Five Magic Spindles: A Collection of Sleeping Beauty Stories Page 4

  “I suppose I wouldn’t, if I were you,” he said quietly. “But I wish you could find a way to do so, just the same. I . . . I wasn’t always a hired killer. I think I can help Miss Owens.”

  Rosalind sank back in her chair, causing it to rock back and forth. “Miss Emma, let him in.”

  The next thing I knew, he had taken my seat beside Rosalind. To my surprise, Victor’s faithful dog did not protest. It didn’t exactly wag its tail and lick Palmer’s face, but neither did it growl or try to bite this intruder. That dog’s reaction melted my fears about our visitor far more than any assurances from the gunman could have done. If Palmer had meant to harm Rosalind, I trusted that Blue would have sensed it.

  “May I?” Palmer reached out, and Rosalind placed her bandaged hand on his. He examined the streaks on her arm closely. “Would you mind if I unwrapped this?” he asked me.

  “I certainly would!” I marched over to him. “What do you want to do that for?”

  “I’d like to see if rinsing the wounds would help,” he said.

  “Oh, you would, would you?” I wondered if perhaps that dog, Rosalind, and I all had faulty instincts when it came to trusting strangers. “Of all the nerve! First you came here pointing a gun at good honest folk, and now you wish to tamper with my patient? Rinse the wounds, indeed!”

  “Sometimes it does a festering wound good to cleanse it and allow light and fresh air to the site.”

  “And how would a common killer know that?” I am not by nature a rude person, but I assure you that guilt and worry had worn my patience powerful thin by that point, and I felt no remorse right then over what I called him.

  Palmer frowned. “As I said, I haven’t always lived by my gun, Miss . . .”

  “Thornberry,” I supplied.

  “. . . Miss Thornberry. I know this will sound improbable, but I assure you it’s true. I spent three long years as a surgeon during the war. I have seen more infections than you can imagine possible, and I will know by examining Miss Owens how serious her condition is.”

  “As if I would believe that.” I shook my head so sharply, I could feel my hair start to loosen from the knot I wore on the back of my head. “How could a man go from saving lives to taking them?”

  Palmer met my eyes. “Far too easily.”

  I held his gaze, searching for insincerity. A surgeon, here and now when Rosalind needed one, would be nothing short of a miracle. Too good to be true, my common sense insisted.

  Still, something about the way he spoke seemed truthful. And his behavior of the day before, telling me to wash Rosalind’s wounds, helping bandage them neatly and efficiently—all that testified to his veracity. As I’ve said, the good Lord sometimes answers my prayers in the most unpredictable ways. Perhaps this was one such answer.

  But I still needed to know one thing. “Why are you no longer in Mrs. Mortimer’s employ?”

  “Because she lied to me. She said she had a troublesome neighbor who had threatened her, harassed her, and finally demanded that she buy his property. Had that been the case, I would have been only too happy to assist her. However, from what I could see here yesterday, I suspect the reverse is true.”

  A gunman with a conscience. And here I’d thought those were a myth.

  Rosalind asked, “Do you always give notice when an employer lies to you?”

  He almost smiled at her. “She also tried to shoot an innocent young woman with my gun. I returned the money she’d paid me and rode straight to town yesterday. But I couldn’t leave without checking on your condition. I feared . . .” He looked down at her bandaged hand.

  I said, “Then you were wiser than me. I told her father she would be fine.”

  “And perhaps she will be.”

  I sighed heavily and theatrically to make the point that I was still reluctant. “All right. I’ll choose to believe you. For now. Examine her hand for yourself, if she will permit you. Though when her father sees you, I have no doubt he’ll raise Cain over my allowing you in here.”

  “Thank you.” He returned his attention to Rosalind. “May I?”

  Rosalind nodded. Her gaze never left his face—not that I blamed her, for it was a face well worth perusing, as I have already noted.

  I moved to look over his shoulder, curious as to his assessment of my treatment. He unwound the bandages as gently as he could. I noted approvingly the sure way his fingers worked, not jostling her hand in the slightest.

  “Willow bark, you said?” he asked as he sniffed my poultice.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you had much success with it before?”

  “Indeed I have! I’ve—”

  He interrupted me. “Have you tried carbolic acid?”

  I frowned at him, irked more by the interruption than the implication that I lacked the necessary medicines and knowledge. “I told you, I am a midwife, not a nurse or a doctor. I have heard of that but never seen it. I’ve no notion where to get it or how.”

  “No morphine either, then?”

  “None.”

  “Laudanum?”

  “No.”

  “What do you do to ease a patient’s pain?”

  “Give them a little medicinal brandy.”

  He sighed. “Bring me the brandy, please.”

  “I’ve already given her brandy.”

  “I don’t intend to have her drink it. I want to wash the wound with it. Or any other alcohol, if your brandy is too dear. And bring that wooden spoon again.”

  “Why should I?” I demanded. “I have nothing besides your word that you were once a surgeon. Or that you have broken with Mrs. Mortimer! For all I know, this may be some cunning scheme of hers to harm these good people yet again. Pretend to help us, get us to trust you, and then murder us all in our sleep, mayhap!”

  Rosalind’s eyes searched his. “You wouldn’t shoot me yesterday. Not even when she ordered you to. I trust you.”

  “I think we should wait for Victor,” I said.

  “Then by all means, go find him,” Palmer said. “But we have no time to waste here. The brandy is but a temporary measure. She’ll need the other things, real medicines. But we must start somewhere.”

  I wasn’t about to leave Rosalind alone with him to go off searching for her father. My qualms about his cleaning her wounds with alcohol were minimal, as I knew it to be as good as boiling water for sanitary purposes and wished I had thought of it myself. So I brought him the brandy and the wooden spoon.

  “I’m so sorry,” he told Rosalind, “but this will hurt.” He offered her the wooden spoon. Once again she clamped it between her teeth. Then she squeezed her eyes shut. Palmer balanced the washbasin on his knees and held her hand over it, cupping his hand under hers and holding her fingers open with his thumb. Then he poured a little of the alcohol into her palm so that it puddled all around the wound.

  Rosalind’s eyes flew open, and she let out a wild yell around the spoon clenched in her teeth. But she didn’t try to pull away. I grabbed hold of her other hand. “Squeeze as hard as you need to,” I told her. I quickly regretted the offer, for Rosalind is a strong girl, used to manhandling sheep. But if she could stand the pain to her wounds, I told myself, I could stand having my fingers crushed by hers.

  Palmer tilted her hand to let the brandy drain out into the washbasin. Then he turned her hand all the way over and repeated the process. The alcohol wouldn’t stay puddled around the wound on the back, of course, so he simply poured a little over it at a time.

  Rosalind’s hand survived this, and mine did too. When he’d finished, he began binding her wound with a fresh dressing.

  Rosalind took the spoon from between her teeth. “Thank you,” she said weakly. “You see?” she added, glancing at me. “I knew.”

  “Knew what?” I asked her.

  “Knew I could trust him. That hurt, Miss Emma, but it wasn’t a . . . a bad hurting, if you catch my meaning.”

  Without so much warning as a footstep to alert us to his presence, who should appe
ar at the window above Rosalind’s bed but Victor, his rifle aimed squarely at Palmer. “Well, I sure enough don’t trust him,” he said.

  We all jumped like pups caught licking out the stewpot.

  “You get away from my daughter,” he said.

  Chapter 6

  PALMER SET ROSALIND’S HAND down carefully and raised both his own. “Just trying to help,” he told Victor.

  “I said get away from her.” I’d never before heard Victor sound that angry. It was almost like listening to a stranger. He glared down that rifle, its butt snug up against his shoulder, looking ornerier than a wild steer.

  I said, “How about we all talk this over like the sensible folks I know we are?”

  “Not now, Miss Emma,” Victor growled.

  I admit those harsh words rankled me a good deal, coming as they did from a man I counted my friend. I put my hands on my hips. “I’m giving you the chance to be sensible, Victor Owens. You can come in here with your rifle and let this man speak his piece at gunpoint if you’ve a mind to. After all, it’s your house. But any conclusions you’ve jumped to, you can just un-jump.”

  Victor narrowed his eyes, but when he spoke, his voice had lost much of its severity. “Rosalind, what has this jackleg shootist been up to here?” He did not lower his rifle.

  Rosalind replied quickly, her words almost running together. “He washed my hand, Pa, that’s all. Miss Emma’s real concerned over it. He was a surgeon during the war.” Her cheeks were flushed still.

  “That so? Ain’t that convenient.”

  Palmer said, “I came to check on Miss Owens’s hand. And to ask if you’d wired the sheriff.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “You could say I’m ashamed. For not doing more yesterday. I was caught off guard by Mrs. Mortimer’s cruelty. I came to apologize. If you bring her to court for assaulting your daughter, if you need a witness to testify, you can call on me. Luke Palmer. A wire to the station master in Abilene, Kansas, will find me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Victor was a stubborn man and a proud one. I worried he might let his pride keep him from accepting Palmer’s apology or his offer to help. So I put in, “Mr. Palmer no longer works for Mrs. Mortimer, which I’m sure you will see is a sign of his good sense.”

  “How do we know this isn’t her plan? That she hasn’t sent him here to get a man inside, and then finish us off?”

  Though I had earlier thought that same thing myself, I now protested, “Victor Owens, be reasonable. Adelaide Mortimer has to keep on living in these parts. She knows full well that with me here to see what happened yesterday, half the town would have heard about it by sundown and the other half doubtless knows by now. If you or Rosalind turned up dead, there’s not a person with sense in these parts who wouldn’t know who’s to blame.”

  “That’s so,” Victor conceded.

  “Besides,” I added, “if your dog has no objection to this man’s presence, why should we?”

  Victor eyed his dog through the window. He raised his eyebrows as if considering asking what the furry black sentinel could tell him about our intruder. For a moment I almost expected Blue to volunteer his opinion.

  Palmer said, “I meant it when I said I’ve quit. I’m no saint, but there are some things I won’t do. A man has to draw the line somewhere.”

  Victor studied Palmer. At last he lowered his rifle. “All right. If you let me have your gun, you can stay.”

  Palmer stood up, keeping his hands away from his sides where Victor could see them clearly. “Thank you. But truth be told, I need to leave. I must have medicines Miss Thornberry doesn’t possess. I’m sure there’s a doctor in Lincoln who has what I require.”

  I objected, “Lincoln is a day’s ride from here.” I also objected to his assuming it would be he who saved Rosalind’s life, but I kept that to myself lest I sound like a spoiled child deprived of a treat.

  “Which is why I must leave at once.” He touched Rosalind’s shoulder. “I’ll be back soon.” His gaze caught and held hers briefly. Then he hurried to the door. “Miss Thornberry, a word?” he said as he went outside.

  I joined him and Victor beside the gate. Palmer said, “Your tea may help her fever, so by all means have her drink it. And any food or water she will take. Keep her wound clean—every few hours repeat what I did with the brandy. Don’t wrap it again—let both sides get air to them. If we can’t stop that infection . . .”

  “We will lose her,” I finished for him.

  “She will lose her hand, at the very least.”

  Beside me, Victor gave a sort of sighing groan, as if he’d been trying to avoid that fact only to have it run headlong into him.

  Palmer continued, “I will do everything in my power to prevent that, but . . .” He paused, and it seemed to me he looked almost frightened for a minute, though I couldn’t think why. He continued, “But it may come down to a choice between her hand and her life.”

  I asked, “You think these medicines will help? If you can find them?”

  He went to his horse. “I have seen them stave off infection and sometimes lessen it. I only hope I can find them and ride back here in time.” He untied his bedroll from behind his saddle, unbuckled his saddle bags, and tossed them both inside the picket fence.

  I had a sudden thought. “Shouldn’t you stay here with her, then? We can get someone from town to fetch the medicines.”

  Palmer turned away to check his saddle’s girth, making sure it was cinched securely. With his face still averted he said, “I’ll need to get more than medicine. If that infection can’t be stopped . . .” He took a deep breath. “During the war we amputated as often as we could—it was the only real hope we had of preventing a wound from festering like this.” He looked over at us. “I wish I had stayed here yesterday. I lacked the courage, that’s all. I hope I can make up for that.”

  Victor said gruffly, “Maybe I’ve misjudged you.”

  “No, you judged me about right. But a man doesn’t have to stay on the same trail he’s been riding, does he?” With that, Palmer untied his reins from the fence, swung into the saddle, and started off.

  While watching Palmer and his horse lope up the rise, I asked Victor, “Before we go inside, answer me one thing: Where were you? How could you leave your child alone like that? She is seriously ill, do you not realize that?”

  “No,” he said, sounding as irritated as I felt. “I didn’t realize that. She was a bit tired, but she said she would be all right. I knew that young ewe would birth her lambs any time, and I had to check on her, feed the horses . . . I can’t just abandon my stock.”

  I glared at him, my frustration and guilt rising up in me again. “You can’t abandon your stock, but you can leave your daughter to die?”

  “I didn’t know she might die. You told me she’d be fine.” He spun around and headed back to the house.

  I shivered. He was right; I’d as much as promised him that. And he’d believed me. Trusted me. Remorseful, I hurried to catch up with him before he ducked inside. “I’m sorry.” I touched his arm to stop him. “I am so very sorry, Victor. I had no call to accuse you that way.” I closed my eyes for a moment, searching for a way to divert our words, stop us from tearing at each other from worry and dread. “How was your ewe?”

  “Fine. They’re all fine, her and the two lambs she bore this morning.”

  “I’m glad.”

  He looked at me strangely. “Are you?” He went inside without another word.

  I entered just in time to see him stalk straight over to the spinning wheel, grasp the spindle, snap it clean off, and toss it into the fire. “That’s an end to that,” he said.

  Chapter 7

  WE SPENT THAT DAY in a haze of chores and nursing. Victor kept himself busy outdoors during daylight, checking in at the cabin every hour or two to see if I needed help. I tended Rosalind, pouring as much willow bark tea and water into her as I could. I also started a batch of stew with whatever I cou
ld find in Rosalind’s small garden behind the house.

  Victor, being a thoughtful man, gave up his room and bed for me that night. He laid out a blanket for himself on the floor beside Rosalind’s cot and promised to wake me if her condition changed in any way. I slept so soundly that when I awoke the next morning I was stiff, never having shifted position while asleep. If not for that I would have felt remarkably well rested.

  In the other room Victor dozed on the floor by Rosalind. She was awake, moaning softly, her eyes open but wandering. My small bottle of medicinal brandy had not lasted through the previous day, but Victor had a dusty bottle of what he termed simply ‘liquor.’ After mixing a dose of that with some of their rapidly dwindling supply of brown sugar, I moved to stand beside them. I didn’t like to rouse Victor, for his face looked just as weary as it had the day before. But I knew Rosalind was suffering, and he blocked me from reaching her.

  I bent down and touched his shoulder. “Victor,” I murmured. “Wake up, Victor. I’m here now.”

  He stirred, mumbled something I did not understand, then opened his eyes and looked up into mine. I’d never realized how blue his eyes were, like small flowers that you find by accident, hidden away in the vast prairie.

  “What is it?” He sat straight up and looked at Rosalind as if he feared to find her gone.

  “Go to bed,” I told him firmly. “By the looks of you, you cannot have had more than three decent winks of sleep this whole night, nor the one before. I will tend Rosalind; I will see to your horses and mine. When you wake, I will fix you something to eat. Now go.”

  He did not so much as mutter a protest but stumbled off to his room.

  I was glad for the good night of rest I’d gotten my own self, for I could see it would be a long day. And we could not expect Palmer back before nightfall. I took Victor’s seat beside Rosalind. “Good morning,” I said to her with a smile, expecting no answer and getting none. She drank my draught with a scowl then turned her head toward the wall.

  Pressing food on her just yet felt unwise, so I left a cup of cold willow bark tea on the chair by her bed and went out to the barn. I grew up on a farm, and though that was too long ago for me to admit to in mixed company, I still knew how to pitch hay and haul water. I’d barely finished seeing to the stock when a rancher from up north arrived with his half-grown boy whose leg was sliced open clear to the bone. They wouldn’t say much about how it had happened, just asked me to stitch him up. I always leave word at the boarding house as to where I’m going, so folks in need can find me when I’m out tending someone else.