Chase the Fire

by Barbara Ankrum

  "I was... delayed."

  "Apparently. I thought you were coming back after you gave her the locket."

  Chase leaned over Elliot, pulling his arm back to get a better look at his face. Beneath his carefully trimmed mustache, his lip was split, and his right eye was swollen and was turning an ugly shade of purple. One side of his nose was packed with lint and blood had spattered down his white shirt, in graphic tribute to what Chase decided must have been a hell of a fight. "Who did this to you?" he asked, avoiding the subject of the locket.

  Elliot let out a snort of laughter. "Some little piss-ant cowboy started it and the rest of the damned cantina joined in. Honest to God, Chase, that bastard could throw a punch to beat hell. A little late, I'm afraid, I learned of his somewhat infamous reputation with his fists."

  In all the years he'd known him, Chase had never seen Elliot willingly pick a fight with anyone. It went completely against his gentle nature and—philosophically, at least—against the Hippocratic Oath he'd taken when he'd become a physician.

  "I take it he didn't bother to introduce himself," Chase ventured.

  "You mean before or after he yanked the little doe-eyed senorita out of my lap?" Elliot flopped his head back down on the pillow and groaned.

  "Ah-hah..." Realization struck that Trammel Bodine was the particular little piss-ant Elliot was referring to. Chase suddenly wished he had knocked that considerable chip off Bodine's shoulder this morning after all.

  Elliot cracked an eye open again, this time a glint of mischief was in it. "Damn. She was a sweet little thing, too. If things had worked out, I wouldn't have missed you at all last night. Speaking of which, where the hell were you?"

  "I went to the Honeycutt place."

  "Tell me something I don't know. You said you'd be back before dark. If you weren't such an ornery cuss, I would have been worried about your hide in that storm. As it was, I had to be satisfied with silently cursing you as that peabrain's fist was making mincemeat out of my face. I don't remember much about the outcome, except that I was the loser and he went off with the girl."

  "Trammel Bodine."

  "Huh?"

  "The peabrain. His name is Trammel Bodine. And he works for Libby."

  Elliot shot a disbelieving glance at Chase. "He works—" One eyebrow shot up and he hiked himself up on one elbow. "Libby? Is that her name?"

  "It's Elizabeth. Elizabeth Honeycutt." Restless, Chase moved to the half-open window overlooking the street and stared through the glass. The sounds drifted up to him as he leaned a shoulder against the solid pine armoire that stood beside him.

  "You called her Libby," Elliot amended, easing up to a sitting position. "What the hell went on there last night anyway?"

  "Nothing," Chase snapped turning back to the man on the bed. "At least, not what you're thinking."

  Elliot's shoulders relaxed a fraction. "Well, anyway it's done. The sooner we can get out of this mud puddle of a town, the better off we'll both be," he said, fingering the sore spot on his ribs.

  "I'm not leaving." Chase let the words sink in for a moment as he stared out onto the rutted, muddy streets of Santa Fe. The heavy bells of the San Miguel Church tolled somberly in the distance.

  "What?"

  "I said—"

  "I heard what you said. Are you out of your mind?"

  Elliot got to his feet and steadied himself against the bed.

  "Probably."

  "Is this about the Honeycutt woman?" At Chase's silence, Elliot shook his head. "My God, Chase, you can't be serious. Did you give her the locket?"

  Chase shook his head.

  Elliot tightened his fist around the gold-painted ball at the tip of the bedstead. "Ho, boy—"

  "Look, I know what you're going to say and believe me, it's nothing I haven't already told myself." Unable to meet Elliot's eyes, Chase stared blindly out the window. "She offered me a job, and I took it. She needs help, and I'm going to help her." As the silence lengthened, Chase glanced back at Elliot. "I warned you not to come with me."

  Elliot's mouth opened, then shut in frustration. "This isn't about me, you crazy bastard. It's about you. You're getting into something here you have no business getting involved in. Look, I know you feel responsible for this woman, just from being in the same bloody war with her husband...." Elliot broke off in frustration, raking his hands through his hair.

  Chase shot him a murderous, silencing look. "You're damned right I feel responsible." He paused, leaning his forehead against his clenched fist. "I am responsible."

  "Your bullet didn't kill him, Chase."

  "I know. That doesn't change things."

  Elliot let out a long sigh and plunged his fingers through his hair. No one knew better than he the hell Chase had gone through recovering from the war. He himself had repaired the botched job some quack of a sawbones had done on Chase's leg in a field hospital, and he'd sat through countless nights when persistent fevers and nightmares had held Chase captive. Those nightmares remained with him even now.

  The scars Chase bore from the war were not unfamiliar ones. Elliot had seen them in scores of men who'd returned from the horror of battle. Frustration tightened Elliot's throat. He'd learned to heal men's bodies, but he had no idea how to heal the festering wounds that preyed on their minds.

  "Have you really thought about this, Chase? I mean, I don't suppose I have to point out that she's a grieving widow—"

  "—with a young son and a failing ranch," Chase finished, silencing him. "Her men are quitting on her and her place is falling down around her ears. What am I supposed to do? Walk away?"

  "When are you going to tell her?" Something tightened in Chase's chest as he thought of that eventuality. "When it's time for me to go."

  Elliot let out a long breath and worded his next question carefully. "Do you think you're being fair to her by keeping it from her?"

  "Fair?" Chase exploded bitterly. "Hell no. But what about this whole goddamned thing has been fair? I didn't ask the damned Reb to die in my arms any more than his wife asked to be left alone with a struggling ranch. I didn't exactly invite that hunk of metal into my leg either," he added without a trace of self-pity, "but it's pretty damn hard to ignore now that it's there." He shook his head. "A dead man's memory won't help her now. I can. I'm staying. And when I've finished, I'll tell her about her husband and walk away."

  Elliot regarded Chase for a long moment. The haunted look in his eyes was still there, but so was something else Elliot hadn't seen in a long, long time. Not since Chase had returned from the war. Purpose.

  Right or wrong, Elizabeth Honeycutt and her ranch had given Chase something to hang on to in the quagmire of a private hell he seemed lost in. If that was true, Elliot decided he could hardly argue with it. "Okay," he answered simply.

  Chase turned to Elliot, surprised. "Okay? That's it? No more of the infamous Bradford riposte?"

  Elliot's expression was clear of humor as he shrugged. "We've known each other a long time, my friend."

  Chase nodded. "Since we were old enough for my father to put us both up on the back of one of your father's Thoroughbreds."

  "So long," Elliot amended, "that I thought of you as my brother long before your mother married my father."

  Chase agreed silently and swallowed back the sudden knot of emotion that rose in his throat. It was as close as either one of them had ever come to expressing that sentiment in words.

  "If you say you have to stay, then I believe you. Hell, if I were in your shoes, I'd probably do the same thing. I just want you to tread lightly."

  Chase clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry about me, okay?"

  "Worry? Me?" Elliot joked. "Listen, I'm hungry. Are you hungry?"

  Chase allowed himself a smile. "I can always count on your stomach to keep things in perspective."

  Elliot grinned back, then winced at the pain in his lip. "Ow. It was always a talent of mine. It just so happens I missed dinner last night."

  "You?"
>
  "A judicious decision, I think, since my teeth were still wobbling around in my mouth at the time."

  Elliot crossed to the washstand, poured some water from the pitcher into the porcelain bowl and carefully splashed some on his face, removing the cotton from his nose. "Aw, Jesus," he grumbled when he looked in the small, decorated tin-framed mirror that hung above the washstand. He glanced at Chase. "Pretty bad, huh?"

  Chase answered him with a sympathetic smile.

  "Damn. You say this Bodine character works for her?"

  "Afraid so." Chase stuffed the last of his things into the saddlebags he'd brought up to the room. "I had a run-in of my own with him this morning. Unfortunately, all we exchanged were words."

  Elliot let out a whooping laugh. "That must have been a novelty for him. His fists probably outweigh his brain." He slipped out of his bloody shirt and into a clean one. "So," he continued offhandedly, "when do we start?"

  Chase stopped in mid-motion and glanced disbelievingly at Elliot. "What do you mean, we?"

  "If you're staying, so am I."

  "And do what? Doctor her sick horses?"

  "Nobody has to know I'm a doctor, Chase. I can 'cowboy' as well as the next man. I came out here to get a taste of the West. I want to experience it, firsthand."

  "I think you've already done that," Chase said mildly, indicating Elliot's face.

  "No, I mean really experience it. You said her men were quitting on her. She must need extra hands—"

  "El, you were born to be a doctor, not a ranch hand. You have a gift. That's where we're different. You'd no more know how to lay a rope around a horse's neck than I would how to... how to do what you did for my leg. You wouldn't last a day out there."

  Elliot shot him a challenging look. "Oh yeah? Is that a bet?"

  Chase recognized that red-flag look. "No, that's not a—"

  "I say it is. I say if I can learn medicine, I can learn this. I mean,"—he gestured vaguely with his hand—"inexperience doesn't necessarily preclude erudition."

  Chase blew out an exasperated breath. "Damn it, El, don't start using those ten-dollar words on me. Speak English for God's sake!"

  With a victorious shrug he replied, "How hard can it be to learn to throw a rope?"

  Chase's eyes beseeched the ceiling.

  Elliot ignored him and ran a hand down his blond mustache, plotting. "A day you say?"

  "You are," Chase replied, drawing out his words, "without a doubt, the most bullheaded, addle-brained—"

  "Okay," Elliot decided. "Make it a week. No, a month. That's fair. We'll see who makes it and who doesn't."

  "What makes you think she's going to hire you in the first place?" Chase said, slinging his saddlebags over his shoulder and heading out the door.

  "Desperation." Elliot's unqualified reply came as he followed Chase out into the hall. "If she can hire an idiot like Bodine, she'll surely hire me."

  Chase shot him a meaningful look and laughed.

  "You know, El, you may just have a point there."

  * * *

  "Are you sure about this?" Elliot asked, tugging at the creased cuff of the new shirt Chase had forced him to buy at Gold's Mercantile. He glanced down at the new stiff denims and shiny boots with a frown, then tucked his parcel of Eastern clothes under his arm.

  Chase eyed him as a portrait painter would his subject. "It's still not right. You're too... clean. If you want to fit in, you've got to look more broken in."

  Elliot raised an eyebrow. "Broken in? You mean my face doesn't lend that air to this getup?"

  "It helps." Chase grinned as he headed into the street and Elliot followed. Sidestepping a burro dozing in the middle of the road, Chase pulled the front of his damp shirt away from his skin. Despite the rising heat of the day, the constant stream of traffic didn't seem to lessen.

  Freight wagons stood loaded with goods and supplies. They had come in by way of the Santa Fe Trail. It seemed the merchants took no notice of the Lord's Day, for business went on even as the huge adobe iglesia released its faithful onto the streets of the city.

  Libby invaded Chase's thoughts as he watched women, dressed in their Sunday best, stroll arm-in-arm with their husbands through the plaza. How often, he wondered, had she denied herself the pleasures of a social life for the sake of her ranch? Jonas Harper had been right about one thing: Libby worked too hard. How long had it been since she'd allowed herself the pleasures a woman like her deserved? How long—the thought came unbidden—was it since a man had held her in his arms and made her feel safe?

  Several loud pops, like the retorts of pistols, jerked the crowd's attention to the far end of the street. Two trail-dirty teamsters whooped and hollered as they careened their teams of mules into the plaza, full-tilt, each trying to outdo the other with the snapping brand-new "poppers" fastened onto the ends of their whips. People and animals alike scattered to get clear of the two wagons. Chase backed out of the way, ending up beneath the safety of a tienda overhang, but Elliot's attention was focused across the street.

  "Dear God," Elliot murmured, watching a dark-haired young woman in lavender silk picking her way across the muddy street. She had her nose buried in a book and was apparently oblivious to the teams heading directly for her. "They're going to run her down!"

  "Who?" Chase's eyes scanned the street. "El get back!"

  There wasn't time to think, only to react. Elliot launched himself into the path of the oncoming wagons and headed for the dark-haired woman.

  Chapter 7

  The galloping teams of horses bore down on Elliot as he raced toward the girl. He didn't waste his breath crying out to her. It was too late for that.

  She saw him at the last instant. Her sable-colored eyes widened like a frightened kitten's, and a small mewling gasp escaped her before he felt the air rush back out of her as his body collided with hers. They tumbled, as one, out of the path of the oncoming teams. Her book went flying and the small, crocheted reticule dangling from her wrist flew up and tangled around Elliot's neck.

  The wagons rushed by them as he and the girl hit the wet ground. He twisted to avoid landing with all of his weight on her. She clung helplessly to him. Over and over they rolled, before coming to an ignominious stop at the foot of a water trough at the far side of the street.

  Elliot braced his forehead against her shoulder for a moment, catching his breath, afraid to move. His bruised rib throbbed. The grimy wetness of the street mud seeped through his new shirt to the skin. With his arms still wrapped intimately around the young woman, he felt as if he were holding a wisp in his hands. She was small and delicate as a sparrow.

  As her breath came in choking rasps he had the sudden, sickening feeling he'd broken her, as easily as a china doll, in his attempt to save her. He completely ignored the crowd they were drawing, and carefully untangled himself from her and eased away so he could get a better look at her.

  She had a face that another man might have called plain, but Elliot did not find her so. Her doelike brown eyes were stunning. Fringed by thick dark lashes, the sable-colored irises were flecked with gold, the exact color of the raw ore the miners out West had pulled from the earth.

  She blinked at him, her expression something akin to terror. Her heart-shaped face was offset by a single dimple in her right cheek which deepened, even as she frowned at him. Coughing, she pushed at his shoulder with one hand.

  "Please..."

  "Don't move," he ordered, rolling off her completely and running tutored fingers down the length of her arm. "Lie still."

  "Oh! W-what do you think you're—?"

  "Don't move." His gaze took in the mud-smudged porcelain skin on her delicate face and the shock in her eyes. "I might have hurt you."

  "Might have h-hurt me?" she sputtered indignantly. "I'm... I'm lying in a puddle of mud, for heaven's sake, with a s-strange man—running his hands down my arms. Will you"—she pushed at his firmly muscled chest—"be so kind as to unhand me, sir?"

  "When I'm finish
ed," Elliot replied, continuing his meticulous inspection of her. He quickly ran his fingers down the length of her ribs, then aimed for her leg.

  "Oh! Stop that!" Sitting up abruptly, she grabbed his wrist with one muddy, lace-gloved hand and shot a mortified glance at the crowd of faces gathering above her. "What on God's green earth do you think you're doing?"

  Elliot stubbornly freed himself and drew her leg back toward him, running his fingers up her shin bone. Her dress fell away, exposing a black silk-stockinged ankle. "I'm checking for broken bones," he answered matter-of-factly.

  She swatted at his hand again. "Nothing's broken, I assure you," she replied hotly, pulling the muddy hem of her gown back into place.

  Mesmerized, Elliot watched the woman make a futile stab at trying to repin the lilac silk and netting hat that dangled beside her left ear.

  "Here, let me..."

  She flinched as if he were going to molest her again. "No! No, it's... it's beyond fixing."

  They both ignored the murmurs of the gathering crowd. But her eyes widened suddenly when she took in his battered face. "Good heavens! Am I responsible for that?"

  "What, this?" Elliot sat back on his heels and touched the swelling around his eye. "No," he assured her gallantly. "That happened last night."

  She met him with a blank look as the traffic rambled by on the street behind them.

  "In the cantina." The ground seemed to shift under him as he dug himself in deeper with the explanation. What a time to look like I just tangled with a chained grizzly.

  A look of comprehension dawned on her face. She sniffed, swiping the back of one hand across her dirty cheek. "I see."

  "I can imagine how this must look to you, Miss...?"

  "Somehow I doubt it," she replied, ignoring his feeble attempt at introduction. She struggled to get her feet under her gracefully.

  "I mean," he amended, slipping his mud-covered hand into hers automatically, "I don't usually... that is, I'm not in the habit of participating in that sort of thing. Brawling, I mean. The truth is, well, I'm a doctor." Elliot raked his muddy hair out of his eyes.