by Anita Mills
“But I’m used to it, she pointed out mildly. “I wasn’t born to the purple like some folks I know. You don’t need to be swinging a hammer—you’ve got a higher calling than that.”
“I wasn’t born to the purple, as you call it.”
“What about that plantation you grew up on?”
“My stepfather inherited a share of it—he didn’t own it all. Miss Clarissa had half.”
“Well, all my daddy had was forty acres, and every time it looked like there’d be a good crop coming in, something would. happen to it. It’d be too wet, or it’d be too dry, or the hail would beat it to pieces.”
“Why did he stay on it?”
She rubbed the side of her nose pensively before answering. “He was a farmer, just like his father—he came from a long line of farmers. He didn’t think he was poor as long as he had his land.”
“Yeah, but if it didn’t make a living for him—”
“Now, you’re sounding just like Jesse. There are some things a lot more important than money. Like being honest, for instance. Or caring about your fellow man. Daddy never had a slave in his life.”
“Bingham didn’t want any. He didn’t believe in slavery either.”
“Then why didn’t he free his and hire men to get his planting done?”
“It wasn’t that easy.”
“He wasn’t forced to keep them, was he?” she countered.
“He didn’t own them outright,” he answered evenly. “His sister owned half of everything.”
“Then he should have sold his half. You can’t say you don’t believe in something and keep on doing it, can you?”
“Look—I’m not Thad Bingham, so I can’t answer that. I was a kid, so I didn’t pay much attention at the time. I just know he preached against slavery.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t!” he snapped. “I don’t know where you think you’re going with this, but it must be somewhere, or we’d still be talking about your family’s farm.”
“I was talking about making amends.”
“What?”
“Reverend Bingham put you through medical school didn’t he?”
“What’s that got to do with slavery?”
“It was slaves that made all that money for him. You went to medical college on that money, Dr. Hardin.”
“Go on.”
“Don’t you think you ought to atone for it by practicing what you learned?”
“I did my atoning in the Confederate Army. I sawed off legs while men screamed for me to stop—I held guts together with my bare hands, trying to stop the blood pouring through wounds that’d make a pig butcher sick—I watched boys too young to grow beards die on my table—I saw enough misery and death to last me a lifetime, Mrs. Taylor—and if I never see another capital saw or gaping gut, I’ll still have the nightmares until I die,”
“I’m sorry. I just thought—”
“Well, don’t!”
“You did some good, too,” she said softly. “Jesse wouldn’t have had both his legs without you. And Danny—”
“That’s another one,” he cut in harshly. “I was the one who held Danny Lane down while he died. So don’t talk to me about a calling, because I answered mine, and look what it got me—a thousand dead men—tens of thousands maimed! A wife who took off with another man because I couldn’t go home! I answered that call once, Mrs. Taylor, and so help me God, I won’t make that mistake again!” As she blanched, he realized he’d gone too far. “I’m sorry,” he managed hoarsely. “I had no right to tell you that.”
Rising awkwardly from the table, she crossed the room to lay her hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know how you managed to live with that inside you,” she said quietly. “At least I know now that Danny had somebody who cared about him there when he died.” Moving behind him, she rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the tautness beneath her fingers. “As much as you blame yourself for what you couldn’t do, you have to remember all the men who made it home because of what you did for them.” Her fingers crept into the thick black hair that waved at his nape, stroking it. “You’re every bit as much the hero as the majors, colonels, and generals who led them into battle. They lost the war, but you got men home alive.”
He closed his eyes, feeling foolish for his outburst, as her hands eased the terrible tension in his neck. “Everybody at home reads the newspapers about how glorious the victory or about how devastating the defeat, and they think it’s some sort of contest,” he said softly. “It isn’t—it’s a blood-soaked hell. If people could see for themselves, there’d never be another war.”
“Maybe there won’t be—not for a long time, anyway,”
“No. Politicians will trade insults and plot the destruction of a perceived enemy; then they’ll sit back and watch somebody else’s husband or son die for their mistakes. The world gets bloodier, not wiser.”
“You have to think it’ll get better, or you can’t live.”
“It won’t.”
“Bitterness eats a man’s soul, Dr. Hardin. Sometimes, to live, you have to let go of it.”
“Bingham used to say something like that.”
“I’m sorry I said such things about him,” she conceded. “I didn’t even know him. I just think we paid too high a price for slavery, that’s all.”
“We did. For that, and a lot of things.”
“I didn’t mean to pick that sore when I said you should practice medicine, either. I didn’t know about your wife—or any of those other things.”
“I figured when you saw the grave, you knew she’d left me.”
“No. I thought it a little strange that she was buried out here, and that you were going to San Francisco to look for your son,” she admitted. “But I figured there was some explanation I hadn’t thought of, and if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me—that it wasn’t my place to ask.”
“I guess she just got tired of waiting. I blame myself for sending a wounded friend home to her, asking her to welcome him. She welcomed him, all right,” he added bitterly. “They took off together last March.”
“He couldn’t have been much of a friend, and she couldn’t have been much of a wife. But I guess she paid a high price for her foolishness, seeing as she died on the way.”
“I feel cheated about that, too. I wanted her there when I killed Ross. I wanted both of them to know they hadn’t gotten away with it. Now he’s out there somewhere, and I don’t even know if he’s still got my son,”
“And you had to turn back,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “That had to be hard to do.”
“It was. I should’ve known better than to start out this late. I should’ve known when there were just two railroad surveyors on the road with me, there was a reason. Hell, they weren’t even going through the pass.”
Her hand stilled, then dropped. “I don’t guess you heard, did you?”
“What?”
“They didn’t get back. A cavalry patrol out of Fort Laramie found what was left of them. A rider came over to notify Mr. Hawthorne they’d been murdered by Indians.”
He had to wonder if that was why he’d seen those buzzards. ‘They were just a few hours ahead of me,” he said, shaking his head. “If I hadn’t been having trouble with a skittish mule, I’d have been with them.”
“Then you were just plain lucky.”
Yeah, for the first time in a long time, maybe. But he sure hadn’t thought so then. Twisting his head to look up at her, he was struck by all that gold in those brown eyes. For a woman who’d had more than her share of grief in her young life, she’d managed to come through it with a dignity he had to admire. There was a calmness, a steadiness about her that went beyond any twenty-four years. As far apart as they’d been in character, it was hard to believe she and Lydia Jamison were close in age.
Moving away, she stood at the small window to peer outside. “I’ve been thinking about what you said last wee
k,” she said, breaking a short silence.
“About what?”
“Hiring somebody to help. There’s a Chinese man Mr. Russell sent out to help me fix the door and some other things after you left. I didn’t understand a word he said, but he did everything I showed him to do.”
“Russell’s not too impressed with the Chinese he’s got working for him.”
“So I gathered. I guess he gave up on this one, anyway. When I took the laundry down yesterday, one of the others who speaks better English told me he’d been let go, and he was taking it hard. I don’t guess he’s earned enough to get him home, and it’s too late for him. to go, anyway.” Turning back to face him, she told Spence, “Since you think it’s beneath you to wash clothes, I’m going down to see if I can find him. If I don’t, he’ll starve.”
“I’d be damned careful about who came up here.”
“You’ll be here,” she reminded him. “I figure the way business is going, I can afford to pay him enough to survive on. They seem to get by on next to nothing, you know. The rumor keeps going around that they eat bugs so they can send what they earn back to their families.”
“It’s your money.”
“Yes, it is, but I wasn’t worried about the money so much. Most of the white men around here have a lot of contempt for the ‘heathen Chinee,’ as they call them. Since your people owned slaves, I was wanting to know you’d tolerate Mr. Chen before I hired him. If I thought you’d treat him like a dog, I wasn’t going to do it.”
“Mrs. Taylor, I’ve never treated anybody like a dog in my life. Slaveholder or not, Bingham treated the Negroes on his place like family. Truth to tell, that was probably why he never sold or bought any.”
“I didn’t mean to get your dander up—I was just asking how you felt, that was all.”
“You’ve got no business going down there yourself,” Spence declared flatly. “Just give me the name, and I’ll fetch him up here. Maybe if you see I haven’t skinned and tarred him, you’ll believe I don’t give a damn what he is.” Lurching to his feet, he reached for his coat. “His name is Chen—right?”
“Chen Li—or Li Chen. I’m never sure which name is supposed to come first. But you can’t miss him.”
“I suppose I ought to ask why,” he muttered.
“He’s only got the right eye—the other one is missing. He lost it in an accident last month.”
As the door closed behind him, she sat down at the table again to close the money jar. If Chen came to work, there’d be two men up here during the day, and maybe some of the talk would stop. If he spoke better English, he could go back and tell the rest of them just how the living arrangements were before things got out of hand. Right now, nobody could seriously believe Spencer Hardin was sharing her bed, but after the baby came, talk could get a lot worse.
Western Nebraska: November 20, 1865
The wind howled, rattling the panes in the window frames, shaking the fragile rafters, while melting sleet dripped down the chimney to sizzle on the burning logs in the hearth. The last time Spence had been out to the privy, he’d strung a rope up to guide them to it if the norther brought heavy snow. Right now, it was just slicker than wet oilcloth outside, but the way that wind was blowing, it was going to get a lot worse.
There was so much ice on the windows it was difficult to see much from them, but he didn’t guess it mattered, anyway. There wasn’t much to see, just a gray sky pouring freezing rain. Expecting the worst, he’d already secured Dolly, Clyde, and Sally in the lean-to he and Chen Li had built next to the privy. They’d put it there so anybody going out could take care of everything in one trip.
Laura was quieter than usual. She was in the rocker with a blanket wrapped around her, reading one of her books. Restive in the silence, he rose to get himself some coffee, then stood at the window to drink it. It was as though the world had shrunk to this one small room, and he was trapped in it. It was going to be a long winter, he could see that now. Dispirited, he turned back to his prison, wondering how he could last until May.
His gaze shifted to the woman in the chair, and he wondered how she could stand being cooped up in here with him. She was a remarkable woman, no question about that. Honest. Forthright. Hardworking. Wise beyond her years. As lovely inside as out. In a lot of ways, she reminded him of Bingham. He had to wonder if Taylor’d had any idea how rare she was.
Not that she wasn’t vexing. She had a stubborn streak nearly as wide as his own, and when she got something set in her head, she clung to it, turning it into a crusade. And she didn’t always know when to stop, he reflected soberly. There wasn’t a day he’d spent in this little cabin that she hadn’t managed to find some. way to talk about medicine, and it just plain made him feel pushed. And it was the same with their differences in class. He was supposed to feel some damned obligation to do good because Bingham had been rich enough to send him to medical school, because he hadn’t been poor. He just didn’t feel it anymore.
He didn’t feel much of anything, except hatred for Ross, frustration with his own lot, and a yearning for a little boy he didn’t even know. And there wasn’t much he could do about any of those things right now. His whole life was in abeyance, held hostage by things he couldn’t control. But the damned weather was the worst of it. It had kept him from going on. It had trapped him in this cabin. It had thrown him into the company of a woman with problems worse than his own. It had given him too many hours to brood on the emptiness of his life.
He didn’t know how Laura could face the world with such determination to survive, how she could get up each morning and face the day ahead, knowing all she could truly depend on was herself. Indomitable spirit, he guessed—a will to survive.
She was looking a little peaked, even frail, he realized with a start. And the book in her lap was closed. Her hands were gripping the arms of that rocking chair so hard her knuckles were white. She was rigid with fear.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” she gasped. “I’m going to be sick, I think.”
He grabbed the washbasin and held it under her chin. “Maybe you shouldn’t have eaten that sausage this morning.”
“No.”
He could see the beads of sweat on her forehand, the cornered look in her eyes—like an animal about to die. Alarmed, he gripped her shoulder. “What is it?” he demanded urgently.
She swallowed hard. “The pain…and it’s too early…something’s wrong.” Closing her eyes against it, she cried, “Something’s wrong…it’s not my time!”
“My God—are you sure?”
“Yes—it’s not something I could forget! The baby’s coming early!”
“Just calm down now. There’s such a thing as false labor,” he reassured her. “Just lie down—I’ll help you to bed.”
“I can’t lose this baby … I just can’t … he’s all I’ve got of Jess!”
“Hysteria won’t help anything,” he said, trying to sound calm. “Come on—you’ve got to lie down.”
“I can’t! I’ll ruin the bed!”
“Breathe easy—don’t get ahead of yourself. We’ll put my bedroll under you—now, come on—everything’s going to be all right.” Bending over her, he got a hand under her arm and lifted her to stand. Bloody water gushed down her legs under her dress, soaking the rug at her feet. His first instinct was to go for the railroad doctor, but he didn’t want to leave her alone like that. “Come on,” he said again. “It’s going to be all right. You’re young and healthy.”
“I was young and healthy the last time, Dr. Hardin,” she managed.
“I’m going to help you.” Even as he said it, the words seemed ludicrous. Putting his arm around her, he tried to walk her toward the bed. He could hear her gulping for air. Something was wrong, all right— the pains were coming too hard too fast. She grabbed her distended belly with both hands and held on. Afraid she would collapse on him, Spence swung her up into his arms, stagg
ered awkwardly, then made his way to her bed. Easing her onto the side of the mattress, he put one of her hands on the bedpost. “Hold on,” he ordered. “I’ll get my bedroll.”
When he came back, he could see the stain spreading along the hem of her dress. Dumping his blankets on the bed, he spread them out, doubling them in the middle. While she held onto the post, he knelt to unlace and remove her shoes. Rolling down the black cotton stockings over her garters down to her toes, he managed to get them off, too. Her plain white drawers were soaked clear to her knees.
“We’ve got to get you undressed.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t move.”
She was panicked, that was all, he told himself as he worked the drawers down to her ankles. Noticing for the first time the puffiness there, he asked quickly, “You haven’t been having trouble passing water, have you?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say something? You should have told me!” Shouting at her served nothing, he told himself. “I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his voice.
She closed her eyes again, this time to hide from him. “It didn’t seem proper,” she managed.
She was sweating, but her skin was warmer than his. “All right. Losing one baby doesn’t mean you’ll lose another. The last one was breech, that was all.”
“It was early—this one’s early, too.”
“But the circumstances are different. You’ve got to get hold of yourself, Laura—I’m right here with you. We’re going to do our best to help the baby. I’m going to help you, but you have to tell yourself this is going to turn out all right—you understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He was surprised by his own calmness now. He’d trained as a surgeon, not as a practitioner, and if she’d needed a limb amputated, this would be easy. Instead, she was in labor and showing signs of kidney problems. “All right,” he repeated matter-of-factly. “Let’s get to work. I’m going to get you out of these clothes so I can see what’s going on. Then you’re going to lie down, and I’m going to get my bag in case I have to make this a little easier for you.” Scanning her face, he could tell she was mortified. “Look—it’s all right. I’m a trained physician.”