Rafe almost told her. It might help to know she wasn’t the only one.
Before he could, she went on whispering. “But I couldn’t regret him marrying Audra. Things got so much better. Not with Father. He’s always been difficult. But having Audra . . .” Her voice softened with affection. “Things got better for me. She was like having a sister. With her, the house became a home. When Maggie was born, Audra and I had such a good time with her that Pa’s grouchiness didn’t seem to matter much.”
“How long have they been married?”
“Not quite three years.”
“They had their children fast. How old is she?”
“She’s far closer to my age than Father’s.” Julia’s shoulder brushed his as she leaned close to him and dropped her voice even lower. “But Audra should never have had another baby so fast. It would have been okay if we hadn’t moved. And I adore Maggie. But Audra’s so delicate, and with no milk cow, Audra is still nursing. I’m afraid the babies are taking every bite of nourishment she eats.”
Rafe thought of that fragile flower of a woman and had to agree, though she’d survived, and here was tough old Wendell in a world of hurt. “You can’t always judge toughness by looks.”
Julia’s gaze met his, and for a moment they weren’t in this shabby little room with a sickly man and trouble in their past and their future.
Before Rafe was anywhere near done looking, Julia shook her head and broke the spell.
It took some doing, but he remembered what he’d been wanting to say. “Your stepmother has survived in a hard land—and I’m counting Texas as well as Colorado. She’s delivered her first baby, and Maggie is alive and well.”
“True. But it isn’t wise. My father doesn’t seem to care about much but himself.”
Rafe hated how lonely she sounded. He had to tell her she wasn’t alone in her struggle with her parents. “My ma was a big strapping woman. Broad-shouldered, broad-hipped. Gave birth to three young’uns without much trouble, least I never heard of any. But she wasn’t tough in her mind and her heart. There was an accident. My fault.” Rafe ran a finger over his scar. “We almost lost Seth.”
“Seth?” Julia interrupted. “Ethan said Seth’s Cavern.”
“Our little brother. He got hurt. Bad hurt. For a while we didn’t think he was going to live. Ma . . . It seemed like she just took to her rocking chair and quit the family. Pa started staying away. He’d always gone off to do some trapping every once in a while, but he ran his ranch, too. After Seth’s accident, he starting leaving more and more to me, until we boys were doing everything and he barely lived with us anymore.”
Rafe had thought many times of how—before the accident—he’d run wild. Explored the cavern. Ma couldn’t keep up with them and Pa was busy with the cattle or gone trapping, and Rafe had done as he pleased. After the accident he’d grown up, but it was too late for his family. When Ma died, it had been sad, but they’d buried her and the family went on as always because she hadn’t really been part of it for a long time. Rafe had decided long ago that this land wasn’t right for women. Now here were Julia and Audra, living proof that a woman ought not to try to settle here.
“We should never have settled here.” Julia looked down at her father. “We weren’t exactly happy in Houston, not with Father’s temper, but we had a good roof over our heads and food in the cupboards. He wasn’t around all that much, so we put up with him on the weekends and he’d go away and we’d have our happy home back. I have no idea what possessed him to head west. As usual he didn’t explain himself.”
“I know why.” A voice turned Rafe around. Audra stood in the doorway. She pushed the door open, looking about as strong as dandelion fluff.
Julia stood. “Really? He’s never said anything to me.”
Rafe got to his feet and watched the two women. Worrying about what would become of them without a man.
“He told me just before he collapsed. I think he was feverish, not thinking clearly, or he’d never have said anything. He stole some money from a dangerous man and ran. That’s why we left so abruptly.”
“He stole money?” Julia’s brow furrowed. “But we’ve always moved on short notice.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the first money he stole.” Rafe gave unconscious Wendell a disgusted look.
“There’s more.” Audra told them about the gambling, and about how her father had as good as sold her to repay a debt.
Ethan appeared behind Audra, just peeked around the corner with a baby in his arms. The little one was sitting up, looking at Ethan and grinning.
Audra looked over her shoulder, then smiled shyly at Ethan. “Thanks for holding her. Let me tear up a few more rags and then I’ll take her.” She turned, but Ethan took up too much space. She stopped, facing him.
Rafe thought his brother was a mite too slow about stepping back to let her go past.
Once Audra was gone, Ethan went back to standing more behind the doorframe than in front of it. The young’un leaned sideways to peek into the room. Rafe moved, hoping to block the little girl’s view of her sick pa.
“Water’s hot.” Ethan’s complete lack of haste in delivering that news told Rafe his brother had heard Audra’s story.
“I’ll get it.” Julia edged past Ethan.
Rafe couldn’t quite take his eyes off her as she whisked her bossy little self out of the room.
He watched her vanish, and his eyes lingered on the spot where she’d been before he looked to see Ethan and his stupid smile. Ethan always smiled too much.
“What’d you see here that’s even a little bit funny?” Rafe was surprised by the urge to yell at his brother, tackle him and punch him. At least wrestle him to the ground. They’d spent most of their childhood in some kind of battle, usually laughing through it all. Their wrestling matches were another thing that had ended after Seth’s accident.
“Not a thing, big brother. So, have you ever seen a woman before? Least ways one you’re not related to?”
Rafe clenched his fists. Then the little girl peeked around the corner of the door again and saved Ethan’s mangy hide.
Ethan seemed to know it because he showed no fear. In fact, his smile got wider. Fighting with Ethan might help Rafe work off the strange turmoil in his gut, but how was a man supposed to tackle his brother when he held an innocent child?
The little girl started bouncing and drew Rafe’s attention. Rafe wasn’t going to be able to swing a fist. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t land a punch of another kind. “You look real nice holding a baby.”
Then a thought came to him. “This cut is . . . is . . .” Rafe didn’t want to say that Wendell was going to die, especially in front of the little one. Especially if Audra was within hearing distance. But Ethan knew as well as Rafe that only a miracle stood between Wendell Gilliland and the Pearly Gates. And from what Rafe had heard, Wendell and the Almighty weren’t on the kind of terms that earned a man a miracle.
Of course, who ever really deserved a miracle? So anything was possible.
Ethan nodded and spoke very quietly so the women in the room only a few feet away wouldn’t hear. “Not the kind of thing a man recovers from most times. Short of using a hacksaw.”
The little girl slapped Ethan in the face.
Ethan couldn’t help but smile at the little angel.
Hacksaw and a smile.
This was one of the strangest days of Rafe’s life. Of course, his life was mostly normal as the sunrise. Work and eat and sleep, then wake up and work again.
Strange was kind of nice for once. Except for Wendell being close to death, of course.
“So if we do . . . that.” Rafe didn’t say cut his arm off with a hacksaw. “If it saves him, they’re gonna need a lot of help for a long time. And if it doesn’t . . .” Rafe gave Maggie a deadly serious look and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Her ma is gonna need a new husband.”
Ethan was darkly tanned, but Rafe thought he turned a slight shade of green. He glanced o
ver his shoulder and whispered back, “Why are you lookin’ at me when you say that?”
“Was I looking at you, brother?”
“Look at yourself. Except, wait, you got eyes for a pretty redhead, don’t you?” Ethan looked sideways again, clearly checking to see if Julia or Audra were listening. “Pick either of them and you end up with the whole brood.” Ethan shuddered and ran away as if he were being chased by a pack of rabid wolves.
Rafe noticed he held on to the baby, though.
Turning back to Wendell, Rafe looked at that arm. The red streaks went up as high as his sleeve could be rolled. Julia came bustling back in the room with her basin of hot water, and Rafe didn’t know what to tell the woman. Hot water wasn’t going to make one bit of difference.
If they were going to have a chance of saving him, the arm needed to come off. Rafe felt sick. He’d never done such a thing and wasn’t sure he could. Then he thought of Steele back at the Kincaid Ranch. A tough man who’d spent time in the war.
Steele did what doctoring got done on the ranch. He’d never talked much about the war, but he was a man who might have at least seen an infected wound like this. Julia stood with the steaming water, frowning at her sick father.
“I’ll leave you to it.” Rafe turned sideways so she could get past.
“Are you leaving?” She blocked the door as if she’d tackle him if he tried.
“No.” Julia had too much hardship in her future. Rafe wouldn’t leave her alone to deal with it. “No, I’ll stay and see you through this. All of it. Get your pa fixed up, make sure you’re safe—whether you go or . . . stay.”
She said, “Thank you,” so quietly Rafe read her lips more than heard the words. Turning to her father, she slipped past Rafe, knelt by her pa’s side, and set her basin of steaming water on the floor.
Rafe turned and went after his brother. “Ethan!”
Ethan wasn’t in the tiny cabin, but he appeared at the outside door holding the baby . . . still. Ethan didn’t seem to notice he had a child in tow.
“Did you spend time fighting in the war?”
Audra was bending over a pot of steaming water hanging from a hook at the fireplace. She gasped, then dropped her pile of rags and rushed over to snatch her baby away from Ethan, as if he were going to war at that moment and taking Maggie along.
Ethan studied Audra for a bit too long, then turned to Rafe, his brows arched. “You want to talk about that now?”
“No, I just wonder if you’ve seen any . . . any doctoring that might help us.”
“I didn’t go to war. I went north. Spent time logging here and there. Went on to California and sailed the ocean some. War didn’t interest me.”
“Okay. Then, I need Steele. Ride back to the ranch and get him.”
Ethan flashed that charming smile. But there was a look in his eye that reminded Rafe his little brother didn’t like taking orders. Not one bit.
“Do it.” Rafe looked very deliberately at Audra, who stood watching every word that passed between them.
Rafe pushed Ethan outside and around to the back of the house.
Rafe could make out Julia moving on the other side of the thin, sagging wall, so he spoke quietly.
“There’s something I hope Steele can do that I can’t.” He hated to admit he couldn’t do something, but . . . amputating a man’s arm. Well, any notion of how to go about it was better than none, which was what Rafe came equipped with.
“It’ll be hours going there and back.”
“I know.”
Ethan leaned close. “He may not have hours, Rafe.”
“I know that, too, but I don’t think I can do it. We don’t even have what we need.” A hacksaw. “Tell Steele what’s wrong, and he’ll get the . . . supplies.” A hacksaw. “Then get back here.” With a hacksaw.
Ethan gave Rafe a long, quiet look.
It took everything Rafe had to admit, “I don’t know what else to do, Eth.”
“Neither do I.” With a jerk of agreement, Ethan left to cross the creek.
Rafe went back inside.
“Julia.” Rafe got the little general to come out from the bedroom. He looked between her and Audra. “There’s no way to say this except straight out.” Rafe tried to figure out a way to soften the news. “Wendell’s arm is too badly infected. If we want him to live, we’ve got to . . .” Rafe swallowed hard. “His arm . . . It’s . . . If we don’t do . . . something drastic, he’ll die.”
Audra reached an unsteady hand out, and Rafe caught her wrist to steady her and relieved her of the baby. “You mean . . . ?” She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “Cut it off?”
Julia’s face went bone white, and she sat in a chair a bit too suddenly. Rafe braced himself to catch her if she fainted. If he wasn’t careful, he could be trying to catch all three females in the next few seconds.
“I sent Ethan for Steele, the foreman at my ranch. Steele served in the War Between the States. I hope maybe in the war he saw some doctoring like this. He knows some healing tricks. I don’t know how to do what I’m sorely afraid needs to be done. I’d probably kill him trying to save him. Plus, I need a . . .” Hacksaw. Rafe suppressed a shudder. “A tool you don’t have. I can’t image how I’d handle this with what’s on hand. And maybe there’s something we can do short of . . . of . . .”
“Amputating his arm.” Audra said it with a steadier voice than Rafe. He decided that maybe he’d underestimated how much strength she had. Or maybe she just really didn’t like her husband and didn’t mind the thought of causing him a load of pain.
“I’m hoping Steele can help.”
“I expect we’ll need a new batch of hot water.” Audra turned to the fireplace.
“Audra . . . Mrs. Gilliland, what ails your husband is beyond what hot water can cure.”
Audra didn’t turn to face him. She stood by the fire, not moving for far too long. At last she reached for a basin, protecting her hand with a small towel, and began ladling from the steaming pot that hung from a hook over the crackling fire.
“Until there’s more to do, we’ll do what we can.”
CHAPTER
8
Julia prayed—prayed hard—while she bathed her father’s arm.
She unbuttoned his shirt, and her hands bumped against his stupid cigar cases. She lifted her eyes to glare at a wooden box full of cigars. It sat in the corner of this room, in a house that barely had food and clothing. Disgusted, she jerked the cigar cylinders out of his pocket and tossed them against the far wall. They rolled into a crack between the wall and the floor, and Julia was glad to see them drop out of sight.
But she knew how much her father loved his precious cigars and he was never without them, though there used to be just one case. As those cylinders disappeared, it struck her hard that she would never have dared to discard those cylinders if she had any hope.
Then she slipped her father’s shirt off.
And it got worse.
Red streaks reached up to his neck and leeched out onto his chest.
Amputation wasn’t going to do any good.
As she worked over it, the wound opened and she daubed at the poison until it ran red with blood instead of the ugly yellow.
She’d been at it so long that her knees were aching and her back protested her bent-over position. Her fingers were bright red from the hot water. As she pressed on the wound to open it more and drain every ounce of the poison from it, she thought of the pain she was causing and, wishing she could apologize, looked up to see her father’s eyes flicker open.
He tried to pull his arm free and groaned, clutching his wounded right arm with his left hand. “Stop your fussing. Let go.”
“You’re awake.” Julia quit doctoring and dropped her cloth in the hot water. She reached for the basin of cold water, wrung out the rag and laid it on his forehead.
“What’s going on?” He lifted his right arm to push her away but checked the movement with a groan of pain.
“You’ve got an infected cut. You’re running a fever.” She might be having one of her last conversations with her father.
“I love you.” She wasn’t sure if that was true anymore. But it had been once. Before Mother died. “I’m sorry I worried you and Audra. I got in a . . . in a tight spot out hiking.” No sense burdening the poor sick man with details.
His bleary eyes cleared, and he looked at her, really looked at her for the first time in what seemed like years. His sullen expression faded, and Julia remembered he’d been a kinder man once.
“A rancher found me and brought me home.” Now wasn’t the time to discuss any of what she’d learned about her father in the last day. Now was the time for another kind of talk.
“Do you believe in God?”
They’d never attended church. She’d learned of God from her mother, and she read her mother’s precious Bible daily. Once Audra came to live with her, they’d worshiped together.
Ignoring her question about faith, he said, “You’ve got the look of my mother’s family, the red hair. But I see your ma in you, too.” He reached for her and gasped in pain. The pain brought him back to the present, and he scowled. “Where’s Audra? I need to talk to her.”
“Father, you’re very sick. You need to decide where you want to spend eternity. You need to believe in Jesus as the Son of God. You need to confess your sins to Him and—”
He tossed his head restlessly. “I don’t want you nagging at me. Audra knows when to shut up.”
“She’s making soup for you. While she dishes it up, I want to ask you to make a confession of faith to God. Father, you may not get another chance.”
“Get her in here.” He looked half mad with fever and rage. “I don’t want soup.” He fumbled at his pocket with his left hand. “What happened to my cigar case?”
“I laid it aside. It’s here.”
“I want it.”
“You can’t smoke now, Father. You’re barely conscious.”
“I want Audra in here. She’ll mind me.” His voice rose to a shout. “Audra!”
Julia gave up, for now. “Audra, he’s awake.”
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