The Gunman's Bride. Catherine Palmer
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jacket.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Oh, Bart, you’re in no shape to go anywhere.”
“No, Rosie-girl. I made you a promise.” For a moment he sat hunched over, breathing heavily. Then he hauled himself to his feet.
Rosie watched him sway like a great tree about to topple. He means to do it, she thought. He actually means to keep his promise to me. One of his long legs started to crumple, but he grabbed the iron footboard to steady himself.
His guns and cartridge belts weighed him down as he shuffled across the room toward the corner where she had tossed his jacket. His bandage was stained with a dark red blotch. He propped one big brown hand on the windowsill and bent to pick up the torn buckskin.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry I messed up your sheets and rug. Sorry about when we were young and how much I hurt you. I’m sorry I made you cry last night, too, and—”
“For mercy’s sake, Bart!” She snatched the jacket out of his hands. “You’re delirious, plain and simple. Now get back to bed this instant. I’ll check on you after the breakfast shift.”
“No, Rosie, I—”
“Let go of that windowsill and grab on to me before you fall down with a crash and bring Mrs. Jensen running.”
Rosie clenched her teeth and heaved Bart against her. This man could drive me to drink, she thought. All those ridiculous apologies. If he weren’t so sick, she’d give him what for. She didn’t need anyone’s apologies for the way her life had turned out. She had made her own choices and now she would live with them.
“Get in this bed,” she ordered, shoving him down. “And don’t get up until I say. You’re going to make me late for inspection, and then where will I be?”
Working quickly, she tugged off his boots and set them on the floor. My, but they needed a good polishing. She pulled the sheets and blankets over his chest and tucked the edges under the mattress.
Opening the window to freshen the room, she didn’t take her usual time to pray and gaze out over the little town of Raton and its encircling range of snow-capped mesas. Instead, she quickly washed and then stepped behind the changing screen to put on her uniform. Black stockings. Chemise. Corset—oh, she had to hurry! Black skirt. Black shirt buttoned up to the neck.
Rushing to the hook by the door, she grabbed a fresh white apron, tied it around her waist and buttoned the bib. In two short months she had worked her way almost up to head waitress, but one moan from Bart Kingsley could undo everything.
Nerves jangling, she laced her boots and pinned her hair up in a thick, glossy knot. There had been a time when a lady’s maid had helped her dress in silk and velvet gowns, pretty slippers and kid gloves. Necklaces and bracelets that sparkled with gems had adorned her as she called on ladies of her social circle.
Now she wouldn’t trade her black-and-white Harvey Girl uniform for all the lace, ruffles and taffeta in Kansas City.
“Uniform inspection!” Mrs. Jensen called in the hallway.
Heart thumping, Rosie flew to the bed where Bart lay. “Now don’t do anything foolish,” she whispered, smoothing the sheet over his chest as though he were a sick child and not a gunslinger. “I’ll come back after the last breakfast train, so just—”
“My beautiful Rosie-girl,” he murmured as he caught her hand and brought it to his lips. With a gasp, she pulled away and hurried out into the hall.
Filling silver-plated urns with Fred Harvey’s famous coffee, Rosie tried not to think about the possibility that any moment Mrs. Jensen would storm into the restaurant screaming about the outlaw in Laura Kingsley’s room.
“Did you sleep all right?” Etta called from her station near a wall of windows. “I reckon that outlaw will be long gone by now.”
“If he’s smart, he will.” Rosie fretted as she folded napkins for her four assigned tables. “Of course, if he was smart, he never would have gotten himself shot in the first place. We’ll find out from Mr. Adams.”
Charles Adams, editor of The Raton Comet, boasted that his eight-page weekly never missed a good story. How shocked he would be to know that the scoop of the year lay just overhead in room seven.
“Twenty-two omelets are coming in on the eight-o’clock!” Tom Gable, the Harvey House manager, called out the food order that had been wired ahead. “Fourteen hotcakes, six biscuits and gravy, thirty-three coffees and nine milks. The train’ll be here in seven minutes!”
With a collective gasp, the five Harvey Girls rushed to finish their preparations. Rosie loved her work. Respected, protected, well paid, she couldn’t have found a better place to make a new life for herself. Once she had saved enough money, she would apply for a teaching position and buy a little house. It was a hope she had cherished for years. But she knew that at any moment, her past might catch up to her and snuff it out. A deafening whooo, and the dining-room floor began to shake. Glasses rattled. Cups wobbled. Spoons tinkled against knives. Steam billowed across the platform as the enormous black-and-silver engine of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe train rolled into the depot. As the brakeman set the brakes, the train squealed in protest. Chunks of red-hot coal spilled from the firebox. Railway men rushed to stomp them out. The smell of oil and smoke enveloped the Harvey House.
Like wraiths, the passengers descended through the steam onto the platform. Their hats askew and coats not quite settled, they stretched, waved and stared at the blue sky after the long ride. Children scampered to the rails to inspect the big engine. Tails wagging, a pair of dogs known to the whole town as Tom and Griff trotted through the crowd.
Then one of the busboys stepped into the crowd and raised his large brass gong.
“Breakfast is served,” he called, giving the gong a hard whack with a stick. “Breakfast is served!” Rosie stood silently, hands behind her back, as the passengers walked into the dining room and took their seats.
The moment one table had been settled, she started around it.
“What do you care to drink this morning?” she asked. “We have coffee, milk or orange juice.”
As each patron stated a selection, Rosie quickly arranged the cups according to the code she had been taught. She hurried off to fetch the food while another girl poured beverages. Rosie could almost hear the customers marveling that the drink girl knew exactly what they had requested. It was all part of the Fred Harvey mystique, an air of magic that delighted patrons and filled the staff with pride.
While the diners were munching on apple wedges, oranges and grapes, Rosie went around her station taking orders for omelets, hotcakes or biscuits and gravy. The dining room filled with the spicy-sweet aroma that seemed to rouse the passengers even more effectively than the famous Harvey coffee did.
Standing motionless, hands behind her back and the required smile on her face, Rosie kept her eyes constantly roving her station for the slightest possible indication that she was needed by a diner. On most mornings she was so absorbed in her work that she never gave anything outside it a second thought. But knowing Bart lay upstairs in her bed, Rosie found her concentration wandering. What if he took it into his head to try to climb out the window? What if he lost his balance and fell out? She glanced uneasily through the long side windows, suddenly fully aware of the impossible situation she was in.
Outside the front of the red board-and-batten Harvey House lay a long porch, a row of widely spaced trees and the depot and train tracks. Behind the building was the small, fenced private yard for the House’s female employees, and beyond that stretched the town of Raton. Now that Rosie thought about it, how on earth could Bart ever hope to escape in broad daylight? He’d be spotted immediately.
But how could he stay in her room for the rest of the day? Someone would find out for sure. And what if his fever grew worse? She lifted her head, listening for thumps, bumps and moans.
The silence was almost worse than the anticipation of noise.