A Patient Man by Suzanne

Word Count 2,495

Episode Tag:  Blind Man’s Bluff

This takes place after the events in Blind Man’s Bluff.

Written for 55 Years of Lancer celebration at Lancerwriters@groups.i.o

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I’d said he was pretty self-sufficient, that night of the party at Lancer.

‘Maybe, too much so’, were Murdoch’s words of his younger son.

Neither Murdoch, Johnny, nor myself, knew what we were in for that night—and after.

I know one thing: we were all scared. Not just Johnny.

It was probably the worst two weeks of our lives…waiting…wondering. One minute dreading what might happen; the next trying to pull hope out of our hats.

Johnny kept up a  pretty good front for our sake; Murdoch’s, Teresa and mine. But I heard him with Mattie. He was scared. And who could blame him.

He’d been living in darkness for two weeks. What if that became his entire world?

For my part, it didn’t bear thinking about; but at least I could work from dawn to dusk and then some, keeping my mind on cattle and fences and branding, or forking piles of hay.

All Johnny could do was lie there. He wasn’t even allowed to sit up.

And for once, he did what he was told…as hard as that was to believe. Perhaps it was Mattie’s presence? Or perhaps he understood, better than anyone, what his life would be like if his sight didn’t return.

Perhaps, for once, Johnny wasn’t going to take any chances?

But he had Mattie through all that time. She made him laugh and forget the threat hanging over his head. I don’t know how she did it with all those barriers between them, but I saw if for myself. Murdoch did, too. And if I’ve learned anything about Murdoch, it’s that he wants…well, it’s too glib to simply say he wants Johnny and me to be happy…but I think, when it comes to our personal  lives, he’d support whatever choice we made.

So, we all waited.

I don’t know about anyone else, but my stomach was  in knots when Teresa called Murdoch and me to say the doctor was removing the bandages.

I’m sure we were all holding our breath…

And then, for a moment in Johnny’s bedroom, it was sheer joy for all of us. It worked. He could see. All those hours of forcing ourselves to think the best, had somehow paid off.

I suspect a few of us even had dusty knees.

And then, Mattie left. The one person who’d been Johnny’s rock through this whole drama. That’s right, my brother Johnny, who never relied on anyone.

Neither Murdoch nor I had a chance to think about how Johnny would take it when Mattie left, with Doc Poovy coming at the last minute like that. He didn’t even seem sure that Mattie was going to go with him—but I’ve gotta say, it was extra hard on Johnny, with her going before he’d even had a chance to lay eyes on her.

I wanted to stop Johnny when he ran out the door. After all, his eyesight wasn’t completely back and what good would it do if he fell down and broke his neck?

Well, he managed not to break his neck—but Mattie certainly managed to break something in him.

Murdoch and I both watched from the window; Johnny chasing the buggy, only to collapse on the dirt road. A forlorn figure, brought to his knees.

There was no sign of Johnny Madrid, now. He was just my brother. And he was hurting.

“Well?” I said to Murdoch. I wasn’t happy.

Not that Murdoch looked happy, either when I faced him. I’d probably been too hard on him.

Looking back, it might have been worse if Murdoch hadn’t let Johnny go—to give him the chance of catching up to Mattie. Let Mattie hear him calling. To let Johnny know this was her decision and Mattie’s mind was made up; that no amount of pleading was going to bring her back.

Well, who knows what might have happened. He might never have forgiven us.

Anyway, I stayed at the window next to Murdoch, watching Johnny kneeling on the road, but it was a long time before Murdoch finally replied to my word.

“Go get him, Scott.”

I was out the door  as fast as Johnny had left his room. But once I was outside, I slowed down. Oh, God, what was I meant to say? I didn’t even know if Johnny would be physically able to walk all the way back to the house.

The eye doctor’s buggy was out front, so that gave me an idea. I untied the reins and got in. I knew from the last time I had to carry Johnny over my shoulder, he was darned heavy.

I didn’t race the horses. Just took my time, trying to slow my breath and work out what the heck I was going to say.  As I reached Johnny, I slowed to a stop. “Like a lift? I’m going your way.”

He didn’t answer. Just kneeled there in the dirt, with his head down, holding the paper Mattie had thrust into Murdoch’s hands before walking out of our lives.

I have to admit, I wasn’t happy with her. I’d come to like Mattie but this…I mean, who does this to a person they care about? Leaving at the most crucial moment…with no explanation? What was Johnny meant to think? That she never cared for him? That it was all a trick?

“The hands’ll be returning soon from their day’s work. You’re liable to get run over if you don’t get up.”

I hoped some shred of pride might help him decide to get up, rather than being discovered in his nightgown. But then, Johnny’s funny like that. Half the time he doesn’t care what people think of him. It’s all about that inner compass of his, that guides him. The very one that had him almost walk out on Murdoch because he thought Warburton was owed the right to sell his own cattle.

“Johnny?”

It was hot in the sun. This was no place for him to be after two weeks, flat on his back.

“Why, Scott?”

Damn it, Johnny. Ask me anything but that. Questions of that order were for fathers to answer. I’d only been engaged once in my life, and look how that turned out. I’d never even been close to choosing a partner for life, other than that time with Julie.

I got down from the buggy, then said the only thing that made sense to me. “I think she was afraid.”

“Not Mattie. She’s not afraid of anything.”

I tried to say my next words as gently as I could. “Except of you being able to see.”

“What’re you saying?” He looked up at me just the once, eyes almost closed as he squinted against the brightness of the sun.

“Johnny, from what we heard, Mattie had spent most of her life locked away on the farm, or spending time with Doc Poovy’s wife. She knows nothing of the world. You falling into the lake, opened up a world for her she’d never seen.”

“Then, why wouldn’t she want to stay?”

“My guess is, that while you couldn’t see,  she felt equal to someone for a change. That she could love you and not be afraid of holding you back.”

“I told her nothing’d change between us.”

“But it would’ve. You know that. These last few weeks, you haven’t been…”

“What? I haven’t been what?”

“Yourself. You’ve been patient, for one.” I tried to laugh. “Johnny, you being able to see might not have changed your feelings for her but it changed the way Mattie saw you.”

He looked up and squinted into the distance, as if somehow, he could still see her. “Where’s she goin’? Where’s Sam taking her?”

For a second, I thought twice about answering. “San Francisco. There are people there who can teach her sign language and do other things. They’ll open up another whole new world for her.”

“A world without me.” He murmured the words so softly I almost didn’t hear them.

“Yes, brother.”

The sun was getting stronger by the minute. I waited a few moments longer, then moved towards him. “Come on. Murdoch’ll be worried. I need to get you back to the house.”

He staggered to his feet. Even let me  put a hand on his elbow to help him get in the buggy, then we silently made our way back to the house.

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Murdoch was waiting at the door. Johnny gave him one look then trudged on by. “It’s all right, Murdoch. I’m headin’ back to bed. Total rest is what the doc said.”

Murdoch looked at me. I shrugged. I  had no idea if anything I said was a help. But at least Johnny had come back inside.

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Supper that night should have been a celebration. Instead, it was more like a funeral. Murdoch and Teresa did about as much justice to their meal as I did. And from the way I caught both of them looking up towards the stairs, they were all wondering, as I was.

It was like being caught between two worlds. We wanted to be happy for Johnny—but we were sad for him as well.

“Well, I think she did the wrong thing,” Teresa finally blurted out. “She should have stayed here and told Johnny everything.”

Murdoch pressed his lips together as she spoke. “She took a coward’s way out…”

I turned my head and stared at him.

“…At least, that’s what it appears like. Probably to Johnny as well. But to walk away…from someone you have deep feelings for…perhaps even love…? Well, that takes courage.”

Teresa’s bottom lip trembled. “I just want Johnny to be happy.”

“Give him time, Teresa. He’ll get there. But right now…he has some deep hurt to deal with.”

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I took a tray up to Johnny with some fresh coffee and tortillas. “Teresa had Maria make these especially for you.”

He took his forearm from across his eyes and looked at them. “Nope. But tell’em I said thanks.”

I couldn’t get much more out of him, so I went back downstairs. I shook my head when Murdoch asked how he was, from behind his desk. “No better than when you saw him.”

Murdoch had sat with a silent Johnny before supper.

I smacked the back of the high-backed blue chair. “I wish he’d never met Mattie.”

Murdoch’s fingers were steepled. “There’s a good chance your brother wouldn’t be alive, in that case. Don’t forget, she fished him out of the water. Another few minutes, with a head wound like that, Johnny would’ve been dead.”

“I know…I know. And of course I’m grateful. If only Lem hadn’t been so darn secretive about her, those fools wouldn’t have been thinking it was money Lem was hiding.”

Murdoch’s sigh said how much all this was getting to him, too. “Scott, it’s no good looking backwards. We have to deal with the hand we’ve been dealt today. Let’s not forget, just a few short hours ago, our worst fear was Johnny being blind for life.”

“Murdoch, I just want to see him happy.” And wasn’t that the very same thing Teresa had said?

“Give him time, Scott. He’s been through a lot these past two weeks. And now Mattie leaving, on top of everything else? Of course, he’s shaken.”

I stared out the French windows. “I just don’t know what to do.” It was something I’d never admit to Grandfather. I wasn’t even sure how it came out, now.

“Scott, there’s only one thing we can do—and that is to be there for him.”

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So I was. Well, when Johnny would let me. He was back to being Mr Self-Sufficient again in no time at all, but that look was still in his eye. The one I saw when he asked me, ‘why.’

It was easier when he was still confined to bed. I’d go up there and talk about the day’s work and the latest dumb thing Jelly had done. At first, Johnny would just fiddle with the fringe on his blanket but when I told him how I’d tricked Jelly into believing Murdoch was thinking of breeding geese with Dewdrop as the sire, I actually saw the beginnings of a smile.

Then I forced him to have a game of checkers with me because Jelly kept cheating…and somehow Johnny started to greet us when Murdoch or I walked in, instead of us feeling like we were an interruption to his darkest thoughts.

Finally, the doctor gave him permission to get out of bed and leave his room.

Maybe this was harder than anything on Murdoch and me, because once Johnny was allowed to ride again, he’d be gone for days.

Murdoch was better than me. He never asked Johnny where he’d been. He’d just put a hand on John’s shoulder and say, “It’s good to see you, son. We missed you.”

And that was the truth. A selfish truth no doubt. But I wanted Johnny back. I didn’t like seeing what grief was doing to him.

What Mattie had done to him.

And why on earth did Johnny always have to fall so hard where women were concerned? First it was Melissa. Then Julie. Not that he’d entirely admit to  that one.

Anyway, much like the sun coming up, it happened gradually. Johnny went back to work; he started eating again; he even started teasing Jelly again.

It was after one of those times, when Jelly was being his usual irascible self, never admitting he was wrong, and Johnny and I tricked him into thinking Maria had cooked Dewdrop by mistake. Of course, Dewdrop came honking around the corner, before even a second had passed, and Jelly didn’t really believe it anyway…but we both played it pretty well.

Anyway, we’d doubled over laughing while Jelly spluttered, “Why, you two. You oughtta go without food for a month for playing a trick like that,” before grumping away.

Just then, Teresa rang the supper bell and we headed towards the house, both muddy and tired after a day of clearing a creek bed. I’d started to talk about Aggie’s latest bout with Murdoch when Johnny whacked me on the arm.

“Anyway, Scott. Thanks.”

“For what?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

Johnny had his eyes on the ground as he walked. “You know what you’ve been up to the last month. Well, you and Murdoch, both. I haven’t been much of a brother. I haven’t been much of anything since…well, for a few weeks…but I ‘preciated you bein’ there.”

I threw my arm around his shoulder. “It’s good to have you back, brother.”

And when he grinned at me, that look had gone.

Well, not quite…but almost.

And unlike Johnny, I’m a reasonably patient man.

The end
December 2023

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