Fifteen

The sound of horses’ hooves echoed from the side of the barn, and dust became gritty on Keara’s skin as she watched Elam ride away with the marshal and his prisoner. Timothy swayed in the saddle a bit, but he stayed astride, as the marshal had said he would.

She turned and walked back to the house, trying to clear her mind of the confusion that had whipped up inside her as the day progressed. The man who had first seemed harsh and judgmental toward his prisoner had revealed a different side soon after he entered the front door of their home. It was as if stepping inside a beautiful painted lady like this house with the gingerbread trim had reminded him he was among civilized people.

He seemed so sincere that most people would’ve been fooled. Elam didn’t trust him, and she was glad.

Once the men had gone outside to prepare the horses, Keara had left Timothy to snore a few moments on the sofa and slipped to the window to watch Elam and the marshal in deep discussion out by the fence. Judging by Elam’s expression, she gathered he was playing a close hand. Could Susanna be the subject of discussion?

“Never rode…” Timothy’s voice had cracked, and he took a breath and tried again as Keara hurried back to his side.

She pressed her hand to his back and helped him straighten.

“Never rode with any outlaws.”

“I know. Was this shooting really an accident?” Keara asked.

He nodded, looked at her for a moment, and then his eyelids shuttered down again.

She helped him drink more coffee and pressed a cold cloth to his face. “You’ll need to drink a lot of water to keep from having a bad hangover tomorrow.” She’d waited until he told her he was ready and then helped him out the front door.

And now, Elam wouldn’t be able to tell her what he’d discussed with the marshal until he returned.

Supper. He’d be home in time for supper.

Keara called to Britte and Rolfe. The children came tumbling through the back door, Britte struggling with Cash, eyes wide.

“Who did Pa ride away with?” she asked, lowering Cash to the floor until he settled onto his rump. “Who were those men?”

Before Keara could reply, there was a whisper of noise on the stairwell, and she looked up to see Susanna, hair in tangles, sweat dripping down her face, obviously in pain.

“Keara?”

“You should be in bed.” Keara rushed up the steps, gesturing to Britte for help. “What were you thinking? What if he’d still been here in the house?”

“I opened the window, heard them leave.” Susanna rested most of her weight on Keara. Britte rushed to her aunt’s other side and helped Keara get her into the sickroom.

When Susanna settled back onto the bed, she groaned aloud and grasped her left shoulder. “It hurts.”

Keara felt her forehead. The fever was still down.

“Britte,” Keara said, “I want you to run back downstairs and bring me the pot of tea I left on the counter to cool.” It was willow bark and sassafras. Susanna had shown no problem with excess bleeding, and the willow bark would help with the pain. “Also bring the rest of the glass of whiskey on the dining table and water straight from the spring.”

As soon as Britte left the room, Susanna grasped Keara’s hand with unexpected strength. “I heard him ask you about Duchess.”

“It’s a good thing Elam had put her in the barn.”

“You covered for me.”

“Of course I did. You think we’re going to turn you over to the man who shot you?”

Susanna’s grip weakened. She looked away. “I shot first.”

“I didn’t see any bullet holes in the marshal. Gloria was always bragging to me about what a good shot you are. I figure if you intended to kill him, he wouldn’t have been in our house today.”

Susanna’s gaze returned to Keara. Her jawline relaxed. “You and Elam could be in a lot of trouble for harboring a fugitive.”

“You think he might have killed Nathaniel.”

Susanna’s eyelids fluttered, her breath still quick and shallow. “I suspect so.”

“We’ll take care of some of that pain and let you rest.”

Susanna glanced out the window, frowning. “It’s been such a confusing couple of days. I’ve not been in my right mind most of the time.”

“I’m not sure you are now.”

“There are things happening that I don’t completely understand.”

“Let us help you with them.”

“You have the children to consider.”

“You’re their aunt.”

Susanna kept her hand in Keara’s, her blue eyes still filled with pain. “I don’t suppose you were able to hear what the marshal told Elam when they were saddling the horses.”

“I never learned to read lips, but I could read Elam’s face well enough.”

“And?”

Keara shrugged. She gently sat on the side of the bed. “US Marshal Driscoll Frey disturbed Elam.”

“He disturbs me too. You should listen to what his poor young prisoner told you.”

“I did,” Keara said. “You can be sure the marshal won’t find out about you through Elam or me or Jael or Kellen.”

Susanna laid her head back and released Keara’s hand at last. “I’ve been trouble to you ever since I arrived, and all you’d have had to do was point him up the stairs and it would have been over. I’d have been out of your life.”

Keara placed a hand on Susanna’s unhurt shoulder. “Would Gloria have ever betrayed you?”

“Never.”

“And neither will we.”

Susanna’s eyes filled with tears that joined the perspiration on her face. She lowered her lids and nodded. “As soon as Elam returns, I’ll tell you both all I know. I’m afraid it won’t be enough to answer all the questions that have tracked me from Blackmoor. I don’t know the answers. In fact, I don’t know much of anything right now, and I wish I did.”

“I need to get word to the Skerits. I’ll bring your pistol in case there’s trouble.”

“You’re riding all the way to Clifty?” Susanna exclaimed.

“No, I’m riding to Kellen and Jael’s. One of them can ride to the telegraph office in Eureka Springs and get word to Clifty. Timothy said everyone in Clifty knows them. You’ll have whiskey to sip if the pain gets too bad, but I should be back in thirty minutes at most. I’ll ride Buster bareback.”

Susanna nodded. “Bring me my gun, but I won’t drink the whiskey until you’ve returned. I don’t want to handle a pistol if I’m loopy. Not with the children around.”

Keara laid a hand on Susanna’s arm. “Thank you. I won’t be gone long.”

About halfway through Butler Hollow, still a ways from Seligman, Missouri, Elam was catching dust as he trailed the marshal and his charge alongside the railroad tracks. His thoughts were back home. He needed answers he would not get from Frey.

Murder and cross-country chases were far out of the realm of Elam’s experience. He simply didn’t know what to think. Frey was a double-sided man—dark and threatening on the one side, and yet on the other side he could charm gentle company. Elam didn’t trust either side. That much he did know.

He caught the sound of a whistle in the distance and gave a gentle tug on his reins. “Hear that?” he called ahead to Frey and his still-wobbly prisoner. “There’s a train coming.” He patted his stallion’s strong neck and dismounted. “Moondance hears that sound a lot and he’s used to it. How about yours?”

The marshal nodded. Timothy looked at them blankly, but he’d been pretty blank for most of the trip. Definitely not a whiskey drinker.

Frey rolled his eyes, slid from his mount, and looped the reins around a sturdy tree limb. He pulled the rope from his saddle and wrapped it around the neck of Timothy’s horse. “Hop down, Skerit. Can’t be delivering my prisoner any more damaged than he is right now or I’ll be accused of brutality.”

The kid groaned as he leaned to dismount, and Elam rushed forward to help catch him. Frey took the full weight with no problem and set his prisoner onto his feet. He tied the horse to the trunk of a sturdy tree and nudged Timothy clear then reached into his saddlebags and pulled out the jar of tea Keara had sent. He checked the wound, nodded at the lack of bleeding, and handed Timothy the jar as the train rumbled in their direction around a curve and through the trees.

The kid’s horse screamed and pawed at the tree trunk. Frey’s horse and Moondance remained unmoved except to look at the inexperienced gelding with dark-eyed disdain. The sound and weight of the huge cars rumbled against the hillsides and made the earth move beneath their feet.

Elam had guided them past a cluster of downed trees that had been blown over by their roots when a twister hit earlier in the spring. He’d shown them where the sinkholes were, how to circle the trees without falling through the ground. What he hadn’t managed to do was figure out the marshal’s real intentions toward the kid.

When the final rumbles of the train had passed, Elam nodded to the marshal. “I think you have everything pretty well under control. I’m going to get back home to my family.”

Timothy cast him a nervous glance, and for a moment, Elam hesitated.

“There’s an inn at Seligman, only a couple more miles up the road,” Elam said. “Last I heard, there was a doctor nearby. Reasonable rates, and staying there could keep you from stumbling over a rough road to Cassville tonight.”

Frey nodded. “It’s been a long day. I think we’ll stop. Take care of that little family of yours. Don’t forget what I told you.”

Something in his gaze and voice warned Elam that he might have company again in the next couple of days, as soon as Frey had delivered his hostage to Cassville.

Keara returned home less than thirty minutes from the time she’d left, secure in the knowledge that Jael would have word to the Skerits within the hour about their son’s dilemma.

She checked on Susanna then took the gun from the room and left Susanna with the whiskey and her niece and nephews, hoping maybe they could help distract her from her pain.

Keara had seen the expression of longing more than once when Susanna caught sight or sound of the children or heard mention of them.

There’d been very little time to cook since Monday, but the partiers had left enough beef, pork, and various side dishes and desserts to last the family a week. Now that Susanna’s temperature seemed to be lingering near normal, Keara felt the urge to do something besides make tea and poultices in the kitchen.

After cutting stale bread into squares, she spread them into a buttered pan and prepared the spiced egg and milk, raisin, and nut blend to pour over it. She put it in the oven to bake then pulled out the big cast iron skillet to fry the freshly butchered chicken Penelope had sent home with Elam and the children earlier today.

The bread pudding was just ready to come out of the oven, its vanilla-cinnamon aroma filling the house, when Keara turned to find Susanna sitting on a step halfway down the staircase. Her black hair had been combed, and she’d changed into Gloria’s dressing gown the color of a field of new wheat. The sight of her in the gown was startling.

“I couldn’t stay in bed.” Susanna’s voice was stronger than it had been earlier, her eyes clear. “The children are better medicine than whiskey. You’ll find the glass as you left it. Britte combed my hair for me and brought me some of her mother’s clothes.”

“You look better.” Keara glanced up the stairwell past Susanna. “The children?”

Susanna had a smile that showed straight, white teeth and revealed the immediate affection she had developed for her niece and nephews. “All three of them fell asleep while I was telling them about my travels with Nathaniel.”

“I’d like to hear about your travels too, but I’m not sure you’re ready to be up and around. I’ve noticed you tend to push yourself a little hard. Seems to be a family trait.”

“It is. You’d have made a good doctor. You’re bossy enough.”

Once again, with the light just right and Gloria’s gown fitting her sister so perfectly and the warm tone in Susanna’s robust voice, Keara felt as if time had shifted back a year. Then Susanna tried to stand. She swayed and grasped the railing, and the image of strength dissolved.

Again, Keara found herself rushing up the steps to steady her. “Why don’t you come downstairs for a spell and lay on the sofa? I’ll get a quilt.”

Susanna grimaced. “After all my study and all my travels with Nathaniel, it took getting shot myself to realize how helpless my patients sometimes feel. I don’t like it.”

“It’s never convenient to be sick or injured—not for hardworking, industrious people like you,” Keara said, “but you know better than I that if you don’t take it easy, things will become even less convenient.”

“And yet I’ve found that the sooner a person gets back to work, the faster that person will heal. Within reason, of course.”

Keara guided Susanna across the room to the sofa and pulled the curtains, just in case someone should ride past the house…just in case the marshal should ride back with Elam.

“You treated a lot of people with gunshot wounds?” she asked Susanna.

“It was Nathaniel’s habit to treat anyone who walked through our office door, and ask no questions. I found it interesting that those men who were notorious outlaws tended to pay more. I told Nathaniel they were buying his silence, and he would be sorry for it someday.”

When Keara returned with a quilt and a pillow, she rested her hand on Susanna’s forehead. “How does the goose egg feel?”

“Sore.”

“Shoulder?”

“Like there’s a razor blade digging into it.”

“I’m going to raise your head and shoulders and slide this pillow under them,” Keara said. This proved to be more difficult than she expected, since Susanna was lying with her wounded left shoulder outward. Once she was situated, her breathing grew shallow.

“Hurting worse now?”

Susanna nodded.

“I’ll change your poultice and get you more tea.”

“Add whiskey,” Susanna murmured.

By the time Keara had Susanna’s pain under control, Britte came downstairs with Cash, her face imprinted with sleep. Without complaint, she went to the little table and changed her baby brother.

“Didn’t get much sleep at your cousins’?” Keara asked.

Britte gave her a mischievous smile. “Katie and I sneaked out to the barn after everybody went to bed.”

“Did you sleep there?”

Britte nodded. “I’d never slept in a barn before. The baby pigs were noisy. One of them nestled under my chin and went to sleep, but it pooped on my blanket and we had to clean it. We weren’t supposed to let the piglets sleep with us.”

“Sometimes I used to sleep in the barn with the babies if they were struggling.” Keara spooned lard into the skillet and watched it melt as she coated pieces of chicken with flour and seasonings. The children loved fried chicken. It was Elam’s favorite.

She glanced out the window, wondering how much longer he would be. He said he’d be home in time for supper.

“You could stand a change of clothes.” Susanna’s voice from the sofa was slightly slurred, but she sounded as if the pain had eased. “Make him glad he came home. You’ve got horsehair on your backside from riding bareback. Put your hair up. Your face could use a little color.”

Keara smiled at Susanna and shook her head. “I’ve got food to cook, and if Elam doesn’t return soon, I’ll have stock to see to.”

“He’ll return soon.”

Keara tasted the bread pudding to make sure she’d sweetened it enough. It was perfect. That was what would please Elam. He hadn’t married her for the color of clothing she wore or the way her hair looked.

And yet, he was a man…

She’d noticed enough over the years to realize a man did appreciate a pretty woman who kept herself up. Elam had often remarked on Gloria’s beauty, and Gloria took pains to wear dresses that would appeal to him. Keara knew this because she’d gone shopping with Gloria to the dry goods store to purchase material for new dresses.

Gloria had told Keara that Elam never failed to notice and appreciate a new dress, and he never denied Gloria the cost of a new outfit. Elam Jensen’s generosity was legendary, and no one had appreciated it more than his wife.

When the lard sizzled with a droplet of water, Keara placed the chicken pieces into the hot grease and wondered what Elam’s reaction would be if she were to take Susanna’s advice and start paying more attention to her reflection in the mirror.

While Britte played with Cash, Keara looked down at her stained work dress then looked at the clock. She went to the west-facing window and checked the wagon track Elam and the others had taken. The sun would be setting in another couple of hours. If all went well, he’d surely be back before it got too dark to see.

She went upstairs and changed into a pretty periwinkle-blue dress Gloria had made for her two years ago. She’d always loved the dress, but the lines followed her figure a little closely, and the neck showed a little too much of her chest—nothing indecent, of course, but enough to make her look…different when she looked in the mirror. A bolder woman—almost a stranger—stared back at her. She suspected that had been Gloria’s intention when giving her the dress.

The scent of frying chicken hurried her movements, and she feared waking Rolfe, but she took the time to comb her hair and pull it away from her face with a ribbon. She did look like a different woman.

Would Elam see that woman?

The direction of her thoughts disturbed her so that she nearly changed back into the work dress, but there was no time. The chicken would burn. A burned dinner wouldn’t put a man in a good mood, no matter how good the dress looked on her.

She pulled on an apron—something she seldom felt the need to do—before she rushed downstairs in time to turn the chicken, feeling foolish to even consider such silliness. Of course Elam wouldn’t notice her dress. He wouldn’t notice her. He’d taken her in because he was an honorable man who did the right thing, and she’d best continue to keep that in mind.

She went to the cellar for a jar of green beans she and Gloria had canned with ham bones last year. She prepared them for heating then mixed up a batch of cornbread batter, flavored with the molasses she always used. Tonight, dinner was going to be good.

All the time she worked, she listened for the sound of hoofbeats outside, casting nervous glances toward Susanna as she slept on the sofa, and smiling as Britte and Cash played in the corner of the kitchen. Cash’s giggles and cries of delight didn’t seem to disturb Susanna. In fact, there was a slight smile on her face too, as if she enjoyed the sound of a child’s laughter even in sleep.

How sad that Susanna and Nathaniel had never had children.

That thought led to another. If Keara hadn’t begged Elam to rescue her from homelessness, then in time it might have turned out that Susanna would have been raising her niece and nephews, whom she obviously loved. Susanna was the type of woman Elam preferred—tall and bold and black haired, refined and graceful, like her sister had been.

As Keara was taking the chicken from the skillet, Britte picked up Cash and lugged him over to Keara. “Auntie Keara, what should we call you now?”

Keara turned off the burner and placed the chicken in the oven to keep it warm. “What do you mean, honey?”

“You’re not really our aunt, but Ma always told us to call you that. But now you’re our ma.”

“I’m the same to you I’ve always been, don’t you think?”

A movement behind Keara drew her attention to the stairs, and she saw Rolfe creeping down to sit at eye level with her. Both children watched her, waiting. This was obviously a subject they’d discussed.

“Did someone tell you that you had to call me by a different name?” Keara asked.

Rolfe nodded. “Hutch and Leland both said we have to call you Ma now.”

“How would Hutch and Leland feel if they were you? You still have your ma. She’s in heaven, but she’s always going to be your ma.” Keara brushed the hair from Britte’s face and reached through the railing to squeeze Rolfe’s arm. “I’m going to love you two and Cash as if you were my own, but your ma could have taught you things I can’t teach you, like culture and refinement that will help you in life. She was special, and we all need to remember that, not just replace her as if she’d never been.”

“What’s culture and refinerment?” Rolfe asked.

“Refinement,” Britte said. “It’s a way of knowing how to live in town and be fancy.”

Keara chuckled. “Your mother was smart about a lot of things besides work on a ranch. Culture helps you socialize with others of polite society, and travel like your auntie Susanna and uncle Nathaniel did. Your aunt has a good education. She’s a sophisticated lady who could dine comfortably with kings and queens and presidents. She’s a doctor who knows so much more than I do about caring for patients. She can afford nicer things for herself than I ever could.”

“But why would we want to move to town?” Britte asked.

“I don’t want to be a doctor,” Rolfe said.

Keara sighed. “The point is having the chance if you change your mind later, but I guess none of this has to do with whether you call me Auntie Keara or Mother or Ma, does it?”

“Well, you’re not a wicked stepmother,” Rolfe said. “We can’t call you that.”

Keara laughed. “I should never have read you those stories, should I?”

Rolfe shook his head and scooted closer to the railing until his face was within inches of hers. “You’re a good mother.”

When Keara was a little girl, she used to dream of having a wonderful husband and lots of children. She’d even dreamed about what she’d want her children to call her. “How about Mama?”

Britte and Rolfe looked at each other, then Britte scrunched her face, obviously thinking about it. “Brian and David Jr. call Auntie Pen that.”

“Your first ma will always be Ma,” Keara said, “and we will always love her. But I’m your second ma.”

“Ma-ma,” Britte said, testing it. “I like it. But I might slip and still call you Auntie Keara.”

“That’s fine, honey.” Keara kissed her darling new stepdaughter’s forehead and then reached over the railing and lifted Rolfe into her arms. “I’m going to love you two and Cash no matter what you call me.”

“Oh, uh, Mama…?” This voice, tinged with wry amusement, came from the sofa, and Keara looked over her shoulder to find that Susanna was awake and watching them. How long had she been listening? “I think you look beautiful in that dress, but you should take off the apron. I think I heard the sound of horse hooves in the distance.”

Keara placed Rolfe on his feet and rushed to help Susanna from the sofa. “Kids, we need to get Auntie Susanna back up to Britte’s room, and I want you to stay with her up there.”

“But why?” Rolfe asked.

“Just help me up the stairs, sweetheart,” Susanna said, “and I’ll tell you all about it.” She nodded to Keara. “Probably Elam. We can only hope.” She was slightly wobbly, and her breath smelled of whiskey, but her color was better for now.

Keara did as she was told, removing the apron and straightening her dress.

Susanna nodded with approval. “You could still use a little more color in your cheeks and a different hairstyle, but your face is clean. Go on out. The kids will take good care of me.”

Despite what Susanna said, Keara waited until the children had Susanna out of sight upstairs, and the door closed firmly behind them.