Her chest heaved with the sound she suppressed.
“Matthew six, verse twenty-five, says, ‘Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?’ You can fault me for the first part of that verse. With your good cooking, I think plenty about what I’m going to eat. The second part, though—now, I’m after you for that. In front of others, if you’re self-conscious, then wear some padding. But other than that, no more concerns. Not about your health. Not about how you look to me. No more hiding from me or turning away.”
She started weeping. “Don’t ask that of me.”
Lord, what am I to do? How can I reassure her? The closer of the two kerosene lamps went dim. Casting a quick glance over, Enoch noticed it had run out of fuel. Odd that Mercy had allowed that to happen. Such details were her bailiwick. He kissed her hair, then walked over and lifted the now extinguished lamp. “There’s enough in the other lamp to split between—”
“No,” she blurted out. “Don’t.”
Maybe in a dimmer room. Is that it, Lord? Enoch set down the lamp and walked most of the way back toward her before halting. “Do you love me?”
She nodded.
“Are you ashamed of me?”
Her head flew up. “No!”
“Repulsed by me or disgusted?”
“Enoch.” She rose from the chair. Hands extended, she approached him and took his. Tears were still running down her face, and her shoulders were shuddering with sobs. Vehemently, she shook her head. “H-how could you s-say such t-terrible things? You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever known, inside and out.”
“Exactly my point.” Lifting her hands, he kissed them and looked into her swimming brown eyes. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, both inside and out. So how could you think such terrible things about me?”
“I don’t.”
“You do. When you think those things about yourself, you think them about me. About us. Because two became one.”
“It’s not like that.” She tugged her hands free. In a purely defensive move, she bent her left arm and held her right shoulder so as to block any view of her missing bosom. “A man expects certain things—”
“I do.” He stepped closer.
She retreated and continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “A whole wife who can spark his desire and suckle his children. I—”
“Stop right there. If you believe you can’t nourish our babies, you’re wrong. Taylor specifically reassured you, you can. As for sparking my desire . . .” He reached up and pulled down her arm. An incoherent sound of protest curled in her throat as he unfastened the robe’s uppermost button. By the time he reached the third, her fingers were desperately tangling with his.
“Do you have so little faith in my love for you that you think this could destroy how I feel for you?” He stared at her, willing her to see the answer in his eyes. Tears had to be blurring her vision, though. “Nothing could do that. Nothing. Ever.”
“It’s hideous. I ca-can’t even bear t-to look.”
“Then don’t. Just look at the love in my eyes.” Finally, when he saw the freshly healing incision, he ran his finger lightly beside it with his fingertip, then with his lips as he spoke. “Is this all? This, sweet pea? Just a red line?”
“That’s just it.” She jerked away and sought her robe. “Just a red line. Nothing more. Nothing that a woman should have.”
Enoch yanked off his shirt and wrapped it around her. Fine tremors shook her, like those of a high-strung mare about to bolt. She’s scared. So scared. She didn’t want the lantern relit. I wonder . . . “Sweet pea, do you want me to extinguish the other lamp?”
“Yes.”
He took care of it—a silly matter as far as he was concerned, but if it lessened her concerns, he was glad to do so. He searched for the right words . . . the ones to express his heart and to let her know of his love and desire. I should have paid more attention to Shakespeare. Or Burns or one of those other poets. Song of Solomon? The only verses that came to him wouldn’t work. Lord, this is too important. I can’t mess this up. Mercy needs to hear the right words. As he reached her, the tumult inside stilled. The words filled his mind and heart.
“I, Enoch, take you, Mercy, to be my wedded wife.” Gently, he lifted her into his arms. “To have and to hold from this day forward.” He curled his arms and squeezed to emphasize both have and hold and began walking. “For better or for worse—and the worst was waiting for the surgery. For richer for poorer—and I’ve never been more impoverished than in these last days and nights when I was foolish enough to let you turn away from me instead of turn toward me to share your worries. I’ll be the richest man on earth as long as you believe in our love.”
Her breath caught loudly.
Enoch thought about skipping the next part of the vows, but he refused to. “In sickness and in health, fully counting on you to take plenty of time to recover after bearing each of our children so I can spoil you shamelessly.” He nuzzled her temple and stopped at the bedside. “To love . . .” He kissed her deeply. “And to cherish. . . .”
The day after the wedding, Karl was working in the smithy when he heard some horses race past. He ran outside in time to see three riders stopping in front of Taylor’s place. Hoarse with terror, two women were screaming for the doctor. Big Tim Creighton and his huge mount—there was no mistaking them. And the little blanketed form in his arms? Karl’s heart stopped.
Not Tim’s baby girl. Not little Rose. Sydney will be— Suddenly Karl realized Sydney wasn’t there. Tim dismounted and dashed inside. Flinging herself off a horse, Velma kept shouting for Doc. Clicky reached up to the other. “Here, Mrs. Smith. Let me help you down.”
Karl knew Smith had come into town that day for fence posts and barbed wire. The second he overheard little Lila’s name, he tore out toward the feed and lumber store. By the time he made it there, Smith had finished loading the barbed wire into the buckboard. “Smith! Get over to the surgery. They brought Lila in.”
“We’ll see about that.” Smith peeled off his leather gloves and flung them into the wagon bed, then stomped across the street.
Karl knew he had no notion of the severity of the situation. He deserved to have some kind of warning. “Creighton and Velma brought her in. She’s in a bad way.”
“Daisy babies that girl because she was early-born. All of the kids have a cough. Lila just whines more with hers.” Their boots clomped in a rapid-fire report on the boardwalk. Once they reached Taylor’s, Smith flung the door open wide. “Daisy, we’re going home.”
Tim clapped his hands on Smith’s shoulders. “It looks bad.”
“Daisy’s wont to worry,” Smith said as he pushed past him. He strode in a few more yards, then turned to the left and stared inside the surgery. “Enough. Let’s go.”
“Come on, sweetheart.” Dr. Bestman lowered her mouth over Lila’s and breathed into it. After a few breaths, she’d straighten just a little. “Come on, sweetheart.” After a few more times, her words changed. “Please, Jesus . . .”
Smith demanded, “What’re you doing?”
When Enoch arrived, Karl didn’t know. But he interposed himself. “Trying to push air back into the lungs, as Elijah did to the boy who ceased breathing.”
Everything inside him quaked. Karl saw the stunned look on Smith’s face, the way his features twisted. God have mercy on him. Spare him. You didn’t spare me. At least spare him. . . .
Taylor straightened up.
Karl’s mouth went dry.
She whirled around and yanked open a drawer. Hands steady as could be, she unrolled the white napkins she wrapped her sterilized instruments in. “Daisy, there’s a very small chance here. It would be a miracle. But if I open Lila’s throat, air might get through.”
Calm and precise as could be, Taylor did the procedure. Daisy’s crying and Tim and
Enoch’s praying blurred in the background as Karl strained to hear any rasp of air going through the little girl. He listened in vain.
After gently covering the incision with a cloth, Taylor looked at the Smiths. Daisy leaned into her husband’s side, weeping. “I’m so sorry. Lila was such a sweet little girl.”
“Sorry? Sorry? She was right as rain this morning, and you messed up.” Smith’s volume rose with each word. “A simple poultice woulda cured her, but you cut her throat and she died.”
Velma unashamedly wiped away tears. “Lila stopped breathing on the way to town.”
“The doctor was making a last-chance effort, Smith,” Tim tried to reason.
“Talk all you want. The proof’s right there under that cloth. She ain’t just a quack; she’s a killer!”
Subdued after yesterday’s tragedy, Taylor spent much of the morning in the Word. Big Tim and Velma both asked her to come see Sydney to assure the new mom that Rose was healthy. She wanted to do that for her friend, so Taylor went to the livery, where Piet was cleaning a horse’s hoof. “Piet, I need to go to Never Forsaken.”
“Ja. The buggy, it is already hitched. I’ll meet you there.”
Taylor walked over toward the corner where he normally hitched it. It wasn’t there. She wandered through the side door of the smithy so she could go out the front.
Skyler barked a greeting, and Karl looked up. “What are you doing here?”
Patting Skyler on the head, she craned her neck to look out the wide-open door. “I’m looking for the buggy. Piet said he’s hitched it, but it’s not in the back corner.”
Karl looked and didn’t see it, either. “Perhaps he took it around the front.” He strode around the building with her close behind, but it was nowhere to be found. The Van der Vort brothers always attended their animals, kept up their rigs, hitched things with precision, and were careful with their gates. “Hey, Piet!” Karl hollered.
Piet didn’t have time to answer before a gunshot split the silence.
Twenty-Four
With more shots fired in the air and a couple of whoops, the rig came around the corner and down the street. Two riders preceded it and two followed. Waving from inside the buggy, Orville was putting on quite a show. A banner fluttered from the back of the buggy reading Orville’s Cures: Better Than the Doc’s. They’d taken rags—a red one, much the color of her blouses, and a burlap bag that they had dyed black, and stuffed an old hat above it so it looked like an effigy of her. They had tied it all together and affixed it up where Skyler usually sat atop the buggy.
The cavalcade went down the street, turned, and started back up toward them. Karl set her back while emitting a piercing whistle. No sooner did he turn around than he shouted, “Whoa!” to the horse that was pulling the buggy straight toward him in response to his whistle. In an awe-inspiring show of obedience and fine training, the horse came to a complete halt. Karl smoothed his hand down the beast’s neck and gave it an affectionate smack, then took another two strides and wordlessly fisted his hand into Orville’s shirt, yanked him right out of the buggy, and slammed him onto the earth.
Taylor marched over. She didn’t know what she was going to do or say, but she refused to stand by silently and permit violence. Piet held her back the last few steps. “Don’t.”
“We were just having some fun,” Orville whined.
Daniel Clark walked out into the street. He grabbed his cousin by the shirt, hauled him back up, and gave him a healthy shake. “What do you mean, fun? You were mocking a lady! What kind of man mocks a woman? That woman is a thousand times better than you’ll ever be, Orville.” He dropped his cousin back down.
Orville popped up to his feet and dusted off his backside. “No woman ever measures up half as good as a man, and that woman ain’t healing folks any better than the cures I’m selling out of my kit. Folks can go pay her big doctor bill and she can fix them up something, or they can buy something from me for a heck of a lot cheaper.”
“Hey, watch your mouth. We got women present,” somebody shouted.
Skyler jumped up onto the buggy, grabbed the dummy in his teeth, and shook it until the pieces flew in all directions. He then jumped back down, stood back on stiff legs, and barked furiously at one of the parts.
“Let me get this straight.” Clicky came over and held out the banner before him. “You admit you have cures and claim yours work better than the doctor’s. Seems like you were advertising to me, so I’d like to know if you paid for the rig.”
Taylor could have kissed Clicky. Bony and scrawny as he was, every once in a while he showed a stroke of genius.
Orville shuffled in the dirt. Skyler growled at him, and he scooted to the side. “I was just having fun.”
Everybody started to square off, fighting back and forth about who was better: Taylor or Orville. Karl remained silent. The one time when she most wanted him to say or do something, he didn’t stand up for her in the least. Skyler came and sat beside her. Even Karl’s dog supported her, yet his master remained mute.
She’d been ridiculed. They’d taken her in effigy and run her up and down the street, yet he stood silent.
When Karl held up one hand, everybody else finally fell silent. He stared at Orville. “That is my rig. That is my horse. My brother left them carefully hitched within the gate on the property of our livery. You did not have leave or permission to come onto our property. You didn’t ask to borrow or hire them. Instead, you took my rig and stole my horse.”
“In Texas,” Piet added, “we hang horse thieves.”
Karl’s voice began to vibrate with outrage. “And you did this at the expense of my woman—a woman who has done nothing more than devote her life to healing and helping others.” He took a step forward, but Piet held his arm.
Taylor couldn’t believe it. Karl had claimed her in front of the whole town, and no one seemed to hear it but her. More amazing, not a man in the crowd lined up behind Orville. Every single one of them turned on him. Orville barely escaped being mobbed when the sheriff took charge of the situation. He put handcuffs on the man and carted him off, promising the crowd that justice would be done.
Taylor carefully picked up her medical bag, walked over to her office, and set it down on her desk. She needed to think. Karl had called her his woman. Should she have said something to him right then? Let him know that was wrong? . . . So why didn’t I? Because the man stole the breath right out of me. “My woman,” he’d said. The most frightening part of it all was how wonderful it would have been had she not made the choice she had and taken her oath.
But the spark his words put in her heart got thoroughly doused in the realization that he’d put his horse and rig ahead of her. Appalling as it was, the truth couldn’t be denied. His first thought had been for his horse and his rig; he’d argued his case based on that value. Even with him tacking on a nice sentence about her, that’s all it was: tacked on. She didn’t want to have to face him again—at least not privately. The only way to avoid that was to purchase a mount of her own.
Clicky walked into her office. “Doctor, did you need anything?”
“Yes, Clicky, I do. I’m in need of a horse. Could you please help me purchase one?”
“You know, the livery has pl—”
“Clicky, I’m in need of a horse. Let me give you the funds, and if you’d be so kind as to purchase one for me, I’d be most appreciative. I don’t want anyone to know who is purchasing the horse. Simply get a bill of sale and a horse.”
“Well, ma’am, I don’t know if I should.”
“Clicky, you offered me assistance. Are you willing to give me that help or not?”
“Well, um . . . yes, ma’am. Miss. Doctor. Yes.”
She gave him a large sum of money and he left. Twenty minutes later he returned. Of all of the horses he might have returned with, it was Dimples, the mare Karl most often hooked up to the buggy when he drove her to call on patients. She had Clicky take the horse over to meet her at the side of her h
ome, where Karl and Piet couldn’t see her. “Ma’am, I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” Clicky said, though he helped her mount anyway.
“Could you recommend a place to board my mount? I don’t believe the livery will be an amicable arrangement.”
He got a stricken look on his face.
“Think about it while I’m gone.” She’d barely ridden three hundred yards from town, however, before thundering hooves sounded behind her.
Karl whistled, and Dimples halted at once. Karl let out another little whistle.
“Traitorous horse. You traitorous little . . .” Taylor jerked on the reins. Taylor kicked. She twisted. She pulled. She begged and sweet-talked. It didn’t matter what she did, she couldn’t get Dimples to stop. The horse turned and walked straight back toward Karl.
Smug as could be, Karl sat on his big old buckskin horse as Dimples’ dainty little princess steps carried her ever closer to him. When finally the horses were nose-to-nose, he said, “Taylor?”
Absolutely at her wit’s end, she shouted, “Don’t you take that tone with me! Don’t you dare, Karl Van der Vort! You and your friends were more worried about a horse than a person.”
His expression didn’t change one bit. His tone didn’t, either. “A Texan has to have his priorities.”
That did it. Taylor wasn’t going to argue with him or waste another breath. She jerked on Dimples’ reins and tried to wheel around. Karl nudged his mount forward, reached over, and took the reins right out of her hand. She glared at him. “I understand horse thieves are treated poorly in Texas.”
“Yep.”
“Then I suggest you let go of my horse.”
“Now how do you figure that, darling?”
“Don’t call me darling.”
“Would you rather I called you Dimples?”
That Certain Spark Page 25
