“Just about. I couldn’t—Hannah!”
“What?” Her sister, startled, jerked around.
“Is Ben home? Has he come back?”
Wincing, Hannah took a step away, as if reluctant to deal with what surely come next. “I’m sorry, but—no.”
“No sign of him? No word at all?”
Blue eyes wide, she slowly shook her head.
“And I’ve been up here, lollygagging away, while Lord knows what has been happening to him? Oh, Hannah!” With a gasp of dismay, Camellia rolled garters into her stocking tops, shoved her feet into the waiting slippers, and made her way somewhat woozily to the bedroom door.
“Wait a minute, Cam.” Hannah, concerned, trailed along behind. “You’re still so unsteady. Please wait for me. I don’t want you falling down the stairs.”
“No,” agreed Camellia grimly. “I don’t want me falling down the stairs, either. But there is a banister, you will note.”
By the time she reached the parlor, Gabriel had already disappeared, having pulled himself upright from wherever he had been lounging and shambled into the kitchen. One could hear eggs being cracked into a fry pan, and salt pork beginning to sizzle. Also a hearty, jaw-cracking yawn. Camellia wasn’t the only occupant still trying to come to life.
“Gabe, good morning,” she greeted him. And then, in surprise, “You’re fixing breakfast?”
“In a pinch, I can produce somethin’ edible. Mornin’ to you, too, ladies.” He looked much the worse for having spent last night on cushions and springs never meant to provide anything but a brief nap. His suit coat was gone, as was the silk cravat he favored; his thick red hair had not yet seen a comb, nor his face a razor. Disheveled, rumpled, and not in the best of moods due to his own physical ailments, Gabe had traded his usual dapper air for one somewhat more unkempt, definitely more human.
Camellia, doing her best to avoid spatters of grease, carefully approached. “Have you heard anything from Ben?” she asked anxiously. “Or of him?”
Taking a minute to plate the food, Gabriel shook his head. “No, honey; sorry. Nothin’.”
“But what should we do?” Hannah, equally anxious, wanted to know.
“For right now, we eat. Sit down, and start getting’ some food in your stomach. I know, I know, none of this looks appetizin’. But you need to force it down. And when we’ve done here, I’ll head on over to the sheriff’s office to see what I can find out.”
He didn’t have to. The three of them, drawn together by apprehension and misgiving, had barely laid down forks after a final mouthful when an unexpected sound from outside the front of the house brought all of them to their feet.
A jumble of voices, the jingle of harness and bits, the slow roll and halt of iron rimmed wheels.
Hobbled though she was by diminished strength, still, Camellia made it to the door before anyone else could. Bright sunlight beat down; it was not a reassuring sight that met her eyes.
A buckboard, drawn by two sturdy draft horses, stood parked under the great sycamore that lent its shade to the fenced yard. Atop the high seat, serving as driver, slouched Deputy Austin Blakely, looking a bearded, scruffy shadow of his former self; a bandage, now stained red in spots, had been wrapped around his head, under a beaten and battered sombrero. Sheriff Paul Winslow had pulled his big bay stallion to a halt beside, and was beginning to carefully dismount. Two other horses were loosely fastened to the back of the wagon, to trail along behind at a slow pace.
“Hey, Paul!” Gabriel’s hands on Camellia’s shoulders moved her gently aside as he pressed forward. “I was just thinkin’ to send out a rescue party! Where’ve you been all this time?”
Slowly and stiffly, like a geriatric instead of a man in his prime, the sheriff dismounted and tied the reins fast. “Had a lot goin’ on, Doc. You better get your tail out here, b’cause we could use some help.”
All of them, Gabe in the lead, and the sisters right behind, needed no further directive to hasten from porch to steps to flagstone path. Before she had even skidded to a stop, Camellia let out a small cry as she caught sight of what lay on the buckboard’s floor.
Her husband. Her unconscious, slackened husband, with a stubbly face pale as death and a motionless frame whose crumpled shirt and dusty trousers showed rusty-red with blood.
Gabriel’s own heart skipped a few beats as he climbed nimbly inside the box; he could only imagine what tricks Camellia’s must be performing. “Dead?”
“He wasn’t when we started out.”
“Gabe!” Camellia mewed. She stood, shaky and trembling, enveloped by both of Hannah’s arms for support. “Gabriel! Tell me—”
“A moment, honey. Just a moment.” The doctor was already searching for a pulse, peeling back an eyelid, checking to find the wound that could be the source for all that gore. “All right, let’s get him out of here. Cam, can we put him on the settee for now? Easier, all around.”
It took the hard labor of several strenuous minutes to get him hauled across open terrain—Ben Forrester was a big, bulky man, after all—and installed in place upon the parlor sofa. While Gabe began working over his patient, he flung a quick query over one shoulder: “Austin, you doin’ okay for a bit?”
“Yeah, reckon I can hang on a little longer, Doc. You take care of ol’ Ben here, first.”