Sharing Blankets

Elizabeth shook her head.

"If I were you, I wouldn't do that. They were mining gold in Colorado before the war, and you wouldn't believe how many men came through Lawrence on their way back to where they came from. They said it's only the stores and saloons and the...well, the places with women in them that make money. The miners just barely get by. I'd expect it's the same with mining silver."

Matthew had finished eating by then, and Elizabeth was probably going to keep asking questions he really didn't want to answer.

He smiled again.

"Well, I guess I'll find out when I get there. Speaking of that, I should probably be going. I thank you for the meal. You're a good cook."

He stood up then, but Elizabeth didn't want him to go. She wasn't really sure why, but in spite of the way he looked and the fact that he was drunk when she first saw him, she wasn't ready to let him just leave. Maybe it was just because he was the first man she'd actually talked to in a while or maybe it was because she wanted to know more about him. She decided she didn't care which it was.

"It's almost dark, and the next train won't be in until tomorrow afternoon anyway. I have a shipment coming on that train and I could use help in putting it away. Why don't you stay until tomorrow night? I'll fix you breakfast, lunch, and supper again."

Matthew shook his head.

"Ma'am, I thank you for the invite, but I should be going. I've imposed on you enough. I'd better just start walking."

Elizabeth caught his arm before he could start.

"Matthew, you didn't impose on me. You helped me and I'll need help tomorrow too. Can't you stay just until day after tomorrow. You can sleep in the back room of the store and I...I can pay you half a dollar if you stay and help me."

The offer of money changed Matthew's mind. Half a dollar would buy at least one bottle of whiskey.

"I'll stay, but only on one condition. I don't want you wondering if I'm going to steal something during the night. You lock up the store and I'll spend the night on that crate outside. It's a little chilly, but I have two coats, remember? I've been colder than this and lived."

The next morning, Elizabeth woke up early and in half an hour had a tray of biscuits in the oven. She went downstairs, unlocked the back door and walked out to tell Matthew that he should come upstairs for breakfast. She was shocked when she saw him sitting on the crate and shivering.

"Matthew, you're freezing to death. You come upstairs this very minute and get warm."

When they'd climbed the stairs, Matthew took off both coats and Elizabeth saw that he was cold because he'd sweated through his shirt.

"Matthew, why is your shirt...you've sweat all the way through it. It's too cold for you to sweat so much. Are you sick?"

Matthew shook his head.

"No, I'm not sick. This just happens some nights. I'll live."

Elizabeth shook her head.

"You won't if you keep wearing that wet shirt. You'll catch your death. Take it off so I can wash it out. I'll hang it over the stove to dry while you're eating your breakfast."

"Ma'am, it wouldn't be proper for you to see me without my shirt. It'll dry by itself when the day warms up."

Elizabeth frowned.

"That's nonsense, Matthew. I know what a man looks like. I was married once. Now take off that shirt and give it to me."

Matthew just stared at Elizabeth.

"If you were married, where is your husband?"

Elizabeth looked at the floor.

"He was killed in the war...at the Battle of Fort Henry in Tennessee."

Matthew's voice was soft then.

"Elizabeth, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked that of you. I should have known better."

She looked up than.

"How could you have known? I didn't tell you and you don't know anybody else in Lawrence. Now, give me your shirt before your breakfast gets cold. I didn't get up early and make biscuits and gravy just so you could argue with me about something silly like taking off your shirt."

While Matthew ate, Elizabeth filled a tin tub with water from the stove water tank and then began washing his shirt. His shirt smelled like a man, a scent she hadn't smelled since her father was killed. That scent also reminded her of the week she and her husband had been together. It was only a week, but during that week she'd learned that what a man and a woman did together in bed was something special and something she had forgotten that she missed.

When she finished washing Matthew's shirt, she hung it over the stove and then sat down at the table to eat. She found it difficult not to stare at Matthew because of how he looked. With his shirt on, he had looked thin. Without the shirt, Elizabeth could see that he was more than just thin. She could have counted his ribs if she'd wanted to.

Finally, she had to ask.

"Matthew, why are you so thin? You don't look good at all, certainly not like my husband or my father looked. You're just skin and bones."

Matthew didn't answer until Elizabeth said, "If I'm going to feed you, I deserve to know, so tell me."

Matthew took a deep breath. He wasn't going to tell her everything. He was just going to tell her enough that she might be satisfied.

"Elizabeth, I was in the war...on the wrong side. When the South started losing battles, our supply lines were cut off. We survived by eating what we could find and it usually wasn't much."

Elisabeth knew he was holding something back.

"I've seen Confederate soldiers when they came through Lawrence on their way west. They didn't look all that thin. It must have been something else. What was it, and tell me the truth. I won't have a man working for me who lies all the time."

Matthew took another deep breath.

"Elizabeth, the reason I sweat through my shirt last night is I didn't have any whiskey. Whiskey puts me to sleep and I don't have the dreams. When I have the dreams, I wake up scared and all sweaty no matter how cold it is outside.

"After a while, when you drink a lot of whiskey, you aren't very hungry most of the time so you don't eat much. The other thing was, I didn't have enough money to eat and still buy whiskey, so I bought whiskey instead of buying food so I could sleep. That's the God's truth."

Elizabeth understood a little. She'd had bad dreams after the bushwhacker raid. The dreams were of her father falling after being shot or the dead bodies staring up at the sky with vacant eyes. Sometimes she'd wake up because of the screams of men and boys when they were shot.

"Matthew, I used to have bad dreams too. All the people in town did after the raid. We talked about them after church on Sunday, and little by little, they went away. If you talked to someone about them, your dreams might go away too. Then you wouldn't have to drink whiskey to sleep."

Matthew shook his head.

"Anybody I talked to about my dreams wouldn't understand because they haven't seen what I've seen. They'd just think I was crazy."

Elizabeth reached across the table and touched his hand.

"I wouldn't, Matthew. Talk to me about your dreams."

Matthew pulled his hand away and stood up.

"No, Elizabeth. You're the first person I've met since the war who was nice to me and I won't put you through that. Now, I owe you for breakfast. What do you need help with?"

All that morning, Matthew worked at rearranging some things in the store that Elizabeth had put off because they were too heavy for her to move on her own. He moved the bin of nails from the center of the store to one side. He moved the rack of hammers, chisels, and other hand tools beside it.

That afternoon, the freight company delivered two barrels of flour, two barrels of corn meal, and four barrels of sugar. Once they were on the loading platform, Matthew moved them into the back room. By the time Elizabeth locked the front door and turned the sign to "CLOSED", he was tired, but feeling good about what he'd done.

He'd moved things inside the store before Elizabeth opened it and he appreciated her thoughtfulness. He knew his clothes were tattered and in general, he looked terrible. She'd saved him from the critical gaze of anybody. In the afternoon, he'd been working in the back where no one could see him.

When Elizabeth had closed up the store, she told Matthew if he'd come upstairs, she'd fix their supper.

After they ate, Matthew said he'd sleep on the plow crate again, but Elizabeth shook her head.

"I won't find you tomorrow morning like I did today. I'll get the feather tick off father's bed and some blankets and you can sleep in the back room downstairs. I'm not taking no for an answer tonight, so don't try to talk me out of it and don't try to go back outside after I've gone to bed. I'll know and I'll come and bring you back inside."

As Matthew lay on the feather tick and covered against the chill with two blankets, he wondered why Elizabeth had been so stubborn about where he slept. So far, they were even as far as either owing the other. He'd done the work she wanted done and he had two half dollars in his pocket and a full belly. She didn't owe him anything, yet, she'd been resolute about where he was going to sleep.

In some ways, she reminded him of his mother. His mother had been a stern woman about how he behaved, but if he was sick or had hurt himself, she had cared for him like he was still a baby. He wondered if she missed him.

She probably did, he thought, but there was no going back. He'd committed the greatest sin of all and neither she nor his father would ever forgive him. No, it was better that he just disappear amongst the miners in Colorado. There, he'd be just another man that nobody questioned about the past.

Matthew had been asleep for a while before it started again. One second he was sleeping peacefully, and the next, he heard the scream of a man beside him. He looked over and saw the man clutching his chest just before he fell down. When Matthew reached him, he saw blood spurting in streams through the man's fingers.

Matthew didn't know the man's name, but he knew the man. He had just joined the company in which Matthew served and was probably all of seventeen. Matthew bent down and told the man he'd carry him back to the hospital. He was trying to get the man to stand when he heard the man say, "Tell my mother I'm going to miss her", and then the gurgled breath he'd heard so many times before.

Matthew began shaking the man and yelling at him not to die, but there was no response. The man's head just rolled to the side.

Matthew woke up then, and as sleep gradually faded into consciousness he realized he was shaking. That usually didn't happen when he had the dreams. It was then he heard Elizabeth's voice.

"Matthew, wake up."

Matthew opened his eyes and saw Elizabeth in the light of a coal oil lamp. She was in a white night dress and she was shaking him.

"Matthew, I heard you yelling and came downstairs to see what was wrong. You must have had another bad dream."

Matthew nodded, but said, "I'm all right now."

Elizabeth's voice became soft then.

"Matthew, you're not all right. You were yelling at someone and telling them not to die. Who were you yelling at?"

Because he couldn't deny what had happened, Matthew began telling Elizabeth.

"We were in a battle and this man, really just a boy, got shot in the chest. I went to see how bad it was and when I saw him, I knew he was going to die. I think he did too, because he asked me to tell his mother that he was going to miss her. He died then while I was begging him not to die."

Matthew then sobbed.

"I didn't even know his name because he'd just been assigned to my company. Now, his mother won't ever know what he said. She probably didn't find out he was killed for weeks if she ever did."

Elizabeth stroked Matthew's hair.

"Matthew, it wasn't your fault he got shot and there was nothing you could do to save him."

Matthew sobbed again.

"Yes it was. It was his first battle and I should have told him to stay down but I didn't. That's not the worst. I buried him the next day, but before I did, I took off his trousers. We were about the same size and mine were full of rips and tears and his were new. I put him in his grave in with no trousers. I stole the clothes off a dead boy just so I'd have better clothes."

Elizabeth stroked Matthew's cheek.

"You couldn't have stopped him from being shot, Matthew. You couldn't have saved his life either. God decides who lives and who dies."

Matthew shook his head.

"I don't believe in God. I used to, but the God I knew wouldn't have let that boy get shot and He wouldn't have let him die."

Elizabeth was shocked by that statement, not because Matthew said it, but because she didn't know what to say to him. She didn't know because after her father was killed, she'd decided the same thing. A just and compassionate God wouldn't have let her father get killed.

With nothing to say that she could think of that would make Matthew feel better, Elizabeth gently pushed him back down on the feather tick and pulled the blankets up to his chin.

"Matthew, go back to sleep. I'll stay here so you won't be alone if you have another dream."

As it was, Matthew didn't have another dream. He woke the next morning feeling more rested than he had in months. It wasn't until he rolled onto his side and saw Elizabeth there that he remembered what had happened.

It was almost like his dreams because he didn't remember much. He remembered having another dream and he remembered that in that dream he was yelling at another soldier. He remembered Elizabeth shaking him awake and then saying she'd be there with him if he had another dream. At the time, he thought she'd just sit there until he was asleep and then go back up to her own bed, but she hadn't.

At some time during the night, Elizabeth had gone back up stairs and brought down two blankets for herself. The feather tick was for a large bed, and she'd just lain down beside him and covered herself up.

While he was looking at her, Elizabeth's eyes fluttered open. She looked at Matthew and smiled.

"I think you slept all night, didn't you?"

Matthew nodded.

"Yes. Elizabeth, you shouldn't be here in bed with me. We're not married."

She chuckled.

"We're on the same feather tick, but we're hardly in bed together. I have my own blankets, see? We wouldn't be in bed together unless we were sharing the same blankets."

Matthew grinned at her logic.

"Well, most folks wouldn't think that makes a difference."

Elizabeth threw back her blankets, hastily covered her bare legs with her nightdress and then stood up.

"Let them think what they want to think. They didn't come down here and find you yelling at someone in your sleep. I'll go start breakfast now."

After breakfast, Elizabeth asked Matthew if he'd move one of the barrels of flour into the store. It was getting hard for her to reach the bottom of the current barrel in the store and she wanted him to replace it with a new barrel and then empty the old barrel into the new one.

Matthew had planned on leaving that morning, but after what Elizabeth had done the night before he couldn't just walk away. He started by moving the partial barrel back to the back room.

While he was busy with that task, Elizabeth decided she should go to the bank and deposit some money. She'd kept up her father's practice of keeping some money at home, but she only kept enough for emergencies. Her receipts from the week before had gone over that amount and she wanted that money in the safety of the bank vault.

Matthew was scooping flour from the partial barrel into the new barrel when he heard a gunshot. He ran into the front of the store, looked out the window, and saw a man sitting on a horse in front of the bank. In the man's hands was a double-barreled shotgun. He also held the reins of two more horses.

Another shot rang out from the bank just as Marshal Davies came running from the Marshal's office. The man on the horse saw him, aimed the shotgun at Marshal Davies, and pulled the trigger. Marshal Davies clutched his shoulder and then fell down.

When Matthew looked back at the bank, what he saw both chilled him to the bone and also made him furious with rage. Two men came out of the bank and they were holding Elizabeth by the arms.

Matthew reacted to that rage just as he had during the war. He ran to the display case in the counter, took two of the new Remington revolvers out, and quickly loaded them with six cartridges each. Then, he stepped out of the store and approached the three men.

The two men were trying to get Elizabeth on one of the horses, but she was fighting them. Only the man with the shotgun saw him, but he yelled to the other two. They stopped wrestling with Elizabeth and turned to face him, but they still held her by the arms. One of the men, a man Mathew figured was their leader, frowned.

"Storekeep, what you plannin' to do with them revolvers?"

Matthew's voice was calm, but commanding.

"Nothing if you let Elizabeth go and drop that moneybag, and then ride out of Lawrence and don't ever come back."

The man laughed.

"So she's your woman. Cain't do that storekeep. That'll spoil our fun. We was gonna take your woman here and show her what a real man is. I suppose you think you'll kill all three of us if we don't let her go. That about right?"

Matthew nodded.

"If it comes to that."

Matthew had been watching all three men, but was most concerned about the man with the shotgun. The other two had revolvers, but they'd holstered them so they'd have both hands free to handle Elizabeth. It would take them time to draw, aim and fire. The man with the shotgun had it slung over one arm, but it would only take him a second to aim it and pull the trigger for the one barrel that was still loaded.

He glanced at the man who appeared to be the leader, but then kept his eyes on the man with the shotgun.

"Let Elizabeth go and drop the moneybag. I won't say it again."

If Matthew hadn't been through similar situations during the war, he might have missed the quick but subtle movement of the man with the shotgun. It was just a flexing of his muscles that started to swing the barrels to point at Matthew.

Matthew's first shot caught that man in the chest. The man pulled the trigger on the shotgun before he fell off his horse, but the shot just hit the ground five feet in front of Matthew.

Matthew wasn't looking at the ground, he was looking at the two men who still held Elizabeth's arms. The man with her left arm released her and made a grab for his revolver. Matthew shot him in the chest and he went down writhing in pain.

Elizabeth hadn't stopped trying to get away, and now that she had her left hand free, she started clawing at the other man's face. He hit her with the back of his hand and knocked her to the side, then made a grab for the Colt on his hip. It was the last movement he was to make. Matthew's third shot hit him in the right eye and he went down without making a sound.

Matthew was still watching all three of the men for signs of movement when Elizabeth ran up to him, put her arms around his neck and hugged him tight.

"Matthew, I don't know how to thank you. You saved me from those men and you kept the bank from being robbed."

Matthew gently pulled Elizabeth's arms from his neck.

"I heard shots and then I saw that they had you. I couldn't do anything else. Right now, I need to see if any of them are still alive and you need to see how bad the Marshal's hurt. He was pretty far away when he was shot, so he'll probably be all right once the doctor picks the birdshot out of his shoulder.

Doctor Maddox was already running down the street when Elizabeth went to see to Marshal Davies. Just as Matthew had said, Marshal Davies was hurt and bleeding, but once he'd looked at the wound, Doctor Maddox said he'd live. He asked two men who had run up to see what was going on to take the Marshal back to his office. Elizabeth left them and went back inside the bank.