They parted ways without ever mentioning the idea of robbing the stage again, but Washington couldn’t seem to shake a heavy foreboding that Kin’s intentions had not changed.
His spirit was weighed down with a melancholy that couldn’t be lifted. Not even when he came across Zoe picking rose hips in the field just outside of town.
Weariness weighted Dixie’s eyelids as she sat next to Ma’s bed inside the steamy tent. She dipped the cloth into the cool water, wrung it out, and carefully dabbed the moisture from Ma’s sweat-dampened brow. Her inhales and exhales rattled in a way that made dread crawl into Dixie’s bones.
“Ma, can you hear me? Would you like a sip of water?”
Ma’s eyes opened slightly, and her tongue darted across dry lips.
Relief relaxed Dixie’s shoulders. “It’s good to see you awake. I’m sure you are thirsty.”
Panic had been building ever since her talk with the marshal. She wanted to gather Ma up and run again. Leave this place behind. Steven’s body, never found! That meant he really was somewhere out there, just as she’d feared.
But Ma was in no shape for flight, so instead she reached for the cup. “Here—this will help.” She held the spoon to her mother-in-law’s lips and was thankful to see that Ma apparently had enough strength today to lift her head, if only slightly. Dixie coaxed five teaspoons of water into her before she waved away any more and her head fell back to the pillow.
Thinking Ma would immediately return to sleep, Dixie set the cup down and stood to straighten the bedding, but the older woman’s hand clutched Dixie’s forearm with a surprisingly strong grip. Dixie’s gaze flew to hers.
Ma tugged her closer, earnestness in her eyes. “Forgive me. Please?” There was such an urgency to the words!
Dixie frowned. “Forgive you? Whatever for?”
Ma’s grip slackened, and her gaze drifted toward the sheets draped over the string above her. She stared as though seeing into the past, her chest barely rising and falling with each rattled breath. “I…didn’t…kill him. I should have…protected you better. He…will—” A wracking cough seized her, and Dixie helped her sit up.
Ma had known? All this time she’d known he was alive? Did she know where he was? If he was coming? Dixie drew in a breath meant to abate the hysteria that threatened to capsize her. She couldn’t let Ma see any of her trepidation. Not in her present state.
Dixie’s concern mounted as the coughing continued. “You mustn’t fash yourself so. You’re going to wear plumb out.” She did her best to keep her voice steady and the chiding gentle as she rubbed circles on Ma’s back.
For a long moment, she wondered if this was to be Ma’s end. But then the coughs stopped and Ma was finally able to take a full breath.
Dixie carefully eased her back down.
Ma clutched for her once more. Her eyes held insistence that Dixie listen. “I aimed low. He will come.”
Another crest of panic surged, but Dixie again did her best to keep it hidden. She soothed one palm over the plump veins and angular bones of Ma’s age-spotted hand. Forced words that she didn’t really believe past her lips. “If he was going to come, he would have come after us by now, don’t you think? We’ll deal with him if the time comes. For now you just worry about getting yourself better, hmmm? And let’s remember that Sheriff Callahan is nothing like Sheriff Berkley back in Birch Run.”
That thought seemed to ease some of Ma’s tension, and she relaxed further into soft feather pillows. After an extended minute where Dixie waited to see if she would say more, Ma’s eyes drifted shut, and her breathing even seemed a little easier now.
Just like that, the strength left Dixie’s legs and she collapsed into the chair.
Ma’s breathing deepened to that of sleep.
Dixie scooted the chair back from the bed and let the sheet fall between her and her mother-in-law so she didn’t have to guard her expression so carefully. When Dixie lifted her palms to cover her face, both hands quaked. She gritted her teeth against the press of panic that bade her to give in to tears. First the marshal said Steven’s body had never been found. And now Ma insisted that Steven was most likely still alive. Just the thought sent a cold wave of terror through her.
She would not cry! That man had already taken more than his share of her peace and tranquility. She would not give him another moment of space in her mind!
But the desire to banish him from her thoughts and actually accomplishing such were two entirely different things.
Despair drained the last of her energy. She was tired of trying to be strong on her own. Tired of wondering what she had done—what Rose had done—to deserve the treatment Steven had doled out to them each day, while at the same time knowing there was no logical answer.
Though she had assured Rose that Sheriff Callahan wasn’t anything like Sheriff Berkley, she also knew that even Reagan would be bound to the laws of the land. If Steven came, there wouldn’t be much Reagan could do to intervene on their behalf.
She pushed the tenting sheets back from one corner of the bed, then slumped forward until her folded arms could form a pillow. If only she could retreat into the oblivion of sleep. She glanced at the contraption of sheets currently keeping steam close to Ma, and guilt nagged. She shouldn’t be longing for retreat or sleep when Ma needed her so much—when she had plans to make about what to do if Steven did come.
If he came, she would have to face him again. She would have to be strong. She would have to make sure that he could never hurt her or Ma again. That realization filled her with icy resolve, and for the first time since her talk with the marshal, she felt like she could breathe again.
There was so much work to do. She needed to fetch new hot water for the steaming pots. The marshal’s bedroom needed to be cleaned, and the evening meal needed to be prepared and served. There was no time for slumber. And yet with her decision made, it was as though all her energy had drained out of her.
How long would they have to wait?
It could be years.
It could be moments.
For Dixie knew something with absolute certainty. If Steven was alive—and both the marshal and Rose seemed to believe he was—he would come. His sense of revenge wouldn’t let him live any other way.
And this time when he came she would be ready for him. She refused to live with the terror he invoked for even one more day. The soft quilt welcomed her weight, and she gave in to the tug of slumber.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Flynn leaned over his patient in the back of the wagon that sat before McGinty’s. The wounded man’s friends had brought him in from Camp Sixty-Five when the tree he’d been sawing had split up the middle and kicked back into his sternum. “Widow Makers,” they called such trees. A fairly rare occurrence, yet common enough to warrant a label. And sadly in this case, though the man was single without a wife and children to leave behind, the tree would indeed come out the winner. The man’s chest was so crushed there was nothing Flynn could do but keep him comfortable. The logger also had a large concave dent on the side of his head, and hadn’t come around since the incident. He wouldn’t make it through the night.
Heart heavy, he reached for the laudanum bottle in his bag.
“Can you fix him, Doc?” This from one of the man’s anxious friends.
Flynn sighed. He hated this part of his job. He took his time uncorking the laudanum before he looked up at the man. “I’m sorry. No.”
All three men shuffled their feet. Varying expressions of sorrow cloaked them. One man folded his arms and worked the toe of his boot into the dirt at his feet. Another tipped his head back and blinked rapidly at the sky while his jaw worked from side to side. The third gripped his neck and studied the wounded man, seemingly unable to grasp that they would never have another conversation. “He stopped for a drink from his canteen about ten this morning, and gave me a hard time because my missus had brought out the lunch I forgot. I haven’t even eaten the lunch yet.”
Flynn
understood the shock. After doling out some laudanum into a smaller, bottle, he jumped from the back of the wagon and handed it to the man who had spoken. “If he starts to come around, you can give him as much as thirty drops from the dropper.” Flynn squeezed the man’s shoulder and picked up his bag. “I’m right sorry for your loss. Please let me know when he passes so I can fill out the death certificate for the sheriff and for Heath Logging.”
“How long—” The man couldn’t seem to finish the question.
“I’ll be surprised if he makes it through to morning.” Flynn made sure to make eye contact to ensure that he understood the short timeframe, and then he walked away and left the men standing there. He’d long ago found that the best way to help people realize it was time to say goodbye was to give them the bad news and then leave. It somehow made the truth more real in their minds, callous as it might seem.
He strode into the boardinghouse and took the stairs up to the second floor, pausing to knock on Rose and Dixie’s door. He prayed he wouldn’t soon have to give Dixie similar news about Rose. He hadn’t liked the sound of the woman’s lungs when he’d checked on her earlier today. He prayed the poultice he’d prepared would work to break up some of her deep congestion.
When there was no answer at the door, he tapped again. Usually if Dixie was inside she would have answered the door by now. He must have missed her downstairs. Perhaps she’d already been back in the kitchen preparing dinner.
With still no answer, he turned the handle softly and stepped inside. “Rose, it’s just me, Dr. Griffin.” He spoke the words softly as he crossed the main room so he wouldn’t startle her, but loud enough to let her know she had nothing to fear. Then he pushed open her bedroom door.
He stilled, his heart constricting in his chest. For there was Dixie, with the tenting sheet pushed back from the foot of the bed, sound asleep with her head propped on her arms, and clear evidence of tears glistening in her lashes. He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and stepped closer to her. Knowing he probably shouldn’t and yet somehow unable to stop himself, he bent and ever-so-gently dabbed the tears from her eyes. A brush of the backs of his fingers over her cheek revealed that her skin was cold to the touch, so he tugged the extra blanket from the slats of the ladder-back chair where she sat and draped it carefully around her. She slept on, undisturbed. The poor woman was probably in danger of extreme exhaustion, trying to take care of Rose and keep the boardinghouse running too. Were her tears ones of weariness? Perhaps they had something to do with the new marshal in town? Or were they due to something else entirely?
He wished he had the freedom to ask her. To prod her to rely on him.
Instead, he stepped back and made his way to the other side of the bed. He pulled aside the sheets, pleased to see that Dixie was keeping the water hot and that plenty of steam dampened the air. After applying the poultice to Rose’s chest, he left his bag on the side table and stepped to the indoor lavatory that Dixie and Rose shared to wash his hands in the sink. He marveled that he could get clean running water with the turning of a tap. If only every home had one of these sinks, sanitation conditions throughout the country could be much improved. He was in the middle of drying his hands when he heard the first whimper.
His brow furrowed. Was that Rose? Or Dixie?
He draped the towel over a hook, and this time the cry was more than a whimper and he was able to distinguish the voice as Dixie’s. He had no right to go to her, and yet, wasn’t it human duty to make sure someone was alright when you heard them crying like that?
He pushed the door to Rose’s room open, gripped the edge, and peered in at the woman.
Dixie was obviously having an unpleasant dream of some sort, for her breaths were rapid, her eyes, though still closed, rolled and scrunched, and her arms kept flinching as though in her dream she might be fighting someone off. Fresh tears dampened her lashes.
Flynn’s jaw hardened. Was her sleep often tormented like this? He squatted next to her and spoke quietly, not wanting to startle her, or wake Rose.
“Dixie, It’s me, Flynn. It’s alright.” He brushed her hair back from her sweat-dampened neck and squeezed her shoulder.
Dixie lurched to her feet, arms swinging, eyes wide.
Caught unprepared for such a reaction, Flynn felt a sharp pain slash through his skull as her elbow connected with his eye. He grunted and squinted the eye shut, then held his hands out to her, trying to break through the fog of her sleep.
“Dixie, it’s okay. Everything’s alright. It’s just me. Flynn.”
Through the one eye he could see out of, he saw her slim hand press to her throat as she took stock of the room. The blanket he’d folded around her had fallen to her feet, and he bent to retrieve it, giving her time to regain her composure.
“Flynn—Doctor, I’m so sorry. I don’t know—” She gasped. “How did you cut your eye?”
He was bleeding? He draped the blanket over the back of the chair, then gingerly touched his brow bone. His fingertips came away bloody. “How’s your elbow?” He winced at the amount of blood. He probably should do something about that before it dripped everywhere. He strode to his doctor bag on the table in the corner.
“My elbow? Did I—oh! I’m so sorry.”
Flynn pulled a wad of clean cotton bandages from his bag and folded them into a tight square before pressing it to his brow. “Think nothing of it. I shouldn’t have startled you.”
“No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep. Here let me look at that.” She stepped right up into his personal space and gave him no choice but to give way when she tugged the cloth away from his eye.
With her skirts brushing his ankles, the warmth of her breath puffing gently against his cheek, and the gentle probing of her fingers, he willed his breathing to remain steady, and reminded himself he had no rights here. He kept his focus steadfast on the doorframe just beyond her shoulder.
She winced and eased back. “That’s going to need stitches.”
Relieved to have some extra space between them, he pressed the cloth to the cut once more and wrapped his hand around the handle of his bag. “It’ll be fine. I’ve given myself stitches before.” He meant to immediately take his leave, but something kept his feet rooted to the ground, and he studied her face, willing her to confide in him.
Palms pressed together before her, she rubbed them in circles. “You needn’t look at me with such worry. Something…a discussion I had just before I drifted off, brought the nightmare. Most nights I sleep…okay.”
His jaw flinched. She hadn’t said “fine” or “wonderfully” or even “well.” And he’d seen the strain of weariness cloaking her, especially lately. He couldn’t offer the comfort of his arms, or the promise that if she ever needed to divert her mind on a long, lonely night he’d be happy to sit and idle away the hours talking to her—that one wouldn’t have been appropriate to offer even if she wasn’t married, he supposed. But what he could offer her was the truth of God’s Word.
“Have you been waiting on the Lord, Dixie?”
She blinked, her brown eyes not quite able to meet his. “Whatever do you mean?”
Flynn quoted from memory one of his favorite scriptures. It had gotten him through many a weary long night tending to patients. “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Dixie only looked at him. She appeared to want to say something, but then decided against it.
It was time for him to take his leave. “It’s from the book of Isaiah, chapter forty.”
Still she didn’t respond.
He tipped her a nod and left her standing there staring out the window, with one hand toying with the buttons at her collar like she might have just had a revelation.
He hoped so.
Everyone ought to know just how much the Lord could give to them
if they would only let Him.
Liora Fontaine just wanted some time to be alone. She sank onto the large root at the base of the huge oak tree in the wildflower field just outside of town.
She felt such relief that the sheriff had let her scrub the jailhouse floors. And he’d even paid her fifty cents, so she already had money to go towards next week’s rent, or towards food. Since she still had some food left over, she hadn’t decided what she was going to do yet.
For now, she was enjoying the relief of not having to worry about where she would sleep this week.
She liked to come to the field to pick rose hips to mix with her tea, though it was getting quite late in the season for them now. But it had been a very mild autumn this year, so a few of the little bulbs were still ripe for the picking and she’d already gathered all she needed.
She would need to head back into town soon, but ever since Charlotte Brindle had pointed out the verse that spoke about God loving her more than He loved the sparrows, she had found a certain peace when she came to the wildflower field outside of town and just sat and soaked in the creation around her.
She huddled into a tighter ball inside her thick wool shawl. Even on a cold day like today, nothing gave her a greater measure of serenity and reassurance than just sitting in the quiet of God’s creation and marveling over all the things that He had done for her.
The scar on her forehead was easily hidden with a careful swoop of hair now, but sometimes at night she took a moment to look at it—really look at it—before she fell into bed. The fact that God had loved her enough to send Joe to save her life when she’d been so intent on taking it still filled her with wonder. She was so unworthy of God’s consideration. And yet, that was the wonder of it. That He’d loved her enough to save her even when she had spurned His existence.
On Eagles' Wings (Wyldhaven Book 2) Page 9
