Touched Page 25

  “He’s moved a whore into the house.” I felt my lips twist into a bitter smile. “Until I can be wifely again.”

  JoHanna pressed her lips together. “Why go back there?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that, except that I had to. I was also afraid. JoHanna and Duncan had only Floyd to protect them. If I remained in town, maybe the anger would be drawn to me. At least until Will returned, and I intended to make that happen as soon as possible.

  “I’ll send Floyd to check on you.” JoHanna was clearly worried.

  “No!” That would be the worst thing she could do.

  She understood, and she bit her lip in frustration. “Please, Mattie. Come with us.”

  “I have to face them. I’d rather get it over with before it has time to fester in Elikah.”

  Duncan lifted her chin and stared directly at me. As if at some unspoken signal, Pecos abandoned his attempt to herd me along and ran crowing to the wagon. With one awkward leap and a flap of his wings, he was beside Duncan. “Don’t worry about them in town, Mattie.” There was the ghost of a smile. “It won’t be long before they’ll be too busy to hurt you.” She looked down at Pecos and began to stroke his feathers.

  Twenty-six

  THE cool cloth on my face, the soft voices strained by worry, awakened me. I kept my eyes closed, wondering where I was and what had happened to me. I didn’t recognize the woman’s voice, but her touch on my throat was gentle as she felt for a pulse.

  “You likta kilt her.” There was no accusation in the voice, only stated fact.

  “A wife doesn’t shame her husband the way she did me, letting that half-wit touch her. Talking to Mrs. Leatherwood and the other ladies.” Elikah had lost some of his bravado, though his words were still bold.

  “If you’d hit her one more time, she’d likely be dead. And you’d be going to prison.”

  I knew it was Lola who spoke. It was Lola who had put the cold cloth on my face. I tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn’t. I lifted one hand, and there was a raspy breath of recognition from Lola that I was truly alive.

  My fingers crept along my face and discovered that where my eyes should have been were puffy slits. I remembered Elikah slapping me, hard enough to bust my lip. Apparently, he’d also used his fists on me. I took a deep breath and cried out with the pain.

  “Her ribs are broken.” Lola spoke with authority. “That was when you kicked her.” She was talking to Elikah. “You’d best get the doctor.”

  “No!”

  There was fear in his voice. Real fear, and not for my condition. He was terrified of having to pay for what he’d done. JoHanna had read him correctly. He did not want anyone to know of his treatment of me.

  “You don’t get the doctor, I’m not gonna stay here. If she dies, I don’t want nobody saying I had a hand in this.”

  Lola was far smarter than I’d ever thought. I wanted to smile at her, to give her some encouragement, but I could only moan. My tongue was swollen to the point that I could not make a comprehensible sound.

  I felt the trickle of cold water at the corner of my mouth, and I opened it enough for Lola to dribble some in. Swallowing made me gasp with pain.

  “Go get the doctor. I’ll say she tripped in the road and a horse stepped on her.” Lola spoke as if she were an old hand at making up excuses for wounds and injuries.

  “What horse?” Elikah was grasping at the story she’d concocted.

  “Any fuckin’ horse you want me to say.” She splashed the cloth in the water and replaced it on my face, her touch not as gentle now. “Your horse, in the yard. You can’t say anybody else’s.”

  “You’re right.” Elikah was calculating the odds. It gave me a sense of satisfaction to know that I was causing him at least a little discomfort. “You go and get Doc. I’ll stay here. You tell him about the horse and how I dragged her in and tried to help her.”

  Lola stood up. “Funny,” she said with bitterness in her voice, “I didn’t take you for no hero.”

  “Shut up or I’ll give you—”

  “You get any ideas about what you’ll give me and I’ll go straight to the sheriff.”

  Lola’s blank brown eyes apparently hid a sharp mind. And a nerve I’d never suspected. I didn’t want her to leave me. Elikah might decide to kill me while she was gone, and I could hardly lift a hand.

  “Get out!” Elikah gritted out the order. “Just as soon as Doc examines her, you’re gone. You understand?”

  Lola’s laugh was sharp, almost a bark. “I understand plenty. I’ll be more than glad to get away from a mean bastard like you, but I ain’t goin’ without plenty of money. You’ll make it worth my while to go. You’d better keep it in mind that I ain’t your wife. You can’t treat me the way you treat her and get away with it.”

  “Get!” He picked up something from the dresser and threw it. Lola screamed among the sound of breaking glass. He’d broken the scent bottle JoHanna had given me. A small loss compared to what he’d done to my body. I wondered what else, along with my ribs, might be broken. I didn’t have the heart to try to find out.

  There was the sound of Lola’s footsteps going through the kitchen and then out the front of the house. How did she know where Doc Westfall’s office might be? I forgot about Lola as I felt Elikah’s fingers grasp my hand.

  “You’re going to be okay, Mattie.”

  I tried not to breathe. If I could have held my breath and died I would have gladly done so. There wasn’t an inch on my body that didn’t hurt.

  “What possessed you to let that idiot touch you?” He didn’t pause long enough for me to answer even if I could. “He’s not so harmless as folks make out. He may be slow, but he’s smart enough to recognize a willing woman.”

  I shook my head slightly, and the pain shot red flares in my skull. Two of the teeth on the left side of my jaw were loose. Unable to help myself, I felt hot tears leaking out of my eyes. What if I was blind? What if he’d damaged my eyes?

  “Don’t cry,” he said, his touch light on my face. “If you cry, your head will stop up and it’ll be worse.”

  He spoke so reasonably, so kindly, that the fury inside me burned away all my tears. The bastard had backhanded me in the barbershop in front of three men and then dragged me down the street by my hair. Not a single person had tried to help me, and once he got me home, he really set in. Whatever else she was, Lola had tried to hold him back.

  His grip on my hand tightened. I tried to pull free, but even the slightest movement sent a sharp pain in my side and set off echoey pains all over.

  “You keep your mouth shut to Doc, you hear?”

  I nodded. I couldn’t talk, and I didn’t want him to kill me before Doc had a chance to get there.

  “You had this coming, Mattie. You know you did. You got off with JoHanna McVay and forgot who you were. Her husband may let her run the country flaunting herself and doing how she pleases, but I’m not Will McVay. I won’t be humiliated by you.” He increased his pressure on my hand until I thought the bones would snap. “Don’t ever forget that again. You hear?”

  I nodded and gasped when he released my hand. I heard him stand up and move away from the bed. His footsteps retreated to the kitchen where there was the sound of wood going in the stove.

  “I’m going to heat some water for you. A good hot bath will help the soreness.”

  The idea made me want to cry. I didn’t think I could move, much less get in a tub.

  “I’ll help you, and then you can sleep. No telling how long before Doc gets here. I heard he had to go over to Greene County to see about birthing a baby. We’ll have plenty of time to clean you up before he gets here.”

  Halfway through the bath I fainted, sliding down into the blood-tinted water until Lola pulled me up. Elikah and Lola managed to get me out of the tub and into a nightgown and bed before Doc Westfall got there.

  I came to when I heard Doc’s voice and opened one eye enough to see his worried face, framed by the cloud of fine
white hair that was backlit in the bedroom window. The sight of him did me more good than any medicine.

  He took a look at me and shooed Lola out of the room. Elikah tried to remain, but Doc said his examination was private. Elikah could leave or Doc said he would get some men and a stretcher to take me to his office where he could do a proper exam. Showing all kinds of husbandly concern, Elikah retreated to the kitchen, but he left the door open so he could hear what I said, if anything.

  “What kind of horse would do this?” Doc asked as he pried open my eyes and squinted at me.

  Maybe, at long last, I’d learned to keep my mouth shut. I had no intention of saying anything that would make Elikah hurt me more.

  “The woman who came to get me said you fell under a horse. How’d that happen, Mattie?”

  I concentrated on breathing. When he touched my ribs I cried out in pain.

  He moved down my body, taking his time, inspecting the bruises and the swollen places. Of great concern was my abdomen, which he poked and prodded until I moaned. Then he checked lower, removing the cloths that Lola had put there to catch the bleeding.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered as he poked around more.

  “How is she, Doc?” Elikah called out.

  Doc didn’t answer him. He started in with the bandages, helping me to sit up while he wrapped long strips of cotton around my ribs, binding me tight.

  “My eyes?” My words sounded like they were spoken through layers of cotton.

  “I think your vision will be fine, but you’re going to have a couple of black eyes. Lucky the cheekbones weren’t broken.” “Is she talking?” Elikah came to the door.

  “She was asking about her eyes. I’ve never seen a horse give a person two black eyes.” He didn’t stop with the bandages. He didn’t expect an answer from Elikah.

  “It was the damndest thing I’ve ever seen. She just went right under old Mable. That horse is steady as a rock, but she just went crazy. Mattie kept trying to roll out from under the hooves and she just kept right under the mare. If I hadn’t heard her screaming and gone out there to pull her out, she might have been trampled to death.”

  “I’m sure.” Doc put his finger on my lips. “Open up there, Mattie.” He peered into the small slit I was able to manage. “Get me some cold water.”

  When Elikah didn’t obey, Doc looked up at him. “Get some cold water. I don’t care if you have to sell your miserable soul to Satan to secure it. Just get it and bring it to me now.”

  Elikah slammed his fist into the doorway. “This is none of your affair, Doc.”

  Doc Westfall took his fingers out of my mouth. “Her ribs are broken, her eyes are swollen shut, you’ve knocked her teeth loose,” his voice rose with each item, “and that’s the minor stuff. She’s hemorrhaging, Mills. Her uterus is bleeding. I don’t know if there’s something busted up inside her or if you’ve managed to beat her into a miscarriage. But if she doesn’t stop bleeding, or if anything else happens to her, I’ll see you hang for murder.”

  “This is my home. She’s my wife—”

  “Heed my words, Elikah. You’ve damaged this child enough. Whatever she did, she didn’t deserve to be beaten nearly to death.”

  “A man has a right to punish his wife when she shames and humiliates him.”

  “This is punishment?” Doc Westfall sat down heavily. “Get that cold water and then get out of here. Maybe you’d better send for JoHanna McVay.”

  “Damned if I’ll send for her. She’s the cause of all of this.”

  Doc sighed. “Then get that other woman in here. She’ll have to take care of Mattie.”

  Elikah stalked back into the kitchen. “Lola!” He yelled her name. “Lola!”

  But there was no answer. Lola had gone, whether for good or not I couldn’t say. If she had any sense she’d never look behind her. When he returned from his search, he brought cool water, which Doc trickled into my mouth, ordering me to swallow.

  “She has to drink water, and I’m going to give her something for pain.” He leaned down to his bag and drew out a bottle and a syringe. “It’s just a little morphine, but it’ll help her over the worst.”

  “No.” I managed to get the word out. I remembered the morphine from the doctor in Mobile. “No.”

  Doc hesitated. “It’ll cut the pain some.”

  “No.” I didn’t want to be dreaming and at the mercy of Elikah. I needed my wits about me or else he might kill me in my sleep.

  “Mattie, those ribs are going to be painful, and I can’t tell how bad the other will be.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I whispered. I wanted only to get well enough to crawl out the door and start toward JoHanna’s. If I could get word to Floyd, he’d get JoHanna to come and get me. And Will.

  “She doesn’t want anything. She’s not hurt as bad as you think.” Elikah stepped more fully into the room. “Now if you’re done, maybe you should get out of here. Just because you’re a doctor doesn’t give you the right to pry into a man’s personal affairs.”

  Doc rose. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Mattie.”

  “Doc, this isn’t anybody’s business. You understand.”

  Doc Westfall snapped his bag. I opened my eyes a slit and managed to bring him into focus as he stared at Elikah. “It doesn’t take much of a man to beat a young girl half to death. I knew you were hard, Elikah. There’s been rumors about you. But I never thought you’d stoop to such violence against a young woman.” He brushed past Elikah and walked out of the house, his footsteps slow as he left.

  Elikah came over to the bed. He touched my foot beneath the covers. “Well, Mattie, it’s just you and me. You’ll be back to yourself in a day or two. You’ll see. I didn’t do you any permanent harm.”

  He walked out of the room and left me to my tears.

  Lola was gone for good. With her she managed to take Elikah’s money clip and over twenty dollars. Suspecting that Elikah had no intention of buying her silence, she took what she could get and escaped. I was sick with envy of her.

  Elikah spread the word in town that I had gone home to visit my sick mother for a week or two. He made it a special point of stopping by the boot shop to tell Floyd so that the word would get back to JoHanna. He wanted to make certain that she didn’t come looking for me. If Janelle or Rachel or Agnes knew better, they told no one. I was alone in the house with Elikah, dependent on him to bring me food and water, to empty the chamber pot beneath the bed. He did these chores as if I were his most beloved wife, someone he cared about and cherished. After feeding me my soup, he would bring his plate to my bedside and fill me in with all the gossip of the day as he ate his supper. I could not understand his motivations. He behaved as if I were someone he cared about. As if my helplessness gave him pleasure.

  My humiliation, and isolation, were complete. Only Doc Westfall came to see about me, and Elikah made certain that my room was tidy and that I was well groomed and clean.

  By the fourth day, I could get around the room. While Elikah was at work I went into the kitchen, making sure that no one could see me through the white eyelet curtains I’d hung during the first days of my marriage. The curtains had been a gift from Callie. She’d given them to me with a hug, saying that all of the young brides in the stories she knew had eyelet curtains on their kitchen windows to make it homey. I touched the fabric and wished myself back in Meridian, back to a time when I was safe. It had all been so long ago, before Daddy was killed, but it was still there in my mind, and I found that I could go there and linger for longer and longer periods of time. Only Elikah’s return brought me back to the present, back to the torment of my life.

  Standing at the kitchen window, or looking out the one in the bedroom, I watched as fall settled in for a lengthy visit. It was mid-September, and the cold snap that had come in the day of Red’s funeral had remained. Massive banks of clouds had begun building on the southern horizon, but they didn’t move toward Jexville. They kept their distance, teasing me with the promise of a fie
rce storm. The days were perfect, but there was a need for rain. I could see it in the drooping leaves of the bushes and the parched brown of the grass.

  Sitting at the open windows, making certain that the curtains hid me from view, I heard the call of Bruner, the vegetable man. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of Jeb Fairley as he walked to and from his home. I wanted badly to signal him, to have him come over to help me. But I was afraid. Elikah had come very close to killing me, and his most recent days of consideration had me scared and terribly confused. It was not possible that the same man who’d grinned as he kicked me in the ribs was now the one who spooned soup into my mouth. No matter how hard I tried, I could not make the pieces of it all fit together. Some part was missing, and I couldn’t remember what it was.

  I knew when Floyd touched me in the church that Elikah would be furious. I had thought he would let me explain. In my wildest imagination, I’d never thought he would nearly kill me. I’d expected a spanking. A hard one. But not a savage beating. But I couldn’t deny that I had let Floyd touch me in a familiar way. In public. Janelle had warned me of the consequences, the fury that any husband would display.

  The hours of the day passed as I worried the knot of my problems. Doc Westfall came every day, checking the stove to make sure that Elikah was feeding me properly. My teeth had miraculously stabilized, but he warned me to eat only soft foods. The bleeding had stopped once again, and though Doc was curious about my “initial incident,” he didn’t ask any questions that I couldn’t avoid. He told me that after the scene at Red’s funeral, JoHanna and Duncan had returned to Fitler. He said that word had come back to him that Duncan was finally walking a little. Even though the days were cooler, JoHanna was taking her to the river every day for her exercises.

  There was no mention of John Doggett, and I came to believe that he had been part of a dream. His image haunted me in my sleep, a tall, silent man who required no words to make his presence felt. He stood behind JoHanna whenever she came into my nether world. Was he guarding her or threatening her; I couldn’t determine. He grew more dreamlike with each encounter. John Doggett was the first warning that I was having difficulty discerning past from present, real from remembered.