A Touch of Flame

by Jo Goodman

  Ridley made ten visits the first day, a dozen the next. By the third day, she realized word had gotten around and people were expecting her. She had a basket of penny candy treats for children, and small loaves of nut bread for the men and women who lived on their own. Before she set out, she read through the files that Doc had left behind. She memorized salient points and knew something about each home she visited whether someone had seen Doc days before he left or years earlier. She was careful to keep her inquiries casual and usually waited for something medically pertinent to come up in conversation before she asked any questions. She listened to family histories, rich with medical lore, discovered what home remedies were most favored and which ones were applied with near lethal consequences.

  She treated those who offhandedly complained about an ailment and cautiously dispensed advice to those who were ill but still too wary to ask for help. On the evening of the fourth day, Frankie, one of the Fuller children, arrived at her surgery with a frantic request for her to attend to his parents and his siblings. She had seen Big Mike and Louella and their three children in the morning that same day, and there had been no reason then to suspect anyone in that healthy and lively bunch would have need of her soon, but she took one look at the boy’s cherry red cheeks and grabbed her coat and bag.

  Louella Fuller was only slightly responsive when Ridley reached her. Mr. Fuller was out cold and the children appeared to be sleeping.

  Ridley hustled young Frankie back out of the house, although he was desperate to help, and sent him to fetch the sheriff. She threw open the windows and the doors at either end of the home, and made a pallet of blankets on the front porch before she carried the first child outside. Ben and Hitch appeared as she was carrying out the youngest child in her arms. She stopped Ben when he would have taken the child from her and managed to convey in the small shake of her head that there was nothing to be done for the little one.

  Ben and his deputy brought Louella outside first and half dragged, half carried Big Mike out afterward. At Ridley’s direction, Hitch gathered all the blankets he could find and brought them out to keep those who could be helped warm. Ridley knelt beside Louella and held her hair out of the way when she began to vomit over the side of the porch. It was not long after that Big Mike stirred and began to heave. Hitch ran for a bucket and came back with a bowl. Ridley could hear the deputy begin to retch in sympathy with Big Mike. She looked around for Ben and didn’t see him. Frankie was huddled under blankets with his brothers and sister. It was the little girl who had succumbed to the noxious gas, but Frankie did not realize it yet.

  Ben’s sudden appearance at the front porch startled Ridley. He came from the yard, not from inside the house. “It was the stove,” he said. “They had a fire going because of the cold, but the covers were off the firebox and the closed dampers just pushed the poisonous gas back into the house. It’s fixed now.” He found Frank’s towhead as the boy peeked out from under a mound of blankets. “How are you doing, Frankie? Head still hurt?”

  The boy nodded but very slowly.

  Ridley asked Ben, “Did he tell you what happened? I was not able to understand much of what he was saying when he came to get me.”

  “He had a powerful urge to piss, he said, and a powerful headache to go with it. He felt woozy, stumbled out of the house to relieve himself off the back porch, and when he came back in, he felt worse than before. Tried to rouse his mother, then his father, and when he couldn’t, he went for you. He says you came round to see them this morning. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why he thought of you.”

  “I wondered why he didn’t go to his neighbors first.”

  “He did, but Henry and Emma are elderly and didn’t hear him knocking or calling for them. He ran straightaway for you after that.”

  Ridley said nothing. She continued to stroke Louella’s back as the woman remained doubled over, moaning occasionally.

  “What do you need?” asked Ben.

  “A place for them to spend the night. I think it would be better if they went somewhere else.”

  “Of course.”

  Ridley patted Louella lightly on the back and then stood. She stepped off the porch and walked around to the side of the house. Ben followed. “I have to tell Big Mike and Louella that their daughter is dead. I’m not sure that Louella will voluntarily leave the house. I think she’ll want to stay with Emmilou. You have enough cots at the jail for Big Mike and the boys, don’t you?”

  “I think we can do better than the jail. If the Butterworth doesn’t have a room for them, there are plenty of families who will take them in. Hitch’s mother, for one.”

  “All right. Will you carry Emmilou back inside? Maybe Hitch could take the boys to the Butterworth and I’ll catch up with them there after I speak to their parents.”

  It was after midnight by the time Ridley returned home. She had tried to discourage Ben from escorting her, but she failed to have any influence on his decision. It was difficult to argue with him since he lived next door and was headed that way himself, but it did not keep her from trying. He simply grinned at her in that maddening way of his and rolled over her objections by never addressing them at all. He never really argued so he never lost an argument. It was frustrating and just a little unnerving.

  Ben opened the gate for her. She expected he would remain outside the fence, but he dogged her footsteps right up to the front door, and then she lost her mind right there because she invited him in for tea.

  “Coffee, if you prefer,” she said, her hand on the doorknob.

  “Tea’s fine. I like yours.”

  Ridley wondered what she was doing even as she was taking his coat, hat, and gloves and hanging them on the coat tree beside her things. She must have revealed some of her doubt because Ben asked if she was all right, and the proof that she wasn’t thinking clearly was when she told him that yes, she was perfectly fine. She wondered if perhaps she hadn’t breathed more than her share of noxious fumes this evening.

  “Why don’t you sit?” asked Ben. “I’ll make the tea. I know where everything is.”

  Ridley didn’t try to think why that was; she simply accepted that it was probably true. She sat and watched him make himself at home in her kitchen. “I guess you don’t have anyone spending the night in a cell,” she said.

  “Nope. Dixon Wells was the last and he just needed one night to see the error of his ways.”

  “Was he the one who tried to steal one of Mr. Ketchum’s horses from the livery?”

  “He was. And fortunate that his effort was so clumsy that he got caught and not shot.” Ben filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove. He stoked the fire, set the covers and dampers, and then removed the tea canister from the shelf. “I’m sorry there was nothing you could do for Emmilou,” he said quietly.

  “So am I.” She stared at her folded hands in her lap. “Louella and Big Mike are heartbroken. There is nothing I can do for them either.”

  “What about your heart?”

  “Hurting. Emmilou crawled all over me this morning, rooted through my pockets like a piglet for the candy she knew I must be hiding. She reminded me of Lizzie Salt. Same fine hair, same sticky fingers, and laughter as bright as a rainbow. So, my heart’s hurting. Not shattered, but bruised.” She looked up at Ben, uncaring that her lashes were damp. “No one would have survived without Frankie.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What is it?”

  He was quiet while he spooned tea leaves into the tea ball. “Frankie is the one who set the covers and took care of the dampers. He’s done it hundreds of times. Tonight he did it wrong. That’s a terrible burden for a twelve-year-old to carry on his bony shoulders.”

  Ridley lifted one hand to her mouth and held it there. She stared at Ben above her fingertips.

  “You didn’t know.” It wasn’t a questio
n.

  She shook her head.

  “You’re still correct,” said Ben. “No one would have survived without him.”

  Ridley lowered her hand and set it on the tabletop. “Poor Frankie,” she whispered.

  “When did you know what the problem was?”

  “When I saw him. His skin was unnaturally flushed in a way the cold could not account for. His speech was slurred and his story was confused. I’ve seen it before. Every winter there are entire families who die from insufficient ventilation, especially in the poorer areas of the city. Has it happened here before?”

  “Not here, not in my memory, but a few years back there was a family in Liberty Junction that perished. Seven in all, I think. It’s not that people don’t know how to prevent it; it’s just that someone forgets, gets careless. It’s an accident I expect happens more often than I care to contemplate.”

  She nodded, knuckled the corner of her right eye, and gave Ben a watery smile when he passed a handkerchief to her.

  “I like what you’re doing,” he said. “Getting out on your own. Meeting folks so they know you, know what you can do. That’s why Frankie came to you tonight. A week ago he wouldn’t have done that.”

  “He might have tried harder to rouse his neighbors. If not Henry and Emma Blackwell, then someone else who would have known what to do.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Frankie made the right decision when it counted most. Let’s just leave it at that.” The water began to rattle as it boiled. Ben pushed away from the stove and grabbed a towel to lift the kettle. He poured water in the teapot and let it steep while he got cups and saucers from the china cupboard. “These still don’t match,” he said, setting them down.

  Ridley laughed low in her throat. “I realized I didn’t care. Is that wrong? Should I care about cups and saucers?”

  “Not a question I’m qualified to answer. Probably you should ask my mother . . . or Amanda Springer.”

  She laughed again, this time with genuine amusement. “Maybe Ellie. I know what Mrs. Springer would say.”

  Smiling conspiratorially, Ben poured tea and sat. “Long day.”

  She nodded.

  He was quiet while he added sugar to his tea and stayed that way while he warmed his hands around the cup. “I’d like to ask you something, Ridley, if you don’t mind. It’d be personal, so you’re not obligated to answer.”

  “I’m not telling you what the E stands for in E. Ridley Woodhouse.”

  “No, it’s not that, but if you want to volunteer . . .”

  “I don’t.”

  “Well, I was thinking along different lines, although I admit I’m still curious about the other. I started a list.”

  “You did not.”

  “I did.” He shrugged. “I’m not terribly proud of it, but it beats counting sheep when I can’t sleep.”

  Ridley stared at him, trying to gauge how serious he was. It was impossible. The familiar curl of his upper lip was absent. His blue eyes had taken on a remoteness that made them impenetrable. His jaw was set so that his features remained as still as if they had been cast in marble by a fine hand. “If there is something that explains the odd turn of your mind, I missed that lecture in medical school.”

  “You probably shouldn’t dwell on it.”

  “Trust me. I wasn’t going to.” It was a lie, but Ridley thought she managed to sound believable. The real truth was that he continued to fascinate her in a manner she found discomfiting and oddly exciting. “Do you still want to ask me that question?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  When he didn’t go on, she said, “Well?”

  “I was wondering if you’re lonely.” He paused. “Are you?”

  Ridley blinked. She removed her spectacles and cleaned them with his handkerchief, and then examined the lenses against the lamplight. Everything she did was in aid of gathering her wits. His question was wholly unexpected. She carefully repositioned the spectacles and then returned his handkerchief to him. “Ever?” she asked finally. “Am I ever lonely or am I lonely now or am I lonely since I came to Frost Falls? You must endeavor to be clearer.”

  A shadow of a smile crossed his features. “You get all haughty when you feel cornered, do you know that? A little stiff in the spine, maybe a little in the neck as well. At least you don’t claw and spit, so there’s a blessing.”

  “I was simply asking for clarification.”

  “And you don’t back down. No retreat. You just hold your ground. There’s a lot to admire about that.”

  “Now you’re being patronizing.”

  “I hardly know what that means.”

  “Liar.”

  “Hmm.” His quicksilver grin came and went. “Have you been lonely since coming to Frost Falls?”

  “I’m under no obligation to answer. You said that.”

  “I did, and I stand by it.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I guess I thought if you were, then maybe there’s something we could do about it.”

  “We? You and I?”

  “And just when I think your grasp of the English language is superior to mine, you require a definition for ‘we.’ Strikes me as odd, but for the purpose of illumination, yes, you and I, that’s the ‘we’ to whom I am referring.”

  Ridley’s mouth opened. There was an audible click as she snapped her teeth together.

  “I know,” he said. “Sometimes I surprise myself.”

  Ridley found her voice. “Did you just proposition me?”

  “Did it sound as if I did?”

  “Yes.”

  “I find in these matters you should trust your gut, so if you think that’s what I did, I probably did. There is no sense in me trying to say otherwise if I’m not going to be believed.”

  “You really are a most peculiar man.”

  “That’s not a bad thing, is it?”

  “No,” she said after a moment. “But maybe it’s not a good thing either.”

  “Huh. I’ll have to think on that.”

  Ridley sipped her tea and regarded him thoughtfully over the rim of her cup. “I have been lonely,” she said. She watched his eyebrows lift. They laddered his forehead as they climbed. She liked that she surprised him. It was clear that Ben hadn’t expected her to answer. “You might find this odd, but I am less lonely here than I was in Boston. My brother and sister are married and have homes of their own. I saw more of my father at the hospital or at the medical college than I did at home. He spent most of his time there or at his club. My mother was not good company, and I think you comprehend why I avoided her even when she was of a moderate temperament. My colleagues at the hospital, all of them men, were not particularly friendly, and they were less respectful than they were friendly. Being my father’s daughter gave me some protection from unpleasant overtures, but it could not insulate me completely. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “They made advances.”

  “Yes. Politely stated. I learned quickly that not one of them had any particular romantic interest in me. Their very particular interest was in making my situation so uncomfortable, so unbearable, that I would leave of my own accord. It didn’t happen that way, not the way they planned, but it happened. In truth, it happened on my terms. So you see, Sheriff Madison, your proposition is suspect. If your desire is to run me out of Frost Falls, you should just say so. We’ll be clear and we can dispense with the advances.”

  “I might have propositioned you,” he said, “but I’m pretty damn sure I did not make an advance.” He paused, frowning. “Unless brewing a cup of tea for you is a romantic gambit. Is it?”

  Ridley pursed her lips. She was not entirely certain whether her disapproval was real or for effect.

  “You get up to some odd notions, Dr. Woodhouse. I’m not trying to run you out of Frost Falls. Those colleagues of
yours were damn fools if they thought you’d cower and cut. Are you sure none of them had a romantic interest?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Ben cocked his head and scratched behind his ear. “See? That doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. Was there something wrong with them?”

  Ridley pushed her spectacles down a notch and stared at him over the wire frames. “Only that they harbored real fears that I would perform more competently than they did. They gave no credit to the fact that I studied harder, worked longer hours, and—most damning of all—that I listened to my patients. This is where being my father’s daughter worked against me. If my accomplishments were brought to anyone’s attention, it was seen as favoritism.”

  Ben nodded, his features set thoughtfully. “So they were just about as dumb as a sack of hair.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. Still, she felt it was incumbent upon her to correct that impression. “Most of them were quite brilliant. It was more that they couldn’t make room for me.”

  “Hmm.”

  Ridley added more tea to her cup and half a spoonful of sugar. “So now you know.”

  “Do I? I’m not sure what I know. Maybe that you’ve got reasons to be suspicious of a man when he shows some interest in you, but that’s an awfully big brush you’re using to paint all of us the same color.”

  “Is that what you’re doing, Sheriff? Showing an interest in me?”

  Ben sat back in his chair, stretched his long legs under the table, and folded his arms across his chest. His eyebrows puckered, creating a thin vertical crease between them. “Damn, but I thought I was. Not sure why you had to ask. What am I doing wrong?”

  “I’m not certain that you’re doing anything wrong. You’ve just made a bad choice.”

  “Now, see? I don’t believe that. Sure, you’re about as wary as a feral kitten that’s got its tail yanked too many times, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be interesting to someone.”