The Diary of Jerrod Bently, J.W. Osborn [the false prince series TXT] 📗

nursery where she would have rocked the children she and Jack Langford and dreamed of having. She had let go of the pain years ago. Jack never came home and all she had left to remember him by was the wedding ring he’d given her when they married and a tintype picture of him in his grey confederate uniform. The once comforting image now felt like looking into the face of a stranger. Jack was long dead. She had moved on, remarried and was very happy with her new husband. She was getting the room ready for Sam. Having not met Doc’s niece, but once briefly, Victoria did not know what to expect. She was sure of one thing and that was that Doc loved this girl as though she was his own and that was all she needed to accept Sam into their family.
“Victoria!?” some one called out from the open front door of the house. “I am in the back bedroom, J.W.”, she called back. “Come in.”
“I stopped at the laundress’s house. I have the sheets you wanted,” J.W. Titus said as she slipped through the front door with a wicker basket of laundry in her hands.
There was Victoria, looking like a house servant, a feather duster in her hand. “That room is so stuffy,” she said as she set down her duster and took the basket from her friend. “I have the windows open, and that is about all I can do.”
“I never knew you had another room back here.,” J.W. commented.
“I closed it up after Jack died,” Victoria answered. “Now we need it for Doc’s niece.”
“Did you hear anything from Doc since he left?” her friend asked.
“No,” Victoria replied, a little worried “But I have faith. He will be back soon and I have to be ready. I do not know how badly Sam has been hurt, but from what that letter from Jerrod Bently said, I thought I had better be ready for anything.”
“Sam?,” J.W. questioned. “Was she at your wedding? I don’t remember meeting her?”
“She was not there,” Victoria replied “She gave her horse to Doc so he could make it back to town in time.”
The Portersville novelist shook her head . Then she pulled off her riding jacket, and removed her hat. “Give me that duster, Vic,” she said “Jake is in the office today, Suzy is at home mooning over Hap and I am off for the afternoon. Let me help you get that room ready.” Victoria paused and took her friends things from her, but the room began to spin. “Victoria?” J. W. noticed the pale sick look that came over Victoria’s face. Victoria threw her hand over her mouth and ran from the hall and out to the privy. J. W. stared after her. “What in the world?”
That was the second time that morning that she had been sick. It seemed to be certain smells that set it off. As she composed herself in the privacy of the outhouse, she thought that if it happened again tomorrow, she would see Dr. O’Brien. May be she caught some kind of sickness? She stopped in her kitchen and using the iron hand pump, splashed some cold water into the sink and then on her face. Yes, that was much better. J.W. Titus was standing in the kitchen door looking at her with great concern on her sun tanned face. “You all right Vic?”
“Yes,” she replied “I am now. I’ve had an upset stomach for a few days now.”
“I had that once,” J. W. mused “it was Susanna Faye making her presence known.”
“Let’s get that room cleaned up,” Victoria said to change the subject “ I have to feed the chickens and horses, then go over to the shop for a little while.” J.W. followed her back to the second bedroom and picked up the feather duster. “Did you make some peach pie this week?” she asked.
“Jeanne,” Victoria cautioned as her stomach lurched again “This is not a good time to ask me about pie.”
“All right,” J.W. replied. “Lets get the room ready.” The two women set to work and with in an hour, white curtains fluttered at the open window and the single bed was made up with clean sheets and a colorful quilt. Victoria brought an oil lamp from her parlor and placed it on the now clean dresser top.
“It looks fine,” she declared “I don’t know what this young lady’s tastes are like, but this is to be home to her for a while.”
J. W nodded “I will send Suzy by with some flowers for the room once they get here. “, she said.
Victoria smiled “That would be nice. Almeda said she would bring some too.” She walked her friend to the front door of the cottage. “Have you heard anything from the publishers in New York?”, she asked “About this new story you sent in?”
“No,” J. W. replied “But it hasn’t been long enough. They take their time, those New York Yankees and you know how hard it is to get mail out here. I didn’t tell you this yet because Jake is still thinking about it, but he has sent his credentials to one of those well known lawyers back East in New York. He doesn’t think he will hear anything back, but who knows. Don’t think we will be putting the Double J up for sale any time soon.”

Jake Titus noticed the stack of unopened mail that lay on the edge of the desk in front of him. “Well,” he commented as he picked it up and started looking through it. “At least that lazy no account deputy got off his duff long enough to go over to the post office a time or two before he left. ” Jake did not think much of Hap Johansen III, especially where his daughter was concerned., nor did he care for the idea of Doc taking the boy on as a deputy. It did not matter at this point. While Doc was away, Jake was acting sherrif of Portersville again. He sat down in the chair he had happily vacated when Doc Stevens took the job. It was there in the stack of mail he was sorting, that Jake Titus found the key to winning a big victory on behalf of Jerrod Bently should charges of murder be leveled against him by Dalton’s kin. Jake drew that latest wanted posters out of a large envelope and there staring back at him was the sketched image of a rough looking man in his late thirties. Thomas Lee Dalton, wanted in Tennessee for murder and questioning in the disappearances of two women in Texas. Jake grinned. “Hallelujah!” he stated “Thank you Lord!” If it came down to a trial, Jake Titus would easily be able to prove that Tom Dalton was wanted dead of alive, and there was a reward!. He dug further into the stack of mail. That was when he saw it. At first he could not believe his eyes, but there it was, a long envelope addressed to Mr. Jacob D. Titus, Attorney At Law. He stared at the return address written in very elegant script in the upper left hand corner. Bailey, Myer, Hooten and Krackl of New York. Was his future in that envelope? That Yankee law firm was one of the finest in the East and never had he expected to hear from them, after he’d written out of curiosity one day. Never in a million years had Titus expected a reply.


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For Doc and Hap III, the trip back to Portersville had gone on without incident. There had been signs of Apache and Comanche too, but nothing so recent that it caused Doc much concern. They were probably too busy hunting to worry about him and his party. So they moved on.
Sam was not one to stay down and sat on the wagon seat with young Johansen as he drove the team. Doc rode on ahead, looking for signs trouble. They’d kept a steady pace. “You best be careful with that arm,” Hap cautioned. “I know somebody who broke his arm like you did and it never did heal straight.”
“He didn’t have my Grandfather set the bones and bind his arm to the splint either.”, she said as she tried to move her swollen fingers.
“It hurt much?:”, Hap asked.
“Yeah,” she replied “But not as bad as it did a while back.”
“I’ve tried to take it easy with the ruts and rocks in the trail, ” Hap said apologetically as they rode along, Sam’s horse following behind the buckboard. “Your uncle says you are not to stay up here with me if you start to get a headache,” Hap said “You’re all right, ain’t you?”
Sam glowered at him. “My uncle is not my keeper and I will have a headache if I am sitting here with you or lying in the back trying to sleep.”
“He’s concerned for you..”Hap replied .’That’s all. You know, we’ve been traveling for days, and I am still not sure what to call you. Miss Dodge seems a bit formal, don’t you think?’”
“Only if I was in Philadelphia,” Sam spat “and I like Texas much better.”
“You were in Philadelphia?”