The Complete Oregon Series, page 94
The arm turned a bit more.
Rika fell into the dark spots that danced before her eyes. The harsh sound of her own breathing dimmed. “Wait!” She gasped.
Amy paused, her fingers gentle on Rika’s arm.
“I need to lie down.” If she fainted, Amy wouldn’t be able to catch her. Not without further hurting her shoulder. She lay on the divan. Her skirt slid up, and her legs tangled with Amy’s as they hung off the short divan. She didn’t care. Amy’s touch was the only thing anchoring her in a sea of pain.
“Do you want some whiskey?” Amy asked. Her face was as pale as Rika’s chemise. “Papa keeps a bottle in the parlor for emergencies.”
Numbing the pain sounded like a good idea, but she already felt dizzy enough and she had sworn to herself never to rely on the bottle to get her through a tough situation, as her father and husband had. “No. Just get it over with.” With the help of her left hand, she pulled her upper arm against her body.
Amy gripped her forearm. Her fingers stroked Rika’s hands, soothing away the pain. Then the pressure returned. Rika’s forearm rotated to the side.
With her good hand, Rika gripped a handful of fabric, not knowing or caring what it was.
Amy pulled a bit more.
Rika’s muscles spasmed and burned with pain.
“What if this isn’t working?” Amy paused, her gaze searching Rika’s. “What if I’m making it worse?”
Rika shook her head. If she opened her mouth to answer, she would scream, so she nodded at Amy to continue.
Slowly, Amy rotated the elbow.
The knotted muscles protested, flaring with white-hot pain. Rika screamed.
Then, as her forearm moved an inch farther, the pressure stopped. The pain went from roaring to smoldering. Rika panted through a dry mouth. She unclenched the trembling fingers of her left hand from around Amy’s sleeve and cradled her right arm to her chest.
Amy let go of her forearm and rubbed her fingertips over Rika’s shoulder, making sure the bulb-shaped knot was gone. The gentle touch made Rika forget the pain for a moment. “How does it feel?”
“Good,” Rika said. Her cheeks flamed. “I mean, it’s a lot better now.”
The door burst open. “Hendrika got hurt?” Luke’s voice was higher than usual.
Amy tugged the chemise back into place and took a step forward, blocking Rika’s half-dressed body with her own. “I got it, Papa. We put the shoulder back in.”
Luke patted Amy’s arm. “Well done.” He peered past Amy but respectfully kept his gaze on Rika’s face. “Anything I can do for you, Hendrika?”
“No, thank you. I’m in good hands.”
“Yes, you are.” Luke smiled like a rooster proud of his chicks.
“Was there something you wanted?” Amy asked.
Luke hesitated. “Your mother and I wanted to talk to you, but it can wait until later. Go make her comfortable.” He backed away before Amy could say anything else.
Frowning, Amy watched his retreating back for a few moments before she turned her attention back to Rika. She took Rika’s shawl and knotted it around her shoulder. “Toby had his arm in a sling after we put his shoulder back in.”
“What about my bodice?”
“Don’t bother.” With gentle fingers, Amy placed the injured arm into the sling. “You’d only have to struggle out of it again, ’cause I’m taking you to bed.” Red blotches formed on her cheeks. “I-I mean, I’m gonna take you upstairs and make sure you rest.”
In the past, Rika would have thought nothing of the innocent comment, but now Frankie and Tess had made her aware that women could take other women to bed. Apparently, Amy had thought about that revelation too. What would it be like? Again, she felt Amy’s fingers on her bare shoulder, stroking gently, but when she looked up, Amy wasn’t touching her. She shook her head at herself. You’re drunk on pain. On legs that felt weak, she let Amy help her up the stairs.
“You don’t have to do that,” Rika said when Amy plumped up her pillow for the fourth time in half an hour. “I haven’t been in bed past sunrise since I was four years old. I should be up, helping Nattie muck the stalls and taking care of—”
“No.” Amy hovered over her. “For once, you’re the one being taken care of. Better get used to it.”
Better not. The pastor would come over later today, and within a few days, Rika would be away from Amy’s caring presence. The thought hurt more than the pain in her shoulder.
Amy sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle it. “How’s the shoulder? Does it hurt?”
“It’s a lot better now that you put it back in.”
A knock interrupted, and Amy hurried to the door like a self-appointed guardian. She inched open the door and peered through the crack.
“How is she?” Phin asked from the other side.
Amy glanced back at Rika. “I put the shoulder back in. Now she needs some rest.”
“Can I see her?”
“She’s not dressed to receive visitors.”
“I wouldn’t disturb her, but the reverend is over in the cabin,” Phin said. “He wants to talk to Hendrika and me, and I would hate to send him away. He already thinks Hendrika and I are draggin’ our feet about the wedding.”
Rika stiffened. Her shoulder started to pound. Or maybe it was her heart.
“Wait here.” Amy closed the door and turned. Was it just Rika’s imagination, or was the helpless desperation she felt reflected on Amy’s face? But when she opened her mouth, Amy just asked, “Do you feel up to talking to the reverend? We can send him away if—”
Rika shook her head. No use in dragging it out. “It’s all right.”
“Want some help getting dressed?”
“I think I can manage.” Rika slipped out of bed, careful not to bang her shoulder on the washstand. She pulled out of the improvised sling, but when she tried to wrestle her right arm through the sleeve of her bodice, her muscles protested.
“Let me.” Amy helped her with the sleeves and then lifted her hands to the buttons.
Rika watched the strong fingers move over her bodice. Her glance took in rope burns, scratches, and old scars across the backs of Amy’s hands, and she realized the pattern was as familiar to her as the streets of Boston had once been. It seemed she spent a lot of time watching Amy’s hands. “We seem to make a habit out of dressing and undressing each other,” she murmured.
Amy paused, hands on the top button. Surely, she could feel Rika’s heart hammering away through the fabric of her bodice. Her finger trailed over Rika’s collarbone when she lifted her gaze. “Rika, I—”
A loud knock on the door made them jerk apart. “Hendrika?” Phin called through the door. “You decent?”
Rika had forgotten that he stood waiting. “Yes, come in.”
Phin stepped into the bedroom, squeezing his hat between his hands. He looked like Rika’s brother when he had gotten into trouble and was waiting to be scolded.
He’s not your brother. He’ll be your husband soon.
“How’s the shoulder?” He waved his hat in the direction of Rika’s right arm.
“It’s fine.” She wasn’t used to all that fussing over her. “Amy took good care of it.”
“Good, good. I feel real bad about it.”
“It was my own fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Watching Amy had distracted her. Heat crept up her chest and suffused her face.
Phin took her left hand and squeezed it. “Don’t be embarrassed. Everyone stumbles now and again.”
“Here.” Amy filled a mug with water from the pitcher and shoved it at Rika.
Blinking, Rika freed her hand from Phin’s and took the mug. “Thank you.” She gulped down the cool liquid as if it would extinguish the fire in her cheeks.
“The reverend is waitin’ in the cabin.” Phin shoved one hand into his pocket. “Do you want me to send him away?”
Rika was tempted to say yes and buy herself a few more days at the ranch, but she had always faced reality and never allowed herself to linger on what ifs. She wouldn’t start now. “No. Go on ahead and tell him I’ll be over in a minute.”
Phin nodded and turned on his heel. He strode away as if thankful to escape the room.
“Want to come?” Rika gestured in the direction of the cabin with her chin. The pastor’s presence made her squirm ever since she had seen Tess and Frankie kiss, and knowing he was there to talk about her wedding didn’t help to calm her.
“No,” Amy said so quickly that Rika suspected she wasn’t eager to be in the pastor’s presence either. “I should go check on the horses.”
Distance grew between them, and Rika shivered. She fumbled the improvised sling back around her shoulder and turned to go.
“Rika?”
She turned back.
Their gazes met and pulled them together, across the room. Without a word, Amy stepped closer. The heat of her body warmed Rika. Amy lifted her hands as if about to touch her.
Rika’s breath hitched. Her heart hammered, but this time, it had nothing to do with pain.
Amy closed the top button on Rika’s bodice. “There.” She dropped her hands and stepped back.
“Oh. Thank you.” On shaky legs, Rika stumbled down the stairs.
Hamilton Horse Ranch
Baker Prairie, Oregon
June 26, 1868
Amy splashed water from the washbowl onto her burning face and then rubbed a towel over it. When she looked up and out the window, her gaze fell on the reverend’s buggy in the ranch yard. The thought of Rika and Phin in the cabin, talking to the reverend about marriage, made her stomach churn. She groaned into the towel.
After a few more minutes of pacing and fretting, she hurled the towel across the room. Nothing you can do about it. Back to work. Being with the horses would distract her.
But when she plodded down the stairs to escape to the horse barn, her whole family had gathered in the parlor. Papa sat in his favorite armchair, his body as stiff and wooden as one of his carved figurines. Mama perched next to him, clinging to his arm.
Amy tensed at the strange scene. She looked at Nattie, who sat on the divan, and tilted her head in a silent question.
Nattie shrugged. She looked just as puzzled as Amy felt.
“What’s going on?” Amy barely managed to keep her voice even. They weren’t going to make her confess her unnatural feelings to Nattie, were they? Her legs began to shake.
“Please sit down,” Papa said. “We need to talk.”
Uh-oh. No pleasant conversation ever started like that. Her shaky knees plopped her down on the divan next to Nattie. The mantle clock ticked away. Amy’s heart pounded twice for every beat of the clock.
Papa looked at Mama.
Mama looked back, her hands clamped around Papa’s forearm. They talked without saying a word, and Amy watched with longing. The connection between her parents filled the room, like a living, breathing, wonderful thing.
Finally, Papa turned his head. The silvery color of his eyes darkened to a rain-cloud gray. He wrapped his arm around Mama as if she were the only thing keeping him from drowning. “Your mother and I talked about it. We didn’t make this decision lightly, but we think it’s time to tell you.”
“Tell us what?” Nattie asked.
Papa swallowed. “It’s not easy for me to say this.”
Heaviness settled in the pit of Amy’s stomach. She wasn’t ready to hear more bad news. The thought of Rika being gone soon was enough to keep her up at night.
“What I have to say will confuse you terribly,” Papa said, “and you might not love me anymore, but please...” He lifted his hand, palm up, like a beggar pleading for a coin.
Amy shook her head. Not love him anymore? “That will never happen.”
“Papa, please.” Nattie’s fingernails scratched along Amy’s chaps, searching for some hold. “You’re scaring me.”
“I never wanted that. I never wanted you to be afraid or disappointed or confused—”
“Luke.” Mama slid even closer to him on the arm of his chair. “I think you should just tell them. There’s no way to prepare them for this.”
Papa bent forward. His breathing came in quick gasps, and he looked as if he might be sick.
Mama laid a hand on his bare neck.
The tension in the room made Amy’s stomach roil.
“There’s something about me that I kept hidden from most of the world for a long, long time.” Papa pressed three fingers to his mouth as if he wanted to hold back the words.
He kept something hidden? It couldn’t be something big, could it? After all, Papa was the most honest, most honorable man Amy knew.
“My full name, for one thing,” Papa said, circling around the truth like a hawk around a field mouse, getting closer and closer until, finally, he added, “I wasn’t born Luke Hamilton.”
Nattie clutched Amy’s arm. “You’re an outlaw?” she whispered.
His mouth twitched and then curved up. “I wish it was that easy.” He lowered his lashes and studied the diamond pattern of the Brussels carpet. “My mother named me Lucinda.”
“Lucinda?” The name echoed through Amy’s head. “But that’s a girl’s name.”
“Yes, it is,” Papa said slowly, as if every word hurt. “I was born a girl.”
Why was he talking like that? Amy scowled at him. “This isn’t funny, Papa.”
“I’m not joking.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Nattie said. “People can’t switch bodies.”
“True.” Papa dragged up his gaze and met Amy’s eyes, then Nattie’s. “But we can choose what to do with our bodies. Some women choose to live as men.”
Amy’s thoughts were galloping in a thousand directions at once. “You mean like Frankie?”
“I mean like me,” Papa said.
“I don’t understand.” Nattie’s voice shook.
“Oh, sweetie. I wish there was an easier way to say this.” Papa rubbed his red-rimmed eyes, then looked up. “I’m not a man. I’m a woman.”
“No,” Nattie shouted. “You’re lying!”
Amy jumped up and shook her head until it pounded. No, this wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Her gaze slid over her papa, looking for something, anything... But all she saw was the man she loved and admired. “Impossible!” Pressing her hands together, she looked at Mama and silently begged her to deny it.
But Mama nodded, her lips forming a thin white line.
The sick feeling in the pit of Amy’s stomach spiraled out of control.
Mama turned her head to press a kiss to Papa’s temple and entwined their fingers.
For the first time, Amy noticed that Papa’s hands didn’t dwarf Mama’s. Not the way Josh’s hands looked next to Hannah’s. Papa’s hands were slender for a man, their backs not dotted with hair.
Her own hands flew to her mouth. “No. No. This can’t be true.”
Nattie cried and shouted, and Mama said something, but the buzzing in Amy’s ears drowned out their voices. Her world spun on its axis, refusing to right itself. She couldn’t listen right now. She couldn’t stay. She jerked free from Nattie’s viselike grip on her forearm and fled.
Hamilton Horse Ranch
Baker Prairie, Oregon
June 26, 1868
Rika cursed her injured shoulder. It condemned her to sit at the table with the pastor. At least Phin got to bustle around, lifting a pot of water onto the hook above the fire, while she faced Reverend Rhodes’s stare alone.
She hooked her fingers in her crocheted shawl and lowered her gaze under the pretense of re-adjusting the sling. The smell of leather and grass still clung to the fabric, bringing a mental image of Amy. Her cheeks heated at the thought of Amy dressing her.
“...on Monday,” the pastor said, making her head jerk up. “What do you think? I have a beautiful sermon about the sanctity of marriage.”
Phin and Rika exchanged a glance. Was he as insecure about getting married as she was?
Shouts from outside shattered the uneasy silence in the cabin.
Rika strained her ears. What was going on?
“Amy,” Luke shouted over the din of the other voices.
She’d never heard him shout. Unlike her own father, he seemed like a calm and gentle man. Something was wrong. Something with Amy.
With an apologetic glance at the pastor, Rika hastened to the door, almost colliding with Phin and the coffee pot in his hands. She veered to the side and opened the door.
Amy hurried past the cabin, her strides as long and fast as she could make them without outright running. She disappeared into the stable, not glancing at Rika.
“Please, Amy!” Luke flew down the veranda steps. “Amy, wait!”
Nora caught up with him at the bottom of the stairs. She rubbed her hands up and down his arms.
Rika stuck her head out the door and strained to hear what they were saying.
“We need to give her some time,” Nora said, her voice gentle, as if she were talking to a scared child or an injured animal. “She’s just confused. Her whole world has been turned upside down.”
What happened? Rika’s heart slammed against her ribs. She stepped out of the cabin.
“Hendrika?” Phin called.
She glanced back.
Phin gestured at the pastor and the Bible on the table.
If she wanted to have a new life as Phin’s wife, she needed to stay and have coffee with the pastor. This is what you came here for. It’s what you wanted. Close the door and sit back down.
But she didn’t move. She sucked in a breath, closed her eyes, and made a decision. Making sure Amy was all right was more important than securing her future as Phin’s bride. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But something’s wrong with Amy.”
“Marriage needs to be taken seriously, Ms. Bruggeman,” the pastor said. “You can’t walk away when we were discussing—”
