Kitabı oku: «Stranger At The Crossroads», sayfa 3

Chapter Three

The baby’s knees buckled, and he nearly fell. Jackson caught him and helped him to the straw where he lay weakly, not even holding up his head.

“Rest up a minute and try again, Stranger,” he said. “You’re gonna make it.”

Jackson’s deep voice vibrated with dogged determination. He pushed his hat back on his head and stared at the foal hard, as if impatient for it to get up again. He moved back to give it room.

Darcy’s heart sank. To her, the tiny foal hardly looked strong enough to make another try. Yet Jackson clearly wanted that so badly that suddenly she did, too.

Not only because she naturally wanted the foal to live, but for Jackson’s sake, to relieve the tension clearly growing in every muscle and bone in his body.

“He hasn’t broken the cord yet, so let him lie there and get more blood from the placenta,” she said quickly. “It’ll help his circulation.”

Jackson kept his eyes on the colt.

“Should you start an IV on him? Tara’s in such bad shape, he’s bound to need help of some kind.”

The urgency in his voice pushed her pulse to an even faster pace. This was an emergency situation doubled, and her adrenaline was kicking in. Along with it came the calm that always carried her on its wave of total concentration.

Except this time it wasn’t total. Jackson’s reckless assumption that the baby would live was nagging at her. What if she couldn’t save it?

“He looks okay right now, though,” he said. “Except his size.”

Dear goodness, the man was obsessing!

“He looks fine,” she said calmly. “But I have to tell you, Jackson, with his mama so sick, there’s a good chance he might have problems.”

His mama was wheezing loud enough to be heard all through the barn. Even worse, Tara had lifted her head only enough to look over her shoulder at her foal, and she still was making no effort to rise.

“You’ll have to be thinking about how aggressively we’ll treat him if he does get sick,” Darcy said. “In the meantime, keep rubbing him dry. I’ve got to see about Tara.”

She felt Jackson’s gaze on her as she began taking the mare’s vitals and adjusting the IV.

“What do you mean, how aggressively we’ll treat him?” he demanded. “We’ll be totally aggressive and use every treatment that’s necessary. Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

Darcy threw him a glance over her shoulder, then looked again. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes were filled with a fierceness she hadn’t seen before. His hands never stopped moving on the foal.

This was more than the normal desire not to lose a newborn animal.

“You’re a rancher, Jackson,” she said, turning to the mare. “You deal with the realities of life and death every day. Most men in this situation would weigh the value of a no-name colt against the enormous expenditure of time and money and effort it’ll take to save him if he turns out to be really sick.”

“I don’t give a rip what it takes,” he snapped. “We’re saving him.”

“All right, then,” she said soothingly.

For a moment the only sounds in the barn were Tara’s harsh breathing and the softer echo of the baby’s.

“If that’s your attitude,” he said coldly, “then why were you so dead set on staying to help these horses?”

Shocked, she whipped her head around to look at him.

The skin stretched tightly over his jawbone was white with fury.

“What do you mean, if that’s my attitude?” she cried. “I’m only facing reality, for heaven’s sake! I’m not a miracle worker, you know!”

“What kind of a veterinarian are you if you don’t care if your patients live or die?”

“I care!”

“Well, act like it. Let’s get some colostrum into this baby.”

An answering fury shook her to her toes.

Yet a terrible compassion was mixed with it.

Jackson’s raw need for the foal to live and the quick, desperate look he flashed at Tara right then tore at Darcy’s heartstrings. Did he love Tara that much? If so, why hadn’t he bought her back long ago? According to what he’d said out on the road, he hadn’t owned her for years.

At that instant, his need became hers, and she wanted nothing more than to save these two for him. Why did she feel such a driving urgency to keep sorrow at bay for this man? She didn’t even know him. She had been forced to offer condolences to many a longtime client, but she hadn’t felt this depth of regret.

“Let me finish with the mare,” she said tightly. “And let that baby get some more blood, like I told you.”

He didn’t answer. Which was a good thing because she probably would’ve beaned him with her stethoscope if he’d given her another order right then.

She took her time, added more medications to Tara’s IV and knelt by her head to talk to and encourage the mare.

“Her color looks better,” she said.

Silently, she berated herself for worrying about Jackson’s feelings when he behaved in such an unreasonable, arrogant manner toward her. Yet she went on trying to reassure him.

“Maybe her body’ll start fighting the infection now that the birth is over and we’re getting some medication in her,” she said.

“Maybe we should bring in a wet nurse for the foal after he gets the colostrum,” he said. “Take some stress off her.”

“We’ll see,” she said.

Darcy gave Tara another loving caress, then got up and stepped around her to go to the foal.

“He’s lifted his head again a couple of times,” Jackson said.

As he spoke, the colt started struggling to rise again, and Jackson moved back to give him room. Darcy stayed where she was.

“You can do it, Stranger,” Jackson murmured.

The satisfaction flowing in his voice touched Darcy again.

Oh, Lord, help me save this baby.

The foal staggered to his feet and took a step.

“Good,” Darcy said. “He broke the cord that time. Let me look that over and swab on the disinfectant, then we’ll see about letting him nurse.”

Stranger’s knees started to collapse. He went down in a sudden heap. Tara stirred, looked at him, then lifted her head and tried to get her hind feet under her.

Clearly, there was no way she had the strength to accomplish her purpose.

“She may try again in a minute,” Darcy said, as she looked in her bag for the Novalsan. “And she might step on him. Let’s move him to her head and they can get acquainted.”

Jackson stood up. It was an awkward task for him to bend and pick up the foal with his stiff, lame leg, but Darcy resisted trying to help, and he managed fine.

Carefully, he placed the baby under Tara’s nose.

“Just keep on drying and warming him,” Darcy said, as he scooted over to make room for her to kneel and care for the colt.

“No urine leakage, no hemorrhage, no swelling,” she murmured, and then wondered again at herself while she swabbed on the disinfectant.

Here she was, sharing every scrap of encouraging information, which, in the long run, might turn out to be only feeding false hope to this man. She’d better keep her own counsel, as was her habit.

Sure enough, Jackson gave a sigh of relief.

“He’ll be able to stand and nurse in a few minutes,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”

Darcy’s heart constricted, and she threw him a quick glance.

“Hey, now,” she said, trying for a light tone, “who’s the doctor here?”

His intense blue gaze caught hers and held it mercilessly.

“This foal’s going to live,” he said tightly, “and so is this mare. I set out to save them and I’m going to get it done.”

The pressure of that expectation tore the lid off her quick temper.

“Why can’t you see reason?” she cried. “They’ve got lots of sickness to fight and very few resources left to fight with! I can’t guarantee they’ll live!”

Jackson’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“There’s no guarantee to anything in life,” he said harshly. “But I’m not going to see another good horse die from something I didn’t do. Not as long as I can lift a hand.”

The last words almost broke apart beneath the weight of regret in his voice.

It was a grief that filled the barn without warning, a misery that rose to the rafters. Tears sprang to Darcy’s eyes.

Something terrible had happened to him, too.

Then, without warning, a realization swept through her like a searing wind. She had known that all along. She had sensed it. Of course. With his lame leg and his eternal gloves. Maybe he’d burned his hands in a barn fire that had killed a bunch of his horses. Whatever it was, it had washed him up as a wreck on the shore of the life he’d had before, just as her loss had done to her.

Her spine went limp, and she wanted to sink into the straw in a heap like Stranger. This was what her life had come to. She had let her terrible trouble take over her life completely. Not only did it fill her thoughts and torture her mind, but it determined where she stopped by the side of the road. This was why she’d insisted on staying to help Jackson.

Then another truth touched her with a beam of light.

Her own troubles had been gone from her mind ever since she’d started helping Jackson with his.

Tara snuffled loudly. Immediately, Darcy and Jackson turned to the horses. The mare had her head up and was beginning to check out her baby, nosing him all over, giving him a lick here and there. Stranger, too, had lifted his head, although he couldn’t hold it up for long.

Tara stirred as if she might try to get up.

“Let’s leave them alone for a little while, and maybe he’ll nurse on his own,” Darcy said quietly, and blinked away the tears she was surprised to find still standing on her lashes.

She got to her feet slowly, so as not to disturb the mother and baby. So did Jackson. He followed her out of the stall.

Darcy risked a glance at his fierce face. With his hat pushed back, she could see the sweat on his brow. It was also standing on his upper lip. The air in the barn was hot and close, and she felt physically and emotionally zapped, so he must be doubly drained with his long walk on top of all the stress with the horses.

Maybe acting as host would break him out of the trap of tragic thoughts that gripped him.

“I could use a glass of iced tea,” she said. “Or a really cold Coke.”

He glanced at his hands, then over his shoulder at Stranger and Tara.

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” he said, in an absent tone. “Why don’t you go ahead.”

Darcy kept walking beside him. If she left him out here alone he would only fall deeper into his sad funk.

“They’ll be fine. We’ll only be gone for a few minutes.”

He was silent for a moment, then he seemed to bring himself back to the present with an effort.

“Tara’s really weak,” he said.

“She won’t step on Stranger now that we’ve moved him.”

Darcy kept going, and he stayed beside her.

But he said, “Help yourself to anything in the house.”

“What should I bring you?”

“Anything. I don’t care.”

Just outside the door of the barn, he stopped, glancing toward some battered benches under the shed row as if he’d like to sit down. His shoulders slumped, and he stared into space.

Darcy stopped, too, and looked at him. The haunted expression on his face broke her heart. She couldn’t, she just couldn’t leave him out here alone with his ghosts.

“I’d feel like an intruder,” she said, careful to keep her tone neutral and not plaintive, “in your home.”

He threw her an exasperated glance, opened his mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut. They started walking again, out into the sunlight and then across the yard.

“I need to call somebody about my trailer anyhow,” he said, as if to prove he had his own reasons for escorting her into his house.

He made an impatient gesture with one hand.

“I’d go change that tire myself but I’m not going to leave Tara right now.”

“It won’t take five minutes for me to drive you to it if that’s what you want,” Darcy said.

He frowned and hesitated before he spoke.

“No.”

They reached the house and went up the two low steps. Jackson held open the door into the screened-in back porch. Darcy walked ahead of him into a large, square kitchen.

“I’ve got lemonade, Coke, Dr. Pepper, bottled water…”

Darcy stood still, looking around in amazement. An iron cookstove that burned wood filled a brick-lined corner of the room. A huge worktable was in its center. Old pie safes and cupboards stood in strategic spots. There were no counters, no built-in cabinets at all.

“This is like walking into a time warp!”

“No,” Jackson said, throwing the words over his shoulder as he crossed the room, “there’s a refrigerator and a microwave. And a toaster.”

There were. And stacks of paper plates and cups on one end of the worktable.

“And I assume no dishwasher, either,” Darcy said lightly.

He paused at the door of the kitchen, but not to respond to her teasing.

“Bathroom’s that way,” he said abruptly, gesturing to the right.

“Thanks. I’m just grateful that you have one.”

He didn’t pick up on that small effort to be humorous, either.

“I’ll make a couple of calls while you wash up.”

His tone said that was all the polite small talk he could take right now. He disappeared into the depths of the house. Darcy heard a door close.

She followed his path into a narrow hallway, turned right and found the bathroom. It was nearly as fascinating as the kitchen, with its single, columnar sink and huge, claw-footed tub that had also been rigged to serve as a shower.

As in the kitchen, everything was clean. Only a razor with shaving supplies, a toothbrush on a shelf near the sink and a towel hanging crookedly on a rack testified to the fact that somebody lived there.

Maybe he was the outdoor kind who hated to be inside under a roof. He probably spent most of his time with his cattle and horses—she had vaguely noticed several nice-looking ones in a pasture and some in a pen nearer the barn.

Maybe his life contained only the bare necessities because he didn’t care about anything more. Maybe he deliberately worked himself into a stupor outside all day and came inside only to collapse and sleep.

Exactly the same life as hers.

She realized that with a shock. Her house might seem homier than his because of the furnishings she’d chosen in happier days, but the way she lived in it was totally debilitating and controlled by hopeless regrets. She’d lived that way for a year and a half.

Only today, after all that time, had she discovered how refreshing it could be to forget about loss even for a short, short while.

That sudden thought made her feel disloyal. She wasn’t forgetting about her darling son and her husband. Not at all. She could never forget them.

Quickly, to distract herself, she washed her hands again, very thoroughly, took a clean towel from a stack on a small table by the window and dried them. She hurried toward the kitchen.

A door down the hall remained closed. She assumed that was Jackson’s bedroom. The open, arched doorway across from the kitchen gave her a glimpse of the living room.

She stopped and looked in. It had the same old-fashioned, unused feel as the kitchen. A large stone fireplace was centered on one wall, with several pieces of well-made leather furniture, their cushions shaped by age and much use, facing it. The longest sofa had a pillow propped against one arm and a quilt thrown across the back.

On the opposite wall, looking as incongruous as the big refrigerator did in the kitchen, an ancient oak table held some very expensive-looking stereo equipment. CDs, their plastic jewel cases catching the sunlight from the windows, were everywhere—in stacks on the table on the floor, on the seat of a chair.

It was the same as a wall of full bookcases in an acquaintance’s house. Or the tack room of a stranger’s barn. How could anyone resist such a true glimpse into someone else’s personality?

Darcy walked in and picked up the case on top of the stack in the chair. Muddy Waters. She rifled through the stack quickly, struck by the wide range of choices and the fact that they mixed time and genres as did the furnishings in his house. Delbert McClinton, Jimmie Rodgers, Doug Sahm, David Ball, Howling Wolf, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Bill Monroe. Jerry Garcia’s short-lived band, Old and In The Way.

Lots of blues. Lots of high, lonesome sound.

“You find a cold drink?”

Darcy jumped and dropped an Emmylou Harris, which clattered onto the pile.

Jackson stood in the doorway, leaning on the jamb with one gloved hand. His blue eyes were intent on her, but he didn’t look angry that he’d found her pawing through his things.

“Not yet,” she said, holding his gaze. “I got distracted looking at your music.”

He didn’t answer. He just kept looking at her.

Something about his still regard made her say it.

“One time I heard an interview with Emmylou Harris and she said her husband asked her why she always chose sad songs to sing.”

“What reason did she give?”

“I don’t remember. I just remember thinking that it was true and that I hadn’t noticed it before.”

“Most songs are sad,” he said. “Did you ever think about that?”

She shook her head.

A trace of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. He really did have beautiful lips.

“It’s a fact,” he said.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

Finally, he turned away.

“If there’s something there you like, bring it along,” he said, over his shoulder. “Might as well get Stranger started out right instead of letting him hear that pap on the radio.”

That made her smile.

“Good idea,” she said, as she hastily made three or four selections. “After all, we don’t want him to lose his will to live.”

She followed him into the kitchen.

He opened the door of the big side-by-side refrigerator and freezer.

“In a glass with ice or in the can?” he said.

“The can’s fine,” she said. “If glass means one of those paper cups.”

“You can have glass in the house,” he said, “but we’re on our way to the barn. Look here and take your pick.”

He left the refrigerator door open and went to one of the big old cupboards.

“I want to be ready,” he said, “if he’s not nursing by now.”

“What do you want to drink?” she said.

“Dr. Pepper.”

Darcy took out the soft drinks, then stood for a moment to marvel at the other contents of the refrigerator. It was packed with fresh fruits and vegetables and held two or three labeled casseroles and dishes that did not look commercially prepared.

“Did you cook all this in your microwave?”

He glanced up as he took a nippled bucket and some other things from the cupboard.

“Oh, sure,” he said, in a lightly sarcastic tone. “Come on, let’s get going.”

She followed him out the back door, wondering what had shut the door on the past for him and changed his mood. The phone call? Her interest in his music? Whatever it was, she was grateful. They had a long night ahead.

She also wondered who really was the cook who filled the refrigerator.

At the barn, Jackson went straight to the benches in the shed row and looked in the window of the foaling stall. Then he moved away and gestured for Darcy to look.

Nobody had moved much. Stranger’s head was up, Tara was still nudging and licking him.

Quietly, Jackson set the bucket on one bench and took a seat on the other.

“How long do we wait?” he said.

Darcy looked at her watch.

“They’ve only been alone about ten minutes,” she said. “Give ’em ten or fifteen more.”

She offered him his cold drink, and he took it. For the first time, she noticed that he was wearing clean gloves—just like the others, but not the pair he’d soiled when he’d helped to pull Stranger into the world.

Suddenly, she realized she should’ve opened the can, that he might have trouble with that, but he did it on the second try.

“One good thing is they’re getting acquainted,” he said, nodding toward the window as he popped the tab. “At least, now Stranger won’t think I’m his mama.”

“That’s the reason I asked you to leave the stall when I did,” she said, teasing him. “I knew after you picked him up that he’d be trying to bond to you and that could prove a problem at bedtime.”

“Insights such as that must be what makes you a famous horse doctor,” he drawled.

But he shuffled his feet restlessly, then got up and looked through the stall window again.

Darcy sat on the other end of the bench.

“Jackson,” she said directly, “I’m going to do my very best to save your horses.”

He met her straight look with one of his own and took his seat again.

“I thank you, Darcy.”

He actually seemed to relax a bit as he leaned back and drank some of the cold soft drink.

“We’ll have to pray as hard as we work,” she said, “but God willing, we’ll have them on their feet and on the mend in a week or so.”

Jackson shook his head. He looked at the can in his gloved hands.

“I’ll do the work. You’ll have to say the prayers.”

Then suddenly, almost as if against his will, he blurted, “Mine wouldn’t rise above the treetops.”

The bleak acceptance in his tone chilled her.

“Why do you think that?” she said.

“I know it,” he said, in a tone of complete finality, as if he’d already said too much. “I lost my faith months ago.”

Then he looked at her. “How can you stay here for a week? You were on your way somewhere, out there on the road,” he said.

It was her turn to look away. She shook her head and stared across his back yard, watching the wind move the leaves on the trees.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“You drove all the way from Oklahoma going nowhere?”

“Yes.”

He eyed her curiously.

“What about your practice?”

His voice was so gentle she wanted to lean back against the bench and just listen to him talk to her.

But he was waiting for her to answer, and the words rushed to her tongue because he truly was interested. In her. As a person, not as a veterinarian.

“My partner’s handling everything. I had to get away for awhile.”

He nodded, watching her patiently, waiting to learn more. About her real self.

It had been a long time since that had happened to her. Of course, since she never went anywhere but to work. And to church, but there everybody knew her story.

Yet, in spite of the fact that usually—almost always—she needed to share that tragic tale, somehow she didn’t want to tell it to Jackson now. It seemed a shame to stir up her sorrow—and his, too, maybe—and ruin this pleasant moment that was like a gift.

“Can’t even a veterinarian have a vacation?” she said lightly.

“Yes, but I’d think even a veterinarian would have a destination.”

She could feel his eyes on her. He really wanted to know why she was here.

Yet when she turned to meet his gaze his eyes were gentle. He didn’t mean to pry, they told her. He wouldn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

This new, kind side of him lifted her heart. She grinned at him.

“You’d think so,” she said, “but sometimes veterinarians are an unpredictable bunch.”

“I’d have to disagree with you on that,” he said. “Anybody can predict they’ll always send a whopper of a bill.”

She laughed.

“Typical tightfisted client,” she said, “beg me to save your animals and then complain when you have to pay for it.”

That made him laugh, too. He had a nice laugh, low and melodious. A laugh she would never have suspected when they’d met on the road.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll adjust my fee for room and board. If you’ll share the homemade food in your refrigerator.”

He pretended to consider it.

“I’ll think about that.”

“Yes. There’ll be a nice deduction for meals, so long as they’re home-cooked and I don’t have to do any dishes.”

“Done,” he said.

“And you might get another small deduction for your luxurious towels. It’s good that you’ll let me use them in the barn, since I’ll have to sleep out here. Be aware, though, that you’ll need to make my bed with lots of straw.”

“Aw, get tough,” he said. “You sound like the princess in the story who could feel a pea under her mattress.”

“I am a tender flower,” she said, tilting her head to smile at him, surprised that she was flirting with him.

She hadn’t even wanted to flirt with anyone since the accident.

“You need to be aware of that, Jackson.”

That made him laugh again.

“I’m becoming aware of the fact that this so-called reduced rate of yours may not be worth the trouble,” he said. “I’ve got a ranch to run, woman. I can’t be at your beck and call all day.”

She shrugged.

“Suit yourself. It’s your choice to make.”

He sighed.

“At last I get to make a decision.”

“Just so you don’t decide to run me off,” she said, “because I’m already attached to little Mr. Stranger.”

They finished their drinks and stood at the same time, without a word spoken, moved by the shared knowledge that they’d waited long enough. It was almost as if they could read each other’s minds.