Caleb Read Online Free

downstream. Finally, tethering his exhausted, heaving, and lathering horse to a rowanberry bush, Jardine sat down and cried like a boy of seven, not a man of twenty-nine.
     
    Back at Three Rivers, the shadows of evening were falling when Cassie came running into the little office, where Caleb was trying to make a stubborn column of figures add up twice in a row.
    “You better come,” she gasped. “Miss Nancy . . . she’s worse . . . she’s . . .”
    “What can I do?” Caleb demanded. “Master’s coming with the doctor.”
    “You just better come,” she insisted. “You better.”
    When Caleb got up to the big bedroom at the front of the house, he saw that Cassie was right. Miss Nancy was totally yellow now, and she seemed to have shrunk to the point where only the pitifully small bump of her pregnancy stood out underneath the covers. In contrast to the bright white pillowcase, her face looked like one of the little yellow apples that grew out near the horse barn. It was dwarfed by her rich chestnut hair, which fanned out across the pillow.
    “Caleb,” she said, “is my husband—”
    “He’ll be back, Miss Nancy,” Caleb said helplessly. “It won’t be long now.”
    “I’m so weak, Caleb,” she said faintly. “I feel so weak.”
    “Can I get you anything, Miss Nancy?” Caleb asked, wanting more than anything to escape from that room, with its terrible odor of decaying flesh.
    “No,” she whispered. “Yes, get me a sip of water. From the nightstand. Please.”
    Caleb filled a china teacup from the earthenware crock and held it toward Miss Nancy. “Please,” she said. “I can’t—”
    Sitting down on the bedside chair, Caleb supported her head with his left hand while he put the cup to her cracked lips. Her skin felt hot to his touch and her neck limp and boneless. He poured a trickle of water carefully into her open mouth until she started to cough.
    “Enough,” she croaked. “That’s better. That’s much better. Thank you.” Caleb eased her head back into the groove of the pillow.
    Caleb started to get up, but she stopped him with a hand that felt as though it were on fire. “Please,” she said. “Please stay. Sit, sit.” She tried to raise her head. “Cassie,” she said to the house slave, who was hovering behind Caleb wringing her hands and praying, “I think I could eat something. Could you make me some soup?”
    “Yes, Missy, right away!” Cassie said and fled through the bedroom doorway.
    When she was gone, Nancy looked up at Caleb, who had sat back down on the bedside chair. “Caleb,” she said faintly but evenly, “I think I’m dying.”
    “Miss Nancy—”
    “Please listen. I’m so weak, but I feel no pain. I think I’m beyond pain now, Caleb. I don’t think I can hold on until Mr. Jardine gets back with the doctor.”
    “You can do it, Miss Nancy.”
    “I don’t think so, Caleb,” she said. “Poor Boyd. You will look after him for me, won’t you?”
    “Miss Nancy,” Caleb couldn’t think of anything to say.
    “He’s not a bad man, Caleb. Be patient. Help him. He’ll need it.” Her small right hand still gripped his wrist. There was no strength in it.
    “I’ll do what I can,” he said.
    “Thank you,” she said, so faintly that Caleb could barely hear her. “I’m so sorry . . .” Her voice faded away.
    “Miss Nancy—”
    “. . . about the baby . . . my baby . . . I just know it’s a boy. Boyd so wanted a son . . . and I so wanted to . . . to give . . .”
    Her fingers released his wrist, and her hand fell limply to the mattress.

8
    “Miss Nancy?”
    Her eyelids, the yellow of old ivory, had closed, and her sharp little chin seemed to be tucked into the frilly top of her white lace nightgown. Her left arm, which lay on the bedcover, was almost black. Caleb picked up her right arm to feel for a pulse, but there was none. He tried pressing two fingers to her childlike throat. Nothing. Finally, in desperation, he went to