“Are you married?” Mr. Bell asked.
“No, I ain’t.”
Mr. Bell gazed up at the ceiling. “If you loved someone, loved her enough to marry her, would you wait months and months and—” His cough would not let up. “Would you keep putting off marrying her?”
“Not a snowball’s chance in Tucson, Mr. Bell. I’d not wait one day longer than necessary.”
Mr. Bell nodded firmly. “Exactly. While I was engaged to my wife, I begged her every day to simply run away with me and get married without waiting another moment. But she’s stubborn and has a mind of her own.”
“I love that in a woman.”
Mr. Bell’s smile grew. “So do I.” In a heartbeat his smile disappeared. “She’s ill.”
“Your wife?” Cade knew Mrs. Bell was dead.
“Yes. It’s nothing she can’t beat, though. She’ll be fine, don’t you think?” Mr. Bell’s expression was bleak.
“She’ll be grand,” Cade said. “I’m full certain of it.”
Tears filled Mr. Bell’s eyes. “She’s very, very ill.” His voice broke on the words.
Heavens, how often did Paisley relive these moments with him? It was little wonder she so often looked worn thin. It was a burden that went beyond the physical.
“I’ve lost my son,” Mr. Bell said. “We left behind all of our family in Missouri. Mary-Catherine and Paisley are all I have left.” After another round of coughs, Mr. Bell slid more fully under his blankets. “If Mary-Catherine should…If…” Emotion cut off his words for a moment. “Paisley has lost so many people she cares about. She dies a little each time.”
The death of a brother as well as a mother. Leaving behind a home to live in a town like Abilene. Losing a fiancé somewhere along the way. And now she was struggling to make ends meet, all while slowly losing her father. It was a great deal too much loss and pain for one person.
Mr. Bell’s eyelids were heavy. Cade saw to it he was comfortable, then slipped from the room as quietly as he could.
She dies a little each time. That was not something he’d expected to hear about the steel-nerved Paisley Bell.
Paisley had only an hour between lunch and dinner at the restaurant. Pa was still recovering at Gideon’s, so Paisley headed in that direction. She couldn’t continue keeping such late hours, not while Papa needed so much attention. Until a job with more suitable hours miraculously appeared, she would have to make the best of it.
Gideon sat behind his desk on the side of his parlor where his shelves of medicines and examination table were. “How are things at the restaurant?” he asked.
“Same as ever.” Paisley was an expert at masking worry and pain. Grumbling and grouchiness worked with most people. Gideon was duped far more easily by cheerfulness. “I’ve been thinking about your offer to do some work around here, and I’ve a mind to take you up on it as a means of paying for the doctoring you’re giving Papa.”
He looked pleased.
“I am quite good at alphabetizing paper and organizing shelves of jars by color,” she said, her relief lightening her mood. “Or I could arrange them by potency or severity of disease they treat.”
“I prefer organizing them by how horrible they taste.”
She appreciated his humor. She’d had precious little reason to smile during the past twenty-four hours. “I can also sweep floors, wash windows, and polish banisters.”
“That is an impressive skill set.” He took up his stack of papers and crossed to the tallboy up against the nearby wall. “I’ll gladly put you to work.” He set the papers in a shallow drawer.
Work was something she could do, something she knew well. “What do you want me to do first?”
He took her cue without argument. “The upstairs rooms could use a good cleaning.”
She nodded firmly. She knew where the cleaning supplies were kept from her times cooking meals for Gideon and his guests. She grabbed what she needed and headed upstairs. Papa was awake and sitting up in bed when she stepped inside his room.
“How are you, Papa?” she asked as she set her supplies down near the door.
“My throat hurts and I have a miserable cough, but otherwise I’m not terribly ill.”
Lucid thoughts and complete sentences. Thank the heavens. She began straightening the items on the bureau. “Do you need more water or something to eat?”
“No.”
Paisley checked the extra linens kept in the cedar chest at the end of the bed. They didn’t appear to need laundering.
“Were you out with Joshua?” Papa asked.
Her heart dropped at that simple sentence. Joshua. That name never failed to bring with it a flood of difficult memories. Close on its heels came the realization that Papa was not as whole of mind as she’d hoped. Joshua had been out of their lives for years.
“No, not this time,” Paisley answered. She pulled a rag from her pile of supplies and began dusting the surfaces.
“The two of you seem to be getting on well,” Papa said. “Your mother is convinced he intends to ask me for your hand.”
Papa was at least five years back, then. Sometimes he was clear back to his childhood. She never knew from one day to the next.
“Do you think he will?” Papa asked.
“Ask for my hand?”
Papa nodded.
“If I had to guess, I would say he will.” She, of course, didn’t have to guess. She knew exactly how it had played out.
She distracted herself by setting to work.
“Does Jane have the day off today?” Papa asked, watching her soap the windows.
Jane had been their girl-of-all-work back in Abilene. Papa often grew agitated when things didn’t make sense to him. His decline into senility was changing his personality. He wasn’t as patient and understanding. He fluctuated between almost simplistic and argumentative. Where would he settle in the end?
“Yes, Papa. Jane has the day off.”
“Why not leave the windows for when she returns?” He sounded so confused. Before his mind began declining, he would have told her with an indulgent smile that she was being illogical.
“Washing windows gives me an excuse to stay in here and talk to you without Mama telling me you need your rest.” Over the months, she’d grown adept at smiling when speaking of her mother as though she weren’t gone, at appearing cheerful while her heart was breaking. Papa would never guess how much it hurt to speak of Mama as though she were simply in the next room. “But she would be right. You do need your rest. I’ll finish up in here quickly.”
Papa laid back down, not even arguing that he felt fine. He’d once been remarkably stubborn about his endurance.
She washed the soap off the windows then tossed her wet rag back into her bucket. She watched him as she swept the floor. The last year had aged him. His hair was nearly all silver now. The lines on his face were deeper. She had always known those changes would occur. She had looked forward to it, having been robbed of the chance to see her mother and brother grow old.
Paisley gathered up her cleaning things. “I love you, Papa,” she said, kissing him on the forehead. “I hope you remember that.”
He smiled indulgently. “Good night, my girl.”
Good night? It wasn’t even yet dusk. “Good night, Papa.”
She watched him a moment longer. She still loved having him near, but at the same time, she missed him acutely. She missed him despite the fact that she saw him every day.
Cade had his rifle disassembled for cleaning when the sound of footsteps on the porch pulled his attention to the jailhouse door. His hand dropped to his holster, where his pistol sat at the ready. He’d learned in the war to never be caught without a weapon.
Andrew Gilbert stepped inside.
“A fine good afternoon to you,” Cade said. “Is there a problem?”
&nb
sp; “Nothing like that.” Andrew shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and dug the toe of his shoe against the wood floor. “I’ve been wondering if you’ve looked into those strangers that came to town a while back.”
Cade motioned toward the empty stool. “Come have a seat. We’ll shoot the breeze a bit.”
Andrew came closer but didn’t sit. “I got real good at cleaning a weapon while I was a soldier,” he said. “I can help if you have another one.”
Cade nodded. “In the cabinet in the back room. Fetch it here. We’ll work while we talk.”
Andrew seemed more at ease, at least with the handful of people who regularly sat about the jailhouse. That was progress. And he’d spoken of the war, which was more than some soldiers were able to do afterward. A good sign, that.
Andrew returned with the other rifle and pulled up the stool. He set directly to his work.
“I’ve learned a bit about those men you spotted,” Cade said. “I can’t say they aren’t villainous, but so far they’ve not been any trouble.”
Andrew nodded, bent over the gun he was slowly disassembling. He’d likely been quicker during the war, but time or difficult memories had dulled his movements. “I’ll keep an eye out,” he said. “And I’ll let you know what I see.”
Still up in that tree, then. “How late in the year are you able to climb up there?”
Andrew’s hands moved faster, but without panic or franticness. There was something like calm familiarity in his movements. “Not much longer. The branches get icy, so it’s not safe. And—” Andrew pressed his lips together. His brows plunged downward.
Cade kept at his own cleaning, not pushing the man. The weight never seemed to leave Andrew’s posture, nor the pain from his eyes. The war had broken far too many people and had left far too many scars.
“My leg don’t work right,” Andrew muttered. “I got shot at the Battle of Shiloh. The sawbones never could get the ball out.”
Cade had seen that before. “Those battlefield docs surely tried, but it was a rough business.”
Andrew’s tense posture relaxed the tiniest bit, even as his expression tightened. Cade understood the dilemma raging inside the man. Sometimes talking of the war helped. Sometimes it only made things worse.
“I wasn’t old enough to be fighting,” Andrew said. “Not really. After Shiloh, they set me up as a lookout, seeing as I couldn’t march too far or too fast.”
“Up in the trees?” Cade guessed.
“I’d whistle down to them if I saw anyone coming.” He took a deep breath, then rolled his shoulders forward and backward as if getting comfortable. “I liked being up there. It was quiet. No one could sneak up on me.”
It was little wonder, then, he still returned to the trees. “All the noise was hard, wasn’t it? Even between battles. All the men drunk as wheelbarrows, talkin’ loud and singing rowdy songs, or mourning their loved ones at home or comrades in the ground.”
Andrew gave a tiny nod, now fully focused on his task. It was the longest conversation he’d ever had with Andrew. Perhaps in time, the man would open up more. He might even come down out of the trees.
“When you were a boy, what was it you dreamed of doing with your life?” Cade asked.
Andrew stopped long enough to really ponder. His lips pursed and twisted. “My father is a farmer. I guess I always figured on doing that as well.”
Cade heard a lack of excitement in the retelling. “If not a farmer, then what?”
Andrew smiled a bit, a crooked, half-formed smile. “I used to imagine myself leading a charge against a castle.”
“A knight of the Round Table, were you?” Cade smiled. He’d had similar dreams during his days at the factory. “Was it the armor that intrigued you or the shiny swords and lances?”
Andrew leaned his elbows on the desk. “I always pictured scores of people being kept prisoner on the other side of the moat.”
“You were a rescuer.” Cade could appreciate that. It was exactly the sort of thing he’d dreamed of doing all his life, and the thing he liked best about sheriffing. Helping people pushed him on like nothing else.
Color stained Andrew’s cheeks. He dropped his gaze to the disassembled rifle. “I was only daydreaming. I turned out to be no kind of hero.”
Cade wagered something other than getting shot had gone terribly wrong for Andrew in the war, something that haunted him. How long would the country bear the scars of that conflict?
“I look back on my time on the battlefield and wonder if anyone felt like he was a hero,” Cade said. “I think every soldier wishes he had done things differently.”
“You were a fine soldier, I’d wager my last penny on it.” Andrew spoke with conviction. “You wouldn’t have been scared or confused or unsure what to do. Even with the cannon smoke and gunfire and shouting, you would have known exactly what to do.”
The praise made Cade feel guilty as sin. “I need to confess something. Despite what I told you all those weeks ago, I don’t—”
“Have the second sight?” Andrew offered a half-smile. “I know. I figured it out.”
“I shouldn’t have lied to you. I didn’t know you very well then, and you had a shotgun. I couldn’t be certain you wouldn’t shoot me.”
Andrew’s eyes widened with surprise. “I wouldn’t have shot you. You’re one of the good ones.”
“You’re a good one yourself, Andrew. I thank you for your help here.”
“I have a knack for this sort of thing,” Andrew said, hesitation in his voice. “So, if you ever need or want someone to give you a hand around the jail—” He swallowed nervously. “Well, I can’t be up in my tree, so I guess I could use something to do. I wouldn’t expect any pay or anything. I just like to help.”
“I couldn’t pay you as it is,” Cade said. “I asked the town council about hiring on a deputy, and they said they couldn’t afford one right now. But, if you’re willing to work, I’ll accept your help.”
Andrew squared his shoulders. “I’m not afraid of hard work.”
Good man. “Well, then, you come by any time, and I’ll set you to it.”
For the first time since Cade had met him, Andrew held himself proudly. “I have the rest of today free.”
“Finish up your work on that rifle,” Cade said. “Then, see if you can’t find a way to make this jailhouse look less like a maypole.”
Andrew eyed the yards and yards of ribbon, and a grin spread across his face. “Mrs. Wilhite surely does love her ribbons.”
“That she does. And we love her too well to take them away from her.” Cade had resigned himself to the ribbons. “I suppose there’s not much to be done on that score.”
They kept at their weapon cleaning. Cade had his rifle reassembled and back in the cabinet, just as Andrew began putting his together.
Cade dropped a hand on Andrew’s shoulder as he passed. “Thank you for helping.”
Andrew gave a quick nod. “Any time.”
Cade had known too many broken soldiers. In a small way, he was one himself. If he could help Andrew heal, help him in any way, he would. And he might start healing a little as well.
Six people standing about constituted a crowd in Savage Wells. Thus when an even dozen gathered around the entrance to the mercantile, Cade knew he’d best go see what the trouble was. A robbery attempt? An accident?
He kept his strides casual but quick. The crowd was agitated, frustrated. Cade wove through them and headed for the center, where the trouble would be.
“No, I insist,” someone said.
“No, I insist.”
Cade reached the mercantile door just as the two men standing there repeated themselves. “What’re you standing about here for, men?”
They both turned to look at him. Their expressions filled with apology. “I’m sorry,” they both said in unison.
“Sorry to have troubled you, Sheriff,” the first man said. “Mr. Oliver was here before me, and I simply meant to let him step inside first.”
“Oh, but I don’t mind letting Mr. Jones go ahead of me,” the second man said. “Please, I insist.”
“No, I insist.”
“No, I insist.”
A crime of politeness. That was new. “This is what you’re going on about? Who steps inside ahead of the other?” Cade indicated the growing crowd. “You’re snagging things up somethin’ terrible.”
Mr. Jones and Mr. Oliver’s looks of regret grew. They immediately began apologizing to the entire crowd. They invited every last person to go inside first. A great many “I insist”s filled the cold air.
Cade met Clark’s eyes, who stood nearby in the crowd. Clark had come by the jailhouse a few times since settling his argument over Annabelle and had helped out with the bank deliveries. Cade liked the man. Trusted him.
Under his breath, Clark explained the entire thing in two words: “They’re Canadian.”
Ah. He’d known a few Canadians; these apologies could go on forever. “Men,” Cade addressed the two. “Someone has to go first.”
“I’m so sor—”
Cade cut off yet another apology. “I’ll sort it for you. Whoever’s oldest goes in first. Next time make it the younger of you.” He eyed them, and they quickly agreed. “No more of these ‘arguments.’ Understood?”
They agreed and apologized all in the same breath. Mr. Jones stepped inside first then Mr. Oliver. In no time, the crowd was flowing once more.
“This happens often, does it?” Cade asked Clark.
“Every time they’re in town. No one has the heart to tell them their kindness is causing a great deal of trouble.”
“It’s a full miracle anything ever gets done in Canada,” Cade said.
The Sheriffs of Savage Wells Page 18
