Only God knew what had given him the strength to put on his trousers, find the .45, and stagger to the doorway in an effort to protect the household.
“I’ll help you tend your horse,” Penny said, taking her husband’s arm. She glanced at Caroline in a silent bid for support, and Caroline nodded.
When Penny and William had left the cabin, Caroline removed Guthrie’s bandages entirely and found the flesh surrounding the wound inflamed. He was going to die if a doctor didn’t attend to him soon, and there probably wasn’t one within fifty miles.
“What am I going to do?” she whispered, resting her forehead against Guthrie’s. His flesh was blistering hot.
The answer was painfully clear. If she couldn’t persuade William to go for a doctor, and she had no idea what kind of man he was because she’d just met him, she would have to make the trip herself. Alone.
She’d made up her mind to do just that when Penny and William came in. He looked shocked and sick, and his wife was little better, but the expression in his eyes was kind when he hung up his hat and approached the bed.
“Mr. Hayes needs a doctor,” Caroline said, barely able to force the words past the thickness in her throat.
William nodded. “That he does,” he said, with a long sigh. “Penny told me you were digging graves up in the meadow. I’ll finish the burying, then ride for Doc Elkins. I don’t think he’s a real doctor, but he’s been looking after horses and men for a long time.”
Caroline wanted to weep, to scream a protest, to demand the best physician in the world. But she knew Doc Elkins would be better than nothing, even if he was a horse doctor.
Guthrie grew worse by the hour. He was drenched in sweat, and he kept twisting from side to side, tearing at the stitching in his wound. Now and then, he cried out in a burst of desperate words, and the only one that ever made sense was Annie’s name.
It was early afternoon when William finished burying the outlaws—they would probably never know their identities—and saddled his horse to go for Doc Elkins. He ordered the women to stay inside the house, with the door bolted, until he got back. He’d made sure both Guthrie’s rifle and pistol were loaded and ready to fire.
When evening came, and Penny and Caroline had consumed a small supper of salt pork and biscuits in disconsolate silence, Guthrie’s fever rose. Since Miss Phoebe and Miss Ethel had always maintained that more people died at night than in the daytime—and they’d had years of nursing experience to back up their theory—Caroline was scared.
She found a clean piece of cloth and was about to bathe Guthrie’s fevered flesh again, in an attempt to bring his temperature down, when she realized that there was no water left.
Resolutely, she picked up the bucket and started toward the cabin door.
“William said to stay inside,” Penny warned her, looking worriedly up from the sampler she’d been stitching on.
“I won’t be long,” Caroline replied, and then she unlatched the door and went out into the chilly twilight, leaving Tob inside in front of the stove. The moon and stars weren’t visible, and she could feel an icy wind coming down from the mountain peaks. She shuddered and made her way toward the well.
Humming an old hymn to keep up her courage and stave off the angel of death, Caroline hurriedly cranked the bucket down into the well and up again. When she turned to carry the water back into the house, she practically collided with Seaton Flynn.
Her heart actually stopped beating as she looked up at him, recognizing his shadowy features even in the dim light that flowed out through the cabin window.
He smiled and grasped her shoulders, and the water bucket fell to the ground, spilling over Caroline’s shoes and wetting the hem of her dress.
“I’m glad to know you’re so enamored of me that you’d follow me to Cheyenne,” he said.
Caroline screamed, as much from frustration and rage as from fear. She struggled, but he held her fast, so she turned her head and bit him on the side of the hand, clamping down until she tasted blood.
Seaton howled in pain and anger and drew back his hand to strike her, but at the last instant, he changed his mind and hauled her against him for a bruising kiss instead. Caroline squirmed and managed to kick him hard in one shin, but when she tried to run away, he entangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her back.
She cried out again, terrified, knowing he meant to take her away with him, or else rape and kill her right then and there.
He hurled her against the rock wall that surrounded the well, his hand still in her hair. “You little bitch,” he rasped. “By the time I’m through with you, you’re going to wish you were never born!”
Seaton was about to kiss her again, in the same brutal, punishing way as before, when a shot sounded. He stiffened, cursed, and grasped his upper thigh and, in that moment, Caroline broke away and ran for the cabin.
Penny was standing in the doorway, holding Guthrie’s pistol in both hands, and there was still smoke spiraling from the end of the barrel.
Caroline shoved Penny inside, bolted the door behind them, and grabbed for Guthrie’s rifle. Peering cautiously around the edge of the window, she saw Seaton mount a horse, still clutching his bleeding thigh, and ride off.
“He’s leaving,” Caroline said.
Penny was white with fear. Now that the immediate danger was past, she could afford to collapse, and she sank into a chair and rocked back and forth, back and forth. “Who was that?” she whispered, after a long time.
Wearily, Caroline explained about Seaton, how he’d robbed a stagecoach and killed a man, and how she’d mistakenly helped him to escape and gotten in trouble with the law herself. Penny’s eyes grew wider with every word.
“Then you’re an outlaw,” she marveled, when Caroline had finished telling the story, bringing mugs of coffee to the table for both of them.
Caroline sat down, but she kept an eye on the window, afraid Seaton would come back. There could be no doubt now that he was a cruel and vengeful man. “I guess you could say that, but I honestly never intended it. Mr. Flynn claimed he’d been wrongly accused, and I believed him. The rest just sort of—happened.”
Penny was looking at Guthrie, who lay fitfully on the bed, his flesh pale and glistening with sweat. Caroline realized that he was in direct line with the window and went to sit at the foot of the mattress, the .45 resting in her lap.
“What about him? What does Mr. Hayes have to do with all this?”
Caroline was careful not to incriminate Guthrie. “He’s a friend,” she said, filled with remorse. “He wouldn’t have been hurt if he hadn’t tried to help me.”
“He’s more than a friend,” Penny persisted, lifting her coffee mug to her lips and taking a sip. Once again, she’d added whiskey to both their cups in the hope of steadying their jangled nerves. “I know by looking at your face that you’d change places with him in a moment if you could, just to save him from the pain.”
Caroline’s eyes glistened with tears, blurring the crude little cabin and its furnishings, as she imagined burying Guthrie in some mountain meadow. She sobbed, caught herself, and sobbed again. “Oh, God, if only I could,” she wept. “If only I could give him my strength and health, I would!”
“You must love him very much,” Penny reflected, going to the window and looking anxiously out at the night.
“I do,” Caroline said, realizing that this was the first time she’d ever made the admission out loud. “I love him desperately.”
Penny moved away from the window, but Caroline noticed she was careful not to turn her back to it. “I love my William, too,” she said. “I told him what those men were about to do, how they touched me and everything, and he just put his arms around me and held me close. He said he was sorry he wasn’t here to protect me.”
Caroline smiled, drying her eyes with the back of one hand. “He’s a good man, then. You’ll want to hold on to him.”
Penny looked infinitely sad. “If only I could give him a baby—but I guess the good Lord
doesn’t mean for that to be.” She sat down at the table, next to the one Caroline had just left. “William’s sister Belinda wrote that she was widowed, and can’t keep her children together much longer. William thinks we ought to take her two boys and raise them ourselves. That way, they’d still be in the family.”
Sympathy for the widow’s plight filled Caroline. If Guthrie died, she might find herself in similar straits. The thought of giving up his baby was almost as devastating as imagining his death had been. “I think that’s a fine idea. But what about school? And you and William must get snowed in every winter.”
“William could teach the boys, he’s a right smart man,” Penny said, a little defensively. “And we don’t mind a little snow.”
Caroline shrugged wearily as Guthrie arched his neck and writhed in some agony he couldn’t express. A deluge that could virtually imprison a person from October to April wasn’t her idea of a little snow, but her friend had a right to her opinion.
She thought with a blush of how she and Guthrie would probably pass the time, then felt an ache plunge through her soul like a huge icicle dropping from an eave. She might never know that same sweet, consuming intimacy again.
“Don’t you die,” she whispered brokenly, grasping one of Guthrie’s big toes through the blanket and giving it a little pull, and Penny pretended not to hear.
It was another hour before a fist pounded at the door and a masculine voice yelled, “Open up! It’s me, William!”
Caroline and Penny both rushed for the door, and Penny reached it first.
“There was a man here,” Penny burst out, hurling her arms around William’s neck, “and he attacked Caroline when she went to the well. I shot him!”
William looked baffled, but Caroline didn’t spare him much attention. She was more interested in the stooped, white-haired man who came in behind him, carrying a reassuringly battered black bag.
“This is Doc Elkins,” William said, closing the door with one hand and keeping his free arm wrapped around Penny’s waist.
The old doctor nodded an acknowledgement and immediately approached Guthrie’s bed.
“Not good,” he said, peeling back the bandages. “Not good at all.”
Caroline pressed close, ready to protect Guthrie if she had to and, at the same time, desperately hoping the doc could save him. “Will he be all right?”
The doctor sighed, dragged up a chair, and sat down. He put a practiced hand to Guthrie’s forehead and said, “Hello there, young fellow.” Then his kindly blue eyes shifted to Caroline’s face. “I can’t answer your question one way or the other, ma’am. I’m going to try my damnedest to pull him through, and that’s all I can promise.”
Caroline nodded numbly.
“Heat me up some water so I can wash,” the doc said to William, who immediately rushed to do his bidding. “First thing we’re going to have to do is clean out this wound, and then we’ll close it up. He’s going to have a nasty scar to remember this by—provided he makes it through the night, that is.”
Caroline swallowed. “He’s got to live,” she said, talking to herself, the doctor, and God. “He wants to work his mine, and build his house, and father children—”
The doctor’s smile was kindly but sad. “I’ll do my best,” he assured her. After he’d washed his hands—Caroline considered his bent toward cleanliness a positive sign—Doc Elkins once again sat down next to Guthrie’s bed.
“There’s gonna be some pain, I’m afraid,” he warned his unconscious patient quietly, “but it’ll remind you that you’re alive, and that’s something.”
Caroline hovered nearby, wanting to hold Guthrie’s hand but afraid of getting in the way.
Doc Elkins moved his chair slightly. “There now, young lady,” he said. “You can talk to him while I work if you want to, tell him all the reasons why he’s got to stay right here with the rest of us instead of going on.”
Caroline knelt and held Guthrie’s head gently in her arms. “I love you, Guthrie Hayes,” she said softly. “Do you hear me? I love you. I want to cook for you, and darn your socks, and have your babies. But I can’t do any of those things if you go floating off to lie around on some cloud and play a harp.” Her commentary was interrupted by a chuckle from the doctor. “They’ve got lots of nice people up in heaven,” she continued, “but sometimes we run short down here on earth. You’ve got to stay, Guthrie.” She kissed his forehead. “Please stay. I swear I’ll let you pay for everything, and I won’t argue with you unless I absolutely can’t help myself.”
Guthrie groaned as the doctor cut away Caroline’s careful but inadequate stitches and began to clean the wound. It was a painful process, both for Guthrie and for Caroline, but if the infection was left to flourish, the patient would surely die.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the tear in Guthrie’s flesh began to bleed cleanly. Caroline lifted her head from his shoulder and looked up at the doctor’s face, sensing something.
“Now we come to the worst part,” the old man said with a sigh. “We’ve got to cauterize this wound, and he’s going to feel it. The shock of the pain will either stop his heart or make him mad enough to fight for his life.”
Caroline’s throat constricted so that she could barely breathe. She watched with wide, horror-filled eyes as Doc Elkins took a bottle from his medical bag.
“What is that?” she demanded.
“It’s a type of acid,” the doctor answered, and he had the decency to look at Caroline directly when he spoke. “The stuff’ll burn like the fires of hell, but it’s our best hope of keeping the infection from coming back.”
Caroline swallowed hard. “He’s not conscious,” she managed to say, her voice small and hopeful. “Surely he won’t feel the pain.”
“I’m afraid he will,” the doctor disagreed.
“Can’t you give him something? Morphine or laudanum?”
Doc Elkins shook his head. “I’ve known morphine to blow a man’s heart apart like a blast of dynamite,” he said. “But I’ll leave some laudanum for afterwards.”
Caroline cradled Guthrie’s head in her arms and rested her forehead against his, braced for the ordeal ahead, wishing she could take it upon herself.
The instant the acid made contact with Guthrie’s open flesh, he screamed in agony, and the sound echoed in Caroline’s soul long after it had died away.
The doctor laid his hand on her trembling shoulder. Her clothes were wet clear through with sweat, as though she’d been chopping wood instead of keeping a vigil by a sickbed. “There now, miss. The worst is over. We’ll give him a good dose of laudanum and let him rest.”
Caroline kissed Guthrie’s forehead and rose awkwardly to her feet. “How much do I owe you?” she asked.
The doctor stated his fee, and Caroline fetched the correct amount of money from her valise. Doc Elkins had whiskey with William and then went out to the barn to sleep. Only then did Caroline notice that Penny was slumbering soundly on a makeshift bed near the stove.
“What time is it?” she asked.
William consulted his pocket watch. “Three-thirty,” he replied. “You’d better get some rest yourself, or you won’t be much use to your man come morning.”
His kindness warmed her heart. “I’m sorry for taking your bed, and for all the problems our being here has caused.”
He looked embarrassed. “God only knows what would have happened to Penny if the two of you hadn’t come along when you did. I figure I’m the one that owes the debt, not you.”
Caroline glanced at Guthrie, who appeared to be resting peacefully for the first time since he’d been shot, then met William’s clear eyes again. “Thank you,” she said softly. “And good night.”
William extinguished the lamp and went to lie down beside Penny, and Caroline removed her shoes and crawled into bed with Guthrie. She couldn’t help smiling, even though she was still very much afraid of losing him, when his hand rose unerringly to her breast and remained there.
He made a low sound in his throat that might have been a moan and squeezed her breast, and she cuddled close to him, resting one arm across his waist.
She awakened to blinding sunshine and a string of curse words that would have mortified the saltiest sailor.
“What the hell happened to my shoulder?” Guthrie demanded.
Caroline sat up, tousled and bleary-eyed, to see his green eyes glaring at her. After a moment, it struck her that the man she loved was awake, albeit complaining, and jubilation rushed through her. “You were shot!” she cried joyously.
“Whoopee,” grumbled Guthrie, frowning at her enthusiasm. “I guess if I’d been horsewhipped in the bargain, you’d be really delighted!”
Caroline tried to stop smiling, but she couldn’t. She bent and kissed his pouty mouth. “Stop being such a baby,” she scolded. “I’m just happy that you’re awake. We thought we were going to lose you.”
Guthrie was fumbling with the covers, struggling to sit up.
“Just where do you think you’re going?” Caroline demanded, gently pressing him back down.
“Guess,” he glowered, roiling stubbornly back to an upright position and then getting out of bed.
“There’s a woman around here, so just watch yourself,” Caroline said, a little primly.
He made his way slowly across the room and out the doorway. When he returned, he was buttoning his trousers.
“I remember now,” he said, looking down at the still angry wound on his shoulder with a frown. “Those two bastards had a woman down on the table—”
“She’s all right, thanks to you,” Caroline said, guiding him back to the bed, then going to the stove to get him a cup of coffee. “It was her husband who went for the doctor.”
Guthrie sat propped up on the pillows, barefoot, sipping the hot coffee. His hair was rumpled and his beard was growing in, and Caroline couldn’t remember when he’d looked better to her.
She turned her back so he wouldn’t see the emotion in her eyes and offered a silent prayer. Thank you, God.
CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER Page 25