The Siren's Tale (23 page)

As old man Like's livery stables lay on the other side of the knoll, Nicholas’s first surmise
was someone having been thrown from a skittish horse and now thrashing in the bushes. He thought he had better investigate further. It was no good leaving his wife unprotected in an unlocked cabin with a stranger nearby. Sometimes cowboys and goat herders were known to sleep out on the range, and they could be a rough lot.

He looked to where the sound came from, but nothing appeared there except the hillock stretching across the sky in an unbroken line. He mo
ved several long strides in the direction from where the sound had come, and it was then he heard it again.

He
perceived a prone human figure, though his eyes were too feeble to make out if it was adult or child, male or female. When he ran forward and bent over the figure, then looked more closely into her dead-white face and saw who she was, he screamed aloud to the windswept skies: 

“
Oh, no! Dear God! No! No!”  

His mother's
features were distorted and her eyes closed, but he had heard another moan; she was still alive. Bending yet lower, he heard her breaths coming, though irregularly and with an occasional rasp.

“
Mother! It is me, Nick! Can you hear me? Can you speak?” He pressed his lips to her face. The skin was cold and clammy. “What has happened? Are you ill?”

She moved her lips, appearing to know him, but unable to
speak.

What he could not
hear were three sentences repeated, not by her tongue and lips, but said over and over in her brain: “My son, you have come to me. I forgive you.”

Nicholas considered the best way to move her,
as the dew would set in soon. He was able-bodied, and his mother was thin. Getting her on the horse might cause her further damage, depending on what was wrong.

He decided he would
carry her into Bulette to see a doctor. Clasping his arms around her, he lifted her gently. “Does that hurt you, mother?”

Her head
moved slightly, indicating no. He remembered with such clarity other times they had been together out in the wilderness like this, when he was a child and she was a strong young woman, helping her husband conquer the land and build a home. How strong she appeared then, and how frail now, weak as a kitten.

The air was much
cooler and the wind was rising. But the long patches of ground uncarpeted with vegetation reflected from their surfaces the heat that had collected from the day. He feared her blood was still overheated, as she felt hot to the touch. His burden, though light, kept his pace to a crawl. Yet he stolidly persisted, heedlessly walking through clouds of miller moths and bats.

While he was still a ha
lf-mile from the town, his mother's face showed some signs of agitation, so he stopped, shifted her onto his knees, and looked around for help. Spotting a group of tiny cabins not far off, the sort inhabited by workmen, it occurred to him he might solicit someone's help in getting a doctor. Picking his burden up again, he proceeded at a fast pace toward the nearest of the cabins and knocked loudly on the wood door with his bare knuckles. 

As it happened, two of the three young men
within were Jason Harrison and Sam the haymaker, who had come over to play cards with a Bulette tradesman and fellow bachelor they had gone to school with. They had been having quite an enjoyable time of it.

When the cabin's owner
opened the door, the two inside, who had been shouting at each other over the card-table, were suddenly quiet. They were dumbfounded to see Nicholas Brighton standing there, dressed in laborer’s clothes and bearing his unconscious mother in his arms.

“
Get us a doctor,” he said as he carefully placed his mother on a rude cot that served as a bed.

Harrison volu
nteered to run with all speed. Sam was dispatched for brandy from the cupboard, and Nicholas administered a little to the Widow. She gasped, though her eyes remained closed.

“
Where do you hurt, mother? Can you show me?”

The weak woman
still could not speak, but after a time, she managed to dangle a hand near a leg. There on the calf, just above her walking boot, they saw a raw puncture wound. Around it the skin was swollen and red; even as they watched, it was turning a more livid color.

“
I know what it is!” cried Sam. “She has been stung by an adder!”

“
You’re right,” said Nicholas. “I remember seeing such a bite as a child. Vipera berus. My poor mother!”

“
My father was bit on our old farm. There is only one way to cure it,” said Sam. “The wound has to be treated with the fat of a fried adder.” He did not want to say the bite had killed his father, making his mother a widow Sam had the care of.

“They say the devil abides in snakes and adders,” said the owner of the cabin.  “Injuns worship ‘em.”

“
Those old notions aren’t science, just superstition,” said Nicholas harshly. “Our best chance is the medical man. I hope he comes quickly.”

At that moment Jason Harrison, who had run like a deer in the service of his friend, plunged through the door with the doctor, who immediately went to the collapsed woman's side.

After Nicholas left the cabin,
I was restlessly pacing through the house and the garden, wondering what my mother-in-law would say to my husband. I then repeated the circuit. I could not bear the dreary cabin one moment longer. I had to get out.

“
Annie May!” I called out. “I’m going for a walk. Would you leave the lantern on when you retire? I may be out until after dark.” 

My idea was to
walk toward Alta for an hour and then rest. Once the day's heat receded, I would set out again. In this way, I would meet up with my husband on his return trip from the Brighton Grange, and I could nip any damage in the bud.

I
also needed to get out of the cabin because I was disappointed in myself. I had failed in my duty as a wife, just as I had predicted to Nicholas I would. What would my husband think of me if my adultery was revealed? I remembered that Mother Brighton had warned me about falling into disfavor with my husband: “You’ll find out that though he appears to be mild-mannered as a child, he can be hard as steel.”

I had not been walking for long when, much to my surprise, whom should I see but my grandfather! He was driving along the main road f
rom Alta in a brand new horseless carriage, outfitted with isinglass windows.

I recalled he had often threatened
to go down to Casper and buy himself one of the newfangled things, as he had never been comfortable riding a horse—”my sea legs don’t fit, you know, and the mile walk into town is a terrible chore for a man of my age in the winter.” Beholding my grandfather's grinning face inside a vision of chrome and rubber,

I laughed with delight, and my worries flew away. I was so glad to see him, as well as delighted with this vehicle of the future!

“Cassie! Care for a jolly ride with a peevish old man on this day of Indian summer?”  

For the next hour
, we bumped along merrily and without a care in the world, waving to the occasional passersby and laughing at the startled expressions on the faces of cattle and antelope. With all the noise the thing made, backfiring and roaring along faster than the wind, we spoke hardly at all.

Finally, we were stopped
back at my cottage door, and the Tin Lizzie was silent.

“
Well, have you heard the news?”Grandfather asked, with a sly look into my face.  Immediately my feelings of guilt returned. Had word already got out about my shameful behavior? If so, I would kill Drake.

“
Well, no need for a long face. It appears Curly Drake has become a rich man overnight.” 

“
What! How so?”

Grandfather said a
member of Drake's family had died, his Aunt Betty in Canada. She had emigrated from Scotland, where the rest of Drake’s family was already in the family plot. Her husband Eugene had opened the first cigarette-making factory in Canada. On his death, he made Betty a filthy rich widow. Curly was his aunt's favorite and her only remaining relative. Betty had been planning a visit to him when she was killed by a freak accident at a gambling hall in St. Louis. Luckily, she had written a will.

“
Curly inherits eleven thousand dollars, without in the least expecting it.”

“
When did he learn of this?”

“
Several nights ago. I was at the Plush Horse when the telegram came in. What a fool you were, Cassie.”

“
I? In what way?”

“
Why, in not sticking to Drake when you had him.”

“
Stick to him, indeed!” I scoffed.

“
I know there was something between you. Why in the deuce didn’t you marry him?”

“I had my reasons,” I said with a shrug.

“
How is your poor blind husband, by the way? Not a bad fellow either, if you like the type.”

“
He is quite well.”

“
This news about Drake is good fortune for your husband's cousin, what’s-her-name. Now I must drive home. I have been out in my machine, looking for folks to ride with me, but you are the first. Do you want any financial assistance, Cassie? Be frank with me, dear. What is mine is yours, you know. You are my only family.”

“
Thank you, dear, but my husband declares we are not in any need of money.”

“
I hear he cuts hay.” 

“
He does it as a pastime, until his eyes heal.”

“
He is paid for his hobby, isn’t he? Three cents a pound, I heard.”

I colored.
“Nick has money, but he likes to earn a little.”

“
Very well. You know where I am if you need me.”

After depositing Cassandra at her cabin, Captain Vye found he was not yet ready to go home. He was delighted when he spotted another acquaintance to accompany him in the horseless carriage jaunt. Horatio Nelson was dawdling along on the road. He looked crossly at him when the Captain invited him to jump in.

“
Can't. Gotta go home.”

“
Oh come on, boy. Live a little.”

In the end, Horatio could not resist. He allowed himself to be driven around
Bulette and even to pretend it was the Fourth of July again, shouting “hurrah, hurrah!”

When the boy fell fast asleep, the Captain was unsure what to do with him. It was getting late. Should he take him to Cassandra's? The boy had said he was going home.

Horatio's mother was close friends with the gloomy Brown sisters, who did their utmost to make sure everyone's life was as miserable as their own. The Captain hated to deposit the boy back in Alta with his mother, who would only scold him. At that moment, he heard a great noise from a cabin that he was driving past. He stopped. Through the open door he could see several young men who seemed to be having an uproariously good time.

The Captain carried the lad to a nearby shepherd's hut. He thought Horatio might make himself part of the merriment when he awakened, which would be the best thing for him, even if he got a whipping from his mother. From his perspective, a lack of male companionship was not good for a boy's upbringing.

The lad cried out once. “Oh, miss!” And then he went back to sleep.

Three hours after her ride in the roadster, Cassandra roused herself from a nap. It was now after eight o'clock, and she was worried in earnest about Nicholas. His plan was to keep his visit brief. What was keeping him so late?  Had he had an accident?

Because it was dusk, she
put on her traveling cloak and picked up a lantern before going outside. Her walk brought her near a collection of workmen's cabins. In the distance she could see a crowd was gathering outside one of them, which was certainly odd, as it was growing dark.  

S
ome instinct was drawing her ever closer to the crowd. She was consumed with dread about what she might see and even more dread about the prospect of being seen. 

Finally she
put down the lantern on the ground. Then she pulled the cowl of the traveling cloak over her head and pressed her fingers on her breastbone, willing herself to disappear. She flashed her fingers, closed them into a fist, then flashed them again. 

It was the first time she had ever attempted to use the power of her siren's cloak, so she was very curious. Was she now invisible? She
had felt only a brief stuttering sensation after she made the 5—0—5 signal.

To test her invisibility, she
walked past several tradesmen and farmers and deliberately smiled at them. Not one responded to her; everyone looked straight through her. So the magic had worked! Soon she was comfortable enough in her new state of being to walk on more boldly and get close to the cabin where the commotion was.