The Tracker (4 page)

Buckshot splayed out of the barrel, striking him in the right leg. Blinding pain seared through his thigh as the acrid smell of smoke filled his nostrils. He hit the ground hard.

Ellie screamed. She stood on the porch, frozen, her hands still locked around the gun. Tears welled in her eyes as the truth of what she’d done sank in. The baby cried louder.

Nick sucked in a breath, doing his best to ignore the blinding pain. “I didn’t think you had the guts.”

“I told you to stop.”

Wincing, he pushed himself up so that he was standing. Warm blood ran down his leg. He didn’t have to look at the wound to know it was bad.

Upset, she lowered her gun.

He took the opportunity and lunged at her like a wounded bear. He grabbed the gun and jerked it out of her hand. He gripped her arm.

She tried to twist free. “Let go of me.”

He could smell the coppery scent of his blood. He’d taken down men twice his size and meaner than Satan. Yet here he stood, likely bleeding to death, shot by a little bit of a woman.

“You should have
listened
to me,” she wailed.

“Thanks to you, it doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere.” His pant leg was wet with blood.

The baby’s cries echoed in his skull. He felt dizzy.

Soon his wound would get the better of him. Soon he’d pass out.

His gaze dropped to hers. She was all that stood between him and death. A man could do all the planning he wanted but the truth was, plans were fragile. People who were quick to respond to change were the ones who survived.

“If I die, you hang,” he lied. He regretted the raw fear in her eyes but there was no avoiding it. He needed her help.

Ellie lifted her chin. “Who would care if I killed an outlaw? I’ll likely collect a reward.”

A tense smile curved the edges of his lips. “Lady, I’m no outlaw.”

She twisted her hands. “Of course you are.”

He reached inside his vest pocket and pulled out the silver star that had belonged to Bobby Pool. He’d carried the star as a tribute to his friend. Now he prayed it would convince Ellie to save his life.

Nick handed the star to Ellie before he dropped to his knees.

She held it in her small hand. Her face contracted. She looked as though she was going to faint.

E
LLIE HAD SHOT
a marshal!

Her head spun. She could feel a hangman’s noose sliding around her neck.

“You should have said
something!
If I had known you were a marshal, I wouldn’t have shot you.”

He grimaced. “I’ll remember that next time.”

She knelt beside him. Her hands trembled. “I thought marshals were supposed to wear their stars on their lapels? The sheriff in Butte
always
wears his star on his coat.”

The marshal met her gaze. “Ellie, do we really have to go into this right now? I’m bleeding.” His voice was calm, as if they were sitting in church on Sunday.

Ellie swallowed her panic and glanced down at his leg. “No, no. Of course not.” She reached for the torn fabric of his pant leg, ready to rip it free so she could get a better look at the wound.

The marshal grabbed her wrist. “You know anything about bullet wounds?”

Her skin tingled where he touched her. “Yes.” She’d seen her share at the Silver Slipper. “Let’s get you to bed.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and helped him up. He kept the bulk of his weight on his left leg.

He winced. “Where’d you learn about wounds?”

“Chin Lo, a medicine man who worked for Miss Adeline, taught me everything he knew.”

“Let’s hope he knew a lot.”

His dry humor caught her off guard. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. Instead of a menacing monster, she saw a man. A very attractive man.

She refocused. “I’ve seen bullets dug out, wounds stitched, and I’ve mixed the salves.”

“You ever doctored anyone alone?”

“Only once.” She’d delivered Jade’s baby.

“Should I ask?”

“No.” Hugging him close, she guided him into the house and toward her room. He’d never make it upstairs.

His face was as pale as her petticoats, but he didn’t complain as he limped inside. Gingerly she lowered him onto her mattress. The springs groaned as the mattress sagged. The baby’s cries had quieted. Ellie glanced into the crib. Rose had stopped crying and her face had turned in Ellie’s direction.

Ellie helped the marshal shrug off his coat and then tossed it onto the floor. A deep stain of blood spread from his right thigh up to his hip and down to his knee. “Mister, you should have stopped when I said to.”

Pain deepened the sun-etched lines at the corner of his eyes. “Looks like I underestimated you,” he said quietly.

“You’re not the first.” The man’s breathing was getting shallower. She prayed he wouldn’t die.

He glanced at the wound. “This is a complication I never considered.”

“Tell me about it.”

As gently as she could manage, she lifted his feet onto the bed. When he stretched out, his large frame barely fit the mattress. Ellie pulled off his boots and set them on the floor beside the bed.

She reached for the buckle of his gun belt.

He grabbed her hand. “No.”

“It’ll be hard enough cleaning the wound as it is. I’ll never get to it if I got to work around a holster.”

He swallowed and pulled his gun from the holster. “Take the belt.”

He glanced at the crib at the foot of her bed and looked at the sleeping baby. He frowned, as if the sight of the child troubled him.

Immediately, Ellie pushed the cradle away from her bed toward the corner and away from his gaze.

“I would never hurt her,” the marshal said, his voice oddly gruff.

She could feel his gaze on her as she positioned the cradle. “I don’t take chances with Rose.”

She hurried to the kitchen and retrieved the medical kit Annie kept over the stove and the kettle she’d only just heated for tea.

She poured hot water into the washbasin, mixed it with some cool well water and then washed her hands. Her hands cleaned and dried, she carried Annie’s stash of bandages and the rest of the hot water to the bed.

The marshal laid his head back on the pillow, his face tight with pain. His body was all muscle, long and lean, sinewy but not bulky. An injured predator was twice as dangerous.

“You got a name?” she said.

“Nick Baron.”

“Well, Marshal Baron, I’ll make this as painless as I can for you.”

He nodded.

She pulled a half-full bottle of whiskey from the medicine box. “I don’t have any herbs to help you sleep, but if you drink the whiskey, it will help a little with the pain.”

The marshal shook his head. “No booze.”

“This is no time to be tough. It will help you relax.”

“No.”

“It’s not going to be easy.” She dreaded what was to come.

“No whiskey.”

Frustrated, she set the bottle on the table. “Suit yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She removed a very sharp knife from the box, submerged it in the basin of hot water and then doused the blade with whiskey. Carefully she dried the knife, aware the marshal’s gaze tracked her every move.

She leaned toward him, the blade gleaming in the sunlight from the one window at the head of her bed.

Likely by reflex, he grabbed her wrist. “What are you planning?”

The man was tough but the hint of worry in his voice was unmistakable. “I’ve got to cut the pants off.”

His iron grip eased and he released her. However, his body remained tense, as if ready to spring. Slowly she lowered the blade to cut off his pants. His flat belly flinched as the cold steel touched his skin. She sliced the fabric, moving down the pant leg all the way to the ankle. The pant leg fell open like a gutted fish. Grabbing the folds, she ripped the rest of the fabric up to his hip bone.

Blood oozed from a deep wound on the outer part
of his thigh. She prayed she’d not struck an artery. “This isn’t going to be easy to fix.”

“Do what you need to,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper.

She removed a thick stick from her box and lifted it up to his lips. “So you don’t bite your tongue off.”

His eyes sharpened and for a moment she thought he’d refuse. Finally he opened his mouth. Even white teeth clamped down on the stick.

She studied the wound. The buckshot had torn away a portion of his thigh. She rolled him onto his side and inspected the back of his leg. There was no exit wound. The pellets had lodged deep and the bleeding was heavy.

He grunted as she rolled him back. “I’ve got to dig the pellets out, Mr. Baron. I’ll do this as quickly as I can.”

He nodded.

She prodded the wound with her fingertip. Every muscle in his body strained with pain.

Grimacing, she lifted the blade to the wound and started to dig. The marshal groaned. He squeezed his eyes shut and arched back against the pillow.

The tip of her blade grazed several pellets. The marshal swallowed and squeezed the handle of his pistol. Sweat beaded on her brow.
Please, let me get these out.

Finally she wedged the blade tip under the bits of metal and, with a flick of her wrist, raised them up enough so that she could get the cluster out with her fingers.

By the time she’d removed the last, her hands and the sheets were soaked in blood. “That’ll do it.”

Sweat discolored Marshal Baron’s shirt. His heartbeat thrummed rapidly at the base of his neck. His eyes remained shut and his brow knotted.

Ellie took the gun from his near lifeless hand. “I’ve got to wash the wound and stop the bleeding.”

He didn’t protest the taking of his gun this time. Like her, he seemed to understand that the cleaning would be worse.

She took the whiskey bottle and poured a liberal portion over the wound. The marshal hissed in a breath and groaned. Weakened by blood loss and pain, he passed out.

She pressed a white cloth against the wound, holding it in place for a half hour. Slowly the bleeding eased.

She rinsed the blood from her hands in the basin and then wiped them dry. Very carefully, she stitched and bandaged the wound.

When she was finished, the sun had dipped a bit lower in the sky. By her guess, it was past three o’clock.

Her gaze drifted back up to the hard planes of Nick Baron’s face. Even in sleep he scowled. Few men could have endured the pain. Even Chin Lo would have been impressed.

She brushed back a lock of thick black hair from his forehead. A small scar marked his right brow and another trailed his jawline. Other scars were visible on his well-muscled arm and another on his shoulder blade.

The marshal wasn’t a stranger to pain.

Sighing, she rose and stretched the tightness from her lower back. “You should have listened to me and left.”

He shifted in his sleep, muttering something she didn’t understand.

Ellie checked on the baby, who was still asleep. Three hours was a long nap for Rose and she’d soon wake up. While she still had the time, Ellie sat at the marshal’s bedside. They were going to have a long night together. The next twelve hours would be critical. He could still hemorrhage or, worse, fever could poison his blood.

After a time, the baby woke and Ellie fed her. She cleaned Rose up and placed her back in her crib, then made herself a simple meal before she took up her post at the marshal’s side again.

Later, she did her evening chores, feeding the an
imals and closing the place up for the night. Again, she fed Rose. Around midnight, she collapsed into a chair by the marshal’s bed, her body so weary her bones ached.

Hours later a rooster crowed, waking Ellie. She jumped to her feet. Sunlight streamed into the cabin. She’d slept the night through in the chair. Immediately she checked the marshal, half expecting to find him dead. To her relief, he still breathed evenly. Her doctoring job seemed to have worked, for now.

Ellie stretched her arms, stood, and peeked in on the still-sleeping baby. Every muscle in her back ached. Coffee. She needed hot, strong coffee if she hoped to get through the day. She went to the kitchen, stoked the fire in the stove, set the coffeepot on the burner and ground the beans. It would be an hour before the coffee was ready and the horses needed to be fed.

Her eyes itched as she went outside. The air was pleasantly warm. Normally she’d have savored a summer day like today.

As she crossed the yard toward the corral, chickens pecked the ground. An old cat rose from his bed of hay by the porch, yawned and followed her. A wild dog barked in the distance.

Her body protested as she loaded hay into the feed bins and hauled fresh water from the well near
the barn. How had Annie been doing this alone for twenty years?

The whinny of a horse had her turning. Standing in front of the house was the marshal’s mount. It pawed at the dirt and snorted.

She walked toward the black mare and whistled. The horse’s nostrils flared.

“Of course,” she muttered. “Why would the horse be less difficult than the man?”

The birds sang and a gentle breeze flapped the edges of her homespun skirt. She whistled again. “I won’t hurt you!”

Again, the horse didn’t move toward her. Sighing, she started toward the porch. “When you’re ready, let me know. I’m too tired to fuss with you now.”

As she climbed the first porch step, she heard the bridle jingle. She turned. The horse held its head high and proud, as if it were waiting for her. Its tail swished.

“Cocky thing, aren’t you?” she said.

The horse snorted as if she were a queen.

Ellie lifted a brow. “Remember, I grew up around difficult women.”

She moved slowly toward the horse. The mare’s black eyes widened. “I can take that heavy saddle off and turn you loose into the corral. Sweet hay to eat.”

The horse snorted again and took a step back.
Ellie hadn’t ridden much in her life and if truth were told, she didn’t like horses much. She’d heard they each had personalities, but she’d yet to figure one out.

“Your choice, gal. I’m not dealing with any more ornery creatures today.” She stepped closer.

The horse didn’t move this time. Gently, Ellie took hold of her reins and guided the mare toward the corral. It didn’t take her long to unsaddle the horse. In the last two months, she’d saddled and unsaddled more horses than she had in the rest of her lifetime.

Fifteen minutes later the horse was watered and fed. She carried the marshal’s saddlebag into the house and laid it on the table. She flipped open the thick buckle. “Let’s just see what you’re about, Marshal.”

She dumped the bag’s contents onto the table. She found two books, extra bullets, a knife sheathed in a fine leather case, a spare pair of handcuffs, another pair of pants and two extra shirts.

She picked up the knife and removed it from its soft sheath. The steel blade curved at the tip into a savage point and glistened in the sunlight. No doubt it could cut through most anything. Carefully she replaced the blade.

Ellie’s gaze dropped to the richly bound book. She
leafed through the pages. Her reading skills were limited, but she could see by the small letters that the book was the kind a very educated man read.

She glanced toward her room, where the marshal slept. The few lawmen she’d known hadn’t had much formal education. “Mr. Baron, you are full of surprises.”

Ellie wondered how long it would take her to finish a book like this. As slow as she read, it would probably take more spare time than she had in a year.

As Ellie leafed through the book, a tintype fell out. The edges were worn but the picture was clear. It was a wedding portrait of the marshal and a woman.

He was married.
For some reason, the realization didn’t sit well.

“What do you care?” she muttered. “The man’s pure trouble.”

Good sense didn’t ease her curiosity. She studied the picture more closely. The marshal’s face was downright boyish and there was a light in his eyes that testified to youthful energy. He wore a fine black suit, starched collar and silk tie.

She’d not have believed this was a picture of him if she’d not had time to examine it and see the same cleft chin and square jaw.

In the picture, the marshal stood with his hand
resting on the woman’s shoulder. The woman wore a white dress trimmed in satin ribbons and on her head was a veil made of lace. A cameo threaded through a silk ribbon hung around her neck. She sat bolt-straight, her delicate hands folded in her lap. Her ice-blond hair was coiled on top of her head and tiny pearl-drop earrings dangled from her ears. Clear, pale eyes stared at the camera and her lips curled into a soft smile.