“All of you need to do what I tell you, understand?” Big Jake told Ben and young Jake and Tricia, who was sobbing.
“We will,” Ben answered.
Stephen ran back with the blankets and hurried over to where young Jake sat in the snow with Sadie Mae in his lap. He helped young Jake gently wrap his sister into the blanket. Stephen winced at the sight of blood on the sleeve of his cousin’s corduroy jacket where he’d been supporting Sadie Mae’s head. Stephen bunched up the blanket a little under the girl’s head to help support it more comfortably. He brought the other blanket over to Jake then and wrapped it around and under Tommy as best he could.
Jake kept pressing hard on Tommy’s gaping wound while Tommy lay shivering and staring in shock. “How many horses are left?” Jake asked his grandson.
“Just two,” Stephen answered, his dark eyes tearing. “I tied them up good so they can’t run off like the others.”
“Good. I want you to take one of them and try to find the other three. Gather them up and get them back here and tie them, but try to build a good fire here before you leave. We need to keep Tommy and Sadie Mae warm as best we can. I’m going to have Ben ride for Brian and bring him and Lloyd back here along with a wagon. Brian will need the fire in case we have to cauterize Tommy’s wound.”
Stephen immediately began gathering kindling as fast as he could.
Jake looked over at his adopted son. “Ben, I want you to take Tricia and ride back to the homestead as fast as you can! I can’t let go of this compress on Tommy or he’ll bleed to death. And I don’t know how bad Sadie Mae is hurt. It might be bad for her, if we move her around too much or try to carry her home on a horse. I don’t know that much about head wounds. And there is no way to get Tommy back without a wagon. He’s bleeding too much. Ride fast, understand? Bring Lloyd and Brian back here along with a wagon. Tell them Tommy’s wound is bleeding so badly it might need to be cauterized. Brian will know what to do.”
“Okay, Pa,” Ben answered.
“And hang on good and tight to Tricia!” Jake shouted. “We don’t want any more accidents!”
“Sure, Pa.”
Tricia kept bawling Sadie Mae’s name as Ben picked her up and carried her off to one of the two remaining horses. He plopped her on it, mounting up behind her. He turned the girl to face him so she could wrap her arms and legs around him and hang on better. He moved his left arm around her then for even more support and kicked the horse into motion. “Hang on, Tricia!”
Ben rode off, and Stephen fought tears as he hurriedly gathered more kindling. “The wood is wet, Grandpa,” he told Jake.
“Just put plenty of kindling under those bigger logs, and some branches with dried pine needles on them. Dead pine is best. It burns hot.”
Stephen did the best he could, then took matches from Jake’s coat pocket and lit the kindling. Once he got the fire going, he hurried off to see if he could find the other three horses.
Suddenly all was quiet, other than young Jake’s quiet sniffling. He rocked his sister in his arms, and Jake kept up the pressure on Tommy’s ugly wound. There was so much blood on the rocks and in the snow and soaking Tommy’s jacket that Jake couldn’t tell how many other places the cougar had managed to sink claws and teeth into the young man, let alone the fact that Tommy could have a bullet in him…from Jake’s rifle. The thought that he might have shot Tommy or Sadie Mae…
He glanced at Sadie Mae, wanting to hold her. “Jake, take the blanket away a minute. Look your sister over and make sure my bullet didn’t go through that cat and Tommy and into her. She has a good chance of being all right if she isn’t shot.”
Young Jake wiped at his eyes and pulled the blanket away a little, noticing Sadie Mae’s coat was intact. He felt down her legs and over her tummy and chest. “I don’t think she’s shot, Grandpa, but she’s all bundled up in wool leggings and coat. It’s hard to tell for sure, but I don’t think so.”
“Just keep her warm then, and don’t let her move around if she wakes up.” Please do wake up, Sadie Mae!
Tommy groaned and opened his eyes, staring blankly at Jake. “What…happened?” he asked in a near whisper.
“Cougar,” Jake told him. “I can’t let go of this wound, Tommy, or you’ll bleed to death. Just lie still. Ben went to get Brian. He’ll know what to do.”
Tommy closed his eyes again. “Hurts…everywhere.”
“I damn well know all about pain, Tommy.”
Tommy opened his eyes again, this time wide with fear. “Sadie Mae! I…remember…big cat…didn’t have a…rifle. I tried to protect…Sadie Mae.”
“I know. She hit her head, Tommy. She’s unconscious but has no other wounds. You probably saved her life. I owe you for it.”
Tommy looked over to where young Jake sat, holding his sister. He looked up at Big Jake then. “You should…be with your…granddaughter. Just let go of me and…go to her.”
“I can’t let go of this wound. You’ll bleed to death.”
Tommy grimaced as he rubbed at his eyes with his left hand. “Why…do you care?”
Jake shook his head. “Damned if I know. I guess it’s my turn to care about somebody besides those in my own family and maybe a couple of the men I’m closest to on the J&L.”
“Like Cole Decker…”
“Like Cole Decker,” Jake repeated. “We’re damn good friends. He knows things about me most men don’t.” Keep talking! Don’t think about the fact that Sadie Mae could die!
Young Jake pulled Sadie Mae a little closer. “Wake up, Sadie Mae,” he said, weeping.
Tommy looked over at them. “I’m sorry,” he told the boy, turning to look up at Jake again. “I didn’t mean for her…to hit her head. It all happened…so fast.”
“I know,” Jake told him. “It’s okay.”
“I…should have seen…that cougar.”
“Tommy, we’ve had plenty of run-ins with cougars here on the J&L. A cougar is a cougar. They’re good hunters for the very reason they can sneak up on you without a sound, so don’t be blaming yourself. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me, for not keeping everyone together. The list of things I blame myself for is pretty damn long. This whole thing was supposed to be a fun adventure for the kids, especially the girls.”
Jake suddenly choked up, wanting to scream. Sadie Mae, don’t die! Don’t die! I couldn’t live with that!
“You said…I wasn’t to blame,” Tommy said, his voice growing weaker. “So you aren’t…either.”
Jake couldn’t stop the tear that slid down his face. “You have no idea how many things I’m to blame for, Tommy.” Jake sniffed and quickly wiped at the tear by arching his shoulder to rub his cheek on the corner of his wool jacket.
Tommy closed his eyes and grew quiet again. His face looked hideously white, but his lips looked blue. Jake pressed harder on the wound. He was not a praying man, but he prayed now, closing his eyes and hanging his head.
Jesus, please don’t take my Sadie Mae. No sweeter innocence ever lived. Of all the times you’ve let my useless hide live, don’t choose now to take someone so sweet and with her whole life ahead of her. Take me instead, Lord. Take me.
He was still afraid Sadie Mae was shot. If they found out his baby girl was dying from his own bullet, he’d have to turn his gun on himself and pull the trigger. He couldn’t survive that. Not another Santana, Lord. Not another Santana.
Twelve
“Pa!” Lloyd charged up alongside Ben, who’d shown him the way. He jumped off his horse before it even came to a halt, running up to Jake, then glancing over at young Jake holding Sadie Mae. “Oh my God.” He hurried over to the dead cougar, grabbing its tail and dragging it farther away to make room. He quickly covered it with snow to help keep the smell from frightening the horses.
Brian charged up on another horse and ran over to his son and daughter, kneeling beside them.
“Sadie Mae,” the man groaned, setting his doctor’s bag beside him.
“Dad, I think she’s dead,” young Jake cried.
Brian fought his own tears as he felt her throat in hopes of feeling a pulse. “She’s not dead, Jake,” he told his son. “Lift her to a sitting position if you can so I can examine her head. Ben said she hit it on a rock.”
“She never woke up,” young Jake said, weeping.
Lloyd knelt beside his father while Brian examined Sadie Mae. He saw the devastation in Jake’s eyes. “Pa, let me take over.”
“I can’t let go.”
“Yes, you can. You look ready to pass out, and I know you want to go to Sadie Mae.”
“Brian will have to cauterize this wound, or he’ll bleed to death. He saved Sadie Mae from that damn cougar’s teeth and claws. It’s just too damn bad—” Jake’s voice caught in his throat. “God can’t let that little girl die, Lloyd. It’s not fair, me sitting here alive and her maybe dying.”
“Pa, don’t go there. He’s not going to take someone as sweet as Sadie Mae.”
“Won’t he? Losing Sadie Mae would be worse punishment for my sins than flat-out dying myself.”
“You listen to me, Pa!” Lloyd grasped his arm. “You’re alive because the whole family loves and needs you. Don’t be questioning the why. God decided that already. Now let go of Tommy and go to Sadie Mae. I’ll help Tommy.”
Jake kept hold of Tommy’s wound for another few seconds. “I didn’t see that goddamn cougar, Lloyd. Didn’t see it. Didn’t hear it. And I’m scared to death my bullet went through that sonofabitch and into Tommy and Sadie Mae. Tell Brian…” His voice choked then, his eyes filling with tears. “It might be like with Santana. Tell Brian to first make sure she’s not shot. Sometimes a bullet can be hardly noticed. Check her back. That’s where the bigger hole would be if…”
“Pa, stop it.” Lloyd turned to Brian. “Brian, check her all over. Pa’s scared maybe his bullet went through the cat and into Sadie Mae. I’ll check Tommy.” He took the blanket away from Tommy and ran his hands over his entire body, then opened his coat for another inspection. “There’s nothing here, Pa. You know what a good shot you are. You got the cougar and nothing else.” He squeezed his father’s shoulder for reassurance. “Where’s my son?”
“Stephen went after the horses that ran off. He’s okay.”
“She’s not shot,” Brian told them then, devastation in his voice. “She’s just unconscious, and I don’t know for sure what to do for that, other than to scoop up some snow and put it against the back of her head to slow the bleeding and swelling.”
Jake seemed to wilt then at the news.
Cole came rattling up then with a wagon. Everyone moved fast after that. Cole took care of packing the back of Sadie Mae’s head with snow, staying beside her to keep adding snow as it melted, while Brian checked out Tommy, who came awake again.
“Don’t…bother with me, Dr. Stewart,” he told Brian. “Stay with…your daughter.”
“There isn’t a lot more I can do for her at the moment, and you probably saved her life, Tommy. The head wound isn’t your fault. She could have been torn to pieces by that cat, and it looks like it did a good job of trying to do that to you.”
Jake finally let go of the wound. The pain in his leg from crouching for so long hit him hard. He grimaced as he crawled over to Sadie Mae. “Let me have her, Jake,” he told his grandson.
Everything happened in a kind of daze after that. Jake pulled his granddaughter into his arms, a sniffling young Jake standing next to him with his hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. He raised his chin, trying to pretend to be a man about all of it.
“I wish I could kill that damn cougar all over again,” the boy said angrily. “If he was still alive, I’d go shoot him!”
Cole kept adding snow to the back of the girl’s head. He looked into Jake’s eyes, knowing what this meant to the man. “She’ll be okay, Jake. It’s like Lloyd said. If God let your worthless hide live after what happened in Mexico, he ain’t gonna take this little girl, understand?”
Jake managed a weak smile. “At least you put it more bluntly.”
“That’s the only way to talk to a man like you, you old sonofabitch. This girl’s got the Harkner blood, and Harkners have the ability to survive just about anything. She’ll be okay. Them chickens back home and even that damn ornery rooster need her to take care of them.”
Jake just kept holding Sadie Mae while Brian took the fireplace poker from the wagon and heated it up. Minutes later the air was filled with Tommy’s screams. Jake well knew the pain of having a wound cauterized. He cringed at the memory of Brian doing the same thing to him years ago when he took that bullet in the thigh.
Stephen rode back to their camp, pulling all three extra horses with him. Jake was proud of how Ben and both Stephen and young Jake were turning into dependable young men who could probably take over the J&L right now if they had to.
He carried Sadie Mae to the wagon then, managing to climb into the wagon bed in spite of the pain in his bad leg. He sat down with her in his arms while Brian finished bandaging Tommy as best he could.
Cole and Lloyd and Ben managed to lift Tommy into the wagon, and Ben climbed in to help prop blankets under Tommy’s head. Brian also climbed into the wagon, examining Sadie Mae again.
“The bleeding has finally stopped,” he told Jake. “We just have to pray she wakes up. Let me have her, Jake.”
Jake didn’t want to let go, but Brian was her father. He was also a rock for the whole family—the calmest, most steady, most reliable man Jake had ever known. And patient. The poor man had been through hell marrying into the Harkner clan, and no better man walked when it came to being a husband to Evie, his beautiful daughter who’d suffered so badly. Most men couldn’t have handled what happened to her, but Brian Stewart wasn’t most men, and there was no doubt how much he loved Evie.
He handed Sadie Mae over to her father and watched them both as Cole whipped the reins to turn the wagon and head for the homestead. Stephen and young Jake followed, bringing along the rest of the horses.
Jake could hardly wait to see and hold his wife. He needed her right now, that steady strength that was Miranda Harkner. He still found it amazing how many beautiful people God had brought into his worthless life.
And Evie…if ever anyone’s prayers could work miracles, it was Evie’s. There would be a lot of praying going on. And right now Jake couldn’t think of a better Christmas present than for Sadie Mae to open her eyes and give him one of her dimpled smiles.
Thirteen
The next two weeks seemed endless and hopeless. Jake, Randy, Brian, and Evie took turns holding Sadie Mae for hours at a time, each one sitting in Jake’s favorite red leather chair in front of the fireplace in the great room. It was warm there. Besides that, Jake wanted Sadie Mae to see the big decorated Christmas tree that stood in the corner on the same wall as the fireplace. Cole and some of the other men had gone out and cut it down for the family, doing all the work of trimming off bad branches and building a bracket to attach to the trunk. It sat in a big washtub filled with water and was tied to hooks in the log walls to keep it from falling over.
Katie and Ben and the grandsons had all helped decorate it while Brian and Evie spent their time tending to Sadie Mae, Evie taking breaks to feed baby Cole. Katie’s mother took care of two-year-old Esther and helped care for Katie’s little ones so Katie could spend more time at the main house.
Everyone took turns holding Sadie Mae, talking to her…soothing her…waiting for any sign of consciousness. They’d had to put diapers on her, and Brian managed to force-feed her and get milk and water down her throat, which gave all of them hope. All bodily functions were working, and she actually swallowed when they fed her and made her drink.
Jake held her now, staring at a crackling fire in the hearth. Rand
y approached him. Randy. His strength. His reason for being. The woman who’d created all of this for a man who didn’t deserve anything. She knelt in front of him, resting one arm on his knee and stroking Sadie Mae’s hair. “She looks so peaceful and sweet,” she commented. “Even when she isn’t smiling, you can see her dimples.” She looked into her husband’s dark eyes. “It’s not your fault, Jake. It isn’t Tommy’s either. You know that.”
Jake sighed. “I know.” He craved a cigarette, but he wouldn’t let go of Sadie Mae. He figured he needed to start smoking less anyway, but it was damn hard when he was this upset. It was in times like this that he smoked even more. “I just keep remembering that day I found her crying because she broke all those eggs. She has such a soft heart, like Evie. And I remember how she giggled when I went into that henhouse to gather more eggs and was attacked by that damn rooster and half the hens. She thought that was so funny—big bad Grandpa, cussing and swearing and fighting off a bunch of chickens. She’s so damn attached to those cackling little monsters and what she calls their little chick-a-dees. That’s what I’ve begun calling her in return—my little chick-a-dee.” His eyes teared. “My God, was that last year, or the year before? So much has happened since then.”
“It will be two years this coming spring,” Evie spoke up. She sat in a nearby chair nursing six-month-old Cole Matthew under a blanket. “And you keep the faith, Daddy. There isn’t a moment that goes by that I’m not praying for my daughter. God brought you back from the dead and home to us last winter. This year his gift to us will be Sadie Mae.”
Brian sat in a wooden rocker next to Evie. He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “You doing okay?”
Evie looked at her husband lovingly. “As long as I have you.”
“I’m worried the stress will affect your ability to feed the baby.”
“He’s a big eater, but I’m doing okay.”
Jake was always amazed at the strength and love between his daughter and her husband. They hadn’t panicked over Sadie Mae, but he knew they were both suffering inside and trying to stay strong for each other and for the rest of their children. Young Jake remained quiet and somber. Today he was at the bunkhouse, where the men were inventing things to keep him occupied and cheered up.
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