The girl watched the struggled breathing dissolve into an occasional gasp and then—nothing. She knew the man who had insisted that she was Rebecca Suzanna Lantz was dead. She knew she would no longer have to listen to his diatribes of rage. Although he had never beaten her as he had her mother, she knew that she would never again have to wonder if he ever would. She knew that she would never again have to struggle with the dilemma of thinking that she should love him as she did her mother but knowing she could not make herself do it. She knew she should be sad and in the back of her mind she knew that she was afraid but all she could really think about now was, “If I want to, I can be Spring Flower now.”
Spring Flower was the Indian name her mother had given her at her birth but was never allowed to use in the presence of Deak. She saw a beauty in the name Rebecca and was somehow proud that it was hers but she felt love in the name Spring Flower.
Dodd thought it to be some kind of Indian death ritual she had learned from her mother. Pete wasn’t sure what it was but he saw that it seemed to be something she had to do so he joined her. She wasn’t even aware she was doing it until she heard Pete quietly repeating over and over with her, “Spring Flower, Spring Flower.”
Rebecca would not allow the men to bury Deak beside her mother nor would she allow them to place his grave higher on the mountain than her mother’s.
In spite of his arrogance and cruelty, Deak, in his own demented and flawed way, seemed to have cared about his daughter. He had given her a good education so that along with her polished speech, she had a store of knowledge that would, as he came to know her, amaze Dodd. He would learn that she knew and had read things that Dodd himself had not known or read until he got to Harvard. Among the things she knew and let be known immediately, however, was that God was in heaven and that heaven was beyond the sky. She would not have her father closer to God than her mother.
Ephraim Bueler’s roots were simple and painful. Despite various attempts and occasional hard work, success had always eluded his father and he became, in the minds of the less charitable of the town’s citizens, a buffoon and a laggard. Hintz Bueler was, in fact, brilliant. But, he had a tendency to give his mind to some interesting endeavor or idea and the business or the farm, whichever way he was currently trying to make a living, were simply forgotten.
Since his father was thought to be a fool, the children of the town assumed that Ephraim was also a fool. The fact that he outdid them in school was ignored and young Ephraim was subjected to ridicule that ate at his very soul and filled him with anger and a passion for vengeance.
He left his small Pennsylvania town at fourteen. He went to Philadelphia, eventually worked his way through law school and became a very successful lawyer. Then, after several years at the height of a brilliant career, he sold his practice and returned to the town of his birth.
He now had only one goal in life: to humiliate and destroy those who had ridiculed him as a child. He had for years been planning his tactics. He opened a law practice and was very generous with his time and his money. He became known for his willingness to take pro bono or at a greatly reduced fee the legal cases of the town’s less fortunate. He became a leader of the community and a deacon of the church. He was now accepted and even respected by those who had once ridiculed him.
He was now in a position to make his move. Through legal maneuvering and financial bullying, he was able to ruin the businesses of some. He bought the debts of others and at the slightest breach of the contracts he put them out of their homes or off their farms. Every person he went after he was able to get and he began to believe that he was invincible.
Ephraim saved his ultimate insult for the man who was now the pastor of the church. As a child the man had not been particularly cruel to Ephraim but he sometimes did a bit better in school. He had beaten Ephraim in the spelling bee when they were ten and had won the essay contest when they were thirteen. Ephraim seethed at not always being the best and over the years he had nurtured a hatred toward him. When he had first returned to his birthplace, the hatred intensified because he perceived the preacher to be the most respected man in town. Ephraim’s vengeance would not be complete until he had destroyed the preacher.
But there was no financial way to destroy him. He lived in the manse and owned no property and had no financial investments. He did, however, have a wife.
The seduction was well planned and painstakingly executed. It took over a year of flattery, innuendo of her husband’s infidelity and pathetic lies of his own wife’s coldness to him and remote suggestions that it was she with whom the preacher was being unfaithful. When she finally succumbed to his amorous advances Ephraim knew he’d won his final victory. They had carried on their clandestine affair for about a month before Ephraim arranged to have the preacher discover them. The expression on the preacher’s face, at finding his wife passionately and willingly participating in adultery was Ephraim’s revenge. He thought he was now satisfied. He did, however, get an unexpected bonus. Two hours later the preacher was found hanging from the bell rope in the church narthex.
But Ephraim had not won. Elmaria Baker, his paramour, proved as devious and cruel as he. She demanded money which Ephraim refused to give. She threatened to disclose their affair but Ephraim found the idea of his final triumph being made public pleasing and encouraged her to do so. She did, but in such a way that Ephraim had to flee for his life.
She said that she had never wanted to disclose her shame but had come to believe that God wanted her to be truthful. Her husband had not committed suicide. Ephraim Bueler had raped her and was caught in the act by her husband. Ephraim had strangled her husband and had tied him to the bell rope to cover his crime. She prayed that the town’s people would understand why she had not come forward at the time of his death but grief and shame had clouded her thinking. Only now had God lifted the cloud and shown her her duty.
Her story was ingenious and Ephraim knew he had no goodwill left in that town. She would be believed and he would be hung. He headed west, took the name of Herman Lantz and became a drunkard and a thief. He took pleasure in again outwitting the respected citizens and in further antagonizing them by flaunting his education. He openly boasted of his escapades with the town’s prostitutes and took additional pleasure from flaunting that decadence and boasting that he had once been the leading deacon in a large Boston church. He chose his own nickname. He told folks he wanted to be called Deak. He knew that would offend the religious of the community.
He bought a Shoshone squaw, built a ramshackle cabin in the mountains, stole cattle, became more and more arrogant, demented and cruel. He did only one decent thing the remainder of his life. He saw to the education of his daughter, Rebecca. But even that was not done with decent or considerate intent. She was his daughter and he educated her, not for her benefit, but to prove that anything Bueler was superior.
Rebecca wanted nothing from the cabin. She did not know Pete’s story but there was something about Dodd and all of the men that made her know she would be taken care of. While Deak was in the process of dying, she had thought she would go to her mother’s people but that thought was not a comfort to her.
Rebecca never knew what, but something in her mother’s past had made them less than welcome when they had visited the village. They had gone only when her grandmother died and again when her grandfather had died. The people of the village seemed to feel it necessary that her mother be there for the death rituals but, even at her very early age, Rebecca had known they were merely tolerated, not really welcome guests. In a way she wished her father had not been so afraid of her mother’s two brothers who had come each time to tell her of the deaths. Had Deak not been afraid of Indians, he never would have let them go.
Now, Rebecca gave no thought to going to the village and she wanted no memory of her life in the cabin. It was on public land and Roker really had no right, but the stink and the filth of the place were such that he suggested burning it down. Dodd thought that a good idea but he could not bring himself to allow the books to be destroyed. The library in that filthy, ramshackle place was unbelievable. There was everything from simple children’s readers and ciphering books to compete works of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Ben Jonson along with several anthologies. There were Latin texts and assorted law books. Rebecca had no idea where Deak had gotten them. Ever so often, he just turned up with another book. They had been the basis of Rebecca’s education and a life she wished now to forget. If Dodd wanted the books he could have them. She was sure there were other books somewhere in Nevada. These she wanted nothing to do with. They had on them the smell of death and the aura of degradation.
Dodd, not yet knowing what was to become of Rebecca, honored her wish and allowed the books to go with the rest of the cabin. He knew he was not going to abandon her and he even thought that she might also be a welcome member of Jared’s family. If she were to go with him and Pete, the books would be a constant reminder of what she obviously needed to forget.
Rebecca watched the cabin burn with expressionless face. When she was satisfied that it would be completely gone, she turned and started down the mountain toward Roker’s land. She said nothing. Pete and the four men followed in silence.
Dodd felt the responsibility for the girl should be his. He had killed her father and it was the fact that he had been shot by Dodd that led to Deak’s killing of the girl’s mother. He knew that he could not keep her in the cabin. There were no provisions for privacy in a line shack and there would be at least three more weeks of roundup and branding work in that area. The men, though lately somewhat tempered by Pete’s presence, were crude in their behavior and their talk and Dodd, frankly, did not trust some of them around a little girl. By the time they were back at the river, Dodd had decided to tell Roker that he was very sorry but he could not honor his promise. He would have to take Pete and Rebecca and go home.
Before Dodd could say anything, however, Roker said, “Well, you fellas better get your supper before Pedro throws it out. I’m gonna take Becky home to Harriet.”
The blood drained from Rebecca’s face and with it, the impassive expression of resignation and composure. Her face showed bewilderment and a touch of fear as she glanced at Pete. Pete’s face, too, showed a hint of apprehension and disappointment. But Pete also understood that this was no place for a girl and he had become very comfortable with Jess Roker. He knew him to be a kind and caring man. Pete didn’t know Harriet but if Roker lived with her, she had to be some like him. Pete liked the name Jess had called the girl so he used it when he reassuringly said, “You’re gonna be fine, Becky. These is good people. You go on with Mr. Roker. I’ll see if Dodd will let me come to see you in a couple of days.”
Pete usually had no problem going to sleep now that he was working and playing hard again. He usually crawled into his bedroll on the floor beside Dodd’s bunk without being told and was asleep by dark. Dodd generally waited until he was sure Pete was sleeping and then went to where the rest of the crew was sitting around the last of the cook fire.
The palaver was just about to break up the night of Lantz’s death when Pete came walking into the circle.
“What you doin’ up boy? Watchin’ that man die spook you?”
Billy Whitt was on his feet and about to knock Lyman Garvin flying. Cleaver said, “You do, and you’re both fired.” Billy backed off but he wasn’t done.
“Takes a hell of a man to put down a boy. You must be damn proud of yourself, Garvin. ’Course, puttin’ him down is the only way you can come close to matchin’ him. He’s ’leven and already a damn site better man than you are.”
“Hell, Billy. I was just funnin’ the kid.”
“Well, that ain’t no way to fun. Anyone with an ounce of sense, which you ain’t got, would know that boy’s got something on his mind or he wouldn’t be out here.” Cleaver was almost as angry as Billy. “You do him like that again, I’ll let Billy whip you and when he gets done, I’ll fire your ass.”
There was a Garvin in every crew—short on smart and long on mouth. The men usually put up with him but about once a week he’d run his mouth until he had the entire crew furious and it was only Roker’s orders that kept him sound of body and perhaps even alive. Garvin wasn’t much of a worker but he was a better than average hand with a rope and Roker needed every man he could get. Roker had told Cleaver to keep the men off Garvin.
Pete went right to Dodd. “Can’t you sleep, Pete?”
“You reckon Becky’s all right?”
“I reckon so. Think about it a minute. She’s sleepin’ in the first real bed she ever slept in in her life and…”
“You can be layin’ on a cloud and still not sleepin’. I reckon I should have gone with her.”
“I’m real proud of your caring feeling, Pete, but Mrs. Roker has raised five girls and three boys. I reckon she knows children and will see to Becky’s feelings. Come on. Let’s you and me go on back to the shack and bed down.”
As they walked back to the shack, Dodd said, “Pete, you are something. You can be ornery as dirt and as caring as an angel. Like I said, I’m very proud of you and I love you, you little dickens.”
Pete wrapped his arms around Dodd and squeezed with all his might. Dodd hugged back and said, “You’re doing very well at learning to trust folks. You just trust Mrs. Roker with Becky. Let her do the worrying if there’s any to be done. You can care about Becky but you don’t have to take care of her. You be a boy and let us grown folks do whatever taking care of needs to be done.”
The next few days were extremely hot and the work became both drudgery and physically draining. Men were tired and tempers became raw. To add greatly to the discomfort, Lyman Garvin had found a raw nerve and, while Pete wasn’t the focus of his intent to antagonize, he became the tool. Garvin knew that Pete had become a favorite of most of the men and by tormenting Pete, Garvin was able to get his desired reaction. He felt Cleaver would allow no reprisals but he was still careful not to bother Pete when Roker, Cleaver or Dodd were around.
Pete said nothing to Dodd. He had dealt with this sort thing before and although he found himself getting more angry because he had now known respect and protection, he still felt it was his problem and it was not nearly so bad as what he had put up with with Laker.
Garvin started by going into the details of his encounters with women, but only when Pete was around to hear. Billy had warned Garvin to watch his mouth but it made no difference. Billy needed his job but he felt it more important to make the coward stop harassing Pete. He was about to take care of Garvin, Cleaver’s threat or no, but it wasn’t necessary. During one particularly sordid soliloquy, Pete said, “You’re a dumbass, Garvin. I ain’t that old and I don’t know that much about whores and such but I reckon it’s the same with whores as it is with most other things. Them that can, do. Them that can’t, make up stupid, goddam lies.”
Garvin was laughed out of camp and for the next several days was heckled by the other men. They’d ask him several times a day if he had any more stories he wanted to tell Pete.
Garvin’s viciousness then became covert and directly pointed at Pete. If someone happened to be around he would feign an accident. He would stick out his foot and trip the boy as he walked past or inadvertently, as he turned around, just happen to elbow Pete in the ribs.
But several times over the next couple of days, Garvin was able to catch Pete alone. He would threaten. He would say that he was going to catch a scorpion and put it in Pete’s boot. He would say things like, “Be a real bad thing if Dodd fell off his horse in front of a stampede. I can make that happen and I just might.” Garvin knew enough not to leave any marks on Pete’s body but his constant cruelty was beginning to leave marks on his spirit. Dodd was confused by Pete’s sudden sullenness.
Pete was also confused. He wanted to tell Dodd but he had heard the men needling Garvin about having to be protected by Cleaver and Roker. Pete knew that Garvin was a coward and he took that to mean that only a coward depended on someone else to protect them.
Actually, Garvin himself solved the problem. The crew was eating one evening, sitting on the ground, leaning against wagon wheels, saddles or whatever they could find to lean against. Pete put his plate on the ground and went to the chuck to get more water. Garvin got up, and again feigning accident, stepped in Pete’s food.
That was enough. Pete flew into a rage. He ran at Garvin, jumped on his back, held on with one arm around Garvin’s neck and swung wildly with the other. “I had all your ragging and bullshit I’m gonna take.” He was about to call Garvin a goddam son-of-a bitch but he caught himself just in time. He remembered Dodd was there and he had learned well by now that Dodd would no longer overlook any profanity from him.
Dodd pulled Pete from Garvin’s back and reprimanded him. “Pete, now, you calm down. That was just an accident.”
Pete tried to pull away to get back at Garvin. Dodd held him and Pete wasn’t asking for protection when he said, “Sure it was. It was the same kind of accident as when he trips me or punches me in the ribs or when he tells me he’s gonna see to it that you fall off your horse and get run over to death by stampedin’ cattle.” No, Pete wasn’t asking for protection. He was asking for understanding as to why he was still trying to pull away from Dodd to get back at Garvin.
Billy Whitt was on Garvin right now. It’s possible he would have killed Garvin, had not Dodd pulled him off. Roker told Garvin to get his gear and get off his land right now.
Pete went to Dodd and hugged him. He held on for a long time and Dodd, knowing the boy needed his comfort right then, hugged tightly also. Finally, when he felt Pete relaxing Dodd asked, “Pete, why didn’t you tell me? You know, don’t you, I’d have never let those things happen to you?”
“I know that but I ain’t no coward.”
“Well, of course you’re not a coward. Why do you say that?”
“I heard the boys tellin’ Garvin only thing that kept them off him was he was protected by Mr. Cleaver and Mr. Roker. I ain’t no coward. I don’t need nobody protectin’ me.”
“Pete, what the boys said was right for a man. You’re a boy, Pete, and a boy needs to be protected now and then. The other problem here is that I love you boy, and I need to protect you. Won’t you let me do that?”
For the first time since he was with Dodd, Pete cried. He buried his face in Dodd’s belly, hugged tight and sobbed out his frustration and relief—and his love for the man.
Garvin had rolled his bedroll out behind some rocks on the mountain side of the river at the spot where he knew Pete would be sent for water in the morning. He owned no horse so not being seen was no problem. He watched Dodd and Pete leave the shack and head for breakfast. Since the branding work was being done near their shack, Pete and Dodd had taken their meals with the crew. It was a relief for Dodd. He wasn’t a particularly good cook, didn’t much like to do it, and was worried as to whether he was feeding Pete right. Pedro’s food was good eating and it kept the crew working hard so it must be good for Pete.
Pete liked it too all except for the fact that Dodd insisted on roping some range cow, milking her and making Pete drink milk. Pete didn’t like that for two reasons. He was the only one who had to drink milk and he knew that only the babies at the orphanage got milk. He thought drinking milk would make the men on the crew think he was a baby. The other reason was it tasted terrible. Dodd made him drink some in the cafe that first morning but it was cold. Milk don’t taste that bad cold but when it’s warm, milk is awful.
He knew that Dodd was a doctor and that doctors are supposed to know what’s good for you but, as much as he loved Dodd, he sometimes wished one of those cows would catch Dodd with one of her kicks—not to bad, just enough to make Dodd think that milking those half-wild cows wasn’t such a good idea.
Garvin knew that Pete would be sent to the river for water so that Pedro could wash up the dishes. He could smell the bacon and his urge for vengeance was escalated by his hunger.
Pete had filled the four water skins and had them hung on his saddle horn when Garvin showed himself. “Good mornin’, you little asshole.” Garvin thought just the sight of him would scare Pete.
Pete couldn’t remember where he’d heard it but it fit now. “Takes one to know one.”
Garvin was furious. He was too arrogant to know when his foolishness had been pointed out by a grown man but he knew that this child had gotten the better of him and the fact that the boy wasn’t afraid of him sent him berserk. He ran into the river toward Pete swinging his rope. Pete knew that if Garvin wanted to hurt him, he could, so he mounted up. Just as he kicked the paint into a gallop, Garvin’s loop settled around Pete’s belly and drew tight as the horse moved away.
At first Garvin had trouble holding himself steady in the water but then his feet caught a little ledge which braced him and Pete was pulled backward off the horse. The horse galloped on toward the camp and Pete lay motionless on the rocks.
Garvin didn’t check. It looked like the boy had hit his head on the rocky river bank and Garvin was sure he was dead. He also knew that the horse was probably at the camp by now and that someone would soon come looking for Pete. Garvin didn’t even take time to retrieve his rope. He moved faster than he ever had while working for Roker. He didn’t look back. He was sure that if Billy Whitt or one of the other hands found him, they’d beat him to death.
Pedro was old and partly crippled from a gunshot wound he’d taken in the hip years earlier. When Pete’s riderless horse galloped into camp, Pedro thought first of Garvin. All the men had headed off to the morning’s work already but they couldn’t have gotten too far. Pedro’s run was more like a hop-and-drag-a-foot but if you’d been there, you’d never have believed that he could have gotten to the wagon that fast. He fired both barrels of his ten gauge into the air.
Dodd’s heart sank when he saw Pete, still lying on the rocky bank. From a distance, it looked like the boy’s head was in the water and Dodd couldn’t tell if he was lying on his belly or his back. If he was on his belly, he was dead, if not from whatever made him fall, he was drowned.
Actually it was the water that had probably saved Pete’s life. The water and the fact that his side had hit a large protruding rock which held up his upper body and caused his backside to hit the ground first and absorb much of the force of the fall before his head hit. The water was only about six inches deep where Pete’s head hit but it was enough to cushion the impact and save his life but not enough to keep the boy from being knocked unconscious.
Dodd yelled for someone to get that leather bag hanging from the rafters of the shack. He ran to Pete, relieved to see the boy lying on his back. He lifted Pete’s head and felt tears on his face when the boy moaned. He was alive.
Dodd noticed blood on the side of Pete’s shirt. With his knife, he cut away the shirt and let out his breath in a sigh of relief. It was only a large contusion, a scrape. When Dodd had first seen the blood, he was sure the boy had been shot.
Dodd needed to hold Pete. Uncle Henry’s words flashed across his mind—”I don’t want you to get to be an old man like I am and have only the heartbreaking memories of what you lost.” Relief that things were not as bad as they first seemed and his paternalism wanted to hold the boy close but his medical knowledge prevented him from doing so. If Pete had scraped that rock hard enough to cause that large a contusion, he probably had some broken ribs.
Dodd was torn between his desire to be Pete’s protector and comforter and the need to be his doctor. He wanted to continue to hold the boy but he needed to treat him. He had felt his head, felt no large bump and was quite sure that there was no serious concussion or skull fracture. Pete would soon regain consciousness and Dodd wanted to be holding him when he did. But he knew that if Pete did have broken ribs, while he remained unconscious Dodd could wrap him much better and without much conscious pain to Pete. It was then he realized that Roker was kneeling beside him in the water, as was Billy on the other side of Pete. To Billy Dodd said, “Take him very gently, Billy, then give him to Jess. I need to be on that side of him to work. I think he has broken ribs.”
Pete was gently handed back and forth while Dodd took off his own shirt and again knelt beside the boy. For the first time he noticed the rope, Dodd cut it and pulled it away and very gently slid his shirt under Pete’s body. The shirt was big enough that he could wrap it almost twice around Pete and he was somewhat relieved again. It wasn’t the best bandage, but it would help hold the ribs in place until he could get better. He tore Pete’s shirt in strips and tied them around the boy to hold the larger bandage in place. He got his work done just in time. The last few gentle turns of Pete’s body had caused the boy to moan and try to push Dodd’s hands away. He was feeling the pain.
Pete was regaining consciousness but Dodd knew that it would take a while before he was completely awake. He was concerned about Pete’s pain but did not want to give him laudanum until he was awake enough to swallow properly. If some of the liquid happened to go down Pete’s wind pipe the gagging or coughing could cause further damage to his ribs or even to his lungs. Dodd felt by the way Pete was breathing that there was no lung damage now and the ribs seemed to be positioned in such a way that a broken end would not puncture a lung but Dodd wasn’t taking any chances.
Dodd instructed some of the men to pull the door off the shack and when it was brought, Dodd, Billy and Jess carefully placed Pete on it. He could now be loaded on the wagon and taken to Roker’s house without their having to further handle his body directly. Dodd asked four men, one of them the very worried Billy, to get into the chuck wagon. He asked two to sit toward the front and two to sit toward the back, their backs against either side of the wagon, facing each other. The shack door on which Pete was lying was carefully loaded onto the wagon and placed on the men’s extended legs. Dodd asked the men to bend their knees slightly and allow them to act as a kind of spring to absorb the bumps and jolts. These were very strong men and the five mile trip to the main house, holding up their share of an eighty-pound boy, was for them an ordeal but one willingly accepted. Each of the men ached for days afterward but it was the proudest ache of their lives.
Dodd sat beside Pete’s head, stroking his hair and feeling guilty that the boy was his to protect and this had happened. He spoke quietly, “I’m sorry Pete. This is the last thing in the world I wanted for you.”
Roker, sitting on the spring seat with Pedro turned and said, “Ease off on yourself, Dodd. You couldn’t keep the boy in your pocket. Boys get hurt. Mine did and I reckon I know how you feel but the boy needs you to be cheery and comfortin’ when he wakes up. He don’t need you tellin’ him how sorry you are and lookin’ it too. He won’t understand you right off anyway. You actin’ and lookin’ all sorry when he wakes up, gonna worry the boy. He needs you actin’ cheery so he won’t think he’s worse hurt than he is.”
Roker was right. Dodd understood now why they had been advised during medical training that it was not wise to treat your own children. One would get parenting and doctoring all mixed up.
Pete was trying to stop Garvin from taking his water skins. He could hear Dodd telling him that he was going to be all right and that he loved him but Pete couldn’t figure why he wasn’t helping him with Garvin. He could hear Billy’s and other voices but no one helped him with Garvin. He tried to yell but he stopped himself. He was going to give Garvin a good cussing but he knew Dodd was somewhere around and he knew that if he cussed he’d get in trouble. He could still hear Dodd but he couldn’t see him so he decided to yell for Dodd’s help.
“Help me, Dodd!”
Pete felt Dodd’s hand on his cheek. “I’m here Pete. Just lie still and you’ll be all right.”
Pete opened his eyes. Dodd’s face was right above him. Pete had never seen that look on Dodd’s face and Dodd had tears in his eyes. “You hurt?”
“No, Pete, but you are. Please lie still. You’re going to be fine but you have to lie still.”
Pete became aware that he was in a wagon and that other people were in there with Dodd and him. He also became aware that his head hurt some and his side hurt terribly. “Where we goin’? What happened?” Pete could remember nothing of the event or the illusion while he was regaining consciousness.
“Someone roped you and pulled you off your horse. I think you may have broken some ribs and you hit your head on the rocks. That knocked you out. You’re going to be all right but you have to try to lie still. Your side will hurt for a few days and you’ll probably have a headache for several days but you’re going to be fine. We’re going to Roker’s. I’ll stay with you a day or two but then Mrs. Roker will look after you until you’re better.”
“You gonna leave me?”
“Just until you’re better, Pete. We’re short men and the work won’t wait. Do you remember Becky?”
“Ya?” Pete’s answer was a question because he couldn’t think why Dodd would ask such a question. Becky just went to Roker’s—he really couldn’t remember when but, of course, he remembered her.
“Well, you wanted to go see Becky. Now you’ll get to spend two weeks with her, maybe more. Do you remember what happened at the river?”
“I went swimmin’.”
“No, I mean this morning when you went for water.”
Pete got a pained, almost frightened look on his face. He couldn’t remember anything about this morning. He remembered Roker running Garvin off and he remembered going to bed but after that—nothing. Dodd saw his uneasiness. “Don’t worry about it Pete. When you get a hard bump on the head like you had, it takes a while for things to come back to you. You’ll remember so don’t try too hard now. You just think about getting better.”
“I know that rope. It was…”
Dodd shook his head at Billy. Pete didn’t need to know what happened to him now. He’d remember when the remembering wouldn’t be so frightening. Billy understood.
As Pete regained consciousness, Dodd talked gently and soothingly to him, admonishing him not to try to move and assuring him that he was going to be all right. It would be several days before Pete completely remembered what happened and even though he was confused and a little worried that he couldn’t remember, he knew he was all right now. Dodd was there.
When Dodd was satisfied that Pete was completely awake he gave him a dose of Laudanum. Pete was soon sleeping.
Copyright © 2003 Gordon L. Klopfenstein