A strange feeling, like a soundless rushing wind, swirled around and through her. Calmness infused her, steadying her hands and imbuing her with fresh determination. Garnet kept her gaze on the bright shirt and thanked God in whispered wonder as she squirmed her way over to the trapped man.
Her courage faltered when she reached him and spied the blood gurgling from a deep wound in his chest. Something, perhaps a jagged stump of a branch, had torn through his shirt front, ripping it half away as it punctured skin . . . muscle . . . All Garnet could see was mangled flesh and blood. So much blood.
“Lord? Help me, please,” she whispered. Feeling clumsy and stupid because she didn’t know what to do, Garnet knelt beside the man. Her hands hovered uncertainly.
It was a small miracle of sorts that the logging cap he wore hadn’t been knocked off. The flaps, she realized. The flaps could be used to help staunch the flow of blood. As carefully as she could, Garnet tugged the cap away, then slid her hands beneath his neck and turned his head.
The present shattered in an unvoiced scream, ripped away by a five-and-a-half-year-old nightmare.
She was looking into the face of a murderer.
Twenty-Seven
The man’s eyelids fluttered, then lifted. He groaned and coughed, and a trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. Awareness dawned slowly. “You!” he struggled feebly against Garnet’s hands before his body abruptly went slack. “Just let me die,” he whispered. “ ’Tis what I deserve.”
Garnet tried to answer, her lips half parting in soundless denial.
A grimace deepened the pain-scored lines slashing the gaunt face. “Just . . . go away,” he said. “You’re safe. The man you saw . . . he was an . . . anarchist. Hired to—” He broke off, huge drops of sweat popping out on his brow. “We had . . . to stop him. We—”
“Don’t talk,” Garnet finally managed, but the words sounded as though a croaking stranger had spoken.
“Can’t . . . die, not telling.” He tried to take a breath, but fresh blood gushed from the wound, and his eyes rolled backward like Oscar’s had.
Galvanized, Garnet jammed the earflap of his cap on top of the gaping hole. The man’s body tautened like a bow. He groaned. Desperate, Garnet pressed, using the heel of one hand while with her other she tore at the long scarf fashioned in a bow around her neck.
She found herself praying, soft breathless snatches, inarticulate but breathed from the depths of her being. Her eyes stung, her arms began to quiver from the strain, her spine felt as though hot bricks were being piled one by one on top of her with crushing weight and searing heat.
Blood soaked through the cap. She tossed it aside, frantically used both hands to finish untying the stubborn scarf, then wadded it into a lump and pressed it against the still bleeding wound. How could a man still live and be losing blood like that?
“Hurts. God Almighty . . . hurts.”
“I know it hurts. But I think I have to press. I’m sorry. You’re still bleeding.”
“Why?” He coughed again, groaned in pain. “I . . . stood by. That day.”
Garnet forced her gaze away from his chest, and stared down into the cloudy confusion of his eyes. “You stopped the others, in the end. You didn’t let them . . .” Hot color flooded her cheeks; it was idiotic of her to be squeamish, but she couldn’t help it. “You prevented them from ruining me,” she finished. “And you stopped them—they would have murdered me, after . . . along with that man.”
“You were so young.” His fingers twitched, but he was too weak now to lift his hand. “And . . . your hair. So beautiful. Sun caught it . . . the others . . . just wanted. But I—we had a daughter. Would have been your age back then.” A single tear slid down, leaving a shiny trail in the dirt-smeared face. “She’d died, couple months before. I couldn’t—couldn’t let them . . .” His voice trailed away.
“Thank you,” Garnet said.
The sense of wonder grew, filling her up, lending strength to her flagging muscles, cushioning her on a pillow of preternatural peace. She could do this, she thought. She could hang on, hang on until help arrived. The Lord had blessed her with a miracle, right here in the middle of death and destruction. He had heard her cry.
“What’s your name?” she asked, hoping he was still conscious though his eyes had closed. “Mister? What’s your name?”
“Critchley. Raymond . . . Critchley.” His tongue passed over alarmingly blue-tinged lips. “Know you. Miss Sinclair. Known . . . for years.”
“It’s going to be all right, Mr. Critchley,” Garnet promised. Perhaps later she would smile at God’s sense of irony. “I’m not going to leave you. I promise.”
“Angel,” he whispered. His eyelids lifted, and he looked straight up into Garnet’s face. “Red-haired angel.” Beneath her hands his chest rose, fell. His eyes closed again.
“Mr. Critchley!”
There was no response. She wouldn’t let go. I’m not going to let him go, Lord. Pressure. She had to stop the bleeding. That day, the day at the creek, she had helped to save Phineas, Sloan told her later, because she had staunched the flow of blood. God wouldn’t save a fox but turn away a man . . . even if the man was a murderer . . . On the cross Jesus had forgiven a murderer, hadn’t He? No . . . the man on the cross had been a thief. Press, Garnet. Don’t relax. She ignored the pain, the cramps shooting up into her shoulders, her calves. She ignored the dizziness, the sickening swirl gathering momentum, the gleeful voices in her head telling her she couldn’t hold on long enough, she was a doubter, God didn’t help those who didn’t trust Him . . . Mr. Critchley would die because of her. Justice, it was justice he deserved, not mercy.
Masculine hands appeared in front of her. Garnet blinked. The hands were attached to arms, stretched out on either side of her.
“Easy, Garnet. You’re doing fine. Press here and here, just for a moment longer. You can do it, that’s it.”
Sloan’s voice. Sloan’s hands. Sloan’s strength surrounding her, supporting her. You can do it, he’d said. So she did. And when more hands appeared, replacing her bloodied ones, when she was lifted up and away, she found herself gazing for a single second that spanned a river of demolished dreams into a pair of storm-cloud-gray eyes.
“Sloan . . .”
“I know.” His index finger brushed her temple, her cheek. “I’ll try not to hurt him. And I’ll do my best to save his life. Don’t worry.” His smile was rich with memories. “I’m a doctor.”
A sob spoiled her smile, but it was enough. Even as she allowed a burly man with muttonchop whiskers to steer her backward, out of the way, Sloan had dropped down beside Mr. Critchley. The man who had taken over for Garnet crawled onto the log, while a third man handed Sloan his medical bag.
Dr. MacAllister had returned.
For over an hour Sloan labored over Raymond Critchley. Ray Senior, father of the engaging Raymond who over the summer had spent hours between school and chores, helping Sloan with his home restoration. There were five other brothers and sisters, along with Mrs. Critchley. They needed their father; she needed her husband.
So he poured himself out, praying as he worked that Jesus’ hands would take over, that the superior knowledge of the Great Physician would grant him skills beyond his own. Not because he was worthy—but because he had been restored. Because he was loved.
Not because Raymond Critchley—senior or junior—deserved it, but because God’s love for all His children, the unregenerate as well as the restored, had no limits.
The afternoon light had deepened to autumn gold by the time a physician from Strasburg approached to offer assistance. Sloan finally drew a needed breath of relief. With devoted nursing care and God’s continued mercy, Raymond Critchley should live. It would be safe now to relinquish him into another’s doctor’s care. But Sloan wouldn’t. Couldn’t, until he’d determined that he was turning Mr. Critchley over to a bona fide physician, not an incompetent hack who still believed in archaic rituals such as bleeding a
patient who’d already lost a pint through no wish of his own.
He ran a swift look over the other doctor, who was making his way toward Sloan and the injured man through a narrow path that had been cleared in the past hour. The long black cutaway coat and striped gray trousers might be a tad affected under the circumstances, but Sloan was relieved by the intelligence he read in the bluff features. “He’s unconscious but stable. I’ve closed the wound, administered two cc’s of morphine borate via hypodermic injection for pain, also amyl nitrite to stabilize the heart. Set the broken leg—a simple fracture of the tibia fortunately.”
“How’s the breathing? Can he be moved?” As he spoke, the Strasburg doctor fixed a stethoscope to his ears. “May I?” Belatedly he paused, glanced at Sloan. “Ah, name’s Hanover, by the way. Dr. Terence Hanover.”
“Sloan MacAllister.” A wry smile flickered at one corner of his mouth. “Dr. Sloan MacAllister. Pleased to meet you, Hanover.”
“Likewise. Heard about you, you know.” He knelt beside Sloan and leaned over Raymond Critchley. “This man was fortunate to have you nearby.”
“He was more fortunate than you realize, and I had little to do with it.”
Weariness descended, shackling his limbs in heavy chains. Sloan stood, staggered, and thanked the man who’d been helping him with Critchley—a bricklayer from town named Milt. Milt loped off to fetch help with loading Mr. Critchley onto a wagon with the other injured. After Hanover finished his examination, Sloan discussed various prognoses and courses of treatment while he cleaned up as best he could with the torn sleeve of someone’s donated jacket.
“If you don’t mind a fellow professional’s opinion, you need to share the load, so to speak, Dr. MacAllister,” Hanover observed finally. “You look as though a couple of these logs rolled over you. Go. Rest. I’ll see to your patients. From what I’ve heard, there’s a fair number of very lucky men here today.” His gaze slid beyond Sloan, toward a large chestnut tree whose leaves were tipped with autumn gold. “What in blazes are two women doing here?”
“Don’t know about one of them,” Sloan replied. “But the red-haired lady saved this man’s life. I’m on my way over there to thank her right now.” Among other things.
“Hmm. You don’t say. Must be an extraordinary woman . . .”
“Yes, she is.”
Hanover rested a hand on Sloan’s shoulder, giving it a friendly squeeze. “Go on, man. Quit hovering. Or haven’t I convinced you yet that I won’t kill the patients you labored so skillfully to save?”
They shook hands, and Sloan headed across the sweep of stubbled grasses. Behind him pink and orange smears of color stained the deep blue sky. His path to the chestnut tree led him into a bar of golden sunlight. It poured over the meadow, almost as though lighting his way . . . to Garnet.
Sloan’s weariness lifted with every step. All he could see now was Garnet, all he could think about now was the look on her face when she’d seen him.
It was going to be all right, wasn’t it?
He paid scant attention to the other woman, a robust brunette with blazing blue eyes and a greenish cast to her skin. From the look of her, doubtless she had spent the past hours cowering in a buggy. Probably the artist—he couldn’t recall her name. She seemed to be trying to persuade Garnet to leave but turned when she heard Sloan’s approach.
“Ah. At last, the famous Dr. MacAllister.” She stepped forward, blocking his view of Garnet. “Since conditions couldn’t be less proper, I’ll introduce myself. Mrs. Felicity Ward. I’ve been longing for an introduction, Dr.—”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Ward.” Sloan ignored the outstretched hand, stepped around her, and stopped directly in front of Garnet. “How are you doing?” he asked, his hands twitching with the need to hold her.
Over the past hour she’d made an attempt to pin her hair back into a neat roll, but several tangled strands hung limply about her face and neck. Her clothing, like his, was bloodied beyond repair. The blank, shattered expression in her eyes alarmed him.
“How is Mr. Critchley?”
Her soft voice sounded hollow, and she kept wiping her hands with a red-stained handkerchief, over and over as though she didn’t realize what she was doing.
Sloan stepped closer, setting his bag on the ground. Very gently he lifted both her hands, tossed aside the crumpled linen square and captured her restless fingers in his own. “You saved his life. He’s going to live, Garnet. Barring complications, of course,” he added with a doctor’s caution.
“For heaven’s sake, can we spare the postmortems?” Mrs. Ward said. “Garnet, you see? The man’s fine. I am not. I’ve never been so . . . so revolted, in my entire life.” She glanced at the handkerchief Sloan had tossed to the ground. “All that blood . . . the screams—it’s been unbearable.”
Sloan put a firm arm around Garnet. Her slender form felt boneless, but she refused to lean against him. He frowned, grappling with the implications. “Mrs. Ward. I need to make sure Miss Sinclair is all right. Excuse us.”
“Well, that’s plain enough.” The woman’s lips thinned. She pressed two gloved fingers against her temple, then expelled her breath in an impatient sigh. “I’ll wait in the buggy. But I will point out that I’ve been waiting. And in case you haven’t noticed, it will be dark in an hour.” She flounced off.
Sloan focused on Garnet. “I want you to sit down. Your pulse is a bit sluggish . . .” He studied her. “You’re still a bit shocky, I’m thinking.”
“Don’t want to sit.” She offered him a small smile. “Won’t be able to rise.”
“Then I’ll help you.” He got her down, propped her against the trunk of the tree, then carefully arranged her skirt over her stockinged feet. “I see you’re still up to your favorite habit of removing your shoes,” he murmured. He couldn’t help it, his fingers reached with a mind of their own to brush a bright lock of hair away from her cheek. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
When he returned a few moments later, he brought along a canteen, a collapsible metal cup, and a clean rag from one of the other wagons that had arrived earlier to help. He’d taken time to thoroughly wash his own hands, but nothing else. He’d also requested that the swarm of curious bystanders maintain a respectful distance.
“Here we go. Let’s clean you up a bit more, hmm? Don’t worry. My back will provide a screen of sorts, and Mr. Rawls will keep the crowd away. Try to relax. Did you know everyone’s calling you the red-haired angel of mercy?”
He kept up the rambling flow while he poured water into the cup and handed it to her. He wasn’t surprised when she couldn’t fold her fingers around it. Matter-of-factly he held the cup to her lips instead.
“Sorry,” Garnet said after swallowing a few sips. “It’s just that . . .” her voice trailed off.
“It’s all right. You’re worn out.” As he spoke he poured more water onto the rag. Then he carefully wiped her face and hands, even folded back the blood-stiffened cuffs of her shirtwaist to bathe her wrists. “I wish I could find words to tell you how much I admire what you did. You saved Mr. Critchley’s life, Garnet.”
“Sloan . . .?”
“Feel a little better?” He smiled into her eyes, hiding his mounting concern at her lethargy. She’d battled so valiantly, with a heart-swelling gallantry and grace that brought a lump to his throat. He loved her more deeply than he had words to describe . . . yet she somehow seemed to be slipping away from him.
Was this—this lethargy a mental shield erected against him instead of her body’s defense against the carnage she’d witnessed? The possibility burst over Sloan, rattling him so thoroughly he lost his composure. “Garnet, it’s all right. Everything’s all right. You’ve got to believe me. We need to have a talk, you and I. There are things I need to share, things—” He shut his mouth, wanting to bang his fool head against the tree trunk. He was behaving like an insensitive clod.
“Mr. Critchley’s one of the men.”
“Yes. The one whose life you
saved.” He kept his voice gentle, in stark contrast to his private self-denunciation. “I can’t begin to tell you how proud—”
“He’s one of the men I saw. That day. Five years ago.”
If she’d fired a bullet into his gut, Sloan couldn’t have been more surprised. “What?”
“Mr. Critchley . . . saved me.” Suddenly her eyes were swimming. “He’s the man who wouldn’t let the others h-hurt me.”
“God. God in heaven.” What have You done to me? He couldn’t take it in, couldn’t grasp that he’d just battled to save the life of one of the gutter trash, conscienceless murderers who had almost destroyed Garnet’s life. “I’m going after him.” Pure rage catapulted him to his feet. “Whether he lives or dies, he’s going to jail. I don’t care if he bleeds to death, I don’t care—”
“Don’t, Sloan.”
She was trying to rise. Sloan grabbed her and hauled her close. He didn’t care who witnessed the embrace. “Sweetheart, don’t be afraid. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re safe. I’ll protect you, I promise—”
Damp fingers pressed against his mustache and lips, stemming the heedless words. He had hardly realized it was her hand before she pulled it away.
“He never wanted to hurt me, Sloan.”
“Never wanted to hurt you?” Shaken by his rage as much as Garnet’s intimate gesture, Sloan shook his head. Denial. Disbelief. The overwhelming compulsion to protect. Yet Garnet was straining away from him, and he realized abruptly that his hold was too tight. He forced his fingers to relax their grip, but he couldn’t release her. “Garnet, the fear of what he and those men threatened to do to you and your family has dominated your life since you were sixteen years old.” The other men, he thought, his panic rising. Where were the other men?
A single tear slipped down her cheek. “I know. But you were right. That ridiculous bonnet never fooled anyone except me. Mr. Critchley knew all along. He never wanted to hurt me,” she repeated. “He said . . . that day, I think I reminded him of his own daughter. Sloan . . . don’t look like that. Please.”
Shenandoah Home (Sinclair Legacy Book 1) Page 22