Sunrise Over Texas

by MJ Fredrick

  “Because he hasn’t had us to care for him!” Agnes snapped. “Now that we’re here, we can make him better. And when he comes back to us, don’t you think he’ll know he didn’t father your child?”

  Kit slumped. The longer she spent with John, the more she doubted he’d recover. He hadn’t made an effort, and the damage to his head was extensive. Even now she flinched at the injury she’d seen when she changed his bandage, the indentation in his skull. Before then, she’d hoped and prayed he’d recover, so that she could share her life with him again, so they could mourn the loss of their son together, but as weeks passed, she feared that would never happen.

  Kit worried if John didn’t recover, Agnes’s bitterness towards her would deepen. Kit had no idea what would happen to herself. Would she forever be caring for a man who didn’t know her? Would she grow bitter, too?

  This was her punishment for falling in love with another man.

  “I have to hope he’ll forgive me for the sake of the child,” she said wearily. “I have to hope he’ll understand how frightened and lonely I was.” Still was. Yes, she had the home she’d always wanted. John had finally made good on that promise. But what kind of life was this?

  “Frightened!” Agnes exclaimed. “You’re not afraid of the devil himself! You fought the Indians, you brought us here—”

  Kit coughed out a laugh. “And was terrified every moment of the way. I never could have done what I did without Trace.”

  “Nonsense. You kept us alive long before he got there. You kept him alive. With or without him you would have gotten us here. If he asked for your favors in payment, I’m sure John will understand.”

  Kit’s spine snapped straight. “Trace would never have demanded such a thing. I’m the one who turned to him. I’m the one who wanted the comfort he could offer. I loved Trace, Mother.” She hated using the past tense, but she could hardly admit to John’s mother that she longed for the father of her child.

  Agnes waved a hand. “You thought you did. You told yourself that. You can’t love one man while you’re married to another.”

  She didn’t want to argue with Agnes, and experience had shown her she wouldn’t win, in any case. What she needed was Agnes on her side, to get her through this pregnancy, especially if John recovered.

  “Can you forgive me, Mother?”

  Agnes folded a slender arm about Kit’s shoulders, the first embrace she’d given Kit since Daniel died. “I can, and so can John, but we need to get you to confession before the child comes. We can’t have you dying in childbirth with this sin on your soul.”

  Of course. But how could Kit confess as a sin something she longed for every night?

  ***

  Almanzo came to collect them for Mass early Sunday morning. Aaron agreed to watch over John so the women could attend. Kit worried about seeing too much of Almanzo over the next few months. She didn’t know if he kept contact with Trace, and her body was already beginning to show the effects of her pregnancy, her breasts straining against her bodice despite her effort to let out the seams. She couldn’t let Trace know. What could he do in any case?

  Perhaps Almanzo wouldn’t notice for a few weeks, since his attention was so focused on Mary.

  “How is John?” he asked Kit as he handed her into the coach.

  “No change,” she replied.

  His eyebrows furrowed in sympathy. “Is there anything I can offer that will help?”

  “I don’t know what could help,” she said honestly as she settled onto the hard seat.

  “Is there any way I can make him more comfortable? Make any of you more comfortable? I’m angry with myself for not offering before, but do you need help finishing the cabin? You’ve gotten a lot done, but maybe I can send someone out to help.”

  Kit shook her head. “I thank you, Almanzo, but we can’t accept such a thing.” Funny how now she considered what was proper.

  Almanzo leaned close, blue eyes earnest. “Trace asked me to look out for you.”

  Her heart jumped at his name. “He shouldn’t have done that.” She couldn’t meet Almanzo’s gaze. “We’re not his responsibility.”

  “He said you’d say that. He warned me I might have to be underhanded. I thought I’d try being straightforward.”

  She heard the smile in his voice but didn’t look at him. “I cannot be beholden to another man. I’m a married woman.”

  Almanzo relented, to her relief. She wanted to ask him if he’d heard from Trace. Her pride wouldn’t allow her the question, even if Agnes wasn’t sitting beside her on the coach seat. She had sent him away. She needed to accept her lot and move on.

  ***

  Aaron was waiting for them when they returned from church. One look at his tense expression dampened the joviality of the group. Alarmed, Kit stepped over Almanzo and hopped out of the coach, barely catching her balance before hurrying toward Aaron and grasping his arm.

  “What is it?”

  “Mr. Barclay had a fit,” the man told her, breaking away and turning toward the house. “Shaking and thrashing around and foaming at the mouth.”

  Foaming…Good Lord, were the seizures getting worse? She broke into a run toward the cabin.

  John slept on his back—pale, mouth open, with one arm draped over the side of the cot and the other across his stomach, boneless. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest let her know he was alive. She rushed to his side and dropped to her knees beside the bed, resting her palm against his forehead. No fever. She sat back on her heels. If fever wasn’t causing the seizures, the head injury must be.

  “Will you ask Mr. Tarleton to come in here?” Fear trembled her voice, but she swallowed it quickly as Agnes and Mary entered the room. She had to ask Almanzo for a favor after all.

  ***

  Dr. Boller, who returned to the cabin with Almanzo at breakneck speed, straightened from the bed, a frown curving his lips down.

  “He’s sleeping, not unconscious.”

  “But the seizures,” Kit pointed out.

  “I see evidence that he bit his tongue during a fit of some kind. Not uncommon in head injuries. How long ago did you say he sustained it?”

  “Perhaps six months ago.”

  “You say he doesn’t speak.”

  “No. And he doesn’t remember us.” She swept her hand to encompass the family. “Though we’ve been caring for him for weeks.”

  “His appetite?”

  Kit shook her head. “Not as big as Agnes’s, and she eats like a bird.”

  The doctor drew his lower lip between yellowed teeth. “The brain may be swelling and the pressure against the skull is too great. That’s likely what’s causing the seizures. Have you considered taking him back to Louisiana?”

  She and Agnes had fought about it. Agnes seemed to have forgotten the hardship of their own journey. Kit didn’t believe John was likely to survive such an experience. “The trip would be too difficult.”

  “What about San Antonio?” Almanzo asked from across the room. “There are doctors there.”

  Dr. Boller shook his head. “No one who can help him. Maybe in the States…”

  A hand grasped Kit’s wrist, sending her heart jolting into her throat. She looked down to see John’s eyes open, brilliant blue, focused on her.

  For the first time since she’d found him.

  His lips moved, slowly, silently, stretching over his teeth. Then, in a voice unfamiliar and yet beloved, he rasped, “I want to die in Texas.”

  Kit dropped beside him, curving her hand over his cheek as his mother rushed forward to grab his other hand, her sobs drowning out his rusty voice as he murmured Kit’s name and fell silent again. His eyes drifted closed as Agnes begged for another word, anything, any recognition. Kit’s vision blurred at desperation in Agnes’s voice, but John had lapsed back into unconsciousness, his hand relaxing and releasing hers as it fell back to the cot.

  ***

  “I can accompany you to San Antonio, should you wish to take John there
for treatment,” Almanzo offered.

  He sat in his shirtsleeves at the dinner table after Kit and Mary had cleared the dishes, and he seemed in no hurry to leave, though the sun had set nearly an hour ago. Kit got the sense he wasn’t staying for Mary’s sake tonight, but for hers. He still hadn’t asked Agnes for permission to court Mary, and Kit wondered if he was second-guessing his choice. Mary hadn’t handled John’s illness well, and while she was more helpful than she’d been at the fort, she seemed to resent being isolated once more. She didn’t make an effort to hide her feelings from Almanzo, and she never spoke of him with any affection. Yet Almanzo still came around, still watched Mary.

  She turned her concerns back to the problem at hand. “I’m afraid to subject him to the dangers of travel.”

  “The roads between here and San Antonio are fine, and well traveled, not like you endured on the way from the coast. We’ll have the coach. We can make the trip in a day and a half, if we spend the night along the way.”

  Kit drew in a breath. “Do you know about the doctors there? What can they do for him that we can’t?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Agnes interrupted. “We need to do all we can for him.”

  “And if he should die?” Kit returned. “If the traveling kills him? What then?”

  “What if he dies here and we’ve done nothing?” retorted Agnes. “I’m his mother. I want what’s best for him.”

  White-hot rage and shock raced through Kit at the implied accusation. “I’m his wife!”

  Agnes gave Kit’s belly a pointed look. “Who is having—” She broke off when Kit widened her eyes and made her aware of who would witness these accusations. “Who is having a difficult time adjusting to caring for an invalid husband. All the more reason to see if we can make him well.”

  Resentment bubbled—Kit was not having a difficult time. She didn’t enjoy it. She wanted John whole. But she managed. Still, this assertion was better than what Agnes had planned to say.

  Almanzo clapped his hands together, startling all of them. “So shall we go, then? Tomorrow?”

  “Perhaps the day after,” Kit amended. “We need to get provisions ready, and we’ll need to get an early start. It’s already late.”

  Almanzo managed to look sheepish at the pointed look she gave him and rose from the chair. She immediately felt guilty chasing him off, when he had done so much for them. Even the chair he’d been sitting in was one he’d given them.

  “It is late.” He collected his jacket near the door. “I shall return Tuesday at dawn. If you need me before that, send Aaron and I’ll be here.”

  He turned to bow to Mary, who hung back, though she had to know Almanzo’s intentions. Once John was better, Kit planned to have a word with her about Almanzo and his kindness, though she didn’t want her sister-in-law to feel beholden to a man, either.

  “Thank you,” Kit said. She didn’t care if he was being so kind because he wanted to court Mary or because he’d promised Trace he’d look out for her. She would just accept his help with grace and appreciation.

  ***

  “Mr. Tarleton, you need to stop!” Kit called for the second time, holding John’s head steady and pointed away from her. With Agnes’s help, she managed to muscle him toward the edge of the buggy before he vomited over the side.

  She hadn’t been as lucky last time.

  She held out her handkerchief for John and he wiped the bile from his mouth, even managed to look disgusted with himself.

  “The movement of the carriage is making him ill,” she told Almanzo when the horses came to a halt.

  “Perhaps we should allow him to sit so he can see where we’re going,” Almanzo offered. “I know I have a difficult time riding backwards.”

  But changing seats with Agnes and Mary didn’t make a difference. John’s bony shoulders trembled with fatigue after he retched again over the edge of the carriage.

  Agnes rummaged in the food hamper and drew out a biscuit. “Perhaps this will settle his stomach.”

  Kit took it skeptically. “He needs to go back. He needs to be back in his bed.”

  “To die?” Bitterness sharpened Agnes’s words.

  “This trip is killing him. He can’t endure much more.”

  Almanzo turned from the driver’s seat, where he sat with Mary. “We can turn back. I can fetch the doctor and bring him.”

  Kit hesitated. She didn’t want to ask that huge favor, but John would not survive this journey. Making it home would be difficult enough. John’s weak grip tightened on Kit’s hand, and his blue eyes were riveted on hers.

  “Home, Kit.”

  Those two words had her heart thudding against her ribs in a mixture of hope and sorrow. She lifted his hand to her lips, kissed his fingers. “Yes. Yes, home.”

  The seizures started a few miles from home. Pressing his head back against her shoulder, her arm wrapped against his body, she could feel the strength leaving him as the tremors used the last of his energy.

  “Don’t die,” she said against his temple. “Don’t die.” Don’t let her decision be the thing that killed him.

  He was frailer than ever as Aaron helped her pull him from the buggy when they reached the cabin. Kit’s legs trembled from the fear that he’d almost died in her arms. Almanzo caught her elbow when she stumbled. She fought tears of exhaustion and frustration. She couldn’t show any of them how afraid she was. She’d barely survived mourning John once. She was very afraid she was close to mourning him again.

  He suffered another seizure before Almanzo left. He helped Kit stabilize John and stayed with her until Agnes asked him to leave so the women could go to bed.

  Tired as she was, Kit couldn’t sleep. Instead, she set a chair beside John’s bed and watched him.

  She woke from a doze when she sensed Agnes. The older woman knelt beside the cot, a cup of broth in her hand, a spoon angling toward John’s mouth. He turned his head away, and Kit saw a glimpse of Daniel in his stubborn expression. Kit straightened and Agnes sat back on her heels, wiping her wrist across her forehead in frustration.

  “He hasn’t eaten since we returned.”

  “He’s not hungry.”

  “Kit, you see how thin he is. He’s all bones. The muscle is gone. How can he regain his strength if he won’t eat?”

  “We can’t force him to eat.” Kit leaned forward and took the spoon from her mother-in-law. “The doctor will be here tomorrow or the next day. He’ll tell us how to help John.”

  Kit saw her own fear in the older woman’s eyes—that John wouldn’t last another day or two, not if he didn’t eat.

  The seizures began in earnest that night. The three women and Aaron wore themselves out trying to hold him still so he wouldn’t hurt himself. Agnes triumphed in managing to get some willow bark tea down him while he convulsed, but the small amount seemed to make no difference. Kit wondered that his malnourished body had the energy to fight them so as they pinned him to the cot. Her own well-fed body was limp with fatigue. She ached at the sight of her once-strong husband out of control, dying before her eyes.

  Toward morning, the seizures weakened. Kit stretched on the cot beside him, holding him in love. The end had to be near. His heart was slow, his breathing shallow. She wished she could call Almanzo back. Nothing could be done for John now, she was sure. Nothing but making him comfortable.

  She roused, blinking, when the door opened, and two tall men strode in. For a moment, just a moment, she thought Trace had come, then hated herself for wanting to be rescued by the man she’d loved while her husband was dying.

  “How is he?” Almanzo swept his hat off and turned away as Kit climbed stiffly from the cot.

  “The seizures have taken his strength, and he won’t eat,” she managed, blinking against the light that came in behind the two men. How long had she slept?

  “Mrs. Katherine Barclay, this is Dr. Josef de la Baume.” Almanzo gestured toward the towering, rail-thin elderly man who stood in the doorway.

  K
it smoothed a hand over her hair and her dress; then, realizing it made no difference, she stepped toward the older man with an outstretched hand. Had the men traveled all night to get here? They must have. “Dr. de la Baume, it’s good of you to come.”

  He clasped her hand briefly, his attention already on the man on the cot. “He has a head injury?” His voice held a hint of France. He moved past her to John’s side.

  “Yes, he was shot by outlaws on the Louisiana border.” She opened the window beside the door to give the doctor more light.

  “And the ball was removed?”

  “Yes.”

  “By whom?”

  She smoothed her hair back. “I’m not sure.”

  “This happened several months ago?”

  “Nearly six. But the seizures only began lately.”

  “Infection, inflammation, perhaps part of the ball was left inside,” the old man muttered, turning John’s head this way and that, not caring that he woke his patient. “He is not eating.”

  “No.”

  “Or speaking.”

  “Not since yesterday, and that was an effort.”

  “The damage to that area of the brain sometimes causes the throat to stop working. He is likely unable to swallow.”

  “How can we remedy that?”

  The old man’s mouth thinned. “You may try thickening the liquids with flour. He won’t care for the taste, but he may get some nourishment that way. At the very least, you can get some willow bark tea into him.”

  “What can we do to stop the seizures?”

  The doctor straightened. “The swelling brain is causing these, and the willow bark is the best to reduce this. Is he feverish?”

  “Now and again.”

  “I believe part of the ball is still in his brain.”

  “You can remove it?”

  “Young woman,” the doctor snapped. “I do not go digging around in a man’s brain.”

  “But if you don’t he may die.”

  “And if I do he may, also. He is quite weak.”

  Frustration tightened her shoulders. “Sir, Mr. Tarleton traveled all the way to San Antonio to fetch you to help us, and you’ve told us nothing we don’t already know. Nothing we haven’t already tried.”