Smoothing back the woman’s hair, Beth tried to soothe her. “I’ll go check your husband.”
Beth didn’t waste time prying the overwrought woman’s hands loose. Instead, she murmured comfort and, even with her head held tight, managed to check the woman’s arms and legs, her ribs and head, searching for injuries.
There was obvious swelling along her ribs and the woman winced with pain when Beth pressed, but the bones held. Cracked, not broken—Beth hoped. The bleeding arm was cut to shreds, but the bone was intact. The woman gritted her teeth and dragged in a painful breath when Beth touched too close to the shoulder.
Beth noted the bleeding head wound was more dried than wet. That told its own story of how long these folks had been here—hours most likely, but not days. There was a chance the wounded could still be helped. “Please, let me go so I can check on your husband.”
No response.
Give me strength. Give me strength.
This time Beth’s strength might be required to tear loose from the death grip.
Suddenly the woman released Beth’s collar. “Go.” The woman’s pain-filled eyes seemed rational. “I—I can tell my arms and legs work. I’ll be fine. Go check the others.”
Beth gasped for breath then nodded, satisfied the woman didn’t need anything right now. God willing, this one would survive. Beth patted the woman’s hand. “I’ll see to your husband.”
Beth stood and raced toward the next victim. She noticed the drunk climbing down from the stage at last, unsteady, more of a danger to the injured than a help. He might trip over them, and if that didn’t kill them, his breath would finish them off.
Beth scolded herself. They’d have never gotten the stage stopped without his help.
Fine, she’d stop thinking of him as a waste of human flesh. Now if only the bum would stay downwind.
The stage driver rushed to another victim.
Beth headed for a man pinned under the wrecked coach. His body was crushed. The man was beyond help, and Beth prayed for his soul and any loved ones he’d left behind as she raced on. Another man lay dead beneath the wheels of the stage, his neck bent at a horrible angle, his eyes gaping and empty.
There were six in all. Four alive. Only the woman was conscious.
The woman finally got to her feet and assisted. She found her husband, unconscious but among the living, and turned her attention to him.
The stage driver got a canteen of water and the three of them washed wounds.
Two more of the victims began rousing. One had a badly broken leg.
The woman’s husband had a dislocated shoulder. As he awakened, he was maddened with pain. Still only partly conscious, he couldn’t lie still, yet every move caused cries of anguish, awful to hear from anyone but somehow worse from a man.
Beth had read of dislocated joints in her studies, but she’d never had the opportunity to try and repair one.
His wife struggled to calm him. Every time he lashed out he’d bump her somehow and she’d gasp with pain.
“What’s your name?” Beth asked, trying to get the situation under control. Maybe if they all just took a minute to calm down …
“It’s Camilla. Camilla Armitage. My husband’s name is Leo.”
“Mrs. Armitage, you’ve got to stay away from him,” Beth urged the woman. “Leo doesn’t know you’re here so you’re not helping. Your arm has started bleeding again. We don’t want that to get worse. And I’m sure you have cracked ribs. A blow landed just right could break them. Your husband will be sick to think he did such a thing to you. Please just move back.”
“He needs me. I’ll be fine.” The woman’s chin firmed stubbornly and Beth didn’t waste more time trying to get her to move away.
Beth couldn’t restrain the poor man. With one furious glance at the drunk who sat, staring away from the carnage, turning his back to the whole mess, Beth said to the driver, “We’ve got to pop his shoulder back into its socket. It takes a lot of strength. And someone needs to hold him down bodily. That will anchor him and give me something to pull against.”
The driver gave her a long, quiet look. “I should be the one pulling. I’ve never done it before, but I can try.”
“You should, but I don’t have the weight to anchor him.” She reached for Leo’s arm. “It has to be held out straight, jerked hard—”
Before Beth could do more than lift the arm, the man screamed in pain and struck out. He caught her in the face and knocked her flat on her backside.
Beth felt her temper rise.
The woman must have noticed and been afraid of what Beth might do. “Please, my Leo is a good man. A gentle man. He’d never do such a thing if he was awake.”
It was the absolute truth that the man was beyond rational thought.
The stage driver knelt beside the flailing man. These struggles deepened Leo’s agony.
Beth knew it would take three people. One to hold his shoulders down—the man’s wife was already trying to do that, through her tears, and failing. One to restrain his feet so he was motionless. One to jerk on the arm and hopefully to reset the joint.
Shuddering to think of the pain they’d soon cause the man, Beth was suddenly furious at the bum who sat there, not helping. True, he’d come through and helped pull the stage to a stop, but that was to save his own pathetic, drunken life. Wasn’t it? When it came to helping others, he was worthless.
She hadn’t actually seen him take a single drink on the whole trip. She suspected he’d drained his flask quite a while ago. In fact, she’d never seen the flask, assuming he was sneaking nips on the sly at the beginning of the trip then sleeping it off the rest of the way.
Beth surged to her feet. “We need help over here!”
The man didn’t even look up. He stared as if asleep with his eyes open.
Well, Beth wasn’t one to let a good temper tantrum go to waste, and seriously, this afternoon had worn her out right to her last bit of restraint … and beyond. Who better to punish?
She looked down at the stage driver and the woman, struggling to hold the man in place. “I’m going to get us some help.”
The stage driver looked with distaste at the other passenger. “Good luck.”
Beth whirled and used the hundred-foot downhill march to get her knees to stop shaking. Not because she was afraid of this man—she still had her gun butt—but because the afternoon had just been more than too much.
She stomped to the man’s side, and carefully considering her approach—or maybe not so carefully—she grabbed the man’s filthy, flattened, black Stetson off his head and swatted him with it.
“Hey!” He turned as if surprised to see her.
“I didn’t exactly sneak up on you, now did I?” She whaled on him again.
He shielded his face. His once-white shirt tore up one side at his sudden movement. “Will you stop that?”
The sound of the ripping fabric—good grief, it looked like silk—gave Beth a sense of doing the Lord’s work. She wondered how long he’d been wearing it. The cloth must be rotten to tear so easily.
“Do I have your attention, you miserable worm?” Beth threw the hat at his head.
He held his arms over his face, the bedraggled white sleeves rolled up nearly to his elbows, and glared through his wrists at her. His eyes narrowed.
It occurred to Beth that the man might be dangerous. Well, she could be dangerous, too. If he was, she’d make him sorry he showed that side of himself.
Doing her very best to set his skin on fire with her eyes, she leaned down, hoping to find a balance where she could rage at him without Mrs. Armitage hearing her. The poor woman had been through enough. “You get up off the ground and help us, you worthless skunk!”
And wasn’t skunk just exactly the right word for the filthy pig?
“Get away from me.” The wormy, skunky pig’s eyes flashed like he had rabies.
Gritting her teeth so she could look fierce and still breathe through her mouth, she leaned clos
er. “You stand up right now.” She hissed at him like a rattlesnake, so she had a few animal attributes of her own. “I need help. I don’t care how drunk you are, how lazy you are, or how stupid you are. Right now I need some muscle, and I know you’ve got it. Get on your feet and get over there and help us, or so help me I will rip your arm off and beat you to death with the bloody stump.”
The man’s eyes seemed to clear. Maybe she’d pierced the alcoholic fog. “I’m not drunk.”
Interesting that he hadn’t protested being called stupid or worthless or a skunk … what else had she called him? She’d lost track of her insults somewhere along the line.
“Oh, puh-leeze, you expect me to believe you’re this worthless without the help of whiskey?” Beth jammed her fists on her hips and straightened away from him. She had to get some air. “If that’s true then I might as well shoot you here and now. Do the whole world a favor.”
The drunk’s eyes slid from her to the writhing man.
Beth had always been sensitive to others. Her ma had told her many times that was her finest gift. Right now it felt like a curse.
Beth saw something so vulnerable and fragile in the man’s eyes that she almost regretted asking for help. It wasn’t fear or laziness or stupidity or drunkenness. It was as if Leo’s suffering ate into this man’s soul.
“What’s your name?” Beth asked quietly, very much afraid the man was on the verge of running.
“Alexander.” He rubbed one hand over his grizzled, unshaven cheeks, his eyes imprisoned by the sight of the man’s agony. “Alex Buchanan.”
What horror had Alex seen to put such a look in his eyes? Beth couldn’t give him the break he so desperately needed. “I can’t do it without help. Please, Alex. Please. We can end Leo’s suffering.”
“He’ll still hurt. Dislocated shoulders take a long time to heal.”
Beth realized what the man had just admitted. He knew something about healing.
“Yes, it’ll take time to heal, but the second that joint is back in place the pain will lessen. Please.” She stiffened her compassionate spine. “You’ve got one more chance to say yes then I’m taking your hat to you again.”
Alex didn’t look at her. Instead, riveted on Leo, he pushed himself to his feet. His eyes filled with tears. His lips moved silently.
She wondered if it was a prayer. He didn’t strike her as the praying kind.
He swiped his sleeve across his forehead, in a way meant to disguise wiping his eyes. “I … I can’t. I can’t help him.” He wheeled away from the blood and pain.
Beth caught his forearm with a hard slap of flesh on flesh. “You don’t have a choice.”
“I do.”
Beth was afraid she might have to tackle him. “I’m not giving you one.”
Alex turned, stared at her. Their eyes locked.
Seconds stretched to a minute, maybe longer. Growing slowly, a sensation Beth had never felt before almost made her let go, back away. Those eyes, it was as if he was looking all the way into her soul. She felt strength drain from her as if he was drawing on reserves within her, soaking up courage like desert ground in a rainstorm.
Her hand was on his wrist, and out of habit, she slid her fingers a bit to feel his pulse slamming at double the rate it should have. To Beth’s sensitive touch it was as if his very blood cried out to be delivered from what he had to do.
God, give me strength. Strength enough for us both.
Still Alex watched her, drew from her. Leo fell silent, or maybe Beth was drawn so deeply into Alex’s eyes that she couldn’t connect with the world anymore.
Finally, Alex’s eyes fell shut. Beth saw tears again, along the rims of his lashes, thick dark lashes to match hair, hanging long, nearly in ringlets around his neck.
His lips kept moving. She held on to his wrist, to lend support now rather than to restrain him. Then he started nodding. He physically changed—he seemed to grow taller, his shoulders squared, his chin came up. When he opened his eyes, a new man was there. Or maybe an old man, the man Alex Buchanan used to be before he crawled inside a bottle.
Beth could see what this was costing him. As if he paid for this courage by stripping off his skin with a razor.
He’d awakened something in her while their eyes were locked, something brand new.
“Let’s do it,” he said.
She’d never been so proud of anyone in her life.
Three
Alex had never been so ashamed.
He turned away from the little spitfire who had more guts in one arched, white-blond eyebrow than he had in his whole body.
The blood. No, never again … Shut up. Do it and forget it.
Alex had played this game the whole time he’d been in the army. Talking to himself, beating himself up, goading himself until he could do what needed to be done. He’d gotten out, and after four years he was still haunted by the things he’d seen.
Ignoring what it did to him. Ignoring the agony in his soul. Turning away from this feeling and that feeling, until he’d turned away from so much of himself he was barely human.
By the time he’d stopped, it had been far too late to regain his humanity.
He stumbled. The pretty blond steadied him.
A weakling, held up by a slender girl.
Why did he let this tear him apart?
He moved closer to the man.
Do it. Forget it. Don’t feel it…. The blood. The pain.
Alex was going to make it so much worse.
But then he’ll get better. Hurt him to heal him.
Alex knew all the reasons behind inflicting agony on patients. He detached himself from his feelings to the extent possible.
She thought he was a drunk. If only it were that simple. If only drink helped. He lived like a drunk—slept most of the time, was haunted the rest. Always moving, worthless, broke—or as good as because the money he had was like poison to him, dollars earned in blood and pain.
Digging deep into his scarred soul, Alex crouched by the man’s side. He began speaking. He had a knack, he knew it. But there was a terrible cost to remaining calm in the midst of mayhem.
The spitfire had said his name. Alex wished he didn’t remember. “Leo?”
The man wasn’t lucid. His eyes opened, maybe in response to his name but more likely just in response to a voice. His pupils were dilated. There was no focus, no reason.
Alex ran his hands over the man’s skull while he studied the wife. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
He wasn’t used to women. There’d been a few he’d had to work with but not many. Women were the worst. This one was so battered, covered in her own blood; Alex wondered if he might start crying like a girl child. The final shame—or no, who was he kidding? There was no end to the shame.
“Camilla Armitage.”
“I had a creek that ran by my home in upstate New York when I was a child. We call it Camy Creek. I wonder if it was named after a woman named Camilla. You’ve had a terrible day, haven’t you, Camilla?”
She nodded. “My Leo calls me Camy sometimes.” Her hand moved on her husband’s arm, caressing, comforting, strong enough to stick even when it was so hard. Stronger than Alex.
“Your husband is going to be fine. He’s in terrible pain and this is going to hurt for a while. He’s got torn tendons and muscle damage but it will all heal. He’ll favor the arm for a few weeks, maybe a month, but even at that, with a sling, he’ll be able to be up and walking. He’ll be fine.”
Some of the fear eased from Mrs. Armitage’s eyes. Alex thought the man calmed a bit, too, still not clearheaded, but Alex’s voice was reaching past the confusion. There was a terrible goose egg on the crown of the man’s head that explained his incoherence.
Alex continued speaking softly, practically singing as he moved from Leo’s head, down his unaffected arm, trying to get the man to just be calm, relax, trust.
My touch doesn’t hurt you. My hands are healing hands.
Duping hi
m to relax so Alex could turn to the ugly dislocated shoulder and betray his patient, inflict horrible pain on him. “No injury to this arm. No fractures anywhere. No stitches needed. Your shoulder will be tender for a few days, but the humerus isn’t compromised. The clavicle and scapula are intact.”
He heard the little spitfire who’d slapped him around gasp. That might well mean she knew some of these words. Well, she thought she knew everything, so why not this?
She knelt beside him, by Leo’s knees, across from the driver. Poor Leo was surrounded.
Alex reminded himself that there were other wounded and he’d soon be called upon to help them. Controlling a deep inner shaking, he kept talking. “The deltoideus muscle is the one on top of the shoulder.” Information meant little to the suffering couple, but any words were comforting. “And pectoralis muscles are on the chest. They’re bruised and they’ll be sore like any strained muscle, but they’ll heal.”
Leo had a wild look—the whites showing around his pupils like a terrified horse. But that eased. He still wasn’t fully conscious, and he’d probably be addled for the next twenty-four hours and, in the end, not remember a thing Alex did to him.
But in the next few seconds, the man was going to hate Alex enough to kill.
The stage driver was holding the man’s feet so securely that Leo had quit trying to fight the driver’s firm grip.
As Alex slid one hand over Leo’s chest, testing for cracked ribs, he reached sideways for the spitfire’s hand and guided her to touch Leo’s chest, flattening her hands. He flicked a glance at her, telling her with his eyes that it was time—never letting that warning sound in his voice as he soothed Leo.
She nodded. She knew what lay ahead. Good.
“Now.” In one smooth motion, Alex grabbed Leo’s wrist and upper arm, straightened it, and jerked.
An audible pop sounded a split second before the man’s scream. His shoulder snapped back into its socket.
Leo’s wife held his other hand, but she didn’t have a good enough grip. The man flailed, shouted with agony, wrenched his hand free, and slugged Alex in the face so hard he fell over backward.
Alex kept going, scrambling backward like a frightened bug.
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 2