Dorothy Garlock (14 page)

“Thunderation!” Charlie stalked to the back of the wagon and climbed in.

“Take his feet, Willa, and roll him onto his back,” Smith commanded. The dog whined and tried to reach his mistress. “That’s a good boy.” Smith talked to the dog in a calm soft voice. “We don’t have to worry about the bullet. It went in and out.” He stroked Buddy’s head. The dog licked his hand.

“Will he live?” Willa asked fearfully. The fact that he had used her first name had failed to register in her troubled mind.

“I don’t know. The bullet went in along his ribs.” Smith reached for the scissors when Charlie returned to squat down beside the dog. “Be still, boy. I got to see what we can do.” He quickly clipped the hair down to the skin around the wound on the underside as well as where the bullet had come out along the shoulder leaving a gaping hole.

“Does it need stitchin’?” Charlie asked.

“Got anything to stitch it with?”

“White sewing thread.”

“Get it.”

With a knife Smith drew from his belt, he picked out the hair that had been driven into the wound by the bullet.

“It isn’t as bad as I thought it was, old man. You’re lucky this time.” He spoke to the dog, ignoring Willa hovering on
the other side. “You’ll not be chasing any rabbits for a while. Do you have any ointment, Charlie?” he asked, and took the needle and thread.

“Got pine tar.”

“It’ll have to do. Get the whiskey out of my saddlebag.”

For the first time it registered in Willa’s worried mind that Smith’s left hand was badly bruised, the fingers and knuckles swollen. He held one finger out as if he were unable to bend it.
She had done that with the skillet!
She looked up. His head was bent over Buddy and all she could see was the brim of his hat and his chin.

Charlie returned with the bottle. Smith took it with his right hand, lifted the bottle to his mouth and pulled the cork with his teeth. He cupped the needle and thread in his injured hand and spilled the whiskey over it.

“A waste of good whiskey,” he murmured. Suddenly his green eyes were looking directly into hers. His brows were tilted in mocking amusement. “Hold him,” he said.

After he doused the wounds with the fiery liquid, he recorked the bottle, placed it on the ground beside him, and quickly pulled the jagged edges of the wound together with the thread. Charlie held out a tin of dark ointment. Using a corner of Willa’s apron, he coated the wounds generously, then stood.

“What’s this thing?”

“An apron. What do you need?”

“Something to bind him with. He may have a broken rib.”

“Use it.”

“You and Charlie will have to do it. I . . . ah injured my hand.”

Willa’s eyes met eyes that mocked her. His eyes were as green as oak leaves in the spring, and as he moved his head the sunlight glinted on them, causing them to glisten like brilliant emeralds. His nose was straight and arrogant. Her
eyes flicked to his mouth but did not linger. She did not like the faint amused smile it wore as he watched her.

When she said nothing, Smith took the apron from her hand and knelt down. “Lift him, Charlie, so I can get this under him.”

“Tell me what to do.” Willa went down on her knees beside the dog.

“When Charlie lifts him, slip this under. It should go around him twice. Wrap him tight and tie the binding in place with the sashes.”

Charlie lifted the dog’s upper body. With his one good hand Smith lifted the back part. Buddy whined, then yelped. Willa worked quickly.

“Pull it tighter,” Smith said. And when she did, “That’s good. Tie it.” He stroked Buddy’s head. “Get him some water. He’ll have to drink often; he lost a lot of blood.”

Smith took the bottle back to his horse and shoved it in his saddlebags. Willa followed him, thinking that he was going to mount and ride out without giving her the opportunity to thank him.

“I’m sorry about . . . your hand.”

Taking his time, he ran his narrowed eyes over her face, down her slender figure in the dark cotton dress, and back up to the blond hair that framed her forehead and cheekbones. She was pretty, real pretty, but not beautiful as was the spoiled little twit still bawling on the wagon seat. An angry red welt started at her temple and reached almost to her mouth.

“What’s that on your face?”

Willa’s hand went to her cheek. Her skin was hot.

“I guess it’s where Fuller hit me with the end of his reins.”

“He hit you?”

“—Before I bit him.”

Smith’s frown was replaced with a sudden smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes and brightened a dirt-streaked
face that needed a shave. Their eyes met and held. Color tinged her cheeks as his gaze traveled over her face, taking in the freckles on her nose, the wisps of curly hair that had escaped her braid. She stared at him, her blue eyes holding a definite shimmer of defiance.

“It was all I could do. I couldn’t let go of Jo Bell to get my gun.”

“Christ! If you’d pulled out that pea-shooter, he’d have shot you quicker’n a loose goose sh—” He cut off his words abruptly.

Her lips tightened grimly. “If I have to use the gun, I’ll shoot while it’s still in my pocket. It’s what Papa Igor told me to do.”

Smith watched her. He was aware of two things. She was not a woman to be backed into a corner, and she wasn’t one of those females who were all ruffles and flutters. Life had given her some hard knocks. Instead of making her weak, they had made her strong. She knew who she was and was coping the best she knew how with the hand fate had dealt her.

“I’m sorry I hit you with the skillet.”

“You should’ve used it on Fuller.” His eyes were wicked, teasing, and jarred her heartbeat to a quicker pace.

“Did I ruin your ring?”

“It wasn’t much of a ring. I won it in a poker game.”

“Thank you for helping with Buddy. He’s been with me a long time.”

“I like dogs,” he said simply and fumbled in his shirt pocket for a tobacco pouch. “Animals got more gumption than some people.”

“Let me build your smoke.” She reached for the pouch and papers. “It’s the least I can do after hurting your hand. I used to do this for my papa.” She continued to talk, hoping to cover her nervousness. “I’ve never seen a woman smoke
cigarettes. Papa Igor said that down in the Ozark hill country women smoke a pipe, dip snuff, and chew tobacco.”

“I saw a woman smokin’ a cigar in Denver.” He didn’t tell her the woman had been in a fancy bordello where he had treated himself to a few hours of female company.

Feeling foolish now for offering to build his cigarette, she poured the shredded tobacco into the paper, licked the edge to seal it and rolled it neatly. After twisting the end, she handed it to him.

Smith’s hands shook as he put the open end of the cigarette between his lips, struck a match on the sole of his boot and held the flame to the end. He dropped the match and ground it with the toe of his boot before he spoke.

“Tell me what happened.” He spoke softly, but his eyes were hard. They looked searchingly at each other.

His hard eyes were a brilliant, jeweled green. Willa looked away and folded her arms across her chest in an attempt to calm the fluttering she felt in his presence. The man was as alert as a wild stag. She could feel his unrest and it made her nervous. He radiated energy, strength. Sober, he was the most confident person she had ever met.

“I think he’d been following us, waiting until you and Charlie went on ahead.” To ease her own nervousness, Willa rushed into speech. “He came out of the woods and said he’d shoot the mules if I didn’t stop. He wanted to take Jo Bell to Sheridan. He said she could . . . name her price. When he tried to jerk her off the seat and onto his horse, I hung onto her. He hit me, but when I bit his wrist, he turned her loose. That’s when Buddy got there. He sprang at Fuller and he shot him. Then thinking you’d come when you heard the shot, he took off.”

“The low-down dirty bastard!” Smith spoke around the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He drew smoke deep into his lungs and let it out slowly.

He cursed himself. When had he been so damn careless? That morning he had watched Abel and Fuller head north. He should have waited to make sure Fuller didn’t double back. Only a damn fool would take a woman against her will and leave a witness. Fuller had acted alone. Abel Coyle was too smart to get mixed up in killing a woman.

Smith wondered if the little flirt had been leading Fuller on and he was counting on her going with him willingly. If that was the case, sooner or later, she’d get that brother of hers killed.

“You don’t know much about men like Fuller, do you? If he had taken her, he would have killed you. He couldn’t afford to leave a witness.”

Willa’s mouth opened in surprise. “He wouldn’t have.”

Smith snorted in disgust.

“I couldn’t let him take Jo Bell. She’s only a child. A spoiled one, I admit, but—”

“How old is she?”

“Sixteen.”

Smith snorted again, “Some are born to end up bad. She’s one of them.”

“How do you know? Perhaps Mrs. Eastwood can straighten her out.”

“Don’t count on it. I’d bet ten years of my life that Old Maud wouldn’t let her put a foot inside the door if she was freezing to death.”

“Then maybe we should bypass Eastwood Ranch and go on to Buffalo . . . or Sheridan. I owe it to her father to do what I can to help her and Charlie.”

“Why?”

“Because he saved my life.”

“He didn’t appear to be the kind of man who did anything out of the goodness of his heart,” Smith said dryly. “Did you sleep with him?”

Willa’s face flamed. “I did not!”

The long searching look he gave her said he didn’t believe her. There was a curious stillness between them—a waiting, uneasy silence that deepened as the seconds went by. Her cobalt-blue, thick-lashed eyes and the color that lay across her cheeks betrayed the fact that she was mortified. He thought she was a whore! He had called her that—in the barn. His opinion of her should not matter in the least. Yet for some reason unknown to her, her heart sank like a rock.

10

S
uddenly irritated at himself because of his curiosity about her, Smith walked back to Buddy and hunkered down.

“How’er you feeling, boy?” He stroked the dog’s head. “Feel like riding a little way? Let the tailgate down, Charlie. We’ll get out of these woods and make camp.”

Willa felt a strange tenseness come over her and fought it with a sudden desperation. She could feel Smith watching her. It made her uneasy. She worked swiftly to make a bed for Buddy out of her blankets. When she finished, she covered it with a ground sheet and Charlie carried Buddy to it.

“Don’t know why yore makin’ such a fuss over that old cur dog for,” Jo Bell said when Charlie elbowed her out of the way. “Ain’t ya carin’ that that awful old bug-eyed man almost stole me away?”

“But he didn’t—thanks to Willa and that ‘old cur dog.’”

Jo Bell put her hands on her hips and stuck her tongue out at her brother. “That old man thought I was the prettiest thin’ he’d ever did set his eyes on. He told me so.”

“You ain’t been makin’ eyes at him have ya, Jo Bell? Papa warned you about doin’ that.”

“Papa would’a gone after him and shot him down like a . . . a sidewinder for what he done.”

“Maybe he would’ve and then maybe he wouldn’t’ve,” Charlie shouted, his temper flaring. Then in a softer tone, “Sit back here with Buddy, Willa. I’ll tie my horse on behind and drive.”

“It ain’t
yore
horse,” Jo Bell yelled.

Charlie glanced at Smith. He was standing at the end of the wagon, his narrowed eyes on Jo Bell. Charlie watched his sister as she became aware of the man’s observation. Her sulky expression changed in an instant. She looked at Smith out of the corners of her violet eyes and smiled shyly up at him, a trick her papa had taught her.

Charlie felt disappointment tighten his stomach. His new friend continued to gaze at his sister. His eyes rested on her face for a long time without movement, without any discernible emotion except for the flaring of his nostrils. Charlie felt an emotion close to hatred. Jo Bell had always come first with everyone except their mother and Willa. Couldn’t Smith see anything but her pretty face?