Читать книгу Blackstone's Bride - Bronwyn Williams, Bronwyn Williams - Страница 10

He was asleep when she returned, giving her time to study his face. The horrid swelling around his eyes was already discolored, his lips split and swollen. The square jaw bore not only a shallow cleft in the center of his chin, but two cuts and a darkening bruise.

Suddenly, she had a feeling of being watched. His eyes were closed, his breathing even. Living alone had obviously distorted her senses. “Are you awake?” she whispered.

The shadowy beginnings of a beard darkened his face, which would make cleaning him up more difficult, but the twins had taken Devin’s shaving things. Besides, after the way he’d reacted to her scissors, she wasn’t particularly eager to approach him with a straight razor. “Hello-o,” she caroled softly. “You probably should try to stay awake until we’re certain that lump on your head is only skin-deep.”

Brain damage. My God, what should she do about that? Had he said anything that made sense? Or even anything that didn’t make sense? Head injuries were not to be taken lightly.

Damn the Millers! Throwbacks to the Dark Ages, every last one of them! What did they do when someone was sick or injured, call Miss Lucy to cast a spell?

“Wake up,” she snapped. Standing over him, she couldn’t help but be aware of his powerful body. He was muscular, both his lower parts and his upper parts—she didn’t know about what was in between. Devin, like most of his cousins, had been short-legged, but powerfully built from the waist up, probably as a result of working with pick axes and wheeling barrows full of dirt along narrow underground tunnels.

Or perhaps it was hereditary, she no longer cared. This man was different. His hands, for all the bruised and bleeding knuckles, were without calluses. Square-palmed, long-fingered, with well-kept fingernails. Unlike the Millers, who went barefoot ten months out of the year, his feet were narrow, the arches high, not flat and callused and broad.

“Who are you?” she wondered aloud.

There was no response, not that she’d expected one. Evidently, he had used the last of his store of energy dragging himself up the hill to safety. That alone, she thought as she busied herself filling the kettle and dragging her washtub in off the back porch, was enough to tell her that his presence must be kept secret from those in the valley. He’d come up the hill, not down toward the settlement, when anyone knew that going downhill would have been easier.

His ribs were injured, that much she’d concluded by the way he’d reacted whenever he was forced to move his torso. A broken rib could cause untold internal injuries, which he might already have suffered. After getting him out of his underwear she should have insisted on looking him over for evidence of further injuries, but she hadn’t. He had suffered enough for the time being.

Besides, she’d been too embarrassed.

Sooner or later, though, she would have to examine his body. His back, his sides, his—the rest of him. He might even be bleeding internally, in which case, where on earth did one apply a bandage?

She took out her washboard and tossed a sliver of soap into the tub, making a mental note to request more soap the next time her supplies were delivered.

As the kettle began to simmer, she filled the tub half full of cold water, thinking about the first time she had sent down a shopping list, naively thinking someone would be going to the nearest town to shop. She’d ordered three bars of French lilac soap, hard milled so as to last longer, a tin of lilac-scented talc and a stiff new hairbrush, as her own was all but useless.

Two days later one of the twins had ridden up the hill with her order. Three chunks of homemade lye soap and a box of cornstarch. No brush. Not even a new comb.

That had been the beginning of her awakening.

Shoving back a length of tangled curls that had slipped free of the pins, she went through the pockets of his Levi’s before dropping them into the tub. They were empty. No surprise there. Whoever had beaten him had obviously robbed him as well. Nevertheless, she felt in the pocket of his faded chambray shirt before tossing it in after his Levi’s. Next went his single sock. If his ankle got worse, one might be all he would need, perish the thought.

As for his coat, it could probably be salvaged, but it would never be the same. It was ripped in two places as if it had snagged on something. One of the sleeves had nearly been torn off. It would have to be sponged and dried slowly so the leather wouldn’t stiffen before she could even attempt to mend it.

She slid her hand into the outer pockets. Nothing there, either. Hardly a surprise. It was in the lining that she came across a flat pocket. A money pocket? She knew less than nothing about men’s clothes, only that their hosiery needed darning far more often than her own. Cautiously, she slid two fingers inside…and pulled out a folded piece of paper that looked as if it had been through the wars.

The kettle began to rock just then, and laying aside the paper, she finished filling the washtub.

“I don’t know when you’ll be leaving,” she muttered to herself as she swished the soap around to make suds, “but you’ll want something to wear. Did I tell you that the Millers—they’re my late husband’s family. They live in the settlement down below, and the thing is, they don’t particularly care for outsiders.”

He had already discovered that for himself, she thought, if what she suspected was true.

After a few brisk rubs she left the garments to soak and tiptoed back to the bedroom to see if her guest was still breathing. Whether he was or not, he was going to be a problem. She’d had her next escape all planned. Now it would have to wait, at least until he was on his feet. Then, if he wanted to stay on here, he was welcome to stay, with her blessing. They might even bring him supplies as long as he set the basket on the porch and remained hidden from view.

She told him just that the next time she tiptoed into the bedroom to check on him, neither expecting a response nor getting one. “I’m soaking your clothes. Not your coat—I’ll do the best I can with it, but it’ll never be the same again, I’m afraid. I’d lend you something of Devin’s but his cousins came up right after he was buried and took away all his clothes and his other personal possessions. Devin was my husband, did I tell you? He blew himself up.”

She sighed. Talking to a sleeping man was no more productive than talking to herself, but at least she didn’t feel quite so foolish. He might hear her, even though he couldn’t respond.

Standing there staring down at that poor battered face, it struck her all over again that there was a naked stranger in her bed. One who might or might not be a wanted criminal. “Please don’t die on me,” she begged softly. “I wouldn’t know who to notify, or even how. And I could never dig a hole deep enough to bury you in this rocky soil.”

She leaned over and peered at his face, searching for some sign that he’d heard her. At least whoever had split his lip hadn’t knocked out any of his teeth. He had nice teeth. In fact, his mouth would probably be quite shapely once the swelling went down.

“Hello-oo,” she crooned. “Are you in there? Can you hear me?” She took his wrist and found a slow, steady pulse. His hands were filthy, his hair was almost as matted as her own, but he was still alive. Thank God for that much. Carefully, she laid a hand on his chest. He was warm. Not really feverish, just…warm. And hard. His heart was definitely beating.

She lifted her eyes and sighed. “Lord, you’re going to have to tell me what to do next, because I’ve never done this before.”

Actually, she had. Not the same, but she had nursed her elderly cousin through her final illness the summer before she’d been married.

Gazing down at the stranger, she felt the oddest tingle throughout her body. Whoever this man was, he most definitely bore no resemblance to cousin Annie. Eleanor waited to see if he would open his eyes. When he didn’t, she covered him with a quilt, then tiptoed from the room.

It had to be somewhere near midnight. She was too keyed up to sleep, but perhaps she should lie down for a few minutes.

Jed woke up gasping for air, each breath hurting as if a dozen devils were stabbing him with red-hot pitchforks. Squinting through swollen eyes, he saw lamplight splintering from the woman’s pale hair. Her face was in shadow. For a moment he had trouble placing her. His skull had been rattled enough to shake his brain loose, but then he recognized her as the same woman who had dragged him into her house, stripped off his clothes and come after him with a pair of scissors. That had been…yesterday? The day before?

He’d managed to move on his own then. Now, he couldn’t move if she set the bed on fire. Opening his mouth, he tried to speak but no words emerged. Lips hurt. Everything hurt, from his hair right down to his toenails.

How the devil could hair hurt?

His did. Felt as if someone had tried to scalp him. For all he knew, they might’ve succeeded. He attempted to lift a hand to find out, but the effort was too great. Bald wasn’t so bad. One of his friends was bald as a pigeon egg. Couldn’t think of his name right now, but he could picture him easily enough.

God, he hurt!

Daylight was streaming in through the east windows when next she opened her eyes. She felt as if her bones had been pounded with a hammer. Good thing she hadn’t left her poor stranger here, he’d be worse off than ever.

“Coffee, coffee,” she muttered, stumbling toward the kitchen. It was then she saw the big, galvanized washtub in the middle of the floor. As a rule she did her laundry on the back stoop, where she could stand on the ground without having to bend over. But if someone had caught her washing men’s clothing, she would have had a lot of explaining to do.

Coffee would just have to wait. Before she’d even lifted the garments from the final rinse it occurred to her that she wouldn’t be able to hang them outside. Back in Charlotte she had used the attic in rainy weather, but here there was no attic. She would have to dry everything in the kitchen, either that or build up a fire in the fireplace.

While she was trying to decide where to string a line, she thought of the letter. Should she give it to him when he woke up?

If he woke up?

Or should she keep it in case he didn’t recover and someone had to be notified. But in that case, how could she get word out? She could hardly ask any of the Millers to mail a letter or send a wire for her. They had refused every time she’d tried to get in contact with any of her friends back in Charlotte.

The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that it had to have been Alaska and his whiskey-making friends who had done this awful thing. When they had what Devin used to call a skin full, they liked nothing better than to engage in a fistfight with everyone piling on, making enough noise to be heard halfway to the moon. Devin had called it good-natured brawling, but there was nothing good-natured about beating a man half to death.

Now what? she wondered, feeling even more helpless than usual. The natural thing would have been to hurry down the hill and ask for help. Under the circumstances, that was out of the question.

She brought in her clothesline and strung it across the kitchen area, letting the excess line dangle from the nail. She knew better than to shorten a good clothesline, having learned how hard it was to get a replacement. She had asked over and over for more. Might as well have asked for the moon. They must have thought she wanted to use it to lower herself down the backside of the mountain, a sheer drop of more than two hundred feet.

She turned the Levi’s inside out so that the doubled parts—the waist, the seams and pockets—would dry. If he survived, her stranger would need something to wear. If he didn’t, he would need burial clothes. Either way, she would have them ready for him, but he’d have to do without underwear. There was no way she could piece together his union suit, even if he gave it up. So far he’d refused to allow her to take the bottom half. For all she knew he might still be wearing it. At this rate, her whole bed would be mildewed. Crazy fool. “Go ahead, die of lung fever, see if I care,” she muttered, wringing out his one black sock.

But of course, she did care. It wasn’t in her not to care.

After baling out the tub, she turned it down on the back stoop and thought about the next problem. Food. Her rations were carefully allotted for a woman living alone. She could hardly ask for more without inviting questions.

She tiptoed into the bedroom to see if he was still breathing. He was. Slowly, evenly, and so far as she could tell, without any sounds that would indicate that a broken rib had punctured his lung. “I don’t know who the devil you are,” she murmured, “or what you’re doing on my mountain, but if you survive you’re going to have company when you leave.”

In the settlement called Dexter’s Cut, Hector paused outside Digger Hooten’s cabin, checked his fingernails, finger-combed his shoulder-length hair, and then called through the door. “Digger? You to home?”

The runty redheaded man appeared at the door, eyes narrowed against the bright morning sun. “’Mon in, Heck. Set a spell.” Digger was a flatlander who’d married a Miller and produced two children—a daughter, Varnelle, and a son, Alaska, the latter named for the dream he’d always had of heading north in search of gold.

When he’d heard about Dexter’s Cut, he’d figured he’d save time and money by filing a claim on Miller land. Couldn’t be done. So he’d filed a claim on one of the Miller women instead, which was less trouble in the long run. He’d never found more than a few grains of gold, hardly enough to be worth his time digging. But then, his luck might not have been any better in Alaska, and he was too old now to start over.

It was common knowledge that Heck had never had much use for Alaska, so Digger said, “I reckon you come to see Varnelle. She’s over to Miss Lucy’s. Gone to get something for my wife’s bellyache. Right useful girl, my Varnelle. Pretty, too, if I do say so as shouldn’t.”

Fortunately, Varnelle took after her mother. Digger was a homely man.

“Nope, I come to see you.” Heck sat on the room’s only chair while his host settled onto one of two wooden benches. “Nice weather,” he added. An educated man, Heck knew when to haul out his company manners.

“Tol’able,” the old man responded.

Heck had thought long and hard before approaching Digger, but the buck-nekked truth was, he loved his daughter. “Hear tell you been panning some,” he ventured. Most of the locals panned the creek on days when it was too hot to work the fields. That way they didn’t have to feel guilty for laying out while their women were firing up a hot stove to cook their dinner.

“Panned some last week. Didn’t do no good. Wore m’knees out, but that there gold’s done washed all the way down to the river and gone by now. Ever’body knows that.”

“Then how come you wasted time pannin’?” This was going to be tricky as a tote sack full of rattlers. Digger wasn’t mean like Alaska. What he was, was crafty. It took a right smart man to get around him, and third-grade education or not, Heck wasn’t sure he was up to the task.

For Varnelle, though, he was bound to try. “About your daughter,” he began when the old man cut him off.

“I seen the way you been lookin’ at her, boy. You ain’t foolin’ me, nosiree.”

“Well now, she’s a right pretty woman for a redhead.” He thought he’d add the qualifier so as not to appear too eager.

“Tell you what I’ll do, boy. You ain’t the onliest man that’s come a-sniffin’ at her heels, but you show up with Dev’s share of the mine and I’ll set you right up there at the top of the list. Can’t say fairer’n that.”

Heck pursed his lips, laced his fingers across his flat belly and looked thoughtful. “Well now, much as I’d like to oblige, I don’t reckon I can do that.” He’d expected some kind of a clinker. Old Digger was a greedy man, always had been. “On the other hand, don’t reckon any of the others can, either, so that makes us even.”

They passed the time of day for a few more minutes, and Heck made a point of mentioning what a blessing an unmarried daughter was to an old man and his woman. “’Course, lacking a husband to keep ’em sweet, a woman’ll turn real sour as she gets older. Some of ’em gets downright mean. I don’t reckon you’ll mind that none, though, seein’s she’s kin.” He paused to let the words sink in. “Have to support her, too, but at least she’ll be around to see you laid out all nice and proper when the time comes.”

He left a few minutes later, the question he’d come to ask still unanswered. Digger Hooten was not only crafty, he was smart as a whipsnake.

If there was any way in the world Heck could get his hands on Dev’s share, he would do it in a minute, yessir, that he would. Trouble was, those shares weren’t like pieces of paper a man could slip in and steal. What they were was twenty-five solid acres of the most promising land in the entire settlement, the very same hill where old Dexter had struck pay dirt sixty years ago. The land had been passed down to his grandson, who had died and left it to his widow. The only way a man could lay claim to it now would be to marry Elly Nora.

Heck didn’t want to do that on account of he loved Varnelle. Besides, if he married Elly Nora, the property would be his, but he’d have to kill her before he could marry Varnelle. And while he’d done his share of killing, he drew the line at killing a woman.

So he figured he’d just study on it some more. That old hill weren’t going nowhere, he told himself, and neither was Elly Nora.

Time passed. Hearing a slight sound, Jed opened one eye and there she was again. The light was different now. More time had passed. How much time? He didn’t have time to waste. George was counting on him.

His thoughts came in batches between painful breaths. He could see her face more clearly now. She was older than he’d first thought…if he’d thought at all. Mostly, he’d just felt and wished he could stop feeling. He studied her some more as she gathered up things from the washstand—a hairbrush that had seen its best days. An ivory comb and a towel. It occurred to him that she resembled a picture of a woman he’d seen in one of the big churches in Raleigh. Hair like a lumpy halo, face like a saint.

She came over to the bedside then, and he saw the shadows under her eyes. He wanted to offer to give her her bed back—it was obviously the only bed in the house—but he lacked the strength to speak. Lacked the strength to move if she took him up on the offer.

So he watched her through aching eyes and wondered who she was, what the devil she was doing here, and which was the best way out of here without running afoul of those gun-toting, hell-raising pig-swills that had jumped him down by the creek.

Her shadowy eyelids were fringed with thick, colorless lashes. With the angle of the light, it was impossible to tell what color her eyes were. Curiously enough, it mattered. He was right partial to blue-eyed women, always had been.

Hers weren’t blue. But then, they weren’t black, either.

He tried to turn over onto his side for a better view. Jesus, that hurt! Those bastards had kicked his ribs in, laughing all the while.

At his gasp, the woman leaned closer. “What hurts?”

“Everything,” he managed to whisper. He said it with a grin. At least he grinned on the inside—didn’t know if it made it all the way to the surface. Never let it be said that Jed Blackstone wasn’t a good sport, even when he was cashing in his chips.

Could those goons that had jumped him have been hired by Stanfield? Why else would they try to kill a stranger who’d done nothing more than stop for a drink of water?

He needed answers and he needed them right damn now.

That wasn’t all he needed, he suddenly realized. Moving restlessly, he tried to sit up.

A pair of gentle hands pressed him back down. “Shh, you just lie still and rest. Would you like a drink of water?”

“No, dammit, I need to p—”

“Tell me what you need and I’ll get it for you. Don’t even try to get up yet, I think you might’ve hurt your ribs.”

Tell me something I don’t know, he thought, angling his head to get a better look at the woman who had either rescued him or dragged him here to finish him off. At this point, he wasn’t certain of anything.

She was tall for a woman—too thin. The kind of hair that looked as if it had never seen a brush. Not exactly pretty, but not what you’d call plain, either.

“Lady, I need to get up and you need to get the hell out,” he said clearly, his voice urgent. Even talking hurt. He must’ve bit his tongue when they’d caught him on the side of the head with that spade.

“Oh,” the yellow-haired woman said, her eyes widening. “I’ll bring the chamber pot. Can you manage by yourself?”

“What if I can’t?” He couldn’t move his lips, but he could make himself understood.

She blinked, and then damned if she didn’t laugh.

Had he said something funny? If so, it had been purely unintentional, because funny was the last thing he felt.

“I don’t think you can make it out to the privy in your condition.”

Come to think of it, neither did he, but his bladder was fit to bust. He needed a pot and some privacy.

She gave him both.

“Here. If you need any help, I’ll be right outside.” Blushing, she drew a white porcelain chamber pot from under the bed and set it on the table beside him. At the door she paused. “If privacy is what you need I have more than enough to spare,” she said with a funny quirk in her voice. “Besides, I need—I need to feed the animals.”

Letting him know she wouldn’t be lurking outside the door, in other words.

She lingered a moment, adding, “Not that I have any animals, just my two laying hens. Hector—he’s one of the Millers—he gave me a puppy for company once, but it followed him right back down the hill.”

He squinted at her through his partially open eye, wondering if she was totally witless. Wild color flushed her cheeks and she turned and fled. A moment later he heard the outside door slam.

He managed to relieve himself, feeling as if his head was floating a few feet above his shoulders. His belly felt funny, too, not sick like he’d been drinking bad water, but sore, like he’d been worked over by a gorilla.

Five gorillas was more like it. “Jesus,” he gasped, and then flopped back onto the bed and closed his eyes. The slightest movement brought on another pitchfork attack. He was dead certain sure by now that he’d cracked a few ribs. The question was, how many and how cracked? Cracked to the point where the slightest wrong movement could kill him?

Or cracked just enough to make lying perfectly still for the foreseeable future his only option?

At least his head was clearer now. For a while there it had been touch-and-go. He’d actually been afraid they had punched his brains out, but he remembered everything now. Remembered signing the deed and arranging to send most of the money home. Remembered giving McGee a piece of cheese and a soda cracker when they’d stopped by that creek…

What the devil had happened to McGee? He and that miserable old croppy had been together too long to part company now. They had a history together, ever since Jed had saved him from the glue factory. Jed had agreed to feed the biting, kicking, crop-eared old sunfisher and in return, McGee agreed not to bite him, kick him or throw him hard enough to break his neck. So far, for the most part, both had kept their word.

He hoped to hell one of those bastards tried to catch McGee. The last time he’d seen them, they’d been lurching off down the road, one wearing his hat, another one carrying his boots, laughing and cussing a blue streak as they tried to keep from falling on their ugly faces.

If they met again he’d be ready for them, if he had to bind himself up like one of those dead Egyptian kings he’d read about. Given better odds—say three to one instead of five to one—he liked his chances just fine. He wouldn’t go looking for a fight, though. Not this time. He had places to go and things to do, and he’d already wasted two days. Or was it three now?

A tap on the door was followed by a soft voice inquiring if he needed assistance. “I’m all right,” he said, lying through his teeth. If he still had any teeth. He could feel with his tongue, but that hurt, too. Besides, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Sleepy,” he added, hoping she would go away. From the way his head felt, he must’ve made intimate contact with every rock this side of the Eastern Divide.

Sleep. He’d give himself a day. Two, at most, and then he would find his horse and get the hell out of here, with or without his clothes. The lady could go on talking to her chickens from now till they started talking back, it was no skin off his teeth.

If he still had any teeth.