“I'll be ready to ride,” Blaine said without hesitation.
Sammy and Claire and Margaret ate a supper of perfectly roasted, succulent turkey with biscuits, while Blaine continued to sleep. Claire took him a small plate later and woke him, imploring him to eat to keep up his strength. He wasn't hungry at all, but ate a little bit anyway to make Claire happy. He vomited a few minutes later. Claire felt badly about it, and took up her position against the tree with Blaine's head in her lap. She continued to administer the cool compress against the fever that would not yield. Later in the evening, she asked Margaret to bring her a blanket. She spent the rest of the night talking to him, cooling him, singing to him, waking him to drink more water, and sleeping for periods herself.
Chapter 39
Blaine opened his eyes and listened to an owl hoot as the night sky began to give way to the morning light. He smelled the coffee and lifted his head to look at the fire.
Sammy was sitting by it, drinking his first cup. He looked at Blaine when he saw the cowboy's head come up, nodding to him, but saying nothing. Margaret was sleeping near the fire, and Claire had rolled from sleeping in a sitting position against the tree to being curled up on the ground just above Blaine's head.
Blaine moved quietly and grabbed his pants, then worked at getting them on. Sammy watched the ordeal and thought it looked something like a man trying to stuff himself into a potato sack. A minute later and out of breath, Blaine completed the maneuver and pushed himself to his feet using his arms and one leg, while his injured leg stuck out to the side like an errant rowboat oar. He limped off into the dark to relieve himself. A moment later, he returned and retrieved his boots.
Blaine limped over to the fire where he dropped his boots and fell forward, landing on his hands and then flipping to a sitting position in a rather acrobatic move. He was able to get both his boots on with no assistance. Sammy took the whole episode as a sign of improvement. He poured Blaine a cup of coffee, and the two men sat quietly by the fire as daylight crept upon them.
The women were up soon after. Claire came over to Blaine and felt his forehead and face. His fever was still present, but she thought it seemed a bit better than the night before. “I'm all right, Claire,” Blaine reassured. “Thanks for looking after me, and thanks for the poultice, Margaret. It must be helping ‘cause my leg feels better.”
“Really? It really does?” Margaret asked.
“Yes, ma'am. I'm ready to ride today.”
Two hours later, they rode down the main street of Española, made up mostly of mud huts. “Hold up here for a minute.” Sammy stopped them in front of a small frame building with pine siding and white painted letters: GOODS. “I'll be right back.” He jumped down from Dobe and tied him to the hitching post.
“You want us to just sit here in the street?” Blaine asked.
“You can all get down if you want. I was just gonna check to see if there's a doctor in this town. Won't be but a second, and I didn't figure you were partial to using that leg if you didn't have to.”
“I see your point. I'll be waitin’ here.”
“We'll wait with Blaine,” Claire said, sensing Sammy's desire to be fast.
Sammy returned quickly. “The doctor comes once a week from Santa Fe—on Fridays.”
“Well, I reckon we better get on to Santa Fe then ‘cause this don't look quite lively enough to wait for a couple of days.”
“It's only a few hours more,” Claire added.
“Do you ladies need to stop for a break?” Blaine asked.
“I don't,” Margaret said.
“No, let's keep going,” Claire said. “We're so close now.”
“Onward, Mister Winds,” Blaine declared in a tumbling phrase.
Sammy looked appraisingly at Blaine, knowing he was hurting and ever so nimbly delusional. His fever looked to have picked up some. He knew he could get worse fast, or maybe he would hold on and make the ride easily. “Let's make dust. The trail we want is out the east end,” Sammy said, putting Dobe to a trot.
As they cleared town and came upon the trail, Blaine undid one of his canteens. Claire feared he might be getting ready to have a go at the mescal again, but then the pale cowboy pulled his hat off and proceeded to pour water all over his head. It ran down his face and over his ears, soaking the top of his shirt from front to back. He took a deep breath and shook his head to clear the excess. His dark brown hair was matted slick and sheen. Smiling, he put his hat back on and re-hung the nearly empty canteen. “Now that I'm wet, I reckon I'll make a little breeze for myself. Get up, Seesaw!” His horse jumped to a gallop along the flat, straight trail.
“It appears he'd like to get there sooner rather than later,” Sammy casually remarked.
“Me too!” Margaret said. “C'mon, Windchaser!” She put her heels to the horse and was gone in a burst.
Sammy looked over at Claire, who was still in a trot beside him. She looked knowingly back at him. “Ladies first,” he said. She smiled, and then put her horse to a run. Sammy continued on at a trot, watching the parade of horses galloping ahead, throwing up a dust trail that mixed with the scent of pine and wildflowers. Dobe snorted and twitched. “You tryin’ to tell me we oughta get on after ‘em? Heaaaaaw!”
The Plaza was sodden with late morning sun that warmed the many adobe walls. Santa Fe sat at an elevation of seven thousand feet and had a population of some three thousand. Wagons, horses, and buggies were thick on the main avenue, and the boardwalk bustled with people, some moving with the pace of commerce while others strolled in the melody of looking. The young crop of alfalfa grew on the Plaza Square, presenting a lush foreground and vibrant contrast to the textured brown adobe of the Palace of the Governors and San Miguel Mission. A cathedral with Corinthian columns of Roman architectural influence was being constructed and looked oddly singular in style to the other buildings. Alongside the construction site, several dozen men worked in a large mud pit for making the adobe. Vendors lined the square with their carts and wagons selling jewelry and artwork and pottery and baskets and weavings and hats and clothing and foodstuffs and leather goods and potions and perfumes. The people on the Plaza were mostly Spanish and Mexican, but there were also Anglos and some Indians and Asians.
A stagecoach stopped at a corner of the Plaza. The weary-looking occupants climbed stiffly out into the bright sunshine. One of the travelers, an older woman, began to beat the dust from her dress, but stopped and looked with fascination and slight disdain at Margaret and Claire, riding western style in dresses.
Sammy was behind them, alongside Blaine, now slumped in the saddle as if he might fall any second. Blaine had displayed stoical grit and determination on the ride from Española, but now he was played out. His fever was well up and the pain was unrelenting. He'd stayed away from the mescal, knowing he'd never make it if he began drinking. But he hadn't held off the delirium. He'd seen the Indian from the tunnel flying around in the treetops, and engaged in rambling conversation with his long deceased grandmother and several of his boyhood friends during the last half hour before hitting town.
“It's right up here,” Claire said over her shoulder as she reined up in front of the Exchange Hotel. The sign on the low one-story adobe building next to the hotel simply said: MEDICA. Sammy pulled up, jumped off Dobe, and helped Margaret and Claire dismount. He turned to give Blaine a hand, but the cowboy was already dismounting and was halfway off when he blacked out and fell to the ground.
Several people stopped and looked, some just thinking it was a drunken cowboy.
“You gals tie the horses off,” Sammy said as he quickly moved over to where Blaine lay in the street. Blaine's eyes opened as slits squinting against the sun. He began to try and sit up. Sammy kneeled down and got his arms around Blaine's upper torso, lifting hard to help his friend to his feet. “Come on, hoss. Let's go see the doctor.”
“That horse can't dance proper,” Blaine slurred.
“You can teach him later,” Sammy replied. He p
ulled Blaine's arm around his neck and began to walk him toward the building. “Lead the way, Claire.” Sammy half-dragged Blaine along. Margaret hurried to Blaine's other side and took his free arm, doing the best she could to help.
Two old Mexican women were sitting in the outer office when Claire opened the door. Sammy, Blaine, and Margaret followed her inside. The old women glanced at Blaine then looked away. He was pale with chalky lips. Beads of perspiration ran down and around his hollow, red-glazed eyes. His blue cotton shirt was dirty and clung to his shoulders and chest, soaked with sweat.
There was no one at the reception desk. Claire was just about to knock at the door when it opened and Dorian O'Malley emerged with his assistant and a patient. He was dispensing some final words to his patient in a heavy, Irish accent when he caught sight of Claire. He stopped cold. “Missus Studdard?” he asked, shocked.
“Yes, Doctor O'Malley…. It's me.”
“My dear! You're back. No one knew what happened. Your husband … Robert …”
“Yes, I know, Doctor. I was there when he was murdered. They took me, and these men saved us a few days ago.” Dorian O'Malley looked over his spectacles in a state of bewilderment at Blaine and Sammy and then to Margaret. Claire wasted no more time. “This man is injured and sick. He needs your help immediately.”
“Yes … of course, of course.” The doctor looked at the old women who had been waiting. “Un pocos minutos, por favor.”
“Si. Si,” they both said, apparently understanding the urgency of the situation and waving the backs of their hands as if to say don't waste time standing out here.
“Muchas gracias,” Blaine said to the old women in a slow, slurred drawl.
“Si, gracias,” Sammy added while dragging Blaine through the door to the examination room.
“He's got a bullet wound in his left thigh, Doctor,” Sammy said as they helped Blaine get situated on the examination table. “It didn't go all the way through, but I was able to get it out from the backside. It looks to be infected where the bullet entered. I don't think it is on the backside where I cut it out.”
“I see. Well, he's very feverish, so I would say infection is a certainty.”
Blaine's head rocked to the side and he opened his eyes. “I reckon this pain is a certainty. You got anything for it, Doc?”
“Yes lad, I do. Alice would you bring me the laudanum?” Doctor O'Malley turned to Claire and Sammy and Margaret. “Why don't you folks come back later on. We've got several beds in the back for patients, and unless there's some dire emergency, I think your friend shouldn't move any farther than one of those beds. I'll know more in a bit. The hotel next door is the best in Santa Fe if you need accommodations.”
“Yes, I know that doctor,” Claire said with surprise.
“Well, I didn't know if you had been by your home yet.”
“No, not yet. We came straight here. What do you mean?”
Doctor O'Malley looked a little uncomfortable. “I think someone is living there.”
Chapter 40
Outside in the street, Sammy could see Claire was shaken at the news of her home. “We'll get this straightened out about your house, Claire. We'll go first thing in the morn-in’. But for now, let's check into this hotel, get cleaned up, and see about Blaine.”
“They can't do that—just move into my house!” Claire said, her confusion suddenly turning to anger.
“They sure as hell can't!” Margaret followed. “That's just not right!”
“We bought that land, and Robert built that house! It's ours! It's mine!”
“Yes it is,” Sammy said, gently putting his hands on Claire's shoulders to calm her. He looked in her eyes. “I'm telling you not to worry. You understand? It's going to be all right. Now here, you take this. And Margaret, you take this.” Sammy gave them each a pouch of gold coins. “I'll give you the rest later. Keep it where you know it's safe. Don't tell me you don't want it. You're takin’ it, and I don't wanna hear anymore about it. Now go and check in and have a bath and something to eat. And go buy whatever you need. I'm taking the horses to the livery and I need to do a few things. I'll catch up with you later. If you go out, stay together.”
“All right,” Claire said, feeling more composed.
Sammy walked the horses down to the livery stable and then found his way to the post office. He wrote two letters, one to Homer and Reuben, and the other to Jenny. He wrote about what had happened and that he wasn't sure how long he'd be delayed, but he'd get word to them of his progress. Then he went back to the doctor's office.
The two old women were gone, replaced by a young mother and her child in the waiting room. The doctor's assistant, Alice, was not at the reception desk. Sammy knocked at the door and a moment later Alice opened it. “Can I come in and see my friend?”
“Just a moment.” The door opened a few seconds later. “You can go in,” she said as she returned to the reception desk.
“Thank you, ma'am.”
Blaine was laid out on the table in his shirt and skivvies asleep. Doctor O'Malley was finishing bandaging Blaine's leg. “How's he doin’?” Sammy asked.
“Time will tell. The front wound is infected, but the poultice helped keep it from spreading … for now. Did you do that?”
“No, the young girl did.”
“She did a good job. It was effective. There were a few bullet fragments left in the front side, but I think I've removed all of them.”
“Damn. I should have looked better in the first place. It was a ricocheted bullet.”
“You did remarkably well. The spot where you cut in appears to be doing all right, so I'm quite sure you got all that was there. Now we wait. If the infection worsens, he could develop gangrene—then he'll lose that leg. Or, it could kill him. I had to take some tissue out of that front wound, so there was no sewing it up. I've packed it. He has to stay in bed and keep completely off of it for several weeks at the least. We'll know which way this is headed in the next day or two. Help me carry him to the bed in the next room.”
“Sure doctor. By the way, I'm Sammy Winds and your patient is Blaine Corker.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance. I'm Dorian O'Malley.”
The two men shook hands and then carried Blaine to a bed. Sammy saw the bedpan on the floor and was reminded of his own feeble condition just six months earlier. He wanted to change his thinking quickly.
“Have you ever met Homer or Reuben Taylor? They own the Twin T. Ranch west of here. Irish brothers … came to America when they were boys.”
“No, I've not had the pleasure. But I believe I've heard of the Twin T. Are you acquainted?
“I work for them. So does Blaine … or he did.”
“How is it you came to the aid of Missus Studdard and the other girl? Did Indians take them?”
Sammy paused for a moment. “Well, Doctor, no offense, but I'll let Missus Studdard tell that story if she cares to.”
The doctor tipped his head down just a bit and looked at Sammy over the top of his spectacles, appreciative of the young man's discretion. “Of course. Forgive the question.”
Sammy looked down at Blaine who was out like a light. “He's sleepin’ like a log.”
“It's the laudanum. It kills the pain and will make him sleep, which he needs.”
“I'm glad of it. What about at night?”
“Missus Martinez lives in the back. She'll be looking in on him.”
“Much obliged.” Sammy dug out some money and held out ten dollars to Dorian. “Will this cover for now?”
“Yes, that's more than enough.”
“I'll settle up with you when this is played out, if that's all right.”
“That will be fine.”
“Can you tell me where Claire's house is?”
“Oh, why yes. It's certainly distinct compared to the adobe houses. It's just out the north trail. You follow this avenue east and turn at Rosario's Wagon and Repair, then on out of town about a mile. It's the white house with g
reen trim to the east of the trail. It's a beautiful place. Robert was a carpenter.”
“Thanks, Doc. Say, do you happen to know a man named Willis Burk?”
“I don't know him, but I know of him.”
“Do you know if he's still around?”
“As far as I know.”
It was late afternoon when Sammy rode out the north trail to Claire's house. After a visit to the courthouse, he was certain of the law on claiming abandoned property. No one had filed a petition to claim the house as an abandoned property, and no one could without evidence that it had been abandoned for at least six months. There was a recorded deed for the land with no liens or mortgages. Sammy figured it was probably somebody from the area trying to be opportunistic.
It sat back off the trail about a quarter mile, facing southwest on good grassy ground. It was frame construction with lap siding and a steep roof with two dormer windows, indicating an attic or loft or second story. The house was nicely painted and had a covered porch that ran the width of the front, providing shade for two large front windows. Tall ponderosa pine and blue spruce grew to the sides and rear of the house at a distance that provided an acre of open yard. A two-story barn and other outbuildings had the same lap siding with white and green paint. The whole spread gave the appearance of a small estate. There was neither visible livestock nor horses, but smoke trailed from the red brick chimney that stretched skyward on one end of the house.
Sammy reined up in front and dismounted, tying Dobe to a hitching post in the yard. He wore his gun-belt with both pistols.
“Hellooooo the house,” he yelled, loud enough to be heard without sounding as if he were shouting orders. All was still. He remained in the yard, looking at the front windows for any sign of movement within. There was nothing. “Hellooooo the house,” he yelled again, this time a little louder. Again, there was no response. He waited another half minute, then walked up on the porch and rapped on the door. “Helloooo,” he yelled as loud as he could, not caring what he sounded like now. Sammy heard movement inside and several voices, but he could not tell what was being said. He rapped once again, and finally heard boots on a hardwood floor approaching the front.
Along The Fortune Trail Page 18