Sierra's Homecoming

by Linda Lael Miller

  The doctor had ordered an ambulance, and Sierra rode with Liam, while Travis followed in the truck.

  There was more paperwork to do in Flagstaff, but Sierra was calmer now. She sat in a chair next to Liam’s bed and filled in the lines.

  Travis entered with two cups of vending-machine coffee, just as she was finishing.

  “Thank you,” Sierra said, and she wasn’t just talking about the coffee.

  “Wranglers like Liam and me,” he replied, watching the boy with a kind of fretful affection, “we stick together when the going gets tough.”

  She accepted the paper cup Travis offered and set the ubiquitous clipboard aside to take a sip. Travis drew up a second chair.

  “Does this happen a lot?” he asked, after a long and remarkably easy silence.

  Sierra shook her head. “No, thank God. I don’t know what we would have done without you, Travis.”

  “You would have coped,” he said. “Like you’ve been doing for a long time, if my guess is any good. Where’s Liam’s dad, Sierra?”

  She swallowed hard, glanced at the boy to make sure he was sleeping. “He died a few days before Liam was born,” she answered.

  “You’ve been alone all this time?”

  “No,” Sierra said, stiffening a little on the inside, where it didn’t show. Or, at least, she hoped it didn’t. “I had Liam.”

  “You know that isn’t what I meant,” Travis said.

  Sierra looked away, made herself look back. “I didn’t want to—complicate things. By getting involved with someone, I mean. Liam and I have been just fine on our own.”

  Travis merely nodded, and drank more of his coffee.

  “Don’t you have to go back to the ranch and feed the horses or something?” Sierra asked.

  “Eventually,” Travis answered with a sigh. He glanced around the room again and gave the slightest shudder.

  Sierra remembered his younger brother. The wounds must be raw. “I guess you probably hate hospitals,” she said. “Because of—” the name came back to her in Eve’s telephone voice “—Brody.”

  Travis shook his head. His eyes were bleak. “If he’d gotten this far—to a hospital, I mean—it would have meant there was hope.”

  Sierra moved to touch Travis’s hand, but just before she made contact, his cell phone rang. He pulled it from the pocket of his western shirt, flipped open the case. “Travis Reid.”

  He listened. Raised his eyebrows. “Hello, Eve. I wouldn’t have thought even your pilot could land in this kind of weather.”

  Sierra tensed.

  Eve said something, and Travis responded. “I’ll let Sierra explain,” he said, and held out the phone to her.

  Sierra swallowed, took it. “Hello, Eve,” she said.

  “Where are you?” her mother asked. “I’m at the ranch. It looks as if you’ve been sleeping in the kitchen—”

  “We’re in Flagstaff, in a hospital,” Sierra told her. Only then did she realize that she and Travis were both wearing the clothes they’d slept in. That she hadn’t combed her hair or even brushed her teeth.

  All of a sudden she felt incredibly grubby.

  Eve drew in an audible breath. “Oh, my God—Liam?”

  “He had a pretty bad asthma attack,” Sierra confirmed. “He’s on a breathing machine, and he has to stay until tomorrow, but he’s okay, Eve.”

  “I’ll be up there as soon as I can. Which hospital?”

  “Hold on,” Sierra said. “There’s really no need for you to come all this way, especially when the roads are so bad. I’m pretty sure we’ll be home tomorrow—”

  “Pretty sure?” Eve challenged.

  “Well, he’ll need his medication adjusted, and the inflammation in his bronchial tubes will have to go down.”

  “This sounds serious, Sierra. I think I should come. I could be there—”

  “Please,” Sierra interrupted. “Don’t.”

  A thoughtful silence followed. “All right, then,” Eve said finally, with a good grace Sierra truly appreciated. “I’ll just settle in here and wait. The furnace is running and the lights are on. Tell Travis not to rush back—I can certainly feed the horses.”

  Sierra could only nod, so Travis took the phone back.

  Evidently, a barrage of orders followed from Eve’s end.

  Travis grinned throughout. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I will.”

  He ended the call.

  “You will what?” Sierra inquired.

  “Take care of you and Liam,” Travis answered.

  1919

  That morning the world looked as though it had been carved from a huge block of pure white ice. Hannah marveled at the beauty of it, staring through the kitchen window, even as she longed with bittersweet poignancy for spring. For things to stir under the snowbound earth, to put out roots and break through the surface, green and growing.

  “Ma?”

  She turned, troubled by something she heard in Tobias’s voice. He stood at the base of the stairs, still wearing his nightshirt and barefoot.

  “I don’t feel good,” he said.

  Hannah set aside her coffee with exaggerated care, even took time to wipe her hands on her apron before she approached him. Touched his forehead with the back of her hand.

  “You’re burning up,” she whispered, stricken.

  Doss, who had been rereading last week’s newspaper at the table, his barn work done, slowly scraped back his chair.

  “Shall I fetch the doc?” he asked.

  Hannah turned, looked at him over one shoulder, and nodded. If you hadn’t insisted on taking him with you to the widow Jessup’s place, she thought—

  But she would go no further.

  This was not the time to place blame.

  “You get back into bed,” she told Tobias, briskly efficient and purely terrified. The bout of pneumonia that had nearly killed him during the fall had started like this. “I’ll make you a mustard plaster to draw out the congestion, and your uncle Doss will go to town for Dr. Willaby. You’ll be right as rain in no time at all.”

  Tobias looked doubtful. His face was flushed, and his nightshirt was soaked with perspiration, even though the kitchen was a little on the chilly side. The boy seemed dazed, almost as though he were walking in his sleep, and Hannah wondered if he’d taken in a word she’d said.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Doss promised, already pulling on his coat and reaching for his hat. “There’s whisky left from Christmas. It’s in the pantry, behind that cracker tin,” he added, pausing before opening the door. “Make him a hot drink with some honey. Pa used to brew up that concoction for us when we took sick, and it always helped.”

  Doss and Gabe, along with their adopted older brother, John Henry, had never suffered a serious illness in their lives, if you didn’t count John Henry’s deafness. What did they know about tending the sick?

  Hannah nodded again, her mouth tight. She’d lost three sisters in childhood, two to diphtheria and one to scarlet fever; only she and her younger brother, David, had survived.

  She was used to nursing the afflicted.

  Doss hesitated a few moments on the threshold, as though there was something he wanted to say but couldn’t put into words, then went out.

  “You change into a dry nightshirt,” Hannah told Tobias. His sheets were probably sweat-soaked, too, so she added, “And get into our bed.”

  Our bed.

  Meaning Gabe’s and hers.

  And soon, after they were married, Doss would be sleeping in that bed, in Gabe’s place.

  She could not, would not, consider the implications of that.

  Not now. Maybe not ever.

  She was like the ranch woman she’d once read about in a Montana newspaper, making her way from the house to the barn and back in a blinding blizzard, with only a frozen rope to hold on to. If she let go, she’d be lost.

  She had to attend to Tobias. That was her rope, and she’d follow it, hand over hand, thought over thought.
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  Hannah retrieved an old flannel shirt from the rag bag and cut two matching pieces, approximately twelve inches square. These would serve to protect Tobias’s skin from the heat of the poultice, but like as not, he would still have blisters. She kept a mixture on hand for just such occasions, in a big jar with a wire seal. She dumped a big dollop of the stuff on to one of the bits of flannel, spread it like butter, and put the second cloth on top, her nose twitching at the pungent odors of mustard seed, pounded to a pulp, and camphor.

  When she got upstairs, she found Tobias huddled in the middle of her bed, and his eyes grew big with recollection when he saw what she was carrying in her hands.

  “No,” he protested, but weakly. “No mustard plaster.” He’d begun to shiver, and his teeth were chattering.

  “Don’t fuss, Tobias,” Hannah said. “Your grandfather swears by them.”

  Tobias groaned. “My Montana grandfather,” he replied. “My grandpa Holt wouldn’t let anybody put one of those things on him!”

  “Is that a fact?” Hannah asked mildly. “Well, next time you write to the almighty Holt McKettrick, you ask. I’ll bet he’ll say he wouldn’t be without one when he’s under the weather.”

  Tobias made a rude sound, blowing through his lips, but he rolled on to his back and allowed Hannah to open the top buttons of his nightshirt and put the poultice in place.

  “Grandpa Holt,” he said, bearing the affliction stalwartly, “would probably make me a whisky drink, just like he did for Pa and Uncle Doss.”

  Hannah sighed. Privately she thought there was a good deal of the roughneck in the McKettrick men, and while she wouldn’t call any of them a drunk, they used liquor as a remedy for just about every ill, from snakebite to the grippe. They’d swabbed it on old Seesaw’s gashes, when he tangled with a sow bear, and rubbed it into the gums of teething babies.

  “What you’re going to have, Tobias McKettrick, is oatmeal.”

  He made a face. “This burns,” he complained, pointing to the mustard plaster.

  Hannah bent and kissed his forehead. He didn’t pull away, like he’d taken to doing of late, and she found that both reassuring and worrisome.

  She glanced at the window, saw a scallop of icicles dangling from the eave. It might be many hours—even tomorrow—before Doss got back from Indian Rock with Dr. Willaby. The wait would be agony, but there was nothing to do but endure.

  When Tobias closed his eyes and slept, Hannah left the room, descended the stairs and went into the pantry again. She moved the cracker tin aside, looked up at the bottle of whisky hidden behind it, gave a disdainful sniff, and took a canned chicken off the shelf instead. It was a treasure, that chicken—she’d been saving it for some celebration, so she wouldn’t have to kill one of her laying hens—but it would make a fine, nourishing soup.

  After gathering onions, rice and some of her spices—which she cherished as much as preserved meat, given how costly they were—Hannah commenced to make soup.

  She was surprised when, only an hour after he’d ridden out, Doss returned with another man she recognized as one of the ranch hands down at Rafe’s place. She frowned, watching from the window as Doss dismounted and left the newcomer to lead both horses inside.

  That was odd. Doss hadn’t been to Indian Rock yet; he couldn’t have covered the distance in such a short time. Why would he ask someone to put up his horse?

  Puzzled, impatient and a little angry, Hannah was waiting at the door when Doss came in.

  “Bundle the boy up warm,” he said, without any preamble at all. “Willie’s going to stay here and look after the horses and the place. Once I’ve hitched the draft horses to the sleigh, we’ll go overland to Indian Rock.”

  Hannah stared at him, confounded. “You’re suggesting that we take Tobias all the way to Indian Rock?”

  “I’m not ‘suggesting’ anything, Hannah,” Doss interposed. “I met Seth Baker down by the main house, when I was about to cross the stream, and he hailed me, wanted to know where I was headed. I told him I was off to fetch Doc Willaby, because Tobias was feeling poorly. Seth said Willaby was down with the gout, but his nephew happened to be there, and he’s a doctor, too. He’s looking after the doc’s practice, in town, so he wouldn’t be inclined to come all the way out here.”

  Hannah’s throat clenched, and she put a hand to it. “A ride like that could be the end of Tobias,” she said.

  Doss shook his head. “We can’t just sit here,” he countered, grim-jawed. “Get the boy ready or I’ll do it myself.”

  “May I remind you that Tobias is my son?”

  “He’s a McKettrick,” Doss replied flatly, as though that were the end of it—and for him, it probably was.

  Chapter Eight

  Present Day

  Travis waited until Sierra had drifted off into a fitful sleep in her chair next to Liam’s hospital bed. Then he got a blanket from a nurse, covered Sierra with it and left.

  A few minutes later, he was behind the wheel of his truck.

  The roads were sheer ice, and the sky looked gray, burdened with fresh snow. After consulting the GPS panel on his dashboard, he found the nearest Wal-Mart, parked as close to the store as he could and went inside.

  Shopping was something Travis endured, and this was no exception. He took a cart and wheeled it around, choosing the things Sierra and Liam would need if this hitch in Flagstaff turned out to be longer than expected. He’d spent the night at his own place, a few miles from the hospital, showered and changed there.

  When he got back from his expedition—a January Santa Claus burdened down with bulging blue plastic bags—he made his way to Liam’s room.

  Sierra was awake, blinking and befuddled, and so was Liam. A huge teddy bear, holding a helium balloon in one paw, sat on the bedside table. The writing on the balloon said “Get Well Soon” in big red letters.

  “Eve?” Travis asked, indicating the bear with a nod of his head.

  Sierra took in the bags he was carrying. “Eve,” she confirmed. “What have you got there?”

  Travis grinned, though he felt tired all of a sudden, as though ten cups of coffee wouldn’t keep him awake. Maybe it was the warmth of the hospital, after being out in the cold.

  “A little something for everybody,” he said.

  Liam was sitting up, and the breathing tube had been removed. His words came out as a sore-throated croak, but he smiled just the same, and Travis felt a pinch deep inside. The kid was so small and so brave. “Even me?”

  “Especially you,” Travis said. He handed the boy one of the bags, watched as he pulled out a portable DVD player, still in its box, and the episodes of Nova he’d picked up to go with it.

  “Wow,” Liam said, his voice so raw that it made Travis’s throat ache in sympathy. “I’ve always wanted one of these.”

  Sierra looked worried. “It’s way too expensive,” she said. “We can’t accept it.”

  Liam hugged the box close against his little chest, obstinately possessive. Everything about him said, I’m not giving this up.

  Travis ignored Sierra’s statement and tossed her another of the bags, this one fat and light. “Take a shower,” he told her. “You look like somebody who just went through a harrowing medical emergency.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it again. Peeked inside the bag. He’d bought her a sweatsuit, guessing at the sizes, along with toothpaste, a brush, soap and a comb.

  She swallowed visibly. “Thanks.”

  He nodded.

  While Sierra was in Liam’s bathroom, showering, Travis helped the boy get the DVD player out of the box, plugged in and running.

  “Mom might not let me keep it,” Liam said sadly.

  “I’m betting she will,” Travis assured him.

  Liam was engrossed in an episode about killer bees when Sierra came out of the bathroom, looking scrubbed and cautiously hopeful in her dark-blue sweats. Her hair was still wet from washing, and the comb had left distinct ridges, which Travis found peculiarly p
oignant.

  Complex emotions fell into line after that one, striking him with the impact of a runaway boxcar, but he didn’t dare explore any of them right away. He’d need to be alone to do that, in his truck or with a horse. For now, he was too close to Sierra to think straight.

  She glanced at Liam, softened noticeably as she saw how much he was enjoying Travis’s gift. His small hands clasped the machine on either side, as though he feared someone would wrench it away.

  Something similar to Travis’s thoughts must have gone through her mind, because he saw a change in her face. It was a sort of resignation, and it made him want to take her in his arms—though he wasn’t about to do that.

  “I could use something to eat,” he said.

  “Me, too,” Sierra admitted. She tapped Liam on the shoulder, and he barely looked away from the screen, where bees were swarming. Music from the speakers portended certain disaster. “You’ll be all right here alone for a while, if Travis and I go down to the cafeteria?”

  The boy nodded distractedly, refocused his eyes on the bees.

  Sierra smiled with a tiny, forlorn twitch of her lips.

  They were well away from Liam’s room, and waiting for an elevator, when she finally spoke.

  “I’m grateful for what you did for Liam and me,” she said, “but you shouldn’t have given him something that cost so much.”

  “I won’t miss the money, Sierra,” Travis responded. “He’s been through a lot, and he needed something else to think about besides breathing tubes, medical tests and shots.”

  She gave a brief, almost clipped nod.

  That McKettrick pride, Travis thought. It was something to behold.

  The elevator came, and the doors opened with a cheerful chiming sound. They stepped inside, and Travis pushed the button for the lower level. Hospital cafeterias always seemed to be in the bowels of the building, like the morgues.

  Downstairs, they went through the grub line with trays, and chose the least offensive-looking items from the stock array of greasy green beans, mock meat loaf, brown gravy and the like.

  Sierra chose a corner table, and they sat down, facing each other. She looked like a freshly showered angel from some celestial soccer team in the athletic clothes he’d provided, and Travis wondered if she had any idea how beautiful she was.