Fletcher's Woman

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Rachel?” Douglas’s voice brought her back abruptly. “You looked so pale—what were you thinking?”

  Rachel had to struggle to keep back tears of panic. “I’m all right, Douglas. Just a little discouraged, that’s all.” And perhaps a little pregnant.

  He reached out gently to touch her face. “If it means that much to you, I’ll speak with some of my friends. I know a number of merchants.”

  Hope surged through Rachel, immediately followed by embarassment. “That would be wrong,” she mourned.

  “Wrong? For a friend to help a friend? Why would that be wrong?”

  “I would be obligated to you,” she said.

  Douglas laughed. “Yes, my dear, you would. I would insist that you let me buy your supper tonight and escort you to the Opera House.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened. “The Opera House? What would we see?”

  Douglas surveyed her with gentle amusement. “In this city, who knows? Perhaps a trained bear or a lumberjack who plays tunes on a crosscut saw.”

  After a second’s pause, Rachel realized that he was teasing and laughed. “I’ll have you know, sir,” she said archly, “that Seattle has witnessed far stranger performances.”

  Douglas raised his coffee cup in a dashing salute. “I have absolutely no doubt of that, my dear,” he agreed. And then he summoned a waiter and ordered their lunch.

  Directly after eating, they went to call on a storekeeper Douglas knew. Rachel was introduced and then left to examine ribbons and bolts of brightly colored cloth while the two men disappeared into the back room.

  Five minute later, Rachel had a job. She was to serve as a “notions girl,” selling thread and buttons and other dressmaking supplies to the female clientele.

  She should have been happier than she was, but she suspected that Douglas had somehow coerced her new employer into hiring her. The thought left a distinctly bad taste in her mouth, but she couldn’t afford to turn down the position, so she accepted it graciously.

  Mr. Turnbull, who had a slack jaw and a part through the exact middle of his thinning chestnut hair, instructed her to report for work at eight o’clock the next morning.

  Back at Miss Cunningham’s, in the comforting silence of her room, Rachel fought down her misgivings and took out her paper and pen. “Dear Molly,” she began, in her small, rounded hand. “Today I found a job… .”

  The letter was quite fat by the time she signed it and slipped it carefully into a matching blue envelope. She had never written a letter before, and for a moment, the idea of parting with it seemed very unappealing.

  In the end, however, hoping that there would be an answer some time, she addressed it simply, “Mrs. Molly Brady, Providence, Washington Territory” and tucked it into her handbag. Tonight, when she went to Skid Road to look for her father, she would stop off at the steamboat office and see that her message was on board the Statehood the next time it sailed.

  Rachel was halfway down the hill before she remembered her promise to have supper with the captain and see whatever performance the Opera House had to offer. She stood still for almost a minute, debating silently while looking up the hill toward Miss Cunningham’s, then down the hill toward the harbor.

  In the end, she chose the harbor and the Skid Road. Until she understood her father’s abrupt and puzzling disappearance, there would be a part of her that never rested. Surely Douglas would understand, once she had explained.

  The Statehood was in port, her deck lanterns spilling golden light onto the twilight-darkened waters of the bay, her big paddles still as she rested. The captain, a husky, middle-aged man with mischievous eyes, like her father’s, was lounging in the shack on shore, his coat unbuttoned and his hat, limp with long use, resting on the corner of a cluttered desk.

  Rachel gave him the letter, paid him the fee for its freight, and turned to leave. There was still the Skid Road to be braved, and it was getting dark.

  As an afterthought, she turned in the doorway. “Captain,” she ventured, shyly, “I wonder if you know many of your passengers by name?”

  The aging seaman smiled. “Not all of them, else I’d surely know yours. And I remember your being aboard yesterday.”

  Encouraged by his friendly attitude, Rachel described Ezra McKinnon to him and asked if he remembered such a passenger.

  To her disappointment, if not her surprise, the steamboat pilot recalled neither the name nor the man himself. He promised to keep an eye out, however, and to pass on whatever pertinent “scuttlebutt” he might hear.

  Rachel thanked him and walked steadily toward Skid Road.

  Along the dusky wharfs, ship rats scurried on whispering feet, and whiskey barrels and shipping crates loomed like specters. Ahead was the light, laughter, and bawdy music peculiar to this notorious section of town.

  The heels of Rachel’s new shoes made a lonely, clicking sound on the plank walkway edging the road, and once or twice, a sailor or woodsman paused, reeling, to stare at her. She walked faster, keeping well away from the shadows along the walls of the warehouses lining the waterfront.

  The first saloon was housed in a shack with walls so haphazardly erected that the light showed through in golden strips. Beneath it, under the sawdust floor, was the tide flat. The stench of rotten seaweed and dead clams blended with those of sweat, cheap whiskey, cigar smoke, and the kind of perfume that was sold in quart jars.

  It took all Rachel’s considerable courage to push open the swinging doors and walk inside.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The sawdust on the saloon floor was dampened by the seeping tidewater beneath it and stained with tobacco juice. Rachel thought of her beautiful new leather shoes and groaned inwardly.

  Then she sighed and reminded herself that her father had to be found. If he was tired of being burdened with a grown daughter, that was all right, because now she had a life independent of him anyway, and certainly she had no wish to traipse after him to yet another timber town.

  All the same, Rachel longed for a decent and honest parting—and an explanation. After all the years of his rough devotion and fierce concern, it seemed odd indeed that he would leave her behind without a word.

  One sweeping glance told Rachel that she would not find Ezra McKinnon in this particular place, but there were people there—people who might know where he was working now.

  Rachel was about to approach a group of burly lumberjacks when a thin, somewhat grubby hand grasped her arm. She paused, then turned to see a plump blond woman standing beside her, wearing a sleazy yellow dress and a decidedly unfriendly look.

  “Honey,” the woman began, patting her stiff, false-looking curls with one hand. “If you got a husband here, it wouldn’t be smart to face off with him in public. Men got mean pride when it comes to things like that.”

  Rachel lifted her chin. “I’m here to ask about a man named Ezra McKinnon. Do you know him?”

  The blonde’s painted eyelids descended slightly. “What if I do?”

  Exasperation nettled Rachel, as did the stench and the noise of that place. “He’s my father,” she said tersely. “And it is very important that I find him.”

  The prostitute studied her own uneven fingernails and rough, pale hands. “Ezra ain’t been on the Skid Road since Jonas Wilkes hired him to come over to Providence—if he had, I’d know it. He used to say to me, ‘Candice, Darlin’, you’re too good for a place like this. You ought to go independent.’”

  Rachel made a concentrated effort not to roll her eyes. Thinking of her father and this disgusting woman coupling on some filthy pallet made her feel ill, but she drew herself up short. She certainly had no room to criticize, not after that magical, tragic night with Griffin Fletcher. “Your career plans don’t interest me,” she said coolly. “But my father does. If you see him, or even hear something about him, send word to Miss Flora Cunningham’s, on Cedar Street.”

  Candice tossed her head and leveled a petulant, defensive look at Rachel’s trim, costly clothes. The q
uestion was so clear between them that it didn’t need to be spoken aloud. Why should I?

  Rachel was out of her element in these surroundings, and her courage was ebbing fast. Again, she raised her chin. “I’ll pay you ten dollars if you contact me,” she said, in answer to the silent question.

  And then she turned, with quiet dignity, and walked out into the cool sanction of the night.

  There was no point in searching the other saloons that night; Rachel knew instinctively that Candice was telling the truth. Besides, she’d felt the curious, speculative glances of the patrons in that saloon. If she stayed, it was inevitable that one or even several of them would approach her, and discouraging them might not be an easy task.

  Rachel started back along the waterfront, avoiding shadows that lurked in the darkness, beyond the reach of the timorous light the kerosene streetlamps gave off. She’d been a fool to venture onto the Skid Road alone, and at night no less, but even as she made that pragmatic admission, she knew that she would be back.

  • • •

  Griffin Fletcher awakened in his own bed, his head thick and throbbing, his stomach turning inside him. Molly was there, looking down at him with sharp green disapproval in her eyes.

  “Aye, and it’s time you came to, Griffin Fletcher. Time and past. ‘Tis a whole day gone and wasted.”

  Griffin groaned. “What day is it?”

  Molly bent to set an ominous-looking tray on the bedside table. “It’s Wednesday,” she volunteered testily. “May twenty-ninth, eighteen eighty—”

  Griffin uttered a coarse word and struggled into a sitting position. “Good Lord,” he snapped, “I know what year it is!”

  “Do you, now?” retorted Molly. “Well, that’s something then. It’s just by the grace of our Lord that no one needed you, Griffin Fletcher.”

  Griffin glanced at the breakfast she’d assembled on the tray—fried eggs and riced potatoes and pork sausage—and looked away again. Even his housekeeper’s well-justified scorn was preferable to the sight of food. “Maybe I’m not so necessary to this town as you and I like to think, Molly.”

  Molly Brady drew herself up to her full and unremarkable height. “Perhaps not,” she said curtly. And then, in a rustle of sateen skirts and outrage, she walked out of Griffin’s bedroom, pulling the door shut behind her with a force that jarred his fogged, aching head.

  The scent of coffee made him risk another look at the tray. He reached out for the mug of steaming brew and drank from it slowly as he reviewed his fall from grace.

  Rachel was gone—he faced that dark reality staunchly, though there was still jagged, wrenching pain in the knowledge. If only he hadn’t had to hurt her like that, to let her leave thinking that he’d used her without love.

  For there had been love—love like nothing Griffin Fletcher had ever felt before. Almost from the first moment when he’d seen her cowering in Jonas’s bathtub, he had felt it, but it was only now that he could stop denying the emotion and face it squarely.

  He would suffer the consuming need of her all his life, he expected. But it would be cruel to bring her back, as he longed to do, within the deadly reach of Jonas’s passion.

  Griffin finished his coffee, set the mug aside with a thump, and scrambled out of bed. There were, as always, rounds to make.

  He dressed quickly, only to pause at his bedroom window for a time. The sky was dark with the promise of rain, and the air felt heavy and still, even with the window closed. Jonas’s mountain towered toward the sky, looking ominous in the impending gloom.

  Shaking off an uneasy feeling, Griffin left his bedroom and went down the back stairway, to the kitchen. There, he accepted his coat, hat, and medical bag from a grim, speechless Molly, and went out.

  In the bam, he found his horse, Tempest, saddled and waiting. He led the stallion out and then swung deftly onto its back. “Billy?” he called, halfheartedly, meaning to thank the boy for guessing that he would want to ride today, instead of driving the buggy. “Hey, Bill!”

  There was no answer. Griffin shrugged and raised his collar against the gray drizzle of the morning. The boy was probably in the woods somewhere, playing the strange and lonely games his limited mind suggested to him.

  The close silence of those woods appealed to Griffin that bleak morning, too, but for more practical reasons. He could save time by taking the narrow path leading through them and avoiding the main road, and it was unlikely that he would meet anyone there. He needed the brief isolation to assemble the expression and bearing his patients would expect to see.

  Griffin’s horse neighed with obvious impatience as they rounded the hidden pond Billy loved to explore and approached the two giant boulders just beyond it.

  Griffin smiled, remembering that the boy saw soldiers inside those giant rocks and believed that they guarded the path. Instead, rising on both sides of it as they did, they made it barely passable for a man on horseback.

  The men were upon him the moment he passed between the boulders into a small, sunless clearing. He cursed as the damp, leaf-matted ground came up to meet him.

  Dazed, Griffin raised himself to his knees. Just as he did so, a rifle butt caught him hard in the side of his head.

  The blow blurred his vision, and the impact of it echoed, throbbing, through his skull. He raised himself from the ground again, conscious of the rain falling on his neck.

  How many were there? He couldn’t see clearly, but he guessed, from the shifting shadows, that there were six or seven men crowded around him.

  “Watch those feet of his,” ordered a cold, calm voice.

  Griffin reeled, unsteady. A boot landed in the center of his rib cage and brought him back to his knees. He spat a curse, tasted blood in his mouth. “Is this what you did to McKinnon, Jonas?” he rasped.

  Hands grasped Griffin’s arms, wrenched him to a standing position, held him fast. A thick, gray fog settled around him and the commands he gave his feet came to nothing. He sensed, rather than saw, Jonas’s approach, but he did catch the blue-black gleam of a rifle barrel.

  “Good morning, Griffin,” Jonas said affably.

  The excruciating pain in Griffin’s head and rib cage made speech impossible for the moment. He managed nothing more than an outraged groan. Somewhere behind him Tempest danced, bridle jingling, and whinnied in agitation.

  Something hard—probably the butt of Jonas’s rifle—smashed into his face suddenly. Pain exploded in Griffin’s head, and he felt his knees give way again.

  “Get him on his feet!” Jonas hissed.

  Griffin tried to struggle as his ambushers wrenched him upright, but the effort was hopeless. He fought down the vomit that burned in his throat.

  Jonas’s rage surged toward him like an invisible wall, immediately followed by a fist. But he was beyond pain now, beyond any feeling at all.

  He laughed, and his words came out in a soft rush. “You bastard, Jonas. You’re too late—you’re too goddamned late.”

  “Let him go,” Jonas ordered, from somewhere in the throbbing void.

  Griffin’s knees buckled as his arms were released, but some of his vision came back as he slid part way to the ground, and he felt rage as Jonas’s hand entwined itself in his hair and wrenched his head back.

  Jonas bent, to smile into Griffin’s battered face. “I’ll find her, Griffin—I promise you that. Seattle isn’t big enough to hide her. But Rachel is another topic, for another day. This little set-to was my payment for the beating you gave me last week.”

  Griffin flailed one leaden, aching arm, to knock Jonas’s hand from his head. The swearword he uttered was lost in the dismal drone of the rain.

  Jonas was standing up straight now, smiling with satisfaction. “Now, my old friend, I have a little scripture for you. ‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap.’”

  An instant later, the toe of Jonas’s boot slammed into Griffin’s groin. The pain burst in his genitals like an explosion, and radiated into every fiber of his being. He fell forward, half-conscio
us, into the mud.

  • • •

  When the bad men were gone, Billy crept from his hiding place in the thick trees and scrambled toward Dr. Fletcher’s motionless body. Kneeling, he dashed tears of fright from his face and whispered, “Doctor?”

  Griffin groaned, stirring on the wet ground.

  Billy pulled off his own coat, crumpled it, and, with gentle, trembling hands, placed it under Griffin’s head for a pillow. He didn’t know what else to do.

  “H-horse,” the man muttered, the rain mingling with the blood that gleamed in his dark hair and coursed from his face.

  Billy looked around for the stallion with frantic eyes. When he whistled, the animal ambled out of the underbrush, the reins of his bridle dangling in the mud. Billy moved cautiously toward the horse, crooning soft words as he went.

  Tempest balked when he grasped the bridle near the bit, and then settled down with a frightened nicker. “Easy, boy,” Billy breathed. “Real easy. The bad men are gone.”

  As Billy turned, he saw Griffin raise himself to his hands and knees and then fall again.

  He was shattered by the sight, by his own helplessness and fear. “I’ll go get Ma—or Field,” he sniffled. “I could get Field—”

  Griffin shook his bloody, rain-drenched head and tried again to stand. “No. Help me up.”

  The boy obeyed, feeling the doctor’s pain in his own body as he brought him to his feet.

  Griffin raised his face to the rain, groped until he found the horn of Tempest’s saddle, and held onto it. After a moment, he forced himself to endure the increased pain in his rib cage long enough to grasp one of the reins in his right hand. With quick, costly movements, he bound his left hand to the saddle horn. “Lead him home, Billy.”

  It was a long, agonizing process, stumbling back to the house beside Tempest. But Molly was there, sensible and calm, the rain plastering her copper-colored hair to her forehead and her neck.

  “Saints in heaven,” she breathed, “What happened?”