The Texan's Touch

by Jodi Thomas

  Nichole swore and tried to straighten her clothing as the driver pulled to a stop.

  “Sorry, miss. You all right in there?” he yelled.

  “Yes.” Nichole balanced herself enough to open the door. “What happened?”

  “Nothing much. Just a problem with the wheel. Me and Amos will have it fixed in a blink.”

  Nichole looked at the man riding shotgun and guessed that unless he was far stronger than he looked, the driver had his work cut out for him. If she’d been in her normal clothes she would have offered to help, but one thing she’d learned in these days of travel was that men didn’t appreciate help from a woman no matter how much they needed it. The man who’d been riding up top was gone and Nichole guessed he must have climbed off when they stopped a while back.

  Looking around, she noticed the road followed a creek. Along the water’s curves were clusters of elm and cottonwood and spruce. The grass was tall near the water and littered with branches from times past when the creek thought itself a mighty river for a few hours. The shelter of aging cottonwoods a hundred yards away lured her.

  “I’ll be by the stream,” she said as she lifted her carpetbag and headed down the incline. “Just call when you’re ready to leave, or if you need any help.”

  “You just rest yourself, miss. We can handle this!” the driver yelled from the boot of the coach.

  Nichole lifted her skirts several inches off the ground and disappeared into the trees. She was careful to walk on the balls of her feet, leaving little trail to follow even though there was no reason for her to do so now.

  After days of being around people, she needed to be alone. Leaving the natural path to the stream, she walked as Wolf had taught her to, without disturbing nature. After several feet she crawled beneath low branches and found what she’d hoped to find, a cool, shadowy cave made from brush and branches. The floor of her find was covered in dried winter leaves. Once she was settled, even a squirrel entering her cave would make a racket.

  Spreading her jacket as a pallet, Nichole used her carpetbag as a pillow and her warm wool man’s jacket as her blanket. Within minutes she was soundly asleep for the first time in days. For the first time since she’d left Tennessee she felt at home.

  The wind blew, ruffling the branches above her, and the stream rippled over a thousand tiny rocks only a few feet away. Birds, excited with early spring, returned to the tree above.

  Nature muffled the screams of Amos and the driver as they battled and died. In her mind, the cries were only a faraway nightmare no longer strong enough to wake her. In her mind, she was alone and safe.

  ELEVEN

  ADAM WAITED FOR the stage over an hour, but none came. The wind tried to push him off the street and inside the stage office. Moisture in the air darkened his hair to black, but he waited, wanting to be there when the stage arrived. He turned his collar up and paced the dirt in front of the office so many times the clods became powder. Wolf wouldn’t have asked a favor if it hadn’t been important. And today was the first day something traveling by stage could have reached him from Tennessee.

  What if Wolf asked him to keep something that was important to the South? Could he do such a thing, even as a favor? Would he? He owed Wolf for helping the night the twins were born. He’d heard men talk about how the South wasn’t licked yet and how rebs were planning to rise and fight again. Maybe Wolf had something he needed to keep safe until the uprising. What if it were hidden gold to buy guns for another fight?

  No, Adam told himself, Wolf wouldn’t ask him to do such a thing. The man knew what side the McLains had fought on.

  Adam continued his pacing, trying to imagine what would be so important to Wolf that he’d ship it to Texas for safekeeping.

  “Doc!” Harry yelled from the Butterfield office. The young man was always moving, dodging invisible bullets with his nervous youth. “Come around to the barn quick! The stage has been attacked, and a rider’s tellin’ all about it.”

  Adam joined a crowd suddenly surrounding the large livery at the edge of town.

  Harry jogged by his side. “Rider came in a few minutes ago. Said it looked like the coach busted a wheel and made itself a sitting duck about three hours east. Comanche or maybe even Comancheros burned what they could, then killed old Randy, the driver, and Amos who was riding shotgun.”

  The young man fought down emotion by staying in constant motion. “I knew them both, I did.”

  Rocking back on his heels, Harry added, “I figured since you were waiting for the stage, you’d want to know.”

  “Were there any passengers?” A nagging feeling began to throb in the back of Adam’s head. He could think of only one thing Wolf valued and protected like a mother hen . . . Nichole.

  “Telegram said there was a gentleman and a lady. I don’t know if they was traveling together.” Harry looked suddenly sad for the doctor who’d been waiting so long. “The rider didn’t find any other bodies near the broken-down stage. Maybe the passengers got away or the Indians took her as a captive. If the robbers were Comancheros, she’ll be in Mexico before you can catch up to them and it’s anybody’s guess what happened to the gentleman.”

  “Or maybe the rider just didn’t find the bodies,” someone in the crowd volunteered. “I know I wouldn’t stay around to search the place too closely, and they could have drug a woman off to the side for a while before they killed her.”

  Adam rubbed his brow. If it were Nick, she could have been traveling as a woman, or a man. He couldn’t very well ask about a passenger when he couldn’t name the gender.

  “If the Comanche have her, they’ll trade her, but if those thieving Comancheros have her, you might as well count her dead,” another man offered. “As for any man, he’d be killed outright.”

  “Fine time for the sheriff to be gone,” someone mumbled.

  “The deputy’s organizing a group to go take a look!” a man at the far side of the crowd yelled. “He don’t want to, but some of us reminded him that, until the sheriff gets back from Austin, Deputy Russell has his job to do.”

  As if on command, Russell stood at the front of the crowd and announced he’d be going out to survey the crime scene and he expected every able-bodied man to go with him. The crowd moved away. A few mumbled about Russell being worse than any outlaw they might find. Some went to collect horses and weapons, others to spread the news.

  Within an hour a dozen volunteers waited to leave. Adam was among them. He wasn’t sure if the shipment would be Nichole, but he had to know. If she’d been on the stage, she wouldn’t have died without a fight. There would be signs. If she’d been there, even dressed as a woman, she would have been armed. If she’d been dressed as a man, she might be the “gentleman” who disappeared.

  Three hours later the posse saw the smoke from the still-smoldering stagecoach. The horses were gone and the cargo scattered. Two bodies lay facedown atop the overturned stage. Since there was no evidence they’d been tied, they must have already been dead before they burned. There was no telling which had been the driver, nor did it matter.

  Icy rain popped and sizzled against the dying fire. Deputy Russell yelled, “Let’s take care of these men and look around as quickly as possible! With dark coming on and the rain freezing, we’ll all be grave stuffing if we don’t get back to town.”

  Adam watched Russell closely. He seemed mismatched for his job. Though he wore a gun strapped to his leg, he didn’t seem the type who would fight for anything except his own life. Maybe. Harry said he’d won the job during the war when every able man was fighting. The sheriff hadn’t had any others apply for the job so Russell stayed on, mostly as a caretaker to the office. His red eyes and the shake in his hands told Adam that the deputy had a drinking problem. In this country drinking wasn’t all that unusual, for most men forty or older had a lot they needed to forget.

  While four men stood guard, other
s dug graves and the deputy made a great show of investigating the area. From the tracks that had already been muddied in the rain, he determined that there was no woman passenger. He saw no signs, no woman’s clothing among the cargo, no blood, no body. If there had been a woman, the tracks of the horses ended abruptly half a mile downstream, so there was no way to follow her or the raiders.

  Adam didn’t accept the deputy’s quick answers. He made his own circuit of the scene. Nothing. He examined the bodies as best he could before they were buried. Both men’s throats had been cut deep, but their bodies were curled up in final sleep, making it hard to see any bullet holes. These two men had been alive and active only hours before, but now their arms and hands were withered and black, as though they’d finished a lifetime of aging in death’s final moments.

  He turned away to join Russell. “Find anything?”

  “No,” the deputy answered, then yelled, “Mount up!” before Adam could ask more.

  The ride back was almost silent. Adam guessed, like himself, the others had seen far more death and killing than they’d have liked and none had enough drink in him to talk about the adventure of today.

  When he reached home, it was full dark, but the nun had left a supper for him. Adam tried to eat, but couldn’t. He had no way of contacting Wolf. He wasn’t sure the “shipment” was on the stage today. There could have been delays anywhere along the line. But one thing he knew, if the “shipment” was Nichole, she would still be alive and he’d find her. She hadn’t survived the war as a Shadow to be killed by robbers.

  By dawn, he’d decided to see if he could round up a few men and go out to the scene again. He must have missed something, he told himself. If she, or word from Wolf, wasn’t on the next stage, he’d be searching until he found her.

  He’d planned to go over to the stage office without opening his practice, but folks were knocking on the door before he had time to get dressed. It seemed that several of the deputy’s posse finished the night drowning the memory of what they’d seen. Then, when the bartender tried to send them home, they busted up the place and themselves in the process. By dawn their senses, and newfound pains, hit them fully.

  Adam added the line of men needing stitches to the usual number of children with colds and old folks with aches. Before he’d had breakfast, the foyer in the middle of the house was lined with people.

  The sun was low, almost touching the silver stovepipe chimneys by the time he saw his last patient. He’d sent Nance Edward over to see if anything came in on the stage. The boy reported that they were holding up the line in Dallas for another day so that a few of the troops from Fort Griffin could ride along. He also said Harry told him to let the doctor know that there was no word on the woman and man who were passengers.

  Adam tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. He could find no clues in the dark so he’d have to wait another day to return to the burned stage. Another day would cost him dearly in his chances of finding anything.

  After listening to a few of his patients, he wasn’t sure he could find anyone to go with him. These folks weren’t overly friendly, barely said howdy on the street, but when danger came, they were like ants on a rainy day. No one wanted to leave their home.

  Giving up reading, Adam stepped out on the front porch. He liked this time of night when respectable folks were all home having supper and the not-so-respectable hadn’t started their play. This part of the night belonged to no group. It seemed the twilight between both worlds.

  Tonight, the air was cold, the kind of still cold that soaked into your bones before you noticed it. In another month they’d be in full spring, but tonight winter seemed reluctant to leave.

  The front of the house faced an empty street. Most of the homes were little more than shacks. Adam had asked around and found that these buildings were built during the time the cavalry called this place home. Most had been constructed in a hurry and were now falling in. The saloon next door had had some repairs but the boardinghouse on the other side of Adam’s office would soon join the crumbling buildings if someone didn’t use a hammer.

  Maybe someone would buy it. People were coming to town every day and construction was going on so fast the town was spreading like weeds. There was talk of turning the old parade ground into a town square. Right now the spot was mostly used as a campsite for those passing through. Fort Worth was turning from an abandoned frontier fort to a town before his eyes.

  Adam walked to the end of the porch and wished he were somewhere else. But where? He had an itch to pack but nowhere that he wanted to go. He’d left Corydon, realizing there was nothing for him there, but wasn’t sure there was anything for him here either. All he knew for certain was that he was through with fighting, and that he loved doctoring. The past few months had taught him that.

  I’m lonely, he thought. God, I’m so alone. He was in the world, but no one shared his world. It seemed an impossible dream to want what Daniel and May had if only for a short while. During the war he’d thought his loneliness would end with peace, but it hadn’t. He traveled halfway across the country and was no closer than before. The hollowness inside him was still present.

  He enjoyed the folks around him, even the nun who never hesitated to tell him his business. But somewhere there had to be more.

  “Evening.” A man walked in front of the porch, startling Adam.

  “Evening, Russell.” Adam took a step forward. He didn’t particularly like the man, but he might have information. “Any word on the stage robbery?”

  Russell made a great show of pulling up his gun belt. “Seems there was a rather heavy strongbox on that load. The line was worried about leaving it in Dallas and that’s why they left with only two passengers. The Comancheros would be after the gold, but not the Comanche. I’ve been around these parts a long time and if it’s Comancheros, there’s nothing we can do but count our losses.”

  “Any news of her?” Adam held his breath waiting for the answer.

  “On the woman?” Russell shook his head. “If she’s not dead, she will be soon. Whoever robbed the stage went to great lengths to leave no clues to tell the story. If she got away, the weather or the varmints will have her by now. Official word from the stage line is that there was no woman on board. They figure she and the gentleman probably got off somewhere along the way at one of the ranches outside of Dallas. The only two men who know are dead and buried by that hull of a stage.”

  Adam didn’t want to think of any woman being alone in this country, especially not Nichole. If she were the woman, she wouldn’t have gotten off. But where was she?

  “I’d better turn in.” Adam nodded his farewell at the deputy.

  The man returned his nod and walked on down the street. Adam noticed Russell always made his rounds at sunset, never after dark.

  Just as Adam reached the door, something moved amid the boxes and scattered chairs. “Terry?” Adam called the dog. “That you, boy?”

  A shadow moved slightly, growing before his eyes. A shadow of a man.

  “Who’s there?” Adam’s muscles tightened.

  The stranger moved again, closer.

  “Adam!” someone whispered. “Help me.”

  In one blink Adam was by her side. “Nichole?” He shoved the hat from her head and pulled her into the light. “Nichole, how—”

  Before he could ask, she raised her hands. “Help me,” she whispered again.

  Adam looked down and saw her hands wrapped in olive green strips of cloth. From the way she held them away from her body, he could tell she was in pain.

  “Come in here.” He led her through the door and into his office.

  Without wasting time asking questions, he lifted her up on the table and began unwrapping her hands. The smell of burned flesh assaulted his senses.

  “Nance!” he yelled without slowing. “Nance!”

  The boy appeare
d in the doorway. “Yes, Doc?”

  “Get me fresh water from the well. Cold water. And tell Sister to make a pot of coffee.” He glanced up into Nichole’s face. “And bring food, warm and hearty.”

  Nance disappeared without questioning. He’d learned over the weeks that the doctor never asked for something unless he needed it fast, and he never requested help unless someone was in pain.

  “Relax,” Adam whispered as he pulled the strips of bandage away from burned flesh. “Burns hurt a lot more than most injuries, but they heal.” Blisters on her palms had seeped and dried against the cloth. Flesh pulled away with the cotton strips.

  He started with the water in the pitcher though it wasn’t cold enough. Tenderly, he patted at the red, swollen flesh, examining each open wound for infection.

  Nichole looked into his face. The pain was already starting to subside, and the chill was leaving her bones one degree at a time. “I found you,” she whispered.

  “Thank God.” He didn’t look up at her. “I was about to go crazy with worry. I wasn’t sure, but I had a feeling you were the shipment Wolf would be sending.”

  “I’m fine,” she answered. “I only burned my hands trying to pull the drivers from the blazing stage. Then I realized they were dead and it didn’t matter.”

  “The robbery? What happened?” He lowered her fingers slowly into cool water.

  “I’m not sure. I was by the stream sleeping. There were no gunshots, but the sound of horses woke me. I guess I’ve spent too long on the run to walk into anything without taking a good look first. I climbed up in the branches and watched as men watered their horses before riding off.”

  “Did you get a good look at them?”

  “Not really, just body types mostly, but I’d know a few of their horses. I think there were only three, which seems odd that the driver and the man riding shotgun didn’t at least get off a shot. The man watering the horses had a belt with conchos the size of silver dollars all around it.” She bit back the pain. “They made a few swings at finding me, but were in too big a hurry to really look. If they had, I’d have been somewhere else.”