Dorothy Garlock (23 page)
Authors: The Searching Hearts
Mustang’s mouth moved as if he was going to say something, but no words came out. Tucker turned startled green eyes toward Marie. With the bag in her hand she was already climbing into the wagon.
“I’ll need Billy. He knows what to do. But I’ll need someone to help me lift Mr. Blanchet. Will you help me, Mr. Mustang? I’ll need whiskey to wash the wound and, Tucker, will you ask Lottie to set some water to boil? And, Mr. Steele, any animal that eats on that carcass out there will surely go mad. I suggest that it be buried and rocks piled on the grave so it can’t be dug up. And, oh, yes, tell the men not to touch it with their hands and to bury Mr. Blanchet’s shirt with it.” The orders were given so calmly and with such confidence that no one even thought about questioning her right to give them.
Laura, frightened and shaking, was standing
beside their wagon. Mrs. Shaffer and Betsy were with her.
beside their wagon. Mrs. Shaffer and Betsy were with her.
“Are you all right, Laura?”
“I think so. Lottie went to get my shoes and our other things. Dora says Mr. Blanchet is hurt real bad. She says that Billy said his mother was a doctor and that she can help him. Can that be true, Tucker? I’ve never heard of a woman doctor.”
“I’ve not heard of it either, but she seems to know what she’s doing. Here’s Lottie. They need hot water, Lottie. And Mustang said there’s a jug of whiskey in the grub wagon.”
“Thar’s more than one jug,” Lottie replied disgustedly. “I’ll fetch it and we’ll git water to boilin’ and supper a cookin’. Tell that mangy old coyote he ain’t to worry ’bout this end.”
“Laura!” Buck came galloping toward them, his eyes on Laura who stood shaking and disheveled, her hands gripping the wheel of the wagon. Her hair, still wet, hung in golden strands with bits of grass and twigs clinging to it. She had rolled her wet britches down to cover her legs, but her feet were scratched and bleeding from the scramble up the steep bank. “Laura!”
Tucker thought she had never heard such anguish in a man’s voice.
Buck jumped from the saddle and went to Laura. He took her by the shoulders and drew her to him. “Are you hurt,
mi amor
?”
mi amor
?”
“Buck! Oh, Buck, I was so scared!” Laura put her arms around him and clung to him tightly.
The eyes of everyone in the camp were watching as Buck held her close and whispered to her, his mouth close to her ear. A feeling of aloneness swept over Tucker. For the first time since she had known Laura, she had turned to someone else for comfort. Tucker’s eyes swept the crowd. Some of the women had wistful looks on their faces, others wore broad smiles. Buck seemed not to care a whit that they were attracting attention. He reached around and let down the tailgate, then lifted Laura in his arms and sat her on the end of it. He bent down and took her feet in his hands.
“Madre de Dios!”
he swore.
he swore.
“I’ll bring ya over some water, Buck,” Lottie said. She handed Tucker a brown clay jug with a cork stopper in the top, and waved her on. “Ya better be gittin’ back with this. Buck’ll look after Laura.”
As Tucker passed the Collins wagon, she looked over and saw Frank Parcher lounging against the side of it. Anger such as she had never known consumed her. She was carrying the jug, her finger in the small loop on the side, and she was tempted to smash it in his face. She slowed her steps but swung away a bit so she would not have to get too close to him.
“You didn’t even attempt to help him! You . . . polecat! You’re lower than a snake’s belly,” she hissed at him.
He grinned. “Why should I have? He warn’t worth wastin’ a bullet on. Now, me . . . I was jist a watchin’ to see that nothin’ happened to my woman.”
“You’re an animal!” Her green cat eyes sparkled
with rage toward this man who had made her life a living hell since the night he had come out of the darkness and grabbed her at Fort McKavett. With nostrils flared and her back rigid, she moved on. The soft laughter that trailed her made her want to turn and kill him.
with rage toward this man who had made her life a living hell since the night he had come out of the darkness and grabbed her at Fort McKavett. With nostrils flared and her back rigid, she moved on. The soft laughter that trailed her made her want to turn and kill him.
The sun went down. Quiet settled over the camp. After the evening meal everyone gathered in small groups and talked about Laura’s and Billy’s escape from the mad bull and of Rafe Blanchet’s bravery. Even the Taylors came up to the big fire to visit. Alice Taylor, a woman more liberal in her thinking than the others, was the least surprised to discover a woman doctor in their midst.
Tucker sat beside the cook wagon with the others. She refused to make the trip to the Blanchet wagon after dark and asked Dora Shaffer to take plates of food to Marie and Billy.
Buck bathed Laura’s sore feet, and she put on the clean stockings Lottie brought to her. He picked the grass and twigs from her hair and fetched her hair brush. After the initial shock of seeing him do these intimate things, the women kept their distance and averted their eyes. When darkness came, he spread a patchwork quilt beneath a tree and carried her to it, setting her down so she could rest her back against the tree trunk.
“Is it dark, Buck?”
“
Sí.
It is dark.”
Sí.
It is dark.”
“Then kiss me one time.”
“One time? I could kiss you a million times,
mi
bonita querida
!” He said it in Spanish and repeated it in English. “My beautiful beloved.”
mi
bonita querida
!” He said it in Spanish and repeated it in English. “My beautiful beloved.”
Tears welled and glistened brightly on her lashes. Her heart skipped a beat. She thought she would choke with the effort of holding back the sobs in her throat.
“Don’t, Buck. Please, don’t.”
“Don’t what, beloved? Don’t say that I love you and that I’ll spend my life keeping you safe? I’ll shout it if it will convince you that I mean what I say. Everyone knows after today that I love you. It’s up to you, now, whether or not you accept me.”
“I can’t let you do it! I can’t let you spend your life leading me around by the hand. You deserve more. Much more than a blind girl can give you.”
He put his fingers lightly on her mouth and then ran them across her cheek and circled her ear. His hand cupped the back of her head, and he pulled her firmly against him.
“It’s you who deserves more, Laura. You don’t know what it means to be a breed. It means I’m not considered white by lots of people. And as my wife you won’t be accepted either.”
“That’s so unfair! I don’t care if you have Indian blood. I want nothing more than to be with you. But I can’t help but worry that I’ll be a . . . burden.”
“I want you just as you are. You’ll never be anything less than my love, the one person in the world I want to spend my life with.” He inhaled deeply and let the air escape slowly from his lips. “I feel like I’ve been to hell and that this is heaven. I can’t lose you!”
“I don’t understand. Why did you choose me?” The thought in her head was transformed into words that came out of her mouth before she realized she was saying them.
“Believe me,
querida,
you are lovely! Not only your face, but your spirit as well. I’ll be the luckiest man in the world if you accept me.” He hugged her close and buried his lips in her hair.
querida,
you are lovely! Not only your face, but your spirit as well. I’ll be the luckiest man in the world if you accept me.” He hugged her close and buried his lips in her hair.
Laura laughed with sheer exaltation. “Oh, I accept you, darling Buck!”
It was all Buck could do to hold in check the urges that flooded him and to keep himself from crushing her to him. Her face seemed to glow with her happiness, and her lips, sweet and softly parted, reached for his. His kiss was gentle, reverent, as though she were something infinitely precious. Her arms wound around his neck, and she snuggled against him. A whisper of a sigh escaped her as she leaned her head on his shoulder.
* * *
Lucas climbed into the neatly arranged Blanchet wagon. A lighted lantern swung from the crossbow as his weight on the heavy springs tilted the wagon bed. Marie had bedded Billy down on a pallet. She sat on a camp chair beside the bunk.
“How is he, Mrs. Hook?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Steele. I don’t believe he will die from his wounds. If he dies, it will be from something else.”
Lucas didn’t say anything, but looked at her
strangely. The silence dragged on, and finally he said, “I’ve never heard of a woman doctor.”
strangely. The silence dragged on, and finally he said, “I’ve never heard of a woman doctor.”
Her face tightened. “No? Do you think we are not intelligent enough to be doctors, Mr. Steele?”
“I didn’t say that. It just seems an unusual profession for a woman.”
“You’re not alone in your thinking.” Marie looked down at the quiet face of the man on the bunk. “But I couldn’t refuse to do my best to save Mr. Blanchet after what he did today.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see.” Her dark eyes flashed angrily. “You can’t possibly begin to understand the prejudices against a woman who tries to do what is considered man’s work. I was schooled in Scotland, married there, and my husband and I came back to America so I could help my fellow countrymen. We went to Ohio; the people refused to accept me. So we went to Tennessee. There was even more prejudice there. A pregnant woman died, and I managed to take the living child from her womb. Even though I saved the life of the child, they set fire to my house and killed my husband. Of course he was dead drunk at the time. A doctor himself, it gnawed at him that his wife was more capable than he was.” Her spirited tone changed to one of resignation. “I’ll not set up another practice in California, Mr. Steele, if that’s what’s bothering you. I’ll marry a farmer and be a good wife to him as long as he makes a home for Billy.” Her calm voice was back and her clear eyes looked directly into his.
“My job is to see that you get to California, Mrs. Hook. What you do when you get there has nothing to do with me. We move out tomorrow. Do you think we should leave Blanchet here at the fort?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Don’t leave him. Billy and I will stay with him and drive his wagon.”
“One of the drovers can drive a wagon for a few days, but if it takes longer than that for him to recover, we’ll have to leave him. I can’t spare a drover after the army leaves us at Fort Stockton.”
“Cora Lee can drive our wagon,” Marie said stubbornly. “Billy and I will stay with Mr. Blanchet.”
“You have no obligation to do any more for him than you have, Mrs. Hook.”
“Oh, but I have. I won’t know for ten to twelve days if Mr. Blanchet got the crazy sickness from the animal. If any of the saliva, the foam the animal was spewing, got into his wounds, he will surely go mad and we will have to . . . shoot him.” Lucas’s face registered his surprise. “It’s true. We’d have to shoot him, or leave him chained to a tree to scream his life away. I couldn’t do that to him after what he did for Billy and Laura.”
“And there’s a chance this will happen?”
“There is the chance. His wounds were bleeding profusely though, so I’m hopeful for his full recovery, but I refuse to leave him here where he would be in unsympathetic hands. Besides, I doubt if there is anyone here who is familiar with the disease.”
“We’ll do whatever you suggest. Do you want someone to ride with you?”
“No. Billy and I will be all right. I’d rather the others remained unaware of this waiting period.”
“All right. Would you like for me to sit with him while you go for some of your things?”
“Thank you. I do need to get some of our belongings. I won’t be long.”
Marie climbed out of the wagon and braced herself to face the women now that they all knew she was one of those mysterious, alien things—a woman doctor. Tucker came to meet her and walked with her toward the cook wagon where it seemed everyone in the camp was waiting.
“How is he, Marie?”
There wasn’t a sound while Marie made the announcement. Afterward everyone seemed to talk at once. If Rafe was a hero for saving Laura and Billy, Marie was a heroine for saving Rafe. The acceptance stunned her.
“How is Laura?” Marie asked after she got over her astonishment.
“Humph!” This came from Lottie. “Buck is seein’ ta Laura. I suspect we jist might be a havin’ us a weddin’ afore we get to Californey.”
Tucker looked back and saw Fort Lancaster fade into the early morning light. The large orange globe rising over the eastern horizon predicted a day similar to the last two: hot and breezeless. On a small knoll two does stood quietly with a buck at their side. A few morning birds called and flitted in the tall grass, unmindful of the wagons passing down the well-worn trail toward the Pecos River. They ascended a steep hill, then traveled across a prairie that led to the riverbank. This was the only point within miles where the banks were not high and rocky.
The ferry was run by a friendly man of indeterminate age who hid his surprise at finding so many women accompanied by so few men. The wagons were loaded onto the ferry two at a time, lashed down, and a man stood at the head of each team. Tucker and Laura were among the first to cross. Upon disembarking, Tucker drew up the mules and halted the wagon alongside the trail so the other wagons coming off the ferry could pass. She dreaded this day as she had dreaded no other. Alone with Laura near
the end of the line with the Collins wagon directly behind her, she knew she would have to suffer Frank’s presence before the day was over.
the end of the line with the Collins wagon directly behind her, she knew she would have to suffer Frank’s presence before the day was over.
It was just past noon when the train strung out again along the trail. Laura had bombarded her with questions about what was going on and, although she wasn’t in the mood to talk, the conversation made the hours pass more quickly. The only time she saw Frank was when she got out of the wagon to get Blue, who was getting his exercise at the end of his leash. Frank was passing, and before she realized who it was she looked up and met his leering stare. He hadn’t stopped, and for that she thanked God over and over.
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