This Brokken Road

by Lynda Cox

She violently shrugged out from under Abigail’s hand, spinning on a boot heel. She put several feet between them, stopping at the window to stare out.

  Abigail could do no more than gape at her friend. “I thought—”

  “Everyone thinks the reason I have to know if he’s dead or alive is because I want him to be alive and to come back.” Victoria spun around to her. The glittering harshness in her eyes returned. “I don’t want him alive. But, until I know for sure, I have to assume he is. Do you understand what I’m saying, Abby?”

  Abigail took one step closer and halted as the world tilted, spun, and then slowly righted. She was afraid of Jonathan returning. How long had Victoria kept this ugly secret? She immediately berated herself. Even if Victoria had shared it, what good would it have done? “Is that why—”

  Victoria’s laugh was the most bitter sound Abigail had ever heard. The glint in her friend’s eyes was not anger but terror. “Why I learned to never let my guard down? Why I learned to be better than even him with a revolver or rifle? Why I shoot first and ask questions later?” Victoria’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Why I won’t let anyone get close enough to me to hurt me ever again?”

  How had she managed to miss this? Four years of believing Victoria waited in vain for her husband to return, assuming it was because she loved him. And before that, she had still missed it. Victoria was married when she and Sam arrived in Brokken. “Vic, I’m sorry. I didn’t see it.”

  “You weren’t supposed to see it.” She finally released her white-knuckled hold of the badge. Her shoulders rounded further, and she bent her head to the floor. “By the time you and Sam got here, I’d been married for a year. I’d already gotten really good at hiding it. And explaining away what I couldn’t hide. I was clumsy. I fell down a lot of stairs.”

  The shame and agony radiating from her friend knifed into Abigail’s heart. She took another step closer. “Why didn’t you tell someone? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What good would that have done?” Victoria’s head snapped up, her eyes haunted and dark. “You couldn’t stop him and if you had breathed even a word of it to anyone, the gossip would have started, and it would have been worse.”

  “Your father.” That somehow she had missed all this sickened Abigail. “Surely you could have told him, and he would have done something. Anything.”

  Another bitter laugh filled the twilight shrouded room. “I did. Jonathan and I had been married about six months and...and I lost a baby because of him. I told my father and he told me I needed to be a better wife, that the Bible says wives are to submit to their husband’s authority. I was always head-strong and stubborn, and I needed to learn humility and obedience.”

  Abigail’s stomach lurched. Submit? To a man who would and did hurt her? It should have been a very cold day in an extremely warm place before she could ever imagine any father telling his daughter that. Abigail closed the remaining distance and pulled Victoria’s strangely unresisting form into her arms. For less than a heartbeat, Victoria stiffened against the embrace. And then, as if she was no more than a marionette with its strings suddenly cut, she crumbled against Abigail.

  “I don’t want him to be alive and to come back, Abby.” Her voice broke with a ragged cry. The unflappable, hard-as-nails-shell continued to crack. “What kind of a monster does that make me? I prayed for him to die during the war and now I pray every night he isn’t alive and that he won’t come back.”

  “You’re not a monster.” Abigail stroked her friend’s head and back. “You’ve been hurt, by the man who promised to love and honor you. And you were hurt by your father, the one person in this life you should have been able to know beyond all doubt would protect you from that man.”

  Victoria wasn’t the only wife in Brokken who had been on the receiving end of her husband’s fists. More than once, she or Sam had treated Caroline Brooks for contusions that had been the result of a so-called fall. The worst had been when Caroline’s wrist had broken when she stumbled in the spring house. When Abigail confronted her with what she suspected, Caroline admitted the accidents only happened after Peter had been heavily drinking, but her relief when news came that Peter had been killed in the Wilderness so overwhelmed Caroline she had collapsed in the street. Abigail resolved she and Pastor Grisson were going to have a heart-to-heart about this. He was to be a protector, not only of his daughter, but of his flock.

  Calvin’s shout at the front door broke Abigail and Victoria apart. Her friend slumped, and Abigail grabbed her elbow.

  “Miz Bailey, come quick. The Jennings boys are trying to kill Devon.”

  Abigail hesitated. Victoria straightened and waved a hand at her. “Go. I’m right behind you.”

  She rushed out the door. She didn’t even have to ask Calvin where this latest scuffle was taking place. Without her asking, Calvin pointed across the street at the blacksmith shop. Abigail lifted her skirts and ran as fast as she could. When she got closer, the sickening sounds hurried her.

  She rounded the corner of the building and skidded to a halt. She froze at the scene. Devon lay curled up on the ground, whimpering with pain. Alexander Jennings, the older of the boys, hefted a pair of heavy metal tongs, preparing to swing the tool again at Devon.

  “Drop that now!” Abigail’s immobility broke with her words. She didn’t wait for Alexander to comply. She flung herself at Devon, covering him. Her heart sank when the boy’s body grew limp.

  “His ma got money from some carpetbagger back East, and he said they’re gonna buy my ma out.” Not the slightest hint of remorse colored Alexander’s words.

  “Devon didn’t say that,” Calvin protested. “His ma got money from his uncle, so they don’t lose their place.”

  A cocking revolver sounded. “Put the tongs down,” Victoria said. “Put them down, now.”

  The heavy tool fell into the dust near Abigail’s head. She pushed herself off the unconscious child, bile rising in the back of her throat. She carefully moved Devon’s arms from his head. To keep the bile from rising any further, she sucked in a deep breath and held it. Stay calm. You can’t help him if you turn into a hysterical mess. Stay calm.

  The jut of white bone through Devon’s lower arm should have been her first concern but it wasn’t. The massive swelling over his right eye had to be her primary focus. She eased her breath out and pressed her fingers lightly over the ridge of bone. A depression marked where the tongs had made contact with his small skull. Her stomach sank feet below the dusty ground.

  Drawn by the commotion, other citizens of the town started arriving at the scene. Abigail twisted her head over her shoulder. “Vic, keep them away.”

  Victoria had a firm grip on Alexander’s upper arm. “What do I do with him?”

  Abigail shook her head. Laura Peters’s scream pierced the near dark. Victoria released Alexander and stopped Laura, preventing her from throwing herself onto her son.

  Pastor Grisson elbowed past his daughter and knelt next to Abigail. “What can I do to help?”

  Abigail gently scooped Devon into her arms and stood. “Pray.”

  Chapter Four

  She understood why the wee hours of the night were the darkest. No matter what she did, Abigail knew Devon slipped further and further away. She kept a poultice made of arnica, comfrey, and plantain on his head wound to try to reduce the swelling. She hesitated to use either willow bark or laudanum. He couldn’t swallow, and she didn’t want to choke him. More importantly, he was unconscious and not in any pain. She had set his arm after tending to his head wound, even though she had little hope he would recover from the serious injury to his head long enough to allow the arm to heal.

  Not once since she had taken over caring for the people of Brokken had she felt inadequate. Until now. Anger rose in her, searing with the intensity. How dare Sam break his promise to come back to her, safe and sound? Damn that war. Damn everything about it.

  Devon’s mother held his small hand clutched within hers, even in he
r exhausted sleep. She was sprawled next to him on the small bed.

  Victoria had arrested both Alexander and Aaron Jennings. She had done it to protect them from several furious citizens who wanted to mete out a similar fate.

  Hanging was too good for them, Abigail heard one of them say as she’d carried Devon to the doctor’s office. Victoria hadn’t charged them with any crimes. Not yet, her friend added, when she explained to Abigail why they were in jail.

  Pastor Grisson sat vigil with Laura, but even he had slipped into a dozing sleep in the other chair in the small room. Abigail bent over Devon and took his small hand in hers. His fingers were as cold as ice. When she pressed her fingers against the pulse in his wrist, she barely felt it. A check of the pulse under his ear revealed it to be as weak as the one in his wrist.

  A deep sigh broke from her when she straightened. If Devon remained among the living at dawn, she would be surprised. She made her way from the room, through the foyer, and out onto the front porch. She paused only long enough to grab her shawl off the coat tree near the front door.

  Tilting her head to the black sky overhead, the stars shimmered and swam in a high, thin layer of clouds. Maybe, it would rain. The damp night air seeped through her cotton blouse. Goosebumps rose, and she wrapped her arms around herself and pulled the shawl tighter. The stars blurred further, and she blinked. A broken sob rippled into the darkness.

  A scream of frustration began to well in her chest, against the brokenness, against so much loss. Unable to contain that scream and unwilling to wake the whole town, Abigail shoved a clenched fist into her mouth and bit down on her knuckles.

  She stumbled off the porch and onto the main street of town. She walked as fast as she could, her pace increasing with every step, until she ran pell-mell into the night, welcoming the comforting embrace of the blackness that shrouded the softly rolling hills outside of town. Falling to her knees with a stitch in her side, she threw her head back and screamed her fury at the capricious nature of the Fates, or God, or whatever directed her life. She screamed until her throat was raw and her lungs burned. She beat her fists on the ground, not caring that sharp rocks dug into the sides of her hands and bloodied them.

  Finally spent, Abigail collapsed into the dust. The sharp edge of a pebble dug into her cheek, but she was too exhausted to move.

  A slow turn of her head brought the sky into view. The high thin clouds earlier had thickened, almost fully obscuring the stars. “Why, God? Why did You have to take Sam? We need him here. I need him here.” Tears leaked from her eyes, dripping down the side of her head into the hair at her temples. “And, why Devon? He’s just a boy. He’s all his mother has left.”

  A long, low, far-distant rumble of thunder was her only answer. She pushed off the ground and sat. Somehow, her headlong flight from town had brought her once again to this glade, a place she and Sam had called their glen. A long scan of the western skies brought into focus a darker black edging the night of the northwest. Low on the horizon, a faint flicker of lightning illuminated the depths of the faraway clouds. The breeze lifted and brushed over her heated cheeks, bringing the slight scent of rain from the northwest.

  The rain crows had been right. The interplay of the lightning dancing in the clouds, painting them in purples and whites and blues, and listening to the roar of the thunder as it rose and crashed soothed the pain in her soul. Watching a storm roll in, feeling its immense power, had been a favorite pastime for her and Sam. Sitting in the glider on the porch, wrapped in a shared blanket, and within the safety of his arms always brought a sense of security and peace to her.

  Since the day word had come that Sam had succumbed to his wounds while held in that prison camp in Ohio, she had made her way to this small glade whenever she needed solace. It was where Sam swore he would return home to her, safe and sound ... where she was closest to him ... and where he was able to hear her.

  “I miss you, Sam.” Tears trickled down her face again. “I wish you hadn’t made me promise if you died before me, I would find someone else. I don’t want anyone else. I vowed to love you for the rest of my life.”

  Lightning flickered closer and thunder sounded a little sooner. The breeze grew, hissing and whistling through the winter dead grasses, and whispering in the boughs of the pine stand close to her.

  “I hope you understand that I have to find a doctor for this town, and the only way to do that is to advertise and ask for men willing to come here to fill the roles so many of you left. And they’ll be needing wives. Please know that you’ll always be my first love. You will always hold a piece of my heart and my soul. But, I have to do what’s right for Brokken and for others like Devon, who might need more doctoring than I can give. If you were here, or if any doctor was here, he might not be dying. I can’t save him, Sam. That hurts the most. I can’t save him, but you could have.”

  Deep purples, lavenders, blues, and blinding whites lit the interior of the rapidly approaching storm clouds. The subsequent roll of thunder had a sharper sound. The gusting breeze brushed damp fingers across her cheeks, tugging her hair away from her head. Unless she wanted to walk back to town in a rainstorm, she needed to get on her feet and start moving. Abigail pushed herself off the ground.

  Still she hesitated and looked around the glade, bordered on two sides with stands of pines and illuminated with lightning. She gave herself a hard, mental shake. If he could help it, Sam had never shirked what he saw as his duty to be with a dying patient. It was the least she could do, if not for Devon, then for his mother.

  “I never wanted to be a doctor, Sam. I was happy just helping you. Now, I don’t have a choice.” She gave a nod. But maybe, if her plan worked, someone would take the burden from her. She sighed deeply and then ran from the rain.

  SHE RACED ONTO THE porch as the first heavy drops fell. Everything was just as she left it, less than an hour ago. Pastor Grisson was still asleep in a chair in the parlor. Devon’s mother still held her child’s hand in hers.

  Abigail turned the wick in the low-lit lamp on the small table at Devon’s side, raising the light. Miraculously, Devon was still alive. A quick check of his pulse in both his wrist and under his ear proved his heart beat stronger.

  Abigail went into the front parlor for her tinctures and set about mixing up more of the poultice. So she could change the bandaging holding the mixture in place, she would have to wake Laura. Being able to assure the woman her son still lived would ease the task. When the mixture reached the proper consistency, she went into the other room and gently shook Laura’s shoulder.

  Laura sat bolt upright, blinking in confusion.

  “Shhh. I need to change the poultice, and it’s easier to do if I can lift him.” Abigail gestured down at Devon.

  The woman nodded. Without releasing her son’s hand, she moved back far enough that Abigail could lift his small head and unwind the bandaging. The arnica, comfrey, and plantain poultice applied earlier had already reduced much of the swelling. As it was meant to do, the arnica also minimized the bruising. She applied a thick layer of the fresh poultice to the wound and rewrapped the bandaging.

  “Is he going to be all right?” Laura’s gaze never left her boy’s pale face and she never stopped stroking the back of his hand, held within hers.

  “I don’t know.” Abigail forced a long, deep breath while she wiped the last of the poultice from her hands. “I’m hoping he will.”

  “How is he?” Pastor Grisson asked. Abigail glanced over her shoulder at the tall, austere man standing in the doorway.

  “Alive. Other than that, I can’t say.”

  “We must leave it in God’s hands, then. Laura, I’m sure every mother in this town is praying for your son.”

  Something shifted in Laura’s expression, tightening the lines of her face and darkening her already worry-darkened eyes. She lowered her son’s hand to the bed and patted it once before she stood. “This is your fault.”

  Abigail’s mouth dropped open at the vehemence of
the words. Laura’s eyes locked with Pastor Grisson’s.

  She rounded the bed, marching past Abigail to the preacher. “Your fault, Pastor Grisson. You preached that we need to have the patience of Job for our tribulations and not risk God’s anger as Job did for questioning Divine Will. Instead, you should have been shepherding your flock with the teachings of the Savior.”

  Abigail snapped her mouth shut even as Grisson’s dropped open. Undaunted, Laura continued. “The Savior preached peace and love for one another. ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Isn’t that what He said? My son is lying there, most likely dying, because some of us can’t or won’t stop fighting a war that’s been over for almost two years.”

  Grisson’s gaze cut over to the little boy. “You’re upset, Laura. If we could pray together—”

  “Yes, I’m upset, but you don’t have any right to tell me that what I’m saying is simply because I’m upset. I’m his mother and I have every reason to be angry with this absolutely and utterly senseless violence.” Laura advanced another step on the preacher. “You never took a side in that war. I can respect that. But, what I can’t respect is you still won’t take a side. This town is tearing itself apart, and you won’t say so much as a word to heal the wounds and foster peace. You’re too afraid of someone getting upset with you!”

  Abigail turned her back, not to avoid Grisson’s embarrassment but to hide her own grim satisfaction with Laura’s total dressing down of the pastor. She directed her full attention to the silent child, measured his pulse, assured herself he still wasn’t feverish, and prayed for a miracle.

  “I...I...I can’t take a side.” The preacher pulled back, as if offended.

  “Oh, yes, you can. God’s side.” Laura’s voice grew even sharper. Movement under Devon’s eyelids drew Abigail’s attention. With each word his mother spoke, the movement increased, as if the boy struggled to wake from a deep sleep. “If we don’t start seeing each other as neighbors and the friends we were before instead of as former enemies, more children will be like my son. We must be citizens of this town, again. There aren’t Yankees or Rebels anymore. Stop hiding behind your façade and take Brokken’s side.”