The Waiting

September Round-Up Challenge

By Bakerj

~*~

The quiet weeping stopped.  From the kitchen, I could see across the parlor through the open bedroom door.  Mrs. Baumann was still there, sitting by the bed where I had laid the body of her husband, but it looked like her tears had finally run dry.

‘Not all men are good,’  Pa had told me that when I was eight years old.  A tinker had ridden up to the house and sold Hoss and me a silver belt buckle.  Hoss doubted it was genuine, but I’d wanted it so bad he’d helped me buy it anyway.  It turned out to be cheap nickel.  I’d wasted every dollar of mine, and Hoss’s savings, but Pa told me it was a lesson learned well.

That tinker had slunk lower than a snake, or so I thought.  But I was a kid who didn’t know how bad a man could be.  Thieves like Jack Stevens, who’d rather kill for his money than work.  Or Bert Hindly, who beat his wife and kids, then came to church every Sunday.  And then there was Carl.

Six years younger, he’d been to me what I had to my brothers—the kid following them around.  Kicked out of school for cheating, he’d spent his life lying about everything else.  Pa often wondered how people like Kurt and Helga could have a son as shiftless as Carl.

Mr. Baumann had been like Pa, a man who stood up for what was right.  My father passed those principles on to his sons.  I was damn sure Mr. Baumann had tried to do the same with Carl. 

I glanced at the clock on the mantel.  Its wood was worn and split in one place, and the glass cracked, but it still kept good time.  Almost half an hour had passed since I’d ridden up. 

My palms ran over the smooth, scrubbed pine of the kitchen table.  I heaved myself out of my chair to check the kitchen stove.  It needed wood, and with the sun setting soon, lighting the fire in the parlor mightn’t be such a bad idea either, at least for Mrs. Baumann’s sake.

Finding the wood basket empty, I crammed my hat back on and headed out to the wood pile.

Clean, sharp spring air filled my lungs with the familiar sweet scent of pine, lupine, and mule’s ear.  The sky was the kind of blue that could cause a man’s heart to soar—one hell of a day for a murder.  

My hand grasped the upright of the lean-to and tightened around the rough-hewn wood.  The screams that had taken me off Cochise and into the house at a run hit me again.  I rubbed the spot where Mrs. Baumann’s hands had pressed into mine as I’d held her.  There was nothing I could do for Mr. Baumann except cover him with a blanket.  It hardly felt enough. 

Hefting the now full basket inside, I lit the fire, stoked the stove, and put the coffee pot on to boil.

The cups were stacked neatly on the dresser shelf, and underneath sat that familiar cookie jar.  Its lid was topped with a figurine of a little tow-headed boy holding his black-and-white pup.  How often had I lifted that lid and helped myself to a cookie when Pa, Adam, Hoss, and Hop Sing were away on a drive? 

With the water boiling, I fetched the coffee grounds.  I knew where everything was kept.  I had sat in this kitchen and watched Mrs. Baumann cook more times than I could count.  And besides, since Mr. Baumann injured his back two years ago, I’d spent as much time as I could up here helping out.  She never let me leave without getting food inside me. 

I poured out the coffee and carried a cup to the bedroom.  Setting the saucer down on the side table, I placed a hand on her shoulder.  Mrs. Baumann looked up and nodded.  

She had pushed back the blanket enough to take her husband’s hand in her tiny ones.  Blood still covered them. 

“Mrs. Baumann, don’t you want to wash your hands?”

This time she didn’t look up.  “No.  I’m fine.  Thank you, Joseph.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I went back to the kitchen table. 

My finger ran over the spot where five-year-old Carl had carved his initials—just to impress me.  He wore a grin a mile wide all day, even though he had caught a mess of trouble for his effort.   Wrapping my hands around my cup, I hugged it close.  When did that cheeky little scamp change?

Silence pulled up a chair, broken only by the tick of the clock and the wood spitting in the fireplace.  Setting down my empty cup, I glanced around at Mrs. Baumann.  Hers sat untouched. 

When I’d told her I was going to get the sheriff to chase Carl down, she’d grabbed my wrist, holding me back.  “He won’t run, not yet.  He got scared, that’s all.  But he’ll be back.  He wants money to go to California.  Kurt wouldn’t give it to him.  He’ll think I will.”

I’d believed her.  But looking out the window, seeing the daylight bleeding into dark, had I made a mistake?  Would she have lied to me?  Kept me here while her son escaped?  Could a mother’s love go that far?  I looked again at that broken figure.  No.  Not Mrs. Baumann.

I scrubbed a hand over my face and became aware of the hat still on my head.  I hunched over the table.  Removing it was too much effort.

My head turned at the sound, and I froze in my seat — a horse.  Mrs. Baumann looked right at me.  She’d heard it too. 

Boots thudded over dirt and then the wood of the porch.  A hand I couldn’t see reached for the lock to lift the latch.

I drew my gun.  When Carl walked through that door, he’d be heading only one place.  Jail.

~ The End ~