The Maverick's Bride

by Catherine Palmer

  “Why has Mr. King not furnished this house?” she asked Jackson.

  “He is waiting, memsahib.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “He is waiting for Memsahib Clarissa to arrive. She brings the chairs and tables.”

  Emma lowered her eyes for a moment. Of course, Clarissa would bring her own things. “Has she not come to this house before?”

  “No, memsahib.” Jackson shook his head as he spoke. “Bwana King says she will come soon. But he has waited many years. We think she will not come. Not ever.”

  Emma frowned. So the woman had never seen this wonderful land? Never seen the home Adam had built for her? Never known his world, his life? How could that be?

  “You will sleep in this room, memsahib.” Jackson led her to a door down the hall. “It is for guests.”

  “And who are Mr. King’s guests?” Emma asked, stepping into the shadowed chamber.

  “We do not have many guests. Bwana and Bibi Delamere visit. Others of the English government also. Sometimes Bwana Burkstaller comes.”

  “Burkstaller?”

  “Yes, memsahib.” Jackson drew aside the thin cotton curtains to let in the sunlight. Before Emma could ask anything else, the African men who had traveled so many miles across the plains from Mombasa came into the room with her baggage. In hesitant Swahili, she asked them to place the trunks and hatboxes along one wall. Then she dismissed Jackson and the others and stood alone at last.

  She wandered across the room, took off her dusty black hat and set it on the windowsill as she gazed out across the darkening plains. Thorn trees dotting the grasslands cast long purple shadows. A pair of giraffes wandered up to a fence and bent their graceful necks to examine the foreign obstacle. Undeterred, they lifted their long legs, stepped over the fence and sauntered across the grass toward a leafy acacia.

  Emma sighed. Even though Adam had said he was not married, he could never deny Clarissa’s importance. It didn’t matter that she was far away in America and that she had never bothered to join him in Africa. What did matter was that Adam had built this house for her and left it unfurnished for her things. He carried her portrait and surely he dreamed of her at night.

  Emma reflected on the laughter she and Adam had shared as they rode side-by-side across the plains. She must forget his touch, his smile, the jangle of his spurs when he walked. She would have to let him go in order to get on with her own life. Not only was Clarissa alive in Adam’s heart, but God had commissioned Emma to serve as a nurse. Although the Lord had allowed Adam into her life, He had never changed her calling.

  Shaking off sadness, she lifted her chin. A pitcher beside her bed held fresh water, and she splashed her face and hands in the basin, arranged her hair into some semblance of order and set off down the hall.

  Entering the bare sitting room, she found Adam leaning into an open leather-bound trunk. Bottles clinked, and he gave an occasional mutter of disgust.

  “Adam?” Emma asked.

  “There you are.” He lifted his head. “This is all I’ve got. Dug it out from the stables. I haven’t had much use for it. Not sure it’s worth anything.”

  The serious tone of his voice concerned her, and she knelt on the floor beside him. Dark brown bottles lay scattered among rolls of dusty bandages, paper-covered boxes and foul-smelling jars.

  “Dr. John’s Asthma Cure,” she read, studying a particularly odorous bottle. “Guaranteed permanent cure. Asthma, hay fever, influenza, catarrh, cramps. Ordinary colds in the head.”

  “You won’t need that.” Adam took the bottle and replaced it with another. “How’s this? Dr. Baker’s Blood Builder.”

  “Adam, take me to Tolito.”

  He gestured at the chest. “Do you want any of these bottles?”

  “What’s wrong with your friend? What are the symptoms?”

  “You’ll have to see him for yourself.”

  Him? With Soapy’s innuendos and Adam’s strange behavior, she had almost decided Tolito was a woman.

  “This way.” Adam took Emma’s elbow and led her out of the room down the verandah steps. They crossed the darkening road toward a small stone house with thatched roof. Red curtains hung in the windows. Adam swung open the green door.

  Emma went before him into the lamplit room. The house contained a small sitting room and two back bedrooms. At the sound of their entrance, Soapy stepped out of one of the bedrooms, hat in hand.

  “It’s bad.” He sighed and shook his head. “He’s sufferin’, boss. I think it’s gone putrid.”

  Adam halted, his jaw tight. Without a word, he turned and strode out of the house.

  Soapy shrugged. “Adam and Tolito is like brothers.” He motioned for Emma to follow. They entered a room lit by three lamps. An African man lay on a wood framed bed, his face a stoic mask.

  “Can you speak to him, Soapy?” she asked in the crisp tone she had adopted at St. Thomas’s Hospital.

  “He can talk English, ma’am.” The cowboy addressed the man in the bed. “This here’s Miss Emma. She’s gonna help you get better.”

  “My name is Tolito.” Each word was an obvious effort.

  “Think I’ll check on the boss,” Soapy said.

  Hardly hearing him, Emma sat on a three-legged stool near the bed. “Now, Tolito,” she said softly, “tell me what happened to you.”

  “Lion,” he answered through trembling lips.

  Emma swallowed. “A lion attacked you?”

  Tolito grimaced. “I was foreman of the farm…now Lenana’s job. One night lions attack cattle by the pump house. They take two calves. I cannot lift my shield and—” He stopped and closed his eyes.

  Emma laid her hand on the man’s furrowed brow. He stiffened momentarily at her touch, then relaxed. As she ran her fingers across his skin she saw scars from old wounds. Perhaps a knife, she thought.

  “Why could you not lift your shield?” she asked him.

  The brown eyelids slid back. “Bwana King say I cannot tell you about old trouble. Just lion.”

  Emma frowned. Adam King certainly had many secrets to keep. She returned to her patient.

  “You must let me see the lion wounds, Tolito.” She began to pull back the blanket, uncertain how this warrior would feel about a woman seeing his body. “I am a nurse…a healer of sorts. I shall take a look at what the lion has done to see if I can ease your pain.”

  She continued to speak in a low voice as she examined Tolito’s limbs. Trying to keep her expression neutral, she assessed the lion’s ravages. It was clear at once that the beast had come down on Tolito’s shoulder, raking its claws down the man’s body. At least one rib was broken. Again, she was surprised to see the markings of old wounds—raised and puckered scars tracing their way across his dark skin. Had he been attacked by some other creature as a child?

  Emma touched the raw gashes that ran down his left leg. They were healing, and he might eventually regain use of the limb. However, it would bear the lion’s marks for the rest of Tolito’s life.

  “We must bathe your wounds,” she explained. “Each day, they should be cleaned well. I shall bind you tightly to set the rib. Now let me see your back.”

  Tolito rolled to his side. Here the lion had done great damage. She pulled aside the layers of crude bandages and gazed at the still-raw wound where the claws had torn into muscle.

  “And now your shoulder.” Emma peeled away the blood-soaked dressings and drew back in disbelief. The wounds lay open and raw, the joint dislocated. Even though someone had been tending the shoulder, Tolito must see a doctor. If not, he would die.

  “Why has Adam not taken you to the railway doctors? Dr. McCulloch is a good man.”

  “No!” Tolito half rose from the bed, then fell back in agony. “No! Not the railway doctor…no, no.”

  Emma sat silent. Why would he refuse to be treated by Dr. McCulloch or Dr. Brock?

  “Then you must go to Mombasa,” she told him. “I will care for your other wounds, but I cannot put yo
ur arm right. You must see a doctor.”

  “I die.” The words escaped the man’s lips as if with his last breath. “Evil spirits curse me.”

  “You shall not die,” Emma’s retorted. “And you most certainly do not have evil spirits. We must get you to a doctor. I shall speak to Bwana King. First, I shall bathe these wounds.”

  “No!” Tolito’s half-shouted word fell on deaf ears as Emma pushed through the door into the adjoining bedroom. It was shrouded in semidarkness, but a figure sat up from the bed when Emma entered. Both gasped.

  “Who are you?” Emma peered through the gloom at the approaching silhouette. The veiled figure stopped before her and lowered the concealing folds of fabric.

  Emma’s mouth fell open in astonishment. She was staring at the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Who are you?” Emma asked again in a low whisper.

  The woman removed the red-patterned cloth from her head. Her skin was dark, yet it glowed with a golden sheen, heightened in the dim lamplight. Her deep brown almond-shaped eyes were heavily rimmed in kohl. Her nose was thin, her lips full, her cheekbones high, her neck long and slender. Her hair, as black and shiny as onyx, fell to her waist in tight, rippling waves.

  “Linde?” Tolito called from the other room. The almond eyes turned their mesmerizing gaze from Emma’s face.

  The woman slipped around Emma into Tolito’s room. For a moment Emma stood unmoving. She had never been face-to-face with such exotic and mysterious beauty. She had always considered the height of female attractiveness to be someone like Cissy with long golden hair, fair skin, blue eyes, an hourglass figure. Yet this woman was fully robed and as dark as King Solomon’s beloved queen.

  More intriguing, Tolito had not wanted Emma to see her. Why?

  Emma stepped back into Tolito’s bedroom. The woman, now crouching on the low stool, had rewrapped her face in the red cloth.

  “Who is your caretaker, Tolito?” Emma asked.

  Two pairs of dark eyes turned on her. Tolito ran his tongue over dry lips.

  “She’s his half sister.” Adam’s voice came from the doorway behind Emma, and she turned in surprise. “Her name is Linde.”

  “Half sister?”

  “Tolito is a Maasai.” Adam entered the room, his hat in his hand. “He’s from the clan we stayed with out on the plain. Remember Endebelai? She’s their mother. But Linde is half Somali.”

  Emma recalled the old blind woman who had served her breakfast in the Maasai village. So these two were her children.

  “Tolito’s clan roamed north several years ago looking for grass,” Adam continued. “Their cattle were raided by a band of Somali warriors, and some of the women were taken.”

  Emma studied Adam’s expression as he spoke. His friend was suffering and he was in pain because of it.

  “Tolito can recover from his wounds,” she told Adam. “I’ll make a tincture to bathe them. But he must see a doctor about his shoulder.”

  “No,” Adam said. “No doctors.”

  “He needs a surgeon if he’s to have use of his arm again.”

  “He didn’t have use of it before.”

  “Why not?”

  “Old wounds. He’s a warrior, Emma.” Adam reached down and straightened the edge of Tolito’s blanket. “Anyway, he won’t see a doctor.”

  “He told me that, but I don’t understand. Surely Dr. McCulloch would tend him.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. I talked to McCulloch. He said Tolito doesn’t work for the railway, so he’s not entitled to care.”

  “That’s preposterous. This man needs immediate medical attention, and Dr. McCulloch has no ethical right to refuse him. I shall speak to that man. My father—”

  “Your father is dead, Emma,” Adam cut in. “You’ll have to stop relying on his name. Take my word for it. They won’t treat him.”

  Emma shook her head in exasperation. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered, striving to keep the tremor from her voice. “I shall speak to Lord Delamere as soon as I return to Mombasa.”

  “The doctors in Mombasa are attached to the government.”

  “Have you some sort of trouble with the government as well as with the railway?” When Adam didn’t answer, Emma set her hands on her hips. “When did this happen?”

  “Just before I left for Mombasa. I was going to try to get a doctor to come back here with me, but then…”

  “You found me.”

  “We made a deal, and this is your part. Can you work on him tonight?”

  “Now, without delay.” Emma unbuttoned her sleeves and began rolling them up. “I shall need assistance.”

  “I’ll help you,” Adam said.

  “What about Linde?” Emma lifted her eyebrows at the woman waiting in the shadows. Her long, thin fingers reminded Emma of Miss Nightingale.

  “She can’t speak much English.”

  “We’ll get by.”

  Emma knew this silent woman had played an important role in Adam’s life. He had wanted her hidden, kept apart. Why? Could she be his lover? An arrow of panic shot through Emma’s heart, and she glanced up at the woman again. The mysterious almond eyes gazed back.

  “Do you need anything from the main house?” Adam turned up the lamps as he spoke. “This is Soapy’s house and he doesn’t keep much here.”

  “Soapy’s? But where do they live?”

  “Tolito lives down in the village. He has a wife and three children.”

  “I see.”

  Adam had not said Linde lived in the village. Was she Soapy’s mistress? Or perhaps a slave?

  “I shall need that chest of medicines and some clean water,” Emma told him. “Bring me a bedsheet, too. Linde can make bandages.”

  Adam started for the door.

  “And a needle,” Emma called after him. “Find me a needle and some thread.”

  Adam looked back, his brow furrowed. “A needle? I don’t think I have a needle.”

  “I have.” Linde rose from the shadows. Her voice was low and husky. “I have needle.”

  Emma looked from one to the other, hoping for a clue to the past between them. Then Adam was gone, shutting the door behind him.

  For the remainder of the evening, Emma concentrated on Tolito. Adam and Soapy carried down the chest. Emma created a tincture of various medicines in an effort to create a healing, numbing wash for Tolito’s wounds. She set Linde to work tearing the sheet into strips for bandages. Soapy elected to spend his time in the stables.

  “I reckon I’m ’bout as helpless as a froze bull snake ’round here,” he told Emma. “Hope you don’t mind if I make myself scarce.”

  Emma was relieved to see him go. She feared there would be too many people in the room with both Adam and Linde at hand. Yet she wanted to watch them interact.

  As Emma began to work, Adam sat beside Tolito and held his hand, gripping tightly as the pain increased, stroking his forehead when it subsided. He bent over and murmured words in Tolito’s language, words to which the African nodded and sometimes even smiled. And finally Adam began to sing.

  Emma had heard his voice occasionally crooning a cowboy tune as they rode across the plains, but he had kept the words mostly to himself. Now, in the lamplight, his voice echoed soft and melodic.

  Linde hummed along, tearing the sheet methodically. When Emma began cleansing Tolito’s leg, the dark woman glided to her side. Adam joined Linde in helping to calm Tolito’s torn, writhing body. Emma was surprised at the way the young woman worked beside her, never flinching at the gory task. Instead, she seemed to anticipate Emma’s needs with a clean cloth or a fresh bandage.

  “This, you see, has started to heal,” Emma explained as if Linde were her student. “It will make a scar, but your brother will not have pain here after a few weeks. You can see he already has many scars.”

  Linde nodded, her eyes intent on Emma’s face. “Arm?”

  “We shall clean it, but we can do nothing more tonight. The
flesh is badly torn.” She eyed Adam, hoping he would see that guarding his secrets could cost this man’s life. “Tolito must go to a doctor in Mombasa.”

  Adam gave a tense nod. “I’ll get him there.”

  Satisfied, Emma bent again to her work. She lost track of time as she wrapped bandages around Tolito’s ribs and cleansed the wound in his shoulder.

  “There,” she announced at last, trying to straighten her back. Adam stopped singing and looked up from his trancelike fixation on the wall. Tolito had drifted to an uneasy slumber in his arms.

  Linde rose from a crouch. “There,” she echoed.

  Emma smiled at her eager pupil. “You have done well, Linde. Now Tolito can begin to heal. Do you understand?”

  The woman inclined her dusky head. “I like.”

  Emma was puzzled. “What do you like?”

  “I like you.” She took Emma’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  “She’s been worried,” Adam explained. “She hasn’t left his side for a minute. Not even when his wife comes.”

  “But when I came, you made her go to the next room.” Emma couldn’t hide her annoyance. She was weary…and tired of the mystery. Why did Adam have secrets? Why must he build walls around himself?

  “Let’s go up to the house.” He took her arm. “Thank you, Linde. Send for me if he needs anything.”

  Adam escorted Emma through the chilly night air. “Why did you hide Linde from me?” she asked as they reached the main house.

  “I didn’t hide her.” He opened the dining room door to a table spread with cold meats, crackers, fresh sliced bread, fruits and hot tea. “She was in the next room, wasn’t she? If I’d wanted to hide her, I could have done a better job than that.”

  “But you didn’t want me to see her.”

  “Let’s eat.” He pulled out a chair for her and began piling a plate with food.

  She wanted to be angry with Adam, to insist that he explain himself. But she felt drained, too spent to rail at him. As she ate, her empty, knotted stomach relaxed and she began to feel stronger. She had no idea what time it was, but the moon shone bright through the open windows. Adam slouched in the chair across from her, his own plate empty. He was staring at the table, his face unreadable and his blue eyes deeply shadowed.