Unbroken Hearts

by Anna Murray

  Fixing a blank stare on Dullen she slid her hand into her pocket. Dullen, in a panic, didn't register that her hands were free. She fingered the smooth derringer, the handle warm on one side from the heat of her body. She sucked in a long breath, and took one long step toward him.

  Dullen's tight gaze was held captive by something in her face, something unsettling he hadn't seen before. Instinctively he began to inch away from her.

  "Mister Dullen you just played your last card," she whispered. Sarah quickly brought up the gun, and the motion lifted her skirts. Aiming for his chest, she squeezed the trigger smoothly. The bullet ripped straight through the fabric of her skirt on the way to the target.

  Dullen flashed a startled look. His mouth yawed open. One hand clutched at his chest, and he reeled backward. A question lit his face as he fell in the dirt.

  Sarah ran to over to where he lay, and she kicked his weapon out of his limp grasp. A red stain was spreading across his chest.

  "You shot me." It was a statement of wonder and disbelief, these last words, and with them his face went slack.

  For the first time, Sarah saw him without a scowl marring his features.

  Emily's eyes were saucers.

  "Emily, I'm so sorry you had to see that." Sarah coughed from the dust kicked up in the small space.

  "Y-you did right, Sarah. H-he had it coming," whimpered Emily. "Cal would of done the same." The girl shook convulsively.

  Sarah swallowed hard. "True enough."

  Hank was lying semiconscious, groaning and bleeding profusely. Sarah untied Emily, hugged her shaking body to her breast, and then looked over Hank.

  "Please help me," he begged.

  Sarah crouched beside him, gripped the arrow, and yanked. Blood oozed from the wound, and her stomach churned as she ripped strips of fabric from the bottom of her skirt to bandage the man's arm, pausing several times to wait for her hands to stop trembling.

  She listened for signs that the Indians might be attacking the hut, but it was quiet. What were they waiting for?

  She nervously hovered over Hank and pressed her hand firmly over the rip to slow the bleeding; she expected the Indians to crash through the door at any moment.

  Minutes passed, and Sarah and Emily heard the racing hoof beats of a new group of riders arriving in the small clearing in front of the hut. Emily whimpered fearfully.

  More Indians? They didn't dare go to the window to check.

  Now they heard a chorus of shouts and voices, in the strange language. Sarah could have sworn one of the voices was Cal.

  Suddenly the door flung open with such force that it slammed against the earthen wall. A charging bull with six-shooters drawn and red bandana covering his face stormed into the room.

  "D-don't shoot us!" Emily's outstretched hands quaked like leaves in a storm.

  The man's eyebrows shot up when he saw Dullen's body sprawled face up in the dirt and Hank's unconscious form in a heap near the table.

  He lowered his guns and suddenly two more men appeared behind him, weapons at the ready. They stared dumbfounded at the carnage and holstered their arms. When all three jerked bandanas down to necks to show their faces Sarah and Emily shrieked.

  "Cal! Roy!" Emily bolted from her corner and plowed her head into Roy's belly. Cal moved quickly to Sarah, bent and kissed the top of her head. She tried to rise on weak knees. Cal caught her in a tight embrace and murmured into her hair.

  "Oh darlin'. Oh Sarah." He caught her hands and kissed her bruised and bloody wrists.

  The third man was Aiken. He walked over to where Dullen lay and with his toe he pushed at the body. "Dead," he proclaimed loudly. "The mighty Jack Dullen has rode on," he repeated, as if he didn't believe it himself. The sheriff gaped at Sarah as he lowered his pistol back into its holster.

  Cal nuzzled Sarah and whispered low, for her ears only. Then he settled her into a dusty chair and threw off his hat. He raked a shaky hand through his hair, and looked closely at the torn bottom of her skirt. His eyes steadily traveled upward, to where the fabric spread across her knees, and he spied the telltale powder burn.

  Roy and the sheriff followed Cal's eyes, and they saw it, too. They all knew what she'd done. Cal was overcome with pride while Roy's eyes betrayed fascination and admiration for the woman. And Aiken wore a stunned look, as though he were seeing a legend.

  Cal exchanged a teasing look with Roy, and suddenly grinned.

  "Sarah, what the thunder do you think you were doing?" His voice was rough but his eyes caressed her.

  "Yeah," added Roy. His boyish smile reached up to his blue eyes. "You beat us to it!"

  Sarah thrust her chin up defiantly. "This wasn't a prayer meeting," she blurted, "and you cowboys took your sweet time getting here."

  She ran her hand over the hole in her dress. "I've been itching to use my wedding present."

  "When a woman's got an itch it has to be scratched."

  Two Indians came through the open door. Sarah and Emily stiffened as they recognized one as the warrior they'd met the day their uncle was killed.

  "It's OK," Cal spoke quickly. "This is Lone Eagle, our cousin. Our uncle Arthur was married to his mother, White Dove."

  Lone Eagle stepped forward and raised his hand. "Ka-Hay. Woman of One-Who-Shoots-Straight. We meet again."

  Chapter 30

  Sarah yanked at wagging bonnet strings in the grass-rippling breeze. Her husband flung an arm around her, drew her close and settled his arms lightly around her waist.

  Cal Easton kissed the face of the woman he intended to love forever with all the fire in his soul. He moved his hands down her arms and lingered over the bandages that still covered her wrists.

  "Emily will miss Roy," Sarah whispered.

  "She can visit our new sheriff after school every day at his office. And Roy'll be here every Sunday for dinner."

  Wes Aiken had lit out of town before Dullen was six feet under, and, to the great relief of the town's citizens, Roy had agreed to serve as the sheriff until a replacement could be found.

  Cal brushed his hands up to Sarah's shoulders. He inhaled her sweet honeysuckle scent.

  Sarah gazed into deep brown eyes. So much had changed, but they would all be together, a bigger, stronger family, new branches growing on a sturdy tree.

  Sarah had told Cal all that Dullen spilled to her concerning the deaths of John Easton and Grace Farrel. But she'd held back the part about Grace being pregnant. Somehow she couldn't bring herself to tell; he would know she knew about his intimacy with another woman. And keeping quiet on the subject saved Cal the added pain of lost fatherhood.

  After the shoot-out, and Ned's bloody arrival at the ranch, he'd lived through a nightmare. When he realized Sarah and Emily were missing, Cal had dispatched hands to Lone Hawk's camp to ask his cousin to send out his best trackers.

  Bailey and a small army of hands had beaten a path to Dullen's ranch. Meanwhile, Cal and Roy saddled up and raced to Sheriff Aiken's office.

  Cal was half insane with fear by the time they found the sheriff. Aiken was scared witless due to Cal putting a horse-choke around the man's neck and a gun to his head.

  Aiken had never seen such a madman as Cal was that day, and he cooperated fully, described the hut, and they'd all lit out on fresh horses from the livery, arriving in time to see Lone Hawk's men surrounding the place.

  Cal would be eternally grateful to his Indian cousin.

  Most of Dullen's hands had hit the trail when they heard about Dullen's death and the installation of the new sheriff, Roy Easton. The rest quit town when they got news from the banker, Mr. Abe Wright. He'd frozen Dullen's accounts. Their dead boss didn't have enough cash on hand to meet the next payroll.

  Cal sighed. Now his Sarah was safe and content.

  "I hadn't thought about Emily visiting Roy in town each day after school. You know she'll be beating him at poker." She grinned, reached up and brushed the hair from Cal's eyes. "Dr. Rutherford said Paco will be fit in a week. And
Ned was out of bed this morning, and starting to walk again, though he has to lean on Geneva." She smiled.

  Cal thought about Geneva Grayson, the spinster schoolmarm, fussing about Ned, protecting him like a mother grizzly, feeding him homemade soup and reading to him as he lie in Roy's bed recovering. Ned was as good as before, in fact even better, because Dr. Rutherford had removed the old lead ball lodged in his leg at the same time he'd treated the new wound.

  "Sweetheart, can you keep a secret?" Cal winked. Before she could reply he said, "Ned told me that he's asked Geneva to marry him in the spring."

  "Oh Cal! How wonderful! You know they're perfect for each other!"

  Cal gazed at his wife tenderly. "I was thinking. If Ned wants he can keep on working here, and they could move into the little cabin along the creek."

  Sarah was no longer surprised at her husband's thoughtfulness and generosity. That was what he was inside and she loved him all the more for it. She smiled shyly and pressed her hands to his broad chest.

  "Honey, can you keep a secret?" She tossed him an exaggerated wink. "Dr. Rutherford said, come spring, we'll have a little one." Her jade eyes widened and she moved her hands down to her belly.

  Cal's breath caught in his throat and his brown-gold eyes glistened.

  "Oh honey. You're feeling ok?"

  "Of course!" She frowned at his concern. "I've never been better."

  He kissed his young wife lightly and with trembling hands he pressed her into his warmth. "You make me so proud," he whispered. "You are the finest birthday gift a man ever had." Then he pulled away, wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, and hesitated. "But don't ever tell Roy I said that."

  Sarah laughed merrily. "Never. Roy has his mules."

  Cal squeezed her hand, and his next kiss held a warm invitation. Sarah gave equal response and wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him closer.

  When he pulled away desire lit in his eyes and spread fire between them. It drove her half-crazy with longing. She was at home, in Cal's embrace, loving Cal.

  "I'm thinking of a fine way to celebrate our news," he murmured.

  "Mmmm," Sarah purred low in her throat. "But first, let's tell Mama."

  She took his hand and led him back home.

  Preview of the next book -- Jed Rutherford's story -- in the "Hearts" Series, available in the Amazon Kindle Store (Healing Hearts)

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 1

  Wounded Colt, Montana Territory

  April 1869

  Was I shouting in my sleep again?

  Doctor Jed Rutherford had woken from his persistent nightmare, shaking and drowning in sweat. His heart pounded like artillery fire. The dark terror of the dream writhed in his belly: A confederate prisoner-of-war stepped over the deadline -- a boundary etched into the dirt to form a prison without bars. Jed watched helplessly as a gray stepped over to chase the cap that had flown off his head. The young man's mental lapse carried a grave consequence. A shot pierced the camp air as the Union guard fired a gutshot, and there was nothing Jed could do for the screaming soldier. The man was sliding to hell on a broken back.

  Clawing his way to a dry patch of crumpled sheet like a desperate man searching for shelter in a storm, Jed grunted and pulled one bronzed arm across a clammy brow while the other trawled the nightstand for a grain of morphine. He needed the drug badly; his sanity hung on the fact that it would soon be burning in his veins.

  As he always did after such an episode, Jed battled against the sweltering fear riding an undercurrent of anger.

  His sorry state was made all the greater by recent events. A measles epidemic had ripped across the valley, not a week after his partner abandoned him, leaving Jed to doctor solo in this prairie-dog town shot into the depths of nowhere. Sickness and death surrounded him; his battlefront-frayed nerves were constant reminder of the years stolen from his life, never to be regained.

  Jed felt twice his age of thirty-one. Outwardly he appeared a young, handsome man, but the demons had tattered his spirit, and hidden disfigurement ebbed and flowed with the magma of loathing and self-revulsion. Jed stared at the whitewashed ceiling and consoled himself with the certainty that the good citizens of Wounded Colt didn’t know, or even suspect, the truth: Their medicine man hadn’t come all the way back from the war. After all, he’d served as a surgeon, not a soldier, and thus, his affliction couldn’t be the shellshock of the unwashed masses. Little did they know, the horrors reserved for men of Jed’s noble station wore on like one endless battle: Unchecked bleeding from gaping wounds, amputations done without proper anesthesia, infections. The recent outbreak of measles had rekindled a dark stalking dread, because it felt too much like the old panic stoked by past terrors: Two of three Civil War deaths came from common diseases like dysentery, typhoid, diphtheria, and measles.

  Jed figured hell couldn’t be worse than the loss and deprivation he'd witnessed during those years. At Antietam the bodies lay so thick he could walk across the battlefield without touching the ground. Men ripped at their clothing to find their wounds, probing and praying it wasn’t a gut shot. Volunteer nurses held the suffering boys’ hands as they called out for their mamas.

  No matter how many times he told himself he wasn’t to blame, he couldn’t forget the suffering and his damned mortal limitations. Severe supply shortages reduced Jed to covering wounds with corn leaf bandages, ripped from nearby stalks on the battlefield, until Clara Barton arrived with her creaking wagonload of medical supplies.

  Jed’s nightmares ran to limbs and bodies piled up like cordwood. Phantom blood ran deep enough to drown a man’s faith in humanity.

  Jed shoved the opiate into his mouth and quickly downed it with one gulp of tepid water from the tin cup he kept at his bedside. As the drug began to take hold he felt relief. Memories were chased back to the edge of awareness.

  Jed's addiction had started innocently enough, with drinking, which was easy to cover because the Union surgeons controlled the whiskey supply, but Jed had faded into experimentation with ether, and then the opiates. Hell, he thought, most of the surgeons in the outfit ended up, at the least, heavy drinkers. The weakest among them desperately put rifles to their own chests.

  Then, shortly after the war ended, Wounded Colt’s aging doctor requested help. At the time, Jed was at the Indiana Medical College, taking training recommended by his Minnesota friend, Mayo. “For you, this is a chance to make a new start,” his mentor had assured him. As there was nothing holding him back, Jed answered Doctor Chandler’s call and hauled his angry and irritable self to Montana territory.

  It was a journey he’d taken with few reservations, but on the rare days Jed was being honest he’d admit he’d broken one promise. Lord, Mariah was a treasure. Her gentle smile, soft laughter and loving words had waited for him to come home after Lee’s surrender. Even now he chastised himself, for his inability to overcome his bitterness enough to pen a proper letter to his betrothed. How could he explain to such innocence that his youthful dreams were an early casualty of the war, abandoned to cruel, harsh reality? No, he could not, and he could never be the husband she deserved. After all, a trail of broken hearts and betrayals followed the war, and she’d someday come to understand. Perhaps her brother, Carl, who had served on the front lines, would explain to her the infirmities of war.

  Jed’s parents were also baffled by his behavior, and they wrote as much in their letters, but he was never able to summon the courage to tell them: The boy they raised was dead. They’d surely fear the son he’d become.

  Jed had buried his feelings with his dead patients. He’d left his better self on a battlefield, and what remained was a broken man, living in the shadow of lingering depression.

  Jed lifted his head and gazed at the early morning sun streaks angling through the faded blue, wind-blown bedroom curtain.

  Birds twittered. Roosters crowed. A horse whinnied.

  When Jed listened to the sounds of prairie life he knew this post in Wounded C
olt suited him. A frontier town overlooked a man’s debts -- especially a doctor’s vices. Wounded Colt needed him as much as he needed it. After all, the town wandered at the crossroads of two dangerous livelihoods: Mining and ranching. A doctor was a valued citizen, and not only did the prairie town hold the advantage of dismissing any indiscretions, but a professional man lacking a wife was accepted without question. Without a doubt, Wounded Colt had enticed Jed the way an oasis lured a thirsty traveller in the desert.

  In the year since he’d arrived, the practice had grown. At first Jed was frustrated with the quackery and outdated methods of his practice colleague, Chandler. Oh, he’d made progress in educating the man, but then the old doc decided to split the practice, giving Jed the more populous area around Wounded Colt, while Chandler moved to the other side of the valley. Chandler deemed it a practical decision. Separated, they could cover more territory, yet Jed couldn’t help but wonder if his own bouts of anxiety and irritability had pushed Chandler over the edge. The prickly old porcupine’s quills had spiked up more than once over Jed’s morphine habit.

  Chandler’s departure left Jed with a new problem: He could no longer rely on his partner to cover his backside when he had a fitful night or foggy lapses in concentration.

  Absorbed in contemplation betrayed by a furrow etched deep in his brow, Jed hauled himself up in the bed, pressing smooth, strong hands over his rumpled shirt and wool pants. Feeling the sting of shame creep into his stomach, he swung his weary limbs over the side, rose, and walked, wooden-legged, to his swivel chair at the writing desk. Jed hesitated only briefly before he gripped a pen, dipped it in the inkwell, and addressed a request to his colleague at Indiana Medical College.

  Dear Doctor Cole,

  I hope this letter finds you, your colleagues, and your students well. I am fine, but Wounded Colt grows quickly, and I have need of an assistant surgeon to commence work straight away. I can offer lodging and forty-five dollars a month. I respect your discretion in choosing a suitable candidate.