Desperate Hearts

by Rosanne Bittner

  In chapter two, Miranda, a widow living alone, goes home to her farm, where she finds a surprise waiting for her…

  Two

  She opened the shed door, then gasped when she saw a strange horse inside the shed, nibbling away at fresh oats. The animal was still saddled, a rifle and a shotgun resting in boots on either side of the saddle.

  Fear gripped Miranda in the form of real pain in her chest. Whose horse was this? She noticed a dark green slicker tossed over the side of the stall. It looked familiar. Hadn’t Jake Harkner been wearing a slicker like that when she saw him in the store?

  Every nerve end came alert as her gaze quickly darted around the shed, but she saw no sign of human life. She put her hand to the strange horse’s flank and could feel that the animal was cool. Apparently it had been here for several hours. If so, where was the man who had ridden it?

  She moved closer to study the animal, noticing dried blood on the saddle and stuck to the left side of the horse’s coat. Whoever had ridden it was bleeding, which made it even more likely it was Jake Harkner! But why here? The man couldn’t possibly know where she lived! And where was he? Waiting for her? Hiding somewhere, ready to shoot her down in revenge?

  She put a hand to her head, which suddenly ached fiercely. Her heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her chest. She felt like a fool for not checking everything more thoroughly before Sheriff McCleave left. Now he was too far away to even hear a gunshot.

  She moved past the draft horses to the wagon and reached under the seat to take out her father’s Winchester that she always kept there. She cocked the rifle and looked around, holding the gun in a ready position.

  “Wherever you are, come out now!” she said sternly, trying to sound unafraid. Her only reply was the soft quiet of the early evening. She checked around the shed once more, then walked back outside, her eyes glancing in every direction, her ears alert. She checked behind the shed, scanning the open land all around the cabin. Since the raid, there were really no buildings left but the shed and the cabin, and the land was so flat, except for the high hill to the west, that there really were no good hiding places outside. Even the hill itself was treeless. That left only the cabin.

  The cabin! Surely whoever owned the horse wasn’t inside the cabin! And to think that she and Sheriff McCleave had been inside there themselves!

  She slowly approached her tiny log home, walking completely around it, seeing nothing. She approached the root cellar at the north wall of the building, swallowing back her fear as she reached down and flung open the door, then pointed her rifle into the cellar. “Come on out if you’re in there!” she demanded. “Just get out and ride away and no one has to be hurt!”

  Again her reply was only silence. She moved around to fling open the other heavy metal door, wishing it were brighter outside so she could see better down into the small dugout. “Did you hear me? Come out of there!” She reached down and picked up a couple of medium-sized rocks, flinging them into the dark hole, but all she heard were thuds as they hit the dirt floor. She knew from the size of the cellar and the small space in the middle of the surrounding shelves that if someone was down there, she could hardly have missed him with the rocks.

  She backed away then, watching the cellar a moment longer, before turning and heading for the cabin’s front door, her heart pounding even more wildly. Unless the owner of the horse had just wandered off, the cabin was the only place left where he could be. She looked down and saw a couple of spots of what could be blood on her porch. Why hadn’t she or the sheriff noticed it before?

  She cautiously pushed open the door with the barrel of her rifle, then stepped inside. Everything still appeared to be in order. Raising the rifle to a ready position, she headed for her curtained-off bedroom, hoping she wasn’t so worked up with fright that she would pass out if confronted. She moved to the wall and pressed her back against it, then peered around just far enough to peek through a crack between the edge of the curtain and the door frame.

  At that moment Miranda Hayes thought perhaps her heart would stop beating altogether, and she found it impossible to stifle a gasp. “My God!” she whispered. There on her own bed lay Jake Harkner, apparently unconscious, one of his infamous revolvers lying on his belly. He must have been there the whole time, even when Sheriff McCleave was inside the cabin! How had he ended up here, in her house? Did he know she lived here? Had he come to kill her but been overcome by his own wound?

  She stepped inside the room, quickly raising her rifle again when he moaned. She studied him a moment, noticing that his forehead and the skin around his eyes looked sickly pale. Blood stained the cotton blankets beneath him, and his forehead and hair were bathed in sweat as well as more blood from where Luke Putnam had slammed his rifle across Jake’s head. She had worked enough with her father to know this was not a man ready to rise up and shoot her. He looked more like a dying man.

  She moved a little closer, her rifle still in her right hand as she reached out with her left hand to cautiously take hold of the revolver resting on his stomach. He made no move to stop her. She turned and laid the gun on a chair, and mustering more courage, she reached across him and pulled the second revolver from its holster. When he still made no move to stop her, she set her rifle in a corner and then took the two revolvers hurriedly into the main room, placing them into a potato basket under a curtained-off counter. If he did come around, she didn’t want him to be able to find his guns right away.

  She hurried back to the bedroom, wondering what she should do. If she went to town for help, he could die before she got back, and she was not sure she wanted to be responsible for that. Besides that, it was getting dark, and she couldn’t be traveling to town at night. There was nothing to do for the moment but try to help him.

  “Mr. Harkner? Jake Harkner?” She spoke up, leaning closer.

  Her only reply was a moan. She breathed deeply for courage and began removing his clothing—first his boots, then his gun belt and his jacket. It was a burdensome project. The man was a good six feet tall and built rock-hard. On top of that, in his present state, he was deadweight. With a good deal of physical maneuvering, she pulled off his pants and shirt and managed to move his legs up farther onto the bed and straighten out his body. She hurriedly gathered some towels and stuffed them underneath him as best she could, then unbuttoned and pulled open the shirt of his long johns so she could see the wound, a tiny hole just below his left ribs.

  She knew from working with her father and from his medical books that most vital organs were on the right side of a person’s body, and she also knew that the small caliber of her pistol could mean no terribly dangerous damage had been done. The biggest problem was that the man had bled considerably, which was probably the reason he had passed out; or she supposed it could be from the vicious blow he had taken to the head. He could have a fractured skull.

  She felt underneath him, pressing her hand at his back at the inside of his long johns, trying to see if perhaps the bullet had passed through him, but she already knew that for the size gun she had used, that was unlikely. She felt no wound at his back, and the sick feeling returned to her stomach. The bullet was still inside him and should come out, and there was no one but her to do it.

  She knew that the first thing she had to do was to get him to drink some water to replace the body fluids he had lost from blood and perspiration. She worked quickly then, going to get a ladleful of water from the drinking bucket in the main room and bringing it back into the bedroom. She raised Jake’s head and tried speaking to him again, asking him to drink the water. All she got was another groan. She managed to pour some of the water into his mouth, and she watched him swallow. More ran out of his mouth and down to the pillow. From the looks of her bed and the man in it, she knew both needed considerable cleaning up; but for the moment, her biggest concern was getting out the bullet.

  She went into the main room to get her father�
��s doctor bag. “Why are you doing this, Miranda?” she muttered to herself. “Just let him die.” Wouldn’t society be better off? That was what Sheriff McCleave had said. Still, her Christian upbringing had taught her that every man had value, and she reasoned there had to be a reason why this man had led the life he led. Why had he killed his own father, if indeed that was true? She could not forget the strange sadness in his voice when he had told the clerk this morning that it took more than a war to make a man lead a lawless life.

  She set the doctor bag on the table and quickly built a fire in the stone fireplace at the kitchen end of the cabin. She hung a kettle of water on the pothook to heat, then grabbed more towels and the doctor bag and went back into the bedroom. She watched Jake Harkner while the water heated. Had God led him here deliberately? Was she supposed to help him? To her it seemed a kind of sign, that for some strange reason, he was supposed to be a part of her life, that there was some purpose for his being here.

  She took a bottle of laudanum from the bag and uncorked it, again leaning over Jake and raising his head slightly. “Try to drink some of this,” she said. “It will help kill the pain. I’ve got to try to get out the bullet, Mr. Harkner. I doubt that it went very deep. It was a small gun I used, and the bullet had to go through your woolen jacket first.”

  “San…tana,” he muttered. “I tried…sorry…Pa. Pa!”

  The word “Pa” was spoken with a hint of utter despair. Miranda found herself feeling a little sorry for him, then chastised herself for such feelings. If the man wasn’t in such a state, you’d probably be dead by now, she told herself. Again she felt like a fool for wanting to help him, yet could not bring herself to let him just lie there in pain. She shoved the slim neck of the bottle into his mouth and poured. Jake swallowed, coughed, and sputtered. “No, Pa,” he murmured. “Stay…away. Don’t…make me drink it!” His eyes squinted up and he pressed his lips tight when Miranda took the bottle away. He let out a whimper then that sounded more like a child than a man.

  Miranda stepped back in astonishment. His whole body shuddered, then he suddenly lay quiet again. He had mentioned his father twice, the first time with such utter pain, this time with an almost pitiful, childlike pleading. The laudanum would take effect quickly. She went back into the main room and rummaged through a supply cabinet until she found some rope. She went back into the bedroom and used the rope to tie Jake’s wrists and ankles to the sturdy log bedposts, afraid that when she started cutting into him, he would thrash around and make her hurt him more—or perhaps he would come awake and try to grab her.

  “As soon as this is over and I see you don’t have a fever, I’ll give you a bath and a shave,” she said as she fastened the ropes tightly. “You’ll feel a lot better then. I don’t mean you any more harm, Mr. Harkner.” She had no idea if he heard her. She only knew she had to keep talking to keep up her own courage. She had seen her father remove bullets a couple of times, but she had no real experience of her own. All she knew to do was to dig with a knife, or perhaps she would have to reach inside the wound with her fingers to find the bullet. Somehow it had to come out.

  She went back to the fireplace to find the water was finally hot. She poured some into a pan and brought it back into the bedroom, setting it on a small table beside the bed. She then retrieved a bottle of whiskey from her pantry, something her father always kept around for medicinal purposes only, for he had not been a drinking man himself.

  She doused Jake’s wound with the whiskey. His body jerked, but his eyes did not open. She poured more whiskey over her own hands and her father’s surgical knife. She drew a deep breath then and said a quick prayer. “Heavenly Father, if you meant for me to do this, then help me do it right.”

  Fighting to keep her hands steady, she began digging. Jake’s body stiffened and a pitiful groan exited his lips, but he did not thrash about. Miranda fought tears as she dug deeper and more sickening groans welled up from what seemed the very depths of the man. She swallowed, then reached inside the wound with her fingers, feeling around until she touched what she thought must be the bullet.

  “Please let it be,” she whispered. She got hold of the object between two fingers and pulled, breathing a sigh of relief when she retrieved the bullet and held it up to look at it. She smiled with great delight, an almost victorious feeling coming over her then as she dropped the bullet onto the small table beside the bed.

  She wet a cloth with the hot water and began washing around the wound to get rid of as much fresh and dried blood as possible. She poured more whiskey over it, then threaded some catgut into her father’s stitching needle. She soaked some gauze with whiskey and ran it over the catgut, then doused the wound again with the same whiskey before beginning to stitch up the hole.

  Hoping she’d done the right thing, she untied Jake’s wrists and ankles and managed to get his arms out of his long johns so she could pull the top of them down under his hips. Then she wrapped the wound, reaching under his hard, heavy body over and over to bring the gauze around and then tie it. She decided then that all his clothes needed washing and realized the man could have another kind of accident while lying there unconscious. She pulled the long johns all the way off him and tossed them to the floor, then wrapped a towel around his privates and between his legs, feeling a little embarrassed, but knowing it had to be done. Any nurse in a hospital would have done the same. When it came to medicine, there was no room for modesty.

  “I’ll give you a good bath when I’m sure you’re all right otherwise,” she told him. There came no response. She removed her prize quilt from the bed, glad to see he had gotten no blood on it. She replaced it with an older blanket and covered him, but his legs were so long that his feet hung over the end of the bed. As she drew the blanket up to his neck, she noticed another scar at his left shoulder, a sign of stitches at his right ribs, and as she drew the covers to his neck, a strange, wide scar at the right side of his neck.

  She dipped some gauze into the hot water then and began washing the wound at the side of Jake’s head, noting that the blow of Luke Putnam’s rifle had left a deep gash from just in front of Jake’s left ear across his left cheekbone. An ugly blue swelling surrounded the cut. She cleaned it as best as she could and dabbed at it with more whiskey. “I’m afraid you’re going to have another scar here,” she said.

  She jumped back when Jake’s eyes suddenly flew open. He stared at her a moment, his dark eyes looking glassy and blank. “Santana?” he muttered. His eyes closed again. Miranda put a hand to her chest and breathed deeply to stop her sudden shaking. Was she crazy to do what she had just done? She clenched her fists, forcing herself to stay calm. The man certainly couldn’t do her any harm tonight, and he didn’t even know where his guns were.

  She went back into the bedroom to get her rifle. The man still lay quietly resting. She hoped it was more of a sleep now than unconsciousness. She took the rifle and set it over near her father’s cot in the main room. She stoked up the fire against what she knew would be a chilly night in spite of the warm day. She straightened, then rubbed her hands at her aching lower back. She longed to just lie down now, but she remembered the poor draft horses were still in harness. She lit one lantern and set it on the table, then lit another and carried it outside.

  It was dark out now, which made everything seem more frightening. She hung the lantern in the shed and began the arduous task of removing the harness from the horses, a job difficult for most men and doubly difficult for her small arms, especially tonight, when her whole body screamed from a day of emotional upheaval and a tenseness that brought physical pain. She took care of the horses, then realized that in her concern for them, she had left her own rifle inside the house. She quickly took down the lantern and closed the shed door, then hurried back to the cabin to find everything the same. She went into the bedroom to check on Jake once more, only to find he had not moved. His breathing was deep and rhythmic, and she thought his forehea
d already felt a little cooler.

  She picked up his clothes and carried them into the main room, where she took down a wooden laundry tub and set it near the fire. She threw his clothes into the tub, poured hot water over them, and added some lye soap. She would scrub them and hang them out in the morning. At least that would leave the man even more helpless for the time being—not only would he not have his guns, but he wouldn’t even have any clothes to put on!

  She closed her eyes and tried to make herself sleep, realizing the much-needed rest was not going to come easily. It had been a long day. It was going to be an even longer night.

  ***

  From the author…

  Well, dear readers, wait till you see Jake’s reaction when he wakes up naked and without his guns the next morning! He is going to be one angry outlaw facing a very determined woman who stands right up to him…and the sparks begin to fly, leading to a love story you will long remember!

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to acknowledge The Vigilantes of Montana by Thomas Dimsdale, originally written in 1864 and reprinted in 1953 by the University of Oklahoma Press.

  Do Not Forsake Me

  The much-anticipated sequel to Outlaw Hearts

  by Rosanne Bittner

  USA Today bestselling author

  1890, Oklahoma Territory

  Jake Harkner spent the first thirty years of his life as a notorious outlaw, until the love of Miranda changed his ways. Now Jake’s grown son, Lloyd, rides with his father as a Deputy U.S. Marshal.

  Still reeling from the death of his wife, Lloyd seeks fulfillment in work and doesn’t pay enough attention to his young son until tragedy strikes again in the form of vengeful outlaws. Now it’s up to Jake and Lloyd to scour the West for the missing boy, with the help of a young Cheyenne woman, Dancing Wind, whose unexpected kindness promises to make Lloyd’s heart whole once more.