A Place Called Harmony (10 page)

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ARMON
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RADING
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Just before dusk, on an evening almost too cold to sit out on the porch, Daisy Matheson moved to the rocker. Her sons were asleep. Time to sit and wait, and hope that her Gillian was heading toward her. Tomorrow would be the ides of March, the day she’d said she would be waiting for him. Her note hadn’t said what she would do after March 15 if he didn’t show up, because Daisy had no idea. Going home seemed her only option, but going back to her family didn’t seem right when her heart only wanted Gillian.

She could close her eyes and remember every detail of how he’d looked when he’d ridden up to her family’s farm that winter five years ago. She’d been barely into her twenties and thought he was so handsome in his cavalry uniform. He’d been a few years older and a lieutenant then, riding with four of his men from farm to farm. They were looking for a band of outlaws who’d been causing trouble.

Her father had winked at her when he’d invited the soldiers to supper as if he were giving her a gift. By the time she handed Lieutenant Gillian Matheson his dessert, she was in love. It had been mid-December and when her father heard Gillian had no family to go home to for Christmas, he invited the young soldier to stay with them. By New Year’s they were married.

Daisy thought of how simple it all seemed at first. Since he had no family, she’d shared hers. They all welcomed Gillian in. On a large farm another set of hands was always needed.

When he left for an assignment she thought he’d come back to stay soon, even though he talked about her joining him at one of the frontier forts. But one year turned into two and then three, and his visits grew farther apart each year. The last time he came home they’d argued, crushing each other’s hopes. He wouldn’t stay and she wouldn’t leave. She’d known it would be a while before he came back, but after another year passed, Daisy knew she had to act. By accepting this job for him and moving here, she’d find out if Captain Matheson was staying away from her family or her. She’d crossed more than the distance he’d have to ride from Fort Elliot, but he’d have to come the last hundred miles to her.

She was no longer a girl. Daisy was twenty-six and the mother of four sons. If Gillian didn’t come, she knew she’d be his wife until the day she died, but she’d stop waiting for him. If he didn’t come, she’d go back home and raise her sons.

She’d never sit on the porch again, watching the night, hoping he’d come back to her.

Pulling her shawl around her, Daisy leaned forward as the sound of horses came through the evening shadows like a rattle on the wind.

Standing, she saw two wagons moving toward her. The first one was covered, driven expertly by a big man in black. The second looked to be a work wagon like her family used on the farm. A younger man drove the second wagon and two women, one more girl than woman, sat sideways in the back.

The second wagon pulled ahead of the first. In the two weeks she’d been at the trading post she’d seen no women, only soldiers or men hauling supplies to the forts, or cowboys moving cattle to the markets north. The sight of females rushing toward her surprised and delighted her.

Daisy stood, an uneasy feeling turning over in her mind. Mr. Ely had told her two more couples would be coming, but these wagons were pushing hard as if trailed by trouble.

Picking up the lantern, Daisy moved down the steps. Without turning back, she heard Harmon Ely move through the door of the store and stand on the first step. His bulk always made the first step groan.

She guessed he’d have a rifle at his side; he usually did when visitors arrived late. Both times he’d been robbed, trouble had come at dusk.

The half-grown girl in the back of the first wagon looked up. She must have seen Daisy standing on the steps. In the jingle of harnesses and stomping of horses, she called, “You Daisy, miss?”

Daisy saw that the girl and a woman had something between them. Something wrapped in blankets, about the size of a body.

“You Captain Matheson’s wife?” the girl called again as the wagons pulled to the front of the store.

Daisy couldn’t move. She knew that the body in the wagon bed was her husband. Her mind knew, but her heart wouldn’t accept it. Gillian was a strong man who looked quite handsome in his uniform, the perfect image of an officer.

The body wrapped in dirty, bloody blankets could not be her man.

“Miss?” the girl said in a voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used in days. “Mrs. Matheson? I brought the captain to you.”

Daisy lifted her skirts and ran toward them. Deep down in her very center she knew it was Gillian. She knew even before she saw his face.

The lantern in her hand swung wildly, giving flashes of the man in only blinks of light. Blood on the blankets. Blood shining in his black hair. His hand lay across his chest, holding on to a Colt as tightly as he seemed to be holding on to life.

“It’s Captain Matheson, lady. I sure hope you know him ’cause neither one of us is going to make it much farther.”

The two men who’d been driving the wagons circled around her and began moving the body out of the wagon bed with great care.

“We found them on the road a few miles back,” the younger of the two men said.

Daisy turned the lantern up. “I’m his wife,” she announced, as if they wouldn’t let her touch him if she wasn’t kin. She wanted to scream or run from the horror of it all, but she had been raised on a farm. When trouble came, be it illness or accidents, everyone went to work on the problem. On a farm, no matter how many were in the family, there was never time to panic or hesitate.

Questions could wait; she had to get Gillian inside.

Harmon Ely’s rough voice snapped orders as if he knew the man carrying her husband up the steps. “Get him to the back room. Spread him out on the kitchen table. We’ll clean him up and have a look at where he’s hurt.”

As they passed Ely, the old man looked at the youngest stranger. “McAllen, right?”

The tall, thin young man nodded, his face reflecting a menagerie of emotions from excitement to worry.

Ely turned to the other man, in his early thirties. He was almost as tall as McAllen and looked wide with muscles, but his face gave no emotion away. “Then you’re Truman,” Ely said.

“I am,” was all the big man had time to say before they passed him.

Daisy cradled her husband’s head as she guided the men through the store to the back room. She wanted to pull back the corner of the blanket covering half of his face, but she feared what she might see.

It took all three of them, but they maneuvered Gillian into the kitchen without bumping into anything. Blood and mud seemed everywhere. The girl started crying and muttering her disjointed story. “I didn’t know what to do. He got to shaking like he was real cold. I figured he’d die if we stopped to build a fire, so I just kept moving. When it got cold I piled mud and leaves on him, hoping it would keep him warm.”

A woman a few years younger than Daisy and almost the same height stood beside her and whispered, “I’m Annie McAllen. We’re going to need a doctor for both your husband and the girl.”

“Ain’t got no doctor out here, miss,” Harmon Ely snapped. “Up until a few weeks ago the population of my town was one.”

While Ely got the doctoring box, Daisy glanced toward the child who’d brought Gillian to her. The girl looked frightened and about to drop.

Daisy offered her hand to the girl and led her to a chair by the potbellied stove. She covered the girl with her shawl and drew her a dipper of water from the bucket. Daisy needed a moment to comprehend all that was happening around the table.

“Will you be all right here for a while?” Daisy whispered.

The girl nodded. “He talked for days about how we was heading south to you. Then, when he got shot three days ago, he kept saying your name like I might forget to take him home to you.” The girl looked up. “I didn’t forget.”

Daisy touched her shoulder. “You did good getting him here. Now rest. I’ll take care of him for a while.”

As she stepped to the table, the men backed away. They’d stripped Gillian to his waist and pulled away all the blankets. His chest had a few bruises, nothing more. As Daisy’s gaze rose, she braced herself but still took a step backward when she saw the wound along the side of his head. It looked as if someone had taken a blade and scraped an inch-wide trail from the edge of his forehead into his thick black hair, leaving nothing behind but bloody open flesh.

He’d always been so alive, so perfect, her young lieutenant, her strong captain. Her husband. Her only lover.

Now he was broken. His face ghostly pale and his eyes closed. No longer perfect. No longer strong.

Ely began laying out supplies while Daisy washed away the last of the blood.

“It looks like a bullet wound grazed the left side of his head just above his ear.” Ely announced the obvious. “Some of the wound has scabbed over, but it’ll need cleaning. That place on his forehead is still dripping blood.”

Daisy went to work. Around the wound the skin was red and puffy as if infection had already set in.

She never considered herself much of a nurse, but she’d seen enough wounds to know that if she didn’t get it cleaned fast, blood poison would kill him. His skin was already hot to the touch. Another few hours and he would be on fire.

She cleaned the area as best she could using chloride around the wound and lye soap where it wasn’t bleeding. “Hold him down,” she whispered to the two men who’d brought him in. Then, with a new scrap of cotton, she dabbed iodide on the wound.

The captain gritted his teeth, refusing to scream. After one final jerk to break free, he passed out.

The woman who’d hugged Daisy when they first brought Gillian into the kitchen now stood beside her, silently helping whenever needed. Annie McAllen was younger than Daisy, but she didn’t seem a stranger to working through emergencies.

The two men and a tall, thin woman had backed away into the shadows of the kitchen. All were silent. All watched. The thin woman had been so quiet she almost seemed like a shadow in the background.

Daisy had little idea who any of them were, but she felt like they were all somehow connected. Like strangers in a lifeboat or lost miners in a dark tunnel. Their lives depended on one another, and right now it was Gillian’s life that was in danger.

After they’d cleaned the wound and wrapped a bandage around his head, she finally took time to look at her husband’s face. Always before, when they’d been together, there had been a slight smile on his mouth, in his eyes. Now, his eyes were closed and pain twisted his handsome features into someone she barely recognized.

She cupped his whiskered face in her hands. “You’re going to be all right, Gillian. You got to me in time. I’ve got you now. Just sleep until you’re ready to wake up and tell me of this latest adventure. You know how I love hearing all about them.” She knew others were listening, but she had to add, “I love you, darling. I always have and I always will.”

He didn’t answer, but her words seemed to calm his breathing.

“You’ve been working three hours, ma’am,” the younger one of the tall men said softly. “If you’ll sit a spell, Truman and I’ll put a nightshirt on your husband and move him to a bed.”

Daisy looked up at the two men who’d brought in her husband. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to introduce myself. I’m Daisy Matheson and this is my husband you may have saved from death’s grip. His name is Gillian, but most folks just call him Captain.”

Both men nodded a greeting.

“Like I said in the middle of all the panic earlier, I’m Patrick McAllen and this is my wife, Annie.” He pulled the chubby little woman who’d stood by Daisy’s side for hours closer to him. “We’re from Galveston, but we’ve come here to build a town.”

“Hello.” Daisy smiled, noticing the way they clung to each other. There was a time she and Gillian had been that way. Those first few weeks they were married they couldn’t stand to be apart.

The other man straightened. His features were harder, his eyes weary of life, and he wore a Colt strapped to his leg. “I’m Clint Truman, but most people just call me Truman. My wife is feeding our baby in a corner of the store.” He seemed to hesitate as if forgetting something before he finally said, “Her name is Karrisa. Karrisa Truman.”