The Jewel: The Malloy Family, Book 11

by Beth Williamson

  “I don’t remember the beating. Or getting shot.” That last part, at least, was the truth.

  “I have heard from my mother that occasionally wounds to the head cause memory loss. Do you remember who hurt you?” Her tone was full of concern and sympathy.

  He was a cad of the highest order. A fraud and a liar who deserved to rot in hell. She was an angel of mercy who didn’t deserve such a man in her care. But to his shame, he would accept what she offered because he had no other choice.

  “Vaguely. It was four men. The rest is a blur of pain.” He sounded as pitiful as he felt.

  “I’m so sorry, Mason.” She sat back and had an expression of such sorrow, it pinched his heart.

  “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, angel. You and your sister were my saviors.” He managed a crooked smile, although he was fairly certain he had lost at least two teeth, chipped another three, and his jaw was slightly off-center. One of his eyes was swollen shut and his nose clogged with what he was certain was blood and snot.

  And that was just the top of his battered body. The rest of him bore marks on almost every inch of flesh. The men were thorough, no doubt about that.

  “Is anything broken?” He wasn’t sure considering how much pain he was in.

  “Not that I can find. Your hands are swollen, though, as if someone stepped on them repeatedly.” She peered at his hands. “There are many bones in the hand. Something might be broken that’s hidden by all the inflammation.”

  It was unbelievable that he had nothing broken except perhaps fingers. Perhaps his bones were healthier than he thought. Unless bourbon caused bone strengthening, it definitely was not his lifestyle that saved him from fractures.

  “I don’t suppose you have anything for pain?” He didn’t care what she had, only that the agony was starting to overwhelm him.

  “I have some laudanum that belonged to my mother. She cautioned against using it, though. The effects can be addictive.” Isabelle was far too serious for such an attractive woman.

  “I am willing to take that chance. I cannot begin to explain to you how much pain I am experiencing.” He wanted a stiff shot of bourbon, speaking of his favorite drink, but despaired there wasn’t a drop of liquor on the Chastain wagon.

  “Why don’t you sleep a bit and then we can decide about the laudanum?” She started to rise, and he reached for her arm.

  Intense pain ripped up his arm to his shoulder. He thought he might have screamed, but it sounded more like a roar. Black dots sparkled in front of his eyes. Isabelle’s voice broke through the red haze he struggled against.

  “Mason, stop thrashing. I will give you the laudanum.” She jumped to her feet and fiddled on the other side of the wagon.

  Tears stung his eyes and he managed not to sob, but it was a near thing. He had never considered himself to be a weak man, but he’d also never been in this position before. No one dared to even poke a finger in his chest, such was the life of the son of a rich, powerful man. Of course, his circumstances had changed dramatically. His father wouldn’t have recognized him. Hell, no one would.

  He was a shadow of the man he used to be.

  Isabelle was back within moments. She held the tin cup to his lips and he drank the bitter concoction. She wiped his brow and held his hand until darkness finally closed in and the pain ceased to control him.

  Chapter Four

  Isabelle wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. The very unladylike motion would have horrified her friends back in Brooklyn. Out here, it was necessary. Ladies didn’t have handkerchiefs lying around, nor did they hide their perspiration. Life was hard and a lady became a woman. There was definitely a difference between the two.

  “I didn’t know you could swing an axe like that, Iz. Holy hell!” Charlie set up the next piece of wood.

  Somehow, between the two of them, they’d managed to cut down a small, nearly dead tree. The wood was dry and would burn well. They knew the value of good firewood, having picked up too much dried animal feces to burn while moving west. Her hands hurt, still healing after the blisters from the shovel. That was a memory she didn’t want to take out and examine just yet. The pain was still too fresh.

  The steady thwack of the axe was a solid sound. Satisfaction raced through her. She might have been considered a flighty girl in Brooklyn, but she was far from that person now. Survival had pushed her to learn and do things she might never have considered before. Now she couldn’t imagine not knowing how to build a fire, wash herself with only a bucket of water or burn dried buffalo droppings.

  Isabelle liked being self-sufficient and capable. It gave her a surge of self-confidence each time she mastered a skill, no matter how many times she might have failed before she succeeded. The first attempt at using an axe was one such occasion. She was lucky to still have all her toes intact.

  “Are you gonna chop all of it?” Charlie stacked the wood beneath the wagon in a pattern she’d learned from the wagon master. It allowed air to pass through and discouraged snakes from curling up inside, at least as much as they could. They all learned to check for the critters before taking a piece of wood from the pile.

  “Might as well. It’s good, dry wood.” Isabelle wiped her forehead again. Her hands sweated inside the gloves, aggravating the healing blisters, but she persisted. There was no other choice. There simply was no one to do the work except for the two of them. Their decision might have appeared insane to Mr. Avery or any of the pioneers, but she and Charlie did what was right for them.

  And she couldn’t forget if they hadn’t turned around to return for Jo, they wouldn’t have found Mr. Bennett—Mason. He might have died or been attacked by predators last night. Isabelle wasn’t one to be dramatic, but she did believe things happened for a reason.

  Now all she had to do was convince him to travel with them until they reached their destination. If he was returning to North Carolina, then it was a mutually beneficial situation. However, what she needed to do first was finish looking through Maman’s medical texts about blood in urine. Her eyes had gotten tired, so she’d decided to cut wood to reenergize herself.

  “Miss Chastain?” he called from within the wagon.

  “I’ll go!” Charlie scrambled up into the wagon, showing her pantalettes to Isabelle as she went.

  Isabelle shook her head with a grin, glad to see her sister hadn’t changed. The low murmur of conversation drifted toward her, but she focused on the wood. The here and now. They all needed her to be focused and determined. Some people might have called her a ninny or consider her vapid, but that was far from the truth. She might like girlish trappings, but she worked for them. Her beautiful yellow parasol was one such item. Isabelle had tutored several students in music and saved her money to purchase it, while giving her family half her earnings.

  She could be as self-sufficient and smart as her sisters. People had to see past the trappings of a pretty girl who liked pretty things. Isabelle had learned the hard way to not judge a book by its cover.

  “Iz?” Charlie stuck her head out the back of the wagon, her face flushed.

  Isabelle set the axe down beside the stump. “What is it?”

  “He, ah, won’t tell me, but he says you’ll understand that he needs the jar.” Her expression told Isabelle the younger girl knew what the man wanted the jar for.

  “Of course. I’ll take care of it. Please finish stacking what I’ve cut. We’ll have dinner soon.” Their meals were rather plain but filling. Today’s selection would be leftover pan biscuits, a bit of dried beef and a tin of peaches.

  Isabelle climbed into the wagon, again struck by how much Mason’s presence changed things. She supposed it was for the better. The ghosts of their parents might have floated around them, choking them with grief. Instead they had to focus on their patient, a man who needed their attention and care.

  She knelt beside him, struck by how
pale he was. Dread coiled deep in her belly. “Mason?”

  “I’m afraid I have to piss again, Isabelle.” His speech was slurred.

  “Of course.” She reached for the jar she’d tucked behind the crates separating the two sides of the wagon.

  “I’m hot. As-if-I-were-boiling-in-the-depths-of-hell hot.” He flopped one arm up, then gasped and dropped it back down. “I was going to check my forehead for a fever, but my arm doesn’t appear to be working.”

  “It’s a little stifling in here. Perhaps we need to remove some coverings to cool you down.” She didn’t want to believe he had a fever. That would mean an infection had set in and Isabelle had little experience in caring for people with a fever.

  “Yeshhh, please.” He lay passive while she helped him with his trousers. His urine was barely a stream and she worried the blood was the cause of the heat and the urge to piss.

  There was so much she didn’t know. Her throat grew tight and she took a deep breath. Her mother would not give up even if she didn’t know what to do. Isabelle wouldn’t either. There were books of knowledge to help her and there was also good common sense.

  “Mason, can you hear me?”

  “Hm?” He struggled to open his eyes. “You are an angel.”

  She huffed out an impatient breath. “I wish you would stop calling me that. Listen to me, Mason, you are sick. Something is wrong and I need you to try to stay awake.”

  His eye rolled to hers. “Sick?”

  “Yes, you have blood in your urine.”

  “That cannot possibly be good.”

  “No, I don’t suspect it is.” She held a cup of water to his lips. “You must drink. Then I’m going to find out what the cause might be.”

  He dutifully sipped water. “How will you find out?” His brown eyes were glassy.

  “I’m going to read my mother’s medical books.” She set the cup down. “Don’t leave. I’ll be right back.”

  He snorted. “I’ll have to cancel my afternoon appointments.”

  Isabelle didn’t want to laugh, but she did anyway. “You are different, Mason. I find I like you.”

  “Beautiful laugh.” He sighed.

  She shook her head and climbed over the crates with the lantern in hand. In moments, she took her mother’s oft-used medical tome. The binding was soft from wear, the pages dog-eared with notations in the margins in Maman’s handwriting. It was like holding her mother’s hand, and the sensation nearly took Isabelle’s breath away.

  “Isabelle?” Mason’s voice floated over the top of the crates.

  “Coming.” She swiped away a stray tear and hugged the book to her chest. How she wished her older sisters were there.

  She made her way back over the crates with the book in one hand and the lantern in the other. “I started this earlier, but it appears I need to hurry up and find out what’s wrong.”

  She settled in and started reading again. Mason watched her, blinking slowly and sweating profusely. She focused on the words on the page, absorbing and searching.

  “Aha! It appears you likely suffered injuries to your kidneys when you were beaten. Generally blood in the urine is a symptom of that injury, not as bad as I feared it would be.” She read further. “There is no treatment, but we should keep you well hydrated.” She set the book down and picked up the cup of water. “Now drink.”

  Mason gave her a small smile. “You are a genius.”

  Isabelle’s cheeks heated. “Not quite, but I am pleased it’s likely nothing serious. You have enough injuries to contend with.” She hoped the heat he felt was from the cloying atmosphere in the wagon and not from an infection.

  “Perhaps tomorrow I shall be able to piss on my own. That would be quite a feat considering I can hardly lift my arms.” His voice was less slurred but still soft around the edges.

  “Your body needs time to heal. Everything will be better with time.” She didn’t know if she were speaking to herself or Mason. Her mother had always told them to be patient and wait for good things to happen. Well, bad things had happened instead. Isabelle clung to a shred of hope her mother had been right.

  “Iz? Are you all right?” Charlotte climbed into the wagon. “You’ve been in here for a damn long time.”

  “I was reading to determine Mr. Bennett’s malady and its treatment.” Isabelle didn’t feel comfortable calling him by his first name in front of her sister. Ridiculous as it sounded, she was embarrassed.

  “You sound like Jo.” Charlie wrinkled her nose. “Did you find out what it was?”

  “I believe so.” Isabelle glanced at Mason, quiet and watchful. “We need to make sure he drinks plenty of water.”

  “What if we run out?”

  Isabelle stared at her sister. “We have yet to run out of fresh water.”

  Charlie shrugged. “It could happen.”

  “There is always rainwater that we can collect.” Isabelle frowned. “Is there a reason you came in here?”

  “I’m tired of sitting around. We need to get moving or we’ll never get to Jo.” Charlie folded her arms.

  The last thing Isabelle needed was her younger sister to start acting like a brat. “We have to wait until tomorrow to determine if we’re ready. Mr. Bennett is not well enough to travel.”

  “He’s not our family.” Charlie narrowed her gaze. “We are supposed to be bringing our family back together.”

  “We will. You need to remember what Maman and Papa would have expected us to do.”

  “I am!” Charlie’s face flushed red. “They would have wanted us to leave now!”

  “I’m sorry, little one.” Mason looked at them with sadness etched into his features. “I truly am.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for.” Isabelle ushered her sputtering sister outside. She marched twenty feet away and crossed her arms. “Now, tell me what this is about.”

  Charlie threw her arms in the air. “I don’t know. It just feels like he’s stopped us from moving. If we keep moving then the bad stuff can’t catch us.”

  Isabelle’s heart pinched. “Oh, honey, there will be bad stuff in our lives no matter how fast we run. All we can do is stay strong and wait until it passes.” She wanted to pull Charlie into a hug but doubted the young girl was ready

  “Besides, Jo is all alone and—”

  “She’s not alone. Mr. Callahan is with her, remember?”

  Charlie scowled. “He’s a kidnapper. I don’t trust him.”

  Isabelle didn’t know what to say. Her normally sweet but rough sister had turned into someone she didn’t recognize. “What’s bothering you?”

  “Nothing. I’m just tired of the world squatting to take a shit on our family. Sick of it!” Charlie was shrieking, her face flushed an alarming shade of pink. “I want to go home!”

  She turned and ran, tearing cross the terrain with her arms pumping and sobs echoing. Isabelle’s heart clenched so hard, she gasped against the pain. This year had been so very hard for all of them. Poor Charlie was still a young girl, not a woman but not a child.

  Isabelle was not prepared to be a mother, and that was who her sister needed. She had no idea how to fix things without causing more pain. This was a moment where she needed Maman more than ever. She knew her sister would be back, so she told herself to let the young woman work off some anger.

  For now, Isabelle would concentrate on chores and getting Mr. Bennett well. They had to leave tomorrow or risk further delays because the weather was turning colder. She heard Mr. Avery’s warnings over and over again about keeping to a schedule. While the Chastains no longer had a schedule, they needed to be someplace safe and warm, preferably with Jo and Frankie.

  She peered into the wagon to check on Mr. Bennett. “Mason?”

  A grunt sounded from within.

  She climbed in, concerned. He had been slurring his speech an
d complaining of being hot. He lay still beneath the quilt. She kneeled beside him and felt his forehead. While he was sweat-soaked, he wasn’t feverish. She let out a breath and peered closer. His eyes were barely open in the half light.

  “Angel.”

  “I refuse to answer to that name.” She smiled as she admonished him. “You may call me Isabelle.”

  “Not Iz?”

  She chuffed a laugh. “That’s for my little sister to use.”

  “Belle.”

  Her heart tripped. “Belle?”

  “It means beautiful, yes? You are beautiful inside and out.” He sighed as disappointment pinched at her. What he saw was what all men saw. They didn’t look beyond it. She had hoped, for a little while, that he was different.

  “You need to drink more water.” She picked up the cup and reached for him.

  He reached out and touched her wrist with a trembling hand. “I’ve said something wrong.”

  “No.” She held the cup to his lips. “It’s been a trying week.”

  He sipped at the water but didn’t let her arm loose. “It’s more than that.”

  “Are you a soothsayer now?” She pushed the cup at him again, not willing to discuss her beauty any further.

  “Your sister is angry. About me.”

  Isabelle shrugged. “She’s fifteen. Her moods are mercurial on a good day.”

  He watched her with his one open eye, as though he could see through her words to the less than confident self buried beneath. Isabelle didn’t know what she was doing and she was very afraid she would make irreparable damage with her foolish mistakes.

  “You’ve had a recent loss.” His voice was rusty and his hands shook but he wasn’t giving up.

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a pest?” She frowned.