Crazy Woman Creek

by Welch, Virginia

  "I'll get a blanket from my buggy," offered Dr. Biggerstaff, who had followed Luke through the door and recognized Luke’s dilemma at once. Buffalo's only physician, Dr. Cornelius Biggerstaff was an average-size, middle-aged man with a bald spot surrounded by salt-and-pepper hair. He pushed his wire spectacles up his nose as he spoke to Luke.

  Luke nodded.

  "And water," the doctor added, as he hurried down the wood steps and around the corner of the clapboard church building to the stables where worshippers parked their conveyances and provided shelter for their horses.

  Luke gazed down at Lenora's face, which had turned an unworldly, bluish white like fine porcelain. Her lips were exquisitely fashioned, supple and kissable. Her bosoms strained against the form-fitting fabric of her bodice. Her body, limp as it was, felt sensual and soft against his. His thoughts wandered to places they ought never to go—on the church steps, no less. Luke groaned.

  Lord, you promised not to give us more temptation than we can bear, but I got a bear of a temptation threatening my salvation right here.

  Reverend Thomas ended service early due to the heat and the general disturbance, and now churchgoers were spilling out the door past Luke and Lenora. Most of the men used the opportunity to visit and smoke. But older female members of Johnson Ebenezer, motherly types, buzzed about Lenora like bees at a picnic. Two in particular, Eleanor Graves and Ada Mendelssohn, in their bombazine dresses and lamp-shade style hats reminiscent of earlier decades, tied in overly large bows beneath their wrinkled chins, joined Luke on the narrow threshold, fanning Lenora and tut-tutting over the poor girl and "wasn't it a pity" and "they still haven’t found his body" and "only twenty-two" and "all alone on that ranch so far from town."

  Luke was still holding Lenora on the church steps and the two women were still fanning and waiting for Dr. Biggerstaff when Lenora’s eyes fluttered slightly. She began to loll her head slowly and make low moaning sounds.

  "Mrs. Rose," said Luke quietly, bending his face down close to hers. The faint fragrance of flowers, redolent of magnolia, filled his nose. Everything about this woman was quintessentially feminine; that was her allure. Luke tried to memorize this moment and its gifts, her fragrance and the feel of her, to carry them back with him to his lonely room at the boarding house.

  Low moaning.

  "Mrs. Rose."

  At the sound of the steady, masculine voice, Lenora drew up her right arm around Luke's neck, nuzzled her face into his shoulder, and purred, eyes still closed.

  "Hold me," she said, breathily.

  Now it was Luke’s turn to stop breathing. "Mrs. Rose, I'm not—”

  "I’m so sorry, darling. Never again.”

  Never again?

  “Hold me. Please don't leave me.”

  Mrs. Graves and Mrs. Mendelssohn stopped fanning and looked at each other, speechless, eyes wide with shock. Then they looked at Luke, who remained stoic, sobered by the knowledge that Mrs. Rose surely imagined she was in the arms of another, missing man, the one to whom she truly belonged. The one she waited for.

  Luke’s ears burned with embarrassment, not because of Lenora’s murmurings but because he couldn’t remove her arm from around his neck. Both of his were occupied holding her. More churchgoers stepped through the doorway. Luke met their startled looks impassively. He had done nothing wrong.

  Dr. Biggerstaff arrived with a lap blanket accompanied by a small boy toting a bucket of well water. Luke carried Lenora down the steps and laid her gently down, straightening her skirt for modesty. Lenora started to come around after the doctor dipped a borrowed hanky into the water and pressed it to her face, though she was still groggy from being out so long.

  “Mrs. Rose. Mrs. Rose,” the doctor said urgently. Lenora had been unconscious for at least a minute and a half.

  Luke withdrew from the scene on the ground to let others take over. He stood nearby, watching, sensing that he had been involved enough today with the lovely Mrs. Rose to set tongues wagging until long past harvest time. How could he possibly foresee that she would mistake him for her husband in her confused state of mind? He only meant to move her to the open air. And what did she mean by “never again?”

  “What happened?” said Lenora, as she began to come around. She blinked her eyes repeatedly.

  “You fainted,” said Dr. Biggerstaff. The doctor kneeled on the ground beside Lenora, holding her hand and pressing the damp cloth about her face.

  Lenora said nothing, just stared, wide eyed, at the doctor and the halo of faces crowded around above her head. She seemed to have trouble comprehending.

  “You think it was the heat, doctor?” asked a female onlooker.

  Mrs. Marietta Nolan crouched next to Dr. Biggerstaff, using her cane to steady herself, ignoring the mess the dried mud made of the hem of her dress. She was that kind of woman. Good-hearted beneficence overflowing from zaftig dark blue georgette with a halo of parted angel hair pulled loosely into a small bun pinned at her nape.

  “Probably, though she’s under a lot of strain right now.”

  “Shame on me. I should have looked in on her before this.” Mrs. Nolan shook her head.

  “You still can. They haven’t found the body,” said Dr. Biggerstaff. “Her hardest days are ahead.”

  “When was the last time you ate, Mrs. Rose?” asked Dr. Biggerstaff, turning back to Lenora.

  It took Lenora several seconds to answer. “I don’t ... remember.” Lenora’s eyes were completely open, but it was evident by the puzzled look on her face that she was still having trouble grasping what had happened to her.

  “When she’s back on her feet, Doctor, will you tell her I’ll be by to see her?” asked Mrs. Nolan.

  “I’ll tell her,” he said, and then, as Mrs. Nolan struggled to stand, he offered his arm. “Here, Etta, let me help you up.” Dr. Biggerstaff took Mrs. Nolan’s free arm while she used her other, gripping her cane to awkwardly pull herself to a standing position.

  “Tell her I’ll be by soon,” she said, batting at the front of her skirt to loosen the mud dust.

  “I’ll do that,” said the doctor, still standing over Lenora.

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Nolan. She took a last, pitying look at Lenora. “Poor thing,” she said, shaking her head again, and then she walked away.

  Dr. Biggerstaff crouched down next to Lenora again. “Are you getting enough rest?” he said.

  Lenora looked at the doctor blankly.

  “Emmaline and I are going to take you home,” said Dr. Biggerstaff, not waiting for Lenora’s answer. “And I want you to come to my office in the morning. Do you understand me?”

  Chapter Nine

  Lenora paused outside the sheriff’s office, bracing to lock horns with the cantankerous Sheriff Morris. She deduced from his absence at her ranch door that James’ body had not been found by the second search party. If they had succeeded in their grim mission, they would have delivered it to her by now. This meant that, after all these agonizing days of waiting and wondering, she still did not know with certainty whether she was a widow, an abandoned wife, or the unlucky spouse of a vindictive husband bent on maintaining the upper hand in the most cruel manner, as the sheriff had so indelicately suggested at their first meeting. Inwardly Lenora raged at the injustice of having been thrust into this wretched purgatory of being.

  She took a deep breath and, steeled by her rage, turned the doorknob and crossed the threshold.

  Lenora shut the door behind her and stood, shoulders erect, holding her parasol and matching silk bag, her appearance today in this clutch of masculinity exceeding in contrast her former lush attire. From her straw filly to her pointed leather high-tops, she was adorned in creamy white barege, her lavish polonaise and feminine bustle draped over yards of silken tussah, which had been drawn up into innumerous rows of ruffles. The bow that tied the filly under her slender chin was the identical root beer foam color of the tussah, rendering her visage equally frothy.

  “Mrs. Rose,” said
Luke, smiling as he politely pushed back his chair to stand and greet her.

  Lenora blushed and returned the smile. After Dr. Biggerstaff and his wife Emmaline had escorted her home from church on Sunday, Emmaline had taken her aside and explained to her—overly melodramatically and in blistering detail, in Lenora’s opinion—who it was that had carried her unconscious self from the floor of Johnson Ebenezer Christian Church to their buggy blanket spread on the ground outside the sanctuary in full view of the entire assembly. Thankfully, Lenora had virtually no memory of her dreadful humiliation. But seeing Deputy Davies again, and in such close proximity, kindled her imagination keenly. She blushed again. He was so tall and handsome. Why couldn’t she have been rescued by some ugly, flat-footed farm hand and been spared all the drama and gossip associated with the so very attractive, so very eligible deputy?

  Deputy Davies’ desk was spread with official-looking documents, as if he had been reading before Lenora entered. In the center was his lunch from the boarding house, slabs of roast beef, overcooked and dry but nesting on thick slices of freshly baked white bread. The sandwich sat untouched in the middle of a piece of waxed paper. In the small, enclosed office the tang of dill pickle was sharp.

  Sheriff Morris sat at his desk, bent over a coffee cup and nothing else. Steam from the cup twirled silently upward. Sheriff Morris did not stand up.

  “It’s been several days,” said Lenora, not moving away from the door, “I thought it appropriate that I should enquire.”

  “Have a seat, Mrs. Rose,” said Sheriff Morris.

  Luke brought a visitor’s chair and set it by the sheriff’s desk as before. Lenora thanked him. He nodded and returned to his desk.

  “I’m sure you realize by now, Mrs. Rose, that we did not find your husband’s body in the creek,” said Sheriff Morris, cupping his hands around his coffee.

  It took every ounce of Lenora’s strength to hold back a saucy I-told-you-so. She snapped her lips together to keep her tongue from escaping. If sprung from its cage it would mate with the monster of injustice now loosed in her soul and produce offspring meaner and more feral than a herd of wild boars. She simply nodded.

  “I sent four good men downstream. They searched clean up to Clearmont. Day and a half of riding each way. Found nothing.”

  “Please do provide me their identities that I might properly extend my gratitude,” said Lenora.

  “Deputy Davies will see to that,” said Sheriff Morris, gesturing absently toward Luke’s desk.

  Lenora glanced toward Deputy Davies. Their eyes met and he nodded in agreement. Lenora felt a little zing within, as if her heart were a taut, vibrating string, and an unseen hand had just plucked it. For the first time she saw that Deputy Davies had beautiful eyes, gentle brown and full of kindness. His skin was an earthy tone, probably from hours in the saddle. He was handsome of form, but it was beauty from within that—

  What kind of a trollop thinks such thoughts in grave circumstances such as these? Horrified at her heathen inclination to lasciviousness, Lenora abruptly turned back to the sheriff.

  “And the next step of your strategy is, sir?”

  “My deputy is preparing a message. We’ll send someone to all the towns downstream of the North-East.”

  “What kind of schedule do you foresee for this endeavor?” asked Lenora.

  “You mean how long?”

  “Yes.”

  “Depends.”

  Sheriff Morris stood up and walked to the wood stove. He poured himself another cup of coffee and returned to his desk, but not before attacking a pesky itch in a singularly masculine section of his anatomy. Lenora held her breath, expecting that any second the crotchety old fart would, with equal grace, deposit something warm and wet into the cuspidor parked near his desk. She noted, wryly, that he failed to offer any liquid refreshment to his guest. After the raunchy exercise she had just observed at the wood stove, she deemed his oversight a blessing.

  “Depends on what, sir?” asked Lenora.

  “On the others.”

  “Please explain your reasoning, Sheriff Morris.” Heaven help us. Drawing information from this insufferable man is like milking a farrow cow.

  “I can’t know how long before the other offices report back,” said Sheriff Morris, becoming testy. “Depends on numbers.”

  “Numbers, Sheriff Morris?”

  “Most of the towns up North only have one man.” He slurped a mouthful of coffee. “This ain’t New York. We’re too far north and west for railroad. Fort McKinney's got telegraph, but every little wide spot in the trail anywhere near here depends on the stagecoach. That includes any settlement downstream from where your husband drowned."

  Lenora stiffened. The lout, he obviously enjoyed provoking her, and she knew all these railroad-telegraph-stagecoach details already. Telegraph lines followed railway routes. Yet somehow, illogically, she had hoped this frustrating reality would not affect her situation.

  “Sheriff Morris, is it not true that Clearmont is twenty-nine miles northeast from Buffalo?”

  “That’s about right.”

  “Sir, do you really believe it likely that my husband’s body floated unhindered all those miles and miles,” Lenora gave a little wave of her hand, “that it somehow bypassed every fallen tree, every overhanging bush, every protruding embankment?”

  Sheriff Morris banged down his coffee cup. Coffee sloshed onto the desk and his shirt. He ignored it.

  “Someone needs to educate you on who’s the sheriff in this town and who’s the widow of a missing rancher.” Sheriff Morris leaned over his desk, eyes flashing with anger at Lenora.

  “Cyrus,” admonished Luke with hushed restraint. He didn’t say it as if he expected a response.

  Sheriff Morris looked at Luke, back again at Lenora, and then screwed up his face in disgust. Then he leaned back in his chair while his angry words hung in the air, filling the cramped office with tension and ill will.

  “I only meant,” said Lenora, choosing her words slowly and carefully, “that if your men, after a careful search, did not find James’ body between here and Clearmont, a distance of nearly thirty miles, then you would have me believe that you have concluded—in your professional opinion, of course—that his body floated beyond thirty miles in a matter of only days?”

  Sheriff Morris jumped to a standing position. “Girlie, someone didn’t raise you right,” he said, banging on his desk again, this time with a fist.

  “Cyrus!” Now Luke stood up, smacking the back of his chair against the wall in his haste, though he stayed respectfully behind his desk in deference to his boss.

  Lenora glanced at Luke in surprise. She had not before seen this side of the man. Briefly their eyes met, and that connection, fleeting though it was, strengthened and calmed her. She turned back to the sheriff and more quietly said, “Sheriff Morris, my husband alive couldn’t have swum thirty miles in such a short time. The only way a cadaver could make the trip on your schedule is in a steamboat!”

  Lenora stood up, locked angry eyes with Luke’s grave ones, then turned about and, without another word, walked out the door. Somehow she mustered sufficient grace not to slam it, though on the inside she slammed it quite violently indeed.

  #

  The door had hardly clicked shut before Luke left his desk and stepped angrily to the sheriff’s desk, his mouth set in grim determination.

  “Why?” asked Luke rhetorically, both his hands on Cyrus’ desk, leaning in to put his face close to his boss. “The woman is mourning her husband!” He said this slowly and evenly, carefully enunciating each word as if the sheriff was too dense to comprehend the big picture and needed to have things S-P-E-L-L-E-D O-U-T.

  “Uppity bluestocking is what she is,” snapped the sheriff, though he looked shocked at his deputy’s uncharacteristic outburst. Sheriff Morris reached into his shirt pocket for his tobacco pouch. “Wish James Rose would come back from the grave so she’d stay the hell out of my office,” he growled. He sat down a
nd began pinching shreds of tobacco from the pouch with his thumb and index finger, not bothering to make eye contact with Luke.

  “Why blame the woman? She just wants to find her husband.”

  “Hogwash. She doesn’t have him to henpeck anymore so she henpecks me.”

  Luke rolled his eyes. “She has reason to be upset,” he said, striving for self-control. It would serve no purpose to advertise his feelings for the grieving widow. And her bluestocking ways were just one of her abundant charms. He stood up and walked to the window and remained there, hands on his hips, gazing down the street. “Every day we don’t find that body it looks worse.”

  “We’ll find it.”

  “Beyond the thirty miles to Clearmont?” Luke stayed at the window, arms folded across his chest now, but turned his head to speak directly to the sheriff.

  Sheriff Morris stopped pulling the string on his tobacco pouch and looked at Luke. “How do I know?” he said, irritation building in his voice. “I don’t got any more clues than you.”

  “I don’t like this whole thing.”

  “What’s to like about a dead body and a nagging widow?” said Sheriff Morris as he used two fingers to put a pinch of tobacco in his cheek.

  Luke glared at his boss. “We don’t have a body.” They had a widow for sure, but Mrs. Lenora Rose was no nag. Luke kept that thought to himself. Cyrus was riled enough.

  “For God’s sake, Luke,” said the sheriff, raising his voice several levels, “the woman doesn’t even have enough sense to put on widow’s weeds.” Sheriff Morris leaned back in his chair and lifted mud-caked boots onto the edge of his desk. A small chunk of dried mud broke off and fell onto the desk. With his heel he shoved it to the floor, scraping the desk as he did.

  “She doesn’t believe she’s a widow. She thinks he’s still alive.”