Chapter 14

Murdoch stood outside, took a deep breath of clean air. The events of the past few days—the past few weeks—had left him frazzled. He glanced at the horizon and its pale yellow sun showing through the mountain tops. Another sunrise. The church bell pealed and the school and convent came alive, as if someone behind a curtain pulled a switch.

Scott was somewhere, caught in a limbo that Murdoch couldn't reach.

His son was smart and strong and knew how to take care of himself. But. He imagined Scott like a kite, flying in a brisk wind, and the damn infection was about to cut the string. He'd been telling himself that Scott would be fine, but the longer time passed, he knew his son wouldn't be anything remotely approaching fine.

He remembered the look on Scott's face that evening in front of the fire place. He'd known then what Scott was doing, or at least had an inkling. An intuition.

He slowly walked back inside like he could hold time back. Many years ago, he left Scott behind, and he had felt scared, angry and helpless. No more.

Entering the convent, he crossed the silent incense-scented sanctuary to the spare room, and stared at his son on the bed, bruises livid, pale and unmoving. Murdoch rested one hand on the iron bed frame, unable to go one step further. He sank to the chair, fingers buried in his hair. "I'm right here, Scott," he said softly to the space between his knees. "I'm not going anywhere."

Outside the window, the wind whistled through the tall grasses, caught a door somewhere and threw it back against its hinges, banging out a rhythmic song. A mad argument broke out between two students as they scuffled in the courtyard. Inside, he heard a deep groan from the bed, the springs creaking as the body on it shifted.

"Murdoch," he heard Scott mutter, his voice a mere scratchy timbre. "It's been a long day."

And something about birds, but he was moving too fast right about then, shouting for Johnny, shouting for anyone, and must have imagined it.

#-#-#-#-#

He ought to be dead. But that was a common thought these past couple of weeks. Still, better alive. The bed wasn't exactly comfortable, but that was mostly because his back was sore and a lump had emerged from the mattress ticking like April's first crocus, right where it could dig a groove in his shoulder. He'd dragged himself to upright in the last half hour, back now against the iron headboard, not much more comfortable than the mattress.

One thing he desperately needed was some coffee to wake up.

Scott cradled his damaged arm for something to do. It didn't take much to piece together, even for his muddled brain. The loss of time, days actually, was the worst thing, something he couldn't quite comprehend. He glanced up and saw Murdoch's lips were clamped together in a frown and revised his addled thinking to push the time missed lower on the list.

Johnny stopped at the threshold and Scott nodded to him. His brother was chancing a cup of something, and from the smell it was Sister Ambrosia's coffee, but maybe he'd made it himself. He didn't quite feel like finding his feet yet. Sitting up was hard enough, especially since Murdoch had told him that he should stay horizontal.

Scott felt his chest, ran a hand across his face. Too many dreams. Like he'd traveled hundreds of hard miles.

He'd woken up sweating, shaking. A few minutes of not understanding where he was, somewhere in Virginia, somewhere at Lancer. He walked away. And then, he didn't. He found Murdoch.

Who stared at him now, eyes unreadable from across the room. Murdoch looked like he needed a good sleep, like he'd spent the last night or three at Minerva's. Johnny sighed and he knew something was over, that a bridge had been crossed.

Loud voices came from outside the window, Father Abascal's and another he couldn't identify.

"I'm going see what's going on," Murdoch said, dropping the curtain from the window. "You two stay put."

Scott swallowed the automatic 'yes sir', but Johnny, with a thin smile, didn't. Moving feet shuffled in the hallway, but Johnny didn't budge from his stance in the doorway. Scott didn't like it, knew that his brother was going to make him wait because Johnny was good at that. He wished he'd come in because it hurt to turn his head to look at him.

His pants and shirt were thrown across the chair back and his boots were by the end of the bed, but they were both too far to reach, so he laid back quietly, feeling everything the last few days had dealt.

"So, what happened? How did you two come to find me?" He had to ask.

Johnny told him, bare bones, and Scott nodded. Rodriguez, Lorenzo and Mrs. Delaney and how they all were tied together. There were items his brother left out, but he knew it had to do with how Johnny felt about things. How carelessly Scott had put him in the untenable position of keeping a secret.

"You fought Rodriguez?" But he said it with a smile, which he expected to be returned.

It wasn't.

"Not really a fight."

Johnny shook his head, looked angry, but Scott knew to look through the disguise. "I didn't do a damn thing. You were…gone." And he flung out his hand.

Scott dipped his head.

"You're coming home." Johnny wasn't asking but even so, it was too early for a decision where that was concerned. Scott looked away first, looking for words to fill the silence, but he had none.

He tried to ease himself off the bed. Johnny was by his elbow in a second, the cup of coffee was dropped messily to the bedside table, spilling against a vase of flowers. He thought he heard Johnny say something, but he wasn't sure and he wasn't going to ask. His brother took most of his weight, as Scott leaned against him while the world swam before him.

Johnny repeated it, probably knowing that he hadn't heard him, didn't want to hear him. "You don't leave."

For an instant, he wondered how Johnny would have handled a hundred men in Union blue, because he had no problem handing out orders like they were pennies.

"You're gonna be fine, Scott," he said, but the tone was soft and drawn out, his usual Johnny-voice. It occurred to him then that maybe going home and being fine were related, that one only existed because of the other.

Johnny got him to the chair and helped him into a semblance of attire.

He grinned upwards. "Any chance of getting a cup of that?" He tipped his nose toward the table.

Johnny left, looking happy he had something to do, and came back with a mug. It wasn't the best coffee he'd ever had, but it was the best one in a long line of days, not much more than a few hours old, which was saying something in Sister Ambrosia's kitchen.

After a half hour, Murdoch came back in, hair windswept, eyes ablaze. "The county marshal was here and spoke to Father Abascal."

Scott winced around his cup. "What did he say about Lorenzo?" He shrugged at Murdoch's look. "Johnny filled me in."

"He said that under the circumstances, Lorenzo can stay here."

"Why couldn't he stay here anyway?" Johnny asked. "Rodriguez was lookin' to hurt that kid."

"I have an idea that he was trying to save face for leaving Rodriguez here to terrorize the town. It seems the marshal had accumulated more than a few complaints that were filed from the town, including several from the church. He's out searching for him now."

He peered hard at Scott. "He wanted to question you, but I said you were asleep."

And finally, Murdoch smiled, and for that, Scott was grateful.

#-#-#-#-#

It was full dark when Scott opened his eyes, to candlelight playing on the ceiling, the comforting scent of wood smoke, and fingers of wind running across the roof and between the chinks of mortar around the window.

His eyes were heavy from the remnants of sleep-not sleep. The pain in his arm had subsided and he relaxed back, a dusty pile of quilts on top of him. Soft and warm. Outside the room, he heard the scrape of a wooden chair across tile and the thud and thump of heavy footsteps.

A few minutes later, he heard voices, harsh for all they were trying to be quiet. I need to get up.

Swinging his feet out of bed, he waited for the room to right itself. On legs that didn't quite feel like his own, he wobbled out to the hallway towards the sounds, bare feet whisper quiet.

He couldn't see a definitive thing in the darkness, could only make out two shadows against the spilled moonlight from the garden courtyard.

One of the shadows was Ramon Rodriguez with a large, ugly knife. Just a flash of silver in his hand.

But Mrs. Delaney shook her head, a grim smile on her lips. "You're drunk, I can smell it. Why are you here? To get your boy? You've done enough to him, haven't you? I know you," and something in those words pulled his attention to her, "I know what you do and you weren't made to be a father."

Rodriguez looked over her head and their eyes met. "You, gringo! Where's my son?"

She grabbed the nearest thing to her and swung it with both hands, hitting Rodriguez in the head with a blow that sent him reeling.

Johnny and Murdoch burst in, leading Father Abascal and few of the sisters in nightcaps and nightdresses, puzzled looks on all.

Ramon Rodriguez slumped on the floor, knife still in his hands, head bleeding.

"I wanted him to go away. To leave the boy alone," she said. "I just wanted him back. Him. My son."

Scott caught her against him when she faltered.

"Dear God." Her eyes widened, clear again, and there was fear. But underneath that, pain and years of loss and want.

She drew a broken breath and wept silently in his arms, the kind of crying that hurt. The bottom half of the clay flower pot was in her hand, the top half in brown and red colored bits scattered on the floor.

#-#-#-#-#

Things settled down to a new rhythm in the two weeks following Rodriguez's arrest and subsequent imprisonment. And a cautious hope started to enter his mind that the hydrophobia would not manifest itself, but there was still a long way to go yet.

To no one's surprise, Father Abascal held a celebratory mass, the priest deciding it was to be an outdoor affair, with Mrs. Delaney picking out and presenting the flowers.

With Scott, she didn't talk about her flowers, or the broken shards of clay that still crunched under her feet when she walked through the garden. They talked about the blue-green pool and how well Lorenzo was doing with his studies.

And on this day, his last at the church, she stood straight and surprisingly tall in the doorway, wearing her straw hat and a sweet-smelling handful of something purple in her hands. Scott looked up, recognized the look of peace that was on her face after all that happened, and smiled.

"Hello boys," she said, meaning him and Johnny. "Mr. Lancer, it's nice to see you looking so rested."

Murdoch stood by the door, his grin disguised. "Morning, Claire. Good to see you with your hat on again."

"Tired of looking at my grey head?" she teased, settling into the chair bedside him, watching as Johnny threw down his bad hand. He laid down his own set of cards.

Murdoch sighed. "I think I'll go get some of Sister Ambrosia's coffee. It's grown on me. Anyone else?"

There were no takers.

"Enjoy the coffee," she said with a gentle smile, green eyes glinting in the morning sun. And Murdoch was duly dismissed.

When he was gone, she turned to Johnny, who had gathered up the cards to shuffle again. "You look pleased with yourself, young man."

He shrugged. "I'm happy we were leavin' tomorrow."

Scott moved one hand across to his arm, where bandages had, until recently, covered the horrific wound. Protecting himself, in a way.

Mrs. Delaney nodded. "That is good news." She stared at Scott and he wished there was more between them than air because her eyes were clear, and she wanted to know to know something.

"And you, Scott Lancer, did you accomplish anything?"

It was a straight-forward question, one he'd spent not a little time in contemplating. Johnny stiffened beside him. His mouth opened and Mrs. Delaney's green gaze was suddenly all on him.

"You don't need to protect him right now, Johnny. It's just a question."

Scott laughed. "I learned that I need to go home. Regardless of what may come."

"Quite." Her eyes filled and she patted his hand. "Lorenzo and I will be taking a walk to the pool this afternoon. We would like to invite you to come along as our escort."

"I'd be honored, Madam."

She stood, pressed the small bundle of flowers into his palm, and leaned over to whisper in his ear, "For victory."

tbc