Chapter 9
Ringless Married Women
The malady of the cows spread and festered, like Decker’s thoughts ate away at him—sun-sickness, Willa’s reappearance, Laurie.
Laurie.
Laurie, Laurie, Laurie. Our curse or my distraction?
He was sure the sun had plunged fiery fingers into his brain, crisping any common sense beyond recognition.
Peculiarity seemed to be the tune of today, first with the damn cows and the sun sickness skipping over Decker as if deciding there were better places to be.
Stranger still was Laurie challenging the line between boldness and discretion. Attempting to invite yet holding him away.
“Do you want to know me, Decker?”
The most senseless part was that Decker hadn’t immediately laughed at the idea.
The four of them returned late that night to help Mr. Gibson—Safine, armed with eclectic treatments, Willa, carrying extra supplies, Cricket, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows and wincing at the state of the cattle, and Decker, who dug his heels into the stinking mud and got to work.
A steer bellowed as Decker caught him around the horns and wrestled him to the ground so Willa could spread Safine’s concoction on his hide. “Haven’t gotten a chance to talk much since you got here. Never thought I’d see you again outside of a grave,” he said.
Willa’s face turned stiff, unreadable. “Whitton’s to blame.”
“Jacob Whitton?” The last time Decker had seen the prestigious doctor from the Queen’s army, Whitton had been in black coattails, staring down the barrel of Willa’s flintlock.
“Somethin’ happened after we saved Grace and left that bastard at the altar. We stayed in New Orleans until Grace was old enough to be my mother. I never changed.” Willa was distant, her recollections coming out clipped. “Grace’s heart eventually gave out and I found a nice place to bury her and moved on. Still didn’t get old.”
Decker faintly remembered the soft-spoken woman that had commanded Willa’s attention. A pang of bittersweet jealousy rose in him at the privilege of growing old, but it was overshadowed by the ache of Willa here, not aged a day since he’d seen her last.
“Sorry to hear that,” he said.
Willa took a rag soaked in the solution from Safine, who had no interest in their conversation; if Decker guessed, he’d bet they knew each other well after going to Silver Creek together.
“After Grace passed there was nothing for me there, and I spent some time further south in Mexico.” Willa hesitated before she met his gaze. “I started hearing things about an old, odd fella. Sounded like Whitton. Grace said he had gone completely mad by the time we caught up to them at the church. Obsessed with replacing partsof people to live longer. He tried it with her—she had the scars to prove it.”
Decker had heard rumors of surgeons gone mad, convinced they could make a personbetter. Willa wasn’t the only one that had far outlived her age, if Jacob Whitton was still around. Maybe he’d found some truth in his hunt for immortality.
He frowned. “And you think he’s the reason you haven’t aged a day, even though he never touched you?”
“I got nothing else to go on.” The steer lowed and struggled as she scrubbed the rag across his hide. “Thought they were all shit-filled rumors until I almost caught him. He must have left the house in Santa Fe right before I found the address. Men and women carved up, missin’ things they shouldn’t,” she said, dropping her voice.
The steer scrambled up after his hide was soaked and Decker wrestled another one to the ground. Willa crouched, her tattered red coat flowing behind her like a testament to the blood she’d spilled.
Willa didn’t back down from anything—only malice and determination ever snapped through her slate-grey eyes. In the dim firelight, he thought he saw a flicker of uncertainty.
“I should have died with Grace. Next time I love a woman I want to rest with her. Maybe God’s just keeping me alive until I can find the evil bastard and put an end to it all.” The bitter smell of Safine’s concoction masked the smell of rot as Willa slathered it on the steer. “All I know is he headed North. Maybe towards that new city, Winnipeg.”
By the sound of her, even God himself wouldn’t be able to save the doctor.
Revenge is a powerful thing.
But was it enough to keep an old friend alive?
“Could be hiding out in the hills or near the old mines at Amaretto,” he said. “You’ll be leaving if you don’t find him?”
She shifted on her knees and doused a fresh rag in the wooden bucket. “Don’t tend to stay anywhere long. People start to talk.”
