Sage

by Cindy Caldwell

  “Maria said you deserved a plate of dessert for sticking up for Sage. We all agreed, so I thought I’d drop it off and check in to see how Mr. Jackson is doing. Well, both Mr. Jacksons, actually,” she said.

  She smiled as Clint removed the linen napkin and sniffed at the portion of what looked like custard on his plate.

  “What is this?”

  Mrs. Allen laughed and waved her hand.

  “Just try it. You’ll love it. It’s called flan, and it’s a Mexican custard with carmelized sugar on top. It’s a specialty of Maria’s. And it’s an extra large helping. I think she likes you.”

  Clint reached for the teaspoon beside his cold cup of tea and took a taste.

  “My, that’s remarkably good.”

  Mrs. Allen nodded.

  “It is, and I’m glad you are enjoying it. We all were worried about both you and Sage.”

  He explained to Mrs. Allen Sage’s concerned and fears, and what he’d encouraged her to do.

  “She allowed me to have this bottle of tonic that she’d made for my father, to give it one more try. Maybe it was just an accident that a particular batch wasn’t right? Or maybe it had nothing to do with the tonic at all, but she agreed to try just once more. I’m just waiting for Father to wake up to get his permission, and to try the new one.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the new bottle of tonic, with his father’s name on the front. He set it on the small, walnut nightstand next to the other bottle, the one which his father had been taking for weeks.

  Mrs. Allen stood and crossed to that side of the bed, taking a bottle of tonic in each hand.

  “Sage made this one with your father’s name on it, you said?”

  “Yes. She gave it to me finally tonight, after much cajoling. Why?”

  Mrs. Allen held them up to the light.

  “Sage doesn’t always have the opportunity to use these types of labels, and I notice that this older bottle doesn’t have one.”

  Clint had finished his flan and set the plate on the tea tray before joining Mrs. Allen in looking at the bottles.

  “And look at this. These bottles aren’t the same size. The older one has a longer neck than the new one, and the corks are different. This new one is round, and the older bottle has one shaped more like a cone.”

  Clint looked where Mrs. Allen was pointing and sure enough, the shape and size of the bottles was, in fact, different, as were the types of corks used.

  He hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets.

  “I suppose Sage might have a wide variety of bottles, don’t you think?”

  Mrs. Allen set the new bottle of tonic on the nightstand and the older one further away on the windowsill.

  “I don’t know, to be honest. I just noticed that they were different and thought I’d point it out. I have a sometimes unwelcome habit of noticing these types of things, as irrelevant as they are.”

  “Very observant. I’ll mention it to Sage when I see her the day after tomorrow.”

  “I doubt it has any significance.” She pulled on her gloves and pinned on her hat. “I’ll leave you two to get some sleep. I do hope that things improve, Clint.”

  He saw her to the door and watched her until she was in her carriage and off down the street. In New York, no doubt, she would have had a driver, but Tombstone was small, and she was well-known—free to move about as she wished. He admired her self-reliance and was happy that he’d gotten to know her over the time he’d spent in the town.

  As he returned to his father’s room, he heard him stir.

  “Father?”

  His father’s eyes were blinking slowly as he attempted to pull himself into a sitting position.

  “Here, let me help you,” Clint said, rushing to his side and lifting his father up. He plumped the pillows behind him and stood back as his father’s cough came in furious spasms and seemed to last for a full five minutes.

  As a doctor, he found it odd that these coughs were not accompanied by any expulsions of phlegm or anything of the sort that would signify a chest infection.

  His father eventually caught his breath, with the aid of a glass of water, and during his spasms his gown had fallen open around his neck. Clint moved closer, and noticed the same rash on his neck that he’d seen on the miner several days prior.

  “Father, have you had that rash for long?”

  “What rash?” his father asked slowly, his voice raspy.

  Clint reached for a mirror and showed the rash to his father.

  The elder Mr. Jackson shook his head slowly.

  “I honestly don’t know. I feel like I’ve been asleep for a year, and that I’d like to go back to sleep, and if you weren’t here I would. You’d have to ask Mrs. Baxter.”

  Clint set the mirror back down on the dresser with a bit of a thud.

  “Careful with that, son. That was your mother’s.”

  Clint stiffened and turned back to the mirror. The mirror had been on his father’s dresser, both here and in New York, as long as he could remember. So long, in fact, that he hardly noticed it anymore.

  As he took a closer look, the handle seemed to be made out of some kind of ornate metal, and the ceramic back had a painting on it. He picked it up and held it up to the lantern.

  His father took it gingerly from his hand and looked at it lovingly. The purple vase of flowers on the back was delicately painted, with sprays of white flowers pouring over the top, their green leaves falling gracefully to the sides.

  “Your mother loved this mirror. She got it from her mother as a wedding present,” Clint’s father said between pauses for deep breaths.

  As his father held it up to the light, Clint had a flash of memory—his first ever—of his mother and him together. He sat on her lap as she combed his hair and he held up the mirror for both of them to see. As if it were yesterday, he saw her in the mirror, sitting behind him, the look of joy on her face overwhelming him all these years later.

  “I remember,” he said quietly, a lump in his throat.

  His father set the mirror down on the bed and ran his hand over the painted vase of flowers.

  “I do, too,” he whispered. “I miss her. Sometimes the pain is unbearable.”

  Clint picked up the mirror and sat on the side of his father’s bed, his hand resting on his father’s knee. For the first time in his memory, he felt his mother in his heart—not just in his head—and other memories came tumbling out.

  “These flowers. They look familiar.”

  His father smiled and nodded with what energy he had.

  “Lilies of the Valley were her favorite. At almost every funeral we ever did, if I had my way.”

  The scent of the lilies washed over Clint—every time he’d walked into the mourning room when he was growing up, he’d smelled these flowers. It wasn’t until this moment that he knew they had some connection to his mother, and it made the memory even sweeter.

  “Father, is that why you continued, opened a funeral parlor here in Tombstone?”

  “You’re on to me, boy,” his father said, the coughs returning as he laughed. “Actually, it’s so difficult to lose a loved one that I wanted to continue trying to make it easier, less horrifying. Besides, it was an excuse to have Lilies of the Valley around as much as I could.”

  “Now that I know that about Mother, I’ll make sure that you always have Lilies of the Valley. In fact, I’ll send away for some first thing in the morning. I know that her death was a great blow to you.”

  “And to you, too, son. More than you know. Even though she passed when you were young, she was your mother. Imagine what it must be like for Sage, to have known her mother for so long and then to have lost her. Although it’s part of life, the grief is profound.”

  “Yes, yes,” Clint said. He stood and reached for the new bottle of tonic. “And with all this talk of death, let’s make sure that you stay around for as long as possible. Sage made you a new tonic and I’d like you to take it.”

  “O
f course. Why wouldn’t I? She’s a very talented young lady—and also beautiful, I might add.”

  Clint wasn’t sure how he did it, but his father mustered up enough energy to wiggle his eyebrows. Even in the darkest times, his father could cause someone to laugh, including this time.

  “Father, be serious for a moment. I must disclose that Sage is concerned that it is her tonic that is contributing to your illness.”

  “Hogwash. There’s nothing that charming young lady could do to make that happen. Her mother was famous for her tonics and Sage learned everything from her. I have faith in her ability.”

  And with that, he turned toward Clint, his mouth wide open like a little bird. Clint laughed again before he poured the purple syrup into a spoon and tipped it into his father’s mouth.

  “Mm, elderberry. My favorite. Glad we have that one again,” his father said before he slid back down in his bed, pulled the covers to his chin and fell asleep with a smile on his face.

  Chapter 23

  Carol was all smiles when Sage took her the specially-made tonic the day before. She’d still been a little nervous about giving it to her, after the mess with the miner and Mr. Jackson, but Carol was so incredibly grateful and had given her such a big hug that she’d cast all her doubts aside.

  When she’d gotten home the previous night, she’d stopped at the workshop to get her mother’s journal and had taken it to bed with her. She read and re-read the formulations that she and her mother had concocted, and had fallen asleep still wondering what she might have done wrong. Nothing she could possibly make should have made the miner or Mr. Jackson more ill, nor should they have caused a rash. She tossed and turned all night, her dreams full of people carrying her bottles of tonic, covered in rashes and coughing.

  She’d been so relieved to awaken from her horrid dreams that she’d hopped into the kitchen to see if Maria needed any help before she headed over to the funeral parlor to check on Mr. Jackson. She could use the distraction.

  “Ah, just in time, little one.” Maria plopped a big ball of dough on the butcher block counter and pointed to it when Sage walked in the room. She winked at the same time...Sage loved to bake and was always willing to help when she wasn’t off somewhere else.

  As she kneaded the dough, she caught Maria staring at her out of the corner of her eye.

  “Yes, Maria?” Sage said, steeling herself for what might come. Maria was never one to hold back on her thoughts.

  Maria pulled out a stool next to Sage and reached for her hand.

  “I’m so sorry the doctor let you go. He never deserved you in the first place.”

  “Now, Maria, he is a very fine doctor. He just—well, he wants to do things the way he wants to do things. He’s the expert, not me.”

  Maria scoffed and threw a handful of flour onto the ball of bread dough, and Sage sputtered to get it from her mouth.

  “Ridiculous,” Maria said in her heavy Spanish accent, and Sage couldn’t help but laugh.

  “No, really. He’s a very learned man, from back east.”

  Maria scooted the stool back and stomped to the sink, pumping a good deal of water into a pail.

  “If he learned anything it should be that you are the best thing that ever happened to him. That you know what you’re doing. Everybody knows that. Even that Mr. Clint.”

  Sage’s eyebrows rose. She should have known that Maria would be scouting out the dinner table, even from afar.

  “What do you mean?” she asked as she punched the dough, a little harder now.

  “The doctor has always treated you poorly. You were just the only person who didn’t see it. I take that back. I’m not sorry he let you go. I’m glad.”

  Sage surprised herself with the force she managed to hit the dough with.

  “That Mr. Clint, he was really concerned for you when you went to talk to the doctor. That’s what respect is, Sage. Not what the doctor did to you.”

  Sage took a final thrashing to the dough, thinking about how different she felt when Clint was near as opposed to the doctor. When she was around the doctor, she felt small, useless, cast aside. But when she was with Clint, she felt—well, completely different. She did feel respected.

  Even though Maria may have been right, she didn’t want to hear it. All she wanted to do was see if Mr. Jackson was feeling better. For all she knew, Dr. Folsom was right and Mr. Jackson had taken a turn for the worse in the past day.

  “Fine. Thank you for your advice,” she said as she plopped the kneaded ball of dough in the big bowl. She clapped the flour from her hands and wiped the remainder on her apron before she took it off and hung it by the swinging kitchen door. She passed through into the dining room and heard Maria’s final words as she collected her hat, coat and gloves.

  “You know I’m right. Listen to your heart,” Maria said in her heavy accent.

  And those last words were all Sage could think about as she guided the buggy toward Mr. Jackson’s house.

  She reached for the bell pull and took a step back as Clint opened the door. His smile was contagious and he grabbed her hand, pulling her past the funeral parlor and down the hall, into Mr. Jackson’s bedroom.

  She stopped short, her hand flying to her mouth, as the scene before her sunk in.

  Mr. Jackson sat upright in bed, an empty tea tray in his lap—well, empty but for a stack of playing cards. He held the remainder of the deck in his hand and smiled as she stepped slowly inside.

  “Sage, how nice of you to join us. Care for a hand of poker?”

  Mrs. Baxter stood in the corner, dabbing at her eyes, both laughing and crying at the same time.

  “He’s been like this since last evening. I’ve never seen anything like it,” she whispered in Sage’s ear as she passed by and headed toward the kitchen.

  “Isn’t it marvelous?” Clint asked Sage as he pulled her onto a chair beside him.

  Mr. Jackson dissolved into a coughing fit and Sage glanced quickly at Clint.

  “Well, he’s not a hundred percent yet, but this is a remarkable improvement. His memory is even better. He’s beaten me ten out of twelve hands. He’ll be working at one of the saloons before you know it.”

  Mr. Jackson let out a big belly laugh and dealt another hand.

  “I...I don’t quite know what to say.” Sage took off her coat and Clint hung it on the stand. “How could this be?”

  Mr. Jackson winked at her and nodded toward the tonic. “I think it was the elderberry syrup you added. I was missing it, and having it back seemed to make all the difference in the world.”

  Sage frowned and picked up the bottle of tonic on the night stand.

  “I don’t understand. All my tonic tastes like elderberry syrup. That’s what I use to make it—well, drinkable.”

  “I don’t understand, either,” Clint said as he reached behind him and passed the other bottle of tonic to her.

  She took it slowly.

  “This isn’t one of my bottles.”

  Clint laid down his playing cards and frowned as well.

  “What? Mrs. Allen noticed they were different, but we thought maybe you had several different kinds.”

  “No, I don’t. I only have this kind,” she said, holding up the elderberry-flavored tonic.

  “Oh,” Clint said slowly. “Then how...why...”

  She opened the older bottle and took a sniff, pulling it away from her nose as quickly as she could.

  “This isn’t mine. This has sumac in it. There is a poisonous variety as well as a non-poisonous variety, so my mother never, ever used it and told me not to, either. I can smell it in here. Somebody got the wrong kind.”

  The room fell silent, and both Mr. Jacksons stared at her with wide eyes.

  “Do you mean someone tried to kill me?” Mr. Jackson asked.

  Sage shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. But whoever made this didn’t know the difference. These kinds of things can be very dangerous if you don’t know better.”

  Clint sat bac
k in his chair and the breath whooshed out of him.

  “Well, all’s well that ends well, and I’m very happy you’re feeling better,” Sage said as she stood and reached for her coat.

  “Where are you going?” Clint asked as he followed her out into the foyer.

  “Clint, if somehow patients are getting a faulty tonic, I have to try to stop it. I gave tonics to Sadie for the babies. What if they have the wrong one? I have to collect as many as I can, or at least check to make sure they’re mine. If we don’t know how these got exchanged, it could happen anywhere.”

  “Hold up a moment. I’ll get my coat and go with you. Father is so much better and Mrs. Baxter will be thrilled to play cards with him. Rummy rather than poker, maybe, but they’ll make do,” Clint said without hesitation, and he was back in a moment, ready to go.

  As they untied the buggy and he helped her into the seat, she couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather have by her side in this scary time.

  Chapter 24

  Sage rushed into Sadie’s house without even knocking, looking everywhere for the babies. She found them in the upstairs bedroom, crawling happily around the room with Sadie in a rocker nearby.

  “Sage, what is it?” Sadie said, standing and rushing to Sage’s side. “You look upset.”

  Sage picked up one of the twins—she didn’t know which one—and looked it up and down. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Clint had instinctively picked up the other one and did the same.

  Sage let out a deep breath and handed the baby over to Sadie, looking around for the bottle of tonic.

  Clint had sat down on the side of the bed and bounced the other twin on his knee, laughing as she cooed and gurgled at him.

  “Sage, what is going on?” Sadie said, picking up the other twin and balancing her on her hip.

  “I need to see the tonic that I gave you. Is it here?”

  “Yes, it’s right here,” Sadie said, handing Sage the tonic from behind the vanity mirror. “I put it back here so neither of the twins can knock it over. It’s helped a great deal.”

  Sage pulled the cork from what looked like one of her bottles and let out a sigh of relief as she smelled the elderberries and no sumac. The twins were safe.