Loner's Lady

by Lynna Banning

  Ellen moved unsteadily toward the white-painted Presbyterian church at the far end of town. Her leg ached. It had ached all night after Uncle James had cut off her plaster cast, but it was a small discomfort compared to the painful crushing inside her chest.

  Nothing would ever be the same. She had shot Dan, killed her own husband to save another man’s life.

  Uncle James understood. He’d given her a sleeping powder and a chuck under her chin the way he’d always done when she was growing up. “You’re a good girl, Ellie. Doesn’t matter what your father is, you keep your nose in the air and be proud of who you are inside.”

  She was anything but a good girl. She had slept with another man. She would lie for him if she had to. She had killed a man, not with malice in her mind, but what did that matter now? The instant she’d seen the shotgun in Dan’s grip she had known she could not let him do this. If that was murder in cold blood, so be it. She would do it again if she had to.

  But oh God, the price. None of the women in town would speak to her. Gabriel Svensen at the mercantile had just grunted when she greeted him. Even her own circle of friends, the church ladies, now crossed the street to avoid her. She was looked on as a pariah.

  She raised her chin. She didn’t believe Uncle James, didn’t for one minute think she was a “good girl.” She would never again be a good woman, or a good wife. Or, she thought as something crumbled inside her, a good mother. Something hot and choking clogged her throat.

  “Nothing comes for free,” Uncle James had said as she stepped out of his office. She wondered if the price she would pay for Jess’s life was too high.

  The rich, sweet scent of the jasmine that twined up one porch post stopped her at the church door. Uncle James was wrong about something else, too. Her life was not just beginning, it was ending.

  She pushed the church door open and stepped inside. The white painted walls, bare but for the purple Thou Shalt Not Kill banner the church ladies had embroidered, closed in on her like a suffocating veil. It was like being on the inside of an eggshell, with something drawn tight around her so she was unable to draw a full breath.

  She forced herself to breathe in a lungful of the still, warm air and not think about Dan. Or Jess.

  God, God, forgive me for what I have done. For taking a life.

  She sank onto a wooden pew and bowed her head into her hands. How did men live with themselves after going to war? After deliberately slaughtering one’s fellow creatures?

  She shuddered, dropped her head lower and let the tears come.

  When she opened her eyes at last, the light had changed. What had been soft golden sunshine when she had entered the sanctuary was now a purple-tinged gray. She had wept till sundown. She could go on until midnight, but she knew it would be to no purpose. It might cleanse her soul, but it wouldn’t bring Dan back. Wouldn’t expiate her sin.

  She lifted her head. Just as she stretched her stiffened neck muscles, a noise at the back of the church made her freeze with fear. A woman’s voice. Two voices.

  “…flowers for the Sunday service, Millie?”

  “Some of Caroline’s white daisies, I think.”

  “And sprays of lavender. Iona will have bushels of lavender.”

  “Now that—Iona—is an example of how a woman should become a widow! Not by shooting her husband.”

  “In the back,” Millie added.

  “Twice.”

  The second voice Ellen recognized as Alta Vining’s.

  Millie sniffed. “It wasn’t twice, it was just once. But that is bad enough. Just imagine, and Ellen so…well, she’s always been so…proper.”

  Ellen tried to make herself as small as possible. She didn’t move, couldn’t move, just sat motionless in the shadowy church while her heart cried out inside her. I didn’t want to do it! Don’t you see? It was terrible…terrible!

  Alta Vining’s voice moved nearer. “I saw that man, her hired man, at the Fourth of July picnic. Why would he be worth saving instead of Dan O’Brian?”

  Ellen flinched.

  “I expect only Ellen knows the answer to that. Chances are we shall never know.”

  “Never,” Alta agreed. “She’ll be shunned, no matter what the reason. It’s already started.”

  Ellen could tell Alta had begun moving toward the door at the back of the church, and she released a quiet prayer of thanks.

  Millie sighed again. “After the funeral on Sunday, I will join you.”

  “Surely you’re not attending?” Alta said.

  “Of course I will attend. It’s not Dan who is in disgrace, it’s Ellen. The service is for Dan.”

  The women’s voices faded until Ellen heard only the scratch of a mouse behind the wooden altar and the faint jingle and crunch of a rattly wagon being driven down the main street. Then it was gone and she heard only the humming of the silence in her head.

  She couldn’t stand it. It pressed in on her, pushing at her, gagging her with the realization that she had sacrificed everything and now she must accept the cost.

  The Willow Flat cemetery took up most of the grassy hillside just outside town. An oak tree spread shade over some of the graves, including the one that had been freshly dug just that morning. The atmosphere felt tense. Unfriendly.

  None of this feels real. Ellen could get her mind to accept that she had fired a revolver into her husband’s back, but her emotions balked at the cold fact that Dan was dead.

  The assembled mourners—townspeople, farmers and the church ladies—stood in quiet knots around the grave site. Ellen let her gaze rest on Caroline Svensen, who refused to meet her eyes. Some neighbors from the next county who knew Ellen stood around in silent groups. Millie Shonski clung to her husband’s arm, then twisted her head to whisper to someone over her shoulder.

  There was no preacher. Dan might have wanted a priest, but Willow Flat didn’t have a Catholic church, and Ellen knew Dan would not have welcomed a Protestant minister.

  She watched in silence as Cy Gundersen and Gabriel Svensen, paying out lengths of rope, lowered the pine coffin into the yawning pit. She bent, scooped up a double handful of loose dirt and dropped it down onto the box in which Dan lay.

  Others followed Ellen’s example, raining fistfuls of dark earth over the coffin, and then Cy and Gabriel tossed shovelful after shovelful into the grave. The clods thudded down steadily in an unbroken rhythm.

  Ellen watched the dark soil mound up until it covered the last visible trace of the yellowing pinewood coffin. She’d wept most of the night. In fact, she thought she must surely be drained of all feeling, but an insistent dull ache ground into her chest. Dan had squandered his life. Still, she could not turn away from his burial place just yet.

  She knew Millie Shonski was studying her from under the brim of her purple-flowered hat. Sheriff Rey DeWitt stood with bared head next to Uncle James, who surprised her by honking loudly into his handkerchief, not once but twice.

  Across the grave site she caught Jess’s eye. He looked very tall in clean denim trousers and a black shirt, very strong despite the bandages peeking from one side of his neck. His gaze was steady and solemn.

  He had arrived late, had chosen to stand across from her. Suddenly she wanted to be near him. She longed to move to his side, but out of respect for her deceased husband, she would not.

  When the grave was completely filled, Cy and Gabriel laid aside their shovels and joined those gathered around the site. An awkward silence fell. Someone should recite scripture, Ellen thought. Or say a prayer. She opened her lips, but they trembled so violently she couldn’t trust her voice. Someone should…

  From the far side of the grave a voice began to sing. A low, scratchy voice, offering a simple song. “‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…’”

  Iona Everett joined in and, after a long, studied look in Ellen’s direction, Millie Shonski’s mouth opened and her rich alto poured from her throat. Other voices began, tentatively at first, then swelli
ng with emotion as the words floated out over the green hills. “‘I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.’”

  When the last notes faded, Iona clasped her arms about Ellen and hugged her tight. Millie pressed her hand and whispered an unexpectedly sincere condolence. “I guess you have to do what seems best at the time, Ellen. I am sorry for thinking harshly of you.”

  Tears welled under her eyelids. “Thank you, Millie. You cannot know how much your words mean to me.”

  Uncle James patted her shoulder, replaced his black top hat and turned away to find Jess.

  Sheriff DeWitt approached slowly and took her hand in his. “Come on over to the office when you feel up to it, Miss Ellen,” he said in a quiet voice.

  She would never feel up to it. But she knew she could not avoid her appointment with justice.

  The sheriff blinked rapidly. “I hate to ask it of you, but…”

  “It’s all right, Sheriff. I will be there.”

  Jess finished singing the final verse and a heavy quiet fell. This time it felt different, not strained or unwelcoming, just…quiet. Will Turner, with Shep at his heels, took Ellen’s hand in his but said nothing. A gaggle of small boys clung to their mothers’ skirts and eyed her as if she’d sprouted daisies where her ears should be.

  Jess watched Ellen a few yards away, surrounded by townspeople. Obviously shaken, she spoke to each well-wisher with quiet sincerity.

  His eyes stung. She is showing all of us how to accept what life dishes out, and bravely go on. Dear God, thank you for Ellen. How lost we men would be without such women.

  He saw Doc Callahan coming across the grass toward him, and went to meet him.

  “How’s she doing?” the white-haired gentlemen murmured.

  “She’s hurting, but she’s tougher than she knows.”

  “Her mother was like that, too. My sister,” Doc explained. “Spine stiff as a branding iron. Must run in the family.”

  Jess said nothing.

  “How’re you doing, son?”

  He looked into the older man’s steady gaze. “To be honest, I don’t know whether I wish I’d lived or died.”

  He couldn’t sleep that night for the pain in his shoulder. Couldn’t lie awake for the vise closing around his heart and the ache in his groin. Doc was right. Some hurts didn’t heal so easily. Some never would.

  That brought him up on one elbow with a swallowed groan. He faced the window he’d propped wide open, and listened to the night noises. Dogs barking in staccato yips. Crickets. Frogs thumping. Even a lone coyote off somewhere in the hills crying for its mate. Tonight the sounds flayed open his soul.

  The unexpected grief, the heavy pall of sadness bore down on him like a rolling boulder. And over it all spread the sharp longing for the sweet, sweet time of innocence before.

  Nothing comes for free. Everything of value has a price.

  God, he didn’t want to think anymore. He didn’t want to hear what else Sheriff DeWitt had to say. And most of all he didn’t want to tell Ellen what he had to tell her. He just wanted to be with her.

  He twisted to free his legs from the soft muslin sheet, and lurched to his feet. Ellen’s room in the boardinghouse was just down the hallway. The house was quiet. Dark.

  He couldn’t stand the waiting silence one more second.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ellen’s door swung open with no noise. He closed it behind him and carefully drew the inside bolt.

  “Jess,” she whispered.

  He stumbled toward her voice, his chest tight, his throat aching. “Ellen.”

  She sat up, lifted her bare arms to him, and he gathered her close. “How are you feeling?”

  “Awful,” she murmured. “I’ve cried so much my head aches.”

  He ran his left hand down her back and up again in soothing motions. “Doc gave me something for pain. Shall I bring it?”

  She shook her head. “I feel a thousand years old, Jess. I have felt that way ever since that night.”

  “Me, too. Doc says that’s normal.”

  “It doesn’t feel the least bit normal.” She raised her head, tipped it toward her open window. “Everything makes me cry, even the crickets. I used to love hearing them at night. Now I just feel tired, and so dreadfully heavy inside. It all seems like a terrible, awful dream.”

  He tightened his arm around her back. “Not all of it.”

  “Even that—you and me—feels faraway. As if it never happened.”

  “But it did happen. It changed everything for both of us.”

  Ellen sighed softly. “You know what I wish?”

  He pressed his cheek against her hair. “Knowing you, something surprising. I couldn’t begin to guess what.”

  “It’s not so surprising.” She leaned back, pulling him down beside her. “I wish we could be married. Right away.”

  Jess smiled. “Not a bad idea.”

  “Oh, yes it is. One doesn’t bury a husband on Thursday and marry another one on Friday. It would cause another scandal.”

  “Might be worth it,” he murmured.

  “Jess, do you think we can ever find happiness after this?”

  “Yes, I believe we can.” He lowered his voice and spoke close to her temple. “There’s just one thing, Ellen. Something you have to know.”

  Her body went perfectly still. “If it’s going to make me cry some more, I don’t want to know.”

  He bit his lip. “It probably will make you cry, honey. I have to tell you anyway.”

  “Jess…” Her voice sounded thin. Frightened. “Don’t. Please don’t tell me.”

  “I have to. You need to know now.”

  “Why do I? I know all I can stand to know at the moment.”

  He kissed her temple. “You’re wrong. You’re a lot tougher than you think.”

  “Not tonight I’m not. I’m all upside down inside, sad and scared. And then in the middle of it I feel more furious than I can ever remember.”

  “Then I’d better get it over with.” Jess reached out his hand and turned her face toward his. “Ellen, I don’t want to go back to the farm.”

  The next morning Ellen appeared at breakfast with red, swollen eyes. Jess, seated across the table from her, looked drained and tired. He didn’t even notice when Mrs. Everett called him James, but Ellen gave the older woman an inquiring look.

  “Sheriff stopped by earlier,” the landlady announced. “Wanted to know how you two was feelin’.”

  Jess’s eyes caught Ellen’s and held them in an unspoken communication. Finally she dipped her head in a small nod, and they rose from opposite sides of the table, bade Mrs. Everett good-morning and went out on the veranda.

  “I forgot all about the sheriff,” she confessed as soon as the front door closed behind them.

  “I didn’t. Been wondering all night what he’s going to do.”

  “No, you haven’t,” she said with a soft laugh. “You spent most of the night— Stop, Jess. What are you doing?”

  “Kissing you. Like I spent most of the night doing.”

  When she could breathe again, she looked up into his face. “We need to talk more about the farm.”

  “First we need to visit the sheriff.”

  “Jess, what if he puts us in separate jail cells?”

  It was the first time he’d laughed in four days, and it made his chest hurt like hell.

  Iona Everett made up a another pitcherful of lemonade. Every morning she made lemonade, because…well, she wouldn’t say it out loud, but she knew why. Especially this particular morning. Then she smoothed her hair back, changed into her best morning dress and went outside to the veranda. She settled in the wicker rocker and waited, her eyes moving restlessly from her embroidery to the lane in front of her house.

  When she spotted Dr. Callahan heading her way, she straightened her skirt, caught her breath and held it while she sent up a fervent prayer. Please let him stop today. Let him at least say good-morning.

  For a m
oment she thought he would. He slowed as he approached her gate, seemed to admire the bright yellow marigolds she’d planted along the fence. She knew how he loved yellow flowers. She let her breath out slowly. Today would be the day.

  But the doctor suddenly jerked away from her gate and began to walk away in his long, loose-jointed stride. Iona sat perfectly still for a long moment, and then her eyes filled.

  I won’t give up, you silly old man! I may be a foolish old woman, but I know a thing or two, and I’m not helpless. Just you wait and see!

  The sheriff’s office was hot and airless. Together Ellen and Jess advanced toward the steely-eyed man behind the desk, careful not to touch each other.

  “Sad time for you, Miss Ellen. Sorry to bring you both back this way.” He paused, folding his meaty hands in front of him, and looked up at them.

  “Get it over with, DeWitt,” Jess said in a voice hoarse with anxiety.

  “I will, I will. Just let me think a minute.”

  The ghost of a smile crossed the sheriff’s clean-shaven face. “Problem is…” He shifted his eyes to Jess. “There was a price on Dan’s head. A reward for bringing him in.”

  “We didn’t bring him in,” Jess said. “He’s dead.”

  Sheriff DeWitt snorted. “Well hell, Flint, we both know that. What I mean is, well, by rights the reward should go to the one that brought Dan’s outlawin’ career to an end.”

  “The reward should go to Ellen,” Jess said quickly.

  “Jess deserves it,” Ellen said at the same instant. “Give it to him.”

  “You two…” The sheriff shook his head. “You two are the most mixed-up folks I’ve ever tried to talk sense to.” He placed both meaty fists on his desk and leaned forward. “Now, you listen close.”

  In spite of herself, Ellen reached for Jess’s hand. Feeling his answering squeeze, she willed herself to be calm.

  The sheriff looked past them, to the open door. “Far as I’m concerned, Flint, you’re a free man. That might be a heavy burden, since you’ve also got a thousand dollar reward waitin’ for you at the bank.”

  He leaned back and pinned Ellen and then Jess with a hard look. “Now, I’ve carried a number of secrets around with me, and I’ll carry this one to my grave. But you two better skedaddle out of town or get married, ’cuz people are beginning to talk. That’s all I have to say, folks. Whatever you decide to do, good luck to you.”