The Barefoot Bride (15 page)

“Oh.”

Molly waited for further complaint from Patch. When it didn't come, she eyed the girl suspiciously. Patch never gave up when she wanted something, she just went about it another way. Molly decided that it wouldn't hurt to keep watch over her shoulder when they left, to see if they were being followed.

Ethan's nose twitched at the heavy smell of perfume in the darkened room. “Dora?”

“Over here, Ethan. I'm at the window.”

He lit a lantern before trying to cross the room and then was glad he had. Dora collected dolls. They were all over the room, on shelves, on the dressing table, on the bed, and even in boxes on the floor. Ethan wove his way around the clutter and sat down on the windowsill. Dora was sitting in the rocker facing out, caressing the yarn hair of a Raggedy Ann.

“Drake was here tonight,” she said. “He had me try everything, but nothing worked. Poor man.”

Ethan was sure from the way she said it that Dora wasn't the least bit sorry. “Any news?” he said.

“He's setting up another operation on the butte west of town, where his whiskey-seller can see for two miles around who's coming.
Do you think the Masked Marauder can manage to get the drop on him?”

Ethan smiled. “He usually does.”

“Cal gave me this doll,” she said, holding the Raggedy Ann like a child against her breast. “Said he was gonna give me a Raggedy Andy to go with it. That was the day before Drake had Pike Hardesty shoot him.” She leaned forward and grasped Ethan's thigh. Her nails bit into his skin clear through the denim. “Drake has to die. He had Cal killed, and he has to die.”

Ethan put a hand on hers, forcing her to release him. “I owe you, Dora. I'd've lost my leg if it hadn't been for you. Whatever I can do, I will.”

Dora's voice was barely audible when she said, “Cal wanted to marry me, Ethan. I would have been the sheriff's wife. I would have been an honest woman. Drake Bassett took that away from me. He has to pay.”

For the tenth day since those Gallaghers had shown up, Patch made a bed for herself on the buffalo skin in front of Ethan's hearth. He slept in the bedroom, which was divided from the main room by a red-striped gray blanket across the doorway. Thanks to the upheaval in her life caused by the appearance
of the Gallagher family, she had recently spent many a sleepless night reliving distressing incidents from the day just past.

Even now she cringed at the memory of the humiliation she had felt three days ago when her father had stripped her naked and dumped her willy-nilly into that tub of water. He had seen
everything.
She wasn't his little girl anymore. She didn't want to grow up; but her body was doing it despite her wishes.

Her stepmother had come into the house after that disastrous business with her pa and insisted on measuring her for a dress. Not that Patch would ever wear it. Not willingly, anyway. It was bad enough that her body was conspiring to make her a woman; now Molly Gallagher seemed intent on finishing the job. If that woman had her way, Patch could say good-bye to trousers forever.

She had barely gotten her long Johns on after her bath when that woman had confronted her with a measuring tape in one hand and a silk dress in the other. It had certainly been a pretty dress, a kind of mossy green. And it had looked a good deal softer than the chambray and corduroy Patch usually wore. But she wasn't about to let herself be bribed into doing anything Molly Gallagher
wanted. She had watched warily as the woman approached her.

“I want to see if I can cut this down to fit you,” she had said as she laid the dress over the back of a chair.

Patch hadn't been able to resist reaching out and caressing the fabric. It was as soft as it looked, as sleek and silky as Rebel's underbelly.

“Hold your arms out, please,” Molly said.

Patch had thought seriously about refusing, but the possibility of her father being called to enforce Molly's request convinced her to obey.

Molly measured her shoulders, the length of her arms, and then beneath them, around her budding bosom. “I'll have to take in the bodice slightly.”

Patch flushed a deep red, but Molly had already gone on to measure the distance to her waist from under her arm.

“When I was a child growing up,” Molly said, “my father used to spend time with me each evening, talking to me while I took my bath. He told me funny stories about the customers in his saloon. We laughed a lot, and we both enjoyed it immensely. Then a day came when I felt uncomfortable about having
him there. I had changed. Things had changed.”

If Molly hadn't had the measuring tape around Patch's waist, she would have bolted right then and there. But there was no escape, so she was forced to listen as Molly continued, “I didn't quite know how to tell him that I was growing up. I felt sad that I wasn't his little girl anymore.”

Patch stood frozen as Molly measured the length for the hem.

“Fortunately, I had a mother to turn to. I told her how I felt, and she explained my feelings to my father. I knew everything was all right when he came to me the next night at bedtime instead of bathtime to tell all the funny stories about his customers. We hadn't lost any of the closeness we had shared before. He had simply acknowledged that I was a young woman entitled to my privacy.”

Molly had finished measuring and began winding up her tape. “There. That wasn't so bad, was it?”

“Bad enough,” Patch muttered. She stared with narrowed eyes at her stepmother. Her pa must have said something about what had happened here tonight. Was Molly offering to speak to her pa on her behalf? Had she already done so? Patch wanted no repeat of the
embarrassment of this evening. Better to be safe than sorry. She cleared her throat and said, ‘I'm—uh … I need some privacy myself.”

“Of course you do,” Molly agreed. “I was just telling your father tonight that we need to make some arrangements to curtain off a portion of this room for baths.”

“Uh … sure.”

“I'll just get started on this dress.” She had eyed Patch's long underwear, tapped her chin with a finger, and added, “I think some dainty underthings are needed as well.”

Molly had left her standing there feeling both confused and relieved. In the past, Patch hadn't needed anybody helping her get along with her pa. Why had she been willing to let that Gallagher woman intervene now? Maybe there were just some things a girl shouldn't have to explain to her father. Patch consoled herself with the thought that she hadn't
asked
for help, she had just been smart enough to take it when it was offered.

Last night, Patch had taken a bath in absolute privacy. To her relief, her pa hadn't said a thing to her. When she found herself feeling grateful to her stepmother for the way things had turned out, she reminded herself that if Molly Gallagher hadn't married her
pa, the issue of baths and privacy would never have arisen in the first place.

Anyway, the sooner that woman was gone, the sooner things could get back to normal. Patch closed her eyes, tightened her fingers in the thick fur of the buffalo robe, and imagined that everything was back just the way it had been before the Gallaghers had arrived. But even that thought didn't bring the comfort she had hoped for. Because things hadn't been perfect even then. She fingered the slightly chipped tooth she'd gotten in the fight with the preacher's middle boy. At least with the Gallaghers here, forcing her to stay around the house, she hadn't been in a fight lately.

When the front door rattled, Patch sat bolt upright. Not that she was afraid, with Ethan asleep right in the next room. But she had lived long enough in Montana to see the results of an Indian raid. And she had overheard tales of the cruelty of the small bands of Blackfoot renegades that roamed the plains. Patch rose on her haunches when the door opened just a crack, as though someone were sneaking in. She searched the room for a weapon she could use and settled on a medium-size log from the woodpile near the fireplace.

Tiptoeing, she edged her way over to a spot behind the door. As the intruder stepped inside, she raised the log over her head. It was at the top of its downward arc when she heard Whit whisper, “Patch? Are you in there?”

It took every bit of muscle she had to swerve the log so it didn't crush Whit's skull. “Durn it, Whit! I nearly smashed you flat!” she hissed.

Whit had a hand at his throat, and his eyes were wide as he confronted the raging girl. “I need to talk to you,” he said, keeping his voice low. “It's important. A matter of life and death.”

Phrased like that, Patch couldn't very well turn him away. She looked down at the baggy red long Johns that were all she was wearing, shrugged, and said, “Come on over by the fire where there's more light. And be quiet so you don't disturb Ethan. He's sleeping behind that blanket over there.”

Whit followed her, Pied-Piper style, across the room. “Golly!” he said in a hushed voice as they settled on the buffalo robe. “Is this real?”

Patch snorted disdainfully. “What do you think?”

“Golly!” Whit repeated. “This is great. Look
at those antlers over the fireplace. I've never seen the like. That must have been a huge deer!”

“It was an elk,” Patch corrected impatiently. “Did you come here to talk or to admire the furnishings?”

Whit sat cross-legged, and he pounded a fist against his knee. “I came because I have to get out of here. I have to get back to New Bedford—to the sea.”

“Why are you telling me? If you want to leave, just go. And good riddance!”

“I wish I could. But I need your help to get to Fort Benton. I figure that from there I can stow away on a steamboat downriver, then hide on a train heading back east.”

Patch was a little in awe of Whit's resolve. “Aren't you scared to go all that way alone?”

Whit sat up a little straighter. “Naw. It'll be easy,” he said with bravado.

Patch's eyes narrowed speculatively. Get rid of the boy, and the mother and that baby were sure to follow. “All right,” she said. “You heard my pa say he's going to be taking a buckboard into Fort Benton tomorrow. I'll help you hide in the wagon. How does that sound?”

“Fine. Except, how will I find my way to the levee once I get there?”

Patch rolled her eyes. “Someone who's planning to cross the whole country by himself ought to be able to find his way across one little town.”

“Well, I don't think I can! So are you going to come along and help me or not?” Whit demanded.

Patch shrugged. “Sure. Why not?” Then she had a sudden thought. “For a price.”

Whit frowned. “I don't have any money.”

“I don't want money. I want to know the secret of how you and your pa got that ship into that bottle.”

“I can't tell you that.”

“Then I can't help you.”

“Aw, come on.”

Patch crossed her arms resolutely. “If you want my help, tell me how it's done.”

Whit grimaced, then leaned over and cupped his hand beside Patch's ear and whispered to her.

“Why, even / could do that!” she exclaimed when he was finished.

Suddenly the front door creaked open.

Patch's eyes rounded at the sight of the tall, dark figure in the doorway. “I thought you were in bed asleep!”

Ethan grinned ruefully. “I could say the same thing about you.” As he stepped into the
room, he removed his hat and hooked it on an antler on the wall beside the door. “What are you doing up? And what is Whit doing here?”

“Uh …” Patch couldn't think of a logical reason why Whit would have come to visit her. After all, they had barely spoken to each other since she'd given him a bloody nose.

“I wanted to see where you lived,” Whit volunteered.

Ethan cocked a disbelieving brow. “In the middle of the night?”

“He
keeps me too busy working in the daytime to do much of anything else,” Whit retorted bitterly.

“It's late,” Ethan said. “You'd better get on home before your ma comes looking for you.”

“That's not my home!” Whit said. “But I'll be going.” He gave Patch one last surreptitious look before crossing the room and letting himself out the door.

Ethan sat down in the wooden rocker beside the fireplace. He leaned back and hooked the ankle of one leg across the knee of the other. “What was that all about?”

“Oh, nothing.” Patch knew that Ethan wasn't going to stop asking questions until he'd wormed the whole story out of her. She
needed something to distract him from that purpose. Her nose wrinkled when she noticed a pungent odor surrounding him. “Is that whiskey I smell?”

She followed her nose, and it led her to Ethan's navy wool shirt. “You stink like a saloon on a Saturday night.” She rose up on her knees to sniff his breath. Surprisingly, there was no whiskey smell. Her brow furrowed. That didn't make any sense at all. “How come your clothes smell like whiskey but your breath doesn't?”

Ethan set his foot down from his knee and started the rocker in motion. “I dropped by the Medicine Bow planning to have a drink. Before I could order, a freightman stumbled and spilled his drink down the front of me. Then Dora came up to wipe me off and”—he grinned—”my plans changed.”

Patch made a moue of distaste. “Consarn it! I don't see why you or Pa want to have anything to do with that Dora Deveraux. That red-headed floozy is a—”