by Jodi Thomas
Owen’s voice drifted through the open area as he talked of the days of President Houston when Texas stood alone as a nation.
A stable hand told Wes a stage was due in a few hours before dark. He said it usually only stopped for a change of horses and a quick bite for the passengers. But the weather might delay it or hold it here for the night.
Wes walked down the hallway on the second floor. He didn’t want more people showing up. There were enough folks around as it was. The more people around, the more he had to watch or worry about.
Opening the door while deep in thought, Wes was totally unprepared for the sight that greeted him. Allie had just stood from her bath and was reaching for the towel. The rainy, pearl-light from the windows made her wet skin glow. If ever he’d thought her eyes were enchanted, now her whole body seemed so.
He stood staring at her, unable to look away even if the thought had crossed his mind. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her breasts were high and round, her waist small. He’d always thought of her as thin and short, but everything about her, without the oversized clothes, was in perfect proportion.
‘‘Is something wrong?’’ She pulled the towel around her and faced him, totally unaware of the effect she had on him.
Wes couldn’t speak. He wasn’t even sure he could breathe. All he could do was watch her as she walked around the bed.
She fingered her undergarments. ‘‘They’re still damp,’’ she said. ‘‘Do I have to get dressed yet?’’
‘‘No,’’ Wes managed to force out, thinking he’d like it very much if she stayed just the way she was forever. ‘‘Why don’t you rest until dinner’s ready?’’ He tried to make sense of the way he was reacting. ‘‘By then, your clothes will be dry.’’ Wes figured his would be also, for he could almost feel the steam coming off his damp shirt.
Allie let the towel slip as she crawled beneath the covers.
Wes backed out of the room, allowing his gaze the luxury of watching her for as long as possible. He stood in the hallway wondering if he had the strength to walk away. She’d finally started to trust him. If he moved too fast, he’d destroy that trust and maybe never get it back.
If he moved too fast? The words slammed into the corners of his mind. Until now, he’d never planned to move any way at all, fast or slow. He’d simply wanted to keep her safe. Then she’d kissed him and somehow started a hunger within him that might shatter every plan he’d ever had in his life.
And now he’d seen her, all of her. An invisible clock had been set in his body, ticking down the hours. He didn’t know when, or how, but at some point, he knew he’d make love to her. When he closed his eyes, he could feel her body against his. When he drew in air, her scent filled his thoughts. The taste of her kiss lingered on his tongue.
Wes walked down the stairs and out the front door as if the day were clear.
Just before he closed the door, he heard Owen mumble, ‘‘That fellow’ll be struck by lightning if he goes out.’’
Hardy laughed, ‘‘He already has been.’’
Allie closed her eyes. The layers of blankets warmed her body. The gentle tapping of rain on the window lulled her to sleep. As always, she was back in her cave, moving through the pattern of passages to get to her place. The air felt damp and cool against her face, the ground smooth from where a river ran through the entrances years ago.When she entered her place, fresh air from a crevice far above welcomed her and a thin ray of light lit the little room she called hers. Everything was still there as if waiting. Her pots, her robes, her pelts. Everything she needed to survive.
In her dream, she spread out on her bed and pulled the thick buffalo robe over her. The nightmares would not come with her to her cave. She would sleep.
Hours later a sound whispered in her cave, then in the darkness of the room, pulling her from her dream.
‘‘Allie? Allie, are you asleep?’’
She rolled over. ‘‘Jason?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ he answered. ‘‘It’s long past dark, and I can’t find a candle upstairs.’’
‘‘What is it?’’ She blinked, trying to make out the outline of the boy at the door. ‘‘Where’s Wes?’’
‘‘He left here a few hours ago with the stable hand. The stage didn’t make it in, and Owen was worried. Wes said he’d ride out and look for it.’’
She heard Jason shifting in the darkness and knew something was wrong. She reached for her undergarments and dressed, knowing the boy would not have awakened her unless he felt he had to.
‘‘After they left, Owen and the sheriff decided to have another bottle and relive the battle of San Jacinto. I think Owen passed out at the table. I can’t get him to wake up.’’
Jason paused as though hating to continue. ‘‘The sheriff-was going to bed, but he only made it up four of the steps before he tumbled. I wasn’t close enough to help him. He didn’t seem too drunk to make the stairs when he started climbing. But with his bad leg, he fell. I . . .’’
She pulled her dress over her head. She slipped her boots on and moved out the door, buttoning the bodice as she hurried down the hallway and the stairs.
Just as Jason had said, the sheriff lay at the bottom, twisted and unconscious.
‘‘I didn’t know what to do.’’ Panic made the boy’s voice high. ‘‘I tried to help him up, but his leg is busted bad. He tried to stand, then must have passed out.’’
Allie knelt, her fingers running along the length of the old man as she’d seen medicine men do. She wanted to say she didn’t know anything, but that wasn’t what Jason needed to hear. The boy was almost as pale as the old man. He needed someone to help, not complain.
‘‘Help me get him to the table.’’ She tried to think of something. Maxwell’s crippled leg must be broken, for blood stained the knee of his trousers. A bump the size of an egg had formed on his forehead and scrapes crisscrossed his cheek.
Jason seemed to calm with having something to do. He moved beneath one arm of the sheriff and tried to pull his part of the load as they half carried, half dragged the wounded man across to the table.
Straining, they lifted the sheriff onto the end of the long table and rolled him onto his back.
‘‘Get blankets and a pillow,’’ Allie ordered. ‘‘Then build up the fire, and see if you can find a few more lanterns.’’
Allie unbuckled his gunbelt and draped it over one of the kitchen chairs. Pulling her knife from her boot, she slit the material covering his leg. As the bloody fabric peeled away, Allie saw a jagged rip in the flesh and a bone, snapped like a twig.
She stood back and tried to breathe without the thick smell of blood filling her lungs. She’d gutted animals, she’d even seen babies born, but now blood seemed to be everywhere. Warm, red blood. Her fingers were covered in it, and her dress stained.
‘‘Holy . . .’’ Jason whistled behind her. ‘‘That looks terrible!’’
Allie swallowed hard. ‘‘No worse than an animal’s insides.’’ She forced herself to look at the break. ‘‘All we have to do is straighten out the bone and sew up the gash.’’ That sounded like a plan. Simple, just straighten a bone and close the opening. How hard could that be?
Jason moved an inch closer. ‘‘And stop the bleeding and put all the bloody parts back in order. And hope the sheriff don’t die before we get through. Who knows,maybe as bad as this is, it’s the bump on his head that will kill him.’’
They both glanced at the old man’s face. The bump did look bad, but there was nothing Allie could do about it.
Hardy looked ready for the funeral fire now. He was either too drunk or too hurt to feel any pain, which could be good. Allie didn’t care which—she just wanted her doctoring not to kill him. But if she didn’t do something, he would surely die from the rate blood poured out of him. So she had to try.
She remembered seeing the way Adam had sewn up Wes when he’d been shot in the back. She could do that part, she told herself. As for the other, she
wasn’t sure. It wouldn’t do much good to sew him up if the bone just poked another hole in his flesh as soon as he moved.
Jason took short quick breaths and turned whiter the longer he stared. ‘‘How much more blood you reckon he’s got in him?’’
‘‘Enough.’’ She prayed she spoke the truth. ‘‘
‘‘Get water and something to use for bandages,’’ Allie ordered, hoping to keep Jason from being her next patient. She moved around the room looking for something to use for sewing. The room only had an old desk and a round-toppped trunk. In the trunk they found women’s clothes and a small sewing kit. After Jason brought the water, he set about ripping a petticoat into strips while Allie tried to clean the gash.
But blood kept dripping out, slowing the process. In one swipe of a rag, Allie felt something hard in the soft, open flesh. At first, she thought it was part of the bone, but then the light caught its shine.
She glanced up to show Jason, but he’d disappeared into the kitchen area.
Allie pulled a bullet from the tissue and tossed it in the pan of water without taking time to examine it. When he woke up, if he woke up, he’d no longer have lead in his leg.
‘‘I’m ready,’’ Jason called triumphantly as he ran toward her. ‘‘I pulled this board off the back wall. I think we have to stretch the leg on it.’’ The board was about four feet long and six inches wide. ‘‘I seen a doc do that once with a friend’s arm. He said he had to hold the bone straight until it grew back.’’
Allie nodded. She knew for the bone to heal straight it must be tied to something. She’d seen a medicine man tie a broken leg to a man’s straight one, claiming they would both grow the same. For a full cycle of the moon, the man crawled around dragging his tied legs behind him. But when the ropes were removed, he stood straight on two legs once more. If that worked, the board might work.
They placed the wood beneath Hardy’s leg and pulled as hard as they could.
‘‘Harder!’’ Allie kept saying as she tried to keep Maxwell still while Jason pulled.
The sheriff moaned in pain, but the leg straightened. Allie and Jason tied it in place, leaving the gash untouched. Blood dripped out on the ties as they worked.
‘‘You think we pulled it too hard?’’ Jason whispered. ‘‘What if this leg is longer when we untie it from the board?’’
‘‘We’ll worry about that later,’’ Allie answered, thinking the boy needed an extra pocket to carry all his worries in.
Allie held the flesh together with her fingers and began to sew the skin closed, but blood kept bubbling in her way.
‘‘Wait!’’ Jason ran to the bottle still next to the sleeping innkeeper. ‘‘I saw a doc do this once in the bar. Every time there is doctoring to be done at the bar, I like to help if I can. Hope I learned something that will help.’’
He began dripping the whiskey over the wound, washing away blood as Allie stitched. The whiskey sizzled on the raw flesh. She could see where to make theX’s to hold the skin together.
When the gash was closed, she wrapped the wound tightly and bound the leg, from hip to foot, to the board. The sheriff moaned. Jason dribbled watered-down whiskey into the sheriff’s mouth.
‘‘Is he going to live?’’ Jason sounded near tears for the first time. His hands shook. ‘‘He was always nice to me, never yelled or nothing. I don’t want to watch him die. I’ve watched enough people die.’’
‘‘I don’t know if he’ll make it.’’ Allie picked up soiled rags. ‘‘I never doctored anyone before, but if he does, he’ll have you to thank.’’
‘‘Me?’’ Jason answered. ‘‘I think we both did a fine job. If he lives, of course.’’
‘‘Of course,’’ Allie liked the feel of the phrase. Words were coming easier to her tongue. ‘‘We’ll watch him closely and rewrap the wound every time it gets soaked in blood.’’
They sat on either side of the table and stared at the sheriff for an hour. Slowly, his breathing grew long, and he slept.
Jason finally could sit still no longer. ‘‘I made a stew while they was drinking, just in case those folks from the stage come in. I made cornbread, too.’’ He ran to fetch her a bowl. ‘‘I can cook pretty near anything. There were some days, back at the hotel, that I was in the kitchen from before dawn until after the bar closed. I was only supposed to clean up, but the cook taught me to do things so he wouldn’t have to hurry.’’
Allie watched him moving about the kitchen. He was proud that he’d helped, and that he could cook. The pride made him taller, she thought.
They ate in the center of the long table with the sheriff lying at one end and Owen resting his head at the other.
‘‘The stew is very good,’’ she complimented. ‘‘Will you teach me?’’
Jason swelled with pride. ‘‘Sure. I’d be glad to. Does that mean I can stay with you and Wes?’’
‘‘If you like,’’ she answered. ‘‘And you can leave when you’re ready. It will be up to you.’’
The door rattled, and both of them froze. It rattled again. Allie reached for her knife; Jason tried to pull the sheriff’s heavy Colt from its holster hanging on the back of a chair.
Wes blew in with the rain as the door swung open. His hat was pulled low and saddlebags hung over one shoulder. ‘‘Found no sign of a stage . . .’’ he began. His tired gaze scanned the room and came to rest on Allie. ‘‘What happened?’’
She could see the worry in his eyes.
Suddenly, all the panic of the past hour shook her. Dropping the knife on the table in her haste, she ran toward him in one swift movement.
The saddlebag slid to the floor. He swept her up in his arms. He held her tightly against him and moved into the room.
‘‘It’s all right,’’ he whispered, brushing her hair back from her face. If she was alive, nothing could be too wrong in the world.
Allie didn’t say a word, but Jason filled Wes in on all the details.
Jason finished by saying, ‘‘And he’s still alive, so we must have done something right.’’
With Allie leaning against him, Wes examined the old sheriff. ‘‘I’d say you did more than something, son. I’ve seen a hundred field dressings in my day, but I’ve seen none better. It’s a good splint. Who knows, the leg may heal straight.’’
He kissed Allie on the forehead and winked at Jason. ‘‘I’d say Hardy was lucky to have you two around. From the looks of Owen, Hardy would have been in big trouble if you hadn’t been here. He would have bled to death before his friend sobered up.’’
While Wes brought a cot down, Jason dipped him a bowl of stew. By the time Wes carried the sheriff to a comfortable bed by the fire, his meal waited for him: stew, a wide slice of cornbread, and cold buttermilk.
The boy never stopped talking while Wes ate. When he’d finished his second bowl, Wes knew every detail of what had happened.
Allie hurried about the room, first cleaning up the blood, then checking on the sheriff.
When she made her third trip up the stairs with a bucket of rainwater from the porch, Wes asked what she was doing.
Allie looked down at her dress. ‘‘I thought I’d take a bath and wash the blood off me, then my clothes.’’
Her drab brown dress was stained in several spots. The blood seemed to be drying the same shade of brown as her dress.
‘‘Mind if I come on up?’’ Wes asked as casually as he could. ‘‘After a day fighting this storm, I’m ready to call it a night.’’
‘‘No.’’ She turned around and headed up the stairs once more. ‘‘I don’t mind.’’
EIGHTEEN
WES CHECKED ON THE SLEEPING SHERIFF AND TOLD Jason to call him if Hardy woke up. Then he slowly moved up the stairs. The thought of seeing Allie in her bath warmed his blood. He’d spent hours in the cold rain telling himself that she meant nothing to him. What he did for her he would have done for any human. She didn’t care for him any more than he did for her.But after hours of talking to him
self, only one picture came to mind . . . the vision of Allie reaching for her towel with her body glistening with moisture.
As he opened the door, he braced for her beauty, telling himself that he could look at her and even enjoy the sight of her without making any promises or attacking her like an animal. He’d just watch her and then kiss her goodnight. Maybe he’d hold her as they slept. Nothing more. Nothing.
When he stepped into their small room, the low glow of one candle greeted him. Allie knelt over the tub, scrubbing her dress. She wore her underthings, but the thin clothing did little to hide what he knew was beneath.
Forcing himself to move slowly, he crossed to the far side of the bed and removed his mud-covered clothes. Unlike Allie with her cleanliness, he planned to let his clothes dry and shake them out in the morning. It was a habit he’d learned in the Army. One that would have sent his mother into a sermon on cleanliness.
Allie looked up at him standing by the bed in his longhandles and undershirt. ‘‘No,’’ she said firmly, as if answering a question only she heard. ‘‘You are not getting in bed like that.’’
He raised an eyebrow, wondering if his mother hadn’t yet come back to haunt him. ‘‘I’m not?’’ He thought about reminding her how tired he was, or informing her that he had every right to climb in her bed. But her statement shocked more than angered.
‘‘No,’’ she answered. Her lifted chin reminded him of her grandmother. ‘‘There’s water enough to wash you first. Take off the rest of your clothes.’’
He froze. The idea of lying next to her totally nude with their bodies pressed together had crossed his mind a few thousand times today. But the thought of standing stark naked in front of her was something altogether different. The first was sensual, erotic. The second somewhere between unseemly and downright dirty.