The Devil You Know (5 page)

“I believe I was fortunate to have pockets.” When she continued to stare at him, he said, “You're wondering if I was broke or robbed.”

“And?”

“I don't know.”

Willa said nothing.

“Would you prefer one over the other?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just thinking how it could have played out and which side of right you might have been on.”

“More likely which side of wrong.”

“I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.” She stood suddenly, scooped up a clean, dry cloth from the basket, and headed for the door. “I won't be but a minute.”

She did not caution him to remain where he was because she really didn't believe he could go anywhere. She left the door open in the event he called for her.

Willa made straight for the pump, where she soaked the cloth with fresh, icy cold water. She wrung most of the water out while she walked back to the bunkhouse and folded the cloth into quarters. When she reached the threshold, she was greeted by two things simultaneously: an empty bunk, and her uncooperative guest standing at the piss pot trying to manage the sheet hitched around his waist with one hand and his cock with the other. To aid in the endeavor, he had removed his sling.

Shaking her head, Willa stepped back out of the doorway and to the side, electing to give him privacy and some measure of dignity. She knew he could have used her help, but
she could not imagine that he would accept it without an argument and be the worse off for it. She leaned against the rough log wall of the bunkhouse, closed her eyes, and allowed herself this brief respite. She could hear cattle lowing in the distance and the muffled snuffling of horses coming from the barn. Annalea's laughter drifted across the yard from inside the house, each staccato note of it bright and clear, and it was easy for Willa to imagine that John Henry was the source of her delight, as he often was at supper time.

A smile tugged at the corners of Willa's mouth. Annalea was certainly feeding John Henry under the table, and Happy, Cutter, and Zach were all pretending not to notice. Good manners were taking a pass tonight, but Willa was philosophical about it. It was not as if there wouldn't be future opportunities to practice them.

Willa roused herself from her reverie and pushed away from the wall. She had purposely not listened for sounds from inside the bunkhouse, so she had to step up to the threshold again to see if her patient had pissed or fallen. It was also quite possible that he had done both.

He was gingerly easing himself onto the bunk when she entered. The sheet was still hitched around him, although set precariously low on his hips and tangled around his legs. He looked up as she was coming toward him, but she couldn't say whether he was relieved or annoyed to see her.

“Here,” she said, holding out the damp, cool cloth. “Put it over your eye and hold it there. She yanked on the blankets that were trapped under him and might have dislodged the sheet entirely if he had not had a firm grip on it. “Go on. You can lie down now.”

He started to lean back slowly but couldn't manage the strain and simply collapsed instead.

Willa winced. “I should have put an arm under you.”

He grunted softly but otherwise remained quiet.

Willa tapped the fist that was still only clutching the damp cloth, and when he unfolded his fingers, she took it from him and laid it over his swollen eye. When he closed the other one, Willa repositioned the sling on his arm and shoulder. She could actually see tension leaching out of him.
His head rested more heavily against the pillow as his chin came up. The muscles in his neck and shoulders relaxed. His breathing came steady and evenly, but she did not mistake this for a sign that he was sleeping or unconscious. She had the sense that he was withdrawing, insulating himself, and that notion both puzzled and intrigued her. She settled both blankets over him, tucking the lower one around his feet and the one on top around his arms.

The stove was in need of attention so Willa poked at the fire and added wood. She stayed close, warming her hands first and then her backside. When she turned around, she saw that he was watching her. He did not even try to pretend that he wasn't.

Willa stared back. “Well?”

“Wishing I had two good eyes.”

Willa's right eyebrow rose in a perfect arch. “Is that so?”

“Mm.”

“Have a care. I could easily give that black eye a twin.”

“Oddly enough, I have no difficulty believing you.”

“As it should be.” Without a word regarding her intention, she rounded the bunk and retrieved the piss pot. She angled it into the lantern light and observed the quantity and color of the urine. “No blood,” she told him, tucking the pot under her arm. “You're a lucky man.”

When he did not comment, she glanced at him over her shoulder. He had placed his forearm across his eyes and was slowly, almost imperceptibly, shaking his head. “Having trouble believing me now, are you?”

“Just trouble believing,” he said under his breath.

Chuckling, Willa carried the pot outside and emptied it. She fell in step beside Cutter on the way back. He was carrying a supper tray, and the acrid, smoky aroma of charred stew wafted up from the bowls. Her stomach rumbled, and she hoped it tasted at least a tad better than it smelled.

“How's Mr. Roundbottom?” asked Cutter.

“He says his name is McKenna.” Willa stopped at the pump to wash up and then traded Cutter the pot for the tray. “Israel McKenna. I think he's telling the truth about that. If he remembers what happened out there today, he's not saying.”

“If?”

“I'm not sure he knows. He says he doesn't. You'll have to be careful asking around tomorrow. There's no good reason to give him up yet. He's not going to hurt anyone here.”

“Not today,” said Cutter. “And maybe not tomorrow or the day after that, but you can't be sure it will always be that way.”

“I'm aware.”

Cutter merely nodded and stepped aside to allow Willa to enter the bunkhouse first. He followed, dropped the pot beside McKenna's bed, and toed it under the bunk. Willa was pushing the round table he and the other hands used occasionally for meals, and more often for cards, closer to McKenna, and he helped her situate it at the bedside.

“Can he sit up on his own?” asked Cutter.

“Ask him,” said Willa.

“He's sleeping.”

She looked over at McKenna. “He's not sleeping. He's listening. I think he's genuinely curious about what we know.”

“Well, damn. That's not much.”

Willa pushed the stool at Cutter and dragged a chair to the table for herself. She sat. “Tap him on the shoulder—the injured one.” The suggestion was enough to encourage Israel McKenna to open his eye. “See?” she said to Cutter. “Possum.”

He nodded. “Do you need help sitting up, Mr. Roundbottom?”

The eye narrowed, first on Willa, then on Cutter. “The name's McKenna. Israel McKenna.”

“She told me, but I like Roundbottom. So, are you hungry? It's stew. A little on the blackened side but still edible. Zach brewed some white willow tea to ease your pain. You should drink up. Now what about that help? Can you feed yourself?”

Willa tapped the bowl of her spoon against the table to get the ranch hand's attention. When he looked over, she gave him an eyeful of reprimand.

“I saw that,” said Israel. “I can stand up for myself.”

“Sit up first,” she said. “Then we'll see about the other.” Mr. McKenna was not amused, she noted, but Cutter chuckled. Willa decided to ignore them both and concentrate on
her dinner. They worked it out before she finished sopping up the last of her stew with a warm crust of bread.

“Tell Cutter your middle name,” she said, leaning back in her chair.

“Court,” he said. “Are you testing me?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged, winced, and then massaged his injured shoulder. “I have to stop doing that.”

“For now.”

“How long before it's better?”

Cutter broke in. “This a first for you?”

“I think so.”

“Wouldn't have thought you could forget something like that.”

“Here we go,” Willa told Cutter. She stopped short of rolling her eyes. Her stomach was full and just now eye rolling seemed like too much effort. “The convenient inconvenient memory.” She turned to her dinner companion and saw he had chosen the white willow tea over the stew. Except for grimacing and the occasional smothered groan, he had been stoic about the pain. But whether it was silence born of experience and expectation or some need to keep it from her, she didn't know. “Or is inconveniently convenient?” she asked him. “No matter. You'll be out of the sling in a few days, and you will notice improvement in a couple of weeks, a month at the outside. If you don't care for it, though, the muscles will tighten and you'll have problems there for the rest of your life.”

“It's true, Roundbottom,” said Cutter.

Willa tapped the table again, this time with the flat of her hand. “Careful, Cutter. If he listens to me, he won't always be in a sling, and he might be a credible shot.”

Israel shook his head. “I'm not.”

“Are you sure?” asked Willa.

“I am. Did you find a gun or a gun belt?”

“No, but as I told you, we didn't find any money either.”

Cutter asked, “Did you have money?”

“I don't know.”

Willa closed her eyes briefly and rubbed the lids with a thumb and forefinger. “How did you get to Jupiter?”

“I don't know.” He put his spoon down and pushed the bowl away. “You're the one who thinks that's where I was.”

“You agreed with me.”

“Because it seems likely, but I don't know it for a fact.” He plowed his fingers through his hair again. “How does anyone get to Jupiter?”

When Willa didn't answer, Cutter did. “Mostly train these days. There's a U.P. spur from Denver. You know what the U.P. is, don't you?”

“The Union Pacific.”

“That's right. Do you think you might have taken the train, Mr. McKenna?”

“Israel. And I don't know.” He ignored Willa's sigh. “Did I hear you say back where you found me that I might have ridden out with some others?”

Cutter's eyebrows laddered his forehead as they rose. He looked at Willa.

“I told you,” she said. “He was listening even back then.”

“I'll be darned.” Cutter massaged the back of his neck. “Yeah, I said it could have been like that. I thought there might be three, maybe four horses. Stands to figure one of them was yours. I didn't take a lot of time to look around on account of we needed to get you here, but I can do that tomorrow.”

Willa shook her head. “Jupiter tomorrow. I'll go back. It's Pancake land. It's my responsibility.”

“Is that why you rode out to find me?” Israel asked. “Your land? Your responsibility?”

“I rode out because Annalea asked me to. I brought you back because it was necessary.”

“The right thing to do?”

“Yes.”

“My brother would approve.”

There was no mistaking the derisive smile on that battered face, and Willa remembered that he'd said his brother always did the right thing. His brother, the saint. Well, she was not that, and she doubted it could be said of the other Mr. McKenna. “What is your brother's name?”

“Quill.”

“Quill,” she repeated. “I've never heard it before.”

“It means cub. That's what he is. The cub. My little brother.”

“And is Quill in Indiana with your parents?”

His lips twisted briefly in a scornful smile that further distorted his features. “Illinois. You know my parents are in Illinois.”

She did not pretend that she had made a mistake, and she did not apologize for trying to challenge his story. Instead, she turned to Cutter and directed him to take the tray to the house. “And tell Zach to make a poultice for Mr. McKenna's eye and bring it here.”

Cutter darted a sideways look at Israel and then leaned over, picked up the damp eye pad lying on the bed beside him, and pressed it into Israel's hand. “You can put that back over your eye now that you're done eating. Swelling's about the size of an egg, and the color's the same purple shade of sky just as night's creeping in. It'll be full-on black in the morning.”

“The tray?” Willa said, pushing it in Cutter's direction. “Now?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said solemnly, too solemnly. He practically telegraphed his wink and nod. “Right away.”

Willa waited until he was gone before she sighed. “He's not wrong, you know. About the size of the swelling or the color.”

Israel placed the pad over his eye and held it there. “He took some pleasure in telling me.”

“I know.” She stood, pushed the table back, and then helped him lie down.

“He did it because he likes you.”

“I know.”

“I mean that he's sweet on you.”

“I knew what you meant.” She adjusted the sling, tucked the blankets, and then looked him over. “Odd for you to say, though.”

He shrugged then clenched his jaw against the pain. After several long seconds, he slowly released the breath he was holding and closed his eye. His lips parted around a curse but he did not give it sound.

“Hurts some, does it?”

His breath hitched on a short, almost inaudible laugh, and he grimaced. “Some. Yes.”

Willa wagered he had never paid much attention to his ribs. He would be a fool not to now. She pulled the chair closer to the bunk so that when she sat, her knees touched the thin mattress. She leaned forward, resting her folded forearms on her thighs. “I can't say this easy,” she said quietly, “but it needs to be said. You were sorely abused today, and I don't know how it will end for you. I'm not a doctor, and it never occurred to me that you would want me to send for one, but if you—”