A Touch of Flame

by Jo Goodman

  Ben and Butterworth set Ridley on the table after Ellie moved the lamp. She offered to start a fire in the corner stove. Mr. Butterworth volunteered to do the same in the kitchen. Ben tossed his hat on a chair but kept his coat on. He bent, put his mouth close to Ridley’s ear, and whispered, “I have questions.”

  He felt her nod as she slowly regained consciousness. “Ellie’s stitched more than her share of wranglers and sassy cowboys. She has a steady hand and there’s hardly ever a scar. That’s a mixed blessing for the cowboys. Some would prefer to show them off.” Ben straightened. He watched her eyelashes flutter and then rise to half-mast and hold steady. “You all right with that?”

  She nodded again. “I want to see.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Ellie turned away from the stove, holding a lighted match. “Let her be, Ben.”

  Ben saw Ridley’s mouth turn up at the corners. He gave her an apologetic smile, although he didn’t know if he was apologizing for himself or his mother. “How’s that fire coming?”

  Ellie put the flame to the kindling and kept the door open until she was certain the fire caught. “How about you find a needle and some thread for suturing while I get this poor child out of her wet robe and soiled gown. Did you notice that she looked as if she dove headlong into a drift? The snow’s just beginning to melt.”

  Ben had noticed a number of things, none of which he wanted to discuss until he had spoken to Ridley. Maybe not even then. He wanted to respect the doctor’s dedication to her secrets. What happened this evening might surely be one of them.

  He went to the medicine cabinet while his mother began to attend to Ridley. It was hardly surprising to find that the drawers were organized. It took no time at all to locate what he needed. He put the curved needle, thread, and snips beside the lamp. “I’ll get a clean gown for her and see if she has another robe.”

  “I could use another lamp,” said Ellie.

  “I’ll tell Mr. Butterworth.” By the time Ben returned, Ridley was modestly covered with blankets from the hotel. Only her wound exposed. Her nightgown and robe were spilling out of a pail on the floor. A second lamp had been added to one of the windowsills. Mr. Butterworth was holding a third lamp above Ridley to give Ellie the best light possible.

  Ben had been able to find only two nightgowns. He had to choose between green-and-white-striped flannel and dainty pink posies on calico, neither of which suited her. He chose the flannel because it was warmer and now he laid it over the back of the chair that held his hat.

  He watched his mother thread the needle with the surgical thread. “Do you think she should have something for the pain?”

  “I already gave her laudanum—that’s all she asked for—and cleaned the wound. Now, if you’re going to be full of questions, you should take yourself off somewhere and just sit. Mr. Butterworth is going to stay with me because he’s making himself useful.”

  Ben considered his options, nodded once, and more or less did what his mother suggested. He grabbed his hat and left the surgery by its entrance. He noticed small clumps of snow on the stoop and wondered if someone had come calling today. He did not recall that Ridley had mentioned a visitor. She had been out most of the day paying calls on others, and he knew that the widow came and went by the front door, not the back. He filed the observation away. The doctor would have to tell him if it was important or nothing at all.

  He went down the steps and followed the narrow path Clay Salt had cut through the snow to the front of the house. It was too dark to see how well the path was used, and Ben imagined that Clay’s hard work had obliterated most every footprint. Now he was adding his own.

  Ben stood at the foot of the front steps and tried to get a sense of what happened. There had been no indication inside the house that Ridley had cut herself—or been cut—there. He’d seen no blood trail when he and Butterworth carried her to the surgery, but he had noticed that the table was not positioned in the room in its usual fashion. It had been moved to a peculiar angle and the lamp sitting on it was lit. That had struck him as odd since she would have extinguished it unless she was in the room. He was certain that she was headed for bed when they parted ways, and if she hadn’t been able to sleep, it was more likely she would have gone to her office to choose a book or settle herself on the big sofa in the front room.

  Curious.

  He began to walk the path to the gate and had taken only a few steps when he felt something underfoot that wasn’t a paving stone or a patch of ice. Whatever it was pressed against the sole of his boot. Ben stopped, felt for the object again, and toed it forward. He bent, scrabbled to find it, and finally was able to grasp it in his fingers. He picked it up and carefully examined the length of it. He held it up to the light of a fingernail moon and saw it for what it was.

  It made no sense that Ridley had carried a scalpel outside. The razor-sharp blade accounted for her injury though it offered no explanation for the why of it. Ben pocketed the scalpel and continued on. He intended to make straight for the Butterworth as he thought Ridley must have done but paused when something drew his eye to the left, to the path that led from her house to his. He followed it. Clay shoveled snow into neat piles, sometimes patting them down with the shovel scoop. Ben had asked him about it, and the boy explained he was building walls on either side of the path to better show the way. Those walls did not seem so well made at the moment. Parts of Clay’s construction had fallen in. Ben could not recall that it had been that way this morning.

  He continued on the path, turning at his gate and starting toward the house. Even at night it was impossible to miss the impression in the mound of snow beside his steps. He went inside, lit a lamp, and carried it out. He set it on the edge of the porch to free his hands. There, in the drift’s depression, he saw evidence of Ridley’s injury. Some of the drops were as small as red rosebuds. Some were meandering crimson rivulets. He was able to identify her bloody handprint in the snow and on the edge of the first step. He imagined her trying to hoist herself to her feet.

  Ben picked up the lamp and carried it down the path, across the front, and up to her porch. He could make out blood splatters that he hadn’t been able to see before. They stopped exactly where he had found the scalpel.

  He knew things now that he hadn’t known before, but he still did not have a complete picture. He returned to the surgery.

  “Oh, good,” said Ellie. “You’ve brought another lamp. Hold it up, will you? Relieve poor Mr. Butterworth. His arms are beginning to shake and the dancing light is no help at all.”

  Ben took Mr. Butterworth’s place at the table.

  “I could have stood there longer,” said Butterworth.

  “I have no doubt,” said Ben. “Go on. Sit down. I can see that she’s almost done.”

  Ellie spoke to her son without looking up. “Where did you go?”

  “I wanted to take a look around outside.” He looked at Ridley. Her lashes were no longer at half-mast. Her dark eyes were wide but vaguely unfocused. “I found this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the scalpel.

  Ellie did not look up. “Careful, Ben, you’re bobbling the lamp.”

  From across the room, Butterworth asked, “Is that a scalpel?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s what she used?”

  “I’m not certain she used it in the way you’re thinking, but it’s what sliced her open.” He turned his gaze once more on Ridley. “Am I right?” There was a small, nearly imperceptible nod. Ben nodded in return and pocketed the instrument.

  Ellie finished making the last fine stitch and secured the thread before she snipped the excess. “There,” she said, straightening to examine her work. “I can’t say how my suturing compares to our patient’s, but I know it’s every bit the equal of Doc’s.” She waved Ben away. “You and Mr. Butterworth can entertain yourselves in the kitchen while I ready the doctor
for bed. I’ll call when I need you.”

  Ben and Butterworth removed themselves. The hotel proprietor had questions, but they were easily diverted because Ben had very few answers. In a short time Ellie was calling them back. Ellie led the way upstairs to make sure the bed was prepared, and after Ridley’s halfhearted protest that she could walk, Ben followed with her in his arms. Butterworth brought up the rear, carrying a lamp in each hand.

  Ben placed Ridley on the bed and Ellie covered her. Butterworth, ever conscious of the lamps, set one of them on the nightstand. “Someone should stay with her,” he said. “Ellie, if you need—”

  “I’m staying,” said Ben. He spoke in a voice that brooked no argument.

  Ellie nodded as if there were nothing at all unusual about the arrangement. Butterworth puffed his cheeks and made little tsking noises. He looked and sounded as if he’d captured a chipmunk in his mouth.

  Ellie touched her son’s elbow as she passed and then took Butterworth’s arm. “Come along, Abraham. You and I will return to the hotel and have hot cider with spices and a dash of whiskey, and we will go on as if this evening never happened.”

  Ben turned to watch his mother lead her employer out of the room, his mind occupied by one absurd thought: How had he not known his mother was sleeping with Abraham Butterworth?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ben waited until he heard his mother and Butterworth leave before he went downstairs and secured the door in the surgery. It was then he remembered that when he had walked out earlier, it had not been locked. It was as good an indication as any that the doctor had had a visitor this evening.

  He stopped in her office long enough to make a book selection and then headed back to her room. He moved the rocker sitting beside the corner stove to her bedside and adjusted the wick on the lamp so he would be able to read. The fire in the stove needed his attention so he added kindling and wood from a large intricately woven basket. He recognized the basket as Mrs. Love’s handiwork. Her husband sold them from his barbershop. It made him smile to think of how many things Ridley must have purchased to demonstrate goodwill as she made her rounds.

  He got the fire going, warmed his hands, and then found a blanket he could tuck around him while he was sitting in the rocker. Taking his chosen book from the nightstand, he opened it and began to read, glancing back at the cover from time to time for a clue that Felicity Ravenwood really did tame the beast. In spite of his interest, he nodded off before he had the answer.

  “I hope you won’t tell me how it ends,” said Ridley. Her voice was weak, weary, but perfectly understandable. It jerked Ben to attention.

  “Have you been playing possum long?” he asked. He closed the book in his lap. “I swear you were sleeping soundly a moment ago.”

  “Maybe more moments ago than you think. You were sleeping at least that long.”

  “Was not.”

  “Were so.”

  He chuckled. “Maybe I was.” He set the book aside. “Is there something I can get for you?”

  “Yes, but I have a feeling that she’s gone.”

  “My mother? You want Ellie?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He frowned and pushed a hand through his hair. “I don’t under—” He stopped because he suddenly did understand. “Oh. Well, do you have a pot or do you want me to carry you outside?”

  Ridley pulled a hand out from under the covers and pointed to the screen in the far corner of the room. “Behind there.”

  Ben threw off the blanket and stood. When he took a step toward the bed, she jabbed a finger at the screen again. Ben shrugged. “Guess I’m bringing the pot to you.”

  “Don’t talk,” she whispered. “Please, don’t talk.”

  “Right,” he drawled. “No talking.” He slipped behind the moss green damask panels, where he found an oak cabinet with a pitcher, a basin, and soap on top, an oval mirror above it, and neatly folded towels and washcloths on the shelves below. There was a small dressing table against the wall cluttered with hairpins, combs, ribbons, atomizers, cobalt blue pots of cream, bath salts, and a handheld mirror. Ridley’s surgery was infinitely more organized, but then, Ben reflected, she cared about that. The commode was an oak chair without the decorative carvings of the cabinet. He removed the chamber pot from under the seat and carried it to the bed.

  Ridley was already sitting up with her knees tucked under her. Ben could see that getting there had not been without difficulty or pain. “I would have helped you.” She merely held out one hand for the porcelain pot and used the other to wave him away.

  “Laudanum,” he said. “Downstairs.” Then he left, closing the door behind him, and didn’t hurry to find the medicine. By the time he returned, Ridley was lying down again, and the pot was on the floor at her bedside. He took it away, emptied it in the outhouse, and rinsed it out when he came back in. Too late he realized he had gotten the order of things to do wrong, because Ridley had dosed herself with the laudanum and had taken more than she would have advised her patients. He pocketed the bottle before he sat down.

  “Thank you.”

  He paused as he was reaching for his book. “Don’t talk.”

  She turned her head only that fraction necessary to catch his eye. “Right,” she said in a credible imitation of his drawl. “No talking.”

  He smiled, nodded, and picked up the book. It wasn’t long before he heard her snore softly, abruptly. It happened twice more, and then she was quiet.

  * * *

  • • •

  Ridley carefully pushed herself upright, caught her breath, and leaned back against the headboard. She pulled a pillow out, plumped it, and then stuffed it behind the small of her back. The effort required to do that small task made her grimace and reinforced her thinking that she was useless.

  She pushed back the covers and raised her nightgown to examine the state of her wound. She shook her head when she saw how long it was and recognized her good fortune that it wasn’t deep. The area had been thoroughly cleaned and Ellie had closed the wound with sutures as fine as any Ridley could have done. With proper care, there might not be a scar. Ridley could understand why a cowboy might want to show off a scar as a badge of courage, but this particular scar pointed to nothing save her stupidity. She was not proud. She didn’t know if she could feel more foolish.

  Ridley pushed her nightgown back in place and pulled up the covers. There was no question but that she would have to get out of bed, but she was not prepared to do that just yet. She looked over at the empty rocking chair. Felicity Ravenwood’s adventure was back on the nightstand. She wondered if Ben had finished reading it or had been merely pretending an interest. The blanket he had tucked around him was lying at the foot of her bed. His coat was thrown over the trunk. He must have shed it when the room became warm enough for his tastes. Flames still crackled in the stove. It couldn’t have been very long ago that he had added wood and stoked it, which made her wonder about his current whereabouts.

  Ridley dismissed the thought that he had gone home or returned to his office as wishful thinking, and this was borne out when her bedroom door swung open and he appeared on the threshold. Any idea she had about sending him on his way fled when the full rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted into the room.

  Ben carried in the tray and set it across Ridley’s lap. He poured her a cup of coffee and placed the pot on the nightstand. “Mrs. Rushton says you take cream so I brought some.” He pointed to the dainty china pitcher. “And sugar. I know you like your sugar.”

  Ridley waited until her rapidly beating heart resumed its normal rhythm before she spoke. Then she said what was surely the most ridiculous thing. “Mrs. Rushton’s here?”

  He nodded. “At first light. She was surprised to see me, but I told her about the Fullers, your late night, and that you weren’t feeling well this morning when I came by to check on you.”

&nb
sp; “She didn’t find that suspicious?”

  Ben shrugged. “Folks find me easy to believe. You can tell her what you like later, but first you should try out your story on me.”

  Ridley added sugar to her coffee, stirred, and then added cream. She stirred again before she lifted the cup to her mouth. The fragrance was so heady, so welcome, that she closed her eyes to appreciate the moment before she sipped. “May I have my breakfast first?” she asked.

  Ben moved from the bed to the rocker. “By all means.” He stretched his legs and propped his heels on the side rail. The rocker stopped moving. “I already ate, in case you’re interested.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “The widow was. She wouldn’t hear of me waiting to take my breakfast at the Butterworth. You should let her cook for you more often. It gives her pleasure, and she’s a good cook.”

  Ridley knew better than to suppose Mrs. Rushton had put the sheriff up to his little speech. This was all Ben Madison. She picked up a buttered triangle of toast and bit off a corner. “I’ll think about it.” She expected him to comment and was grateful when he didn’t. She ate a quarter of the scrambled eggs, most of one of the toast triangles, and drank all of her coffee. She refused a second cup.

  Ben took the tray from her and put it on the floor. He sat back in the rocker and resumed the position of watchful waiting.

  “There are some things I remember from last night,” she said. “I recall, for instance, that you showed off my scalpel. Where did you find it?”

  “A few feet from the bottom step of your front porch.”

  She considered that, nodded slowly. “I slipped on a patch of ice. Head over bucket. It must have been then that I cut myself.”