Alaskan Brides: Gold Rush Baby Part 11

"What's that mean?"

Thomas gave him a sour look. "It means I'm in a foul mood."

Teena carried a tray of bandaging material to the table, looked up at him. "I think it means you have pain in your heart."

Did the woman sense everything? He took a breath and made an effort to get his boiling emotions under control.

"Well, he's going to have pain in this shoulder for sure." Jacob held his hands over another bowl, rubbed them together as Teena poured liquid from the bottle over them. "I can't say what damage you've done yet, Thomas. But judging from your pain on moving your arm, I would say it's extensive. You're going to have to stay in town again until it's healed. And that may take quite some time. I hope whatever you were fighting over was worth it."

Thomas glanced at the people waiting for treatment and clamped his jaw to keep from spewing out the whole story. Evelyn Harris would spread the news about Viola soon enough, and the malicious gossip would start. She would be so hurt....

He shoved away the thought and stared down at the knot on the floor to erase the image of the hurt in her eyes when he'd turned away from her. Now all he needed was something that would erase her from his heart.

She couldn't stop shaking. Or thinking. Oh, if only she could stop thinking. She winced, sucked in a breath.

"Sorry, Viola. That cut's a deep one. But the dried blood's cleaned off now." Hattie dropped the cloth into the basin of water and picked up the jar of salve.

"Unhh-" Viola bit off the moan, clenched her hands, and sat unflinching as Hattie spread the salve on the gash at the hairline of her temple.

"Mayhap you should go to the clinic an' see Doc Calloway. This one might need st.i.tches."

"No. I'll be fine. I've had worse." She shuddered, rubbed at the scar on the edge of her hand below her little finger. She would heal, and a jagged scar was better than exposing her swollen cheek and split, swollen lips to the stares of the crowd of people waiting to be treated at the clinic. With hundreds of stampeders pa.s.sing through town daily, on their way to and from the gold fields, the place was always busy to overflowing, even in the evening.

And Thomas might be there still. He had witnessed enough of her past life tonight to make him turn from her. She could not bear to suffer his rejection again. Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away.

"Which one of them give you that? Dengler or Dolph?"

She looked up. Hattie nodded toward the scar she was ma.s.saging. "It was Dengler. The second time I ran away." Her throat tightened.

"Second time, huh?" Hattie squeezed water out of the cloth, dabbed at the split skin along her jaw. "I'm guessin' that ain't all he give you."

"No." She tried to hold back the shudder, failed.

"You must have been awful valuable to him, Viola. A woman beautiful as you would be a real moneymaker." Hattie dropped the cloth back in the basin and dipped her k.n.o.bby, arthritic finger in the salve. "I never had that problem. First off, I worked for a 'madam'-not that she didn't slap her girls around when they got out of line. But I was always one of the last ones chosen-'cept when my regulars come in. So she pretty much left me alone."

The shock traveled in small, tingling spurts all the way to her toes. Sore as it was, her mouth gaped open. "You were a prost.i.tute?"

"Yep. Twenty-some years. Hold still." Hattie applied more salve, frowned. "Can't do nothin' 'bout them splits in your lips. Best thing will be to hold somethin' cold on them. It'll help the swellin' some, too. Good thing the good Lord gives us ice year round up here." She put the cover on the salve, snapped the bale in place and padded across the room, her moccasins whispering against the puncheon floor.

Viola turned on her chair, watched Hattie kneel down in front of the hutch that held their dishes and flatware and lift out the two short, wide, floorboards covering the hole where they cached their perishable foods. Hattie...a lady of the evening. No wonder she had taken Goldie and slipped out the back door to get help when Dengler pushed his way into the house. She understood about men like Dengler and Dolph. Who ever would have guessed? Hattie was a wonderful Christian woman. One of the staunchest she'd ever met.

Hattie's chubby, flannel-covered arm jerked up and down. She listened to the thwack...thwack...thwack of the hatchet biting into the ice that was always beneath the cabin and tried to comprehend what seemed, to her, impossible. She now understood why Hattie was so...accepting and nonjudgmental in the face of all that had happened. But what had happened to Hattie? How had she changed her life?

She turned back to the table as Hattie covered the hole and returned carrying a few, small chunks of ice-fought the desire to ask questions. Hattie's past was none of her business. But the questions were quivering on her tongue, the need to know what had happened to change Hattie burning in her heart. And Hattie must have brought it up for a purpose. Hattie always had a purpose. She sighed and gave in. She was too battered and exhausted to fight her need to know. "Did you run away, too?"

"Me? No." Hattie squeezed the water from the cloth, smoothed it out on the table then folded the ice chunks in it. "Here hold this on your mouth. The left side's worst."

She lifted the cloth to her face, winced as it touched her swollen cheek and mouth. "What happened? How did you leave?" The words were thick and slurred. It was hard to form them correctly with her lips so distended and painful.

"Charley." Hattie picked up the washbowl, padded across the room and dumped the b.l.o.o.d.y water into the bucket beneath the dry sink. She swished clean water around in the bowl, dumped it out and carried the bucket to the back door.

Viola's breath caught. "Don't open the door!" Her stomach roiled. She braced against the chair, ready to leap to her feet.

"Not going to." Hattie shot her a sympathetic look. "I'm just settin' the bucket here 'til mornin'."

"Oh. I-I should have realized." She moved the pad of ice a little higher to ease the throbbing in her temples. "I'm sorry for yelling, Hattie. I'm...nervous." Should she tell her about Karl? No, she would not burden her with that knowledge. She'd been through enough tonight.

"You got a right to be. A good hot cup of tea might soothe you some." The iron teakettle clanked against the stove. "Like I said, I never was real pretty, and I was gettin' older and bigger." Hattie patted her round hips and plunked down into the chair opposite her. "More and more of the customers were pa.s.sin' me over. Truth is, I was gettin' a mite worried 'bout what I would do when I couldn't ply my trade. And then Charley came in."

There was a smile in Hattie's voice. She searched the elderly woman's face. Yes, she definitely had a purpose.

"He looked over all them pretty young girls, doffed his hat, walked up to me and smiled. On our third time together he asked me would I marry him." Hattie fixed a sober gaze on her. "I wasn't never sorry I said yes. We said our vows in a church and then kept goin' back. Charley turned into a good Christian man, and he never once threw up my past to me."

A good Christian man. Thomas. Thomas was Hattie's purpose. But that could never be. Thomas was a man of G.o.d, called to lead others to the Lord. She had never hoped for a future with him. Not even after-after she knew she cared for him. Her past would destroy his ministry. But she had so wanted to have his...regard. The ache that crushed her heart was worse than all the pain in her body. She swallowed back a rush of tears and moved the cloth higher on her throbbing temple.

Sewing was impossible. So was sleep. And prayer.

Prayer? What was the use?

Viola wrapped her sore arms around her aching ribs, turned from the window and resumed her pacing. Obviously, she did not know how to recognize G.o.d's answers to prayer. She stopped, stared at the sampler she had worked: "With men it is impossible, but not with G.o.d, for with G.o.d all things are possible." She had been so certain-and so wrong. If G.o.d had wanted her to come to Treasure Creek and start a new life, why would He have let Dengler find her? Why would He let everything she had so carefully built be destroyed? And it would be.

She turned from the sampler, looked around the living room, walked to her bedroom door. This small log cabin was her home. She had bought it with money she had earned working in Dengler's "house." And now she would lose it because she had been a harlot. I expect you will do your job, Sheriff. Treasure Creek is a G.o.d-centered town with no place for the likes of her!

She put her hand on her stomach, took a deep breath to ease the nausea. Evelyn Harris was a terrible gossip. By tomorrow night every member of the church, every citizen of Treasure Creek, would know about her past. Over and over again, on the face of every person she knew, she would see the disgust, the judgment that found her guilty and the cold distance it created. And she would have to face the hurt and rejection she had seen in Thomas's eyes.

Tears welled, overflowed and slipped down her cheeks, stung the cuts on her face. She could not blame Evelyn Harris for wanting the sheriff to throw her out of town. It was clear she did not belong in a G.o.d-centered town like Treasure Creek. But what of Goldie? What if her father returned and found his baby gone? And what of Hattie? Where would Hattie live? Who would feed and shelter her?

The tears flowed faster, sobs built to a pressure in her chest she could not contain. She sank down onto the side of her bed, s.n.a.t.c.hed a pillow and, heedless of the pain, pressed it to her face to cover the sounds of her breaking heart. She had tried so hard to be good. Tried so hard to live a G.o.dly life since leaving Seattle. She wanted so much to be clean, to be free of the horrible stigma of her past. "Oh, G.o.d, I am so sorry. So sorry for what I have been...for what I have done. Please, please forgive me. And please show me what to do. Help me. I don't know what to do."

Thomas moved slowly through the darkness under the trees, brus.h.i.+ng aside branches with his good arm, turning sideways and inching forward in tight spots to protect his injured shoulder. Exhaustion from the day's events and the loss of blood dragged at him. But there was no question of sleep for him tonight. Not when there was a possibility Dengler may have more than one man like Dolph with him. They wouldn't answer when Ed questioned them about that. Dengler and Dolph had only smiled.

His hands flexed at the memory. He'd wanted to rip the smirks right off their faces! Satisfied that there was no one lurking in the woods, he stepped into a small clear area and glanced at Viola's cabin. No good. He needed to find a spot where he would have an un.o.bstructed view of both the front and back doors. He moved on through the copse, feeling his way through the gloomy light, his mood at one with the darkness that surrounded him.

He b.u.mped into a low-hanging branch of a fir tree, ducked to go under it and found the perfect place. The fir made a triangle with the two doors, and the feathery branches would hide him from the sight of anyone approaching the cabin. He s.h.i.+vered, pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck, and sat, leaning his back against the trunk of the tree in as comfortable a position as the pain in his shoulder would allow. The weight of the pistol in his right pocket skewed the bottom of his jacket sideways. He tugged the jacket into place and pulled his knees up, letting the pistol rest in the V his body formed.

His shoulder throbbed, his arm ached. He stared through the branches at the cabin. The windows were dark. Was Viola able to sleep? Or was she in too much pain? His muscles twitched with the desire to go to her, to hold her and comfort her. His heart hurt with the desire to have her safe in his arms. But that was never to be. Love had never been a possibility between them because of his commitment to the Tlingits. And it was out of the question now. But he would still watch over her. No matter what she was, she didn't deserve to be beaten.

You're going to have to stay in town again until it's healed. And that may take quite some time.

He sucked in air, expelled it. Did it again. What did it all mean? Everything that had happened-his finding that injured miner and bringing him to the clinic the day Goldie was kidnapped; Viola running into him when she was looking for Mack Tanner; his being wounded and forced to stay in her cabin and accept her care; the uneasiness that had sent him to her cabin tonight and now this new injury to his wound that would keep him in town again. Was it all coincidence? Was it all so that he was here tonight to protect her? What did it mean?

He scrubbed his hand through his hair, glanced up through the branches to the purple and gold midnight sky, then again fastened his gaze on Viola's cabin. Every time he went back to his work with the Indians and the miners, something brought him back to Treasure Creek. Was G.o.d leading him onto a new path? Or was it all for Viola's sake? What if he hadn't been here tonight?

He took a breath, shoved his hand in his pocket and clasped the grip of the pistol.

Viola a prost.i.tute.

The acrid churning in his gut started all over again.

Chapter Fifteen.

"I did not steal any money from Richard Dengler, Sheriff." Viola formed her words as best she could. Her lips had become more swollen, her bruised facial muscles stiffer overnight. She ignored the pain in her ribs, kept her back straight and refused to look away, lest Ed Parker think her reluctance to meet his steady gaze was caused by guilt, not shame. "He never paid me the...wages...he promised me. Not in five years." She took a breath, kept her head high despite the roiling sourness in her stomach. "I took the money owed me when I left. Not a penny more. I want nothing from that man."

Ed Parker nodded, frowned. "Did he ask about Goldie's gold?"

"Yes. When I told him I did not have the money he accused me of stealing, he said he would take Goldie's gold in place of it."

"Did he threaten Goldie?"

She clenched her hands, ma.s.saged the scar and waited for the tautness in her throat to ease. "He told Dolph to get her. I tried to bar his way. I told him to leave Goldie alone, that I would give him the gold, but it wasn't here."

"That when he did that to you?" He fastened his eyes on her face, dipped his head.

"Dolph? Yes. He...threw me against the wall." The bands around her chest and throat tightened. The old feeling of suffocating made her heart pound. She tried to breathe normally. "Dengler had already...hit me. They both hit me again...later."

"When you tried to warn Thomas to run?"

She nodded, blinked to hide the tears stinging her eyes. "Yes. And when I...tried to stop Dolph from...going into the kitchen."

"You thought Hattie and Goldie were hiding in there?"

She nodded again, tugged at the collar of her dress, managed a shallow breath, then another.

"Well, that all fits with what Hattie, Thomas and Frankie told me. And that's enough for me to have those plug-uglies locked up over to Skaguay for quite a while. And when their time's done there, I'll personally see to it they're put on a s.h.i.+p back to Seattle. And the mayor and I will let the ferry and supply boat captains know they're never to give them pa.s.sage to Treasure Creek again-lest they want their boats barred from our harbor. We don't need Dengler's kind hanging around our town." He hesitated, turned his hat in his hands, then looked down at her. "I got one more question. Has Dengler got any more men like Dolph working for him, or is he the only one?"

The sourness swirled upward, pushed at her throat. She shuddered, rubbed her palms on her skirt. "Karl. Karl and Dolph usually...work together."

"What's this Karl look like? He as big as Dolph?"

"No." She closed her eyes, fought to control the s.h.i.+vers shaking her. "He's a small, wiry man with dark hair and a scar on the back of his left hand. He...he likes to use a knife."

The sheriff rose, his giant frame towering over her. "You're a brave woman, Viola, trying to protect Hattie and the baby and Thomas like that. Special when you knew what it would cost you. You've got my word you won't ever have to worry about them two coming around again. And I'll be looking around for Karl. He won't be any too pleased if I find him skulking around our town."

She looked up at him and nodded. Perhaps he would find Karl and she wouldn't have to be so afraid.

He slapped his hat on and walked out the door.

She rose, hurried over to throw the lock in place then headed for the kitchen, froze. He had called her brave. And not once-not once-had he condemned her for what she had been.

"Send whoever it is away, Hattie." Viola winced, raised her hand to cup her jaw. She was in no condition to face anyone. Not that she would be able to hide from their censure for long. But she hoped to avoid any confrontation until her face was back to normal and she could speak properly.

"Who's there?" Hattie dipped her head, listened, then threw back the lock and opened the door.

"Hattie!" Viola jumped to her feet and hurried to the kitchen to hide. Footsteps, too quick and light to be Hattie's, sounded behind her. She stiffened her spine, turned.

Teena stepped into the doorway and stopped. Sunlight from the window gleamed on her long black braids, the strings of colored beads dangling from her ears. "I heard."

Thomas. Her stomach sank. Viola rubbed her palms against her long skirt, feeling betrayed. Not that she had any right to. "Thomas told you?"

Teena's long braids swung side to side. "No. Though when Jacob was tending him I knew his heart wanted to speak." Her dark eyes warmed with compa.s.sion. "Many are talking. Some with cruel words and mean spirits, others with kind words and good hearts." She moved forward, set the basket she carried on the table. "I have come to help. There are plants and leaves that will take away the swelling and heal the cuts so they will not leave a mark."

Viola swallowed back the tears that were choking her throat. She had expected judgment, not this kindness. She drew a breath to steady her voice. "If you could..." She looked toward the living room, waited until she got control. "Goldie is afraid of me."

"Her heart is too young to understand." Teena looked down and began unloading her basket. "I will need hot water."

She nodded, pulled the teapot forward over the coals in the stove and turned to the table. Teena had set her empty basket aside and was taking herbs out of small leather bags and placing them in a bowl.

She reached out and touched one of the bags. "These are the same as the miners use to hold their gold."

"Yes." Teena took some larger leaves from one of the bags and held them in her palm. "This is my gold." The leaves went into a tall, narrow crock. "Gold sometimes makes men do cruel, hurtful things to others. But my gold is only for healing. You will see." She crushed the herb mixture with her fingers. A pungent aroma filled the kitchen. "These will take away the soreness and swelling and help the cuts to heal. This will make them hold on." She uncorked a bottle, poured in a bit of thick liquid and stirred the mixture with her finger. "You will please sit down and look up at me."

Teena's touch was quick and gentle. Even so, pain pulsed in the swollen flesh and cuts on her face. She tried to concentrate on what Teena was doing, but the question that had sprung to her lips when Teena arrived would not be denied. "I was wondering about Thomas. Is he all right? His shoulder, I mean."

Teena glanced at her, then picked up a pair of scissors and snipped a small piece of gauze bandaging material off a roll. "The muscle in his shoulder was injured again. But it will mend when time pa.s.ses." The bandage was gently placed over the herbal paste covering the deep gash at her temple. Teena lifted the steaming teapot, poured the hot water onto the leaves in the tall, narrow crock, then cut another piece of bandage and applied it over the herb-plastered cut on her jaw. "It is Thomas's heart that bears the deepest pain. I think your heart carries the pain, also."

She caught her breath, looked up and met Teena's soft, compa.s.sionate gaze.

"I do not know of any herbs for that pain." Teena touched her swollen, split lips with the herbal paste. "Your cuts I can heal. Thomas's shoulder, Jacob can heal. But I think it is only G.o.d who can heal your wounded hearts."

Thomas stepped off the porch and strode around behind the boardinghouse to cut across lots to the school. He had to get away from the crowded waterfront before he forgot he was a missionary. Evelyn Harris had done her work well. Rumors about Viola had been flying around town all day. And they were spreading among the host of stampeders swarming about the waterfront with the speed of news of a rich strike in the gold fields. There was no way he could stop the gossip, but every lascivious comment he overheard made him wish his shoulder was in good shape and he had an occupation instead of a calling.

He skirted the stone wall around the hotel property, remembered the way Viola had looked when he left her there the day he had moved to the boardinghouse. He clenched his jaw, shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and stepped off the wood walkway into the dirt road. His long strides took him past the school and the church and a small, newly built house on the corner. He turned right and strode down the intersecting road, beyond the cl.u.s.tered cabins and on into the trees at the base of the mountain.

Silence greeted him. His boots crushed dried leaves and pungent fir needles, pressed the musky odor from the forest floor. It should have calmed him. It always did. But not now.

He'd never felt this way. Never in his whole life. It was as if his insides were boiling like a volcano, spewing out a dark, hungry rage. He wanted to pummel someone. Dengler. He wanted to rip Dengler apart with his bare hands for what he had done to Viola.

How could she?

It stopped him. Stopped him cold-his movement and his thoughts. He stood there in the quiet of the forest and suddenly knew that was the truth he must face if he was ever to have peace. Not Dengler. Not Dolph. Viola. She had worked as a harlot. Sold herself to men for money. That knowledge was the pain he wanted to tear from his own heart. He lifted his head, looked up at the light filtering down through the branches and took a long, deep breath. "How could she, Lord? How could she?"

The sense of betrayal brought a fury so strong it shook him. But it was of his own doing. He had put her on a pedestal. In his heart, she was equal to the virtuous woman in the Psalm. And her fall from that elevated place was tearing him apart. Viola had not changed. It was his image of her that had splintered. It was clear from what he had overheard Dengler say that she had left her past behind. It was he that must now let it go.

He sank to his knees on the soft earth, faced his own sin and ran to the One who could cleanse him, who could make him whole again. "G.o.d, I have judged without knowledge, and blamed without cause. I have sinned against Viola and against You, Lord. I have broken Your word by standing in judgment on another. Forgive me and cleanse me, I pray. And help me, Lord, to accept...and to forgive."

The rockers whispered against the floor, the sound soothing to her strained nerves. Viola glanced at Goldie, sucking on her thumb, sleeping so soundly. She rose from the rocker and went to her knees beside the cradle, touched Goldie's silky, brown hair, her tiny, fisted hand. Who was Goldie's father? Why had he left Goldie in her care?

Please take care of her until I can-if I can-make it back home. Use this gold to care for her. I know I can trust you. The note he had left with Goldie proved he did not know her. The acrid taste of bitterness formed on her tongue. He never would have left his baby in her care if he had known what she was. But he would not be sorry. She had given the gold nuggets to Mack Tanner for safekeeping against Goldie's future. Cold knots twisted in her stomach. Thank goodness the gold was not here for Dengler to find. That it was safe for Goldie's care if-tears blurred her vision-if she must leave her. Oh, G.o.d, help me to know what is best for Goldie. Should I go or should I stay?

The knock on the door sent her heart slamming against her ribs. She pushed to her feet, hurried to the bedroom doorway and watched as Hattie came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on the ap.r.o.n that spanned her thick body. She pressed her hand to the base of her throat and bit back words of admonition. Hattie knew not to open the door to- Another sharp rap made her jump.