Her Convenient Cowboy

by Lacy Williams

  As he pitched the hay, spreading it for the cattle, small snowflakes began dotting his jacket. His head pounded and he got so dizzy that he had to grab on to the side of the cart to remain standing. Maybe he should go back, even though he hadn’t emptied the cart.

  He staggered, the horse blurring before him and then separating into two very fuzzy horses. He didn’t think he could make the walk back home. If he could get on the horse, he could ride.

  But the horse wasn’t saddled. It was hitched to the cart. Which made it harder to get a foothold, and at one point, Davy found himself facedown on the ground.

  Snow swirled and eddied around him. The dried grass and dirt were freezing against his overheated face.

  He deserved this as punishment for being short with Rose when she’d only been concerned about him this morning.

  But she didn’t deserve to worry about him.

  Somehow he pushed to his feet. Somehow he stayed on his feet after a freezing gust battered his back.

  He shouldn’t have been so stubborn. He grasped the top of the horse’s harness and prayed hard.

  And pulled himself up on the placid animal’s back. Another gust almost blew him off.

  He had to get back before the storm got any worse and his wife had any thoughts of coming out in this weather to find him.

  Every step the animal took jarred through him. Even his bones felt on fire. Another cough racked him, leaving him so weak that if the horse jostled him he might tumble back down to the ground.

  How was he going to make it home in this condition?

  * * *

  Rose alternated between praying and worrying as the morning passed and the storm that had flown in so quickly got worse. The sky got darker and darker, swirling with snowflakes.

  Surely Davy was on his way back.

  The little white dog seemed agitated, pacing back and forth in the cabin. She’d tried to let it out once, but it hadn’t wanted to leave and only stood with its nose pointed out the door.

  She stood there with the cold wind whipping her skirt, watching with the dog to see if Davy would miraculously appear. But there was nothing, only the snowfall.

  She nudged the dog out of the doorway and went back to the kitchen to try to finish the stew she’d been making for supper. She was chopping an onion when the knife slipped and nicked her finger. She quickly wrapped it with a small piece of cloth and then sat down at the table with her head in her hands.

  It was no good. She couldn’t get anything done while her worry had her in such a tight fist. She knew that Davy wouldn’t want her to go out in a storm like this looking for him. He was a grown man and used to the Wyoming weather.

  Hadn’t he told her he would be fine? He was nothing like Jamie with his city ways. But his stubborn determination to see to the cattle was a cold reminder that he had put his job first—and probably would continue to do so once the baby came.

  She tried to distract herself by thinking about Christmas. It was only three days away and she had nothing to give Davy. She had no money, no way to get to town. Nothing.

  Even if things weren’t perfect between them, he’d given her so many things. Not only the physical gifts, but he’d given her comfort and security by offering her marriage.

  And he’d asked for nothing in return.

  She found some paper and a pencil tucked in a drawer and sat down at the table to write him a letter. She had nothing physical to give him, but she could give him her words. She had filled up the front and back of one page when she heard noise outside. She went first to the window and saw Davy’s horse and the cart.

  Fear had her momentarily frozen, but she forced her feet to move and ran to the door. Where was Davy?

  Heart thudding in her chest, she forgot her coat completely as she ran outside. A dark blanket on the horse’s back moved, moaned, and she realized her husband was there. He was bent over so flat against the horse’s back that at first she hadn’t been able to distinguish him.

  Cold wind whipped her skirt against her legs and flung icy pellets against her cheeks as she ran to him across the clearing.

  “What happened?” she cried.

  He didn’t respond. The horse shifted its feet.

  She reached for Davy. A single touch on his forehead revealed he was burning up with fever. She was alarmed by the deep red flush on his face.

  He moaned. Maybe he was even delirious.

  “Davy, can you hear me?”

  Again there was no response. He wasn’t conscious.

  What could she do? She couldn’t carry him. He was much bigger than she was.

  But it was obvious he needed her help. She was the only one here. She had to do something.

  She clucked gently to the horse, urging it with a hand at its bridle to close the distance to the cabin door. The animal stood obediently as she untucked both of Davy’s feet from the stirrups.

  “Good horse,” she muttered.

  “Davy, can you hear me?” she asked again. She shook his shoulder as violently as she dared. “We’ve got to get you off this horse and inside.”

  This time he mumbled something she couldn’t understand, but she took it as assent.

  She tugged on his shoulders, trying her best to support him as his body slid off the side of the horse. Somehow she managed to keep him from knocking his head against the door frame, but it was a close thing.

  He came to enough to help a little by keeping his legs moving as she supported most of his weight. She half dragged, half carried him across the floor to the bed. He slumped on top of the covers and she stood there breathing hard for long moments, the warmth of the room a direct contrast to the freezing temperature outside.

  The man was her first priority, so she muttered an apology to the horse that stood outside the door, hitched to the cart, and closed the door on him.

  She stripped off Davy’s hat and coat and boots and managed to pull the quilt over him. He shivered, hot to the touch as fever racked his body. He hadn’t been this bad in the morning. Had his sickness come on as quickly as the storm?

  She attempted to force some sips of water down his throat, but most of it spilled from the side of his mouth as he remained unconscious and listless. She made cold compresses out of rags and some cool water, and placed one under his neck and one over his forehead.

  He didn’t respond, only lay deathly still.

  She knew he would want her to take care of his horse, so she donned her coat and scarf and went out into the elements, leaving the white dog lying on the floor at Davy’s side.

  The wind blew strands of her hair across her face as she guided the horse around the side of the cabin. She couldn’t see much past the end of her nose and was glad she knew Davy’s trick of keeping one hand on the side of the building.

  She had watched Davy unhitch the horse from the cart two days ago when they’d been out to see to the cattle together. She tried her best to remember what he had done and finally figured out the buckles. By the time she got the poor animal out of its traces, her hands were almost numb from the cold.

  The horse seemed as relieved as she was to step into the lean-to. The other two animals greeted it with loud whickers.

  How did her husband plan to do this all winter? He was a strong man, but fighting the elements for just this short time had her feeling weak and exhausted.

  She gave the horse a quick rubdown, made sure the animals had some oats in their buckets. She knew that that if they ate too much they could be in danger of getting colic, so she didn’t want to overfeed them. She did the best she could and then pushed out into the blowing snow again, latching the door behind her.

  The cart was across the yard, but she couldn’t fight with it anymore.

  She was trembling and freezing by the time she got back inside. She took off her
coat but left the scarf on as went to the stove. She noticed the wood box was almost empty, so she put her coat back on and braved the storm once more, this time going around the side of the house in the opposite direction. She brought in several armfuls of wood, thankful that he’d cut a nice stack. When she checked on Davy, he still wasn’t awake, but he’d turned his head so that the compress had fallen off.

  She brushed the damp curls away from his forehead, allowing her fingers to linger for a moment before she replaced the compress.

  She hadn’t realized how fully she’d come to rely on him. He cared for the animals, he provided for their livelihood, he chopped the wood and provided food.

  And company.

  She would be so very alone if something happened to him.

  Yet she had hope. She had food. She could find the fishing pole in the lean-to and catch a fish for herself. She could find her way to a neighbor’s house with the map he’d drawn for her.

  But she would still be lost. Because he had become dear to her.

  She watched helplessly as a cough raised his shoulders from the bed and then left him limp and lifeless after it was over. What could she do?

  Her thoughts crystallized into one clear thought. She remembered a poultice she’d seen her father make and apply to her own chest when she’d been a girl. She quickly chopped onions and mixed the plaster before she applied it to his chest.

  Then she sat and watched, unsure if the poultice would help at all.

  He seemed to be breathing slightly easier—unless she was imagining it—until another cough rocked his body.

  A glance out the window revealed a wall of white snow. The storm had turned into a blizzard.

  Even if she could bridle a horse and read a map, the weather prevented her from going down the mountain to get help.

  One thought kept ricocheting through her mind.

  What if Davy died?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Davy had a sense of time passing. The bitter cold that had bit at him and numbed his extremities had lifted, which meant either he was dead or Rose had found him and brought him back to the cabin.

  But the fever still raged, his body alternating between extreme heat and bone-racking shivers.

  He knew Rose must be worried about him, but he couldn’t make himself wake up to comfort her. It felt like a heavy blanket weighted down his entire body. He couldn’t breathe.

  He wanted to tell her that he would be all right, even though his chest burned with fire every time he took a breath.

  He loved her. There was no denying it now. He had admitted as much to his sister when she had been here the other day.

  He would do everything in his power to make things better for Rose. Better than they had been with her Jamie; as good as they could be as she learned to trust in Davy’s love.

  He just needed to wake up.

  * * *

  The longer Davy remained unconscious, the more Rose began to worry. Surely this wasn’t normal, not if he had a simple cold.

  As the deep coughs continued, she tried putting both pillows beneath his back and neck to support him, and that seemed to help a bit. But as daylight waned, her worry increased.

  She forced herself to eat what little stew she could stomach. She saved the rest for tomorrow. Surely, surely, Davy would be back to his normal self or at least sitting up in bed by then.

  She lay down beside him and tried to sleep, but her worry for him kept her awake into the night. She kept reaching out to touch his forehead, and was aware as the fever climbed and climbed.

  Finally, she got out of bed again so that she could dip the cloth in water and bathe his forehead and neck and face.

  She prayed that God would save her husband. Begged Davy to fight off this awful sickness.

  The hour got later and later. She had some sense of time passing; she just didn’t know how much.

  Davy’s fever still burned. His head thrashed back and forth on the pillow. She had bathed his face so much that the neck of his shirt was soaked with water. To no avail.

  He still didn’t come out of the fever-induced state.

  She prayed harder, prayed until tears streaked her face. Please don’t take him from me.

  With the hand that she wasn’t using to bathe his face, she clutched his fingers. Please don’t leave me.

  It was in the darkest part of the predawn hours, with his fever still ravaging his body, that she realized what she really felt for Davy.

  She loved him. And that was even scarier than the fever.

  How could she have let this happen? What she felt for Davy, this all-encompassing fear and hope and emotion all wrapped up inside her was so much more than she’d felt for her first husband. This was real love.

  Which meant that everything that she’d felt when Jamie had been taken from her would be magnified if Davy were to die.

  Tears streamed down her face. She clutched his hand.

  “Davy, don’t leave me,” she whispered. She couldn’t say that she loved him. Not yet. Not out loud.

  She must’ve dozed off a little. She couldn’t be sure, but she woke with a start. Her face was pressed to his shoulder on the bed and he was squeezing her hand.

  “Davy?” she asked, sitting up so suddenly that she became dizzy.

  She released his fingers and reached for his forehead. He was still hot, but not as bad as he had been earlier. In the dim light from the lamp on the table, she saw his beloved blue eyes looking back at her, and she couldn’t keep more tears from spilling over. She brushed them away almost angrily with the back of her wrist. This was no time for a show of emotion. She got a hold of herself and let her fingers rest against his cheek again.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  “Water.” His voice rasped, almost gone from the cough.

  She got him a tin cup of water and he drank it down greedily. Water rolled down his chin and she wiped it away tenderly.

  “I’m really glad that you’re awake,” she said.

  “My horse?”

  “Put away in the lean-to.”

  The fact that he was wondering about his animal reminded her of the kind of man he was. She couldn’t resent that he cared for his animals—he took care of his own. It was just the man he was.

  “Is it still storming?” he asked.

  She didn’t know, but she said, “It was before it got dark.”

  She got him to eat a little bread and broth from the stew that she warmed up quickly on the stove, before he fell back into an exhausted sleep.

  This time she knew he was asleep rather than unconscious. The knowledge released some of the tension in her and she was finally able to fall asleep beside him.

  In the morning, she woke before he did. She got up and scrambled some eggs for breakfast. As she let the dog out, she thought she should check on the horses, but before she’d gone out, Davy stirred in the bed.

  She brought him water.

  “I’m real sorry that you’re having to take care of me like this,” he said. She held the cup for him when his hand wobbled with weakness. He frowned. “I haven’t been sick like this since I was a kid.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, looking into his face. Her emotions were close to the surface again, but she managed to swallow them back. “I would just rather you didn’t scare me quite so bad next time.”

  He smiled. She brought him breakfast and he gave her instructions on how much to feed the horses and how to make sure their water bucket was filled.

  “Don’t stay out there too long,” he said. “It’s too cold for you and the baby.”

  It couldn’t have been colder than yesterday, when she’d fought through the wind and snow to unhitch the horse, but she didn’t say so. Coming back inside, she grabbed another armf
ul of wood just in case.

  Davy was sitting up in the bed when she came in and dumped it in the wood box. She had to brush snow off her hair and shoulders and take a moment before the stove to warm her fingers before they would work the buttons of her coat.

  “I hate that you have to be out there in the cold,” he grumbled from the bed.

  A cough startled him and lifted his shoulders off the bed with its intensity.

  “I’m having a bit of pity for you, planning to be out there most of the winter,” she countered, when he’d caught his breath and lay back against the pillows again. “But at least it’s plenty warm in here. You and your brothers did a fine job building this place.”

  He coughed again, a bit less this time, and then asked her if she would read to him for a while.

  She pulled up a chair next to the bed and read from the Bible. It didn’t take long for him to fall back asleep. His cheeks were still flushed with fever, and though it wasn’t as bad as it had been during the night, the fever was obviously still taking a toll on his body.

  She sat for a while just watching his dear face, slack and peaceful in sleep. When she grew restless, she took out the letter she was composing for him for a Christmas gift but couldn’t concentrate on it, either.

  She felt uneasy in light of the realization of just how strong her feelings were for him.

  When Davy roused in the afternoon, she made another poultice for his chest and he allowed her to apply it, even though the smell brought tears to her eyes. He claimed that it did help the congestion in his chest.

  By evening the storm had passed, leaving only the snow it had dumped on the ground and the quiet that came after such a storm.

  Davy was able to eat some stew for supper, and she’d plied him with water throughout the day, which would help his condition. She read a little more in the evening until her energy flagged.

  When she finally lay beside him in the bed, he was still awake.

  “What should we do about the cattle?” she asked into the darkness.

  “They can probably go another day,” he replied quietly.

  “Are you sure? I saw that you didn’t finish laying out all the hay for them.”