“I didn’t think of that at the time, but if I had it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d a killed the sonofabitch without batting an eye if he’d forced himself on Odette.”
After Wiley blew out the lamp, Ben lay down on the bunk, put his hands behind his head and stared at the dark ceiling. He had always had a boundless respect for women in spite of his unpleasant childhood with an aunt who resented every bite of food that went into his mouth. Women, as a rule, had been kind to him, even the ones considered bad. He figured they had been made that way by circumstances and did what they had to do to survive.
The verbal and physical abuse heaped on Dory by her half-brothers bothered him—more than bothered him. It made him want to break heads.
“Is Malone the father of Miss Callahan’s little girl?” Ben voiced the question as it came to his mind.
“I reckon it was his boy, Mick.” Wiley’s voice came out of the darkness. “It was ’bout a year after Dory’s pa died. She’d been to town for a few months of schoolin’. When she got back, James was gone an’ Louis an’ Milo was mean as a steer with its tail in a knot. Dory was scared of ‘em an’ lonesome. She started meetin’ the boy. A few months later she found him with the back of his head blowed off. Folks thought he’d been took for a deer, an’ some thought it was Milo what done it, but there warn’t no proof. He an’ Louis got a powerful hate for the Malones.”
“Was that before or after the baby was born?”
“Before. Long time before. I doubt the lad knew he’d made a babe.”
In the silence that followed, Ben mulled over what Wiley had said. There was no doubt in his mind and there appeared to be none in Dory’s that Milo would backshoot a man. A demon was working in Milo and sooner or later, if he stayed here, Ben was almost sure he and Milo would clash.
He suddenly thought about what he’d heard the men at the mill talking about. A few months back a young Indian girl’s body had been found not five miles from the camp. She had been violated and the back of her head had been bashed in. The killer had made no attempt to hide the body, probably thinking the wolves that roamed the area would destroy it. The girl had been found not long after her death by a lumberjack who had used snowshoes to make the long trip down the mountain one Sunday to spend a few hours with his family.
Ben didn’t know what had brought that to mind. There was no evidence to lay that crime at Milo’s door, but as Ben remembered the look that had been on Milo’s face when he had struck his sister, he believed that Milo was capable of most anything.
On the heels of that thought came another. Tonight he had been thoroughly confused by his feelings for Dory Callahan. She had awakened something in him, stirred something that left him restless. He remembered the graceful movement of her body as she went up the stairs ahead of him. She was tall and thin and swayed like a young sapling in the breeze. Her eyes were clear, honest and free of suspicion when she looked at him. He liked the proud lift of her chin, the wide green eyes and even the short curly mop that covered her head.
He ran stiffened fingers through his hair and massaged the back of his neck. He couldn’t let the attraction he felt for the woman get out of hand. He was having too hard a time taking care of himself and Odette to take on a woman and her child. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder how it would be to make love to her if she were totally his. Was Dory Callahan the kind of woman her brothers said she was, or was she a woman who would love a man wholeheartedly or not at all?
His thoughts went to Odette. The sensible thing to do would be to ride out of here as soon as she was able. He’d find a place to settle, and with what tools he had, he could make a living doing cabinet work. Of course, it would mean he couldn’t produce doors, window frames and flooring in quantity, but it would be a start.
He drifted to sleep with his common sense telling him to go far from this place and quick, but some unnerving, alien thing inside him told him he could not leave just yet.
The squeak of the door opening awakened Ben from a sound sleep. Before turning his head toward the sound, his hand closed over the hilt of the knife that lay by his side. A soft triangle of light came through the partly open door, then a long skirt and fur-lined moccasins. Dory, carrying a lantern, came silently across the room to his bunk.
“Mr. Waller. Ben—” Her whispered voice held urgency.
“Yes. What is it?”
“I’m worried about Odette. She’s awfully sick.”
Ben slung his legs off the bed and reached for his boots. “She was sleeping when I left.”
“She slept for a while. But now it’s hard for her to breathe.”
“You been up with her all night?”
“I dozed in a chair for a while.”
Ben followed Dory across the room and out the door. They hurried across the moonlit yard to the house. The kitchen was warm and well lighted. Carrying the lantern, Dory went through the hallway and up the stairs.
As soon as Ben stepped inside the room he could hear Odette’s labored breathing. He knelt down beside the bed and placed his hand on her forehead. It was not extremely hot and he felt a second of relief that turned to anxiety when her lids lifted and she gazed at him with wide blank eyes. Her mouth was open and her lips quivered as she struggled to draw air into her lungs.
“I changed the poultice and rubbed her neck with liniment,” Dory said from close beside him.
“I can smell it.”
“At first she would drink a little peppermint tea. She won’t do that now.”
“Where’s the nearest doctor?”
“The only place I know for sure is Coeur d’Alene. That’s a day’s ride from here.”
“Damn! It would take two days to get a doctor here.”
“We’ve got to do something now. My pa died while James was going for the doctor. Maybe if we raised her up she could breathe easier.”
Ben slipped his arm under Odette’s shoulders and lifted her while Dory packed pillows behind her. He looked into the worried face of the woman beside him, grateful that she was with him. The silence between them was only broken by the sound of Odette’s labored breathing until a loud voice came from downstairs. They heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.
“Dory!” Ben turned to face the man that came charging into the room like a mad bull. “What the hell’s going on?”
“James, for goodness sake! Stop shouting. You’ll wake Jeanmarie.”
James’s eyes went from Dory to Ben. “You’re the donkey man?”
Ben stood slowly. “I’m getting damned tired of being called the donkey man,” he said irritably. “I’ve got a name. It’s Ben Waller.”
“Sorry. Meant no offense. I’m James Callahan. It scared me when I saw the house all lit up this time of night. I thought something had happened to the little carrot-top.”
“I need someone to go for a doctor. I’ll pay fifty dollars a day.”
Ignoring Ben, James came to peer at Odette over Dory’s shoulder. “From the sound of her breathin’, it’s what Pa had, huh, Dory?”
“I don’t know. I put a lard and turpentine poultice on her chest. I’ve given her whiskey toddies and she drank peppermint tea, but it hasn’t helped.”
James took off his coat and threw it on the floor beside the door. He leaned over Odette and put his ear to her chest.
He looked squarely at Ben. “Mister, she’s got a rattle in her chest. She’ll not last till a doctor gets here unless we can break up that congestion so she can breathe.”
“How can we do that?” Dory asked.
“Steam. I’ve seen it work a couple of times. A Blackfoot Indian used it on a camp cook last winter.”
“I’ll be obliged for your help,” Ben said. “Tell me what to do.”
“Well… we don’t have a sweat lodge. We’ll have to do the next best thing. Waller, get an armload of wood and fire up the stove. Sis, bed the baby down in another room and bring up a teakettle of hot water from the reservoir.”
James knelt down beside the
bed and put the back of his hand to Odette’s cheek. Her skin was dry and hot, her parted lips parched. He poured water on a cloth from the pitcher on the table and wet her lips. Odette’s eyes fluttered open and James found himself looking into large blue eyes.
“Can you drink some water?” James asked before he remembered that he had been told that Waller’s daughter couldn’t hear. He squeezed some of the water from the cloth into her mouth. She licked her lips gratefully. Her eyes clung to his face. His heart galloped and he sucked in a deep breath. The girl’s clear, trusting eyes seemed to be looking into his very soul. They remained open while he sponged water into her mouth. When her lids drifted down, James felt a moment of panic as if something precious were slipping away.
Ben filled the barrel stove and closed the firebox door. The sound brought James to his feet. His fingers brushed the dark-auburn curls from his forehead. For a minute or two he had lost himself. Dory came in with the teakettle. James lifted one of the two lids on the barrel stove and she set the kettle directly over the flame.
“We need something to make a tent close to the stove.” James looked about the room. “She can lie on the quilt box lid. Get three chairs from the kitchen, Waller. Two to support the board, one for her feet.” Ben didn’t question; he hurried out of the room.
“Oh, James. I’m so glad you’re here.” Dory hugged her brother’s arm.
He looked down and patted her hand. His brows came together in a puzzled frown.
“What did you do to your face?”
“Oh, that.” She covered her swollen jaw with her palm. “I got in a hurry and bumped it on the… door.”
James’s face relaxed. “What do we have that we could spread some blankets over to hold in the steam?”
“The folding bar you bought for me to dry the baby’s napkins when I couldn’t hang them outside. I cover it sometimes and let Jeanmarie play under it.”
“That’s just the ticket. Get it, Sis. I’ll get blankets out of the other rooms.”
Dory paused in the doorway of the kitchen. Ben stood with his hand grasping the back of a chair, his head bent. She went to him and placed her hand on his arm. He looked at her with eyes filled with misery.
“I’ve never even told her how important she is to me.”
“She knows. She loves you very much.”
“I’m all she has. She’s… all I have.” He took a deep breath and lifted the chair.
“James knows what he’s doing.”
“Thank God.”
Odette was wrapped in blankets and laid on the board near the stove. The clothes rack was placed over her and covered on three sides with blankets to hold in the hot, moist air.
“Close the door, Sis. We don’t want a draft.” James turned the teakettle spout, and it sent out a plume of steam toward Odette’s head.
Ben squatted down on his heels beside a small opening and watched as the makeshift tent filled with steam. As he listened to Odette’s labored breathing, he promised himself that when she was better he would tell her how much she meant to him and how glad he was that she was his daughter. He vowed never again to wonder if one of the Callahans had sired her. It no longer mattered.
James roamed restlessly, stopping every so often to add a stick of wood to the stove.
“It’s getting pretty hot in here.” James peeled off a flannel shirt and unbuttoned the four top buttons of his union suit. He eyed his sister’s sweaty face. Wet curls were sticking to her forehead. “You don’t have to stay in here, kinky head,” he said affectionately. “Go make me and Waller some coffee.”
Dory went to Ben and leaned down close to his ear. “Is she breathing any easier?”
“Not yet. But her face and hair are damp from the steam so it must be going to her chest.”
Dory placed her hand on Ben’s shoulder and squeezed it. The action did not go unnoticed by James.
“Is there anything else we can do’?” Dory asked.
“You’ve tried the poultice and the liniment. The only other thing I know is to burn a mixture of turpentine and whiskey in a tin can and hold her over the smoke. They say it will loosen up the stuff clogging her chest. I’ve not seen it tried, but one of the men said that’s what his wife does when one of their young’uns gets choked up.”
“Shall we do that?” Dory asked anxiously.
“Let’s give this a try first.”
After Dory left the room, James sank down on the floor, leaned against the wall and studied Ben Waller. There was a tough, confident look in the man’s face and a vigilance in his alert eyes that looked straight into James’s and refused to let him stare him down. With the trained eye of a lumberman, able to size up another human being almost in an instant, James decided Ben Waller would be a man to ride the river with. He almost smiled. Just the fact that Milo hated his guts was enough to make James like him.
“I heard you had a set-to with Milo.”
“Yeah. News travels fast.”
“He was roarin’ mad when he got back to the mill. Said you jumped him when he wasn’t lookin’.”
Ben shrugged. “He can say what he wants.”
James laughed. “Why’d you hit him?”
“I didn’t like the look on his face.”
James laughed again. “Good enough reason.”
“—And he fired me.”
“He’s fired almost every man we’ve got working for us at one time or the other. Are you goin’ or stayin’?”
“I’d be long gone if Odette wasn’t sick.”
“Can’t stand the heat, huh?”
Ben’s face turned hard. “Can’t stand men who abuse women.”
“Don’t much care for ’em myself.”
Ben looked steadily at the man sitting on the floor. He wanted to tell him that his brothers were meaner than a hungry wolf to his sister and Jeanmarie. But Dory had insisted that James not be told. Hadn’t the fool seen his sister’s face? He gave himself a mental shake. This was a family affair and he’d best stay out of it. Yet questions nagged at his mind. He decided to voice one of them.
“Why do the Callahans hate the Malones?”
James raked his fingers through his hair and wiped the sweat from his upper lip. He thought for a full minute before he answered.
“Our mother was raised in the Malone home along with Chip and Alpha, a girl about Ma’s age. She was the apple of the old man’s eye and when she died, he turned to my mother and doted on her. She was no blood kin to the Malones and he wanted her to marry his son, Chip, but she married my pa instead. That’s why the Malones hate us. Louis and Milo hated our mother because she married their pa. She was considered a Malone, so they hate all Malones. Makes a hell of a lot of sense, doesn’t it?”
“Most feuds start over some little thing that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.”
“Most of the feuding was on the part of Milo and Louis until Mick Malone was found dead in the woods. The Malones had, for the most part, ignored us up to then.”
“They think one of you killed him because he was meeting your sister?”
“It makes sense… if you’re a Malone.” Then James’s eyes fixed unwavering on Ben’s and there was a terrible intensity in his gaze. When he spoke again his voice was abrupt. “Don’t get it in your head that my sister is a slut. It’s rumored around because of Jeanmarie, but no one says it to me or makes an unwanted move toward her, or they’ll get their head blowed off. Understand?”
“Perfectly.”
After that one terse word, Ben looked at James in silence. How could he not know how his brothers talked to and about his sister? Hadn’t he heard her called Whory Dory by the men at the camp?
At that moment a hoarse sound came from Odette and she began to cough. James jumped to his feet and threw back one of the blankets so that he could kneel beside her. He lifted her head and shoulders and leaned her back against his chest.
“It’s working, Waller. Get over there and turn the spout of the teakettle so the steam comes cl
oser to her face. Not too close, it’ll burn her. There, girl, I think you’re going to be able to cough up some of that stuff that’s clogging your lungs.”
Odette’s head, damp from the steam, lolled back against James’s shoulder. With long calloused fingers, he brushed the hair from her cheek. She was so slight, so helpless. The soft curves of the body against his told him she was not a child, but a very desirable woman. A strange protective feeling stirred within him.
Then her stomach began to heave.
“Get the chamber pot, she’s goin’ to vomit.”
Holding her tightly against him, one hand on her stomach, the other on her forehead, James leaned her over the chamber pot. Liquid spewed from her mouth and with it thick slime from her throat.
“It’s the peppermint tea Dory made her drink,” James said, and glanced at Ben.
Odette gagged and spit. She groaned and gagged again.
“That’s good, girl. Spit it out,” James murmured.
Dory hurried into the room, her face anxious. “Is she choking?”
“You filled her so full of that tea she had to vomit.”
Dory knelt down and wiped Odette’s face while Ben stood helplessly by and watched James and Dory work with the young girl who had come to mean so much to him.
“Do you have something dry you can put on her, Sis?” James asked, as he laid Odette back down on the makeshift bed. “We can’t let her get chilled.”
“I’ll get a nightdress. You men can go drink your coffee while I change her gown. Do you think she’ll be all right?” Dory asked anxiously.
James stood and looked down at Odette’s pale oval face. Her thick blond braid had come unraveled and damp strands curled about her ears. Suddenly she opened her eyes and looked directly into his. Her great blue eyes were wide open and staring… at him. There was a strange stillness about her. He didn’t know what to say. Then her eyes drifted shut. He wanted to look into those blue eyes again. He wanted her to see him, really see him. He wanted—
“James,” Dory prodded. “Will she be all right now?”
“I don’t know. I sure as hell hope so. Sit by her, Sis, so she don’t roll off. When we come back up, we’ll put her over in the bed.”
Sins of Summer Page 8