An Outlaw in Wonderland (17 page)

A
nnabeth managed to herd the marshal out the door without answering any more questions.
Most folks weren’t even aware that they’d asked and she hadn’t answered. Unfortunately,
she didn’t think Marshal Eversleigh was most folks. He knew she was evading him.

But she doubted he suspected the truth, that she rode with an outlaw gang and was
considered—almost—one of them. That she’d done things that haunted her. She’d had
little choice.

She considered the marshal’s words. Had the shot been meant for her? She’d think so,
except for that visit from Fedya.

Ethan’s in trouble.

What had Fedya seen, heard, sensed? If someone had threatened Ethan, wouldn’t the
sniper have killed them himself? Certainly there was no love lost between the two
men, but she doubted Fedya would stand back and watch Ethan be killed if he could
stop it. His guilt over Mikey wouldn’t allow that. His trip to Ellsworth to warn Annabeth
of impending doom proved it.

But what if Fedya had thrown the sheriff out the window and then had to make a run
for it before he could do anything to help Ethan? Though why would he have done that,
she had no idea. If she ever saw Fedya again, she’d ask, but chances of that were
slim.

Still, if there were trouble, why send Annabeth? Why not send Mikey?

Annabeth had no idea. All she knew was that Ethan was in danger, and she couldn’t
leave until she found out why and then eliminated the threat. She just needed to do
it before her other life caught up to her.

The distant breaking of glass caused Annabeth to hurry upstairs. The laudanum bottle
she’d left on the bedside table had shattered on the floor; what was left inside had
seeped into the planks. Ethan lay with an arm thrown over his eyes.

“Ethan?”

“Aye.”

Irish again. Damn.

“Are you . . . ?” She paused. He wasn’t all right. He might never be all right again.
“Does your head ache?”

“A bit.” The accent was suddenly gone. He was making her dizzy. “I dropped the bottle
before I managed to drink any. Would you get me another?”

“Of course.” She scurried downstairs, snatched up one more, and shoved it into her
pocket. On her way out, she also grabbed the carbolic acid—during her night with the
medical texts, she’d come across a paper written by Joseph Lister, which explained
the rows of carbolic acid in the exam room—as well as a bucket with water and a clean
cloth.

She returned to the bedroom, set the bucket on the floor, and tossed the cloth into
it. Eyes still closed—no doubt the sun felt like stabbing needles—Ethan lifted his
arm from his face and offered his hand. She placed the bottle into it, and he twisted
free the top, took several swallows, and gave it back.

Annabeth set the container within reach but not too near the edge of the table. Her
gaze went to the broken glass, and she frowned. There was something about it that—

“Was Fedya here?”

“I . . . uh . . .”

“I dreamed he threw the sheriff out the window, but that can’t be right.”

Annabeth kept silent. What else had he dreamed?

“Mikey was with him. He still didn’t know me.”

I’m sorry
, she thought. She said nothing.

“They left. I told Fedya that I’d kill him if I saw him again.”

Which might be why Fedya hadn’t hung around to deal with whatever trouble remained.
Although she’d never known the man to be scared of much; he certainly wasn’t scared
of Ethan.

“Ethan . . .” she began, and his eyes opened.

“He murdered my brother.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“My little brother who trusted me to take care of him.”

“You did.”

“I led him straight into hell.”

“You went there together.” And if anyone had been leading, it had been Mikey. Scouts
always went first.

“He did what I told him.”

“He did what he was ordered to do, same as you.”

“Where are they now?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“They were here?”

Annabeth hesitated, unsure if telling him that would hurt or help. He seemed to be
remembering the past in his dreams.

“They were,” he murmured, his voice beginning to slur. “But you weren’t. And that . . .
doesn’t make sense.”

“Hush,” she said.

“My head . . .” He reached for his stitches, and she grasped his wrist.

“I’m going to clean your wound.” His fingers were spotted with dried flakes of blood.
“These, too.”

“’kay.”

She dumped the carbolic acid into the water, plunged her hands into it, then wrung
out the cloth so that the solution didn’t drip into his eyes. She pressed the rag
to his head.

She didn’t swipe at the wound or dab; she didn’t want to start it bleeding again.
Instead, she continued to swirl the cloth in the solution, then wring it out and press
it to the flesh around the wound until all the dried blood had dissolved. She did
the same a few more times for good measure.

“Don’t dislodge the antiseptic crust,” he murmured.

“The what?”

He opened one eye. “A scab forms over the wound. If you use carbolic acid at the start,
the crust that results will keep the miasma out.”

That he was discussing carbolic acid was encouraging. He hadn’t been using it when
she’d left, which meant he’d learned about it during the time he had forgotten.

“Interesting.” She lifted his hand to wash it.

He closed his eye, frowned. “There was a man.”

Her fingers clenched, sliding across his damp flesh. Real or imagined? Dangerous or
harmless?

“He had a brogue.”

The Scottish Dr. Lister? Ethan’s Irish father? Or someone else? Who knew? Not her
and probably not Ethan.

“So did you at one time,” she muttered before she could stop herself.

“I’ve apologized for that, lass,” he murmured in the very same brogue. “Ye know why.”

“I do,” she whispered.

But he didn’t hear her; he’d fallen back to sleep.

Annabeth cleaned up the remains of the bottle from the floor and carried everything
downstairs. The dress she’d appropriated sat on the counter where she’d tossed it
when she’d run in after Cora.

Quickly she put it on, then nearly took it off again. Too small in some places, too
large in others, the garment had obviously not been made with her in mind. However,
the extra material around her middle seemed to disguise her lack
of
a middle, and right now . . .

She lifted her gaze to the ceiling. Right now that was for the best.

Annabeth considered strolling through town, asking folks what she’d come to ask in
the first place. What kind of trouble was Ethan in?

The only difficulty she’d uncovered thus far had been Cora Lewis, and the woman hadn’t
been a problem until Annabeth turned up alive and not dead. But if there’d been something
worse than a mistress threatening Ethan, wouldn’t someone—anyone—have mentioned it
by now?

Life had been a little chaotic since she’d gotten back to Freedom. It wasn’t every
day that a sheriff fell out the window, a federal marshal arrived asking questions,
Annabeth returned from the dead, and the local doctor was shot in the head.

The front door opened. “Missus?”

She stepped out of the kitchen. Jeb Cantrell and a much younger man stood in the front
hall. The stranger appeared ill.

“This here’s Major Tarkenton,” Jeb shouted.

Annabeth put a finger to her lips, and Jeb winced, shrugged sheepishly, and stepped
onto the porch. She wasn’t sure a half-deaf old man would be any kind of guard, but
she didn’t have the heart to tell him. At least he could see, unlike his wife. Perhaps
the two of them together would make a single decent sentinel.

Annabeth turned her attention to the major. Where was his uniform? She couldn’t believe
he was out of the schoolroom, let alone in the army with the rank of major.

Then again Custer, the boy general, had been twenty-three at his promotion. Considering
the staggering loss of men during that damnable war, she shouldn’t be surprised to
discover a major this young. In Richmond, she’d seen boys who hadn’t shaved yet toting
a gun.

“Major?” she began, letting her gaze sweep his dirty, civilian clothes. “Is there
a problem at Fort Dodge?”

The closest fort to Freedom, Fort Dodge was located on the Santa Fe Trail. At the
intersection of the dry route, also known as the
Hornado de Muerti
, or Journey of Death, and the wet, which followed the river, the army base had been
established during the war to protect the wagon trains that often rested there during
their journey.

It hadn’t taken the Indians long to discover that the groups camping in the area were
weakened after navigating a trail that often had no water for the entire distance—hence
the name. They attacked with great regularity until the army arrived; then they found
other places to raid.

Annabeth couldn’t blame them. The white man not only traipsed across their home, putting
huge ruts in the ground so that more white men could follow, but they laid rails,
built towns, and slaughtered buffalo as if they owned every blade of grass in the
world.

“Problem?” the man repeated.

“The fort, Major?” Annabeth hoped the Comanche and the Kiowa, who’d once fought each
other but had now joined together to destroy their common enemy, hadn’t grown bored
elsewhere and obliterated the place. “Did something happen?”

“Uh, no. Yes. I mean . . . no.” He took a breath and tried again. “I’m not in the
army; I’m not
a
major. My grandfather distinguished himself in the Second War for Independence, and
my mother named me after him. So, there’s no problem at the fort.” He frowned. “That
I know of.”

“What
is
the problem?”

“My wife’s havin’ a baby. But it ain’t . . .” His lips tightened; his gaze fell; his
shoulders hunched.

“How long has she been in labor?”

“Two days,” Major said.

Annabeth snatched Ethan’s bag from the floor and went out the door. She’d climbed
into the buckboard that waited out front before she realized Major had followed only
as far as the porch.

“I . . . uh . . . came for the doc.”

“You’ve got me. If you want your wife to live, we need to hurry.” Two days of labor
usually meant one day from death.

“But the doc—”

“Is unwell.” Her gaze met Jeb’s.

“I’ll fetch Sadie to sit with him,” he said.

Jeb probably hadn’t heard the majority of the conversation, but it wasn’t hard to
decipher that Annabeth was leaving with Major and therefore Ethan was alone.

The old man turned his attention to the younger one. “Miz Walsh was a nurse in the
war. Afore she . . .”

Jeb paused, and Annabeth waited for him to say:
Afore she ran off like a thief in the night and left the man she’d promised to honor
and obey, for better or worse, as long as they both lived, alone with his pain and
his past and his demons.

But he didn’t.

“Sometimes she done took care of the birthin’s herself when the doc was busy. It’ll
be all right.” He took the boy’s arm and led him to the wagon, urging him to climb
up beside her. “You’ll see.”

•   •   •

The clip-clop of horses’ hooves and the rattle of a buckboard drifted through the
open window. As Ethan had heard the same a hundred times before, he waited for a door
to open, a shout to follow. The speed of the hooves and the intensity of the rattle
meant someone needed him quick.

When the door remained closed, his name uncalled, and the rattle-clop had faded, Ethan
climbed out of bed, ignoring the distant thrum of pain in his head, and dressed.

He’d dreamed of Gettysburg and John Law. Even when he opened his eyes, the memory
of the blood, the death, the despair remained with him, and he had a hard time letting
it go.

“War’s over,” he murmured. He lived in Freedom now. With his wife. Their soon-to-be-child.
A whole new life awaited them.

“Beth?” he called. When she didn’t answer, he experienced a moment of confusion at
the thought she wasn’t here, that his memories of her return—

“Return?” He rubbed at his head. “Where did she
go
?”

Somewhere that made him sad and also a bit mad. Anger roiled in his belly, mixing
with an inexplicable sense of fear.

“Beth!” he called more loudly, then started down the stairs.

The waiting area was empty; no one stood on the porch, though why they should, he
couldn’t quite recall. He stepped into the exam room. Also empty.

His hands had begun to shake, palms gone clammy, and the backs felt as if ants crawled
over the surface. He scratched at them absently. His head hurt so badly, he couldn’t
think.

Ethan crossed to the cabinet, took out a blue bottle, and sipped until the shakes
and the itching and the pain went away. He had just picked up another when the door
opened. He slipped both it and what remained of the first into his pocket.

A tiny blond woman crept across the vestibule and toward the stairs. Shoulders hunched
as if to make herself smaller than she already was, she tiptoed, glancing behind her
every few seconds.

“May I help you?”

Her indrawn breath was so loud, Ethan’s head ached again. Her big blue eyes turned
his way, and he remembered. “Mrs. Lewis?” Her pretty mouth pinched; the line between
her eyes deepened. “Are you in pain?”

She stared at him for several ticks of the clock; then her expression smoothed. “A
bit.”

Her voice—low and a bit hoarse—was such a contrast to her petite, ethereal beauty,
it beguiled. Or would have, if he were a man to be beguiled by anyone other than his
wife.

“Perhaps I can help.”

The brilliance of her smile made something shimmer, just out of reach, but when she
stepped into the exam room, pulling the curtain that hung in the doorway across the
opening, it fled. Her smile might be as beautiful as she was, but there was something
in her eyes that reminded him of a snake. Cold and hungry, ready to snap and strike
with little warning. Danger hung in the air, and he wasn’t sure why.