One True Love

by Lori Copeland

  She stifled the instinct to rail at God for allowing this injustice, but only gratitude filled her heart. But for the small interruptions, the wagon train would have been here and met the same fate.

  Yet her destiny was sealed. With Dyson’s death—and the scene seemed to assure that such was true—she was certain to be crippled for life.

  Richardson nudged his mount across the compound. Some of the charred rubble still gave off small plumes of smoke. They approached the blackened wall of the sole remaining building, where Redlin’s horse stood. The fort’s back wall was burned to the ground. Apparently the savages rode south thinking the whole structure would burn, but the front of the fort remained intact. Before she could stop it, her imagination started picturing the slaughter that had taken place.

  With a sob she choked, “I’ve seen enough.” She buried her face in the back of Richardson’s shirt and pleaded, “Please take me back to the wagon.”

  “Bear with me, Miss Wilson.” He reined up and dismounted, and then lifted Copper down off the horse.

  “Please, Mr. Richardson, I can’t bear any more of this.”

  Josh met her in the doorway. “Copper. Come in here.”

  Hesitantly she reached for his outstretched hand and grasped it. Supporting her weight, he led her into the shell of the building that now consisted of only two rooms and a partial roof. She caught sight of a small room on the left. Snow blew through the broken windowpane and dusted the dirt floor. One lone man sat crumpled in a corner, wrapped in a blanket and staring at a near-empty gin bottle. It took a moment for her to realize what she was looking at.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “If this envelope that was in his pocket belongs to him, it’s Dr. Dyson.”

  Josh pulled her close to his side. “I found him like this. I haven’t been able to get a word out of him.” His eyes wandered to a far corner where an Indian woman lay, gravely wounded. She wore a beaded buckskin tunic and skirt, now coated in dried blood. Her long hair was braided and filthy. She tossed on a pallet, murmuring indistinguishable phrases.

  Breaking away from Josh, Copper went to kneel awkwardly in front of Dyson, a man with a vacant face covered by grime and beard. She reached for his hand and found that it was icy to the touch. “Doctor?”

  Rheumy brown eyes fixed on the bottle.

  Copper tried to rub warmth in his cold fingers. “We need blankets.”

  Richardson turned. “I’ll bring some from the wagons.”

  “And hot coffee,” Copper called. “All you can carry.”

  Josh took the man’s shoulders and straightened him out on the floor. Copper took the lone blanket in the room and wrapped it snugly around the doctor.

  “I’ll start a fire.” Josh moved to break up a few random pieces of furniture that had been spared by the flames.

  Richardson returned with blankets and hot soup and coffee. Copper spent the afternoon spooning drops of hot liquid into the doctor’s mouth and doing what she could for the injured woman. Her injuries were so grave Copper couldn’t believe she was still alive. She refused all substances that Copper offered.

  At first Dyson resisted her efforts, but eventually he calmed and obediently swallowed when the metal spoon touched his dried lips.

  Late afternoon Josh said, “We need to get him out of here and into a wagon.”

  Copper nudged broth between the doctor’s lips. “Who has the space?” Every wagon was filled to near capacity with family or personal possessions, and it was unlikely the Newsomes would voluntarily unload any of their excesses.

  “Some family will have to unload for the time being.” Josh nodded toward the doctor. “He won’t make it much longer in these kinds of temperatures.”

  Copper’s eyes turned to the woman. “And her?”

  “She won’t make it through the night. Regardless.”

  Richardson spoke up. “The Addison family, a young man and his new bride. Joined up at the last checkpoint. They’ll help out.”

  By suppertime, the doctor was relocated to the wagon. After much discussion, it was decided they would leave the woman where she was and someone would sit with her until the end came.

  Dyson remained in a near-catatonic state, eyes fixed and staring. But by bedtime Copper detected a change. His limbs twitched and he tossed on the pallet, muttering indecipherably.

  “I don’t know what he needs,” Copper told Josh. The two sat beside the doctor while Jack and Marie Addison slept in Adele’s wagon.

  “Gin,” Josh said. “The liquor’s wearing off and he needs a drink.”

  “We don’t have gin.” She glanced up. “Do we?”

  “I expect I could confiscate a bottle among the men, but I don’t think it’s in the doctor’s best interest.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Well.” Josh took off his hat and rubbed his temple. “I’d say we brace ourselves for a rough ride. He’ll be drying out, and it’s not a pretty sight.”

  Redlin again proved his knack for understatement.

  The following two days turned hellish. The Indian woman refused to die. She was so near death you could smell the stench, and yet her chest rose and fell with each breath. Copper tried to stay put in Adele’s wagon but she couldn’t. She wanted to help, and she babied the ankle, but she couldn’t sit and do nothing. This morning she had Richardson take her to the fort. There was so little to do other than make the dying woman as comfortable as possible, and pray for mercy. The woman remained in a deep sleep or thrashed about, unable or unwilling to take nourishment.

  Adele and Sadie stayed with the doctor throughout his “drying out” period. Screams of imagined terror filled the night air as the man thrashed about on his pallet, claiming poisonous spiders were climbing on the canvas walls. Explosive outbursts and vile cursing echoed through the camp when Adele and Sadie failed to kill the imaginary bugs.

  Copper sat and prayed in Adele’s rocker that had thoughtfully been moved to the Addisons’ wagon. There was little more she could do, and Josh wouldn’t permit her to be on the ankle for more than a few minutes at a time. After a particularly harrowing episode when the doctor threatened to take a gun and kill them all, Copper had lashed out at Josh because he wouldn’t let her out of the wagon.

  “Why does it matter,” she’d yelled after three long days of waiting. “I’ll always be a cripple! Whatever is wrong will never be right because it has been too long. The bones are starting to knit and there’s nothing we can do now!” The only man on earth who could offer hope was thrashing around on a pallet, out of his mind.

  Later she would look back on that time and marvel at Redlin’s tenacity, and how easily she had slipped back into her old ways. Milly was forgotten; the old Copper had surfaced and she was ashamed. Josh had absorbed all the anger and despair she threw at him, and then rationally, and with resolve, restated his order. He had more trouble than he could handle, while her temporary state of compliance and humility had faded in the face of despair and fear. And still he remained calm and in control.

  The snow squalls soon ended and a weak sun melted what little remained on the ground. All the wagons stayed in the protective circle as the temperatures warmed. All, that was, except the four from Louisiana. On the third morning they pulled out without a by-your-leave to anyone. Not a single soul mentioned their departure. It would seem that not a single soul cared.

  The following morning, Copper opened her eyes to silence. She sat up straighter in the rocker, looking for Adele and Sadie. They weren’t in the wagon. Dr. Dyson slept on the pallet, and for the first time in days he seemed in a restful slumber, not tossing and turning or ranting wildly.

  Adele parted the back canvas. When she spotted Copper awake, she smiled and whispered, “I’ll get your coffee.”

  Within minutes she returned bearing a steaming mug. “Here you go.”

  Copper appreciatively accepted the warmth and inclined her head toward the patient. “He’s better.”

  Nodding, Adele climbe
d in the wagon and checked his pulse. “Sometime during the night he started to calm. He’s sleeping normal now.”

  “Praise God.”

  “He’s the one that should be praising God. He is lucky to be alive.”

  The awful scene she’d witnessed that first day flooded Copper’s mind. “Oh Adele, it was appalling. Nothing inside the fort escaped, and the stench was unbelievable. Men, women, animals. Kiowa. All had met a brutal death.”

  Adele straightened. “Don’t let yourself think about it, honey. If you do you’ll lose your mind. Man’s inhumanity to one another is hard to swallow.”

  Copper wanted the images wiped from her mind. She could only imagine the horrors the doctor had witnessed. How did he manage to escape the onslaught when nothing else was spared? He must have been outside the grounds that day—or night. Empathy burned deep in her soul. Had he ridden home to find the fort, and all those within, destroyed? Had he lost his wife…and maybe some children? Her gaze fixed on the man on the pallet, and she wondered if they were doing him any favor by fighting for his life.

  Even worse, would the good doctor consider their efforts humanitarian or appallingly inhumane?

  “Miss Wilson?”

  Copper glanced up later that evening to see one of her noon students standing before her. The boy’s hat was in his hand.

  “Yes, Jake?”

  He inclined his head to the fort. “This is a time we ought to fear? Right?”

  “Yes.” She drew the boy to her side. “I regret that I chose fear for that particular lesson, Jake. I’d noticed how frightened the children were when we passed Indians along the road, and I had wanted to point out that all Indians aren’t savages. Some are peaceful, but yes, there are those who are evil, same as white men. Some are very wicked and cause things like this to happen. But I have no explanation as to why it happens.”

  How did you convince a ten-year-old to practice selective fear? Was that in the realm of possibility for anyone?

  The boy turned to stare at the fort. He had no idea what lay behind those gates, and she prayed to God that he would never witness such carnage and savagery. Yet death’s stench permeated the air and he had heard talk. As much as the adults wanted to shield their young from man’s brutality, it was impossible.

  He turned back, grave-faced. “If God loves everybody, why does he let something like this happen?”

  Powerless to explain, she mutely shook her head. Her fancy schooling might have equipped her to educate young minds, but all of Papa’s wealth couldn’t have purchased a sensible answer for Jake, or for her. Yet, deep down, she knew there had to be one. The ultimate cruelty would be for things like this to happen and there not be an answer.

  It was those becauses and whys in her life that she struggled to understand and accept.

  Chapter 16

  The nightly fire burned low. Overhead, a quarter moon rose in the west. Families had retired hours ago, but sleep eluded Copper. Her mind refused to release the long day. All hope was dashed. Dr. Dyson lay in the Addison wagon either sleeping or staring sightlessly at the canvas ceiling. Funny thing, hope. Hers had temporarily spiked earlier in the day when the doctor appeared to rally, but he still had not responded to anyone. Not when she’d tried to spoon broth between his lips, not when she’d tried to rouse him. The obvious started to emerge; whatever world Dale Dyson had joined, he had no intentions of returning to this one. Not of his own choice.

  “It’s late. You should be asleep.”

  Copper scooted over to allow Redlin to share her seat on the log that Mike had dragged up to the wagon to serve as a bench for Copper. Logic told her they should move away from the wagon and not disturb Adele, but she felt there was little chance of waking either her friend or Dr. Dyson.

  Josh settled on the feed sack that was supposed to serve to keep britches and skirts dry. He removed his hat. “Not a time I’d care to relive.”

  Copper nodded in silent agreement. Not a person on earth should face this carnage.

  “The woman?”

  “Still breathing.”

  He reached for her hand. For a long moment he studied the appendage. She wondered if she’d suddenly sprouted warts, but then it became apparent that he was just plain talked out. He’d conjectured, cried, consoled, and prayed with so many today, he didn’t have anything left to give.

  Her hand slipped from his, and gently she made him more comfortable. He settled against the wagon bed like a man who was bone weary of responsibility.

  Silence fell like a cozy blanket. Only an occasional log dropping deeper into the fire broke the stillness.

  Her arm drifted around his shoulder, and her fingers through his hair, and she lightly massaged his scalp, easing tension. She, Audrey, and Willow had used the calming technique on one another so many times she didn’t think about propriety. If it weren’t for her, he’d be farther down the road, closer to Colorado Springs, closer to whatever waited in his future. Longing for Dallas? She watched the moon rise, softly working her fingers through the thick reddish mass. She couldn’t count the troubles she’d brought this man’s way, yet it was he who spoke her thoughts.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Shaking her head, she smiled. “I thought you’d fallen asleep.”

  “No, I won’t sleep tonight. Got too many thoughts running through my head.”

  “Such as?”

  “If we’d gotten here a day or two earlier—”

  “But we didn’t.” She gently tapped his scalp in rebuke. “Besides, who knows when this awful thing happened?”

  “Three, four days at the most.”

  “Then the delays were a blessing.” She hadn’t thought so at the time, but recently more than one event had reminded her that often her time schedule was not as good as God’s.

  The solemnity of her reflection struck home and she thought of Willow. Willow would say that nothing happened by accident; the hand of God had spared their lives for whatever purpose.

  Josh groaned. “I’m so tired of misery.”

  She thumped his head soundly.

  “Okay—but I am. Tired of life.”

  “Oh Josh.” She gently lifted his head upright and forced him to meet her eyes. “You can’t lose heart. You’re the one who keeps us going, the one we look to for guidance.”

  He refused the role. “I have no right to lead anyone.”

  Today had proved to be too much. Living with devastation day after day; he’d reached his limit. This man read his Bible nightly and accepted people like the Newsomes without judgment, so when he lost heart, what hope did others have? “Don’t talk that way. You scare me.”

  “I should scare you.”

  She massaged the knotted ligaments in his neck. “If not you, then who?” There were many able-bodied men in the train, but none as responsible as he. Richardson came to mind, and she weighed the men’s strengths and weaknesses, and Josh still won out.

  “It will get better,” she said, because she knew the healing of her injury lay heavy on his heart. The delays, which now proved to be a good thing, had been a weight around his neck. “I have one good foot, and I can always teach. Naturally I’ve prayed for the best, but apparently God has his reasons for denying me. Willow contends that he doesn’t close one door without opening a window, and I’m going to trust that the window he opens is better than any I could ever imagine.”

  He sighed, sitting up. “What happened to the Copper Wilson I met in Thunder Ridge?”

  “Oh, she’s still around—more often than I care for her to be. But I’ve grown some.” She shifted. “You know, there’s this really strange family in Thunder Ridge, and I rather hope to teach their children someday. The Parneckers, and they have nine children, all named Ralph.”

  “Nine boys?”

  “No. Nine girls and boys. Named them all Ralph so when the parents call they all come running. I don’t know if that’s brilliant or just plain lazy. Anyway, Willow would have had the children this semester but then she got kic
ked in the head by that horse and—well, you know the story.”

  “No one thought she’d live, but she did and she married Tucker Gray a few Saturdays back. Audrey agreed to assume the Thunder Ridge teaching position since Willow can’t until she regains her strength. Audrey’s teaching job in Blackberry Hill fell through, and work is slow at the Burying Parlor.”

  She grinned. “You do pay attention.”

  “I have to. I have a feeling you don’t.”

  “Wrong. Admittedly I’m a little stubborn and I learn my lessons the hard way. It’s taken a rough road to make me see the real Copper.” She chuckled. “I know God sent Milly Newsome to open my eyes to my flawed nature.”

  “On your nastiest day, you were never as bad as Milly. And I can say that because I’m fairly certain that I’ve witnessed some of your worst days.”

  Well, it was a backhanded compliment, but she’d take it. “Thank you, I think. Now that you know who I am, who are you?”

  He leaned back and rested his head against the wagon bed. “Just a man. A very tired man.”

  “You’re more than a man. You have a past.”

  “Do I?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not one I’d care to discuss, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Then a future? What’s your dream, Josh Redlin? Land? Power? Money?”

  “Dry socks.”

  “That’s not a dream. We all want that.”

  “Peace on earth.”

  The man was able to avoid what he didn’t want to discuss. She tried a different tack. “Are your folks alive?”

  “I think my pa is. Last I heard, he was in California. Haven’t seen the man since I was ten years old. Ma took us kids and went east with her folks because she had health problems, and Pa chose to stay behind.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Feel sorry for him. He has four sons who don’t know him.”

  “Then you have siblings.”

  “Three brothers. You?”

  “Only child. My folks died on an ocean voyage a few years back. I was teaching in Texas by then and remained behind. My biggest regret is that they never realized how much I loved my work, and them. They thought I had turned away from family, but all I wanted was to fulfill my dream to teach. Papa was quite wealthy by inheritance, but by the time the Yankees came and burned Timber Creek, most of it was gone. They took or destroyed whatever was left.”