Enchanted Heart (38 page)

She admired her new friend and she wished that she could be as easy-going as Linda Blue Sky was. To think of herself as ‘only Marty McAllister’ seemed to be a harder feat than Marty felt that she could accomplish. Sure, she knew herself to be resolute and robust, but to be able to accept life’s hardships without so much as a peep of indignation was far beyond Marty’s capabilities.

She thought of all the challenges that she had faced and she shuddered. Either she was stricken with untold grief, to which she had reacted with despondent hopelessness, or she was faced with adversity, to which she responded with defiance. There was no middle ground for Marty, no blasé belief in rainbows and blue skies beyond the devastating storm.

She sighed and tore a bit of bread with her fingers while staring at the darkness outside the window. Her thoughts turned to Caid and in spite of her misery at already missing him, she smiled. A sudden awareness came over her when she realized that he loved her just the way she was and that was enough to cause her to continue to be ‘proudly Marty McAllister’.

The next day, against Linda’s demands, she sat on the chair that she had dragged to the window so that she could keep an eye on the lane that had taken her husband away from her. When Linda looked in on her later, she admonished her for leaving the bed, but Marty insisted that sitting in the chair was just the same as sitting in bed. So, Linda agreed to help her each morning to sit in the chair as long as she agreed to go back to bed after a few hours. She brought her meals and waited until Marty had finished before she left her to her thoughts. Some days, Marty would inquire about Linda’s life in the village or about her deceased husband, which Linda would respond with tales that enlightened and amazed Marty.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

This daily routine lasted for almost two months. Two long months had gone by and Caid was still not home. Two lingering, worry-filled months that Marty sat at the window and watched for him until one morning, she looked out her bedroom window and saw a tiny horse coming down the long lane. She jumped to her feet and ran to the front door of the house, ignoring Linda’s screaming complaints as she passed by the kitchen where Linda was washing the breakfast dishes. She ran over the porch and down the stairs to the yard and then hurried to meet the lone rider that trotted toward the house.

“Caid!” Marty yelled at the shadowy person that came closer to her with each beat of her excited heart.

But as the seconds slowly drifted by, she could see that it was not her husband on that horse. Stopping suddenly to assess the situation, Marty was caught between fiction and reality as if suspended in time. For long moments, she paused as if time would correct itself and her eyes would magically see her husband returning to her.

But, it didn’t change a thing. Buck still sat atop his brown gelding. At first, she thought that he had come to check on her or to give her an update on her sister’s pregnancy. But his grim look told her that something was wrong. Even though she had suspected something terrible had happened to him since Caid had not come home after a month, which is how long she had expected him to be gone, she still had hoped that her instincts had been mistaken. She clutched her fist to her breast and ran to meet Buck before he slipped from the saddle.

A gripping knot of heartbreaking fear overtook her when he opened his mouth to tell her the news, but she interrupted him, wanting to put off hearing it for just a few more seconds, “Is Greta all right?”

Buck puffed a sigh of exasperation as he assured her, “Greta’s fine.”

Then, he reached into his pocket to retrieve the telegram that they had received just that morning. He stared at the envelope for a few moments, hoping that the contents would bear only good news. But he knew that hoping didn’t make things happen so he stretched his hand toward her. “It’s from your cousin Elsa,” he told her as he handed it to Marty and continued, “She hasn’t heard from Caid yet. She says she had expected him weeks ago after the telegram that she’d gotten from Greta asking her to get Seraphina’s things packed.”

He eased his large frame from the saddle and told her, “Elsa says that she and her family are bringing Seraphina home.”

Marty’s ears refused to hear the words that echoed inside her broken heart. Her feeble knees lost all feeling and she slipped toward the ground, but Buck scooped her into his massive arms and carried her back to the house. Her head was heavy against his shoulder and her limbs seemed lifeless, as if her reason for living had suddenly disappeared.

“Now that don’t mean nothing,” he said as he leaned over to put her back into bed. “Maybe he got sidetracked. Maybe it’s just taking longer than expected. We don’t know.”

“He’s hurt,” she cried. “I know he’s hurt. I can feel it. I knew it weeks ago but I just couldn’t bring myself to believe it.”

“Now there ain’t no way that you can feel something like that,” Buck argued gruffly as he towered over her.

“I know it!” she cried out, clutching the blankets into her fists. “I know it,” she repeated in a helpless whisper as she turned her face into the pillow and cried.

Buck tried in vain to console his sister-in-law. But he knew in his heart that his presence was not what she needed to make her happy again. He tried to talk her into going back to town with him but she refused, saying that she would remain home in case Caid came back. He stayed with her until her tears subsided and then, he left her to grieve alone while he went to the kitchen to make sure that Linda gave her a dose of laudanum to calm her down.

Marty didn’t hear Buck leave, nor did she recall sipping the cool glass of acrid liquid that had been forced down her throat by her female companion. She stared out the window for what seemed like hours, but was in reality only a few minutes passed before darkness, blessed darkness overtook her.

Days passed, possibly weeks. Marty had no idea how long she sat either in bed with the blankets warming her feet or in the chair next to the window, watching, waiting. She seemed to be caught between wishing that Caid would return to her unharmed and knowing that he was truly dead. Solemnly, she realized that she felt like that poor little fox waiting for Caid to come and set her free from the tormenting trap of uncertainty.

One afternoon, she shot from the chair thinking that she had seen him riding back to her, she ran to the front door and out onto the porch yelling, “Caid!”

But then, remembering the terrible news, she hung her head in despair. Still, in her heart, there was a slight hope that he would actually come home to her. Again, she waited, leaning on the column of the porch for support.

Linda tried to pull her away, but Marty insisted upon standing there, searching for him, calling to him and grieving for him. Finally, her weary body slipped to the top step of the porch and she put her head into the palms of her hands as she whispered desperately, “Come back to me, Caid!”

But he did not hear her. He did not answer her prayers for him to return to her, to take her into his loving arms and to tell her that he was alive and well. He even refused to come to her in her fitful dreams that haunted her every night.

Finally, one blissful night while she slept, she dreamed of him. When she awoke, still hovering between slumber and wakefulness, she saw what she believed to be his face in the darkness and she threw herself from the bed so that she could run into his outstretched arms, whispering, “Caid, you’ve come back!”

Getting tangled in the blankets, she tumbled to the floor and she reached for him to help her but he was gone. Nothing but the darkness of the night embraced her as she lay in the jumble of blankets and wept. No one consoled her but the creaking planks on the floor beneath her. They moaned in unison with Marty while she curled up into the fetal position as if it would make her safe, like when she was still in the sanctity of her mother’s loving womb.

Then, suddenly she was assailed by the tremendous pain in her middle, that same pain that she had felt each time her baby was ripped from her. The cramps grew, sending her body into convulsions until she cried out for Linda’s help.

“Linda!” she screamed in agony as she lifted her hand toward the bedroom door. “Linda Blue Sky!”

The nightmare continued when the stabbing pain blinded her as she crawled toward the door in search of help. Curling up again, she grabbed her abdomen and screamed from deep within her body. There was no stopping it. She was losing the baby.

A frantic prayer was whispered to whoever would listen and grant her wish that she would be able to keep a reminder of Caid and the love that they had shared. When she saw the light shining into her eyes, washing over her like God Himself had heard her plea; she felt her body give in to the intense emotion that overtook her. But when she saw Linda standing above her, overshadowing the light, she knew that, yet again, her prayers were ignored.

The Comanche woman lifted her, summoning the strength to hoist Marty, who weighed more than she did, into the bed. All the while, Linda searched her mind for the vision that she must have pushed aside because it was too painful to watch. This vision of a poor woman who now writhed in agony on the bed, whose life was streaming out of her in a crimson pool, had, for some reason, eluded her. Linda cried along with Marty in her ultimate sorrow, wondering how this could happen to her charge when all she had ‘seen’ for the woman was pure bliss. Over and over, Linda blubbered, “How could this happen?” Then, remembering the rumor of the Comanche woman curse, she sobbed, “It wasn’t me! Linda Blue Sky would never curse you or anyone!”

“I know, Linda,” Marty assured her between constricting contractions that assailed her. She sucked in a breath and patted Linda’s arm while her Comanche companion hugged her as if she could somehow take away her misery. “I have had many miscarriages. It has nothing to do with you or that blasted lie.”

The pain returned in spasms, wracking her body, which doubled over in agony. Clinging to Linda with all of her strength, Marty begged for relief, even if it meant that her horrendous ordeal would be rapidly ceased by the sudden demise of the child inside her.

Her screams were answered by the lone horse in the corral, its thundering hooves trampling the dust that enveloped it in a billowing cloud. Round and round it ran, baring its teeth with whinnying terror, beating its chest against the rails of the corral in frantic fright. A chorus of cries surrounded the farm like a tornado, whipping the grieving wife and mother, the helpless Comanche woman and the anxious animal outside into a whirlwind of dizzying distress.

And then there was nothing. Only numbing nothingness.

Marty lay in bed after Linda went to put on a pot of tea for her. The spoonful of liquid that Linda had forced down her throat had made her feel weak and disoriented. She hugged her pillow and began to think about her wretched situation. Not only had she lost Caid, but the baby as well. She was truly alone. She could not have the man she loved nor, apparently, could she have a reminder of the love that she’d had with him.

She turned her head toward the window where she had watched for Caid to return and tears fell anew. She could have gone with him, she thought dejectedly. She lost the baby anyway. Riding a horse on the mountainous trail to Fort Concho might have caused a miscarriage for her but at least she would have been with him and she might have even prevented Caid’s demise. And if he was truly dead, she could have died beside him, where she belonged. And they would have been together for an eternity. Instead, she was alone, truly, devastatingly, utterly…alone.

Overwhelming, life-shattering grief took over her life during that awful night of her untimely miscarriage. Hours passed as her body expelled the life-giving nutrients that the baby had thrived on for its short existence. Then, the bleeding continued, soaking the bed around her, yet she welcomed death as it knocked upon the door of her life.

Afraid to leave her in order to get Buck, Linda Blue Sky sat with her on the bed watching the blood endlessly flow out of Marty’s body, taking with it the grieving woman’s will to live. Linda was paralyzed by the fear of letting this woman die in her arms while she wrestled with the notion of running to town to get Mr. Buck. Then, when Marty slipped into unconsciousness, Linda hurried into the night to find the only man who could save her.

She beat upon the heavy front door early the next morning, having run all the way from Mrs. Marty’s farm, through Fredericksburg and down the street to Mr. Buck’s house at the other end of town. When she saw the doctor’s face, Linda threw herself into his arms and wept tears of despair, sobbing, “Mr. Buck! Mrs. Marty!”

“What about Marty?” Greta called from the top of the stairs.

Buck sent Linda into the parlor before he walked to the bottom of the steps and told her gently, “Go back to bed, my love. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Is she hurt? Is it the baby?”

Buck bounded up the stairs to his wife and he gave her a quick reassuring hug, whispering,“Shhh. Don’t you worry about anything. I’m gonna take good care of your sister.”

Instantly, he recalled telling Marty the same thing months ago when Greta had lain in agony. He tweaked her nose and said softly, “Now, get back into bed. I’ll be back later.”

Greta looked into her husband’s brown eyes and she knew that he would do his best to help her sister and if any problem that could not be fixed by Buck, it could not be fixed. She sighed and smiled, saying, “Tell her that I love her.”

“I will,” he called over his shoulder as he started back down the stairs.

“I love you, Buck.”

“I love you,” he told her as he paused to face her at the bottom of the stairs.

He called to Linda to go into the examination room next door to his office and to bring his bag of instruments, just in case, while he ran out to the barn to get the horse and buggy that he used for his doctor’s visits.

He drove Linda back to Marty’s farm where they tucked her into the buggy and sped back to his house in town. After almost an hour of working with Marty, her body was finally stabilized enough for him to take a break. He had administered laudanum for the pain and a tea of trillium, an herb useful in slowing heavy blood flow, but he was afraid that he was too late. After he waited for the herb to work, and realizing that Marty had lost too much blood, he decided to send Linda to find volunteers for a transfusion, which was the only way that Buck knew to save Marty’s life.