Dear Lord Almighty.
Flynn twisted on the seat to give the man a better look.
For the first time ever, he considered whether it might be better not to save some patients.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Steam hung heavy in the boardinghouse kitchen by the time Dixie heard the hoofbeats that indicated Doc and the rest of the party had returned from the site of the accident. Swiping at her forehead with the back of one hand, she quickly put the bread rolls that had been rising on the warm sideboard into the oven. Fifteen minutes and they would be a perfect golden brown, a tasty accompaniment to the fish and potato chowder that bubbled fragrantly at the back of the stove.
Tugging off her apron, she hung it on the hook behind the kitchen door and then hurried out to let Flynn know she had plenty of hot water on to boil.
Flynn was already rushing through the boardinghouse door when she stepped into the entry from the dining room. “Dixie.” He strode straight to her. His face seemed a shade paler than usual. His hands fidgeted with the brim of his Stetson as he twirled it through his fingers.
Concern surged, and she glanced past his shoulder. A wagon was parked just outside; she could see it through the door’s windowpanes. “What is it?”
“Listen, first of all there were three men injured and I need a room to put them in. Can we use one of yours?” There was something strained about his tone—tight like it was ready to break.
She nodded. “Of course. Room five is available. It already has two beds in it, and I have an extra cot that’s not being used. I’ll get it right now and bring it in.” She started to turn, but Flynn’s hand shot out to grip her arm.
“Dixie, wait.” He released her as soon as she gave him her attention again.
She searched his face.
He swallowed. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”
Her heart thundered. Had he gone up to check on Rose just now? Her gaze darted to the stairs. “Is it Rose? I’ve been so busy cooking. I should have check—”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s your husband.”
Dixie’s hand flew to her throat. At just the mention of Steven she felt a wave of nausea. She swallowed it down, trying to make sense of the confusion swirling through her. Steven… Her focus slipped to the wagon parked outside.
Flynn’s feet shuffled, drawing her attention back to him. He peered at her from beneath his brows. “He was the one who was shot in the accident on the stage.”
Dixie felt her knees go weak, and she took a stumbling step backwards. “Steven? Is in Wyldhaven?”
“Yes. Here, sit down.” He nudged her toward the leather bench that sat against the wall next to the boardinghouse’s front desk. “He’s very badly injured and might not make it.”
Uncertainty swirled through her. She didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about that news. She gave her head a little shake.
Flynn took backward steps toward the door, still studying her face. “I need to get him and the other two injured men brought in, but I wanted you to hear the news from me first.” He paused with his hand on the door handle. “Are you going to be okay?”
She nodded. “Yes. Thank you for letting me know.” She waved a gesture back toward the kitchen. “I have hot soup for everyone, and the bread rolls will be done soon.”
He simply nodded.
When he went out, he propped the door open with the large rock she kept on the stoop for that purpose. A chill breeze swept in, running icy fingers across her neck. Dixie shivered.
Only a moment later, Flynn and Ewan hauled Steven through the front door. One held his ankles, while the other clasped him around his ribcage. Steven was moaning and cursing, obviously in terrible pain. It had been over a year since she’d seen him, but even incapacitated and bleeding as he was, just the sight of him filled her with terror and queasiness. His gaze latched on to her as they carried him past her. He snarled and reached out, his bloody fingers grazing the material of her blouse before Ewan noticed what he was doing and jerked him away from her.
Steven shrieked in pain. “Devil! You are a devil of a woman!”
“Be silent!” Doc gave Steven a little shake.
Steven screeched again, but seemed determined to continue his bombardment. “Curse you…for…ever…” A fit of coughing seized him, and the men hauled him up the stairs and out of sight.
Dixie stared at the smear of blood on her blouse. Only a few hours ago, she’d thought that maybe she had a chance at renewing her hope in a Savior. But now it was as if those tender shoots of hope had been trampled by a stampede of futility. All prospects of hope had been obliterated in the blink of an eye.
Taking a calming breath, Dixie gave herself a shake and forced herself to action. They would need that extra bed. And she needed to don a clean blouse.
But as she moved to retrieve it, her legs trembled to the point of near uselessness.
Steven was here.
Under her same roof.
And Rose was too sick for them to run.
Another chill breeze swept through the door.
She didn’t understand how it could still be so cold when hell had just arrived in Wyldhaven.
Reagan knew something was terribly wrong the moment he turned the carriage onto Wyldhaven’s main street. He’d planned to ask Charlotte once more if she would be opposed to him talking to Mr. Heath about them courting, but he could see that the conversation would have to wait. A wagon sat before Dixie’s Boardinghouse, with a bevy of activity happening around it.
Beside him, Charlotte gave a little moan. “Oh, Kin! What has that boy gotten himself into now?”
Reagan followed her gaze to the place where Joe was just hauling Kin Davis through the front door of the jail.
Charlotte flapped a hand. “Just pull over anywhere. I’ll see if Dixie needs my help with anything, and then I can see myself home.”
Reagan pulled the wagon to a stop in front of the jailhouse. “Wait for me at Dixie’s and I’ll walk you home. Might be a bit before I’m free, though. Not sure what’s going on here.”
Charlotte nodded. “Yes. Fine. I’ll wait for you there.”
Dixie’s was only two doors down from the jail, but Reagan waited until he saw Charlotte disappear inside the boardinghouse before he pushed into the warmth of the jail. He needed to make this quick. With all that had been on his mind, he’d driven the horse a bit hard today, and it wasn’t good for it to be left out in the cold for long without a rubdown.
Joe was locking Kin inside one of the jail cells and speaking when Reagan stepped inside. “I’m sorry, but for now, you are going to have to stay in here. Leastwise until we get a straight story about what happened today. And I don’t have time to listen to it right now. I need to go help Doc get the injured settled into their beds. Make yourself right at home, kid.” He gave the bars of the cell a good thump with his fist, driving home the boy’s new lack of freedom.
Reagan lifted his brows at his deputy, waiting for an explanation.
Joe tipped his head. “Walk with me and I’ll tell you what I know on the way to Dixie’s.”
By the time he and Joe had helped carry Don Brass and the other man, who Zeb said was the town’s new parson, to the upper room at Dixie’s that was the town’s newly-dubbed hospital, Reagan had heard the whole of what Joe was certain of. And there were plenty of details that Joe admitted still needed investigation. But Reagan knew one thing with absolute certainty—he needed to find Marshal Holloway, and he needed to find him quickly.
If they could get Steven Pottinger to admit who he was, that would eliminate all murder charges against Dixie and her ma.
Flynn gritted his teeth as he and Ewan set Pottinger on the bed closest to the window in room five. The man was still spewing invectives against Dixie between bouts of coughing and cries of pain. He writhed on the bed, obviously unable to get comfortable.
Dixie bustled in with a large feather tick in her arms. Flynn noted that she’d changed her blouse. It had
been almost his undoing when Pottinger had smeared blood on her as they passed. Almost like a picture of what the man had done to her life in the past.
Dixie worried her underlip. “I don’t have another frame, so this one will have to go on the floor.”
Flynn nodded. “Don’t worry about it. I think Don is already coming around. I’m more worried about the minister. He might need a bed for a couple days.”
“I’m coming for you, Dixie,” Steven rasped from his bed. “Don’t think this is going to slow me down.”
Flynn snatched a towel from his doctor bag and clamped it onto Steven’s bleeding wound. He pressed down hard.
The man yowled like two cats in a fight.
“Don’t mind me. I just need to get this bleeding stopped.”
Steven went slack. And for one heartbeat Flynn thought that he’d killed him. He felt a swirl of lightheadedness that was quickly relieved when he found a pulse in the man’s throat. When he looked up, Dixie was gone and Joe and the sheriff were depositing the still unconscious minister on the next bed, while Ewan was supporting the upright but still woozy stagedriver, Don Brass.
Flynn glanced down at Pottinger. He loosed a breath and sent up a prayer of repentance. He reached for a light. He would never be able to live with himself if he didn’t try to do everything in his power to save the man. He reminded himself of the truth that every person was created in the image of the Creator, whether they chose to live worthy of that honor, or not. He would do his best to save the man’s life. Despite the fact that a gunshot wound like this was almost always fatal. If the man did die, Flynn wanted his conscience to be clear in the matter.
And if the man recovered, Flynn was going to do everything in his power to ensure that he stood trial for the injuries he had caused to his wife and mother.
Flynn set to rolling up his sleeves. “Ewan, I need you to bring me a pot of boiling water. Dixie said she had some ready in the kitchen.”
The bartender nodded.
While Ewan headed down to get the water, and Joe and Reagan set to asking Old Don questions, Flynn hurried across the hall and pushed into Dixie’s living quarters. He took a lantern off the shelf in her front room, and another from the side table in Rose’s room. A brief check showed that Rose was sleeping peacefully, probably for the first time in days, and blissfully unaware that her devil of a son had just arrived in town. Her body needed the rest, so he left her to sleep and hurried back to room five. Turning the lanterns up as bright as they would go, he set them so that they worked in tandem with the first lantern he’d already placed on the dressing table by Steven’s bed.
He assessed the man’s weight, then dripped twenty-three drops of chloroform carefully onto a cloth and inserted it into the dispensing cone. This he placed carefully over Pottinger’s mouth.
While he waited for the chloroform to take effect and drag Steven into a deep sleep, he ran his hands over the minister’s scalp, giving it a more thorough check than he’d been able to afford out at the scene. An egg-sized lump protruded from the man’s skull just above and behind his left ear, but Flynn was thankful to feel no loose bones or soft spots. The man would probably be fine and coming around at any moment now. But he would need watching over the next couple of days.
Flynn quickly mixed two cups of headache powders. One he gave to Don and urged him to drink it all. The other he set on the table nearest the second bed. He might be in the middle of removing Pottinger’s bullet when the minister came around, and he would want something to cut the pain that was bound to be pulsing in his head tonight.
With that preparation done, he set to stripping Pottinger of his shirt and laid out his surgical instruments on the clean, boiled cloth, on the side table. When Ewan brought the pot of boiled water, fresh from the stove downstairs, Flynn dropped the instruments into the water one at a time.
Right. He was ready to work. He offered the prayer he always prayed before he undertook a surgery. Lord, guide my hands and keep them steady. And then he got to work.
Charlotte found Dixie and helped her carry a basket of bandages up to the hospital room. Don Brass had already come around and was chatting with Joe and Reagan quietly in one corner of the room. Charlotte pushed a chair over to the group. It took a lot of talking from Reagan to even get the old hostler to rest himself on the seat. He insisted that his clothes were unworthy of meeting with the fine linen of Dixie’s embroidered cushion. They finally had to bring in a towel to cover the cushion so the man would sit down and rest.
Dixie seemed morose and jumpy, startling at even the most mundane of sounds. Charlotte’s concern grew as the minutes passed and Dixie’s nerves didn’t seem to be settling.
“I’ve some cleanup to tend to in the kitchen,” Dixie declared, and hurried down the stairs.
Charlotte followed her.
Once in the kitchen she tugged Dixie to a stop and took both her hands in a firm grip. “What’s wrong? Out with it.” She knew Dixie had been facing a lot of concern and worry lately, what with Rose’s sickness and having to run the boardinghouse all on her own. But Charlotte wasn’t prepared for the tears that burgeoned on Dixie’s lashes, or for the sob that caught in her friend’s throat.
“Oh darling, come here.” Charlotte pulled Dixie into a warm embrace. “You’ve gone and worn yourself to a frazzle, but I get the feeling there is more to this than just being tired?” She gripped Dixie’s shoulders and set her back so she could get a good read on her expression.
Dixie huffed a sound that was half laugh and half despair. “You have no idea.”
“Here, sit. You need to eat.” Charlotte dished up a good portion of the fish chowder and set it in front of a chair at the table. Pushing Dixie into the seat, she then turned and helped herself to a small portion, and snagged two piping-hot rolls for each of them.
“Thank you,” Dixie nodded.
After grace was said, Charlotte tore a chunk from her bread, but kept her focus on Dixie’s weary face. “I actually have some idea.”
Dixie’s brows rose in question, and Charlotte confessed that the marshal had come to Jacinda’s house close to a week past and shared with Reagan his reason for being in town.
“Mind you, Sheriff Callahan told the man he couldn’t possibly know the truth, but I’m guessing some of today’s kerfuffle has to do with the marshal?”
Dixie sighed. “In a roundabout way, yes.” She blew on a spoonful of stew before tasting it. “It’s rather a long story. Are you sure you have time for it?”
“For you, I always have time.” Charlotte hoped her expression conveyed the sincerity of her words.
Apparently it did, because Dixie launched into her tale. By the time she got done with the telling, Charlotte was swiping tears from her eyes with an utterly damp handkerchief. “You mean to tell me that the man Zeb shot on the stage is your no-good husband who the marshal thought you’d killed nearly two years ago, but who in reality lived after Rose shot him? And he was coming to drag you back home with him?”
Dixie’s lips twisted. “I doubt he wants to go back home. Because of all that’s happened there would be too many questions about his character now. But yes, I’m sure he had plans for Rose and me.”
The way she said the word ‘plans’ sent a shaft of horror straight down Charlotte’s spine. She had been taken captive once and forced to squeeze into a trunk in the back of a wagon. Reagan had caught the man and rescued her inside a quarter of an hour. Yet, that experience had made her hesitant and untrusting for days. She couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to have a man who was supposed to have your best interests at heart treat you with such contempt and disdain.
She offered Dixie another gentle squeeze. “Well, maybe something good will come of this. God’s plans are always to prosper us, and not to harm us, right? At least that’s what Jeremiah says. So perhaps this was part of God’s plan all along?”
Dixie’s hand stopped halfway to her mouth. She blinked at Charlotte for a moment, but then pushed her barely-
touched bowl of chowder back and stood. “Perhaps you are right. But if you’ll excuse me, I really should take Ma some food while I have a moment.”
Charlotte shot out a hand and laid hold of Dixie’s arm. “Dixie, you can’t go on like this. I can see the weariness weighting your shoulders like a cloak.”
Dixie rubbed the back of her neck, but didn’t meet Charlotte’s gaze. “It’s only for a few more days.”
“You and I both know that Rose isn’t going to be up to helping you for a month at the very least!” Charlotte purposely gentled her tone. “I could come by and help you for a few days, but once school starts up again I would be no good to you. Can you afford to hire someone?”
Dixie tilted her head. “I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, I suppose I could. Business has been good. I practically ran myself ragged at dinner last night.”
Charlotte smiled. “That’s because you are the best cook inside of ten counties.”
Dixie rolled her eyes. “I suppose I could put out an advertisement in Seattle.”
“You let me worry about that.” Charlotte tapped her arm. “And don’t fret about cleanup in here. I’ll have it done in no time.”
Dixie sighed, and the very fact that she didn’t protest revealed just how tired she must be. “Thank you.”
“Yes. Of course,” Charlotte offered, but as she watched Dixie load a tray and then hurry from the room, she couldn’t help but wonder why her comment about God only planning good for us had upset Dixie.
It didn’t take her long to wash the dishes and tidy up the kitchen.
She was just finishing up when Reagan appeared and asked if he might walk her home. “It’s going to be a long night, and I’ll feel better knowing you are tucked away safe and warm in Ma’s house.”
Charlotte appreciated the gesture of chivalry, and reached for his arm. “Much obliged, Sheriff.”
At the entryway, Reagan helped her on with her wraps and then they stepped out into the frigid wind that blew tiny ice crystals with it. Charlotte shivered and clutched her coat closed more tightly at the neck. “Reagan, what do you think about Liora working for Dixie at the boardinghouse?”
On Eagles' Wings (Wyldhaven Book 2) Page 13