Lily shook herself out of her trance to see the last remnant of the horseman making a mad retreat for town. A few feet away, Jed raised his rifle on high and roared out loud. “Yeah! Haha! You better run, you pieces of….”
“Enough of that,” Betsy snapped. “We’ve got two wounded men to deal with.”
Jed swallowed his laughter, and the group turned their attention to their casualties.
10
Cici rushed to Kelvin’s side. “Are you okay?”
“I’m all right.” He gasped for breath. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s definitely not nothing.” She got under his arm and helped him up. “Let’s get you inside.”
“Well, it’s nothing much. Ow! Be careful.”
Cici snarled under her breath and supported him into the kitchen. Lily hardly dared look at Sam, but Noah flipped him onto his back and examined him with a practiced eye. “It’s pretty bad, but he’s still breathing. Help me get him inside.”
He and Jed hoisted the fallen man. They carried him into the kitchen and deposited him on the table. Betsy gathered up all the guns and dropped them in a pile by the fireplace. Cici eased Kelvin into a chair and helped him peel off his shirt.
“I’m sorry I can’t tend to you, young man,” Noah told Kelvin. “You’ll just have to wait.”
“I’ll deal with him, Doctor,” Cici replied. “You tend to Sam. He needs you more right now.”
Noah rounded on Betsy. “I’ll need some boiling hot water and as many bandages as you can give me.”
Lily rushed to his side. “Let me help you.” She started rolling up her sleeves.
He shot her a grin. “You did more than anybody bringing him in when you did. See if you can cut his pants away from those wounds while I clean up his chest.”
“Go get my sewing basket from the parlor, Lily,” Betsy called from the cookstove. “You’ll find my scissors in that.”
“Thanks.” Lily rushed into the parlor and came back with the basket. She went to work cutting the thick canvas away from Sam’s leg where the big wet blood stains discolored the fabric.”
Jed, Betsy, Lily, and Noah all worked around Sam’s destroyed form. Two terrible bullet wounds in the sides of his chest posed the greatest danger. One bullet went through his hip and another through his thigh.
Noah handed Lily a strange tool. “Hold this for me, will you? I have to pry the wound open and see if I can find the bullet. If it hit any major blood vessel, he could bleed out and we won’t be able to do anything to save him.”
Lily took the cold steel and held it in the position where he told her. She studied Noah’s twisted face while he worked over the stricken man. This would be the life she signed up for if she married him.
She watched the years open out before her. She would help him treat gunshot wounds and dying patients. She would help him bring life and death to the Frontier. Was this what she really wanted? She said she wanted a challenge. She wanted hardship and meaning and purpose, and this was it.
Cici worked over Kelvin by the fire. Noah barked orders to everyone. “Get that water over here. Hold that swab in place. No, not there—here!” He gasped in exasperation. “Blasted thing went into the lung. I’ll have to go in after it. He’ll be lucky if he survives this.”
He worked steadily until he got all the bullets removed and the bleeding stopped. He just finished bandaging all the wounds when Sam gave an involuntary jerk. He lurched off the table and started flinging his arms and legs in all directions before Noah and Lily caught hold of him.
Noah and Lily wrestled him down onto the tabletop by the arms. “Lie still before you ruin all the work I just did to stop the bleeding,” Noah growled.
“Take it easy, Sam,” Lily told him. “You’re safe, but you’re wounded. Lie still before you start bleeding again.”
His eyes skipped back and forth between the two of them before he relaxed back on the table. “Am I…am I alive?”
“For the time being, at least.” Noah straightened up and wiped his hands on a towel. “You won’t be if you carry on that way.”
“Just relax, Sam,” Lily told him. “It’s gonna take you a while to heal up from this.”
Sam groaned. “I thought I was dead.”
“You won’t be holding a gun any time soon,” Jed muttered.
“We can’t stand another assault,” Kelvin added from across the room. “They’re sure to come back with reinforcements, and we don’t have enough guns to stand ‘em.”
Noah muttered over his work. “We lost the element of surprise, too. They’ll know Lily and Cici are women fighting with us. They won’t hesitate to snatch her and run for it.”
“What are we going to do?” Betsy asked.
Noah threw down his instruments and drew himself up. His eyes flashed, and he panted through gritted teeth behind his mustache. “I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.”
“I’ll like it better than getting my head blown off,” Kelvin countered.
Noah scanned the room with his fierce black eyes. “I suggest we all ride away from the forge right now. They’re after Lily. If they search the place and don’t find her here, they’ll leave.”
“Leave!” Jed thundered. “Are you nuts? They’ll leave all right. They’ll torch the place in retaliation.”
“He’s right, Doc,” Kelvin replied. “It doesn’t matter what we do. Merrill will take his revenge on anything he can find. We have to figure out a way to stop him retaliating after this is all over.”
Cici sank down on a stool at Kelvin’s feet. She pressed his hand to her heart. “Can’t we just leave town? I don’t want to fight anymore. You’re already wounded. What if you get killed out there? I couldn’t live with that. Nothing is worth all this fighting. Let’s get out while we can.”
Sam groaned again. “I’m getting out, too. This town is a waste dump.”
“Sam!” Betsy gasped.
“It’s true,” he rasped. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. I can make a living anywhere on this blasted Frontier. I don’t have to put up with rats like Merrill Fox making everyone’s lives miserable. He thinks he can take any woman he wants. Who wants to live like this?”
“You all can leave,” Jed fired back. “I’m staying here. Someone has to stand up to Merrill Fox, and I guess it has to be me.”
Noah faced Lily. “Come away with me, at least to protect the others. Those men will come back looking for you.”
“Leaving won’t save ‘em,” Kelvin countered. “We already killed a bunch of Merrill’s men, and it ain’t the first time. They won’t leave anyone alive, even if they find Lily gone. They’ll kill us all. We might as well go down shooting.”
“Please, Kelvin,” Cici moaned. “Don’t do this. You could get another job somewhere else. Get out while you can.”
“Where do you think you’re gonna go?” Jed fired back. “You can’t get away from Merrill.”
“He doesn’t control the whole Frontier,” Cici shrieked. “There are other towns out there with real lawmen who will stand up to him. There are other towns with law and order. We don’t have to do this. Please, Kelvin. Do it for me.”
Noah took Lily’s hand. “It’s the only way. Come on. We’ll leave together.”
Lily drew in a ragged breath. “I don’t like backing out on a fight, but all right. I’ll go with you.”
Jed seized a rifle. “I’m not leaving the forge.”
“Jed!” Betsy cried. “For Heaven’s sake, listen to reason. You already saw what they did the first time.”
“I’m not leaving,” he fired back. “Those bastards already killed my whole family. This forge is all I’ve got left. I won’t let them take that from me, too.”
Betsy’s lower lip trembled, but at that moment, the distant rumble of horses’ hooves vibrated through the ground. A deathly silence fell over the room. Everyone exchanged glances. This was the end. The gunmen were coming back, and they would leave no one alive.
Jed scooped up
a handful of bullets from the crate by the table and started slotting them into his rifle. He clenched his jaw in grim determination. Noah tugged Lily’s hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
He gathered up his medical case and headed out of the room. Betsy stood rooted to the spot and gaped at Jed loading his rifle. Kelvin propped one arm against his chair back and forced himself up. “I’m with you, Jed.”
Cici grasped his hand in desperation. “No, Kelvin! Please!”
He pulled his hand free as gently as he could. “He’s been my friend for years. I won’t let him go out there alone.”
Noah gave Lily’s hand another, stronger pull. He guided her toward the door leading through the house. Lily gave these people one last backward glance. Jed and Kelvin started for the back door, and Cici’s chin fell onto her chest. Her shoulders shook with sobs. Betsy stood frozen and blank by Sam’s motionless body on the table.
Noah pulled Lily through the door, and he shut it behind her. She lost sight of these people. She met them only a few hours before, but she might have known them all her life. She belonged to them, and now she was leaving them to their deaths—or worse.
Noah refused to wait a second longer. He marched her to the rear house door and pushed her through it. The dreadful ominous drumming of hooves came closer and louder all the time.
He hustled her to the stable. She waited in numb horror while he saddled two horses and helped her up on one of them. She gathered the reins, but she lacked the will to urge her horse away.
Maybe she should stay behind, too. Maybe she should die defending the forge with the others. What was her life worth without this close togetherness with her friends? She never felt as close to anyone since she lived in a one-room hovel with her mother and brother with barely enough to eat.
She found the place she hungered for most in her life. She found people she could love to the depths of her soul, only to have them snatched from her in seconds. Who could live like this? A death at their sides meant a lot more than any life without them.
Noah didn’t give her a chance to hesitate. He took hold of her mount’s bridle, and when he spurred her horse out of the stable, he took her mount with him. In seconds, the two animals pounded across the plains heading away from town.
Once Lily found herself cantering headlong across the open expanse toward freedom, her resolve kicked in. She took hold of her reins to ride her own horse, and Noah let the animal go.
The nonstop rumble of oncoming horsemen still filled the air. She cast a backward glance at the forge, but she didn’t see anybody. Already it dwindled cold and lonely and far away, and her heart contracted so she had to turn away.
Noah led the way up a low hill and down the other side into a draw where no one could see them. He veered to one side. Lily took a deep seat in her saddle when they thundered around another corner and up a gulley.
Lily spotted open country beyond, and her spirits lifted. Freedom hovered inches beyond her grasp. Just a little further, and she would leave the nightmare of Brimstone behind.
Noah urged his horse forward faster than ever. The two animals lunged up the slope, out of the trees, and charged straight into the midst of the oncoming horsemen.
Lily shrieked in terror. Men on horseback swirled all around her. They brandished rifles and surrounded the pair. Noah’s hand flew to his sidearm, but one of the enemy aimed his rifle barrel in Noah’s face. “Don’t even think about it.”
Noah raised his hands, but he glared at the men in unvarnished hatred. The solid wall of bodies and horseflesh obliterated any view beyond them. Lily cringed in her saddle, ready for the worst when the sea of riders parted.
A single man guided his mount through the throng and halted in front of Noah and Lily. His wrinkled old face crinkled at the corners when he smiled at them, and his eyes twinkled with merry laughter. A tin star glittered from his coat lapel.
Lily blinked in astonishment. This wasn’t the same Sheriff she spotted from her bedroom window at Merrill Fox’s house. This man looked kind and friendly and attentive.
Noah scanned him up and down. He growled through gritted teeth, and his black eyes shot daggers at the old man. “Who are you?”
The man took hold of his coat lapel and held out his star, just in case Noah and Lily hadn’t seen it before. “Federal Marshalls, son. I’m Marshall Faulk from Omaha. Now do you mind telling me where you were going in such an all-fired hurry?”
11
The horsemen lined up in ranks surrounding the forge. They propped their rifles on their hips, and they reined their horses into a solid wall so no one could get in or out.
Lily spotted Jed pop his head up over his work anvil. He crammed his shotgun into his shoulder. “Don’t come any closer,” he bellowed, “or we’ll open fire.”
Noah looped his reins around his saddle horn and murmured under his breath to Marshall Faulk. “Let me handle this. He trusts me.”
“Be my guest,” the Marshall replied.
Noah slid to the ground. He raised both hands above his head and stepped into the open between the Federal Marshalls and the forge. Lily’s heart pattered with excitement. Just wait until her friends found out who really came to visit!
Noah took a step forward. Jed roared from his hiding place. “Not another step, or so help me, I’ll fill you full of buckshot.”
“It’s me, Jed,” Noah yelled. “It’s Noah Kearney. You wouldn’t fill me full of buckshot, would you?”
“Noah!” Jed peeked over the anvil with a very different expression on his face. “Did Merrill’s goons catch you, Doc?”
“It isn’t Merrill’s goons,” Noah called back. “It’s Marshall Faulk from the Federal Office in Omaha, and these men are his deputies. They’re here to protect us. Lay down your guns. It’s all okay now.”
Noah’s voice cracked getting the words out, and Lily’s throat constricted with emotion. She wanted to laugh and burst out crying at the same moment.
She measured on the black outline of Noah’s back and shoulders from behind. His hair touched his white shirt collar above the black frock coat cut in a clean straight line down his shoulders.
That was her future husband out there. That was the man she was going to marry. That was the man to whom she would give her heart. Her soul cracked open when she thought of his courage, his dedication, his concern for others, his steady and reserved manner.
He was everything she ever wanted in a husband. She would face anything with him. She would give anything to build a life with him.
Jed poked his head up one more time, and this time, he didn’t duck out of sight. He fixed his eyes on Noah. “You certain?”
Noah kept his hands up and nodded over his shoulder toward Marshall Faulk. “Take a look for yourself. He says he knows you. He says you’ll recognize him if you just look. He says he’s a friend of yours.”
Jed looked at Marshall Faulk, and his jaw dropped in wordless astonishment. “Marshall?”
“It’s all right, son,” Marshall Faulk replied. “You can stand down now. Your wife’s report went to the highest levels of the Federal Office, and my deputies and I are here to clean up this town. We’ll investigate that Sheriff of yours before we decide whether to relieve him of his duties, but you can bet your boots no one is gonna muscle this town his own way again. You can depend on me to keep law and order around here from now on.”
Inch by inch, Jed rose to his feet behind the anvil. His shotgun sank to his side, and the tension drained out of his shoulders. He cast a glance down to one side, where Lily saw Kelvin crouching. Kelvin’s chin fell onto his shoulder, and his body shuddered with emotion.
Marshall Faulk turned to Lily. “You two go inside now and tell your friends what’s going on. We’ll stay out here and make sure those goons don’t come back.”
Lily struggled to control her mouth. Her face convulsed every which way. She extended her hand and squeezed the Marshall’s arm. “Thank you, Marshall. Thank you so much. You don’t know wh
at this means to all of us.”
His withered old cheeks flushed, and his eyes misted over. “Shucks, Ma’am. We’re just doing our job. Go on now. Your friends’ll be waiting for you.”
She kicked out of her stirrups and set off for the forge. She paused long enough to take Noah by the hand, and they started walking forward.
Jed stood stunned and immobile in the same spot. His eye traced the long line of deputies surrounding his beloved forge. He blinked, but he didn’t move. Lily put her arm around his waist. “Come inside, Jed. It’s all right. They’re staying out here to protect us from Merrill’s men.”
He didn’t reply, but he didn’t resist her. She turned him around, but she had to let him go to help Noah pick up Kelvin. They got under his arms and supported him into the kitchen, where they found Betsy and Cici in the same places.
Betsy stood by the table where Sam Dolan still lay unconscious and bloody, and Cici sat on the stool by the hearth. She stared into the coals, and tears streaked down her cheeks. Cici jumped up when Noah and Lily brought Kelvin in. “Is he hurt?”
“He’s fine.” Noah and Lily put him back in the same chair.
Kelvin gasped in pain. “I never would have believed it.”
Cici and Betsy exchanged glances. “What’s going on? What are they doing out there? Are they attacking?”
Lily rushed to Betsy and threw her arms around her. “We’re saved! It’s Marshall Faulk from Omaha. He says he’s here to clean up the town. They’re out there to protect us from Merrill’s men.” She lunged at Cici. “It’s all true! We’re safe. Merrill’s men will never bother us again.”
Jed sank into a chair. He rested his shotgun against the table, and his shoulders slumped. Betsy glanced at him. “They’re not…they’re not attacking?”
“I saw him with my own eyes,” Jed murmured. “I never would have believed it otherwise.”
Cici covered her mouth with both hands and burst into tears. “Marshall Faulk! Oh, thank God!”
Kelvin put out his arms and gathered her onto his lap. “Everything’s gonna be okay now, darlin’. You don’t ever have to worry anymore.”
The Doctor's Bride (Brides 0f Brimstone Book 3) Page 7
