Seven Brides - Fern Part 25

"Let's go back to town," Madison said. "There's nothing you can do here."

"I've got to find Papa," Fern repeated "He must be miles away by now," Madison said. "We'll never find him in the dark."

When he tried to pull her away, she shrugged his arm off her shoulder.

"He's not here," Madison said fifteen minutes later when they still had found no sign of Baker Sproull.

"He wouldn't leave," Fern insisted, looking at Madison for the first time since they had reached what was left of the farm. "This farm was the most important thing in his life."

Madison realized Fern was in shock. She had lost her hat, and her hair hung down in a wet tangle over her shoulders. She hardly knew what she was doing. But it was her eyes that unnerved him. They were wide open, staring, as though she had lost touch with the world.

"Your arm," she said, some semblance of life returning to her eyes. "I'd forgotten about it."

"I hadn't," Madison said with a trace of a smile.

I promised to bandage it when . . ." Her voice trailed off. "It can wait," Madison said. "We ought to be going. You're drenched to the skin. You'll be lucky if you haven't cracked some more ribs."

"It's gone. Everything. Just like that."

Madison wanted to say something, but what do you say to a woman who has lost her home, who may have lost her father? He had lost both, but Fern hadn't hated her father or longed to escape her home. For him, relief had blunted the pain.

She only had the pain.

"Your father can rebuild."

"It makes everything seem so temporary," Fern said, "so futile."

"Let's go. You need to get into bed."

Fern made a brave effort to smile. Her failure tore at his heart.

"Here you are trying to get me to take care of myself, and you're the one who's wounded. You must think I'm an awful fool. I didn't mean to shoot you, but you frightened me coming out of the dark like that."

"You've got to get some streetlights out here," Madison said. "A couple of good gas lanterns would work wonders. You could use a couple of street signs as well. I'm surprised people ever manage to find their way around this prairie."

He was talking nonsense, but it made him feel better to see a weak smile. When he brought her horse, she mounted up. They rode out of the yard without looking back.

"I've got to find somewhere to stay," she said, half to herself.

"I'm sure Mrs. Abbott will let you stay on until your father decides what to do."

"But your family has hired the house. I feel as if I'm intruding."

"Rose enjoys your company. George has been gone an awful lot. I know she'll be glad when Jeff gets back from Denver."

"I really think I ought to stay somewhere else."

Madison listened as she cataloged the houses where she might board and then enumerated the reasons why each would be unsatisfactory. Certain she would soon talk herself into remaining with Mrs. Abbott, he turned his thoughts to her dilemma.

He had no idea what they would do about the farmher father would make that decis...o...b..t he wasn't going to wait for Baker Sproull. The man had never concerned himself with Fern, and Madison didn't expect him to start now.

But Madison couldn't interfere without a good reason.

And he wasn't sure he had one, at least not a sufficient one. Interfering in people's lives implied a willingness, no, a desire, to a.s.sume responsibility for them. He felt quite strongly about Fern now. He liked her, a lot, but he didn't know exactly what he wanted to do about it.

He was definitely angry at the way everybody treated her. She deserved more, and he was going to see that A gasp and a strangled cry brought him plummeting back into the present.

Fern slid from her horse and ran a short way into a cornfield flattened by the winds. When Madison reached her side, he found her kneeling over her father's body. He could see no wounds, but Sproull's body lay at such odd angles with itself that Madison was certain most of his bones were broken. He must have been sucked up by the wind and flung a long distance.

"I knew he wouldn't leave the farm. It was all he ever cared about."

Fern touched him in little ways, brushing wet hair out of his eyes, b.u.t.toning his shirt, wiping mud off his cheek, but she didn't straighten his limbs. It was as though she couldn't face the final proof he was dead.

"He made Mama leave her family to come out here. He made her have another baby so he would have a son to leave this place to. Everything had to be sacrificed for this place. Even me."

Madison couldn't think of anything that would ease the hurt she must be feeling, the pain of losing her father, the feeling of being lost, homeless, and alone. He had endured the same things, so why didn't he know what to say?

Because his own wounds weren't healed.

George was right. Madison wasn't ready to live life, to build, to sow and reap.

Madison took Fern by the shoulders and tried to lift her, but she wouldn't stand, just continued bending over her father's body. He would have felt better if she'd broken into hysterical weeping, but she remained dry-eyed.

Taking her hand with his good arm, Madison pulled her to her feet. Ignoring the pain of his wound, he drew her closer. She came to him, her back to him, her eyes never leaving her father's body, letting him put his arms around her, accepting his warmth and comfort.

Then the tears came. She cried softly, her body shaking as he held her, tears rolling down her cheeks and dropping onto his arms.

"He did love me," she said. "He just wanted a son so much he sometimes forgot."

Madison didn't tell Fern what he thought about Baker Sproull, but if he could have gotten his hands on him, Baker Sproull would have died a second time that night.

"We have to get him to town," he said. Madison brought up her horse. Fern, her gaze never leaving her father, gripped the horse's bridle while Madison draped the body across the saddle. Madison shivered with loathing. Everything felt loose inside Sproull's skin, like beans in a bag. Securing the body was almost more than he could endure.

He was glad that Fern hadn't been alone when she discovered her father. He doubted she would have ever gotten over it.

"We can take him to the livery stable until you can make arrangements," he said.

She stared at him out of sightless eyes. She had no strength left, no more resources to absorb shock. He led her to Buster and lifted her into the saddle. She made no comment when he mounted behind her. Leading her horse, they started toward Abilene.

Eddie Finch glared at Madison out of wrathful eyes. "I ain't eating a bite."

"You might as well," Madison answered, unmoved by Eddie's anger. "It's not easy to get food to you without anybody wondering where it's going."

"I don't care. I ain't eating it," Eddie repeated.

"Suit yourself, but you're staying here until Hen's hearing in Topeka. You'll get awfully hungry before then."

"I won't testify. I won't say a word."

"After staying here so long, that would be a waste. Besides, then you wouldn't get your twenty dollars a day."

"This is kidnapping. I can have you put in jail."

"It sure is," Madison agreed. "But you're withholding evidence. That's illegal, too. You'd probably find yourself in the cell next to mine."

Madison heard the sound of hoofbeats and looked out the window to see one of George's men ride up. "Here's Spencer. Maybe you'll feel like eating for him."

"Maybe I will testify after all," Eddie said angrily. "Maybe I'll tell the judge you tried to bribe me. Maybe I'll tell him I saw Hen riding straight for the soddy."

Madison smiled at Finch, an overtly friendly smile, but one that made Finch suddenly very nervous.

"I sympathize with your irritation," Madison said, his voice cold and threatening, "but you will testify, and you will tell the truth. If you don't, you won't live one day past that hearing."

Despite the limitations caused by his wound, Madison spent most of his time at Fern's side. She made all the decisions about her father's funeral, but she wouldn't discuss the farm.

"There's nothing to discuss," she said, and apparently dismissed it from her mind.

But Madison's experience with longhorns gave him more faith in the ability of the irascible animals to survive, even a tornado, so he hired Reed and Pike to see what they could find. He also saw to it that every piece of the house and farm buildings which could be found was gathered up and burned. He didn't want Fern coming across something she recognized months later and having to relive the pain of her father's death.

Justifying Madison's faith in their hardiness, the herd had escaped without much loss, but not even that news could rouse Fern from her lethargy. Rose and Mrs. Abbott tried to lift her spirits by keeping up a steady flow of talk and quiet activity. Fern would join when invited, but only did as she was told.

"How long is she going to be like this?" Madison asked Rose. It had been a week since her father's funeral, and he didn't see any change.

"It's hard to say," Rose replied. "Not everybody recovers at the same rate. It must be even worse for Fern because she doesn't have anybody else. She has so many decisions to make, especially about the farm, she must feel overwhelmed."

"I'd be happy to take all the work off her shoulders, but she won't let me."

Rose regarded her brother-in-law with a narrowed gaze. "Are you in love with her?"

Madison had avoided putting that question into words, even in his thoughts. In his own mind, he had kept his life in Boston very neatly separated from Fern and his family.

But these last few weeks had breathed new life into a part of him he had left behind years ago. He liked the physical activity of riding miles across the trackless prairie. He liked the challenge of the inhospitable environment, the taciturn natives. He even enjoyed some aspects of the rough-and-ready frontier society, the adventure, the feeling of living on the edge. He had even learned to accept Fern's pants without wanting to throw them away.

Now that he'd found this part of himself, he wasn't sure what to do with it. But whatever he did, it would involve Fern.

"I'm not sure," Madison answered Rose. "Sometimes I'm sure I couldn't possibly be. I must be crazy. I've never been so addle-brained in my life."

"Have you said anything to her?"

"No."

"Then don't until you're sure. Right now the last thing she needs is to have that thrown in her lap as well."

"You make it sound like a burden," Madison said, feeling a little crestfallen. He hadn't expected his feelings for Fern to be looked on as a hardship. "Who you marry is none of my business," Rose said, "but I would hate to see her hurt. And don't get in a huff," Rose scolded. "I know you'd try very hard to make her happy, but think carefully before you decide. You two have been at each other's throats since you got here. There's not much you approve of about each other. Then there's the question of where to live. You can't stand it here, but would Fern do any better in Boston?"

"I'm sure we could reach a rational decision." He hoped he didn't sound miffed, but he was sure he did.

Rose laughed easily. "If there's one thing missing in this relationship, it's rationality," she said.

Madison withdrew, his feelings abraded. He still hadn't recovered when Fern unexpectedly came out of her room dressed for riding.

Chapter Seventeen.

''I'm going to the farm," she announced. "I've asked Reed and Pike to meet me there."

"I'll go with you," Madison offered, getting up from the table.

He thought for a moment that she was going to argue, but instead she smiled and said, "I'd like that."

"Would you like Mrs. Abbott to pack you a lunch?" Rose asked.

"Of course she would," Mrs. Abbott said. "And if she doesn't, I'll warrant Mr. Madison does."

At first Mrs. Abbott had called Madison "Young Mr. Randolph," but with Hen now a constant visitor to the house, she was driven to using first names. And Mrs. Abbott didn't like using a man's first name. It was familiar, and anything of the familiar concerning men made Mrs. Abbott fidgety. "You go see about your horses," Rose said. "We'll have everything ready by the time you get back."

"Why did you fight me so hard when we were in the gully?" Madison asked. They had pa.s.sed the outskirts of town and their first topic of conversation had fizzled out.

He hadn't thought much about her actions right after the tornado, but for the last two days he hadn't been able to ignore the feeling that she had tried to throw him off because she was frightened, not because he was crushing her. That didn't make any sense, but the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that he was right.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Fern said. She kept her eyes on the trail.

"You kicked and screamed like you were in a frenzy."

"You hurt me. You're a big man."

"Maybe, but you acted like I was about to tear your throat out."

"The storm made me nervous."

She wasn't telling him the truth. He knew that. She wouldn't meet his eyes. She even urged her horse ahead of his. Madison caught up.

"It's something else. Why won't you tell me?"

"It's nothing," Fern said. She'looked at him this time, her expression blank. Too blank.

They rode in silence for a while.

I used to have a nightmare," Madison said. "Always the same one."

"I never have nightmares," Fern declared.

"I was locked in a closet and n.o.body knew where I was. The more I shouted to let someone know where I was, the more the walls closed in on me."