A Cowboy at Heart (10 page)

He sucked in a breath and pain exploded in his body. Oh, yeah. He realized he’d been dimly aware of the agony of breathing for a while now. How long, he had no idea. A groan rasped
through the desert in his throat, and he was surprised to hear the result, a pitifully soft wail barely louder than that of a weak kitten.

Instantly he was aware of a cool hand on his forehead.

“You are awake, then?”

A female voice, soft and low, close by. He tried again to open his eyes, but his eyelids refused to obey. Another agonizing breath, and he managed to repeat his pathetic attempt at a moan.

“Hush, now. She needs her sleep. A full night and day she has kept watch over you.”

Who? Who needed sleep? Watched him do what? If only he could open his eyes and see.

“Would you like something to drink?”

Yes! Oh, please, God, I’d give a year’s pay for a sip of water
.

A hand slid to the back of his neck and tilted his head forward. Jesse ignored the shooting pain that resulted from the minute movement, for something cool and wet pressed against his lips. With an enormous effort he pried his mouth open. The trickle of lukewarm moisture tasted better than any whiskey he’d ever chugged down. He let the liquid slide down his throat, moistening parched tissue wherever it touched. Not water, but something sweeter and infinitely more delicious. He tried to suck more down thirstily, but the mug was removed and his head lowered.

“Not too much at first,” the soothing voice whispered. “You must guard your stomach, lest it revolt.”

The thought of the physical effort involved in vomiting sent a shudder through his weary body. Exhausted, he sank back into the soft something-or-other behind his head, for the first time aware that he was lying on a padded surface. He tried to decide what it was. Softer than grass, and smooth. A bedroll, maybe? That didn’t
seem right either, but Jesse had no more time to consider the question. His body rose on a blessed swell of unconsciousness, and he hadn’t the strength to fight against it.

He awoke sometime later to a noise somewhere in the vicinity of his feet. Pain still pounded brutally inside his skull, and his back felt as though he’d been kicked by a steer. He took an experimental breath, and at the resulting pain vowed not to try that again for quite a while. His throat was as dry as a Texas plain in August, but this time he was able to open his eyes, and though sharp knives stabbed at his head, he brought them to focus enough to take in his surroundings.

Fading sunlight from a window to his left cast an orange tint on the whitewashed room. His gaze fell on a simple shelf hanging on the opposite wall. Dangling from one of the pegs beneath it was his belt and holster, and resting on top was his Stetson.

Thank the Lord. I paid good money for that hat
.

He was propped up on a narrow bed, the tick beneath him stuffed with something soft and moldable to his body. Behind his back was a mound of even more cushiony material, like feather ticking covered with soft cloths. He still felt as if he’d been trampled by a stampede, but at least he was conscious.

A movement near his feet drew his attention.
Maummi
Switzer stood in the doorway, her arms folded in front of her apron and an equally starchy glare on her face.

“Yet again have you nearly died from fighting and needed my care. Will you
Englisch
never learn to practice peace?”

If it hadn’t hurt so badly, he would have attempted a feeble laugh. As it was, he settled for a grimace. “Neither time was my fault, you know. First time was a run-in with cattle rustlers, and this time…”

His voice trailed off as the details of his encounter with Woodard and Sawyer swam into focus in his mind’s eye. The simpleton, Sawyer, had shot him in the back, and then he and Woodard had left him for dead.

“I guess I owe you another one,” he told the scowling elderly woman. “This is twice you’ve saved my sorry hide.”

She shook her head, the straps of her cap thingy waving beneath her chin. “You owe me thanks for changing your soiled clothing. The saving of your hide is thanks to the
Englisch
doctor and Katie Miller.”

Two reactions rose in him simultaneously. First was embarrassment.
Maummi
Switzer changed his drawers? He slipped a hand beneath the blanket and felt a thin pair of woolen skivvies that were not his own. A fire erupted in his face. When she’d mended his busted leg several years before, she’d only cut off his britches above the thigh.

Then a second realization stirred a memory from the long, pain-saturated sleep from which he’d just awoken. The soft voice and cool hand had belonged to Katie Miller, Emma’s pretty Amish friend who had been at the Switzers’ when he arrived yesterday.

Yesterday? Thoughts swirled in his mind. Somehow he felt it had been longer.

He decided to ignore the embarrassing question and ask the easy one. “How long have I been out?”

Before answering she stepped into the room and crossed to his
bedside. A gnarled hand, not nearly as gentle or as soft as Katie’s, pressed firmly against his forehead. As if satisfied with what she felt, she gave a nod.

“Four days and more.”

“Four
days
?” He tried to jerk upright, and immediately regretted the movement. An agonizing blaze began in his head, and his back felt as though it had been ripped open. His breath caught in his throat and he coughed, which sent tortuous flames licking throughout his chest.

“Quiet,”
Maummi
Switzer commanded, “lest you undo all the good your rest has done.”

He would have argued that unconsciousness couldn’t be labeled
rest
, but just then he was occupied with trying to breathe without setting off another agonizing coughing spell.

She stood watching his face, her expression unreadable, until he had regained an even, shallow breathing. Then she picked up a mug from the bedside table and held it to his lips.

“Drink,” she commanded.

He drank. The sweet liquid refreshed the starved tissues in his mouth and slid down his throat. The faint taste of honey mingled with something he could not place, and the result was delicious. He drained the mug dry, afraid she might take it away before he’d had his fill.

With a satisfied set to her lips she returned the empty mug to the table. “Keep that down and there will be soup.”

He would have protested that
of course
he could keep down a few swallows of sweetened tea, that in his day he’d swigged enough whiskey to float a riverboat and kept it down, but at the moment his stomach felt a bit queasy. Bragging might not be a good idea.
Instead, he closed his mouth and concentrated on not throwing up.

Maummi
Switzer slid a straight-back chair across the floor to the bed and lowered herself into the seat. “It has been four days since you were shot,” she repeated, “and we feared you dead more than once. Dr. Sorensen came from Hays City and pulled a bullet from your back.” She plucked something off the table and showed him a piece of mangled lead. “Katie stitched your head, and together we have kept you clean to guard against a killing fever.”

What being clean had to do with fever he didn’t know, but his thoughts snagged on one comment. “Did she help…you know.” He lifted a hand and pointed toward the blanket that covered his body from waist to feet. “Change my skivvies?”

“
Ach
, no!” The elderly woman seemed scandalized at the thought. “A young widow has no place in such a task. I did that myself, with Jonas to help.”

Jesse didn’t know whether to be relieved or more deeply embarrassed. He decided on the former.
Maummi
had birthed two babies, and Jonas was a man. Better them than a pretty young woman.

He settled gingerly against the fluffy stuff at his back, which he decided was a small tick stuffed with feathers. Mighty glad he was for it too, because his back was sorer than he could imagine. He’d been shot before while riding the cattle trail, once in the shoulder and once in the leg, but he’d never imagined pain like this.

“Has anybody gone after the no-good scoundrel who did this to me?”

She did not meet his gaze as she shook her head slowly. “It is not the Plain way to retaliate.”

If his lungs didn’t hurt so badly he would have heaved a sigh. No, of course it wasn’t. And now that he looked back on his encounter with Littlefield and his hired thugs, he was glad Jonas hadn’t tried to confront them alone. They would make mincemeat out of a mild Amish guy like him. In a few days Jesse would be up and about, and he’d settle his own grudges then.

“That fence still up?”

“
Ja
. Our Katie and the boy help Jonas carry water for the animals morning, noon, and night.”

Jesse stared at her. Katie had a son? He’d somehow gotten the impression she’d had no children before her husband went to his rest. “The boy?”

“
Ja
. One of Rebecca’s orphans, sent by her Colin to help us.” She leveled a stern gaze on him. “Because you are no help and only double the work for us all.”

Rather than feel the barb personally, Jesse managed a feeble chuckle. If
Maummi
Switzer felt confident enough to jab at him, she must not be overly concerned about his recovery.

She rose and scooted the chair back across the floor. “Rest now.”

“Hey! You said something about soup.” He attempted only a weak protest because his head had begun to swirl and his eyelids felt as though they were being pulled closed by an unseen force.

“A good laugh and long sleep are a doctor’s best cures.” She smiled, not unkindly. “Sleep now. Soup later.”

He would have shot back a response, but he couldn’t manage to stay awake long enough to think of one.

Katie pumped the handle, watching as water spilled into the bucket. The boy, Butch, stood at her side waiting for the bucket to fill, his expression solemn. Actually, his countenance rarely varied from the grave expression he now wore. The only time she’d seen something approximating a smile was when he’d been given the task of feeding Rex, who had rewarded him by nuzzling his neck.

She stopped pumping when the water level approached the rim, and Butch bent to grab the handle with both hands.

“Knees,” she cautioned, just as
Fader
had always warned her when she bent over to pick up a load. “Else your back will ache later.”

“Yes’m.”

He ducked his head, bent his knees, and lifted the full bucket. Water sloshed over the rim onto his already soaked trousers as he hefted his load toward the side of the barn, where Jonas had set up a watering trough for his livestock. She watched him for a second, a sad little pain in the vicinity of her heart. Rebecca said his parents had been killed by savages while on their way to claim land in the West. His mother had hidden him in the false bottom of their wagon, in a special place prepared for just such a contingency. The poor child had huddled inside, listening to the sounds of the battle that claimed the lives of his parents and all those with whom they traveled. When the wagon in which he’d hidden was set afire, he’d escaped to find the savages gone and his parents’ bodies amid the carnage of the devastated wagon train.

Tears stung her eyes, imagining the boy’s solitary shock and grief. No one should have to endure such horrors, especially not a child. But that was the way of the world. If only everyone would see that violence was an offense to Christ and would follow His
teachings as the Amish did. The only barriers to the peace He bestowed were the ones erected by angry men who refused to practice self-restraint. Her gaze strayed across the field of gently swaying wheat to the fence serving as a physical reminder that even living within the boundaries of a Plain community, violence and greed sought to shatter godly peace.

She’d begun to pump the handle to fill yet another bucket when the door to the house opened and
Maummi
Switzer appeared. “He has awakened.”

Finally! Katie released the handle and dried her hands on her apron as she headed toward the house. Though Jesse’s brief rise to consciousness yesterday had been reassuring, she would not truly be at ease until he opened his eyes and showed signs of comprehension. A blow to the head such as he’d suffered had been known to make a man feeble.