Brides of Texas (3 page)

“If I guess which puppy you want,” she teased Peter, “you have to gather eggs this week.”

“Nuh-unh!” Peter yanked away and streaked ahead.

Caught up in his joy, Mercy laughed and ran after him. Early evening sun slanted into the barn, lending a golden glow to everything in sight. A horse whinnied, feet shuffled the straw-covered ground, and Freckle growled.

Mercy’s eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the dim place, but she guessed what was happening. “Peter, be careful. Mamas don’t take kindly to someone handling their babies.”

A muffled sound made her stop and tilt her head. Something wasn’t right. It was then that she saw Grossvater’s legs and boots sticking out from a stall. She cried out in alarm.

“Shut up.”

Mercy spun to the side. Cold horror washed over her. A stranger stood three feet away. Light glinted off the wicked-looking knife he held to Peter’s throat.

W
hat do you think?” Connant Gilchrist swung his arm in a grandiose gesture.

Robert took in the room with nothing short of delight. “It’s perfect. And so modern!”

“Old Doc Neely’s widow didn’t know what to do with it. She sold the house and moved back to Boston to be with her daughter. The office—well, she told the mayor she reckoned the town folks bought most of this when they paid Doc for his services. The city council voted to pass it on to the next qualified physician.”

“It sure pays to have friends in the right place at the right time,” Chris said as he tested the examination table by pressing his palms downward on it.

Sturdy
. Robert assessed the table with glee. He’d worked on many a patient who lay on a wobbly dining trestle.
Good height, too. I won’t have to hunch over when I perform surgery
.

“You came in through the waiting room.” Connant jerked a thumb toward a wide flight of stairs. “Two rooms up there—Doc Neely kept one as a sick room and used the other for himself on nights he needed to stay and keep watch on a patient.”

“Stove there is big enough to cook on when you’re not boiling instruments,” Duncan said. “After being crammed in that ship, even a small bedchamber will feel roomy.”

Connant nodded. “You can ask the bank for a loan or wait till you save up a bit, but the lot here’s plenty big enough. You might want to be building a wee house and a shop for Duncan in the back.”

“So the land is ours?” Robert gave his childhood friend a startled look.

“Aye, and why not? I put a stipulation in the contract, though.” His grin looked smug as could be. “Says you have to stay here five years, else the land and all of the supplies go to the next doctor.”

“That’s more than fair.”

Christopher’s face darkened. “Is there a problem so no one wants to stay here?”

“Flash floods, scorching summers, and occasional tornadoes. Worst of all, the cook at the diner serves charcoal instead of food.” Connant recited those flaws in a gratingly cheerful tone. “As my memory serves me, none of the lot of you ever did more in a kitchen than burn perfectly good food to cinders.”

“True,” Robert groaned. The best he could say about the food in the steerage compartment of the
Anchoria
was that it filled a stomach. Then again, the same could be said of anything the Gregor men cooked.

He walked over to the cabinet containing pharmaceuticals and noted a generous bottle of bicarbonate of soda. Good thing, that. More often than not, if they cooked for themselves, the Gregor men ended up needing bicarb to settle their bellies. He continued to scan the bottles and vials. All bore neatly printed labels and sat in alphabetical order. “Atropine. Belladonna. Calomel. Cascara sagrada. Chloroform,” he read aloud. “I take it there’s not a local apothecary since the supply here is so complete?”

“That’s right. I have a key for the file cabinet. Doc kept his patient books locked in there.”

“Good. Good.” Privacy was important, and Robert planned to maintain it. Nonetheless, it would be wise for him to read the records so he’d be familiar with the cases he’d be taking on.

He turned toward the filing cabinet and made note of the fact that both drawers locked.
I’ll move some of those bottles and vials into the second drawer
. In the years he attended school, he’d seen more than a few patients grow dependent on certain elixirs and compounds. At the earliest opportunity, he’d lock away most of the laudanum, cocaine muriate, and morphine sulfate.

Duncan looked down at his hands and made a face. “Half the soot from that train fell on me. We’d best wash up, even if the food at that diner turns out to be as black as the mess on our shirts.”

Duncan and Christopher stripped off their shirts over at the washstand. “You’re a filthy mess, boy-o,” Duncan teased Chris.

“No more than you.” Chris nudged him to the side. “But the admission galls me. Fill the pitcher again. I’m planning to scrub my head, and you can rinse it. I’ll return the favor.”

“I should go first. You’ve such a big head you’ll use up all of the water!”

Robert let their good-natured horseplay fade as he continued to walk about the office, opening drawers and taking stock of what was on hand.
In my wildest dreams I never thought this is what I’d find. Everything I read said how backward the American West is, but this is the best medical setup I’ve ever seen. Holy Father, help me to use these things to Your glory
.

“Quit daydreaming and wash up. We’re hungry,” Chris called over to him.

Rob looked at his brothers. “I’m not daydreaming. I was standing here thinkin’ on how proud Da would be to see such a grand arrangement.”

“Aye, he would.” Duncan nodded.

“True.” Chris nodded curtly, then tacked on in a raspy tone, “But he’d not want us to starve half to death whilst you gawked around. Let’s go eat.”

Duncan walked back to the waiting room where their trunks sat. “I’ll get your clean shirt.”

The cool water refreshed Robert. He scrubbed, enjoying the astringent scent of the soap. He moaned aloud at the simple pleasure of Connant pouring a pitcher of water over his head to wash out the dust, soot, and soap.

Dripping wet, shirtless, and with his suspenders hanging down, he wheeled around when someone burst through the door to the building.

“Sheriff!” A strapping man swayed in the doorway. “I killed him.”

“Killed who?” Connant pushed the man into the nearest chair. “Who did you kill, Otto?”

“Don’t know.”

Robert assessed the man quickly. His eyes were wide with shock, his whole frame shook, and he’d been violently sick all over the front of himself. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Tell me what happened,” Connant rapped out.

“They’re hurt.”

“Who?” Connant demanded.

“Mercy.” Otto groaned, then leaned forward and retched.

Robert automatically held out the towel even though nothing came up. He turned toward the luggage to grab his bag.

Duncan had opened the trunk and gotten out shirts. He tossed one to Robert. Christopher’s shirt hung open, but he’d moved on toward the next item of business. He was strapping on his gun.

“The Steins live about three miles out,” Connant said as they all barreled through the door. He grabbed the reins to his own sorrel mare and yanked Robert up behind him. “That’s Otto’s horse,” he told Christopher.

Christopher said nothing. He was swinging up into the saddle as Connant set off.

Robert leaned forward. “How many in the family?”

“Three. Old man and his two grandkids. Girl’s engaged to Otto; the boy’s a mere lad.”

They dismounted and entered the house first. Something was burning in the stove, but the place lay empty. Chris and Duncan had gone toward the barn. “Here!” Chris bellowed.

Duncan exited the barn carrying a schoolboy. Blood dripped from a lump on the boy’s head. Robert determined he was breathing well as Duncan rasped, “Old man’s alive.”

Once inside the barn, Robert paused by the body of a man. Connant had his pistol drawn and shoved Robert ahead. “It’s not Stein.”

“Back here,” Christopher called. He squatted beside an old man and was slicing through his britches with a knife.

The lanky older man lay unconscious. Robert shouldered past Chris and knelt by the man’s chest to quickly assess his condition.
Pale. Clammy. Shock. Breathing slow. Pulse thready
. An ugly bruise on his jaw proved he’d fought, but the real injury was impossible to miss. The pitchfork in his thigh hadn’t hit an artery, but the extent of the damage couldn’t be determined yet.

A young blond cradled the old man’s head in her lap. She was tenderly smoothing his brow with her shaky hand, but the sight of her made Robert’s stomach lurch. Her dress was torn, and hay clung to the back of her shoulders and hair. Her left eye was starting to swell shut, and other marks at her throat and wrists let him know she, too, had been hurt.

Robert knew he could patch the old man back together. The girl bore wounds no man could heal.

She knew the sheriff. The black-haired men were strangers. The first one—the one with the gun—scared her; the one who knelt closer touched Grossvater with a mixture of confidence and care. He looked her in the eye and spoke in a low tone, “I’ll be able to fix him up. He’ll be fine.”

He sounded reassuring, but Mercy couldn’t respond.

“My brother’s going to take that out of his leg, and I’ll hold a compress on it to keep it from bleeding. We’ll be moving him into the house. Do ye ken what I’m telling you, lass?”

She swallowed and nodded.

Grossvater moaned a little when they did the deed, and she bit back a cry.

“ ’Tis a good sign that he’s feeling his leg, lass. I’m thinking the wound will make a mess of his bed. Is your dining table sturdy?”

She nodded and led them inside.

Another stranger in her kitchen looked much like the other two. He had Peter sitting in a chair and was dabbing at a knot on her brother’s head. Peter jabbered about the puppies.

“This is Dr. Gregor, Mercy,” the sheriff said as he gave the kind-voiced man’s shoulder a quick pat. “He’ll help your granddad.”

She wrapped her arms about her ribs and stepped back.

“I could use some bandages. Do you have any?”

Mercy went to the cabinet where they kept the liniment, Epsom salt, and bandages. She set all of the bandages at the head of the table.

“There’s a fine help.” He pulled out a chair and patted the seat. “You sit here. If your grandda wakes, you’ll be nearby. I’m wanting you to drink this for me, too.” He set down a glass of water.

She slipped around the edge of the room and did as he directed, then watched in silence as he used the things from his black leather bag. Nothing he said seemed real. Most of it was muffled, but the tone and cadence lulled her.

Finally, he finished tending Grossvater. After he knotted the bandage in place, he took Grossvater’s pulse again.

“Well?” one of the other men asked.

“I’m cautiously optimistic. Let’s put him to bed.”

The sheriff and the other man carried Grossvater to his bedroom, and the doctor took a look at the bump on Peter’s head. “Nothing wrong there this won’t cure.” He drew a glass tube from his medical bag and pulled out a sour ball.

“Thanks!” Peter popped the candy into his mouth and regained his usual, cocky grin.

The doctor turned and held out his hand to Mercy. “Let’s go see to things.”

When she stood, her legs felt rubbery. Even so, she didn’t take his hand. They walked across the kitchen, but to her surprise, he murmured, “They’ll put your grandda in a nightshirt for you.”

“Oh. Yes. Thank you.”

He didn’t touch her, yet his nearness made her sidestep. He pushed open the door to her room.

Mercy stared inside.
The tub. What is the tub doing in my room? And who put out my nightgown? It’s not bedtime yet
.

“Miss Stein.”

She jumped at the sound of her name.

“I’ll stay out here and make sure no one bothers you. I thought you might want to bathe. Afterward, I’ll see to your bruises and such.”

Once in her room, Mercy locked the door. She didn’t want to undress with those men here, but she caught sight of herself in her mirror and choked back a sob. Her dress was in tatters and her hair hung in snarls. Those were just the outward things.

I can’t stay like this. Grossvater and Peter need me
. Her hands shook so badly, she could scarcely undress. Everything took great effort. It hurt to move. She stepped into the big galvanized tub, then knelt. All of the scrubbing in the world couldn’t make her feel clean.

T
he thin walls of the house didn’t block out the sound of her weeping. Robert and Duncan exchanged a glance.

“Mercy’s crying.” The lad stopped eating the inside bits of the roast Duncan salvaged for him. “Does she need a hug?”

“She’s upset that the bad man hurt you and your grandda.” Duncan tapped the edge of the plate to divert the boy.

Peter wrinkled his nose. “You said Grossvater is going to be fine. I’ll go tell Sis my head doesn’t hurt too much.”