Damn, why didn’t Jacobsen just invite Death to drop by and pick up another goner? Cole wondered, disgusted by the man’s choice of prayers. He rubbed the muscles in the back of his tight neck. If a person wasn’t dead yet, listening to Jacobsen might just send one over the edge.
Cole chafed at his feeling of helplessness. It wasn’t in him to just sit by in the face of trouble. He’d always taken action, determined to do something, even if it turned out to be the wrong move. From his limited vantage point, he watched for Jessica to emerge from Amy’s cubicle, guilt and regret nibbling at the edges of his determination to keep his head.
Amy would get well. She had to. If she didn’t—
No, she would. Then…what?
Jessica stared at Amy’s nearly lifeless form, which looked as bruised and disfigured as a flower that had been crushed under a wagon wheel. Right now, at this terrible, frozen moment, all of her training and expertise drained away, leaving her as stunned and horror-stricken as every other person who had watched a loved one hover near death.
And worse, all that training seemed worthless, because she didn’t know what to do to save her sister. The genteel girl of her childhood, one so different from herself, now lay here, ravaged by a disease over which Jess had no power. She folded her hands into a single tight fist and put them to her mouth. “Oh, my God…why? Why Amy?”
“You’ll do everything you can, Jess. Just like you’ve done for everyone here.”
Her eyes hot and her throat aching with unshed tears, Jessica had forgotten that Cole was standing on the other side of the cot until he spoke. He’d pulled the bandana off his face, and his voice was low and rough with emotion.
She looked up at him and thought she saw her own guilt and wretchedness reflected in his eyes. Her first instinct was to reach for him in this time of unspeakable calamity. “I should have forced her to come here as soon as I suspected she was ill. But I let my pride and hurt feelings get in the way of my better judgment. We quarreled about—” She stopped then, remembering who she was talking to, and her anger shifted.
“About what?”
“About you,” she blurted.
“Me!”
“She said you changed your mind about your feelings for her, and that it was my fault. Mine! We both know it’s because you can’t really give your heart to anyone!” She wanted to lash out at someone over the unfairness of everything—the all-too-human blunders and bad choices, the twists of fate and timing that had put the three of them, inextricably bound, in this situation. It was so much easier to hurl blame than to accept the unthinkable.
It worked. What color remained in Cole’s drawn face drained away, emphasizing the faint stubble of his russet beard. He looked as if she’d reached across the bed and slapped him. But Jessica didn’t feel better for her outburst. Rather, it sapped what little strength she still had. Just as he opened his mouth to respond, her brief anger fizzled, and she sank to her knees beside Amy and took her hot hand. A garbled sob tried to work its way up Jessica’s throat, but caught there, unuttered.
“Dr. Layton.” Adam Jacobsen appeared from behind the partition of sheets. “Everyone can hear you,” he said in a disapproving whisper, “and I’m sure you don’t want to create a scene.” He glowered at Cole, but Cole didn’t flinch.
She felt Adam’s grip on her shoulders, pulling her to her feet. “There’s nothing more you can do for Amy right now. You should go home.”
He tried to turn her away from the bed, but Jess, fixed on a single thought, held fast. “Are you out of your mind? I can’t leave her and the rest of these people!” Everything—the room, the scene, even the colors of things—had an unreal, dreamlike quality.
“You can’t do anything else for them right now, either. I’ll walk you to your office. You need to rest.”
Jess pulled away from him, but his hands tightened. She found no comfort in his touch. In fact, she shrank from it and his offer to help. “Adam, let me go. I don’t want to rest.”
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
She tried to twist away again. “Adam—”
Cole stepped around the bed and pulled Jess out of the man’s grip. “Now who’s making a scene, Jacobsen? The lady said no. Go back to herding people into the valley of death, or whatever you do, and butt out of this. It’s family business.”
Adam’s face reddened with resentment, and more than ever his arrow-shaped nose seemed to be on the verge of touching his mouth. “You’re not family.”
“Any way you want to look at it, I’m closer than you. So back off!” Cole didn’t raise his voice, but there was no arguing with the authority it carried. Even though Jessica’s emotions were a jumble of terror and irritation, she felt a sense of relief at Cole’s intervention.
A muscle jumped in Adam’s clenched jaw. His mouth flattened into a tight, white line, and he spun around and walked away.
When he was out of earshot, Cole said, “Jess, you really ought to go home, even for a little while. The women will see to Amy. You’ve said yourself that good nursing is what these people need most.”
She looked at her sister, moaning in her delirium. It was a hard choice to make, but she was tired. “Yes, I suppose. But only for an hour or two.” For a brief moment, she wilted against him, grateful for his strength. Then she saw Fred Hustad and Bert Bauer come in through the back door to collect the dead from the cloakroom they’d turned into a morgue. She knew there were five sheet-wrapped bodies in there.
Straightening at the sight, she whispered, “Cole, please—if—no matter what happens, please don’t let that horrible Bauer man take her. I’ve seen how he treats the—please don’t let him—and Winks is just—” She shook her head, unable to finish the sentence. She’d heard rumors that Bert Bauer had been seen at saloons in Twelve Mile and Fairdale, paying for drinks with pieces of jewelry he claimed to have “found.” There wasn’t much question as to where he’d gotten the goods, although no one had actually come forward to identify a family heirloom that should have been buried with its owner or returned.
His gaze followed hers to watch them carry a corpse outside. “It’s not going to come to that. She’ll get better.”
She reached out and squeezed his wrist with more strength than he would have believed she had. “No. You have to promise. I need you make the promise and not break it.”
He looked her straight in the eyes. “I—don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” His voice sounded as tight as her nerves felt. Satisfied, she let herself lean against him again, just for an instant. In Jess’s dull confusion, she thought she felt his lips brush her forehead. What a nightmarish world this had become—she had to contemplate having Cole bury her sister because the only other people available to do it were a greedy ghoul and a simpleminded alcoholic.
He steered her around the partitions and past the beds of the sick. “Mae, Jess is going home for a bit.” The old woman was pushing a tea cart that held soup bowls and a big kettle of broth for those who were strong enough to eat.
Jessica sensed the gazes of the other volunteers touch upon her and then slide away, as if the women didn’t know what to say. Or perhaps they worried that her misery would seek their company in the sickness of their own kin.
“I’ll watch over Amy,” Mae said, “never you mind. We’ll manage till you get back.” She handed a small, napkin-wrapped bundle to Jessica. “I made you a chicken sandwich. You might not be hungry, but I expect you to eat it. You have to keep up your strength.”
Jess was glad that she and Granny Mae had maintained their tentative truce over the past days and nights. Jess had come to rely on Mae’s sturdy practicality and unflappable calm in the face of emergencies. When both Bright’s and the drugstore had run out of Vicks VapoRub, reflecting a national shortage due to the epidemic, Mae had concocted a reasonable substitute from her own store of essential oils and petroleum jelly.
Jessica believed that Mae had developed a grudging respect for her dedication and hard work. She�
��d even admitted that not all of Jess’s medical knowledge was bunk. At times, she had felt the older woman watching her. She’d known that Mae was looking for a chance to criticize or seize upon what she thought was a mistake. But at least when she’d questioned her, she’d listened to Jess’s explanations.
Now, Mae shifted a moist-eyed glance to Amy. “You run along and rest for a while. We’ll come for you if there’s an emergency.”
“I’ll give you a ride,” Cole offered.
Gripping her chicken sandwich, Jess wavered, then sighed. “All right.”
She stopped at the desk to take off her apron and pick up her bag, unwilling to leave the leather satchel behind. As they walked out of the building, Jessica caught Adam’s cold glare on them.
Then he made a note on his clipboard.
“Tell me about my boys. Are they all right? Are they well?”
Emmaline sat across from Tanner Grenfell at her wobbly kitchen table. He made the trip up here to Butler Road every couple of months or so to give her reports about Wade and Joshua. She wasn’t sure if it was a kindness or curse, because listening to him only made her miss them more. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to tell Tanner to stop coming around.
Green wood in the stove made for a smoky fire. The smell seeped into everything, but it cut the chill. Although she was fairly isolated up here, word of the epidemic had reached her. She would allow no customer through her door who so much as coughed once or looked the least bit sick. But she couldn’t afford to stop working completely. Business had dropped off as it was, so today she wore a faded print house dress instead of her faded dressing gown.
“They’re just fine, Em, growing like weeds. The schools are closed so they can’t catch the sickness there.”
“Are they good at their classes?”
“Yes. I know you want them to get their book-learning. I’m not much at helping them myself, but Miss Susannah makes sure they keep to their studies. Since she’s been helping at the hospital, though, she won’t let me or the kids into her kitchen. We’re getting by on my cooking in the bunkhouse.” He grinned. “I’m pretty lousy at the stove, too, I guess. Josh says he’s tired of bacon and spuds, but we’re not starving. And I know she’s just being careful.”
“She still doesn’t know about—well, me?”
“Not as far I know. It’s for sure the boys don’t.”
“Do they ever ask about me?”
He glanced away, plainly uncomfortable. “Not so much anymore.”
She propped her chin on her hand and toyed with her package of Lucky Strikes on the table. “After three years I guess they think I gave up on them, just like their worthless father.”
“No, they don’t. I’ve told them what you wanted me to, that I’m their uncle and you’re in a tuberculosis sanitarium in Colorado.” He shrugged. “It leaves the door open if the day ever comes that you want them with you again.”
Emmaline straightened. “You know damn well that I want them! I just can’t—Tanner, you know better than anyone. You’re the one who found me wandering down the street in Parkridge that night, looking for a doctor after Lambert broke my cheekbone. As much as I hated him, when he left us I didn’t know what to do.”
He held up a hand. “I know, I know, don’t get your hackles up. I’m sorry I put it that way. I know you love them.” Leaning forward, he put his elbows on his knees and looked into her face. “But it didn’t have to be this way. You could have come with me and I’d have taken care of both you and the boys.”
Yes, she could have accepted his offer. He was young—about ten years younger than she was—and kind, modest and reserved in his ways. A good man. Even nice-looking. His sandy hair and smoke-colored eyes reminded her of a patient draft horse. But it hadn’t mattered. Nothing would have changed her mind.
“Oh, Tanner, we’ve already talked about this. You did more than enough taking the kids. I don’t know what would have happened to Joshua and Wade without your help. But Lambert cheated you out of a lot of money on that phony cattle scheme of his. I didn’t think it would be fair to load you down with his wife too.” Absently, she studied one of the bare beams overhead. “Anyway, I didn’t want to answer to no one after him.”
He straightened his long frame and slung one arm over the back of the chair. “I don’t have to tell you I wish I’d never met that son of a bitch. He took every dime I had saved, and I was young and dumb enough to let him talk it out of me. But I figure it worked out because I was there when I was needed.”
Dropping her gaze, she looked at his mild eyes. “He’s in Powell Springs, you know.”
“So I heard. If not for Josh and Wade, I’d go after him and beat the shit out of him for everything he did to all of us. He’s not such a tough guy, for all that he likes people to think he is.”
She heard the bitter edge in his voice and felt a cold shrinking inside. “But you won’t, will you? Then he’d find ’em for sure. I don’t think he knows where they are now.”
“Stop worrying. I said if not for the boys. They need to be raised right, and he’s not the one to do it.”
She relaxed her spine again and let out a breath. “I wish he’d just leave. I don’t worry for myself so much, but the kids…”
“I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere soon. He’s digging graves these days for the undertaker, and he brags about how much money he’s making at it.”
Em shuddered. “God, that would be just like him, that lousy snake. He came up here, but—”
Instantly, Tanner tensed like a startled bobcat. “Here? He found you?”
“Yeah, but I showed him the working end of my shotgun and sent him skedaddling. You’re right—when it comes down to it, Lambert is really just a yellow-dog coward. I blew off the tree limb over his head, and he took to running.”
He started laughing. “I wish I could have seen that.”
She went on to describe the rest of Lambert’s visit, and the threats he’d hurled from the safety of the blackberry hedge. Tanner laughed. “I guess he might come back, but Lambert never had any truck with the law, at least not willingly. Anyway, I let him know that Whit Gannon is an acquaintance of mine.” She didn’t tell him that she’d shivered in the darkness for hours after Lambert had gone, trying to regain her composure and courage.
“You be careful of him, just the same. There’s no telling what he might do.” Tanner’s expression sobered a bit. “You’ve got a lot of spunk, Emmaline.”
She waved him off. “Oh, hell, I just do what I need to in order to get by. But this sure isn’t the life I thought I’d be living twenty years ago.” She looked down at the tabletop again, unable to bear the charity she saw in Tanner’s face. If she took it to heart, it would chip away at the fragile wall she’d built around her soul.
Silence fell between them and over the cabin. Outside, a scrub jay, probably the last of the season, let out a harsh squawk in the thinning afternoon light.
Em cleared her throat. “Listen, Tanner, I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for what you’ve done for my boys all this time. I…well, I don’t expect any visitors this late in the afternoon, so if you’d like…” She let her voice trail off and she tipped her head toward the bed, scented with cheap rosewater. It was the first time she’d made the suggestion to him.
He lurched upright in his chair as if stung by a bare electric wire. Color filled his face. “Oh, Jesus, no, ma’am! I mean, it’s not that I don’t appreciate—Em, I couldn’t do that to you—” He stuttered and stumbled over his words, until she put a hand on his arm.
“It’s okay. I only want to thank you.” She sighed slightly. “It’s all I’ve got to offer.”
Briefly, he covered her hand with his before pulling away. “I’m not worth that much.”
She studied him for a moment. “You’re worth a whole lot more.”
Jessica and Cole did not speak during the short ride back to her office. Their silence was broken only by the Ford’s chugging engine and th
e creaking complaint of its joints. The single wiper flapped spasmodically over the glass as a spritz of rain dotted the truck’s windshield. On the western horizon, a bright band of the day’s last sunlight defied the heavy gray sky before full darkness fell.
Cole’s gut twisted with feelings of guilt and, vaguely, dishonor. Aside from his failure to enlist in the army, dishonor was an alien iniquity to him. Shaw Braddock would not tolerate any behavior in his sons, other than typical boyish pranks, that would disgrace him or the family name.
This, though—maybe the old man wouldn’t see this as shame. But Cole did: he’d told Amy a lie, a big one. He hadn’t meant to, but he had, and he didn’t know how to undo it.
On top of that, mingled with the guilt, was the fact that she had every reason to believe that he would propose and marry her. But he hadn’t been able to find the right moment.
Now fate or God was getting even with him by giving Amy influenza. She was just a sweet, innocent bystander to his fickle heart.
Jessica slumped in the seat next to him as they pulled up in front of the office. Setting the brake, he asked, “Have you got something more to eat than that sandwich Granny Mae gave you?”
She looked down at the small bundle still clutched in her hand. “No. Maybe. Actually, I don’t know.”
He considered her in the lowering dusk. “Do you have coffee in there?”
“Yes, and Horace keeps bringing me fresh cream.”
“Come on, then.” He jumped out of the truck. “I might not know much about cooking, but no broncobuster worth his salt can’t make coffee.”
She sighed. “Cole, what’s the point? We have nothing left to say to each other.”
He peered into her tired face. He disagreed, but this wasn’t the time to say so. There were so many things to be said. “Look, Jess, there’s not much I can do right now to help with anything, and I’m just no good at feeling so useless. I’d consider it a favor if you’d let me help you.”
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