The Cowboy Encounter

by Kristy Tate

  “My uncle’s ranch,” Warwick clarified right before he clicked his heels. The horse, as if knowing a barn and a bag of oats waited for him, spurred into a gallop. Mable clipped along, her hooves picking up speed.

  #

  The familiar feelings of homecoming tinged with loss swept through Warwick as Gawain galloped for the barn. He knew that in some of the native cultures there were legends of all things—trees, rocks, hills, and creatures—having spirits, and those spirits, good and evil, effected the air of a place. Warwick didn’t know if he believed the legends, but he did believe in the power of memories. And the memories of this place, a place he once considered home, were bittersweet.

  What would Becca think of it? He couldn’t set foot on the ranch without the onslaught of memories overwhelming him, but he wondered how would she see it? He tried to look at the valley dispassionately—with fresh eyes. The barn he’d built, the house he designed, the land he’d plowed and furrowed, the pasture he’d enclosed, the horses he’d gathered, tamed, and broke—all settled beneath the towering Rocky Mountains and cloudless blue sky.

  He glanced at Becca, trying to read her impression. She had to be exhausted after such a long ride. Why had he pushed her and the horses so hard? But she didn’t look tired. Sitting straight and tall, her eyes curious and bright, she took in what had once been his home.

  His thoughts drifted back to another time and another woman. Mary Kate. She had sat behind him, arms wound around his waist, head resting on his back. He hadn’t been able to read her expression when she first saw the valley. Of course, she had come to love it as much as he had. She had worked just as hard, if not harder, to make it their home.

  And then—

  Shrieking tore through the air. For a wild moment, his thoughts careened back to Mary Kate and panic welled in his chest. He kicked his spurs into Gawain.

  #

  The inhuman screams startled Mable, and she fought her bit as Becca urged her forward.

  Warwick bent low, whispered to Gawain, and they bolted away.

  Becca gripped the reins, fought to control her horse. After much urging, she led Mable to the barn. Once there, she found Warwick’s horse in the pasture.

  The screaming had subsided, but Becca guessed that the emergency wasn’t passed because Warwick had yet to unsaddle or rub down his stallion. Becca’s legs screamed in protest as she tried to dismount. She slid off Mable and nearly fell. Mable reached down her big snout and blew into Becca’s hair.

  “I’m going to have to leave you here,” Becca told the horse as she locked the pasture gate. The screaming rose another octave. Becca wanted to run and follow the sound, but she could barely control her wobbly legs.

  She found Warwick and a weather-beaten man, presumably Warwick’s uncle, kneeling beside a panicky, sweating, and mouth-frothing horse. Blood soaked the straw-strewn ground.

  “She’s in labor,” Becca said, stating the obvious.

  The two men glanced up at her.

  “Becca…Warwick, my wife,” Warwick said. “Becca, this is my Uncle Leo.”

  Leo rocked back on his heels, clearly stunned. “Your wife!” He shook his head before turning his attention back to the frantic animal. “This ain’t no place for women folk.” His voice turned dark and bitter. “I’m afraid we’re going to lose Ol’ Alice.”

  “I’m a doctor,” Becca said, stepping forward. “I can help.”

  Leo shot Warwick a questioning gaze.

  Warwick nodded. “It’s true.”

  Warwick made room for her, and she knelt beside him. Placing her hands on the mare’s undulating belly, she tried to make sense of what she felt. She knew almost nothing about delivering a foul, but reason told her that it couldn’t be that different from her experience in the emergency room.

  “She needs an episiotomy,” Becca said. “I’m going to need a scalpel...I mean, knife.”

  The man reached behind him and pulled a ten inch knife from his belt.

  “Wow, that was quick,” Becca murmured. They didn’t have time to sterilize it, but it needed to be at least washed. She turned to Warwick. “Where’s the water?”

  Leo directed her, and manned the pump while she washed her hands, arms and knife.

  She strode back to the barn. “Could you go and hold the horse’s head?” she asked Warwick. “And try to be comforting.”

  Looking over her shoulder, she said to Leo, “I need you to hold back her tail. She’s not going to like this.”

  “What’s an e-posotumy?” Leo asked.

  Becca swallowed, said a silent prayer and slid the knife into the animal. She tried to talk calmly as she worked. “It’s an incision in the tissue between the vagina and the anus, to ease the delivery of a baby, or in this case a foal.”

  Little hooves wrapped in the amniotic sac appeared. Becca braced herself and pulled the tiny animal into the world. She smiled, watching the mother and baby greet each other for the first time. Ol’ Alice, tired and weak, had enough energy to nudge her tiny foul with her soft, black nose.

  “They’re both alive,” Leo said, relief and gratitude in his voice.

  “Yes,” Becca said, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her sleeve. “We’ll need to stitch Alice up…” She wondered how that could be done. “Do you have a sewing kit?”

  Leo nodded.

  “Good. I need you to find a needle and put it in a flame. Can you do that?”

  “In a flame?”

  “To sterilize it.”

  “Now what?” Uncle Leo scratched his head.

  Warwick stood. “I’ll do it, Uncle Leo.”

  Leo climbed to his feet. “No. I’ll go and get Hilda. She knows about sewing things.” He left, slowly shaking his head.

  Becca stayed on the ground, watching the mare and foul discover each other. Warwick reached down a hand to help her up, but she brushed it away.

  “I’m so tired, although not as tired as Alice, I’m sure, but still…I think if I tried to stand, I’m pretty sure I’ll fall over.”

  Warwick grinned and rested his hands on her shoulders. “We rode hard today. You were a champ.”

  “Or a chump.” She glanced through the doorway and saw the rising moon and the first twinkling of stars. “I’m glad we made it, though.”

  “I’m sure Alice would say the same.” Warwick nodded at the farmhouse. “Come along, I bet Aunt Hilda has dinner for us.”

  Becca shook her head. “No, I need to stitch up Alice. If I don’t, she might not heal as well, and her chance of infection increases.”

  “You’re a good person,” Warwick said this as if surprised.

  “You thought I was a bad person?”

  Confusion flitted across his expression. “I don’t…Look, if you don’t mind my asking, why are you hooked up with the likes of Joseph Connelly?”

  “You don’t know him like I do,” she told him.

  “And how do you know him?”

  “It’s true, maybe I don’t know Joseph all that well, but,” Becca bit her lip, wondering how to say what she needed to say. “I’ve known his family for years. They are good people.”

  “A good family isn’t a guarantee.” Warwick pushed his hat back away from his face. “Look at Cain and Able.”

  “You comparing our family to Cain and Able, boy?” Leo ambled back into the barn, holding the needle in front of him like a torch. The end of it looked chard and hot.

  “Did you get the thread?” Becca asked, wishing for the insoluble kind. Someone would have to remove these stitches and she guessed that someone would most likely be her. Alice, weak and feeble, might put up with someone messing around with her private parts now when she was too tired to do much more than lift her head and nudge her baby, but in a few days or weeks, she would undoubtedly have a different opinion.

  After Becca threaded the needle, she used it to stitch up the incision. Alice did little more than flinch. Beside her, Warwick paled and looked away. Becca smiled. Men are such babies, she tho
ught, and turned all of her attention to her patient.

  When finished, she glanced up to see a woman who had quietly entered the barn. She had soft, brown hair streaked with gray, warm dark eyes, and full red lips. “Well, I’ll be darned,” she said when Becca caught her eye. “Our Clint has remarried at last.”

  Remarried?

  Aunt Hilda sighed. “You don’t look much like Mary Kate, poor thing.”

  Becca wondered who was the poor thing, Mary Kate? Or Becca, who had the misfortune of not looking like Clint’s first wife? She tried to smile as she climbed to her feet and brushed away the straw clinging to her trousers. “I’m sure Mary Kate was much cleaner.”

  Aunt Hilda gave a quick nod, but the twinkle in her eyes didn’t dim. “How did you two meet?”

  Warwick used his toe to shuffle straw. “Becca’s a doctor, and I was in need of doctoring.”

  Hilda laughed, “Knowing you, you could probably still be using a curative!” She turned her attention back to Becca and her gaze went from her boots to the top of her messy hair. “A doctor—my goodness!”

  “My father trained me,” Becca said, feeling self-conscious about her dirty hands, clothes, face, and curious about Mary Kate.

  “A wonder!” Aunt Hilda said. “Next thing you know, there’ll be women sitting in the White House.”

  Well, not quite the next thing, Becca thought, wondering about the Women’s Suffragette movement and when it had started.

  After a pause, Hilda gave Becca another bright smile. “You must be a brainy thing.”

  “Right now, she’s a dirty, tired and hungry thing.” Warwick stepped up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder.

  Becca wanted to wilt against him, but straightened her spine and squared her shoulders instead.

  “Of course!” Hilda exclaimed. “Dinner is already on the table, but let’s get some warm water going so you can have a nice bath!” She turned to Uncle Leo. “Husband, can you put the tub in Warwick’s room?”

  At that moment, it occurred to Becca that she would be sharing a room with Warwick. She quickly turned to see the flush climbing into his cheeks.

  “I need to rub down the horses,” he said, turning away.

  Men are not only babies, Becca decided, they are also sneaky.

  “Can I wash before dinner?” Becca asked. She knew from experience that filling a tub with warm water was a long, tedious, and shoulder-aching process. Now that the drama of assisting in a birth was over, and both mother and baby were resting in a hay-filled corner, Becca’s body reminded her how tired she was, and she fought the temptation to curl on the hay.

  “Sure thing, sweetie,” Hilda said. “I’ll get the pump for you.”

  Becca shot Warwick another glance as she followed Hilda out of the barn. He had taken off his shirt and hung it over a fence post. With a brush in his hand, he murmured to Gawain as he worked.

  Becca had shared a room with him before, but most of the time he’d been feverish and delusional. He definitely wasn’t weak and sickly now. Except for the red scar on his chest, he looked like he could be a model on the Men’s Health Magazine.

  Becca followed Hilda to the pump, lost in her own thoughts. She didn’t realize that Hilda had asked her a question, until Hilda said, “live here again.”

  That roused her curiosity. “Live here?”

  Hilda flushed. “Well, why not? I know that Clint has painful memories of this place, but with you here, he could make new, happier memories.”

  Becca opened her mouth, but didn’t know what to say.

  Hilda led her to the pump. “This really is your place. We know that. Maybe with the help of the neighbors, we could raise another house for me and Leo on the back forty before the snowfalls.”

  Becca still didn’t know what to say, so she pushed her sleeves up and started washing. Strange, the water felt cold and very real. Hilda handed her a bar of homemade soap, and Becca scrubbed her arms and watched them turn pink. Everything felt real, but it couldn’t be, could it?

  Becca’s thoughts went back to her conversation with Celia. Celia had been so certain, so adamant. She sighed, knowing that hallucinogens can be powerful and strong.

  “You poor thing,” Hilda said. “Here you are swaying on your feet, and I’m pestering you about your future plans.”

  Future plans? How could she have future plans while being stuck in the past?

  “Let’s get you in the bath—unless you’d like to go straight to bed?”

  Becca shot Warwick a panicked look. He caught her gaze, and turned his back on her. She didn’t know why, but she suddenly wanted to cry. She turned to Hilda and handed her the soap. “I’d really just like to go to bed.”

  “All right, sweetie. We can do that.”

  We? When Becca thought about going to bed, she didn’t want anyone to use a plural pronoun.

  She followed Hilda into the house, her gaze taking in the spacious room, the river rock fireplace with its heavily carved wood mantel, and the large windows with sweeping views of the valley. It was by far the nicest house she’d visited since her arrival in 1870, and she wondered if it belonged to Warwick, and if so, why didn’t he live here?

  What did she really know about him? She reminded herself that he was a figment of her imagination, but she wasn’t sure that she really believed that anymore.

  “I put fresh sheets on the bed,” Hilda told her. “And here’s a couple of towels for you and Clint.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  Becca shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  “Well, goodnight, then.”

  As Hilda slipped out of the room, Becca eyed the bed. The last time she’d shared a room with Warwick, she’d slept on the floor. Now it’s his turn, she thought, stumbling forward and pulling off her clothes.

  She fell into a deep sleep.

  Sometime later, she woke. Moonlight filled the room, and she heard splashing. She closed her eyes against the sound, because she thought she knew what—or who—it might be.

  No. This could not be happening. She peeked open one eye.

  Yes. Warwick bathed only a few feet away from her. She closed her eyes again, reminding herself that she was a doctor and seeing naked bodies was a part of her job description.

  Warwick began to hum a tune that Becca vaguely recognized. Something about a place in France. She buried her face in her pillow, wondering when and if she’d ever wake. Trying to distract herself from Warwick, she thought of all she knew about hallucinogens.

  She knew that the effects of any drug varied from person to person. A lot of factors, including someone’s size, weight, and health, also played a role.

  Warwick stood. The water dripped off his body as he stood in the tub and rubbed himself off with a towel.

  Becca closed her eyes again and recalled some of the typical effects of hallucinogens. Euphoria. Check. Blurred vision. She opened one eye. Thankfully, Warwick still had his back to her and didn’t catch her looking. Nope. Nothing wrong with her vision. A sense of relaxation and well-being. Nope. Hallucinations and distorted perception, including visual, auditory, body, time and space. Check, check, check, and check. Disorganized thoughts, confusion, and difficulty concentrating, thinking, or maintaining attention. Check again. Increased breathing rate. Check.

  “Scoot over,” Warwick said.

  She opened her eyes and saw that he had put on some underwear and now stood beside the bed. She shifted to the other side.

  Irregular heartbeat, palpitations. Check. Increased body temperature and sweating. Check and check.

  Becca knew that some people might experience a drug induced psychosis after using hallucinogens and that the delusions could last for several hours….or even longer. She was definitely in the even longer camp.

  But fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how she looked at it, her delusion rolled over on his side, and within seconds his breathing turned slow and regular. Becca sat up to watch hi
m.

  He had fallen asleep without even looking at her.

  Becca fell back on her pillow and promised herself that she would be at home in the twenty-first century as soon as she woke.

  CHAPTER 7

  Becca woke in the middle of the night to find Warwick’s face inches from her own. She pushed him away and rolled so that her back faced him. His breath tickled her neck. She tried to distract herself by thinking about everything she needed to do when she got home.

  Bellflower. She hated her job. True, it paid well, as it should. Every day she risked her life to try and help the mentally ill. But now, with her father’s death, she would inherit his ranch and his wealth. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? She could quit her job. Maybe practice general medicine. Sure, it didn’t pay as well, and yes, it made her residency seem like a waste of time, but if there was one thing that she’d learned from this delusion, it was that she liked helping and healing mentally healthy people.

  She squelched her thoughts. The thought of using her dad’s death to further her own happiness made her feel guilty and sick to her stomach.

  “Why are you awake?” Warwick muttered.

  “I’m not used to sharing a bed,” she told him.

  “It’s very simple,” he said without opening his eyes. “You lie down, close your eyes, and go to sleep.”

  “Warwick, what are we doing here?”

  “It’s a good stopping place between Everwood and Denver.”

  “No, you have other reasons—things you aren’t telling me.”

  “True.”

  “Do you want to tell me?”

  “No.”

  Becca settled back against her pillows. “Do you want to tell me about Mary Kate?”

  “No.” He paused. “You want to tell me about you and Joseph Connelly.”

  “No.”

  “Alrighty, looks like we’re about even.”

  Becca squeezed her eyes closed. “I want to go home.”

  “Back to Connecticut?”