This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [8]
These flashes were so brief—she couldn’t be sure if it was a memory or a wishful dream.
She bedded John Austin down on.the cot and lay, fully clothed, beside Mary on the bed. The child snuggled up to her and was soon asleep. Resentment toward the child’s mother curled deep in Summer’s stomach. She and John Austin would be gone tomorrow, and then what would become of the little girl?
Soon the nagging worry of how she and her brother were going to survive out on a homestead, without having to depend on Sam McLean for every bite of food that went into their mouths, crowded all other thoughts from her mind. It wasn’t too late to put in a garden. She could certainly do that. But she needed money for other things; shoes, yard goods, a warm coat for John Austin. They shouldn’t have come! The money spent on the stage fares would have kept them for a long time if they had stayed in the Piney Woods. One thing was sure, she couldn’t ask Sam McLean for any more help. Although his letter had promised no more than that a homestead was waiting for them, she had expected more. Now she had only herself to blame.
Summer couldn’t prevent her eyelids from drooping. She was tired and regretful, regardless of the promise she had made to her dying mother. They had traveled all day for many days, and her body ached from the bouncing stage. Soon sleep came, though she didn’t know it.
A piercing scream and the slamming of a door woke her. She tried to gather her wits. She shook her head, stretched her stiff back, and came to her senses. It had to be the child’s mother.
Summer hurried to the door and fumbled with the key. The instant she stepped into the hall, another door opened and a man sprang into the hallway. Summer almost laughed. He wore only his breeches and a hat and had two big six-shooters in his hands.
“What the hell?”
A large blonde woman, making no attempt to cover her voluptuous breasts, came out of the man’s room.
“Come on back, honeybunch.” She clutched his arm and rubbed her bare bosom against him.
With face aflame and eyes averted, Summer edged past them.
A woman’s voice was coming from the stairway and had risen to an almost hysterical pitch.
“Graves! Graves, you bastard! Where’s my baby? If you let anything happen to her, I’ll . . . I’ll crucify you! Mary Evelyn! Mar . . . ry!”
Summer hurried to overtake the woman before she bolted down the stairs.
“Your little girl is with me,” she called, but the woman was already at the foot of the stairs and didn’t hear.
The hotel man came up from a cot behind the counter.
“Shut yore goddam mouth! Yore waking up the whole place.”
“You . . . you yellow-bellied . . . skunk! Mar . . . ry!” The woman was sobbing now.
“She’s with me,” Summer called again.
The woman turned. She was no more than a girl. Green eyes stared up at Summer out of pain-darkened sockets. Tight, matted curls framed a thin face with a short, upturned nose. A pink satin dress, much too large for the slight frame, hung to the floor on one side and came up to midcalf on the other. She raced back up the stairs.
“Where’s she at?”
“You get that little bastard and get outta here!” The hotel man was standing at the foot of the stairs, his face twisted with rage. “Whore! Slut! Out . . . do you hear? Out!”
“You have Mary? Oh! Oh, thank God! I was so scared! I was scared that piss-ant had done something to her. I’d a killed him! I swear, if he’d a hurt my baby, I’d a killed him.”
“She’s all right. She’s sleeping in my room. Come, I’ll show you.”
The man with the gun went back into his room and slammed the door when Summer marched by him without as much as a glance. Inside her own room, she closed the door firmly and turned the key. The girl went to kneel beside the bed. The child was awake and reached out to wrap her small arms about her mother’s neck.
“Mama . . . Mama . . .”
“Oh, baby! Oh, God, baby, I was so scared! I couldn’t find