Heartbreak Creek (41 page)

She looked over to find him watching her, his haunted eyes filled with sorrow and regret.

No! Don’t do this!
She wanted to shake him. Make him listen.
You don’t deserve a loveless life. Nor do I!

Fearing she would burst into tears again, and knowing that would only add to Declan’s burden, she took a deep breath, let it out, then forced a smile. “Tell us about Pru.”

“S
he’s different than I remember,” Joe Bill muttered, hanging his trousers on the bedpost of his and Lucas’s bed in the boys’ bedroom of the suite they shared with Edwina and Brin.

“She’s sick.” R.D. plopped down on his narrow cot between his brothers’ bed and the wall. “Besides, you were barely six when she left. You probably don’t remember her much at all.”

“I remember she cried a lot.” Lucas tugged off a boot and dropped it to the floor. “I thought she was mad at me. She said she wasn’t, but after she left, I wasn’t sure.”

“No one was mad at you, Lucas,” Declan said, stepping into the room. He’d been standing in the hall, trying to get the energy to go in and reassure his sons. But he’d felt so drained he didn’t know if he could face their questions, until he’d heard Lucas trying to take the blame for his mother’s defection.

Lucas looked up, his brows scrunched in worry. Seeing that troubled frown back on his son’s face made Declan realize he hadn’t seen it in a while. Not since Ed came, in fact. “Then why was she crying, Pa?”

“Who knows?” Declan lifted the covers for Lucas and Joe Bill to slide in, then reached down to ruffle his youngest son’s light brown hair. “Women do that sometimes. They’re emotional that way.”

“Not Ed,” Joe Bill defended.

“No. Not Ed.” Not usually, anyway. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to two unfamiliar shirts draped over the foot rail.

“Ed gave them to us,” R.D. said.

“Said she meant to give them to us before Brin’s birthday,” Joe Bill added. “But she was so worried about you and Pru she forgot. I think maybe she figures since she’s not our ma anymore she’d better give them to us now before . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Before what, son?”

Joe Bill shrugged and fussed with the covers. “I don’t know.”

“And look what she gave me.” Lucas held up a book. “It’s about watches. She said once I read it all, I could probably fix her pa’s watch. It has lots of pictures.”

Declan felt a jolt of unreasoning anger. Even now, in the midst of this terrible situation, Ed was thinking more about his children than their own mother was. “That was nice of her.”

“Yeah.” Lucas studied the book. His grin faded. “What’s going to happen to her, Pa?”

“To Ed?”

“Now that our real ma is back, does she have to leave?”

“I don’t want her to leave,” Joe Bill burst out, not meeting Declan’s gaze.

Surprised, Declan sank down onto the foot of the bed. “You want her to stay? Even though she’s crazy?”

“She’s not that crazy. Not crazy in a crazy way, anyway.”

“Maybe Ma will go instead,” R.D. offered.

Declan looked over at him. “Why do you say that?”

R.D. shrugged.

But Declan knew his son well and knew evasion when he saw it. And with sudden sharp clarity he realized that R.D. had known about his mother all this time, and had known that Sally had run off with another man before being attacked by Indians. Declan hadn’t told the children that, not wanting them to know the mother they loved had abandoned them, and it saddened him that R.D. had carried that knowledge around for the last four years.

“You could turn Mormon,” Joe Bill suggested.

Declan blinked at the notion. Earlier this spring, a Mormon family had been stranded by North Creek with a busted wheel. Declan had put Amos and Chick in the barn so the family of three wives and six kids could stay in the bunkhouse while the husband rode into Heartbreak Creek to have the smithy fix the rim and make a new hub. Joe Bill had become fast friends with the oldest boy, and had thought it highly unfair that the poor kid had three moms bossing him around. “You could keep both our moms if you turned Mormon.”

Declan bit back a smile, picturing how hot-tempered Ed would take to that suggestion. “I think being Mormon is more complicated than that. At any rate, it’s not something you children need worry about.” Rising from the foot of the bed, he said, “I have to do my sheriff rounds now, so keep an eye on Ed and your sister until I get back.”

“Our other ma, too?” Lucas asked.

“Her, too.”

When Declan went downstairs, he found Lucinda Hathaway and Aaron Krigbaum, the mine owner, deep in conversation in the lobby. When Lucinda saw him on the stair, she beckoned him over. “Mr. Krigbaum says he’s closing the mine.”

Declan sighed. Was there no end to the bad news? Now, in addition to trying to manage two wives, four fretting children, and keeping an eye out in case Lone Tree came sneaking back into town, he would have two dozen angry, out-of-work miners to contend with. Wearily he lowered himself into one of the stuffed chairs arranged around a low table on which a potted plant spread lacy fronds in all directions. “When?”

“Soon. This vein is played out.” Krigbaum picked up a spittoon made out of a tin can with a wire handle, pinged a stream of tobacco juice against the bottom, then returned the cup to the floor beside his chair, unmindful of Lucinda Hathaway’s look of distaste. “Heard they found placer gold along the Alamosa River. Several of my miners have already headed into the mountains, hunting the mother lode. Soon as they find it, I’ll be moving my equipment up there. Just wanted you to know.”

“Thank you for keeping us informed, Mr. Krigbaum,” Lucinda Hathaway said.

Declan seconded that with a nod, wondering how Lucinda Hathaway became one of “us” and who the “us” was. Not that it mattered anymore. Without the mine, the town was dead. He’d be out of a sheriff job he had never wanted, and the ranch would be that much farther from supplies.

“Well.” With a sighing groan from his lungs and a grateful creak from the chair, Krigbaum pushed his considerable bulk to his feet. “Best be heading home. Cynthia fixed beef tonight. Helluva cook.”

“Don’t forget . . . that.” Lucinda motioned to the spittoon.

“Right.” With another groan, Krigbaum bent and picked it up. “Ya’ll take care now.”

After the double doors closed behind him, Declan said, “I guess that’ll be the end of Heartbreak Creek.”

“Not necessarily, Mr. Brodie. If you have a moment, I’ll tell you how I think we can keep this little town alive and prospering.”

 

 

It was past midnight when Declan finished his rounds with his new deputy, Buck Aldrich. Buck was a capable, intelligent young man who had lost his left hand in an accident up at the mine. He had worked for a time in the mercantile, but with people moving out, business had dwindled, and Cal Bagley had let him go a month past. The young man was grateful for the deputy job and took to it well, since it required more brains than hands and would allow him to stay in the Heartbreak Creek canyon his family had called home for over twenty years. It also worked well for both of them that with no wife or house of his own, he was able to take up residence in the back room of the sheriff’s office, thus freeing Declan from night duty.

“I’m only guessing Lone Tree will actually come here,” Declan said as they headed toward the hotel after making their stops throughout the slumbering town. “All we can do is be on the lookout for any strange horses tied up where they shouldn’t be, especially at night. I doubt he’d ever come into town in daylight.”

“And you think if he does come, he’ll head straight for you?”

Declan nodded. “Which is why we’ll be staying at the hotel until this is finished. It’ll be easier to defend. Chick and Amos are taking turns keeping an eye on the house.”

Stopping outside the double doors into the hotel, he added, “I found the telegram you left in the office from Judge Witherspoon. He’s supposed to be through here tomorrow sometime. Let me know if you see him before I do.”

“Yes, sir.” The younger man pulled off his hat, tucked it under his shortened left arm, then scratched his blond head with his right hand. As he replaced the hat, he nodded to the stump where his left hand should have been. “This arm still pains me some, Mr. Brodie, so I’m a light sleeper. You need me, fire a round. I’ll hear you from the sheriff’s office and come running.”

“I doubt I’ll be sleeping all that soundly, either,” Declan said wryly. “So same goes for you.” Nodding good night, he stepped inside.

As he closed the door behind him, Amos rose out of the shadows, rifle in his hand.

“All quiet?” Declan asked him.

“L-L-Like my old ch-church on M-M-Monday,” Amos stuttered.

Declan was relieved not to smell whiskey on the former preacher’s breath. Amos was mostly a binge drinker, but he was overdue to cut the wolf loose, so Declan was keeping an eye on him.

“Where’s Yancey?”

Amos hooked a thumb toward the closed door behind the front desk. “Can’t you h-h-hear him sn-snoring?”

“Many guests?”

“A p-patent medicine salesman and t-two old lady temtemperance agitators.”

“Any of them using the washroom?”

Amos shook his head.

Like many small-town western hotels, the Heartbreak Creek Hotel had a washroom off the kitchen that held a copper washtub and a stove on which simmered pots of hot water. A pump inside the back door furnished cool water, and it was customary to refill the pots on the stove when you were finished, so the next bather would have hot water to warm up the tub. For an extra nickel, you could have fresh water for your bath, rather than use the water left by the previous bather. Lucinda Hathaway also furnished soap and toweling and a mirror for shaving. A real high-toned outfit.

“Any hot water left?”

Amos shrugged.

He should have known better than to ask. Amos was only marginally fonder of water than Chick was and about as talkative as an Indian totem carving. Between that and his stutter, it was a wonder he had ever managed an entire sermon. “Give me a minute to clean up, then you can head back to the house.”

He moved through the dining area into the small room off the kitchen and was relieved to find fresh water in the tub and hot water on the stove. He recognized a stack of garments on a stool and realized Ed had anticipated his coming here and had left clean clothes for him, bless her heart.

He bathed quickly, dressed, and went back to where Amos dozed in the lobby. “Thanks for waiting. Go on and get some rest. I’ll take it from here.”

After Amos left, Declan opened Yancey’s door so the old man would hopefully hear anyone who came in, then headed wearily up the stairs. He felt like it had been a week rather than fifteen hours since he’d ridden into town with Sally. It had been a long and hellacious day.

He paused in the hallway outside the suite Lucinda Hathaway had set aside for his family. He heard nothing, and no light shone under the door. Taking out the spare key Lucinda had given him, he unlocked the door and eased it open. Moving through moonlight shining through the sitting room window, he went to the boys’ bedroom, looked inside, and found all three asleep. He crossed to the bedroom Ed and Brin shared.

In the pale silvery light he could see two lumps beneath the quilt. Moving toward the biggest, he looked down into Ed’s sleeping face.

So beautiful. So innocent of this mess his life had suddenly become. What was he to do about her? About their marriage? How could he live the years stretching ahead without her?

His mind as weary as his body, he slumped into the chair beside the bed, unwilling to go to his empty room.

Tipping his head back, he stared up at the shadowed ceiling and tried to figure an escape from this quagmire. He could see no way out. Only bad choices and worse choices. It would be simple if it was just him; he felt no husbandly duty to Sally. She had made her feelings clear when she’d left with Slick Caven. But what would be best for his children? Could he separate them again from the mother they clearly loved?

But hadn’t they come to love Ed, too?

Too exhausted to think about it, he closed his eyes and let the gentle sound of Ed’s breathing soothe his turbulent mind.

Tomorrow
. He would make a decision tomorrow.

Hell.
It seemed his life had dwindled to a series of “laters” and “tomorrows,” and he wondered if he would ever get it back on track again.

 

 

Snoring awoke her from a terrifying dream about Pru and Indians and Mother. Opening her eyes, Edwina saw Declan’s wide bulk slumped in the chair beside the bed, long legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles, muscled forearms resting on the upholstered armrests with his big hands relaxed and dangling off the ends. His head was thrown back and his jaw was slack, and in the faint moonlight, the cords of his strong neck showed in rounded relief beneath the dark stubble of his unshaven beard.

He had come here—to her—to find his rest.

How could she bear to live the rest of her life without this man?

She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

Empty, loveless years loomed ahead. She had already lost so much—was she to lose him, too?

No
. She would think of something, a way out of this wretched coil, because she wouldn’t go meekly out of his life. She would fight for her husband with every fiber of her being because she wasn’t going to lose Declan to a woman he didn’t love, and who didn’t love him.

Resolved, she pushed back the covers and rose, careful not to wake Brin. After pulling on her robe, she stepped into her slippers, then bent over her husband. Laying a hand to his bristly cheek, she whispered his name close to his ear.

He startled, his head jerking off the backrest. “What?”