body against his. When he drew in air, her scent filled his thoughts. The taste of her kiss lingered on his tongue.
Wes walked down the stairs and out the front door as if the day were clear.
Just before he closed the door, he heard Owen mumble, ‘‘That fellow’ll be struck by lightning if he goes out.’’
Hardy laughed, ‘‘He already has been.’’
Allie closed her eyes. The layers of blankets warmed her body. The gentle tapping of rain on the window lulled her to sleep. As always, she was back in her cave, moving through the pattern of passages to get to her place. The air felt damp and cool against her face, the ground smooth from where a river ran through the entrances years ago.
When she entered her place, fresh air from a crevice far above welcomed her and a thin ray of light lit the little room she called hers. Everything was still there as if waiting. Her pots, her robes, her pelts. Everything she needed to survive.
In her dream, she spread out on her bed and pulled the thick buffalo robe over her. The nightmares would not come with her to her cave. She would sleep.
Hours later a sound whispered in her cave, then in the darkness of the room, pulling her from her dream.
‘‘Allie? Allie, are you asleep?’’
She rolled over. ‘‘Jason?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ he answered. ‘‘It’s long past dark, and I can’t find a candle upstairs.’’
‘‘What is it?’’ She blinked, trying to make out the outline of the boy at the door. ‘‘Where’s Wes?’’
‘‘He left here a few hours ago with the stable hand. The stage didn’t make it in, and Owen was worried. Wes said he’d ride out and look for it.’’
She heard Jason shifting in the darkness and knew something was wrong. She reached for her undergarments and dressed, knowing the boy would not have awakened her unless he felt he had to.
‘‘After they left, Owen and the sheriff decided to have another bottle and relive the battle of San Jacinto. I think Owen passed out at the table. I can’t get him to wake up.’’
Jason paused as though hating to continue. ‘‘The sheriff-was going to bed, but he only made it up four of the steps before he tumbled. I wasn’t close enough to help him. He didn’t seem too drunk to make the stairs when he started climbing. But with his bad leg, he fell. I…’’
She pulled her dress over her head. She slipped her boots on and moved out the door, buttoning the bodice as she hurried down the hallway and the stairs.
Just as Jason had said, the sheriff lay at the bottom, twisted and unconscious.
‘‘I didn’t know what to do.’’ Panic made the boy’s voice high. ‘‘I tried to help him up, but his leg is busted bad. He tried to stand, then must have passed out.’’
Allie knelt, her fingers running along the length of the old man as she’d seen medicine men do. She wanted to say she didn’t know anything, but that wasn’t what Jason needed to hear. The boy was almost as pale as the old man. He needed someone to help, not complain.
‘‘Help me get him to the table.’’ She tried to think of something. Maxwell’s crippled leg must be broken, for blood stained the knee of his trousers. A bump the size of an egg had formed on his forehead and scrapes crisscrossed his cheek.
Jason seemed to calm with having something to do. He moved beneath one arm of the sheriff and tried to pull his part of the load as they half carried, half dragged the wounded man across to the table.
Straining, they lifted the sheriff onto the end of the long table and rolled him onto his back.
‘‘Get blankets and a pillow,’’ Allie ordered. ‘‘Then build up the fire, and see if you can find a few more lanterns.’’
Allie unbuckled his gunbelt and draped it over one of the kitchen chairs. Pulling her knife from her boot, she slit the material covering his leg. As the bloody fabric peeled away, Allie saw a jagged rip in the flesh and a bone, snapped like a twig.
She stood back and tried to breathe without the thick smell of blood filling her lungs. She’d gutted animals, she’d even seen babies born, but now blood seemed to be everywhere. Warm, red blood. Her fingers were covered in it, and her dress stained.
‘‘Holy…’’ Jason whistled behind her. ‘‘That looks terrible!’’
Allie swallowed hard. ‘‘No worse than an animal’s insides.’’ She forced herself to look at the break. ‘‘All we have to do is straighten out the bone and sew up the gash.’’ That sounded like a plan. Simple, just straighten a bone and close the opening. How hard could that be?
Jason moved an inch closer16.‘‘And stop the bleeding and put all the bloody parts back in order. And hope the sheriff don’t die before we get through. Who knows,maybe as bad as this is, it’s the bump on his head that will kill him.’’
They both glanced at the old man’s face. The bump did look bad, but there was nothing Allie could do about it.
Hardy looked ready for the funeral fire now. He was either too drunk or too hurt to feel any pain, which could be good. Allie didn’t care which-she just wanted her doctoring not to kill him. But if she didn’t do something, he would surely die from the rate blood poured out of him. So she had to try.
She remembered seeing the way Adam had sewn up Wes when he’d been shot in the back. She could do that part, she told herself. As for the other, she wasn’t sure. It wouldn’t do much good to sew him up if the bone just poked another hole in his flesh as soon as he moved.
Jason took short quick breaths and turned whiter the longer he stared. ‘‘How much more blood you reckon he’s got in him?’’
‘‘Enough.’’ She prayed she spoke the truth. ‘‘
‘‘Get water and something to use for bandages,’’ Allie ordered, hoping to keep Jason from being her next patient. She moved around the room looking for something to use for sewing. The room only had an old desk and a round-toppped trunk. In the trunk they found women’s clothes and a small sewing kit. After Jason brought the water, he set about ripping a petticoat into strips while Allie tried to clean the gash.
But blood kept dripping out, slowing the process. In one swipe of a rag, Allie felt something hard in the soft, open flesh. At first, she thought it was part of the bone, but then the light caught its shine.
She glanced up to show Jason, but he’d disappeared into the kitchen area.
Allie pulled a bullet from the tissue and tossed it in the pan of water without taking time to examine it. When he woke up, if he woke up, he’d no longer have lead in his leg.
‘‘I’m ready,’’ Jason called triumphantly as he ran toward her. ‘‘I pulled this board off the back wall. I think we have to stretch the leg on it.’’ The board was about four feet long and six inches wide. ‘‘I seen a doc do that once with a friend’s arm. He said he had to hold the bone straight until it grew back.’’
Allie nodded. She knew for the bone to heal straight it must be tied to something. She’d seen a medicine man tie a broken leg to a man’s straight one, claiming they would both grow the same. For a full cycle of the moon, the man crawled around dragging his tied legs behind him. But when the ropes were removed, he stood straight on two legs once more. If that worked, the board might work.
They placed the wood beneath Hardy’s leg and pulled as hard as they could.
‘‘Harder!’’ Allie kept saying as she tried to keep Maxwell still while Jason pulled.
The sheriff moaned in pain, but the leg straightened. Allie and Jason tied it in place, leaving the gash untouched. Blood dripped out on the ties as they worked.
‘‘You think we pulled it too hard?’’ Jason whispered. ‘‘What if this leg is longer when we untie it from the board?’’
‘‘We’ll worry about that later,’’ Allie answered, thinking the boy needed an extra pocket to carry all his worries in.
Allie held the flesh together with her fingers and began to sew the skin closed, but blood kept bubbling in her way.
‘‘Wait!’’ Jason ran to the bottle still next to the sleeping innkeeper. ‘‘I saw a doc do this once in the bar. Every time there is doctoring to be done at the bar, I like to help if I can. Hope I learned something that will help.’’
He began dripping the whiskey over the wound, washing away blood as Allie stitched. The whiskey sizzled on
