A Taste of Heaven (38 page)

Like lightning, like the blink of an eye,
Tyler grabbed Egan by his bloody shirtfront and had him trapped
against the log wall before either Libby or Joe could react.

Both of them were the same height, but the
older man easily outweighed Tyler by fifty pounds. Fury gave him
the advantage, though, and he had one hand around Egan's jowly
neck. In the other he held his revolver with the barrel jammed
under the man's chin.

“He's not your boy, you filthy, no good
son of a bitch!” Tyler snarled in a voice more animal than human.
“Rory is
my
business. And the
hole in his leg was made by a rifle shot, and judging by the angle,
I'd say it came from behind—”

Libby gasped, and clapped her hand to her
mouth.

“My guess is that one of your hired gunmen
shot this boy, or maybe you did. What happened, did he get too
close to your goddamned fence?” Tyler's eyes glittered with
terrifying, murderous rage—his hand tightened around Egan's throat,
and he cocked the revolver. “I wonder how much of your face I'd
blow off at this range?” Egan began to gasp for air and his face
reddened.

“Tyler!” Joe roared, and jumped to pull him
off. He got the gun away from him, but he couldn't break his
squeezing grip. Egan was gurgling now. “Damn it, let him go!”

Tyler held him for just an instant longer,
then pushed him away. “You make me sick,” he said with complete
disgust.

Joe hustled Egan outside, sputtering and
swearing, and left Tyler and Libby alone with Rory. She went to the
table and looked at the wound. What she could see of it was a raw,
vicious-looking hole that oozed blood, and she cringed at the sight
of it.

“What shall we do next? D-do you stitch
something like this or wh—?”

“We'll wait for Franklin.”

She took in Rory's clammy pallor and shallow
panting. “But—he doesn't look very good at all. Should he be
breathing like that?”

When he didn't answer, she turned to look at
him and was worried by what she saw. His white-hot rage had left
him, and now he stood gazing at Rory with his arms crossed over his
chest and his shoulders hunched. She had never seen such naked pain
and anguish in a man's face. “Tyler—you have to help him.”

He pushed a shaking hand through his hair.
“Libby, I'm not a doctor anymore.”

“Are you saying that you don't remember what
to do?”

He wouldn't meet her eyes. “No, I remember.
But if everything I know still doesn't work, I don't want to be
responsible for killing Rory, too. I'll wait for Alex
Franklin.”

Then Libby recalled the night that Tyler had
explained why he'd given up medicine. He'd lost his nerve, he said.
And now he stood here paralyzed, frozen with the fear of losing
this boy.

“What if Dr. Franklin doesn't get here in
time? What if Kansas Bob can't find him at all?” His very
expression told her that he had already thought of these same
possibilities. “Just saying that you aren't a doctor doesn't make
you stop being one.” She jumped around in her mind, trying to think
of some way to budge him. “Don't doctors make a pledge? Don't they
promise to help?”

He took Rory's limp hand in his, own, and
gazed down into his slack face. “Huh, yeah, the Hippocratic Oath.
And the first thing I promised was to do no harm.”

She felt helpless. “But if you don't do
something, he might die. Isn't that harming him? Tyler, please, you
have to try. I love you and we both love Rory. I believe in
you—I
know
you can do this.
And I’ll be right here with you.”

“Libby, damn it—”

Frustration over his stubbornness and fear
for Rory sharpened her words. “You have a moral obligation to help
this boy! You just told Egan that he's your business. Will you
abandon him when he needs you?”

Stung, he glared at her. “I'm not abandoning
him! I sent Kansas Bob for the doctor.”

“Tyler,
you’re
the doctor here.” She paused, and her
stomach clenched with apprehension over the next words that formed
in her mind. But she carried on with a low voice that shook. “If
you do nothing but hold his hand while he dies, you are far less
than the man I believed you to be. I'll never forgive you if you
don't try.”

He looked stricken. “Maybe you're right,” he
barked, “maybe I'm not the man you think.”

Suddenly, Rory's breathing became noisier and
more shallow.

She gestured at the unconscious body. “Tyler,
for God's sake,” she begged, her voice breaking, “give Rory a
chance. He's already had a bumpy ride into town in Egan's wagon.
You're the only hope he has. I promise I'll stand here with you and
we'll work together. It's all right to be scared, but damn you,
don't be a coward!”

Tyler looked at Libby's set face across
the table. He
was
scared to
death, but he saw her faith in him. Where it came from, he couldn't
guess, but her words hit hard. Did he have the courage, the guts to
do this? On his own, no, probably not. But Libby, Libby, who had
always been braver than him—she'd be here. She'd had the daring and
the backbone to save him when he'd done everything possible to
discourage her.

He gazed down at Rory again and sighed. She
was right. He had to reach down deep, to act, to save Rory, to
redeem himself. If he didn't, he knew the doubts that plagued him
now would be just pinpricks to what lay in store for him. With that
decision, some of his uncertainty fell away.

He took a deep breath. “All right,” he said,
his voice sounded strained to his own ears. “Get the fire going in
the stove and put on a kettle of water to heat so we can boil the
instruments. We’ll need soap, towels, and a lamp, and bring your
scissors so we can cut these pants off. I'll get everything
else.”

Libby's face lit up with his words, and he
felt a little better still. She flew through the house to get what
they needed. Tyler ran back to his office and unlocked the glass
cabinets to bring out bandages, carbolic, his stethoscope—all the
things he had not laid his hands upon in more than five years.

They met back in the kitchen. With everything
washed or boiled, Tyler sprayed the whole area down with carbolic
from an atomizer. Then they cut Rory's pants off and he got his
first good look at the wound Egan's vigilantes had inflicted. He
winced—it was serious enough. The bullet hadn't lodged in Rory's
leg, but it had torn off a piece of flesh that left a crater inside
his thigh just above the knee. It was about three inches wide and
an inch deep. The structures that had been damaged—muscle tissue,
ligaments, tendons—

“Goddamn, what a mess,” he muttered, more to
himself. “At least the femoral artery isn't nicked. If that
happened, we'd be in real trouble.” He glanced up at Libby across
the table, where she held the lamp for him. Her gray eyes were huge
in her suddenly paper-white face. “You're not going to faint, are
you?”

“No!” she said. He saw her throat work
convulsively as she swallowed, and she gave him a watery smile.
“I'm fine.”

“Good girl. If I'm going to be brave, you
have to be, too.” Tyler decided that even though Rory was
unconscious, the work he needed to do on his leg would be pretty
painful. He gave Libby the job of administering the chloroform on a
piece of gauze over Rory's nose and mouth.

“Just a few drops,” he said, watching as she
poured.

She looked up at him for confirmation, and he
nodded. “Okay, let's get started.”

As the minutes passed, Tyler gained more
confidence. Knowledge that had lain fallow these past years came to
him as he needed it, steadying his hands and guiding them.

He washed out the wound with lots of cooled
boiled water, then cut away the dead and dying tissue. With forceps
he plucked out pieces of fabric that had been embedded by the
blast.

Next he cauterized the wound to stop the
bleeding, using a scalpel he'd held over the open lamp flame.

“A-are you going to sew it up?” she asked,
clearing her throat.

He dragged his arm across his sweating
forehead. “No, there's nothing to sew with this kind of injury.
We'll pack it with more clean water and gauze, and keep close watch
over it for the next few days. And hope to God that it doesn't get
infected.”

After Rory was bandaged and cleaned up, Tyler
lifted him off the table. “I'm going to put him in my bed, then
I'll come back down and help you clean this up. He should be coming
around in a while, but he sure as hell won't be going
anywhere.”

Libby heard the hope and confidence in
Tyler's voice, and saw his smile.

Relief washed over her, making her feel weak
and shaky. Maybe Rory wasn't the only one who'd been helped in this
last hour.

*~*~*

After the kitchen was cleaned up and the crew
had been fed their supper, Libby came to the doorway of Tyler's
bedroom to look in on both doctor and patient. The room was dark
except for a single candle burning on the nightstand. Rory lay
sleeping in the four-poster, wearing one of Tyler's old
nightshirts. They had put pillows beneath his injured leg and
folded the blankets away from it.

For the last several hours, Tyler had
slouched in a chair beside the bed, with his feet propped up on the
windowsill. He'd changed his clothes, but the meal she'd brought to
him sat untouched on the table next to his chair. She tiptoed into
the room and put her hand on his shoulder. He reached up and
covered it with his own.

“Tyler, love, you have to eat,” she
whispered. “It's nearly eleven o'clock, and you haven't had
anything since lunch.”

He patted her hand. “Leave the tray. I'll get
to it pretty soon.” He dragged his boots from the windowsill and
sat up, patting his leg. “Sit down for a minute.”

Libby perched on his knee, and looked at
Rory. “How's he doing?”

“I think he's going to be just fine. He'll
probably limp for a while, but I don't think there was any
permanent damage. We'll just have to keep an eye on him.”

Tyler looked weary in the low light, and his
handsome features were drawn with concern. “Do you want to take a
nap on my bed for an hour or so?” she asked. “I'll sit with
him.”

“No, but thanks, honey. I think I'm just
going to stay here tonight. If he's doing well by morning, I'll
sleep for a while then.”

Just then, Joe tapped on the door frame.
Libby stood and Tyler turned in his chair. “We must be getting
tired if we didn't hear your spurs.”

The foreman grinned behind his mustache, but
it didn't mask the worry in his face. “I took 'em off for now so's
I wouldn't wake the boy.”

Tyler rose from his chair with creaking
stiffness and flexed his back. Then he motioned them out to the
gallery. “Let’s talk out here.” When they were out of Rory's
earshot, he asked, “Where's Egan?”

Joe took a match from his pocket and stuck it
in his mouth like a toothpick. He leaned against the railing and
crossed his ankles. “I convinced the old man to go home hours
ago.”

“Did you get him to tell you how this
happened?” Tyler asked, the embers of his anger stirring to
life.

“Yup. That was the first thing I pried out of
him after we left the kitchen. It was like you figured—Rory was
shot by one of Egan's hired guards. The boy was tryin' to free a
cow that got stuck in that damned bob wire. The lowdown snake shot
him from behind while he was rasslin' with it. Egan was there when
it happened. I honestly don't think he even recognized his own son
till they got closer.”

Libby gasped in horror. “Oh, God—”

She looked at Tyler and saw the muscles
working in his jaw, and his low voice quivered with fury. “Damn it,
Joe. I'll get that mercenary bastard if it’s the last thing I
do.”

Joe shook his head and gave him a meaningful
look. “He's already disappeared. I guess when he found out he'd
shot his boss's son, he took off.”

Tyler eyed him. “What about the rest of those
hired killers Lat Egan has working over there? They're taking their
orders from him.”

Joe's brows rose speculatively. "I wouldn't
be at all surprised if they find themselves out of work. Especially
now that one of 'em is gone. And 'course, I told Lat that we'd be
talkin' to the sheriff and the other ranchers about this.”

Worn out by the long day and the stress of
the afternoon, Libby stifled a yawn.

Tyler turned to her and put his arm around
her shoulders. “You'd better go on to bed now.”

“Oh, but I'm not tired,” she protested “I
want to help with Rory.”

“It's all right. I'll let you know if
anything changes.” He hugged her close and whispered so that only
she could hear. “I’ll come and tuck you in after a while.”

Blushing, she looked at Joe as if he'd heard
this, but he just continued to rest his forearms on the railing and
gaze down at the parlor below while he chewed on the match.

“Well, if you think—”

“I do. Now go on.” Tyler pecked her cheek and
put a guiding hand on her back to nudge her toward her own room.
More than anything else, she thought Tyler wanted to talk to his
friend alone.

Tyler waited until he saw her door close,
then he turned back to Joe.

“Where's the man who shot Rory?”

“You know, a couple of the boys saw a new
grave on the east range late this afternoon. It's over in that draw
where you and me used to shoot at prairie dogs when we were Rory's
age.” Joe reported this as if he were talking about a new brand of
tobacco at Osmer's.

Tyler pulled in a deep breath. “A couple of
the boys?”

“Yeah," Joe said, turning toward him, “but
I'll be damned if I can remember which ones.”

He didn't know what to say. He couldn't
condone what they had done, yet when he glanced over his shoulder
and saw Rory in that bed, shot from
behind . . . It could have been his boy in a
grave on the green bluffs overlooking the Lodestar if that bullet
had struck an artery. Hell, if Libby hadn't grabbed him by the
scruff of his neck and shaken him, this still might have ended
differently.