Home by Nightfall

by Alexis Harrington

  Now Em began to panic. “Why?”

  “Go on, Bauer. Do you think you can handle a job that simple?”

  “She burned my face!”

  “You’re not going to use it to tie her up.”

  With some grumbling about being tired of Rush’s abuse and how he was just as good as anyone else, Lambert ripped her bed apart and tore into the top sheet with his rotting teeth to get the strips started. “This was supposed to be an easy job,” he complained, ripping the fabric. “Get over to this chair, Emmaline, and make it quick.”

  No matter how she wracked her brain, ideas weren’t coming to her, and because she knew she could do nothing else for the time being, she complied. Lambert started tying her ankles together.

  “We were supposed to shoot him, get paid, and get out of town. Now we’re holed up here with Emmaline, who’s friends with that bastard Gannon. And you call me the dumb one.”

  “You shot someone?” She looked at her former husband in horror. This was a rock-bottom low, even for him.

  “Bauer, I ain’t going to tell you again—next time I’ll let this shotgun of hers do the talking. Now finish that job.” Rush nosed around Em’s kitchenette. “Don’t you got something to eat here?”

  She didn’t bother to answer. Lambert tied her hands, one to each side of the chair back, so tightly she could already feel her fingers beginning to tingle. What would they do to her? Different scenarios galloped through her mind and made her heart pound—kidnapping, rape, death. She knew she was in serious trouble.

  Whit hadn’t been up here since the day he offered to take her away from this. Not for the first time, she regretted her rejection of that offer. She wouldn’t be in her current fix if she’d admitted to herself—and to him—how much she cared about him, and that she was sick to death of this life. She knew he cared about her too, and that her past and present didn’t matter to him, only the future.

  Whether she still had a future was now in question.

  • • •

  Riley limped back and forth from the parlor to the kitchen windows that faced the big open yard, stable, and corral. The long hours stretched out behind him and before him, and his only company was a whiskey bottle and his miserable father, who’d spent most of the day in his bed, complaining of belly pain. When Riley had heard the gunfire this morning, vivid memories of the battlefield, excruciating in their detail, had swamped him. But then he’d looked down and realized he was holding the rifle. He couldn’t remember how or why. The barrel was hot and the smell of gunpowder drifted to his nose. He’d put down the weapon as if it were a live viper and had squeezed himself into a corner of the parlor under a table, burying his face against his knees with his hands clamped over his ears. He didn’t know how long he’d sat there, but it had taken all the fortitude he could muster to finally come out of his hiding place.

  He wasn’t sure what had happened, but no one else was home. Susannah, the kids, Cole—they were all gone. Where would they go in this kind of weather? Still gripping the whiskey bottle, he sped up his pacing as much as his game leg would allow.

  The sound of an engine brought him up short. Cole must have come back. He hobbled to the kitchen window again but he didn’t see his brother. He saw Whit Gannon.

  Whit climbed the stairs to the back porch and knocked on the door. A vague feeling of panic crept into Riley’s chest and sat there, clawing at him from the inside. Something was wrong—he sensed it, but he didn’t know what. He stumped over to turn the knob and when he opened the door, he realized that Whit was holding a shotgun.

  “Hey there, Riley.”

  He stared at the lanky sheriff. “Whit—I was hoping you were Cole. What are you doing out in weather like this?”

  The lawman considered him and the bottle for a moment. “Can I come in? It’s pretty raw out here.”

  “Sure.” He backed up.

  Whit kicked the snow off his boots and walked through the doorway. “You don’t know where Cole is?” he asked.

  “No—I—I don’t know where anyone is except Pop. There was some kind of commotion early this morning and now everybody is gone. At least I guess they are. I haven’t seen them for hours.”

  “Did you hear a gunshot during that ‘commotion’?” Whit’s gaze strayed to the kitchen table where Riley had left the rifle.

  “A gunshot…yes. I don’t know what happened.”

  Whit frowned slightly. “You do know that someone shot Tanner Grenfell, don’t you?”

  Riley’s brows rose and he swallowed. “Shot. No, I didn’t know.” He gaped at Whit as he tried to grasp this. The rifle…was it possible? Riley put his hands to his head for a moment. “Since the war, loud noises tend to make me jumpy. I guess I might have grabbed that rifle, but the rest is a blank. But I wouldn’t shoot Grenfell. I just wouldn’t.”

  Whit considered him with a speculative gaze, one that made Riley shift his stance uneasily.

  “Where is Shaw, anyway?”

  “He’s upstairs in bed. He says his stomach is bothering him.”

  Moving slowly and carefully, Whit went to the table and took the weapon in his empty hand. He unloaded it and put the shells in his pocket. “Is there a chance he knows anything?”

  “Maybe. But like I said, he’s been in bed most of the day.”

  “Will he mind if I talk to him?”

  “It’s hard to say what he’ll mind,” Riley replied with a sigh.

  Whit gave him a half smile. “I know. He’s a crusty old bastard and his age is catching up to him. But I’ll take my chances.”

  Riley nodded toward the stairs to indicate that Whit was welcome to try, and followed after him, eyeing the weapons the man carried, one in each hand. When they reached Shaw’s closed door, Whit looked at Riley, who shrugged in response. He knocked lightly. “Shaw, it’s Whit Gannon. Are you up to some company?”

  They heard a cranky but garbled response. Whit turned the knob and opened the door. He stepped in and paused a second. Riley was behind him and couldn’t see beyond the man’s back.

  “What the hell is—oh, Jesus.”

  Riley squeezed around him to see what he was looking at. “Mon Dieu—”

  “Well, d-don’t just stand there g-gawking—”

  Shaw lay in his bed. Blood, both bright red and dark, stained the sheets and blankets. Something that looked like old coffee grounds puddled on the floor beside him.

  “Told you—the doctor gal was—tryin’ to kill me. L-looks like she might’ve.” Streaks of dried blood marked the corners of his mouth, and though stubborn, his voice was weak.

  “What else is going to happen today?” Whit muttered to himself. Then to Riley he said, “Come on, we’ve got to get him into town to see Doc Jessica.”

  “N-not her!” the old man argued.

  “Yes, her. Sorry, old man, you don’t get a vote in this. You’re going,” Whit told him.

  Riley had seen his share of horrors in France, but nothing like this anywhere else.

  Between Whit and him, they managed to wrestle Shaw into enough clothing for decency’s sake, then wrapped blankets around him and got him down the stairs.

  “Come on, Riley,” Whit said, after they got the old man into his backseat. “Get your coat. You’re coming too.”

  “Okay, I guess I owe him that.”

  “It’s more than about Shaw. I’ve got some things to talk about with you.”

  He pulled back. “Me—why?” Their breath formed clouds of vapor in the cold air.

  The silver-haired sheriff gave him a sharp look and hunched his shoulders against the cold. “Because of what happened this morning, and I don’t have time to do it right now. Don’t make me pull rank on you. If you want to go without a jacket that’s your business but you’re coming with me too. Trust me, I won’t argue about it. It’ll happen with or without the handcuffs.”

  Seeing no way out this, Riley went back into the kitchen and snagged his coat from a hook beside the door.

  The Ford
rumbled to life and off they went in the lowering gray dusk.

  • • •

  Toward evening, Tanner’s temperature began to climb. Sometimes he was lucid enough to give Susannah’s hand a feeble squeeze when he saw her, but that wasn’t often. Cole came in from next door, bringing the boys with him, but made them stay in the waiting room. Now he stood in the corner with Jessica and Susannah.

  Jess peeked under the bandage and sighed. “I don’t like the way this looks. It’s too red and warm. That bullet tore through so much tissue.”

  “What can we do?” Susannah asked.

  “If his fever keeps climbing, we can make cold packs from the snow. At least the weather is good for that. None of the medications we have are much help for infections, but you know I’ll do everything I can. And Tanner is strong.” She sat down in a chair she’d pulled up to the bed and looked at Susannah across his still form. “You really ought to rest for a while and get something to eat. You haven’t had anything but toast since this morning.”

  Susannah would not leave his side, even though both Cole and Jess urged her to go to Granny Mae’s café. Arguing that she had to keep up her own strength would not sway her. She had left him for months to sleep in the bunkhouse while she’d struggled with the triangle created by Riley’s resurrection. She wouldn’t go now.

  “No…no, I’m not leaving him.”

  The other two exchanged looks of defeat and shrugged.

  “I’ll take the boys over there for supper and bring back something for you two,” Cole volunteered. “What about Tanner?”

  “He can’t eat, but a little beef broth might not hurt, if Granny Mae has any,” Jess responded.

  “Right.”

  He left them and they sat for a while in companionable silence, keeping vigil over Tanner while the wall clock ticked softly with each swing of its pendulum.

  “I was a fool,” Susannah announced suddenly.

  Jessica’s brows rose. “Why on earth would you say that?”

  “I let Shaw railroad me into guilt over marrying Tanner. I tried hard to care about Riley again, but Jess—” She looked up into her friend’s sympathetic face. Strands of Jessica’s hair had slipped their bonds and trailed from her temples. It had been a long day for everyone. “The fact is, I don’t love him anymore. I know he can’t help it but heaven help me, I’m not even sure I like the man he is now. And Shaw—”

  Jess interjected. “Shaw! Pfffft! He’s a bully and I know he’s given you plenty of grief despite everything you did for him. He certainly hasn’t spared me. Sometimes I wonder how his sons managed to turn out as well as they did. As for Riley, you’re right, it’s not his fault. He’s a true casualty of war. But that’s not your fault, either. Tanner is a good man and you did the right thing marrying him.” She looked at him for a moment and felt his forehead. “I wish I knew who shot him. They ought to be tarred and feathered.” Rising from her chair, she said, “I’m going to put some snow in a towel for his head.”

  Just as she was about to step out the back door with a scoop and a pail, the bell rang in front. “For heaven’s sake, now what? People see the lights on here and they think I’m running an all-night hospital. ‘I stubbed my toe,’ ‘I’ve had a boil on my backside for a week but since I saw your light on I thought we could fix it right now…’” she grumbled as she walked toward the front.

  Now Susannah truly understood how tired Jessica was. She might rail on about Shaw or some other injustice, but her patients were very dear to her, and their ailments always evoked her concern and sympathy.

  She heard a gaggle of voices at the front—Cole, Jess, Granny Mae Rumsteadt, the boys—and soon enough, the old woman charged down the hallway to where Tanner lay and gave him a quick once-over. “Jessica, I’m telling you it’s worth a try.” Granny nodded at Susannah. “Don’t worry, honey, we’ll get this squared away.”

  She was a rangy old woman. Her face was as wrinkled as a raisin, and her hair, fixed in a tight knot on the crown of her head, had finished turning from gray to white. But she had a tender heart beneath her tough, jerked-beef exterior, and she knew as much as one person could about medicinal plants and their uses. Or misuses, if anyone asked Jess.

  She carried a basket from which she pulled a Mason jar of warm broth that she handed to Susannah. She also produced two more jars, one containing a nasty-looking brown powder, and the other, a honeycomb. When she removed the lid from the powder, both Susannah and Jessica uttered muffled shrieks and leaned away.

  “For crying in the night, what is that stuff?” Jess demanded, holding the hem of her apron to her mouth and nose. “It smells horrible.”

  Granny Mae waved off the complaint. “Yes, yes, sometimes it can smell a little strong, depending on where the bees got it.”

  “A little!”

  “But what is it?”

  “Bee glue. Bees use it to chink their hives and seal off some of these little chambers in the comb. It has healing properties—it’s been around since the first day the sun came up. Didn’t they teach you about it in school?”

  “Oh, propolis. Yes, I read about it but I’ve never actually seen it. Isn’t this just folk medicine?”

  Mae gave Jess a cool look. “Look here, missy, before there were medical schools and all that, people had to get by on their own. I’m going to mix some powder with the wax and honey in this comb, and put it on Tanner’s wound. It’ll draw out the infection. Let’s see it—take off the bandage so I can get a look at it. And get some snow to make a cold compress for his head.”

  Susannah saw Jessica bite her upper lip to keep from arguing. During the influenza epidemic, the two strong-willed women had clashed a number of times, science versus folk remedies. But they’d reached a truce when Granny Mae began helping out in Jessica’s makeshift hospital, which had been set up in the high school. Each had been willing to meet the other halfway because of the emergency, ultimately to the benefit of both. And Mae had proved herself to be a loyal ally when Cole and Jess needed her. But of course they still approached healing from different backgrounds. Susannah felt compelled to step in.

  “Jess, what if it helps?”

  “Have you got anything better?” Granny demanded.

  With an exasperated and defeated sigh, Jessica gave in. “All right. But Mae, you know I hate to be bossed around. Tanner is my patient.”

  “And he’s her husband,” Granny retorted. “She wants to try it.”

  With no further argument, Jessica removed the bandage to reveal the sutured wound. The old lady nodded and started mixing her stinky concoction.

  “This will stop the festering.” She smeared it on Tanner’s shoulder with the back of a clean spoon, eliciting a groan from him. “Hang on, there, son. We’ll get you fixed up fine.”

  Jessica administered some morphine to Tanner and he settled down. Then together the two women bandaged his wound again. Susannah had gotten snow from the back stoop and made a cold compress for his head.

  “Try spooning that broth into him after a while,” Mae advised her. “He needs the strength in it.” She bent a sharp look on both women. “So do you two. Eat the food I brought. This one isn’t going anywhere.”

  Now that dusk had fallen, the roads turned icy. Whit Gannon’s Ford slipped along the hard ruts but he managed to keep the vehicle moving forward in a more or less straight line. Riley, feeling as if he’d been captured behind enemy lines, gripped the edges of his seat, wondering if they’d all end up in a drainage ditch on the side of the road. And if they didn’t, what would Gannon do with him? His memory of the morning’s events was mostly blank; he hadn’t been lying about that.

  Would he ever have a reasonably normal life again? He felt as if his nightmare, the one that had begun when the Red Cross “rescued” him, only changed its scenery from time to time. But it never ended.

  In the backseat, Pop groaned over every bump in the ride. “By God, G-Gannon, this…this is kidnapping. I’ll have your badge…for…for this.” He was sti
ll cantankerous, but his weak voice was barely audible over the road noise.

  “Go ahead, old man, take my badge. You got yourself into a world of hurt with all those years of booze. You’re no better off than Winks, you’re just older.”

  By the time they reached Jessica’s office, Shaw’s coherent grumbling had ceased and the only sound coming from the back was one that Riley knew only too well—the rambling babble of a dying man.

  Whit skidded the car against the sidewalk and jumped out. “Riley, give me a hand. He might be a cranky son of a bitch, but he’s your father,” Whit said. They got him out of the backseat, and the mess he’d made there, into the office.

  Tanner’s nephews were playing cards in a corner of the waiting room when the men walked in. The boys got a look at Shaw, blood-covered and stained, and Wade let out a screech. The general commotion brought Jess, Susannah, and Granny Mae out from the back.

  “Oh, my God!”

  “I told him not to drink with that aspirin!”

  “I told him not to take the damned aspirin!”

  “All right, let’s get him back here,” Jessica said, taking control of the situation. “He’s got a gastric hemorrhage.”

  “We found him like this in his bed,” Whit said as they hustled the unconscious old man through the hall to an examination bed.

  Jessica grabbed her stethoscope and pulled back one of the quilts wrapping him to listen to his heart. She tipped her face to the floor, listening with great concentration. “He’s alive, but barely,” she whispered. “Send one of the boys next door to get Cole.”

  “I’ll tell them,” Whit said and stepped out for a second.

  Shaw’s small eyes, looking sunken now, fluttered open for a moment, and he seemed to rally enough strength to speak from some deep part of himself. Though he knew everyone crowded around him, his muzzy gaze sought out Riley. “W-well, boy…” he uttered, “I’m…off…to see your mother…”