Kendrick: Outlaw's Bride Part 18

"Sit down, Leah, and you can take over for me," Ethan said.

Leah quickly settled in the chair next to Ethan. He carefully transferred the kitten into her waiting hand. When he broke the kitten's connection with the glove, it began mewing pitifully. Ethan stood behind Leah and helped her figure out the most comfortable way to hold both the glove and the kitten.

When the kitten latched on once again, Leah looked up at Ethan and smiled shyly. "Thanks, Ethan."

"It was your idea to feed the kittens. I just found a way to do it."

Patch watched as Ethan ruffled Leah's hair. It was the sort of affectionate gesture that brothers the world over used with little sisters. It was a first for both of them, a beginning. Patch felt a sudden lump in her throat when she realized that the way Ethan had just interacted with Leah was exactly the way he had treated Patch in Montana. Like a little sister!

Why hadn't she ever realized that before? Was it possible that the affection she had felt for Ethan back then wasn't romantic love? Then what was it she felt for Ethan now? It felt the same. No, that wasn't precisely true. She was able now to admire qualities in Ethan that she hadn't even known existed when she was a child. She needed him in a different way, not just as a friend, but as the missing part of a puzzle she was only beginning to unravel. She was discovering that her happiness was inextricably linked with his.

Patch shook her head slightly. She wanted to share her realization with him, but she was too afraid he would dismiss what she was feeling as fancy. She decided to cherish the feelings and let them grow. There would be time enough to tell Ethan later.

Patch stroked the fur of the kitten in Leah's hand. "What do you think happened to Calico?" she asked Ethan.

"Nothing good, or she'd be here with her kittens," he replied. "I think I'll take another look around for her before breakfast."

Ethan had already kicked the back door open and gone outside to search when Patch made a discovery of her own.

"Max is dead!"

She picked up Max's cage from the counter beside the pump and brought it over to the kitchen table where the light was better. She opened the top and reached in carefully to lift Max out, then sat down across from Leah with the mouse in her palm. She rubbed a finger across his fur. He was stiff and cold, and Patch realized he had been dead for some time.

"I can't believe Max is dead. He seemed perfectly fine last night." Patch laid the mouse back in the cage.

Leah returned the kitten she had been feeding to the basket and picked up another one. "He was just a stupid mouse."

"He kept me company when I was all alone on the journey here. And he made me smile," Patch said in defense of her pet. "I guess I should have let him go sooner. I just didn't want your cat to eat him."

"Cats are supposed to eat mice!" Leah retorted.

There was a knock on the back door. "Patch? Can you let me in?"

Patch shoved the kitchen door open and stepped aside to give Ethan room to enter. He carried something wrapped in his s.h.i.+rt. He lifted the cloth to reveal a patch of calico fur. "I'm sorry, Leah," he said. "I found her under the house. It looks like she died sometime last night."

Leah stared with stricken eyes at the bundle Ethan held in his arms. She hurriedly set down the makes.h.i.+ft feeder and returned the kitten to the basket with the others, then crossed the room to where Ethan stood near the stove. Leah reached out a hand, but couldn't bring herself to touch the dead cat.

Ethan knelt and laid the bundle on the floor beside the stove.

Leah squatted down beside him, her chin on her knees. "What happened to her?"

"I'm not sure. There's not a mark on her. If I had to guess, I'd say maybe she ate something that was poisoned."

"Calico was poisoned?" she asked incredulously. Leah jumped up and pointed an accusing finger at Patch. "You poisoned my cat so she wouldn't eat your mouse!"

"I never did any such thing!" Patch protested.

Ethan rose and stepped between them.

A knock on the kitchen door interrupted what promised to be an ugly showdown. Ethan kicked the back door open and stared in disbelief at the old man standing there.

"You gonna invite me in or let me stand here all day?"

"Come in, Mr. Marshall."

"Grandpa Corwin! What are you doing here?"

"I gotta have a reason to visit my granddaughter?" the old man asked.

"Of course not," Patch said, shooting a quick glance at Ethan to see what he thought of her grandfather's invasion. Ethan leaned back against the counter beside the pump, frankly relieved because the old man's appearance had staved off a fight he hadn't looked forward to refereeing.

Patch gestured her grandfather inside. "Come in, Grandpa Corwin. Sit down. I don't even have the coffeepot on the stove." She settled her grandfather at the table, whisking away the cage with the dead mouse in it and putting it on the window-sill.

Leah sat glaring as Patch hurried around, stirring up the ashes in the stove to make sure it was hot, filling the coffeepot with water from the pump, grinding up coffee beans, and finally putting the coffeepot on the stove to boil. The whole time, Patch was filling in her grandfather on the mysterious deaths of both the cat and the mouse.

Ethan was surprised to hear that Max was dead, too. "It's strange that both animals died the same night. Do you have any idea what killed Max?"

"No. There wasn't a mark on him."

"Same as the cat," Ethan murmured to himself. He had kept to himself his suspicions that someone might have purposely poisoned the cat. It looked now like the mouse might have died of poison as well. However, while the cat had been roaming free outside, the mouse had been in a cage the whole time. So what could have killed both animals?

Corwin Marshall had examined both the cat and the mouse while Patch was bustling around. He sat back down at the table and p.r.o.nounced, "Most likely poison killed the cat. Probably something it ate. You got any bait out for coyotes?" he asked Ethan.

"Nothing close to the house," Ethan said.

"Your theory might explain what happened to the cat, but what about Max?" Patch said.

"You keep that mouse in a cage all the time?" the old man asked.

"Unless I was holding him."

"What did you feed him last night?"

"Just some milk."

"Milk tainted, maybe?"

"I don't think so," Patch said. "At least, Nell didn't complain about it. But she only drank a swallow or two."

Ethan uncrossed his legs and stood with his hands on his hips. "We fed the same milk to the cat."

"Milk might've been bad," Corwin suggested. "Could've been what killed them both."

"I've never heard of sour milk killing anything," Ethan said.

"Maybe it was tainted with poison," the old man said.

"How is that possible?" Patch asked.

"Cow maybe ate something with poison in it-strychnine, a.r.s.enic, lead-and it came through in the milk," Corwin explained.

"I've never heard of such a thing," Ethan scoffed.

"Doesn't happen often, but it happens," Corwin insisted.

Ethan stared at Patch with dawning horror. "Ma's been drinking that milk! Ma's been drinking poisoned milk!"

"What's that you're saying?" Corwin asked.

Patch exchanged a glance with Ethan across the room. She could see the wheels turning in his head. "I told you Nell has been ill," Patch explained to her grandfather. "If what you say is true, maybe something in the milk she's been drinking is what's been making her so sick."

"What are Nell's symptoms?" Corwin asked.

"Fatigue, nausea, headaches, palpitations-lots of aches and pains," Patch recited.

"That would fit with a.r.s.enic poisoning," Corwin said.

Ethan's brow furrowed. "What I don't understand is why we aren't sick, and why there aren't a lot of other sick folk in town. I mean, if the milk is tainted, wouldn't everyone who drank it get sick?"

"Stands to reason," Corwin said.

"I don't drink milk," Leah volunteered.

"Neither do I," Ethan said. "That would explain why we aren't suffering any symptoms. What about you, Patch?"

"I think I've had one gla.s.s of milk in the time I've been here. No more than that."

Ethan turned back to the old man. "How much poison would it take to make a person really sick?"

"Depends on the person. Depends on how much and what kind of poison. Where did you get the tainted milk?"

"Gilley delivers milk every couple of days," Ethan said. "What I still don't understand is why no one else in town has gotten sick."

Corwin pulled his pipe from his pocket and slipped it between his teeth. "Maybe the poison was put in the milk after it was bottled. Maybe someone has been delivering poisoned milk only to your house."

Ethan shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense. Who would want to poison my mother?"

"That's a question worth pondering," Corwin said. "Patch said your ma's been sick since before you got out of prison. Maybe she was supposed to die before you got out. With your ma gone, maybe someone would already have bought this place, put Leah in a home somewhere. Then you'd have no reason to stick around. Who wants you gone from here?"

"Trahern." Ethan spat the name.

Patch's voice was hushed when she said, "Didn't your father die of an illness similar to the one your mother is suffering from?"

Ethan's eyes narrowed as he considered the question. "So whoever is poisoning my mother also poisoned my father?"

Corwin nodded. "It fits."

"Pa didn't drink milk," Ethan said flatly.

"But he had a gla.s.s of whiskey every evening," Leah said. "Gilley delivered a bottle of whiskey from town every other month."

"Leah, go get that whiskey of Pa's in the parlor," Ethan said.

Leah came running back a moment later with the half-filled bottle.

"Was Pa drinking this when he died?" Ethan asked.

Leah nodded. "He said the whiskey eased the pain."

Ethan held the bottle up to the light. It didn't look any different. He frowned. "Frank and I each had a gla.s.s of this the other night. Afterward, I didn't feel sick."

"Probably not enough a.r.s.enic in one gla.s.s to make you sick," Corwin said. "But after a while, a gla.s.s a day every day, and pretty soon you're getting too much a.r.s.enic for your body to get rid of it all. You get sick. Eventually, you die."

Ethan shook his head, unable to absorb the monstrous truth-if it was the truth. "I can't believe it. My father murdered! My mother-G.o.d, if this is true ..." Ethan balled his hands into fists. He felt a terrifying violence building inside him. It had been possible to accept his father's untimely death, because he had believed it to be an act of G.o.d. But if their suppositions about poison were true, someone, some man, had shortened Alex Hawk's life.

Ethan felt strangely breathless as he asked Corwin. "If Ma is being poisoned, would she get well if she stopped drinking the tainted milk?"

"If it's not too late," Corwin said. "If she hasn't taken too much poison already. You could try having her fast and drink lots of water. The effects of the poison would slowly disappear once the poison was gone."

Ethan closed his eyes, afraid to let anyone in the room see the powerful emotions he felt. His mother might not die. She might get well. No wonder old Doc Carter hadn't figured out what was wrong with her. Who would have suspected poison?

"It's not too late," he said fiercely. "I won't let it be too late!"

Without Ethan being quite sure how it happened, Patch was in his arms, and he was hugging her tight. Then he grabbed Leah and lifted her into the air and swung her around until she shrieked with laughter. There was a lightness to Ethan's step and a joy in Leah's eyes that had previously been missing. They had been given hope of a reprieve. Maybe Nell Hawk wasn't going to die just yet.

Patch wanted to tell Nell what they had discovered. Ethan had other thoughts.

"I'd rather wait," he said.

"For what?" Patch asked.

"To see if she gets well. We're just guessing about all this. That the milk was poisoned. That it's the milk that's made Ma sick. I can send samples of both the whiskey and milk to a chemist in San Antonio to be tested for a.r.s.enic, but that will take time. What if it isn't the milk?"

Ethan paused. He met Patch's blue eyes and said in a raw voice. "Or what if we didn't catch the poison in time? I couldn't bear to give her hope and then-"

"How will you explain asking her to fast? How am I going to get all that water down her throat without telling her why I'm asking her to drink it?" Patch demanded.

"I'll tell her I wrote a letter to a doctor in San Antonio. That he recommended this treatment," Ethan said.

Patch thought Ethan was being foolish not telling his mother the truth, but she had already figured out that he had difficulty dealing with his mother's illness. "All right, Ethan. We'll try it your way."

They all agreed it wouldn't hurt Nell to get a visit from Corwin Marshall. Patch was surprised at the pleasure in Nell's eyes when she realized who had come to see her. She seemed almost fl.u.s.tered. She reached a frail hand up to check her hair, and her pale face flushed.

"What are you doing here, you old coot?" Nell asked.

"Came to see how you're doing, Nellie."

To Patch's astonishment, Nell laughed like a schoolgirl.