Free Tattler's Branch by Jan Watson

her.”
    “The baby is defective, you say?”
    “She has anomalies, yes.”
    “Most likely somebody pitched the poor little thing.”
    Lilly put her hand to her heart. “I wouldn’t like to think so, but I’ve heard of such cases. Usually, though, the mother leaves the baby on someone’s porch or in a church where it can be easily found.”
    “We don’t know but what Miz Armina found it in some such place. She can’t remember, you say?”
    “Not yet, but I haven’t pushed it. I have to think of her health too.”
    The sheriff stood, his holster creaking like saddle leather, and put the pad and pencil back in his pocket. “I’ll keep an eye out, Doc.”
    “One more thing: a patient came in yesterday with stabwounds. He said he injured himself while cleaning fish. I found that highly unlikely.”
    “Probably a brawl of some sort. I’ll bet he’s laying low until he can sneak out of town. I see too many drifters just hanging around the mines, hoping to get a week or two of work before they blow away. My opinion, they cause more trouble than they’re worth.”
    Lilly stood and shook his hand. “Thank you, Chanis. I’ll keep you posted on the baby.”
    “You’re right to keep it quiet for the time being. Something will shake out   —it always does.” He started for the back door, then stopped. “Say, you mind if I go out through the front?”

Chapter 8
    Armina lay in her bed, feeling as stunned as a foundered cow. Her mind swirled with blurry half-formed images, but she couldn’t seem to pull them together.
    “Concentrate,” she told herself. “Concentrate.”
    The bed was hard. The room was small. There was one window. Craning her neck, she could make out a sliver of light sneaking in through a gap in the tightly closed curtains. So   —it was daytime.
    She held her hand in front of her face. It felt as heavy as a rock. Best she could tell, she had four fingers and a thumb. That seemed right. One finger wore a slim gold band. She was married. Strange   —shouldn’t she remember that?
    It must be suppertime. She had to get up. There were hungry mouths to feed: Aunt Orie and the kids   —her niece and nephew   —and evidently a husband, though she couldn’t picture him.
    Summoning her will, she rose up on her elbows. The room whirled like the carousel ride at the fair Ned had taken her to last summer.
    Ned. There. That was something solid to hold on to. Maybe your mind worked better if you didn’t think so hard. She fell back against the pillow and closed her eyes. The carousel slowed, then stopped. Always the gentleman, Ned helped her down from the white horse with the yellow mane.
    The hot, syrupy smell of melting sugar filled the air. Cotton candy. She wanted a cone of that cotton candy. Ned laughed when some of the airy pink confection stuck to her nose. She was aggravated when he pulled her behind a barker’s stand and kissed it off. She wasn’t much given to displays of affection.
    Ned. Her husband. He’d brought her down from the mountain and married her at the church in Skip Rock. She could never figure why. She was plain as pig tracks with a figure like a sled runner. But her husband acted like she was spun gold   —like he could never get enough of her. The way she couldn’t get enough of that cotton candy once she’d tasted it.
    At first she thought it was because he was marred, that he picked her because nobody would pick him. He had no lack of looks or personality but he was missing a leg. It had takenher some time to get over that particular thing. But she got over it quicker when she saw two girls flirting with him at a fish fry. That was before they’d even started going out, but still it got her dander up.
    Her own rusty bark of a laugh in the hushed room startled her. There was no looking back once she’d set her heart on him. But where was he? Where was Ned? Ah, she should get up   —go and search for her one-legged man   —but this thinking was wearying her.