by Deborah Hale
“What’s all this frivolity?” William Kincaid affected a stern, bankerish frown that couldn’t mask the glow of love in his eyes for Lizzie.
“See if you don’t laugh, too, when you hear.” Lizzie grasped her husband’s hand and held it against her cheek. “Tell it again, Jane.”
She repeated the story, though with a little less sparkle than her first telling. The sweet bond between the banker and his young wife was so intense, Jane fancied she could taste it, like tangy, refreshing lemonade on a hot day. This was what she wanted with John, and she couldn’t bring herself to settle for anything less.
At times she would remember their night together and glow with blissful certainty. Then she would recall what John had said to Ruth, and what he’d confessed to her in Lizzie’s garden. Brooding over the tragedies of his past, she wondered if he was capable of loving her as she needed to be loved.
When the familiar ache started deep in the pit of her belly and she knew John had not sown a baby inside her, after all, she feared he might not even want to try.
“I’m getting soft, John.” Gingerly, Caleb Kincaid lowered himself onto a wide flat rock beside his brother-in-law. “Soft and old. Why, I used to love nothing better than going on a cattle drive down to Texas with my pa. Sleeping on the hard ground every night under the stars. Wearing the same clothes for days on end. Eating out of the back of a chuck wagon and never seeing a face prettier than a heifer’s.”
His mouth full of beans and fry bread, John cocked an eyebrow to ask Caleb how he liked riding the range these days.
Caleb chuckled. “Can you imagine anything so danged foolish?”
“We’re on the home swing now.” John glanced around, his senses alert to any sign of trouble.
During the past week, he’d felt like he was treading on eggshells, as the cowboys and the Cheyenne began working together. They’d exchanged dark, wary looks and camped apart every night.
Walks on Ice had volunteered to come along and prepare food for the hunters. By the end of the second day, she and Cookie were swapping recipes, even though neither could speak a word of the other’s language. A few of the cowboys grumbled when Cookie declared he was done messing with sourdough till they got back to the ranch. After their first taste of fry bread, they quit complaining.
Caleb seemed to read John’s thoughts. “This wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. I’m surprised everything’s gone as smoothly as it has. Who’d have thought Floyd Cobbs and that Ravencrest boy would have taken such a shine to one another?”
John licked molasses off his spoon. “Not me, that’s for sure.”
The first day Caleb had paired the two biggest potential troublemakers, John had braced for all-out war. When they’d been late getting back to camp, he’d feared perhaps they’d killed one another. But they’d finally appeared with the largest roundup of cattle yet to join the herd, grinning like a pair of fools. Something had happened out on the range and John didn’t want to know what. Perhaps they’d saved one another’s hides, or maybe they’d just taken the measure of each other’s skills and come away impressed. Whatever it was, John was grateful for it.
“I wasn’t happy about going on this roundup,” he admitted to Caleb. “But seeing what shape the stock’s in, I think it’s a good thing you went ahead with it.”
“If we ever see the rain that’s been threatening all week, I may look like a darn fool in front of the Stock Growers Association.” Caleb took a swig of coffee to wash down his supper. “You still sore at me for dragging you away from Jane Harris?”
Jane. Caleb might have dragged John away from her in body, but not in heart. Through the past weeks, she’d never been more than a thought away. Sometimes he almost fancied he could feel her perched on Hawkwing’s hindquarters, clinging to his waist, the way she had on their first ride from Whitehorn.
He shrugged. “I miss her. Like Zeke used to say, it feels like my heart has a toothache. But I needed some time to think, and I reckon she did, too. I’m scared of rushing into something…and twice as scared of losing her.”
“I hear what you’re saying.” Caleb stared off into the fire. “You know, John, I reckon I owe your Jane an apology, sending that fool wire off to Boston. Ruth told me what was what about Jane taking that pin of the old lady’s. Wish I could get my hands on that varmint who beat her. I’d hog-tie him to the belly of a longhorn steer.”
“No way you could have known about that, Caleb.” His own blindness to Jane’s problems still haunted John. She needed a man who could shelter her and help her heal, not one too busy wrestling his own demons to care about hers.
Caleb scuffed the dust with the heel of his boot. “I hope you didn’t take too much to heart those things I said about Jane being like Marie. I like to blame all the troubles of my first marriage on Marie not being suited for life in Montana. The fact is, she probably wouldn’t have been half so discontented if I’d loved her.”
Sipping Cookie’s bitter coffee in silence, John felt the healing balm of Caleb’s words sinking into his aching heart. He wondered what it had cost his proud brother-in-law to take responsibility for the failure of his first marriage. Caleb had wed Marie against the inclination of his heart, because he’d believed Ruth was lost to him and because Marie had tricked him into her bed and gotten pregnant.
It was different for John and Jane. No other woman had ever touched him as she had, and he was certain none ever would. How he hoped he would find her waiting for him back in Whitehorn. If she was carrying his child, he might convince her to marry him. If he worked as hard to prove his love as he had worked to prove his loyalty to the Cheyenne, it might be enough to keep her with him.
A bright flash in the sky backlit the Crazy Mountains.
“What was that?” Cicero Price called out.
“If it ain’t lightning, we’re in trouble,” quipped Floyd Cobbs.
“And if it is?” the young fellow asked.
That sobered Floyd right up. “Then we could be in even worse trouble.”
Beside John, Caleb hauled off his hat and slapped it against his knee. “Damn, I’m tired of being wrong,” he muttered. Then he raised his voice. “Break out the canvas, boys! You may not get dry again until we’re back in Whitehorn.”
He barely got the words out when the first fat drops of rain came plummeting to earth and embedded themselves in the parched Montana soil.
“Is that rain at last?” Lizzie glanced toward the window.
As Jane got up to check, a jagged fork of lightning spiked the evening sky. The abruptness of it made her jump back.
“That’s rain, all right. I’ll go make sure the windows are shut.” Though she braced herself for the following roll of thunder, it still made her heart jump into her throat.
She ran to the west-facing side of the house first, where the wind lashed rain hardest against the windowpanes. Later, when she peered out her own east-facing window, Jane looked toward the rolling rangeland outside town. Would John have any shelter tonight? Might Caleb abandon the roundup once some rain fell?
A blinding flash of lightning shattered the darkness of the Big Sky, followed by a deafening clap of thunder. None of the storms she’d experienced in Boston had ever seemed as violent as this one promised to be. Was it possible John could be in danger out on the range? A tight chill crept into Jane’s stomach and lodged there.
“I wish William hadn’t needed to stay late at the bank this evening,” said Lizzie when Jane returned to the sitting room. “He’ll get drenched to the bone coming home in this downpour.”
“Do you still want to wait supper for him, or should we go ahead and eat?” Jane stifled a yelp as another clap of thunder rumbled overhead.
“Hmm. I don’t feel very hungry. Knowing Will, he may decide to stay put at the bank until the rain eases. And who knows when that’s likely to be?”
As Lizzie struggled to rise from the rocking chair, she let out a squeak of surprise and sat down again, hard. “Oh dear. I’m wet.”
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“Wet?” Jane glanced at the ceiling, expecting to see rain leaking through.
“From the baby.” Lizzie’s creamy complexion paled to the bluish cast of skim milk. “Haley told me this might happen, so I’d be prepared. It means the baby’s going to come soon. Can you help me up to the bedroom, Jane, then go fetch Will?”
Jane’s glance skittered toward the windows, where the rain hammered. “Y-yes, of course.”
She knelt by Lizzie’s chair. “Put your arms around my neck and lean all your weight on me when we stand up. There.”
They walked slowly to the stairs and began to mount them. Halfway up to the first landing, Lizzie clenched the banister and sucked a raspy breath in through her teeth. Jane could scarcely believe the force with which her tiny friend clutched her hand. It almost brought tears to Jane’s eyes.
After a minute or two, Lizzie’s grip eased and she let out a shaky sigh. “That was much worse than anything from the other day. Jane, I haven’t told Will, because I don’t want to worry him, but I’m scared.”
In spite of her bulging middle, Lizzie suddenly looked so very young and vulnerable.
Jane wrapped her in a swift embrace. “That’s all right. I’m scared most of the time, with a lot less reason. Let’s get you to bed, so I can go tell William to bring the doctor. Once they’re here, I’m sure you’ll feel better. And just think, Lizzie, very soon you’ll have a beautiful little son or daughter in your arms.”
In spite of the frightening ordeal ahead of Lizzie, Jane would have changed places with her friend in a heartbeat. How she wished she’d conceived John’s child that night in the foreman’s cabin.
“I—I will, won’t I?” Lizzie caught her quivering lower lip between her teeth. “I wonder which it will be and who it’ll take after in its looks?”
“Your little one’s pretty sure to be blond.” Jane coaxed Lizzie up the rest of the stairs. “Have you and William settled on any names yet?”
“I’m partial to Dixon for a boy, but William has a fancy to call him Washington. Can you imagine that? What would you call the poor little fellow for short—Wash?”
As they talked, Jane sensed Lizzie calming. Could that be the secret of conquering fear—to concentrate on the future, once the trial was past?
“What about a girl?” she prompted, as she helped Lizzie change into her nightgown. “Would William like to name her after old Queen Victoria in England?”
“Oh my!” Lizzie grabbed the bedpost and whimpered until the pain passed. “That wasn’t very long between spells. Haley told me it’d likely be longer than this, at first. Can you go get Will and Dr. Gray for me, Jane?”
“Sure, I will. You just get into bed and relax. Maybe once you’re off your feet it’ll slow down a little,” said Jane, as if she knew a fool thing about the delivery of babies. “I’ll try to get back with them before your next…in a jiffy. Now you just keep your mind on that little baby, won’t you?”
If it came to a choice between venturing out in the storm or staying alone with Lizzie, to watch her suffer, Jane was willing to take her chances with the rain and the lightning. Sucking in a deep breath, as if she was about to jump into a river, she ventured out to meet the storm. The wind almost blasted the door out of her grip, but Jane held on, slamming it behind her to make sure the latch caught. She gasped as the rain instantly drenched her clothes.
The world seemed to be engulfed in one great river, Jane decided as the wind buffeted her like a treacherous current, one second stealing her breath and the next lashing rain into her face. She could barely see an arm’s length in front of her. The dusty, hard-packed dirt of the road had turned to slippery mud.
From William and Lizzie’s place, a mile outside of town, Jane could walk to Whitehorn in less than half an hour. Tonight it took her nearly twice that long to reach the bank. All that time, part of her mind fixed on Lizzie, alone, afraid and in pain. Another part fretted over John. Where was he and how was he faring?
A strong capable man like John could take care of himself, her reason insisted. Papa had been a strong, capable man, too, she remembered as the fear grew colder and heavier in her belly.
When Jane stumbled up to the door of the bank, she found it locked, though a faint light glowed within. Pounding on the door, she yelled, “Mr. Kincaid!” at the top of her lungs, until it opened abruptly. She staggered inside.
“Jane, good heavens, what is it?” demanded William Kincaid as she gasped for breath to speak. “Lizzie? Is the baby coming?”
Jane nodded. “The…pains came…on her quite…suddenly.”
“I’ll go fetch my rig from the livery stable, then we can swing by Dr. Gray’s place to fetch him.”
“Lizzie needs…you with her…as soon as you can get there. I’ll go find the doctor.”
The banker blanched. “Are you sure?”
Nodding, Jane fought down a smile. William was every bit as scared as she and Lizzie. Maybe more.
“Just hold her…hand and talk to her. Take her…mind off it. Keep her think…ing about the baby.”
“Very well. You go on. I’ll put out the lamp and lock up here.”
He opened the door just wide enough for Jane to slip out, then banged it shut behind her.
She hesitated for a moment, trying to orient herself with almost no visual landmarks. If she crossed the street, she could hug the front of those buildings and be shielded from the worst of the wind and rain. Jane plunged out into the darkness. Moving from building to building, she managed to reach the doctor’s house at last.
“Dr. Gray!” Even as she hammered on his door, Jane could tell it was useless. Not a glimmer of light showed from any of the windows. The doctor must have been out calling on another patient when the storm broke.
But which patient?
Jane racked her brains. Old Mrs. Fairfax, the Methodist minister’s mother? The manse wasn’t too far off. At least it would be a place to start.
The minister’s wife gave Jane a very sour look when she stepped into the manse entry, dripping rain all over the carpet. Her disapproval rapidly changed to solicitous concern when she discovered Jane’s errand on that wild night.
“Dr. Gray did come to see Mother Fairfax a while before the storm started. Then he got called away. A brawl at one of the saloons, I believe.” She shook her head reproachfully. “Broken bottles, if you please. Stitches needed, I understand.”
“Do you…recollect…which saloon?”
“Oh my. I suppose it makes quite a difference, doesn’t it? I can never keep them straight. Dens of iniquity, every one.”
Mrs. Endicott would get along swimmingly with Mrs. Mead Fairfax, Jane decided.
“Was it Gribble and Warren, where the circuit judge holds court? Or Big Mike’s?”
“It’s no use, I can’t recall.” The minister’s wife shook her head. “You certainly do seem to know their names real well, Miss Harris.”
“I guess I’ll just have to go look until I find him,” said Jane. Not wanting to shock Mrs. Fairfax senseless, she didn’t add what she was thinking—that poking her nose into one saloon after another was her idea of hell.
“God bless you, I’m sure. If Dr. Gray shows up back here, I’ll tell him to get right out to William Kincaid’s.” With that, Mrs. Fairfax held the door for Jane to slip out.
At least the saloons were all ranged along Main Street in pretty close proximity. She’d just begin at one end and work her way up, Jane decided, starting with the Centennial. As the rain beat down on her, she made her way there.
At the threshold, Jane hesitated. The noise coming from inside the saloon was loud enough to compete with the howling wind and the distant thunder. Remembering Lizzie, she squared her shoulders and pushed the door open.
None of the Centennial patrons even turned to look at her. They were all craning their necks and standing on chairs to get a better view of the boxing match going on in the middle of the saloon. Yelling encouragement to the favorite, booing and heckling his op
ponent, they didn’t even notice Jane’s arrival.
She almost burst into tears of relief when she recognized Harry Talbert, the town barber, at the back of the crowd.
“Mr. Talbert!” she hollered, tugging on his coat. “Has the doctor been here? We need him out at the Kincaids’.”
After recovering from the shock of seeing her there, Harry Talbert tapped on several shoulders and bawled inquiries about Dr. Gray.
“Somebody heard there was a fight at the Four Kings!” he shouted above the roar of the crowd. “Try there!”
One down, Jane thought as she let herself out.
Compared to the Centennial, the Four Kings was silent as a tomb. Jane would have preferred it noisy. From the various poker games, every eye seemed to train on her as she staggered in. Henry Hill rose from one of the tables. He cast an insolent, lingering glance over Jane from the crest of her sodden bonnet to the toes of her shoes.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit this evening, Miss Harris?”
By now Jane was too frantic about Lizzie to care about herself at all. She couldn’t even work up a blush. “I’m looking for Dr. Gray and I was told I might find him here.”
The proprietor of the Four Kings shook his head and flashed a smile that showed his gold tooth. “The good doctor isn’t much of a gambling man, I’m afraid. He only comes here when one of my girls needs…seeing to. Will you stay and have a little drink to warm you up, Miss Harris?”
“No, thank you.” Jane shot him the kind of withering look she’d often watched Mrs. Endicott dispense.
The saloonkeeper’s smarmy smile faded. “You might try the Double Deuce. I hear Dr. Gray sometimes stops there for a drink.”
Jane didn’t stop to explain that the doctor was out in his professional capacity. With a curt nod to Mr. Hill, she set off again. What if Lizzie’s baby had already come? Could infants be born without a doctor in attendance?
Gribble and Warren was practically deserted. But when Jane saw the overturned chairs and broken glass, she almost broke into a cheer. This must be the place.