Joelle's Secret (5 page)

He finally passed a man bundled up to the eyes and asked, “Is there a doctor somewhere around here?”

“Yeah, you go down to the next corner and turn left. You’ll find the doctor down there. Better get out of this weather. It’s a real blizzard.”

Owen started to walk, and he realized he was light-headed. The man’s voice sounded as if it had come from far off. He felt as if he were in some sort of box where the sounds were muffled, and he could hear the beating of his own heart. He began to cough and had to stop and lean against a building, for the coughs seemed to be tearing him in two. He reached the alley and found he couldn’t remember whether the man had said to turn right or left. It was dark, and he turned to his right, hoping that was the way to go.

He had not gone far when he realized he couldn’t continue. He leaned against the building and began to cough. The cough tore through his chest, and he coughed until there seemed to be bright lights flashing in front of his eyes. He fell forward into the snow and tried to struggle to his feet. He got to his knees, and then the bright lights disappeared, and he felt darkness closing in on him. The darkness grew even darker, and that was all he knew.

* * *

JOELLE WAS FINISHING HER work and was cooking her supper when she heard a voice calling her name. Joelle moved to the door of the small room and opened it. She saw Pete Nelson, a big cowboy with broad features and a pair of twinkling blue eyes, come in, his hat and shoulders covered with snow. “How about a cup of that coffee, Joe?”

“Sure, Pete,” Joelle smiled. “I’m just fixing me some stew, and I’ve got plenty of coffee. Come on in.”

The big cowboy swept his hat off, revealing a mass of red hair set off by the freckles across his face. “That smells good. What is it?”

“It’s my catch-all stew. I put everything I had in it, and it’s different every time. Sit down, Pete.”

Nelson threw himself into one of the two chairs, and Joelle ladled him a big bowl of the stew. “I got some crackers here. You want some hot sauce and ketchup to go in it?”

“No, that might spoil the taste.” Pete began eating eagerly. “This is good stuff, Joe.”

“You’re an easy man to please.”

She poured him a cup of coffee and said, “I hear that Big Ed Masters has beaten your time with Sally.”

“Why, that ain’t so! Who told you a lie like that?”

“Everybody’s talking about it. You’d better get on the ball or you’ll lose that girl.”

“I ain’t losing nothing! You just wait. I’ve been laying to give Big Ed a whipping. You think I can whip him or what?”

“He’s a pretty tough fellow.”

“I may have to use a two-by-four on him.”

Joelle laughed. She liked the big cowboy and was pleased that she had been able to pass herself off as a young man. As a
matter of fact, she had tried ever since she had taken the job to enhance her image. For one thing she had learned to walk with big strides and swagger like some of the men did. She also roughened her speech, throwing in a mild profanity every once in a while. She always wore the big floppy hat and the clothes that were too big and hid her figure well enough.

“Get yourself some more stew if you want it. If you’ll watch the stable for me, I’ll give you some apple pie when I get back.”

“Sure, Joe.”

Joelle put on her heavy coat and left the stable. The job had proved to be fairly easy. Mostly, it meant feeding horses and currying them when the customers were willing to pay for it. Phillips was hardly ever there. He came by to settle up once a week and had nodded saying, “You’re the best stable man I ever had, Jones. Don’t you run off and leave me now.”

“Don’t plan to, Mr. Phillips,” she had said.

The snow had stopped, but it was still bitter cold, and the night had closed in on Fort Smith. She knew the saloons would be filled, for they served as a social club for the men of the town. She turned down the alley, hoping to get to the store before it closed. Her thoughts were on her errand, and it was very dark. Suddenly, her foot caught in something, and she fell sprawling.

“What in the—!”

She pulled herself up and leaning forward saw a man covered with the snow. Fear came to her, and she thought, He’s dead! But when she leaned closer, she heard his raspy breathing. She brushed the snow from his face and said, “Wake up, mister. Wake up!” But the man didn’t stir.

Quickly she rose and ran back to the stable. She burst into her room and said, “Pete, there’s a man out in the snow. He’s freezing.”

The big cowboy rose to his feet. “Where is he?” He grabbed his hat, jammed it on his head, and followed Joelle as she ran down the street. When they reached the fallen figure, Pete leaned over and said, “He’s a big one. You know him?”

“No, I don’t think so. We’ve got to get him inside. Can we carry him?”

“Well, what do you think? Of course I can.” Pete pulled the still figure into a sitting position, gave a lurch, and came up with him over his shoulder. “Well, he’s a tall guy, ain’t he now?”

“Come on, Pete. We need to get him in out of this weather.” She led the way, and when they reached the stable, she said, “Put him on the bed there.”

Nelson put the man down and said, “He would have froze out there if you hadn’t found him, Joe.”

“He probably would.”

“You want me to go by and get Doc Crandell?”

“I think you’d better.”

Nelson left the room at a run, and Joelle went closer and stared down at the man’s face. He was indeed tall, nearly lapping over the small bed she used. He was covered with snow, but she decided to wait for the doctor before she did anything.

It was a short wait actually, for the doctor’s office was only a block away. She heard the door close, and then Dr. Faye Crandell came in, followed by Pete Nelson.

“What’s this you got, Jones?”

“I found him out in the alley. Pete carried him in.”

Crandell was a spare man in his sixties. He had gray hair that came out from under the hat and a pair of direct blue eyes. He put his head down and listened to the man’s breathing. He straightened up and shook his head. “I think he’s got pneumonia. Is he your kin?”

“No, I never saw him before.”

“Well, he’ll either live or die.”

This didn’t sound good to Joelle. “Well, tell me what to do. Is there a hospital or something?”

“Wouldn’t do him any good. Nothing much you can do for pneumonia. We need to get him undressed and put some blankets over him. Pete, you’ll need to help me. He’s a big one.”

The three started undressing the man, and Crandell said, “Pull his britches off, Jones.”

Joelle flushed and then quickly grabbed the cuffs of the man’s trousers and tugged at them. It took a struggle because they were too small. She was relieved to see that he was wearing long underwear.

When the man was undressed, Dr. Crandell said, “Cover him up now. If he gets some fever, that’s to be expected.” He straightened up and shook his head. “I’ll come back tomorrow to see if he’s still alive.”

Pete watched the doctor leave and said, “It’s a good thing you found him. He’d have died sure out there in that freezing weather. You want me to stay with you, Joe?”

“No, it’ll be all right. Did you get some pie?”

“I ate a big hunk of it. It was good too.”

Pete left, and Joelle looked down at the man, wondering about him. He was big-boned and long-armed. There wasn’t
any fat on him. His jaws were sharp, and his nose had a small break at the bridge. He had not shaved recently, and there was a rough look about him. His cheeks were sunken as if he hadn’t eaten regularly. He looked vulnerable for all his apparent toughness.

Joelle studied him, wondering what would come of this, and something began to creep into her mind. The man somehow looked familiar. “That can’t be,” she muttered. “I’ve never seen him before.” He had jet-black hair and a V-shaped face. She struggled to remember, and suddenly it came to her.

“Why, he looks like my Uncle Caleb, the one my ma talked about so much!” She had never seen Caleb, for he had died young, but she had seen pictures of him, and her mother had said, “He had the blackest hair you ever saw and kind of a funny-shaped face, broad at the top and down to a sharp chin.” This man looked like that, and for one moment Joelle remembered her mother’s dream.
A man will come to help you just like
my brother helped me.

Joelle tucked the covers around the man more securely. She filled a bowl of stew and sat down to eat it slowly, staring at the man and wondering what these events all meant.

SOMETIMES COLD SEIZED HIM, with an iron icy grip, making him tremble from head to foot and his teeth chatter. It was not a cold like any he had ever experienced, for it seemed to go clear to the bone, and the pain that came with it made him want to cry out—which he thought he did from time to time.

But at times the crushing, bone-squeezing cold would leave, and he would heat up like a furnace. His face would feel as if it were burning up and crinkling as if thrown into a fire, and the rest of his body was gripped with the heat as well.

Occasionally he would come out of the darkness as if he were a man trying to escape from a prison far underground filled with pain. Sometimes light hurt his eyes. The sound of a voice floated to him from a far distance, and someone’s hands would touch him—but then he would go back down into the hole again.

Now the heat and the cold were gone. He heard a sound he couldn’t identify. He knew he was lying flat on his back, and as he tried to sort out what was happening, he realized that he heard a sizzling sound and over that was a voice of someone singing. He didn’t know the voice or the tune, nor
did he know what the sizzling sound was, and he felt himself slipping away again.

Determined to stay in the land of the living, he forced himself to open his eyes. At first he couldn’t see and was aware that a lamp mounted on the wall was casting an amber light over the room. He was staring up at a ceiling made of loosely jointed boards, and the roughness of the blanket over him caused him to move to avoid it.

Throwing the cover back, he lifted his head and saw that he was in a small room and that someone was standing beside a stove cooking something. That explained the sizzling sound. He tried desperately to think where he was, but he could remember only his cell in the prison. He studied the cook who was dressed in a pair of baggy pants and an oversized shirt. He couldn’t see the face, and he called out in a voice that seemed to creak with lips that were dry as parchment.

“Where—where is this place?” His voice was rusty, and he tried to sit up.

“Well, you decided not to die.”

Owen licked his lips and peered at a young man who turned from the stove, put a fork down, and came over to him.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“You’ve been sick. Real sick. Didn’t know whether you were going to make it or not.”

“Can I have some water?”

“Oh, sure. You must be dry as a bone.” The young fellow moved across the small room to a bucket, picked up a large white cup, and dipped it in. He came back and said, “Here, hold your head up.” Owen felt the hand pulling his head upward,
and then the cup touched his lips. He swallowed noisily and with his hand forced it up higher.

“You’re going to strangle. You can have all you want, but maybe not all at one time. What’s your name?”

Owen licked his lips again and said, “Majors—Owen Majors.”

“Well, welcome back to the land of the living. I’m Joe Jones.”

Owen focused his eyes on the face that was very close to his. It was a youthful face with a stubborn chin and a rough-cut head of auburn hair. Emerging from the unconsciousness, he saw that the hands were brown and the skin was as smooth as a youth’s.

“I guess I’ve been sick.”

“I’ll say. Do you remember anything?”

His memory was returning. “I remember walking in the snow and falling down, trying to get up and couldn’t make it.”

“I found you out there. It’s a good thing I did. The temperature dropped to ten below that night.”

Owen said, “Could I have some more of that water?”

“Yes.” Owen waited until the young man called Joe Jones returned with more water. He drank it all and then said, “How’d you get me in here?”

“A friend of mine helped carry you. The doctor came, and he said you’d either live or you’d die, but I’m glad you made it.”

The smells of straw, horse manure, and leather were strong. He looked around and said, “I don’t guess I know where I am.”

“This is Ben Phillips’s livery stable. I live here and take care of it for him. Are you hungry?”

Suddenly Majors realized that he was indeed famished. “Yes,” he said, his voice almost breaking, “I am.”

“I don’t think you’d better try to eat anything too hard. You ain’t had much to eat in four days, but I’ll get you something.”

Owen lay his head back on a rough pillow and watched as Jones quickly moved back to the stove. He emptied the skillet into a plate, and Owen saw that he had been frying bacon. He took some eggs out of a bucket, cracked one of them, and dumped it in the bacon grease. He stirred it with a fork and then dumped it into a small bowl. He put salt and a little pepper on it and then came over and said, “Here, you start on this, and I got some biscuits I just made. You think you could eat one?”

“I could eat anything.”

“Don’t eat too fast,” Joelle said.

“All right.” He ate slowly, forcing himself to chew each bite, and by the time he had finished, Joelle brought biscuits smeared with butter. “Here. Can you eat another egg?”

“At least. Maybe two more.”

“We’ll start out with little bits at a time. I’ll make you one more, and then maybe in an hour we’ll see.”

Majors ate slowly, and Joelle filled a glass. “Got some fresh milk here to wash it down with.”

“Thanks.” Owen took the glass and drank thirstily. “I’ve never been so hungry in all my life.”

“Well, I guess not. Doc Crandell thought you were going to die.”

“I been here four days? I don’t remember any of that.”

“You had fever. It was pretty bad. Dr. Crandell came and looked after you some.”

Joelle watched as he ate the last of his egg and began slowly eating on a biscuit. “You want me to put some jelly on that?”

“Yes.”

“I got blackberry.”

“That sounds good.”

She spread a layer of blackberry jelly on each biscuit. “You chew that up good now. Your stomach is probably pretty tender.”

Majors ate slowly, and when he had finished, he drank the rest of the milk. “That was good,” he said. “I’m beholden to you.”

“Sure.”

Owen was thinking more clearly now, and he studied Jones carefully. “Why are you doing all this for me, Joe?”

“Well, somebody had to do it.”

“Not always.” He tried to get up, but Joelle pushed him back. “You’re not going anywhere. Where are you from, Owen?”

For a moment Owen hesitated, but this young fellow deserved well of him. “Well, originally from Kentucky, but I moved away from there and went west a long time ago. Lately I’ve been a guest in the pen.”

Owen saw Joelle’s eyes widen. “The penitentiary, you mean?”

“Yes. Was there for the last two years.”

“What’d you do?”

“Got into a ruckus, shot a fellow.”

“You killed him?”

“No, I didn’t kill him. They thought he was going to die. As a matter of fact, it was with his gun. He pulled it on me, and I tried to take it away from him, and he got shot in the scuffle.”

Owen saw that Jones was staring at him with a strange expression. “It wouldn’t have mattered so much, but he was the son of the lieutenant governor of Arkansas. Wrong fellow for me to shoot.”

“I guess that was pretty bad being in jail.”

“Worse thing I can think of. I think I’d die before I’d go back there.”

Owen found himself getting sleepy. “Could I have a cup of that coffee, do you think? I’m getting sleepy again, and I want something to keep me awake.”

Joelle filled a cup with coffee. “You want milk and sugar?”

“Just sugar.”

Joelle added a spoonful of sugar, stirred it, and came back. “I doubt this will keep you awake,” she said. She watched as he drank it and then took the cup. “You lie down there. I’m going to go get Doc Crandell and have him look you over. You haven’t coughed for a time. I thought for a while you were going to cough your lungs out.”

“So did I.” Those were the last words Owen could speak. He knew there was something he ought to say, and as he slipped off, he suddenly remembered. He lifted his hand and whispered, “Well, thanks!” He drifted off then, and this time the hole was not as black nor as frightening as it had been.

* * *

“STAND STILL, GENERAL. YOU’RE too feisty! Look out! Don’t nip me like that!”

Joelle was talking to a long-legged sorrel she had been grooming. She had become an expert groomer, and this horse belonged to the sheriff so she was extra careful with it. He was finicky about his horse and gave her specific instructions about his hooves and how he had to be groomed just so. She ran the curry comb over General’s back, then moved over to get some of the special feed the sheriff had provided.

“That sheriff sure spoils you. Wish somebody would take such good of care of me.” Joelle carefully dipped the scoop, put grain in the feed box, and watched as General thrust his nose into it and began crunching. “You don’t have very good table manners, but you’re a handsome devil. I guess you know it too.”

Joelle had formed the habit of talking to the horses she cared for. As she moved to the next horse, she was thinking about Owen Majors. It had been three days since he had come out of his fever, and he had been slow to recover. Dr. Crandell had said, “He got pretty well dehydrated. Hard to get fluids to a fellow that’s unconscious, but he’s going to be all right.”

Joelle had fixed a bed for herself in the loft. The cold had broken so that although it still got into the lower twenties at night, she was all right. It had been interesting taking care of the big man, and she was still amazed at how much he looked like the description of her Uncle Caleb. She was a girl of vivid imagination and had heard stories all of her life about miracles happening.

Her grandmother had told her once about an “appearing” of her husband, Joelle’s grandfather: “He was off working in the coal mine, and I was shelling peas, and suddenly I turned around, and he was standing right there. Like to have scared me to death. ‘What are you doing here, Albert?’ I asked him. He just smiled at me and didn’t say a word. I didn’t know what to do, and I closed my eyes, and when I looked up, he was gone. I knew something was wrong with all that, and when they come to tell me he had been killed in a cave-in, I tried to tell them I seen him. They thought I was losing my mind, but I know what I seen.”

Joelle had heard her grandmother tell this many times, and she had been thinking about what her mother had said about her dream—that someone would come and take care of her exactly as her brother had taken care of her.

For a time she felt she was in a forest without a road and didn’t know which way to turn. She knew it was dangerous for her to stay in a big town like Fort Smith, for Harper would not give up. She was convinced of that. But she couldn’t think of another place to go. She didn’t know where in Canada her aunt was, and she didn’t want to go there anyway.

Finally she finished grooming the horse and washed her hands. She thought, with a touch of pride, how successfully she had concealed her sex from everyone. Most people called her Joe. As for the last name Jones, it was handy enough, and she was satisfied with it.

She walked to the back of the stables, opened the door, and stepped inside. She found Owen Majors sitting on the cot. He was wearing his long underwear and gave her a smile. “Where’s my pants?” he said.

“I washed them and your shirts too. You need to get out of that underwear.”

“I want to get out of this bed.”

“If you think you’re strong enough, you can.”

“Anything to get out of that bed. I’m sick of it.” Joelle watched for a moment as he began unbuttoning the top of the long-handled underwear and turned quickly. “You get all changed, and I’ll think of something to eat.”

She moved outside and waited for what she felt was plenty of time, and she then went back in. He was fully dressed, sitting on one of the chairs and pulling on his boots. “I didn’t know how good a pair of pants would feel.”

“You sure you’re strong enough for this?”

“Sure.” He suddenly stood up, and she was aware how very tall he was. The clothes were clean and smelled sweet, and he ran his hand over one arm of it. “It’s nice to have clean clothes.” He moved across the room and stood in front of her. Suddenly he reached out and put both hands on her shoulders and smiled at her. “How much do I owe you for all this care you’ve given me?”

The touch of his hands frightened Joelle. She didn’t have the strong muscles of the young man she pretended to be, and she was afraid for him to get too close. “Nothing,” she said, pulling away from his hands. “What do you want to eat?”

“You’re a good cook, Joe. Anything would be fine with me.”

“How about some pork chops?”

“Sounds good.”

“You set.” When he sat down, she gave a sigh of relief. She filled his coffee cup and shoved the sugar bowl at him. “How about some fried potatoes to go with it?”

“I could eat a horse.”

She laughed. “No, we don’t eat horses here. We just groom ’em.” She had bought the pork chops from the butcher, knowing he would be hungry, and quickly she peeled four potatoes and sliced them into big chunks. She fried the pork chops, put them aside, then fried the potatoes and placed them on two plates. She had given him two chops and she had one.

“You make me feel like a hog, Joe.”

“You need to get your strength up. You were pretty sick, Owen.”

“Sure was. First time I was ever really sick in my whole life.”

Suddenly, she heard her name being called. “That’s Mr. Phillips. I’ll be right back. Don’t be eating my pork chop.”

“Can’t make no guarantees.”

Joelle stepped outside and found Ben Phillips there. “Hello, Mr. Phillips.”

“You get all the horses curried?”

“All done.”

“Well, let’s settle up.”

“Well, I was just fixing to eat. It’s all cooked. Could we do that later?”

“Sure. I’ll stop by later.” He turned to go and said, “What about that fellow you fished out of the alley?”

“Oh, he’s better. He’s up and dressed now.”

“Well, I don’t handle charity cases.”

“It doesn’t cost anything. I buy his food,” she said quickly.

“What’s his name?”