A High-Country Christmas, page 16
He paused before sliding off the box, waiting for the next inevitable sound, like the other shoe falling. Yet it wasn’t a fall when it came, but the snake-like hiss of hot metal in water. He could almost smell the heat sizzling out on a rising ribbon of steam.
The mare bogged forward, jiggling the rig and reminding him why he was there. Easing down on his right leg, he plied the crutches. Doc Carson sat ramrod straight on the buggy seat.
“I won’t be long.”
His host and healer raised a hand signaling that he’d heard, but he didn’t turn around, look back, or step down.
Completely out of character, based on what Wil had seen of the man, living in the same house with him and taking meals there.
But it wasn’t any of his business. Finding his uncle was. He made for the doors.
The one on the right slid easily, and daylight wedged in ahead of him, thinning out toward the back of the livery. The hammering stopped. Wil stepped in and off to the side, waiting for his eyes to adjust before he headed down the alleyway.
Heavy footsteps approached, then stopped as Wil stumped into the light.
“Wilhelm?” The big man came closer, his expression doubtful. “Wilhelm, is it you?”
“Hello, Otto. Yeah, it’s me.”
“Gott sei dank!”
Next thing Wil knew, he was circled in a double-armed embrace that cinched him and his walking sticks as well.
Otto drew back and looked him up and down. “What happened to you, Wilhelm? I got your letter, but you never came.” He tugged on Wil’s arm. “Come and sit.”
“I’m not stayin’ today, but I wanted to follow up on my letter and tell you that I’ll be back once I’m healed up, if you can use a hand.”
A grin lit his uncle’s broad face. “Ja. Is gut. I can use help from one I trust.”
Otto’s fire and a smoky lantern lit the back of the livery some and warmed things up enough that Wil wanted to take off his coat but didn’t.
His uncle rolled a stump from against the wall. “Here. Sit. I have something to show you.”
In a minute he returned carrying a saddle and saddlebags.
Wil jumped to his feet, forgetting about the crutches until a sharp pain in his lower leg jabbed his memory.
“So it is yours.” Otto hung the saddle on a low box-stall railing, the bags over the seat, then rubbed his finger across the underside of the cantle. “This brand is one I saw before.”
A simple design Wil had burned into the leather when he left home. The brand he hoped would mark his own herd someday—Circle B.
He choked up for a minute, out of shock more than anything else, then lifted the near stirrup leather. Scarred, twisted, and stretched more than a little. His ankle twanged.
“Didn’t happen to have chaps, a slicker, and bedroll tied on back did it?”
“Nein.”
“Where’d you find it?”
“On that fella out in the corral.”
Christmas had come early.
Wil shoved the crutches under his arms and made for the back doors. Otto headed him off, lifted the bar, and swung them wide.
Daylight pinched Wil’s eyes to a squint, but not so he couldn’t make out a half dozen horses of varying color and size snoozing in the sunshine. A tail swished now and again, nothing too vigorous since the flies had all froze off and died.
He whistled low, and a dark head raised. Ears swiveled his way. A deep-chested rumble rolled across the corral, followed by a bay gelding that eased out of the bunch and sauntered up to him. Whiffled against his jacket, muzzle warm and familiar.
He gave one crutch to his uncle, then encircled the bay’s neck, and ran his hand over its strong shoulders and down the front legs.
“You made it, Duster.”
“He’s sound,” Otto said. “I checked him over good before I bought him.”
“Bought off who?”
“A rangy pair in a hurry to sell.”
Wil could name one or three fellas that fit that description and wouldn’t mind gettin’ his hands on ’em.
Otto approached the horse, stroked its side and hip. “All these years shoeing and tacking have taught me what to look for. When I saw your brand on the saddle but not you, I was afraid you’d been hurt or left for dead.”
He came around the big bay and slapped a hand on Wil’s shoulder. “It’s good see you alive.”
“I’ll pay you back for him, I promise.”
“With what, Wilhelm? The saddlebags were dark and empty as stille nacht.”
Wil wasn’t certain of that yet, but for the time being, he staved off disappointment. His war bag, slicker, and Winchester were gone, but he had his horse and his saddle. Things could be worse. In fact, they’d been worse about ten minutes ago.
“I’ll work it off. After I heal up.”
“Ja.” His uncle chuckled. “And how long until then?”
“After Christmas, Doc says.”
Otto’s face went cold. Put him in mind of Doc’s when Wil told him his last name was Bergman.
“Carver?”
“He said he found me beside the road, propped against a ponderosa pine. He and his sister fixed me up with a cast and crutches. I’ve been stayin’ at their place the last couple of weeks.”
Otto went inside, taking the crutch with him.
Wil rubbed Duster behind the ears and earned a nuzzle. “I’ll be back, boy.”
Hobbling off, he realized he hadn’t tried getting around on one crutch yet. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the dang thing was longer.
At his anvil, Otto picked up a shoe that had grown cold on the horn and turned it in his big hands, reading it like other men read books.
Wil figured now was as good a time as any.
“What happened between you and the Carvers?”
Otto’s black eyes shuttered like a school house in June.
“I will keep your Duster. Come when you can sleep in the office and be my night man.” With a pair of long tongs, he pinched the horseshoe and shoved it in the fire.
End of conversation.
Again, Wil was left without answers. At least he had his horse, a welcome from the only family he had left, and a fairly good idea how he broke his leg.
It’d take a lifetime to earn back what he’d lost to the bushwhackers who ambushed him. A spread of his own now seemed as foolhardy a dream as ever.
He swung the saddlebags over his shoulder and headed for the big doors. It’d warmed up considerably outside.
~
As she had for several years, Lena found comfort in routine. The mundane. The doing of that which needed to be done. She pressed into such comfort again, rolling out pie crust for two pumpkin pies.
Wil Bergman ate as much as Winnie.
Though she had feigned reluctance at his conditional insistence, it had not been so hard to use his given name when addressing him, for she had begun to think of him in the intimate, informal way of close friends.
But the look on his face when he saw Bergman’s Livery had nearly been her undoing. How would she feel if she were in a strange place, injured, and penniless? Family was family, regardless of how cantankerous some relations were.
The sleigh bells sounded above the slushy plod of horse hooves as the buggy passed the kitchen window, Tay alone in the seat.
Lena paused in pinching the pie crust edges. Had Wil stayed at the livery? Then her pulse quickened. Had there been an altercation?
Rubbing her floured hands against her apron, she hurried out the kitchen door as Tay reined in by the yard. Wil perched behind the buggy seat, splattered from head to three-socked toes with mud. Saddlebags hung over one shoulder, also splattered.
Relief drew laughter up from her insides, but she squelched it behind her hand.
Leaning dangerously low to set his crutches in the muddy drive, Wil dropped to his right foot and made his way to the back porch.
Still clamping her mouth, she lost the battle as he drew nearer, and an unladylike snort escaped.
He scowled up at her, looking as if he’d wallowed his way home rather than ridden. “That’s a dangerous game you’re playing there, Lena Carver.”
His stern warning made her laugh harder, and she backed across the porch out of his reach.
“I’m so s-sor-ry,” she choked.
“No, you are not.”
“I’ll set more water to boil so you can have a hot bath.”
Halting on the bottom step, his scowl bore into her as if she’d been keeping an important secret from him. “You have a bath tub?”
“An entire bathing room. We’re not as backwoods as you might think.”
He looked around as if expecting to see it off by itself like the privy.
Understandable, she supposed. In his condition, he’d not seen the bathing room.
She opened a door and stepped aside for his inspection. “You have to come out here to get to it, but here it is, complete with hand pump. All that’s needed is hot water, soap, and a towel.”
He swung himself up the steps and across the porch, and took in the small room with its copper tub, her wash tub and ringer, and a hand pump. “You think Doc would let me use his razor?”
“I’m sure he would.”
She gave him a quick once-over. “And you can borrow a pair of his britches, though they will be short.”
The idea of those long, muscled legs in her brother’s trousers was almost laughable. “We have another night shirt as well. I’ll do up your clothes this evening and dry them in the kitchen overnight.”
After such personal talk and private considerations, she could dry them by the warmth of her own skin, if what she felt was any indication. Turning, she left with an order. “Go on in. Tay will bring what you need.”
Not waiting for his answer, she hurried through the kitchen door. Water was already warm in the stove’s reservoir for washing supper dishes, but she added another pail full, then set a kettle to boil. By the time Tay saw to the mare and buggy, the water would be ready.
She slid the pies into the oven, checked the simmering soup, then hurried upstairs. Tay’s razor and strap were where he always kept them at his washstand, and she found an extra pair of trousers in his chest of drawers. And more socks.
Downstairs, she chose a nightshirt from Tay’s collection in the surgery, gathered a fresh towel and a soap cake, and piled everything on the table as Tay stomped up the back steps.
“These are for—your patient. He’s in the bathing room waiting to wash away the other half of the road into town. Then come back for the kettle and a bucket of hot water.”
Tay lifted his trousers. “Really?”
She waved him off. “They’ll be short and narrow, but he can belt them on. We know the nightshirt will work.”
Wil would also need help getting himself in the tub without submerging the cast, but she couldn’t bring herself to mention it even to Tay. Surely he didn’t need her to paint a picture.
CHAPTER 7
Helplessness was not in Wil’s vocabulary, but as soon as Doc Carver told him not to get the cast wet, the idea of a good soaking hit like a maverick steer at the end of a short rope.
If he could get in the tub and hang his leg over the edge, everything would work out just fine.
But it was the gettin’ in part that soured the deal, and he dang sure wasn’t going to ask for help.
The best he could do was clean up while sittin’ on a chair next to the tub.
He slicked his hair back, stropped the razor, and lathered his face. He’d shaved often enough on the trail that he didn’t need a mirror. Still, it would have been convenient, but his own razor and glass were in his war bag, and Lord only knew where that was.
His saddlebags hung over the chair back, but first things first.
After as good a bath as possible, a stopper in the bottom invited him to pull it, and the water drained out. Beat bailin’.
Feeling more in control of things than he had since waking up in Carver’s surgery, he rolled everything but the razor and strap into the towel and with a crutch, pushed it over near the wash tub. The idea of Lena washing his clothes made him twitchy, but she’d already done it once. Probably cleaned him up too, and he refused to think too hard on that. He’d been unconscious, so it shouldn’t matter. Except it did.
He hadn’t known her then—how her eyes lit up when that teasing streak took over, or how her voice rippled like music when she laughed. Too many times he’d caught himself day dreaming about what it’d be like to have someone like her on his place when he got one.
If he got one.
He lifted the saddlebags to his lap and unbuckled the near side. Reaching in, he ran his hand along the smooth bottom, feeling for a row of buck stitching along one edge.
Hope snagged on a tight knot at the end. This might be the best Christmas he’d had since he was a kid in Texas, but without his pocket knife, he’d have to wait to find out. He’d sewn the false leather bottom in tight enough to keep what coins he had from jingling. Apparently, it’d fooled the thieves.
An idea sprouted like spring grass, along with an image of Lena Carver walking through that grass. His grass. On his spread. He might be gettin’ ahead of himself, but if his stake was secure, and he really did get the spread he’d saved for, then he’d have something to offer a wife.
Wife.
The word made him shiver and sweat at the same time.
He sat for a minute, pondering the notion. Looking at it straight on and admitting to himself that he’d taken the first step in that direction and done so without help of those blasted, short-legged hobbles.
The next step was figuring out if Lena felt the same. Two weeks wasn’t long, but he’d spent every day of it with her. Hopefully, a couple more and he’d know if she’d have him.
He checked the other bag and found it like his Uncle Otto had said, dark and empty as a stille nacht. Interesting comparison, since that first stille nacht hadn’t been exactly empty.
Slinging the bags over his shoulder, he picked up the strop and razor, suddenly caught by another idea. He sat down and reached into the near bag, pinched the knot between his thumb and forefinger, and applied the razor.
~
The November afternoon slapped Wil with a cold hand when he opened the door, and he prayed it wasn’t a harbinger of Lena’s reaction if he asked for her affections.
Ignoring that depressing thought, he focused instead on the dog coming at him, head low and sniffing.
“Just me, cleaned up some.”
It looked almost relieved.
Low-bellied clouds bunched over mountains that bowled around the north end of the shallow valley where Piney Hill lay. The smell of snow hugged a growing breeze. Another storm comin’ for sure.
Inside the warm kitchen, pumpkin pie was also comin’ for sure. Wil hung his bags over a chair back.
Carver was washing up at the sink.
“Much obliged for the use of your razor.”
Drying his hands, Carver turned and scrutinized Wil’s face, no doubt looking for wounds to stitch up. “And a fine job you did.”
At supper, Wil caught Lena watching him as if he were a stranger. He should have checked himself in the mirror by the hall tree before he sat down. But the sweet aroma of a home-cooked meal won out and he stayed put.
A bowl of stew and a quarter pie later, Carver laid his fork on his plate and leaned back in his chair, satisfied as a milk-fed pup.
“You out-did yourself tonight, Lena.”
Wil agreed. “Thank you for supper, Miss Lena. And for the extra clothes, Doc.”
Carver chuckled. “They’ll do until tomorrow.” A sparkle lit his eye. “Thanks for cleaning up so well.”
Wil expected a comment like that from Lena, not her sober brother. Especially after the solemn ride to the livery.
He shoved his hair back. “Soon as I’m out of this plaster, I’ll get in to the barber and clean up even better. You won’t know me.”
“No need. Lena can cut it for you. She cuts mine.”
Doc Carver was sure one for volunteering his sister’s services without her say so.
She sat lock-jawed in her place at the table, staring a hole clean through her sibling.
Wil wasn’t sure he could handle her running her fingers through his hair right now, but he wouldn’t mind finding out.
A rosy tint ran up her pretty neck and into her cheeks, and she shifted her eyes to the remains of her pie.
Doc took his plate and bowl to the dishpan. “Isn’t that right, Lee?”
Lee?
If looks could ground-tie a man, Doc’d be spending the night in the kitchen. As it was, he shrugged into an old coat and gloves. “I’ll be chopping kindling.”
He left, tugging the door hard against a gusty wind.
Silence fell harder. No smiles. No light-hearted banter.
Wil cleared his throat. “Thanks again for supper. Especially the pie.”
He might as well take up public speaking, seeing he had such a gift for oratory.
The dog groaned from its place by the door, the traitor.
Lena stood and whisked his dishes away. “Stay where you are, and I’ll see what I can do with your hair. Otherwise you might not find your way to the cot.”
Once her feet hit the stairway, he grabbed a crutch with one hand and the pie pan with the other, then managed to clear the rest of the table and shave soap into the dish pan before she returned.
Pausing at the doorway, she took in what little he’d accomplished, and a pleased expression set in place.
“Since you’re over there, grab a tea towel from the second drawer.” She pulled a chair from the table.
He straightened to his full height and held the crutch with his left hand. “You’re not puttin’ a bowl on my head.”
Her mouth quirked and her eyes snapped. “I wouldn’t think of it.” She indicated the chair. “Now, if you’ll please take a seat, I’ll lower your ears.”
Relieved—a little—by her joviality, he complied.
