by Sierra Rose
“Had I but known,” said Ben, “I never woulda left.” The muscle of his hard jaw clenched and unclenched; one could just imagine a hat in those gripping fingers, being turned restlessly over and over. “Good thing I at least came back early.”
For the rest of his days, he would be blaming himself for this assault on this innocent victim. His absence, and the fact that the perpetrators had gone after Camellia to get to him, would hang over his head forever, and for this he tasted the choking bitterness of guilt.
Silently the doctor looked from one to the other. “Yes,” he finally agreed. “Good thing.”
Ben suddenly uncoiled his length to surge upright, as if churning emotion would no longer allow him to sit still. “But I’m gonna leave again now.”
“Oh, please—”
“It’s all right, Camellia.” Bending slightly, he cupped one hand around her shoulder—the only place he felt he could safely touch without accidentally inflicting more discomfort. “I’m only goin’ to Mrs. McKnight’s, to fetch one of your sisters. Hannah, I think; she’s next oldest and knows what she’s doin’.”
“Hannah? I will be glad to see her, of course, but—”
“Gonna bring her here to stay with you a while,” Ben swept over her objection, “and give you the best of care. I need to check in at the store, and so on, Cam; just got a few other errands to run, and I want you to be with someone.”
Gabriel could see too much, understand too much. He knew exactly what sort of errands his friend planned on running, and it didn’t involve a check in at the store. He raised one significant brow. “Think that’s wise?”
Across the small intervening space, Ben’s gaze steadily met his. “Yeah, I think it’s very wise. Got a problem with it?”
“Not alone, Ben. Not by yourself. This isn’t yours to fix.”
His chin lifted in the old belligerent way. “Yeah, it is. My woman. My wife.”
While Camellia, feeling the effect of too many sleepless, half-hysterical, sob-filled hours and the trauma to which she had been subjected, could only sit helplessly as something untenable went on around her. Her husband’s kind touch could certainly be reassuring for someone who had turned into an abject coward overnight. But the fact that he was apparently so willing to disappear again, for who knew how long, was not a reassuring prospect.
Gabriel sighed. “All right, then. I’ll stay here, while you go summon some reinforcements. And then maybe I’ll just haveta keep you company whilst you run some of those errands.”
Chapter Fifteen
“UHHH...”
“Oh, dear, please forgive me, Cam,” implored an abject Hannah. “I’m so sorry, I know that must be terribly painful. But I’m supposed to keep using cold compresses, to bring down the swelling, and ease the discomfort.”
“Well, I must admit—uh...ouch—this isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Does it look so very dreadful, Hen?”
“Truly, the bruises are hardly even noticeable,” lied her sister without hesitation and without conviction.
“Ohhhh, God will get you for that, Hannah,” came Camellia’s voice, slightly muzzy from a dose of the narcotic painkiller full of morphine. She knew full well that her face must appear as damaged as it felt, with pain radiating outward from the roots of her teeth to the roots of her hair. “No one wants to be around a fibber. Tell me, please—if the doctor insists that I’ll be fine, why are there two of you?”
Could anything else possibly happen, than what had, already, in these past busy fifteen hours or so?
After delivering a puzzled and confused Hannah Burton to the door late yesterday afternoon, Ben had departed again, only to return some time later carrying a large covered pan of what turned out to be beef stew, a paper bag of sourdough biscuits, and half an apple pie.
“Didn’t want either of you to have to do any cookin’,” he explained in embarrassed response to the two women’s effusive thanks. “Doc, you stick around and eat, too.”
“But I planned—” Catching his friend’s eloquent glance, he sighed. “Sure. I’ll stick. Just how long,” he added dryly, “d’ you reckon to keep me around?”
“As long as I have to. Here, Hannah, wouldja mind dishin’ up for us? I been on the road a long time, and I’m powerful hungry.”
He had eaten quickly and efficiently, offering few pleasantries. Tension filled the air with an almost palpable thickness, and it was plain to see that his mind was elsewhere, other than on conversation. The inference was that something more important awaited his attention, and he needed to be up and at it.
When he had sopped up all the gravy with his bread, cleaned his plate, and sloshed down half a cup of coffee, he made ready to disappear again—despite the doctor’s demand that he wait to be accompanied wherever he was going. Ben had simply brushed him aside, as if he were of no more consequence than a buzzing cloud of horse flies.
He did, at least, in a rare and touching gesture, pause long enough to curve his palm over Camellia’s unwounded cheek. Ben had no need to speak any words aloud; his hazel eyes, softened by the day’s travail, said everything his heart wanted to share, but couldn’t.
Townsmen rarely went about the streets packing heat. Officers of the law were armed, of course; and most bartenders kept a sawed-off shotgun, a “scatter gun,” in a case of necessity, stowed behind their counters. Turnabout prided itself for being a quiet, sedate, and upstanding place, rather than a wild and wooly cow town needing bullets to calm things down.
For Ben to buckle in place a loaded gun belt and holstered forty-four, now, while he drew the doctor aside at the front door, was an anomaly that raised and tightened Gabriel’s thick brows.
“I need you to stay here as long as you can, till I get back,” he instructed in a very low voice. “I’m goin’ first over to the sheriff’s office. Then I’m headin’ out to find the Putnams, over to the Prairie Lot. If not there, then I’ll see if they’re holed up at that shack of theirs down by Juniper Creek.”
“And if they ain’t?”
“That’s the problem. Could be anywhere. Could be headin’ back here to have a second try at Camellia. And that’s what worries me. They gotta be tracked down, and they gotta be stopped.”
Gabriel tried one last-ditch effect. “Benjamin Forrester, you ain’t got the sense God gave a goose,” he complained in a harsh whisper. “You get the law after ’em; that’s Paul Winslow’s job. No vigilante justice, ain’t that what you’re preachin’ all the time? You got no business tacklin’ this without backup.”
They were of an even height, these two strong-willed and personable men. Hazel eyes met green straightforwardly, steadily, without wavering. “Toldja already, Gabe, this is my business. They went outa their way to cause hurt for my wife. They need to pay for it.”
Beware the fury of a patient man!
Gabriel was reminded of that famous line written by John Dryden, as part of a political poem considered to be the greatest in the English language. More true today than in the British dramatist’s seventeenth century lifetime. Especially where it concerned Ben Forrester.
Reluctantly the doctor stepped aside as Ben had yanked his hat down hard, gave a nod of farewell, and set off into the deepening dusk.
Per his friend’s earnest appeal, Gabriel had settled in for the evening to stand between Camellia and a possible harm’s way. He did extract one promise: that Ben would leave a note on the physician’s office door, directing anyone needing aid toward the Forrester house. Just in case.
And so, the three locked together at the scene of the crime, so to speak, quietly passed the evening. With the dishes washed and dried and the kitchen returned to order, they decided on a few games of whist played at the kitchen table, and desultory conversation.
“You keep yawning over your cards,” Hannah finally accused her sister. “Time for bed, and no argument.”
“And another dose of laudanum,” decreed the doctor.
Camellia gladly acquiesced. More so because this evening
she would not be alone in the house, with night terrors hanging around outside. The hours had slipped by for her in drugged slumber, and she woke next morning with a slight headache, a mouth seemingly filled by cotton, and a generally dopey feeling, as if she were living in a world under water.
Now here the two sisters were, with one administering to the other. Cloths pressed out of a basin of cool well water and applied periodically, as a poultice of arnica, to bumps and bruises. A hot cup of coffee to help start the day. A set of fresh undies, scented by lavender sachet, and a lightweight shirtwaist and navy cotton skirt.
“How’s everything?” she asked, with another yawn, confronted by someone wide awake and fresh as the morning dew.
“Dr. Havers is still here.” Hannah’s little moue and half-frown registered the same sort of discontent that the man probably inspired upon first contact with most females. “At least, I assume so, judging by the sounds emanating from your parlor.”
“I must wake up, I must wake up,” Camellia was muttering to herself.
“Have more coffee. He made it; the stuff would bring a corpse back from the dead.”
“That’s probably just what I need. My head feels like a stuffed sausage, and I’m having trouble clearing my thoughts. Please, Hen, no more laudanum, ever.”
“Well, at any rate,” sniffed Hannah, “he spent the night on your settee. I truly believed a herd of buffalo had taken up residence.” She was rooting in one of the dresser drawers for stockings and whatever other necessities might be needed.
Camellia was busy buttoning and tying and fastening, crossing this and slipping into that. “Please tell me you’ve been polite.”
“Of course I’ve been polite. What do you take me for, a savage? I even gave him a blanket and pillow before I came upstairs last night. And I have simpered like a good southern belle at him every time our paths have crossed this morning. Now, how are you feeling, other than a stuffed cabbage?”
“Sausage,” Camellia absently corrected. “Although cabbage would do, as well. Cut off my head at neck level, and I’m sure I would feel perfectly fine.”
“Ah. Teeth, jaw, cheek, eye, nose, throat—all still hurting?”
“Just about. I couldn’t—Hannah!”
“What?” Her sister, startled, jerked around.
“Is Ben home? Has he come back?”
Wincing, Hannah took a step away, as if reluctant to deal with what surely come next. “I’m sorry, but—no.”
“No sign of him? No word at all?”
Blue eyes wide, she slowly shook her head.
“And I’ve been up here, lollygagging away, while Lord knows what has been happening to him? Oh, Hannah!” With a gasp of dismay, Camellia rolled garters into her stocking tops, shoved her feet into the waiting slippers, and made her way somewhat woozily to the bedroom door.
“Wait a minute, Cam.” Hannah, concerned, trailed along behind. “You’re still so unsteady. Please wait for me. I don’t want you falling down the stairs.”
“No,” agreed Camellia grimly. “I don’t want me falling down the stairs, either. But there is a banister, you will note.”
By the time she reached the parlor, Gabriel had already disappeared, having pulled himself upright from wherever he had been lounging and shambled into the kitchen. One could hear eggs being cracked into a fry pan, and salt pork beginning to sizzle. Also a hearty, jaw-cracking yawn. Camellia wasn’t the only occupant still trying to come to life.
“Gabe, good morning,” she greeted him. And then, in surprise, “You’re fixing breakfast?”
“In a pinch, I can produce somethin’ edible. Mornin’ to you, too, ladies.” He looked much the worse for having spent last night on cushions and springs never meant to provide anything but a brief nap. His suit coat was gone, as was the silk cravat he favored; his thick red hair had not yet seen a comb, nor his face a razor. Disheveled, rumpled, and not in the best of moods due to his own physical ailments, Gabe had traded his usual dapper air for one somewhat more unkempt, definitely more human.
Camellia, doing her best to avoid spatters of grease, carefully approached. “Have you heard anything from Ben?” she asked anxiously. “Or of him?”
Taking a minute to plate the food, Gabriel shook his head. “No, honey; sorry. Nothin’.”
“But what should we do?” Hannah, equally anxious, wanted to know.
“For right now, we eat. Sit down, and start getting’ some food in your stomach. I know, I know, none of this looks appetizin’. But you need to force it down. And when we’ve done here, I’ll head on over to the sheriff’s office to see what I can find out.”
He didn’t have to. The three of them, drawn together by apprehension and misgiving, had barely laid down forks after a final mouthful when an unexpected sound from outside the front of the house brought all of them to their feet.
A jumble of voices, the jingle of harness and bits, the slow roll and halt of iron rimmed wheels.
Hobbled though she was by diminished strength, still, Camellia made it to the door before anyone else could. Bright sunlight beat down; it was not a reassuring sight that met her eyes.
A buckboard, drawn by two sturdy draft horses, stood parked under the great sycamore that lent its shade to the fenced yard. Atop the high seat, serving as driver, slouched Deputy Austin Blakely, looking a bearded, scruffy shadow of his former self; a bandage, now stained red in spots, had been wrapped around his head, under a beaten and battered sombrero. Sheriff Paul Winslow had pulled his big bay stallion to a halt beside, and was beginning to carefully dismount. Two other horses were loosely fastened to the back of the wagon, to trail along behind at a slow pace.
“Hey, Paul!” Gabriel’s hands on Camellia’s shoulders moved her gently aside as he pressed forward. “I was just thinkin’ to send out a rescue party! Where’ve you been all this time?”
Slowly and stiffly, like a geriatric instead of a man in his prime, the sheriff dismounted and tied the reins fast. “Had a lot goin’ on, Doc. You better get your tail out here, b’cause we could use some help.”
All of them, Gabe in the lead, and the sisters right behind, needed no further directive to hasten from porch to steps to flagstone path. Before she had even skidded to a stop, Camellia let out a small cry as she caught sight of what lay on the buckboard’s floor.
Her husband. Her unconscious, slackened husband, with a stubbly face pale as death and a motionless frame whose crumpled shirt and dusty trousers showed rusty-red with blood.
Gabriel’s own heart skipped a few beats as he climbed nimbly inside the box; he could only imagine what tricks Camellia’s must be performing. “Dead?”
“He wasn’t when we started out.”
“Gabe!” Camellia mewed. She stood, shaky and trembling, enveloped by both of Hannah’s arms for support. “Gabriel! Tell me—”
“A moment, honey. Just a moment.” The doctor was already searching for a pulse, peeling back an eyelid, checking to find the wound that could be the source for all that gore. “All right, let’s get him out of here. Cam, can we put him on the settee for now? Easier, all around.”
It took the hard labor of several strenuous minutes to get him hauled across open terrain—Ben Forrester was a big, bulky man, after all—and installed in place upon the parlor sofa. While Gabe began working over his patient, he flung a quick query over one shoulder: “Austin, you doin’ okay for a bit?”
“Yeah, reckon I can hang on a little longer, Doc. You take care of ol’ Ben here, first.”
“Gonna get the hawses and wagon back to Norton’s,” the sheriff put in at that point. Although apparently in good health, absent of any random bullet holes, he looked frazzled and exhausted. “Then we’ll mosey on back and see how things are, catch you up on last night’s doin’s. Good day to both of you ladies, and kindly excuse us for a bit.”
He had the presence of mind to tip his hat as the two men exited. The deputy did not, since his hat was helping to hold the bandage in place around his head. Was
it only the imagination, or did both suddenly seem taller, broader, more stalwart, upon their departure into the morning sunlight?
By the time they returned, perhaps half an hour later, most of the details of medical care had been taken care of, and Ben Forrester lay sprawled slack and unknowing, lost in his own world far from reality. He was, at least for the moment, as comfortable as he could possibly be.
Gabe had stripped away the ruined shirt in order to probe deep into his patient’s shoulder for a bullet. His intent, meticulous work had been accompanied by deep rasping groans and an insensible fight against the scalpel. Once he finally achieved success, both he and Ben were wet with the sweat of rigorous toil.
A good dusting of antiseptic powder, a pad of surgical gauze treated with carbolic acid pressed directly over the wound, and a bandage wrapped around the muscular chest to hold everything together, and he could consider himself temporarily off duty.
And a good thing, too. He was as wrung out as someone’s old pair of cotton socks, scrubbed against a washboard and flung over a bush to dry.
Only then did he allow Camellia, who had been hovering agitatedly a few steps away, to wash away the blood and grit with a cloth wetted in its basin of warm water. “He’s been unconscious a long time,” she fretted, kneeling on the floor to gently sponge. “Will he be all right, Gabe?”
Better she ask if he would survive.
“He’s a strong, healthy fellah,” Gabriel, drying off with a convenient towel, said noncommittally. “We’ll see how things go.”
It was a grave, zigzaggy wound, that, whether Ben was strong and healthy or not, had hit too near the heart and might easily be a killer. The man would need plenty of rest, plenty of nursing, plenty of good care and nourishing food. Could his wife, that fragile southern flower straight from luxurious surroundings, provide all that for him?
