by Lily Wilspur
“Thank you, Adelaide,” Kathy said.
Adelaide still didn’t take the hint. She just stood there, staring at the two of them and waiting for her next commission to tend to the bride.
Kathy finally took her by the hand. “You can go downstairs now, Adelaide. We’ll be down in a minute. I won’t need you to carry my train anymore, and I think your mother probably wants you to help her in the kitchen.”
Adelaide understood at last that she was dismissed. She nodded and slipped out of the room, but she forgot to close the door behind her. Luke went over and closed it. Then he faced Kathy.
“They’ll all be downstairs by now, stuffing their faces and telling bad jokes.” Luke paused and regarded Kathy. “Thanks for being a good sport about that kiss. I hope you weren’t too offended by it.”
“The kiss?” Kathy asked.
“Yeah,” Luke replied. “When I made a smacking noise when I kissed you and everyone laughed. It’s just that we have sort of tradition in this town of making everything into a joke. I hope it wasn’t too much in bad taste.”
“A tradition?” Kathy asked.
“Well,” Luke explained. “Not really a tradition. It’s more of a bad habit. My brother, Max, started it. We all play practical jokes on each other whenever we can. We especially do it at church, or anything having to do with church. The minister can’t stand it. That’s one of the main reasons we do it, to make him mad.” Luke burst out laughing in spite of himself.
“I didn’t realize….”Kathy began.
Luke turned suddenly serious. “I shouldn’t have made a joke out of you. That was wrong. I just thought I’d make everyone laugh to lighten the mood. People become so serious at weddings. You know what I mean?”
“I wasn’t offended,” Kathy replied.
“That’s good,” Luke exclaimed. “I didn’t want to ruin your special day.”
“You didn’t ruin it,” Kathy replied. “It just surprised me. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Luke repeated.
“You don’t have to keep saying that,” Kathy told him. “It’s okay. We can let it go.”
Luke started to say something else, but stopped himself. “Okay.”
“Anyway,” Kathy remarked. “It was our first kiss.”
Luke gave her a wry smile. “Would you like to do it again?”
“What? Here? Now?” Kathy glanced around.
“Why not?” Luke asked. “We’re all alone.”
Kathy glanced around the room again. “Is that what we’re supposed to be doing up here? Are we supposed to be consummating the marriage up here in this little attic room?”
“Well, maybe not consummating it,” Luke explained. “But there’s a hundred people waiting for us downstairs. I think we’re just supposed to spend a little bit of time alone before we are mobbed by wild merry-makers.”
Kathy giggled. “I see what you mean. And you do seem to have a tendency to turn everything into a joke.”
Luke bit his lip to stop himself from smiling. “Sorry. I’ll try to stop.”
“You don’t have to,” Kathy assured him. “Now that I know to expect it from you, I don’t mind so much.”
“Okay,” Luke replied. “So what about the kiss part?”
“What about the kiss part?” Kathy asked.
“Was it…you know…all right for you?” he asked. “Did you like it all right?”
Kathy smiled at him. “I liked it.”
He took a step closer to her. “So…would you like to do it again?”
Now it was Kathy’s turn to laugh. “Okay.”
Chapter 7
Luke’s bluster dropped away from him and he hesitated, the same shy boy his brother dragged to meet her at the train station. He took another step toward her, but he didn’t grab her the way he had at the church.
Kathy helped him by reaching out for his hand. Luke gave her a sheepish, apologetic smile, so she helped him again by taking the last step to close the gap between them. A warm breath came out of his nostrils, and in the silence, they listened to each other breathing.
Voices drifted up from downstairs, and birds twittered outside the window. A breeze blew the lace curtain at the window into the room. A magnetic force brought them together, yet kept them apart. Kathy moved her face another inch toward Luke’s.
Softly, ever so softly, their lips touched, but they didn’t lock the way they had at the church. He didn’t put his arm around her. Kathy wondered if she should press her lips against his mouth harder, to extend the kiss and make it stronger. She’d already been forward enough by stepping up to him when he wouldn’t make the first move.
Just at that moment, a great thundering of running steps sounded on the landing and children’s voices shouted outside the door of the room. “Luke!” the children cried. “Where’s Luke?”
Kathy pulled away. Luke smiled again. “I guess we ought to go down.”
“I guess so,” she agreed.
“We can take this up again when we get home tonight,” he suggested.
“All right,” Kathy replied.
Luke led her by the hand out of the room. The children met them on the landing and surrounded Luke with shouts and questions and more roaring laughter about his brilliant prank at the church. They took no notice of Kathy at all.
Luke couldn’t move a step in the crush of children’s bodies. In the end, he had to shout over them to be heard. “Okay, now all of you go downstairs. I’m hungry and I want to get something to eat.”
They moved ahead of him to the landing, still gushing about everything and anything. Kathy marveled at what a fixture Luke must be in these children’s lives. He acted like everyone’s favorite uncle. He kept hold of Kathy’s hand, and they made their way downstairs to the sitting room, where several long trestle tables groaned with every kind of food imaginable.
Kathy wasn’t sure she should eat in this public place. The people might think she was low. But she never made it to the table. The instant she and Luke entered, strangers rushed at her from all sides, congratulating her and essentially repeating Luke’s thanks for going along with the joke he played on the minister.
Kathy never had a chance to answer them. The moment one person stopped speaking to her or shaking her hand, another took their place and filled her ears with how beautiful she was and how lucky Luke was. They also gave her endless information about themselves and other people and about the Ferguson brothers and everything else Kathy couldn’t remember.
Through the crowd, a face Kathy recognized drifted into view, and Annabel approached her. “How are you doing? You look like a stunned mullet.”
“I don’t know half of what these people are saying,” Kathy murmured. “It’s all coming too fast.”
“Do you want to sit down somewhere?” Annabel asked. “I wouldn’t want you falling over from exhaustion.”
Kathy glanced around the room. “That might be nice.”
“Come into the parlor,” Annabel suggested. “You can hold court in there, and make people come to you instead of standing here all afternoon.”
“Thank you.” Kathy followed Annabel toward the parlor.
As they reached the door, a loud tumult out in the yard and a distant banging noise caught their attention. “Those boys!” Annabel exclaimed.
The two women turned back to the parlor but at that moment, the door flew open and one of the young men who carried Kathy’s trunk burst into the house.
“They’re robbing the stage!” The young man glanced around at the men nearest him. The distance sound of gunfire grew more distinct. “They ambushed the stage coach just after it left the Post Office. They shot the guard, and the driver took off as fast as he could. Come quick! They’re comin’ this way, and the whole deposit from the bank is on that stage!”
Several men stormed out of the door. Kathy and Annabel saw them through the windows. Max strode out onto the front porch, shouting, “Henry, get your shotgun from the wagon! Bernard and Tommy,
you have your side arms. You come with me. The coach will be passing right by here on its way to the highway. We’ll set up a roadblock and we’ll ambush them right back when they come around the corner.”
Max turned to his brother. “Luke, I have my rifle in the wagon over there. I have another shotgun in there. Grab ‘em and come with me.”
The men broke in every direction, some to fetch their weapons and others to get into position at the corner where they expected the stagecoach to make its appearance. Kathy, Annabel, and the other women drifted toward the windows to watch. Max and Luke positioned themselves behind a wagon in front of the church with their guns pointed toward the corner, waiting.
Chapter 8
They didn’t have long to wait. The stagecoach came careening around the corner with the horses straining at their bits and the lathered sweat flying from their harness collars. The driver sat on the edge of his seat, his feet wedged into the floor and his knuckles white on the reins.
Behind the coach, five mounted riders with guns drawn chased the coach into view. The driver hauled on the reins with all his might to turn the horses around the corner. Just as the chase exploded around the last building and up the street past Mary’s house, the armed townspeople jumped from their hiding places with their guns blazing. Max and Luke propped their gun barrels on the wagon box and fired.
The bandits started back in surprise, and their horses reared in fright at this unexpected development. The noise of the guns frightened the horses pulling the stagecoach, and the carriage, already riding precariously on two outer wheels, crashed down onto its side in the middle of the street.
The crash threw the driver clear of the wreck, but the horses screamed and thrashed in their harnesses to get free. Behind the coach, the bandits recovered and gained control of their own horses. A couple of them took shelter from the hail of gunfire behind the fallen coach. Others found places to fire on the townspeople behind water troughs and hedges.
The townsfolk exchanged fire with the bandits, and in the fight, two of the bandits fell, never to rise again. From Mary’s window, Kathy saw Luke wheel and collapse behind the wagon, clutching his shoulder. “Luke!” Annabel shrieked next to her, but Kathy couldn’t move from her spot.
The bandits saw the tide turning. In one last desperate effort to save themselves, they emerged from their hiding places and dashed back in the direction they came.
Seeing their intention, Max raised his head from behind the wagon where he shot at the bandits with a Winchester rifle. He waved his hand to his friends to signal them to press their advantage against the bandits. The other men of the town understood him and came out of their hiding places.
The town men consolidated and moved forward in pursuit. Some of the women came out onto Mary’s porch to observe the spectacle. The bandits darted from one defense point to another, covering themselves with gunfire to their rear as they went.
Max shouted to his friends, and the town men surged forward. The bandits saw them coming and, as one man, they whirled and rained a shower of bullets at the town men.
Annabel saw the disaster even before it happened. “Max!” she screamed, and she flew off the porch into the street.
The bullets smashed into the townspeople and exploded in all directions. One of the young man who carried Kathy’s trunk fell and dragged himself behind a tree for protection. Max turned to look at him, and a bullet caught him in the back of the neck.
Annabel screamed again and ran to him, only to be hit in the side of the head by another stray bullet. She pitched forward and landed face down in the grass in front of the church. Luke saw her from his place behind the wagon wheel. He tried to rise to go to her, but he fell back, delirious.
Kathy saw her fall. Her lungs refused to work, or she would have screamed herself. She wanted to run to Annabel, to take her by the hand and bring her back to the house where she would be safe, but she couldn’t move. Anyway, she might get her wedding dress dirty if she tried to leave the porch.
The men in the street charged the bandits, and all but one of the would-be robbers tumbled and fell. The last bandit got to his horse and managed to urge the animal into a gallop. He catapulted himself into the saddle of the running horse and escaped out of town.
The silence that now descended over the town hurt Kathy’s ears. The horses screamed and fought against their harnesses, but Kathy couldn’t hear anything. She stood frozen on Mary’s porch, staring at the aftermath of the battle.
Luke lay in a sweat behind the wagon wheel, the white shirt under his black suit jacket turning red with blood. Max lay in a heap in the middle of the street, his rifle still pointed toward the bandits. And Annabel lay across the grass, her arms at her sides.
Kathy looked around for someone—anyone. Women wept and screamed and the children hid in the shrubbery, but Kathy didn’t see anyone. She stepped off the porch toward Annabel. She didn’t feel her train dragging in the grass and dirt. She bent down and put her hand on Annabel’s shoulder. She was still warm. The bullet that killed her hadn’t gone straight through her, so Kathy couldn’t see any wounds or blood on her back. She looked like she’d fallen asleep.
She glanced up and spotted Luke hauling himself up on the spokes of the wagon wheel. His face dripped with sweat, and his mouth twisted in mask of despair. He looked back and forth between his brother and Annabel. He managed to stagger over to Kathy. But in the last steps before her reached her, he stumbled and would have toppled over if Kathy hadn’t caught him and supported him.
His breath rasped in his throat. “Where’s Adelaide?”
Kathy couldn’t think straight. She hadn’t even thought about Adelaide. Had the girl seen the gun fight? Had she seen both her parents gunned down in the street?
“Gotta find her,” Luke wheezed.
The fog blew away from Kathy’s head and her thoughts cleared. “We’ll find her. But first, we have to get you inside. Where’s the doctor?”
Luke coughed. “Forget about me. Get the doctor for Max and Annabel.”
“We can’t help them,” Kathy replied. “We have to get you inside and stop the bleeding. Come on.”
“But we can’t just leave them here,” Luke argued.
“We’ll get the boys to carry them into the church,” Kathy told him. “Now stop arguing and come with me. You’ll be dead yourself if you don’t.”
Kathy didn’t wait any longer. She staggered up the steps of Mary’s porch with Luke’s weight hanging on her shoulder. She brought him into the sitting room and laid him on a sofa across from the trestle tables. Then she propped up his head on a cushion. His skin glowed waxy and pale, and he shivered. Kathy grabbed a knitted throw from the back of the sofa and tucked it around him.
A woman Kathy didn’t know materialized at her side. “Do you have some cloth we can use for bandages to stop the bleeding?”
The woman looked around. “Here. Use this.”
Kathy looked down and found a kitchen towel in her hand. “Thanks.” She folded it and tucked it inside Luke’s shirt against the wound. “We’ll need some more. That will soak through in no time.”
“I’ll get ‘em for ya.” The woman paused. “Your dress is ruined.”
Kathy looked down and saw red stains covering the front of her dress, but she had too many other things to think about right now. She would never wear this dress again. She probably wouldn’t even look at it long enough to burn it. “Get the doctor. I’m going upstairs to change my clothes. If you see Adelaide, send her up to talk to me.”
Chapter 9
Kathy climbed the stairs with her train sliding over the steps behind her. A funereal silence filled the house. All the children magically disappeared, and not a single wedding guest, of the dozens who packed Mary’s house and gorged on the various cakes and candies and drinks, remained downstairs.
All gone except Luke.
She had to get her clothes changed and get back down there as quickly as possible. For all she knew, her helper had disap
peared into the wallpaper just like everyone else, leaving Luke alone. Kathy mounted the stairs and reached the landing,
When she got there, she found Adelaide sitting on the floor outside the spare room door. She jumped up when Kathy appeared.
“What are you doing up here?” Kathy asked.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Adelaide replied. “I thought you might need some more help….” Adelaide looked down. “What happened to your dress?”
Kathy stared at the girl. “Have you been up here the whole time?”
“Oh, I had a sandwich when you and Luke first went downstairs,” Adelaide replied. “Then there were all those people around, and I just got tired of waiting, so I came up here.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t hear the shots,” Kathy cried. “They were deafening.”
Adelaide cast around, confused. “I thought I heard something, but I didn’t think anything of it. Why? What happened?”
Kathy sighed. “Come inside, Adelaide. I want to talk to you and I do need your help to get out of this dress.”
Adelaide burst into a smile and would have clapped her hands with delight if she hadn’t seen Kathy’s face and kept silent. Kathy let her into the room and shut the door.
“Now if you will please unbutton my dress…” She turned her back to Adelaide and the girl unfastened the buttons and untied Kathy’s corset laces. Kathy put her dress and veil and all her other wedding clothes away in the trunk to be forgotten for forty or fifty years.
She changed into a charcoal grey traveling suit she usually wore to funerals. She just didn’t know when she packed it that she’d be changing directly into it from her wedding dress. And now her new sister-and brother-in-law, the people who’d been so caring and welcoming, lay dead on the ground outside her wedding. Maybe Luke would die, too, and she’d be left a widow a little more than an hour after her wedding.
She kept out an apron to keep any blood off her clothes. Last of all, she took her hair down, brushed it out, and wound it up into a simple knot on the back of her head. She didn’t bother to check her appearance in the looking glass. When she closed and latched her trunk, she looked up to find Adelaide staring at her.