The Hen House Read online

“Damn,” Letty muttered, and kicked the bullwhip. “I should have used a gun.”

  Robert Lee stifled a grin.

  The sheriff was speechless.

  It was Eulis who asked the first question.

  “Letty… what happened?”

  “He beat his wife up real bad. I got her and the baby to Doc Angus’s house, but she’s all broken up inside.” Then her voice shook, but her gaze never wavered. “The baby’s dead. He let it starve to death.”

  The onlookers began to murmur among themselves as shock spread through the crowd. Suddenly, Letty Potter’s behavior began to make sense.

  “See here, Miz Potter, you can’t take the law into your own hands like this,” the sheriff muttered.

  “He came at me. I stopped him,” Letty said.

  The hotel clerk stepped out of the crowd.

  “It’s true, sheriff. He knocked me down first, and he was challenging Mrs. Potter as I ran out the door to get you.”

  The sheriff mumbled something beneath his breath, and then spit in the dirt.

  “All right then,” he said, and motioned toward some men in the crowd. “You two. Help me carry him to the jail. I’ll have the Doc come take a look at him.”

  Letty felt as if all the bones in her body were melting. As she turned, she stumbled over the bullwhip, then stopped and picked it up, rolled it neatly back into a loop, and looked around at the crowd for the freighter.

  “Thanks for the loan of your whip,” she said, and thrust it into his hands.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said softly, and walked away.

  Eulis put his arm around Letty. She leaned against him for a moment until she realized there was a crowd of people watching her every move, and stood straighter, not wanting them to see her weak.

  She glanced at Eulis first, and then at Robert Lee and sighed.

  “I don’t think I’m made out to be a lady. I made quite a spectacle out of myself, didn’t I?”

  Eulis patted her on the shoulder, and then put his arm around her waist.

  “Now girl, they’re just admiring your spunk. Besides, when have you ever cared what people thought about you?”

  Letty stifled a grin.

  “Never, I guess.”

  “Okay then,” Eulis said.

  Robert Lee cleared his throat as he holstered his gun.

  “If you’ll pardon my language, Miz Letty, you’re one hell of a woman. You did yourself proud.” Then he looked a bit taken aback, and cleared his throat once more. “I’ll just go get our horses,” he told Eulis, and disappeared into the crowd.

  Eulis put a hand beneath her elbow and began walking her back to the hotel with their dog at his heels.

  “Are you mad at me,” Letty asked.

  Eulis shook his head.

  “Ain’t no way I’ll ever be mad at you. I was, however, scared half out of my mind thinkin’ you was hurt.”

  Letty looked startled. She’d been so caught up in her own fury that she hadn’t thought of how her message might have sounded.

  “I’m sorry, Eulis.”

  Eulis patted her shoulder.

  “No apology needed. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  DOCTOR

  Four little girls were playing in the alley between the general store and the assayer’s office, as Letty passed by. Two were turning a long piece of rope, while the other two were taking turns jumping in. They were chanting a little rhyme as they played, and when one of them stumbled and stopped the rope, the others would squeal out in childish glee.

  She paused on the sidewalk to listen. T-Bone had been trotting ahead, but when he realized she was no longer behind him, he ran back and sat down at her feet.

  “Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief. One of them will make you tarry. Which one of these men will you marry?”

  Then they would repeat it over and over until someone tripped. Whatever man they stopped at, was supposedly the man they would marry.

  Letty shook her head in wonder at their innocence. By the time she was their age, she’d been orphaned and well on her way to permanent employment at the White Dove Saloon.

  It made her sad, thinking about what a rude awakening they were going to get when they grew up. Likely as not they’d all wind up married to some hard-scrabble farmer or cowboy, or end up in the same boat Letty had been in. Life in this country wasn’t easy for anyone, but for a woman, it was quite often brutal and brief.

  Case in point, Alice Mellin.

  Letty had just come from Dr. Warren’s house. Alice was going to live, but would most likely never be able to have children again. The poor woman was distraught by the news. Letty felt sorry for her, but there was nothing more she could do.

  Angus Warren had tended to George’s wounds and dog bites in the sheriff’s office, and then watched in silent satisfaction as the man was put behind bars. As a doctor, he’d taken an oath to do no harm, but for the first time in his life, he could have willingly put an end to George’s life without losing a second of sleep.

  Letty was of the same opinion, but she would have much rather seen him drawn and quartered for what he’d done to his wife and child.

  There was a small cloud of dust surrounding the girls as they played, stirred up by their stomping feet and the thump of the jump rope against the hard, dry ground. The little girls’ stockings and shoes were covered in dirt, as were the hems of their dresses, but they didn’t care. They were too caught up in the fantasy of fate having a hand in choosing their mate. Their rhythmic chant matched the turn of the rope as they jumped in and out of the wide, dusty arc. When one of them finally tripped, the other three squealed out loud.

  “Beggar man. Beggar man. You’re gonna marry a beggar man!” they cried.

  Letty shook her head, looked down at T-Bone, and then clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

  “Come on, T-Bone. Let’s get out of here before the fussing starts.”

  The pup was oblivious to everything but the gentle tone of her voice and touch. When she moved, he moved with her.

  Letty walked away from the alley, ignoring the whispers and stares from the people she passed. It hadn’t taken long for word to get around about what she’d done now. She’d already been judged and found wanting for wearing pants like a man, and riding astride instead of side-saddle.

  Today, she’d just added to her notoriety by taking a bullwhip to a man. While the citizens of Denver City were disgusted by what George Mellin had done to his wife and child, most of them were of the opinion that Letty Potter had overstepped her bounds, and should not have involved herself in the situation.

  Letty would have liked their acceptance, but she’d lived on the wrong side of society for so long she no longer cared. Eulis was the only person whose opinion mattered, and so far he had kept his disappointments to himself.

  She thought back to the earlier events of the day. When Henry Smith had stopped her on the street, her first instinct had been to send for Eulis. She hadn’t known how much she’d been counting on his arrival until he’d come running through the crowd and snatched the whip from her hand.

  And there was Robert Lee. When the sheriff started threatening her, he had immediately put himself between her and the law. It had all happened so fast that she hadn’t realized the impact of what he’d done until it was over, at which point, he’d quietly made himself scarce. It gave her an odd feeling to know that he’d stood up for her like that.

  When she reached the corner of the sidewalk, she paused to wait for a stagecoach to pass. Eulis promised to meet Letty in their room, and she was fighting the urge to run to him. Instead, she crossed the dusty street with her head held high, and her steps long and steady, unconscious of the stern jut of her jaw. When a man on horseback rode too close to her, T-Bone barked, and then nipped at the horse’s heels. Letty was already in the hotel by the time the cowboy had his horse under control.

  The young clerk was back at work. He smiled when he saw Letty.

/>   “You did something real brave today, Ma’am,” he said, and then blushed.

  “A little foolhardy, too,” Letty said.

  The clerk shook his head.

  “No, ma’am. It was amazing, and so are you.”

  Uncomfortable with the unexpected praise, Letty hurried up the stairs and down the hall with T-Bone at her heels. She was almost running when she reached their room. The door was ajar. The pup ran in, headed for his bed in the opposite corner, and was already in it and settled as Letty entered.

  Eulis was standing at the window. His pants were hanging a little loose, and there was a small tear just below his right knee. His gray shirt was a collar-less homespun with long sleeves he’d rolled up to his elbows. His face was lean and expressionless, delineating his rough-cut features more than usual. He could have used a shave and a haircut, but to Letty, he looked just fine. It occurred to her he’d been watching her from the window as she’d crossed the street. What had he been thinking? Was he upset with what she’d done?

  “Eulis?”

  He took a deep breath and then turned.

  “Come here, girl. I need a hug.”

  Letty hurried across the room and walked into his arms. When they closed around her, she shuddered.

  “Oh Eulis… that poor woman… and that baby… that poor, poor baby. We laid in our bed and listened to her dying.”

  “We had no way of knowing,” Eulis said.

  “I should have done something sooner. If I had, maybe—”

  “No. Stop thinking like that. The only person at fault is the man who did it.” He kept hold her close as he rubbed at the middle of her back, gentling her as much as himself. “You did a real dangerous thing today, but I have to say, I’ve never been prouder to know you, girl.”

  Letty struggled with tears until she finally let them fall.

  “It’s okay,” Eulis kept saying, as he did all he could to ease her pain. “Shoot. I could’a told that George Mellin that he’d done the wrong thing when he ticked you off. I remember how your temper used to spew just because your bath water wasn’t ready.”

  Letty laughed, which was exactly what Eulis intended. He led her to the side of the bed and pulled her down beside him.

  She grabbed his hand, and as she did, a notion she’d been harboring in the back of her mind took rise.

  “Eulis… I’ve been thinking…”

  He groaned. “Now, that can’t be good.”

  She punched him lightly on the arm and crawled the rest of the way up on the bed, hugging her pillow against her belly like a shield.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “I want out of here. There are too many people down here trying to mind our business for us.”

  Eulis frowned. “But honey, there ain’t no other place to go. We don’t have any furniture, and Robert Lee has settled in real good in the cabin.”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “We slept in and under our wagon all the way across the prairie, then up the mountains to Denver City. I’d sooner sleep back under the stars with you, or on a blanket in the floor of that new house, than spend another night under this roof.”

  Eulis grinned.

  “Then I reckon that’s what we’ll do,” he said.

  “Good. I’ll pack up our stuff in here. You go get our wagon. T-Bone and I will be waiting when you get back.”

  Eulis wrapped his arms around her and gave her a slow, gentle kiss, then grabbed his hat off the bedpost and headed out the door.

  The pup raised its head and looked to Letty.

  She grinned.

  “We’re getting out of here, T-Bone. Tonight, we’ll be sleeping in our own home.”

  The pup didn’t know what she’d said, but the tone of her voice made him happy. His tail was still wagging when she started out of the room, dragging the trunk with their belongings. She paused in the hall, glanced at the room next door and increased her stride, anxious to be rid of this place and all its memories.

  ***

  Angus Warren was a big man with a thick head of hair, although in deference to Mildred’s preference, he maintained a clean shave. He’d seen a lot of bad things in his life since he’d hung out his shingle, but none of them worse than the shape Alice Mellin was in. He ached for her grief, and was doing what he could to help her make arrangements for the baby’s funeral. He’d learned the baby’s name had been Mary—Mary Elizabeth Mellin. He’d had her spell it out for him so he could give it to the man who was building the coffin—get him to make a grave marker too, and carve her name into the wood.

  Angus knew he was going to have to get down on his knees and pray for forgiveness for what he wanted to do to George. It was difficult being a doctor in a land where the gun ruled, and fair was an adjective for weather, rather than a metaphor for life.

  He paused in the act of mixing a tincture for his latest patient, a little girl named Charity Talmadge, who’d been brought in with a bad case of eye infection. They were swollen and raw, and the infection was so bad that, as it dried, it stuck her eyes shut. According to her parents, Charity had been unable to see for the past three days.

  Charity was four, but she had the fortitude of a woman of forty as she sat with her jaw clenched, and her hands doubled into fists while Angus and Mildred worked at softening the crust on her eyes with wet cloths. Every now and then she would whimper, but it was the only sign she had given that she was in pain.

  It had taken both him and Mildred over an hour to get the crusted infection cleaned from her eyes so that they would open, and another thirty minutes to convince her father, Homer Talmadge, that unless and until they practiced better bodily hygiene, she might get well, but she wouldn’t stay that way.

  Finally, he’d escaped into his office to compound a medicine for Charity’s eyes. The sound of the mortar and pestle with which he was working was a comforting sound. To Angus, it signified healing. He glanced at Alice, who was asleep on a cot in the next room. If only he could concoct a salve that could heal a broken heart.

  A knock on the door distracted his thoughts. He looked up as Mildred came into the room.

  “Angus, are you finished?”

  “Almost,” he said.

  Mildred glanced over her shoulder and whispered.

  “Please hurry. I don’t think I can bear the smell of that family any longer.”

  He grimaced.

  “Sorry,” he said, and quickly finished the preparations, then followed her back into the examining room.

  “Mrs. Talmadge, watch how I apply this to your daughter’s eyes. You will need to do this three times a day until the salve is all gone. If Charity has a recurrence of the infection, bring her back in immediately.”

  Vera Talmadge glanced nervously at her husband, and then ducked her head.

  “Reckon this’ll cure her right up. We cain’t afford no doctorin’ bills.”

  Angus glared at both Vera and her husband. “I have yet to charge you a penny, so don’t use that excuse on me again. Your daughter’s disease and suffering is a direct result of living in filth. I’m assuming you have access to water.”

  His sarcasm was unusual, but he’d seen his share of children’s suffering today, and was in no mood to mince words.

  “Well, yes sir, we live right next to Cherry Creek and—”

  “Then use that water for something besides drinking and panning. Bathe, woman. Clean this child’s body and clean her eyes. Apply the salve as I’ve shown you, or as sure as I’m standing here before you, she’ll go blind. Then one day you’ll be saddled with a grown woman, who will not only be unable to take care of herself, but will most likely never marry. You’ll be stuck with her for the rest of your lives.”

  Homer Talmadge’s mouth gaped. He stared at his little girl as if she’d just grown horns.

  Mildred hid a giggle. It was obvious that Angus had struck a nerve.

  “We’ll see to her bathin’,” Vera promised.

  Angus handed her the tin in which he’d put the salve. “Don’t
forget to doctor her. Three times a day.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vera said, then took Charity into her arms, and started out the door.

  Homer Talmadge followed without comment.

  Mildred rolled her eyes as she fanned the air with her apron.

  “Such a stench,” she muttered.

  “Poor child,” Angus said.

  Mildred looked at Angus and grinned.

  “They may not bathe themselves, but I warrant they’ll bathe the child. It was real obvious that they don’t want to be stuck with an old maid.”

  Angus grunted as he went back into his office to clean up, while Mildred went to check on Alice.

  At the same time, Eulis and Letty were pulling into the yard of their new home, while T-Bone did a quick reconnoiter in the woods, barking happily to be out of town.

  George Mellin was lying on his cot in the jail, bemoaning his condition and his fate which had yet to be decided by a judge, who would not arrive for at least another month. He was a miserable two hundred and seventy-five pounds of man, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong.

  Alice Mellin chose to remain in the shadow land of opiate sleep, and had turned her face to the wall.

  Paddy O’Brien, down at the livery stable, was sawing up green lumber for baby Mary’s final bed, while a young man of sixteen had volunteered to dig the grave in return for a meal.

  Within an hour, the sun would set and a good portion of the citizens of Denver City would go to bed. What had happened today would soon be nothing but gossip to be told and forgotten.

  As night drew near, the sky darkened and the stars disappeared. By midnight it had begun to rain.

  ***

  The roof on the new Potter home was solid. If it was going to leak, they would have known it by now. When it began to rain, they’d moved their bedrolls from beneath the wagon to inside the house, and had settled in the middle of the big room, thankful to be dry.

  T-Bone had, as usual, chosen a corner of the room in which to sleep.

  Letty lay on her side with her face to the windows. The dampness in the air was chilling, as was the constant clash of rolling thunder and lightning flashing through the sky. As storms go, it was magnificent, but not one to be caught out in.