The Haunting of Autumn Lake Page 5

  Gentry also remembered making it to the town ten miles ahead, falling off his horse, and seeing an angel. Well, maybe she wasn’t an angel. Maybe she was just a young woman from somewhere. But he still wondered if it were an angel he saw—for he was strangely aware that he’d stopped breathing for a time. He remembered having seen himself lying on some bed while an old, white-haired doctor worked on him. He remembered how the pain he was enduring now had vanished all at once, and for a moment, he’d experienced a freedom and joy he’d never known in all his life.

  Surely he’d dreamt it. Gentry determined that he had—that he’d only dreamt it all while his mind was on fire with a fever or something. But trying to persuade his mind that it had only been a dream did nothing to convince his soul of it. So he tucked the strange sensation and recollection away and tried to focus on dealing with the pain in his body.

  Once more he tried to open his eyes—slowly opening them for an instant and then another until his vision adjusted somewhat to the light. It seemed that as his vision struggled to clear, his hearing suddenly was acute, for he could swear he heard a voice—a woman’s voice, humming some almost familiar tune. The sound soothed him a little—even for his pain—and he turned his head toward the source of the bright light, the window. There was a young woman sitting in a chair near the window. Her hair was as pitch as raven feathers, and her skin looked as smooth and soft as silk. Her lips were an inviting rose-petal pink, and Gentry thought for a moment that he’d seen her before. She seemed familiar—and in the next moment, he recognized her as the young woman he’d thought was an angel. He wondered if perhaps she really were an angel. Maybe he had died, and the pain he thought his body was feeling was only the eternal hell his worthless soul had been cast down to. Still, it made no sense that an angel would be attending him if he were in hell.

  Gentry groaned with the frustration of not being able to build one thought that made any sense at all. “Where am I?” he mumbled, figuring he might as well ask the woman the question—whether or not she were an earthly woman or an angel.

  “You’re awake!” a lovely, rather lilting voice chirped.

  “Awake or dead, I suppose,” Gentry grumbled. “Though the way I’m feelin’, I’m thinkin’ dead mighta been the better path to take if I am still alive.”

  “Oh, don’t say that, mister,” the pretty voice said, sounding just like a warm breeze through prairie grass. “You’ve fought so hard. Don’t say anything about dyin’. Please.”

  Gentry looked over to the young woman again. She’d abandoned the sewing she’d held in her lap when he’d first looked over to her. She moved across the room toward him, smiling and with eyes glistening like sun-kissed raindrops.

  “Are you thirsty?” the young woman asked.

  Gentry only nodded, for it did hurt his parched throat to speak.

  The girl smiled and picked up a glass full of water that sat on a little table next to the bed Gentry was lying on. “Here you go,” she said, offering the glass to him.

  It was then Gentry discovered that he had absolutely no strength in him. No strength to sit up in the bed. Not even enough strength to raise a hand to accept the glass, let alone grasp it firmly.

  “Let me help you,” the girl said, again smiling at him, her stormy sky eyes still glistening.

  He felt her slip a hand under his head and lift it as she carefully pressed the glass to his lips.

  “Sip it slow, Mr. James,” she said in a soft, soothing voice. “And take your time. There’s no hurry here.”

  He did sip the water slowly, and it felt revitalizing as it tricked over his tongue and down his throat. He nodded, and the girl removed the glass and gently laid his head back down on the pillow.

  “Where am I?” he repeated. He felt so helpless—and he did not like the feeling.

  “You’re in Doctor Sullivan’s house,” the girl answered, “in his patient room.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Three days,” the girl said. “Your cattle drive moved on to Denver…but Mr. Jones told my father he would have your wages sent down as soon as everything is settled up there.”

  Again Gentry winced. No wages were left to him? How would he survive? How would he pay the doctor who’d tended him? He had hardly a dollar to his name! The drive boss, William Jones, was an honest sort of man, but Gentry couldn’t imagine he’d truly send wages back to a shot-up cowboy who hadn’t even finished the drive. Gentry was destitute—again.

  “Doctor Sullivan said you’ll be just fine after some restin’ up,” the girl explained. “He said you stopped breathin’ there for a minute…that he was sure you’d died. But then you gasped, and the color returned to you face and—”

  “I did die,” Gentry mumbled. “I shoulda stayed that way, I guess.”

  “Now why on earth would you say such a thing?” the girl asked in a rather scolding voice that caused him to look up at her. She smiled at him, softly brushed the hair from his forehead, and said, “It’s autumn, Mr. James. Harvesttime is here, and all the world will soon be bathed in orange and crimson and gold.” Her smile broadened as she continued. “My daddy’s apples are almost all gathered in and sold, and soon his pumpkins will be ripe, and that beautiful pumpkiny orange we all love so much will be rollin’ out in his fields.” Again she brushed the hair from his forehead—tenderly tucked several strands behind his right ear. “I heard the Sandhill cranes flyin’ over this mornin’. They’re on their way south already, and I love to hear them callin’ out as they go. Don’t you? My daddy is pressin’ cider today too. He has my Uncle Dan and Aunt Myra sell it in their general store. They own the general store, you see. I’ll have to bring some fresh cider in for you. It’s the best apple cider you’ve ever tasted…of that I am sure.”

  Gentry’s eyes narrowed as he studied her. She was an uncommon beauty, this babbling brook of a girl he’d once thought was an angel. Her dark hair and light eyes gave her rather the look of someone who wasn’t real. Furthermore, he could’ve sworn he smelled some sort of mellow spice about her—a comforting, somewhat alluring aroma that put him in mind of a warm and cheering Christmas Eve he’d once spent with a kind family.

  “The harvest moon will come out soon too. You wouldn’t want to miss that this year, now would you?” she asked.

  Gentry frowned. What in the hell was the girl going on about? Pumpkins, birds, and apple cider? Didn’t she know he was shot up, writhing in pain—with less than a dollar to his name?

  Yet he inwardly admitted there was something about her voice and her words that made him glad he wasn’t dead yet. Fresh-pressed cider would be a welcome treat. And once he thought about it, he was glad September had come and begun to cool everything off in the evening a bit.

  “So,” she began once more, “with all the beauty of autumn stretchin’ out before us, why ever would you want to miss it?”

  “What’s your name? And why are you here tendin’ to me?” Gentry asked abruptly, for his curiosity about the girl was growing. “Are you that old doctor’s daughter or somethin’?”

  “No,” she giggled. “I’m Autumn Lake. Doctor Sullivan just asked if I’d sit with you awhile now and then while you were convalescin’, that’s all.”

  “Autumn?” Gentry asked, frowning with bewilderment. “Your name is Autumn? Or the season of autumn is here and that’s why you think I oughta be glad I’m still breathin’?”

  “Both,” she answered, still smiling. “My name is Autumn…and autumn is here. And harvesttime around these parts is surely the best reason to be convalescin’ here in our town.”

  “Well, obviously I ain’t gonna die again, so you can be on your way, honey,” Gentry mumbled, grimacing with the pain shooting through his leg in that moment. He didn’t have the time to spend on sweet-talking with a pretty girl. He needed to heal up and make his way to Denver—see if he could track down William Jones and collect some wages. “Thank you for the drink of water, though.”

  He heard the girl sigh
and opened his eyes once more—surprised to see that she still stood next to his bed, smiling down at him.

  “Mr. James,” she began, “I have no intention of leavin’ until Doctor Sullivan tells me you’re mendin’ well enough for me to do so. Now…would you like another drink of water before I return to my sewin’ and you return to your restin’ up?”

  Gentry frowned. He didn’t want some cute filly taking care of him. He could do what he needed to himself. But as he tried to lift his right arm to reach for the glass of water, he was humbled.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he almost growled. “If ya wouldn’t mind helpin’ me one more time.”

  She didn’t say anything. She simply picked up the glass, slipped one small hand beneath his head, and assisted him with sipping the water.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he mumbled as a wave of dizziness began to wash over him.

  “You’re welcome,” came her soothing response. “And I would much prefer you call me Autumn instead of ma’am. Ma’am is for women of age, or at least women with thorough life experience, and I don’t think I qualify with either. And besides, I prefer to stay just Autumn for as long as propriety allows.”

  Gentry was tired—suddenly overcome with aching fatigue. “You babble like a brook, girl,” he rather moaned.

  Autumn frowned, pricked a little by his comment. “I’m sorry, Mr. James,” she softly said. “I won’t talk anymore. I—”

  “I like the babble of a brook,” he interrupted with a mumble. Autumn could see fatigue winning the battle against his effort to stay conscious. “It’s restful and soothin’. Now, tell me about that cider your daddy’s pressin’ today. I haven’t had me an apple to eat in a long, long time. Though me and Rueben Shaker use to climb over the wall and snitch a few every fall when ol’ man Boyd wasn’t lookin’.”

  Autumn grinned with marked relief. It seemed he wasn’t tired of her company after all. “I think you should sleep now, Mr. James,” she began.

  But the fiercely handsome cowboy frowned and growled, “Tell me about that cider they’re pressin’. I haven’t had an apple in so long.”

  Autumn frowned and felt tears welling in her eyes. How could a man go without apples? She couldn’t imagine life without apples! Apples with spices were what her mother simmered to cozy up the house on cool autumn and winter evenings. Furthermore, apples were what Autumn loved to bake with the most! Oh, certainly Autumn loved pumpkins—nearly as much as her mother did. But it was apples she liked to bake with cinnamon, sugar, molasses, and oats for a sweet, crispy-topped cobbler—apples she most liked in pies and in the apple bread her Aunt Myra had taught her to make when she was only a child. Autumn loved to eat caramel apples at the county fair each year, twisting the excess caramel on her index finger and licking the sticky candy from the corners of her mouth. Fried apples, potatoes, and onions was one of her father’s favorite suppers. There were apple tarts, baked apples, apple dumplings, applesauce, and spicy apple butter! How could anyone survive without a thick slathering of apple butter spread over a slice of warm-from-the-oven bread? Autumn’s mouth began to water at the memory of the apple fruit rolls her mother had made for the first time not so long ago. Even just the thought of climbing up into one of her father’s apple trees and picking a big, juicy, yellow-ripe apple to eat and lingering in the branches of the tree caused her heart to leap with delight. How in the world could a man not have had an apple in a long, long time? It was painful to Autumn’s very soul to think of it!

  “Oh, I love to watch the press when Daddy’s makin’ cider,” she sighed. “So much apple juice a body could drink it ’til they died and not regret it! Mama and Aunt Myra bottle it up for folks. I help now too…but when I was younger, Daddy would just set me on a stool near the press and let me place the apples in to be pressed.” She sighed, closed her eyes, and conjured up a memory in her mind. “I love when Mama adds the mulling spices to a big pot of fresh-pressed cider. In the autumn, she just adds a tich of molasses and some sugar to a big pot of cider. Then she drops in a little cloth bag filled with cloves and cinnamon and nutmeg. Before long, the sweet scent of warm apple cider all sweet and spiced begins to fill the air.”

  Autumn opened her eyes to see that Gentry James was watching her. He looked far more relaxed than he had a moment before, as if the pain of his wounds had somehow lessened.

  She grinned and could feel the excitement leaping to her own eyes as she continued. “In the winter, just around Christmastime, my Uncle Denver and Aunt Yvonne ship us a crate of oranges. Oh, I love oranges! Have you ever had one, Mr. James?”

  The cowboy grinned and mumbled, “Once.”

  Autumn smiled and brushed a hair from his cheek. He could use a hair trim. And yet, she rather liked the way his hair tumbled over his eyebrows and eyes. At the feel of his cheek beneath her fingertips, her arms erupted into goose flesh the way they had the first moment she’d seen him. But Autumn didn’t let on. She simply continued to soothe the man with tales of the sweet apple cider her daddy was pressing over at the general store.

  “Well, when Uncle Denver’s oranges arrive, my Mama makes mulled cider for us that very day. But this time, she slices up one of the oranges and drops it into the cider pot as well,” she explained. “You wouldn’t believe the difference it makes, Mr. James! It’s as if she drizzled a little warm ambrosia into the pot along with everything else.”

  Autumn could see Gentry James’s eyelids were growing heavy. She didn’t want his eyes to close! She wanted to gaze into the blue of them all afternoon. But she knew he needed his rest.

  “And then, when the cider is all mulled and Daddy is in from doin’ his evenin’ chores, we all sit near the fire in the parlor hearth and sip our cider…nibblin’ on frosted sugar cookies Mama and I baked earlier in the day,” she said. She lowered her voice a little, noting that the man’s breathing was becoming smooth and rhythmic as he drifted to sleep. “Then when I get sleepy, I wander off to bed…and Daddy and Mama stay up…sparkin’ in the parlor there before the fire…just like they were two young lovers all over again.”

  Autumn sighed. “So, Mr. James,” she whispered, “I can’t let you go a day longer without the taste of apples. It might not be warm and spiced the way I like it most…but my Daddy’s apple cider will soothe your soul all the same.”

  Gently placing her hand on top of the cowboy’s that lay at his stomach, Autumn tenderly caressed his fingers—let her palm feel the warmth of the back of his hand. She hoped he’d had enough water to drink in the short while he’d been conscious. She hoped she’d helped ease his mind somehow—distract him from his miserable pain. It was all she could offer, and she felt quite inadequate because of it.

  Quietly Autumn returned to her chair. But instead of picking up her sewing, she chose her sketchbook instead.

  Exhaling a sigh, she seated herself near the window once more, flipped through her sketchbook—past all the sketches she’s made of Jethro in preparation for painting his portrait for her mother—and, on an empty and waiting page, began to sketch the sleeping and so badly injured cowboy whose face had haunted her dreams since the moment she’d first gazed into the deep, dark blue of his oh-so-fascinating eyes.

  ❦

  “How’re you feelin’, son?” the man asked as Gentry forced his eyes open.

  The light coming through the window was warm and orange. Gentry glanced toward the chair where the girl named Autumn had been sitting before. He was disappointed to see the chair stood empty.

  “You look a might better than the last time I saw ya, that’s for sure,” the man chuckled.

  “Thank you,” Gentry said. Through tired, narrowed eyes, he stared up at the man standing at his side. “You’re that girl’s daddy, ain’t ya?” he asked. His voice was raspy and dry from lack of drink.

  “You mean Autumn?” the man asked, smiling. “Yep. I’m her daddy all right.”

  Gentry swallowed, but the dryness of his mouth did little to soothe the pain in his throat. “She looks like yo
u some,” he mumbled.

  Again the man chuckled. “That’s what folks say,” he said.

  “How’re you feelin’, Mr. James?” another voice asked.

  Gentry looked to the other side of his bed to see the old doctor standing there. Even turning his head just slightly caused it to throb.

  “Better, I think,” he answered.

  “Well, I don’t know what ol’ Doc here will say about it,” the man who looked like his daughter began, “but Autumn insisted that I drop this off for you before I headed home today.”

  Gentry watched as Autumn’s father set a big jar full of caramel-colored liquid on the table next to the bed. He smiled, even though it hurt to do so.

  “Apple cider, I’m guessin’?” he asked. He’d have chuckled if he’d thought his body could’ve mustered it.

  “That’s right. Fresh pressed from Ransom Lake’s orchards,” the man answered.

  “Ransom Lake, is it?” Gentry asked. “Well, I thank you, Mr. Lake…for the cider and for your help the other day in town…for gettin’ me in to the doc here and all.”

  “You’re welcome, son,” Ransom Lake said. “Now, what’s say you have sip or two of this cider? It’s nice and sunshine warm. A little apple juice in you might be just the thing.”

  Gentry nodded a little and tried to lift his head. Gratefully he found that, unlike earlier in the day when he’d needed assistance, he could lift it on his own—though Ransom Lake still had to hold the jar of cider to his lips.

  At the very first sense of the flavorsome cider on his tongue, Gentry’s entire being was suddenly flooded with an odd sort of joy and renewed energy. In all his life he’d never tasted anything so ambrosial—so exquisitely sweet and refreshing. He found that a mere sip of the cider gave him the strength to sit up on his own—to grasp the jar with one trembling hand and savor another swallow of the cider that was every bit as delicious as the girl had claimed.