Wolf Bride (14 page)

Kristina

“Trudy isn’t here today. She’s feeling poorly so it’s just me here to serve all these people until tonight,” said the harried girl at Cotton’s. Leslie, I remembered Trudy calling her.

Okay. An inkling of suspicious excitement lit my gut. Maybe Luke was right. I hadn’t a clue why he’d venture a guess like this, but he had, and now I couldn’t put it out of my mind. “Thanks and good luck today,” I rushed before I slid out the busy front door. Breakfast was booming at Cotton’s.

The street was still muddy, but I’d wised up and found a thin trail of plank boards someone thoughtfully floated across the muck at the end of the street. The general store was nearly empty when I wandered in. A man behind a cluttered counter smiled from behind his glasses.

“I can’t say I’ve seen you around here. You new in town?” he asked.

“Pretty new. I just arrived last week.”

“Ah, welcome. What can I do you for?”

“Do you have any ginger to sell?”

He pointed his finger at the roof like he might just have what I needed, then rifled through a row of jars until he came to one with two pieces of ginger in it.

“You’re in luck, little lady. We got some on the stagecoach two days ago.”

Beaming, I slid a coin across the wooden surface of the counter and waited for him to fold one into brown paper before I all but danced out of the store.

With a quick rap on Trudy’s door, I glanced around to see if Luke finished his errand at the post office yet. He stood leaned against a post, watching me with an indecipherable expression. I waved but he didn’t seem to notice.

The door opened and Elias stood with a worried look in his blue eyes. “Trudy’s feeling poorly this morning, Ms. I’m worried she’s got the grip and I don’t want it spreading to you and your men.”

Poor Elias looked disheveled and pale. “Don’t worry. She doesn’t have the grip and I’ve got the cure for what ails her.”

His shoulders relaxed noticeably when he saw the brown wrapped thing I carried. “Come on in. She’s in the back room.”

Trudy was pale faced, shaking, and clutching onto an empty washbasin when I pushed the door open. Maybe I should’ve bought up all the ginger the general store had.

“Mr. Elias,” I said with an edge of worry. “Could you heat up some water?”

Immediately the sound of banging pots rang out.

“I don’t want any water,” Trudy said. “I don’t want anything.”

“Well you’re going to have to drink something sometime. It won’t help anything if you lose your strength.”

Trudy’s lip trembled. “I’m real sick, Kristina. I think I’m dyin’.”

My heart lurched at her fear. “Oh, Trudy, you aren’t dyin’. You’re with child.”

Her dark eyes grew as round as the full moon. “How do you know that?” she whispered.

“For one, Luke told me you are, because apparently he’s some sort of magical midwife—”

“Luke told you I’m pregnant? But how…” A toothy grin spread across her face and some of the color returned to her dark cheeks. “He’d know, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” I said doubtfully. “And second, what you’re doing now with the shaking and nausea is exactly what I saw one of the girls I used to work with doing when she was accidentally with child. Now, whores know a thing or ten about avoiding pregnancy, but those tricks don’t work all the time. She, Gretta was her name, was sick from the day she found out until the day she delivered, and nothing would help her keep food down but warm ginger water. And you need to eat so that baby can grow big and strong. I brought you a present.” I opened the corner of the wrapping and let her see the fragrant spice.

“Don’t tell Elias,” she said with an excited tremor in her voice. “We’ve been trying a long time.”

I zipped my mouth and whispered, “This is your news to share.” Squeezing her hand, I swished into the kitchen and pulled the knife from my pocket.

The water was boiling by the time I was finished chopping a piece of the root as finely as I could manage. When the ginger water was steaming in a tin mug, I brought it in for Trudy to sip. A dreamy look had settled on her face and she smiled from time to time for no apparent reason. I was so happy for her I could cry, but a tiny part of me pulled into itself protectively. I would never have this moment. That moment of realization that my body was making a miracle and I was creating a child as a woman was meant to do. I wouldn’t dare let my loss show on my face though because I wouldn’t ruin Trudy’s moment in a million years.

She gasped. “Kristina, no midwife is going to take me and there aren’t any other freedmen around who would deliver me either. What am I going to do?”

“Can you send word to your family up north? Could they come down when you get closer?”

“No, they won’t travel this far. It wouldn’t be safe here for them either.”

“Okay, we have some time to figure all of that out. Even if we have to send for a midwife from up north, between Elias and me, we’ll get it done. Don’t you worry.”

“Do you have any experience midwifing?” she asked.

“No, not me. I’ve been in the room on a couple of births, but I don’t know how to get those babies to air like someone trained would be able to.”

“Will you be there anyway?”

I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice just in case. The sheer potency of my excitement had a tendency to frighten people. “Do you want me in the room?”

Her delicate eyelids were lined with the shining jewels of unshed tears. “Yes.”

Raw emotion made my throat close up, so I swallowed hard before I answered. “Then I’ll be there.”

****

The ginger seemed to do the trick and when I closed the door to Trudy’s house with a happy heart, I looked up to find Luke in the same place he had been. He was joined by Elias, who leaned heavily against the post talking quietly.

“Is she all right?” Elias asked the moment I was close enough.

“She’ll live,” I said with a wink at Luke.

I stopped him from jogging back into the small home. “Elias, she needs ginger. I’ve left some in the kitchen for you, but she may need more and I have it on good authority the general store has another root of it. Buy it up so they’ll order more. When she needs it, boil water and chop a small piece finely. When it’s good and mixed in the hot water, give it to her in a tin mug. Give her bread or something hardy right after, you hear?”

“Thank you, Kristina.” He kissed me on the cheek before he switched directions for the general store.

“You okay?” Luke asked as I watched Elias walk away.

Inhaling deeply, I said, “I’m fine.”

Luke’s fingertips brushed mine as he pulled my hand into the crook of his arm. Our shoes made very different tones as we walked across the wooden planks in front of the shops.

“In my experience, when a woman says she’s fine, she’s usually not.”

Clever man. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Trudy now. She wants me in the delivery room, you know.”

“Really? Do you want to be?”

“Very much.”

His eyes tightened. “You’re changing the subject.”

“I’m hungry,” I said with a tremulous smile.

A grunt more animal than man escaped his mouth as he picked me up in one impossibly fast, impossibly easy gesture.

Gasping, I said, “Luke Dawson, people are watching.”

He pulled gently at the tender skin of my neck with his lips and a deep velvet chuckle reverberated against it. “I don’t care about what they think.”

I smacked his shoulder halfheartedly as he strode across muddy Main Street. “You should. Maybe you’d get accused less of cattle thieving if you looked like a semi-honorable man while you were in town.”

“People will talk either way. May as well enjoy my life.”

That seemed like a sound argument to me, so I didn’t object when he kissed me fiercely before he set me down on the other side. Just as we were heading into Cotton’s, Jeremiah ducked under the shorter door frame and pulled his hat over short, dark hair.

“Did you already eat?” Luke asked.

“I tried but the sheriff and his new deputy are in there and they just gave me an earful in front of half the town.” He smiled politely at a family who walked by and lowered his voice. “I think we might have a problem.”

Luke clapped him roughly on the back and said a terse, “Welcome home.”

Rosy waited patiently in between the Dawson brother’s black horses with her back hoof propped up like she hadn’t a care in the world. I petted her neck as Luke and Jeremiah argued quietly in front of the cabinetry shop.

“What’re we going to do with these boys?” I asked.

Rosy gave a tremendous snort and shook her head until the feathers in her mane flapped back and forth.

“Me either.”

“That’s a mighty pretty horse you got there,” a man said as he ran his hand along Rosy’s hind end. “Is she an Indian pony?” He looked to be young, around my own age, with light brown hair and friendly hazel eyes.

“She is. I wanted a horse with polka dots, so we traded for her.”

“Do you trade often with the Indians?”

His question was strange but his eyes held an openness I hadn’t seen in many men. He seemed genuinely curious, but I didn’t know what was unacceptable to talk about in these parts. “I’m not sure, sir.”

“Ezra. Call me Ezra.”

“I’m not sure, Mr. Ezra, as I’ve only come to town within the last two weeks.”

He petted Rosy gently and leaned his head to the side. “You look familiar. You came in on the stagecoach last week, you said? Might you have come in from Chicago?”

Something akin to a snake slithered down my spine. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m just making conversation, Ms. Yeaton. Don’t take offense to a friendly question.”

My voice dropped to a whisper. “I didn’t tell you my name.”

“You didn’t have to. I’m from the Chicago area myself and never forget a face. Especially not one as pretty as yours.”

“Get away from my horse,” I growled.

He pointed lazily at me and leaned against Rosy’s saddle. “I see your face is healing from a pretty good beating.”

My heart hammered like the pounding of a drum. He knew Evelynn French. I just felt it in my bones. He was here to finish the job the others failed at. I wasn’t safe at all. One step backward and my shoulder blades landed against a very solid wall of man.

As I sucked air to scream, Jeremiah said, “Kristina, is this man bothering you?”

Luke appeared behind Ezra like he was an apparition back from the dead for revenge. His moss green eyes seemed to glow when I said, “He knows Evelynn French.”

Without a word, he wrapped an incredibly large hand around the stranger’s neck and dragged him bodily into an alleyway between buildings. Strangled sounds came from the man, and he made smeared lines in the mud and across the wooden floor with his flailing boots.

Jeremiah stood watch at the mouth of the alleyway, and not more than a minute later, an empty handed Luke was back and headed down the street. Jeremiah and I exchanged a questioning glance before scurrying after him.

“Where’re you going?” I asked.

“To get you something to eat,” Luke said, holding one of the swinging doors to the saloon open for me.

Jeremiah grabbed my arm before I could follow him in. “This is no place for her.”

“Actually, I’m quite comfortable eating here.” I’d skipped breakfast in hopes of a meal from Cotton’s and about now, I’d eat a barbecued armadillo.

“You heard the lady,” Luke said as he pulled my other arm. “And besides, the only other place to eat is Cotton’s and since you pissed off the sheriff, I’d say that’s out because I sure as shit don’t think we should be fighting anymore in public today.”

I wrenched my arms free from the two iron grips “Unhand me, both of you! I’m going inside to eat. You two can squabble at each other all you want out here.”

“Men and whores only,” the old bartender sternly said over the noise of the drinkers and gamblers.

“Pipe down then. I’m whore enough.”

A group of men nearest the door arched their eyebrows and one whistled.

“Fresh meat,” another one with missing teeth and a long scar across his neck said.

“Sorry, lads, I’m on a break of sorts. Carry on.” I sat at the furthest table and moments later the towering Dawson boys came through the swinging doors at a slow and deliberate spur-jangling saunter.

From my seat, I had a fantastic view of the show. If my entrance had caused a scene, theirs brought the saloon to an absolute standstill, one they didn’t seem to notice. In a frozen room, Luke tipped his hat to the bartender.

“Bucyrus,” he said in greeting.

The trio of saloon girls sitting around an old piano were the first to react. “Oh, Mr. Luke,” the blonde-haired one squealed.

Jeremiah made his way to my table and tossed his hat onto it. “It ain’t right for you to have to see him carrying on with these whores.”

“As long as he don’t take one in a back room, I’ll be fine.” I leaned forward. “Listen, Jeremiah, you’re a real gentlemen, and it’s mighty kind of you to treat me like a lady, but you don’t have to worry overly about Luke hurting my feelings. He has experience with my kind and besides, if he offends me, you know I’ll tell him about it. He has to learn his way around me just like you’ll have to learn your way around whoever answers your advertisement.”