Banner O'Brien (30 page)

“I’ll kill you for this, Sean Malloy!”

*  *  *

They carried Adam inside on the door of the downstairs coat closet, Jeff and Jenny and one of the men who had come from the stables to investigate the disturbance.

Adam’s injuries seemed infinitely worse in the light, and Banner despaired even as she tended him.

He was strong, Adam was—so strong. But he could barely lie still on the examining room table long enough for an injection of morphine. “The ribs, O’Brien—”

“Hush,” she said, withdrawing the needle from the inside of his forearm. “I’m a doctor, too, remember?”

“Ummm, O’Brien, it hurts. It hurts—”

Banner spared a moment to kiss his bloodied forehead. “I know, darling. But I’m here and I’ll help you. Please, just lie still.”

He laughed, but the sound was a raw gurgle. “Would you really—kill for me—O’Brien?”

“Gladly,” she replied, in all truth, as she cut away his shirt with scissors taken from a drawer in the table. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“S-someone—inside the buggy—”

“Did you see him?”

“D-Do I look like I s-saw him, O’Brien?”

While Jenny and Jeff looked on, Banner assessed the cut on Adam’s lip and the wound beneath his hairline,
trying to decide whether to tend these before she bound his ribs. “Is the morphine working yet?”

“No,” Adam said, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and closed.

“Is he dead?” gasped Jeff.

“No,” replied Banner crisply, even though inside she felt as though she shared Adam’s injuries. “He’s asleep, and that’s fortunate. Find me a clean sheet, Jeff. Jenny, I need alcohol and some cotton.”

It was only after she had stitched and bound her shattered husband back together that Banner Corbin allowed herself to lower her forehead to his and weep for him.

When her weeping was through, she took a firm hold of herself again and accepted the brandy-laced coffee Jeff had brought.

“What now?” asked Adam’s brother.

“Now we wait. We hope.” Banner lifted her eyes to the darkened window and silently cursed Sean Malloy to burn in hell. Had it not been for that, she would have added, “We pray.”

Jeff swore. “I sent the wire,” he seethed. “Damn it, didn’t he get the wire?”

Banner had not forgotten the unopened yellow envelope lying on Adam’s desk; it had been engraved into her brain for all time. “It came.”

“Then—”

“Adam didn’t see it. Jenny?”

The girl came forward; her brown eyes were wide and there were tear streaks on her face.

Banner reached out to touch her friend’s shoulder. “You came here to get help, didn’t you?”

Jenny nodded. “M-My mother—she told me there is smallpox in the village. They will use the steam hut and Adam told me—told me—”

“That you must come to him if that happened,” Banner finished for her. She turned to look at her tall,
very pale brother-in-law. “Jeff, can you look after Adam? Make sure that Sean doesn’t get in here and—”

“No,”
Jeff spat, in a bellowlike whisper. “If you think I’m going to let you go traipsing off to the Klallum camp, in the middle of the night, with that madman prowling around—”

Banner squared her shoulders. “Stop talking like a husband, Jeffrey Corbin. Adam would want me to go.”

“The hell he would! He’d never forgive me if anything happened to you, and I can’t say I’d blame him. So here is the plan, Mrs. Corbin. Sit down and listen.”

Knowing that an argument would be fruitless at this point, Banner found a stool, drew it close to Adam, and sat down.

Chapter Thirteen

S
EAN RESTED HIS FOREHEAD AGAINST THE
rough-barked trunk of a fir tree, breathing deeply. Banner’s threat pulsed in his mind and his soul, echoing. Aching.
I’ll kill you for this, Sean Malloy.

After a time, he looked up. From where he stood, he could see the lights of that massive, fancy house. His breath evened out a bit, and he smiled.

Corbin was bigger than he’d thought. If he hadn’t hidden in the buggy the way he had and caught that bleeding rounder in the face with the side of his boot, it might have been himself lying on the ground.

A sudden and intense ache stiffened Sean’s shoulders and knotted his gut. He’d have killed the bastard, that he would, if it hadn’t been for the captain coming along when he did. It would have been a mistake, killing
Adam Corbin, considering the plans he had for him and for Banner.

So Banner would kill him, would she? Sean laughed as he started back down the hill, toward Water Street, keeping to the darkest parts of the road and even slipping through the occasional back garden. She’d killed him already, putting him into that stinking prison the way she had, taking money for his freedom, denying him for that fancy man and his bed.

On Water Street, it was said that Adam Corbin kept a mistress and visited her regularly. And still, the story went, he could have Banner whenever and wherever he wanted, her yowling for more like an alley cat.

Rage shifted, cold and raw, within Sean’s tormented spirit. Why was it that she’d willingly give herself to the rich man, even knowing about his woman, as she surely must? When he himself had strayed, she’d refused him her bed.

Sean smiled. Her refusals hadn’t mattered much to him, had they? He’d had her anyway, and roughly, and he would have her again.

After all, she was his wife.

He found Royce in the appointed place, behind one of the boxhouses on Water Street.

“Well?” drawled the captain of the
Jonathan Lee,
his features hidden in shadow until he struck a match to light a cheroot.

“He’s hurtin’,” said Sean.

“But not dead?”

“Not yet.” Sean paused, folded his brawny arms. His hands still ached to finish his work, to close around Corbin’s throat and squeeze. “Tell me something, Royce. What do you have against Corbin?”

Royce’s features looked chiseled in the crimson glow of his cheroot’s tip. “Adam? Not much, really. Our association is marked by a sort of scathing indifference. It’s Jeff I’d like to see stretched out on a slab.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say that we’re—competitors, Captain Corbin and I. He’ll come after you, you know. And that’s what I want—one chance at him.”

Sean considered the weeks he’d spent crewing on the
Sea Mistress,
against his will, and the rage moved in him again. He hadn’t been mistreated on that ship, that was true, but he’d been shanghaied all the same, and that was something a man couldn’t overlook.

“It won’t be easy, handlin’ that one,” he observed.

“I’ll have help, Malloy. You just draw Jeff Corbin into my reach, and I’ll settle your debt and my own, too.”

“That leaves the doctor and me wife.”

Temple’s shoulders stiffened in the darkness. “Wait a minute. I’d like nothing better than to drop Jeff’s head into the sound, tied up in a sack, and I don’t really give a damn what you do to Adam. But the woman—”

“The woman is mine, Royce. Mine to deal with.”

“Hold it, Malloy. Bedding Banner is one thing, but killing her is another. And she isn’t your wife—not anymore.”

“She is.”

“No, Malloy. I’ve seen the papers—the daughter of a—er—friend of mine showed them to me. Banner divorced you in New York, several years ago. Her marriage to Corbin is legal.”

Divorce? Banner had dared to divorce him, defying not only her rightful husband but God Himself? “I don’t believe it!”

“It’s the truth, Malloy. Corbin’s within the law when he beds the woman, and bed her he does.”

Sean considered killing Temple Royce where he stood; given the man’s size and build, it would be easy. But he needed a way out of Port Hastings, a place to hide until it was time to strike again. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“You’ve heard the talk, Malloy, just as I have. One
of my girls tells me that Adam all but took her in one of the hallways on the
Silver Shadow,
Christmas Eve. It was the night they were married, in fact.”

A headache grasped the nape of Sean’s neck like the claw of some giant beast. “They ain’t married—not in the eyes of God.”

“God doesn’t seem to mind much, Malloy. And Adam Corbin has the look of a man well-serviced. I suppose she—”

“Why are you doing this? Why the hell are you telling me these things when you know—”

In the fetid gloom, Sean saw the flash of Royce’s even teeth. “I want you to be angry, Malloy. Mad enough to kill.”

“I’m that, all right. And it’s you I’ll be killin’, Royce, if you don’t stop talking the way you are.”

“You won’t do that. I’m all that stands between you and a long stay in the territorial prison, and we both know it. You killed that redheaded whore, Malloy, and then you assaulted a leading citizen. If you weren’t leaving here tonight, on the
Jonathan Lee,
the Corbins would have your ass on a platter before sunrise. That family is close, Malloy, and they look after their own.”

Everything Royce had said was true, and Sean offered no argument. “You want something more than the captain’s head in a bag, don’t you, Royce?”

The nod of the dandy’s head was almost imperceptible, but his words had all the impact of a sledge hammer. “I want a turn at Banner,” he said calmly.

Sean closed his eyes, reminded himself that he needed this man, for the time being. “She’s me
wife,”
he breathed.

“She’s
Corbin’s
wife. Let me have her for one night—just one night—and then, as long as you don’t kill her, she’s yours.”

“Aye? And how will you know if I kill her or not?”

“I’ll know, Malloy. And if anything happens to that woman, I’ll have you hunted down and dealt with in a
manner that isn’t pleasant to think about, let alone endure.”

At that moment, Temple Royce’s real plans were as clear to Sean as if they’d been written across the night sky in stars. He meant to have his vengeance on Captain Corbin, dump Sean himself over the side of the
Jonathan Lee,
and with the fancy man dead, have Banner for his own. Not just for one night, but until he tired of her.

Sean chuckled to himself. Royce’s idea, as it happened, wasn’t so very different from his own. There were variations, of course, but not many.

*  *  *

“First,” Jeff went on, as Banner sipped her potent coffee, “I’ll get some of my crew to stand guard here, look after both you and Adam. Jenny and I will go to the Klallum camp and put a stop to this steam hut business, whatever it is.”

Banner looked at her unconscious husband. He would have to be moved from the examining table to one of the ward beds. “The Klallum won’t listen to you,” she said to Jeff, at reflective length.

“Maybe not, Banner,” Jeff retorted. “But you’re not going near the place. If Malloy didn’t get you, the smallpox would.”

“I am immune to smallpox,” reasoned Adam’s wife. “I’ve treated it before.”

Jeff looked quietly explosive, and his eyes swept over the battered, carefully mended form of his sleeping brother. “I can’t believe you would even consider leaving Adam now,” he marveled angrily. “Damn Malloy and everything else—don’t you care about your own husband?”

“You know I do!” cried Banner, shooting off the stool, upsetting her coffee and spilling it down the front of her wrapper. “Jeff, Adam would want me to go!”

“Bull,” replied Jeff.

They moved Adam into the ward in stiff silence, the
three of them, by means of the same wooden door he’d been carried inside on. Until his ribs had a chance to mend, in fact, he would remain upon it.

“Take care of my brother,” Jeff ordered in a terse whisper once they’d covered Adam and put the special railings on the sides of his bed into place. “Lock the house,” he added, on his way to the outer office, “and don’t let anyone in except me.”

“Jeff!”

He was gone.

Banner fell into a chair, her eyes fixed on Adam. How broken and vulnerable he looked, lying there. Suppose Sean did get in somehow? Suppose—

“It’s true, Banner,” whispered Jenny, breaking into her thoughts. “You can’t leave Adam now. Not if you love him.”

“Do you think I
want
to?” hissed Banner, trembling in her shock and her weariness and her outrage. “Good God, Jenny, do you seriously think I want to turn my back on him even for a moment, let alone go ‘traipsing off,’ as Jeff put it, to some Indian camp?”

Jenny lowered her eyes.

Banner regretted speaking so sharply, and she gentled her tone. “I want you to tend Adam for me, Jenny—please. He should sleep through the night, but if he doesn’t—”

“What? You’re—you’re leaving
now?”

Banner stood, bent to tenderly kiss her husband’s forehead. “Yes, as soon as I’m dressed. If I wait, I’m sure Jeff will stop me.”

“Banner!”

But she was already tearing herself away from a man she couldn’t bear to leave, rushing through the walkway to the main house. When Banner returned, fifteen minutes later, she was fully dressed and carrying a rifle from a cabinet upstairs.

“Sean Malloy is a big ape of a man,” she told a wide-eyed Jenny in flat, matter-of-fact tones. “He has
light, curly hair and hazel eyes. If he comes into this ward, shoot him.”

“Sh-Shoot—” stammered Jenny, trembling again.

“Dead,” confirmed Banner. And then she hurried out into the night, where the April wind lashed at her skirts and the fear of Sean Malloy tore at her heart.

Appropriating a horse was easy—the stable hands had evidently gone to bed, for the dark, shadowy barn was empty. Banner didn’t bother with a saddle; she needed only a bridle and the gentle, intrepid beast that usually drew Adam’s buggy.

Light was gathering, gray and weak, in the eastern skies, when she rode over the ridge and down into the heart of the Klallum camp, the handle of her medical bag looped over one wrist.

There was smallpox here, all right—Banner could smell it niggling under the other odors of fish oil and dung and wood smoke. The squaws went about their early morning work, making a wailing sound as they moved, barely sparing a glance for Banner in their loud grief.

Near the infamous steam hut, a hot fire was burning, and large stones were being heated in the embers, to be carried inside.