Christmas Mail Order Bride - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides: Book 1) (15 page)

Penelope snorted. “You’ll just have to do the best you can. I’m sure that, once the doctor has seen him, we will be moving him to the bunkhouse, and then he’ll be out of your way. Please, just do the best you can until then. I know it’s an inconvenience, but we’re all doing our best at the moment. It will only be for a little while, I assure you. I am going upstairs now. I will come back down as soon as the doctor arrives.” She spun on her heel and fled from the woman’s ruthless glare.

When she reached her bedroom, she hesitated before looking at her face in the mirror on the wall. The image looking back at her almost made her start crying again, but she shook her head and grunted in exasperation instead. Seeing herself like this, her face discolored by bruises and puffed up around the cheekbones, she acknowledged the truth of Mrs. Wallace’s statement that she, too, needed the attentions of the doctor. She dampened a handkerchief in the hand basin and pressed it to her swollen lower lip, but the pain stabbed deep into her head and she tossed it away. In the end, she laid down on the bed and closed her eyes, but the throbbing in her skull prevented her from sleeping or even resting. She just resolved to get up and go back downstairs when she heard the crunch of buggy wheels in the driveway. Peeking through the window, she saw a well-dressed man step down from the driver’s seat and march decisively into the house.

Penelope sped down the stairs and met the doctor, Matilda, and Mrs. Wallace in the kitchen. The doctor poked and prodded at Caleb, pried his eyelids open to look into his eyes, and tapped him here and there. The three women observed the examination with a range of emotions. Matilda whimpered at every action, while Mrs. Wallace
humphed to herself at the irregular character of her employment. The doctor put his instruments away and removed his spectacles. “Well, he’s taken quite a beating but he should be alright, once he wakes up.”

“How long is that likely to be?” Penelope inquired.

The doctor shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe never. You just have to wait and see. Keep an eye on him. If he’s not awake by suppertime, call me again, but there’s nothing I can do for him. He just has to rest up and recover as best he can. The human skull isn’t designed to take this kind of punishment. It’s never good. You just have to take care of him and hope for the best.” He drove away.

After he left, Penelope strode out to the field behind the barn to bring Bill Olsen back to the house. But when Bill heard the doctor’s verdict, he declined to use female labor to move Caleb to his bunk in the ranch hands’ quarters. He rode out to the range and brought back Charlie and another hand to carry Caleb to the bunkhouse. Penelope watched the operation closely, and after the other two returned to their work, she stood over the motionless body at Bill’s side, gazing down at it. “I don’t like leaving him alone here,” Bill remarked. “You keep an eye on him, ma’am. You tend to him, and see he’s alright.”

“I will,” she confirmed. “I’ll keep watch over him, and I’ll tend him when he wakes up. Who knows how long he’ll need to stay in bed, to recover from his injuries?”

“Are you alright yourself, ma’am?” Bill cast
her a sidelong glance. “You don’t look so great yourself.”

“My head hurts terribly,” she admitted, pressing her cool palm to her blazing forehead. “But I think I’ll be alright. I’m better off than he is.”

“We’ll just have to keep a look-out for Anders,” Bill considered. “If he shows up again, you come and get me. I’m not letting him go after you or the young fella again. Not if I can help it.”

“I appreciate that,” Penelope thanked him. “We never should have let him get away with it for so long.”

“I agree with you,” Bill declared, “and I won’t let him get away with it any longer. Who knows? Next time, he might kill someone. Even now, we don’t know if the young fella will recover. He might die, and then Anders will be liable for murder.”

“Do you think we ought to tell the sheriff about all this?” Penelope wondered.

Bill shook his head. “No. The sheriff knows all about Anders West. He’s been dealing with him for years, and he can’t do anything about him, because Anders is one of the wealthiest, most influential ranchers in the county. As long as the young fella recovers alright, there’s nothing to be done.”

Penelope shook her own head in despair. “That’s all I ever hear any more. There’s nothing to be done. It’s criminal!”

“You’re right,” Bill conceded.

Penelope stormed out of the bunkhouse. She returned to the kitchen to confirm that Mrs. Wallace was now quite content with full access to her domain. Then she went back to her room and stayed there for several hours, trying vainly to sleep. When her efforts failed, she joined Matilda in the parlor, where the two women waited in silence for the next episode in their ongoing drama. The clock on the mantel struck three o’clock in the afternoon, and Penelope stole out to the bunkhouse to check on Caleb. Not a sound of stirring life penetrated the low room, but she sighed with relief that he breathed easier now with the gentle undulating tide of sleep. She sat on the edge of the bunk and cradled his hand in her own. She stroked the delicate skin on the backs of his knuckles, and he stirred a little but didn’t wake up. She tiptoed stealthily from the room.

The tedious monotony of having nothing particularly pressing to do, after her days as cook for the ranch, now impressed upon her the vacuous dullness of her position as mistress of the house. Once she satisfied herself that Mrs. Wallace had the supper preparations firmly in hand, she deliberately held herself back from entering the kitchen again to nag or supervise. The only exception she permitted herself came at five-thirty in the evening, when she took a cup of soup broth and a wet cloth out to the bunkhouse to tend to Caleb.

She found him awake in his bunk, his eyes bleary and sluggish, but alert to the recognition of her. He surveyed her darkening bruises and closed his eyes. “Did he hurt you bad?”

“Not as bad as you,” she replied. “Here. Put this on your forehead. You have big clumps of dried blood in your hair. We should get you cleaned up.”

“No,” he refused. “Leave it alone. It hurts too much. Don’t touch me.” He brushed her hands away from his head.

“I just want to take care of you,” she begged.

“Then just sit down here next to me and talk to me,” he instructed her. “Don’t hover. I can’t stand that.”

“Okay,” she laughed.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” he chastised her. “If Anders finds out, he’ll flip his lid.”

She snickered. “He already did flip his lid. Anyway, Anders isn’t here, and there’s no one else to look after you. There’s a new housekeeper in the house, so I don’t have anything else to do.”

“What if he comes back?” Caleb speculated.

“Bill told me that, if he comes back, I should come and get him,” Penelope related. “He isn’t going to allow Anders to bother you or me again. I think he’s had enough of Anders.”

“I think everyone has,” Caleb remarked.

“I certainly have,” Penelope confirmed. “I think we ought to call the sheriff about all this. He could have killed you.”

“I’ll be alright,” Caleb assured her. “But you’re right that something has to be done about him before he goes too far. He’s gotten away with it for too long. He never should’ve been allowed to raise his hand against you.”

“I’m his wife,” Penelope pondered. “No one cares if a man raises his hand against his wife. It happens all the time.”

“It still shouldn’t be allowed,” Caleb returned. “If you want to tell the sheriff, why don’t you? You have as much right to do it as anyone else. You were there and saw the whole thing.”

“Bill says the sheriff knows all about him and won’t do anything,” Penelope related.

“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” he shifted in his bunk and groaned.

She placed her hand on his chest to steady him. “Are you hungry? I brought you some soup.” She indicated the mug of broth on the table.

“I’m starving,” he admitted. “But you’ll have to help me sit up. My head feels like it weighs a ton.”

“I know what you mean,” she sighed. She shifted herself to sit next to his pillow, propped his back against her chest, and held the cup for him as he drank it down in noisy gulps.

When he finished, he lolled back against his pillow with a grunt. “I could do it again, but it hurts too much to sit up.”

“Stay here and rest for a minute while I go to the kitchen and get another cupful,” she instructed him. “By the time I get back, you may feel ready for it, and you need to keep your strength up. If you’re hungry, you need to eat something.”

She dashed back across the yard, and Mrs. Wallace eyed her knowingly as she dipped a ladle into the soup pot and refilled the mug.

“Is Mr. West out there in the bunkhouse?” Mrs. Wallace sneered at her. “What do you keep scampering out there for? Are you waiting on that boy hand and foot? I don’t wonder Mr. West took a crack at you.”

“For a start, Mrs. Wallace,” Penelope shot back. “
the doctor specifically ordered that we keep an eye on the boy, and as there’s no one else to attend to him, the duty falls to me. Are you willing to have the duty of nursing him added to your domestic responsibilities? I didn’t think so. So kindly keep your comments to yourself, and I shall carry on with the task at hand. As soon as he is able, Caleb can take care of himself.” She stormed out of the kitchen in a huff, but she noted to herself to be more careful in her attendance on Caleb, so as not to arouse any further suspicion. If Bill Olsen suspected any deeper affection between them, that was one thing. If word got around to George and Matilda or their neighbors, all her hopes of subduing Anders’s extravagant accusations would come to naught, and Caleb would be driven away.

She fed him the second cup of soup, and after he finished it, he collapsed exhausted on his bunk. He didn’t tell her to leave, but she did, and even before she latched the door, she noticed his breathing change as he slipped into sleep. She attended George and Matilda in the parlor before supper, and just as Mrs. Wallace announced that
the meal was to be served in the dining room, they all hurried to the window at the sound of a horse tripping up the driveway. Contrary to their expectations, however, the rider that dismounted in front of the porch steps was not Anders, but another man Penelope didn’t recognize. Though Penelope hadn’t noticed the ranch hands returning from the range, Bill Olsen emerged from the barn to take the man’s horse. When he deposited his reins in Bill’s hands, the two men stood conversing in the yard for several minutes, gesturing this way and that, before Bill led the horse away and the man approached the house. George met him at the door and invited him in.

“Good evening, Sheriff,” he intoned. “Please, come into the parlor and have a glass of whiskey.”

“No, thanks, Mr. West,” the sheriff declined. “I won’t have whiskey, but I’ll join you in the parlor. I’ve got some business to discuss with you. Perhaps we ought to discuss it in private, as it might upset the ladies.”

“Is it a very delicate matter?” George frowned.

“It concerns your son, Anders,” the sheriff replied, rolling his hat from one hand to the other.

“In that case, Sheriff,” George decided, “I think we better have it here, all together. This young lady is my son’s new wife, Penelope West, and I think we’re all anxious for any news of Anders. So please, let us hear what you have to say.”

“Alright, then. Have it your own way,” the sheriff acknowledged. “The truth is, Mr. West, I was comin’ out here to arrest your son. He got into a fight over a card game in town, and he attacked another man and beat him very badly. The other man was Thornton Alderidge. I think you know his father, Cooper, as he’s another wealthy cattle rancher in the county, and he has about as much influence in the town as either you or Anders. Anyway, the father, Cooper, is hoppin’ mad over the whole thing, and I don’t really blame him. Anders has been runnin’ wild for years, and it’s long past time for someone to rein him in. Cooper demanded I bring Anders in and make him face the judge for beating Thornton. Personally, I would have let it slide like I usually do, as a favor to you, but this morning, Thornton died of his injuries. It’s a nasty misfortune for everyone, but the upshot of the whole thing is that now the case is a murder, so I have no choice but to bring Anders in and lock him up until the trial. I was coming out here to find out if he was here and to ask him come quietly. I would also ask you to make sure that he cooperates with the law in every possible way, but your foreman out there just told me the whole story about how he attacked his wife and beat up the young fella and probably would have done a lot worse if Bill hadn’t interfered. So that’s all the more reason I have to go get him and bring him in. I don’t know where he is or where he went, but he’s likely to get wind of me following him and make a run for it. So that’s the story. If he comes back here, I ask you to let me know he’s here and to do your best to keep him here until I come. That’s about all I have to say about it.”

Matilda sobbed quietly in her corner, holding her handkerchief over her mouth to stifle the sound. When the sheriff finished speaking, she wiped her eyes. “This is the last straw!” she wailed. “I just can’t stand this anymore!”

George slunk over to her couch and sank down by her side. “I’m sorry it came to this, Sheriff,” he murmured. “I just wish there was something we could do.”

“There is something you can do,” the sheriff asserted. “You can help me bring him to justice. This has been
comin’ for a long time, and it’s high time he faced the music for his actions. If you let him get away, you’ll only be makin’ it harder for him in the long run. You’d be doing him a favor by turning him over to the law as soon as possible. There’s a chance, if he behaves himself and acknowledges his guilt, that he can escape hanging for this.”