by Kit Morgan
He stared at her and gulped. “I know where Lorcan is.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Adaline said, her jaw tight. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Two pairs of hands grabbed Lorcan by the arms and pulled him to his feet. They’d cut the ropes that bound his ankles, and roughly dragged him out of the stall to who-knows-where. He heard a door open, then felt the cool rush of night air as he was pulled outside. He had no idea where he was, only a guess at the time. He could tell it was well past dusk, knew the scent, but had never focused on it before. He also knew the cool temperature that lingered after the setting of the sun, all of which let him know his three hours were up. It was time to fight, or in the words of Lord Philip Brennan, time to die.
* * *
“What are you doing?” Adaline screeched. “Ride! A man’s life is in danger!” She and Finn had raced back to the Sheriff’s office, and had just caught their breath when the Sheriff came sauntering through the door.
“Now ma’am, we don’t have no proof Mr. Brody was kidnapped. But don’t worry, we’ll check it out.”
“Then get on your horses, and get out to Herbert Walker’s farm!” she said through clenched teeth. “They’re all out there, you’ll see. Hurry, before it’s too late!”
The Sheriff turned to her, a coffee pot in hand, and proceeded to pour himself a cup. “I know of these fights ma’am. I’ve broken up a few over the last year. Trust me, it’s best to go in after dark and surprise the scoundrels.”
She grabbed him by the arm hard enough to send his coffee cup flying. “Don’t you understand? Why would this Brennan kidnap a blind man to fight? He’s going to kill him, I know it!”
The Sheriff looked at her, dumbfounded. His eyes darted to the door, and back again. “Sam, get your horse,” he said to his deputy. “We’re leaving.”
Adaline slumped against the desk. “Thank you.”
The Sheriff nodded. Finn came bursting through the door. “Adaline … I’m ready.”
She looked at him, and nodded. She turned to the Sheriff. “Let’s go.”
“What? You’re not going,” the Sheriff said tersely.
She stepped up to the Sheriff, and got in his face as best she could, which in this case, meant standing on tip-toe. “I am going. That’s my husband out there and you are not going to stop me!”
The Sheriff glanced to his deputy, then to Finn. “Great Scott, she’s sounds just like Mrs. Brody.”
“I am Mrs. Brody! Now lets go!” She stomped toward Finn, grabbing him as she went, and pulled him out the door with her.
The Sheriff and deputy could only stare after her as she mounted a horse, skirts and all, and galloped off, Finn not far behind her.
The deputy put on his hat and whistled. “What a woman …”
* * *
The sound of men’s voices and raucous laughter was muffled by the wood wall separating Lorcan from the ring. He was in a small room, a tack room judging by the heavy smell of leather, and forced to wait. A cheer went up and Lorcan heard footsteps over-head. He glanced up. If he was in a barn, then the hayloft must be above him.
“Bring him out!” a voice shouted.
The door to the tack room opened. Lorcan was yanked to his feet, then roughly pulled from the tiny prison. Wild shouting started the moment the crowd caught sight of him. They’d stripped his shirt off earlier, and removed his boots as well. He stood clothed only in his trousers. Someone cut the rope binding his wrists, and he rubbed them gingerly as the shouts and hollers around him grew louder. He flexed his hands and arms to get the circulation going in them, and the men went wild. He moved his head this way and that, taking in the sounds. Lord, help me out of this …
A gun went off, and the crowd quieted. “Gentlemen, welcome.”
Lorcan seethed at the familiar voice. Brennan …
“Take note of the height, the well formed arms and chest, the powerful jaw …”
Lorcan spun to him, knowing he faced the madman as he raised his head to the hayloft.
“And the swift reflexes …” he added in a bemused tone. “Now, let us meet the Irishman’s opponent.
Everything went silent, and Lorcan sensed the crowd’s anticipation. A door opened, and he could here the shuffle of feet on dirt.
“Unhand me you ruffians!” a man’s voice called.
The crowd burst into laughter. Hoots and jeers surrounded Lorcan, and he wished he could see what the fuss was about.
“Mr. Walker,” Brennan chortled. “Meet your ever-worthy opponent.”
Lorcan heard a man’s squeak of alarm, followed by the sound of feet running past him, only to stop short. The crowd roared with laughter.
“It seems Mr. Brody, that Mr. Walker doesn’t want to fight you,” Brennan drawled. “I think he’s afraid he’s going to lose.”
Walker? Lorcan’s mind raced. Could this be the same fellow who had his eye on Addy? She’d mentioned he’d purchased a farm outside of town …
Lorcan began to put two and two together, and didn’t wonder if he was on that farm right now. He turned in the direction he thought Walker might be, and sure enough, heard a yelp of surprise near him.
“Let’s make the fight even, shall we?” Brennan called.
Lorcan heard an object hit the dirt somewhere between himself and where Walker stood. There was movement, and Walker snatched up whatever it was that got tossed down. Was it a knife, a gun? Probably a knife, it would make the fight last longer.
“Now, Mr. Walker, I thank you for the generous use of your lovely new home, and as I’m a generous man myself, wish to give you your heart’s desire. The hand of the Widow Brody.”
Lorcan’s head snapped to Brennan’s voice, his eyes, narrowed to slits.
“All you have to do,” Brennan continued. “Is turn her into one.”
* * *
“There it is, Walker’s new farm,” Finn said as they reined their horses to a stop. He turned to Adaline and took in her determined face in the moonlight. “Where did ye learn to ride like that?”
“Private lessons,” she said, her eyes intent on the silhouette of a large barn in the distance. Torchlight cast deep shadows around the structure, but it was easy to see the numerous horses and wagons surrounding it. They waited a moment for the Sheriff and others to catch up, and could hear the faint sound of men’s laughter coming from the barn.
“It’s started,” Finn said.
Adaline closed her eyes. “Please Lord! Let him be all right!”
“He will be, I’ll see to it,” Finn told her. He reached over and touched her hand. “I promise.”
The Sheriff, his deputies, and half a dozen men from town, came to a skidding stop next to them. “Doggone it, will ya look at that,” the Sheriff said as he took in the sight of the barn and what surrounded it. “That must be some fight.”
“Aye,” added Finn. “Now let’s put a stop to it before Lorcan gets killed.”
The Sheriff turned to Adaline. “This is as far as you go, Mrs. Brody. No argument. When the shootin’ starts, and I’m sure it will, I don’t want you anywhere near it, ya hear?”
She gripped the reins and nodded.
“Good.” He turned to his men. “Let’s go.”
They kicked their horses into motion and took off. “Finn!” she cried.
He stopped and turned his horse to face her. “Aye?”
She swallowed hard, tears in her eyes. “Bring him back to me, or I swear I’ll …”
“Yeah, I know. Ye’ll kill me!” With that, he spun his horse around and took off to join the others.
* * *
The crowd shouted and jeered, and through the many voices, Lorcan discerned several languages other than English. There were shouts in German, French, and some he didn’t recognize. Where had all these people come from? He’d never heard of a fight attracting so many different men.
Lorcan pushed his curiosity aside as he dodged and lunged, but try as he might, he couldn’t quite get his h
ands on the slippery form of Herbert Walker. They had thrown him a knife, and the little bugger was using it! Lorcan was bleeding, from his back mostly, as Walker was too much of a coward to attack him from the front. Oddly, he could sense him, feel the man’s presence in the air around him. How, he didn’t know, he just did, and hoped his new found ability would keep him alive awhile longer.
Shots rent the air, and Lorcan froze as all thought left him. There was a wild stampede of feet and shouting, then more shots fired. He turned as the sounds around him grew louder, and heard through the many voices, that of of Philip Brennan’s not feet away. “Lissa, get us out of here.”
Lorcan was confused by his words, not to mention the sound of calm in his voice, as hands grabbed him and began to drag him through the chaos. “No!” Lorcan shouted. He wasn’t about to be taken along with Brennan like some prized pig at a fair, and fought against the hands holding him.
“You mule-headed idiot!” a familiar voice shouted in his ear. “Don’t’ ye know I’m trying to rescue yer worthless hide?”
“Finn!”
“Aye, now let me finish the job, or yer wife will kill me!”
Lorcan laughed despite the chaos and danger around them. Men were still shouting, shots were still firing, and Finn was pulling him safely through it all …
* * *
“Lorcan Brody!”
Lorcan’s head shot up at the familiar voice. “Addy!” His slid off the back of Finn’s horse, stumbled in the grass, but still managed to find his wife in the darkness that might forever surround him. “Addy …”
She gripped him with everything she had, then kissed him with a fierceness any man would be jealous of. When she broke the kiss, however, she was furious. “What do you mean by getting yourself kidnapped? Do realize how worried I’ve been?” She said and struck his chest for emphasis.
He grabbed her wrists and held them. “Addy, I’m here now.”
“Lorcan!” she sobbed. “Don’t you ever go and get yourself kidnapped again!”
He smiled at her hysterics. “I don’t plan to.” He pulled her into his arms, and kissed her to settle her down. His world was a dark blur of sound and feeling, and he still wasn’t used to it. What he did notice, was his growing ability to see, yet not see. There were things he just … knew.
He lifted his face from his wife’s. There now, lass. Are you better?”
She looked up at him with her tear-stained face and put a hand to his jaw. “No. But as soon as I am, I’m going to …”
“Kill me? Really, you’ll have to come up with something better than that. After all, that’s Maither’s way of talking.” He took a deep breath. “Why not say, I’m going to kiss you?”
“What?”
“Aye, whenever you’re upset with me, you can say you’re going to kiss me.”
She laughed. “Lorcan Brody, I do love you …”
“But aren’t ye still upset with me?” he asked, his brogue suddenly thick.
“Aye,” she answered.
Mrs. Lorcan Brody then showed her husband, just how upset she was …
Epilogue
Clear Creek, Oregon, Five months later …
“What’s taking them so long? What are they doing up there?” Adeline asked as she paced the small parlor of the doctor’s house.
“Land sakes, child. You’ll walk a hole in my floor, sit down and have some tea.”
Adaline looked at the elderly woman that spoke. Her name was Mrs. Waller, but everyone in town called her Grandma. She was the wife of the town’s aging doctor. But Doc Waller wasn’t the doctor she and Lorcan had traveled all this way to see.
“You’ve seen him do one, haven’t you?” she asked the old woman.
Grandma Waller looked up from her cup. “A miracle you mean?” She set her cup on its saucer, and looked to the hall and the stairway in it. Doctor Bowen Drake along with her husband Doc Waller, had been upstairs in the patient room with Lorcan Brody for several hours. “I might be married to a doctor, but there are some things about doctoring I still don’t know. Doc Drake has had a lot of schooling child. He’s an educated man. There are things he knows about doctoring none of us have ever heard of.”
“But have you seen him do it? They say he’s a miracle worker.” Adaline twisted a corner of her shawl. She’d picked the habit up from her mother-in-law, Mrs. Brody. “Can he help Lorcan see again?”
Grandma Waller looked on her with the utmost compassion. “Ain’t it funny how the good Lord picks who to throw a miracle onto? I’ve seen Him do miracles in all sorts of ways, child. Some big, some small, and through all kinds of folks. But no matter who or where the miracle comes through, it’s still the Lord it comes from.”
Adaline stared at her. “You have seen him do it.”
Grandma took a sip of her tea. “It’s not up to Doc Drake what the Lord does, child.”
Adaline looked to the stairs. The last five months had been grueling for she and Lorcan. Doctors came and went, and on top of all that, strangers came to town looking for him. They questioned Lorcan for hours about the Englishman that kidnapped him, then as suddenly as they came, they left. It was then Mr. Van Cleet suggested they travel back to Clear Creek with them to see if Doc Drake could do anything. He was said to have performed miracles on some of the people in the tiny town.
Adaline sat, her heart heavy. “He’s been through so much. I don’t want him to have to go through any more …”
Grandma Waller set down her cup and smiled. “No matter what happens, you love him don’t you?”
Adaline looked at her, “Aye.”
“Spoken like a true Irishwoman,” a voice said from the hall.
The women looked up. Ian Mulligan stood there, his hat in his hands. “How’s my nephew doing? Any word?”
Adeline shook her head.
“I can bring some sandwiches from the saloon. Or stew if you like. Mrs. Dunnigan just made a batch.”
“Nothing, thank you.” Adaline whispered.
Mr. Mulligan met the eyes of Grandma Waller, and shook his head sadly. “It is what it is lass. He’s either meant to see, or not. It’s not up to us.”
Adaline looked at him, tears in her eyes. “I understand.”
“Mrs. Brody?” a voice called from upstairs.
Adaline jumped to her feet and ran to the hall. “Yes?”
Doc Waller came down and motioned her to go upstairs.
She did, taking two at a time, and rushed into the bedroom where they had her husband. “Lorcan?” she said as she approached the bed. The room’s light was dim, and she didn’t know what to think, if think at all.
“Addy …”
She walked to the end of the bed and looked at him. His eyes were open, and staring straight ahead. “Oh, Lorcan …” She made her way around the bed, her head low. She was glad he was blind to the disappointment on her face. She stopped and closed her eyes against her tears, and then froze, her heart in her throat, as she realized his head was turned in her direction. She relaxed when she figured he must have heard where she was. Yet …
She looked at Doc Drake standing in the doorway, his face calm, then back to Lorcan. As quietly as she could, she began to walk around the bed again.
Lorcan’s eyes tracked her.
Her hands flew to her mouth, and she stifled a sob. She held out a hand, and moved it to the right.
Lorcan’s eyes and body tracked, yet, it was as if he didn’t see.
She moved her hand to the left.
He did it again.
“What’s this?”
“I don’t know,” said Doc Drake. “I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s still blind, yet his intuitive sense is amazing. He … he feels everything.”
“I don’t understand …” she said, her heart still in her throat. “We came here looking for a miracle,” she sobbed. “But he’s still …”
“Addy,” Lorcan whispered. “It’s all right, lass. Don’t cry.”
But she did, and found she could
n’t stop. Lorcan leaned forward, and reached directly for her. Her head shot up at the action, and she took a step back. “I thought you said he was still blind?”
“He is,” said Doc Drake. “All I did was help him focus his intuitive ability, so he can see better, if that makes sense.”
“I don’t understand …”
Doc Drake sighed. “That’s okay, neither do I. In all my days, I’ve not heard or seen anything like it. It’s a miracle, what he’s able to do.”
Adaline started to cry again. “Lorcan … Lorcan Brody you big, mule-headed … leave it to you to get a miracle and it be …”
“Different?” Lorcan finished for her.
“Aye,” she nodded and went to sit next to him on the bed.
“I don’t understand it either, I just know it works. It just … is.”
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“We do what we’ve always done, lass. Live. Work, have babies.”
“We haven’t done that yet …”
“We will.”
She sniffed back her tears. “Where do we go from here?”
“I fancy the hotel business, myself. I think that maybe Maither and Da would like it here.”
“What about Brody’s Books?”
“We’ll move it. Clear Creek could use a bookshop. Besides, have you had Mrs. Dunnigan’s pot roast yet? It’s better than Maither’s, but don’t tell her I said so.”
Addy reached up and brushed his cheek with the back of her hand. “Lorcan Brody, I do love you, and if moving to Clear Creek is what you want, then that’s what we’ll do.”
“Aye, lass. It’s what I want.”
She smiled, and kissed him on the cheek. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Lorcan’s face broke into a grin. “”Ye’ll have two more townsfolk to tend to, Doctor Drake. Better make that four, once I tell my folks.”
“Five,” Addy said softly.
“Five?” Lorcan asked.
Addy took one of his hands, and placed it on her belly. “You heard me, Mr. Brody. Five.”
“Why, Mrs. Brody!” He lifted a hand to her face, and cupped her cheek. “I do love you, Adeline Brody.”