The Gunslinger's Vow

by Amy Sandas

  Malcolm didn’t waste time checking to see if the other two still breathed. He knew his shots were true. Holstering his gun, his only thought was of getting Alexandra out of there.

  He turned to see her coming out from behind the rock, clutching the reins of her horse in a white-knuckled grip. The terror on her face caused a sickening feeling in his gut. “You all right?” he asked as he walked toward her.

  She blinked a few times, then tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. Her eyes were bright with fear and something else.

  “Alex,” he said sternly as he lifted his hand to her shoulder.

  In a flash, her gaze cleared and refocused. But she wasn’t looking at him—she was looking past him. He turned, catching sight of the barrel-chested man aiming a rifle at his back. Before Malcolm could go for his own gun, Alexandra already had it drawn and lifted in both hands. Two shots sounded at once, and a searing hot pain slammed through Malcolm’s shoulder.

  The other man fell to the ground, his rifle hitting the dirt beside him.

  Jesus Christ! She’d shot him right above his sighting eye at nearly forty yards.

  He looked back at the woman next to him. She stood stock-still with his gun still raised in both hands, though her arms were starting to shake. Her face was blanched as white as flour, and her eyes held a look unlike anything he’d ever seen before.

  Malcolm lifted his hand slowly to place it on top of hers, forcing her to lower the gun. It took only the slightest bit of urging, and he had the gun out of her hands and back in his holster. That brought her attention to him, but not in any natural way. Her blue eyes were wide and unfocused, like she wasn’t sure where she was or what had just happened.

  Then a strange, strangled sound struggled up through her throat.

  Malcolm followed her gaze to where blood was rapidly soaking the gray cotton of his shirt. He checked the back of his shoulder, and his hand came back with more blood.

  The bullet had passed through.

  Aside from the initial blast of pain, he didn’t feel much. He’d been shot before and knew that the shock would wear off soon enough and he’d be hurting. Before that happened, he needed to get them moving and find a safe place to hole up. If the old man had been telling the truth about Dunstan having men out looking for him, there could be others heading their way already.

  “Alexandra.”

  She showed no sign of hearing him, her gaze refusing to budge from the red stain spreading over his shoulder.

  “Alex,” he said again, more forcefully. It managed to bring her eyes up to his face, but the lost and haunted look was still a veil over her usually direct focus. “Get yourself up on that horse. We gotta ride out. Now. You understand me?”

  She gave a tiny bob of her head, but she made no move to mount her horse.

  With a muttered curse, Malcolm grasped her shoulders to turn her around, then planted his hands around her waist and hefted her up toward the horse’s back, hoping she would do the rest.

  Thank God she did, because the effort was enough to send a fresh flow of blood down his arm in a blast of throbbing pain and fire.

  After making sure she was settled, Malcolm scooped up the extra guns and went around to the three riderless horses to quickly gather other useful supplies from their saddlebags. He secured everything to his saddle, then swung up onto his own horse, and with only a passing glance toward the three bodies being left behind, he led them from camp and took off at a swift lope, heading straight into the mountains.

  Twenty

  Alexandra was lost.

  Lost and stumbling through tormented memories of fear and pain and blood. The recollections rushed at her from all directions, as immediate and detailed as they had been on the day it had happened.

  She hadn’t expected to be so affected by the sight of those two bodies lying in the dirt. It had been all she could do to hold the old, debilitating fear at bay as Malcolm approached, appearing unhurt.

  But then she’d seen the one he’d sent off, creeping back around the edge of camp. When the man lifted his rifle to take aim, she’d acted without thought, grabbing Malcolm’s gun and firing. It had been instinctive, just like five years ago. The feel of the weapon in her hand, the way the shot reverberated through her arms and down through her belly to where her feet were rooted hard into the ground…it was all too familiar.

  This time, however, it was Malcolm who ended up with the dark stain spreading across his chest. Seeing the blood was too much. Past and present became twisted together as she remembered the face of another man who had stared at her with shock and tearful agony as the life seeped from his body to stain the ground.

  She tried to close her mind to the memories, to stay present and in control as Malcolm grasped her shoulders and shouted at her. She knew he needed something from her, but she couldn’t respond, couldn’t grasp ahold of the current reality when the past had become so real again.

  The next thing she knew she was up on her horse and they were riding, hard and fast. Across open land with wind whipping at their faces, then scrambling along narrow, twisted passes, through rocky terrain as they went up, up into the rugged mountains.

  Unable to do anything but hold on and keep up, Alexandra followed, her gaze hard on Malcolm’s back where at least the stain had stopped growing.

  For hours, they didn’t slow their pace. She was grateful for the physically grueling ride, since it forced her to bring her awareness back to the needs at hand: staying on her horse and keeping the mare from stumbling over the rough terrain. The past faded once again as her focus became trained on accomplishing the current goal.

  She had no idea where they were heading, but it soon became clear that their mounts wouldn’t be able to take much more. Still, Malcolm kept pushing ahead, taking them higher into the mountains and farther from the common trails. He seemed determined to get them somewhere in particular.

  After riding most of the day with little rest and no talking, they entered a small valley. A grassy hill sloped down to a creek, and a thick forest of tall pines and Douglas firs crawled up the mountainside beyond. Tucked in beneath a small grove of aspen trees sat a little cabin.

  Malcolm rode straight for it.

  Alexandra’s relief was intense.

  He had not taken even a moment all day to address his gunshot wound. He was bound to be hurting, and for the last leg of their ride, he had started to sway in the saddle. He needed to rest as badly as their horses did. Alexandra didn’t realize just how badly until she came to a stop beside him in front of the cabin and saw the hard grimace of pain and exhaustion etched into his features.

  He said nothing as he leaned over the pommel and swung his feet to the ground. He gave a short grunt and stumbled hard against his horse’s shoulder.

  She quickly dismounted and came around her horse to his side. Though the bleeding had stopped at the back of his shoulder where the bullet had left his body, the same was not the case at the entry wound. His whole side was soaked in red beneath his coat. He had lost a terrifying amount of blood.

  She swallowed back the lump of distress that rose in her throat and did her best to settle the churning in her stomach. Weary panic threatened again as those dark, persistent memories pushed forward. She refused to acknowledge them. Now was no time to sink into the mire of old trauma.

  Malcolm needed her to be strong. “That doesn’t look good,” she muttered.

  “It feels worse,” he replied through gritted teeth.

  Still holding the pommel, he looked down at her with the heavy shadow of pain in his eyes. “I’m gonna need your help.”

  She swallowed hard and nodded, stepping forward with the intention of slipping her arm around his waist to help him into the cabin.

  “Take care of the horses. See they get water down by the creek and some grain. There’s a shelter ’round back.” He pushed away from his mount to
stand upright as he tossed his saddlebags over his good shoulder. He paused, looking down at her as though he wanted to say something. But no words came. Instead, he clenched his jaw and turned to make his way up the two steps of the small, covered porch into the cabin.

  Alexandra stared at the darkened doorway he’d passed through, biting her lip. She didn’t want to leave him, but the horses had endured a grueling day and needed to be cared for.

  The creek ran clear and swift only a short distance down the hill. After the horses got a nice drink, she led them behind the cabin to where a lean-to extended from the back. A rough wooden trough was built against the outer wall of the cabin, and after pouring some grain on the ground for each of them, she went in search of a bucket to fill the trough with water. She didn’t have to go far, and within another thirty minutes, she had them both unsaddled and brushed down.

  Confident they would be fine for the night, she rushed back to see how Malcolm was faring. The bedrolls and saddlebags she’d left outside the front door had already been brought in. She hoped that meant his injury wasn’t as bad as it had looked.

  She held on to that hope for all of twenty seconds as she stepped into the cabin and saw the truth.

  The shelter was as small on the inside as it looked from the outside: just a single room with two small windows to let in the dying light. A narrow bed was pushed into a far corner, and a stone fireplace was centered on the opposite wall. A pile of wood was stacked up beside the hearth next to a bucket of dry kindling. Malcolm had already started a healthy fire, and warmth spread through the small space. In the center of the room, Malcolm stood beside a single chair in front of a rickety wooden table.

  He had taken off his coat, leather vest, and hat. His gun belt had also been removed and was slung over the back of the chair. On the table stood a bottle of whiskey next to a large copper bowl filled with water. His blood-soaked shirt was unbuttoned down the front, exposing his lean, muscled torso smeared with the rusty color of dried blood.

  He didn’t look up as she entered the cabin. His movements were unsteady as he attempted to peel the material of his shirt away from where it had gotten stuck to his wound. Weariness curved his spine and bowed his head as he focused on his task.

  “Let me help,” she offered.

  “I’m fine.”

  He wasn’t fine. That much was clear, but she bit her tongue against pointing that fact out.

  “Are the horses settled?” he asked.

  “That’s what you told me to do, isn’t it?”

  He looked at her then with a lifted brow at the testiness of her tone. She didn’t apologize for it. Her worry set her on edge. A gunshot wound was a serious thing. It was good that the bullet wasn’t still lodged in his shoulder, but there was no guarantee against infection or other complications.

  She’d seen an infected wound once when she’d been young. A man at the mine where her father had worked for a short time had a deep gash in his leg after a fall. They ended up having to cut away much of the infected flesh to halt the spread of gangrene.

  The thought of cutting into Malcolm’s shoulder made her hands tremble. But the wound needed to be cleaned of any dirt or debris as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

  He muttered a curse and reached for the bottle of whiskey, lifting it to his mouth for a quick swig. His exhaustion was obvious. He’d already lost a lot of blood, and it would do no good for him to waste what energy he had left when he would need it for recovery.

  “Sit down, please, before you fall over,” Alexandra directed, her anxiety making her voice sharp as she strode forward.

  “I’m not gonna fall over.”

  “That’s right,” she agreed, “because you’re going to sit. Now.”

  He gave her a warning look, but the pain in his eyes kept his expression from being very intimidating.

  She smiled tensely. “I said please.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he lowered himself to the chair anyway. He remained still and silent, aside from some harshly drawn breaths as she carefully tried to lift the edges of the shirt away from his shoulder. The dried blood had plastered the cotton to the wound. His tugging had already started some fresh bleeding, and she was reluctant to force any more.

  “Are there more cloths somewhere? Medicine or bandages?”

  “There are some rags in the cupboard over there. No medicine beyond this.” He lifted the bottle of spirits in a half-hearted gesture.

  Alexandra worried at her bottom lip with her teeth as she considered what she would need. “You’ll have to be patient as I look about for a few things. Can you manage that?” she asked.

  He gave a nod. “I’ll just sit right here and drink until I pass out.”

  She frowned. That certainly wouldn’t help. She’d need him conscious if she was going to get anything accomplished.

  “I was kidding,” he said with a curve to his lips. “Fetch what you need.”

  She started with the cupboards built along the wall beside the front door. “What is this place, anyway?” she asked. “How did you know it was here?”

  “It used to belong to a sort-of friend of mine.”

  In her search, Alexandra came across two large iron kettles for cooking, some utensils, and some tin dishes. There was also a sack of flour, some salt and sugar, a jar of honey, a few cans of beans, and a small collection of spices.

  It was more than she’d expected.

  She also found a stack of old rags, but they were not anything she’d want to use to clean an open wound. And there was no medicine to be found.

  She would have to make do.

  A bucket of water that Malcolm must have brought up from the creek while she was stabling the horses sat beside the door. Alexandra used it to fill one of the kettles that she hung on a hook over the fire. Then she went to her saddlebags and pulled out her petticoat and handkerchiefs. One of the handkerchiefs was well-used, but the other was clean enough. Using the knife strapped to her leg, she immediately went about slicing the fine material of her petticoat into strips for bandages.

  “You’re mighty handy with that knife,” Malcolm said, his voice heavy but not slurred despite the doses of whiskey he’d consumed. Alexandra looked up from her task to see him turned in his chair to watch her. “I didn’t know you had that on you.”

  She refused to feel guilty for the secret purchase. “There is much you don’t know about me, Malcolm Kincaid.”

  “I’m guessing that is as true a statement as any,” he said in a tone that suggested he maybe wished that wasn’t the case.

  She gave him a curious look, but he’d already glanced away.

  When she had enough bandages, she tucked the remainder of her petticoat away. After refilling the copper bowl with hot water from the kettle, she returned to Malcolm’s side and muttered a swift prayer that she remembered enough about treating a wound to do no more damage than what had already been done.

  She considered having him move to the bed in case he lost consciousness—from the pain or the whiskey—before she’d finished. But she had much better access while he sat in the chair. If he were lying in the bed, or even sitting at the edge, her task would be more difficult.

  She would have to be quick and efficient then.

  If only her cousin Warren were there. He had gone to medical school in Pittsburgh before settling out in Wyoming a couple of years ago, to run a small medical practice. She realized with some surprise that they had probably passed not too far from where he lived near the Shoshone Mountains with his wife and two children.

  Unfortunately, Warren was too far away to come to their aid now, even if she knew how to contact him. Or any other doctor, for that matter.

  It seemed Malcolm only had her, and though she’d learned how to deal with a variety of injuries during her time with her father, she’d never had to tend to a gunshot wound.

 
“Ready?” she asked.

  Malcolm tightened his hand around the neck of the whiskey bottle and gave a short nod. “Go on.”

  Using the water-soaked handkerchief, she drenched both sides of his shoulder where the shirt had dried to the wound. After a little while, the material began to loosen, and she was able to gently lift it away and slide it down his arm. Fresh blood oozed from the angry wound at the front. The exit wound was not so bad, though both areas were surrounded by puffy red skin that was hot to the touch. The heat and redness extended up the side of his neck and down his chest.

  “What do you think?” he asked, looking at her face rather than his shoulder, where he could likely see well enough the damage that had been done.

  “It’s not good,” she answered. The redness and heat bothered her. She hoped it didn’t mean what she suspected.

  “Can you handle it, Eastern lady?”

  She lifted her chin to give him a narrow-eyed look. “I can handle it, bounty hunter.”

  “That’s what I figured,” he replied before his eyelids drooped a bit over his gaze.

  “But you must stay upright and alert for me,” she said sternly. “Do you understand?”

  He nodded, but said nothing more.

  Alexandra worked quickly after that, keeping her focus on the injury as she wiped away both the dried blood and the fresh. He barely flinched as she diligently flushed out the wound, first with water, then with the whiskey. When she felt she had gotten it as clean as possible, she gave it a critical look. It needed some stitches to close it off, but she hadn’t found anything in her search that even remotely resembled a sewing needle. Instead, she pressed a folded bit of cloth tight to both wounds and wrapped his shoulder securely with the strips of her petticoat before tying off the ends.

  He remained silent while she worked, setting aside the whiskey about halfway through.

  As she finished off the last bandage, she asked, “Can you stand? The bed looks clean enough, and you desperately need some rest.”

  “So do you, sweetheart.” His words were delivered in a low drawl; the whiskey finally seemed to be having an effect.