The Listening Sky (7 page)

“Miss Love is an educated, refined lady. She informed me that she has lived and worked all her adult life in a church-owned
orphanage. She refused to give the name. and the location. Her penmanship is excellent and she proved to be knowledgeable
when I presented her with a few bookkeeping problems. It is my opinion that she would be suitable in that capacity if not
willing to be a teacher. I was also informed by Miss Love that she has had considerable experience in nursing the sick. She
appeared to be very eager to be accepted and seemed undaunted by the fact that Timbertown is a raw frontier town.”

T.C. turned in his chair and looked out the window toward the cookshack.
What changed your mind, Miss Love?
He had the feeling that it was more than the sleeping quarters or her suspicion that he had recruited the women to mate up
with the single men that was sending her scurrying away. He put his palms on the table and pushed himself to his feet. Hell!
If she didn’t want to stay she could go, but not until the end of the week when he sent a man to the station to collect the
mail.

Just before sundown a caravan of covered wagons arrived. Jane stood with Polly and Sunday to watch the newcomers get stiffly
down out of the wagons. As he had done before, T.C. led the single women, one with a young girl, to the barracks building.
The five women stood together in the middle of the room, their belongings on the floor at their feet, and listened to T.C.
saying essentially the same things he had the night before. When he had finished he looked over their heads and his eyes caught
Jane’s.

“Miss Love, would you be kind enough to help the ladies get settled and take them to supper?”

All eyes turned to Jane. She wanted to say no. She wanted to tell him to do it himself or ask Miss Flame-hair. Most of all
she wanted to kick him. He knew, and she knew, that she’d be making a fool of herself if she refused. So she nodded.

On his way to the door he stopped in front of her, and his silver eyes held hers. Something flickered there and then was gone.
He could make her angry and he knew it, but he’d not shake her from her purpose.

“Herb will bring over several canvas cots that can be set up along the wall. If you need anything tell him.”

“Just a min—” Jane began, but he was out the door. The sneaky polecat! He had put her in an untenable position. The tired,
hungry, uncertain women would look to her to tell them what to do. How in the world could
she
refuse?

“How come
Miss Love’s
in charge?” a whiny voice asked from the communal bed. It came from a pretty girl who wallowed in self-pity.

“I reckon she made the most of her time while she was over there,” another woman speculated. Low husky laughter followed the
remark.

“Didn’t take her long to get in tight with him,” still another muttered.

“Still waters run deep—”

“Did ya get real close to him, Kiss
Love?
Ya was gone long enough.”

“Ya ornery bitches! I’ll give ya all somethin’—my fist in yore mouth if ya don’t hush it up.” Sunday, her hands on her hips,
spoke in a loud firm voice. The eyes of the newcomers went wide with shock. “Yo’re a bunch a cats is what ya are. I thought
my sisters was mean and mouthy, but y’all take the cake. Go on, Jane, get these women settled. They’re plumb wore out, just
like we was last night. If one of these
ladies
opens her mouth, she’ll get her tail twisted.”

Jane lifted her chin. Her eyes surveyed the faces of the woman. Most of them were embarrassed by the spiteful remarks of a
few and turned away. Jane sent Sunday an amused but grateful look and wished fervently that Kilkenny had put her in charge.

The women appreciated Jane’s help. They accepted the crowded quarters without complaint. Maude Henderson insisted that she
and her small daughter could sleep on one canvas cot. The girl, her eyes on the floor, clung to her mother’s arm. She was
a thin child and terribly bashful.

“There’s an extra cot. She can have one of her own,” Jane explained.

“She’s afraid—” Mrs. Henderson spoke hesitantly. The woman appeared calm, but her hands trembled and at times her voice quivered.

Jane placed her hand on the girl’s head and gently stroked her hair. She had seen the same frightened, lost look on the faces
of children that had been brought to the orphanage.

“What’s your name?”

The girl turned her face into her mother’s arm and refused to answer.

“Stella. Her name is Stella.”

Jane looked into the woman’s face. She returned Jane’s glance cautiously and then turned away. A red scar ran from the corner
of her mouth down over her jawbone; her nose was humped and slightly off center, but she had obviously once been a pretty
woman.

“I’m sure you’re eager to wash off some of that road dust. Use the warm water from the pot on the laundry stove. After you
get settled, I’ll take you to get something to eat.”

The cook’s helper rapped three times on the back door to call the women to supper. They all trooped out leaving the room empty
except for Jane, Polly and the new arrivals, who were washing and stowing their belongings beneath their cots.

“Yo’re not goin’ to stay, are ya?” Polly asked as soon as she and Jane sat down on the end of the bench.

“No. I think it best to move on.”

“Where will you go?’

“I’m not sure, but maybe California.”

“I wish I could go with ya.”

“I wish you could too, but we both know it’s impossible.”

“The baby won’t come for five months,” Polly said hopefully.

“You’ll be better off here. I’ll speak to Sunday. I think you can count on her after I’m gone. That terrible man won’t find
you; but if he does, I’m sure Mr. Kilkenny wouldn’t stand by and let him take you away from here if you didn’t want to go.”

“Ya don’t like him, do ya?”

“I don’t care for his sneaky tactics. He brought us here hoping we’d marry his workers and build his town. He doesn’t really
have work for all of us.”

“A lot of the women want to find a man here and marry. Sunday is tickled pink to have so many to choose from.”

“That’s fine if it’s what she wants. It isn’t what I want.”

“Don’t you want to marry, have a family?”

“Sure, someday, but not to a man who’d want me only for cooking his meals and washing his dirty clothes.”

“Before Mamma died we were a family… of sorts. Papa never wanted to settle down in one place. We moved a lot Mamma made us
a home wherever we happened to be.”

As most young girls do, Jane had dreamed of meeting a man who would love her and not care who she was. He would be tall and
handsome and very kind. He would take her away to a mountaintop where they would raise beautiful children and be gloriously
happy. By her twentieth birthday she had realized that her dream was silly and unrealistic. No prince was coming to sweep
her away to heavenly bliss. She had to take charge of her own future, be the master of her own destiny.

Jane’s shoulders slumped wearily. She had pinned her hopes on a job here in Timbertown. Now that wasn’t to be. It seems that
someone had discovered who she was and planned to make her life miserable, maybe to hurt or kill her. Some people were fanatic
in their hatred. And why shouldn’t they be? Hundreds of innocent people had been killed because of one dastardly act…

T.C. crossed the street to his house. He didn’t know why he took such pleasure in needling Miss Jane Love. He felt a restless
stirring inside him as he admitted to himself that she had been a bright spot in his day. The lady wouldn’t back up for anyone.
Her gaze had been as direct as a saber thrust and her voice cold as steel when he had passed by her after asking her to take
charge of the newcomers. He’d boxed her into a corner without a way to wiggle out and save face.

Aware she had plenty of argument left in her, he had made a fast retreat. T.C. chuckled as he bounded up onto the porch.

Herb was coming down the hall when he opened the door.

“Doc’s goin’ plumb outta his head. He’s talkin’ ‘bout snakes crawlin’ outta them soldier boys he whittled on durin’ the war.
Wants me to kill ‘em. He’s sick. Real sick.”

“Where is he?”

“In the kitchen. I locked the door to the surgery. ‘Fraid he’ll get in there and smash things up.”

Crash!
Herb spun on his heel and hurried back down the hall.

T.C. followed and dodged the end of the broom as he stepped into the kitchen.

“Get that s-son… son’abitch! He’ish a hangin’ there from the ceilin’. Watch out! He’ish a big ‘un.”

A small man, his sparse gray hair in wild disorder, swung a broom at the lamp. T.C. grabbed the broom. His swift reflexes
saved the lamp from crashing to the floor. He pulled the broom from the doctor’s hand and leaned it against the wall.

“Calm down, Doc. I’ll take care of them.”

“B-bastids is-sh crawlin’ all over.” He lurched toward the table. “Get them devils off there. I gotta take that boy’s leg
off.”

Herb bent and put a shoulder in the small man’s midsection. When he stood, Doc was jackknifed over his shoulder.

“Don’t ya puke on me, Doc.”

“Boom! Boom! Ya hear it? Get them… spiders off—” Doc yelled and began to buck. His feeble attempts were nothing against Herb’s
strength. He held Doc’s legs and ignored his flailing arms.

T.C. followed Herb and his burden up the stairs.

“I hate to do it, T.C., but I’ll have to tie him to the bed. This is the worst I’ve seen him.”

“I’ll help you. It’s for his own good.”

In a small room at the back of the upper hallway, they stripped the doctor and tied his hands and feet to the bedstead. Doc
cursed them. He fought them and the demons that tormented him. His body was so wasted that his strength was not much more
than that of a child.

“Lord! I hate to do this,” Herb moaned. “Look at ‘im. He’s scared outta his mind.”

“Let’s give him some laudanum. Just enough to make him sleep.”

“I hid that from him. He almost tore up the surgery lookin’ for it.”

T.C. placed his hand on Herb’s shoulder. He knew how fond of Doc the young man was.

“I wonder if he knows all you do for him.”

“It don’t matter.” Herb turned to look at the man on the bed. “I’d be dead if not for him. Little runt stood over me and dared
them fellers to shoot me again. Said if they did, he’d not doctor the one I shot. When I needed him, he stood by. Now he needs
me. I ain’t goin’ to let him die, even if he wants to.”

“I’ll stay with him while you get the laudanum.”

After the doctor went to sleep, Herb covered him with a blanket, and the two men went back down to the kitchen.

“Do I smell coffee?”

“Yeah. I tried to get Doc to drink some. He’d take a swaller and spew it out.”

T.C. sipped coffee while Herb put the kitchen in order. Doc had turned over chairs and knocked pans from the shelves. He’d
cleared the table, thinking in his drunken stupor that he was going to operate.

At the sound of boot heels on the plank floor, both men turned. Out of the corner of his eyes, T.C. saw Herb tense, shift
and bend his knees slightly. His hand hovered over the gun strapped to his thigh. It was a natural reflex for the young man,
who was reported to have one of the fastest draws in the West. Until he had come to Timbertown with Doc, Herb had often been
sought out by those who wished to win a reputation by out-drawing him. Some challengers had lived, but some had died when
Herb failed to put the bullet where he had intended. Always he and Doc had moved on.

In the doorway a man stood on long spread legs, his hands on his hips.

“Colin!” T.C. set his cup down and was across the room in two strides, his hand extended. “You old sidewinder. I didn’t think
you’d get here for another week.”

The two men shook bands; then, testing their strength, they danced around each other like a couple of young bear cubs.

After the horseplay, Colin extended his hand to a grinning Herb.

“Thought it time I got back to keep you two out of trouble. How’er ya, Herb?”

“Glad to see ya, Colin.”

“Got anything to eat? My belly button’s been ridin’ on my backbone for the last twenty miles.”

“Not here. We’re still eating at the cookshack. Bill’s a better cook than Herb.”

Colin grinned. “That’d not take much,” he teased. “How’s the old belly-robber?”

“Good… now.” T.C. laughed. “Haven’t heard a thing about his achin’ bones for a day or more.”

“We had a bunch of women come in,” Herb added. “And he’s shinin’ up to ‘em.”

“That sounds like the old goat”

Colin was a big man with sandy hair and steady blue eyes. A life of constant riding and hard work had given him a lean trimness
and a vast supply of vitality. He wore a buckskin shirt belted about the waist with its tail outside the fringed leather pants
that molded to his long legs like an outer layer of skin. Moccasins encased his legs to the knees.

“Before we go eat you’d better know that you’ve got a surprise waiting for you.”

“Surprise? What are you talkin’ about?” Colin’s eyes went from T.C. to Herb, who suddenly busied himself sweeping up ashes
from the cookstove.

“Patrice is here.”

Colin looked stunned. “Patrice Guzman Cabeza?”

“Patrice Guzman Cabeza.”

“What the hell is she doin’ here?”

“Said she came to see you.”

“But… Ramon. Good Lord! Has something happened to Ramon?”

“Not that I know of. She says she’s left him.”

“Why come here? What was between us was over a long time ago.”

“Not according to Patrice.”

“Dammit to hell, T.C., I was over Patrice
before
she married Ramon. I’ll admit that I was hot for her for a while. But it didn’t last.”

“As soon as Ramon finds out where she is he’ll come for her.”

“What’s that to do with me?”

“You know what, Colin. He’s got hot Spanish blood. If he thinks there’s anything between you and Patrice, he’ll kill you.”

“If he can,” Colin replied quietly.

“He won’t face you. He’s not
that
honorable. He’ll hire someone to shoot you in the back.”