Slowly, with heavy feet, Blair went downstairs and arrived at the door just as Lee was entering. “I have to go,” he said, watching her.
Blair looked up at him. What act of criminality was Lee into? And why? Did he need money? She thought of the new medical equipment he’d ordered from Denver. It must have cost a great deal, and everyone knew that a doctor made very little money. Of course, Lee’d inherited money from his mother, but who knew how much that was? Was he doing this so he could open his clinic? So he could help people?
“I know,” she said, putting her hand on his arm.
As he looked at her, he seemed to sigh with relief. “You’re not angry anymore?”
“No, I don’t think I am.”
He kissed her in an achingly sweet way. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Dad will take you home now.”
Before another word was said, he was on his big stallion and riding down the mountain, out of her sight.
Blair mounted the horse Reed had brought for her, and they started the long trek home in silence. Most of the trail, between pine trees, across tiny streams, was, of necessity, single file. Blair was puzzling over Lee’s disappearances, telling herself her conclusion was wrong, and praying that he wasn’t in danger.
A few miles outside of Chandler, when the land flattened and the terrain dried, Reed reined his horse to ride beside her.
“I think you and I got off on the wrong foot,” Reed said.
“Yes,” she answered honestly. “From when I was about eight.”
He looked puzzled for a moment. “Ah, yes, the pranks. You know, I wouldn’t have known about them except that my wife found out about a few of them. Lee never said a word about them. Helen said they were being executed by a girl. She said boys were smart, but they weren’t clever like girls, and these pranks were quite clever. She was very interested after I told her I’d seen you exchanging the fishing worms with a snake. ‘Blair Chandler,’ she said. ‘I might have guessed she was the one. She always has had an extraordinary interest in Lee.’ I don’t know what she meant by that, but I do know that she laughed a great deal whenever she heard about another prank.”
“If Lee didn’t tell her, how did she find out?”
“Nina sometimes, Lee’s teacher at other times. Once Lee came home from school with a stomachache, and after Helen’d put him to bed, she returned to the kitchen to see Lee’s lunch pail slowly moving across the table. She said she nearly died of fright before she could open it enough to see what was inside. It was a horned toad, which she gratefully put in her flower garden.”
“No wonder you weren’t too happy when Lee said he was going to marry me,” Blair said.
Reed was quiet for a moment, moving easily with his horse. “I’ll tell you my big worry about you and Lee, and it has nothing to do with the pranks. The truth is, my son works too hard. Even as a boy, he used to take on three jobs at once. For some reason, Lee thinks the world’s problems are his responsibility. I was proud when he said he wanted to become a doctor, but I was worried, too. I was afraid he’d do just what he’s done—take on too much. He works in the hospital, and he manages the place even though Dr. Webster has the title of administrator. Lee also takes the case of anybody in town. Four nights a week he runs off on calls. And he still visits people in the country.”
“And you were afraid I’d be more of a burden to him?” Blair whispered.
“Well, you have to admit that excitement does happen around you. I wanted Lee to marry someone as different from him as possible, someone like Houston who’s so like Opal, someone who’d stay home and sew and make a home. It’s not that I’ve ever had anything against you, but just look at what’s happened in the last few weeks since you returned to Chandler.”
“I see what you mean,” Blair said, as one picture of excitement after another passed through her mind. “I don’t think Lee’s had much rest, has he?”
“He nearly killed himself while trying to impress you with what a good doctor he was.” He paused and smiled at her. “But somewhere along the way, I began to see how much he wanted you.”
“Yes, I believe he does,” she murmured, wondering if the wanting of her was leading him into doing whatever he was doing in secret.
She and Reed rode into Chandler in silence, the last few miles in starlight. He left her at the house she shared with Leander, and Blair went inside with a heavy heart. Was he in debt for this place, too?
She took a quick bath and wearily climbed into the empty bed. It seemed that she was destined to spend every night in this house alone.
At six the next morning, she was awakened by the telephone ringing. Groggily, she made her way downstairs.
The operator, Caroline, said, “Blair-Houston, four freight wagons from Denver have just arrived and the drivers are waiting for Leander at the old warehouse on Archer Avenue.”
“He can’t go, but I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“But it’s the doctor equipment and Leander needs to tell them where it goes.”
“According to my diploma, I am a doctor,” Blair said icily.
“I’m sure I didn’t mean anything. I was just passing the message along.” She hesitated. “Why can’t Leander go?”
Nosy woman! Blair thought. She wasn’t about to tell her Lee was on another of his mysterious missions. “Because I exhausted him,” she said, and hung up the phone with a smile. That should give them something to gossip about.
Blair tore up the stairs and minutes later she was running down the street while still pinning her hair up. By the time she got to the top of Archer Avenue, she saw the men lounging against the wagons and looking impatient.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Westfield.”
One burly man, mouth full of tobacco juice, looked her up and down for a moment, while the other men peered around the wagon frames—as if they were trying not to show interest in a freak of nature. The first man spat a big wad of juice.
“Where do you want this unloaded?”
“Inside,” she said, pointing to the warehouse.
Immediately, there were problems. She had no key, nor had she any idea where Lee kept a key to the place. The men just stood there looking at her skeptically, as if this were what they would have expected from a woman who called herself a doctor.
“It’s too bad we can’t get in,” she said sadly, “because my stepfather owns the Chandler Brewery, and he promised a barrel of beer, as thanks, to the men who helped me with the new equipment. But I guess—.”
The sound of breaking glass cut her words off.
“Sorry, ma’am,” said one of the men. “I guess I leaned against the window too hard. But it looks like maybe somebody little could get through here.”
A moment later, Blair was inside and unbolting the heavy front door for them. With the sunlight coming in, she could see the place: cobwebs hanging down, the floor littered, the ceiling with at least three leaks. “Over there,” she said absently, pointing to a corner that at least looked dry, if not clean. While the men unloaded, she walked through the one vast room and tried to imagine how it would be arranged for the clinic.
The men brought in oak tables, cabinets with little drawers, tall cabinets with glass doors, big sinks, small boxes of instruments, cases of bandages and cotton, everything for 9 fully equipped infirmary.
“Seem to be enough?”
She turned to Lee, standing there, surveying the crates and furniture.
He was watching her with eyes narrowed, a lit cigar between his lips. His clothes were dirty and he looked tired.
“More than enough,” she said, and wondered how much it had cost him. “You look exhausted. You should go home and sleep. I’m going to get some women in here to clean this place.”
With a smile, he tossed her a key. “This is to spare the rest of the windows. Come home soon,” he said with a wink and then was gone.
For a moment, Blair felt tears come to her eyes. Whatever he was doing, he was doing so he could help other people, of
that she was sure. Whatever this equipment had cost him, he was willing to do anything to pay the price.
When the men had finished unloading, they gave her a ride back to her house and she called her mother, explaining about the beer. Opal said that Mr. Gates was so pleased that Blair was at last married to a decent man that she was sure he’d give the men a barrel of beer.
After calling her mother, Blair called Houston. Houston would know whom to get to clean the warehouse. Sure enough, by ten o’clock, the place was full of women with cloths about their heads, brooms flying, huge pails of water full of big mops and scrub rags, working.
By eleven, Blair had talked to Mr. Hitchman, who’d built the Chandler house, and arranged for his two sons to start the remodelling according to Leander’s plans.
At two, Lee came back and, through the noise and dust, she told him what she’d arranged.
Protesting that she couldn’t possibly leave, she allowed him to pull her out to his carriage and drive her into town to Miss Emily’s Tea Shop.
Miss Emily took one look at Blair and sent her to the back with an order to wash all of her body that was possible because all of it was dirty. When Blair returned, Lee was waiting behind a table loaded with little chicken sandwiches and cakes iced with strawberry frosting.
Blair, ravenous, began stuffing herself and talking all at once. “…and we can use the tall cabinet, the one with the countertop, in the surgery, and I thought that big sink could go—.”
“Slow down a minute. All the work doesn’t have to be done in a day.”
“I don’t think it can be. It’s just that this town needs a place for women. Years ago, Mother took me to see the Women’s Infirmary here. Is it still as bad?”
“Worse than you can imagine,” Lee said seriously, then took her hand and kissed it. “So, what are you dallying for? Let’s get out of here and go to work. By the way, I called your sister and she’s hiring a maid and a housekeeper for us.”
“Two?” Blair asked. “Can we afford two?”
He gave her a very puzzled look. “If you don’t eat all of Miss Emily’s merchandise.” He looked aghast when she immediately put down the sandwich she’d picked up.
“What’s brought this on? Blair, I’m not as rich as Taggert, but I can certainly afford a couple of maids.”
She stood. “Let’s go, shall we? I have a plumber coming later.”
Still wearing a look of puzzlement, Lee followed her out of the teashop.
Chapter 27
Françoise slammed the glass down on the table and saw, with disgust, that the glass was too heavy, too crude, to break. “It’s all her fault,” she muttered.
Behind her, a man spoke, causing her to jump. She turned to look up at LeGault, tall, thin, dark—slimy. He had a habit of entering and leaving rooms without a sound. He toyed with his little mustache. “Blaming her again?”
Françoise didn’t bother to answer him as she stood and walked toward the window. The shades were drawn and the heavy plush curtains closed. No one must see her, for she was in hiding. She’d been inside this room for over a week now. The men in her band were either in prison or in a hospital. The bears that woman had enticed into the canyon had caused men and animals to panic to the point where one man was trampled by sharp horses’ hoofs. Two men had been shot, and another’s leg had been mauled by an angry bear. By the time the sheriffs men got the canyon mouth open, the outlaws were crying to be taken into custody.
And all because of one woman.
“I am still blaming her,” Françoise said with anger. Mostly what she hated was being played for a fool. That idiot band of men who followed her hadn’t had sense enough to find her, yet she’d been holed up practically under their noses.
In the last week, she’d had time to go over every detail of what had happened, and she now saw how that woman had used her. She saw the way Blair had pretended to be angry with her handsome husband, had pretended to drug him, then had “forgotten” the knife so Françoise could get away.
“I don’t guess you’ve considered the doc’s involvement in this,” LeGault said with a smirk. “Only the woman is guilty, right?”
“She was the instigator.” Françoise shrugged. “She is the one I would like to see repaid.”
“And I’d like to see Westfield repaid,” LeGault said.
“And what has he done to you?”
LeGault rubbed his wrists. He was careful to keep the scars covered—scars made by the iron manacles he’d worn in the prison where Westfield had put him. “Let’s just say that I have reason enough to want to see him get some of what he’s given me.” He paused. “Tonight, the messenger arrives with news. I hope he’ll know the day of the shipment.”
“No more than I do,” Françoise said with feeling. “After this job is done, I’m heading east, to Texas.”
“And leave your dear, devoted gang behind?” LeGault said tauntingly.
“Idiots! It will do them good to rot in jail for a few years. About tonight: do you think I could go with you? I’ll do anything to get out of here for a while.”
“Anything?”
“Anything that will not ruin our partnership,” she said with a smile, thinking she’d rather walk into a pit of rattlesnakes than sleep with LeGault. “It will be night and no one will see me. I need air and this waiting is making me miserable.”
“Sure. Why not? I have to meet the man in the middle of nowhere, up behind the Little Pamela mine. But if someone recognizes you, don’t expect me to stay by you. No one’s after me, and I plan to keep it that way.”
“Don’t worry about me tonight. You have to worry about how to get the boxes we steal out of Chandler, while I hide and you stay in plain sight.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll come up with something,” he said at the door. “I’ll come back for you at midnight.”
Hours later, they rode out of town, avoiding the lights on the houses, even the lights on the carriages. Françoise kept her hat down over her face and, in her thick coat and big pants, she didn’t look at all like a female.
They met their messenger, and the news was pleasing to them. Smiling, they started down the mountainside to where their horses were hidden.
“Quiet! I hear something,” LeGault said, as he jumped for cover behind a boulder.
Françoise hid, too, just as they saw two men emerge from the trees, the moonlight clearly outlining them. One, a short, stocky man, seemed nervous, while the other, tall, slim, the moonlight glinting off a revolver at his side, was calm and watchful. He paused while the short man climbed into a carriage that was well concealed behind a clump of piñon. Still watching, he struck a match and lit a cigar.
“Westfield!” Frankie gasped and LeGault shushed her.
They watched as the tall man, Leander, drove away—but there was no other man in the carriage with him.
“Where did he go?” Françoise asked when the carriage was gone, as she turned around to lean against the rock.
“Hidden,” LeGault said thoughtfully. “Now, why would our righteous, do-gooder doctor be hiding a man in his buggy in the middle of the night?”
“Isn’t that a coal mine down there?”
“Sure, but what does that matter? Think he’s plannin’ to steal a couple tons of coal?”
“He and that bitch of his stole dynamite from somewhere, probably from the coal mine.”
LeGault played with the tip of his mustache. “He’s awfully familiar with coal mines.”
“You can stay here all night with your puzzle, but it’s too cold for me. We have much planning to do yet, and not much time to do it in.”
LeGault didn’t say a word as he followed Françoise back to the horses. “This woman Westfield married,” he said, hands on the pommel, “she’s a Chandler, isn’t she?”
“Like the town name, yes.”
“Very much like the town name. The most respectable, unsuspected name in the town.”
“What are you thinking?”
&
nbsp; “You saw Westfield and his bride together. What would you guess she’d be likely to do for him?”
“Do?” Françoise thought of the way the woman’d looked at the doctor, as if he might disappear at any moment—and if he did start to fade, she was going to grab onto his coattails. “I believe she’d do anything—everything—for that man.”
LeGault gave a smile that showed perfect, even white teeth. “I don’t know what we saw here tonight, but I’m going to find out. And when I do, I’ll see how we can use it. We need a way to move that shipment out of Chandler.”
Françoise began to smile also. “And who better to do it than a Chandler?”
Leander and Blair worked on the clinic for three days, along with several crews of workers, before they got it ready. On the evening of the third day, Lee climbed a ladder and nailed up the big sign: Westfield Infirmary for Women.
When he stepped down from the ladder, he saw Blair grinning up at the sign with the expression of a child who has tasted ice cream for the first time. “Come inside,” he said. “I have a celebration planned for us.” When Blair didn’t move, he caught her hand and pulled her inside.
Under an oak lid, inside a galvanized sink, were two bottles of champagne in ice.
Blair backed away. “Lee, you know what happens to me when I drink champagne.”
“I’m not likely to forget,” he said, as he popped the cork and grabbed a crystal glass, filled it and handed it to her.
Blair took a cautious sip, looked at him over the rim, then drained the glass and held it out for a refill.
“Not upset about St. Joseph’s? Don’t wish you could intern there?”
She kept her eyes on the wine Lee was pouring into her extended glass. “And miss working with the man I love? Hey!” she said, as Lee kept filling and the glass overflowed. She looked up to see him watching her with hot eyes.
“For how long?” he whispered.
Blair tried to be nonchalant. The words had come out unexpectedly. “Maybe forever. Maybe I’ve loved you since I first met you. Maybe I tried everything I could to hate you, probably because Houston claimed you first, but nothing seems to have worked. No matter what I did to you, you always came out on top.”