I traveled four thousand miles across the ocean and two thousand miles across the prairie to marry Liam Callahan, Kathleen said, stepping off the stagecoach in Baker City, Oregon.
The small timber cabin smelled of damp earth and something acrid-sweet from the medicine bottles crowding Liam’s bedside table. I leaned closer, my fingers brushing the cool glass. My Dublin Rotunda training had taught me to trust my senses.
One bottle, half-empty, held a dark, viscous liquid. It was labeled simply “Cough Syrup – For Chest Ailments.”
I uncorked it, a faint, almost sickly sweet aroma wafted up. It was familiar in a way that tightened my stomach. My nose wrinkled.
Liam coughed, a wet, rattling sound that shook his frail frame.
“He takes it three times a day,” Clara Callahan said from the doorway, her voice surprisingly bright considering the circumstances. “A trader passed through last month. Said it was the finest tonic on the frontier.”
I lifted the bottle to the light, noting the cloudy residue at the bottom. Copperas, or iron sulfate, was often used in tonics for anemia, sometimes even in small doses for coughs. But the sweetness…
“And foxglove,” I murmured, my heart thumping a heavy beat against my ribs. I’d seen its unmistakable faint bitter-almond trace before. Deadly if not dosed precisely. But combined with a metallic hint I couldn’t quite place…
“What did you say, Miss Burke?” Clara asked, her eyes narrowed slightly.
I replaced the cork. “Just observing the ingredients, Mrs. Callahan. My training included apothecary work.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Liam needs his rest, not an interrogation of his medicine.” She pulled the heavy curtain across the small window, plunging the room into deeper shadow.
I carried the bottle out to the small, dusty yard where Sean was splitting logs with powerful, rhythmic swings of his axe. The sound echoed through the pines.
“Sean,” I said, holding out the bottle.
He paused, the axe head buried in a fresh log. Sweat beaded on his brow. He took the bottle carefully, his calloused thumb tracing the rough glass.
“Clara says this came from an itinerant trader,” I explained. “She claims it’s for Liam’s suffering.”
Sean looked at the liquid, then at me, his gaze unreadable. “It helps him sleep.”
“It has copperas,” I said, keeping my voice low. “And foxglove. But there’s something else. A sweetness that shouldn’t be there, under the herbs.”
His eyes met mine, a flicker of something raw passing through them. “What does that mean?”
“Liam’s decline,” I continued, pressing the words out carefully. “It’s been so rapid these last few weeks, hasn’t it? Worse than the letters described.”
He nodded slowly, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
“A sudden worsening, a profound weakness, even confusion,” I pushed on. “These aren’t always just the symptoms of advanced consumption alone, Sean. This cough syrup… I suspect it’s accelerating his illness.”
The axe lay forgotten, half-buried in the wood. A cold dread settled in the pit of my stomach. The metallic sweetness I detected was more than just foxglove. It spoke of something deliberate, something sinister.
Sean’s shoulders slumped, a silent weight settling upon him. The truth of my words seemed to hit him harder than any blow from his axe. Liam wasn’t just fading naturally. He was being poisoned.
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