by Jodi Thomas
‘‘How many bites would kill me?’’ he asked his mother once as they watched the olive-brown snake slide across the water with his head up slightly.
‘‘With the wet snake be it little or long, it’s not how many, but how long you have left. One, two, three… a man can take, but after that he doesn’t need to count the snakes… only the hours of pain he has left.’’
TWENTY-TWO
THE SUN HAD A WAY OF LYING DOWN ALONG THE horizon and dying a slow brilliant death. Kora sat on the porch and watched, smiling at her memories of last night. Fate had given her a chance to be a wife, and she planned to enjoy the role as long as it lasted. All her life she’d wondered how it would feel to be cherished. Winter might frighten half the folks around here, but he was gentle with her. He thought she was special. She could see desire in his eyes, and his passion proved his longing for her. He was also talking to her of the problems of the ranch, which made her feel like she belonged, she was truly family.
Three riders appeared far to the south. Kora watched them approach, trying to see if one was Win. She shook her head. None of them had the height.
Jamie slammed the screen door as she joined her sister. ‘‘I’m bored.’’ She pouted. ‘‘I wish I’d gone with Win. Since Cheyenne is still hobbling around here, I could have riden backup. Now I’m stuck here bored out of my mind.’’
Kora knew the mood had more to do with Wyatt leaving after their fight than with Jamie’s lack of anything to do. Cheyenne had been wrong when he’d predicted the gambler would propose. Wyatt wanted a girl, but not a wife, it seemed. And Jamie wanted no strings on her as well.
Leaning against the porch railing, Jamie added, ‘‘Maybe it’s about time we moved on before the witchin’ luck catches up to us.’’
Kora didn’t say a word. She didn’t want to think about her mother’s pet name for the bad luck that always followed them.
‘‘I don’t want to leave this time,’’ Kora whispered more to herself than Jamie. ‘‘I like it here and Dan hasn’t coughed in days. He’s growing stronger with regular meals and clean air.’’ She knew Jamie loved the adventure, but Kora had longed for roots. ‘‘I thought we’d stay till summer.’’ She’d been wondering how she’d tell Jamie that her marriage to Win was only temporary. Even with all that had happened, Win had never said a word about her not leaving. ‘‘Then we might finally head to California.’’ She tried to sound excited.
Her sister wasn’t listening. As she spotted the riders, Jamie bolted like a shot from her perch and ran toward the yard. ‘‘Logan! Cheyenne! Come quick!’’
‘‘What is it?’’ The air seemed to pop with excitement around Kora. ‘‘Jamie, what’s wrong?’’ All she could see was three riders, one leading a horse, the other two riding a few yards ahead. Nothing seemed unusual, yet Jamie was dancing around wildly.
Logan and Cheyenne appeared at the barn entrance as Jamie shouted, ‘‘That’s Win’s horse they’re pulling behind them!’’
Cheyenne was in the saddle in a heartbeat riding toward the men at full gallop despite his injury. Logan disappeared back into the barn. He stepped out a few seconds later with a rifle in his hands.
‘‘Best get in the house, ladies, until we know something.’’ He moved toward the center of the yard. Other rifles slid out the doors and windows behind him. ‘‘ ’Pears trouble finally found us.’’
‘‘No,’’ Kora answered, standing beside her sister in the center of the yard. ‘‘I’m not leaving.’’
The riders drew closer. They were hard men with the look of a drifter about each. All three needed haircuts and shaves, and their clothes were so layered in dust and sweat Kora couldn’t even guess what color the fabric had once been.
Just as Cheyenne reached the riders, she saw a body tied over Win’s horse.
Kora screamed as Cheyenne jumped from his mount at full gallop and drew his blade. He slit the ropes holding Win and pulled his friend into his arms. With great effort, he lifted Win on the saddle and climbed up behind him. He kicked the horse into action and rode toward home.
All the blood seemed to drain from her as Kora watched Cheyenne bring Win the last hundred yards. She couldn’t move. Her husband’s body was covered in mud and soaking wet. And lifeless.
Logan shouted orders as the riders came in, but all Kora could do was stare. They lowered Win to the dirt while the three strangers climbed down from their saddles.
‘‘We found him in the water,’’ one said.
‘‘Snake bit. They was crawling all over him.’’
‘‘We know you’d want us to bring him home for the time he has left,’’ another mumbled.
Kora glanced at Jamie. Neither said a word, but both were thinking the same thing. Witchin’ luck had struck again. They hadn’t left this place soon enough. Misfortune had found them.
Kora felt her flesh turn to stone. She’d known from the first that nothing good lasted. How long did she think she could stay in this daydream that she could live happily as Winter’s wife? People like her and Jamie and Dan were never meant to be happy. They were never supposed to stay in one place.
‘‘Take him inside!’’ she ordered. ‘‘All the way to our bedroom.’’
The men did as she asked, marching in a funeral procession up the stairs.
Kora hardly noticed the mud they tracked across her floor or the dirt that scarred the walls as the men scraped against them. All she saw was Winter’s lips, white and swollen, and his body limp and twisted awkwardly by several pairs of hands.
The strangers who brought him in were the only ones talking.
‘‘He’s been bit several times.’’
‘‘I counted six on his arms and legs.’’
‘‘Ain’t never known anyone to live with more than three or four.’’
‘‘Your boss will never see another sunrise.’’
Kora wanted to grab Win’s Colt and shoot all three of them. But they were only the bearers of bad news and not the villains. ‘‘Thank you for bringing him home,’’ she managed to say. ‘‘Please come in and rest while I see to my husband.’’
The three men smiled and began thanking her, but Kora was no longer listening. She followed the men upstairs never stopping the string of orders to first Logan, then Jamie, then several of the hands. She couldn’t explain why, but danger still seemed heavy in the air. Maybe she was just seeing Dan’s ghosts, but something seemed wrong. When she had time she’d reason each clue out, but for now she’d protect them.
Cheyenne unstrapped Win’s gunbelt and laid it on the floor. ‘‘I’ll help you get him out of these clothes first, then we can take a look at the bites. With water moccasins there’s no use sending for the doc. He’ll either be better or dead before the doc could get here.’’
Kora lifted the wet gunbelt from the floor and strapped it around her waist not caring that the mud stained her dress. The weapon hung low over her full skirt. She pulled the Colt from its nest. ‘‘Will it fire?’’
Logan stopped helping Cheyenne long enough to answer. ‘‘No, ma’am.’’
‘‘Then clean it when you have time and load it for me. I’ll wear it until he’s up and able to do so again.’’ She left no room for discussion as she laid down the useless gun and began ripping away Win’s shirt, it was one of his new shirts.
Just as they spread a clean quilt over him, Jamie entered the room with a tray loaded down with supplies Kora had asked for.
‘‘How is he?’’ she whispered.
Both men were silent. They’d counted six deep bites and maybe a dozen scratches that might not have released much poison.
‘‘He’s going to make it,’’ Kora said without blinking. ‘‘But until he’s up and on his feet, we’ve got to be on guard. Something’s not right.’’ She mixed the water with a handful of baking soda. ‘‘I don’t care what those men downstairs said, Win would not fall into a nest of snakes.’’
Cheyenne’s head snapped up as if someone had hit him hard in the
jaw. ‘‘She’s right,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Win’s no fool. He’s known about water moccasins since he could walk. His mother’s tribe believes in living with them, not killing them.’’
A silence fell between the four people standing around the bed. Words were not needed. Win hadn’t suffered an accident; someone had tried to kill him and might very well have succeeded. And the most likely villains were downstairs in the kitchen right now.
‘‘I’ll kill whoever did this,’’ Jamie mumbled. ‘‘It must have been a gang because no man could take my brother-in-law down alone.’’
Kora pulled the quilt to his waist and began washing the bites with a rag soaked in baking soda. ‘‘Force a drink of whiskey down his throat,’’ she ordered as she worked. ‘‘ Jamie, you may be right. Go downstairs and give the strangers all the leftovers we have in the cool box.’’ Before Jamie could question she added, ‘‘And don’t miss a word they say.’’
‘‘I’ll only make a quick stop at my room. I only have two knives on me and I may need three.’’ Jamie disappeared to do as ordered.
Kora slid down the quilt and began soaking the red dots on Win’s legs. The thought crossed her mind that for a girl who hated Win, Jamie was sure fighting mad at him being hurt.
‘‘That won’t help.’’ Logan’s voice was thick with sadness. ‘‘Nothing will, that I know of.’’
‘‘We’ve got to try and pull the poison out,’’ Kora answered in almost a cry. ‘‘Give me your knife, Cheyenne. Logan, open the windows.’’
Cheyenne did as she asked without question.
‘‘If he’s cold, maybe the poison will move slower.’’ Kora told them. ‘‘Cheyenne, keep one eye on the stairs. No one but the four of us is getting any closer to Win tonight. Logan, spread the word that if anyone comes up here, he’ll be shot on sight.’’
‘‘Yes, ma’am.’’ Logan moved to the stairs, but before he went down, he added, ‘‘The boss would be real proud of you. If he makes it through this, I plan on telling him what a lucky man he is.’’
Kora nodded her thank-you and went back to work. With tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks, she cut each bite from fang mark to fang mark, making the swollen flesh bleed.
Cheyenne forced more whiskey down Win, then held his head as convulsions shook Win’s body and he began to throw up. He vomited until there was nothing left in his stomach, then Cheyenne poured more whiskey down him.
Kora forced each bite mark to continue bleeding, spilling a great deal of Winter’s blood along with a tiny bit of the yellow venom.
When Win finally stopped shaking and throwing up, Cheyenne made him take another swallow of whiskey, then covered him. ‘‘Let him rest. We’ve done all we can for now.’’
Kora gently wrapped each of his wounds, thankful that none of the bites had been on his face or neck.
‘‘He might just make it,’’ Cheyenne said as he moved to where he had a clear view of the staircase. ‘‘All the bites were on his arms and legs, and none looked to be as deep as I’ve seen some. The bigger the man, the more poison he can take in his blood without dying. Win’s got a good chance, Kora.’’
For the first time Kora noticed Cheyenne’s limp, much more pronounced than it had been earlier. ‘‘You’re hurt?’’ she whispered. ‘‘The ride out to him must have been painful.’’
‘‘I can live with it,’’ Cheyenne answered.
The hours passed. The night grew colder. But Win didn’t move. She tried every poultice she’d ever heard of, even having Jamie heat coal and spread it over the wounds. Nothing seemed to work. Win’s breathing was so light she had to listen for his heartbeat to tell if he was still alive.
‘‘Don’t die on me,’’ she whispered once in anger. ‘‘Don’t die on me just when I started believing in us.’’
Cheyenne brought in a root he said his people used for the bites. When they rubbed it on the wounds, it did seem to help the redness some. They brewed a tea from it and made Win drink, but he didn’t keep much of it down.
While Logan went down to talk to the men, Jamie took up guard by the stairs. She badgered Cheyenne until he sat down, resting his injury for a while. ‘‘You’ll reopen the wound and end up sitting around here another month,’’ she complained.
‘‘I’m fine,’’ Cheyenne insisted, but he took the offered chair.
Finally, when Kora had done everything she could think of to do, she curled next to Win’s still body and lay her arm over his chest. His breathing was now deep and regular, giving her hope.
They’d sent for the doctor, but the rider had only left a note on his door. The doctor was out somewhere on call. Anything they did, they’d have to do alone.
TWENTY-THREE
AN HOUR LATER, WHEN LOGAN RETURNED WITH THE story of how the drifters had just happened on Win, Kora was convinced the men were lying. They claimed he’d been floating in the shallow water with his horse only a few feet away. One suggested the mount must have thrown him. Kora glanced from Cheyenne to Logan. Impossible, she thought.
Kora barely noticed Jamie silently slip from the room as Logan went over every detail of the men’s story for the third time.
While the others talked, Jamie tiptoed down the stairs and approached the dining room. The three men were whispering at the far end of the table. She crawled on her belly until she slipped under the tablecloth and crept to the center of the table, her body within inches of their legs.
‘‘Well, how do you like the old guy? He offers us a place to sleep in the bunkhouse. You’d think we’d get to stay in the main house after what we did bringing the boss in and all.’’
‘‘Shut up, Miller. We ain’t got time to sleep. If McQuillen ain’t dead yet, he just might pull through, and where is that going to leave us? I knew we should have left him in a little longer until he took a few more bites.’’
‘‘We held him till he stopped jerking. That should have been long enough.’’ The man called Miller added, ‘‘We’d best hightail it out of here. I ain’t dealing with a man six cottonmouths can’t kill.’’
‘‘No,’’ the third man, smaller than the others, interrupted. ‘‘We’ve been paid by the lady to get Win McQuillen off the blockade line by tomorrow night. ‘Whatever it takes,’ she said. If this don’t work, we’ll have to find another way.’’
‘‘But how?’’ Miller whined. ‘‘I’m not charging up those stairs with that Indian and that wild girl standing guard. Even the wife wears a gun. These folks aren’t going to let us just kill him.’’
‘‘No’’-the little man giggled-‘‘there’s a way he won’t be thinking of minding the blockade even if he wakes up. And we don’t have to kill anyone.’’
‘‘How’s that? I only went along with the snakes ’cause I wouldn’t have to do the killin’. I’ll do just about anything, but killin’s where I draw the line.’’
‘‘Since when did you get religion, Miller?’’
‘‘I ain’t got religion. My dad used to tell me no matter what I did, don’t do nothing that would get my neck stretched. He said a man can always break out of a prison, but there ain’t much you can do to survive when you’re dangling from the end of a noose.’’
‘‘Hush up, Miller. We ain’t got time,’’ the third man whispered. ‘‘What’s the plan, Al?’’
‘‘When the wife comes down, we take her for a little ride. She’ll have every man on the place looking for her, and we can probably drive a herd within sight of the house. She ain’t more than a snip of a girl. It shouldn’t be too much trouble to collect her and drop her off at the hideout.’’
Jamie pulled back, biting her knuckle to keep from screaming and charging out and killing all the men. She crawled away as they went to refill their coffee.
Cheyenne met her on the landing. He’d been sitting in the blackness, waiting. She almost bumped into him before she saw him.
A frightened scream died in her throat as she took an angry swing at him. ‘‘You scared me to death!’’ she
whispered. ‘‘What are you doing here?’’
‘‘I wanted to know what the men said. I could tell they were scheming with their heads all together, but I couldn’t hear anything. Then I see you sliding from beneath the tablecloth.’’
Jamie debated telling him. The chances were good he wouldn’t believe her. But he was her one hope. He might irritate her to the breaking point, but for once they had a common goal, to keep Win alive. She leaned close beside him in the darkness.
‘‘They’ve been hired by some woman to make sure Win isn’t watching tomorrow night. She must be the one planning to run the cattle past. Since the snakes failed, the only other plan those three toads can come up with is to kidnap Kora.’’
Jamie placed her hand on Cheyenne’s leg to keep him from reacting. ‘‘Settle down. I already thought of killing them in the kitchen. It would just make a mess.’’
He relaxed slightly, but his breathing grew rapid with fury.
‘‘If we kill them, we’re no closer to knowing who’s behind this than we were before. The woman who hired them may not be the boss but just a hired hand like those three downstairs. If we’re going to help Win, we need to find out who is behind all this trouble.’’
‘‘So what do you suggest?’’ Cheyenne asked. ‘‘We let them kidnap Kora?’’
‘‘Exactly.’’ Jamie didn’t let go of his leg for fear he’d bolt. ‘‘Only it won’t be Kora. It’ll be me.’’
Cheyenne’s breathing stopped.
Jamie leaned closer, frantically pleading her case. ‘‘We don’t have time to get the sheriff and let them spend a few days in jail before they decide to talk. One man said a herd will pass through here tomorrow night. If we don’t know who wants to stop Win by then, we won’t know who to trust. Our men will be sitting ducks all along the blockade.’’
‘‘But they won’t take you instead of Kora,’’ Cheyenne whispered.
‘‘Not dressed like this. But if I put on a dress and tie my hair back, I’d pass for her in poor light.’’