Someone Like You (27 page)

“He can’t explain why,” Tate said, “because he’s too yellow to face up to what he did.”

Dahlia whacked him again. “You say another word against Dr. Garrett and I’ll mop the floor with you, you worthless bully! I’m sure Reed has a good explanation for what happened, but I’m not too certain that we need to know, or that we even have the right to ask him to tell us. He has proven himself on the battlefield, and I say that the best thing we can do is to be forgiving and to get on with the living of our lives.”

Everyone began to applaud and show their agreement, but Susannah knew this thing would always hang over his head, that there would come a time when first one and then another of these well-meaning folk gathered here would wonder. She knew, too, that the children they would have one day might find themselves on the taunting end of comments and their lives would be tainted by his past. She held up her hand to get their attention and the room grew quiet.

“I appreciate your support and your faith in the man I love as much as I appreciate your willingness to let bygones be bygones, but I know that Reed is not a man to accept a handout. If he went to prison, I am certain there was a reason. I think he has earned our respect. It is time to give him our trust.” She glared at Trahern, who tried to get down from the bar, misjudged the distance, and went sprawling.

When he tried to get up, Dally said, “Stay down there in the dirt where you belong, you lily liver!” Then she smacked him on the head. Tate fell back to the floor and lay on his face, spread-eagle.

Susannah was so busy watching Dahlia and trying to decide where this woman had been hiding for so many years that she did not notice Violette had moved to take a place on the stairs.

When the voices in the room suddenly subsided and faded to quiet, Susannah turned in the direction everyone was looking. There stood Violette with her hands raised in the air.

In stunned silence, Susannah listened to her as she began to tell the story of what happened in Dr. Reed Garrett’s life during the birth of his child. There wasn’t a woman with a dry eye in the room when she spoke of the way Reed’s wife turned against her husband in favor of her father and how this tragic decision cost both her life and the baby she carried.

“But the story is far from over. Reed Garrett’s father-in-law, Dr. Copley, was naturally grieved over the loss of his daughter and grandchild, but he did not let it end there. Because Dr. Garrett had used the latest methods developed by Dr. Semmelweis in Austria, he was accused of witchcraft, of using procedures that endangered the lives of his wife and child. Two weeks later, Dr. Garrett was charged with murder.”

A gasp went around the room.

“Dr. Adam Copley was out to get him, but even now, Reed is the first to say that he sincerely believed it was his grief causing him to strike out. Of course, Reed believed the old man would come to his senses. Even when his own father tried to warn him that his former father-in-law would not stop until he destroyed him, Reed disregarded it. He rejected the offers of help from his father, even the suggestion that he be allowed to hire the best attorney Boston had to offer.”

Violette paused a moment and looked out over the crowd. “Have you ever been so consumed with grief that you didn’t care what happened to you?”

With the memory of so many deaths on their minds, there wasn’t a person in the room who did not understand and nod in agreement.

“Naturally Dr. Garrett was in a stupor. When he was first brought before a judge to hear the accusations against him, he was suffering so much he did not say anything to defend himself. His family tried to make him understand how important it was to get control of himself, but he refused to even let them hire a lawyer. Well into the trial he had still not accepted the death of his wife. He did not lift a finger to defend himself. It took a severe confrontation between his father and himself before he finally realized what was happening…what could happen. Only then it was too late.”

She paused again and looked over to where Tate was lying on the floor, his head held down by the point of Dahlia’s parasol. “You heard Tate mention an article from the
Boston Herald
. Well, it was almost the end of what the
Boston Herald
called ‘the most lengthy and notorious trial of the century’ before Reed came to terms with his loss and made an attempt to defend himself. He explained how the infection that killed his wife came from her father, and not from him.”

She looked around the room. “You can imagine how this shocked the courtroom. They didn’t believe him. Even when he explained how Dr. Copley taught medical classes at Harvard, and how he had come straight to his daughter’s bedside from an autopsy class that day, and how he readied himself to deliver his grandchild, without sterilizing his hands. Because of Dr. Copley’s reputation, the influence he had in the city and at Harvard Medical School, they didn’t believe him. Even when his father brought in a well-known lawyer who provided lots of distinguished witnesses attesting to the credibility of the pioneering work done by Semmelweis, no one listened. Their minds were made up long before that moment.”

Violette came down off the stairs and walked around. “You are probably asking how anyone could be so ignorant. Well, you have to understand that even after the antiseptic procedures were accepted in Europe, there continued to be debates published in American surgical journals concerning the validity of this new germ theory. There was science and there was medicine. American doctors believed that anything that came out of the laboratory was dubiously influenced by foreign interests. When Lister came to America to give his three-hour talk before the Centennial Medical Commission of Philadelphia, the
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal
gave more recognition and comment about his personality and determination than they did his technique.” She stopped walking and began to look people straight in the eye. “My friends, Reed Garrett didn’t stand a chance.”

She started pacing again. “Of course, to understand why you must consider the fact that Adam Copley was such a powerful and well-respected doctor. Out of devotion and respect for him, the legal and medical community in Boston couldn’t put much faith in anything Reed said. That, added to the fact that he waited so long to defend himself, worked against him.”

“You don’t mean they found him guilty?” someone asked.

“I do.”

“What happened? What did they decide?” Loy Emenhizer asked.

“It was the unanimous sentence of the court that Dr. Reed Garrett serve five years in prison for contributing to the death of his wife and stillborn son.” Susannah could tell that Violette was doing her best to keep the cynicism out of her voice. She knew it was extremely difficult for her to do so.

“You know, it’s strange, but even when Reed shared his story with me, he said that when he heard the sentence they handed him, he showed little emotion. As far as he was concerned, his life had ended when his wife and child died. He could not help wondering how they could possibly hurt him more than he was hurting already.”

“What happened after he left prison?” Sheriff Carter asked.

“He went home…back to Boston. He tried to make a go of it there, but the past was always before him, entering doors ahead of him. He realized after a year or so that his family was suffering because of him. He couldn’t watch his mother and father go through it day after day. He left Boston and the practice of medicine for good.”

Violette was finished. With her heart in her throat, Susannah waited, wondering how the people of Bluebonnet would react.

Everyone in the room began to clap and crowd forward, surrounding Violette and Susannah, upon whom they lavished good wishes for a long and happy marriage. Susannah looked at Tate lying on the floor, Aunt Dahlia standing guard over him, parasol in hand. “If anyone in this town deserves to be punished and turned away, it’s that man,” she said, pointing at Tate.

“Lock him up, Sheriff!”

“Run him out of town!”

“The town isn’t big enough for a good man like Dr. Garrett and the likes of Trahern!”

As the townsfolk vented their spleens and turned their anger where it rightly belonged, on Tate Trahern, Susannah slipped out of the room.

She hurried home, praying she wouldn’t be too late, for she knew it was Reed’s intention to leave, to run from his past as he had been doing when he wandered into all their lives.

When she arrived at Reed’s place on a borrowed horse, Susannah met him coming out of the house with his saddlebags slung over his shoulder. “Are you going somewhere?”

He did not look at her but kept on walking. “You might say that.”

She stepped in front of him. “But, you asked me to marry you. Have you forgotten about that?”

“No, but apparently you did.”

“Reed, I’m sorry. I did not mean for you to think I doubted you, that I did not trust you. You must understand that I was shocked…caught off guard. I couldn’t hide my surprise. If you had stayed there a bit longer, you would have seen that.”

“Then I will never know, will I?” He started around her and Susannah felt a surge of anger and desperation. She couldn’t let him leave. She couldn’t. She looked around frantically. Her gaze settled on a block of wood. Without another thought, she picked it up and hit him over the head. With a sense of acute disbelief, she watched him fall forward. She dropped the chunk of wood as if it were glowing hot and stared stupidly down at the man she loved who lay unmoving at her feet.

Terrified, she prayed she hadn’t hit him too hard. She was wondering what she should do, when her aunts drove up and pulled the buggy to a halt a few feet away.

“What’s going on here?” Violette asked as she approached and looked down at Reed’s prone form.

“I’m afraid I’ve knocked him out.”

“I can see that. But what happened to make you take such action? You were always the peaceable type.”

“Worms can turn.”

Violette smiled. “So I’m told.”

“He wouldn’t listen to reason, Aunt Vi. He was leaving. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t let him go. Not like this.” Susannah went to Reed and dropped down beside him. She rolled him over until his head rested in her lap. “You don’t think I’ve killed him, do you?”

“No, but you may wish you had when he wakes up with a roaring headache.”

“Do you want us to help you?” Dahlia asked. “We could carry him into the house and put him to bed.”

“That’s a great idea,” Susannah said.

The three of them managed to drag Reed into the house. It was impossible to lift him onto the bed, so they made a pallet on the floor and rolled him onto it. “I’ll be right back,” Susannah said.

A short time later, she returned with a length of rope.

“What are you going to do with that?” Dally asked. “Hang him?”

“First I’ll try tying him up.”

Delight danced in Dahlia’s eyes. “Yes, and keep him tied until he comes to his senses.”

Once Reed’s hands and feet were secured, Dahlia and Violette went home, but Susannah remained with Reed.

Susannah was sitting beside Reed when he opened his eyes some time later.

“What happened?”

“I hit you.”

“What with?” He closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to push back a sharp pain.

“A block of wood.”

“Why?”

“I had to. Reed, you were being foolish and pigheaded. I couldn’t let you leave.”

He looked down at the ropes that bound him. “How long do you plan to keep me tied?”

“For as long as it takes,” she said, filling her voice with as much firm resolve as she could muster. “I’ve gone this far, I might as well see this thing through to the end.”

“And if I don’t change my mind? What will you do then? Keep me here like this until I’m an old man?”

She threw up her hands. “You are impossible! I swear you’d find a loophole in the Ten Commandments!”

“Untie me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to listen to reason?”

“Untie me and I’ll tell you.”

She frowned at him. “I don’t trust you, Reed Garrett, any further than I can throw you.”

“Ha! You’re asking me to understand you, to trust you, and yet you don’t trust me?”

“Sometimes I hate being a woman. Why is it that we always have to lose? I get very tired of that. Once in a while I think we should be allowed to win.”

“Then do something about it.”

“Like what?”

“Untie me and I’ll show you.”

“Are we back to that again?”

“Susannah…”

“I’m sorry you didn’t stay in town. You would have been proud of Dally.”

He gave her a surprised look and finally asked, “Okay, what did she do?”

“She lit into Tate Trahern with her parasol. Last I saw of him he was sprawled, facedown, on the floor.”

Reed chuckled at that.

“Aunt Vi told them what happened.”

“Who?”

“The folks in town. She told them the reason you went to prison and how—”

“She told them that?”

“Yes.”

“Are you angry at me for telling Violette and not you?”