by Tess Oliver
“Let’s face it, River panics if a moth flies into his stall. I think you were just seeing things, Cade. Let’s get out of here. I’m so hungry I could eat a bear.”
River stepped into a clearing and I pulled the horse to a halt so fast his back feet slid beneath him. His nostrils flared as he backed up instinctively and smacked right into Jackson’s gelding.
“What the hell, Cade? What do you see?”
“Your lunch,” I whispered.
Jackson opened his mouth to talk, but I held up a hand behind me to silence him and reached for my pistol. On its hind legs, the grizzly stood nearly as tall as the evergreen next to it. Beneath the massive beast, lying motionless on the ground, was a girl. Her long gold hair fanned out over the dirt and her white blouse was soaked in blood.
The bear stared down at the girl as if not entirely certain what to do with her. Winslow snorted once and the grizzly’s massive head lifted. The black nose twitched as the bear’s snout lifted to pick up our scent. Small brown eyes stared at us from it giant head. Then its lips lifted and long white fangs poked out from its mouth.
“Sonavagun, that’s a monster,” Jackson whispered. “Do you think you’ve got enough bullets to take him down?”
“Nope, and if I just wound it, that beast will turn its rage on that girl.”
“She already looks like a goner, doesn’t she? Where the hell did she come from?”
I glanced up at the sky. It was as cloudless and blue as any March day. My gaze went back to the girl. She was tiny and frail and if she was not already dead, she was one paw swipe away from it. “Not sure where she came from but we can’t just leave her out there.”
The thick Junipers behind the bear shook wildly, sending a flurry of dried needles to the ground. River took a sharp step back when two bear cubs bounded out to see what their mother was up to.
“Nothing more dangerous than a mama bear.” Jackson said. The lifeless girl still held more interest for the grizzly than the two cubs who tried desperately to catch her attention.
“Yeah there is. A mama bear that’s been shot. I’ve got to try and scare her off. It’s our only chance.”
“If that girl on the ground is dead, maybe we’d be wiser to just turn and hightail it out of here.”
I looked back at him over my shoulder. “And if she’s not dead? Besides, that bear can outrun both these horses in these trees. But if you’re scared, you go on.” I knew Jackson well enough to know that last statement would rile him. I also knew that now he would stick around for sure.
The two babies had taken an interest in the girl. Cautiously, they moved toward her. Even young as they were, they could kill a human in an instant. If I thought about it any longer, we would all end up a grizzly supper. I lifted my pistol and shot up over the head of the bear. It spun away, dropped back to all fours, and lumbered off with its cubs.
Once the foliage had stopped moving, we jumped out of the saddle and ran over to the girl. I knelt down next to her and touched her smooth white cheek. It was still warm. Her full lips were pink with color.
Jackson peered cautiously over my shoulder. “Is she dead, Cade?”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t look away from her face. “She’s still breathing.”
“Looks like that mama grizzly got her good,” Jackson said grimly.
There were four deep gashes in her side where the bear must have swiped its paw across her. “Wonder how she got here.” I glanced around. The only tracks were from the bears. I looked up at the sky again. Jackson seemed to read my thoughts.
“You think this girl is what you saw falling from the sky?” Jackson asked. “Cause this is exactly what I pictured angels to look like. Except I was expectin’ wings or something.”
I brushed a long, stray curl from her forehead, and my fingertips grazed her soft skin. “She may look like an angel, but she feels all too human. We need to get her home to the ranch before she dies.”
A tiny moan floated from her lips. Her long lashes fluttered and a pair of amazing, dark brown eyes stared up at me. “It’s you,” she said breathlessly and then her eyes closed again.
I reached my hands beneath her and lifted her into my arms. Her head collapsed against my shoulder.
“She seems to know you.” Jackson walked along behind me.
“She’s just confused and scared. I’ve never seen her before.”
“Are you sure? I mean with all the girls you’ve-“
“I’m sure,” I said abruptly. I looked down at the face that was now so close to mine. I could see the light spray of freckles across her nose. “I would sure as hell remember if I’d seen this face before.”
I handed the girl off to Jackson and then climbed into the saddle. He lifted her up to me. She was as limp as a ragdoll, but the movement made her sweet face twist in pain. I settled her in front of me.
“Whooee, Cade, you are somethin’ else.” Jackson shook his head as he pulled up into his saddle.
“What are you talking about, Jacks?”
“Only you could have a beautiful girl like that drop out of the sky and into your lap.”
I reined River around and we headed home. “If only she had landed in my lap and not on that damn grizzly bear, she might not be bleeding to death right now.” I spurred River on. “Let’s hurry. I don’t think we have much time.”
My older brother, Samuel, watched us ride in from the front porch. We were just nearing the house when he yelled for Aunt Libby, jumped from the porch, and came running.
“What the hell happened?” Samuel asked angrily.
“I didn’t do it if that’s what you’re thinking, Sam. A grizzly got her.”
The front screen slammed shut. Libby wiped her hands on her apron as she hurried down the porch steps.
“Where did she come from?” Samuel asked.
I looked down at the thin girl in my arms. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“Well, she’s liable to bleed to death while you two have your conversation,” Libby said. “Hand her down to your brother, Cade, and let’s get her into the house.”
Her long hair cascaded over my arm as her head dropped back over my forearm. She stirred weakly as I reluctantly handed her off to Samuel. “Be careful with her.”
Samuel sneered back at me. “I’m not gonna drop her, you idiot.” He strode back to the house with my fallen angel in his arms, and I watched to make sure she was safely inside.
Aunt Libby stared up at me with her customary raised eyebrow. “Deputy Carson came up to the house.”
“Yeah.”
Jackson laughed. “Told you he’d come out here.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now take your horse in and check his feet. He looked lame on the ride home.”
Libby and I watched Jackson ride to the barn.
“Don’t always be so hard on him, Cade. We’re the only family he’s got and he looks up to you.” She glanced back toward the barn and chuckled. “No idea why— but he does.”
“Libby, only you can hand out a compliment and follow it with an insult without taking a breath.”
“Not true. I took a breath and even had time to laugh.” Her expression darkened. “Carson was madder than a wolf without supper. I gather it was that ninny, Candy, who had him in a lather. I told him he should find some real criminals to chase and leave you alone. But you need to watch yourself, Cade.”
“I always do.” I looked toward the house hoping she would get the message and hurry in to her patient.
The frown that appeared whenever she sensed trouble pulled at her mouth. She put her hand on River’s shoulder. “Cade, you better ride to town and get Doc Walker. The girl looks real bad. Far worse than anything I can tend to. Besides, Doc might know who she is so we can tell her family.”
They were not the words I wanted to hear. “I’ll head into town right now.”
***
Samuel’s wife Charlotte was boiling some white linen strips in a soup kettle when I walked in with Doc
Walker. She glanced up from her task.
“You’d better hurry. Libby says if she doesn’t get stitched up soon she won’t have any more blood to lose. And a little thing like her can’t have too much of it.”
“Are you gonna keep talking or are you going to tell us where she is,” I said.
She sneered back at me but that was usual for her. Even in a good mood. “She’s in the spare room.”
I led the doctor to the back room and pushed open the door. The heavy black skirt, blood-soaked blouse, and corset she’d worn were draped over a chair. Thin bare white shoulders poked out from the sheet. Libby had wrapped her wounds with linen strips but a pink stain was already showing through the cotton sheet.
Libby looked up from the girl. “She’s going to need stitching. She was wearing a rather primitive looking corset and I think it may have saved her life. But that grizzly got her good. I’ve already washed the wound with boiling water.”
Doc Walker barely glanced at the girl before placing his bag on a chair to dig for his implements. “I’ll need some of the boiling water for my needle,” he said hastily. He glanced back at me. “We’ll need you to hold her down, Cade. She looks unconscious now but that could change, and I’d hate to have her wake in the middle of me stitching her up.”
I sat on the bed and looked down at her. She looked small and lost and helpless lying so quietly in the big brass bed. I could not stop myself from reaching up and touching the silken skin of her shoulder. As bad off as she was, I was relieved to feel warmth radiating from her bare skin.
Libby got the linens ready and Doc Walker boiled several needles. He claimed that boiling the instruments was some new procedure he’d heard about when he took a trip to the east coast. It was supposed to keep the infection away.
While they got things ready, the girl turned her face on the pillow and opened her eyes. She blinked up at me for a moment and the faintest smile crossed her perfect lips. “You scared away the monster.”
I nodded. “It was just a grizzly, but she was definitely a monster.”
Confusion crossed her face. “Is Nonni here?”
“I don’t know anyone by that name, but we’ll find her as soon as you’re up and about,” I said. “The doc is going to stitch you up. It might hurt some. Are you ready?”
Without lifting her head from the pillow she nodded, and long ribbons of gold hair waved across her thin shoulders. She pulled her hand from the sheet. Her fingers trembled as she reached up and touched my chin. “You are real. I thought you were just in my mind, but it’s as if you stepped out of my picture.” Her brown eyes drifted shut again.
“Poor thing is delirious,” Libby said over my shoulder. She reached for the sheet but then stopped and looked at me. “Sorry, Cade, it wouldn’t be proper to let you stay. Charlotte can hold her down. A little thing like her can’t put up too much of a fight. Go on and get. We’ll let you know when it’s over.”
Reluctantly, I stood and left the room.
Chapter 6
Poppy
There was nothing more disconcerting than confusion. And my mind was in a true muddle. Separating dreams from reality was impossible. The only thing I recognized as genuine was the horrible pain in my side. As I coasted in and out of deep slumber, I had visions of a horrible monster with claws that could shred skin with one swipe. Several times I was certain I’d woken from my dreams, but I was surrounded by the faces and voices of strangers. The only exception was the one with pale green eyes. He was all too familiar. Twice, I’d spotted him standing and watching from a doorway, an unfamiliar doorway in a room that was equally foreign, but then he would disappear like every other figment of my imagination.
Chills and aches wracked my body and through the haze of fever I heard Nonni’s voice. It was comforting and it kept me from closing my eyes for good.
Chapter 7
Cade
I’d always found that when something occupied my mind too much it was time to go out and break horses. And since I’d been spending way too much time thinking about the girl, I jumped at an offer for work at Trenton Ranch.
It had been three days since the doctor had sewn the girl up, and after a night of nearly losing her to a fever, she’d come through. Libby had assured me she was on the mend. I’d been avoiding the room, hoping I would stop thinking about her, but it only seemed to increase my need to see her.
The door to the room was half-open, and I couldn’t keep myself from looking inside. But I never stepped past the threshold. Libby had found an old nightgown for her to wear, but she was nearly drowning in the oversized garment. Charlotte blocked my view of the girl’s unforgettable face as she fed her soup. I was thankful for it. I was off to break a herd of wild mustangs and I didn’t need images of that face distracting me. What I hadn’t prepared for was the sound of her soft voice.
Libby turned up the gas on the lamp near the bed and the room brightened.
“Is that lamp a form of sorcery?” The girl’s odd question was met with silence in the room.
Libby finally spoke. “Sears and Roebuck, 1890. No sorcery included.”
“Is this Salem?” she asked weakly, and the helpless tone of it went straight to my chest.
“We’re just north of Billings,” Libby answered.
“Is that anywhere near Ipswich?” she asked. “Our cottage is near there, just below Whipple Hill.” There was a small hitch of panic in her tone as she spoke as if she suddenly realized that she was far from home.
Libby leaned over her, and I glimpsed the tender curve of the girl’s neck and shoulder, another image that was not going to leave my mind any time soon.
“Now don’t you worry. Honey,” Libby said in that tone that could soothe a man with a noose around his neck, “we’ll get you home to Whistle or Ipsick or wherever you’re from just as soon as you’re strong enough. Get some more rest.” Libby walked over and pulled shut the curtains. “What is your name? Do you remember it?”
“My name is Poppy,” she said quietly.
And now I had a sweet name to distract me as well.
“Well, Poppy, you rest and Charlotte, here, will bring you some lunch later.”
Charlotte lifted the tray of soup and walked toward me.
“Charlotte,” Poppy said on a yawn, “she’s a wonderful cow.”
Charlotte stopped so suddenly the bowl of soup nearly slid from the tray. Her mouth twisted angrily. “Did she just call me a cow?”
It was hard to hold back a smile. “Nah,” I said confidently, “I think she was talking about a different cow.”
“Oh shut your trap, Cade. You bring us another mouth to feed, and now you’re leaving. God knows when you’ll have had your fill of whiskey, poker, and women to find your way home again.”
“At this point, I don’t even think God can predict when I’ll have my fill. Think he’s too busy to keep track.” I tipped my hat at her, and she stormed past me with the tray. There wasn’t always so much hatred between us. When Samuel was courting her, she was pleasant enough and would even laugh if you caught her at the right time, but once they’d married and Charlotte had moved in with us, I realized there was a lot more to dislike about my sister-in-law than to like. And she seemed to have come to the same conclusion about me. Still, she’d been more than attentive to Poppy, and I should have been more thankful to her for that.
Libby closed the door behind her. “Leave Charlotte alone, Cade. She’s been real helpful in there.”
“Yeah, I know. How’s the girl doing?”
Libby wiped her hands on her apron and then reached up to wipe dirt off my face. “Real good. Never seen anyone heal so quickly.” I could see a glimpse of a smile in the dark hallway. “One would almost think that Doc Walker performed some kind of magic on her or something.” We headed to the kitchen. “You still never explained where she came from.”
“Just found her near the bear. Like she dropped out of nowhere,” I added.
She poured a cup of coffee and handed
it to me. “She was asking about some place called Salem.” She stopped and looked at me. “Isn’t that in Massachusetts or somewhere back east?”
“Sounds about right. Maybe there’s another Salem here in Montana that we don’t know about.”
She took a sip of her own coffee. “Maybe.” She turned and straightened my neck scarf. “Hurry back, Cade. And try to come back in one piece. One patient is enough around here.”
I put down my coffee and kissed her cheek. “I’ll try to keep my bones intact.”
Jackson was just finishing saddling the horses when I walked out with our bedrolls. He was moaning like an old man getting out of his rocker as he finished tightening the cinch.
“Why the heck are you groaning like that, Jacks?”
He looked over the saddle at me. “Huh? Oh I was just thinking aloud or I guess I should say moaning aloud as I was remembering back to last spring when we were out breaking horses for Trenton. The ground in his corrals is harder than a slab of granite. My backside is still haunted with the memories of it all.”
“Maybe you could tie a pillow to that haunted backside of yours.” I finished securing the bedroll on the back of the saddle as Samuel walked into the barn.
“Charlotte says you’re leaving,” Samuel said angrily. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? There’s work to be done here. And what about that homeless girl you left us with? You’re just gonna up and leave?”
I looked at him. “Yep.”
“Who’s going to fix the south fence?”
“Did it yesterday.” I ran my hands down the backs of River’s hocks to make sure there was no swelling. “Be back in a week.”
“That’s just great,” Samuel sneered. He’d always taken pride in being the older brother who could boss and order his younger brother around, but two summers ago, right after my seventeenth birthday, I’d grown three inches taller than him. Once I’d learned to draw faster, fight harder, and ride better than him, he’d had to come to the disappointing realization that his days as boss were over.