A Summer Affair

by Susan Wiggs

  Blue ground his teeth in frustration, but Vickery merely grinned, lifting his glass to the light and studying the amber liquid through the crystal facets. “I’ve never been afraid to take a risk,” he stated. “And I’ve never shrunk from doing what has to be done, even if a sworn duty is distasteful to me.” He rose hastily. “Although I would enjoy a lengthier visit, I must be going, gentlemen. My wife gets agitated when I’m late.”

  Rory watched him go. “Lord preserve us from agitated women.”

  Blue studied his untouched whiskey glass. All day long, he’d been edgy and distracted, and that made him annoyed at himself. But he was more than simply annoyed, and he knew better than to blame it on lack of sleep. He was troubled. He had treated a woman wounded by a bullet. And last night a policeman had been shot. He carried the knowledge around like an unwanted weight in his surgical kit.

  Something had to be done. A violent outlaw was on the loose, and Blue knew who she was. Perhaps. Thus far, he’d said nothing, as though his silence would make the incident go away. This morning she’d walked out of his house and his life. He wanted to believe she was no longer his responsibility. But he couldn’t shake loose his suspicion that she had shot a man. Or the knowledge that she was armed and dangerous. If she shot another person, the fault would be Blue’s.

  “I need your advice,” he said to Rory. He explained about the woman disguised as a boy—wounded, armed and endowed with a baffling and unexpected charm. “She walked away and I don’t know where she went,” Blue concluded. “So now what?”

  “Now you give her description to the police and let them try to find her. Would that all females were so easily dealt with.” A born womanizer, Rory often encountered problems when his many liaisons intersected. He dispensed with them with a panache Blue admired but did not envy.

  His suggestion made perfect sense. Yet Blue resisted it nonetheless. His experience in the army had taught him to distrust authority. “She didn’t explain what happened to her,” he said. “Perhaps she’s innocent.”

  “You want her to be,” Rory stated. “Why, Dr. Calhoun, I’m intrigued.”

  “I want her well,” Blue insisted. “Healed. It’s what I want for all my patients. And I want to be certain she doesn’t harm anyone.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I should try to find her. She can’t have gone far. She was too weak.”

  “A person who is in trouble and armed with a gun is capable of getting very far indeed,” Rory pointed out. “Look, Blue, it’s not up to you to save every street Arab in the city.”

  “I’m a doctor. I don’t concern myself with the soul. Just the body.”

  “Your work is done for this person. Let the police—” Rory stopped. “You’re not going to do that, are you?”

  Blue was thinking about a woman he’d treated last year, a petty thief who had been brought to him after being arrested and taken to the Josten Street jail. The following day, none of the officers in charge could explain how the bruises and lacerations of a brutal rape had appeared on her, seemingly overnight, nor why the initially calm woman was hysterical at her arraignment.

  “I need to see the man who was shot,” said Blue, heading for the door.

  Rory stood, surveying the San Francisco Club with genuine regret. “Wait,” he said. “Allow me to savor this for one minute more.” Then, realizing Blue was not persuaded, he finished his glass of whiskey and joined Blue outside. “You’re not riding that infernal beast of yours, are you?”

  “No. It’s just three blocks to the hospital.”

  “Good. I can’t stand horses.” Rory made no secret of his dislike for animals. Raised by an adoptive family in Omaha, he’d had his fill of rural life. He preferred the city with its noise, indoor plumbing, electrical lighting and imported foods.

  Mercy Heights Hospital was filled with the noise and smells of the sick and injured: grave, low-toned conversations, moans of pain, open weeping. Although Rory turned markedly pale, Blue barely noticed the reek of putrid wounds, body fluids and cleaning solutions as he approached the charge nurse. The realm of the sick and dying had been his world for so long that he barely noticed the rank smells and terrible wails.

  A nurse in a crisp wimple brought them to an iron-framed bed at the end of a ward. A plain wooden crucifix hung on the white plaster wall above each bed. “Here he is, poor man,” she said in a thick Irish brogue. “Hasn’t stirred a blessed eyelash since they brought him here in the wee hours.”

  “Head wounds will do that,” said Rory, then shut up when both the nun and Blue glared at him.

  The wounded man had a plain face like a potato harvested from freshly-turned earth. Large ears, heavy jowls, a swath of bandage like a turban around his head.

  He had a name—Patrick Brolin—and he wore a wedding band, the gleaming warm gold faintly scratched and dimpled by time and wear. Blue hadn’t worn his own wedding band long enough to earn those scratches and dents.

  The nurse saw him studying Brolin’s thick-fingered hands. “A lovely wife he has, and four children, all grown. His wife tells me the grandchildren are every joy of his life, bless him.”

  Only one man lay dying in this hospital bed, but he was not the only victim. The outlaw’s bullet had felled the man’s wife. It had ripped through the living flesh of children and grandchildren.

  She had done this, Blue told himself. She had gunned down a good man in cold blood.

  Blue took his pulse, then used his stethoscope to listen to the man’s lungs. He thumbed open one eye, then the other.

  “He’s dehydrated,” he told the nurse.

  “He hasn’t had a moment’s consciousness, sir.”

  “Use the Bering tube, then. Get some water in him.” Blue tested the tonic reflexes. “Who is the physician in charge of this patient?”

  The nun squared her shoulders as though prompted to straighten up. “Why, Dr. Vickery himself, sir.”

  Blue and Rory exchanged a look, both finding this fact interesting, though neither mentioned it as they left the hospital. Both knew Brolin’s furious comrades were tearing the city apart, seeking the shooter. One of their own had fallen, and they were hungry for revenge. “And it’s more than likely,” Rory pointed out, “that whoever did it won’t live to be arrested.”

  Blue nodded. There was his dilemma, then. Overzealous peace officers were sure to seize the power to accuse, hunt down, convict and execute without consulting judge or jury.

  “It’s the wild west,” said Rory, stepping up to the cable car that would take him to his lodgings. “Vigilante justice still prevails.”

  Six

  “We’re in for a world of trouble,” June Li said to Lucas as he parked the wheelbarrow at the surgery entrance. It was late in the day, and Lucas felt fairly confident Delta had gone home. His father’s adjacent office and surgery provided a possible way for them to enter the house unnoticed by Mrs. Li or Mrs. Riordan.

  “Don’t be a ninny. This woman needs help, and we’re helping her.”

  “Then why are we sneaking like this?”

  He didn’t answer, and knew she didn’t expect one. The proper thing to do, of course, would be to summon help and wait for an adult to take over. But Lucas was fighting for his independence, and doing things on his own was a way to wage the battle. “Get the door for me,” he said. “I’m going to have to carry her.”

  The woman was slight, nearly as small as June, but in her unconscious state, she was as limp and ungainly as a large sack of turnips. Straightening the soiled jacket she wore, he slid one arm behind her and the other beneath her knees. He felt the bulk of a bandage, surmising that she was injured in the chest or back. She moaned but did not open her eyes. He straightened, staggering a little, then headed for the door. June led the way through the quiet surgery and across the breezeway to the main house.

  The woman’s head hung limply to one side, and as he moved into the vestibule, he was overcome by a powerful wave of protectiveness. She seemed so helpless.

  As he
walked with her, he smelled the distinct sulphurous odor of burned gunpowder wafting from her hair. A memory flashed through his mind. It came and went so swiftly that he couldn’t quite grasp its meaning, but it had to do with his mother. He had been only five years old when she died. He didn’t remember that day, not clearly. On some nights he dreamed of it. But the memory was elusive, like a dream floating away upon waking. He had no idea why bringing this wounded woman home should evoke thoughts of his mother, but he knew he was doing the right thing. And he knew the perfect place to take her in this too-large, too-quiet house.

  “Master Lucas, is that you?” Mrs. Riordan called from the back of the house, toward the kitchen.

  “Yes, I’m off to get cleaned up for supper,” he said. He jerked his head toward the broad curve of the staircase, indicating to June that they were going upstairs. She shot him a dubious look, but complied.

  “We’re going to my mother’s room,” he whispered.

  June stood still. “Your father doesn’t like anyone going in that room.”

  “It’s the best place for her,” he said. “The other rooms are too small and poky.”

  “Your father will—”

  “Just help me,” Lucas said, his arms trembling with his burden. She was on fire with fever. “Quickly.”

  Looking more dubious than ever, June opened the door to a perfectly neat, light-filled bedroom. It had been in this state for as long as Lucas could remember—spotless, decked in white, his mother’s possessions still in evidence. There was a comb and brush set on a vanity table, a writing desk with paper and pen at the ready, a dresser with hatpins and atomizers and dozens of other feminine things whose purposes eluded him. A set of double doors with polished brass handles separated the room from his father’s private lodgings. As far as Lucas knew, his father never opened those doors.

  With aching, arm-shaking slowness, he lowered the woman to the bed. Her dusty boots smudged the white counterpane, and the battered hat fell to the floor, revealing dark hair, badly cut. June arranged the embroidered pillows. Then they stepped back, at a loss.

  He could not tell the woman’s precise age. He couldn’t even tell if she was pretty. She had a wide mouth with cracked lips, smooth skin that blazed an unhealthy, angry pink. She didn’t move, though her breathing was shallow and quick.

  “Why here?” June whispered, challenging him again. She had always questioned him, ever since they were small and fought over every possible thing. “Why didn’t we wait in the surgery? He’ll probably want her transported to a hospital. Or to her home, wherever that might be.”

  “She’s bad off,” Lucas said. “Her best chance is to be here, where my father can tend to her.”

  “So you say. I still think we’re in a world of trouble.”

  “Listen, the one thing I know for certain about my father is that saving lives is the reason for his existence. That’s what we’re doing. Saving a life. He won’t argue with that.”

  Lucas spoke with more conviction than he felt. The fact was, lately all he and his father ever did was argue.

  “He’s not going to be happy with you,” June warned.

  “Nothing can make my father happy,” said Lucas. He went and checked the ewer and basin. The large white china pitcher was empty but clean. More vague memories drifted past and evaporated.

  “That’s a strange thing to say.”

  “I think I remember a time when he was happy, but it might just be a dream. When I was small, he used to laugh and toss me up into the air. We were on the beach, I think.”

  “He might toss you somewhere when he learns what we’ve done,” June said. “Are you going to tell him she pointed a gun at you?”

  Lucas set his jaw. It was one of many bones of contention between him and his father. All his friends had guns and practiced shooting at the range down at Hayes Park. Sometimes he sneaked down to practice with them, and he always envied the boys whose fathers stood behind them, teaching them accuracy and judgment. “Maybe I’ll tell him,” said Lucas. “Maybe then he’ll realize it’s time for me to have a gun of my own.”

  “What is so important about shooting a gun, anyway?” she asked.

  “All men know how to handle a firearm.”

  June sent a look at the woman on the bed. “Just men?”

  “Women, too, I suppose. You should learn.”

  “Why?”

  “What if some crimp tries to shanghai you?”

  “Silly, they don’t shanghai women.”

  “They kidnap them. Sell them to the tongs.” He wished he hadn’t said that. It was too close to what had actually befallen her mother. “Anyway,” he said, “if I had a gun, I’d become the sharpest shooter in the city, and if anyone tried to kidnap you, I’d save you.”

  “What, by shooting me?”

  “No, goose, by shooting—ah, never mind.” He grew serious. “But if anyone ever tried to harm a hair on your head—” he dared to reach out, to touch the shining obsidian silk of her hair “—I would save you, June Li. You know I would.”

  “I do know that, Lucas.” Her blush deepened to the color of a ripe persimmon.

  He was pretty sure he was blushing, too. His ears felt on fire.

  “But I don’t want you to have to defy your father for my sake,” she added.

  “I do that enough on my own,” he admitted. “I swear, there is nothing worse than a stern father.”

  June took the pitcher and headed for the door. “A stern father. I have no idea what it is like to have any father at all.”

  She left to fill the pitcher with water.

  “Sometimes I don’t think I do, either,” said Lucas.

  Seven

  Blue rode home on Gonzalo, a glossy, athletic saddle horse. Like all of his horses, the gelding had been bred and trained at Cielito. Horses from the sprawling seaside ranch were famous, not so much for their bloodlines as for their flawless training, usually at the hands of his stepmother, Eliza, or his young half sister, Amanda. Both women had a gift for training horses, and every one of the Calhouns loved to ride. Gonzalo was one of life’s few pleasures for Blue. The horse displayed a special swiftness and snap, and his sole focus was on obeying and serving his master.

  Blue had often thought of sending Lucas to the ranch for training.

  As he made his way to the house, he tried to shake off the cares and tribulations he carried around like invisible baggage. As always, it was impossible. A doctor’s duties didn’t end with the closing of the day. He didn’t get to enjoy the farmer’s satisfaction of looking back over freshly turned furrows in the earth, or the mason’s pride in the perfectly tessellated rocks in a wall he’d built. He couldn’t point to a banker’s balanced ledger and say he’d accomplished his goal that day.

  Instead, he dragged home a burden of worry and tension. On most evenings, those silent companions accompanied him through supper, and eventually to bed.

  That was the father Lucas encountered each night. Blue wanted to be different for his son. He wanted to be jolly and lighthearted, and he used to try hard, for Lucas’s sake. But Lucas, for all his faults, was no fool. He could see through the facade, could detect the worry behind the smile. And as the boy got older, Blue let the false mask of cheerfulness slide away, revealing the somber man he’d become.

  As always, the house was fragrant with the smells of supper kept warm on the cast iron kitchen range. When Blue came home late—or often not at all, due to his work at the Rescue League—Lucas took supper in the kitchen with Mrs. Riordan.

  But today, the kitchen was bright and busy. The cook and housekeeper, who disliked each other and rarely spoke, were engaged in a loud conversation that stopped the moment Blue stepped into the room.

  “Is something the matter?” he asked, looking from Mrs. Li to Mrs. Riordan.

  “Is not my fault,” said Mrs. Li.

  “I told him it was a terrible, desperate idea,” said Mrs. Riordan, tucking a lock of ginger hair into her cap. She was uncommonly bea
utiful, too young to have endured what she’d suffered until Blue had offered her employment keeping house for him.

  “Told who? What?” he asked.

  “Lucas, sir.”

  He wasn’t surprised. Trouble in this house generally answered to that name. But a familiar icy fear clutched his gut as he imagined the endless possibilities for disaster. No, he told himself. These women wouldn’t be in here arguing if Lucas had come to some physical harm. “Where is he?”

  Bernadette Riordan knit her fingers together. “He insisted on settling her in Mrs. Calhoun’s chamber, sir. He wouldn’t listen to a word we said. I swear on the saints, I told him—”

  He broke away and went to the foyer, taking the stairs two at a time. Sancha’s room was off-limits. Lucas knew that. No one went there, no one touched her things or used the furniture. Only Bernadette and the day maid went there to keep the room spotless, as though waiting for her to return. “For the resurrection,” he’d overheard Bernadette say to the maid when she hadn’t known he was listening.

  He burst inside and stopped short. Twin gas jets above the bed hissed softly into a taut, charged silence. Their ghostly, colorless glow settled over the scene.

  Lucas sat by the bed, leaning forward as though in prayer. An oversized shadow on the wall outlined his profile. And in the bed that had once belonged to Blue’s wife lay the outlaw, Isabel Fish-Wooten.

  Eight

  While Blue tried to hide his shock, Lucas stood quickly. “Where have you been?” he demanded. No greeting, no explanation, no apology for putting a stranger into his dead mother’s bed. Yet there wasn’t a trace of anger in his voice, only desperation. “Hurry,” Lucas continued, motioning with his hand. “You have to save her.”

  Blue was seized by a swift memory he didn’t know he had—Lucas at age five, running across the stockade at Fort Carrington with his hands cupped around some delicate, precious treasure. He barged into Blue’s dispensary and opened his little hands to reveal a tiny unfledged baby bird, its skin the color of bruised flesh, its beak grotesquely large, its head too big to be supported by its skinny neck. “Daddy,” Lucas had said, “you have to save it.”