by Linda Hilton

  “All right,” he consented. “But I’m going to watch you. I’ll wait on the hotel porch, and if I hear one little scream, I’ll be there in a second. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Thank you. For everything.”

  *

  They kissed good-bye at the gate to the Hollstroms’ yard, and then Julie watched Morgan walk away. She could barely make out the bulk of the Olympia House across the street, but the light would grow quickly. Birds twittered noisily and a few dogs had started barking. Roosters crowed nearby and in the distance.

  Julie walked slowly around the house to the back door. Though the front was unlocked, as always, she felt more secure entering as silently as she had left. No one should be awake yet, and she planned to make her announcement during breakfast. That was what she had told Del she was going to do, and promised him she would be at the clinic by ten o’clock. That would give him plenty of time to talk to the preacher and make whatever arrangements were necessary.

  The kitchen was still dark, like the rest of the house, and silent. Julie took a match from the box on the wall and struck it on the side of the stove to light a lamp. Though she was starting a bit earlier than usual, she set about her regular chores as though this morning were no different from any other.

  *

  Del settled himself on one of the old chairs on the hotel porch and pulled out a cheroot. He could see glimmers of light in the Hollstrom house now. He imagined Julie going about her tasks, lighting the stove, fixing breakfast, waking her father and mother and brother. He watched for lights in the upstairs windows, but they remained dark. He sighed, sending a puff of fragrant smoke spiraling into the morning stillness.

  *

  Julie climbed the stairs and went into her own room first. Now there was some light, enough to see to collect the few things she intended to keep. She still had her money in her pocket, and added to it a brush and comb, her hairpins, and the tissue-wrapped bar of Pears soap she had splurged on. From the wardrobe she took only the blue blouse and the new skirt, folding them over her arm while she took the aprons and her few undergarments from the drawer.

  She carried her belongings down the stairs and placed them in a neat pile on the dining room table. When her parents came down for breakfast, they would see the clothes and that would give Julie the opportunity to break the news to them. She would be close to the door, too.

  After making a final check in the kitchen to see that the water was ready for coffee, that the bacon was starting to sizzle and the toast wasn’t burning, she made the last climb up those stairs.

  Katharine stood in the doorway to her room, yawning groggily and looking extremely disheveled, even for a woman just out of bed.

  “Is Papa up?” Julie asked, surprised to see her mother awake this early.

  “Isn’t he downstairs?” Katharine countered.

  “No.”

  “Well, he isn’t here either. And from the looks of the bed, I’d say he’s been up at least an hour. I took all the blankets.”

  Julie scowled and tried not to let herself worry. Perhaps Wilhelm had got up while she was busy in her room and had gone out to the privy. Surely there was no way he could guess where she had been all night. There was no reason for him even to suspect she had been anywhere but asleep in her room.

  *

  Morgan put out the stub of cigar on the sole of his boot and shifted uncomfortably on the chair. He hadn’t brought his watch and could only estimate that at least an hour had passed. There were still no lights upstairs at the Hollstrom house, nor in the dining room.

  He turned at the sound of footsteps approaching. Of the two figures descending the steps in front of McCrory’s and heading for the hotel, Morgan recognized Ted Phillips’ silhouette instantly. The other man seemed to hang back, almost walking behind the marshal’s bulk, and Morgan couldn’t see plainly in the uneven light.

  “Morning, Ted,” he called pleasantly. “You’re up early.”

  “Yeah, you, too, Del.”

  What was Wilhelm Hollstrom doing out with Ted Phillips at this hour of the day? Morgan hadn’t seen Julie’s father leave the house, and he hadn’t taken his eyes off the place since she walked up to it. He tensed as though for a fight.

  “What’s up?” he asked quietly.

  “Look, Del, I don’t like this any more ‘n you, but I ain’t got a choice,” Phillips began apologetically. “This guy here has swore out a warrant and I gotta arrest you.”

  “Arrest me? What the hell for?”

  Wilhelm walked out from his hiding place and looked down at the man in the chair, but he said nothing. Morgan, afraid of his own reaction to the man who was soon to be his father-in-law, gripped the cracked arms of the chair and held himself in it.

  “Mr. Hollstrom here says you did somethin’ to his daughter. He’s chargin’ you with rape.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Julie stared out the window to the sullen heat lines that radiated from the barren ground. The sun stood directly overhead to cast sharp, short shadows that did not move. No breeze, no breath of air stirred the ungodly heat. The parlor clock chimed a dozen times. Noon.

  She had not cried, nor even screamed when her father came triumphantly into the dining room and made his vicious announcement to Julie and Katharine. Shock seemed to numb them both, though Julie recalled that Katharine hadn’t gone into either hysterics or a fainting fit. True, she had given in with her usual resignation to Wilhelm’s orders and dutifully shut Julie in her room, but she hadn’t resorted to the familiar tactics of evasion.

  Julie sat on the bed for a while, right after she heard Hans help Wilhelm fashion a bolt on the outside of her door, but she soon drifted to the window and there watched the western mountains come to life with the sunrise. No one had said a word to her all morning, not even to offer her breakfast or, now that it was noon, lunch. She could not have swallowed food anyway.

  She did not waste time wondering how Wilhelm had found out. She didn’t care, and it didn’t matter. What mattered was rectifying the situation. She never for a moment thought that Del would hold her responsible for it, but she knew she was the only one who could set him free. She just had to think of the right way to do it.

  Wilhelm had made it quite clear to her that escape from her temporary prison would do no good. To begin with, the drop from her window to the rocky yard below would almost certainly injure her. And the marshal had already been warned that she was in no condition after her “ordeal” to be trusted in anything she might say. As insurance, Wilhelm had taken her clothes, her few dresses as well as the skirt and blouse left in the dining room. She was cooler in just a simple shift, but she could not go outside practically nude.

  So she waited, and thought, and listened. She had no trouble hearing the voices from the parlor, Hans occasionally raising his to a bellow and Wilhelm hissing him quiet, but they spoke in the more comfortable German they had grown up with, and Julie had never learned it. Once in a while Wilhelm muttered something to Katharine, whose higher tones and trembling whine carried almost too clearly up the stairs, but she said nothing that would give Julie a clue as to the nature of the men’s discussion. Whatever it was they talked about, they clearly did not agree.

  Better that, Julie reasoned, than that they be united against me.

  What facts she had were few, and she knew enough not to believe everything her father had told her. Morgan was in jail, and she believed that much, as well as that he had been charged with rape. Julie had almost laughed at that, but she knew she did not dare enrage Wilhelm further. He told her there would be a trial, that he had sent the marshal’s telegraph to the circuit judge. The Honorable Mr. Booth was on his way to Plato already and was expected to arrive Wednesday morning. With any luck, the sentence would be handed down and carried out before the end of the week, in plenty of time, Wilhelm implied, for the wedding to take place as scheduled.

  Julie had no idea what laws in the Arizona Territory governed those convicted of rape, but she
fully expected her father to demand the same sentence he had pronounced on Ted Sheen.

  *

  Winnie Upshaw brought Del a cloth-covered tray with his lunch and a pitcher of lemonade, but she wasn’t allowed any time alone with him. Ted Phillips stood less than ten feet away, doing his sworn duty even if the scowl on his face clearly showed his disgust. He checked the tray for weapons when Winnie brought it and checked it again when Morgan handed it back to her, then he ushered her to the door.

  “Damn it, Del, I feel like a real ogre, keepin’ you locked up in here like this. No visitors, no nothin’. What the hell’s the matter with that guy?”

  Morgan shook his head and sat back down on the bunk.

  “I don’t know, Ted, but I’m sure as hell gonna find out. As soon as Simon gets Leo sober, I want to see him. If I fall asleep, you wake me up, okay?”

  “Yeah, I will. But I still don’t know what you want with that old drunk. He’s no more good as a lawyer than you was as a doctor when you was drinkin’”

  “Just let me worry about that. Bring Leo to me, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Okay. Look, do you mind if I go over to Daneggar’s and get me some lunch? You won’t go tryin’ to bust out, will ya?”

  Morgan shook his head again. He could do with a little privacy for a while.

  “Go ahead. And don’t worry; I won’t go anywhere.”

  Not while Julie’s still in that monster’s hands.

  He had seen, through the front window of the marshal’s office, when the wagon came to town. No doubt Wilhelm had sent word to Hans the instant the deed was accomplished. Had they cooked up the scheme together? No, Morgan doubted Wallenmund had the brains to concoct a rabbit stew, much less this sort of plot. And it had to be a plot. There was something too clever about everything to be spontaneous.

  And what about Julie? Was she, perhaps, somehow connected? No, he dismissed that thought the instant it came to him. What in God’s name did she have to gain by it? He had seen the bruises on her arm, knew the way she was treated. Besides, he knew the truth about her father.

  He was tired. And hot. The worst feature of the little two-cell pokey was that it generally baked its occupants into confession long before they came to trial. Winnie’s lemonade helped some, but its effect was only temporary. Sleep, at least until Leo Wood sobered up, offered some escape from the heat, so Morgan stretched out on the thin mattress and closed his eyes. He fell asleep almost immediately.

  *

  Wilhelm brought Julie’s supper, a slice of liver, some potatoes fried in too much grease, a spoonful of peas, and then watched while she toyed with it. After ten minutes, he announced her time was up and removed the plate from her lap. Then he locked her in again. She got up from the bed and returned to the window, where she had stood most of the day. At least now it was cooler. Her skin felt burnt from standing in the sunlight all afternoon.

  “I should have been married today,” she whispered to the sunset. “I should have had my supper with my husband. We’d be sitting up on the rooftop now, maybe reading a book or a magazine or talking about the patients we treated today. And then when it got dark, we’d go to bed and—”

  Her musings, undistorted by tears, stopped when a scream from the kitchen brought Julie out of her thoughts of Morgan. There was a moment of silence, then another scream, clearly Katharine’s.

  Then Wilhelm’s voice joined hers, though indeed all Katharine did was shriek. Julie had no idea if Hans had left or not, nor did she particularly care. But when she heard the thump of heavy footsteps up the stairs, she turned warily away from the window to watch her door.

  The bolt lifted, and the door shot open. Wilhelm, his face red and dripping with sweat, held Katharine in his arms. She looked limp, and there was a streak of red across her cheek.

  “Take care of your mother,” Wilhelm spat as he deposited his wife on Julie’s bed. “If you haven’t forgotten how.”

  He slammed the door so hard the whole house rattled, then he threw the bolt back into place with a jolt. Terrified, Julie stared at the shut door for a moment before she slowly turned her gaze to her mother’s crumpled body on the bed.

  Katharine rolled over and opened her eyes.

  “My God, I thought he’d never get me up those stairs!” she breathed. “Apparently Dr. Morgan was right about my being overweight.”

  No sign of hysteria, no grogginess as after a faint. Julie continued to stare, totally perplexed.

  “I also thought I’d never find a knife sharp enough to cut myself,” Katharine went on. “I’ll have to remind Willy to sharpen them more often.”

  Julie finally found her voice, but something kept her from approaching any nearer the bed. The window, even with its long drop, offered at least a chance of escape.

  “Mama,” she asked suspiciously, “what is the matter?”

  “I cut my thumb. See?” Katharine held up the bloodied appendage.

  Without moving a step away from the window, Julie commented, “It doesn’t look like the sort of thing one screams like a banshee about.”

  “Well, it was the best I could do with those damned dull knives.” She sat up and smoothed her rumpled dress, noticing a few bloodstains but shrugging unconcernedly.

  “Why would you want to cut yourself?”

  Katharine got to her feet with no sign whatsoever of her earlier collapse. Her smile gave way to a serious frown as she walked steadily toward her daughter.

  “How else was I going to get your father to let me see you? I had to find out just what’s to be done about this predicament, and that meant talking to either you or Dr. Morgan. A cut thumb seemed the easiest way. We don’t have a great deal of time, so I suggest we not waste any more of it.”

  “Wait, Mama. I don’t understand this at all. Are you telling me that you want to help me?”

  “Of course, I do! Oh, Julie, what else would I do? Haven’t I always helped you?”

  Julie remembered just barely in time to keep herself from laughing out loud. She was wary of this new, serious side of her mother, but not enough to want her father or Hans rushing to her rescue. If her mother had gone mad, Julie would have to handle the aberration unassisted.

  And that was exactly what she was beginning to think had happened to Katharine. She was so totally unlike her usual self that Julie imagined her mind had finally snapped under this latest stress.

  “I don’t consider making me wait on you hand and foot for the past nine years ‘helping’ me at all.” She refused to disguise her anger. “You used me like a slave, Mama.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  Katharine stumbled backwards to the bed and sat down again heavily. She said nothing for a few seconds and just stared at the rather nasty laceration on the ball of her left thumb. It continued to bleed.

  Julie, still cautious, walked to the dresser and took out a handkerchief.

  “Here, Mama, use this. You’re going to ruin your dress.”

  Like an automaton, Katharine wound the corner of the linen square around her injury and tucked the leftover fabric into her hand. But she seemed to have no real interest in the bandaging and frequently glanced up from it to watch as Julie returned to her post at the window.

  “Do you really think I care about a stupid dress at a time like this?”

  And there were tears in Katharine’s eyes when she whispered that question. For some reason, those tears touched Julie. Over the years Katharine had often turned to weepy histrionics to get her way, but this time Julie suspected there was a difference. At least there were no histrionics.

  “Mama, I don’t know what to think!” she whispered exasperatedly. “Papa has Del in jail for something he didn’t do, I’m locked in my room with no clothes, Hans is shouting in the parlor, and you come up here grinning like a canary-eating cat because you cut your thumb on a dull knife! And then you try to tell me you only want to help. To tell the truth, Mama, I think you’re a little insane.”

  With a wry smile, Kathar
ine answered, “Maybe I am. Twenty-seven years with Wilhelm Hollstrom would be enough to drive anyone insane.” Then she looked up at Julie and the smile faded. “And if I thought it was all a mistake, I know I would go insane. Oh, Julie, did I do wrong? I only wanted to make sure you’d be happy, and not make the same mistake I did.”

  Something cold ran down Julie’s spine. Fascinated and terrified at the same time, she leaned against the windowsill and listened, and she could not believe her mother lied.

  “I married Wilhelm because I had to, not because I wanted to. I was fifteen years old, and the only way I knew to earn a living was on a music hall stage. My father—your grandfather—was a fairly well known actor, but like most men in that profession, he was inclined to drink and chase women and indulge in every bad habit known to man. My mother, unfortunately, loved him dearly and stayed with him, dragging me with her. You have no idea what it’s like worrying where your next meal will come from, or whether you’ll have a bed to sleep in. Not just once in a while but every day, every single day, every single night. One time, in Pennsylvania, we slept in a train station for three nights, and Papa begged from the passengers passing through.”

  “What does this have to do with Del and me?” Julie demanded. “You’re the one who says we don’t have enough time and here you are wasting it with all this family history.”

  But it was a family history Julie had never heard, and in spite of all her other fears and worries, she wanted to know more.

  “Because I want you to understand,” Katharine said. “After fifteen years, I decided I had had enough. There was a young man in New York, a lawyer’s son, who took a fancy to me. I had grown up around adults, not children, so I was able to pass for twenty when I was barely twelve. David was five years older than I and yet he seemed so much younger.” She sighed with memories but quickly cleared her thoughts. Julie was right; there was no time to waste.