Wringing her hands in her apron, Matthew’s mother moved closer to the cot. “It’s true, dear heart. I’ve barely slept a wink since they brought you in. It’s been touch and go. We were afraid you might never come back around.”
Matthew wished he hadn’t. His sweet Livvy, dead? He didn’t want to believe it. How could something like that have happened and he had no memory of it?
Embarrassed to lose control in front of his father, Matthew rolled onto his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow to stifle his sobs, even though the pressure against his temple hurt like hell.
“Have a care, Matthew,” his mother cried. “You’ll reopen your wounds.”
But Matthew was beyond caring about his wounds. He hoped they’d break open so he could bleed to death. Livvy. On their wedding day, he’d vowed to keep her safe from all harm, and he’d failed her in a way no husband ever should, all because he hadn’t taken a weapon with him on a stupid picnic.
He felt his father’s hand come to rest on his shoulder. “We’ll leave you be for a bit. There’s times when a man needs to be alone, and I reckon this is one of them for you.”
Matthew held his breath until his parents left the room. Then he released a sob that shook his whole body. Livvy. He’d loved her since boyhood. How would he face the rest of his life without her?
From the hallway, he heard his brother Hoyt murmur something he didn’t quite catch.
Matthew Senior replied, “I don’t think he remembers much, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to fill in the blanks just yet. No point in hittin’ him with too much at once.”
“But, Pa!” Hoyt protested, louder now. “You gotta tell him. If you don’t, somebody else will say somethin’ without thinkin’. Better to break it to him gentle-like.”
“Shh. Hush, you two,” Ma urged.
Matthew rolled onto his back to better hear the conversation taking place in the hallway. What had his father neglected to tell him? Livvy was dead. What the hell could be worse than that?
Lowering his voice again, Hoyt said, “His wife was brutally raped, for God’s sake, and then the sons of bitches carved on her with a knife before they slit her throat! You can’t keep that from him. He’s bound to find out sooner or later, and it’d be easier for him to hear it from you.”
“Maybe,” his father agreed, “but not this minute. That boy needs to heal some first.”
Matthew squeezed his eyes tightly closed. Oh, God. The memories of that afternoon were coming back to him now, fast and hard. The unthinkable darkness at the back of his mind had slipped into the light of day. He tried to block the pictures that swirled through his mind, but they just kept coming. Livvy. He could see the sunlight slanting down through the tree limbs to dapple her sweet face, hear the sound of her laughter. During the picnic, she’d told him that she was finally in the family way, and they’d been so happy, anxious to get home so they could share their joy with his parents and hers. Then six men on horseback had spilled from the nearby woods and encircled their wagon. Oh, God.
The thugs had been armed. They had demanded valuables, and neither Matthew nor Olivia had had anything to offer them. Matthew’s gold pocket watch had been at the jeweler’s for repairs, and Livvy’s wedding band hadn’t been worth much. Those bastards had retaliated by dragging Olivia from the wagon. When Matthew jumped in to defend her, two of the no-account polecats had held his arms while a third man beat him senseless with the butt of his revolver.
Afterward Matthew had lain by the wagon with his face in the dirt while they kicked his torso, burying the toes of their boots as deeply as they could into his flesh to do as much damage as possible. When they’d grown weary of that sport and turned their vile intentions on Olivia, Matthew had tried desperately to move, but his body refused to cooperate. He hadn’t been able to lift his head. As if from a great distance, he’d heard Livvy screaming his name, over and over, until finally there was an awful silence. Seconds later, one of the ruffians had returned to Matthew, rolled him over onto his back with the toe of one boot, and shot him in the chest.
It was all Matthew could remember. After that was only blackness.
Matthew stared through a blur of tears at the ceiling rafters, wishing with every fiber of his being that he had died, too. He’d lain there in the dirt while his wife was raped and murdered. What kind of man was he?
No kind of man, he decided. No kind of man at all.
Indigo Blue Page 39