by Ali Olson
The moment was broken, however, when the young boys ran between them, yelling and jostling each other. It was her own dilemma, Mary decided, and she had no excuse to burden others with it when they could do nothing.
Mr. Harper came sidling up, a thin older man, slightly stooped from his years of hard work. Mrs. Harper watched him coming, her eyes lighting up with love, and Mary’s heart ached with want at the sight. Though the Harpers had been married for so many years, it was still very clear that they loved each other with a passion.
Mrs. Harper walked over to her husband, receiving a lingering kiss on the cheek. Mary could guess that the restraint they showed was for her benefit, and smiled at the thought. Mr. Harper wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist like a teenager, ignoring their age and the fact that she was much larger than he was.
After their greetings, Mrs. Harper, still smiling widely, said, “What took you so long, Frank? I was beginning to think that you took the earthquake as an opportunity to run off and leave me and this passel of critters all on our lonesome. Not that I would blame you, mind,” she finished as she was knocked from behind by the two boys running up to greet their father.
“Can’t say I never considered it,” he answered, “but I knew I wouldn’t be able to find anyone else quite as pretty as you, so here I am.”
She beamed and looked like she was holding back girlish giggles, and Mary felt as if her heart was swelling with love and being crushed under a giant weight at the same time, making it difficult for her to breathe.
“Actually, there’s a bit of a mess in town right now,” he continued. “A group of men broke into the bank after the quake and managed to get away scot-free. They’re sending out a party to go find them.”
Mary wondered if Jimmy had gone to the bank yet and learned of the robbery, and she pitied him. This would leave him with a good deal of work to do, she knew. Perhaps after he got it sorted and his mind was distracted from her disloyalty, though, they could find a way to reconcile. The short time they’d been separated was enough to help her see that she needed to try again.
Seeing the married couple and their deep love for one another made her feel hopeful. She was going to go talk to him, apologize, explain everything, even Emma, and they would find a way. She unwrapped her arms from Emma’s shoulders and walked to the Harpers. “I must go. Thank you for everything,” and without explaining further, headed back towards the center of town.
There had to be a way to make it all work, and she was determined to figure it out.
As she approached the bank, she was greeted with a large crowd discussing the events that had occurred. She listened to a woman explain the situation to another, and then she moved deeper into the crowd, trying to get closer to the bank to see if Jimmy was there yet. He had to know about it, based on the crowd. Nearly the entire town was there.
Once she pushed to the front, though, she still saw no sign of him. She scanned carefully, and her eyes fell on the other man who lived at the boarding house with Jimmy, the one he had pointed out to her at Lee’s. She wasn’t sure of his name, but supposed he might be able to help. She caught his eye and waved him over towards her.
When she asked if he had seen Jimmy, his tired expression shifted slightly, became brighter. “He was here during the robbery, and when the sheriff got men together to ride out to try to catch the thieves, they asked him to go along so he could identify the outlaws. I would have gone, too, but I’d gone out to get help and by the time I got back, they’d left. I would have loved to help catch those men.”
Worry coursed through Mary. It sounded like a dangerous situation, and Jimmy was trapped in it though he was no lawman. Something could happen to him. She thought over the last things she had said to him, how she had called him an ass, and she resolved to fix it the moment he returned.
She quelled the part of her mind that added, if he comes back at all. That sort of thinking would do no good and only make her more concerned, so she told herself to ignore that possibility. It was silly to be anxious when his friend clearly saw no danger in the situation. She had difficulty believing herself, though.
She was lost in thought for several moments before she realized that the man had stopped speaking and was watching her. She had no idea how much he knew about her relationship with Jimmy, if he had ever seen her at the saloon, or if he asked her a question, and she couldn’t focus on figuring it out. She thanked him and walked away.
She resolved to wait until Jimmy came back and she could be sure everything was well, so she found a shady area to stand on the outskirts of the crowd of onlookers, many of whom also seemed content to wait for news rather than head back to homes and businesses. Shasta rarely had excitement of this sort, and they planned to see it through. They spoke with enthusiasm, repeating the facts of the case to others and making predictions about what was happening on the chase for the law-breakers.
After an hour, a few had dropped off and most of the ones who remained had long exhausted the conversation topic, instead reverting back to everyday conversations or discussing the additional work created by the earthquake. Nobody seemed worried, but Mary’s unease settled deep in her, a cold ball in the pit of her stomach that grew larger as the time passed.
She tried to convince herself to leave, that it was stupid to stand there worrying herself over what was probably nothing. They were in all likelihood wandering around in a fruitless search that would take hours and amount to nothing. But she couldn’t make her feet budge from her spot.
She spoke to nobody around her and stayed lost in thought as noon approached and a large part of the crowd drifted off to eat.
Finally, she heard the clip-clop of several horses, and she turned in that direction, her heart soaring as she waited for the horses to come into view around the buildings. When they approached, quite a scene greeted her. There were sweaty, dirty lawmen riding back into town, several of them holding the reins of horses that carried what she could only assume were the thieves, their hands tied to the saddles to prevent them from escaping.
All the men were dirty, and a few were bloodied; she was certain shots had been fired. She glanced through the crowd of men on horses once, then a second time more carefully. One of the horses had an empty saddle. She felt her heart sink to the pit of her stomach. Where was Jimmy?
She tried to relax, tell herself that there must be a logical reason for his absence, but it did nothing to dispel the fear that lodged inside her. She watched as the men approached, and those who were free to do so, unhorse. A small group began pulling down the tied men, leading them towards the jail, while a few with wounds shuffled in the direction of the town doctor.
If she waited much longer, her chance to ask would be gone, but part of her didn’t want to know. Until she got the facts from someone, she could still hope he would appear. Finally, as the sheriff finished speaking to the bank employees—she was too far to hear, but could tell by their faces that it was bad news—Mary walked up to him and managed to swallow the lump in her throat enough to ask, “Sir, where’s Jimmy? He works at the bank. Didn’t he go with you?”
His drawn, pitying look was enough, but she needed to hear the words. “He was shot, Miss, and he fell into the water. By the time we were able to go after him, he was gone downstream. I’m organizing a search now, but it is unlikely we’ll find his body. If we do—“
Mary heard no more after the words “his body.” Her legs crumpled beneath her and she sat in the dirt street. Her pristine silk skirt ballooned around her, settling into the dust, but she took no notice of that. Nor did she pay attention to the men offering assistance. She simply sat on the ground, her eyes closed, trying to breathe as the tears leaked through her eyelashes.
Jimmy opened his eyes a fraction of a centimeter, trying to keep out the blinding brightness around him. His head was pounding, and he wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but some sound had awoken him. He took in the small room around him. It seemed to be a little farmhouse, with l
ight streaming in through the windows carved into the wooden walls. He was resting on a couch covered with a bright woven blanket, his head propped up on a pillow.
As he looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings, he saw a woman with dark hair stooping to pick up a large pot off the floor. That must have been what made the noise.
He turned his attention to the woman. For a moment he was delighted—he was sure it was Maria, her long dark hair plaited down her back. But then he saw that the woman was taller and heavier, and his heart settled lower in his chest.
The light crowding into his eyes made his head ache to the point of nausea. He closed his eyelids and lifted his right hand to his face, putting his fingers on top of the eyelids and pressing down to quell the pain. The movement must have caught the attention of the woman and she walked over to him, looking at him with concern. “I am sorry I woke you,” she said quietly, her voice containing the hint of a Spanish accent.
He opened his eyes again, but only the smallest amount, attempting to keep out the light and pain. He looked at the face of the woman hovering over him. There was kindness and worry in her eyes that soothed him. In a voice that was little more than a ragged whisper, he said, “What ha—“
“Try to rest. Do not talk.”
Jimmy smiled a little and tried to sit up, placing his weight on his left elbow. Excruciating pain sliced through his body and he fell back on the bed, groaning. He’d forgotten about the gunshot wound in the midst of the pain in his head, but the pressure he had put on the area brought it screaming back in full force. He leaned over and vomited.
The woman was quick, and the pot she held was put to use immediately. He groaned again and leaned back, and she placed a damp towel on his forehead, which relieved his pain a little while she left to clean out the pot.
Jimmy was embarrassed. He hated this feeling of helplessness, but there was nothing he could do. He struggled to remember exactly what happened. He could picture the gunfight well enough, and remembered the bullet hitting him. He wasn’t sure exactly what transpired after that.
When he was a child, he had seen a few gunshot wounds. He lived with miners, after all, and most of them had the tendency to drink and fight. He knew that the wound needed to be cleaned out to prevent infection, and it was important to find out if the bullet was still inside him. If it was, there would be a good deal more pain before he could start healing.
Slowly and carefully, he brought his right arm across his body and crawled his fingers over his shoulder and onto his back. He felt the bandage wrapped around him and slid a finger underneath, searching for a hole. He found the edge of the wound and inhaled at the sharp pain. The bullet had gone all the way through, which was good, and it appeared the strange woman had cleaned and bandaged him while he slept.
Jimmy slowly relaxed his body back onto the couch that was his bed and closed his eyes again, breathing deeply and trying to ignore the pain that clawed at him. He thought of Maria. He pictured her: her eyes, her smile, her lips. His arms ached with longing as he remembered what it felt like to wrap them around her and pull her close. His body began to react as he pictured her, naked, in his arms, her beautiful body on display just for him.
Well, not always just for him.
The brief moment of bliss was swept away as his thoughts turned towards the saloon where she worked. The more time he had to process it, though, the more he came to accept it, and the knot that had lodged in his heart when he learned the truth wasn’t really there anymore. He knew his Maria—her independence, her logical way of thinking, and her determination.
Of course she would have done whatever was necessary to survive, and when her father died and left her a poor, illiterate young woman, he knew how few options she must have had. She may have been able to marry some miner, which would have been more accepted, but was that different from what she did? Not very, except that she would sell her life as well as her body to someone for whom she had no love.
She had been left to fend for herself, and that knowledge burned inside him more painfully than any bullet. He was gone when she needed help, all because he’d been so focused on staying out of the mining camps, of not ending up an angry drunk like his father or an empty shell like his mother. It seemed like a silly fear, now—he wasn’t either of them, and never would be.
He remembered Maria as a little girl, and how she had talked about falling in love. He never believed in finding a perfect match, but she had, with all her heart.
And now here they were. They had found their match, and he might have destroyed his chance because she had to make some hard choices. His jealousy and ambitions seemed like such little thing in light of that. How could he be so selfish after all she had been through?
He needed to talk to her, to apologize, to figure out a way to make this work. The moment he started to move, however, the pain rushed through him and he was forced to lay back, gasping from the effort. The only thing he wanted was to go see Maria, and there was nothing he could do to make that happen. Until he healed a little, he was trapped.
Mary closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She had no memory of walking into the saloon or up to her room, and was unable to focus her eyes on anything. The only thing real was Jimmy. Her Jimmy. Gone.
She let herself slide down to the floor, her back still against the door, and rested her forehead against her skirt-bedecked knees. It was slightly painful as her clothing dug into her at various points, and the hoop in her skirt hindered movements, but she ignored it. She wanted to fold in upon herself, and the pain was soothing, somehow.
She sat like that for several minutes, tears silently running down her cheeks. Her mind flashed through the happy images of her time with him. The jokes and adventures of childhood as well as the kisses, the conversations, the laughter during their brief reunion. She thought of the sparkle in his sunflower eyes as he laughed with her in their forest and how the flecks reflected the sun when he made his promise with his hand against their boulder. She pictured the hunger that darkened them as their bodies intertwined.
It had been so close to perfect. He was perfect. The only thing that had gotten in the way of bliss was the saloon and her responsibilities, but she had still believed, even when storming away from him after their fight, that they would be able to figure it out and have the perfect life. Now, though, that had all been taken away from her.
None of the promises or the wishes or the magic had kept him safe. Now all she had were her memories, and she did not know if they would be enough.
Finally, she lifted her head and looked around at the room that had been her home for a year, and she shuddered. She could not go on living there and taking men into the bedrooms with her. Not after what she had with Jimmy. She had known that she needed to leave since the first moment they had touched, but this was the first time she consciously thought about it. Every moment there was killing her, little by little.
She didn’t know what to do. There was no way to stop the pain long enough to formulate a plan, but she knew she had to get out of there as quickly as she could. She stood up, swaying a little as blood rushed through her after sitting for so long, and began pulling together the few things that were important to her: books, the hairbrush that was all she had of her mother, the necklace her father had given her when she was little in a rare moment of affection, and little else. She put the items into the canvas bag she had sewn as a teenager. It was the bag that she’d used to carry her most important possessions when she first came to the saloon.
She grabbed and stuffed in a rush, feeling almost as if she had to leave quickly or not at all. Then she pulled up the floorboard and took out the small purse of gold and paper bills stored there and tossed that in her bag as well, and she was done. She only paused a moment at the door, taking one last look for anything she had forgotten, and then she was gone.
Mary hadn’t decided exactly where she would go or what she would do, but once she was outside, away from the saloon, her heart felt a
tiny bit lighter. She still had the pain of Jimmy’s loss ripping through her, but the action and movement helped, if only a little. She walked down the street as fast as she could, nearly jogging. Her face was streaked from tears, her hair was wild, her dress was dirty and wrinkled, but none of that mattered. She just had to get away, to somewhere.
Without consciously making the choice, she found herself walking toward The Swenson home. She knew that her friend would help her somehow, though she had no idea of what she needed or expected Angelina to do.
“Thank you for your help, but I must leave. I can’t stay here.” Jimmy looked up into the woman’s dark eyes and tried to lift himself off the bed, gritting his teeth against the pain.
She put her hand on his chest, softly but insistently pushing him back down. She shook her head. “You have lost blood and are in too much pain. You need to stay and get well.”
He dropped himself back down, his breath cut short as the exit wound from the bullet hit against the makeshift bed, a long couch in her sitting room. He knew she was right, that he would be unable to make it anywhere even if he could somehow get himself to standing. But Maria was out there, and he needed to go to her, apologize for his behavior, and fix everything. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He didn’t want to lose her again.
He lay there, frustrated by his own inabilities, while the strange woman stirred the stew, then came back to tend to him. Ensuring that he was comfortable and had everything he needed, she began her ministrations, cleaning his injuries to prevent against infection.
She checked his bullet wound, but also scores of scratches and a few deeper cuts, as well as a quick rewrap of one leg, which had apparently been injured either in the fall from the horse or at some point when he was in the river; it had a wooden splint, and she bandaged the leg tightly to the wood. He barely registered her ministrations, however, even when slight jostling caused him pain. He was so focused on Maria that everything else was an inconvenience not worth wasting time on, and he focused on not venting his frustration at this stranger he had only just met.
