“Jen, tell me how ... what happened to Dad and Momma.”
Jenny set the tray back on the bedside table. She wrapped her arms around herself as she began to speak. “There was a man. It was so dark, I never saw his face.”
“I remember seeing a man, too. He was laughing. I remember it gave me chills, it sounded so evil.”
“He shot Dad, but one of the shots must have gone wild and hit the lantern. I didn’t see Momma. Gray Horse wouldn’t let me. He said she had hit her head on the hearth and the blow must have killed her instantly. Dad saw her when he was dying.” Jenny wiped away the tears that had started streaming down her face as she remembered the look of wonder on her father’s face as he took his last breath. “He said she was an angel and she was waiting for him.” Jamie looked away, trying to hide the tears that had started in his own deep blue eyes.
“Why would anyone want to shoot Dad? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, I told the marshal everything I knew. He said that all the tracks just disappeared into the traffic going into town. He was hoping someone had noticed a stranger around, but there just wasn’t anything to go on.”
“Could it have been the man who once wanted to marry Momma?” Jamie asked.
“I thought that too, but I couldn’t remember his name. I told the marshal about him, but he thought it was a long shot, with all that happening so long ago.”
“That woman who made Momma lose the baby could have told him where she was.”
“I know, but without knowing his name, we have nothing to go on.”
Jamie thought about that for a while, but he couldn’t summon the name to his memory. “So now what happens?”
“You get better. Then we get out of here.”
“And do what? Where would we go, how would we live?”
“Gray Horse could take care of us.”
“Jen, I really don’t think Momma would want us to go live like Indians. Besides, Gray Horse might not want us.”
“I know—I just don’t want to stay here, I hate it.”
“It will take time to get used to it, I’m sure. I know I didn’t want to wind up in a place like this, with burns all over my face.” Jamie threw his hand up towards the bandages that still covered half of his face. Jenny grabbed the hand it and took into hers.
“The burns on your face don’t have a thing to do with who you are, Jamie,” she assured him.
“I know, but they’ll have a lot to do with how people look at me. I heard some kids outside the window today. They were looking in and laughing at me.” Jenny’s mind flashed back to the earlier recess when Logan and Joe had taken off around a comer of the building.
“They are idiots. Don’t worry about them.”
“I guess I’ll just have to get used to it. That’s how it’s going to be from now on.”
“We don’t even know what your face looks like under your bandages. How can you say that?” Jenny protested.
“I know what it feels like. I just know.”
“Jamie—” Jenny began. He just pulled his hand from hers and turned away. Jenny got up from the bed and began puttering around the room, straightening the covers on the other bed, organizing instruments on the table.
“Would you like me to see if I can find some books?” she finally asked after an eternity of silence had passed.
“What I would really like is to get out of this bed for a while, maybe go outside, if there’s nobody around.”
“I’ll have to ask Sister Mary Frances if that would be all right. The rules are pretty rigid here.”
“They are? She’s really nice, though.”
“Yes, she’s different from the rest of them. Father Clarence is a real tyrant. He’s the one who runs the place, and the rest of the nuns are all scared to death of him. He doesn’t seem to like children, that’s for sure.”
“Then why is he running an orphanage?”
“Funny, I’ve been thinking the same thing all day.” Jenny sat back down on the bed and told Jamie about her day and all the things she had noticed. Jamie laughed when she told him about the morning devotions and how she hadn’t known when to sit, kneel or stand. She was just telling him about her new friend Marcus when Sister Mary Frances came back into the room.
“I’m glad to see you’re feeling better,” she commented to Jamie. Jenny noticed Jamie’s self conscious turning of his face so that his bandages were hidden from view. The sister noticed it also. “Do you think you feel well enough to get up, maybe take a walk?”
“No,” Jamie answered curtly.
Jenny wanted to remind him that he had just mentioned going outside but stopped herself. “You need to eat some more. You hardly touched this soup.” She pulled the tray back into her lap and began to stir the spoon around in the bowl. Jamie gave her a grateful look and obediently opened his mouth as she lifted the spoon to it. “You can’t hide in here all your life. The sooner you get out, the sooner you get it over with,” she whispered to him as the sister busied herself on the other side of the room.
“I know,” he answered after he had swallowed. “I just need to think about it.”
“Think about what?” The spoon went back into the bowl. “It’s just children, and they can’t hurt you,” Jenny said.
Jamie halted the progress of the spoon with his hand. “Jen, please, I just need more time. I don’t even think I can walk right now.”
Jenny looked into his deep blue eyes and saw fear. He had always been the cautious one, while she barreled into things without thinking twice about it. He had saved her on more than one occasion from certain disaster. Maybe he did need more time. “How “bout we just take a walk around this room to get your strength up?”
“I need to visit the chamber pot,” he answered. “Can we start with that?”
Jenny looked at Sister Mary Frances, who pointed to a screen in the corner of the room that hid the necessary. Jamie slid over to the side of the bed and stood, with the help of his sister. The nun came to give support on the other side and looked up at his face in amusement.
“What?” he asked, a guarded look coming into his eyes.
“I didn’t realize you were so tall,” she answered.
“Our dad was tall...” Jamie’s voice trailed off as he hesitantly took a step.
“Jamie is taller than our dad.” Jenny looked up at her brother as he struggled to make his legs respond. “He’s strong like him, too.”
“Not right now,” Jamie gritted out.
“Your strength will come back. You’re just weak from the morphine,” the nun assured him.
They reached the screen, and Jamie reached out a hand over the nun’s head to steady himself on the wall.
“I can make it from here,” he assured them. The pair stepped back and watched as he used the wall as a crutch and went around the screen. There was a moment of silence as he fumbled with the tail of his night shirt.
“I said I can make it,” he declared. Jenny stepped away from the screen with a giggle. Sister Mary Frances folded her hands up into the sleeve of her habit and looked up towards the heavens. They heard his shuffling steps as he came back around. The nun went to lend assistance, but he held her off with an upraised hand. “I can make it on my own,” he said proudly and made his way slowly back towards the bed. He sat down on the side and looked at the bowl of soup. “Do you think I can get something a little more solid to eat?” he asked the nun.
“That’s a sure sign of recovery if I ever heard one.” She smiled at him. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“What are you looking at?” Jamie asked his sister, who was leaning against the other bed with an amused expression on her face.
“Your legs,” Jenny laughed. Jamie looked down at the long white legs sticking out from under his nightshirt.
“Do I have any clothes?”
“Yes, the marshal went back and packed our things for us.” Jenny pulled a carpetbag out from under Jamie’s bed. Jamie opened it and began to take
inventory of the contents.
“It looks like he got everything,” he said. His hand struck something hard at the bottom, and he pulled items of clothing out until he could see what it was. Jenny looked over his shoulder, and they both saw his revolver and holster lying next to the knife that had belonged to Ian. Two sets of deep blues eyes met. They would keep this a secret. Jenny helped him replace the clothes and set the bag back under the bed.
“I’ve got Momma’s box,” Jenny said.
“I want to see it.”
“I’ll bring it tomorrow.”
“Where are they? I mean where did they—”
“In the cemetery at the church, next to our brothers that. . .” Jenny’s voice trailed off, and Jamie nodded his head as if he could see the four graves in the yard next to the small white church they had attended. Jamie finally leaned wearily back against his pillow. Jenny was facing him, her upper arms pillowing her head atop her bent knees. They stayed that way for a while, lost in their memories of the life they had lost. Jamie reached up and wrapped a long finger around one of his sister’s.
“Tomorrow I’ll go outside.”
“Okay.”
They were silent again, their fingers still linked together when Sister Mary Frances returned to the room with a plate of scrambled eggs and a fresh-baked roll. Jamie flashed his grin as she set the tray down in his lap, and his hand automatically went to the bandages at the side of his face. Jenny handed him a fork, and he began to work on the eggs.
“It’s time for you to go to dinner,” the nun said to Jenny. “Come back tomorrow after school.”
“And find me some books,” Jamie said around a mouthful of eggs.
Jenny entered to the dining room just as the blessing was being said. She quietly went to her seat and bowed her head, saying a prayer for Jamie’s recovery. After the Amen she raised her head to find Marcus staring at her. He inclined his head towards Logan and Joe, who had their heads together whispering. Jenny’s eyes narrowed as she looked at them. Where those two went, trouble was sure to follow. She would be on her guard to protect Jamie. He wasn’t ready for the terror they were sure to create, but when he was stronger, she was sure he would give them the thrashing they deserved.
The morning of the next day was much like the first. The residents of the mission moved from place to place at the sound of the bell tolling the hours. Jenny followed the schedule that had been set down for her, did her lessons, and ignored Logan and Joe when they pulled their sneaky little tricks in class. She told Marcus about Jamie when they took their short recess after lunch. Jenny was bored for the most part. She sought the plains to the west when she came outdoors like a thirsty man seeking water. She longed to be on horseback, Jamie at her side, the wind whipping her hair as they raced across the rolling land. She also understood that, as hard as this confinement was for her, it was even harder for Jamie. As least she had something to help her pass the day. He was still confined to the infirmary. She vowed to get him outside for at least a few minutes today. She needed him to get better so they could leave.
When her class was dismissed, Jenny raced to the infirmary, a book that she had borrowed from the teacher under her arm. She found Jamie sitting in a chair by the bed dressed in his clothes, a look of total disgust on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s going to take the bandages off.”
“They have to come off sometime,” Jenny said.
“That’s what I told him,” Sister Mary Frances said from the door. She was carrying a steaming pot of water. “We were waiting for you.” She quickly set Jenny to work soaking some cloths in the water. “We’ll need to soak them off,” she explained to the two of them. “Take your shirt off, young man.”
Jamie unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it, grimacing as the skin on his shoulder cracked and stretched with the movement. The nun took a pair of scissors and began to cut away the binding on the wraps. “We need to expose your skin to as much air as possible to help it heal. Before, we had to worry about infection,” she explained as she worked on the bandages wrapped around his shoulder and chest. Jamie watched her hands as they worked the scissors, occasionally giving a little start when she came into contact with a tender area. The padding underneath the bandages was indeed stuck to the wound, and the nun had Jenny laid a steaming cloth on it to loosen the scabs. The sister next went to work on his neck, then finally pulled the top layer of bandages off his face, after instructing Jamie to lay his head back. Jenny applied a steaming towel to each area as the sister instructed her to. Jamie stared at the ceiling with his deep blue eyes full of apprehension. He was dreading this, Jenny knew, but it had to be done, and the sooner the better as far as she was concerned.
Sister Mary Frances tenderly pulled the padding back from the area on his chest. It revealed a red oozing area about the size of a fist. Removing the padding brought little rivers of blood, and Jenny quickly mopped them away as they trickled down onto his ridged stomach. Jamie kept his eyes on the ceiling. Jenny felt little quivers shoot through him as she wiped the blood away, and she began to pray to herself that he would be okay, that the rest wouldn’t be that bad. She knew in her heart that it was bad, she would never forget how the blackened skin had looked on the day it happened.
The padding on the shoulder revealed several small burns, along with two cuts from the globe of the lantern. The cuts had scabbed over quite well, along with the smaller burns, but the larger areas were still oozing and dripping blood from where the padding had stuck. Jenny couldn’t tell if his shirt had protected him or made the damage worse by catching fire from the oil.
The wound on his neck was long and narrow, as if the hot oil had slid down and then trailed onto his shoulder and chest. It ran parallel to the cords in his neck. Jenny watched the muscles in his neck work as he swallowed, his eyes still riveted to the ceiling.
Sister Mary Frances cast a prayer heavenward and crossed herself before she began on the padding that was still attached to the left side of Jamie’s face. Jenny stood behind his chair, and caught his eyes with her own. She felt his terror at what was about to be revealed, felt the tugging of his skin as the nun gently worked the fibers of the cloth away from the wound. She heard once again his screams as he fell from the ladder, she smelled the burnt flesh again. She wanted to look away, but she was afraid that if she did, he would think she couldn’t look at what the bandages had hidden. She kept her eyes locked on his as the nun pulled the padding away.
Jamie slowly lowered his head, and Jenny stepped around to the front of the chair as Sister Mary Frances examined the wound to make sure there were no threads remaining. Blood began to gush from the open areas, and Jenny placed a towel in the nun’s outstretched hand so she could stop the flow. She finally pulled her hand away to reveal the burn. It started right under his cheekbone at the corner of his eye and stretched back into his hairline, continuing all the way down the side of his face into his neck. The skin under his eye was perfect, but near his hairline it became a blistered, oozing mass. He would never be able to grow a beard or a sideburn there; the wound was that deep. He could grow his hair long and cover part of it, but it would always be visible from the front.
Jamie’s eyes jumped from one face to the other as he waited for a reaction. Jenny felt tears well up in her eyes, but she couldn’t tell if they were from pity or gratitude.
“Jen?” His voice broke on her name.
“It’s not that bad,” she answered. Jamie put his hand up to his face but stopped short of touching it.
“She’s right; you could have lost an eye, an ear, even your nose, for that matter,” the nun assured him.
“I want to see.” His voice was strong now. Jenny felt a chill go down her spine at the words, because he sounded so much like Ian.
“I don’t think you should right yet. The skin hasn’t had a chance to heal,” Sister Mary Frances said.
Jamie examined the wound on his chest and his shoulder. “Let me see it
,” he said. Jenny exchanged a look with the nun and nodded her head. The nun went over to her medicine cabinet and took a piece of silvered glass out of the drawer. She handed it to Jenny, who in turn handed it to Jamie. Jamie took a deep breath and raised the glass to his face.
Wide, deep blue eyes full of fear stared back at him from the glass as he held it in his trembling hand. He willed his hand to be still, and focused on the side of his face. He turned his head to the right to better reveal the burn on his face and neck. They were right, it could have been worse. He was grateful for that, but still— “I’m a freak,” he whispered.
“No!” Jenny cried. “No.”
“It’s okay, Jen, really. I’ll deal with it.” He handed the mirror back to his sister.
“Jamie, no.” The look in his eyes made Jenny want to scream in frustration. He had always been the quiet one, who analyzed each situation thoroughly before making a decision, while she had just jumped in, come what may. Once he had made up his mind, however, there was no changing it. He stuck to his course with a fierce determination that had made their parents shake their heads on more than one occasion. She knew that he had made up his mind now. No matter what anyone said or did, he was convinced that people would look on him as something less than he was, that they would judge him as lacking because of the burns. It would take time to change his mind, she knew, and she wondered if she was strong enough to help him.
Sister Mary Frances had stood silent during the exchange between the twins, her lovely, serene face hearing the words and seeing what was left unsaid in each set of wide, deep blue eyes. She went to her work table as Jenny turned away from her brother in frustration. She found a jar of salve and handed it to Jenny, who had busied herself wringing out the bloody cloths.
“Put this on the wounds,” she instructed the girl. “It will help protect them while they heal.” The nun looked over at Jamie, who was still slumped in the chair. She squeezed Jenny’s hand. “Go on, he needs you.”
Jenny smiled gratefully at the woman. With her gentle squeeze she had imported a feeling of strength and calmness. It was the first time Jenny had felt safe since her parents had died.
Chase the Wind Page 16
