Prairie Song (8 page)

Cherish talked softly with the child as she continued to walk. Her voice didn’t change but her words were for Grayson. “She’s got the measles.”

“And we’re going to take care of her?” He couldn’t believe with all their problems Cherish was taking on yet another one. What was this? A home for every stray sick child and orphan in town?

“No.” She talked as if to the child. “
I
‘m going to take care of this baby.”

“But where? How?”

“As soon as my room warms, I’ll take her in there.”

Grayson ran his large hands through his cinnamon hair. “I …”

Loud pounding from downstairs silenced him. He glanced at Cherish and as their eyes met they both silently asked the same question. “Who could be visiting at this hour?”

“I’ll get it.” Grayson noticed a hint of fear in Cherish’s eyes and wondered who she’d been expecting.

As the pounding came again, Grayson yanked open the front door. An old nun stood huddled against the night wind. She carried two wiggling bundles in her arms. As Grayson stepped to allow her inside, she shoved the bundles toward him and pushed away.

“Father said to take these two, for they got the spots also. And here is the directions to find Hattie’s medicine. Give the paper only to Miss Cherish.”

“But …” Grayson balanced the wiggling blankets in his arms as he blinked, and the old woman blended into the night even before he thought better of giving away his disguise by words of protest.

He carried his delivery upstairs. He’d meant only to dump them in Cherish’s lap and return to his quiet vigil in Margaret’s room but, even to his unskilled eyes, three sick children were more than one person could handle. He rolled up his sleeves and silently added his help, grumbling all the while about how he disliked children—especially ones with red spots.

By dawn he’d learned more about sick babies than he’d ever wanted to know. He was amazed that when they weren’t crying, they were spitting up or coughing, or making a mess out the other end. A pile of towels and sheets large enough to keep a washwoman busy all day lay by the door and still the babies looked no better off than when they’d arrived. Bar lay exhausted on the floor by the fire as Grayson paced with the little girl Cherish had first brought home in one arm and a boy not yet old enough to walk tucked into the other. Cherish sat, sound asleep, in a corner of the couch with a sleeping baby beside her.

Margaret appeared in the doorway of her room and stood watching the scene before her. For several long moments she pieced the picture together. Finally, Grayson stopped his pacing and looked up at her with heavy, sleepless eyes. He didn’t speak, but lay the infants down on their makeshift beds and walked toward her with a caring question in his blue-gray depths.

Margaret gently lay her hand on his muscular forearm. “I’m fine, Grayson. Don’t look so worried.” She could feel his arm tighten slightly, so she patted him gently.

Maggie’s voice awakened Cherish. She rose up on one elbow. “Maggie,” she whispered, hoping not to wake the children. “You look wonderful this morning.”

“Which is more than I can say for the two of you,” Maggie scolded gently. “Where on earth did these babies come from?”

Cherish laughed and explained. Maggie started shaking her head as she looked at the sleeping children.

“We can’t keep them. There’s hardly any money to buy food now and I have no idea how long it will take to get Tobin’s money released.” Even as she spoke, Maggie moved toward the children. Her slender hand reached up and covered a tiny shoulder. “We just can’t,” she whispered, but there was no need for Cherish to present any more argument. The children would stay until they were well.

“Miss Cherish.” Bar pulled Cherish aside as she moved down the hallway.

“Yes?” She couldn’t help but smile at the boy. He had a way of climbing into her heart with both feet.

“I was wonderin’ if you make a habit of bringin’ home every sick child or wounded man you find. ‘Cause if you do, I might find myself worked to a nub before I can grow whiskers.”

Cherish laughed. “I’m afraid I do, Bar. My father used to say I had a gift for healing. He told me once that my mother worked day and night to help her people when typhoid fever almost wiped out their town. Afterwards, folks said she had the gift. I guess I’m like her; I just can’t stand to see folks suffer if I can help.”

Bar nodded slowly. “I ain’t never met folks like you and Miss Margaret.”

“You’ll get used to us.” Cherish laughed.

“Oh, I don’t mind helpin’ out. Heck, I’ve hauled enough water in the past three days to fill twenty horse troughs. Bothers me some that Miss Margaret keeps expectin’ me to use it on my own body. That woman gets an idea in her head and there ain’t no way of reasonin’ with her. Her Westley that she keeps talkin’ about didn’t by chance die of pneumonia from bathin’ in the winter, did he?”

Cherish fought the urge to hug him. “No,” she answered. “He died in the war just like a lot of other men.”

“Oh.” Bar shrugged and headed down the stairs just as old Hattie called him about hearing someone under her bed.

Brant Coulter leaned against the rough window frame and stared into the frosty night. He was thankful for the cold and rain. With no cattle drives camped nearby and the weather keeping all the local folks away, Hell’s Half-Acre was as quiet as if it were respectable. He could still smell whiskey and filth seeping up from the bar below his room, but at least there was no noise. He lit the end of his thin cigar and studied the house on the hill at the end of Hell’s Half-Acre.

He couldn’t get his mind off of the beautiful woman who had saved his life. She had a way of seeping into every still moment and settling there, more than a memory, less than reality. Even though it had been almost a week since he’d seen her, his hunger for her hadn’t diminished. But she was from another world and he couldn’t live with himself if he soiled something as perfect as Cherish Wyatt.

A tap rattled him back from his longings. He tossed his cigar out the window and crossed the tiny room to his guns.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, honey. Holliday.” A voice as husky as a miner’s answered.

“Come in.” Brant shoved his Colt back in its holster and relaxed. As the door opened a woman almost as wide as the frame waltzed in. She was like a day-old sweetshop with cinnamon hair, dark raisin eyes, and wheat-flour skin. Her huge breasts jostled like full-risen dough in her low-cut blouse and her walk seemed to advertise that anyone could buy her sweets for a bargain.

Holliday smiled with blood red lips that spanned her face. She was not many years older than Brant, but she’d lived her life in double time. “I know you said you wanted to be left alone, but I thought you might be wanting a girl to keep you company.”

“No, thanks.” The idea of one of Holliday’s long-ridden girls almost turned his stomach, but he had to be polite. She was doing him quite a favor by letting him stay, even though he was paying well for it. “Your girls could probably use a night off before business picks up tomorrow.”

Holliday chuckled and waved her porky little fingers in the air. “I wasn’t thinking of one of my girls. I was referring to this wisp of a little thing that came in the back door with that boy Barfield. She told me she knew you were here and wasn’t leaving Until she’d seen you. I figure either you see her or I put her to work. After a few cowhands who leave their boots on, she’ll lose some of that spotless clean look and probably start to enjoy my line of work.”

The muscle across Brant’s strong jawline twitched before he realized Holliday was kidding. She’d long ago replaced her heart with a change purse, but she wasn’t an evil woman. Before she’d decided she could make more money on her back, she’d been one of Hattie’s dealers at the poker games that used to run every weekend when he was a boy.

“Send her up,” Brant ordered without giving her the pleasure of knowing that her joke had gotten under his skin. As she waddled out of the room, he looked around, suddenly seeing the filth of the place. Here, Cherish would be like a white rose dropped in the gutter. “Damn,” he swore, wishing she hadn’t found him.

Before he could move, she stormed into the room, a whirlwind of pure delight. Her voice was clear and a little high with anxiety. “Thank goodness I found you.”

“What do you want?” He hadn’t meant his words to sound harsh, but they did.

“I’ve come to rebandage that wound.” She was using her most formal voice now, the kind she must have used on troublesome soldiers when she was at the army hospitals. “I don’t want all my time to have been wasted because you haven’t changed the dressing.”

“I’m fine,” Brant lied. The wound had kept him awake most of the nights. “I haven’t even thought about it in days. So you can just turn around and go back home.”

“No!”

“Get out.” The sooner she learned to stay away from him the better. “Go on. The last thing I need is someone mothering me.”

“I’m not mothering you.” Cherish backed him into the wall with one pointed finger sighted on him like a gun. “Now take off that shirt and let me have a look at you.”

Brant tried another way to get her to leave him alone. “I could ask the same of you. I’ve already felt what lies beneath that blouse of yours. Since you’re trying to undress me, I wouldn’t mind swapping the pleasure.”

Cherish turned and opened her medicine bag. “It won’t work. I’m not leaving until I’ve changed your bandage, even if I have to get your friend Holliday in here to sit on you while I do.”

“She’d love that job.”

“What job?” Holliday answered from the open doorway. “Here’s the water you asked for, Miss Wyatt.”

He didn’t miss the smile of thanks Cherish flashed Holliday. It wasn’t the patronizing smile of one who had given an order, but the thank-you of one who had asked a favor and had it granted. The huge woman swelled another size with pride and newfound self-respect. “You just ask for anything else you need.” She glared at Brant. “And if this ruffian gives you any trouble you just yell and I’ll come in and personally pull off one of his ears.”

“I’ll be fine.” Cherish laughed. “But thanks for the offer.”

As Holliday left, Brant studied Cherish, wondering if there was anyone who didn’t love her on sight. “You win,” he whispered, rubbing his endangered ear between his thumb and forefinger, “but do anything that needs doing now because I don’t plan to be so easy to find again.” Half the law in Texas was looking for him and this little lady didn’t seem to have any trouble tracking him down.

As Brant pulled off his shirt, Cherish laid out what she needed. “Sit here,” she ordered as she pulled a ladder-back chair in front of him and moved the lamp close to her side.

She worked, cutting away the bandage. She was careful to soak places where dried blood held the material to his skin. As she worked, Brant felt he would drown in her nearness. The light danced across her face, brightening her eyes with emerald fire and highlighting her hair to sunrise gold. Her hands moved over his chest, cleaning around the wound. He couldn’t ever remember being touched with a light hand in his life. Even the few women he’d known had always been heavy-handed. No one had ever cared enough to try not to hurt him when they touched him. For a moment he wondered what it would be like to lie next to such a woman and make love to her. But it would never happen. The only way he’d ever keep such a woman near him was with fear, and somehow he couldn’t bear to think of her afraid.

“Why did you come?” he whispered as she began wrapping the wound with a clean dressing.

“This has to be done.” She didn’t look up at him, but her hands gently spread the bandage in a caress along his ribs.

“But why?” He studied her. “I told you before I’m a walking dead man.”

Cherish straightened and his eyes followed her as she put her medicines away. She was quiet for so long that he wasn’t sure she was going to answer. “I’ve come to warn you that someone may be looking for you.”

Brant laughed. “Half the lawmen in the state are looking for me.”

“Then you must go!” Her gentle voice was pleading.

“I will.” He tried to think of why he hadn’t left already and realized suddenly that the answer was standing in front of him.

He pulled on his shirt, not bothering to button it. Suddenly, the walls of the room seemed to be moving inward. She was so tiny, so fragile. He was afraid to touch her. “Thanks for coming,” he said between clenched teeth.

She played with the latch on the medicine bag. “I have to get back. We have children to take care of from the mission. All three are ill.”

“I thought I told you to stay away from Father Daniel.”

Curiosity twisted her beautifully shaped eyebrows. “Why? He’s been nothing but kind to you. Perhaps you’d better tell me why I should stay away from the priest.”

Brant was silent.

“I make up my own mind about people. I doubt that I need a man who’s told me he’s killed people to warn me against a man of the cloth. If he’s done something, then tell me.”

Only the tight muscle along Brant’s jawline moved.

Cherish waited and grew impatient with his silence. What did she have to do to prove to this man that she could be trusted? “I must go,” she finally whispered.

Brant didn’t want her to leave, but he knew he had no right to stop her. She’d saved his life twice and the best thing he could do for her was stay out of her life. “Cherish.” Her name was like a prayer on his lips. “Don’t ask too many questions. There are a great many people in this town who have something to hide. And don’t come looking for me again. It would only mean trouble.”

She looked up and for a moment he thought he saw the sadness of a great loss in her eyes; then she blinked and the formal nurse returned. “Good-bye, Mr. Coulter. Take care of the wound until it’s completely healed.”

Before he could answer she hurried from the room. He moved to the window so he could watch her make the journey back to Hattie’s Parlor at the end of the street. But Cherish didn’t appear in the street leading to Hattie’s. Only Bar’s thin silhouette made the trip back toward the old house. It took Brant several seconds to realize something had to be wrong.

Even the air was thick with danger as Cherish walked deeper and deeper into the side streets. She knew she’d been smart to send Bar on home, but suddenly she wished she wasn’t alone. The very shacks seemed to breathe as the cold air rattled them. She walked carefully in the center, between the buildings. No one bothered to clean the droppings from the road in this part of town, so the smell of horse manure blended in with the frosty air.

A shadow rolled from the steps of one of the shacks. “What ya want?”

Another shadow stretched and moved forward on all fours like an animal.

“I’ve come to see the owner of the house marked in green,” she answered, trying to keep the fear from her face. She knew she was close, for the sickening sweet smell of opium spiced the air.

“Come to buy, did you?” The shadow stood and moved toward her.

Cherish didn’t answer, but reached inside her purse for her gun.

The other shadow skirted the foggy moonlight and circled her.

“If she’s come to buy, she’s got money,” a voice whispered from nowhere.

The shadows moved, circling her. They seemed more like rats than humans as they pulled their drug-sluggish bodies through the filth of the street. The ragged dark blotches along the walls of the other shacks began to come alive and move toward her. She realized, even if she could pull her gun and get one shot off, the rest would be on her before she could fire again. Years on the poppy had decayed their minds and morals until killing for a few coins seemed logical.

Cherish pulled her arms close around her and watched them moving closer and closer. She could smell their urine-soaked clothes and her skin shivered at the thought of one of them touching her.

The sudden report of gunfire shattered the inky air. For an instant the silver flash of twin Colts shone in the darkness. A low voice, thick with the promise of death, filled the street with a whisper. “Take another step toward the lady and it’ll be your last.”

Cherish ran toward the tall silhouette of Brant’s lean form. She was in his arms before the smoke from his gun passed above his hat. With practiced skill, he slid one Colt into his belt. He pulled her close with his free hand while his other gripped the weapon that still pointed at the shadows that seemed to have evaporated back into the night.

“Walk slowly, but deliberately,” he whispered. “If they’re doped enough it may not take them long to try, no matter what the risk.”

Cherish kept her arms tight around his waist and he led her back into the main street. “Relax,” he groaned as his steps slowed into a stroll.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she realized her grip might have been painful against his chest.

“I’m not complaining, but we want to look like we’re just out for a walk in case someone should decide to investigate the shot. Which I doubt will happen in this part of town.”

As they passed two men leaving a bar, Brant pulled her closer against him and leaned his head low. His hat covered her face from the men’s view, but it brought their lips dangerously close together. For that moment, Cherish wished that he would kiss her as he had on the train so that she could know if the feelings she’d had the first time he touched her were real or just the result of fear and confusion. For now she felt no fear or confusion, only excitement.

They continued in silence until finally Cherish saw the light beaming from the second-story window of her house. As they neared, Brant turned so that they would come up to the back door. Soundlessly, they moved into the blackness beside the barn.

Cherish stumbled over the rough ground and Brant stepped in her path to steady her. She slammed into the wall of his chest before she realized what he was doing. Embarrassed, she jumped back, but his arms still held her securely.

His lean, hard hands circled her shoulders as he imprisoned her. For a moment they stood together with only the low wind whispering around them; then he asked, “Why were you in that alley? Don’t you realize what could have happened to you?”

Cherish resented him questioning her as though she were a child late for school. She pushed at the wall of his chest and answered, “If you must know, Hattie is in more pain each day. Father Daniel told me of the place where I’d find opium for her.”