Liam (14 page)

“There you are,” said Becky when they entered the kitchen. “I was afraid I’d have to send a scout after you.”

Jake grinned at Liam and winked at Eleanor. She turned scarlet and Liam chuckled.

“That’s enough,” said Becky, her voice so stern he wanted to laugh. But he knew she wouldn’t appreciate his sense of humor just now.

They all sat and Becky served up her first family dinner in her new home. Liam could tell she was tired, but she was grinning, ear to ear, anyway.

After they finished eating, Liam and Jake sat on the porch while Becky and Eleanor cleaned up.

“I’m going to keep the kids overnight tonight,” said Jake. “They miss Becky and she misses them. We’ll bring them home tomorrow. Besides, you and Eleanor could use some alone time.”

“We get alone time,” said Liam.

“This would be different. You need time to be together, without kids or fathers or theater, time to just be with each other.”

“I don’t know what you are thinking, but we spend plenty of time alone. Every Wednesday at dinner we’re alone.”

“No, you aren’t,” insisted Jake. “You have other diners there to entertain you if you get bored talking to each other.”

“We’ve never gotten bored.”

“Take my advice and take Eleanor home with you, spend the evening, cook her supper, play checkers, just be together.”

“What is the point of that? How often will we be alone?”

“Probably very rarely, so take advantage of it while you can.”

Liam thought about it for a moment. He understood where Jake was coming from. He and Becky had spent many nights and days alone together before they married. Even after, they didn’t have children or brothers living with them for the first month or so of their marriage, so they got to know each other very well.

It was probably a good idea, but it also put temptation in his way. Eleanor was a great temptation for him. He could imagine making love to her and, with no children around to chaperone them, he just might take advantage of that. Then he remembered that Zach would be home, so there would be no lovemaking tonight. Suddenly he was relieved and resentful at the same time. He would wait, could wait, until their wedding night. It wasn’t so far away.

Maybe Jake was right. What would they do together without the children to interrupt them? Without Hannah constantly asking questions? Without David reading in front of the fire? It didn’t matter, Zach would be there, they wouldn’t be alone.

Liam took his mind off what the evening could have been.

“Zach will be there, we won’t be alone,” said Liam.

“Nope. He’s staying at the mine tonight. Matthew wanted to spend the night with his wife. It’s their anniversary.”

Liam perked up at this news.

CHAPTER 11

Liam and Eleanor arrived at his cabin in the afternoon. He didn’t even hide how he looked forward to an afternoon of teaching Eleanor something of the sensual pleasures to be had.

He stopped the horses, set the brake and jumped down from the wagon. When he walked around the front of the rig, he gave each of the two horses a pat on the neck and told them what good boys they were. Then he came around and helped her down and gave her his arm to walk to the house.

Opening the door, he allowed Eleanor to enter before him.

She gasped and stopped stock still as she went into the house.

“What?” asked Liam, nearly running into the back of her.

“The house. Look.”

He walked in and surveyed the wreckage that was his home. The table and chairs were overturned, books had been pulled off the shelves, cushions from the overstuffed chairs were slit open and the stuffing pulled out.

“Liam,” said Eleanor, placing her hand on his arm.

“Shh,” he put his finger to his lips.

“What happened? What were they looking for?” she whispered.

“I don’t know. Step outside. I’m going to make sure they’re gone.”

She stepped out the door and when he was sure she was safe, he walked back to the bedrooms, gun drawn.

He poked his head in the first room. The mattress was pulled off the bed and slashed, the bed frame upended, the drawers in the bureau had been pulled out and the clothes tossed all over the room. It was the same in each of the other two bedrooms, but he found no one in any of the rooms.

Liam went back out and brought Eleanor inside.

“They’re gone,” he told her.

“What were they looking for? Why slash the cushions and pull all the books off the shelves? What could they be hoping to find?”

“I don’t know. We don’t keep money at the house. We have a safe at the mine. It’s not a secret. Several other miners make use of it, since it’s the only one in the territory.”

Eleanor looped her arm through his and cuddled close. Liam heard her fear with every anxious breath.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We’re going to take you home and, until we find out what is going on, I’m leaving the kids with Jake and Becky. I don’t want them in danger.”

She nodded, shakily.

Liam realized how frightened she really was and wrapped his arms around her. “It will be fine. I’ll get this cleaned up. Then Zach and I will keep watch to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

She nodded her head against his chest. Then she raised her head and looked up at him, unshed tears in her eyes.

“Oh, honey, don’t cry. It’s going to be fine.” He tightened his arms around her. “There wasn’t anything here for them to find. That’s probably why they were so destructive and tore everything up.”

She stepped away from him and wrapped her arms around her waist. “I know you’re right, but I can’t help but believe they are looking for something or someone in particular. And that they’ll keep looking until they find it.”

“You may be right. Let’s get you home. Then I’ll go see Jake and Becky, see what their thoughts are. It could have something to do with Jake and Zach.”

“Why would they be looking for Jake at your house? He doesn’t live here anymore.”

“But he did until just recently. Maybe they didn’t know he’d moved. Anyway, don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to him. In the meantime, I want you home and safe.”

She nodded, turned, and walked back to the wagon. Liam helped her up and then went around the bed and climbed up next to her on the bench seat.

They were quiet on the way back to town, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Eleanor sat next to him, her arm locked with his. It made driving difficult, but he knew she needed the closeness.

When they arrived back at Eleanor’s tent, Liam saw her inside. He was climbing back on the wagon when he heard her scream.

He jumped back down and tore around the bed of the wagon. He drew his gun and threw back the tent flap. There was a man holding a knife to her throat.

“Throw down your gun,” said the man, who wore a red bandana tied around the lower half of his face so he wouldn’t be identified.

Liam dropped the gun.

“Now kick it away from you,” the man growled.

He did as he was told and kicked it to the side.

The man moved toward the entrance with Eleanor in front of him. Liam saw a drop of blood run down her neck from where the knife nicked her. He moved to the side as she and the man moved closer.

“Now, you move aside or the pretty lady here will be losing a lot of blood.”

Liam backed away and they scooted by in front of him. When they reached the entrance flap, the man shoved Eleanor to the ground and ran through the opening.

Liam sprang forward. “Are you alright?

“Yes, I’m fine, follow him,” she shouted.

Liam didn’t need to be told twice. He shot out of the entrance in time to see the man turn down the alley. He followed him. As soon as he made the turn to the alley, the man jumped him, slashing his back with the knife. Liam fell to the ground and rather than continue attacking, the man took off at a dead run down the alley.

Fire seared Liam’s back where the knife had cut it. He surveyed the alley but the man was gone. Liam picked himself off the ground and made his way back to Eleanor’s tent.

She was pacing up and down the aisle between the rows of chairs. When she saw him enter, she ran to him.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” Anger, or maybe fear, laced her voice, “there’s blood all over your back. Come with me and let’s get you cleaned up.”

She put her shoulder under his arm and her arm around his waist, trying to take his weight upon her. He smiled at her effort but didn’t let her see. Now that she’d mentioned his wound, it was starting to hurt.

They walked to the back of the tent into the kitchen. He sat on one of the chairs and leaned forward over the table.

“Take off your shirt and let me see how much damage they did.”

Obediently, he took off his shirt.

“Oww,” he groaned at the movement.

Eleanor put a kettle of water from the bucket by the stove on to boil. She grabbed some cloths from a box sitting on the long table that held their food stuffs, and brought it to where he sat.

She then tipped a couple of ladles of water into a large mixing bowl and brought it to the table.

“Lean forward again, please.”

He did as she asked.

Dipping one of the cloths into the bowl, she began dabbing at his wound.

“Well, what’s it look like?” he asked.

“It’s about six inches long but only deep on one end. That must be where the knife first struck you.”

“Will it need stitches?”

“Yes, I think so. I’ll have to get my sewing kit.”

“You’re going to do it? Don’t you think we should have Doc Cochran do it?”

She waved his concerns aside. “I’m fully capable. I’ve done it before. Most of the camps and settlements that we’ve been to don’t have doctors. I’ve had to be able to take care of father’s flock with many different ailments and injuries.”

The tea kettle began to whistle. She stopped, put the cloth on the table, took the bowl to one corner of the tent and dumped the contents into a waste bucket. Then she poured the hot water from the kettle into the bowl, added some cold water to it so it was cool enough she could wring out the cloth without burning her hands and took the bowl back to the table.

She then got a bar of soap from the worktable and came back to Liam.

“This is going to hurt, but I’ve got to get it clean before we stitch it closed, otherwise it might get infected and we don’t want that.”

“Do you have any whiskey?”

“As a matter of fact, we do. I keep it for medicinal purposes…like this one.”

She pulled a bottle of brown liquid from the same box she had the cloths, then got a cup and brought both to the table.

“Drink as much of the cup as you can. You’ll need it to dull the pain.”

She watched him as he downed a full cup of the liquor. When he was done, she wrung the water from a cloth and soaped it up.

As soon as she touched him the stinging began and it was all he could do not to flinch away from her hands, gentle though they were. Each swipe of the cloth brought him pain, but he kept his mouth closed and his teeth clenched.

Eleanor must have known some of what he was feeling because she kept talking, taking his mind off the pain.

“Father and I were in the war together. He volunteered to be the chaplain for a unit of Missouri soldiers that were leaving to join the Union in 1861. I, of course, went with him. Where else was I to go? I aided the wounded, helped the doctors and nurses as much as I could and held the hands of those who were beyond the help that medicine could give.”

Her hands were quick and sure. The next thing he knew she was rinsing his back. Squeezing the warm water down, over the wound, letting it run down his back. The top of his pants were going to be soaked, but right now that was the least of his worries.

Eleanor was drying his back and her hands. Then she took out her sewing kit from the black doctor’s bag that she carried her bible and who knew what else in. Well, actually he knew now. She kept medicines, bandages, her sewing kit, and salves in it, along with her bible. She got a small bowl from the storage table, and poured some of the whiskey into it. Then she put the needle in there to soak while she found her thread.

“Sorry you don’t get a choice of thread color. I keep heavy black thread for this very use. This is going to hurt, but I actually think the worst of it is over. Usually, when I clean the wound is the worst, well, until that very last anyway.”

“The very last?” Liam was afraid what this might mean.

“Yes. After I get the stitches in, I pour whiskey over the wound to kill anything that might infect it.”

He tried to remain still. “You what?!”

“It helps. Really. We learned a lot about infection during and after the war. Trust me on this.”

She reached into the bowl and took out the needle, drying it off with a clean cloth. Then she threaded it with the black thread.