Sins of Summer

by Dorothy Garlock

  “I hear the donkey blows pretty easy.”

  “I hope the hell it does an’ takes him with it.” Milo’s voice rose as his anger escalated. “Sonofabitch’s sittin’ in there eatin’ at my table while I eat with a crippled up old beggar.”

  Resentment stiffened Wiley’s back. “I’m crippled. I won’t argue that. But I ain’t no beggar and never have been.”

  “If I say yo’re a beggar, yo’re a gawddamn pissin’ beggar,” Milo shouted as he flung himself from the table, sending his chair crashing to the floor. He slammed the pudding pan into the slop bucket and jerked on his coat and cap before he stomped out the door.

  Wiley sat for a moment, relieved that he was gone. Then he left the table and hobbled into the darkened part of the bunkhouse so that he could look out the window. Milo was saddling his horse. Ben Waller’s horse stood by the porch. That explained Milo’s bad mood and cut lip. Wiley would bet his last dime Milo had had a run-in with Waller over his daughter. The man was going to get hisself killed fooling around with young girls. It was just a matter of time.

  Like a shouted warning the realization came to Wiley: Things around here were about to change—forever. Waller wasn’t a man to be pushed or one who backed down. His loose-knit frame and the careless way he held his hands to his sides, the air of quiet watching, was a trifle too well-managed, too pat. Wiley had been around long enough to know that Ben Waller was a bobcat with bristles on his belly. By jinks damn! Milo might not be so lucky next time.

  Wiley waited until Milo was astride his horse and heading toward the mill before he left the window and went back to the table.

  He looked at the pudding pan upside down in the slop bucket and shook his head in disgust. It was a childish, irrational act to dump the pudding. It spelled out clearly what Wiley had thought all along: Milo was going crazy in the head—as crazy as his ma had been before she died.

  It didn’t look good for Dory and the baby unless Waller stayed around. Wiley wondered again if he should break his promise and tell James the straight about a few things. Still, if he did that and James had an accident, Dory would be alone. It was a hell of a mess.

  There was total silence in the kitchen while Ben ate the meal Dory had placed before him. Odette had shaken her head when asked to eat and continued to hold Jcanmarie. who had cried herself to sleep. With a heavy heart Dory sat down at the table and waited for Ben to finish his supper.

  She was determined to make him understand that Odette was in no condition to make that long ride to the Malones’. The croupy cough she’d had since the day after he brought her here had held on in spite of the dosing of hot tea and honey Dory had given her. Now Odette’s flushed cheeks were a sure sign of a fever. Dory couldn’t blame Ben for wanting to take his daughter from this place, but oh… it would be so lonely here when they were gone.

  For a brief moment Dory considered asking Ben to take her with him. She could stay with the McHcnrys for a while. It was only fair that her daughter know her grandparents. She had no doubt that Chip and Marie would take to her baby. But would they try to take her baby away from her?

  The only time Chip Malone had seen Jeanmarie was when she was a lively two-year-old. The giant of a red-haired man had stood as still as a stone in the doorway of the store and watched the little girl with bright red hair run up and down the aisles and play peek-a-boo behind stacks of merchandise. Fearing he would snatch her child and take her away. Dory had scooped Jeanmarie up in her arms. Holding her breath, she had waited to see what Chip Malone would do. He had looked at her and the child for a long while, his eyes as bright a blue as Mick’s, and those of Mick’s daughter’s, then had abruptly turned on his heel and left. Dory remembered hearing the hollow thump of his boot heels on the plank porch of the store and thinking how lonely they sounded.

  Ben got up to refill his coffee cup from the pot on the stove. He returned to the table and sat down.

  “Mr. Waller, Odette isn’t well. She has a croupy cough. I’ve been dosing her at night with hot tea and honey, but it hasn’t done much good. I’m afraid of what will happen if you take her out.”

  Ben looked sharply at his daughter and waved his hand to get her attention.

  “Honey, you sick?”

  “I’m all… right, Papa.” Odette’s voiced cracked

  “She’s got a fever.” Dory went to her and placed the palm of her hand on Odette’s forehead. “Let me take Jeanmarie.” She carried the child to a big cowhide chair beside the hearth and laid her down. After covering her with a shawl, she went to the washstand, returned with a wet cloth and batned Odette’s face. “She’s sick! Can’t you see that?” Dory asked almost angrily.

  After Odette got over a fit of coughing, Ben answered “How long has she had that cough?”

  “It started the day after you brought her here. It’s gotter worse today. She needs to be in bed.”

  “Your brother ordered me to leave.”

  “Half of this house belongs to Milo and Louis. Half to me and James. I’m inviting your daughter to stay in our part of the house.” The eyes she raised to his held cold determina tion. “She can sleep in my room. If Milo bothers her, so help me God, I’ll shoot him.”

  A ghost of a smile flickered across Ben’s lips. “I believ you.”

  Dory made an impatient motion with her hand. The warmth in Ben’s slate-colored eyes made her uncomfortable. “Well?”

  “I’ll do what’s best for Odette—to hell with my pride.”

  Dory went to the stove, removed a lid and set the blackened teakettle down in the hole over the flame. It immediately sent up a plume of steam. She placed two spoonfuls of honey in a heavy cup, added two spoonfuls of whiskey and filled the cup with water from the teakettle. After stirring it vigorously she carried it to the table.

  “Come drink this, Odette, while I go upstairs and fix you a good warm bed.”

  “We stay with Dory?” Odette mouthed the words to Ben.

  “We stay until you feel better.”

  A look of relief came over Odette’s flushed face and she picked up the mug.

  As Dory filled her arm with wood from the box, Ben asked, “Can I help?”

  “No. I’ll get the fire going in my room. See that she drinks that toddy. When I come back I’ll make a poultice to put on her chest. There’s a can of turpentine and one of kerosene on the porch.”

  Dory lost no time. She hurried up the stairs. Before Jeanmarie was born, James had brought home the Acme Champion woodstove that sat in the corner of her room. Built like a barrel turned on its side, the stove could easily heat a room three times the size of her bedroom. She shook down the ashes and placed some kindling on the glowing coals before she added the chunks of wood. When the fire was going, she closed the damper halfway. The room began to warm while she added extra soft blankets to the bunkbed.

  In the soft glow of the lamplight Dory looked about the room. She would bed Jeanmarie down in the quilt box. She removed the lid and stood it against the wall. The box was almost full of quilts and blankets. She spread one of them over the others and took Jeanmarie’s pillow from the bed.

  Before she went out the door, she glanced back at the bed, a double bunk her father had built into the corner of the room. In all her life no one had slept in that bunk but her and Jeanmarie. The thought drew her up short. She had been caged in this house without friends or acquaintances. It was a wonder she hadn’t lost her mind. The coming of Ben Waller and Odette was going to be her salvation. Affection for the deaf girl had crept into her heart, and as for Ben—she wondered if he saw her as the whore Louis said she was. Just the thought of that humiliating episode the day they arrived was enough to shrivel her soul.

  Dory hurried back down the stairs. She paused as she entered the kitchen. Ben’s magnetic eyes met hers and seemed to swallow her. He was sitting in the same chair, Jeanmarie’s red curly head snuggled against his shoulder, her balled fist pressed against his neck. The fingers of the large hand supporting the child’s back
were gently rubbing her nape.

  Dory swallowed hard and concentrated on not letting him see the deep ache within her even though her eyes misted over—the result of nerves strung taut by the onslaught on her senses and the regret that her child would never know, as she had known, the loving touch of her father.

  “She woke up, couldn’t find you and was scared.” Ben spoke barely above a whisper.

  Dory struggled for the breath to answer. “Sometimes she… has a hard time sleeping after we’ve had a set-to with Milo or Louis.”

  “Little kids have to put up with a lot from the ones who raise them.” He spoke smoothly, reasonably, with no censure in his voice.

  Dory cleared her throat and tore her gaze away from the man and her child.

  “She’d not have to put up with it if there was any other way,” she protested, trying to collect her scattered senses.

  “There’s always a way.”

  “Louis and Milo would make my life even more of a hell than it is. I’d end up working in a whorehouse to support my child.”

  “Wouldn’t James help you?”

  “Oh, yes. But he thinks I should stay here—that I’m safer here than out somewhere on my own.” Her tone was bitter. “I couldn’t bear it if he accidentally fell into the saw blades.” She looked away from his unwavering eyes. “Milo’s getting wilder all the time. It’s a wonder someone hasn’t killed him.”

  Dory’s face softened when she turned to Odette and placed her hand on her forehead, “Oh, honey, you’re so hot.”

  The girl made a small broken sound and Dory glanced at Ben.

  “If you don’t mind holding Jeanmarie, I’ll take Odette up and get her settled in bed.”

  “I don’t mind. Odette”—he spoke when he saw the girl looking at him—“I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “You won’t go?” she mouthed the words and her eyes filled with tears.

  “I’ll be here.” Ben felt a twinge of alarm. Odette seldom cried. During the three years he had known her, she had cried only twice: when a camp cook had wrung her pet chicken’s neck, and when he once had been away longer than he expected.

  “Come on, honey. We’ll get you tucked into a warm featherbed and you’ll feel better,” Dory said, as she walked Odette to the door.

  Ben’s eyes followed them. Dory’s arm was across Odette’s shoulders. Puzzled by confusing emotions, Ben watched them pass through the doorway and out of sight. He could hear Dory’s voice murmuring soft, comforting words to Odette and wondered why she spoke knowing her words were not heard.

  He shifted his body slightly to form a more comfortable cradle for the child he was holding. The lamplight shone on the small face. Her lips were slightly parted, and he could feel the little puffs of warm air that was her breath. Into his puzzled thoughts came the realization that he had never before held a sleeping child, never felt a warm trusting little body against his. It was a pleasure he had not expected and an overpowering, possessive feeling came over him. He felt a tremor run through him at the thought of anyone treating this helpless little creature harshly.

  Ben had been totally free of the responsibility of affection for anyone until Tom Caffery and then Odette. How had this child and her mother become so important to him? The child, not the mother, he corrected his thoughts. The child because she lived in a house of hate as he had when he was her age. But this child had a mother and an uncle, he reasoned, while he had had no one but a kindly lumberjack now and then.

  Hellfire! He had enough on his plate taking care of himself and Odette without thinking about this little woolly-headed tyke—or her woolly-headed mother, for that matter.

  Dory returned. “Odette is settled. I’ve made a place for Jeanmarie to sleep in my quilt box. She takes a nap in it now and then—for a lark,” she added.

  “I’ll carry her up. Show the way.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I know, but I want to.” He stood with the child in his arms and looked down at her. At the slight rasp in his voice, Dory s whole body tensed.

  “Of course. You’ll want to see Odette before you turn in for the night.”

  “That’s part of it,” he said slowly.

  Holding the lamp to light the way and very aware of the man behind her, Dory led the way up the stairs. She pushed open the door to her room and held it back for Ben to enter. She had left a lamp burning, but with the extra light she carried, the room was brightly lit and warm.

  Dory’s heart was beating so fast that it seemed to fill her ears. She felt a flicker of panic at the sight of him in her room. He seemed to fill it. He was big and virile but… unthreatening. That was the part that surprised her. Without looking at him, she moved around him to the quilt box and hid her confusion by speaking briskly.

  “Lay her down here. I’ll undress her later.”

  Ben placed the child on the pile of quilts and watched as Dory took off Jeanmarie’s shoes and covered her. When she finished and looked up, Ben’s eyes were dancing and his face wore a warm smile. The charm of that smile invaded every corner of her mind.

  “It just occurred to me that there would be a hell of a ruckus if Louis came in and caught me in your bedroom. After he stopped foaming at the mouth, he’d grab the shotgun and march us off to the preacher.”

  A flood of scarlet washed up Dory’s neck to flood her face. She seemed to have difficulty swallowing, and for a moment she thought she would choke.

  “You needn’t worry about that,” she said, relieved her voice sounded normal. “He’d rant and rave and call me every vile name he could think of, but the last thing he wants is to get me married off to a man who has an ounce of brains.”

  “I thought that was what all the fuss was about—you not being wedded.”

  “Oh, no. Louis despised me before I had Jeanmarie. Now, he’s afraid I’ll marry a man who’ll want to have a say in the business.”

  He held her gaze. “Why is that?”

  “James takes so many chances that they’re betting he’ll kill himself before long, without any help from them,” she added bitterly. “Without him they’d run roughshod over me even more than they do. It would gall them for an outsider to have the right to know what went on at Callahan and Sons.”

  “Another man might not want to be involved with Callahan and Sons.”

  “Ha! You’d never get them to believe that. Have you forgotten that I’m a strumpet, a loose, immoral woman? They think the only reason a man would want me—to marry me, that is—is for my shares in the company.”

  Ben raised his brows, and piercing, sunlight-squinted eyes, that seemed endowed with the ability to look a hole right through a person, wandered over her face.

  “Then they are fools,” he said softly.

  A curious stillness followed—a waiting, uneasy silence that deepened and pushed them apart. Only the green thick-lashed eyes and the faint color that spread across her cheeks betrayed the fact that she was shaken by their exchange.

  “Why are you surprised that a man would want you for yourself?” Something like a smile crossed his face as he continued to study her thoughtfully.

  “I’m not so dumb that I don’t know they would want me for a few other things beside my shares in the company. Up here men outnumber women ten to one.” Her voice was just a breath of a whisper, a bitter whisper. “They’d not care a whit about me or my feelings or my dreams or my child. Most men up here want a woman for cooking and washing and… bed.” She scurried around him to the door. “I’ll go make the poultice to go on Odette’s chest.”

  Without thinking to pick up the lamp, she went out into the dark hall and felt her way down the stairway to the kitchen. She wished desperately she could take back her angry unguarded words. They had revealed more than she had wanted him to know. She hoped to God he was unaware of the turbulent feeling his presence inspired.

  A sharp feeling of apprehension struck Dory as she prepared the poultice. Ben Waller’s presence was beginning to mean everything
to her. The fact that he monopolized her thoughts petrified her. He could engulf her, crush her, set a fire that would consume her, and crush what little spirit she had left. She couldn’t allow that to happen for Jeanmarie’s sake.

  Her hands stilled and she stood with bowed head. She had to get her mind off the man and put a lid on thoughts that perhaps, just perhaps, he might be attracted to her, or she’d be in for more heartache than she could handle.

  CHAPTER

  * 7 *

  Ben settled his horse in an empty stall and went into the bunkhouse attached to the barn. He was not looking forward to a face-off with Milo and was relieved when he saw that only Wiley was in the room. The old man was sitting on his bunk rubbing his leg. Ben shrugged out of his coat and hung it and his hat on a nail beside the door.

  “Coffee there in the pot.” Wiley’s eyes peered up at him from beneath bushy brows.

  “Thanks.”

  “Ya stayin’ the night?” Wiley asked after Ben filled a tin cup and sat down at the table.

  “Yeah. Milo leave out?”

  “He hightailed it out of here madder than a cornered bobcat.” Wiley’s chuckle was dry as corn shucks. “Ya must’a put a burr under his tail.”

  “He fired me. Ordered me off the place.”

  “Ya goin’?”

  “My girl is sick. As soon as she’s better we’ll leave.” My girl. The first year he and Odette had been together he had been unable to say those words. Now they slipped out of his mouth easily… and he meant them. My girl. My daughter.

  “Louis’ll be put out.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Milo ain’t got no sense when it comes ta what’s in his britches. Messin’ ’round the little missy, was he?”

  “That’s right. He came to within a hair of getting himself killed.” Ben drained his cup, sat down on a bunk and took off his boots.

  “Glad it didn’t happen. Least ways… not that way. Louis would a swore Milo caught ya fornicatin’ with Dory an’ stirred folks up agin ya. Might’a got ya hung.”