Until Tomorrow

by Rosanne Bittner

  Jack stiffened, holding his hand ready beside his gun, squeezing his fingers nervously into a fist. “There’s plenty of blood on that duster, Nick. I have a feeling you’ve still got a bullet in you, and after riding all the way here that way, you don’t really think you can take me, do you?”

  Addy glanced at Ted and Cal. They, too, had backed away, and both looked scared to death. Addy was just glad that neither of them was wearing his gun. They had already taken them off, and Cal stood there holding a whiskey bottle while Ted looked ready to cry.

  “You know I’m mad enough to do it,” Nick answered. “You’ve got a choice! Give Ted and Cal their share of the money and leave your share with me for what you did to me, and all three of you get out of here and leave the woman! Or you can die!”

  “The money and the woman are mine,” Jack growled. “I meant for you to be dead, you sonofabitch, and I still do!”

  Jack went for his gun, and Addy felt as though she was having a strange dream. With lightning speed Nick Coleman’s six-gun was out of its holster. Fire spit from its barrel as Nick pumped three bullets into Jack before Jack could even raise his gun. Addy screamed and crouched down as Jack’s body lurched backward, landing with a thud on the dirt floor, bloody holes in the middle of his chest. He let out one shuddering groan before his breath hissed through his mouth in death. He lay there with his eyes still open, staring at nothing.

  Addy looked up at Nick, who had turned his gun on the other two. “Both of you get your gear together and take your money and get out of here!”

  Ted’s eyes widened. “Tonight?”

  “Tonight! Leave your guns and rifles here. Jack’s, too. Throw his body over his horse and take him someplace where you can bury him. Make camp somewhere till dawn, bury Jack and head out. You have enough money to buy guns and whatever else you need once you’re away from here. If you’re smart, you’ll head down through Tennessee and Arkansas into Indian Territory. It’s a haven for wanted men.”

  “Can’t we stay together, Nick?” Ted asked. “Hell, it was Jack that shot you, not us.”

  Nick cocked his six-gun and waved it at them. “The mood I’m in, you’re lucky you’re alive! You were willing enough to stay with Jack after what he did and divvy up the money three ways instead of four, and you were willing to rape an innocent woman! Taking hostages has never been part of the plan. Be glad you’re getting out with your lives!”

  The room hung silent for a moment, then Cal threw his whiskey bottle against a wall. Glass shattered, and whiskey spilled down the log wall. “Shit!” he grumbled, looking at Ted. “Get your stuff together! We’ll go to Indian Territory, all right, and we’ll find some new men, maybe form our own gang! If Coleman wants to stay behind and get caught just to help a damn woman, that’s his problem!” He began angrily packing his gear, and Ted followed, although he seemed more hesitant.

  Addy watched in wonder, occasionally glancing at Nick Coleman, whose deep blue eyes caught her gaze when he wasn’t carefully watching Cal and Ted. She was not quite sure what she read there—apology, anger, pain. Yes, he was in a great deal of pain, and she suspected he was hanging on to consciousness for her sake only.

  “Let’s see all your guns on the table, and remember that I know you carry an extra in your boot, Cal,” Nick said, his voice sounding a little weaker. “I don’t intend for you to come storming in here later to kill me.”

  “Heck, we wouldn’t do that, Nick,” Ted told him.

  “How do I know that? I got shot by somebody who was supposed to be a good friend. When you run with men like that, you can’t trust anybody. Show your guns!”

  Cal scowled, reluctantly laying all his weapons on the table. Ted followed, although more willingly. He backed away, swallowing. “How did you get away, Nick?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You just lay Jack’s share of the money on the table before you take his body. He owes it to me! You all do!”

  Addy rose and moved farther into one corner when Ted came over to rummage through Jack’s pockets. Cal took more money out of the man’s saddlebag, and they both laid the money on the table. “There’s over a thousand there,” Cal told Nick. “We took about four all together, probably not enough to hurt Howard Benedict as bad as you wanted. We had to get out too fast.”

  “Thanks to Jack,” Nick answered.

  Addy studied him, thinking how strange it was that an outlaw who ran with men like Jack Slater could be so strikingly handsome, even in his sorry condition, dirty and bleeding, needing a shave. She wished she knew the connection between him and Howard Benedict … and the story behind his little girl. She suspected that somewhere under that bloody duster and behind those angry eyes lay a man who must once have been decent. Then again, maybe she couldn’t trust him at all. Whatever his problem, she did not doubt it had something to do with the war. She had seen men come home to Unionville totally changed, angry, wounded, disheartened, haunted.

  Cal and Ted half dragged and half lifted Jack’s hefty body until they got it out the door. Nick followed them to make sure they saddled and mounted their horses and left with Jack. Addy heard them finally ride off, and moments later Nick came back inside, shoving his six-gun into its holster and then closing the door. He used his right arm to lift a thick, solid board that slid into iron bars on either side of the door and across it to create a barrier that would make it almost impossible for anyone to break in. There were only two windows in the cabin, one at the front and one at the side. He turned to Addy.

  “Close the shutters on those windows and bolt them with the crossboards laying on the floor under them, like I did the door.”

  Addy just stared at him a moment, realizing that would protect them from anyone trying to break in, but it also made her a prisoner inside with this tall, strong, forbidding man. Still, he seemed to be growing weaker and paler before her eyes, and, after all, he had kept her from the hands of Jack Slater and two other men who had been about ready to commit a horror against her. She moved on shaky legs to the windows, closing each one, then turned to see Nick staring at her.

  “Will you be all right? Your face is bruised and scraped,” he told her.

  Addy put a hand to her purple cheek. “I’m all right,” she answered. “He did it last night.”

  “Did he do anything else?”

  Addy felt a flush come into her cheeks and she dropped her eyes. “No. He was … waiting until we got here.”

  “Did I get here in time?”

  Addy could not help the tears that formed in her eyes. “Yes.” She looked back up at him. “I suppose I should thank you.”

  His lips twisted in a smirk. “I suppose you should. I’m sorry for what happened. Jack never should have taken you like that. I don’t make a habit of running with men who do that.”

  Addy held her chin a little higher, blinking back the tears. “You also shouldn’t run with men who rob banks and shoot innocent people.” She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself against the horror she had known the last two days, wanting to shut out the sight of Jack’s bloodied body falling close to her, the sound of his last gasp of life. She could not blame Nick Coleman for killing him. Jack had pulled a gun on him and had meant to try a second time to murder him. Still, Nick had shot him down with such ease and calm deliberateness.

  Nick turned and walked over to the iron bed in the corner of the room. He sat down on it, removing his hat and the duster, cringing when he took his left arm out of it. Addy’s eyes widened at the sight of his shirt torn away from his left shoulder, a crude bandage around what was apparently a still-bleeding wound. “Do you still have a bullet in you?” she asked.

  Nick sighed deeply and laid back on the bed, still wearing his gun and boots. “Doesn’t matter,” he answered. “I’m probably dying, and that’s okay with me. You can leave in the morning. Take the black horse I rode in on. It belongs to a man back in Unionville. I said he’d get it back. Head away from the sun and you’ll eventually get out of
these woods. After that it’s open country for a ways. You’ll probably find a farmhouse or something. If I die by morning, take that money with you and give back what there is.”

  Addy frowned. He truly seemed not to care if he died. Still, these woods were so dense and confusing … and Cal and Ted might be out there somewhere. “You … you can’t die. I need you to help me get out of here. I don’t know my way.”

  Nick put his right hand to his forehead, and it was then Addy noticed a long scar across his forehead at the hairline. “You’ll make it. I have a feeling you’re a strong, smart woman.” He looked at her, studying her face. “You look a lot like someone I once knew.”

  Addy cautiously stepped closer. “Your wife?”

  He closed his eyes. “There’s another bed in that extra room. Go in there and get some sleep.”

  Addy came even closer, feeling a little sorry for his condition, and his mental state … his desire to die. “I don’t know a thing about taking out bullets, but it’s obvious that in your case it needs to be done soon if you’re going to live.”

  “I told you I don’t want to live. Don’t worry about it.”

  She leaned closer. “I will not go to bed and sleep while a man who just saved my honor and probably my life lies here and dies alone. Please let me try to help you. Those men left some whiskey here. You could drink some to kill the pain, and I could pour some in the wound and try to find the bullet. I … I’m not sure how.”

  Nick did not answer. His hand dropped away, and at first Addy thought maybe he had already died. She carefully reached out, felt for a pulse and realized he still had one. His face, normally tanned dark from the sun, was now a sickening gray. How could she stand and watch someone die when there might be something she could do to help him? Besides, she needed this man to show her how to get out of here.

  She cautiously reached over and pulled his six-gun from its holster, carrying it gingerly by its pearl handle as though it was something abhorrent. She laid it on the table. She walked to the counter and picked up another bottle of whiskey and the paring knife she had used earlier to peel potatoes. She walked back to where Nick lay, apparently unconscious, and she leaned down to cut away the gauze around his shoulder. It was stuck to the wound, and she poured a little whiskey on it to moisten it and at the same time cleanse it. Nick jumped when she did so and she backed away, but he still did not seem fully conscious.

  She peeled away the gauze, then hurriedly searched around the cabin for more. Finding none, she quickly pulled up the hem of her dress and ripped away several yards of her ruffled slip, thinking what a torn, dirty mess her yellow dress was by now. She laid the torn pieces of slip on a small table beside the bed and stared at the wound. How could she just let this man lay there and die? Yet she had no idea how to take a bullet out of someone.

  She tapped lightly at his face. “Nick. Nick Coleman, wake up. I want you to drink some whiskey.”

  He opened his eyes and looked up at her, but it was a blank stare. Addy hoped he was in enough of a stupor to not be fully aware of what was happening.

  “Drink this whiskey,” she repeated. “It will ease the pain.” She held the whiskey bottle to his lips and tipped it. “Drink!” she demanded.

  Nick gulped and coughed and seemed to wake up a little more. He grabbed the bottle from her then and seemed angry. He drank it down then the way a man would who was accustomed to drinking heavily. For a moment Addy wondered if she had done the wrong thing. Maybe a drunk Nick Coleman was a far different man from the one who had just rescued her.

  “Glad to oblige,” he mumbled between gulps. “Might as well … go out of this life … with a good slug of whiskey.”

  Addy waited until he drank nearly half the bottle, and by then he passed out again, dropping the bottle on the bed. She quickly grabbed it before too much could spill, then watched him awhile. He breathed deeply. She called his name several times but got no response. She poured a little whiskey into his wound, and he hardly moved, although he groaned softly.

  “Here goes,” she whispered. She laid the paring knife on the wound and poured whiskey over that, too, then crinkled her nose and gritted her teeth in fear and sick dread as she forced herself to be quick and cut a deep slit across the bloody hole made by Jack Slater’s gun. A louder groan emitted from Nick’s throat, and Addy knew she had to work fast. She poured whiskey over her left hand, and with all her courage she reached into the wound, shuddering at the feel of soft, bloody flesh. She felt something that didn’t seem right and pulled it out to discover it was a piece of the checkered shirt Nick wore. It had been forced into the wound by the bullet. “Dear God,” she murmured.

  She doused the wound once again with whiskey and Nick groaned louder. Quickly she reached inside again and felt around, going all the way to the base of her fingers before feeling an object that seemed as though it could be the bullet. With great difficulty she used two fingers to grasp it, but her fingers were slippery with blood, and it was difficult to hold on. She managed to get it nearly to the surface before losing it, and Nick seemed to be waking up. With all her resolve she reached into the wound again, this time getting a better hold on the object, and she yanked it out, nearly shouting with excitement when she saw that it was indeed the bullet.

  She set it on the table beside the bed and poured whiskey over the wound once more, praying she had done the right thing. There was no time to go get clean water, so she wiped her fingers on her dress and began wrapping the wound.

  “What … are you … doing?” Nick asked.

  “I’ve taken out the bullet. I just hope I can wrap this tight enough to stop the bleeding.”

  “… told you … not to …”

  “I am not going to sit here and watch you die, although that might still happen. And why on earth would you want to die?”

  “Long … story.”

  Addy yanked away more of his torn shirt and worked as swiftly as she could, reaching under him and wrapping the pieces of slip around the wound, feeling ready to pass out herself. Although she would never forget the day she learned her husband had been killed in the war, and the last four years had been nothing but struggle, none of that was as trying as what she had been through the last two days. She felt frightened, sore, tired, defeated, at a loss over what she would do if Nick Coleman died.

  She tore away the rest of his shirt and pulled it off his other arm, frowning in surprise at finding burn scars on that arm. So many scars. It seemed that at every turn she discovered more about this man that made him a mystery. She unbuckled his gunbelt, pulled it away, hung it over the end of the bed. Then she grasped a boot and tugged at it, pulling off first one, then the other, then his socks. She pulled a blanket over him, not knowing what else she could do now but wait. She was bone weary herself, and after watching Nick for a few minutes and deciding there was nothing more she could do for him, she decided to go to sleep in the spare room.

  She glanced at the table where all the guns lay. What if Cal or Ted tried to come back, found a way to get in? She walked over and picked up one of the guns, then headed for the extra bed. She did not care to sleep in a bed where probably Jack or the other two had slept, realizing the blankets could not possibly be very clean, but she had no choice for now. Perhaps in the morning she could do a little cleaning, find more food and make Nick Coleman a breakfast. Maybe with rest and food he would get stronger and be able to take her out of here.

  She sighed as she sat down on the bed. How ironic that she was now going to have to depend on the blue-eyed outlaw who had robbed a bank and had wanted to kill Howard Benedict. She had even saved the man’s life. Had she been a fool to do that?

  She had no choice but to wait and find out. For now she was too tired to think, too tired to care how clean or dirty the bedclothes might be. She lay down, slipping the six-gun under her pillow. She could not help a few tears as she relaxed. “God help me,” she groaned. “I just want to get to Colorado.” Sleep finally cam
e to relieve her of her agony.

  Nick awoke to the smell of frying bacon. He frowned, started to rise, but pain shot not only through his shoulder but also his head, the familiar pain of too much whiskey. How could something that made a man feel so good make him feel so lousy a few hours later? He lay back down, trying to think, remember. He’d shot Jack, hadn’t he? How he had reached the cabin, he couldn’t even be sure, and he only vaguely remembered chasing Ted and Cal out, making them leave their guns behind. The last memory he had was of passing out on this bed … and Mrs. Kane … yes, the woman had said something about taking out the bullet.

  He opened his eyes, saw a woman with reddish brown hair standing at the stove. He remembered that hair had once been tucked into tidy curls. Now it hung in long, tangled waves down her back nearly to her waist. He remembered the yellow calico dress, but now it was torn and dirty, and there was blood on the skirt. He turned his head to look down at his shoulder. It was heavily bandaged with some kind of material. Had she managed to take out the bullet? It didn’t burn so badly now, although it hurt like hell to try to move it.

  He was a little disappointed that he wasn’t dead. He never seemed to be able to quite accomplish that goal. For now he was alive and dearly needed to relieve himself. He gritted his teeth and raised up on his right elbow, realizing then that his shirt was gone. Mrs. Kane had surely seen the scars on his arm, and the damn woman would probably want to know how he got them. That was something he didn’t like talking about. Mrs. Kane caught his movement and glanced in his direction.

  “Well, Nick Coleman, you are still alive.”

  “Thanks to you, I suppose,” he grunted. He managed to swing his feet over the side of the bed. “I’ve got to get outside and answer Mother Nature’s call.” He used the end of the bed to pull himself up.