The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine (22 page)

Reluctantly, Carina knelt and took Miss Preston’s head in her lap. “Is anyone a doctor? See if there’s a doctor on board.”

A man rushed to check the other cars. Carina wanted to scold and scream at Miss Preston. Genius indeed. How could anyone be so stupid? But Carina had no emotion to spare. Where was Quillan?
Signore!
She stared at the door flapping open and shut. The one opposite on the Express car was splintered. She could see motion inside, but little more.

A man pressed in to where she knelt, and Carina recognized a doctor’s authority. “Hold her head up,” he said.

Carina adjusted it in her lap. He pulled on Miss Preston’s eyelids and felt her pulse. Then he tore her dress at the shoulder seam and checked the wound. Carina looked on with no squeamishness. She’d seen plenty of blood. The bullet looked to have entered beneath the clavicle, but whether it had lodged against the scapula or passed through she couldn’t tell.

Carina had a desperate urge to drop Miss Preston and find her husband. But she held on as the doctor urged the shoulder up and searched for an exit wound. Finding none he said, “I’ll have to cut.” He looked into Carina’s face. “Perhaps someone else . . .”

“I have assisted surgeries.” She could hardly believe she had said it. Why should she succor Priscilla Preston? And where was Quillan? What if he, too, lay injured . . . or dead? She started to shake, but it wasn’t at the thought of the doctor’s knife.

Miss Preston began to thrash, and the doctor ordered, “Hold her while I prepare.” He went to his bag and began assembling instruments.

There was a commotion behind her, and Carina turned. Quillan entered with his companions. He supported the groundhog shooter, whose leg was bloody above the knee, but whose face was kindled with pride. Quillan’s own sleeve was bloody and torn, but he was alive.
Grazie,
Signore!

Quillan eased his injured man onto a seat. Then he looked down at Miss Preston and frowned. “How—”

“She went outside to watch.” Carina tried not to sound as disdainful as she felt. It was not for her to judge.

A minute later Bennet rushed in from the other end of the car. “They got away. I fired some shots, but the two at the front rode away.”

Quillan looked out the window. “One fell. But I think he’s past the doctor’s help.”

“What about the agent?” someone asked.

Quillan glanced back at the Express car. “He’s standing. But I don’t think he would have been for long. He wouldn’t turn over the box. It’s a cinch they’d have shot him.”

Carina’s heart swelled. Quillan had saved the man’s life. There seemed three types of men: those who took life, those who saved it, and those who wouldn’t risk either.

The older Miss Preston rushed into the car with a handkerchief to her mouth. “Oh! My niece!”

A portly matron circled her with an arm. “There, now. The doctor’s tending her.”

As she spoke, the doctor held a cloth dampened with chloroform to Priscilla Preston’s nose and mouth. Carina recognized the odor and held her breath, then felt the woman slacken. Then the doctor brought out his scalpel and the probe with a tiny scooplike shape at the end to remove the slug. It took only a few minutes. Then he treated the wound against infection with carbolic acid. Again Carina recognized the odor and the process. She doubted this doctor wasted his time reading the bumps on people’s heads. After he had bound the wound with clean bandages, two men lifted Miss Preston to a berth and closed the curtains around her and her aunt.

Next the doctor moved his operation to Quillan’s companion. “What’s your name, son?”

“Miles Chapen Smith.”

“Well, Mr. Smith, it appears the bullet passed through the muscle of your thigh, exiting here.”

The man winced. “Then at least I’m spared the surgery.”

“You are indeed. And you’re a lucky man. Farther to the left it might have severed an artery.”

The man blanched. “Well, we gave those rascals the rout, didn’t we?” He looked up at Quillan with adulation.

Quillan quirked his mouth. “We did.”

He suddenly gripped Quillan’s hand. “Thank you. For pushing me aside.”

Bennet shook his head. “And I thought I was taking the dangerous assignment.”

Quillan met his gaze. “We all did our part. Maybe they’ll think twice before hitting this line again.”

The Wells Fargo agent came in behind them. “I’ve secured the car, but I want to personally thank you men.” He looked at Quillan and lowered his brows. “You know the gang?”

Carina startled. How could Quillan know those men?

“Just the one. A long time ago.”

The agent eyed him a long moment. “When we get to the station, I’ll need your statement for my report. Can you make an identification?”

“His name is Shane Dennison. I don’t know if he goes by it still.”

“They might have papers on him. They might not. Anything you can tell us will help.” The agent glanced at Quillan’s bloody arm. “Hit bad?”

“Grazed.”

Carina sighed her relief. She hadn’t wanted to see the doctor dig a bullet from Quillan’s flesh. She had already imagined too many horrors. The train began to move as the doctor disinfected and bound Mr. Smith and Quillan’s wounds.

Then Carina took her seat once again across from her husband. “Does your arm hurt?”

“Burns a little.” Quillan eyed the bandage over the slit the slug had dug through the side of his arm.

“You could have been killed.”

“I wasn’t.”

Carina saw defiance in his eyes. Not the morbid affection Miss Preston bore danger, but akin to it, as though he willingly pitted himself against death, accepting either outcome. She shivered. There were depths to her husband she could not fathom.

“Go ahead.” His voice was low.

“What?”

“Ask.” He shifted his seat.

Had he read her thoughts? “How did you know him?”

“He’s the one who left me to take the fall for his robbery at the bank in Laramie.”

Carina raised her brows, recalling the brief angry explanation he’d given her before, how as a boy he’d been taken in and betrayed. Another rejection.

“I was impressed by him once. Now he’s just a worm.”

Carina sighed. “To people like Miss Preston he’s a hero.”

He was quiet a long moment. “If she still feels that way when she wakes up, then she’s more disturbed than I thought. People imbue some Robin Hood image on those brave enough to threaten the powerful and unscrupulous railroad barons. But they’re nothing but thieves and scoundrels, just like the roughs, preying on those weaker or more virtuous.”

But Quillan had stopped them. At his own risk, he had stopped the outlaws victimizing the train. Her heart swelled. Quillan was wise. And he was safe. And he had done a wonderful thing.
Grazie, Signore
.

Quillan stared out the window of the train. Shane Dennison. The sight, the sound of his voice, even the wheedling words he’d used to try once again to draw Quillan into his spell; all of it brought him back to that part of his life of which he was least proud. Had needing human approbation made him so susceptible to influence that even someone of Dennison’s ilk could seem heroic?

What was this need in him to be accepted, and at the same time make himself so difficult to accept? Hadn’t he tried to push Carina away with everything in him, all the while desperate for her love? It was a war inside. And the Shepards—had he been partly responsible for Leona Shepard’s accusations? Hadn’t he defiantly kept silent, even brazenly misled her at times?

Shane Dennison. Why had God crossed their paths again? Shane Dennison, to whom Quillan had once confided his unhappiness, his anger toward the reverend, his hatred of the reverend’s wife. Yes, he had prided himself in becoming a thorn to Reverend Shepard, called himself the reverend’s personal demon. Dennison remembered that? After fourteen years?

As for his “friend,” Dennison seemed to have stayed the course he set for himself. From that first robbery, how many others had followed until now they met up again, on opposite sides of this shootout? Quillan shook his head. It could have gone the other way. One of these days he’d get in over his head defending the underdog or standing for justice in an unjust world. But like so many other things, it seemed a tenacious part of his nature.

He’d hardly finished the thought when a man came forward, hand extended. It was the one who’d been keeping score for the shooting contest. “Mr. Shepard, may I offer my thanks.” His grip was firm, confident. “Roderick Pierce is the name. I’m in the newspaper business. I’d like to write up our little episode.”

Quillan shifted, aware of the burning wound in his arm. “The more print you give it, the better he’ll like it.”

“He?”

“Shane Dennison, the leader of the band.”

Pierce pulled out a notebook. “Dennison, you say? Friend of yours?”

Quillan didn’t answer. He trusted reporters on a level with lawyers like Beck. The man raised a questioning brow. Quillan shook his head. “Not a friend.”

“But you are acquainted?”

“I knew him once.”

The man scribbled. “How long ago?”

“Long.”

The pencil paused. Pierce looked up. “One, five, ten years?”

Still Quillan didn’t answer. He began to feel invaded. What if he told the man the year, the city, the connection he’d had with Shane Dennison. How would the story be twisted? Just as Wolf ’s life—and death—had been twisted into some macabre tale.

Carina leaned forward. Immediately Pierce took notice. “Ma’am?”

“My husband is injured. He needs to rest.”

“Certainly. This will only take a moment.” He turned back to Quillan. “If you could—”

Carina laid her hand on his arm. “Thank you for understanding.”

Pierce paused, looked from her to Quillan and back. Quillan felt Pierce’s reluctance crumble against Carina’s resolve. He should speak for himself, but one corner of his mouth twitched as he held his silence. Carina’s lips parted in a soft smile.

Pierce tipped his head. “As you like, ma’am. Mr. Shepard, I’ll speak with you again.” He turned crisply, glanced once more at Carina, lingering, in Quillan’s assessment, a moment overlong. Then he left.

Quillan closed his eyes, but even as he did, William Scott Bennet spoke his name. Wearily, Quillan opened his eyes again.

“Mr. Shepard . . .”

“Quillan.” It was habit, even if he no longer disdained the name of Shepard as he once had.

“Quillan.” Bennet held out his hand.

Quillan shook it.

“Some of the fellows would like to buy you a drink, sir. Would you do us the honor?”

Quillan glanced at Carina, but it seemed she wouldn’t come to his rescue this time. Now that she’d mentioned it, he was tired, but he couldn’t refuse the companions who’d stood with him. Quillan got up from his seat. “All right.” He just touched Carina’s shoulder as he left her.

Carina watched her husband be carried off by his exuberant admirers. It was fitting they should honor him. If not for his insistence, this entire episode could have—would have—ended differently. Yet she knew he was uncomfortable. He was not used to acclaim and acceptance, nor even companionship. Her heart jumped. Maybe now he would learn. Then she caught sight of Roderick Pierce hurrying after them.

She sighed. Quillan would reveal no more than he liked. But what would the newsman make of Quillan’s reluctance? Would he think her husband had something to hide?

F
OURTEEN

How weak the man, bone and blood, felled by flying lead.

How glad my hand was not the one by which he now lies dead.

—Quillan

A
T GRANGER STATION
, Quillan took leave of Carina and followed the Wells Fargo agent off the train to make a report. Carina and the others who had witnessed the incident would be questioned and shown posters, but railroad officials took Quillan into a small office with walls lined with charts and maps.

He waited there with the Wells Fargo agent until three other men joined them. One of these men, unremarkable but for the width between his eyes, motioned him to sit. There were only two chairs, so the other men remained standing. A certain unease settled on Quillan as he glanced about.

The wide-eyed man said, “I’m Detective Bittering. I understand you have some acquaintance with the outlaws who held up the Union Pacific?”

Quillan nodded. “I recognized one of the men.”

The detective spoke slowly and deliberately. “How could you recognize him if he was masked?”

Quillan sensed an antagonism he hadn’t expected. Hadn’t he just acted to save their interests at the risk of his own life? “I knew him.”

“When?”

“Fourteen or fifteen years ago.” Quillan’s throat felt tight.

The man jotted that down on a sheet of paper. “That’s a long time. Have you seen him since?”

“No.”

“Yet you knew him with only his eyes showing.”

“Eyes, forehead, voice.”

“You must have known him very well.”

Quillan shifted in his chair. “Several months.”

The detective stood and walked across the room. “You knew him for several months; you haven’t seen him in fifteen years; yet you knew who it was.”

Quillan stiffened. Was he on trial?

Bittering glanced over his shoulder. “Forgive me, Mr. Shepard, if I seem skeptical. Comes with the territory.”

Quillan nodded slightly.

“At what point did you know the leader of this gang was your friend?”

“He’s not my friend.”

“Must have made quite an impression.” Bittering tapped his pencil on the edge of the oak desk. “You knew him only a few months.”

“I have a keen memory.”

“Have you?” Bittering walked to the wall and studied a schedule chart.

There was a knock at the door, and Bittering motioned one of the other two men to open it.

Pierce stood outside. “Detective Bittering, I’m Roderick Pierce,
Rocky Mountain News
, Denver. I’d like to be present as you speak with Mr. Shepard here. I’m covering the story.”

Quillan tensed, certain Bittering saw his unease.

“Don’t mind if you listen,” Bittering said. “But don’t interrupt or ask questions of your own.” He fixed the man with his wide stare. Quillan suspected he did not ordinarily let pressmen in on his investigations. Did he do it now to intimidate? Mr. Pierce gave Quillan a smug smile. Quillan had been less than forthcoming on the train, and even less polite. Now there was no way to keep the man from knowing whatever the detective pried loose. He felt sweat on the back of his neck.