Behind His Blue Eyes

by Kaki Warner

  “A whip.” Audra threw open the flap.

  A dark-clad Chinese worker crouched in the dirt. Blood leaked through crisscrossed rips in the cloth over his shoulder and back. The tall man who had been watching them earlier stood over him, swinging his silver-handled whip.

  “Stop!” Audra cried. “What are you doing?”

  Another crack. Another cut into the bowed back. “Butt out!”

  A crowd had gathered. All Chinese. The other Irish bosses had disappeared. The agitated chattering of the workers rose and fell with the whip, but no one tried to intervene.

  Audra ran toward the figure on the ground. He was only a boy. “Go!”

  “I said butt out!” Another crack. A jolt on her shoulder. Then a searing pain that took her breath away. She stumbled, went down on one knee.

  Behind her, Lucinda’s and Edwina’s voices rose in panicky shouts.

  Gasping, Audra crawled over and touched the boy’s arm. “Go . . . run . . .” From the corner of her eye, she saw the whip draw back.

  Something flew through the air.

  She ducked.

  But the blow never came.

  The wounded boy’s arm shook beneath her hand. Tear tracks cut through the dust on his cheeks. “Go . . . run!”

  He seemed not to hear her. The shouts and chattering had risen to a deafening din. But one voice stood out.

  Pain shooting down her back, she turned. Saw Ethan standing over a man on the ground, fists flying. Declan, trying to pull him off. The workers surging forward, arms waving.

  Suddenly, Lucinda was kneeling beside her. “Get up. We have to go. Now!”

  “Oh, God, Audra,” Edwina cried, bending at her other side. “You’re bleeding!”

  With their help, Audra made it to her feet. The pain was a constant burn, but it wasn’t unbearable. She turned back to help the Chinese boy, then saw that Mr. Kim was already leading him away.

  Lucinda tugged on her arm. “Hurry! We have to get out of here. Move!” she cried, motioning aside the workers crowded around the men scuffling in the dirt.

  “Where’s Edwina?”

  “I’m here.”

  Audra looked back to see the Southerner crowded behind her, her face slack with terror. “Are you hurt?”

  “Not yet. But when Declan finds out—oh, Lord—”

  Realizing the chattering had stopped, Audra turned to see Declan jerk the bloodied man from the ground by his shirtfront and shout in his face. Ethan was already headed their way.

  There was blood on his mouth. A scrape under his eye.

  She had never seen him so angry.

  Seventeen

  “Go with the sheriff,” Ethan told Lucinda and Edwina, his voice vibrating with fury, his gaze still locked on Audra. “I’ll take her to Dr. Boyce.”

  Edwina glanced at her husband, who was coming toward them, a scowl on his face and one big hand clamped around the back of the battered Irishman’s neck. “I’d rather stay with you, I think.”

  Ethan turned his head and looked at her.

  She edged back. “All right. We’ll go with Declan. Audra, you’ll be okay?”

  “She’ll be fine.” Taking her elbow, Ethan steered her through the crowd at such a rapid pace she had to scramble to keep up with him.

  They were well away from the encampment before he spoke again. “Are you insane?”

  “Can we slow down?”

  “What were you thinking, going out there by yourselves?”

  “Edwina hasn’t been feeling well and we thought a Chinese cure might help. Please, you’re hurting my arm.”

  He loosened his grip, but didn’t let her go. “How did you get between Gallagher and the Chinese boy?”

  “No one else would help him.”

  “So you threw yourself in front of a whip? Jesus, Audra!”

  “I couldn’t simply stand by.”

  He muttered something under his breath. They walked a bit farther before he spoke again. “It’s my fault.”

  She shot him a look, but he was staring straight ahead, his face grim, his mouth so pinched his lips were white except where the blood had dried.

  “I should have fired him right off. Instead, I decide to wait for his replacement. Damn stupid—”

  Abruptly he bent over and sucked in several deep breaths.

  Alarmed, Audra watched him, wondering what was wrong. He was still holding on to her arm and his face was quite pale and he was shaking even more than she was. “Are you well, Ethan?”

  “Hell, no, I’m not well!” He pulled himself upright and glared at her. Some of the color was back in his face . . . as was the anger. “He could have killed you!”

  “I doubt it. Lucinda brought her pistol.”

  “Good God.” He bent over again.

  She refrained from patting his back in sympathy—after all, she was the one who was hurt. Yet his heartfelt and surprisingly strong reaction was flattering. It had been a long time since anyone had made such a fuss over her.

  “I’m fine, Ethan. You stopped him before he did any real damage.”

  This time when he straightened, the shaking was gone. But he still looked pale. “You’re not fine! You’re bleeding.”

  “So are you.” She eyed the cut on his lip that had already crusted over, and the bruise darkening below his eye. He had suffered that for her. As sorry as she was that he was hurt, the idea that he would willingly put himself in harm’s way on her account almost made her cry. “Thank you for coming to my aid, Ethan.”

  Finally releasing her arm, he rubbed his hands over his face. His chest was still pumping and he seemed unsteady. Fearing he might become light-headed again, she slipped her arm through his and started him walking again. “As usual, you were very heroic. And I greatly appreciate it. But if it’ll make you feel better, we’ll have Doc Boyce take a look at both of us.”

  “I don’t like your tone.”

  “What tone?”

  “You’re patronizing me.”

  “I don’t mean to.”

  “And I have a right to be worried.”

  “Do you?”

  “I care about you.” He stopped. This time, he took her face in his hands. He was shaking again—she could feel it in his arms—hear it in his voice. “Don’t mock me, Audra. If something had happened to you . . . if because of me you were hurt . . . I don’t think . . . I couldn’t . . .”

  Rising on tiptoe, she gently kissed the corner of his mouth that wasn’t injured. She tasted coffee, dust, the salty-sweet tang of blood. Ethan. Pulling back, she looked up into eyes as clear and fathomless as a hot summer sky. “And I care about you, Ethan. Very much.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do.”

  An odd look crossed his face, like a shadow had moved between them. Or an unwelcome thought had entered his mind. He took his hands away and gave a strained smile, wincing a little at the pull on his split lip. “You’d be a fool not to.”

  She could feel him retreating from her, pulling back behind the shield of humor. She didn’t know why, or what she had said or done to send him away. Yet for that one instant, before he had masked it, she had seen the truth behind his blue eyes, and knew that her words had broken through his armor and touched him in an unexpected way.

  * * *

  “What’s wrong with you people?” Dr. Boyce complained when he saw them standing at his door. “Never knew anyone so hell-bent on self-destruction as you two. What happened this time?”

  Feeling unfairly criticized, insomuch as this was the first time she had come to the doctor for help, Audra left the explanations to Ethan.

  “One of the gang bosses used a whip on her,” he said as Doc ushered them into his examination room.

  “Only the once,” Audra qualified. “And Ethan—Mr. Hardesty, that is—knocked him down for
it.”

  Doc frowned at Ethan. “That how you got banged up?”

  Ethan started to grin, then winced. “Not as banged up as the other fellow.”

  “At least you had sense enough to wear gloves.”

  “He was magnificent,” Audra said stoutly. “Sheriff Brodie had to pull him off before he hurt him too badly. Hurt the other man, that is.”

  “Hmm.” Lips twitching, Doc motioned Ethan toward the door. “Ladies first, then.”

  “I’m staying.”

  “I have to take off her blouse, son.”

  “Then I’m staying for sure.”

  “Ethan!”

  “It’s my fault you’re hurt. I need to make sure you’re all right.”

  “You married to her?” Doc asked when Audra started to object again.

  “What? No. But—”

  “Then you can’t stay in here. Go.”

  After assuring her he’d be right outside, he eventually left the room.

  “Hardheaded fellow, isn’t he?” Doc said, getting out his medical supplies while Audra removed her blouse.

  “He worries.”

  “Worry? Is that what that is?”

  Fortunately, the cut was a clean one, barely three inches long, and not deep enough to require stitches. It had already stopped bleeding. Doc smeared it with a salve that took some of the sting out of it, then covered it with a bandage held in place with sticking plaster.

  “You’ll be sore for a couple of days, but it should heal fine. I’m not sure about that fellow in the hall.”

  Audra looked at him in alarm. “Ethan—I mean, Mr. Hardesty? What do you mean? What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s smitten, that’s what’s wrong with him. How about you?”

  “Wh-What?”

  “You have objections to him?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Then work it out. I can’t have the two of you running in here all the time. I’ve got real patients to tend.” He opened the door. “Your turn, Ethan—I mean, Mr. Hardesty.”

  * * *

  The day they opened the sluice for the first time, it seemed the whole town had gathered by the finished water tower near the tracks. It was a bright, sunny morning and, despite the thin crust of frost on the grass, unseasonably warm for early May. By afternoon it would be shirtsleeve weather, and in another few weeks, the robins and swallows would be nesting along the creek.

  Having accomplished the most pressing part of their task, the sluice workers were in high spirits. Assuming all went well today, tomorrow they would begin work on the second, shorter sluice, which would empty into the completed town water tower up by the old mine. Hopefully, by the end of the month, Heartbreak Creek would have all the untainted water it needed.

  “It’s a bit of an eyesore,” Lucinda remarked, frowning up at the trough running overhead to the open top of the water tower. “Tait said it wouldn’t be watertight, so it’s liable to leak on anything below it.”

  “A good place for a garden, then,” Audra suggested.

  “Oh, yes!” Edwina clapped her gloved hands together. “I love flower gardens. We had them everywhere back home. I’ll be glad to help.”

  Audra smiled at the Southerner’s exuberance. It had been only a few days since she’d begun the Chinese cure, but she seemed better already. Audra didn’t know if that was due to the herbs and tonic prescribed by Mr. Kim, or if the poor woman’s melancholy was lifting naturally, as Doctor Boyce had said it would, given enough time. She was simply happy to see her new friend smiling again.

  And happy for another reason, too.

  She glanced over to where Ethan stood with Tait and the sheriff and Thomas Redstone near the stacks of lumber that would be used to construct the heated building around the water tower. He looked especially fine today in his dark coat and hat and with that broad smile on his handsome face. He had been so busy with the work crews she hadn’t seen him since the day of that horrid scene at the Chinese camp. And afterward, when he had walked her from the clinic back to the hotel, he had been in such a thoughtful mood he had scarcely spoken. She had missed talking to him, laughing with him. Even missed his teasing. And now, after a week of his absence, just having him within sight made the day a little brighter.

  “It’s almost time,” Lucinda said, consulting the watch pinned to the inside of her coat pocket. “Tait said they would open the valve at precisely nine o’clock, and it should take no more than a few minutes for the water to reach town.”

  “Perhaps we should step back a ways,” Edwina suggested. “I just finished hemming this dress and I don’t want it getting wet.”

  “You sewed that?” Audra studied the dress in surprise. The lilac dress was beautifully made and in the latest spring fashion. “That stitching around the collar and cuffs is exquisite. I didn’t realize you were so gifted.”

  Edwina laughed. “I can also find water with willow switches and play a piano blindfolded. I’m a gold mine of talent. If only I could cook.”

  “You’re doing better all the time.” Lucinda explained to Audra that sewing was how Edwina had supported herself and Pru back in Louisiana after the war. “Perhaps you should have her make you something.” Her gaze dropped to the brown skirt showing below Audra’s coat. “Something not brown.”

  “Or gray,” Edwina put in. “What do you think, Luce? Yellow? Green?”

  “Ethan likes me in green,” Audra blurted without thinking. “I mean, Mr. Hardesty does. Or so he said. Once.”

  “Indeed?” Lucinda sent a knowing glance to Edwina. “Then green it shall be. After we leave here, we should stop by the mercantile. See what Mr. Bagley has on hand. We’ll want her to look her best for the church’s Spring Social.”

  “What Spring Social?”

  “Don’t you read your own newspaper? The notice was in two days ago.”

  “I scarcely have time to read my own notes.”

  “It’s always the first Saturday in May.” Edwina’s bright blue eyes glowed with enthusiasm. “The whole town is invited. There’ll be box lunches for sale and music and Declan even promised he’d dance. R.D. and Joe Bill and some other boys are charged with clearing an area on the other side of the cemetery to make a playing field and archery range. There will even be a turkey shoot if they can catch a turkey. I can scarcely wait.”

  “Here she comes!”

  Audra looked over to see people pointing up the slope where the sluice snaked down through the trees. She could hear a faint whooshing sound now, growing louder by the second. Laughing, she stepped out of dripping range as water rushed by overhead. A man peering down into the water tower from a narrow walkway that circled the open top raised a fist in triumph when water poured out of the sluice and into the wooden reservoir. A cheer rose from the crowd.

  “It’s happened.” With an unsteady smile, Lucinda dabbed gloved fingertips to her watery eyes. “We’ve finally brought good water to Heartbreak Creek.”

  * * *

  As the crowd dispersed, Ethan looked around for Audra, and saw her walking back to town with Lucinda and Edwina. He debated going after her—he had hardly seen her for a week—but Rylander snagged his arm.

  “We’re going to the Red Eye. You coming?”

  “Sure.” With a last glance at the three women, he fell into step behind Brodie and Thomas Redstone. “Celebratory drink?” he asked Rylander.

  “I figure we earned it.”

  When they reached the saloon, all the tables were already full, so they lined up at the bar. Rylander had the bartender deliver a bottle to each table, then raising his own glass high, he called out, “To the scruffiest, stinkingest, most foulmouthed workers this side of the Mississippi. I’m proud of you, boys. Thank you for a fine job.”

  A chorus of “hear, hears,” a few good-natured jibes about know-it-all, sissified, tea-sipping, suit-wearing ci
ty slickers, and the celebration launched into full swing.

  Ethan signaled to the harried barkeep. “Such a grand accomplishment calls for the good stuff.” A moment later the bartender plunked down on the counter a bottle of fine Scotch whiskey.

  Ethan uncorked. “Any takers?”

  “Of Wallace’s private cache? Hell, yes.” Grinning, Tait held out his glass. “How’d you manage to get it?”

  “Charm.”

  “Theft,” Brodie countered.

  But Ethan noticed his glass was right there beside Tait’s. Redstone pushed his aside and asked the bartender for ginger beer instead. “Maybe he can’t count and won’t know it’s gone.”

  Brodie laughed. “Oh, he can count. He’s a wizard with numbers. He can do them in his head faster than you can write them down.”

  “And he likes to fight,” Thomas added.

  “Helluva shot, too,” Tait put in.

  Ethan wondered when this paragon he’d relieved of a bottle of whiskey was expected back in town, but he didn’t ask, not wanting to appear cowardly.

  They drank in silence for a time, unwilling to allow idle chatter to detract from the enjoyment of fine whiskey. When Ethan poured a second round, Tait asked if they were going to the church’s Spring Social on May fourth.

  “I tried to get out of it,” Brodie said glumly. “But Ed caught me on it. Expects me to dance, too. I hate to dance.”

  Thomas grinned. “But you are fun to watch.”

  “I notice you’re not going.”

  “I am a Cheyenne Dog Soldier. We prefer war dances. And someone must take the sheriff duties while you lope in circles with your wife.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Ethan started to laugh, then saw a familiar face reflected in the mirror behind the bar. Setting his glass down with a thunk, he whirled to glare at the auburn-haired man sitting at a back table with two other Irishmen. “What’s Gallagher doing here? I thought he was in jail.”

  “Can’t keep him forever on a simple assault.”

  “There was nothing simple about taking a whip to a woman.” Pushing away from the bar, Ethan stalked over to Gallagher’s table. “I’ve already given your job to a better man,” he said tersely. “So you can clear out anytime.”