18
BARELY AUGUST 12, 1906
Doc Fielding was warming a pan of milk when he heard the scratching at his kitchen door. What the hell?
It was after two a.m. and he groaned, hoping Mrs. Worley’s time hadn’t come. He had only been home ten minutes, following a particularly hard delivery at an outlying ranch. Mrs. Whitfield and babe were fine, but it had been touch-and-go for quite some time. Moving the milk to the back of the stove, he went to answer the door.
Hattie stumbled into the room when the door supporting her opened. She stood barefoot, swaying unsteadily. “He hurt me, Doc,” she whimpered, gazing up at him with dazed eyes.
Doc stared at her in horror. She was dressed only in a once-white ripped nightgown. He saw a bruise on her arm beneath the torn sleeve and her bottom lip was split. Trembling visibly, she hugged herself with one arm. The other arm clutched a dressmaker’s box to her side.
Doc swore long and imaginatively. He stepped forward to give her a comforting hug, but she flinched away, and it produced an unthinkable suspicion. Gently grasping her arm, he led her to a chair, glancing at the back of her night rail as he seated her. There was blood on it around her thighs, and Doc felt sick. “Who did this to you?”
“I begged Jake not to . . . but he wouldn’t listen to me,” she mumbled through chattering teeth.
“Jake?” Doc went cold with shock, then hot with rage. “Jake did this to you?”
“What? No.” Hattie’s eyes didn’t quite focus as she stared in confusion at Doc Fielding, and he realized she was in shock. She was so pale her freckles stood out like cinnamon on cream.
“Don’t move,” he ordered and sped from the room. Returning in moments, he draped her in a wool blanket and poured the warm milk he’d been preparing for himself into a cup and added a generous shot of whiskey. “Here, drink this.”
Hattie held the cup between shaking hands and brought it up to her mouth. Her teeth rattled against the cup as she took a sip. She choked and coughed as the whiskey no doubt burned a path down her throat, yet Doc knew when its heat reached her stomach, for it restored a measure of color to her face.
He pulled up a chair and sat facing her. “Now, tell me: is Jake responsible for this?”
“Yes—no.” She shook her head. “He made me go there, but he would never . . . he didn’t—” The chattering of her teeth and shaking of her hands intensified, and she set the cup down on the table before she dropped it.
“Easy, girl,” Doc said soothingly. “It’s all right now; no one’s gonna hurt you again.” He picked up her hand, and after an initial resistance, she allowed him to smooth his thumb over her long fingers. He waited patiently for her eyes to meet his. “Where did Jake make you go?”
Her trembling increased. “R-Roger Lord’s.”
“Why?”
“B-because, Jake kissed me and t-touched my bosoms. He was drunk and upset about me being in the hall wearing only a wrapper. But I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. He stopped after a couple minutes, but he was angry with himself and he said it wasn’t . . . wasn’t safe for me to stay at the ranch with him.” Hattie began to laugh hysterically. “Isn’t that fu-funny?” Her laughter turned to a storm of weeping, and cautiously, Doc eased her into his arms, rocking her gently.
His reaction to hearing his son-in-law had initiated an intimacy with Hattie was mixed. It hadn’t angered Doc when he’d first discovered Jake had started frequenting Mamie Parker’s girls after four years of marriage. He’d assumed Jake went there to spare Jane-Ellen from unwanted attention. Doc knew his daughter was a rigidly moral young woman, and he’d suspected she didn’t like the marriage bed. Jake was an earthy young man and, overall, he’d been a good husband. But, dammit, his daughter had been dead less than four full days! And Hattie was only a kid . . .
As she shuddered in his arms, Doc reminded himself she was eighteen, an age when most girls her age were married, some already with a child or two. She also possessed a figure that probably brought a throb to more than one young buck’s loins. To be fair, from her few faltering words it sounded as though fear for her virtue was what had driven Jake to make arrangements to remove her from his reach. He must have thought he was delivering her to safety.
Instead, he’d delivered her into the hands of a goddamn rapist.
“Missy?” Doc drew back until he could look into Hattie’s eyes. “I’m going to ask you some questions, dear. Then I’ll have to do an examination. Do you think you can bear with me?”
Hattie nodded uncertainly. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, watching Doc rise and go to the icebox. He chipped some ice from the block in the bottom of the oak cabinet and placed it in a clean dishcloth. Returning to her, he placed it gently against her split lip and instructed her to hold it.
“Did Roger Lord do this?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Did he rape you, Hattie?” At her blank look, he realized she’d probably never heard the word before. He cleared his throat. “Did he force his . . . man part . . . into—”
“It hurt, Doc.” Her voice verged on hysteria, and the ice pack fell from her hands as she used them to push away an unseen attacker. “I tried to make him stop, but he kept hitting me and shoving that . . . Oh criminy, it was so painful. He said, ‘You’re not s-such a fast talker now, are you, you little bitch?’ and something about teaching me to kn-know my place, and, oh God, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt!” Shaking violently, she stared at Dr. Fielding with dazed eyes. “I hurt him, too, Doc. I s-stabbed him with a pair of embroidery scissors.”
“What?”
“I just wanted to make him stop. I struggled and I fought, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. I scratched his neck with my fingernails, and he called me a filthy name and hit me so hard I skidded partway off the side of the bed.”
She shuddered and hugged herself, rocking back and forth, back and forth. Closing her eyes, she felt again that unholy agony pinning her hips to the mattress, and her eyes snapped back open. It was easier if she concentrated on the remembered pain of her arm cracking against the corner of the night table before it slid across the furniture’s surface, sweeping off everything in its path.
“I tried to grab the edge of the table for balance,” she whispered, “but my hand kept sliding across its top. Then I felt a pair of scissors and . . .” She made a stabbing motion in unconscious illustration. Her hand dropped limply into her lap and she stared at its empty, widespread fingers. “Oh God, they were sticking out of his arm and he just looked at them. It wasn’t until the bleeding started that he pulled them out. And I shoved him as hard as I could and ran.”
The next half hour was a nightmare for both Hattie and Doc. The examination he insisted upon was one more trauma she had to endure, and he felt sicker to his soul and so goddamn furious with every new bruise he unveiled.
Ordinarily, he would’ve awakened his housekeeper to attend Hattie during an examination of this nature. In this instance, however, he didn’t dare. Mrs. Higgins was a fine woman and a soothing presence for the ladies when a pelvic examination was indicated. But she dearly loved her gossip. The personal nature of the exam was difficult for Hattie, but luckily, she was still mostly numb with shock. Growing grimmer with each new discovery, Doc wished he, too, could submerge his emotions.
Using his new Brownie camera, he recorded the evidence of abuse to her face. Then he pulled her nightgown up here and down there, rearranging it carefully in order to record as much of the damage to her arms, legs, and chest as he could, while still preserving her modesty. He knew he’d have to take the film into the county seat to have it developed. Word would spread like wildfire if he developed the photographs in Mattawa. And until he knew what Augusta wanted to do, he planned to protect Hattie’s privacy.
It was a relief to finally dose her with tincture of opium and tuck her into the bed in Jane-Ellen’s old room. Doc felt like crying when she revealed that the dressmaker’s box, which she insisted on keeping with her, held her attire for Jane-Ellen’s funeral. He sat with her until she went to sleep, then went into the kitchen and poured himself a stiff drink. Sitting at the table, Doc wrote notes on Hattie’s condition while they were fresh in his mind. His brain churned with a dozen emotions as he thought about his daughter’s death, Jake Murdock, Roger Lord, Hattie’s brutally stolen innocence, and Augusta’s homecoming. He cradled his aching head in his hands.
Christ Almighty, what a mess.
EARLY SUNDAY EVENING
Doc closed his office early to meet Augusta’s train. His expression carefully bland, he directed Mirabel and the stationmaster to collect the women’s luggage and transport everything to Augusta’s house. Then he assisted Augusta into his car. Ordinarily, he’d have helped Mirabel himself, but he simply could not summon the patience today. And regardless of how close Augusta was to her companion, this was a conversation best delivered privately.
He wanted to drive while he delivered the dreadful story. At least then, he wouldn’t have to see Augusta’s horror when he broke the last news she’d want to hear. He also wanted his child back and Hattie untouched, the way she had been yesterday. But all the wishing in the world couldn’t make that happen—so he cranked up the car. And started talking.
No, no, no. Augusta thought coming home to bury her daughter-in-law and grandchild was the worst thing that could happen. But this! Her darling Hattie viciously violated?
Dear, dear God. “What should we do?” She pressed her knuckles against her trembling lips. “God in heaven. Roger Lord cannot be allowed to get away with this outrage. I dearly want to call the sheriff and have that man dragged away in chains.” Her eyes burned with a fierce light when she stated, “I want to see him either hanged or spending an eternity in jail—I don’t care which.” She met Doc’s eyes. “And I understand perfectly well if I take steps to ensure that, Hattie will be ruined.”
“I know, Augusta.” Swearing, Doc ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “That’s why I didn’t do anything before you got home. I have enough evidence to ensure Roger Lord spends a good long time in jail. But it would mean a trial. And despite the pictures I took, or giving testimony in which I swear Hattie was relieved of her virginity in a most violent way, or even the fact that she struggled to the point of causing him bodily harm, she will never again be accepted in polite society. Jesus, Augusta, she is sometimes barely tolerated now, even under your protection. If it becomes known she no longer possesses a maidenhead, Mattawa’s upstanding citizens will turn their backs on her entirely—I guarantee it. Men will make improper advances, women will cross the street to avoid having their skirts brush against hers, and all of them will feel perfectly justified in doing so. Hattie’s been too outspoken in the past, and that girl is a born fighter. She isn’t the type to kill herself over this, and—bet your bottom dollar—she won’t be forgiven for rejecting death over dishonor.” He rubbed his temples. “And if it ever came out at a trial why Jake sent her to Lord’s house in the first place—” He shook his head.
He hadn’t wanted to tell Augusta that part, but the first question she’d asked when the initial shock wore off was why Hattie hadn’t been at the ranch.
“I’m terrified of Jacob’s reaction if he discovers the truth,” Augusta admitted. “Not just his guilt over knowing he was responsible for sending her there; maybe he deserves that. But if he finds out Roger raped her, he will kill him.”
“The man deserves to be killed,” Doc replied flatly.
“You think I don’t know that?” Augusta sat stiffly erect on the edge of her seat. “But his richly deserved death will be a cold comfort, indeed, if my son expends his youth in jail.”
“Augusta, there is not a jury in the land would convict him.”
“Which brings us right back to a trial.”
Doc rubbed his temples harder. “Yeah. Which brings us back to a trial. Son of a bitch.” He didn’t tack on his usual apology for his language.
Although it was Hattie’s future they were deciding, neither thought to ask her opinion on the matter. Doc had left her resting in an uncharacteristic state of inertia in Jane-Ellen’s old room while he’d met Augusta’s train. He’d kept Hattie fairly sedated all day, but even without the opium he doubted she’d be fully functional. Her emotions had sustained too many shocks in too short a period of time and were temporarily deadened.
Not that she would have been consulted had she been her normal, feisty self. Their generation didn’t consider it necessary to ask a female’s wishes before rendering a verdict affecting her future. A young woman’s parents or guardian made all the decisions in her life until she married. Then her husband took control.
“We cannot let her life be ruined,” Augusta finally said. “But how can we live with ourselves if we let that monster go free? God forgive me, I want to destroy him.”
“Maybe we can . . . without involving Hattie,” Doc said slowly.
Augusta snapped ramrod straight. “How?”
“First, I want your permission to talk to the sheriff.” Augusta shifted involuntarily and he hurried to say, “Jacobson’s a fair man. He’s also closemouthed and he’s nobody’s fool. He’ll understand the need to keep this private. At the very least, he’ll keep an eye on Lord.”
“Very well. But that will hardly ruin Roger.”
“No. It won’t. But rumors might.”
“Rumors? I fear I don’t understand.”
Quietly, Doc outlined his plan, and as she listened, a small, tight smile of pure vengeance curved Augusta’s lips.