Karen Witemeyer

by Stealing the Preacher

  Jasper and Frank nodded, then spun and headed out the door without another word.

  “What about me, Jo?” Carl stepped forward. He dragged his hat from his head and scrunched it up in his fist. His eyes barely met hers. “I ain’t much good around sick folk.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he leaned close. “The sight of blood makes me woozy.”

  The poor fellow’s face burned deep red at the admission, and his feet shuffled as if he couldn’t wait to leave.

  “That’s just as well,” Joanna said. She twisted to check the steam on the kettle, hoping to relieve his embarrassment by acting as if she hadn’t noticed. “With my father and Crockett tending to Jackson, and Frank and Jasper gone to Deanville, the care of the ranch falls to you. I need you to see to the stock and handle all the regular chores while we’re short-handed.”

  “Yes’m. I can do that.” He slapped his hat over his thinning hair and dashed for the back door before she could change her mind.

  Judging the water in the first kettle to be close enough to boiling, she palmed a folded dish towel and removed it from the fire.

  After pouring the hot water into a small dishpan, she balanced the tray containing the lye soap, her two sharpest knives, and clean towels atop it and carried the materials to the sickroom.

  Disheartened to see her father still huddled on the floor, Joanna tried not to look at him as she circled the bed to set the dishpan on the dresser top. She could only imagine one thing that could have brought her father this low.

  “It’s his bullet in Jackson, isn’t it?” she whispered when Crockett turned toward her and started rolling up his sleeves.

  His eyes met hers. “An accident.”

  She nodded. It could be nothing else. Her father would never intentionally harm Jackson. But, oh, how her heart ached for both of them, and she worried that neither would recover.

  Bring healing, Father. Please. For both of them.

  Crockett’s breath hissed out of him as he dunked his arms elbow deep into the near-scalding water.

  “Do you want me to cool it down a little?” Joanna moved to collect the pitcher from the washstand.

  “No. I can handle it.” He latched onto the cake of soap and started scrubbing. “How long until the doctor arrives?”

  “I don’t know. A couple hours, at least. Jasper and Frank are fetching him from Deanville.” She returned to his side and held a towel out for him.

  His head jerked toward her. “Deanville? There’s not one closer?”

  “No.”

  He hung his head for a moment, eyes closed, shoulders hunched forward. She thought she heard him murmur, “Not again, Lord.” Then his back straightened and he spoke more distinctly. “Grant me strength and skill.”

  Opening his eyes, he accepted the towel from her. “I need you to go to my room at the church, Jo, and fetch my medical books. They’re in the trunk that Neill brought me. Do you remember it?”

  She frowned. “Yes, but why . . . ?”

  “I might have need of them, and I’ll feel better having them on hand.” His jaw hardened and his brown eyes darkened with resolution. “We can’t wait for the doctor. I’m going to have to get the bullet out and patch Jackson up myself.”

  “You . . . you can’t do that, can you?” What could he possibly know about surgery? He would just make things worse. No, they should wait for the doctor.

  She started shaking her head, but his answer stopped her.

  “I’ve done it before.”

  A short bark of laughter erupted from her father. “Of course he has.”

  The comment puckered her brow, but Joanna was too stunned by Crockett’s claim to respond. “I-I don’t understand.”

  “Pulled a bullet out of my brother Jim’s shoulder when we were kids. He was about Jackson’s age. I wasn’t much older. But there was no one else to do it.” He sighed, then bent his mouth in a crooked half grin. “He’s got a nasty scar, but he lived through it.”

  She steadied herself with a hand on the dresser top. Heavenly stars. He had dug a bullet out of his own brother when he was just a child. How was that even possible?

  “After that day,” Crockett continued, “I was in charge of all the doctoring on the Archer ranch. I read every medical book I could get my hands on and memorized most of them. I can do this, Jo. I have to.”

  She couldn’t seem to move. Or speak. She just stood there staring at him.

  Then her father’s voice broke her stupor. “Have faith in your man, Jo, and go fetch his books. The Lord brought him here. Remember?” The words were slightly mocking as he flung her earlier comments back at her, but there was an edge to them she’d not heard before. Resignation? Or maybe bewilderment, as if someone had just solved an impossible puzzle in front of him, leaving him no longer able to discern between what could and couldn’t be done. “Might as well let the two of them get to work.”

  So consumed was she in trying to decipher the change in her father, she was halfway to the barn to collect Sunflower before the full impact of what he said hit her. He’d called Crockett her man. And heaven be praised, he’d actually acknowledged not only God’s presence but his involvement in their lives.

  Tears of thanksgiving clouded her vision, and new energy surged as she raced the rest of the way to the barn.

  31

  Crockett blew out a prayerful breath as he gently removed the dressing from Jackson’s back and started cleaning around the wound. His fingers shook. He paused, clenched them into a fist a couple times, and then continued.

  Could he do this? His hands were so much larger now than when he’d dug that bullet out of Jim. What if he caused more damage than good?

  Don’t let me hurt him, God. Help me save him. I can’t do it alone.

  Crockett swished the dishrag he was using in the hot water to rinse away the blood and dirt, then set back to work on the wound.

  The sound of Silas adjusting his position against the far wall drew Crockett’s attention. He wished he could somehow ease the man’s burden. Guilt and worry seemed to have cut the man’s legs out from under him.

  Silas raised his head slightly, the glazed look in his eyes giving Crockett serious cause for concern. “It’s Andy all over again,” he muttered.

  “Who’s Andy?” Crockett spoke softly, giving Silas the opening to answer or not, whichever he chose. Jackson wasn’t the only one in the room with wounds that needed tending.

  “A kid I knew back in Missouri before I lit out for Texas.” Silas stared straight ahead, as if he were peering through a window into the past. “He died.”

  The stark words hit Crockett like a blow. He turned back to Jackson. It wasn’t right for children to die. Jackson should be scampering all over the countryside—poaching fish, climbing trees, snaring rabbits—not lying here with a hole beneath his shoulder blade.

  “An accident?” Crockett washed some fabric fibers from the entry wound.

  “Nope,” Silas answered, his voice flat. “His preacher stepfather beat him to death with a cane.”

  “What?” Crockett’s near shout destroyed the calm he’d worked so hard to maintain in the room. Jackson’s body flinched, and he let out a muffled moan. Crockett whispered an apology and steadied the boy by clasping his uninjured side until he stilled.

  How could a man of God thrash a child to death? It was unthinkable. No wonder Silas held such a deep-seated revulsion of preachers. Crockett felt soiled by association.

  “It was my fault.” Silas rambled on, unfazed by Crockett’s outburst. “I was always getting Andy into trouble. I was a year older and had a talent for mischief. I didn’t have no folks to steer me straight. All Mr. and Mrs. Washburn cared about was how much work they could wring outta me on their farm. And when Mr. Washburn got a hankering for the corn whiskey down at his still, I’d sneak away to town.

  “Andy was a sickly kid. Scrawny. An easy mark for the bigger boys to pick on. Three of them ganged up on him one day out behind the schoolhouse, and when I came across ’
em, something inside me snapped. I launched myself at the biggest one and blackened his eye before he even knew what hit him. Knocked out another kid’s tooth, and bloodied the third one’s nose. I made it clear that anyone who messed with Andy in the future would get more of the same.”

  Crockett listened intently as he finished cleansing Jackson’s wound. Only a tiny amount of blood seeped from the hole now, but Crockett worried more was leaking inside. At least the boy’s breathing seemed normal, if a bit shallow. Surely if the bullet had punctured a lung he’d be in a lot more distress. Maybe things weren’t as bad as they’d feared.

  Or maybe the damage was hidden. Like the damage inside Silas. Perhaps he could cleanse that wound a little more, too.

  “I imagine you earned Andy’s loyalty that day.”

  Silas snorted. “Kid followed me around like a puppy after that. I acted all put out, like having him around was a hassle, but in truth, he’d become the little brother I’d always wanted.

  “So when we sneaked down to the creek for a swim one afternoon and I saw the bruises on his back, I was livid. I demanded he tell me who had hit him so I could pound some decency into him. He made up some excuse about tripping on the church steps, but I didn’t buy it. Finally he admitted his stepfather had punished him for lying about Mrs. Carson’s bloomers.”

  Bloomers? A smile edged its way onto Crockett’s face as he placed a clean dressing over the torn flesh of Jackson’s back. He took the whiskey bottle from Joanna’s medicine box and poured a portion over the blades of the knives she had brought him, thinking he’d need to pour some in the wound, too, eventually. His smile dissolved.

  “I was the one who’d stolen the bloomers, of course, and tied them to the weathervane atop her house,” Silas rattled on. “Andy was just the lookout. But the old man didn’t care. All that mattered was making someone pay for the crime. He insisted that Andy stay away from me, but Andy refused. He snuck out every chance he got. And every chance I got, I plotted how to get even with the old man for hurting my friend.”

  Crockett bent over Jackson, peering intently into the wound. Now that the bleeding had slowed, he could judge the bullet’s path more readily. The angle seemed to head outward, toward a spot under the boy’s arm. Thank God. He hoped that meant no major organs had been hit. There were some bone chips that would need to be cleared out from where the bullet appeared to have grazed the ribs, but as long as the bullet wasn’t lodged behind bone, he shouldn’t have too much trouble extracting it.

  Silas had grown quiet again. Crockett decided he’d done all that he could for Jackson until Joanna returned. He’d need her help swabbing the blood when he went in, or he’d never be able to see what he was doing. Her father was in no shape to assist.

  As a precaution against infection, Crockett poured a generous splash of whiskey in and around Jackson’s wound, holding the boy down when he screamed and tried to raise up off the bed. Once the initial shock passed, Jackson collapsed against the mattress, and Crockett managed to apply a fresh dressing without further reaction.

  Crockett’s gut told him Silas wouldn’t continue his story if Joanna was around, and expecting she’d be back in minutes, Crockett said a quick prayer over Jackson, then strode across the room to seat himself next to Silas on the floor.

  “So what’d you end up doing?” He directed his question to the air in front of him, though he watched Silas from the corner of his eye.

  A sad crooked smile turned the corners of Silas’s mouth. “I dropped a snake on his head from the rafters of the church during one of his sermons.”

  Crockett bit back a grin.

  “The fella squealed and flailed as if the brimstone he’d been calling down had set his hair afire. I dropped from the rafters to a spot in the aisle right in front of him—wanted to make sure the lout knew it was me that done it so his anger would have the proper target. Then I lit out of there and raced for the farm.

  “I was only gone a couple hours. Just long enough for church to finish and Sunday dinner to be eaten. But by the time I got to Andy’s house ready to take my punishment, the parson had already spent his rage. I could hear Andy’s mom wailing and begging her husband to let her fetch the doctor. Then a loud crash echoed through the front room, and the wailing stopped.

  “I shimmied up the tree that shaded Andy’s window and forced my way inside.” Tears rolled down Silas’s cheek as he spoke, but he made no move to brush them away. Crockett wasn’t sure he was even aware they were there.

  “He looked so tiny in that bed. Tiny and battered beyond recognition. I was afraid to touch him. Afraid I’d hurt him more. He made horrible rasping sounds when he breathed, and his chest barely moved. But when I came closer, the less swollen of his eyes cracked open a slit, as if he knew I was there.

  “‘It doesn’t hurt, Silas,’ he told me. ‘It doesn’t hurt to go to heaven.’ After that, he didn’t rasp anymore.”

  Silas’s legs fell flat upon the floor and his arms circled closed in front of his chest as if he were clutching Andy’s broken body to his breast.

  “All this time I blamed God for not protecting him, for siding with one of his own and abandoning Andy to the brutality of a madman. But I was the one to blame. I was the one who prodded the bull and left Andy to face the horns alone.”

  Silas’s voice grew husky. Eyes still straight ahead, he cleared his throat. Crockett wanted to lay a supporting hand upon his shoulder, to console him with assurances that it wasn’t his fault, either, that the blame rested solely with the fiend who vented his rage on a child. But Crockett sensed his touch would jar Silas from his vulnerable state and possibly bring his walls back up. He didn’t need pity. He needed to finish his story.

  “God didn’t abandon Andy. I see that now.” Silas swallowed long and slow. “I remember the peace that settled over his face as he took his last breath. The smile that touched his lips as the angels welcomed him home. It was the same look Martha had when she . . .”

  Crockett couldn’t stop himself this time. He put his hand on Silas’s shoulder and squeezed. The man finally turned to look at him.

  “I been running from God for forty years, Archer. Today I stopped.”

  Moisture collected in the corner of Crockett’s eye as his soul shouted praise for the lost sheep that had finally been dragged home.

  “Something happened out there while I was trying to get Jackson home. I still don’t understand it, but I guess God don’t need me to understand everything. He just needs me to trust.”

  The simple statement of faith seared Crockett’s heart. His hand tightened reflexively on Silas’s shoulder as the man’s gaze burned into his with a conviction Crockett had never witnessed in him before.

  “God brought you here, Archer. Brought you here for this moment.” Silas reached out his hand and clasped Crockett’s shoulder. “A preacher with doctorin’ skills.” He grinned and shook his head as if he still couldn’t quite believe it. “I might’ve pulled you off that train, but God was the one who put you there. Put you there for Jo. For me. And for Jackson.”

  Silas shoved up to his feet, then held out a hand and yanked Crockett up, as well. “The boy’s going to be fine, Parson. I trust you. But more importantly, I trust the God who brought you here.”

  He slapped Crockett on the back, his vigor returning in force, causing Crockett to stagger forward a step.

  “Now, show me what I can do to help.”

  32

  Joanna tossed Sunflower’s reins to Carl and slid from the horse’s back, all while cradling the two medical books she’d found in Crockett’s room. It had taken her longer than she’d expected to find the volumes, since they were mixed among two dozen or so other books in a small trunk under his bed. She prayed the delay would not prove too costly.

  After sprinting across the yard, she burst through the back door, dashed down the hall to the sickroom, and careened to a halt.

  Her father and Crockett, sleeves rolled to their elbows, fingers covered in blood, s
tood over Jackson, their heads only inches apart. Discarded wads of cotton wool stained bright red littered the floor around her father’s feet. A strong metallic tang filled her nostrils, and she fought against the urge to gag.

  Too much blood. Too much . . .

  Crockett glanced up. “Good. You’re back. I need tweezers and a needle and thread.”

  A wave of dizziness hit her, but she pushed through it to concentrate on his words. Needle and thread. Her sewing basket. The kitchen.

  Slowly, she bent at the waist and lowered the books to the floor. Then she backed into the hall and hurried to escape . . . er . . . fetch the items. Grabbing up the entire basket, she thrust it over her arm and turned to face the hall.

  You can do this, Joanna. Crockett needs you. You can be strong for him. Strong for Jackson.

  Setting her shoulders, she marched on to the sickroom. Keeping her gaze averted from Jackson, she rounded the bed and placed the sewing basket on the dresser top.

  “I have the needle and thread,” she said, tugging a needle free from the pincushion. She always kept two or three of them threaded and ready to go for mending projects. She’d plucked out the one with black thread. Somehow it just seemed a sturdier color than white or blue.

  “Soak it in the whiskey in the tray over there.” Crockett didn’t even look up. He didn’t have to. His tone said everything for him—complete assurance that she would accomplish whatever he asked of her. “Then wash up yourself. You need to be clean before you handle any of the instruments.”

  She hadn’t planned on staying long enough to handle any instruments. Surely her father could see to that task. He seemed recovered and back to his usual capable self. Joanna opened her mouth to say just that, then closed it. If Crockett had need of her, she’d stay.

  The smell of the whiskey wrinkled her nose as she dropped the needle and thread into the shallow puddle on the tray. She couldn’t decide if that smell was better or worse than the blood. Maybe if she kept her back turned, her stomach would stay where it belonged and not jump into her throat again.