Maude Brown's Baby (14 page)

When Jake trotted up,
Donald confronted him again.

“Do you think he would hurt Clara?”

“Beno can’t control his anger
.”

The
earlier fear and confusion Donald had seen in Jake was back. He turned and rapped on the telephone booth glass, but the man inside only scowled.

“Beno’s crazy,” Jake said, half to himself. “If he killed Elton, he’s probably
looking for me.”

“And
you’re sure he knows where you stay?”

“Yes.”

The door of the booth began to open. Donald jerked the handle to hustle the man out. He started to protest, saw the look in Donald’s eyes and ducked away.

Donald opened his journal to the place where he
’d written Clara’s number, pressed the book open and wedged it with an elbow against the inside of the booth. He snatched the receiver from its holder, rang the operator and waited for her to place the call.

“Give me a nickel!” he shouted to Jake.

Clara looked up from her textbook to admire the back garden i
n twilight. It was so different from the days when she and Mama tended it together.

“Victory gardens,” the newspapers called them now, encouraging the home folks to do their part. Fewer flowers, more vegetable
s and fruit. The only sad area—Clara could just see it from where she sat—was the dense tangle of oleanders and weeds behind the carriage house. There had been no time in the hectic year since Mama died to clean them out, and no extra money to hire it done. The longer it went, the worse it got, Clara knew. She rubbed her eyes, sipped her tea and returned to her book.

The view of Clara’
s house from the alley was different. A tidy yard. A few rows of beans. A window. A woman sitting alone at a desk. With the window open, one could even hear the telephone ring, but to know what was said, it was necessary to get much closer. Fortunately, the fading light made that easy.

“Hello?” Clara said into the mouthpiece as she held the heavy receiver to her ear. “Yes, this is Clara. Oh, Donald!
Is everything all right?”

She transferred the receiver to her other ear as Donald gave
a quick account of the meeting with Sergio. Donald’s voice sounded tinny and far away, like one of Mr. Edison’s talking machines.

“There’s a chance Beno is looking for Jake,” Donald said. “From Sergio’s description he’s a wild
man. Seeing his wife with another man made him worse. Sergio said Beno beat her.” Donald paused. “And Jake thinks Elton is dead.”

The
words didn’t make sense. A woman beaten? Elton dead? A wild man loose? Her fingers tightened around the phone’s mouthpiece, in part to hold herself up.

“And you think he’s coming here?”

“Jake is afraid he might.”

Clara glanced behind her into the comfortable room where she’d been reading, in the house where she grew up. She felt trapped.

“Will you be back soon?”

“We’re at Murdoch’s now, but we’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting
.”

“Clara? ”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“Are you that worried?”

“Jake is. He said to ask you.”

“There’s one upstairs. Mother taught me to use it, but it has been a few years.”

“Please get it and keep it with you until we return. We can talk then.”

The one-sided conversation told the listener in the garden all he needed to know. This was indeed the right house, and Jake would be home soon. He eased himself toward the kitchen door.

It took a
minute for Clara to find the firearm, wrapped as it was in a leftover yard of blue velvet and high on a shelf behind two hat boxes.

The old Webley
service revolver was heavy in her hands. She unwrapped it quickly, remembering the day her father brought it home after a trip to England. On a lark, Clara and her mother had used the last of the ammunition shooting at cans on an empty stretch of beach two years before. They hadn’t bothered to buy more.

“So, Mr. Webley,
” Clara said, hefting the revolver with both hands, “like most men, you are completely useless, but unless I drop you on my foot, at least no one will get hurt.”

She was half
way down the stairs when she heard the first sound. Jennifer and Rebecca were at work, and she wasn’t expecting anyone else. She steadied her hand on the banister and waited. The creaking screen door—another thing she meant to fix—told her someone was inside. She raised the revolver with both hands, steadying herself by leaning against the wall.

“Where are all the damned j
itneys?” Jake yelled to Donald as they ran to catch the 21
st
Street trolley. It took another twelve minutes to reach the Avenue C terminal. They jumped from the trolley while it was still rolling and ran the remaining blocks to Clara’s house.

“All t
he lights are on,” Donald said, puffing hard as they raced up the shell drive toward the arbor. Jake stumbled, caught himself on one of the arbor posts, and was right behind as Donald flung open the screen door. The biggest revolver he’d ever seen was on the kitchen table, and he heard moaning from the next room.

“Jake! Donald! Hurry, I’m in here.”

Clara was down, knees to one side.
Donald didn’t recognize the other figure on the floor. His left eye was swollen shut and a deep bruise spread across his jaw. His upper lip formed a grotesque sneer. His head rested in Clara’s lap.              

“Elton!” Jake said, dr
opping beside them.

Elton moaned again
as Clara squeezed water from a dish towel and laid the damp cloth across his forehead.

“
He came in while I was upstairs,” she said.

Jake touched
the blood on Elton’s shirt.

“Did you shoot him?” 

“Of course not! But seeing the gun probably sapped what little energy he had left. He just collapsed.”

Elton’s jacket was torn
at the shoulder. He still had shoes, but his trousers were ripped, exposing raw flesh on both bloody knees. His hands and face were covered with scratches and mosquito bites.

“He has at least one broken rib,” Clara said, “but I don’t think there is anything worse. These injuries are several days old. If he had internal bleeding, he would have died by now. I think his worst problems are hunger and dehydration. And he’s badly bruised. Donald, would you bring a fresh dish towel?”

“Of course.”

“And please put a kettle of water on the stove.”

“Right,” he said, happy for something to do.

“Jake, could you and Donald carry Elton upstairs? I need to give him a bath. He can stay in my room tonight.”

“Give him a bath?” Donald called from the kitchen sink, water from the kettle now dripping on his shoes.

“Don’t worry,
I’ve done this before.”

For the next ten minutes
, Jake and Donald stayed with Elton at the foot of the stairs, placing a pillow under his head after Clara left to prepare the room. When she returned, Donald was intrigued to see her gathering bandages, ointments and creams.

“How
do we carry him upstairs?” Jake called as Clara passed by.  

“He shouldn’t be jostled any more than necessary.”

“The dining chairs have tall backs,” Donald offered. “We could have him sit, tilt the chair back, then carry him up. It would be almost as good as a stretcher.”

“Excellent,” Clara said. “Jake, please bring one of the chairs.”

Donald saw a
flicker of surprise, but Jake recovered quickly and went for the chair.

“How did you do that?” Donald whispered to Clara. “Jake never fetches anything when I’m around.”

Clara winked.

The two men
eased Elton to a sitting position, then grasped the chair on both sides and gently tilted it back. They paused for a deep breath.

“Here we go,” Jake said.

Upstairs, Donald and Jake helped Elton from the chair. He was just conscious enough to sit on the edge of the single bed, which Clara had carefully covered with towels. Donald slipped off the remains of Elton’s shoes and socks.

Clara directed as they removed the rest of Elton’s clothes
, leaving only his BVDs. She began to sponge off the accumulated sweat, filth and dried blood. She was very deliberate, yet gentle, Donald thought. He helped by handing her fresh towels.

“Let’s see if he can drink some water,” Clara said. “And there’s leftover soup in the icebox. You can heat that.”

“I’ll get it,” Jake said, already turning from the room.

Clara smiled at Donald. “And would you mind gathering Elton’s clothes and leaving them in the mud room? I’ll wash them later and see what can be salvaged. For now, just put some water in a pan and soak his shirt; that will help remove the blood stain.”

“Sure,” Donald said, arms already full of dirty clothes.

“And Donald, please make sure Jake gets the soup hot.”

Elton mumbled something, but his mouth was too swollen to talk.

Jake and Donald, returning to Clara's room about the same time, were surprised to see Elton dressed in men’s pajamas, the last of his underwear laying on the floor beside the bed. They stood for a moment, mouths open, Donald holding a glass of water
, and Jake, a bowl of hot soup.

“You may take over now,” Clara said, gathering towels from the bed and Elton’s BVDs from the floor. She paused, looking from Donald to Jake and back again. “They were my father’s pajamas,” she explained, certain that was not what they wanted to know.

With his good eye, Elton watched Clara go.

“Sip this,” Jake said
a moment later. He slipped one hand behind Elton’s head and held the glass to his mouth.

“Don, Clara left a bottle of pills for him on the night stand. Let me have a couple.”

Donald unscrewed the metal cap and shook two Bayer Tablets of Aspirin into his hand. A doctor had ordered the same after Clarence fell from the ladder a year before. “The miracle drug,” it was called.

“Here you go.”

“Take these,” Jake said, pressing the pills into Elton’s mouth and raising the glass again.

Elton’s
lips refused to close on the glass, and water dribbled down his chin. Jake caught it with a handkerchief before it reached Elton’s pajamas.

“And how about some soup while it’s still hot?”

“Yeth. Tan … tank you.”

“Save it,” Jake said, offering
a spoonful of soup. “Finish this and get some rest. We can talk in the morning.”  

Clara slept late. It was nearly 10 a.m. before she checked once more on her patient and came downstairs. Her back ached from spending the night fully clothed on the couch. Elton was sleeping deeply and didn’t stir when Clara touched her hand to his forehead. The last time she’d seen such bruises, the patient had been kicked by his mule.

She smelled coffee and was surprised to find Jake alone at the kitchen table with Tuesday’s
Galveston Daily News
spread before him. Staring out the kitchen window, Jake didn’t notice her at first.

“Where’s Donald?” she asked, taking the chair across from his.

“Oh! Good morning. Don’s out back. When you told him last night that Elton might have been hiding in the weeds behind the carriage house, he decided to clear them out.”

“How kind!” Clara glanced toward the window. Through the magnolia leaves she could see Donald’s bare torso, his arms swinging her grandfather’s old scythe with some skill.

“I made coffee. Would you like some?”

Clara turned toward the stove
.

“No,” Jake said, lifting one hand. “I’ll get it.
Keep your seat. I imagine you had a rough night with Elton.”

“He slept straight through, but I did check him every hour or so.”

She swallowed a laugh when Jake picked a cup and saucer that didn’t match, and instead of the small sugar bowl, he brought the whole tin.

“Milk in your coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

Jake took a full quart bottle from the icebox and set it on the table.

“The ice man came early this morning,” he said, “so the milk is good and cold.”

“I was afraid he wouldn’t come until this afternoon. Sometimes he uses his new delivery truck, but it isn’t as reliable as his mules.”

Jake laughed, but Clara could see his thoughts were not on their conversation.

“Elton will be all right. A few good meals and rest are all he needs,”
she said, stirring her coffee with the soup spoon Jake provided.

“I know. You were very good with him.” He stopped.