At Love's Command

by Karen Witemeyer

  Matt scanned the ravine for the old woman and her charges as Luke dragged him away. He spotted her right as the cannon boomed.

  “Captain? Can you hear me?”

  Matt roused slowly. His head throbbed. His ears rang. His cheek stung. Why did his cheek sting?

  He eased his eyes open just in time to see Wallace’s open hand swinging in for a slap. His trumpeter’s palm connected sharply with Matt’s jaw. Matt’s head lolled sideways.

  Mystery of the stinging cheek solved.

  Matt groaned. “I’d like to keep my teeth in my head, if you don’t mind.”

  “Thank God.” Wallace slid an arm beneath Matt’s shoulders and helped him sit up. “Apologies, Captain Hanger. You’ve been out for quite a spell. We were getting worried.”

  That was when it hit him. The quiet. No gunfire. No cannons.

  His senses sharpened. “Luke?”

  “Here, Cap.” Preach’s head popped into Matt’s field of vision, followed by Jonah’s. “It’s over.”

  Over?

  As if they’d read his mind, his men braced his arms and helped him to his feet. Dizziness assailed him at the jarring movement, but it was the sight that met his eyes that made his knees buckle. He’d seen death before, but never on this scale. Never so one-sided.

  Scores of Lakota lay dead in the ravine. Maybe hundreds. He swallowed hard as his gaze landed on a face as stoic in death as it had been in life. The old woman. The children scattered around her. Nothing more than lifeless heaps in the snow.

  Why? This was supposed to be a simple weapon confiscation. An escort to the reservation. How had it turned into a bloodbath?

  Bile burned the back of Matt’s throat. He’d joined the cavalry to protect settlers, people like his family. His task had been to bring justice and order to the frontier. This wasn’t justice.

  “God forgive us,” he murmured.

  They’d just participated in a massacre.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  PURGATORY SPRINGS, TEXAS

  MAY 1893

  They’ve got us pinned down, Captain.”

  Matt Hanger braced his back against the wall of the line shack he and Wallace had taken shelter behind and reloaded his Remington. Gunfire peppered the air as the gang of rustlers they’d been hired to eradicate closed in on their position. Matt’s former trumpeter returned fire from the opposite side of the ramshackle building while Matt dumped his spent casings and plucked fresh cartridges from his belt.

  “Hold the line a little longer, Wallace,” Matt ordered, his voice firm. Mark was a good soldier. A mite reckless from time to time, but a man who could be counted on when a situation deteriorated. Like this one.

  Preach and the ranchers who’d hired them needed more time if they were going to drive the stolen cattle back to the Circle D before the rustlers discovered they’d been hornswoggled. It fell to Matt and Wallace to keep the gang distracted.

  Sliding a sixth bullet into the cylinder, Matt turned back to the fight, aimed, and shot the hat from a rustler who’d taken advantage of the reloading lull to dash through the trees on Matt’s side of the shed in an effort to gain a tactical advantage.

  The rustler yelped and scurried back to the oak guarding his compatriot.

  After mustering out of the army following the disaster at Wounded Knee, Matt and the others had made a pact against the use of deadly force. They might be mercenaries after a fashion, but they made it clear to the people who hired them that killing was off the table.

  Using hats for target practice, however . . . well, that kept a man’s skill honed.

  “Jonah will be in position soon,” Matt said as Wallace retreated behind the shed to reload. “We just gotta hold them off for a few more minutes.”

  Easier said than done when the enemy outnumbered them six to two.

  A shot splintered the wood inches from Matt’s face. He jerked back to a covered position and cast a quick glance at Wallace to ensure the kid was all right. His head was down, eyes locked on fingers busy shoving bullets into chambers. A good way to ensure speed, yet he sacrificed awareness of his surroundings.

  The sight immediately put Matt on edge. He scanned the trees on his partner’s side of the shed. Caught a movement. Fired.

  A howl echoed as the rustler fell. Wallace’s head came up, as did his weapon. He glanced at the fallen man, then turned to Matt, a smile of thanks on his face. That smile immediately hardened. He lunged forward, gun drawn.

  “Get down!” he yelled as he shoved Matt out of the way and fired.

  A second shot echoed nearly simultaneously. Mark grunted and fell backward.

  “Wallace!” Matt scrambled to a better position. He had to protect his man.

  Rustlers encroached from both sides. Matt dragged Wallace against the shed wall and crouched down in front of him. He fired at a movement on his right. Then swiveled and fired to his left.

  Only two shots left.

  God, I could use some help here.

  Like a trumpet blast from heaven, a rifle reported from behind the shed. Two shots. One echoed from the left. The other from the right.

  “Throw down your weapons,” a deep voice boomed. “We’ve got you surrounded.”

  Jonah. Thank God. Jonah had been an answer to Matt’s prayers more than once during their time together, but never had there been more on the line than today. They had a man down. The youngest of the crew.

  “How bad, Wallace?” Matt didn’t take his eyes off the trees. He’d put one rustler down with a shot to the leg, but the outlaw could still pose a threat. He was fairly sure Wallace had at least winged his man, but there was too much cover for him to know for sure.

  “Shoulder shot, Captain. My gun arm’s useless, but I don’t think I’m headed to the pearly gates just yet.”

  The strain in the kid’s voice belied the lightness of his words.

  Another shot rang out, this time from the opposite direction. A cry echoed in the trees, followed by a soft thud as something heavy hit the dirt. Hopefully a gun.

  “The man told ya to drop yer weapons.” Preach’s voice. He must have circled back after the ranchers got the cattle clear of the box canyon where the rustlers had stashed them. “Better do as he says and come out with yer hands in the air. I ain’t exactly the patient sort.”

  One by one, the rustlers emerged, hands raised. One fellow only lifted a single arm, holding the other pressed against his left side where a bullet had creased him. Another two came out as a pair. The one carrying Matt’s bullet in his leg limped and leaned heavily on his partner for support.

  Keeping his gaze and his gun trained on the rustlers, Matt stood, shifted left, and backed up until his spine hit the shed wall. Then he slid down the wall into a crouch that brought him even with Wallace. A quick glance confirmed his suspicion. The wound was bad. Mark had propped himself up into a sitting position and shoved a field dressing against his shoulder, but blood had already soaked through it. The kid’s face had lost all color, and the mouth famous for charming ladies with a roguish smile and flattering tongue was pulled down into an agonized grimace that boded ill.

  Wallace needed a doctor. Fast. But they were in the middle of nowhere with nothing around but ranches and a ragged handful of buildings pretending to be a town. The closest city of consequence was San Marcos, ten miles away. Chances were good Mark wouldn’t survive the trip there, and waiting for someone to fetch the doc would take at least two hours, if not more.

  As soon as Jonah and Preach came into view from opposite directions, herding the rustlers between them, Matt holstered his weapon and focused all his attention on Wallace.

  “The kid hit, boss?” Jonah asked as he took charge of the man who seemed to be the gang’s leader, tying his hands behind his back with a strip of rawhide.

  “Yep. Right shoulder,” Matt answered as he changed the field dressing with one of his own and wrapped a bandage as tight as he could manage around the underarm and torso. “I’ll patch him up best I ca
n, but he’s gonna need a doctor. Sooner rather than later.”

  “I need the doc too,” one of the rustlers whined. Probably the one with a bullet in his leg, not that Matt made the effort to look up and check.

  “Dalton,” Preach called out, “where’s the closest doc?”

  Matt did look up then. Terrance Dalton, owner of the Circle D, stepped into the small clearing behind the line shack. Apparently Preach wasn’t the only one to circle back. The local ranchers had pooled their funds to hire Matt’s crew, but Dalton owned the largest herd and therefore had the most at stake. It spoke well of him that he cared enough for the lives of the men he’d hired that he’d leave his stock to lend his gun to the fight.

  “Dr. Joe can tend ’em,” Dalton said. “Got an office right here in Purgatory Springs. Across from the post office. Less than a mile away.”

  Best news Matt had heard all day. “Great. I’ll get Wallace to Purgatory. Preach, you and Jonah take that bunch to the sheriff in San Marcos.”

  “What about me?” the whiny rustler complained. “I’m bleedin’ all over the place.”

  “Preach?” Matt looked to his second-in-command.

  Dalton moved in closer, gun at the ready while Luke bent to examine the criminal’s leg.

  “Looks like a through-and-through, Cap. I’ll give him a few quick stiches and bind it up. He should make it to San Marcos.”

  “I don’t want you stitchin’ me!”

  Luke straightened and shrugged. “All right. Cauterizin’s easier anyhow.” He unsheathed his overlarge hunting knife and held it up between them. “Just need to light a fire and get this blade red-hot. Shouldn’t take too long.”

  “N-n-never mind. Stitchin’s fine.”

  Matt hid a grin and turned back to Wallace. The pain etched on the kid’s face killed his amusement in a blink.

  “Can you stand, soldier?” Matt hunkered down and lifted Wallace’s left arm over his shoulders, then wrapped an arm around his waist.

  Mark nodded, grimacing as he strained with the effort of standing.

  The kid might be a mere twenty-seven, ten years Matt’s junior, but he was no reedy youth. He had the lean, muscular build of a cavalryman, and it took all of Matt’s grit to get them both upright.

  Matt whistled, and half a minute later, Phineas trotted out of the trees. Wallace’s gray trailed behind.

  “Come on,” Matt ground out as he moved them both toward the horses. “Let’s get you to Purgatory.”

  “If it’s all the same to you . . . Captain”—Wallace groaned as Matt jostled him—“I’d prefer . . . Paradise for my . . . final rest. Better company . . . you know? Gets a little . . . hot . . . in Purgatory.”

  Matt scowled at the poor jest and took on more of Wallace’s weight, practically dragging the young man now. “There’ll be no final resting today, soldier.” He lifted Wallace higher, as if making him look like he was strong enough to walk would actually cause it to be true. “That’s an order.”

  “Do my best . . . sir.”

  “That’s all I ask, son.” Matt clenched his jaw as Preach stepped up to hold the kid while Matt mounted.

  Matt glanced heavenward as he swung into the saddle, knowing God would read the plea on his heart to spare Wallace’s life. All I ask.

  Matt rode to town as fast as he dared with Wallace fading in his arms. By the time he got to Purgatory Springs, the kid slumped against him, unconscious.

  “Hang on, son,” he murmured, shoving the panic away and focusing on what he could control—getting Wallace to the doctor.

  Purgatory Springs consisted of nothing more than a half-dozen nondescript buildings along a single main road. Matt scanned for the post office sign, spotted it, and immediately steered Phineas to the white clapboard building across the street.

  “Dr. Joe!” he yelled as he halted Phineas. “Get out here! Got a man down.”

  He pulled his right foot from the stirrup, braced his left leg, and shifted Wallace’s weight against his shoulder. Slowly, he swung his right leg over the back of the horse, concentrating on keeping Mark steady.

  “Here. Let me help.” A woman reached up to support Wallace and take a good portion of his weight.

  Where was the doc? It didn’t seem right for a woman to be doing the heavy lifting. Though, Matt had to admit, she seemed capable. Strong too. She propped up Wallace’s back as Matt eased to the ground. As soon as he got his foot free of the stirrup, he relieved her of her portion of the burden and caught Wallace beneath the knees.

  The sensible woman didn’t stand around gaping but immediately pivoted, scurried back to the office door, and held it open. “Bring him this way.”

  Matt had already followed on her heels and angled Wallace through the door. The nurse—for that was what she must be, with her bibbed white apron and dark blue dress—seemed to catalog Wallace’s condition with her gaze as Matt eased him past her.

  “Gunshot?” she asked as she scooted around him in the hall and led the way to an oak-paneled room filled with glass cabinets and a wooden examination table.

  “Yep.” That was all the answer Matt could manage while lugging around 175 pounds of dead weight.

  It seemed to suit the nurse, though, for she asked nothing more. Just skittered around the cabinet and stomped on a pedal of some sort. The inclined table lowered into a horizontal position.

  “Lay him here.”

  Matt did so. She immediately pressed two fingers to Wallace’s neck.

  “Weak, but regular. That’s a good sign.”

  Matt nodded, the words easing his apprehension enough to allow him to take a full breath. But then the woman started unwrapping the kid’s bandages.

  Matt slapped his hand over her wrist. Her head jerked up, shocked eyes wide. Shocked, remarkably green eyes. The kind of eyes that could make a man forget what he was about. Or would have, if he wasn’t in charge of fetching competent medical attention for a man he loved like family.

  “The kid’s lost enough blood already. I’d just as soon wait for the doctor to get here before you go unraveling things.”

  Those wide eyes narrowed as she tugged her hand free of his grasp. She straightened to her full height, which placed the top of her head even with his chin. “The doctor is here,” she said, enunciating each unbelievable word with metronomic precision. “Dr. Josephine Burkett at your service.”

  Dr. Joe was a woman?

  “Now, if you and your antiquated assumptions will get out of my way,” she said as she pushed past him and reached for the bandages again, “I have a patient to tend.”

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Josephine turned her back on the frowning stranger whose broad shoulders took up far too much space in her examination room and focused instead on the more compliant one sprawled unconscious on her table.

  Whoever had applied the dressing had done a fine job. Even with all the jostling the two men must have endured on horseback, pressure on the wound had remained steady and minimized blood loss. She stole a peek at the stiff fellow who had yet to reanimate after suffering rapid-onset paralysis. A condition commonly brought on by the pronouncement of her medical expertise. Josephine shook her head. The poor male brain. So susceptible to gender-oriented shock. Unable to process female capability in areas beyond child-rearing and housekeeping. Women doctors existed only in myth. At least that was what most military men believed. And this gent had military written all over him.

  The posture. The bearing of command. The blue vest that buttoned all the way to his collar. An officer, most likely. Ex-cavalry, if she didn’t miss her guess. She’d seen enough of his kind at her father’s ranch to recognize the type. Sure of themselves and their ideas. Even when they were wrong.

  The end of the unraveled bandage drew her complete focus back to her patient. She gently pried the dressing away from the wound and frowned at the torn, bloodied flesh marred by a weapon that civilized people should be able to settle disputes without. Then she pressed the dressing back in p
lace and attempted to roll the young man over far enough to check for an exit wound.

  Before she could adjust and find the proper leverage to manage the task on her own, the scowling chauvinist next to her broke out of his stupor and grabbed his friend’s side.

  “Thank you.” She offered a brief smile. Not that she needed the ruffian’s help, of course, but she was pragmatic enough to accept it if it sped the examination process.

  Josephine eyed the back of her patient’s shirt. No hole. She ran her hand over his shoulder and back, feeling for a bulge to indicate the bullet had attempted an exit. She found nothing. She rolled him onto his back again and started cataloging what needed to be done. Cut away the shirt. Clean the wound. Find the bullet. Extract. Stitch. Guard against infection.

  “You able to help him, Doc?”

  Josephine glanced up as she retrieved a pair of scissors from the surgical tray she always kept readied. Concern was etched as deeply into her visitor’s face as the squint lines at the corner of his eyes.

  Yet he’d called her Doc. Not Miss or Nurse. She’d had to prove herself by bringing old man Johnson back from the grave with a cholecystectomy before the men around Purgatory Springs had honored her with that title. After she’d removed his gallbladder, Hiram Johnson bragged to all who would listen that his pain had disappeared virtually overnight, finally garnering her the respect she’d worked months to build. The fact that her professional title rolled off this military man’s tongue on nothing but her say-so was really rather remarkable.

  Maybe he wasn’t quite the chauvinist she’d taken him for. Then again, he was still questioning her skills.

  Meeting his earnest hazel eyes straight on, she gave him the calm authority she’d been trained to impart upon worried friends and family. “Yes. I’ve extracted bullets before.” Only two, and never in an area quite so rife with major blood vessels, but he didn’t need to know that.

  Despite the name, Purgatory Springs had been a peaceful little town until the rustling started. Jeffrey Cawyer shooting himself in the foot had been her only active gunshot case since medical school, though she had expertly pulled a slug from the Williams’ family turkey her first Thanksgiving in town when there’d been some concern over the new cook mangling the prize-winning poultry with her heavy-handed hacking. Mrs. Williams insisted on a pristine bird for her table, and since Hiram Johnson had still possessed his stone-laden gallbladder at the time, Josephine had been willing to demonstrate her surgical skills in any way possible.