Jack sprang to his feet and ran for the door.
Darby was standing in the open expanse of dirt between Hunter’s and the hotel. A girl was sitting on a horse. Darby was holding his shotgun in one hand, and grabbing the horse’s reins with his free hand.
The girl seemed to be only partially conscious. She was swaying in the saddle, her eyes fluttering. Her age was difficult to guess, but she was not old. Her hair was chestnut colored and long and matted and tangled. Part of it was tied onto the back of her head in what was at one time probably a bun, and the rest was falling about, down her back and along one arm. Her face was bruised in places like she had taken a beating, and her dress was worn and sooty and muddy.
Jack suddenly realized he knew her. It was Jessica Brewster.
Jack ran to her, just as she toppled from the saddle. Darby let his shotgun drop to the mud and caught her with both arms, and he lowered her to the ground.
“Jessica,” Jake said.
She was now fully unconscious. Her nose was swollen like it had been struck, and Jake saw some dirt along her face that wasn’t actually dirt but dried blood.
Hunter and Chen were standing behind Jack. Shapleigh was hurrying from the hotel, and Franklin had stepped out of his store to see what all the commotion was about.
“Hunter,” Jake said. “Run and get Granny Tate. Hurry.”
42
They moved Jessica to a room on the second floor of the hotel. Granny Tate examined her and determined the girl was suffering from exhaustion and dehydration. She also looked like she hadn’t had a decent meal in a while. Jack knew the medical term to be malnutrition.
Granny Tate was about Chen’s age, and she wore spectacles balanced on her nose. A scarf was pulled about her hair, and she walked with a cane. And yet the woman was a wealth of medical knowledge. She was what they called back in the Appalachians a Granny Doctor. She had trained at the side of another granny doctor when she was young, and had been a doctor her whole life. She was what Jack’s professors would call a folk doctor, and they would say it with a little scorn or amusement. And yet this woman could look at a patch of woods or a meadow and see a natural pharmacy. She could cure fever or infection. She could set a broken bone better than any medical school graduate Jack had ever seen. One time three or four years ago Pa had been thrown by a bronc and his back was hurting even days later. He went to Granny Tate, and she had her grandson Henry push on Pa’s back in a given spot and the bone snapped like a stick, and Pa’s pain was gone.
“Let’s see one of them big city doctors do that,” she said.
Granny had the men leave while she performed an examination on Jessica. Henry’s wife Mercy had come along and was acting as nurse. Jack and Darby waited in the hallway.
While they waited, Jack informed Darby about his adventures coming up from Cheyenne along the Bozeman. In the first letter he had written, he included much about Nina but little else. Now he told Darby about the girls being kidnapped and the bullet wound he took to the shoulder, and about riding out to rescue them. And how Jessica refused to come back with him.
Darby said, “She chose to remain with those men?”
Jack nodded gravely. “It was a painful thing for her family. Her father didn’t talk much about it, but I could see it in his eyes.”
“Why would she do that?”
Jack shrugged.
Mercy finally opened the door. She was about thirty, also with a bandanna tied about her hair. “You boys can come on back in.”
Jessica was lying in bed with the covers pulled to her chin. She looked to be sleeping.
Granny Tate said, “We got some water into her. We’ll try food in a little while.”
“What kind of shape’s she in, over all?” Jack said.
“Them men, they used her somethin’ fierce. And they beat on her. She got a tooth knocked loose, and might have to come out. She got a concussion from where she was hit on the side of the head. Got a little blood in one eye. Two broken ribs, near as I can tell.”
Mercy said, “I’ve got to get home for a little while, to cook dinner. I’ll be back this evening. And Granny has got to get out to the Bar W.”
Granny Tate said, “Tom Willbury’s daughter is due to deliver. ‘Spect she’ll do so tonight.”
Jack knew Tom Willbury to be the owner of the Bar W. His daughter Eugenia, not much older than Bree, had married his ramrod. Jack hadn’t heard she was with child.
Granny said, “Jack, could you sit with her until Mercy can get back?”
“Darby, her family has got to be told. Will you ride out?”
“If it’s all the same, Jack, I’d like to sit with her. If it’ll be all right,” he looked at Granny.
She nodded. “I s’pose it’ll be all right. She’s out of the woods, for the most part. A strong girl. Now it’ll just be a time of healin’. Have Mister Chen fix her up a steak and some spinach when she comes around. She’ll need greens, and she’ll need red meat.”
Iron, Jack knew. The girl needed iron.
Jack looked at Darby and saw he was staring at Jessica. Jack said, “All right, Darby. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Probably bringing Mister and Missus Brewster with me.”
“I’ll be right here.”
Darby sat in a wooden chair beside the bed and stared at her. The curve of her cheekbones. The way her face sort of settled gradually down to her chin. Her hair was still a tangled mess, and it was spread out on the pillow around her face.
He said, “You have to be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
She was breathing gently, and her eyes were shut. He knew she wasn’t hearing a thing he said.
Granny Tate and Mercy Freeman had gotten her dress off of her, and she was in petticoats and the blanket had now slipped to her shoulders. One hand was free, so he took it in his.
“Jessica Brewster,” he said. “I don’t even know you. Not at all. But I know this. I want you to get well.”
She stirred a little, but then settled into peaceful sleep.
“What did they do to you?” he said. “How could you have gone with those men? If I can get my hands on them, they’ll learn a whole new definition of the word suffering.”
She continued to sleep.
He said, “Look at me. Sitting here, in a cowboy town, out in the wild west. I should be back in law school. I should be starting my third year. I was going to be an attorney. My father has plans of me eventually running for the Senate, you know that? My father has been a senator for years, like my grandfather before him. Lots of success, lots of money. The grandfather retired to a lavish estate in upstate New York. Has enough money to choke an elephant.
“I didn’t want that. I didn’t want law school. You know what I do want?” He shrugged. “Damned if I know. I just know I wasn’t happy. You know when I was happiest? When I was filling myself with whiskey with Jack. We’d get drunk and act foolish and laugh like idiots. We’d go into Boston and hit some of the waterfront bars. Put to the test things we had learned in boxing club. He knew a thing or two about Indian wrestling, too. Some sort of Indian tribe. Shohonee or some such thing. Sometimes we’d go to a baseball game.” He chuckled. “You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a National League baseball game. The hooting and hollering, fights breaking out in the stands. A wild time.
“But really, how long can a man hide from himself behind wild times and whiskey? I suppose if I were to write my autobiography, I’d call it Wild Times and Whiskey. That’s about all I have to show for my time on this earth. That, and two years toward a law degree I don’t even want.”
She began to stir again, and then her eyes fluttered open. He let go of her hand.
“Hello,” he said.
She looked at him with a little surprise. He got to his feet. “Darby Yates. Deputy Marshal of McCabe Gap, at your service.”
“McCabe? Is Jack McCabe here?”
Darby nodded. “He’s the marshal. He’s gone to get your family.”
“No.” She dropped her head to the pillow. “I don’t want to see them. I don’t want them to see me like this.”
“Do you think they love you?”
She looked at him curiously. What kind of question was that? “I suppose so.”
“There’s no suppose about it. Do they love you?”
She shrugged, though the motion caused her a little pain. “I suppose every parent loves their child.”
He shook his head. “Mine love what they want me to be. Not who I am. Do yours love you? It’s a yes-or-no question.”
She looked at him long. He could tell she didn’t know what to make of him. “Yes.”
“Then they need to see you. And it won’t matter what condition you’re in, or what you’ve done. All that’ll matter is you’re all right.”
She said, “Who exactly are you, Darby Yates?”
He smiled. “I’m the man who’s going to make sure no harm comes to you ever again.”
43
Granny Tate had said she didn’t think Jessica’s broken ribs would fare well on a wagon ride to the cabin in the valley, so Shapleigh said she could remain at the hotel until she was well enough to travel. Jessica was able to sit up and walk a bit, and she had her meals in her room. Her mother and father and Age spent most of the day with her.
Toward evening, as they were climbing into their wagon to begin the ride back to the valley, Jack walked over and said to them, “How is she?”
Mildred had tears in her eyes, and merely shook her head but couldn’t say anything.
Abel bucked up and managed to find the words. “She’s not our Jessica. At least, not the Jessica we knew. I mean, she’s the same person, obviously, but when she looks at you, it’s not the same look in her eye.”
Mildred then managed to say, “Whatever those men did to her, they beat the spirit out of her.”
Abel shook his head. “She’s our daughter, but it’s hard to admit she’s not the girl we thought she was. Not that I mean to lift any of the blame from those men. They need to be brought to justice. But the Jessica I thought I knew never would have run off with them in the first place.”
Jack nodded. “I expect Granny Tate will be checking in on her tonight, after she’s done at the Bar W.”
Abel Brewster climbed into the wagon seat. He looked years older than the last time Jack had seen him. His shoulders were a little bowed, as though he was carrying a weight that only he could feel, and there were lines on his face Jack didn’t remember seeing before. This whole thing with Jessica was apparently taking a lot out of him.
“It’s getting late,” Abel said. “I’d like to get us home before dark.”
Jack nodded. “Be safe.”
Abel took the reins in his one hand and gave the horse a giddyap, and they started away. Age was sitting in the back of the buckboard, and gave Jack a wave as they rode away.
Darby strolled up to Jack, his shotgun cradled in one arm.
Jack said, “It’s really odd the way those men treated her. Beat her the way the did, and apparently used her. You don’t usually see that sort of thing out here. Unmarried women of marrying age are so rare, they’re often treated almost reverently, even by the worst cutthroats.”
“Not in this case, apparently.”
“Apparently. It tells us a lot about these men.”
Darby said, “I’m going to go up and check on her.”
“Darby,” Jack hesitated because he wasn’t quite sure how to say this. “Darby, I got to know that girl a little on the trail up from Cheyenne. She’s not Becky Thatcher.”
Jack figured Darby would know the reference. From the book by Mark Twain published three years earlier. Jack had taken out a copy from the public library in Boston, and he knew Darby had read at least part of it.
“Jack,” Darby said, “has it ever occurred to you that maybe she’s a girl who no one understands? Not even her own family? Maybe she’s reaching for something in life and doesn’t know what it is? Does any of that sound familiar? I know it could apply to me, and I think it could probably apply to you. All right, so she made a wrong decision. She needs support, not criticism.”
Darby turned and walked toward the hotel.
Jack saw Chen sitting in front of Hunter’s. Chen had a knife in one hand, and was carving away on a long stick. Jack walked over.
“Good afternoon,” Chen said.
Jack nodded.
“How are things going with your friend, the deputy?”
Jack let out a long exhale of exasperation. “I think he’s falling in love with Jessica Brewster. It seems to me that’s akin to ramming your head into a wall again and again.”
Chen chuckled. “Some women are like that. Maybe he is just seeing what he wants to see. But maybe he sees something you don’t.”
“Why is it you have a way of saying things that make me feel like my legs have been kicked out from under me?”
Chen shrugged. “Just a talent, I guess.”
Jack looked at the stick. It had to be four feet long. “What is that you’re whittling?”
“I’m making a goon. What you would call, I suppose, a stick. Or a staff.”
“A weapon?”
Chen shrugged again, carving his knife along the stick. “This is a rough land. I don’t use a gun. Never really had the chance to learn. But in my youth, I was a fair hand with a sword and a staff. I don’t see any swords for sale at Franklin’s, but I can make my own staff.”
Jack said nothing while he watched Chen work. Chen then said, “Your friend has to find his way. Just like you do, and just like I do. One question – does he have a good heart?”
Jack knew he was asking about Darby’s moral fiber and intentions, not the physical organ pounding away in his chest.
Jack said, “Yes. He has a good heart.”
“Then I think you have little to worry about.”
“You know, Chen, my father is due back sometime next spring. I hope you’re still working at Hunter’s. I’d like him to meet you. I think you two would get along well.”
Darby found Jessica feeling a little stir crazy.
She said, “I spent the entire day with my parents. People who are like strangers to me. I know they love me, but they think they understand me but they don’t, and they want me to fit into their little world, but I can’t. I need to get out of this room. To get some fresh air.”
“Well, Granny Tate said you shouldn’t travel.”
“I can at least maybe make the stairs. With a little help.”
And so he helped her down to the hotel’s small dining room. They moved one step at a time, with her holding the railing with one hand and the other elbow braced against her ribs. She was in a dress her parents had brought with them, and her mother had helped her wash her hair and comb it out and wrap it in a bun.
The dining room wasn’t as lavish as the hotels Darby was accustomed to back east. The floor was bare boards and the walls were papered but starting to look a little dingy. The doorway leading out to the lobby was a bit uneven. But it was made of actual boards, not logs. Shapleigh must have had them hauled in from Bozeman or Helena.
Darby pulled a chair out and Jessica lowered herself gingerly into it.
She said, “Wow. That winded me. It was a longer walk than I realized.”
“Now we should try to get you something to eat.”
“I am a little hungry.”
Shapleigh heard the voices and stepped in from a small office he kept off of the lobby.
Darby said, “Mister Shapleigh, are you offering dinner this evening?”
“I’m sorry to say, no. We don’t usually have much business this time of week. The stage isn’t due for a few more days.”
“Well, then,” Darby said to Jessica. “Maybe I could go over to Hunter’s and see if his coolie cook could fix you some dinner. He’s really quite good.”
“Darby,” she said, “sit a minute.”
He slid out a chair and dropped into it. She glanced across the r
oom to see if Shapleigh was still there, and found he wasn’t. He had probably gone back to his office.
She said, “Darby, you’ve been very kind to me. Much moreso than you need to be.”
“I meant what I said upstairs, yesterday.”
“Darby,” she shook her head with a little disbelief. “Darby, I’m a whore. That’s what I am. You have to face it. I belong down the street at that brothel. I made choices and they didn’t work out, and they led me down this path. But I can’t go back to the life I left. My parents want me to live with them in their little shack in the valley and return to the life I had, but I just can’t do that. I’d die if I did that.”
“You’re not a whore. You can’t be held responsible for what those men forced you to do.”
Her voice rose a little with exasperation. “They didn’t force me, Darby. That’s just it. I did what I did because that was the payment required for being there. They provided for us. Me and another woman, Flossy. Then when I decided I didn’t want it anymore, they beat the hell out of me and sent me on my way. One man in particular. Two-Finger Walker. He did most of the beating. Then he put me on a horse and sent me away. I wound up here.”
He reached out for her hand, but she pulled it away.
He said, “You made some wrong decisions. But I totally understand about not wanting the life your parents have set up for you. I’m the same way. I totally understand.”
“Do you really? Does anyone?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “If you let some people in, you might find more of us understand more than you might think. Now I’m going to go and get you some dinner. Then if you want me to go, I’ll go and not come back. It’s up to you.”
Darby found Chen in front of Hunter’s, carving on a stick. Chen had left some venison stew on the stove to simmer, so he went in and fetched Darby a small pot of it. Darby brought it back to the hotel, and Shapleigh produced a bowl and a spoon for Jessica, and a cup of tea.
Jessica said to him, “Darby, you don’t even know me. Why are you taking such care of me?”
One Man's Shadow (The McCabes Book 2) Page 38