Chapter 2 - The Green Bottle
Clay Mercer had buried his wife eleven months earlier under a solitary cottonwood tree on the west rise, where the rangeland rolled down toward the creek.
Since that dark day, Mercer Ranch had kept moving because cattle did not care about a man's grief and horses required feed regardless of funerals. But the house itself had changed shape around its loss.
Mrs. Baines explained the history that evening while chopping winter carrots with far more force than necessary against her heavy wooden block.
"Used to be bright in here," the old cook said, her blade thudding rhythmically. "Mrs. Mercer kept every window flung open, fresh wildflowers cut in every jar, the three little girls running underfoot like wild chicks. Then she took ill during childbirth. Bled out before Doc Crow could ride up from the valley to stop it. Mr. Mercer’s been a hollowed-out tree ever since."
"She lost the baby as well?" Ruth asked gently, her broad hands efficiently peeling potatoes over a tin bucket.
Mrs. Baines’s knife paused mid-air. "A boy. Never drew a full breath."
That explained a great deal about the cold silence in the front parlor. Not all of it, Ruth thought, but enough to understand the dark shadow hanging over Clay's face.
"And the little girls?" Ruth prompted, keeping her voice low.
Mrs. Baines sniffed, her shoulders hitching. "Six years old come May. June, Norah, and Elsie. Born all at once and raised up like a spring storm. Then, near the end of this past winter, they started fading away. First it was just tire. Then the high fevers came. Then the belly pain, mouth sores, and crying out in the dark. Couldn’t keep their food down. Couldn’t keep their color. Doc Crow says their blood has turned bad inside them."
"From cancer," Ruth stated.
Mrs. Baines crossed herself with grease-stained fingers before remembering she was in a Protestant kitchen. "That’s what the doctor says. Says it’s in the family blood, likely."
"And you believe him?"
The old cook looked up sharply, her small eyes flashing with sudden defensiveness. "I believe what educated men from town tell me! Doc Crow’s got framed diplomas on his wall. What else would it be?"
That answer told Ruth far more than the words themselves. It told her Mrs. Baines was not certain at all. She was simply terrified, exhausted, and obedient.
Nurse Lorna returned to the kitchen a moment later with the evening’s leftover food. She set the pewter cups down near the copper wash basin with a heavy sigh, her shoulders slumping.
Ruth glanced casually toward the basin as she poured out her bucket of potato peelings.
A faint, greenish-brown ring clung stubbornly to the inside wall of one cup. It had not mixed smoothly with the broth; it had settled at the bottom like fine silt.
When Lorna reached for a rag to scrub the dish, Ruth spoke before she could catch herself. "What is in that green bottle, Nurse?"
Lorna’s head snapped toward her, her pale face turning instantly blotchy. "That is medicine prescribed directly by Dr. Crow. It is none of your concern, girl."
"It smells like copper oil and sulfur," Ruth remarked quietly, her expression plain and unreadable. "My grandmother used to keep copper oil for sheep rot. It burned the skin right off their backs."
Lorna’s hand flew to her throat. "Are you accusing Dr. Crow of malfeasance? A poor, uneducated housemaid coming off a supply wagon?"
"I’m just asking what’s in the bottle," Ruth said softly.
"It is a tonic!" Lorna snapped, her voice rising to a high, hysterical pitch that echoed down the quiet hallway. "A specialized tonic for the blood! It calms their convulsions! Mr. Mercer pays twenty dollars a bottle for it from the apothecary in town!"
The hallway door creaked open.
Clay Mercer stood in the doorway. He had taken off his wool coat, revealing a dark gray shirt underneath, his shoulders broad but sloped with deep fatigue. His grey eyes moved slowly from Lorna’s flush face to Ruth’s quiet posture.
"What is this noise?" Clay asked, his voice low and dangerous.
Lorna stepped forward instantly, her hands folded tightly in front of her apron. "Mr. Mercer, your new maid is questioning Dr. Crow’s prescriptions. She is standing in your kitchen making wild claims about the girls' medicine."
Clay turned his dark gaze onto Ruth. The silence in the room stretched until the crackle of the woodstove sounded like thunder.
"I gave you one order, Ruth," Clay said softly, every word weighted with threat. "Stay away from my daughters' care."
"I haven't gone near their room, sir," Ruth said, looking him dead in the eye. "I was only washing the cups."
"You don't question the doctor," Clay said, stepping closer to her. He towered over her, his shadow blocking out the lamplight from the table. "Doc Crow is the only reason those girls are still breathing. He comes out here three times a week in the middle of the night to check their fevers. He brings this medicine from the city. If I catch you interfering with Nurse Lorna again, I will have your trunk back on the road before breakfast. Do you understand me?"
Ruth looked at the desperate, broken man standing over her. She saw the raw terror behind his anger—the terror of a father who was watching his entire world slip through his fingers and had nothing left to hold onto except a doctor's word.
"I understand, Mr. Mercer," Ruth said softly.
May you like
He stared at her for a moment longer, his breathing heavy, before turning on his heel and walking back down the dark corridor toward the sickroom.
Ruth turned back to the wash basin. When no one was looking, she wiped her thumb along the inside of the pewter cup, picking up a smear of that greenish-brown residue, and wiped it deep into the hem of her inner apron.
