Chapter Twenty-Seven

The man named String paced endlessly when his captain and friend, Trader Jake, had not returned to the hotel, not even for the supper repast. The mismatched group of new friends at the hotel cast an occasional glance at the old sideboard that held remnants of a delicious evening meal, food now cold and some of it unpalatable.

Except for the large family of Campbells, Belle had never been around so many people at once, and they were all chattering away as if they had known one another for years. Anyone viewing the scene in the hotel lobby would swear they were all part of one big family. All except String, who was like a panther in a cage, or maybe like his name, a string about to break.

Belle could stand it no longer. “Would you please sit before I get someone to help me tie you in a chair?”

He glared at her and walked out on the porch where he continued to pace.

Although she tried to ignore him as the others seemed able to do, Belle eventually joined him outside. Pacing beside him, she earned a hint of a smile from him as she tried to keep up with his long strides. When he slowed to accommodate her company, she spoke, a little out of breath for all her efforts. “What is worrying you, Mr. String?”

He laughed out loud.

“Well, that’s a start,” she said.

“String is a nickname,” he volunteered. “No mister involved. Just String.”

They continued their pacing.

“Well,” she prompted, after a time.

He shrugged. “Partly, it’s getting rid of my sea legs. This wooden plankin’ don’t move like the ship’s deck does. Sure feels funny when I take a step, but then it always does ’til we’ve been on land for a while.”

“All right,” she said. “Now, what’s the rest? What is really bothering you, Mister, uh, String?”

He stopped pacing and looked down into her face before he spoke. “Your eyes really are like emerald jewels. Just like he said.”

“Who told you that?” Belle could feel a blush warming her cheeks.

“Don’t matter none.”

“It matters to me.”

“Don’t get your dander up, ma’am. It was the captain.”

Her eyebrows shot up at that unexpected bit of information, and she could swear she felt fire leap into her eyes when she thought of Trader Jake saying something like that about her. “Why, I think that man is rude and insufferable.” When she realized String was taken aback by her lashing remark, she apologized, “Oh, I’m sorry, String. He’s probably your good friend.”

“Yes, ma’am, he rightly is, and if that’s how you feel about him, I’d have to say you’ve never met the real man.” He took a step back. “And this talk is over.”

Belle laid her hand on his weathered forearm. “Wait,” she said. “Please.”

String halted but did not say anything.

She removed her hand from his arm. “I don’t want the others to hear.”

String nodded and moved closer.

“I won’t tell you everything, but I do have my reasons for disliking your captain, String.” She paused before whispering, “Once, he hit me in the face with his fist and knocked me unconscious. So you see, he certainly has done nothing to win my favor or make me like him. I think he is rude.” She paused to catch her breath. “And he’s nothing but a big bully as far as I’m concerned.” She looked to the man standing beside her for his approval and understanding.

“Yes, ma’am,” String answered, nonchalantly. “And like I said, I don’t think you’ve given the captain a fair chance.”

Belle started to respond to his outlandish and opinionated remark but waited because she saw String tense and peer into the darkness. Keeping her silence, she listened with him. Although she saw nothing in the onyx night of the waning moon, she heard a familiar, rhythmic sound. The clip-clop, clip-clop of a lone horse plodding along reached her as did the faint creak of leather upon leather, like the sound of buckskin breeches astride a well-worn saddle.

Even String’s voice was tense. “I knew somethin’ wasn’t right.”

Belle started to ask what he was referring to, but the words died in her throat when a big roan materialized out of the black. On the horse’s back, a large man teetered and slumped over the saddle.

String was off the porch in a flash to help ease the unconscious man from the horse, a man who was now sliding from the bloodied saddle.

“It’s the captain,” String yelled. “There’s blood all over. Get me some help.”

A quivering mass replaced Belle’s strong legs for a few seconds as she fought for control. Strange thoughts raced through her mind of the tall and virile sea captain with a taunting smile and rugged good looks, the trader with smoldering eyes and muscular chest, the man who always appeared confident, strong, and invincible. She could not imagine him bleeding and unconscious, totally helpless. A moment later, she gathered up her skirts and ran into the hotel to enlist aid for String while he struggled to bring the wounded man inside.

The largest woman moved unbelievably fast to help String and Burcham carry the quiet form of Trader Jake into a small bedroom just off the hotel’s parlor.

Absalom melded into the black night, leading Trader Jake’s horse toward the livery.

Belle raced to the kitchen where she set pans of water to boil. With a lump in her throat, she brought a basin of cold water and soft cloths to the waiting group in the bedroom where she tore bed sheets into long strips for bandages.

For several hours into the night, the group worked to stop the flow of blood from the man’s gaping shoulder wound, the big woman a godsend for her strength and stamina in applying direct pressure for long periods of time. At one point, she held the wound open with her strong hands, forcing tendons and muscle tissue aside while String and Belle probed for a bullet.

Through shared effort and determination to succeed, they eventually retrieved the offending ball of lead. Finally, with the bleeding subsided and the wound cleaned, String and the larger woman wrapped the unconscious man’s shoulder and chest like a snug cocoon and made him as comfortable as possible.

Belle insisted on sitting with the sea captain. She had experienced both pending death and long-term care of an invalid where the others had not, and even though she professed experience, his friends persisted in their rejection of her nursing abilities.

“Please,” she said, “you hardly have your land legs yet, and you’ve had a long and exciting day. You need your sleep, all of you, so that someone can spell me in the morning. Mrs. Burcham is caring for Johnathan, and I swear I can’t sleep a wink right now anyway.”

Welcoming an approving nod from Mr. Burcham, who stood in the doorway, Belle shooed them out of the small room. “Go on now. I’ll wake you if there’s any change.” She paused, then added, “Any change at all.”

Mumbling an all right and a goodnight, the group left the room, with String insisting he would relieve Belle in three hours. She nodded, and the friends of Trader Jake disappeared into other rooms of the hotel.

Moments later, fear swept over Belle. Sitting beside the unconscious man, who had lost so much blood he looked ashen, memories of another time assailed her tired and vulnerable senses. She had sat with her husband on his death bed not so long ago. He did not recover from a gunshot wound by an unknown assailant, and she wondered again what kind of place she had come to—a part of the country which she called home.

Placing her face in her hands, she wept. In fear and grief, she shed tears for her late mother, for her late husband, and for this man who was rude and arrogant. He was neither—not now. She prayed for him, who despite his bronzed skin from months at sea, now looked like death incarnate. Praying for Trader Jake to get well, or for God to take his soul if that be Divine Will, she also prayed for her child.

I have no earthly idea where we will live, now that my services are not required at the hotel. She wiped her wet cheeks until she could shed no more tears and begged God far into the night until she could voice no more words of want.