The Man from Stone Creek

by Linda Lael Miller

  After choking down what would have to pass for breakfast, Maddie put on her apron, scanned the account books, checked to make sure the shotgun under the counter was loaded, and stood anxiously at the display window in front, peering this way and that, hoping to catch a glimpse of Terran or Ben.

  Instead she saw Oralee approaching, clad in a mass of lace-trimmed pink ruffles and carrying a parasol to match. She trundled up to the door just as Maddie turned the lock to let her in.

  “If it ain’t one thing, it’s another,” Oralee said without preamble. “I sent my girls out beatin’ the brush for that little Donagher kid after Terran told me he was missing—them I could raise from their beds, anyhow. Night work, you know.”

  Maddie felt a blush warm the skin over her cheekbones. “Yes,” she said. “I understand. Has there been any sign of Ben?”

  “Not so’s I’ve heard,” Oralee allowed, and gave a sigh that made her copious ruffles move in a fascinating, undulating sequence. “That Perkins gal is a little better today, though. Just looked in on her myself. Sittin’ up in bed. I dare say it was my Estella’s hen soup that heartened her. She and that kid are skinny as fence rails. I’ve a mind to offer ’em a place under my roof, but a body can’t take in every stray and, besides, there’s no room.”

  The idea of little Violet living at the Rattlesnake Saloon made Maddie’s blood cold as creek water, but she knew Oralee’s intentions were kind, so she said nothing. “I could use a bowl of Estella’s hen soup myself,” she told Oralee, to make conversation. Oralee’s cooks came and went, and Estella, a black woman who had mostly kept to herself since her arrival six months before, was the latest in a long procession.

  Oralee straightened her spine and more quivering of ruffles ensued. “I came here on business, anyhow,” she said. “Got wind that Undine means to come by for a shopping spree sometime in the next couple of days, and I wanted to warn you that she’ll expect credit and you oughtn’t to give it to her.”

  Inwardly, Maddie sighed. She didn’t give credit except in the most dire circumstances, and the fact was widely known, but Undine Donagher was used to being the store owner’s wife and getting whatever she wanted because of it. She was bound to put up a fuss, and while Maddie wasn’t afraid to say no, she wasn’t looking forward to Undine’s inevitable reaction, either.

  “Maybe she’ll know where Ben’s gotten off to,” Maddie said speculatively.

  Oralee gave a skeptical huff. “She don’t give a damn about that boy,” she said. “She mostly ignores him, and I reckon that’s his good fortune.”

  Bleak sadness washed over Maddie and for a moment she was back in the orphanage in Kansas City, scrubbing pots and scouring floors till her hands were raw from lye soap and hot water, just so she could stay close to Terran, the only family she had left. Although Ben’s circumstances were a little different, she understood how lonely and confused he must be, and how much he must yearn to belong to someone.

  “I’m afraid Terran might go down to the river, looking for him,” Maddie said distractedly, thinking out loud.

  “Boys do favor such things,” Oralee agreed. “I’d offer to tend the store so you could go and see for yourself, but it might run you to bankruptcy, having a madam back of the counter.” Her face brightened behind its coat of skillfully applied paint. “No reason I couldn’t have the buggy hitched up and take a gander myself, though.”

  Maddie was buoyed by gratitude, and she went so far as to clasp both Oralee’s hands in her own and squeeze them. “Thank you,” she said.

  Oralee flushed with surprise and, for the briefest of moments, her fingers tightened around Maddie’s. In the next instant, though, the front door slammed open and Isaiah Parker, from down at the feed and grain, poked his bald head in to impart the news.

  “Charlie Wilcox’s horse just came to town without him!”

  Both Oralee and Maddie froze, staring.

  “I been here since this town was a wide spot in the road,” Oralee said finally, “and that horse ain’t never come all this way by itself.”

  Parker nodded vigorously. “Some of the boys from the Rattlesnake headed right off to see about Charlie,” he said. With that, he retreated to the sidewalk, intent on spreading the tale.

  Maddie didn’t know Mr. Wilcox very well, but she’d certainly developed a fond sympathy for that old horse over the years. Once in a while, she’d even fed the poor creature a lump of rock candy, paid for out of her own sparse resources, and though most of the townswomen crossed the street to avoid passing so close to the saloon, Maddie never did. She liked to stop and pet Dobbin, offer him a kind word or two.

  “What do you make of this?” she asked Oralee.

  “Nothin’ good,” Oralee said, and took her distracted leave without another word.

  Maddie’s brother burst in by the back way before Maddie had a chance to wonder if Oralee would remember her promise to drive her buggy down to the riverside, looking for both Terran and Ben. His eyes were huge, seeming to take up most of his face, which was white as a sun-bleached sheet.

  She expected him to blurt out something about Charlie Wilcox’s horse showing up riderless. Instead he cried, “Ben’s down by the river, soaked to the skin. He told me he fell in, and Miss Blackstone must’ve gone right in after him, because she’s as wet as he is, and she’s just lyin’ there on the bank! Maddie, I tried and I tried, and I couldn’t get her to wake up!”

  Maddie’s heart seized in her chest. “Dear God,” she gasped, rushing for the door. “Stay here!” she called back as she bolted out onto the street. Everyone in town, it seemed, was gathered around Mr. Wilcox’s horse. Maddie shouted for help even as she lifted her skirts and ran for the river, but no one seemed to hear.

  She sprinted down the road, through the shrubbery in front of the schoolhouse, across the grounds. Ben’s little dog, Neptune, came running from the direction of the river, barking frantically.

  Maddie’s throat closed with fear. “Ben!” she screamed.

  “Over here, Maddie!” the boy cried.

  Maddie followed the dog, rather than the sound of Ben’s voice, and when she came to the riverside, terror boiled up inside her like steam in a lidded pot.

  Just as Terran had said, Abigail lay still on the bank, sprawled facedown, as though she’d been flung there by a great tide, while Ben knelt, shivering, beside her, in tears. His clothes were still dripping with water, and Neptune whimpered, put both front paws up on the boy’s back and tried to lick him.

  Maddie dropped to her knees and turned Abigail over with a forceful wrench of both arms. Her eyes were open, staring blindly upward, and Maddie knew before she bent to listen for a heartbeat that she was dead.

  A fearful sob escaped Maddie. She gripped Abigail by both shoulders and shook her hard, desperate to awaken her, all the while knowing it was hopeless.

  “Maddie,” Ben said uncertainly. “Maddie?”

  “Go,” Maddie rasped, swatting at the boy with one hand and weeping. “Go back and get someone!”

  “Who?” Ben asked.

  “Anybody!” Maddie cried, and slapped one hand over her mouth lest she start screaming and never stop.

  Just then she heard the sound of an approaching wagon. Men’s voices, raised and anxious, more than one, Maddie thought, and Terran’s among them.

  Out of decency, and because she had liked Abigail, and because Sam loved her, Maddie reached out and gently closed the woman’s eyes with the tip of one finger.

  “What happened?” Maddie whispered to Ben. “Tell me what happened.”

  Ben dashed at his face with a wet sleeve. “I was crossing on that log over there.” He paused and pointed. “I took a spill, and Miss Blackstone must have seen or heard me yell, because all of the sudden, she was there. She came in the water after me. Good swimmer, too. She got hold of me, and we was to the place where we could stand when she just went under—for no reason that I could see—and didn’t come up. I pulled her out, once I caught hold, and her eyes was o
pen, but she wouldn’t answer when I called her name!”

  Maddie heard the men coming through the brush, heard Terran’s voice, too, but she didn’t look away from Abigail’s still and perfect face. She might have been hewn from alabaster, a statue of some Grecian goddess.

  Mr. Callaway, head of the school board, crouched to rest his fingertips against the hollow of Abigail’s throat, where there should have been a pulse. Maddie saw him shake his head, and she began to shiver as violently as if she’d been into the river herself. Someone laid a suit coat over her shoulders, helped her to her feet.

  Terran came to her side, put an arm around her waist. He’d disobeyed her, hadn’t stayed behind at the store like she’d told him to do, and she was glad.

  “What’s Sam going to say?” she whispered. Maybe nobody heard her, because nobody answered.

  SAM HAD BEEN ON THE TRAIL for the best part of two days when he rode into Haven on that Wednesday morning, and those who saw him coming pretended not to notice him. He thought that a curious thing, but he was too tired to reason it out, and too anxious to make sure Rex Donagher and the rest of the bunch hadn’t gone through the place on a rampage to ask questions.

  He spotted Terran and Ben, standing on the sidewalk, watching him, both of them owl-eyed.

  Sam looked around.

  Everything seemed normal enough. Charlie Wilcox’s horse stood in front of the Rattlesnake Saloon, like always, and the jailhouse was still standing. In fact, smoke curled from the chimney, which meant the stove was going and there might be hot coffee on hand.

  Sam turned his attention back to where the boys had been standing, but they’d vanished, and now Maddie was walking toward him, dead down the center of the road. Her chin was high, but she was pale, and as she drew nearer, he saw her eyes. They looked like two burned holes in a blanket.

  Something twisted in Sam’s gut. He swung down from the gelding and strode to meet Maddie.

  She stopped and looked up at him, sorrow in every inch of her, but bravery, too. Out of everybody in that town, she’d been the one to come out and say whatever had to be said.

  Sam braced himself, even as Maddie wobbled, and he took hold of her upper arms to steady her. “What is it?” he asked, and the words came out raw, scratching at his throat hard enough to tear the flesh.

  “I can’t tell you here,” she said, and took a deep breath. Having done that, she took hold of his hand. Led him down the road, past the mercantile and the feed and grain, past the woodlot and the church. His horse followed obediently.

  When she paused at the undertaker’s gate, he knew.

  Abigail.

  “No,” he said, as if by refusing to hear what happened he could turn back the great, crushing tide of truth that was about to crash down over him.

  “I’m so sorry, Sam,” Maddie whispered, and there were tears standing in her whiskey-colored eyes as she gazed up at him.

  He pushed past her, slammed open the gate, barreled into the house without stopping to knock.

  Abigail lay on a long table, in what would have been the parlor in an ordinary home. Her hands lay folded, bluish-white upon her chest, and pennies weighted her eyes.

  Sam threw back his head and bellowed in useless protest.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  MADDIE, STILL STANDING at the undertaker’s gate, closed her eyes when she heard Sam’s cry of outraged grief. The sound went through her like a cold shock, and reached deep into the ground like roots, reverberating there, leaving her trembling and weak-kneed. When she could move, she turned and walked slowly away.

  Back at the store, she tried to concentrate on the tasks at hand—unpacking the dozen crates of merchandise delivered that morning from Tucson by freight wagon, pricing shirts and bullets and tins of ground coffee, entering each individual item in her inventory book. But her thoughts kept straying back to Sam, alone with the terrible fact of Abigail’s death. Finally, Maddie gave up, went to the kitchen and brewed herself a pot of strong tea. If she’d owned any whiskey, she probably would have poured a generous portion into her orange pekoe.

  Customers came and went, and Maddie saw to their needs, going through the motions of tallying the cost, writing up the receipts, making change. All the while, she kept one eye on the front door, watching for Sam O’Ballivan.

  “It’s a shame about Charlie Wilcox, isn’t it?” asked Mrs. Walter Crosby, after selecting three dime novels. “And that poor Miss Blackstone, too. It seems that tragedy is our lot these days.” She paused. “Do you think it will rain soon?”

  Maddie blinked back uncharacteristic tears. The same day Abigail perished, Mr. Wilcox had been found dead in his shack, most likely of heart failure, and his horse was standing in front of the Rattlesnake Saloon at that very moment, patiently awaiting a master who would never return.

  No. She did not think it would rain.

  “Maddie?” Mrs. Crosby prompted in a kindly tone when Maddie didn’t speak right away. “Are you all right?”

  Maddie swallowed. “There’s been too much death around here lately,” she said softly. “Garrett Donagher and now poor Charlie and Abigail—”

  Mrs. Crosby nodded her agreement. “Makes a body want to crawl under her bed and hide there till better times come along.”

  The bell over the door jingled and Maddie’s heart rushed up into her throat. Sam O’Ballivan stepped over the threshold, looking gaunt and befuddled, as though he was certain he had business at the mercantile but couldn’t recall precisely what it was.

  Maddie remained behind the counter, though everything in her longed to go to him, put her arms around him, tell him it would be all right.

  She had no right to do the first two things, and the third, by her reckoning, would have been a lie, so she stayed put.

  Mrs. Crosby dropped her change into her large handbag, along with the books, and hurried out of the store, giving Sam a sympathetic nod as she passed.

  He didn’t seem to see her, though. He stood still as a pillar in the middle of the store, his gaze fixed on Maddie, bleak and desolate and wholly confounded.

  The tick of the big clock intruded on the thick silence, so loud that it seemed to echo off the walls.

  “How did it happen?” Sam asked finally.

  Maddie explained as simply as she could. Ben had gone to the river before school started for the day and fallen in. Abigail must have heard his cries, or seen him slip off the log—nobody knew for sure. She’d rushed to save the boy and drowned in the process.

  “She didn’t drown,” Sam said when Maddie had finished. “Abigail was a strong swimmer.”

  Maddie offered no comment. She leaned on the counter, braced with both hands, to keep from slipping to her knees.

  “It must have been her heart,” Sam went on.

  “Her heart?” Maddie repeated.

  “She had spells, all her life,” Sam said, like a man talking in his sleep. He, like Maddie, hadn’t moved. “Couldn’t get her breath sometimes. Other times, she’d swoon, for no reason. Just crumple to the floor.” He paused. “She always came around, though.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Maddie said, wondering if he’d hold the tragedy against Ben. Give up on whatever he’d come to Haven to do and head back to Stone Creek, taking Abigail’s body with him, for a proper burial on home ground. “What now?” she asked, dreading the answer.

  “I’ve got to send a wire to the major,” Sam replied. “He’ll want to come and collect Abigail’s remains himself.”

  “That’s been done,” Maddie said. “I found his name among Abigail’s things over at the schoolhouse. I hope you don’t mind my taking the liberty.”

  Sam smiled oddly and shook his head. “I don’t mind,” he said. “Did he send a reply?”

  “Not yet,” Maddie answered. Her throat felt painfully dry and she reached for her teacup, then set it down again. She knew she wouldn’t be able to swallow the smallest sip.

  “The undertaker told me about Charlie Wilcox,” Sam sa
id, and turned his head in the direction of the Rattlesnake Saloon, frowning as if he could see clean through the walls of the mercantile, see that poor horse keeping its hopeless vigil at the hitching rail.

  A tear slipped down Maddie’s cheek. “They took Dobbin over to the livery stable the first night, the second night, too. Somehow he got out of his stall each time and headed straight for the saloon.”

  Sam looked her way again. “Thanks for meeting me with the news about Abigail,” he said gruffly. “I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it from anybody else.”

  Maddie swallowed once more and followed up with another nod. She couldn’t have spoken just then to save her life.

  “Well,” Sam said when the silence stretched to the breaking point, “I’d best get on with things.” With that, he turned, crossed to the door, opened it and went out.

  Maddie groped for her stool and settled herself on the seat, making no further effort to keep from crying.

  SAM CAUGHT HIS HORSE, left to fend for itself when Maddie met him in the street and he’d dismounted to hear what she had to say. Leading the animal by the reins, he walked to the Rattlesnake Saloon and stepped up beside Dobbin.

  The ancient horse nickered a greeting.

  “We’ve both lost a friend,” Sam told Dobbin, stroking his neck. “You come on home with me, now, and we’ll ride this out together.”

  With that, Sam turned toward the schoolhouse, still leading the gelding he’d rode hard from Mexico, and set out.

  Charlie Wilcox’s horse plodded along behind him.

  Back at the school, Sam groomed the gelding, left both horses to graze and drink from the stream, and forced himself to go inside.

  Abigail’s things had been put away, packed into her trunk, and Sam was grateful for that. He reckoned Maddie deserved the credit; she’d known the gathering up would be a painful task, and she’d spared him the doing of it. She’d left a note on the table, too.