Mail-Order Man (24 page)

Loose-limbed, the middle-aged man strode up the walk, climbed the infirmary steps, and rushed inside. “Afternoon, Mullin. Old Mrs. Pruitt—”

Braxton stepped in front of his father. “Remember me?”

The doctor dropped his black bag.

John Larkin Hale took a backward step from the past he'd tried to forget.

The muscles in Braxton's face were tight, his eyes shooting verdant bullets. This was trouble John Hale didn't need. “Step into my office.”

Striding into the room that sported numerous diplomas and awards, signs of respectability and acceptance, John closed the door. He motioned for Braxton and the pretty brunette to sit down. She complied. Braxton—it came as no surprise—remained standing. Ready to vent his spleen.

John went around the desk to sit. Leaning back in his chair, his elbows propped on the arms and his fingers steepled, he scrutinized a part of what he'd tried to forget. The first of Elizabeth's brats. Her visage should be hovering over Braxton's face, as it had in John's memory. Instead, he saw himself a quarter century ago. Not a comforting thought.

“I thought you were dead,” he said.

The woman's gaze shot up to Braxton. It was easy to detect her loving concern. Harriet was like that, loving and concerned.

“Hello to you, too, Father.”

John eyed his begotten son. Since Braxton hadn't gone to a grave, what was the chance of more Hales waltzing into town, expecting a carriage ride around the Alamo and a picnic along the San Antonio River? If Harriet found out . . . trouble. If battle-ax Bertha found out he was a bigamist, she'd skin him alive.

“What do you want?” he demanded. “Money?”

“Answers.”

With a smile displaying his teeth—he prided himself of having a perfect set of thirty-two—John turned his attention to the woman. “Excuse our ill manners. Who might you be, ma'am?”

“His wife.”

“More's the pity.”

“My husband is the finest man in the world. Which you would be fully aware of, if you'd been a concerned father.” Her bosom rose and fell as she went bear-hunting with a switch. “You've been the loser in this situation—you've cheated yourself out of the joys of knowing Braxton!”

“Little spitfire, isn't she?” John said to his son.

“Not in the least.” Braxton slapped a hand on the desktop. “We didn't come here for chitchat or summations. I won't be ignored, Father. I want to know why you did it.”

There was no mistaking his son's question. “I've spent fifteen years trying to forget Mississippi. If you have come here to cause trouble, know something and know it well. I won't allow you to spread poison.” John decided not to get too specific.

“I didn't come here to bust up your cozy little home with your young wife and those little woods' colts of yours. I said I want answers.” Braxton paused. “Why did you damn your children to hell?”

His wife laid a gloved hand on the desk. “Dr. Hale, they did suffer greatly.”

John studied the sorrow on his son's face.

Braxton stared downward, then fastened his gaze on John. “Why couldn't you find it in your heart to support your family? Do you know how hard it is to keep a log cabin warm, to tell a barefoot child there's nothing to eat but bean juice? How do you tell a kid that Father isn't coming home?”

Making its debut, guilt went through John for not looking after his son. But it was a fleeting shame. Braxton didn't look any the worse for the wear. Matter of fact, he looked healthy as a horse and prosperous to boot. “Deprivation builds character.”

“And milk builds strong bones. Something my sisters didn't have.” Braxton, with a gavel-like fist, banged the desk once. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

“You don't want to hear it.”

“If it pertains to the Hales, I
demand
to hear it. ”

John searched for what to do next. He decided to take the blame. “I was a louse. A louse who skipped out on the marriage. I had a wanderlust that wasn't quenched until I reached Texas. Here, I found my peace.”

“I reckon you have. Running a charity hospital. Forgetting charity starts at home. Yeah, you've got your peace. By committing bigamy and fathering a couple of bastards.”

“Yes.”

“Have any plans to desert the new family?”

“No.”

“I wouldn't be too sure about that, if I were them.”

“Son, belligerence rarely wins an argument.”

Braxton turned that distinguished Hale nose in his wife's direction. She murmured something to him. They were a fine-looking pair, John decided. Good-looking children would spring from Braxton and his missus. Did they have children already? Verbalizing this question would indicate interest, which was the last thing John Larkin Hale wished to convey.

Yet he had no control over the memories that flashed into his mind. As if it were yesterday, he saw his son toddling after him, wanting to play doctor. The toddler became an even more inquisitive youth, never missing a call on a patient or an afternoon in his father's office. By the time he was twelve, Braxton had read every medical book in John's library, and was assisting in surgeries. Had he continued his studies?

Braxton said, “Will you let me tell you about the family you left behind?”

John would just as soon turn old Mrs. Pruitt over her kitchen table and lance another half dozen boils on the acreage of her fetid behind. Mrs. Pruitt not being the option, he decided to listen. “If you wish.”

“Your legal wife is dead. Thankfully, she was spared the war. Not so your daughters. They took shelter in a cave. Diana and Susan were killed when it collapsed. Diana's little girl died of scarlet fever—Lilly already was malnourished. Larkin's widow took enemy fire.”

John stole a look at the tearful brunette. It was as if she heard this gruesome tale for the first time.

“As for Larkin”—Braxton swallowed; his wife placed her hand over his—“Larkin's head got blown off in 1862. He fell dead in my arms. Geoff and I buried him in Manassas, Virginia.”

As a physician John Hale agonized for the pain and suffering that had befallen the family carrying his name. As the patriarch of that hapless clan, he experienced a wave of nausea. Yet he despised his weakness, for it was easier to deal with the past when girded with indifference.

The brunette put an arm around her husband. “Let's go, honey,” she whispered. “Let's go.”

“No! The bastard has explained nothing. Nothing!”

“You need to get rid of your bitterness, son.”

“By God, I'm trying to make sense of you. You're devoted to this new family. What's so special about them? We were good children. Even the last one—the one you had with Bella.”

Braxton turned to his wife as if to explain himself. Her heart-shaped features didn't show shock. Undoubtedly, she'd known about the boy, but her husband hadn't done the telling.

Braxton again glared at John. “Why did you damn all of us to hell?”

“Damn you to hell? If I did, it was in the throes of anger.” What could he say that wouldn't destroy the son who had adored his mother? Plainly, Braxton wouldn't let up until the rotten truth came out. Regretfully, John admitted, “You were my only child with Elizabeth. She wasn't faithful. She stepped out with this man and that one.”

“A lie!”

“The truth. I tried to put up with cuckoldry. I did my best to turn my eyes. Then a fellow from New Orleans came to Natchez. Dark-haired, black-eyed, quite the swain. Your mother was smitten. When she gave birth for the last time, she had to face up to her infidelity.”

Braxton came across the table to grab John by the collar. “Don't you dare slander my mother!”

Gagging and choking, John forced his son's fingers from his throat. Free, he sank back in his chair and sucked in oxygen. Braxton hovered, waiting to strike again.

“You wanted answers,” John said. “I'm trying to give them. If you want to call me names, go ahead. If you wish to curse my mortal soul, do it. But if you want to learn of the past, sit down. What you do after you get your answers is your business. As long as it doesn't effect Harriet or Abigail or Andrew.”

For a time, Braxton grappled with deciding on his next move. Finally, he took a seat next to his ashen-faced wife.

John slammed his eyes shut. “Elizabeth gave birth to a throwback. A throwback to African ancestors. It seems her New Orleans man passed as white. The babe appeared a quadroon.”

No hot rejoinder met this testimony, so John went on. “As it were, Bella delivered a stillborn child a few days after Elizabeth dropped her cur. Bella's child wasn't mine, I'll have you know—no matter what everyone in Natchez thought.” John pinched the bridge of his nose. “The women concocted a story, telling busybodies Elizabeth's son had died. She slipped the light-skinned boy into the slave quarters. I tried to ignore it all. I stuck it out for another two years.”

“I don't believe you.”

Opening his eyes, John frowned. “If you can't see the truth, then you are wasting your time and mine.”

“Tell me why you saw fit to leave with every dime, including the proceeds from a loan on the family home, a place her father built at the turn of the century.”

“I waived my rights to Braxton Grove.”

Braving his son's skepticism and hostility, John told about an incident that occurred in the summer of 1855. He happened upon the cotton merchant Harry Braxton, who had business in Galveston. Elizabeth's brother remained furious with her, vowing never to give her a red cent. First, for her affair with an unsavory character. Lastly, for her extreme bad judgment.

She'd mortgaged Braxton Grove to set her lover up in the cotton-factoring business in New Orleans. When the loan wasn't repaid, she'd lost the family home. She hadn't let Harry know about it until the property had slipped out of family hands.

Obviously pierced to the marrow, Braxton had whispered, “I remember when the bank foreclosed on the house. But not for the reason you claim. I can't accept your story. My mother would never have jeopardized the roof over her children's heads, and she
never
committed adultery.”

“Ask yourself something. Could a quadroon have come out of Bella? I bought her straight off a slave ship from Africa. Her skin is like ebony. And she's too fine a woman for the nastiness Elizabeth pulled her into, I might add.”

“You're making excuses.”

“Then use your head. Think back on your brothers and sisters. Did they resemble the Hales? What about the quadroon? Is he tall like Bella, or short like Elizabeth? Do you see your mother's nose and mouth in Geoffrey's face?”

The brunette gasped.

Braxton looked as if he'd been dragged along a path covered with cactus and rocks, which distressed his father. John hated feeling anything for the son he'd left behind, yet he didn't falter in dealing the final blow. “Next time you're in New Orleans, call on a wealthy cotton factor. He lives in the Vieux Carré, or did last summer. Read him the riot act for skipping out on your mother. His name is Geoffrey Bain.”

Braxton brought one hand up to drive his fingers through his hair, dislodging his ten-gallon hat. His wife hovered over him. Another sharp pain of regret went through John Hale; it had to do with hurting his son.

Speaking to Braxton's companion, John said, “Ma'am, take him home. Wherever that may be. Take him home and make him forget.”

She glared. Her pretty brown eyes turned hard and mean. Protecting her man like a mama cat did a kit, she ground out, “May God damn you to hell, John Hale.”

“Ma'am, I've been in hell for thirty years.”

 

 

Halfway between purgatory and someplace worse, Brax brooded in the suite at the Menger, trying to make sense of life. Impossible. He couldn't move, speak, scream. Or cry. His eyes slammed closed. He was too numb for tears.

Skylla knelt at his feet. Dear, precious Skylla. A woman too good for a wretch.

“Drink this. It'll make you feel better.” she placed a glass of something in his hand. “Down the hatch, honey.”

He quaffed it. Bourbon. Fiery bourbon that settled like a bomb in his twisted stomach. “Another.” He held the glass out. He downed it. And another. Somewhat collected, he opened his eyes to all the sweetness in the world.

“Everything fits into place,” Brax whispered. “He told the truth. I remember Geoffrey Bain. Now I know why Uncle Harry turned cold about the time we moved to Vicksburg. Callous bastard, making the children pay for their mother's sin. I sprang from a collection of devils.”

His father might be Lucifer incarnate, but Brax had seen something else in the clinic office. He'd seen a mirror of himself. The evil part of him, he came by naturally. Thus, he despised himself as well as the father whose corrupt blood had carried down a generation.

“Think on something.” The no-nonsense in Skylla's voice caught his attention. “Your mother wouldn't turn to another man unless she had good reason. As for mortgaging the home, who among us hasn't made a stupid mistake of the heart?”

“Yeah. Who among us.”

“Furthermore,
she
never neglected her children. She could have parceled Geoff off somewhere much farther away than the slave quarters.”

“I should have told you about Geoff.”

“Yes, you should have. It hurts that you didn't have enough faith in me to share your secrets, especially since I'd guessed it. But Geoff isn't the issue. This is about your mother. She looked after each of her children, even without a husband's help. Without anyone's help but yours and Bella's.”

“Mother worked harder than me—or even Bella—at least where the children were concerned.”