Unbroken Hearts (22 page)

Chapter 20

    
Doctor Rutherford rode out to remove the
stitches in Sarah's shoulder the same morning a young cowboy named Knute Olson
was thrown from a horse and broke his leg. Ned, Bailey, and Sarah, who was in
the garden, helped the injured Knute to the shade of the porch. Just as Ned was
about to send a man for the doctor Rutherford appeared, his blue eyes assessed
the situation, and he asked Sarah to help Ned hold the man steady while he set
the bone.

    
Slight Sarah half-sat on Knute's shoulder
while Ned poured horse-choking whiskey down the man's throat. Rutherford's
strong arms yanked on the leg to set the limb straight. All the while Knute
howled.

   
"If I loved noise I'd hug you to death," Rutherford muttered
as he tied the leg to a board.

    
When he'd finished with his first patient,
Doctor Rutherford motioned Sarah to follow him into the parlor. "Ned took
that racket well. Suppose he's mortar deaf from the war?" he queried.

    
Before Rutherford could open his mouth
again Sarah made a request.

   
"Please see Mrs. Easton."

   
"My patient list keeps growing," Rutherford winked.

     
They hiked down the hall to the
kitchen, and the doctor obliged Sarah by slowly and gently examining the older
woman. He felt Mama's hands, peered into her mouth and ears, and measured the
girth of her ankles with his large hands. Then he ushered Sarah back out to the
hallway, where he talked to her at length, asking many questions about what
Mrs. Easton ate and her sleep habits. He praised Sarah for her hard work and
devotion in caring for Mrs. Easton. The kind words felt nice, but Sarah
couldn't hide her disappointment as they walked back to the parlor. He'd
offered no hope for improvement in Mrs. Easton's condition.

    
The doctor seated Sarah on the couch,
where he examined her back, and, satisfied she was healed, removed the
stitches.

    
"Where's your husband? I want to see his arm."

    
Sarah reddened. "You're mistaken,
Doctor. Mr. Easton's not my husband. I-I just work here. I was hired for Mrs.
Easton."

     
Rutherford's blue eyes briefly
studied her face.
 

    
"I see."

    
And he did. More perceptive than most with
his patients, Rutherford sensed Sarah's isolation. He heard the melancholy note
in her voice. And then he recalled, from his previous visit to the ranch, the
blatant raw desire and possessiveness in Cal's expression.
 

    
Rutherford connected the observations to
form a picture of Sarah's ranch life. It would seem the only source of womanly
advice available to young Sarah was a mute apoplectic woman.

    
Rubbing his eyes slowly he stared out the
window toward the bunkhouse. When he spoke it was a whisper.
 

    
"You have anything else you need to
ask about? As I'm a doctor, I'm pledged to keep anything you say to
myself."

    
Sarah twisted her hands together.

    
"Umm, well, there's . . . one
thing."

    
She moved her jaw open to form the words.
Then, just as quickly, she lowered her eyelashes and closed her mouth. A flush
crept up her cheeks.

     
Rutherford smiled gently at her
silent stammer. He took her clammy hand in his, acting as if he hadn't taken
notice of her nervousness.
        

   
"Go ahead. It's ok."

    
Sarah swallowed. Then she exhaled, and the
words began to surge. "Well . . . I have a friend . . . who asked me about
a matter. A man might come to town and say bad things about my friend, things
about her family and other m-men." Her glance flashed up to Rutherford's
cool ocean blue eyes, and she saw them fill with compassion. "But she, she
hasn't been like, well, not like that. She's a good person, or at least she
tries to be." The stains of scarlet deepened on her cheeks.
Can't stop
now
, she thought. She took a deep breath
and fired off the rest. "She's fond of a rancher and he wants her, but
maybe he won't believe that she's good. Not after he hears the lies. She told
him he was the first man she kissed but maybe he'll think she wasn't truthful,
especially if a mean man comes around and spreads awful, hurtful stories about
her past." She glanced at the doctor's eyes and looked away.
"Anyways, someone told her once that a man could tell somehow if she was
lying. But if there's no sure way to know, then maybe he'll never trust her,
and he'll think bad things about her if he hears those awful stories that the
mean lying person tells, even though they aren't true." Her face was now
burning crimson. She had rambled on horribly.

     
Rutherford, for his part, tried to look
as though he dealt with this particular question every day.

     
"Sounds like your friend is a
fine woman." His voice was oddly hoarse, and he paused for a moment before
he continued.
 

   
"When a man lies with a woman, and it is her first time, her body
tells him," he explained. "When he enters her he will feel resistance
and it is common to break a membrane within her to consummate the act. It can
be painful for the woman and there's likely to be some bleeding. But only that
first time. It doesn't happen the same with all women, but it is the way for
many," he said in a low voice.

    
"Oh." Sarah wiped her sweaty
palms on her skirt. "Well this might not matter."

    
"Yah?"

    
She bit her lower lip. "My friend
could be leaving soon anyway . . . but she'll be grateful for your advice. .
.
  
thanks anyway," she
added, in a forced flippant manner.

    
Rutherford frowned. "Running away
from problems doesn't solve them." Then he took her hand and gently
squeezed. His shining eyes caught hers and held them. "I'll tell you a
secret about men, Miss Anders. When a man cares for a woman it doesn't matter
what others say. If he sees goodness in her, and if she loves him, and they are
faithful unto each other, then that's all that needs to be."

    
"Oh. I-I'll be sure to tell my
friend."
 

    
"Your friend needn't worry."

     
With that Rutherford looked out the
window and caught a glimpse of Cal, his fourth patient of the day, out near the
corral, tacking a shoe onto a hoof.

    
"If you'll excuse me, I'll get on to checking Easton's arm."

                                               
*
    
*
    
*

    
Sarah was with Mrs. Easton in her room
when she heard Ned's uneven gait in the hallway.
 

    
"Miss Anders!"

    
"I'm in here," she called back.
"Please don't come in just yet."

    
Sarah was angry with herself. She'd been
busy kneading bread dough, and then Emily came into the house with a mud turtle
she'd found crawling up from the creek. Distracted, Mrs. Easton's needs had
been forgotten. The woman had soiled herself.
 

    
Sarah poured water from the pitcher into a
bowl and grabbed several washcloths and a bar of yellow soap. She gently
cleaned and dried Mrs. Easton with a towel. Then she dressed her in a fresh
skirt and stepped back into the hall.

 
   
"What is it Ned?"

    
"Oh, Emily said I should tell you not
to worry on her." He was standing right outside the room. "She went
to the barn with her kitten and her turtle."

    
Sarah didn't answer.

    
"Miss Sarah, are things ok?"

    
She walked to the doorway and sighed.
"Just a little problem." Careful to lower her voice so Mrs. Easton
wouldn't hear, she muttered, "Sometimes I get busy, and Mrs. Easton slips
my mind. I 'spose
accidents happen,
but it's so frustrating."

    
Ned understood straight away, and nodded
thoughtfully. "Why not ask her if she's needin' to relieve herself?"

     
"If only it were that simple!
Maybe you didn't notice, but the woman can't talk!"

    
Sarah's blast rolled over Ned like the
cannon fire bouncing off bluffs, and it made him to think about those echoes.
They weren't the real sound. He began to speak, slowly, as his idea formed and
released. "I seen her blink her eyes. Why not work out a code with her,
you know, somethin' like one short blink means 'yes' and one long blink means
'no'. Then you can ask her every now and again and she could tell you." It
was just like the Morse code he taught himself. Why hadn't he thought of it
before?

    
Sarah's hard expression suddenly bloomed
with springtime joy. "Yes! Ned, it could work!" Before she could stop
herself she threw her arms around him in a firm hug.

    
The duo eagerly pushed Mrs. Easton to the
porch and within minutes she was blinking 'yes' and 'no' to a barrage of
questions. Was she hungry? Was she too hot? Did she need another pillow? Each
answer Mama blinked was cause for celebration.

    
After a time Emily walked up from the side
of the barn. She forgot all about her turtle when she saw Ned and Sarah talking
excitedly to Mrs. Easton. She joined the action, but she quickly bored of the
'yes' and 'no' questions. Without an explanation Emily bolted from the porch
and ran to get her reader and slate from the table next to her bed. She
returned to Mrs. Easton's side she opened to the alphabet page and began pointing
with trembling hands.
 

    
Ned immediately understood what she was
trying to do, and he took a pencil and made Morse code marks below each letter.
Dots and dashes. Long blinks and short blinks. He explained the system to Mrs. Easton,
and within a few minutes they were translating blinks into letters on the
slate. Her first message was simple and heartfelt.
Thank you.
Sarah couldn't stop gazing at Mrs. Easton's newly
liberated blue eyes, and oh, how they were shining. Mama's next message wrung
tears from them all.
Call me Mama.

    
"She doesn't want us to call her Mrs.
Easton! Oh, oh! I have a Mama!" Emily shrieked so loudly that Ned was sure
every hand on the ten thousand acre ranch could hear her.

    
It took some time to learn how to use and
read the code. Often they could just follow Mrs. Easton's eyes and knew which
letter she was looking at without waiting for her blinks. Sometimes they could
complete a word after she blinked just a few letters. Then Emily would shout it
out, and Mrs. Easton blinked a 'yes'. The afternoon passed quickly as the
little group on the porch was wrapped in a cocoon of euphoria.

    
At first Mrs. Easton asked a lot of
questions. Would Sarah play the fiddle again? Could they read some of her favorite
Bible verses? In no time they had a small 'wish list' of things that Mrs.
Easton enjoyed, and they heartily promised that they would do everything. Mama
told a story about the day three-year-old Cal got stuck in a bucket of water.
He fell buttocks first into it, and couldn't free himself. They all laughed.
Hours flew by and mama tired. She wanted to rest before "talking"
with her sons when they returned from herding.

                                         
*
     
*
     
*

    
Emily was sitting at the parlor table
dealing practice poker with an old card deck Roy had given her. Occasionally
she peered out the parlor window. She could hear Sarah banging and poking at
the fire in the cookstove as she removed pans of bread from the oven.