Dorothy Garlock (2 page)

“What did you expect for four hundred dollars?” her father had said testily when they rounded a point and saw the cabin tucked close under the shoulder of a hill.

Rosalee’s heart had shriveled within her. Before her was the solitary building, squat and bare, without a shed or pole corral. Only the tall trees kept it company in all this vast space.

“It’s ours—bought and paid for,” Grant Spurlock had said proudly.

Drab and barren, it was a roof over their heads. Rosalee knew how he felt. It had been two years since they had lived in anything other than a wagon, two years since they had buried her mother back in Missouri. She had been just sixteen and Ben eleven when they came to this place. Despite being constantly alert for marauding Indians seeking revenge for the Sand Creek Massacre, they had built a pole corral and a log shed for their stock, spaded up a kitchen garden and dug an irrigation ditch from the spring. Ben had milked the cow, chopped wood, and cared for the horses. They had branded their twelve head of cattle and turned them loose on last year’s growth of long bleached grass.

Grant Spurlock had seen his new home through blurred vision, and a few months later he was totally blind. In the middle of the night when she opened her eyes to total darkness, Rosalee realized how helpless and terrified her father must have been when he first lost his sight. He had adjusted far better than she had expected he would. He spent his days carving animals and birds from blocks of wood. Rosalee thought it a miracle that the talent for creating such beautiful things never presented itself until he lost his sight. In the evenings he taught sums to Odell and Ben, and dredged his memory for bits and pieces of knowledge to pass along to his children.

Rosalee suddenly became aware that Charlie was on his feet and was standing stiff-legged and alert, his nose pressed to the door and his head tilted in a listening position. It was deadly quiet. She couldn’t hear anything except the rain on the tin roof and the drip of water as it splattered in the bucket. A low, rumbling growl escaped from Charlie’s throat.

“What is it, boy?” Rosalee whispered. “Has one of those mangy steers wandered into my garden?”

The hair on the back of Charlie’s neck stood up and he growled threateningly. His paws dug at the door sill.

“What is it, Rosalee? What’s wrong?” Ben called from the top of the ladder.

“Charlie thinks something’s out there.”

“If Charlie thinks somethin’s out there, somethin’ is!” Ben scrambled down from the loft. “Soon as I get hold of the rifle, douse the lamp.”

Rosalee grabbed her dress and pulled it over her head before she blew out the lamp. Without the light the room was pitch dark. She blinked several times and felt her way past the table and along the wall to the window. Charlie was digging urgently at the door, whining his frustration at not being able to get out.

“There must be an animal out there or Charlie wouldn’t act like this. Maybe it’s a bear.”

“It’s more’n likely a two-legged bear. One of them Clayhill riders wanderin’ around, drunk as a skunk.” Ben edged up beside his sister to peer out the window. “We been gettin’ a lot of company lately,” he added with a hint of disgust in his voice.

Rosalee strained her ears, but still couldn’t hear anything.

“Hello the house.” The voice reached them over the racket Charlie was making.

“Sshh . . . Charlie,” Ben commanded. “I told you it was one of them no-goods.”

“Hello the house.”

“Who are you and what’a you want?” Ben called, and Rosalee wished his voice didn’t sound so boyish.

“A traveler with a sick woman. I saw your light.”

“A traveler with a sick woman, my hind foot!” Ben snorted. “It’s one of them drunk no-goods wantin’ to get in outta the rain.”

Rosalee tried to make out a shadow in the darkness, but the night was too black. “Tell him to come up to the window and show himself,” she whispered. Then, “Make Charlie be still, I can’t hear.”

“I’ll bet a biscuit he’s got a dog out there or Charlie wouldn’t be so crazy to get out.”

“What’s goin’ on out there, Rosalee? What’s all the racket about?” Grant called from the lean-to.

“A stranger, Pa. Says he’s a traveler with a sick woman.”

“Ha! Likely story. Keep the door barred.”

“Hello the house. I mean you no harm. I’ll hand my gun in if you open the door.” The man’s voice broke on a raspy cough.

“What if he really does have a sick woman, Ben? We’ve got to find out.” Rosalee tried to see into the darkness outside the window, but to no avail. “Tell him to come up to the door. I’ll light the lamp and you hold the rifle ready. But first tell him as soon as we open the door Charlie’ll be all over him like a dirty shirt.”

“We’ve got a mean dog,” Ben called.

“Tie him up. My dog will kill him if he attacks.”

“Make your dog stay back. Come up to the door. I’ve got a rifle on you. Light the lamp, Rosalee, and put that rope on Charlie.”

“You know I can’t hold that dog.”

“Then hold the rifle and I’ll hold him.”

Rosalee waited for a minute so her eyes could adjust to the light, moved over and took the gun from her brother’s hands.

“We’re gonna open the door,” Ben called. “Hand your gun in.”

They heard a whine outside the door and a voice giving a command. Then a rap sounded on the door.

Charlie lunged and growled. “Be still, Charlie.” Ben yanked on the rope holding the dog and slowly lifted the heavy bar from the door.

Rosalee waited in an agony of suspense. What if there was more than one man out there? They could push their way into the cabin and there would be no way she or Ben could stop them. Ben pulled the door open wide enough for the light to reach out to the man who stood there. He was holding his six-shooter by the barrel, butt forward. Ben reached out, took it, and swung the door open wider.

The man’s huge, wet frame filled the doorway. He wore a buckskin shirt with the tail outside and belted about the waist. Fringed leather pants and knee-high moccasins encased his legs. His flat-crowned hat sat straight on his head and water dripped from its brim. Thick, black hair hung to his shoulders and his deep-set eyes were licorice black. A full mustache, shaped in a wide downward curve around his mouth reached almost to his jaw. High, prominent cheekbones and skin the color of copper proclaimed his Indian blood.

“I’d be obliged if you’d allow me to bring my mother in out of the rain.” He waited, his gaze going from Ben to Rosalee.

Rosalee read the Indian breeding. It registered in the slightest widening of her blue-green eyes. “Your mother?”

“She’s on a travois. I’m trying to get her to a doctor.”

“It’s twenty miles to town and there’s no doctor there that I know of. Bring her in. Ben, do something about that dog.” Rosalee put the rifle on the pegs. Ben backed into a corner, holding Charlie’s rope in one hand and the man’s six-gun in the other.

The man disappeared from the doorway and they heard him giving sharp commands; then he was back with a blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms. As he stepped into the room, the water ran in rivulets onto the dirt floor from the bundle he carried and from his own clothes.

Rosalee had shaken Odell awake, and now she moved hastily out of bed and crossed over to sit wide-eyed and scared on the bench beside the table. The man stood hesitantly until Rosalee came to him and peeled the wet blankets away from the still form in his arms. She nodded for him to lay the woman on the bunk.

“What’s goin’ on?” Grant came in from the lean-to. He had pulled on his britches, but his feet were bare.

“The woman is sick, Pa. It’s all right. You can go back to bed.”

“All right? Why’d you let them in for? She could have the cholera!”

Rosalee’s eyes flew to the man’s face. He shook his head and somehow she believed him.

“It isn’t the cholera, Pa.”

The man dwarfed her. He stood silently, seemingly unaware that the water that dripped from his clothes was forming a mud puddle around his feet. His eyes questioned her—or were they daring her to voice her surprise that the woman he was asking her to care for was an Indian? He turned his head and coughed. It came from deep in his chest.

“I’ll take care of her. You’d better get out of those wet clothes or you’ll be sick, too.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Is it all right if I put my horses in that corral I saw out back?”

“Horses?”

“A mare and a foal. I’ll tie my stallion out under that big cedar and the dog will watch him.” He coughed again.

“Do you want Ben to do it?”

“No, ma’am. The dog wouldn’t let him close to the horses.”

“There’s a lantern beside the door.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I don’t need it.”

He went out the door and Ben, dragging Charlie on the rope, came over to peer down at the woman on the bunk.

“She’s an Indian!” he hissed.

“Sshh . . . don’t tell Pa. You know how unreasonable he can get.”

“But . . . Rosalee . . .”

“She’s a human and she’s sick!” Rosalee whispered. “Shut up about it and tie up that dog. Ben,” she said over her shoulder, “build a fire. Odell, don’t just sit there! Put your dress on over your nightgown.”

Rosalee turned her attention back to the woman. Somehow the man had managed to keep her dry. She was so thin she scarcely made an indentation in the cornhusk mattress. Her cheeks were wrinkled, flushed and sunken. Her eyelids fluttered and her breath came rapidly. She moved her hands restlessly. Only a few strands of her once dark hair showed among the gray. She looked old, very old. Rosalee pulled off her moccasins. Her feet and legs were hot.

“She’s burning up with fever. Odell, put some water in the washpan and bring me a cloth.” Rosalee opened the cloth shirt the woman was wearing, but closed it when she saw it was the only garment she wore. The long, butternut dyed skirt was dry, so she wrapped it around her legs and covered her with a blanket.

She was bathing the woman’s face with a damp cloth when a rap sounded on the door before it was pushed open. The man stood beside the door, his saddlebags over his arm. Rosalee glanced at him.

“If you have anything dry to put on you can change in the loft.”

“How is she?”

“She’s burning up with fever. How long has she been sick?”

“About a week. I brought her down from Wind River Canyon.”

“A week? Has she eaten anything?”

“Not for a couple of days. I’d be obliged if—”

“Odell, get up and heat some milk,” Rosalee said sharply. “And put some sugar and a biscuit in it.”

“Who are ya, man?” Grant demanded. He had found his way to his chair beside the fireplace.

The stranger eyed him and Rosalee waited. Grant made no effort to turn his face toward the man and she saw the dark eyes flick from her to her father and back to Ben, who still held the six-gun.

“Name’s Logan Horn. The woman’s my mother.” He threw the words out like a gauntlet. His face showed no emotion at all, but his eyes bored into Rosalee’s.

“Grant Spurlock, late of Independence, Missouri. Ever been there?”

“Once or twice.” He tried to suppress a cough. “I’m making a mud puddle, ma’am.”

“It’ll dry as soon as the fire gets going. Go on up to the loft and throw down your wet clothes. If you don’t have anything dry to put on, wrap yourself in a blanket.”

“I’ve got dry clothes.” He took off his hat and hung it on a peg beside the door, sat down on the bench, and pulled off his wet moccasins.

Rosalee sat on the edge of the bunk and bathed the woman’s face. She was very sick and pitifully thin. Her breath came in gasps. Rosalee’s heart contracted at the sight of her ravaged face. Odell brought the cup of milk and Rosalee tried to spoon some of it into the woman’s dry, parched lips, but it ran down the side of her chin. Finally, Rosalee had to give up. The only other thing she could do was squeeze water from a cloth into the woman’s mouth. It was a slow process.

When Logan Horn came down from the loft he was wearing duck trousers, a cloth shirt, and low-cut leather moccasins. He spread his wet clothes on a bench beside the fire and came to hunker down beside the bunk.

“She’ll die,” he said softly. He gazed intently at his mother’s still face.

“Oh, no! Maybe . . . not,” Rosalee said, but knew he spoke the truth.

“She’ll die,” he said again and the back of his fingers stroked the hair at her temple. “She was only waiting for me to come and I came too late.”

“If we can break the fever . . .” Rosalee’s voice trailed off.

“No.”

“We can’t just give up and let her die!”

“She wants to die. It’s her time. I shouldn’t have taken her from her people.”

“Then why did you? The trip and the rain . . .”

“I was angry. They had cast her out because all the men in her family were dead and she had no one to bring meat to her lodge.”

“I’ve heard that they do that. It’s mean and cruel.”

“It’s their way of surviving. She understood.” He turned his face away and coughed.

“You’re sick, too. Pa’s got a dab of whiskey.”

She spoke to the back of his head, then continued to look at him when he turned his face once again to look down at the woman on the bed. She noted the smooth broad expanse of forehead; the black-lashed, hooded eyes beneath strongly arched brows; the straight nose, wide mouth; the thick, faintly waving hair that framed a wholly arresting face that demanded attention, but gave away nothing at all.

Logan was aware the girl was studying him. She had been kind; kinder than he had expected a white family to be after being roused in the middle of the night. Yet she made him self-conscious, and he shifted his feet and turned his body at an angle away from her.

“I’m so sorry there’s nothing I can do for her.” She wanted to cry for the big man and his pathetically thin mother.

He turned back as if surprised by her words. His eyes were two mirrors of misery. “You have given her a place to die. She would not have asked even that of you.”

Tears sprang to Rosalee’s eyes and he turned his gaze away from them. As she moved from the bunk and carried the washpan back to the shelf, she whispered to her father that the woman was dying and then urged Odell up the ladder to sleep in Ben’s bed. Charlie had settled down beside the door and Ben had placed the six-gun on the mantel beside the clock. She suggested to Grant that he go back to bed, and after awhile he did. Ben sat in Grant’s chair and was soon asleep.