Breathe: A Novel of Colorado (28 page)

"It's good news, Bryce," she said, pushing the words out, willing
a smile to her face, taking a step away from him, turning away from
him before he could do it to her. "Let's hope there is nothing suspicious as to how John died. You can get back to your ranch, your life
again. If you can't get back to the sea ..."

"Odessa-"

But she was already stumbling up the hill, desperately holding
back her tears, aching with each step she took away from him.

He left without a good-bye, as she suspected he would, with nothing
but a note and a wrapped package outside her door.

2 June 1883

Odessa,

Forgive me for departing in silence. I hope you know
that if there was a choice, I would make it. Please accept
this gift from me. I have always thought of you as a
fine clipper, just waiting for the right wind. Keep your
bearing, Sweetheart. The trade winds are just ahead of
you.

-Bryce

Odessa's eyes went over the words again. There was no declaration, no promise of return. It was simply a last word of hope for her,
a good-bye, achingly short. But her eyes went back to one word:
Sweetheart. A man, especially a man such as Bryce, did not place such
a word within his text without forethought.

With a sigh she reached for the package, covered by brown paper
and a loosely tied string. She climbed back into bed and untied it and slowly set the package on the side table. Then she ran her fingers beneath the flap of paper, feeling canvas and hardened paint
beneath her fingertips.

It was too small to be the piece he had been working on ever
since she had arrived. She slid off the paper, every movement
slow, as if it might delay her separation from Bryce, then turned
the canvas in her hands. "Oh," she whispered.

It was a scene of a grand ship at dead calm in the distance, a
mere speck on the horizon, upon a vast, still sea. It was painted in
the same hues of blue as his big painting, with a touch of turquoise,
as if upon the edge of the Atlantic, bleeding into the Caribbean.

He had told her once of the trade winds, strong and bracing
along the far-off tropics. "There are dead calms," he had said,
"when the ship barely moves upon the tide. It can be oppressively
hot, so hot you believe you are suffering a consumptive attack.
And then these winds arise, strong and cool off the water, and
suddenly you are not only breathing, but you are moving again."

Breathing and moving again. Was this what he meant when he
said, The trade winds are just ahead of you? Is that what he wanted?
For her to be on the move?

Toward him? Or away from him?

How could he leave her? Before he even knew which way the
wind would take her? Was it just his way of breaking away from
her, using this excuse to seek out the true cause of John's death,
make certain there was no wrongdoing? Was it merely a way to
keep her away? She swallowed hard against sudden tears. The sense
of loss, abandonment, was overwhelming, bringing back days of
mourning her brothers, her mother, her unknown sister....

Bryce, how could you just leave me? Our story just began! How
could you leave without seeing it to the end?

A nurse shouted and two men rushed down the hall outside her
door. Odessa threw aside her covers and reached for her housecoat,
pulling it on even as she joined others who were moving down the
hall. Several huddled outside Amille's doorway, peering in, and it
was then Odessa knew.

Amille was dead, succumbing at last to her sorrow or her disease, gaining her desire to join her family in heaven.

Her eyes moved to Dr. Morton and two burly men who served
as aides, coming down the hall toward her, moving at an unhurried pace. Did they know it already? That Amille was dead? Odessa
looked in the neighboring room, to Nurse Packard, and then to
the patients huddled about. Who was in on this? Or was her mind
playing tricks on her? Was it all in her imagination? Wasn't it a
blessing, that Amille was at last free of whatever had plagued her
mind? What hope had the woman had with a mind so broken?
Wasn't this a relief, an answer to prayer?

But if all that were true, why was everything in her screaming
to be away from this place?

Odessa was one of five people who attended Amille's funeral
and burial. As their small group walked to a high hill behind the
men who carried the simple pinewood casket, she felt the brisk
summer wind drive past as if it intended to go through her. Their
lonely procession made her ache for Bryce, for his strong arm
around her shoulders. Instead, she hurried to catch up with two others from the sanatorium, taking small comfort in being beside
them.

Conrad, a relapsed consumptive who'd been in and out of the
sanatorium ever since Odessa arrived, was laboring to breathe. Many
of the patients at the sanatorium claimed they could not attend for
this reason, not with the strong winds coming off the mountains.
But they were the same people who managed to go and fish or hike
each day. Odessa knew it was that Amille had made so many of them
uneasy, wary, uncomfortable. Some were probably even relieved she
was gone, never to return to hover in their doorways or follow them
down the hall.

"Her husband's death probably hastened her own, poor girl,"
Conrad said. "Her fragile mind could not endure such agony."

They reached the top of the hill, and Odessa noted Sheriff
Bannock's presence. The tall man took off his hat and nodded at
her. She nodded back, wondering where Moira was. She hadn't
seen her in a week, her sister claiming to be terribly busy with
Nic, who was back on his feet at the shop. Was it customary for
the sheriff to be present at every citizen's burial? She glanced away
hurriedly, pulling her blowing black veil back into place. She could
still feel the man's eyes on her, even as the pastor began his short
service, speaking words of the everlasting that Odessa hoped was
Amille's future. She hoped that now she was free, her mind again
intact, reunited with those she had loved. Free. Free to dance and
sing and breathe.

They lowered the casket into the ground and the pastor knelt
to take a fistful of dirt in his palm. He sprinkled it over the wood,
and it appeared like a dark stain on the light pine. "From dust you began, and to dust you have returned. Go in peace, Amille DeChant.
Go in peace." He began to pray and Odessa again ventured a glance
in the sheriffs direction.

A slow smile spread across his face as he brazenly stared back at
her.

Odessa stared down at the wood. Others turned away as the
pastor said his last amen and the gravediggers began to shovel the dirt
into the hole, laying Amille to rest forever, like a seed planted and
ready to spring to life. Odessa watched for another minute, hoping
the sheriff would go and she could follow behind him. But he did
not. He just stood there, waiting her out.

With one last glance and a silent promise to Amille to find out
what had happened to her husband and little girl, even if Bryce did
not, Odessa at last turned and followed the group down the hill. She
tried to ignore the sheriff, just steps behind her the whole way, eerily
silent. But she could feel his stare.

Dominic flipped the "Closed" plaque over in the windowsill and
locked the shop door behind him. Today, for the first day in weeks,
he had awakened without a headache. He felt like a new man, almost
able to forget his injuries other than the troublesome drag of his right
foot. But even that was better. With concentration, and by holding
his breath, he was able to almost keep it in alignment.

He was a block down the street when he spied the sheriff leaning against the front porch post of the El Paso County Land Office.
Dominic looked away quickly, but could see Sheriff Bannock moving
to intercept him. "Little early to be closing up shop," he said amiably.

"Just making a quick visit to the bank," Dominic said.

"Shop must be doing well for you to be making another deposit
this week."

Dominic cast a glance in the man's direction. "Well enough."

"That's good, good. Say, I was wondering if you and I could have
a chat."

"Certainly, Sheriff," he said.

Reid fell into step beside Nic. "I was wondering how you felt,
and how your father would feel, about Moira singing at the opera
house."

Nic took a few steps without speaking, weighing his response. He
knew that the shop, and afternoon opera rehearsals that often lasted
into the evening, had become a convenient excuse for Moira to evade
Reid's company. But the more she avoided him, the more he seemed
to come around, desperate to share any minute with her he could.
And if their father got wind of the opera house ... "Moiras always had
a grand talent for singing. Both our parents were quite proud of her
gift."

"But the opera house. Singing in front of all those people. It's
unseemly. Surely your father wouldn't approve."

"You don't know my father."

"I know many decent men, and the kinds of decisions decent
men make to keep their womenfolk safe."

"Begging your pardon, Sheriff, but you're speaking of my womenfolk, not yours."

Reid took in his words and then said, "Thought my intentions
concerning Moira were clear enough. It's been some time I've been
comin' 'round."

"Comin' 'round doesn't make a woman yours. And for some
time, Moira's seemed as if she wished things were different."

Reid reached out a broad hand and stopped his stride.

Nic paused and then looked up into his glowering face.
"Sheriff?"

"Don't press me," Reid said lowly.

"Now I thought we were just chatting, " Nic returned, refusing
to look aside.

"Tell her to quit the opera. Don't let her take this indecent
road."

"She keeps her own counsel these days, Sheriff. Pulling her out
of the opera would be like convincing a garden rose to return to a
field of prairie weeds."

The sheriffs mouth twitched. "Your sisters are full of surprises,
aren't they? Makes them all the more intriguing. Puzzles to unravel."

Dominic's mouth filled with foul-tasting acid. He didn't like
how the sheriff said that. Puzzles to unravel. And since when had the
sheriff had any interest in Odessa? His fists clenched and unclenched
by his side.

"Good day, Dominic. I appreciate your time."

He watched the sheriff saunter away out of the corner of his eye
and sighed. Here in the West, far from their father, Moira undoubtedly saw an opening in an iron curtain to pursue her dream. "The
stage is not a place for a woman of substance," their father said to her
again and again. But try as he might, Nic could not see why a woman
such as she could not own the stage. She'd relished the limelight ever
since she was small. Why not allow that to grow, flourish? Why not
let her be the woman God created her to be?