"How is he, Mother?" Audra dropped a quick kiss on her mother's cheek as she passed her on the way to her chair.
"Silas says he had a good breakfast and fell back to sleep. I think he'll fine." Victoria smiled at her daughter as she stirred her tea and studied the empty seat at the opposite end of the table.
"Where's Jarrod this morning? Even he usually manages to be up by this hour." Nick speared a steak from the platter in the middle of the table and added a huge pile of scrambled eggs next to it on his plate.
"Jarrod is off doing me a favor, he should be back this evening."
Nick looked at her surprised. "In Stockton, at this hour?"
"No, Nick, not in Stockton and he left two hours ago." Victoria tried to end the discussion, but knew Nick could ignore any sort of set down if he was in pursuit of something he wanted. She just hoped he wouldn't be interested enough in Jarrod's travels to keep this discussion going. "What are your plans for the day?"
"We're going to start gathering and branding this morning. I want to get as many of the calves moved up into the mountains as I can before it gets any hotter. This hot weather has come on ahead of usual. It's pushing us."
Nick looked out the window at the cloudless sky, 7:00 a.m. and already over 70 out. It was going to be another hot day. "I hate messing with those calves in the heat. Next thing you know, we got dead calves and stressed out mothers, not to mention worn out ponies."
Nick talked on about his concerns over the weather and the cattle and Victoria went back to her thoughts about the cowboy laying the bedroom upstairs. She wondered if she could talk to him. He had been so upset last night and in so much pain she hadn't even tried. She wondered if it had just been modesty that had upset him so much when she had tried to help him out of his shirt. Maybe he had been disoriented. Pain and fever could do that to a man; make him fight a battle only he could see.
She realized she had become too lost in her own thoughts when she heard Nick repeating the same question to her.
"I'm sorry, dear, I was a million miles away. What did you say?"
"I said, I'd get a couple of hands to come in and move that cowboy out to the bunkhouse. I'd like to do that before I ride out to the branding."
"No, thank you, Nick, he's fine where he is."
"Since when do we bring the hands in here for doctoring?" She could hear his voice starting to rise. Oh Nick, he brought so much passion to everything, nothing half way for Nick. She wondered at Jarrod so rational and measured and Nick so passionate and impulsive. How was it there had been no mixing of those traits in her two sons? Oh Jarrod had the passion, no doubt about that, but he measured everything before he moved, sometimes he measured too fully and moved too slowly for even her taste, but it was never from lack of passion. But Nick, he never seemed to think twice about anything. Sometimes she wondered if he even thought once.
"Nick, you brought him in here, because you thought you had killed him. He's in here and he'll stay in here until he can leave under his own steam." She guessed they must get some fair measure of their passion from her and almost smiled at her son.
"Yes, Mother." He didn't say he was sorry, but she knew from the look on his face that he was remembering his fear from last night. She suspected he probably had hurt the young man and knew, beneath all of his bluster, he felt guilty about the beating.
"Howard says the wound is infected. He thinks most of the damage must have been done in Stockton. It will take the infection a few days to drain out of the wound. Then he can start to heal again."
"Oh Mother, that was my fault." Audra, always a bit dramatic as girls of nineteen tended to be, looked heart broken.
"AND THAT REMINDS ME. JUST WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THAT COWBOY HADN'T BEEN THERE TO RESCUE YOU?"
"NICK, please, Nick. We went all through this the other night. She's sorry and we aren't going to go into it again now."
At least she hoped Audra was sorry. She wasn't sure Audra understood yet how much danger she'd been in. She looked over at her daughter, her head now bent over her dish, looking contrite. How long would that last? She didn't want her to grow up fearful. She wanted her to be as bold and free as she could. But she also needed to understand the danger of that boldness and freedom. She decided she would speak with Audra again about the trip to Stockton, but not now when Nick would just bully his way into the discussion. This needed to be handled with more delicacy than Nick could manage.
"So you're keeping that cowhand in here until the wound heals? Will we be doctoring all the hands in the house now?"
Oh for heaven's sake, Nick, she thought and then realized he had a legitimate grievance. They didn't doctor the hands in the house. They had a room in the bunkhouse for any injured workers. She had to know though, before she sent this boy out of the house. Had to know, if he belong in that room upstairs or out in the bunkhouse.
"He's here now, Nick. He's here because of what he did for Audra and because of what you did to him. Let's leave it at that for the time being. He's not going anywhere until Howard comes out and sees him tomorrow."
Nick gave in. "I'm off. I have three thousand calves to brand. McCall's going to be wondering if I've given up ranching," Nick rose from the table and came around to give Victoria a quick kiss on the cheek. She patted his arm absently and then regretted her distraction.
"Nick, be careful," and smiled at him. She loved this big son with his honest loves and hates all lying on the surface. He gave her a big smile and with his spurs jingling, headed out the door with a bit more of a swagger in his stride. Tom's death had been so hard for him. She knew that this talking about the branding and the weather at the table was him talking to Tom through them, his trying to share the worry of his decisions, the weight of his responsibilities. She could do almost nothing to help him except listen and today she hadn't even done that.
She drank some of her tea and found it cold. She must have been sitting there, stirring it for some time to have it so cold. She decided she would check on the boy and then sit Audra down for a little talk.
The boy was sleeping when she got to his room. She realized it was the first time she had seen him in the daylight. She stood in the doorway and just looked at him. He was a beautiful boy, or would be if he weren't so thin and tired looking. His face was a bit flushed and she guessed that must be from the fever. The flushed cheeks made him look even younger. He was just a boy, his skin still smooth in spite of his life lived outside.
She thought he had more the look of Tom than any of her other children. She knew it was partly the coloring. Tom had been so fair haired when she had first seen him, his hair the color of wheat, paler than this boy's hair, more the color of Audra's. But this boy had more the look of Tom than Audra, no doubt because he was a boy.
It wasn't his looks that had arrested her attention that night at the fire, though. She hadn't been able to see him clearly enough to know what he looked like in the dark; it had been the way he moved, the way he sat his horse that had caught her eye. Tom had been more at home on a horse than on foot.
All her children could ride; of course, they were all good riders, put on their first horse while they were still learning to walk. But this boy, riding up to the fire, wasn't just a good rider. In a land where everyone rode, this boy's grace on his horse as she watched him riding beside her daughter had brought back memories she hadn't known she had. She had seen Tom and Audra ride together so often and that night, watching this boy and Audra gallop up to that fire, she had thought she'd seen Tom again.
Now, looking at him lying on the bed, his head turned toward the light, she felt tears pricking at her eyes, tears for a Tom Barkley who had been gone for thirty years. For the youth and love they had shared, for the early days of the their marriage, for the times she had turned in her bed and looked at his face and seen the face she saw now laying on that pillow. This boy was a gift of remembrance of a Tom Barkley she had known as a young girl, a remembrance of a life lived and now past.
She walked up to him and laid her hand lightly on his forehead feeling for fever. She almost jumped back as his eyes opened without any part of his body betraying his awareness. She smiled at him. Tom used to do that to her in the morning. She would be lying in the bed looking at him, admiring him truth be told, and suddenly he would open his eyes and be staring right at her. It always surprised her that he could wake so completely, so instantly.
"How are you feeling?" She asked pleased not to hear the catch in her voice she'd half feared.
"Much better, ma'am." He reached a hand to push the blanket down from where it was brushing against his chin, the sleeve of Nick's shirt covering most of his fingers it was so long. "Should be gettin' on my way."
"Oh, no you don't. Doctor Merar is coming back out to see you tomorrow, and since your awake, I'm going to take a look at that wound and see if it's draining as it should."
She could see him scrambling for something to forestall her, but she just ignored him. She'd nursed her boys enough to know when to argue and when to ignore. "I'll be back in a few minutes with a fresh bandage and water."
When she got back, he was still lying there but it was apparent from the condition of the blankets he'd made a try at getting out of the bed. His pillow was on the floor along with most of the blanket but he wasn't going any where for a while. She could tell from the crooked way he was lying on the bed that he hadn't even managed to even get his legs out.
She didn't say anything. She put the basin of water on the table, picked up the pillow and pulled the blankets straight for him. He looked off into some middle distance beyond her head, no doubt hoping she would just disappear, like a bad dream. She sat on the edge of the bed, pulled the blanket and sheet down and opened up his shirt. His face was flushed and she knew it was more than the fever.
"Listen Heath, I have two sons and I've been married for over thirty years. I'm going to take this bandage off and clean that wound. There is nothing for you to be shy about." She tried to put him at ease.
"Ma'am I haven't been married … and I'm not used to ladies on my bed." He stopped speaking and finally looked directly at her, his eyes the pale blue she'd known they would be. "Guess I can't help shy," and he gave a half smile that almost broke her heart. Oh, Tom, she wondered, where did the years go, when did you stop being this boy and I stop being the girl who married you. She looked away for a moment. She couldn't look at him any more, he gave her such a feeling of nostalgia for a life so long past.
The wound was angry and swollen. The drain Howard had put in had kept the wound from closing and some amount of pus had come out and stained the bandage, but she suspected there was a great deal more in there. "I'm going to get some hot water and we're going to try putting some hot compresses on that. See if I can draw more of the infection out."
In the daylight, she could see how thin he was, almost gaunt, all of his ribs clearly visible. She thought some of this must be from the healing of the original wound but it also spoke of a long while without good food.
She wanted to speak to him. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, answers she hoped he had. She sat and looked at him for almost a minute. He returned her look silently, neither of them knowing what to say. She suspected both of them knew more than they were willing to admit.
She thought, He knows, this was no accident his being here on the ranch. He came looking. He said nothing and finally he turned away from her and looked toward the window again.
"I should really go," he spoke almost wistfully. She thought that whatever his story was, he was no con man out for their money.
She put her hand on the side of his face and when he looked up surprised, almost shocked, she said, "Not yet."
He nodded then and gave that half smile. "I'm sorry."
Now it was her turn to nod. "Nothing for you to be sorry for, dear."
"I should never have come … I just wanted to see."
"I'm glad you did." She found that she was. Suddenly she was filled with joy at his coming, her eyes filled with tears and she could hardly speak. "I'm so very glad you came."
She took his hand where it lay on top of the covers and looked at it. It was the hand of a man who made his living hard. The palm was calloused and blistered, the back covered with a myriad of small scars and cuts, the dirt ingrained until it was part of the flesh. She stroked his hand for a moment and then meeting his eyes again, smiled. They sat silently for a few minutes, neither of them knowing what to say.
"I'll just go get that hot water." She pulled the blanket back up over his bare chest and rose from the bed. "I'm very glad you are here," she told him again, suddenly feeling a lightness of spirit, a hope for tomorrow she hadn't felt since Tom died.