The Listening Sky (16 page)

Even at this late hour men were moving about among the buildings. Some sat around campfires; some lounged on the porch of
the cookhouse, which was well lit as was the saloon. Jane thought briefly of Theda, the flame-haired woman, and imagined her
there serving drinks to the men.

She had not thought it possible that so much progress on the buildings could be made in one day. Several roofs had shiny new
tin over the rotted shingles, porches were shored up, windows and floors replaced. Framework for the new buildings was in
place—and, according to Kilkenny, the crew from the mill and the cutting camps would be here two more days.

Jane felt a momentary pang of sadness at the thought of leaving the town while it was being brought back to life. She would
have liked to have been here to see the school filled with children and the church full on Sunday morning. Someday a courthouse
would be there in the town square. Maybe even a library…

It was soothing to brush her hair. In her opinion, it was her one claim to beauty. When let down, it came to her waist. She’d
often wondered what it would be like to have a man standing behind her running the brush lovingly through her hair. It had
happened to the heroine in a book she had read, and long after she had finished the last page, the scene stayed in her mind.

Jane was totally unaware that she was a very pretty young woman. She felt old and was convinced that she was plain. A woman
was considered in her prime between fifteen and twenty. She would be twenty-four in a day or two. Many women had four or five
children by the time they reached her age. She had cared for the children who came and went from the home and had strived
not to become too attached to any of them. She had been lonely all her life, longing for someone of her own, a brother or
a sister, or a man who would love her despite who she was.

Fanciful notions, she thought with a pang of regret and scolded herself. She must concentrate on getting away from here and
finding a place where she could live without the threat of exposure always hanging over her head. She put away the brush and
shivered a little. Nights were as cool here as they were in Denver.

Lying still so as not to disturb Polly, Jane thought about what a difference this day had made in the life of the young girl.
Polly had put away the supplies she and Herb had brought from the mercantile and had prepared supper efficiently and cheerfully.
Jane was sure that Herb had something to do with that cheer. He had made himself available to help her every possible minute.
When it came time to sit down to eat the meal of meat, brown gravy, potatoes and biscuits, Jane had managed to be upstairs
in the doctor’s room. She went down and ate her supper after T.C. and Colin had left the house.

Jane feared that she was becoming too fond of the testy little doctor, which she had not allowed herself to do with the children
because partings were too painful. She sensed that Doc had been lonely too. In another time and another place, she would have
been eager to work with him and to learn from him. She was touched when he asked her to call him Nathan.

“For too long I’ve been just the doc, the sawbones who patched up gunshot holes and fixed broken bones and then was forgotten
until needed again. For the little time I have left, I want to be a man called Nathan.”

“I can understand that.”

“You know, I drank all that whiskey thinking it would speed this thing along and make me forget about it until I was too far
gone to care. Didn’t help. All it did was make me puke and brought back all the misery and suffering I’ve seen in my forty-four
years. How old are you, Jane?” he asked abruptly.

“How old is an old maid?”

“You’ll not let me forget that, will you?”

“No. You jarred me a little with that one—especially the pig-ugly part. I had thought of myself as a raving beauty.”

Doc didn’t even smile at her joke. He was in pain. It was evident in the way he grimaced from time to time and gripped the
bedclothes with his strong, slender surgeon’s hands. Visiting with her was a way to put off as long as possible the need for
the sleep-inducing drug.

They talked of many things. She told him about each of the women who had come to Timbertown, and about the old buildings being
repaired and the new ones going up. Running short of something to talk about, she told him about Bill Wassall thinking she
was the lady barber.

Finally, she related Polly Wright’s story.

“She was afraid Mr. Kilkenny would send her back when he discovered she was going to have a baby. Before she came over here,
she laced herself so tight in a corset that she swooned.”

“She’s showing that much?”

“She’s small and thin. Yes, it shows.”

“Foolish, foolish,” Doc sputtered.

“She’s just sixteen. Yet she had the courage to get away from the man who violated her and who had planned to make money by
letting other men violate her.”

“A man who’d do such a thing to a young girl should be castrated.”

“He’s a teamster. Wagons come in here every day. I hope he’s not on one of them. I think Polly would go all to pieces if she
saw him again.”

“Herb’s taken a shine to her. I’ve not seen him stuck on a girl before. If he knows what happened and that teamster shows
his face around here, he won’t stand a chance.”

“He’d kill him?”

“He’d not be singing ‘Rock of Ages’ after Herb got through with him,”

“Is Herb a gunman?”

“He is if pushed, but he’s not a hired gun. Herb’s not a bad kid. Fact is, I’m surprised he’s as decent as he is. He’s been
footloose since he knew hockey from cornbread. When I came on to him, he was a skinny, scared kid in a man’s body and had
already killed two men. He couldn’t be blamed for that. They were trying to kill him. He got handy with a gun to protect himself,
and hard life put a chip on his shoulder. We kind of took to each other. He saved my bacon more than once.”

“I expect you did the same for him.”

“He’s smart and could’ve made something of himself if he’d had the chance.”

“How did you happen to come here?”

“Herb and I met Garrick Rowe up at Trinity. He owns the sawmill there and the one here and wanted to get this town going again
so the mill workers would bring in their families and stay. A town needs a doctor, and Trinity already had one.”

“The surgery is as up to date as the one or two that I saw in Denver.”

“That’s all mine down there. T.C. just furnished me a place to put it.”

“They got a bargain.”

“I know now that I shouldn’t have taken the job. I knew even then I wasn’t going to last long, but I figured I had time to
get things started and someone else could take over. A man can’t just sit around and wait to die. This thing just came on
faster than I thought it would. Maybe the whiskey helped after all. Should’a drunk more of it.”

“Do you want the laudanum now?” She had been watching his fingers pluck at the covers.

“Yeah, give it to me. You need some rest, girl. Your eyes look like two burnt holes in a blanket”

“If you want me in the night, call out. I’m a light sleeper.”

With her palms together, her hands beneath her cheek, Jane lay listening to the sounds and recalling the conversation. She
heard a chair scrape downstairs, and then low masculine voices. Without being quite aware of it, she felt safer here than
she’d felt since leaving her tiny room at the Methodist Home. She drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Jane rolled over on the bed and sat up. She had been deeply asleep and the next instant, she was wide awake. A sound had awakened
her, and she hurried across the hall to the doctor’s mom, her feet bare, her nightdress swirling about her calves. Doc was
leaning over the side of the bed gagging and spitting in the chamber pot. What had awakened her was the clatter of the lid
dropping to the floor.

She wet a cloth in the tin basin and waited for him to finish. Finally, exhausted, he lay back on the pillow.

“You didn’t need to get up, girl.”

“I told you I was a light sleeper.” She bent over him and gently wiped his face. When her hair fell down over his hand, he
combed his fingers through the silky strands.

“Been a long time since I touched hair like this.”

When Jane saw Doc’s eyes go to the doorway, she turned. T.C. was standing there, shirtless and barefoot.

“I heard something—” The sight of Jane in the modest white gown buttoned to the neck and cuffed at the wrists, her ankles
and feet bare, and that magnificent dark-red hair flowing over her shoulders and down her back, sent a rush of blood into
his groin.

“What… what…” she sputtered and backed away from the bed, her arms crossed over her breasts. “I’m… not dressed!”

“Hellfire!” he snorted “Doesn’t seem to bother you that Doc’s seeing you in your nightclothes. Besides, nothing’s showing
but your bare feet. I’ve seen plenty of them.” Despite the suffocating heat that flashed through him, depriving him of breath,
T.C. managed to speak normally.

“I had to puke and dropped the damn pot lid.” Doc’s voice broke the embarrassed silence.

T.C. pulled his eyes from a vision that would haunt his nights for weeks to come, walked into the room and looked down at
the man on the bed.

“You all right, Doc?”

“That’s a hell of a question to ask a dying man.” Doc scowled up at T.C. “Just my luck to have the prettiest woman in the
territory come to my room in her nightdress and I be on my last legs.”

Flushing to the roots of her hair, Jane stared first at one man and then the other, knowing there was no way to get out of
the mortifying situation except to flee, and she’d not give Kilkenny the satisfaction of
that
.

T.C. went back to the door, passing near enough to Jane to reach out and touch her—near enough to take in the faint, definable
woman smell of her. The emotion rioting through him was wholly concealed behind the noncommittal expression that settled over
his face when he spoke.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Yeah,” Doc said. “Bring up the bottle of laudanum—and leave it.”

T.C. looked at Jane. Her eyes met his, then moved down across his chest and fell to the floor between his bare feet She stepped
back and came up against the chair.

“Anything else, Jane?” he asked.

Jane forced herself to look into his dark face. “Water.” She took the pitcher from the washstand, handed it to him and was
relieved when he was gone. She moved back to the bed and found Doc smiling.

“What’s tickled your funny-bone all of a sudden?”

“Nothing,” he lied. “Put on that shirt over there if you think T.C. is seeing something he shouldn’t. Lord knows that thing
you’ve got on would hide a bucket a spuds if you had one under there.”

“It’s the… idea that he just pops in when and where he wants to,” she fumed, and snatched the shirt from the peg and quickly
put it on.

“It’s his house. I think you threw old T.C. a side loop.” Doc chuckled. “His eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw
you in that gown and your hair hanging down. T.C. don’t get bumfuzzled very often.”

“He should have knocked—” Jane said, refusing to acknowledge that the door was already open.

“Doggit!” Doc made an attempt to look disappointed. “I’m going to miss the excitement.”

“What excitement?”

“You and T.C.” His sunken eyes appeared brighter.

“What are you talking about?” Jane asked impatiently.

“I’ll be six feet under by the time he gets down to doin’ some serious courting.”

“That is the stupidest thing you’ve said yet,” Jane sputtered. She stood with her hands on her hips, her bare feet spread,
her body stiff with indignation. “I swear to goodness, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t have an ounce of brains
in your head.”

“On the other hand, I think I’ll hold on so I can see the fireworks.”

“Nathan, you’re the limit. For a doctor you’re certainly lacking in gumption.”

“Horse-hockey,” he snorted. “I got gumption I’ve not used yet. And you ought to have more respect than to insult a man who’s
flat on his back breathing his last.”

“That’s another thing. Stop playing on my sympathy.”

“It’s working, isn’t it? All I got to do is puke and you come running.”

“Well, I won’t the next time. You can puke your fool head off for all I care.”

Jane backed away from the bed and the washstand when T.C. came in. Thank heavens he had put on a shirt and she no longer had
to look at his wide naked shoulders and furry chest.

“Fresh water. Herb got it just before he went to bed.” T.C. put the pitcher on the washstand and handed Jane the bottle of
laudanum.

“Been wanting a word with you, T.C., if you’ve got the time.” T.C. nodded, and Doc continued. “I’d be obliged if you’d get
a leather packet out of the top drawer in my desk, a paper and pen and something to write on.”

T.C. went back out into the darkened hallway.

He roamed around in the dark as silent and as sneaky as a cat, Jane observed to herself. She looked down at Doc and found
him watching her as she measured drops of the drug into a glass of water.

“T.C. can give me that later. I don’t want to sleep before I’ve said what I got to say.”

“I’ll go back to bed and leave you to it.” She picked up the bottle of laudanum and headed for the door, anxious to leave
before T.C. returned.

“Leave that.”

“No,” she said firmly. “If you want it, call me.”

“Dammit, Jane. I said leave it. I’m the doctor!”

“Dammit, Nathan.
You’re
the patient.
I’m
the doctor.”

“Hell and damnation! You’re a know-it-all, irritating, bossy—”

“—Pig-ugly old maid?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You were thinking it.”

“Good gawdamighty! How in tarnation do you know what I’m thinking?”

“You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain. You’ll be meeting him soon, and he won’t like it.”

“Chrissake! Where did you come from? A convent?”

“An orphanage. And it wouldn’t matter if I came from a manger in Bethlehem, I’m not leaving this bottle, and that’s that!”