Dance With A Gunfighter (37 page)

Suddenly the thought struck him that it could have been Gabe
out there. That she might have thought he was Tanner or Murdock and had fired.
He might have killed her. If he had...

Scarcely breathing, he eased toward the door and looked
out. On the ground near the mesquite tree, Luke Murdock lay on his back, his eyes
open and glassy. Blood stained the center of his shirt.

Nearly staggering with relief, McLowry scanned the outside
area for any sign that Tanner was near. He waited, then darted out of the cabin
to a water barrel and ducked behind it. All remained quiet. It bothered him
that Tanner wasn’t around. He walked over to Murdock who was already dead. Only
one set of tracks led to this spot--Murdock’s. If Gabe were alive, wouldn’t he
have her with him?

There was only one logical explanation to finding Gabe’s horse,
and now only a single set of tracks, but he refused to accept it.

His shoulders felt as if a heavy weight were pushing down
on them. He stared at the landscape, at the quiet rugged mountainside, and at
the wide, blue sky beyond. But he stared without seeing, without hearing the
birds, or smelling the sage and saguaro. The world spiraled away from him and
became small, as if he were looking at it from the wrong side of a field glass.

She isn’t dead. She can’t be. "Gabe!" he roared.

He stood on the ledge overlooking the high plateau area
and cupped his hands around the sides of his mouth. "Gabe!"

Silence answered.

Wildly, he searched for tracks all around the house,
tracks that showed two people had been there, but the only tracks he found were
Murdock’s. Not even another set of man’s footprints. He wondered if Tanner had
been here at all.

If Gabe hadn’t made it as far as the cabin, then she had
to be out there on the mountain--somewhere between her horse and the spot where
he now stood.

He tore through the mountainside in a straight line toward
her horse, frantically searching, scanning the ground, the area above and below
the path he took, calling her name over and over until his voice was raw. Tall,
red boulders jutted out of the earth and he carefully skirted around them,
toward the place he’d last seen her footprints.

As the sun sank lower, he knew he had little time left.
The proportions of the mountain seemed to grow more monstrous and more desolate
as shadows lengthened. He remembered her words about hating to be alone in the
desert at night, how afraid it used to make her. A chill went through him.

I’ll find you, Gabe.

Something glinted in the fading sunlight on a flat ledge a
few feet below him. A rifle shell.

His fingers shook as he lifted and turned it. It showed no
weathering at all. He squeezed it, wanting to crush the evil thing with his
bare hands. Murdock had stood here...stood here and fired.

McLowry shuddered, then slammed the shell to the ground.

He forced himself to think clearly. If Murdock had stood
on the ledge and Gabe had been climbing up the mountain, she’d have been quite
a bit below the area where McLowry had searched so far. He climbed downward,
hoping, yet fearing, to find her.

His heart began to hammer when he spotted a rockslide.
Directly above it was the spot where he’d found Murdock’s rifle shell. He
looked down the mountain. The slide area seemed to go on forever, then dropped
out of sight. Cold gripped him.

He kept to the side of the slide as he slipped and
half-crawled his way straight down the mountain, edging the loose rocks as if
they were a waterfall.

He climbed down farther, endlessly it seemed, until
suddenly he stopped, feeling the life drain out of him. Far below, looking like
a child’s broken doll, lying in a pool of blood, was Gabe’s body.

Chapter 28

McLowry ran and slid the rest of the way down the
mountain. Gabe lay on her stomach, her arms over her head. Against her side and
on top of her were rocks that had been loosened by her fall and had dropped
down the hill behind her.

He touched her hand. It felt warm. His knees buckled, and
he dropped to the ground, stroking her face, feeling the soft breath from her
nose and mouth. Praying thanks to a God he’d been sure no longer existed, he
furiously pushed back the sand and gravel from her side, leg and arm. One side
of her face and head were matted in blood and he quickly found the spot where a
bullet had grazed her skull. The bleeding had stopped.

No other bullet wound showed along her back. His fingers
raced over her arms and legs, feeling for broken bones. If there were breaks,
none were obvious to him. He bent low, so as not to hurt her more than she was,
and slid his arms around her, cradling her against his chest as he eased her
onto her back. Her face and hands were scratched from the fall down the
mountainside, and her clothes torn and frayed. They were heavy men’s clothes, a
jacket, trousers and boots, made for range life and cactus, and had protected
her well.

He unbuttoned her jacket and again carefully ran his hands
over her torso, arms and legs, feeling for breaks or bullet wounds he might
have missed. Again, he found none.

Glancing upward, his gaze climbed the steep mountain to
the boulder where he’d first noticed the rockslide and his insides churned as
he saw, from this perspective, how very far she’d fallen. He could well imagine
that Murdock, seeing her fall and seeing the blood, had thought he’d killed
her.

He had to get the horses, give her some water, and bring
her to a doctor. As quickly as he could, he climbed up to the horses, then
carefully led them over a less steep route to where Gabe lay.

Once back at her side, he lifted her head and tried to get
her to drink some water from the canteen, but the water simply dribbled from
her mouth. The thought of moving her scared him, but the sky was already
crimson from the setting sun. She needed to be off the mountain, warm, and in a
doctor’s care, if she were to have any chance at all.

He tied her horse to his, then lifted her in his arms. He couldn’t
believe how light she was, or how pale. Somehow, he managed to hold her and
hoist himself onto his saddle. He tucked her against his lap, her head resting
on his chest.

He tried not to think of the foolish chance she’d taken.

As he looked at her small, pale face, her soft mouth, the
shadows her long eyelashes cast on her cheeks, his love for her filled him
again, leaving him shaken.

He softly kissed her forehead and they began the long,
slow ride back to Tombstone.

It was almost midnight when he arrived outside the
doctor’s house. Cradling Gabe in his arms, he used his foot to pound hard at
the door a few times.

"Doc! Open up!" When there was no response, he
kicked and yelled again.

"Coming! Some people like to sleep, you know."
The doctor sounded furious.

"My...my wife needs help."

The doctor, a big, blond man with a bulging stomach,
wearing a dressing gown and nightcap, opened the door. "Wife? Why didn’t
you say so, young man? I thought it was just another drunk who’d been in a
fight. Bring her this way." He pulled off his nightcap and tossed it onto
a small side table in the entry hall as he led McLowry to a room in the back of
the house.

"Put her on the bed," the doctor ordered.

McLowry lay her down, then carefully brushed her hair from
her face. "She’s been unconscious for hours."

"What happened?" the doctor asked as he bent
over her, lifting her eyelids and feeling for her pulse. McLowry watched
anxiously.

"She..." McLowry suddenly had a hard time
finding his voice. "Someone shot at her. Grazed her head, best I can tell,
but she fell down a rocky mountain slope. It was a long fall. I found her about
four, five hours ago."

A heavy-set woman, tying the sash of her robe close around
her waist bustled into the room. "Do you need me, Fred?"

"I’m afraid so." He glanced at McLowry.
"This is my wife, Mrs. Andrews. Ellen, this is Mr. uh...?"

"Bulfinch. Martin Bulfinch." McLowry didn’t take
his eyes off Gabe’s face as he spoke.

"Good evening," Mrs. Andrews said.

"Ma’am," McLowry replied, inching closer to Gabe
as the doctor lifted her shirt and began to press his fingers along her ribs
and stomach. As he went lower, toward her abdomen, his wife helped loosen
Gabe’s clothing.

He paused, then felt again. Catching his wife’s eye, he
motioned toward McLowry. She nodded.

"Mr. Bulfinch," Mrs. Andrews placed her hand on
McLowry’ back and escorted him out of the room. "Here’s the parlor. You
rest and don’t fret too much. Doctor knows what he’s doing."

Once in the parlor, McLowry leaned back on the sofa and
put his arm over his eyes.

If he’d tracked down Murdock and Tanner himself, Gabe
wouldn’t be here now. She’d be home. Safe and unhurt.

He had tried hard not to jostle her as they rode, but he’d
expected some kind of movement from her, some sign that she would awaken and be
all right. It never came. Thoughts of the bullet wound and the damage the fall
might have done to her, how badly she might have hit her head or torn something
internally kept playing in his mind. As a gunfighter, he had never known
fear--not even when he looked point blank into another man’s gun. That was what
had made him so deadly. His hand never wavered.

But as he waited for the doctor to tell him how Gabe was
doing, he learned what fear was all about.

He heard the back room door open. Standing, he stepped to
the hallway. Mrs. Andrews hurried out of a room and crossed the hall. In a
little while he saw her reappear with an armful of towels. "What’s
happening?" he asked.

"Doctor will speak with you soon. Please rest, Mr.
Bulfinch."

As if he could, he wanted to say.

Over an hour passed before he saw the wife come out of the
room again. He followed her to the kitchen this time. "Can I see
her?"

Mrs. Andrews put on the coffeepot. "Doctor will let
you see her when he’s ready."

"What’s going on? Why can’t I see her?"

The woman’s eyes were downcast. "She’s having a bit
of a rough time. The doctor’s doing all he can. You’ll have to be
patient."

McLowry stared at her, stunned. As much as he knew there
was some kind of a problem since the doctor was staying with Gabe so long, to
actually hear the words was devastating.

"I need to go back to help Doctor. I’ll bring you
some coffee as soon as it’s ready. Now please go and rest." She hurried
from the kitchen.

He stumbled back to the parlor, sank into the sofa, and
prayed. For the first time since he stood over his little sister’s gravesite,
he prayed with all the fervor he could find within him.

It was nearly morning before he heard the door to the back
room open and the heavy footsteps of the doctor slowly walking down the
hallway. Every nerve in McLowry’s body came alive. Why were the doctor’s steps
so slow? If he had good news, wouldn’t he hurry?

As the doctor stepped into the parlor, McLowry stood.

The doctor drew in his breath. "The bullet, as you
suspected, only grazed her. It did, however, cause her to lose a lot of blood.
She has a serious concussion," he said. Then he shrugged helplessly.
"There’s nothing we can do but wait."

McLowry felt the room sway and the pink and green floral design
on the dark green rug on the floor seemed to shift and change colors.
"You’re saying she might not ever wake up again."

The doctor took a step forward. "There’s no reason to
expect she won’t. It may be that this is the way her body needs to heal."

"Like hell!" McLowry had heard all that healing
garbage before, and he’d seen enough people die while doctors said they were
busy "healing" to pay it no credence. His eyes squeezed shut and he
turned his back, raging at his inability to help, to do anything for her.

The doctor coughed. "There were a couple of other
problems."

McLowry spun around. What could possibly matter after what
the doctor just said? "What?"

"She’s got a few cracked ribs--"

McLowry snorted derisively, running his fingers through
his hair. That was nothing. Who the hell didn’t crack a few ribs in this
country?

"And," the doctor continued, "the situation
we were handling throughout the night...I’m sorry, but she lost her baby."

McLowry stopped moving, stopped breathing. His eyes caught
the doctor’s and held them, searching for some sign that the doctor hadn’t
really said....

"You knew she was pregnant, didn’t you?"

"Yes," McLowry lied, his voice a whisper.

The doctor drew in a deep breath. "The miscarriage
started shortly after she arrived here. A fall like she took...in these early
stages of pregnancy...it was almost to be expected." His eyes met
McLowry’s startled ones. "When your wife wakes up...and you’ll have to
believe that she will...it’s going to be a difficult time for her. You’ll have
to be patient. Women feel these things much more deeply than we men do."

McLowry nodded. His throat tightened, his gaze dropped and
he slowly sat on the sofa, strangely numb.

The doctor waited a bit, then placed his hand on McLowry’s
shoulder. "Get some sleep, son. You’ll be no good to either of you if you
don’t."

McLowry picked up his hat and walked toward the door.

"One minute," the doctor called.

His head was so heavy he could scarcely lift it to look at
the doctor.

"In case she wakes up and you’re not here, what’s her
name?" he asked.

"Gabriella."

The doctor smiled. "A pretty name."

McLowry stared bleakly at him a moment, nodded, then
walked out the door.

He stepped onto the sidewalk. His fingertips shakily touched
his mouth as the impact of what had happened hit him. Another innocent life had
been lost, just like the child in Mesa Verde. He turned away from the town, and
strode toward the desert, seeking the solitude he needed. Fresh, brisk air and
the quiet away from town finally caused his steps to slow, then stop. His mind
felt hazy, and the morning mist enveloped him.