The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,124

guilty. It was bad enough that she’d gotten herself pregnant, but tomorrow morning, her baby’s daddy was going to be hanged. She was not only up a flooded creek and drowning, but going down for the last time. Too heartsick and afraid to admit to her situation, she’d decided to do herself in. It was just the how and where of it that she had yet to figure out.

She fainted at the sight of blood, so using a knife was not an option, and she didn’t know how to shoot a gun, so that was out, too. Each night when she went to bed she tried to stop breathing, but so far had been unsuccessful because she kept falling asleep, only to wake up each morning to a new day.

Then it occurred to her that she just needed to wait for the arrival of the next stagecoach and throw herself beneath the wheels. It would probably hurt something awful before she died, but that would be her penance for committing her mortal sins. She didn’t think about the fact that she would be ending her baby’s life before it had a chance to begin, mostly because the baby didn’t seem real. She’d felt nothing but panic since the day she’d learned of its existence, and it was far easier to be a coward than to face the consequences of her actions.

Dooley Pilchard walked with a limp and had to squint a bit to see good out of his right eye, but he was a good hand with a fire and bellows, and satisfied the residents of Plum Creek’s needs for a blacksmith just fine. His shoulders were broad, his hands knotted from long hours hammering iron and shoeing horses. He looked older than his twenty-seven years, stood seven inches over six feet tall and wore a beard to hide a scar that ran the length of his neck and chin. He wore the beard short and his hair long, tied back from his face with a thin piece of leather. His deep blue eyes were his best feature, but hard to see beneath dark, shaggy eyebrows.

He was a lonely man who witnessed life in Plum Creek without any participation beyond the casual hello and goodbye to his customers. Because of his size and his limp, few single women ever noticed him, and none gave him a second glance. By his habits alone, he’d become anonymous, almost invisible, and because of that, he knew way more of the goings on in Plum Creek than people could have imagined.

He knew that the mayor downed a flask of whiskey every afternoon in the alley behind the saloon, and that Mary Farmer had been sneaking out to see Joseph Carver for several months. He knew that Joseph Carver bragged about his prowess among the other cowboys with whom he worked, and he knew that Joseph Carver’s laughing days were almost over. What he didn’t know was that when Joseph Carver died, he was leaving a piece of himself behind. Ironically, Joseph Carver didn’t know it either, but that was of no comfort to Mary and immaterial to Dooley. What he did know was that when Joseph Carver had been sentenced to hang, Mary Farmer had changed.

Her pretty face was no longer wreathed in constant smiles, and her demeanor had turned into one resembling a whipped dog. She walked with her head down and her shoulders slumped, and he wanted more than anything in this world, to put his arms around her and protect her forever from hurt or harm.

However, Dooley Pilchard was a realist and knew that dream was about as far-fetched as a dream could be. So he admired her from afar, watched her when she didn’t see him looking, and wished Joseph Carver to hell for making Mary Farmer sad.

Adam Farmer knocked sharply on Mary’s door. When his daughter didn’t answer, he shouted out.

“Mary! Mary! You need to come down and help out at the counter. Seems like everyone has come to town to see the hangin’ and your mother can’t help because Maybelle is sick.”

“Yes. All right,” she said. “I’ll be down shortly.”

“Well, hurry up and get dressed. Customers are thick as flies.”

“Yes, Father,” Mary said, and listened to his footsteps disappearing as she stared blindly out the window to the gallows in the town square below.

She couldn’t believe she was in such a terrible fix. The more she thought about it, the more she realized what a fool she’d been.