by BJ Hoff
Fully alert now, he put a warning hand to Sheridan’s arm. “What’s this?” he said, his voice low. “Have a care.”
He felt the muscles tense in Sheridan’s forearm, heard him click his tongue to speed up the horse. They were almost upon the figure when Jack saw an arm come up, pistol in hand.
Sheridan had seen it, too. As if by signal, he rose to a crouch, snapping the reins.
The dark figure stepped out into the street, and Jack saw that the gun was trained directly on him.
In that instant, Sheridan thrust himself almost directly in front of Jack with a shout. “Watch yourself, sir!”
Stunned, Jack still had the presence of mind to grasp the boy and try to shove him away. But it was too late.
Everything exploded in a rush. Sheridan took the first shot in his right shoulder, the next in his chest. He gave only a soft gasp, then pitched forward.
The mare squealed, and the carriage shot forward with a clatter. Jack caught the reins with his left hand, flinging out his other arm to block Sheridan’s fall. The carriage bumped and skidded, and for a second Jack lost his balance. He righted himself, hauling hard on the reins with both hands as the carriage hurtled into the night.
When he looked back over his shoulder, the gunman was gone—just as Jack had known he would be.
He choked down his own swell of fear as he fought to rein in the panicked mare. Finally, with Sheridan slumped silently beside him, he managed to bring the horse under control and stop the carriage.
Samantha scrambled out the door, practically falling into Jack’s arms. He caught her, holding her fast.
“What happened?” She searched his face, going weak with relief when she saw that he was unharmed. “Jack?”
“I’m all right. But Sheridan’s hurt.”
Samantha tried to twist free, to go to Cavan, but Jack held her. “Get back in the carriage, Samantha. You don’t want to see this.”
She stared up at him. His face was shadowed, but she could see the rigid set of his features, the hard, angry line of his mouth.
“He’s been shot, Samantha. He’s bad. We need to get him to the hospital just as quickly as possible.”
“Shot?” Samantha felt dazed. She couldn’t think, couldn’t even get her breath for a moment. “Why would anyone shoot Cavan?”
Jack looked at her. “The young fool threw himself in front of me,” he said flatly.
Samantha’s legs threatened to buckle.
“The bullets were meant for me,” Jack said, his voice flat. “More than likely, Sheridan saved my life.”
Weakness seeped through Samantha. “Is he…?”
“He’s alive.” Jack’s voice was hard, his eyes harder.
Samantha tried to push past him. “Let me see if I can help—”
“Samantha—there’s no time. No time.”
Samantha saw reflected in his eyes the same dread that was coursing through her. She no longer hesitated, but simply nodded and let him help her back into the carriage.
They were a long way from Bellevue, but Jack was set on getting the best of care for Sheridan. He raced the carriage through the night as if the legions of darkness were at his back. From time to time, he glanced over at the still form beside him to make sure the breath hadn’t left the boy’s body. Once or twice he touched him, but there was no response. And all the while, the rain continued to pour down on them without mercy.
When they finally pulled up to the entrance of Bellevue, Sheridan was still alive, but only barely, Jack suspected. Jack started shouting for help even as he leaped from the carriage and flung the hospital doors open.
By the time he returned, with two attendants and a stretcher in tow, Samantha had climbed up onto the driver’s seat and was holding the still-unconscious Sheridan’s hand, watching him.
She was bent low over him, as if to shield him from the rain with her body. Her lips were moving, and Jack knew that she was praying.
More than two hours passed before someone finally came to talk with them in the waiting room. Other than making frequent trips to the front desk to inquire, Jack and Samantha spent most of the time sitting on uncomfortable wooden chairs, side by side, mostly in silence.
Even after Jack finally managed to put down the worst of his murderous rage, his thoughts remained stormy. He forced himself not to jump to conclusions about the shooting. More than likely, the assailant had been only a hired gun. The only thing he could be certain of at this point was that the bullets had been meant for him, not Cavan Sheridan.
He knew he had enemies, knew some of them by name. But doubtless there were others who despised him in secret and harbored no end of malice toward him. Whoever was behind this, Jack vowed he would find him and make him pay.
He had already talked with the police, but tomorrow, as soon as he had the chance, he would have Avery Foxworth set his best investigator to the case. He considered offering a sizable reward but was reluctant to advertise the fact that someone had tried to shoot him; there was no telling how many additional cranks that kind of sensationalism might bring out of the woodwork. Still, if that was what it would take to find the snake behind this, that was what he would do.
His thoughts swung back to Sheridan. He still couldn’t take in the enormity of what the boy had done. To risk his own life—Jack refused to think that by now Sheridan might have actually given up his life—what in the world had possessed him?
An unexpected chill trailed down his spine as he recalled something Sheridan had said during their first meeting, the day Jack had interviewed him for the driver’s job. After assuring Jack that he was strong and “did well with the horses,” the boy had gone on to remark that he would be “good to have around in the event of trouble.”
Jack remembered his comeback, that he wasn’t looking to hire a bodyguard. He couldn’t possibly have known then that the lanky, awkward youth with the hungry eyes would end up saving his life.
Again, he puzzled over why.
Just then, a doctor entered the waiting room. Jack shot to his feet, bracing himself for what they might be about to hear.
Samantha remained seated, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. The doctor was young, too thin, and had deep shadows under his eyes. A shock of light hair fell over one eye, and his examining coat was soiled in several places.
Samantha thought he looked exceedingly weary. But his eyes held both intelligence and compassion, and she felt reassured that his expression didn’t appear too terribly grim.
The physician glanced from her to Jack, saying, “You’re Mr. Sheridan’s family?”
Jack looked at Samantha, and after only a slight hesitation, he replied, “Yes. We’re the only family he has here in New York.”
The doctor nodded. “I’m sure you’re anxious about him. I wish I had better news for you, but I’m afraid his condition is very serious.”
“But he’s going to live?” Jack prompted. His hands were knotted into tight fists at his sides. His eyes still held a trace of the same anger Samantha had seen after the shooting.
The doctor took off his glasses and slipped them into the pocket of his examining coat. “I can’t say just yet. The wound to his shoulder is bad enough, of course, but my main concern is the chest wound. We were able to get the bullets out, but he’s lost a dangerous amount of blood.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry. It’s going to be a while before we know.”
“How long?” Jack said tightly.
The doctor shrugged, but it wasn’t a careless gesture, merely an indication of his uncertainty. “Perhaps in a few hours, though it might be longer. I’m going to have him watched very closely, you can be sure.”
He looked at Samantha, then Jack. “Why don’t you and your wife go on home and get some rest? There’s nothing you can do here.”
Samantha felt her face grow warm when Jack did nothing to correct the doctor’s assumption.
“We’ll see,” Jack said shortly.
After the doctor left the room, Jack sat down be
side her. “I’m going to stay,” he said. “But if you’d rather not, I’ll see that you get home.”
Samantha shook her head. “No, I’ll wait with you. I couldn’t possibly rest, not knowing.”
Jack nodded and put a hand to her arm. “Why don’t we move over there, then?” he said, gesturing across the room to a wooden bench with two thin, worn cushions. “That looks a bit more comfortable than these chairs, and I expect it’s going to be a long night.”
42
A PLACE FOR MEMORIES,
A TIME FOR SECRETS
For back to the Past, though the thought brings woe,
My memory ever glides.
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
The sounds of the hospital in the middle of the night were achingly familiar to Jack. Footsteps in the corridor, sometimes rushing, sometimes subdued. Doctors and attendants speaking in hushed voices. A chilling cry from somewhere down the hall. The jarring clatter of utensils. Someone shouting. Someone weeping.
The memories came driving in on him with a vengeance. He had thought those nights he’d spent here with Martha had finally been relegated to a place of bad dreams—not quite forgotten, but no longer real enough to torment him. Now here he was again, and the memories were back, pummeling his mind and heart in a renewed assault on an old wound.
It was past two in the morning, and they had heard nothing about Sheridan for hours now. Numerous times, Jack had gone to the door of the ward to look in, but a screen—which he knew from experience often denoted dying—had been set in place. If he so much as tiptoed in to look past the screen the matron in attendance shook her head and frowned at him as if to discourage any further intrusion.
He drew in a long breath, then stood and stretched. He glanced at Samantha and saw that her eyes were closed, but he couldn’t tell whether she was sleeping…or praying again.
Samantha, he had learned, did not call attention to her prayers. She simply sat very quietly, eyes closed, her lips moving only slightly as she—to use one of Rufus Carver’s expressions—“communed with the Lord.”
He stretched again and started toward the door.
“Jack?”
He turned back. “Sorry—did I wake you?”
She shook her head. The only light was from an oil lamp on a table near the door, but the signs of fatigue engraved upon her features were clearly visible. Her eyes were deeply shadowed, her skin uncommonly pale. Even in this state of exhaustion and mild disarray, however, to Jack’s eyes she was still incredibly lovely.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” she assured him. “Do you know what time it is?”
“A little past two. Samantha, why don’t you let me get a cab to take you home? You’re exhausted.”
“No more than you,” she pointed out. “Besides, I want to stay. Cavan may need us when he wakes up.”
If he wakes up. Jack kept the thought to himself.
“There is one thing, though,” Samantha said. “Do you think you could somehow get word to Rufus to come? I’m sure he would, and I think Cavan would want him here. Besides, I’d feel better if I weren’t the only one praying.”
Jack frowned, puzzled by the request. “Of course Rufus would come. But I didn’t realize he and the boy knew each other all that well.”
“Cavan usually attends services at Rufus’s church,” Samantha explained.
Jack looked at her in surprise. “Sheridan goes to Rufus’s church? But that’s a Negro congregation!”
“Mostly, but not altogether.” She smiled a little. “I attend there, too, as a matter of fact.”
Jack studied her for a moment, then shook his head. “You never fail to surprise me, Mrs. Harte. But, yes, I’ll get a message to Rufus somehow.”
In the end he hailed a cab not far from the hospital entrance and paid the driver to bring Rufus to Bellevue as soon as possible. He looked at his watch. “There’s an extra two dollars for you if you’re back within the hour,” he told the driver.
After begging a cup of water for himself and Samantha from one of the matrons, he returned to the waiting room. “There’s a cab on the way,” he said, handing her the water and lowering himself onto the bench beside her.
He was rewarded with a grateful smile and found himself wishing he could do something else for her. He did fancy Samantha’s smile.
To help take their minds off Sheridan, Jack tried to make conversation. At first they spoke of mundane, inconsequential matters. Before long, however, Jack was surprised to find himself talking about things he had seldom, if ever, discussed with anyone else. Samantha had a way about her, he discovered, of drawing thoughts, and even feelings, from him that he would have normally found difficult, if not impossible, to verbalize.
More surprising still was that, to some extent, she responded in kind. Perhaps it was their mutual concern for Cavan Sheridan. A contributing factor might also have been the late-night quiet and the sense of somehow being cut off from reality. In any event, they talked for a long time, easily and openly, and Jack found himself more at ease with her than usual. He couldn’t be certain, but he thought it might have been the same for her.
He learned that her father was Samuel Pilcher, a senior partner in one of the city’s more distinguished investment firms. Her mother was apparently a moving force in New York’s upper echelon of society.
Samantha also revealed that, while they weren’t exactly estranged, there was “tension” between herself and her family.
That her parents were old family—moneyed and highly respectable—didn’t surprise Jack. He had sensed it in Samantha almost from their first meeting.
What did surprise him was that he found himself telling her about his parents: the highly unrespectable, wild, rebel father who had managed to get himself hanged as a result of a night raid with one of Ireland’s countless secret societies—and his mother, who had died giving birth to Brady. He told her about his sister, Rose, “a nun and the best of the lot of us,” and about Brady—his art, and even the strain of rebelliousness and selfishness Jack found so worrisome in his younger brother.
Samantha told him about growing up as a pampered, somewhat spoiled daughter. When Jack made a skeptical protest, she assured him it was true. He also learned that, having benefited from a contingent of carefully selected tutors, she probably had a finer education than most of the men he knew.
When he commented to that effect, she merely gave a small laugh, saying, “All it means is that I know a great deal about many things of no importance and not nearly enough about real life.”
On the other hand, she seemed genuinely impressed by his own erratic attempts to attain an education. Jack had actually attended night classes similar to those Samantha taught. Not when he was a boy—he’d been too busy working to feed himself and the younger ones then—but later. Most of what he’d learned, however, had come about through his own continuing efforts to educate himself.
It intrigued him to learn that she had her heart set on buying her own buggy, that indeed she had been saving for some time now for just that purpose—though she evidently still had a ways to go. He was surprised to realize how much it pained him to think of her scrimping and saving for something he could probably have purchased with the money he had in the pocket of his trousers at this very moment.
Finally, he even told her a little about Martha. He could talk about her now without much of the old hurt, could even smile a little at the good memories—and there were many. But if he had been hoping Samantha might reciprocate by speaking of her marriage, he was disappointed. In fact, she had grown silent, as if she no longer had anything to contribute to the conversation.
Acting on impulse—would he never learn?—Jack finally asked her about Bronson Harte. “I confess that I don’t know how your late husband died. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you say.”
She sat staring down at her hands for a long moment, making no reply. When she finally replied, she continued to keep her gaze carefully averted from his. “It was—very sudden.�
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“I see. How long has he been gone?”
“Nearly four years now.”
Her voice had dropped to a near whisper. “You must have married very young,” he said.
She shot a look at him. “Not really. But we were married only two years before—before he died.”
Again Jack caught a sense of some undefinable tension in her, but before he could ask anything else she made what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to change the subject.
“Do you think we should check on Cavan again?” she said.
Jack knew she was genuinely concerned about Sheridan. All the same, he recognized evasiveness when he saw it, and Samantha was definitely being evasive. He had learned more about her tonight than he had in months, and he was reluctant to end the conversation.
“Why don’t we wait a bit?” he replied. “The matron is starting to give me evil looks.”
She nodded her assent, and after a moment of uncertainty, Jack said carefully, “Samantha? I can’t help but notice—you’re really not very comfortable talking about your husband, are you?”
The quick, fitful look that darted across her features confirmed Jack’s instincts, but her reply still surprised him. “I—no, actually, I’m not. I’m afraid my marriage wasn’t…as happy as yours apparently was.”
Jack didn’t miss the trembling of her hands or the way she had begun to press her arms against her midsection as if to hold herself together.
He wished he dared take her hand. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“Yes…well, it’s…over now.”
Jack thought that was a strange way to put it. He said nothing, but the suspicion that had begun to form in his mind reasserted itself. When he thought of how concerned—how intense—she had been about the Shanahan woman and her problems, the peculiar silence she maintained in regard to her deceased husband, and most especially, the stricken look that came over her at the mention of his name, he could not help but wonder if the late Bronson Harte had really been the saint he was reputed to be.