Mittman, Stephanie (35 page)

She
gasped for air, unable to draw a breath, the landscape around her turning
yellow like an old color photograph from the forties. There were two Harlins,
two Wilsons, and the man next to her was shouting something she couldn't
understand. The buzz in her head grew louder and louder, drowning him out,
burning her brain, exploding her skull. A hand pushed at her back, forcing her
head down until her cheekbone touched her knee.

"Take
deep breaths." Oh, yes, he was the doctor. Mary Grace had brought him here
to meet Harlin and bring him back for her baby. She tried to raise her head. It
was held firmly in place.

"This
here's the clothes what she came with," Harlin said. "She ain't to
come back, ever."

"My
baby!" She could hear the scream rip across the desert and fade. It took
her a moment to realize it was her own.

"Don't
come for me no more, boys," the doctor said. "With Emily and the baby
gone now, I ain't making no more trips out your way. You understand me?"

"Now
you don't mean that, do you, Doc?" Wilson fiddled with his rifle as he
spoke. The implication, even to Mary Grace's muddled brain, was clear.

"Shoot
me,"
she shouted, standing up in the wagon and flinging her hands
away from her body. "Dear God, shoot
me."

Harlin
pulled the revolver he wore on his hip and aimed it straight at Mary Grace's
heart.

"Dammit,
Harlin, put that away," Wilson said. "We're gonna be in enough
trouble with Mason. We don't need no more. She's gotta go back to town with the
doc."

"Oh,
yeah." He looked around, finally aiming his gun and shooting the flower
off a cactus. "Just like my tool, huh, Wilson? Once I take it out and aim
it, I just gotta shoot it off to feel good."

"For
Christ's sake, Harlin! Emily's kid is dead and you're making jokes."

"But,"
Harlin began.

"No
buts," Wilson said. "Now she ain't got no reason to come back and
marry up with Mason." He rested his rifle across the saddle pommel and
leaned on it, peering at Mary Grace, who still stood in the wagon, somewhat
wobbly. "You all right,
Miss O'Reilly?"
He spat out her name.

"How
could he be dead? I don't see how he could be dead." She jumped down from
the buckboard, tripping on her skirt and falling hard on her knees. Dust rose
up around her and she choked on it, the dry smell of the
ground filling
her nostrils and making her eyes feel gritty. She looked up at the clear blue
sky and yelled. "How many times are you going to punish me?"

"We
gotta go," Harlin said, guiding his horse so close to Mary Grace that she
was forced off her knees. She fell against her elbow and groaned.

"Kill
me, you son of a bitch," she yelled at Wilson, pushing herself to her feet
and charging his horse. "You've wanted to, so do it. It's my fault he's
dead. Kill me." She pulled on Wilson's leg, groping for the rifle barrel
through half-closed eyes.

Wilson's
boot caught her squarely on the chin, knocking her back several feet before she
fell to the ground. When she looked up, the rifle was aimed at her. She got to
her knees and begged.

"Shoot!"
she screamed, crawling toward Wilson on her knees. She would take care of her
child in heaven if she couldn't take care of him on earth. "Shoot!"
Who would take care of Ben? Emily?

The
horses' hooves pounded around her, raising dust and blotting out the sound of
her cries. But she wouldn't go to heaven, not after all she'd done.

She
stopped moving, and a deep stillness overtook her. She was already dead. That
was it. She was condemned to loving and losing children forever. Like Sisyphus
and his rock, this was her hell and her punishment.

"He's
dead." The horses came in ever closer circles around her, the Tate
brothers yelling at her. "Don't never come back. Horace is dead and you
ain't marryin' Mason."

Something
hit her back. A horse's hoof? A rifle butt? She didn't know. She fell forward
and hugged herself. Another baby taken from her. Another baby gone.

***

Sloan
saw the buckboard idling up Main Street and stood up to get a better look. He'd
been waiting for the doctor to return since supper. A black suit, a string tie.
It was either the doctor or the undertaker, Sloan figured. Probably the doctor,
the way he kept looking over his shoulder as if he were checking on someone
laid out in the back. After all, an undertaker wouldn't have to worry about a
stiff going anywhere.

The
wagon stopped in front of Sloan, and the doctor nodded at him.

"Need
me, son?"

"You
Doc Woods?" Again the doctor nodded, then looked over his shoulder once
more, shaking his head.

Sloan
threw an eye into the wagon to see what held the man's attention so, and felt
his heart stop. Mary Grace lay there, her chin bruised to a deep blue in the
dim light, the rest of her face a ghostly white. He reached out and touched her
cheek with just his index finger. She didn't move.

Doc
Woods watched without comment. He let Sloan touch her arms, her throat, run his
fingers through her hair, all without a word. Finally, as Sloan's hands ran
down her chest, he coughed loudly. "Take it you know this woman?" he
asked.

Sloan
continued checking her over, searching to find what was wrong. There was no
blood, no broken bones that he could feel, nothing to explain her lifelessness.

"Mary
Grace?" he whispered, his hand returning to her face and stroking her
cheek. "Wake up, Sweet Mary. It's Sloan."

"Sloan
Westin? That you? Well, I'll be damned," the doctor said. "Heard you
was..."

Sloan
finished the sentence for him. "Dead. Well, I
ain't. Why
ain't she wakin' up, Doc? What's wrong with her?"

"Laudanum.
That and the shock." The doctor put two fingers against Mary Grace's
throat, then looked up at Sloan. "You ain't fooling around with another
Tate woman, now, are you? You ain't a cat, you know."

"The
shock? What shock?" From his gut, fear sent out gnarled feelers that
wrapped themselves around his muscles and squeezed his heart. He raised his
eyes from Mary Grace and connected with the doctor. "Where's the baby?
Where's my son?"

"Yours?"
The doctor closed his eyes and nodded. "The puzzle comes together. But
where does she fit?" He gestured toward Mary Grace, who sighed pitifully
in her sleep.

"Mine,"
Sloan confirmed of the baby. He realized that the doctor might think he meant
Mary Grace, but let the comment stand. "Where's the boy?"

The
doctor's eyes dropped. "You want to help me get her inside? I ain't as
young as I used to be, and meetin' with the Tate boys always leaves me a little
the worse for wear."

"Bein'
evasive don't suit you. You ain't told me about my son, you ain't told me about
her, and you ain't told me about the Tates. I got fear bugs crawlin' up and
down my arms, and they're nippin' at my nerves and itchin' my patience. I'm
askin' you again. What the hell is going on?"

Ignoring
him, the doctor reached down for his medical bag. He descended from the
buckboard carefully on thin, brittle legs that nearly buckled under him. Then
he took a pile of clothing that lay near Mary Grace's head. They looked
familiar, but Sloan couldn't place the pale blue shirt or the blue jeans.

"Let's
bring her inside, Westin." The doctor
unlocked the door to his office and
disappeared into the darkness within.

In
the back of the wagon, Mary Grace moaned. Sloan reached in and lifted her in
his arms. Her body tensed, her hands clenching into fists, but her eyes stayed
shut.

"It's
all right now, Sweet Mary," he said, hugging her against his body and
turning toward the doctor's office. The lamps were lit and the doctor waited in
the doorway, watching the exchange and shaking his head.

"Dead,"
she murmured, and at first Sloan wasn't sure what she said.

"What?
Did you say something, honey?" She was incredibly light in his arms. He
wondered how long it had been since she'd eaten a decent meal. Probably since
before she'd fallen into his life.

"Dead,"
she repeated, this time quite clearly, her voice flat and lifeless.

"Who?
Who's dead?" he asked. Before she could answer, a chill so strong ran
through him that he felt his grip on her body loosen. He had to clutch her to
him quickly to stop her from falling through his arms.

"Gone.
All gone."

"Ben?"
His voice cracked with the word. His son was dead. The baby who, in just a few
short weeks, had become the center of his life, was dead.

In
his arms, Mary Grace exhaled a ragged sigh against his chest, her warm breath
soaking through his shirt and touching his skin. He looked down and found her
eyes open, staring past him at nothing at all.

Inside
the office, the doctor had prepared an examining table. He motioned to Sloan to
place Mary Grace upon it. She rolled out of his arms limply, her eyes blank,
her body spent. Sloan addressed himself to the doctor.

"What
happened to her chin? Hell, what happened period? Were you there?" He
touched the bruise on her face. She didn't flinch. In fact, she seemed not to
notice.

Doc
Woods told Sloan what he had witnessed. Sloan heard some of the words, missed
others, as his brain raced around trying to escape from the truth just like a
mouse trapped in a maze tries to evade the cat. Ben was dead. He had no son.
Mary Grace had begged Wilson to shoot her. He looked down at the blank face on
the table. What had he done?

"I'll
take her home, if that's all right," he told the doctor, helping Mary
Grace sit up and keeping a hand on her to make sure she didn't slip off the
table.

"She'll
sleep all right tonight. If you need me in the morning, I'll be here or out at
the Little Daisy Mine." They eased her to her feet, a man on either side
of her, and when it was clear she wouldn't make it on her own, Sloan lifted her
in his arms. He nodded toward the doctor and carried her from the little office
out into the street.

High
notes from a piano tinkled somewhere, saloon noises drowning them out every now
and then. Women's laughter peeled from open windows. But nothing seemed as loud
to Sloan as the uneven thumping of his boots on the wooden sidewalk as he made
his way up Hull Street with Sweet Mary limp in his arms.

Her
eyes were half-closed, her breathing even. She didn't ask where he was taking
her, didn't struggle to break free. He could probably walk to the top of Mingus
Mountain and drop her off the edge and she wouldn't even scream as she went
down. He could leap off with her in his arms, and neither one of them would
even open their mouths to say good-bye.

At
the entrance to his hotel he shifted her weight and
bent to turn
the knob. With wide eyes the clerk hurried to assist him, flinging the door
open and hovering a few feet away.

"I'm
sorry, sir. We have rules about female visitors in this..." He looked hard
at Mary Grace, then put his hand in front of her face. There was no reaction.
"What's wrong with her?"

Sloan
headed for the steps without answering. Climbing them with her in his arms
wouldn't be easy.

"Mary
Grace?" he asked. When there was no response, he tossed her over his
shoulder like a sack of wheat and held tight to the bannister with his left
hand. His right arm was wrapped around her thighs. If anyone took note of their
undignified entrance, neither of them was aware of it. Mary Grace saw nothing
through her haze, and Sloan saw only vague forms through his tears.

Was
there anything worse than losing a child?

***

"All
packed," Sunny said, pushing the last of the barrels into the wagon.
"Guess there's no chance you'll change her mind."

Ben
Westin shook his head. Three wagonloads of belongings were packed and ready to
be driven to St. Louis. He and Anna were going by train. Sunny and some of the
other hands would drive the wagons. Then Sunny would come back and run the Bar
W. Probably right into the ground.

His
watch said twelve-twenty. It was his coin silver work watch, heavy and
dependable. Not like the fancy gold one he'd given Sloan. Each time he looked
at the coin silver watch, it reminded him that Sloan was still missing. He put
the watch back in his pocket and looked toward the barn.

"When're
those fools supposed to be here?" Ben said. He'd had Sunny put the horses
in their stalls, unable to watch them run in the corral while he was lassoed by
Anna and taken to St. Louis. Anna. She still refused to understand, refused to
believe that all of this was for Sloan, was always for Sloan.

"Another
few minutes," Sunny said, his eyes surveying the horizon. "Anything
can happen in a few minutes."

"If
they're goin', they might as well go." Ben pointed to the wagons loaded
with his wife's belongings. "Where the hell are they, anyway?"

"The
boys?" Sunny looked away, scratched his chin, fiddled with the cheroot in
his hand. He shrugged. "Town. They're in town."