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CHAPTER 11 - TALES FROM THE PAST

Within me are two souls that pity each
The other for the ends they seek, yet smile
Forgiveness, as two friends that love the while
The folly against which each feigns to preach.
~ Arthur Sherburne Hardy

Before Sam left, he stuck his head in to see how Johnny was and to say good-bye. The room had been darkened and at first he thought his patient was asleep. Johnny laid on his back, unmoving, his head facing away from the door, but Sam soon realized he was awake and well aware of his presence. Sam advanced until he was close to Johnny's bed. He offered, "I know you may not believe me, or even want to hear this, son, but it will get better."

Johnny didn't turn his head to face the doctor. He said in a husky voice, "You don't have to lie, Doc. It's just not in the cards."

"I'm always straight with you, son. You'll find that once you're more mobile you'll get downstairs and then outside and your spirits will rise. Your world will expand beyond this room."

"Outside?" Johnny spoke of it as if it was a foreign land. He moved his head on the pillow to get a clear look at the doctor, but with the light from behind, all Johnny could make out was a silhouette.

"I'll bet that Scott can rig up a buggy for you to drive." The doctor was reaching a bit, but he knew the young man in his care desperately needed to see there was life beyond being an invalid. "Maybe even get you on horseback at some point. Find you something to do."

"To do? You mean like making baskets," Johnny asked bitterly, "like that blind old vaquero who sits in the plaza begging for a few pesos so he can buy tequila?"

Sam hardened his voice when he replied, "I mean doing something useful like working around this ranch. Taking some of the weight off your father and brother." He then said more softly, "You're a fighter, Johnny. Always have been, I can tell. This is one more fight you need to tough out, and I know it looks insurmountable." Sam reached out and squeezed Johnny's shoulder. "You may have to fight to get outside of these four walls, but I know you'll make it."

Johnny remained silent until Sam knew he wouldn't get anywhere and left for his own home. It was curious, Johnny thought, that Sam believed that this room had become his prison. It wasn't so. Not at all. He'd always loved everything about the grand hacienda. When he had first arrived and was given a room to call his own, it had been a sign of being accepted as one of the family. Everything was safe within these walls. He didn't want to escape them.

What was that old saying? That the four walls of a home symbolize the honor, hope, strength and courage of its occupants. Johnny lay alone in his dark room and was very much afraid that he no longer possessed any of those attributes.

Val came by to play checkers and to keep Johnny company, and Scott brought in some newspapers and a book to help him while away the hours, but for the most part Johnny slept. He couldn't face eating and as a result he lost weight. At night he turned on his side to ease the ache caused by long hours in bed, even if the doctor forbade it. He could get one elbow under himself and twist, pull a knee over with his hands, then with some difficulty lift his hips in order to lie on his side. The pain the action brought was worth it.

The furrow on his hip had almost healed up and Johnny could put his weight on it without any discomfort, but then he had hardly any feeling in that area any more. Naturally he thought about buckling his old gun belt around his hips but then he dropped back to earth when reality set in: he'd be spending the remainder of his time sitting. The gun would be useless in a belted holster, impossible to get at. There was always his shoulder holster, which he'd initially thought of as a temporary fix. He laughed at his own stupidity. He wouldn't need a gun - who would be gunning for a has-been pistolero stuck forever in a chair? Then he thought that maybe it would be a good thing if someone did come gunning for him. It would solve a lot of problems. Johnny sighed and turned over, thoroughly miserable.

The creeping paralysis didn't get any worse, which was a great relief. Johnny could feel tingles and jabs of pain in his legs now and then, but nothing he did would make them move. Once in the middle of the night he tried to get out of bed on his own, just to see if he could. He rolled to one side and got his feet on the floor, but the weight of his upper body was too much and he started to topple forward. Luckily he grabbed the headboard and saved himself, and was able to haul his legs back into the bed. He lay there sweating, his heart pounding in his ears, trembling from the experience and overwhelmed with concern about his future.

Johnny had only been home for a few weeks but it felt like it had been a year. At first he had been able to overcome his depression, but eventually, as he became used to the routine of being an invalid, and perhaps because he started to accept it, he felt very low in spirit.

When Sam came by, Johnny asked if he could get his advice on something. "But this is between us. That doctor and patient secret thing, right?"

Sam saw the seriousness of the conversation and inquired if he could sit on the edge of Johnny's bed. At the time, Johnny had thought it an unnecessary courtesy. Later on, when he dwelled on it, he figured that now that the bed he was confined to was his sole territory, the doctor was simply being respectful.

"Sam, I gotta talk to you about something but I don't want you to tell anyone about it."

"You can speak to me in confidence, Johnny."

"Yeah, well, the thing is, you see, I told Scott I should be going back to San Francisco, but I'm not sure that's going to work out. I was wonderin' if you could see to setting me up in one of those sanatoriums where they take care of people . . . well, people like me. And not around here, either."

Sam was taken aback but he recovered and explained, "Johnny, those places are usually for people with tuberculosis or for other illnesses. I don't think that it would suit you at all."

"I can't. . . you see," Johnny said slowly, picking his words with care, "I can't stay here and be a burden on my family, and I can not live in this condition with my wife."

"Johnny, I don't think you're giving your wife, or your family the credit they deserve. I'm sure that they could accommodate your needs, even if it takes some adjustment by all of you."

Johnny raised his voice, "I can't! I can't, don't you understand?" He looked away and ran a hand over his face. "I'm sorry," he said in a quieter tone. "I won't be a burden to them. I ain't gonna do that to them."

After a minute, the doctor patted Johnny's hand and said, "I will look into it for you. I can ask some of my colleagues. Perhaps there is somewhere suitable near your home in San Francisco."

Nodding, Johnny thanked him and then looked away. He was afraid that the doctor didn't understand why he needed to find strangers to care for him. If Sam didn't come up with something soon, he'd have to find a place on his own.

Although he wasn't partial to attention from any member of the medical profession, Johnny liked and admired Sam as a man. He was a friend. Sam came by every day at first, but after a while the doctor said he'd come out to Lancer only now and then unless he was needed. Johnny hadn't seen him for a couple of days and already missed him.

Johnny was able to raise himself and he could sit up for a short time, but he still required some help to bathe and feed himself. And someone had to fetch whatever he needed.

Scott came in early to help Johnny wash and prepare for the day. He placed the washcloth, towel and a basin of warm water close enough for his brother to use, but didn't assist him in any overt way. Then Johnny wanted to shave, and although he started the job, he tired before he was halfway through. Scott, seeing the difficulty Johnny was having, took over and finished shaving him, careful to avoid trimming too close to the mustache.

"There," Scott said when Johnny had finished wiping the remainder of the shaving lather off his neck. "Bet you couldn't get as good a shave at the barbershop." Johnny thanked him and made an attempt at a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. Worried, Scott asked, "Are you all right? Do you need something for pain?" He glanced at a small bottle of pills that Dr. Beauregard had sent over. He picked it up and read the label. It indicated taking one by mouth every six hours and then gave dire warnings if more than two were ingested. Even though Johnny didn't reply, Scott poured a glass of water and put it in his brother's hand, then held out a single small pill. "This will take care of it."

Johnny obediently took the medicine, but when he had swallowed it, he muttered, "Nothing will take care of this. I can't live like this, Scott. You can't be hanging around taking care of me all the time, either." He raised his blue eyes to meet his brother's. "What am I going to do?"

Scott replied, "I don't have any easy answer, Johnny. Take it a day at a time? I'll do whatever it takes to help you. You know that. We all will." He looked away and said, almost to himself, "Nobody should ever suffer alone."

"I know I'm not alone, but. . . everyone's doing their best to help me, but I need to do things on my own. I've just let other people take over."

"You can do more for yourself when you're a bit stronger. Johnny; you just went through a big operation." He had left the operating room when Sam had begun cutting into Johnny's back, and had waited for what had felt like endless hours for it to be finished. Sam had called for Dr. Beauregard to assist, which had set Scott worrying even more. Eventually the doctors had emerged with dour looks on their faces and Scott had known to expect the worst. But now he turned his thoughts back to finding a way to help Johnny help himself. He offered, "Maybe you need to make landmarks so you have something tangible to reach for. You can't expect progress in only a few days."

"But I don't expect any progress."

"You're the one who said a man who's sure he knows anything is a. . ." He let the end of the sentence trail off. "Look, Sam might be wrong. He's been wrong before," Scott insisted.

Johnny looked intently at his brother. "You mean he was wrong about Jenny, don't you?"

Scott sat down on Johnny's bed, facing the room rather than his brother. At first he gave no response, just looked at nothing, but then his shoulders sagged and he confessed soberly, "I believed that Sam made an incorrect diagnosis with regards to my late wife. Yes, in a way he was wrong, but I later learned that he based that diagnosis on the lies Jenny had told him."

"But you're all right with Sam now, aren't you?" Johnny couldn't stomach the thought of the people he cared about quarreling or holding grudges.

Scott nodded his blond head. "I grieved for my wife for a year, and just when I thought I was past the worst of it, and starting to find the world a decent place once again, I found out something. . .something so terrible. . . I didn't know how to go on. You see," he said wretchedly, "Jenny killed herself. Oh, she didn't intend to, I know that now, but she-." Scott choked up and held a hand to his mouth to quell the emotion.

Scott drew in a breath and slowly turned on the bed to face Johnny directly. He called upon his inner strength and revealed the secret he'd tried so hard to hide - not just from others, but from himself as well. "Jenny went to a woman, someone who was known hereabouts as a midwife, though I wouldn't have called her as such. Jenny bought something from her. . .something she put in her tea. Whatever it was, it ate through her insides, poisoned her until both she and the child she was bearing died." He couldn't hold in his sorrow any more, and tears ran down his face unheeded. "Our child. Oh God, I never even knew she was having our baby."

Johnny struggled to sit up and wrapped his arms around Scott until he felt him lean into him. "Jesus, I'm sorry, Scott, I'm so sorry." No wonder his brother had changed so much, had become a mere shadow of his former self. To have a beloved woman die was bad enough - but to lose a child - like that, and at the same time. Johnny cast around for the right thing to say to his distraught brother, but in the end could only hold onto him.

Scott clung to Johnny and sobbed, releasing his pent-up anguish until there was no more to let out. After some time, he let go and turned away to bury his face in his hands.

Johnny lay back down but reached out to touch Scott's arm. "But why? Why would she. . .?"

Scott rose to his feet like a tired, old man, and went over to the washbasin to douse his face with water. He slowly dried himself off then returned to Johnny's bedside and sat, once more, on the mattress. His eyes were red and swollen. "Why?" He shook his head. "You know how I found all this out? It wasn't from Sam. Not at first. It was from the daughter of the woman who sold Jenny that unspeakable potion. This little girl of no more than ten, she came up to me at the Founder's Day picnic last year to tell me she was sorry my wife died. She showed me a pretty hair ribbon that Jenny had given her. When I asked who she was, she told me her mother was a midwife. I never even knew of the midwife's existence. I didn't understand it; Jenny wouldn't have had any business with her." Even now he sounded mystified.

Scott paused, remembering the past, then said, "I confronted the woman, right there at the picnic. She seemed to be hiding something, so I pressed her. Then she became scared of me and took off. I think that was when I got this feeling, this sinking feeling that. . .that something wasn't right. That's when I went to Sam's office to demand to know what had really caused my wife's death." He turned his eyes on Johnny. "The thing is I had been told she had a tumor and it had ruptured and that's why there was so much blood."

"Sam told you it was a tumor?" Johnny asked guardedly. It didn't seem like Sam to keep the truth from the husband of a dying patient.

Scott nodded. "That Jenny died of the blood loss. I knew that already, but the minute I started insisting to be told more details, I could see in Sam's face that he had been hiding something from me. He told me in the end. He said that he hadn't wanted to keep it from me, but Jenny had made him promise to keep her secret," he said indignantly. "A deathbed confession, one he had to keep to himself. I'm her husband, for God's sake!"

"But he broke his promise to her and told you everything."

Scott nodded.

Johnny watched Scott trying to hold back his emotions and failing. The blond head was averted, but Johnny placed one hand on his brother's shaking shoulder. He felt so bad for Scott, and he understood some of what he was going through, but he knew it wasn't a time for words, no matter how well-intended they may be. He waited, never letting go.

After a while, Scott regained his control and raised his eyes to seek those of his brother. "Sam informed me that when she was lying there dying, Jenny told him why she had tried to...to abort the baby. She grew up as an only child, you know, but when Jenny was in her teens, her mother had two children. They were both badly deformed at birth. Neither lived past a few weeks of age, and her mother said it was a family curse - that's what she told Sam. Jenny was apparently petrified that if she had any children they would be. . .She didn't want to have any babies like that and she didn't want me to know anything about it. She told him she wanted to spare me." He shook his head slowly from side to side in disbelief. "Spare me?"

"So when you heard this, you took it out on Sam," Johnny said with understanding.

Scott wiped his nose and took in a deep breath. "I had to blame someone. The woman, the midwife who gave her the abortion draught left the area, and Sam was a handy punching bag." Johnny looked at him in query, so Scott added, "Not literally, though I roughed him up a bit. I was quite distraught." He looked at his hands and twisted his wedding ring. "I would have preferred that Jenny had taken the risk. At least that's how I feel now." Scott took a deep breath. "Anyway, once I had time to really think about it all, I decided to do something to bring better medicine to the area, and Sam worked with me to make arrangements for doctors and the clinic."

Johnny knew that it had taken a lot for his brother to let down his guard and tell him everything. "Scott," he suggested kindly, "next time, how about you come and tell me what's going on instead of leaving me in the dark?"

"I will, promise. It's been really difficult trying to make sense of it all. But unless you've suffered the loss of a child, you couldn't know the emptiness and regret that's so. . .overwhelming."

Johnny knew enough about the loss of people he loved to last a lifetime, but this wasn't the time to bring any of that up. "Maybe not," he agreed.

***–***TBC