“I was raised on a ranch, Mr. MacCallister,” Jane said. “Nursing becomes a necessary skill.”
Holding the cloth to his wound as she suggested, Falcon leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
“Are you feeling all right?”
“Yes,” Falcon replied. “I’m a little nauseous, but other than that, I’m fine.”
“Nausea is normal for head wounds, ” Jane explained. “I don’t think you’ll have much trouble with it.”
“Whoa! Whoa, there!” they heard the driver call from atop the coach. The stage came to a stop.
“Now what?” Johnson asked irritably. “Will this accursed stage trip ever be completed?”
“I wonder why we are stopping,” Jane said.
Falcon put the compress down and drew his pistol. “I don’t know,” he said. He cocked his pistol. “But I don’t intend to be caught by surprise this time.”
“Mr. MacCallister, you might want to see this,” the driver called down. “I think the rest of you should stay in the coach.”
With his cocked pistol in hand, Falcon stepped down from the coach, then moved up to the front.
“What is it?” he asked.
Falcon was standing at the right front of the coach. The driver pointed over to the left side of the road. “It’s over there,” he said.
Looking in the direction the driver pointed, Falcon saw some yellow cloth on the ground.
“Don’t that look like the dress that Indian girl was wearin’?” Gentry asked.
“Yes,” Falcon said.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought when I seen it. So the question is, what do you reckon it’s doin’ there on the ground?”
With his gun still at the ready, Falcon walked over for a closer look at the dress. That was when he saw the other items of clothing.
And then he saw Cloud Dancer.
The young Indian woman was lying on her back, totally naked. The bullet hole in her forehead was round and black.
Shaking his head slowly, Falcon put his gun back in his holster and returned to the stage. He reached out and grabbed the front of the wheel, then looked up at the driver.
“She’s over there,” he said quietly.
“Is she ...”
Falcon began nodding before the driver could finish his question. “Yes, she’s dead.”
“Damn.”
“She’s also naked.”
“What’s that you say? She’s nekkid?”
Falcon nodded again.
“Why, them sorry sons of bitches,” the driver swore angrily. “It ain’t bad enough they took the girl, and it ain’t bad enough that they kilt her. They had to do this to her. So, what do we do now?”
“We can’t leave her out here,” Falcon said.
“No, I don’t reckon we can.”
Falcon stepped back to the coach window.
“What is it?” Johnson asked, still irritated by the unscheduled stop. “What is so important that we can’t continue our journey?”
Falcon ignored Johnson’s question. Instead, he looked directly at Jane.
“Mrs. Stockdale, I wonder if you would step out here for a moment?” he said.
“Yes, of course,” Jane Stockdale said, stepping down. She looked at Falcon and the driver with a questioning expression on her face.
“What is it? What’s going on?” Johnson asked, even more irritated now because he got no reply to his earlier question. He stepped out of the coach just behind Jane.
“Mrs. Stockdale, I’m going to ask you to do something,” Falcon said. “Something that’s not going to be easy or pleasant, and if you don’t want to do it I’ll understand, and I’ll take care of it myself. But I think what needs to be done should be done by a woman.”
“I’ll do it,” Jane said without hesitation.
“You haven’t heard what I want you to do.”
“It doesn’t matter. If you want me to do it, then I know it must be something important. I’ll do it,” she said.
Falcon pointed toward the side of the road.
“You’ll find the young Indian woman over there, in that ditch,” he said.
