The Drifter

by Susan Wiggs

He grabbed the charm, stared at it for a long time. It was the dove he’d carved for Carrie so long ago. “Lady Caroline,” he said, hope burgeoning in his chest. “So where is she now?”

  “Gone to Texas, last I heard, with Hale Devlin’s gang.”

  Texas. And that had only been the beginning.

  The shattering of glass jarred Jackson out of his reverie. With a curse, he looked at the framed tintype he’d been holding and saw that he’d broken it. An ice-clear web of cracks radiated from the center, distorting the picture of Leah and her father. Her smiling mouth was severed as if by violence; the father’s hand on her shoulder had been detached.

  Painstakingly, Jackson removed the broken glass. The picture went back to normal—Leah, smiling, aglow with pride. Her father cold, distant. The scroll of a paper diploma clutched in her hand.

  An educated woman. But could she save Carrie?

  He shuddered from the memory of what he had found in Texas.

  Could anyone?

  * * *

  Bone weary, bloodied to the elbows and filled with self-doubt, Leah peeled off her patent rubber gloves. She pressed her forehead against the damp wall of the surgery and closed her eyes.

  Nearby, she could hear Sophie’s movements as she placed soiled sheeting and gowns into a pail of carbolic solution, then emptied a large porcelain container into a waste pail.

  “You did your best. I watched you like a hawk on the hunt,” Sophie said. “Those fancy city doctors in Seattle couldn’t have done better.”

  “Try telling that to Mr. Underhill,” Leah whispered. “Oh, God, God.” She forced her eyes open, made herself look at Sophie.

  Her assistant was broad of face; she had wise dark eyes and an air of serenity that governed every move she made, every word she spoke. Half Skagit Indian and half French-Canadian, Sophie had been educated in boarding schools that taught her just enough to convince her that she belonged neither to the white nor the native world, but stood precariously between the two. It was an uncomfortable spot, but Leah, a misfit herself, felt sometimes that they were kindred spirits.

  “It is the great curse of doctors,” Leah said, “that while most people have to die only once, a doctor dies many times over, each time she loses a patient.”

  Sophie pressed her lips into a line, then spoke softly. “But it is the great reward of healers that each time you save a life, you yourself are reborn.” She looked down at the unmoving, pale face of Carrie Underhill. “Yes, you lost the baby. But you also saved Mrs. Underhill from bleeding to death. She’ll live to thank you. Perhaps to bear other children.”

  Leah swallowed the lump in her throat. She knew some babies were never meant to be, especially when the mother suffered such precarious health. There was something puzzling about Carrie Underhill’s condition, something besides the pregnancy. A chronic complaint, perhaps. But what?

  Did she drink calomel? Leah wondered. The purgative was still a popular folk remedy; it had been her father’s favorite prescription. This was the sort of thing he caused, she thought resentfully. She intended to keep Carrie under close observation.

  The task at hand was more pressing, though. She had to face this woman’s husband. The baby’s father.

  With a leaden heart, she helped Sophie finish clearing up. After Carrie was clad in a clean gown and lying on clean draperies, Leah went to the door and opened it. “Mr. Underhill?”

  His head snapped around as if someone had punched him in the jaw. Weariness deepened the fan lines around his eyes and mouth, yet a beard stubble softened the effect; he appeared deceptively vulnerable. “Is she all right?”

  Leah nodded. “She’s sleeping, but will probably awaken within the next hour.”

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Good,” he said between his teeth. “Damn, that’s...good.” He opened his eyes. “Jesus. I feel like I just got dealt four aces.”

  Leah cleared her throat. “She might suffer a headache, possibly vomiting, from the ether. You must watch her closely in case the bleeding starts again, but I don’t think it will.” She forced an encouraging smile. Something tender and desperate lived in Jackson Underhill’s haggard face. She wished she knew him well enough to take his hand, to hold it tight for a moment. Instead, she said, “I believe your wife will be fine. She needs plenty of bed rest and good food, and we’ll see to that.”

  “Yes. All right.” His eyes closed again briefly. His knees wobbled.

  “Sit down, Mr. Underhill. I can’t handle two patients tonight.”

  He lowered himself to the wing chair and cradled his head in his hands, fingers splaying into his thick golden hair. “Didn’t know I was wound up so tight.” He glanced up at her. She felt an inner twist of compassion at the turbulence in his eyes. Those gunslinger eyes. The first time she had looked into them, she had nearly fainted from fright. Now she felt a chilly reluctance to tell him the rest.

  “Thanks, Doc,” he said to her.

  She nodded, holding the edge of the door, waiting. Waiting. Waiting for him to ask about the baby. He didn’t. He didn’t even seem to acknowledge its existence. She swallowed hard. “Mr. Underhill?”

  “Yeah?”

  She took a deep breath, sensing the harshness of carbolic and ammonia in her lungs. “I’m afraid I couldn’t save the baby.”

  “The baby.” His soft voice held no expression, no hint of what he was feeling.

  “I’m sorry. So terribly, terribly sorry.”

  He stared at her for a long time, so long she wasn’t certain he’d heard and understood. Then at last he spoke. “You did your best, I reckon.”

  In her travels with her father, she’d met her share of gamblers and gunslingers. They were men without souls, men who killed in the blink of an eye. Jackson T. Underhill was one of them. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how badly she’d wanted him to be different—better, more worthy, more compassionate. But his attitude about the baby proved her wrong.

  “I did my best, yes,” she said. “But like every physician, I have my limits. Some things just weren’t meant to be.” She decided not to tell him her concerns about Carrie. Not now, at least.

  “I see.” He steepled the tips of his fingers together.

  Mr. Underhill, you lost a child today. She didn’t say the words, but she wondered why he didn’t react more strongly. Perhaps his way of coping was to deny the baby had ever existed. After all, he’d only known about it for a day.

  “What about the tonic your wife’s been taking?” Leah asked. “I really must know its contents.”

  “Yeah, I’ll give you the bottle. It’s some patented medicine. Helps her relax. She’s always been...a nervous sort.”

  “I’ll write off to the manufacturer and inquire about the contents.” Based on the substances she’d seen her father dispense, she was not optimistic. A lot of the patented remedies contained calomel purgatives and worse. She tried to smile encouragingly. “After the recovery, there’s no reason you and your wife can’t have more children.”

  “There won’t be more children.” He slashed the air with his hand and lurched to his feet, the motion at once violent and desperate. “She almost died this time.”

  Leah had heard the same words from other frightened husbands. The vow rarely lasted, though. Once the woman was up and about again, their husbands generally forgot the terror of the miscarriage. Still, she smiled gently and said, “Make no decisions now, Mr. Underhill. Everyone’s tired, and your wife has a long recovery ahead of her. You have plenty of time to think of the future.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What’s that mean? A long recovery.”

  “Weeks, at the very least. She’s lost a lot of blood, and she was underweight and anemic to begin with.”

  “I can’t wait that long.”

  Anger hardened inside Leah. “Then you’re ta
king a terrible risk with your wife’s health, sir,” she snapped. “Now, can you help bring her to her bed?”

  “Doc.” His voice was flat, neutral. “Dr. Mundy.”

  “Yes?”

  “I wish you’d quit looking at me like that.”

  “How am I looking at you, sir?”

  “Like I was a snake under a rock.”

  “If you see things from the perspective of a snake, that is your fault, not mine.”

  He muttered beneath his breath, something she didn’t even want to hear, but he cooperated, helping her with Carrie.

  “Will you stay, then?” Leah asked as they carefully tucked Carrie into bed. “No matter how long her recuperation takes?”

  Jackson T. Underhill dragged his hand down his face in a gesture she was coming to recognize as his response to frustration. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Yeah, I’ll stay.”

  * * *

  Like a morning mist, a rare, dreamy wistfulness enveloped Leah as she made her way back from the Winfield place. She had driven herself in the buggy since the weather was fine and the vehicle unlikely to get mired. Ordinarily, Mr. Douglas from the boardinghouse did the driving. But he was getting on in years, and she tried not to drag him out of bed too early.

  Her father had insisted on a driver, claiming it bolstered his image of importance. The thought of her father took Leah back in time. She was nine years old again, done up in ribbons and bows, seated stiffly in the parlor of their Philadelphia house while he drilled her on her sums. Even now, she could recall the scent of wood polish, could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. Could see the chilly glare of her father growing colder when she stumbled over a number.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” she’d said, her voice meek. “I’ll study harder. I’ll do better next time.”

  And she did do better the next time. She perfected everything he demanded of her, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Edward Mundy had done a splendid job of convincing his daughter that no matter how hard she studied, no matter how hard she tried, she would never please him.

  He’d wanted her to be a doctor, yes, because he had no son to carry on in the profession. But he’d also expected her to marry, and marry well. There had been an endless parade of suitors arranged by her father, but they never stayed. The men she met had no idea what to do with a woman like her. They wanted someone who laughed and danced and gossiped, not someone who studied anatomy and voiced opinions that raised eyebrows.

  Lulled by the creaking rhythm of the buggy wheels, Leah thrust aside the dark memories. Her father was gone. The past was gone. It was up to her to keep it at bay.

  She watched the roadway unfold between the horse’s brown ears and thought about the Winfields. The birth had been an easy one; the baby had emerged healthy and whole into her eager, waiting hands. She would never tire of the warm, slippery feel of newborn flesh. The look of wonder from the father, the triumphant tears of the mother. But most of all, she loved the first gasp of breath as the baby inhaled, the lusty cry that said, “Here I am, world, alive and hale,” followed by the glorious rush of crimson as the child took on the flush of life.

  Each time you save a life, Sophie had told her, you yourself are reborn.

  On spring mornings like this, a week after Mrs. Underhill’s miscarriage, Leah could believe it. She had been called from her bed at five to attend Mrs. Winfield. Just two hours later, the baby had made his appearance, and Mr. Winfield, overjoyed, had paid Leah—immediately and well, a rare surprise since most of her patients tended to procrastinate when it came to settling fees.

  So with pride in delivering Coupeville’s newest citizen and carrying a gold double eagle in the pocket of her smock, Leah was in excellent spirits.

  She practiced the most glorious profession of all, that of healing, saving lives, relieving suffering. She had been an exemplary student, studying harder than her male counterparts, performing better than her father’s expectations for her, and in the end knowing the triumph of succeeding against all odds.

  Yet inevitably as always, a shadow crept in on her, dimming her elation. Because even as she stood holding a newborn, the time always came for her to surrender the child to its mother. To watch the father gather them both in his arms while a glow of radiance surrounded them.

  Some might claim the notion pure fancy, but Leah had seen that glow again and again. She wondered if she was the only one who recognized the magic, who realized what love and family could do. They could transform a plain woman into a vision of loveliness, could light the dark corners of the meanest lean-to hovel.

  Perhaps it was her fate to be an observer, but dear God, there were times when she yearned to experience that joy for herself. Love and family. At quiet moments like this, with the clopping of hooves punctuating the silence, she could feel the fear growing inside her. It was like a fistula, a cancer. It was the horror that she would never know that kind of love. That she would grow old alone and lonely.

  She released a pent-up sigh and turned the buggy down Main Street, clucking to the horse. The mare picked up her pace, but with a reluctant blowing of her lips.

  Lined with shops and churches, the gravel road cleaved the hilly town in two and descended to the waterfront. Across the Sound, the rising sun burst with a dazzle over the jagged white teeth of the distant Cascade mountain range.

  Some activity at the harbor caught her eye, mercifully distracting her from her thoughts. Peering through the light layers of mist, she saw Davy Morgan, the harbormaster’s apprentice, come out of the small, low office at the head of Ebey’s Landing. The youth stretched as he yawned to greet the day. The first rays of sunshine shot through his vivid red hair.

  Davy shaded his eyes in the direction of the dock where Jackson Underhill’s schooner bobbed at its moorage. The disabled rudder hung askew like a broken arm.

  An unpleasant wave of guilt swept through Leah. The steerage was damaged because of her, and apparently repairing it was quite a task. Though it was none of her business, she knew Mr. Underhill had been sleeping on the boat rather than at the boardinghouse with Carrie. Perhaps he’d taken his vow to avoid having more children very seriously.

  Seized by a perverse curiosity, she went to check out the boat, pulling up the buggy at the end of the dock.

  “Morning, Miss Mundy.” Davy Morgan bobbed his bright red head in greeting.

  She nodded back. Like most people, Davy neglected to address her by the title “Doctor,” but in his case, there was no malice intended. Yet when his employer, Bob Rapsilver, stepped out of the office, Leah’s defenses shot up like a shield.

  The harbormaster made no secret of his dislike for her, ever since she’d advised him that the liver ailment he was always complaining about would abate once he gave up his daily pint of whiskey. Instead of giving up drink, however, he’d turned on her, openly questioning her morals, her intentions and her skill to anyone who would listen.

  “Mr. Rapsilver,” she said with cool politeness.

  “Miss Mundy.” He lifted a battered sailor’s cap. “You’re out and about bright and early today.”

  “The Winfields had a fine, healthy son this morning.”

  “Ah. Midwifing is a proper business.” He checked his pocket watch with a bored air. “Good to hear you weren’t out trying to do a man’s job.”

  “I never try to do a man’s job,” she countered. “I do better.”

  Davy snickered. Rapsilver pointed with a meaty hand. “Boy, weren’t you supposed to be testing the steam engine on Armstrong’s La Tache?”

  “Already done, sir,” Davy said. “And it’s not safe. Almost burned my hand off trying to shut it down.”

  “Are you all right?” Leah asked, concerned.

  Davy nodded. “Yes, thank you, ma’am. But Mr. Armstrong’s not going to be too happy about his engine
.”

  “Be careful, then.” She jumped down, buggy springs squawking, and wound the reins around a cleat on the dock. She frowned at the rusty noise of the decrepit buggy. Another task to see to. Another problem to solve. Some days she felt like Sisyphus rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll down again before reaching the summit.

  Not today, she thought determinedly. She had brought a new life into the world and there were no other calls to make. She wouldn’t let worries drag her spirits down.

  Lifting the hem of her skirts away from the damp planks, she walked to the end of the dock and peered at the schooner. It looked to be perhaps sixty feet in length. Its once-sleek hull had dulled, the paint peeling. Jackson had told her the boat was called the Teatime. Some long-ago optimist had painted the name on a fancy scrollwork escutcheon affixed to the stern. Now all that remained were the letters eat me.

  Leah walked down the length of the boat. Even in its state of disrepair, the schooner had the classic stately lines of a swift blue-water vessel. Seeing it all broken and peeling made her a little sad, reminding her of a favored patient succumbing to the rigors of old age.

  She wondered who had commissioned the ship. Had it called at exotic ports in distant lands? And how had it wound up in the possession of Jackson T. Underhill? What sort of man was he anyway? Where were he and his strange, beautiful wife going in such a hurry? North to Canada, she guessed, maybe to lose themselves in the wilderness.

  The fact was, they were already lost. She could see that clearly. She wondered if they knew.

  She hesitated on the dock. She did need to speak with Mr. Underhill. Her patient was agitated. She knew no easy way to tell him what Carrie said during her lucid moments. Perhaps she could ease into it.

  There was a danger, too, of being alone with him. He was, after all, a man who had tried to abduct her. The harbormaster would be of little help if Jackson attacked her. But why would he? He needed her. From the first moment, even holding a gun to her head, he’d needed her.

  Steadying herself by grasping a ratline, she stepped onto the boat. A gentle listing motion welcomed her. Moving across the cockpit, she went up a small ladder to the midships. The deck glittered with glass prisms set into the planks to provide daylight for the rooms below. In the middle of the deck was a skylight hatch angled open to the morning.