Vows (52 page)
"Fannie, get my jacket!" Edwin sat down and began pulling on his boots. Fannie—a bundle of efficiency in an emergency—came running with his jacket, already thinking ahead. "What do you have in your medicine case for setting bones, Emily?"
"Adhesive plaster."
"A styptic?"
"Yes, crowfoot salve."
"We'll need some sheets for binding. Edwin, go along while I get them. I'll follow as soon as I can."
Hurrying down the snowy streets, Edwin asked, "What were they fighting over?"
"Me."
"I thought as much. Fannie and I spent the evening speculating about what was going on. You want to fill me in?"
"Papa, I know you're not going to like it, but I'm going to marry Tom. I love him, Papa. That's what we went to tell Charles tonight."
Jogging, Edwin spoke breathlessly. "That's a hell of a thing to do to friends."
"I know." Tears leaked from Emily's eyes as she added, "But you should know how it is, Papa."
He jogged on. "Yes, d—damned if I don't."
"Are you angry?"
"I might be tomorrow, but right now I'm chiefly concerned about those two you left bleeding down there."
On their way past Walcott's Livery Emily tore inside, snatched her bag, and joined her father on the run. They entered Tom's place like a train of two, bumping nose to shoulder blade. The scene inside was ironically peaceful. The single coal-oil lantern cast murky light over the near end of the corridor where Tom sat propped against the right wall; farther down, Charles sat against the left. Beside the turntable one stall door gaped open. The bay gelding had roamed out and stood peering inquisitively into the dark smithy at the far end of the building.
Edwin hurried to Tom first and dropped to a knee beside him. "So you've got a messed up rib or two," the older man observed.
"I think so … hurts like hell."
"Fannie's bringing something to bind them up with."
Emily explained, "Doc Steele wasn't home. I had to get Papa."
Edwin moved on to Charles. "I'm glad to see you propped up. She said she left you laying flat on your back and not moving. Scared the daylights out of us."
Through swollen lips Charles said, "Unfortunately, Edwin, I'm not dead or even close to it."
"That face is a mess though. Anything else hurt?"
Staring morosely beyond the turntable at Emily and Tom, Charles wondered aloud, "Does pride count, Edwin?" Then he glanced away.
On her knees beside Tom, Emily wailed, "Oh, Thomas, just look what you've done to yourself. Who asked you to fight over me?"
"I guess you're not too pleased."
"I should put another lump on your head, that's what I should do." She touched his cheek tenderly, whispering, "Don't you know I love this face? How dare you mutilate it?" They spent a moment delving into each other's eyes—hers troubled, his bloodshot and swollen—then she rose from her knees. "I'll get some water to clean you up." She found a chipped enamel pail in one of the stalls and returned with it full of water, knelt and retrieved gauze from her veterinary bag. When she dabbed at the first cut, Tom winced.
"Good enough for you," she declared unsympathetically.
"You're a hard woman, tomboy, I can see that. I'm gonna have to work on softening—
ow!
"
"Be still. This will stop the bleeding."
"What is it?"
"Crowfoot weed—old Indian cure—modernized some."
"Humph."
Fannie bustled in, hatless, toting a striped canvas bag with handles. "Whom should I see to first?"
Emily answered. "Get Tom's shirt off while I see after Charles's cuts."
While Edwin and Fannie stood Tom on his feet, Emily slipped across the aisle and knelt uncertainly beside Charles. How awkward, looking into his bruised face, meeting his hurt, reproachful eyes.
"I should get rid of some of that blood so we can see how bad the cuts are."
His reproof continued as he silently stared at her. Finally he demanded in a grieved whisper, "Why, Emily?"
"Oh, Charles…" She swung her gaze high, trying not to cry again.
"Why?" he entreated earnestly. "What did I do wrong? Or what didn't I do right?"
"You did everything right," she replied, abashed, "it's just that I've known you too long."
"Then you should know how good I'd be to you." His eyes, already bruised, looked even sadder as he spoke.
"I do … I know … but something was … was missing. Something…" Searching for graceful words, Emily studied her thumbs, which were needlessly flattening a wad of wet gauze.
"Something what?" he insisted.
She lifted dismayed eyes and whispered simply, "I've known you too long, Charles. When I kissed you it felt like kissing a brother."
Above his beard a pink tinge appeared between the bruises on his cheeks. He sat in silence, digesting her words for moments before replying with hard-won approbation, "Well, that's a damned hard one to argue with."
"Please, could we talk about it some other time?"
Again he fell silent, his mood deteriorating before he agreed dully, "Yeah, some other time…"
When she washed his face and knuckles he remained stoic, studying a wheel hub on the wagon. She swabbed his bruises with damp gauze, then applied the styptic salve, touching his face, his eyebrows, his beard, his lips for the last time. She discovered in a hidden corner of her heart an undeniable ache because it was the last time, and because she had hurt him so terribly, and because he loved her so much. She wrapped his bruised knuckles, tied the last knot, and sat back dropping her hands primly into her lap.
"Is there anything else?" she asked.
"No." He stared at the wheel, stubbornly refusing to look at her. Oddly, she needed him to look at her just then.
"Nothing feels broken?"
"No. Go on. Go bandage him up," he ordered gruffly.
She remained on her knees, studying him, waiting for some sign of exoneration, but none came. No glance, no touch, no word. Just before rising, she gently touched his wrist while whispering, "I'm so sorry, Charles."
A muscle contracted in his jaw but he remained taciturn, distant.
She crossed the corridor to tend Thomas, aware all the time that she had at last attracted Charles's attention. His hard eyes followed every move she made, like ice picks in her back.
Edwin and Fannie had rolled down the top of Tom's underwear and had implemented an uneducated fingertip examination.
"Fannie and I think something's broken."
Having touched Tom so few times before and never this intimately, Emily was naturally reluctant to do so now before three pairs of watchful eyes. She swallowed her misgivings and traced his ribs, submerging personal feelings and watching his face for reactions. His wince came on the fourth rib she tested.
"Probably fractured."
"Probably?" Tom asked.
"Probably," she repeated. "A green-stick fracture, I'd guess."
"What's a green-stick fracture?"
"It breaks like a green stick—curled on the ends, you know? Sometimes they're harder to mend than a clean break. I can plaster it or you can wait till the end of the week until Doc Steel gets back," Emily told him.
He glanced from Edwin to Fannie to Emily before inquiring dubiously. "Do you know what you're doing?"
"I would if you were a horse or a cow … or even a dog. Being a man, you'll just have to take your chances on me."
Sighing, he decided. "All right, go ahead."
"When I plaster an animal I shave the area so it doesn't hurt when the plaster comes off. We'll bind you first in sheeting, but sometimes the plaster soaks through."
Tom dropped a baleful glance at the wedge of black hair on his chest. Emily averted her eyes out of self-consciousness, feeling Charles's watchful stare as well as Fannie and Papa's closer regard.
"Oh, hell … all right. But don't take off any more than you have to."
She shaved the point of his hirsute arrow from waist to midway up his pectoral arch—an unnerving personal area made the more distracting by the fact that he kept jumping and flinching from the cold soap and blade, and because it was, after all, the naked stomach of the man she was going to marry.
Once he twitched and complained, irritably, "Hurry up, I'm freezing." She bit back a smile: so he would have his grouchy moments, as a husband. Maybe, as a wife, she could find ways to sweeten him at those times.
While Fannie wrapped his ribs with cotton, Emily measured, cut, and wet the adhesive plaster strips. She ordered Tom to drop his hands to his sides and expel his breath, and while he stood so, she wrapped him from back to breastbone with overlapped pieces until his trunk resembled the armor on a gila monster.
"There. It's not fancy, but it'll help."
He glanced down, cursed softly in self-disgust, and asked, "How long do you think I'll have to keep this on?"
"Four weeks, I'd guess, wouldn't you, Papa?"
"Don't ask me! I don't even know what you came to get me for. I haven't done a thing but watch."
It was true. Under stress, Emily had performed with proficiency and calm, as she had that day at Jagush's. Though Tom admired the fact, she made light of it, telling Edwin, "You were my moral support. Besides, I wasn't sure if I'd have to lift them. Thank you for coming, Papa. You too, Fannie."
"Well," Edwin announced, "I guess I'd better hitch up a rig and haul these two home." First he moved back to Charles. "Charles, how're you doing, son?"
Edwin had called Charles son for so long, doing so seemed second nature to him. But the word caused an uncomfortable lull as he helped Charles to his feet. Until now there'd been distractions to override much of the tension between the two suitors. But as they faced each other across the dim corridor, polarity surfaced between them, at once repellent and attractive. Broken engagements and broken bones and broken hearts. All were present in their silent exchange of glances.
Then Charles shuffled toward the door. "I'll walk home," he said glumly "I feel like I need the fresh air."
"Nonsense, Charles—" Edwin began, but Charles pushed past him and left the livery stable without a backward glance.
In his wake Edwin exhaled a heavy breath. "I guess you can't expect him to be overjoyed, can you?"
Tom spoke up. "I know Charles means a lot to you, sir. I meant to plan a better time to tell you about Emily and me. I meant to ask you for her hand properly I'm sorry you had to find out this way."
"Yes, well…" Edwin blustered, searching for words to hide his own dismay at losing Charles as a son-in-law. While playing the part of humanitarian Edwin had set aside his own consternation at the turn of events, but it surfaced now in an unexpected and tactless outburst. "Now I know about it, and she tells me she loves you, but young man, let me warn you…" Edwin shook a finger at Tom. "The period of mourning is a year long, so if you have any other ideas you'd better put them out of your head!"
Chapter 18
E
mily rode behind her father, smoldering with mortification while they took Tom home in a four-seater buggy. She could not believe Edwin's crassness!
Edwin drove—mulling events silently, feeling ambivalent, even a little sheepish after reconsidering his outburst. At Tom's house he cast a reproving eye upon Emily as she anxiously watched her injured swain alight. Tom moved by increments, guarding his ribs as she stepped onto the foot bracket and over the side. When he reached the ground Emily stood as if to follow, but Edwin ordered, "Stay where you are. You're coming home with us."