“You’re the owner of this place now, Tucker. What do you want for it?”
Tucker finally figured out why Coulter was still hanging around.
Part of him wanted to throw Coulter off his land, but it helped to listen to someone talk. Helped to focus on something besides how sick he felt.
“His name will go on the homestead claim, Coulter. That’s not the same as owning it.” Aaron, the local land agent, thought he knew everything. Of course, he probably did. Even so, it got old. “He can’t sell it to you.”
“I wouldn’t sell it anyway, Gage. I need a place to live, at least until my leg mends.” Tucker scrubbed while he talked. “I’m not real interested in what you have to say anyhow, since I don’t want to make my brand-new wife want to murder me on the first day of my marriage. I’m kinda hoping she’ll end up liking me.”
Sliding off the rock until he was sitting flat on the bottom of the river, he went neck-deep in the water. He dunked his head, came up and scrubbed, then dunked it again. Dark suds flowed away from him as he scrubbed his hair a second time. More dark suds. Yep, he’d done the right thing taking this bath. He ran his hand over his face. Ma had given him his yearly shave and haircut about a month ago. Though he’d never done such a thing before, he decided to shave again. Spiff himself up for married life.
“You two must know how to shave?” Truth was, he’d never done it much. A few times when he was younger.
Both men looked at him like he was a complete idiot. Their bare faces were answer enough. “Ma always uses my skinning knife. Do you carry razors with you?”
Coulter narrowed those ice-blue eyes as if his question wasn’t worthy of an answer.
“Nope.” Aaron grinned. “I suppose I could try shaving you with one of your ten knives.”
Tucker looked at his stack of knives, which he kept honed to a lethal edge. No sense having them if he didn’t. He reconsidered the whole thing. Much as he liked Masterson and Coulter, he didn’t want anyone near his throat with those blades. He’d ask Ma.
“You’ve got a cabin up in the mountains.” Coulter kept at the only thing he was interested in—getting this land. “Once your leg’s healed, take your wife up there. That’s where you’re going to live, and you know it. You’re a mountain man.”
Tucker decided he liked having something Gage Coulter wanted. Needling him turned out to be fun. Tucker didn’t really want to own land. He owned a cabin, true, but he’d never thought of buying the land under it. No one really owned land up in the mountains. Who would he buy it from, a mountain goat?
“I’ll ask Shannon if she minds you watering your stock here. I expect she’ll tell you no.”
“It’s yours now, Tucker.”
Tucker laughed. “Sure, it is. I’ll ask just the same, and she’ll turn you down flat because your cows will upset her sheep.”
“Sheep are the stupidest critters that ever lived,” Coulter muttered.
Tucker agreed, but he didn’t say so. “And I’ll honor her wishes. Mighty dry year.” Tucker kept scrubbing until the water ran clear. He tugged on his shirt once more, and with just a little resistance his shirt finally pulled free. He took it off and tossed it toward the shore. He was dizzy and had a time of it pulling himself back onto the rock to sit. And from there he could see his belly.
Five slash marks in a perfect row. Claw marks. “The grizzly got me.” Not only got him, but a couple of the slashes were an angry, swollen red.
He hoisted himself off the rock then, feeling too wobbly to use his one working leg to stand, and swam to the shore.
Aaron helped him get up and hobble out of the cold water. “That’s a nasty wound, Tucker.”
Tucker, standing on one bare foot, found himself shivering as Aaron dropped a nightshirt over his head. It hung to the ground.
Masterson was a blond, Danish giant, and Tucker had no business wearing his clothes.
Ma came from behind the barn. Tucker blushed to think she’d been waiting. He sure hoped she hadn’t seen him without any clothes on.
Tucker had no desire to admit he was sick, not to anyone. He didn’t think even Aaron and Gage had any idea of just how bad he felt. “I think I oughta shave again, Ma. Can you do it?”
Ma fussed at him and told him to learn to shave himself, but made short work of the job. He caught a kindly look in her eye and knew his ma loved him and was glad he’d made it home alive.
When she was wiping the last of the suds off his face, suddenly she stopped and pressed the back of her brown, weathered hand to his forehead, then his cheek. “What is this? You have the fever.”
Tucker said, “The bear got me, Ma. Mixed in with all the other aches, I didn’t even know it. But I’ve got claw marks on my belly, and they look infected.”
“Animal claws.” Ma looked grim. “Filthy. And five days without proper care.”
She turned to Aaron. “Get him to the house and in bed. Now. I have herbs that will help. I will be back. Stew is ready. He should eat.” Then she narrowed her dark eyes at Coulter. “You help or go home. Today is not the day to talk of land.”
She rushed away, taking every stitch of his clothes with her. She’d left his stack of knives, but that still made him a man without clothing—other than a borrowed nightshirt long enough to be a dress. He’d never felt so defenseless in his life.
Tucker couldn’t rightly tackle her to get his clothes back. So with his broken leg without a splint and aching like mad, his belly on fire, his head spinning, his vision blurred, he let Masterson and Coulter help him to the house.
“You’re burning up, Tucker!” Even Coulter looked worried.
“Why didn’t you tell us you had a fever?” Aaron tucked him into bed as if he were three years old.
Tucker wasn’t all that interested in answering their nosy questions.
Coulter went back out and brought in his knives and whip and whatnot. With a clatter he tossed them down in a corner of Shannon’s cabin. “I saw the women, but didn’t tell them you were sick. Your wife has to clean up before she dares touch you. I reckon if that don’t suit you, you can tell her different. You talk to your wife about me using that water, Tucker. If you don’t, I will. My cattle are thirsty.”
On that, Coulter left. Tucker wondered what Coulter meant by “I saw the women.” Shannon was taking a bath. What exactly had Coulter seen?
“How long have you worked for him?” Aaron asked after Coulter slammed the door behind him and galloped away.
Tucker shrugged as Aaron got him settled, careful of his leg and stomach. “Off and on for the past five years, I reckon, ever since he came into the country. He pays good wages. He’s a hard man but honest. He’ll take no for an answer, but he’ll keep asking the same question over and over, hoping to change the answer.”
Tucker lay still, finding no comfort for his aching body. He saw that the swelling in his leg had gone down, but it was so black from bruising, Tucker wondered if some of it wasn’t coal dust. He hadn’t tried to scrub it, but it’d been well-bandaged until he’d gone into the water to bathe, so Tucker doubted that’s what it was.
Aaron filled a plate for Tucker with Ma’s good stew, propped him up in bed, and watched over him while he ate.
“How are we going to take care of your stomach wounds with this huge shirt covering you?” Aaron studied Tucker, swathed from neck to toe in cotton.
“I dunno. Pull it down from the shoulders maybe?” Tucker said. He forced himself to eat as much as he could. The stew was delicious, yet his stomach churned. He could eat only a little of it before he had to give up.
“I’d better go tell the women you’re not feelin’ well. I’ll act like I just noticed it.” Aaron flashed his smile at Tucker as he gathered the plate and fork.
Tucker wondered if he should be taking notes about how to handle women. “Mind that you don’t look at my wife without her clothes on.”
Smiling even wider, Aaron set the plate on the table, then went to the door, stood off to the sid
e so he was looking at the barn and not the water, and yelled, “Kylie, Shannon, get in here. Tucker’s runnin’ a fever.”
Aaron swung the door shut. “Let’s get that shirt down off your shoulders. Then I’ll drape something over you, up high. Kylie doesn’t need to be seeing a whole bunch of you.”
“I’d prefer that myself. I liked living alone in the mountains. Never had to deal with all these people.”
Aaron helped arrange Tucker’s clothing and took another look at the wound. “That bear did some damage. I think I’ll heat water—we need to wash it better.”
Shannon rushed into the cabin within minutes, dressed but with her hair dripping. Kylie came in only a step behind. Tucker realized his vision was fuzzy as both women looked square at him. Shannon’s eyes dropped to his uncovered stomach. She gasped in horror. Kylie shrieked.
“Kylie, you hadn’t ought to be looking at me.” Tucker pulled the blanket over himself. There was only about a foot of his middle uncovered, but it was indecent. No woman had ever seen so much of him, for heaven’s sake. Not even Ma, leastways not since he’d been a tyke.
Aaron caught his wife by the shoulders and physically turned her away.
“What happened?” Shannon rushed to Tucker’s side and pushed back the blanket.
Tucker had a mind to keep himself covered, but she overpowered him.
“Had . . . had to be the grizz.” It was harder to talk than it oughta be. Tucker shrugged, which now caused a tearing pain in his gut. “How come I hurt now, but didn’t so much before—except for my leg?”
“Hot water.” Shannon snapped out an order that’d make General Grant straighten up and salute.
Aaron moved to the fireplace. “It’s not boiling yet.”
“Bring me what you’ve got and then heat some more. It’s close enough for now. I had plenty of soldiers with infected wounds. We can take care of this.” She sounded sure, though Tucker read the pure panic in her eyes.
“Ma went to get medicine.”
Shannon got a strange look in her eyes. “How long ago did you notice it?”
“We . . . uh . . . noticed it when he got out of the river. Sunrise said he had a fever, told us to put him to bed, then went for some medicine. No sense calling to you before you were ready to come in. You couldn’t touch him until you’d had a bath.” Aaron using Coulter’s excuse. Quick thinking.
Shannon’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything. Tucker wasn’t a dishonest man, but if he was going to tell something less than the complete truth, he needed to be mighty sneaky about it.
Lesson learned. His mind chased that lesson in a lazy circle, and he felt as if the circle became a long cave that grew more and more narrow and dark.
Aaron was at Shannon’s side with a basin of steaming water. The room became so dark, he reckoned they must be back in the coal cave.
“No, we’re in my cabin.” She was answering questions he only thought in his head. That struck Tucker as being mighty handy, especially when a man was overly tired.
She leaned close. Tucker heard a scrape as Aaron set the basin on something. A table maybe. Was there a table?
“Yes, there’s a table.”
Shannon answered another question he’d only thought. Tucker wanted her to lean even closer. Close enough he could steal a kiss, and he was afraid to think what else he wanted from her. He didn’t touch her for fear he might get a slap across the face.
Then hot, hot, hot. She pressed burning embers into his belly. He tried to stop her. Something clamped on his wrists.
“We need to open the wound.”
Open the wound sounded bad.
“It’s suppurated. We need to drain it, get it to bleed.” Shannon’s voice was kind, but unless she had four hands, it wasn’t her holding his wrists. Yet he thought she had two heads, so maybe she had four hands?
Two restraining him, two more torturing him with embers.
“No embers, Tucker. We need to . . .”
“We should wait for Sunrise.” Aaron said that.
Sunrise? Was the sun rising? Or did Masterson think they should put this off until tomorrow morning? Tucker was all for waiting. This was going to hurt, and he’d as soon put off any more hurting. Tucker realized in some distant way that he wasn’t fully conscious anymore.
Then Ma was back. His ma, Sunrise. That reminded him of something, but he wasn’t sure what.
There was a fuss over trying to get him to drink or sit up or he wasn’t sure just what. It didn’t seem important, because all he could think was that he needed to rest and they wouldn’t quit pestering him.
At least Ma was here to stop these two from hurting him. That was a mercy. And that was when he saw her pull her knife. Ma had taught him to use a stone to put on an edge. No one kept a blade sharper. There was a blinding gleam as she held it up to the lantern. It was so wicked, so lethal, it caught the light and flashed in his eyes. She looked at his belly and lowered that dagger straight at his gut.
He fought their grip. Then he felt something that made those burning embers a distant, almost happy memory. Shannon had his face in both her hands, and she was talking, trying to get his attention. Something deep inside him pulled, dragged him down into a darkness as black as pitch . . . as black as a cave.
Shannon kept talking and hurting him at the same time. He wasn’t all that happy with his new wife. She was turning out to have a mean streak. But he decided then and there he’d let her do whatever nasty things to him she wanted to, because stopping her was just too much trouble.
The blackness was a weight he couldn’t cast off, so he quit trying. After a day of thinking he’d gotten out of that blasted cave, he dived in deeper and let it bury him.
13
He passed out.” Shannon let the tears fall now that she didn’t have to be brave for Tucker. “How could I not check for wounds? I knew he’d been attacked by that bear. Of course she clawed him. If he dies, it’ll be my fault. I should have—”
“Hush.” Sunrise reached a strong, steady hand across Tucker’s unconscious body. Aaron had pulled the bed out from the wall, so Shannon could be on that side to help hold him down. He’d held Tucker’s arms. Nev had come back in time to hold his legs, hard to do with the broken leg, but Nev had done well. It was all to keep Tucker from hurting Sunrise or himself as she’d cut open the vividly swollen wounds to release the suppuration.
Now Shannon looked Sunrise right in the eyes and, as she did so, realized Sunrise was Tucker’s mother in all the ways that mattered. Sunrise stood there with that bloody knife, opening her son’s wounds, listening to him scream, watching him fight, knowing she was causing him agony. As hard as this was for Shannon, it had to be a hundred times harder for Sunrise, who loved him with a mother’s heart. Yet Sunrise did what needed doing.
Something else occurred to her. Sunrise was now Shannon’s mother, too. And Shannon hadn’t had a mother in a long time.
“The fall off the cliff, the ride down the river. Waking up in a dark cave, badly battered. The blood first washed away by hours in the water, then later dried black. When would you notice a few scratches? If you had noticed, what would you have done about it? We will waste no more time with talk of fault. We will work instead to make him well.”
Swallowing her guilt, Shannon managed a firm nod of agreement. “Sunrise and I will be busy with the wound. Aaron, if you and Nev and Kylie could put the cast on his leg, that would help.”
Shannon saw something ease in Nev’s eyes. He was a troubled man. Given to nightmares, something she knew. He slept in a small cabin near Kylie and Aaron’s place. Kylie talked of Nev’s tormented nights. He had gained probably fifteen pounds since he’d come out west, and still he was gaunt from his time in a Union Army prison camp. From his expression she knew it helped him to be needed and she really did need him.
Shannon soaked rags in water so hot her fingers had turned bright red. She laid them over the oozing slashes, soaked up the blood and infection, then rinsed out the
rags and did it all over again.
Nev mixed the plaster while Kylie tore up strips of cloth and Aaron wrapped Tucker’s leg to protect the skin before the plaster went on.
Sunrise bathed Tucker’s forehead and arms and chest with cool water to ease his fever, her lips moving in prayer. Shannon had been told that Sunrise had found faith in God through missionaries who worked with the Shoshone people. Now her steadiness came as much from God as from her knowledge of natural healing remedies.
All five of them kept busy. The cast was a long time being wrapped to Nev’s satisfaction. Shannon was glad he was here. She’d seen it done but never had to handle such a thing alone.
By the time he was finished, Tucker’s wounds were bleeding clean. Nev asked to be able to check it. Shannon straightened away from Tucker’s side, and after so long a time in a bent posture, the pain in her back nearly knocked her over. Only quick action from Aaron kept her from falling. He smiled down at her as he set her on her feet.
Kylie came and slid her arm around Shannon. “Are you all right? You’ve been through almost as much as Tucker.”
Shannon looked down at her battered husband. “I don’t come even close.”
“I suppose you’re right. Even so, get some rest and let Aaron and me take turns sitting up with him.”
“No, I’ll never sleep for worrying, you know how I am. It’s like one of my sheep is lost.”
Kylie smiled. “That bad?”
“Yep. So there’s no reason for us both to be awake.”
Aaron rested a hand on the small of Kylie’s back. “There’s a new man in town taking over for me as land agent. I need to talk to him. I’ll bring Kylie and Nev back in the morning to help.”
“Thank you.” Shannon really did like the man who had married her little sister. She knew this new land agent was part of Aaron arranging to move back east to the Shenandoah Valley, where he’d grown up. Shannon would miss her sister, but Kylie longed to live in a more settled part of the country, and Aaron wanted to go home. Shannon was happy for them.
Once they were gone, Sunrise urged Shannon to lie down for a while. She finally agreed, knowing she was worn clean out.
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