The Listening Sky Page 11

  “To each other? If I remember right the feeling was all on one side. I’ll admit that I owe Ramon a debt of gratitude. He married you and brought me to my senses before I made the biggest mistake of my life.”

  “Colin! You’re being… unkind.” Her large dark eyes filled with tears.

  “I’m being truthful.”

  Patrice sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. After a moment or two she looked up to see that Colin was unmoved by her tears. He was watching the activity down the street.

  “Did you ask T.C. to find me another place to stay?”

  “No. Look around you, Patrice. They’re workin’ to fix up the hotel and the other buildings. You can bed down in the funerary. I don’t think you’d be alone for very long.” Colin gestured toward a narrow building with a sagging roof.

  “You’re poking fun at me now.”

  “I’m tellin’ it as it is.”

  “This is a big house. Surely there’s one little room I can use. You don’t know how awful it is to be in the room with those dreadful low-class women. Look at that blond hussy out there unloading lumber like a man.” Patrice pointed a finger toward Sunday. “She’s not got one ladylike quality. She’s loud and crude and—”

  “—Carrying her own weight; not sitting on her keister expecting to be waited on.”

  “Colin! I can’t believe that you’d approve of a woman working alongside those rough men. Look at her! She loves it. What would your mother say?”

  “My mother was that kind of woman.” Colin’s voice was hard and impatient. “During the war she raised sheep, spun the wool into thread, and knitted socks and caps so she could feed three little kids and a young girl. She did more than that, she gave up the farm where she’d lived all her life to take us away when she thought we’d be taken from her.”

  Colin settled his hat more firmly on his head and crossed his arms over his chest. He was angry at himself for even talking about his mother to this selfish creature.

  “Colin,” Patrice began again in a wheedling voice. “Please ask T.C. to let me stay here.”

  “Ask him yourself,” he said as T.C. came out onto the porch and headed down the steps.

  “T.C., I need to speak to you for a minute.”

  “Then make it snappy. I’ve got to get some papers over to Jeb.”

  “It seems you have time for everyone but me.”

  “This may come as a surprise to you, but I’m too busy to jump when you holler. What do you want?” He spoke with exaggerated patience.

  “Well… I’d really appreciate it, T.C., if you’d make room for me here. I’ll take any little space. I promise not to be in the way—”

  “There’s not a spare bed in the house, Patrice.”

  “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “No, senora. You’re not moving in here. When the hotel is opened you’re welcome to rent a room there for as long as you can pay for it.”

  “It’ll take weeks for that run-down thing to be fixed.”

  “Then you’ve got something to look forward to. Don’t you have washing to do?”

  “Don’t be funny!” she snapped. “Why do you give that big lummox… Herb, or what ever his name is, a room here and you won’t give me one?”

  “I’ don’t have to explain my actions to you. But I’ll tell you this—I wouldn’t want you in my house even if I had the room. When your husband gets here, he’s goin’ to be as mad as a hornet. I’ve got enough on my mind without having to defend myself against a cocky little rooster who thinks I’ve compromised his wife.”

  Patrice sucked in a deep breath. Anger made her eyes hard and her nostrils flare.

  “Ramon knows me well enough to know that I’d never consider having an affair with you!”

  “That takes a load off my mind. I guess then he’s Colin’s worry ‘cause he’ll be sure you’re sleepin’ with someone.” T.C. turned his back to her and spoke to Colin. “Bill said to cut out a young steer and get it ready for the pit. Jeb struck a bargain with the mill boss and the timber bull to keep the crew here for three days.”

  “I’ll get right to it.” Colin tipped his hat politely to Patrice, stepped off the porch and crossed the street.

  “Hold on, Colin,” Patrice called and hurried after him. “I’ll walk with you.”

  Herb helped Doc use the chamber pot. When he came down to the kitchen his brow was wrinkled with concern.

  “He’s passin’ blood, Miss Jane. Lots of it.”

  “Oh, dear. Is he in pain?”

  “He’s begging for laudanum.”

  “He knows laudanum is addictive, and he also knows the end is near. I think we should give it to him.”

  “I was hopin’ ya’d think that.”

  Jane gave the doctor one drop of laudanum and sat with him until he fell asleep.

  When she returned to the kitchen, she put the potatoes on for the soup she was making for him, then rolled her sleeves up past her elbows and wrapped one of Herb’s dirty shirts about her waist, tying the sleeves in the back. In a large pan of warm soapy water, she washed every dish and utensil in the kitchen, then scrubbed the table and the counters. She found a broom that looked as if it had never been used, dampened it in the water to hold down the dust and thoroughly swept the room.

  Such a nice room, she thought as she worked, but so bare. Just a few extras would make a world of difference; curtains at the window, a cloth on the table, a lamp with a shiny chimney, the smell of bread baking. The larder was empty except for cornmeal, potatoes, salt and coffee. Herb had brought over a pail of milk and a pan of biscuits. She had eaten a couple with milk for her noonday meal.

  Jane was enjoying the fresh smell of scrubbed wood when she heard T.C.’s voice in the hall. A minute later he appeared in the doorway.

  “How’s Doc?”

  “Sleeping.”

  His eyes roamed the kitchen, then honed in on her for a long moment before he spoke.

  “Looks good. Get what you need to stock the larder from the mercantile and put it on my tab. Herb can get meat from the smokehouse.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I’ll not stock your larder, and I’ll not cook your meals.”

  “Why not? You’d cook for Doc and Herb and Colin, if he’s here.”

  “I’m not working here on a permanent basis, Mr. Kilkenny. I’ll be here but a day or two, or until I can find transport back to the station.”

  “You’d run out on Doc? Herb says you’re the only one that can do anything with him. He also said you’ve a knack in the surgery. We need you here.”

  “I’ve made up my mind, Mr. Kilkenny. No amount of persuasion from you will change it.”

  He shrugged in a way she had come to recognize as not giving up the argument, but postponing it.

  “Then make out a list of the things needed to stock the kitchen and give it to Herb. Meanwhile you’ve got a patient waiting in the surgery.”

  “I’ve got a patient?”

  “One of the loggers let an adze slip and cut a hole in his leg. Unless you’re willing to let him bleed to death, you’d better get in there.”

  “Well for goodness sake! Why didn’t you say so instead of standing there yammering?”

  Chapter 9

  JANE removed her makeshift apron and hung it on the back of a chair. She smoothed her hair back with her palms and hurried across the hall to the surgery. Much to her discomfort, Kilkenny stayed close behind her.

  The injured man sat on a chair holding a blood-soaked rag to his thigh.

  “Murphy, this is Miss Love. She’ll fix you up.”

  “Where’s the doc?”

  “He’s very sick. Don’t worry, Miss Love knows what she’s doing.”

  Jane nodded a greeting and went immediately to the washbowl to wash her hands with Doc’s castile soap. On hearing Kilkenny’s words that she knew what she was doing, she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. The man was an accomplished liar. She dried her hands and
turned to look at the heavily bearded patient. He was middle-aged and built like an oak tree.

  “Help him up onto the table, Mr. Kilkenny, so I can see the wound.”

  “I ain’t needin’ no help.” The timberman, embarrassed to be showing weakness in front of a woman, hopped to the table and perched on the edge.

  “Lie down. Mr. Kilkenny, please remove that dirty rag and split the leg of his britches with your knife.”

  “Now, hold on. These be the only britches I got.”

  “Would you rather take them off?” Jane asked, with a haughty lift of her brows.

  “Consarn it!” He looked at T.C. for help.

  “You can get another pair at the mercantile.”

  T.C. unwrapped the rag from around the massive thigh, then split the man’s britches, exposing a deep cut several inches long above his knee. Jane did her best not to shudder when she saw the gaping hole. She went to Doc’s medicine cabinet and plucked a wad of clean lint from a container. She returned to the table with the lint and a bottle marked ANTISEPTIC. She glanced up to see T.C. watching her with eyes so narrow that she could just barely see the silver glint. She looked back at him with more composure than she possessed.

  “While I clean the wound, wash your hands. You’ll have to hold the flesh together while I stitch it.”

  “Stitch it?” The man’s head and shoulders came up off the table. “Jist put some salve on it and tie it up.”

  “No. That won’t do at all. Germs that cause lockjaw and putrid flesh can get in the wound. I can either sew it or put a hot iron to it. Which do you prefer?”

  “Sew it.”

  Jane’s shoulders slumped with relief. What in the world would she have done if he had chosen the hot iron?

  Murphy dropped his head back down and rolled it from side to side, lifted it again and looked at her.

  “Ma’am, have ya done this before?”

  “Many times,” Jane’s brows went up as she lied convincingly. “I’m just a few weeks from my Medical Certificate.”

  “It’s glad I am to know it, ma’am. I just ain’t never seen no woman doctor.”

  “This is the eighties, Mr. Murphy. There are some mighty good women doctors practicing in the West. Dr. Mary Walker was a surgeon in the U.S. Army during the war. They said she did a fine job.” While she was cleaning the wound Jane spoke of Mary Walker’s struggle to make a place for herself in her chosen profession. The story was to keep her mind as well as Murphy’s off what she was doing.

  “Wal, don’t that jist take the cake? I ain’t never heard ‘bout a woman doin’ all that.”

  Jane went back to Doc’s supply cabinet and for the count of a dozen heartbeats closed her eyes; she wondered if she would be able to do what had to be done. She had helped the doctor stitch wounds at the orphanage, and had one time closed the wound of a plowman when the headmistress refused to send for the doctor. If she didn’t act now, she told herself firmly, the man could get lockjaw and die.

  After threading the needle with linen thread from a spool in the cabinet, she doused it in the bottle marked CARBOLIC ACID. By the time she had returned to the table, she had her features well under control.

  The hardest part was piercing the flesh with the needle the first time. After that she worked swiftly and efficiently. It helped that the logger never flinched while she closed the gaping hole in his thigh. T.C. proved to be helpful, too. He held the flesh together and she worked around his strong clean fingers. After Jane smeared the wound with salve, T.C. wrapped the man’s thigh with a length of clean cloth and Jane was free to wash her bloody hands.

  “Thanks, Doc.” Murphy sat up on the edge of the table.

  “I’m not a doctor,” Jane said over her shoulder. “You’d better come back in a few days and let someone here take a look. You’ll need the bandage changed and after a while the thread will have to be plucked out.”

  “Someone? Ain’t ya goin’ to be here, Doc?”

  “I’m not a—”

  “She’ll be here, Murphy. Do you need help getting to your tent?”

  “Naw. I can manage.” He hobbled to the door. “Much obliged, Doc.”

  T.C. walked with the man to the door and saw him off the porch before he returned to the surgery to lounge in the door and watch her.

  “Did you mean it about the certificate?”

  “You know I didn’t. The man needed reassurance.”

  “You’re about as good a liar as you are a doctor”

  “Would you rather I told him that the sight of that hole in his leg almost caused me to throw up all over him? And that I wasn’t sure I would be able to poke him with the needle?”

  “That bad, huh? You’re not only a good liar, you’re gutsy. I thought you were enjoying yourself.” T.C.’s silver eyes glinted mischievously from between heavy black lashes and a chuckle rumbled from his chest.

  Jane returned the supplies to the cabinet, her body stiff with indignation. She hated being the source of his amusement.

  “Am I to take that as a compliment?”

  “That’s the way I meant it.” His eyes ranged up and down her length.

  “A backhanded compliment if I ever heard one.”

  She had not felt as angry with any single person in a long while as she was now. This man who was keeping her here when she so desperately wanted to leave made her furious. Since there was no possible way of releasing her anger without humiliating herself, she remained quiet while she finished putting the surgery in order.

  “You’ve got blood on your dress.” T.C.’s eyes flicked down over her breasts and on to the spots on her skirt. “Use one of Doc’s aprons next time.”

  “There wouldn’t be a next time if you’d help me get back to the station.”

  “Doc would be pleased at the job you did on Murphy,” T.C. said, ignoring her remark. Pinpoints of light glittered in his silver eyes.

  “I doubt that. Excuse me.” Jane went to the door and tried to pass him. “I’ll soak the stain in cold water before it sets.” She spoke quietly, but nervousness and anger had made her wet under the arms.

  She knew that on no account must she let this infuriating man suspect how much his very presence played on her emotions. He was arrogant, insufferably so, and yet, she instinctively knew that he took his responsibilities seriously and that he left no stone unturned in order to complete whatever task he set out to do. What really disturbed her the most was knowing that he would despise her more than anyone else when her secret was revealed.

  T.C. moved just enough for her to squeeze by. Her shoulder rubbed against his chest, wisps of dark-red hair caught in the whiskers on his chin. She smelled like soap and… sunshine. She was both fascinating and irritating. He was determined that she would not leave Timbertown until he satisfied his curiosity about her reasons for leaving. She was afraid of something here. He was sure of that.

  After Jane disappeared into the kitchen, T.C. went back down the hallway to the porch. Herb and Polly were coming up the steps. He tipped his hat to Polly and paused to speak to Herb.

  “Miss Love will make out a list of supplies needed to stock the larder. Get her what she wants and put it on my tab. It’s time we had meals here at the house now that there’s a decent cook around.” He gave Herb a good-natured swat on the shoulder.

  “I ain’t no great shakes as a cook, I admit it. I’ll get to the mercantile as soon as I take Miss Polly in to stay with Miss Jane.”

  T.C. had not missed the possessive hand on the girl’s elbow. The thought occurred to him that without Doc, Herb would have nothing to tie to. The boy, man now, had spent the past few years taking care of his old friend. Perhaps it was good that he had met someone else who needed his protection.

  “Miss Wright, I’d be pleased if you’d help Miss Love. She has her hands full with Doc and the patients that come to the surgery. You’ll need to take over the cleaning as well as helping with meals. Ask Miss Love what needs to be done. You’ll be paid a wage along with your bed and
board.”

  “Yes, sir! Oh, I’d be pleased to.”

  “Herb, do you think you could find a place to throw down a bedroll so the ladies could have your room? It’s right across from Doc’s and he’s going to have to have someone sit with him nights. Colin can come in with me. For propriety’s sake the ladies should have the upstairs to themselves—except for Doc, of course.”

  “Sure thing, T.C. I’ll throw my blankets there in the office or on the porch. See there, Miss Polly. I told you things’d work out.” Herb’s boyish face was split with huge grin. “You’ll be right here where we can keep a eye out for that feller. He ain’t goin’ to come messin’ around here.”

  “What feller?” T.C. was quick to pick up on Herb’s words and the look he gave the young girl.

  “One of the loggers was pesterin’ her.”

  “If he bothers you again, let me know.” T.C. stepped off the porch and then turned. “You’d better bring their things over. And, Herb, take two of the cots from over there. A couple of the women can have their places on the bed. You can take one, Colin the other.”

  T.C. went away whistling, pleased with himself that he had blocked any move Jane could make against staying and working in his house.

  “Jane, I was so scared you’d gone.” Polly left Herb in the doorway and went to put her arms around Jane’s waist and hug her. “Mr. Kilkenny said I can stay here and help you. Ain’t that grand?”

  “Yes, grand,” Jane said halfheartedly. “I wouldn’t have gone away without telling you. Besides, my things are still there, aren’t they?”

  Jane’s eyes went from Polly’s flushed happy face to Herb’s. He was grinning like a schoolboy with a frog in his pocket.

  “What’s that on your dress?” Polly was looking at the large wet spot just below the waist.

  “I fixed a cut on a man’s leg and got blood on it. I soaked it with cold water.”

  “Miss Jane’s real good at doctorin’.” Herb’s eyes were filled with admiration. “I ain’t no good a’tall. Even lancin’ a boil makes me sick.” He failed to see Jane grimace and hurried on. “Doc likes you, Miss Jane. He don’t like many folks.”