Taming Eliza Jane

by Shannon Stacey

  It shouldn’t have bothered her to hear it. She’d asked nothing of Will, after all, and he’d made her no promises. She didn’t even want those kinds of promises, having had them broken so painfully before. It still made her ache just a little, though, knowing deep down she didn’t suit him all that well after all.

  “But then again,” Will continued, “a doctor ain’t usually a lawman, either, so neither one of us is typical.”

  Eliza Jane was too tired to wade any further into this conversational quagmire, so she trailed her fingernails down over his chest…and lower. “Hmm…if you’re not a typical doctor, maybe that’s why this itch you’re treating for me keeps coming back.”

  Will growled and rolled so he was looking down at her. He didn’t look quite so sleepy now. “Let’s give it a really good scratching, darlin’.”

  It was another three days before Eliza Jane got ahead enough in her work at the livery to pay a late morning visit to the Chicken Coop. She wanted to check on Miss Adele and Sadie in particular, but the others as well.

  The chicken strike hadn’t lasted very long. The girls needed to earn money and the men had been pretty persistent in their arguments against the knitting. Texas cowboys apparently didn’t feel much of a need for mismatched knitted socks with crooked heels and bunched toes. They did feel the need for their randier pursuits.

  The house was quiet when she entered, but she spotted Sadie right away, tucked into a chair in the corner of the parlor and knitting what appeared to be a blanket. Eliza Jane walked over and sat near her on the settee. Sadie was counting stitches, so she waited until she reached the end of the row before saying good morning.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Carter.” She held up her knitting. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re getting much better at it,” Eliza Jane said diplomatically. Despite the amount of time she spent counting, Sadie’s rows never all had the same number of stitches. “I haven’t seen you in a while, so I thought I’d stop and see how you’re doing.”

  “I feel a little poorly when I first wake up, but Doc says that’s okay. Otherwise I’m fine.”

  “Have you given any more thought to your future? To the baby’s future?”

  Sadie’s mouth flattened into a stubborn line Eliza Jane didn’t find at all encouraging. “I reckon I’ll keep doing what I’ve always done and just make do the best I can for the baby.”

  “You can’t raise your child at the Chicken Coop, Sadie.”

  “Why not? It wouldn’t be the first young’un running around a whorehouse, you know. And we’re a family—the only family I got. I know Miss Adele won’t toss us out.”

  She hadn’t come with the intention of lecturing Sadie, but now she couldn’t help herself. “But what kind of life will that be for the child? He or she won’t be treated kindly. And if that baby should grow to have an unmistakable likeness to the father, you could have all sorts of trouble.”

  Sadie drew in a deep breath, using it to heave a mighty sigh. “I don’t know no life but whoring, Mrs. Carter. I ain’t never going back to the place I came from, and even if I moved on to another town, whoring’s all I can do. At least here I know Miss Adele’s gonna take care of us.”

  Eliza Jane wasn’t certain the madam would even live to see the baby, never mind help raise it, but she didn’t have the heart to say it aloud.

  “Isn’t there anything else at all you’re skilled at?” she asked.

  Sadie thought about it for a minute. “No, Mrs. Carter. Makin’ men feel good is about all I know how to do.”

  Now it was Eliza Jane who sighed. “What if I could find a good home for your baby, Sadie. Maybe a couple who can’t have children of their own.”

  “I ain’t giving my baby to no strangers to raise. I already love her…or him. I even quit the whorin’ part ‘til after the baby comes. Miss Adele told me I could cook and clean and do some mending to earn my keep for now.”

  There wasn’t anything more Eliza Jane could do to change her mind right then, and she didn’t want to push too hard. She wanted Sadie to be comfortable talking to her. “It’s good that you’ve stopped taking customers. And speaking of Miss Adele, I think I’ll go see if she’s up to a visit.”

  The madam was awake and—as always—looking her best, all things considered. “I was hoping you’d stop by soon, Eliza Jane. I’ve missed your company.”

  “I’ve been busy during the day at the livery, and in the evening… Well, that’s not a convenient time to visit the Coop, of course. But I wanted to thank you for helping me find work.”

  Miss Adele waved away her gratitude. “You look immeasurably more cheerful today, child. Come to think of it, my William’s been mighty cheerful of late, as well. I do believe I heard him whistling when he left here this morning.”

  “Yes, well…” Eliza Jane blushed, but stopped trying to hold back the grin. “The past few days have been very liberating.”

  “Good for you, child. I knew you two were a good match.”

  The smile froze on Eliza Jane’s face. “We’re not that kind of match, Miss Adele. We’re just…being liberated together for a while.”

  The other woman barely had the air to laugh anymore, but she managed a small one anyway. “I know a good match when I see one. You and that boy will be liberatin’ one another for a good long time.”

  Sadness had Eliza Jane looking down at her hands. “I know you care for Will a great deal, and it’s natural to look to your loved ones’ futures when you’re ailing, but that’s not going to happen. I can’t stay here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, half the town wants to string me up, for one thing. The sheriff alternates between laughing at me and threatening to shoot me. My real work is women’s suffrage, not lugging hay for smelly horses—not that I don’t appreciate the job. And I never intended to stay this long.”

  “I think that fellow running off with your money is the best thing that ever happened to you and you just don’t know it yet.”

  Eliza Jane hadn’t come to spend the day arguing with a dying woman, so she only sighed and shook her head. Whether Miss Adele chose to believe it or not, Gardiner was just one stop on her path, even if it was a longer stop than most.

  “You’re happy with my William now, child. What makes you think you wouldn’t be in the future?”

  “Because he needs a dutiful, domestic doctor’s wife, and I’m not that. I can’t ever be that.”

  “I know that boy, and he’s not the kind to stifle a woman or try to change her ways.”

  “With all due respect, he’s never had any legal authority over you. Since he’s never been married, nobody can actually say what kind of husband he’d be. And I can’t change who I am to make him happy.”

  Miss Adele reached out and took her hand. “Child, I guess you just don’t know who you really are yet.”

  Chapter Nine

  Tormenting his feisty women’s libber grew to be Will’s favorite pastime over the next several days, even if he did wind up torturing himself damn near as much as he did Eliza Jane.

  If he passed her on the sidewalk, he’d brush up against her. He’d give her what he hoped were sultry glances when nobody else was looking. At the Mercantile, when Tom had his back turned, he’d stepped up behind her at the counter so close he could feel the heat of her warming his body. And every morning he and Adam went through their body weight in penny candy watching her bring hay to the horses.

  It was a game meant to keep Eliza Jane constantly aware of him—constantly wanting him. The unfortunate side effect was Will going about his days in an almost constant state of arousal. If he didn’t come up with a good excuse for being alone with her damn soon, he was likely to give her something a sight more scandalous than a spanking right in the middle of the street.

  A plan had started to form involving a note, a map and a picnic blanket when the door to his office opened.

  Hellfire. It wasn’t her. Instead, Johnny Barnes stuck his head in.

>   “Hey, Doc. You busy?”

  He didn’t intend to share how he’d been musing about the freckle on the inside of Eliza Jane’s left thigh, so he shook his head. “What can I do for you, Johnny?”

  Since the man’s face and neck were a flaming crimson, he either had one of the worst fevers Will had ever seen or he was suffering from a mighty personal problem. And seeing as how Johnny was up on his feet, he assumed it was the latter.

  “That Mrs. Carter, she’s been talking to Melinda now and again about…women stuff.”

  Will nodded, trying to hide his mixed reaction. On the one hand, his libido had perked right up at the mention of Eliza Jane. On the other, his mind knew her name coming into a conversation usually spelled trouble.

  Johnny took a seat, seemingly just wanting a place to squirm. “Well, Melinda and me, we done some talking, too, and it’s a fine idea to wait until Johnny Junior’s a might bit older before we have another young’un.”

  “That not a bad idea at all. Melinda’s a young, pretty girl and there’s no sense in wearing her out having one baby after another. You’ve got plenty of time for more children.”

  “Right. So we’re not going to…that is, we’ll keep track of her…um…so there’s time…”

  “You’re going to avoid making love during the days of her cycle she’s more likely to conceive?”

  Johnny’s relief came out in a rush of air. “That’s it exactly, Doc.”

  Will leaned back in his chair. “If you’re looking for me to tell you Mrs. Carter’s methods will guarantee you don’t have a baby, I can’t do that. All it does is give you better odds.”

  “Mrs. Carter did explain all that to Melinda—how it’s not for certain. That’s…not really why I came to see you.”

  The way the young man was squirming again, Will was beginning to wonder if he was really suffering from some kind of posterior rash.

  “Melinda said Mrs. Carter told her if I got too randy during those times I should…just take my own self in hand—and that’s not any way for womenfolk to be talking if you ask me.”

  But Will didn’t ask him because randy, Mrs. Carter and taken in hand had all jumbled together to make one hell of a picture in his mind.

  “But the thing is, my ma,” Johnny continued, and the mention of Lucy Barnes snapped Will right back to the here and now. “She used to tell me when I was a young’un that real bad things would happen to me if I…took myself in hand.”

  Only years of doctorly discipline and the look on Johnny’s face kept Will from laughing—or even cracking a smile. But there wasn’t enough discipline in the world to keep from asking, “What kind of real bad things?”

  Johnny looked down at his feet, which he kept shuffling around. “Mostly she didn’t really say what, but one time she told me touching myself there caused a sickness that would make my prick wither up and fall off.”

  “Damn, Johnny, that must have made it scary to take a piss.”

  He gave the man a moment to catch up to the conversation, and then almost did laugh when his mouth dropped open. “Are you tellin’ me my ma wasn’t entirely truthful?”

  Will hadn’t gotten a medical degree by being stupid enough to call Lucy Barnes a liar outright. And yet he couldn’t let the poor kid go on thinking he’d be gelded if he got a little frisky with himself. “Don’t you reckon if a man touching his prick too much made it fall off, you’d see a lot more men sitting down to piss?”

  Johnny gave him a sheepish shrug. “I thought maybe Mrs. Carter suggested it so as to make men’s peckers fall off on account of her not liking them and all.”

  Will wasn’t sure if Johnny was implying Eliza Jane didn’t like men or didn’t like peckers, but he wasn’t inclined to set the boy straight about how wrong he was on the latter. The former, however, was still a little up in the air.

  “Mrs. Carter’s a pretty smart lady, Johnny, and all she’s trying to do is make life a little easier for women. That doesn’t mean she wants the world to be full of prick-less men.”

  “I guess that does sound ridiculous. But I got her and my ma saying different things, and now I’m all mixed up about who I should listen to.”

  “You should listen to Melinda.” Here, at least, was safer ground. “You and your wife just do what seems best for your family, Johnny. And I can’t imagine you tell your mother when you and Melinda are intimate, so it’s not like anybody else has to know.”

  The relief was evident in the way Johnny’s coloring eased back to normal and how he stopped shuffling his feet and stood up. “Thanks, Doc. I feel a lot better now, but I can’t stay. Mrs. Carter’s supposed to run over the Mercantile to get some things for Mrs. Digger, so I need to get back.”

  “Anytime you need to talk, you come find me,” Will said, but he was already trying to think of something—anything—he needed from the store.

  When Johnny was gone, Will grabbed his hat and headed toward the Mercantile. Damnation, but he felt like a boy sneaking out behind the schoolhouse to kiss a girl. It seemed like there just wasn’t any other way to see Eliza Jane without telling the entire town the doctor and the women’s libber were up to no good after they’d all gone to bed.

  She wasn’t in the Mercantile when he arrived, so Will looked over the new shipment of ready-made shirts. Then he looked at boots, then knives, then a whole lot of other things he had no use for. He was randomly flipping through the pages of the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogue when the bell over the door rang.

  He didn’t turn to look, instead turning another page and pretending to look interested. Through the corner of his eye, he watched Tom Dunbarton finish measuring out a pound of coffee and wander over to him.

  “Feel pretty under your clothes, do you, Doc?” the storekeeper asked.

  Will slammed the book closed when he realized he’d been pouring over a page of women’s foundation garments. “I’m…researching the back-support features of corsets.”

  “I’ll just bet,” Tom replied, and then he looked over Will’s shoulder. “Howdy, Mrs. Carter.”

  Will was about to turn around when she stepped up next to him at the counter, managing to brush her hip against his in the process. “Hello, Mr. Dunbarton. Mrs. Digger asked me to get the items on this list for her.”

  She handed over the note, and when he left to measure out the flour, Will reopened the catalogue to a random page not featuring unmentionables so he could bend his head in Eliza Jane’s direction.

  “I’ll leave the back door unlocked tonight.”

  “I’ll be there,” she whispered.

  A woman and her daughter stepped up the counter, ending the conversation. But it had served its purpose, so Will closed the catalogue and tipped his hat at the ladies before leaving empty-handed.

  He was standing in the sunshine, pondering how to spend the hours until Eliza Jane came calling, when a wagon came careening into town, the driver shouting for the doctor.

  Will wasn’t home when Eliza Jane snuck up his back stairs, so she whiled away some time exploring his private living quarters.

  It didn’t take long. There were two rooms, not counting the water closet—a main room with a kitchen area on one side and a sitting area on the other, and his bedroom. Austerely decorated, it didn’t suit Will nearly as well as his office did. He was also either meticulously neat or did little but sleep there. She suspected the latter.

  An hour passed before she started to worry. She’d peeked into his office earlier and his bag was gone, so she knew he was with a patient somewhere. But by the time the long hand of the clock ticked past the twelve for the third time, she was pacing the length of both rooms.

  It was after midnight before the heavy tread of his boots on the stairs woke her from the light doze she’d fallen into. She sat up straight in the rocking chair and wiped the sleep from her eyes just as he stepped into the room.

  “I didn’t think you’d stay,” he said, heading to the lamp on the table to turn it up a bit.

  “I was wor
ried about you,” she replied, rising to give him a kiss hello.

  Dark circles stood out against the pallor of his skin, overshadowing his blue eyes. He looked scruffy and exhausted, but he managed a small smile for her.

  “The population of Gardiner has grown by one baby boy, and both he and his mama are doing fine.”

  He said it lightly, but she knew it hadn’t been an easy birth. She could see it in his face, in the slope of his shoulders. Being the only doctor around had to be hard on him, and she felt a little guilty for being there in the middle of the night.

  Now that the worry over his prolonged absence had been eased, Eliza Jane knew she should go, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave him alone in his current state. He was too exhausted to take care of himself.

  “Are you hungry? Did you eat anything at all while you were gone?”

  He only shrugged and sank onto a chair to tug his boots off.

  “I’ll heat you up some beans,” she said, moving toward the cookstove. “Not the best supper to have in the middle of the night, but they’ll stick to your ribs.”

  She chattered inanely while she worked. She got nothing but the occasional grunt in response, but she didn’t mind. Keeping him awake long enough to eat was the point, not being social. When she set the bowl in front of him, along with a slab of buttered bread, Will revived himself enough to dig in with relish.

  He said nothing, focused as he was on lifting each bite to his mouth. When he was done, Will pushed back from the table and walked to his bed. He let himself fall face down, fully clothed but for his hat and boots.

  “Thanks, darlin’,” he muttered, and seconds later he was snoring.

  Eliza Jane spent a few minutes quietly cleaning up after his meal, such as it was. While covering the butter crock, it struck her what a sweet picture of domesticity she currently made. The little woman taking care of her man with barely a proper thank you.

  It was the basic principle she’d devoted her life to fighting, yet all she felt was a deep sense of satisfaction. Did that make her a hypocrite? Was it wrong to urge women to throw off the chains of domestic slavery when even now she was possessed of a deep sense of feminine pride she’d been there to see to Will’s needs when he was too tired to see to them himself?