A Taste of Heaven

by Alexis Harrington

  Just as she took the first stitch to attach a hook and eye on the gown's collar, she heard a thud downstairs, like the front door had banged open.

  “Hollins! Where are you?” a man's voice bellowed. Filled with fury and panic, it seemed to shake the very rafters.

  Libby jerked upright in her chair.

  “Hollins!”

  A shiver of alarm rippled through her, raising goose bumps all over her body. Jumping to her feet, she threw the dress on her bed and ran out to the gallery to look down over the railing. What she saw froze her heart. Lattimer Egan stood in the parlor, as blood-smeared as a butcher. In his arms he carried Rory, and struggled to keep from dropping the boy's sagging, unconscious body. A slow, steady drip of blood ran from Rory and puddled on the floor.

  “Oh, my God,” Libby uttered. “Dear God in heaven!” She ran through the gallery and hurried down the stairs.

  “Where's Hollins?” Egan demanded again. His usually florid face was as pale as his son's.

  With wide eyes she looked at Rory's lifeless form and touched his cold face with a choking hand. “My God,” she cried again. “Is he dead?”

  “He needs a doctor and Franklin is gone to the Wickersons' farm—hellfire, woman! Do something!”

  Her heart thundered so hard in her ears, it impaired her hearing. “T-take him into the kitchen and put him on the table. I-I'll—” She turned and ran out the front door, screaming as she went. “Tyler!”

  Tyler was in the barn, hoisting feed sacks with Kansas Bob, when he heard Libby's high, distant scream. The absolute horror it carried raised every hair on his body. The cowboy looked at him uneasily.

  “Tyler!”

  “Jesus Christ,” Kansas Bob murmured.

  Tyler dropped the sack in his arms. It burst on the hard-packed floor, spilling oats over his boots up to his ankles. He turned to run outside, with Kansas Bob close behind.

  They emerged from the barn and Libby plowed straight into Tyler. He gripped her by the arms to keep her from falling. Her hair hung wildly around her ashen face, and she was out of breath. The terror he saw in her eyes scared the hell out of him as little else ever had.

  “What—what?” He couldn't seem to string his words together.

  “It's—it's Rory. His father—brought him—he's hurt—bleeding a lot—”

  Tyler felt as though a horse had kicked him in the chest. He was suddenly as breathless as Libby. He turned to Kansas Bob. “Get Joe and tell him to come up here. He's still down at the creek. Th-then ride like hell to town and bring back Alex Franklin.”

  Libby put up her hand and shook her head. “Egan already—looked for him. He's out on a call someplace—the Wicker-somethings. I told him to put Rory on one of the kitchen tables.”

  Tyler tipped his head. “Shit! Well, go on and find Joe anyway. Take the bay—she's saddled and tied up at the back gate. Then ride for the Wickerson place and bring Franklin back here.”

  Kansas Bob took off at a dead run.

  Tyler grabbed Libby's hand. “Come on,” he said, and pulled her along toward the kitchen, past Egan's wagon.

  They trotted up to the porch and Tyler kicked open the door. But when he saw Rory laid out on the table, a blanket of silence fell over the rough-hewn room.

  He slowly approached Rory, his heart pounding double time against his breastbone. The first thing that struck him was the smell of blood. It was strong in here. His visual field narrowed—his peripheral vision, oddly, seemed lost. He knew that Lattimer Egan hovered at the end of the table, but he couldn't see him and he ignored him. At this moment in time, he saw only the young man he'd come to think of as his own son. At fifteen, he'd grown to about five-foot-ten, but lying there he seemed no bigger than a child. His face was blue-white and misted with sweat. Tyler put his fingertips to his throat and felt a pulse that was rapid and thready. And he saw the right leg of his tan pants, saturated with blood from thigh to ankle, and a gaping hole ripped in the fabric at the inseam just above his knee. Beneath that was a large, ugly wound. He touched Rory's clammy forehead, brushing his hair out of the way.

  Libby hung back to stay out of the way, her arms wrapped around herself. She was too scared for tears, too shaken to wonder how Rory had gotten hurt. Behind her she heard hooves pounding in the yard. Turning, she saw Joe ride to the porch. He jumped down from the saddle and trotted into the kitchen, then skidded to a stop next to her, obviously stunned by the scene in front of him.

  “Jesus God.” The words rumbled like low thunder carried on a breath.

  “Did one of your men do this, Egan?” Tyler asked, not taking his eyes from Rory. His voice was frighteningly, deathly quiet.

  Visibly shaken, Lat Egan dodged the question. “I’ll handle my business, Hollins. You just patch up my son—or are you going to stand there and watch him die like you did my Jenna?”

  Like lightning, like the blink of an eye, Tyler grabbed Egan by his bloody shirtfront and had him trapped against the log wall before either Libby or Joe could react.

  Both of them were the same height, but the older man easily outweighed Tyler by fifty pounds. Fury gave him the advantage, though, and he had one hand around Egan's jowly neck. In the other he held his revolver with the barrel jammed under the man's chin.

  “He's not your boy, you filthy, no good son of a bitch!” Tyler snarled in a voice more animal than human. “Rory is my business. And the hole in his leg was made by a rifle shot, and judging by the angle, I'd say it came from behind—”

  Libby gasped, and clapped her hand to her mouth.

  “My guess is that one of your hired gunmen shot this boy, or maybe you did. What happened, did he get too close to your goddamned fence?” Tyler's eyes glittered with terrifying, murderous rage—his hand tightened around Egan's throat, and he cocked the revolver. “I wonder how much of your face I'd blow off at this range?” Egan began to gasp for air and his face reddened.

  “Tyler!” Joe roared, and jumped to pull him off. He got the gun away from him, but he couldn't break his squeezing grip. Egan was gurgling now. “Damn it, let him go!”

  Tyler held him for just an instant longer, then pushed him away. “You make me sick,” he said with complete disgust.

  Joe hustled Egan outside, sputtering and swearing, and left Tyler and Libby alone with Rory. She went to the table and looked at the wound. What she could see of it was a raw, vicious-looking hole that oozed blood, and she cringed at the sight of it.

  “What shall we do next? D-do you stitch something like this or wh—?”

  “We'll wait for Franklin.”

  She took in Rory's clammy pallor and shallow panting. “But—he doesn't look very good at all. Should he be breathing like that?”

  When he didn't answer, she turned to look at him and was worried by what she saw. His white-hot rage had left him, and now he stood gazing at Rory with his arms crossed over his chest and his shoulders hunched. She had never seen such naked pain and anguish in a man's face. “Tyler—you have to help him.”

  He pushed a shaking hand through his hair. “Libby, I'm not a doctor anymore.”

  “Are you saying that you don't remember what to do?”

  He wouldn't meet her eyes. “No, I remember. But if everything I know still doesn't work, I don't want to be responsible for killing Rory, too. I'll wait for Alex Franklin.”

  Then Libby recalled the night that Tyler had explained why he'd given up medicine. He'd lost his nerve, he said. And now he stood here paralyzed, frozen with the fear of losing this boy.

  “What if Dr. Franklin doesn't get here in time? What if Kansas Bob can't find him at all?” His very expression told her that he had already thought of these same possibilities. “Just saying that you aren't a doctor doesn't make you stop being one.” She jumped around in her mind, trying to think of some way to budge him. “Don't doctors make a pledge? Don't they promise to help?”

  He took Rory's limp hand in his, own, and gazed down into his slack face. “Huh, yeah, the Hippocratic Oath. And
the first thing I promised was to do no harm.”

  She felt helpless. “But if you don't do something, he might die. Isn't that harming him? Tyler, please, you have to try. I love you and we both love Rory. I believe in you—I know you can do this. And I’ll be right here with you.”

  “Libby, damn it—”

  Frustration over his stubbornness and fear for Rory sharpened her words. “You have a moral obligation to help this boy! You just told Egan that he's your business. Will you abandon him when he needs you?”

  Stung, he glared at her. “I'm not abandoning him! I sent Kansas Bob for the doctor.”

  “Tyler, you’re the doctor here.” She paused, and her stomach clenched with apprehension over the next words that formed in her mind. But she carried on with a low voice that shook. “If you do nothing but hold his hand while he dies, you are far less than the man I believed you to be. I'll never forgive you if you don't try.”

  He looked stricken. “Maybe you're right,” he barked, “maybe I'm not the man you think.”

  Suddenly, Rory's breathing became noisier and more shallow.

  She gestured at the unconscious body. “Tyler, for God's sake,” she begged, her voice breaking, “give Rory a chance. He's already had a bumpy ride into town in Egan's wagon. You're the only hope he has. I promise I'll stand here with you and we'll work together. It's all right to be scared, but damn you, don't be a coward!”

  Tyler looked at Libby's set face across the table. He was scared to death, but he saw her faith in him. Where it came from, he couldn't guess, but her words hit hard. Did he have the courage, the guts to do this? On his own, no, probably not. But Libby, Libby, who had always been braver than him—she'd be here. She'd had the daring and the backbone to save him when he'd done everything possible to discourage her.

  He gazed down at Rory again and sighed. She was right. He had to reach down deep, to act, to save Rory, to redeem himself. If he didn't, he knew the doubts that plagued him now would be just pinpricks to what lay in store for him. With that decision, some of his uncertainty fell away.

  He took a deep breath. “All right,” he said, his voice sounded strained to his own ears. “Get the fire going in the stove and put on a kettle of water to heat so we can boil the instruments. We’ll need soap, towels, and a lamp, and bring your scissors so we can cut these pants off. I'll get everything else.”

  Libby's face lit up with his words, and he felt a little better still. She flew through the house to get what they needed. Tyler ran back to his office and unlocked the glass cabinets to bring out bandages, carbolic, his stethoscope—all the things he had not laid his hands upon in more than five years.

  They met back in the kitchen. With everything washed or boiled, Tyler sprayed the whole area down with carbolic from an atomizer. Then they cut Rory's pants off and he got his first good look at the wound Egan's vigilantes had inflicted. He winced—it was serious enough. The bullet hadn't lodged in Rory's leg, but it had torn off a piece of flesh that left a crater inside his thigh just above the knee. It was about three inches wide and an inch deep. The structures that had been damaged—muscle tissue, ligaments, tendons—

  “Goddamn, what a mess,” he muttered, more to himself. “At least the femoral artery isn't nicked. If that happened, we'd be in real trouble.” He glanced up at Libby across the table, where she held the lamp for him. Her gray eyes were huge in her suddenly paper-white face. “You're not going to faint, are you?”

  “No!” she said. He saw her throat work convulsively as she swallowed, and she gave him a watery smile. “I'm fine.”

  “Good girl. If I'm going to be brave, you have to be, too.” Tyler decided that even though Rory was unconscious, the work he needed to do on his leg would be pretty painful. He gave Libby the job of administering the chloroform on a piece of gauze over Rory's nose and mouth.

  “Just a few drops,” he said, watching as she poured.

  She looked up at him for confirmation, and he nodded. “Okay, let's get started.”

  As the minutes passed, Tyler gained more confidence. Knowledge that had lain fallow these past years came to him as he needed it, steadying his hands and guiding them.

  He washed out the wound with lots of cooled boiled water, then cut away the dead and dying tissue. With forceps he plucked out pieces of fabric that had been embedded by the blast.

  Next he cauterized the wound to stop the bleeding, using a scalpel he'd held over the open lamp flame.

  “A-are you going to sew it up?” she asked, clearing her throat.

  He dragged his arm across his sweating forehead. “No, there's nothing to sew with this kind of injury. We'll pack it with more clean water and gauze, and keep close watch over it for the next few days. And hope to God that it doesn't get infected.”

  After Rory was bandaged and cleaned up, Tyler lifted him off the table. “I'm going to put him in my bed, then I'll come back down and help you clean this up. He should be coming around in a while, but he sure as hell won't be going anywhere.”

  Libby heard the hope and confidence in Tyler's voice, and saw his smile.

  Relief washed over her, making her feel weak and shaky. Maybe Rory wasn't the only one who'd been helped in this last hour.

  *~*~*

  After the kitchen was cleaned up and the crew had been fed their supper, Libby came to the doorway of Tyler's bedroom to look in on both doctor and patient. The room was dark except for a single candle burning on the nightstand. Rory lay sleeping in the four-poster, wearing one of Tyler's old nightshirts. They had put pillows beneath his injured leg and folded the blankets away from it.

  For the last several hours, Tyler had slouched in a chair beside the bed, with his feet propped up on the windowsill. He'd changed his clothes, but the meal she'd brought to him sat untouched on the table next to his chair. She tiptoed into the room and put her hand on his shoulder. He reached up and covered it with his own.

  “Tyler, love, you have to eat,” she whispered. “It's nearly eleven o'clock, and you haven't had anything since lunch.”

  He patted her hand. “Leave the tray. I'll get to it pretty soon.” He dragged his boots from the windowsill and sat up, patting his leg. “Sit down for a minute.”

  Libby perched on his knee, and looked at Rory. “How's he doing?”

  “I think he's going to be just fine. He'll probably limp for a while, but I don't think there was any permanent damage. We'll just have to keep an eye on him.”

  Tyler looked weary in the low light, and his handsome features were drawn with concern. “Do you want to take a nap on my bed for an hour or so?” she asked. “I'll sit with him.”

  “No, but thanks, honey. I think I'm just going to stay here tonight. If he's doing well by morning, I'll sleep for a while then.”

  Just then, Joe tapped on the door frame. Libby stood and Tyler turned in his chair. “We must be getting tired if we didn't hear your spurs.”

  The foreman grinned behind his mustache, but it didn't mask the worry in his face. “I took 'em off for now so's I wouldn't wake the boy.”

  Tyler rose from his chair with creaking stiffness and flexed his back. Then he motioned them out to the gallery. “Let’s talk out here.” When they were out of Rory's earshot, he asked, “Where's Egan?”

  Joe took a match from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth like a toothpick. He leaned against the railing and crossed his ankles. “I convinced the old man to go home hours ago.”

  “Did you get him to tell you how this happened?” Tyler asked, the embers of his anger stirring to life.

  “Yup. That was the first thing I pried out of him after we left the kitchen. It was like you figured—Rory was shot by one of Egan's hired guards. The boy was tryin' to free a cow that got stuck in that damned bob wire. The lowdown snake shot him from behind while he was rasslin' with it. Egan was there when it happened. I honestly don't think he even recognized his own son till they got closer.”

  Libby gasped in horror. “Oh, God—”

&nb
sp; She looked at Tyler and saw the muscles working in his jaw, and his low voice quivered with fury. “Damn it, Joe. I'll get that mercenary bastard if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Joe shook his head and gave him a meaningful look. “He's already disappeared. I guess when he found out he'd shot his boss's son, he took off.”

  Tyler eyed him. “What about the rest of those hired killers Lat Egan has working over there? They're taking their orders from him.”

  Joe's brows rose speculatively. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if they find themselves out of work. Especially now that one of 'em is gone. And 'course, I told Lat that we'd be talkin' to the sheriff and the other ranchers about this.”

  Worn out by the long day and the stress of the afternoon, Libby stifled a yawn.

  Tyler turned to her and put his arm around her shoulders. “You'd better go on to bed now.”

  “Oh, but I'm not tired,” she protested “I want to help with Rory.”

  “It's all right. I'll let you know if anything changes.” He hugged her close and whispered so that only she could hear. “I’ll come and tuck you in after a while.”

  Blushing, she looked at Joe as if he'd heard this, but he just continued to rest his forearms on the railing and gaze down at the parlor below while he chewed on the match.

  “Well, if you think—”

  “I do. Now go on.” Tyler pecked her cheek and put a guiding hand on her back to nudge her toward her own room. More than anything else, she thought Tyler wanted to talk to his friend alone.

  Tyler waited until he saw her door close, then he turned back to Joe.

  “Where's the man who shot Rory?”

  “You know, a couple of the boys saw a new grave on the east range late this afternoon. It's over in that draw where you and me used to shoot at prairie dogs when we were Rory's age.” Joe reported this as if he were talking about a new brand of tobacco at Osmer's.