Ride the High Lonesome

by Rosanne Bittner

  Now she was not only humiliated at being mostly naked, but the pain in her leg was becoming unbearable.

  Would she lose the leg? And what did Luke Bowden know about taking care of such wounds? Had he seen men’s feet and legs and arms being sawed off in the war? She’d seen that kind of horror herself, but never dreamed it could happen to her. Now she understood why some men had begged the doctors to just let them die.

  She lay back and waited. Luke had come back from Lander, just like he’d promised. She’d truly had her doubts. She was nothing to him. He could have just left her here to die and no one would have known the difference. But he’d come back, and with all kinds of supplies, even clothes, or so he’d told her. He’d been kind. He’d even called her “honey.” Was it just because he felt sorry for her terrible condition? Or did it have a more endearing meaning? But why would it? Counting today, they’d known each other all of four days—or was it three? Or five? All of it had been under such strange circumstances.

  She was pleasantly surprised at how handsome Luke was, now that she’d seen him cleaned up and shaved. It made her feel embarrassed at her own condition.

  She heard horses’ hooves then and realized Luke was back with the supplies and the extra horses. She watched him carry armfuls of packages inside, followed by armfuls of wood, some of which he put on the fire. He stacked the rest against a wall of the cave.

  “If we don’t use all this, someone else will soon enough,” he told her.

  “Where did you get it?” Kate asked. “They sell wood in Lander?”

  “They sell a lot of things there. I put the wood in four burlap bags and loaded two onto each pack horse to even out the weight. It’s not that much, but it will get us through the next few days. What’s left over will help whoever else stays here after us.”

  Luke left again, and in a few minutes he brought in a package wrapped in brown paper tied with string. Her new dresses? New underthings? How kind of him. He laid aside a new rifle, boxes of ammunition, some towels and a bar of soap, a gunny sack out of which he took some canned goods, some potatoes, and something wrapped in cheesecloth.

  “Is that fresh bread?” Kate asked, her hungry stomach growling at the smell of cornbread.

  “Yes. One loaf of regular bread and one loaf of cornbread. I’ll cut you off some cornbread, and you can get some into your stomach while I build a fire and make coffee. I also have to heat some water to work on that leg,” Luke told her.

  “Oh, Luke, the bread looks wonderful!” Kate watched him cut off a generous piece of cornbread. He brought it over to her.

  “I have plenty of supplies now, so we can stay here long enough for you to get stronger before we head for Lander.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Kate wanted to hug him but was in too much pain. Besides, that would be much too forward of her, and a little voice deep inside warned her to remember he was still very much a stranger and she was completely at his mercy. Still, she could not ignore the kindness he was showing her now. She took the bread and bit into it, sighing deeply at its fresh texture and delicious taste. “You thought of everything,” she told him, secretly grateful to have a man around, one who so far seemed very able and respectful.

  “I have some laudanum for pain,” Luke told her as he unpacked more items. “Once you get something in your stomach and rest a little, I want you to swallow enough to numb you up some. I can’t work on that leg without you being mostly out, or you won’t be able to stand it.”

  “You said you saw such wounds in the war, but did you ever have to help bandage them?”

  “Sure I did. I saw a lot of real bad things in that war, Kate…and I did a lot of bad things. War changes a man.” He didn’t bother explaining, and Kate wondered what all he’d been through in that awful war.

  “I saw a lot of awful things, too,” she told him before eating more corn bread. “I helped nurse some of the wounded.”

  Luke didn’t answer. He stirred the coals under the fire and let it build to heat coffee and water. Kate kept eating her cornbread, relishing every bite.

  “I brought flour and water and sugar and a Dutch oven,” Luke told her. “I’m hoping you know how to make bread so you can make more once we run out. Have you used a Dutch oven?”

  “Of course I have, and yes, I can make more bread,” Kate answered. “How do you know about Dutch ovens?”

  Luke shrugged. “Watching my mother when I was little, and the cooks used them in the war. I also brought us a good wrought iron frypan and some bacon packed in lard.”

  “My goodness! You thought of everything. You must have got all your money back to be able to buy so much,” Kate said.

  He kept unloading supplies. “I had a little help, but yeah, I got it all back. I got you a decent wool coat, too, one that would fit a woman well so you don’t have to wear that big ole jacket of mine. You’ll really like it. It’s dark blue and has big, white buttons. Hopefully, you won’t need it much the next couple of weeks. It warmed up good again outside.” Luke glanced at her as she finished her cornbread. “I’m real sorry, Kate. I took care of things fast as I could, but the fact remains that part of the reason I left was to find those men and get my revenge. I didn’t figure anything so bad would happen to you in just one night—I’d planned to get back here before anything could go wrong.” He set some things aside. “I feel bad about that—you here facing that man all alone and all. Without the help of a couple of other men, I might not have made it back here at all, but I’ll explain all that later.”

  Kate lay back, enjoying the feel of something in her stomach.

  “We’ll eat something better later,” Luke told her, “once I take care of that leg.”

  Kate watched him, hardly able to believe all the wonderful things he’d thought to bring back with him. She felt guilty about how much money he must have spent. How much had those men stolen from him? And how did he get all that money in the first place? She still knew so little about him, what he normally did for a living, how far he intended to travel once they reached Lander, or if he would stop there for the winter.

  Luke proceeded to organize things, then fished around in the supplies until he found a strainer for fresh coffee grounds. He filled the strainer and put it inside the pot of heated water, then left the pot on a grate over the fire. “I’ll let that simmer and get good and strong, and I’ll cook up some potatoes and fry some of that bacon once you’re set up good,” he told her.

  Kate tried to ignore the pain in her leg, worried about how painful it would be when Luke drained some of the infection. “You’re a good man, Luke Bowden.”

  Luke sat back for a moment and met her gaze. “You think so, do you?”

  “I know so.”

  Luke smiled and shook his head. “After some of the things I did in the war and what happened in Lander, I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  “What did happen in Lander?”

  Luke stirred the kindling under the bigger logs to make the fire a little bigger. He gazed at the flickering flames. “Like I said, we’ll talk about that later.”

  And something happened in the war you aren’t telling me either, Kate thought. Something besides the fighting itself. She remembered the bitterness in his voice when she’d asked whether there was a woman in his life.

  She watched him take bandages and a flask of whiskey from the supplies.

  He held up the whiskey. “Just to calm your worries, this is for your leg, not for me, although I’ll probably take a swig or two in order to get up the courage to drain that wound.” He reached inside a saddlebag and took out a small brown bottle, handing it out to her. “Laudanum, to knock you out a little,” he told her. “It tastes bad, but it’s worth the taste to not feel the pain. Do you want to get this over with now, or wait a while and have some coffee first?”

  Kate took the bottle from him. “We’d better get it over with now because of the in
fection. How much of this should I drink?”

  Luke sighed. “I’m not sure. Take a big swallow, and we’ll wait a few minutes. I can cut you some more cornbread if you want. You need food in your stomach when you’re drinking that stuff.”

  Kate took a swallow and couldn’t help making a face. “It’s awful! Give me some more cornbread—and some water.”

  Luke obeyed. Kate drank some water from a canteen, then ate another piece of cornbread. By then, she was feeling even more dizzy. “Oh my,” she muttered. “Is this what getting drunk feels like?”

  Luke grinned. “Likely so. That stuff has a lot of alcohol in it, and you’re already in bad shape after what you’ve been through.”

  “Now I know I’ll never drink whiskey. I’ll have you know I’ve never been drunk in my life.”

  “Well, it happens to most people at least once.”

  Kate noticed him taking a swallow of the whiskey. “Promise me you won’t get drunk and take advantage when I’m passed out,” she asked, feeling a little silly and bold.

  “I promise.”

  Kate took another swallow of the laudanum. “You kept your promise to come back, Luke,” she said. It felt like her words were coming out of someone else’s mouth. “Make sure—” Everything seemed to spin around her, and for some reason she couldn’t finish her sentence. She was aware of Luke coming closer with the bandages. Was that a knife he was holding in the flames?

  “Got to…drain…infection…”

  Was that Luke talking?

  “But…I’m not dressed.” Did she really say that?

  Someone held her head up, and she drank more of the bad-tasting stuff. “You just lay back…I’ll try…save…leg,” a man’s voice told her from somewhere. “Give the laudanum…few more minutes.”

  She wasn’t sure how long she lay there before blackness began to envelop her and someone took the blanket away from her leg and grasped hold of it just under the knee. She felt pain then—an odd, deep pain that was a horror yet somehow bearable.

  Someone was screaming. A woman.

  “Just hang on,” someone told her. “Get rid…infection.”

  She slipped into a deeper blackness, deeper and deeper, until the screaming stopped.

  Fourteen

  Kate stirred awake and stretched. Pain shot through her leg, but it was more topical now, not so deep. Everything seemed a little foggy, and she felt sick to her stomach. She put a hand to her eyes and moaned.

  “It’s okay, Kate,” someone told her. “I think I got rid of all the infection.”

  Confused, Kate studied a man who bent close to her. “Luke?”

  “Yeah.” He smoothed some hair back from her face. “How do you feel, other than the pain in that leg?”

  He was sitting right next to her. Had he sat close like this the whole time she’d been passed out? “I feel awful—mostly my head and stomach. The pain in my leg isn’t so deep and unbearable as it was before.”

  “You feel awful because of the laudanum. I know what it’s like to wake up with a hangover. You need something in your stomach.” Luke wiped at her face with a damp cloth. “The pain in your leg is better because it’s just a fairly deep flesh wound that’s trying to mend itself now, but the infection is gone. I wrapped your leg good and tight, so the bleeding has stopped.”

  Kate watched him as he turned to rinse out the rag, then put it to her forehead again. “You’re being so good to me,” she commented, still not able to put all her thoughts together properly. “Are you a doctor?”

  Luke grinned. “Hell no. I’ve just seen plenty of wounds, and watched and helped treat them at times,” he answered. “There wasn’t any bullet in your leg. It just skimmed over it and flew off. Took a little bone with it, so your shinbone will be pretty sore for a while, but there’s no real, lasting damage done. You’ll be up and around just fine in a couple of days, but it’s still going to hurt.” He put the rag back in the pan of water and stood up, carrying the pan to the cave entrance and tossing out the water. Kate watched him hang the rag over a scraggly bush outside before he came back to sit down near her again. “I have coffee and fresh biscuits. I even have a jar of grape jam. How would you like a biscuit with jam on it?”

  Kate studied his dark-brown eyes…the look of worry and even a hint of adoration in them. She looked around the cave then, everything hazy, including her memory. “I’m not going to die or lose my leg?” she asked.

  Luke reached out to touch her cheek with the back of his hand. “No, ma’am. You aren’t going to die or lose that leg. Thank God I don’t feel any fever. That would be the only bad sign, but so far your face is cool.” He sighed and took hold of her hand. “I took care of the wound yesterday afternoon. It’s morning now. That laudanum really knocked you silly. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up and checking for fever all this time. I was scared to death you’d die on me, because it would be my fault for not getting here quick enough, or because I didn’t do a good job of getting rid of that infection.”

  He squeezed her hand as Kate thought a moment longer. She’d shot a man! Yes, now she remembered…remembered his awful stench…remembered what he’d tried to do to her…remembered…

  She put a hand to her left cheek. “He…burned me…”

  “It’s not that bad, honey. It’s just a surface burn. It will fade in no time.”

  Kate met his eyes again. Why had he called her honey? Was it just pity, like someone would say to an injured child?

  “How about that biscuit?” he asked her. “I brought back so many supplies we could live in here for a week if we needed to.”

  Kate covered her eyes then, embarrassed at what she had to tell him. “I…I have to relieve myself.”

  “Go ahead. There is no way you should stand on that leg yet. I’m worried that any pressure this soon could start up the bleeding all over again, so I put some towels under you, just for today.”

  “You what?” Kate felt under the blanket and realized she still wore only the shirt she’d taken from Buck’s gear. Other than that, she was naked. “Oh my God!”

  “It’s okay, Kate.”

  “No, it isn’t okay! I’m not even wearing any bloomers!” She pulled the blanket over her face. “What did you do?”

  She heard Luke sigh, felt him moving away from her. “All I did was save your life. The condition you were in, it couldn’t be helped. You were already wearing that shirt when I got here, and it looked like you’d washed up a bit. Would you rather I’d left you laying there dying and in God-awful pain just because you wore only a shirt?”

  “Of course not, but—”

  “But what?”

  “You saw things you had no right seeing,” Kate answered from under the blanket, her humiliation knowing no bounds.

  “Kate, I did what I had to do,” Luke answered.

  Kate peeked at him from under the blanket to see he was sitting on the other side of the fire and pouring himself a cup of coffee. “I’ll allow you’re in pain and confused, and you’ve been through hell since the day your wagon train was attacked,” he said, “so I won’t take offense. But I’ll remind you that if I was like that man I buried out there, you’d be lying there raped and dead. I’ll have you know I didn’t touch one thing wrongly. I was scared to death you’d die on me, and I did what I could to save that leg. That’s all I was thinking about. I didn’t want you to wake up to find that I’d cut your leg off.”

  Kate breathed deeply to control her tears and embarrassment. She lay there with the blanket still over her head, contemplating all that had happened and what Luke had just told her. But the fact remained he’d seen everything there was to see while she was out cold. Through the small opening where she’d lifted the blanket enough to see him, she watched Luke light a pre-rolled cigarette. She noticed again that he was cleaned up and shaved. A blue shirt stretched across his broad shoulders. The
sleeves looked a little tight against muscled arms, and he’d tied a red neck scarf around his throat to cover the scar left there from his hanging. His shoulder-length hair was washed and neatly combed, and he had a look of manly sureness about him. He glanced at her, and Kate pulled the blanket back over herself.

  “Take that damn blanket off your face and look at me, Kate Winters. We need to talk.”

  He’d spoken the words like a man used to being in charge. Worried she’d angered him, Kate obeyed, revealing only her eyes.

  “Do you really think I’m the kind of man who would get his jollies with a dying woman who’d saved his life just a couple of days earlier?”

  Kate didn’t answer right away.

  “Do you? Cuz if you do, I’ll still take you to Lander and drop you off, but you can fend for yourself after that. I don’t intend to travel with a woman who’s always wondering when I’ll rip off her clothes and have my way with her.”

  Kate was glad he couldn’t see how red her face was. “I…suppose you wouldn’t.”

  “You suppose?” Luke shook his head. “You aren’t exactly the first woman I’ve seen naked, you know. And under the circumstances, I wasn’t much concerned with looking at things I shouldn’t.” He spoke the words with the cigarette between his lips. He took it from his mouth before continuing. “I just didn’t want you to die or lose your leg. You can’t be bashful about things like having a towel under you when you’re as sick as you were.” He drank some coffee. “Now, do you want some coffee of your own? And a biscuit?”

  Kate sat up, pouting. “Yes, but I will not do what you expect me to do with these towels.” She reached under her blankets and pulled the towels away, throwing them aside, then kept the blanket wrapped around herself and struggled to get up.

  Luke quickly tossed aside his cigarette. “What the hell—” He stood up and was instantly at her side. “Woman, you’re being careless and stubborn! If you open up that wound, I’ve a mind to leave you here to bleed to death!”