Home by Morning (23 page)

“That’s not what I mean,” Cole said.

“I’ve seen that picture,” Tanner put in. “He does have braids.”

Cole laughed again at the absurdity of the whole thing.

“You’re damned right, he does,” Pop agreed. “That Bill Cody was a first-rate showman, with Annie Oakley and all.”

“Yeah, you tried this trick at home and Susannah got after you for turning the pillowcases gray with your dirty hair. Then she made you scrub your head until it was pink.”

Pop scowled. “It’s a wonder I have a hair left on my noggin after that.”

“You’ve got plenty.”

“Well, women wash their hair and they don’t seem to go bald,” Elvin pointed out.

“No, and some of them wash it twice a week,” Bauer added. “Or even more.”

The door to the saloon opened, letting in a gust of damp air and, Cole hoped, a change in this stupid conversation. But when he looked up, he saw Susannah standing there. She still wore her riding skirt and work gloves.

Elvin nodded. “Maybe washing doesn’t have anything to do—” Noticing her, he broke off, and no one else said another word.

Two women in Tilly’s in as many months. It was unheard of.

But Cole stood, knocking over his chair. Something was wrong. Wrong in every possible way. An inexplicable shiver raced through him, raising every hair on his body. Across the table, Tanner stood up too, suddenly as tense as a spring.

Cole had eyes only for Susannah’s chalk-white face. He crossed the few feet separating them. “What’s wrong?”

She looked at him as if someone had struck her from behind, a surprise attack that she hadn’t yet figured out. Her mouth worked, but no words came out.

“Susannah!” He reached over and gripped her wrist.

Finally, she thrust a crumpled piece of paper at him. With some hesitation, he took it from her and smoothed it out.

It was a telegram. Oh, God, he thought, telegrams had never brought him good news. Never. He read the words twice, then read them again.

Cole turned the page over, as if there might some better explanation of the message on the reverse, some proof that it was only a cruel, terrible hoax. But he found nothing.

“Oh, Jesus.” Cole’s throat was as tight and dry as an old leather glove. His eyes burned as he stared down at the impersonal words printed by the telegrapher. “Jesus Christ.”

“Where are the boys?” Tanner asked, and glanced in Bauer’s direction.

“At home.” Susannah’s voice was only a croak. She dropped her head so that the mist on her hair looked like tiny glass beads in the gaslight of the saloon. A choking sob was fighting its way up from her chest.

“Well, what’s going on now?” Pop asked. “They didn’t give you a hard time at the depot, did they?” Cole looked at his father, who watched them, puzzled and still safe for a moment in his ignorance.

Feeling as stiff and lifeless as a mechanical penny bank, Cole put his arm around Susannah and motioned the rest of their group outside. “We have to go. Right now.” His brusque tone left no room for argument.

War is men’s business and men do what has to be done.

Irrelevantly, he wondered if Pop’s blowhard philosophy would still be the same when he learned that his oldest son had died on a battlefield in France.

Word of Riley Braddock’s death spread over Powell Springs like the dark wings of an eerie, moonless night. Whispered from neighbor to neighbor, through back doors and screened-in porches, it moved along the telephone wire, despite the epidemic that still had most of the town on its knees. The
Powell Springs Star
ran Riley’s obituary on the front page. He was the third soldier from Powell Springs to die, although Eddie Cookson, killed by a different enemy, had never gotten out of the Pacific Northwest.

Jessica was checking the inventory of clean linens in a maple breakfront that served as a supply cabinet when Cole walked into the infirmary. She’d already heard the dreadful news about Riley and, not knowing what else to do under the circumstances, had sent an immediate, heartfelt note of sympathy to the Braddock farm.

When she turned and saw him standing beside her desk watching her like a sleepwalker, his pallor, two-day beard, and sunken, bloodshot eyes frightened her. She hurried to speak to him.

“Cole,” she said quietly, reaching for his hands.

He said nothing but put his arms around her and rested his head on her shoulder for just a moment. She felt him sigh, and it seemed as if the sorrow of the world was behind it. People nearby gaped and then looked away. Her own heart aching, she hugged him.

Finally he straightened. “How is Amy?”

“She’s much better than I ever expected. In fact, I’m planning to release her tomorrow to Mrs. Donaldson.”

“Does she know about Ri—my brother?” He couldn’t seem to get the name out.

“Yes. Everyone has heard. But how are
you
?”

“I’m—it’s not easy for any of us. Susannah hasn’t slept in her bed for two nights, not since we got the telegram. She just sits by a window in the parlor, like she’s looking for him to come down the road. She cooks, and I help, but none of us is really hungry. We’re all having a hard time.”

She motioned him into a chair beside her desk and sat down in her own. “I don’t suppose you can bring Riley home?” She thought it was unlikely—France was filled with acres and acres of graves.

He shook his head, and he spoke to his knees, not lifting his eyes to hers. “I talked to Horace Cookson. He knows a couple of people in Washington, DC. They’re burying the men as soon as possible and pretty close to where they fell. And the horses.” His voice faltered, and he swallowed, then looked at her. “God, they’re burying the horses…”

“Cole,” she whispered, “shouldn’t you be at home? Do you need a doctor for anyone? Your father? You could have sent a message—I’d have found someone to give me a ride to your place.”

“No, I’m not here for a doctor.” He straightened and appeared to recover from his daze. “I have to talk to Amy.”

She covered his hand with hers. “Oh, but she understands why you can’t visit.”

He shook his head and stood up to walk down the sheet-draped aisle where Amy’s bed was located. Jess followed, her hands laced tightly together, worry making chills fly down her spine.

Cole rounded into Amy’s cubicle and found her sitting up, reading a book. She looked much better than she had when he’d first brought her in. She wore a modest bed jacket and her hair had been braided into two neat plaits, like a young girl’s. And except for a slight thinness in her cheeks, she seemed well.

“Cole, oh Cole!” she exclaimed happily. “I’m so glad to see you! But I’m terribly sorry about Riley. It’s such a tragedy.” She turned her cheek for him to kiss. He ignored the invitation.

He sat down on the stool beside Amy’s bed. His head throbbed from the whiskey he’d consumed over the past couple of days, but he was sober now. And determined. “Hi Amy. You’re feeling better?”

She put a scrap of paper in the book on her lap to mark her place. “Oh, yes! I’m sorry I scared everyone. Jessica said I was fairly ill for a while. I walked once around the gym this morning. I was a little shaky when I finished, but I’m working to get my strength back.”

“Good.”

“Jessica said I can go home tomorrow. To Mrs. Donaldson’s, anyway. We’ll wait until, well, an appropriate amount of time has passed.” She followed this broad hint with a sympathetic smile.

“That’s fine. You’ll be able to get on with the rest of your life, whatever you decide to do with it.”

“What?” She gave him a puzzled look that reminded Cole of the way Roscoe looked when the dog was trying to understand him.

But he was satisfied that she had recovered enough to listen to him. He reached into his shirt pocket and once again pulled out the telegram that Jess had received with his name signed to it. He had whisked it off her table the same night he’d told her who’d really sent it. He also took out the affidavit that Leroy had written. “I have something to show you.”

Amy’s expression didn’t alter. “Oh, Cole, you poor dear. I know how horrible this must be for you, for everyone.” Fair or not, he couldn’t believe anything she said now, no matter how sincere she might sound. “But really, you don’t need to go through the pain of showing me the telegram about Riley.”

He unfolded the message and held it up so she could see it. “It’s not about my brother. This is the telegram that Jessica got from me a year ago.
Supposedly
from me. I didn’t send it.”

Her delicate brows drew together and she folded her hands on her book. “I don’t understand.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe this will help. This,” he went on, unfolding the telegrapher’s note, “is a statement written by Leroy Fenton that tells who gave him the message to send.” He held the pages up to her.

She took them from him and read both. Muscles in her face twitched, and she wouldn’t look at him. “You don’t believe this, do you?”

He wasn’t about to go through another song and dance regarding her snow-white innocence and pure heart. He’d already heard all that from Jessica, before he’d convinced her of the truth. He leaned closer and put his elbows on his knees, forcing her to look at him. In a low, controlled voice he said, “Amy, I’m not going to marry you. I don’t love you.” She stared at him with her mouth open and eyes wide. “I have always loved Jessica, and you pulled a low-down, underhanded trick on us both. You tried to separate us, and I accept my share of the blame—I never should have started courting you. I wish I had been stronger than that, and because I wasn’t, I owe you an apology. But it was only by the thinnest good luck that I learned about your scheme before it was too late. My brother’s death showed me that our time on this earth is too damned short to waste on bad decisions. You’re free to live your life, but you won’t be living it with me.”

He snapped the papers from Amy’s hands, stood up, and walked away. He came abreast of Jessica, who waited nearby, her face unreadable. Kissing her cheek, he said, “I’ll talk to you in a day or so.”

Granny Mae, passing them with an armload of towels, gave them a steady look but said nothing.

A high-pitched shriek came from Amy’s cubicle. “
C-o-l-l-l-le!
Come back here!” Every conscious pair of eyes within range turned to stare at him. But he kept walking.

He pushed through the doors and went outside, where Sage waited patiently, tied to the hitching rail. Despite losing Riley, and regardless of all that had happened, a curious feeling of freedom lifted part of the weight from his shoulders. Swinging a leg over his horse, he turned for home.

Inside, Jessica walked to her sister’s bed. Now that Cole had confronted her, she felt she should face her as well. She found Amy with one foot on the floor, preparing to rise.

“I think you’d better stay put a while longer.”

Unable to argue, Amy fell back, panting from the exertion, but weak enmity narrowed her eyes as she considered Jess. It reminded Jessica of their last hostile meeting in her office, when Amy’s influenza had just begun taking hold. Her face was blotchy and wet with angry tears. Jessica almost expected to see her begin gnashing her teeth at her. “You…you must be thrilled. You got your way again, Jessica. I hope you’re happy.”

Jessica sat on the stool Cole had recently occupied and crossed her arms. “I’m not happy at all. I discovered that my sister, my only flesh and blood in the world, deceived and hurt me. When Cole first told me about what you’d done, I refused to believe it. It seemed impossible that the girl I’d grown up with, the sister I’d worried about and sent money to every month while I was gone, could be so disloyal to me. I would have even paid for your wedding.” Her words dripped with irony. “I’d ask you why you did it, but I don’t think anything you could say now will help.”

Amy struggled to sit up again. “I already told you why. You didn’t deserve Cole!”

Had her sister always been such a monster of selfishness? Jess wondered. Had she no conscience at all? “And what gave you the right to decide this? Do you feel no guilt, no remorse?”

Amy gave her a narrow-eyed look. “Did you feel guilty for monopolizing all of Daddy’s time?”

It was as if a frighteningly different person lurked behind Amy’s mask of pious good deeds. Bitter resentment stirred in Jessica, and though she managed to keep her shaking voice low in this semi-public place, she could no longer contain her anger. “So you decided that you were the one who should marry Cole. You made us both believe that the other had broken off our engagement—”

“You were not engaged. Not officially.”

“—despite knowing we’d loved each other since childhood,” Jess went on, ignoring Amy’s interruption. “You told us unforgivable lies—
us
, people you claim to love. I’m not going to put up with this from you—I won’t take it from anyone!” She rose from the stool. “You don’t think I deserve Cole? Well, let me tell you something, Amy. I don’t think Cole deserves a double-crossing fraud like you.”

A quick gasp at the insult set off a mild coughing spell in Amy, but Jessica didn’t linger.

A steady rain lashed the dining room windows at the Braddock farm. Only Cole and Pop sat at the table.

Susannah had gone back to her chair beside the parlor window, and the boys were asleep upstairs. Since Susannah wasn’t going near the infirmary any longer, it was decided that their restriction to the bunkhouse, away from the ranch house, could end. They were the only ones who still ate with the gusto of childhood innocence. Cole knew they sensed that something was wrong—the adults were acting funny. Their uncle Tanner had told them that Miss Susannah’s husband wouldn’t be coming back from the war. But their own parents had left them and they weren’t coming back, either. That had been worse.

Tanner sat in the parlor reading a farm journal. Cole had noticed that Tanner had been especially solicitous to Susannah since the news of Riley’s death. He liked the hired hand. He did his job, he was quiet and competent, and he was good with those nephews.

Cole picked up his blue enamel coffee mug to go to the kitchen. “More, Pop?”

“I guess.” He pushed his own mug toward Cole.

Cole went to the stove and returned with steaming refills. Both men had taken about as much punishment from whiskey as they could stand. Now they were back on coffee.

“I have something to tell you about.”

His father gave him a tired, apprehensive look. “Yeah?”

Cole nodded, and explained why he was no longer involved with Amy.

Pop stared at him. “You’re sure about all that?”

For the third time, Cole produced his evidence and shoved it across the table. The old man picked up both messages and held them at arm’s length to decipher them.

“So now what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to ask Jessica to marry me and stay here in Powell Springs.”

Pop closed his eyes. “God, that doctor gal again.”

“Come on, Pop, admit it. Amy tried to fool all of us with her underhanded double-dealing. Jessica has never been anything except, well, except Jessica. Amy—” He shuddered. “I honestly don’t know who she is. Neither does Jess. And that’s not the kind of thing you want to find out after you say ‘I do.’”

The old man held up an arthritic hand to concede the point. “Boy, she took us all for a hell of a ride, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah. Is that what you want in a daughter-in-law?”

Pop sighed and rubbed his white, short-cropped hair, and didn’t answer right away. He looked older than Cole could remember, as if his spark, that little internal fire that made him feisty and cantankerous, had been doused. “Sometimes I think I’ve lived too long,” he said finally. “Everything is turned upside down. I’m not sure what a body can count on anymore.” With slow, stiff movements, he pulled a small bottle out of his hip pocket and added some whiskey to his cup. “When your ma died, I bulled my way through because I had you two boys to raise, and I knew she’d expect me to do it right.” He looked up at Cole. “I’ve never really been certain if I did that.”

Cole fiddled with his spoon, unprepared for this frankness from his father. Immediately, he felt defensive. “Why, because I wasn’t the son you expected me to be?”

Pop glared at him. “Did I say that?”

“Sometimes, in so many words.”

“How?” he demanded. “How did I do that?”

Cole was in no mood to rehash old arguments and past insinuations. “It doesn’t matter now. Let’s just say that I often felt like
I
was the one you wondered about.” Grief and anger over losing Riley made him say more than he would have ordinarily. “I was the one who didn’t turn out the way you wanted.”