Shelter from the Storm

by Patricia Rice

  In her struggle to get away, Laura fell backward, hitting her head against the corner of the cabinet, feeling blackness reel her senses. But her instinct for self-preservation was fully roused, and she fought for consciousness, grasping a table leg and protecting herself as best she could with its bulk.

  He was smothering her with his foulness, and she was far beyond understanding what he wanted. The pain in her abdomen worsened, and there was a burst of moisture between her legs. Panic-stricken, Laura struggled to pull herself up by means of the table leg.

  Unbalanced by her movement, Marshall bumped drunkenly against the table, knocking it a few inches across the floor, jarring the pewter water pitcher Laura had left there earlier. Water splashed in a sudden deluge over the side of the table, soaking him as the pitcher rolled and fell to the floor.

  Laura scarcely noticed the water. Most of it struck Marshall, who half-covered her, but she clung to enough consciousness to grasp the significance of the pitcher. Without giving a thought to what she did, she grabbed the heavy pitcher and swung it with what strength she had left.

  The dull thud as it collided with Marshall’s pate was scarcely satisfactory. She merely groaned in relief when he fell to one side instead of on top of her. He gagged as if he were about to be sick, and had she any thought at all, it would be to pour one of his bottles of whiskey down his throat and drown him. But she was operating on instinct now, with no thought at all.

  Using the table for support, Laura grabbed the bag and continued on the path she had set earlier. She clung to enough consciousness to remember her goal as she staggered through the back door and toward the alley to safety. It never occurred to her to stop at the nearest house and ask for help.

  Thoughts shattered by Marshall’s blows, pain spreading rapidly through her abdomen, she knew only to struggle toward Jettie’s mother, the midwife.

  Chapter 17

  Someone kept screaming. She wished they would stop. It hurt too much. The pain swallowed her and sent her back arching upward, and she couldn’t use her hands to stop it. Briefly, the screams ebbed and the pain subsided, except for the ache in her head. Voices murmured.

  Mrs. Jackson, of course. Reassured by recognizing her surroundings, Laura’s mind drifted, then the screams began again, and the pain returned, or perhaps it was the other way around. She was beyond knowing. Pain washed through her, pushing to escape, bearing down harder until she didn’t think she could survive, and the screams reached a new crescendo.

  More voices as the ripping pain subsided into a dull ache. A male voice. Panic grew, and she tried to pull herself from the stupor that numbed her senses, but she could feel the pain again, and the scream emerged. Her voice was hoarse with it. Her voice. Her screams. God, what was happening to her?

  Strong hands touched her in places where only one man had before, and a cold rag soothed her aching head. A calming voice spoke in her ear, while a man barked curt orders. Laura found reassurance in that curtness, and the cold against her bruised cheek helped. But then the pain began, and she couldn’t stop it. It rocked her body, and wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t fight the spasms, couldn’t turn away, couldn’t run anymore. With a wail, she let go, let the pain take control, and unconsciousness claimed her.

  ***

  The dull throb in her head prevented Laura from opening her eyes. She could feel sunshine. The warmth prickled over her bare arms along with the hint of a spring breeze. She was afraid to wake, afraid the pain and misery would return, and she clung to sleep for protection. She dozed awhile longer until she realized something was wrong, something was different, and she stirred, seeking the reason without wanting to know.

  She felt lighter than she had in months, as if some terrible burden had disappeared. She still ached, but it was nothing compared to the pain that she remembered. She moved again and realized she was not in her own bed but on a straw mattress. She had never slept on a straw mattress in her life. Not that she remembered anyway. The thought jarred her one more step toward waking.

  “Here, honey, take a taste of this. Just a drink, Miss Laura, and you’ll feel better. Let me hold your head, honey.”

  The soothing voice continued insistently, and Laura obediently lifted her head and sipped at the cool drink. She thought it was water, but the taste, was odd. She did feel better, and she rested her head gratefully on the pillow afterward, hoping to find sleep again. A persistent noise nearby made her toss and turn, however. A mewling sound. Was there a kitten in here?

  The noise grew louder, and more voices murmured in consultation. Then the first voice returned to her side and an arm propped her, forcing her to sit up enough for more pillows to be placed behind her head. The pillows were old and hard, and she shifted uncomfortably against them.

  “This little one done want his breakfast now, Miss Laura. You just a mite bit of a thing, but you got enough where it counts for this little fella. Here, let me help you hold him. He’ll help himself, he will.”

  Laura murmured a protest as her gown was unfastened, but her arms closed instinctively around the heavy weight placed in them. Warm skin brushed her breast, and instantly she felt the soreness. When an eager mouth closed over the nipple, she cried out and jerked awake

  A dark head of hair rested against her breast, but it wasn’t Cash who suckled there. Laura’s eyes opened wide with surprise as she studied the stranger pulling eagerly at her, flailing with tiny fists until he had what he wanted and settled to nursing. Cash’s son.

  The miracle of it held her in awe, keeping thoughts at bay as she explored the long sturdy body in her arms. Babies were supposed to be tiny, but this one had long legs that kicked when she touched them, and long fingers that curled compulsively around hers when she tried to examine their tiny, perfect fingernails. And a healthy appetite. She winced as he tugged harder, and wondered that she was cursed with still another demanding male.

  Lucretia chuckled at her expression. “Try him on the other side, honey. It will be a while before the milk comes in enough to satisfy a boy as big as that one. Dr. Jon done himself proud with that one.”

  At the mention of Jonathan’s name in connection with Cash’s child, Laura winced again. Obviously Mrs. Jackson had not accepted Marshall’s lies, but she had no reason not to believe the gossip. Laura closed her eyes against the heated pain that memory returned.

  “I have to get away before Marshall finds me,” were her first words. They emerged more as a whisper than the direct command she had meant them to be.

  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere for a while, honey. That boy there done took it out of you. You need plenty of rest, the doctor says. Don’t you fret none. Your man ain’t gonna find you anytime soon.”

  If he wanted to, he would, but maybe he wouldn’t want to. Grasping that possibility, Laura gave herself up to the sensations of the warm little body in her arms. Her son. It seemed incredible to believe. After all these months, she finally held her son in her hands.

  He gradually quietened until she knew he slept, and under Mrs. Jackson’s instructions she lifted him to her shoulder and rubbed his back. His dark head rested trustingly against her neck, and his warm breath brushed her skin. Her heart was won without a fight.

  Tears caught in her lashes as Lucretia placed him in the box she had padded with an old blanket. Laura didn’t want to let him go. She had never been given the chance to love someone so openly, and it seemed unfair to have to be parted, even for a minute. She was happier when the box was placed closer to the bed where she could watch him sleep and touch the dark shock of his hair.

  “You got a name for him?” Mrs. Jackson moved around the room, taking a pot from the side of the small hearth and pouring coffee.

  For the first time, Laura registered her surroundings with clarity. The little cabin was filled with sunlight from the open door and windows. A small fire burned in the grate that served as the cabin’s only heat and kitchen. The smell of coffee perfumed the air, and she gratefully accepted the cup offered. She rea
lized she wore only the summer nightshift that she had packed in her bag and wondered who had found the strength to change her. She couldn’t remember taking off her clothes.

  That thought was followed quickly by a male voice greeting someone on the front step. A vague memory of the prior night returned, just enough to make Laura blush as the Dr. Burke entered the low doorway.

  “Well, Mrs. Jackson, it seems our patient is doing much better this morning.” He set his bag down on a rickety table and accepted the coffee his hostess handed him. “Good morning, Mrs. Brown. I didn’t expect to see you up and so lively already. You had a rather rough night of it. How do you feel this morning?”

  Her head ached. Laura could feel the swollen side of her face. She ached in other places she had no intention of mentioning. All told, she felt like hell, but she merely sipped her coffee in imitation of him and answered, “About as expected, I should say.”

  He made a noncommittal grunt and tilted her face up to the light. “Mrs. Jackson, I’d recommend you keep her away from a mirror for a week or two.” His fingers gently probed the bruises.

  Laura shook her head away. “Don’t worry about mirrors. I can’t stay here a week or two. I need to leave as soon as possible. I couldn’t risk traveling before, but I can’t risk staying now. I need to reach Lexington, at least. I can pay the fare if you’ll just get me to the train station.”

  She would have to use Cash’s money for the fare, but she would pay him back somehow. It was more important that she protect his son than worry over the honesty of taking his money.

  She steeled herself against embarrassment as Burke examined her. He was very good at making his touches impersonal. It was nothing like it had been with Cash. Perhaps that was why Jonathan’s caresses had not incited the same flames. Or perhaps it was only the forbidden that made her ache for more. Well, she had had enough of the forbidden. From now on she was taking the safe route.

  “You’ll not be going anywhere for two weeks, at the very earliest, Mrs. Brown. Your body needs time to recover from its exertions, and your son shouldn’t be exposed to the rigors of travel. If it’s your husband you fear, I’ll summon the sheriff to protect you.”

  Laura laughed, although it came out more a croak. “You must come from more enlightened places than Stone Creek, Doctor. The sheriff will do nothing to keep a wife from her husband. In fact, he’s more likely to incarcerate you and Mrs. Jackson for preventing Marshall’s access to me.”

  Burke stepped back and stared at her battered face. “You are being hysterical, my dear. Any thinking man need only look at you and know it’s best to keep you safe from the man who assaulted you. Let me press charges against him, and he will be locked up and you needn’t worry again.”

  A sudden flashback of that horrendous day when the men of town had stood in front of the courthouse and watched Watterson nearly beat Cash to death with a whip reduced Laura to hollow laughter. Let him think her hysterical. She knew without even trying what would happen should he be fool enough to take out a warrant against Marshall. She glared at the man standing there, thinking himself all-powerful in his skill and knowledge.

  “Let me try to explain one more time, Dr. Burke. Do not think me unappreciative of your offer, but you will have to understand: a wife is a husband’s property under Kentucky law. He can do anything he wants to, and no one can interfere. The Emancipation Proclamation did not include wives, as far as I recall.”

  At the disbelief lingering in his eyes, she made her meaning more explicit. “If your neighbor chose to burn his own house down, would you have the right to stop him?”

  Put in those terms, he understood. Shaking his head, he tried again. “I find it hard to believe that in this day and age, no one would come forward to help you. You command a good deal of respect in this town. No one seems aware of your husband’s propensity for violence—”

  Laura cut him short. “He’s not my husband. He’s a brute and a villain and there is nothing I can do about it. The sheriff is a man. All the town fathers are men. And they will all believe Marshall before they will believe me. They will say what you just said. She’s just hysterical. Having the baby caused her to lose her senses. She’ll be all right in a little while. Just give them time. Marshall’s a fine man.

  “I’ve lived here far longer than you, Doctor, and I’ve heard the excuses a thousand times. They turned their backs when men beat their slaves, and they turn their backs when men beat their wives. It’s all the same thing. And you’re in no position to argue with them. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up on the wrong end of a noose. There are ignorant people in this county who resent a white doctor treating any but white people. If you insist on wandering into houses like this one, you’d better start wearing a gun.”

  Burke looked startled, then angry. “Now, wait just one minute, Mrs. Brown. . . ” He stopped, remembering her declaration that she was not married, and amended, “Miss Laura. I’m a physician. My business is to heal the sick, whatever color they might be. No one is going to tell me whom I can or cannot treat. I’m certain Jonathan never turned anyone away.”

  Wearily Laura closed her eyes. “No, but he never went to their houses, either. He knew the town. If someone came in his back gate while no one was looking, then no one could complain. But he did not flagrantly display his disloyal tendencies. Ask Mrs. Jackson. Jonathan is a good man, but he’s been around long enough to learn caution. How many babies have been lost because Dr. Broadbent couldn’t come out to help you, Mrs. Jackson?”

  The old woman’s face was a mask of indifference as she replied, “Not none of them, Miss Laura. Warn’t nothin’ he coulda done for them stillborns anyways.”

  Even Burke had the sense to know differently. Laura would have been lost had she been left to the cares of an old woman without a doctor’s skills and knowledge. She could see the realization reflected in his eyes.

  “That doesn’t resolve what we have here,” he said obstinately. “If Marshall isn’t your husband, then you can press assault charges and the sheriff will have to abide by them.”

  Laura was growing weary of his insistence. “It’s all the same, Dr. Burke. The whole town knows I left to marry Marshall when I was still a child. He’s behaved as my husband these past weeks, claimed my child as his, and no one will doubt his word. It’s easy enough to prove people are married, but how does one go about proving they aren’t?”

  “Well, I am not standing helplessly waiting for him to kill you. There has to be something that can be done.”

  “Take me to the train station as soon as I can travel.” Laura whispered wearily as her eyes closed and her head fell back upon the pillows. She couldn’t carry the burden any longer.

  The doctor and the midwife exchanged glances. The woman on the bed was too small and frail to bear what she already had. It seemed a miracle she was alive. Yet she still kicked and protested and demanded her way. Burke looked down upon the healthy, sleeping infant, wondered briefly who the father was, then packed his bag and nodded to the old woman.

  “I’m going to the sheriff, no matter what she says. And I’m writing to Dr. Broadbent. There has to be something done to protect her.”

  As if Jonathan’s name had penetrated her consciousness, Laura stirred and murmured, “Cash. Tell Cash.”

  Lucretia’s eyebrows raised, then lowered in thought. When the doctor turned to her for explanation, she shrugged. “Her cousin’s husband. They be good friends, but he gone No’th for his weddin’ trip. He’d be the one to tell, for certain.”

  “There has to be some way to get word to him. I’ll find out.” Restoring his hat to his head, Dr. Burke strode out.

  Laura woke when her son woke and slept when he slept. By the next day she was feeling well enough to be irritable. Her entire jaw ached, and though the swelling seemed to be down, it felt stiff and painful when she tried to eat or speak. Marshall had obviously split her lip, and anything hot scorched across the cut. There were bruises on her breast that made her mo
an when the babe beat at them, but she hugged him closer and calmed his angry hands with soothing words, and he turned to more important matters as he drained her filling breasts.

  “That boy done gonna be up and walking afore you,” Lucretia muttered. “You never did say what you gonna name him. Boy’s gotta have a name.”

  Laura had had time to think about that, but she’d never had any real hope that she would ever see this day. Now that it had come, she felt as defiant as she had the night Jettie’s child had been born. “Jonathan, of course. Jonathan Marcus Kincaid.”

  Lucretia’s eyes narrowed at that. “They ain’t gonna call him Kincaid. And your daddy’s name was Mark, not Marcus. That sounds like that fancy stuff Cash’s momma done used on him.”

  “It doesn’t matter what anybody thinks.” Laura stroked the dark head on her breast lovingly. “I’ll call him Mark and everyone will think he’s named after my father.” She turned anxious eyes to her protector. “Do you think you could take him over to your church and have him baptized? If something happens to me, I want him to have a name.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to you,” Lucretia answered scornfully. “You a Kincaid. You be fine.”

  Lucretia had been a relation of Jemima’s, the cook at Stone Creek before the war, and Laura knew full well that kind of bluster. She had spent enough time in Jemima’s kitchens listening to the lies and the laughter and the sorrow, and she knew when everything was hopeless, the lies prevailed. She wasn’t fooled by Lucretia’s assurances.

  “No matter. I want him baptized, and if anything happens to me, I want him taken to Cash and Stone Creek. Cash will take care of him. If Marshall comes, you hide Mark and get him to the farm. Don’t worry about me. I’m big enough to stand on my own; Mark isn’t.”