Spring Brides

by Judith Stacy

  She didn’t let her mind go beyond that. She wasn’t going to waste time. She brought the horse around to the porch so she could stand on the bottom step to get on, and she managed easily enough in spite of her dress and petticoats. The stirrups were too long for her, but she kicked the horse in the sides to make it go, reining it in the direction it had come. She could go down to the cottonwoods and not get lost, but beyond that…

  She gave a sharp sigh and tried to see through the swirling snow, tried to find footprints or hoofprints—anything. The horse was in her control, but it was fretful and kept wanting to sidle and toss its head. She had to hold on to the sticky saddle horn with one hand to keep from falling. As they approached the stream, she stopped, listening hard. She could hear the water rushing and the cottonwoods creaking in the wind, but nothing else.

  She looked around. It would be dark soon; she should have brought a lantern with her.

  “Dan,” she called softly. “Dan!”

  She kept listening and listening, but heard nothing. She rode on, crossing the stream. She would zigzag back and forth as far as she could to cover more ground.

  “Dan!”

  The horse shied suddenly, and she pulled hard on the reins, making it prance. And then she saw it—something. A log half buried in the snow.

  Except that there were no logs here. The hands from Selby’s had gathered them all and sawed them into firewood for the schoolhouse stoves.

  She urged the sorrel forward. It picked its way carefully and stopped a short distance from the half-buried object.

  “No,” she whispered. “No. No…”

  She slid off the animal and, still holding the reins, walked forward. It wasn’t a log. It was a man.

  “Oh, no—Dan!”

  She hooked the reins onto the nearest branch and ran to him, pushing the snow away, pulling on his coat to turn him over.

  “Dan! Dan!”

  She managed to raise him up, and his head lolled against her shoulder. He made a small moaning sound.

  Not dead, then. Not dead—

  “Dan, can you hear me? You have to help me. You have to help me! I can’t—”

  He made a feeble gesture with one hand and said something.

  “What?” she asked, pressing closer to hear.

  “I…could smell…the bread,” she thought he said. She frowned. If he meant her baking, then he had been in the cold a long time. Why hadn’t she heard the shot? Or perhaps she had—the noise she thought came from the schoolroom.

  “Come on—come on. Can you stand up? Stand up!”

  She pulled and dragged him closer to the sorrel, then dragged some more, until she had him on his knees. She wrapped her arms around him, nearly buckling under his weight.

  “Stand up, Dan. You can do it. You have to do it! Please!”

  He finally made it to his feet. She realized she was crying, but she couldn’t stop it.

  “Now—across the horse. Put your foot in the stirrup…”

  Incredibly, between the two of them, he managed to heave himself upward. In one mighty effort, he flung himself across the saddle and stayed there, hanging head down, and he gave such an agonized cry of pain she could only guess at how much the effort hurt him.

  Still weeping, she began the slow trip back to the schoolhouse, leading the horse, trying to keep him from sliding off. She had no idea if he was conscious. All she knew was that she had to get him inside out of the cold.

  She led the sorrel around to the back door of her quarters and as close to the small porch as she could get. Then she pulled Dan off, causing them both to land hard on the wooden planks. The horse shied and ran away, but she had no time to worry about it. She managed to drag Dan the rest of the way inside, smearing fresh blood across the floor.

  She made no effort to get him any farther; the relative warmth of the kitchen would have to do. She turned him to pull his coat off so she could see where the injury was, finding it high on his shoulder just under his collarbone. It was oozing bright red blood—not pouring, thankfully. Maybe, just maybe, being in the cold had saved him.

  She let her fingers search along his back, and gave a sigh of relief when she found the exit wound. The bullet had passed completely through, and that was good. She had helped for many long hours in the town’s wayside hospital during the war. She had seen hundreds, thousands of wounded men being sent back to the hospitals along the railroad line after the battles in Virginia. Her experience told her that this wound would mean a quick end for Dan Ingram or it would mean a long recovery, and what she did now could make the difference.

  She hurried to drag the mattress from her narrow bed into the kitchen. Then she began cutting away the rest of his clothes so she could make sure there were no other wounds. His body was…beautiful, lean and strong.

  She rolled him onto the mattress and covered him with blankets. Then she collected a bowl of snow and put wet cloths into it to make icy compresses to stanch the bleeding. He moaned from time to time, writhed in pain when she touched the wounds, but he didn’t say anything.

  The bleeding slowed, but he was cold and began to shiver. She moved to the stove and built up the fire to heat the coffee she’d boiled earlier. She put her heavy shawl over him. As soon as the coffee was warm enough, she began to spoon-feed it to him, as much as he would take. He was still cold, and she slid around behind him, lifting him up so that he rested against her and she could put her arms around him.

  “Don’t die,” she whispered against his ear. “Please—please!”

  She held him tightly, as if she could physically keep Death from snatching him away. It was like losing Rob all over again, except this time she was experiencing it all firsthand.

  The bell, she thought suddenly. She could ring the bell, except that she didn’t know who was responsible for this and whether they could still be around somewhere. Perhaps it was Karl Dorsey. Perhaps it was whoever had killed Petey. Ringing the bell could bring the wrong person, the gunman who, hearing it, would know his quarry was still alive.

  Dan grew quieter, and she gently moved away from him. She placed her pillow under his head and added more wood to the fire. The wind was sweeping snow in under the door. She went to get the revolver, and to roll up a small rag rug, stuffing it in the wide crack between the door and the floor. She tore up a petticoat to use for bandages, cleaned the blood off the floor, all the while listening for some sound outside.

  And she heard something—a small thud on the porch she couldn’t attribute to anything normal.

  She moved carefully, gun in hand, to the window to peer out. The sorrel stood, head lowered in the blowing snow, at the edge of the porch.

  She looked at Dan; he was still quiet, so she pulled the rug away and stepped outside, catching the sorrel easily and leading it inside the enclosure. She put the revolver down long enough to unsaddle it and pitch some more hay. Then she grabbed up the gun, along with Dan’s saddlebags and his rifle, and ran back to the house.

  He was just as she’d left him. She got down on her knees to check the bandage. He was bleeding still, but not badly.

  She licked her lips and tried to think. There was nothing to do but keep a vigil so that she could stop the bleeding when the fits of fever and agitation came. She would have to stay right here, away from the window, and whatever he needed, she would do.

  “Oh, Dan,” she whispered, but he was past hearing anything.

  Chapter Six

  “He ought not be moved. You’ve done a good job stopping the bleeding, but a rough wagon ride could undo it all.”

  “He can stay here.”

  “Mrs. Selby might not approve.”

  “Then she can disapprove. I thought you were a lawyer.”

  “Former lawyer. Former physician. Alas, my fondness for the Oh, Be Joyful has served me ill in both those chosen professions. Undertaking suits me better—but I can still write a contract when the Selbys need it and I still remember the fine points of the healing arts—my medical skills
were tempered in the fires of war. Give him this for the pain. Sleep when you can. I’ll stop by and speak to Mrs. Selby, tell her how things are here….”

  Dan couldn’t hear any more. He wanted to turn his head to see where they had gone, but it hurt so—a different kind of hurt from the deep relentless burning in his chest and shoulder. He didn’t quite know where he was. He was no longer on the floor—he knew that. But Eleanor was in the room night and day, and how could that be? He wasn’t even sure what had happened to him. He had come back from the search for Karl Dorsey. It was snowing. He’d wanted to see Eleanor first thing, and he…

  He couldn’t remember, and he was too weary to try. It was a dream—or was it?

  Karl Dorsey. Karl…yelling from his hiding place.

  “Blame me for Lillyann and the baby. I was drunk. And, yeah, I locked her out in the cold. But I never shot at your schoolteacher. Look to your friends for that, goddamn you!”

  Dan closed his eyes again and slept.

  “Is it still snowing?” he asked, making her jump.

  “What?” she said. Her voice sounded strange to him, husky, trembling.

  “Is it still…snowing?” he asked again.

  “Not still,” she said. “Again.”

  He thought about this. “How…long have I been here?”

  “Two weeks. Give or take a day or two.”

  “Who…else is here?”

  “No one. Just you and me.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “You…don’t ask me…anything,” he said.

  “Because you don’t often say anything that makes sense.”

  “I think I’ve…always been that way,” he said, and she smiled.

  “You…don’t ask if I killed Karl Dorsey.”

  “If you didn’t, you will,” she said, gazing into his eyes until he looked away. A man had no defense against a woman who understood.

  “I was in an Illinois…regiment. Eighth Cavalry.”

  “I know.”

  “How? Who told you?”

  “You did. I’ve been on the campaign with you for days.”

  “What did I say?”

  “Nothing I could understand.”

  “What else did I tell you?”

  “You said you had no family.”

  “They…died. From the typhoid. All of them. All…of them…”

  “You’re supposed to rest, not talk.”

  “You…talk then. Tell me about…North Carolina.”

  “Nothing to tell. It’s been ruined by the war—and probably an Illinois regiment.”

  “Tell me about…Miss Eleanor Hansen, then.”

  “Nothing to tell about her, either.”

  “Your family, then. I want to know.”

  “I was the only one in the house who wasn’t left-handed. It wasn’t easy to do housework in tandem.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like carrying the mattresses out to sun. My sisters and I would always get into a fight over which way the ends went.”

  “Will you go back there again? To see your family?”

  “Not without a good reason. My sisters and my father are dead. My mother…has her own life.”

  “I’m going to get up and…go walking tomorrow. Outside, twice around the schoolhouse. I mean it.”

  “Oh, good. I always delight in the prospect of having you keel over and scare me out of my wits.”

  “Be careful, miss. I might get to thinking I matter to you.”

  He did matter to her. More than Eleanor would ever have believed possible. And he likely knew it, as must everyone at the Selby house and in Soul Harbor by now. He was much better, stronger every day, but she was not convinced yet that he would survive. Bouts of fever and nightmares still came unannounced, times when he didn’t know her or that the war was over.

  She was grateful for the unlikely help she’d received from people here. Annie had come on horseback as soon as the snow stopped, to see if all was well. It wasn’t well and, thanks to her, the alarm had been raised and Hapwell, the doctor-lawyer turned-undertaker, arrived. Later, Hester came and stayed for a time to relieve Eleanor so she could eat and sleep and bathe.

  “That preacher’s sister,” Hester told her. “She don’t like you looking after Dan the way you are. She says it ain’t decent. She’s been writing letters to North Carolina.”

  “Let her,” Eleanor said, even knowing that it was likely just a matter of time before the reverend’s sister found somebody who knew somebody who knew Eleanor Hansen or her kin.

  But she didn’t worry about it. She had too many other things to dwell upon. Nearly four weeks had passed, and in all that time there had been no personal visits from Colonel Selby—until today. The wind blew cold and the sky was gray and heavy. A light snow had begun to fall, but the buggy from the Selby house arrived anyway—with Mick riding escort. Colonel Selby clearly expected to find Dan stronger than he was, but it didn’t stop him from sitting down with him—and Mick—and having a private conversation Eleanor wasn’t allowed to hear.

  She thanked the colonel for the stream of food baskets that had come from his kitchen, wondering all the while if he even knew about them. Then she brought them all coffee and left them to make their plans, plans for a renewed manhunt in the spring, she thought. It was no hardship for her to see to the horses; she didn’t want to eavesdrop on their conversation. What she did hear made her realize how much Colonel Selby and his operation relied on the steadfast loyalty of Dan Ingram. Unfortunately for Dan, vengeance hadn’t been served nor had the stolen cows been returned, and the colonel was here to make certain Dan would still do his part, that he understood he was still obliged to take Karl Dorsey’s life, now more so than ever.

  But she no longer sat in judgment; she only knew that she couldn’t live through the fear and the waiting yet another time.

  I cannot bear it. The thought repeated over and over in her mind as she fed and watered the horses. The reverend’s sister was writing letters, and there was only one thing to do.

  Dan was so quiet after the colonel left. She didn’t ask him anything, and she thought he was glad of it. They were strangers suddenly, as distant as they had been the day she arrived in Soul Harbor. It was as if the kiss they had shared the day he told her about Petey had never happened, and they had not spent all these days together, learning about each other, while she struggled to save his life.

  She could feel him watching her as she put some of her things into her trunk, but he, too, asked no questions. He sat by the window, looking out. The daylight was fading. The snow had begun to fall more heavily.

  When he finally looked at her, it was if he had called her name, the way he did sometimes in the middle of the night, when the fever woke him and he didn’t know where he was. She went to him, kneeling down by his chair, hiding her face against his knees. His hand stroked her hair.

  After a moment, she lifted her head and looked up at him. “This place—”

  “It’s not the place, Eleanor.”

  “These people, then. The Selbys. Livingston Warner. They’re going to be the death of you. They’re going to kill you, as surely as if they’d done it with their own hands, and you’re going to let them.”

  “It’s the way—”

  “Yes. The way things are here.” She gave a quiet sigh. “And there’s no help for it.”

  “I think it’s likely you know me better now than anybody else on this earth,” he said. “I am what I am, Eleanor.”

  So am I, she thought.

  “When are you going back to Selby’s?” she asked, because it suddenly occurred to her that the colonel might have wanted him to return to his other life today, invalid or not.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “Mrs. Selby wants it. There’s too much talk. I can’t cost you your reputation—”

  “Take me to bed,” she interrupted. She had no reputation to protect, and she could feel the end of everything bearing down on them. She stared into his eyes.

  “I
…love you,” he said, as if that was an argument for not doing as she asked.

  “I know.”

  “There are a lot of things against us.”

  “I know,” she said again.

  She stood and waited, her mouth trembling despite all she did to try and stop it.

  He got to his feet without her help and made his way to her narrow bed, his hand resting on her shoulder as they walked. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and she sat beside him.

  “I want you—like this—more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. But if you—”

  She pressed her fingers against his lips to stop whatever he meant to say, then began to undo the buttons on her dress, letting him take over the task when he wanted to. She sat passively, watching his face as he slowly removed her clothes, one garment at a time. She had the feeling that he was doing what she was doing—committing it all to memory, trying to make it last. She could feel his hands trembling, not from his illness but from his desire. He was strong enough for this; it was she who was weak.

  At one point, when she looked down, a tear dropped onto the back of his hand. He looked up sharply, and she lost her passiveness. She reached for him to stop the question she saw in his eyes, pressing her face into his good shoulder, clinging to him hard.

  “The first day,” he said. “Even then I loved you.”

  She moved out of his embrace and lay down on the narrow bed, making room for him. When he came to her, they lay face to face, breath to breath, skin to skin, and once again he kissed her eyes.

  So gently.

  As if she were the lady he believed she was.

  His hands began to stroke her and her body responded. She meant to have and keep this memory until the day she died.

  He kissed her mouth, and she returned the kiss.

  “Are you sure?” he whispered against her ear. “Eleanor…”