The Listening Sky (46 page)

“I never hurt anyone!” Jane’s eyes flicked to the children, who had frozen in their tracks, then back to the knife. “Run!”
she shouted, and held up her arm to protect her face from the slashing blade.

As soon as Stella turned to flee, Jane turned to run back toward the school. Her foot bogged down in the soft, deep snow and
she fell. Before she could get to her feet, Mrs. Winters was upon her. Jane managed to roll to her knees, but she couldn’t
get up. The deranged woman had the strength of a man. She grabbed Jane’s hair when her cap came off and, straddling her, she
lifted the knife and stabbed it into Jane’s back again and again.

Through her fear and pain, Jane was aware that young Buddy was on his mother’s back, trying to pull her off. He was crying
and screaming.

“Stop, Maw! Please stop!”

Jane’s strength began to leave her.
I’m going to die here in the snow. I love you, T.C. Thank you for the happiest days of my life.

Working at his desk, T.C. was nettled that he couldn’t concentrate on the letter he was writing to the banker in Laramie.
He found himself looking out the side window toward the road leading to the schoolhouse. The teacher was walking Jane home
and she was late. He dipped the pen in the inkwell again and stubbornly wrote another line before he put the pen down.

He sensed that something was wrong about the late afternoon. It was in the very air he breathed. His awareness of danger was
as acute and as instinctive as it was when he was stalking a cougar and he felt the animal circling around and attempting
to come upon him from the rear.

He put on his coat and his hat and left the house.

I love you, T.C.

The words stopped him. He had heard them as clearly as if Jane had just said them. He stood for an instant on the porch, then
stepped out into the street and looked down the road.

Coming around the bend from the schoolhouse, he saw a small figure running. From the red knit cap on her head, he knew it
was Stella, and his heart began a painful rise to his throat.

Something had happened to Jane!

T.C. ran as fast as he had ever run in his life. When he reached the child, she was crying hysterically.

“She’s hurtin’ Jane!”

T.C. shook her shoulders. “Go home!”

Halfway between the last house in town and the school-house, T.C. saw two people fighting while another stood beside the form
lying in the snow. T.C. shouted his wife’s name as he ran. One of the struggling figures broke away and ran off into the woods.

T.C. was gasping for breath when he reached the scene and threw himself down beside Jane. The teacher was trying to lift her
head. Her dark-red hair fanned out ever the snow. She had lost her mitten and her hand was covered with blood. She looked
into T.C.’s face.

“I was afraid… I’d not see you… again—”

“You’ll be all right, sweetheart.” He turned on the teacher. “God damn you! I told you not to let her—”

“I’m sorry—”

“It’s not his fault How could he know? How… could any of us know… she was the one?” Her eyes went to Buddy, who was sobbing
wildly. “Poor little… boy.”

Jane’s eyes began to drift shut.

“I heard the screams and came running,” the teacher said. “The woman was stabbing Mrs. Kilkenny. The boy was on his mother’s
back, trying to pull her away.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Winters. The boy’s mother. I pulled her off… and she ran off into the woods.”

“God help her when I catch her! Run get the doctor. Get him to the house by the time I get there,” T.C. ordered harshly, as
he lifted Jane in his arms. He seemed not to know or care that the teacher was without a coat in the below-zero temperature.
The small, wiry young man took off down the road, his arms and his legs pumping.

“You’re going to be all right, honey. Hold on until I can get you to the doctor.”

T.C. staggered along in the snow with his precious burden.

“I love you so much—” He kissed her hair, her face.

Jane’s head moved. She tried to look at him, trying to smile.

“Everything’s all right now, sweetheart” His voice was strained and light, his face blurred.

Buddy, walking along beside him, looked over his shoulder toward the woods. Attracted by the shouts of the teacher, people
came out onto the porches of the stores and some came hurrying to meet them.

Colin was first

“What the hell happened?”

“Jane’s been stabbed.”

“Good Lord!”

“See about Buddy.” T.C. never broke stride.

The child had lagged behind, unable to keep up with T.C.’s long steps. Colin picked him up. The boy wrapped his arms around
Colin’s neck, his legs about his waist Sobs racked the small body.

T.C. didn’t remember reaching the house or that Maude was waiting anxiously at the door. She held it open, then stepped aside
for them to enter. T.C. carried Jane into their room and stopped beside the bed.

“Help me get her coat off—”

“Oh, my God! The blood!” As gently as she could, Maude pulled the coat and a thick sweater from Jane’s blood-soaked back.

Jane was floating in and out of consciousness.

“Timmie, Timmie,” she murmured. “We’ll name him Timmie—”

While T.C. and Maude took off Jane’s clothes, Colin took Buddy out to the kitchen and turned him over to Polly, who sat with
Stella on her lap. He returned to open the door for the doctor and showed him into the room where T.C. was easing Jane down
on her stomach onto the bed.

Jane had been stabbed not only in the back, but in the buttocks and thighs. The doctor counted sixteen cuts. Some had scarcely
broken the skin; others were deeper. Had Jane not been wearing the heavy shearling coat, and had the knife been sharper, she
would have died at the scene. The madwoman who had stabbed her had been in a frenzy to kill her.

Maude stood by to assist the doctor. Nearly in shock torn by fear and anger, T.C. listened to what the teacher had to tell
about what had happened. Then he met with Colin, Herb and Tennihill in his office. They were getting ready to organize a search
for Mrs. Winters. It was snowing again. The large fluffy flakes would soon cover her tracks.

All the men knew that the woman would freeze to death if she were not found soon, not that any of them cared after what she
had done to Jane. Those who knew of the attack on Jane at the privy had not even suspected it had been done by a woman.

Now the question was
why
.

After the doctor finished doing all he could, Maude and Sunday, who had arrived in a panic when she heard the news, carried
out the blood-soaked clothes and bloody water. Dr. Bate motioned T.C. away from the bed.

“No doubt the coat saved her life. I don’t believe the knife reached into any vital organs, but she has lost a lot of blood.
That, and the miscarriage will weaken her.”

“Miscarriage?”

“She has been carrying for more than two months.”

“A baby?” T.C. asked stupidly.

The doctor smiled. Fathers are usually the last to know. She may have just realized it herself.”

“Will she be all right?”

“It depends on how strong she is and if her body can get along on what blood she has left until it can make more. I’m going
to stay here until see whether or not she goes into shock. I’ve given her something to make her sleep. It’s what she needs
the most now.”

“The woman was mad. I never suspected it.”

“It happens that way sometimes. People can appear to be perfectly sane, then”—he threw up his hands—”they are suddenly out
of control. I understand Mrs. Winters has a boy.”

“He’ll be taken care of.”

“Small communities have their advantages. In Chicago, he’d more than likely be left to the streets if a relative didn’t come
forward.”

“That won’t happen to Buddy,” T.C. said firmly. “Mrs. Henderson has supper ready in the kitchen, Doctor.”

Sunday hovered near the door. “How is she?”

“We won’t know for a while. Will you take the doctor to the kitchen and see that he gets some supper? I’ll be with Jane.”

T.C. put a stick of wood in the pot-bellied stove in the corner of the room, then pulled up a chair and sat down beside the
bed. Jane lay on her stomach, her arms outstretched, so still, so white, so quiet. Even the dark-red hair tumbling over the
pillow was curiously devoid of life. Not a deeply religious man, T.C. wondered for a long agonizing moment what he had done
that would cause God to take her away from him.

He leaned over the quiet figure and kissed her cheek. Her flesh was cool and dry to his lips. He felt suspended, unable to
accept this situation. It was unreal—how could it be real? He had promised he would let no harm come to her if she stayed,
and now trusting him could cost her her life.

“Jane,” he said, kissing her cheek again. “Jane, darling, can you hear me?”

His words echoed ridiculously in the eerie silence of the room. He took her hand. Her fingers curled around his, or so he
imagined. He stroked the limp hand that lay in his.

“You’re not going to leave me, sweetheart. You’re not. I was so sure I could take care of you. I never suspected her at all.
I even wondered if it could be Theda, or Murphy, or Parker. I hoped it was Fresno or Callahan. Never did I even guess that
it could be Mrs. Winters. Will you ever forgive me?”

We’ll call him Timmie
. These had been her last coherent words. Was she trying to tell him about the baby?

“We’ll make other babies, my love,” he said in a thick whisper.

He smoothed her hair and continued to talk to her in a low hoarse voice.

“Poor sweet little woman. You’ve had enough trouble to last two lifetimes. Besides that crazy woman, you had Fresno to contend
with. I can’t blame him for wanting you. I blame myself for being so wrapped up in building this town that I failed to see
what was going on. If Sunday hadn’t killed him, I would have.

“I’ve never told you how much it means to me to have you for my wife. Can you hear me, sweetheart? I never thought a woman
lived who would capture my heart so completely. You did, darlin’. I love you!”

T.C. had not wept since he was a boy, but now tears filled his silver eyes.

T
HE searching party returned at midnight, cold and weary, having found no trace of Mrs. Winters.

Colin, who headed the party, feared that some of their group would be lost in the blinding snowstorm and recommended that
they give up for the night. Tennihill and Herb came to the house with nearly frozen faces. Colin talked while they tried to
thaw out

“The teacher said she wore only a light shawl and nothin’ on her head. I know of no shelter in the direction she took. lf she
didn’t find one, she’ll frozen to death by now. We’ll go out again in the morning.”

After taking Jane’s pulse, the doctor decided it was safe for him to go home.

“Should she begin to shake, give her whiskey and sugar and send someone for me immediately.’’

T.C. walked with him to the door to make sure the snow had let up enough that he wouldn’t get lost on his way back to his
rooms.

“Thank you, Dr. Bate.”

“I’ll be back in the morning.”

T.C. had appreciated the lack of questions from those who had helped look for Jane the night she was attacked in the privy.
Colin and Sunday, Herb and Polly, Tennihill Bill Wassall and Maude, the “family,” as Jane liked to refer to them, were here
keeping vigil now that she had been attacked again. T.C. felt certain that Jane would want them to know the reason behind
the attacks.

Polly was sitting with Jane when T.C. sat down at the kitchen-table with the others.

“I know you’ve all wondered about Jane and why someone would be sending her threatening notes, then doing what they did to
her that night and again today. For Jane’s sake, no word of what I’m going to tell you should leave this house. I don’t want
her to be embarrassed, humiliated, or put in the position of having to answer questions.”

“We’ve all wondered who’d hate her enough to do what they done at the privy,” Maude said, as she poured mugs of steaming coffee.

“You’ve all heard of Colonel John Chivington, who commanded the troops that wiped out the village at Sand Creek.”

“Who hasn’t heard of that murderin’ sonofabitch?” Colin asked harshly.

“His troops were a collection of thieves, scoundrels, street toughs, claim jumpers and riffraff and were easily led by a Bible-spouting
ex-preacher and Methodist missionary turned avenger who had a hatred for all Indians.” T.C. said all of this without taking
a breath. “They slaughtered four hundred women, children and old men. Chivington reported that he had met the enemy and had
given them a sound whipping. For a month or two he was a hero.

“After his men began talking and an investigation was conducted, he became the most hated man in the territory. Because of
what he had done, Indians all over Colorado went on the warpath in retaliation and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of settlers.
Almost every person in the territory was touched in one way or another by what Chivington had done.”

“What’s he got to do with Jane?” Colin asked.

“She’s his born out of wedlock daughter.” The news fell into the quiet like the pop of a rifle.

“Ah… laws!” Bill exclaimed. “Poor little lass!”

“Well, so what?” Sunday was first to recover from the shock. “Lots a folks are born on the wrong side of the blanket.”

“Her mother died when Jane was very young, and she thinks it was Chivington who came in the dark of the night, carried her
off and put her in the Methodist orphanage. She has a letter he wrote to her mother admitting that he fathered her, but refusing
to claim her. Since she was Stella’s age it has been pounded into her head that because she was the daughter of such a man,
she was a disgrace not only to the school, but to all the people of Colorado. The headmistress, a Mrs. Gillis, would threaten
to tell her secret and shame her in front of the other children if she misbehaved. She had already told them that Jane was
a… a bastard. Jane’s childhood was hell.”