Copyright © 2017 by George H. McVey All rights reserved.
Cover design by Erin Dameron Hill/ EDH Graphics
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental or used fictitiously.
Introduction
Hannah Coppersmith came to Creede in answer to an ad as a nurse to the local doctor only to find there was no doctor. She’d been tricked and locked up by a man who was taking women to work as calico queens at a saloon. Now freed, she helps as she can those hurt or sick in Creede and the surrounding areas as well as delivering babes as a midwife. Until an angel sends her to a dying Marshal Wheeler, the man she secretly has loved forever.
Marshal Wheeler left New York to escape the loss of his one true love to another man. After working with the famous Marshal Nathan Ryder for several years, he’s taken a post in Topaz Colorado with the sole mission of finding out the truth about corrupt sheriff Ketchem and Archie Grady’s illegal activities. Shot in the back and left for dead, he’s found by Hannah Coppersmith who nurses him back to health, leading to a must marry situation.
When a new threat from their past could lead to her death, Henry has to decide if he wants this marriage to be real or if catching a killer is more important than Hannah’s life. Will Hannah’s cantankerous rooster, Bob, allow Henry close enough to prove his love? She’s healed his body, could she be key to healing his heart and soul too?
Table of Contents
Introduction
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Epilogue
What’s Next for Cowboys and Angels
Other Books by George
Dedication
To my family. You put up with me sequestered in my writer’s cave and hardly ever complain as I bring these characters and stories to life. Know that I love each one of you and thank God for you daily. Even if I am grumpy at times.
One
Hannah Coppersmith sat upright in bed, surprised by the woman standing at the foot. The woman, who was dressed in an expensive dinner dress and had her auburn hair streaked with grey pinned under a stylish hat, had just appeared out of thin air. “Hello dear, don’t be afraid. I would have tried not to make such a dramatic entrance if we had more time, but we don’t. I need you to come with me or that young man you’ve loved forever is going to die tonight.”
Hannah stopped trying to figure out who this woman was and what she meant; there was only one person her heart ever wanted and she had been surprised when he’d ridden up to her cabin several months ago astride a golden palomino with the star of a U.S. Marshal pinned to his chest. If this strange woman said Henry Wheeler was going to die without her then she would follow the stranger to the end of the earth, or at least as far as her legs would take her.
“Get your medical supplies, dear, and a goodly amount of bandage wraps. I would have gone for that doctor you work for, but he’s gonna have his hands full tonight with that self-important Reverend your man’s saving.”
“Henry isn’t my man; he doesn’t even remember who I am.”
The woman gave a regal smile. “That don’t make him any less yours, just means he ain’t realized you’re his yet. We’ll see that he does.” Then the woman winked. “Now hurry, dear, he’s about to need you to save his life.”
Hannah grabbed her medical bag, added the extra bandages, and followed the woman out of her cabin. Her buggy was hitched and the woman climbed up and took the reins. Hannah climbed up beside her. “Where are we going?”
“It seems some of the townspeople decided to hang them a preacher, and the young Marshal is going to put a stop to it. We’re heading out toward the mine where the Marshal will be laying on the ground bleeding out. You need to be prepared, Hannah. It’s going to be bad at first. But have no fear, it is not his appointed time to meet the angel of death. You have seen to that by following me in faith.”
As they drew closer to the run up to Bachelor and the mines beyond, sure enough, Hannah saw Henry’s horse standing by the side of the road. Henry lay in the middle of the road and a dark hooded figure stood over him. The hooded figure was as black as night except for his glowing red eyes. The woman pulled the buggy to a stop and jumped toward the figure before the wheels had stopped moving. “You go on now. I brought her, you’re not needed here. Go on and get now.”
The angel of death nodded once, and then dark wings spread from his back and he soared straight up into the air. Hannah quickly approached the figure on the ground. Sure enough, it was Marshal Wheeler, as if there had been any doubt. It was too dark for her to figure out where he was bleeding from. “I need light; why didn’t you tell me to bring a lantern?”
The woman just chuckled. Suddenly the area around her started to glow until Hannah could see Henry well enough to know the blood was coming from a gunshot wound on his back. It wasn’t dead center; she was pretty sure that it had missed his spine but the amount of blood was troublesome. Hannah grabbed the scissors from her bag and cut his coat and shirt away from the wound. She didn’t want to move him any more than necessary until she got the bleeding stopped. She pressed on the wound and heard him moan. “Henry, hold still, I know it hurts but I’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
She knew that he wasn’t really aware, but he looked right at her and his face lit up. “Esther is that you? Have you come back to me?”
She sucked in a breath. He thought she was her sister, the woman he’d pined over even after she married another man. Her mysterious visitor was wrong; he wasn’t hers, he never had been, even now after her death he belonged to her older, prettier sister. She got the bleeding stopped and knew she needed to get him back to her place and remove the bullet. Hannah knew she couldn’t move him alone. Henry was too heavy for her to lift alone. She looked up at the stranger only to notice that the glow around her faded with each passing second. “I need to get him into the buggy. I don’t know how we’re going to accomplish that.”
The stranger smiled as two men in white robes shining as brightly as she had earlier suddenly appeared. “I got that covered, my dear. You just tie his horse to the back of the buggy and I’ll have him ready when you are.”
Hannah watched as the two men she couldn’t deny were angels picked up Henry and laid him as gentle as a newborn on the back seat of her buggy. She quickly tied his mount to the back and climbed in the buggy only to realize that suddenly she was all alone with Henry Wheeler lying on her back buggy seat. She turned the buggy in the wide spot and hurried back to her cabin. She needed to get the bullet out and clean and dress the wound quickly before infection could set in. She’d take time to think about the miraculous visitations once Henry was out of danger.
Newly appointed U.S. Marshal Henry Wheeler was heading back from the Bonanza Claim Mine late on New Year’s Eve. He’d gone chasing a rumor that one of the miners might have information for him about the connection between Archie Grady, Sheriff Ketchem and the kidnapp
ed women. The rumor had turned out to be just that, a rumor. However, it wasn’t a complete waste of time. While not being able to pin Archibald Grady to the kidnappings, he had gathered some more evidence of Ketchem’s being a bought man. He couldn’t connect the sheriff directly to Grady, but there was more evidence of him being connected to Mr. Anders, Archie’s rich uncle and the owner of the Bonanza Claim Mine and several other businesses in Creede and Bachelor.
He was just coming through Creede heading back to his small space above the Marshal’s office in Topaz, when he saw several torches and heard angry voices off to the right just about the tree line. He’d not figured to run into too many people tonight. He figured those miners with money would all be at the Golden Nugget or one of the other saloon tents celebrating the new year with whiskey and soiled doves. What in the world would have that many people gathered outside town in the dark?
He turned his mount toward the ruckus and rode right up on what appeared to be a bunch of miners and other men from town in the process of lynching the Reverend Eugene Theodore. Henry quietly pulled his Henry Repeater from the rifle boot on his saddle and held it across his lap. No one paid any attention to him as he stopped just outside the circle of the lynch mob. He could hear Reverend Theodore from where he was as he tried to scare the mob into turning him loose.
“You are in danger of damning your souls to hell. Why would you do that? Turn from this wickedness you’ve set yourself on.”
Most of the men from the mines just laughed, but it was the men with bandanas covering the lower half of their faces that Henry concentrated on. In particular, the one nearest the horse the Preacher sat on with the noose around his neck. That man looked familiar to Henry. He was almost positive that it was Archie Grady. The man on the other side, also with a mask on his face, leaned toward the Bible thumper and spoke. “Well now, Reverend, according to you every man here is going to hell anyway. You said those that gambled, drank whiskey, got drunk, and slept with the whores at the Nugget were all going to hell. That’s every man here, so what’s a little murder gonna do?”
That was Henry’s cue and he lifted the rifle and worked the lever as he spoke. “It might send ya there quicker, that’s for certain. I guarantee you that you two beside the Reverend will definitely be there tonight if you try to hang the man.”
“What gives you the right to interfere with us, mister?”
Henry pulled his wool and lamb’s fur coat open so that his shiny Marshal badge was visible. “Reckon we ain’t met yet. Names Wheeler, United States Marshal Henry Wheeler to be exact, and what you and these other men are doing is against the law. Take the noose off the Reverend or the first bullet I fire goes into you.”
As he was talking, several of the miners had started to slip off into the darkness. Henry figured that they didn’t want to end up recognized and arrested by a U.S. Marshal. Before things could get any tenser, there came the sound of a horse being ridden hard coming up behind Henry. He half turned and saw Sheriff Ketchem racing toward them. Movement in front of him caused him to look forward and see the two men who he had pegged as the leaders riding away, leaving the Reverend, noose still around his neck, sitting on a yellow nag all alone. Ketchem rode up beside Wheeler. “What’s going on here, Marshal?”
“Sheriff, it seems that some of the good citizens of Creede took it upon themselves to hang the preacher for speaking out against their way of living.”
“Guess we should go set him free before we try to catch any of the lynch mob.”
“I reckon so. I did recognize Archie’s voice as one of the men actually holding the preacher on the horse.”
The sheriff sighed. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’re gonna need more than a voice you think was his to tie him to this.”
Henry looked at Ketchem, “One day soon, sheriff, you’re gonna have to decide if you are a lawman or Anders’ paid enforcer.”
“Now see here! I resent that you and everyone else thinks I’m giving Mr. Anders and Mr. Grady a pass on obeying the law.”
Wheeler shook his head and moved his horse to go take the noose off Eugene and cut him free. He’d gone a few feet when there was the crack of a small gun and a sharp pain to his back. He heard Sheriff Ketchem call out that someone was shooting at them and fire his Colt behind them which caused the Reverend’s horse to spook and take off, leaving the good Reverend swinging by his neck on the noose. Henry tried to lift the rifle to shoot the rope but his right arm wouldn’t move. He quickly drew his Peacemaker with his left hand, and thanked God for Nathan insisting that he practice accuracy and speed with both hands every day for the last four years. He sighted on the rope where it came over the tree limb and fired. Eugene dropped to the ground and sat there coughing and retching. Ketchem rode up with Henry to where the minister sat stunned on the ground. “Looks like we need to get the Reverend here to see the Doc.”
Henry ignored the pain in his back and the way his right side was going numb. “You do that. I’ll follow you.”
Ketchem looked at him. “You okay?”
“I’ll be all right. Might let the doc know I’m gonna need his services, too. Seems that shot might have hit me.”
Ketchem looked at the Marshal, a look of concern on his face. “You sure you want me to leave ya?”
“Get Eugene to the Doc. I’ll make it.”
The sheriff got down, cut the Reverend’s hands free and took the noose off his neck. Then he put him behind his saddle, climbed on and headed for the doctor’s cabin on the other side of Creede close to Bachelor. Henry knew he wouldn’t be able to make that ride; he could feel the numbness creeping through his body. It was closer to Hannah Coppersmith’s place. He’d just have to pray she wasn’t out delivering a baby somewhere. He headed that way as snow began to fall. New Year’s Eve just wasn’t gonna ever be a good night for him, apparently. He started toward Topaz and the nurse’s small shack she was renting from Waylon Morgan. He had reached the turn off to the line shack when the numbness caught up with him and he felt himself sliding out of the saddle. His vision started to grey out as his body slammed onto the frozen trail. He thought he might be dying as the last thing he saw was a middle-aged woman in a fancy dress looking down at him with a dark shadowy figure with red eyes beside her. “You keep watch, but don’t you take him, you hear me? It’s not his appointed time.” He thought he saw the shadow nod, but everything went black as the numbness slipped over him completely.
Two
Hannah pulled up in front of her cabin and instantly started to fret. Henry was pale, almost to the point of looking gray, and still out from blood loss. There was no way to get him inside to remove the bullet. She couldn’t lift him, he weighed about a hundred and fifty pounds more than she did. She climbed out of the buggy and looked up at the sky. “I could use some help here, God.”
Her cabin door opened and out came the same woman who had disappeared on her earlier. “You just have to ask, child. You know what the good book says: You have not because you ask not.” The woman took one of Henry’s arms and pointed Hannah to the other one. “You grab that side and between us I think we can drag him in and onto your bed. I took the liberty of putting the oil cloths down to keep from ruining your sheets and ticking. I also have the instruments and needles you’ll need in a pan of boiling water.”
Hannah stared at the woman for a moment before moving to do what she’d said. As they dragged Henry into her little home and over to the bed, Hannah wondered about the woman. Something about her seemed so familiar. “Do I know you?”
The older woman smiled at her. “I wondered if you’d recognize me. Yes, dear, I knew you when you were a bit younger. You and my granddaughter used to come over and have tea with me once in a while, both at the house and in our private Pullman.”
Hannah gasped. “Mrs. Ryder? But I thought Elizabeth said you’d passed somewhere out in New Mexico.”
The older woman smiled. “It’s Penelope, dear, or Penny if you prefer. While I may have passe
d on from my life in this world, the Creator does allow me and that old mountain man I married an occasional adventure. You and Marshal Wheeler are my assignment this time around. I believe you would call me your guardian angel, even though I’m not really an angel. So if you need me, you just ask and I’ll come calling.”
Together they laid Henry on the bed and Hannah quickly tore the hole she’d cut earlier removing both his coat and shirt without turning him over. She pulled the instruments that Penny had boiled out of the water and stuck them in a small basin of medicinal alcohol to finish sterilizing them. She rinsed her hands in the alcohol as well and then went to work. First, she removed the bandage she’d used to stop the blood flow, and then gently cleaned the drying blood from around the wound. She flushed it with some of the alcohol and once she had it as clean as she could, she grabbed the tweezers and started trying to pull out the bullet. She felt the metal of the tweezers grip the lead slug and slowly started extracting it. Henry groaned and she stopped pulling. She needed to be careful. Though she’d assisted Doctor Thomas removing a slug several times and had even had to do a few herself, they had never been this close to the spine.
Hannah was afraid that Henry would wake and jerk and cause her to push the bullet, tweezers, or both into his spinal cord and do him serious damage. She wished she had some ether to make sure he was good and out, but all she had going for her was blood loss and pain. While she needed to be careful, she needed to be quick, too, before he did wake up and cause more damage to himself. She resumed pulling with slow steady pressure and in a few quick minutes that felt like forever, she had the slug resting in the dish of alcohol. It was smaller than the bullets she’d pulled out of other men, but not as small as the bird shot she’d had to remove from one of the miners who’d gotten crosswise of the Widow Sanderson.
Hannah the Healer (Cowboys and Angels Book 7) Page 1