A Man with a Past

by Mary Connealy

  Five men came riding toward her from the Hawkins place. While they were still out of earshot, she said to Falcon, “If there was just one of them, I’d be afraid because I don’t know who to trust. But a crew this big is safer. I’m glad for the company.”

  Falcon nodded, and they moved on. Slow and steady.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Molly heard thundering hooves. Everything about the sound of that horse coming at full speed shouted desperation to her.

  She rushed for the back door and stepped out just as Kevin slammed the door open to the ramrod’s house. She noticed he had his gun in hand but wasn’t aiming anywhere. Not yet.

  The bunkhouse door flung open and five armed men stepped out, one of them Andy.

  A single man came racing in on horseback and charged straight for Molly.

  “It’s Wyatt. He’s been shot.” The man reined his horse to such a sudden stop, the animal reared up, fighting the tight hold. The man leapt off a second after the horse had four legs on the ground.

  Molly put her hand over her belly. It was too much like home. All the trouble. Ma’s trouble with Pa. Pa coming home hurt from his night rides. Always something terrible. Why was there no peace in the world? And Wyatt? Not Wyatt. He was so young and strong, and he’d been so nice to her, well, a few times.

  Falcon had been shot and was left with amnesia.

  Win and then Kevin had been shot, and two men after him ended up dead. That should have ended it.

  Now Wyatt.

  But she’d lived through the Civil War in Kansas. Honestly, how did folks live who didn’t have to fight for their lives every day?

  “Miss Cheyenne said to get ready for him. Clear the kitchen table, boil water, whatever you need to do.”

  “Talk while I work.” Molly clamped down hard on the riot of fear twisting her gut. Dear Father in heaven, I am no doctor. You know that. I know that, and they all know that, and yet they are expecting me to deal with a gunshot. Guide my hands, Father.

  She forced herself to move, to race against the time of Wyatt’s arrival so she could begin helping him right quick. “Tell me what you know. Where’s the wound? How is Wyatt? How far are they?”

  “The bullet went clear through his shoulder. Miss Cheyenne only sent me running ahead a few minutes ago. They’ll be here right away.” The man darted out.

  She thought of how it was with Ma. Molly had no business sewing up her ma. It all terrified her witless. Her hands were unsteady. Her heart hurt too much. She’d heard somewhere that a person with too much connection shouldn’t doctor another, maybe small things like taking a few stitches, or tending a relative when they were feverish. But serious doctoring, she knew she shouldn’t. It was said that with someone you knew and loved, you were too apt to fear the worst, and it was too easy to ignore what seemed like small complaints because you were used to listening to them complain.

  The two ends of doctoring, caring too much and not taking them seriously.

  Just because Wyatt was her half brother’s half brother didn’t mean she was connected to him. Nor did it matter if she was. She had to do this.

  The table had a few things on it. A salt cellar and pepper grinder. A dish of butter and a jar of jelly. She quickly cleared them away. Molly ran to a closet with some folded fabric and set it on the table. She wanted to tear some of it into bandages, but that could wait. Cheyenne would be here this time. She might be able to do some of this work, know where things were.

  Molly put three pots on the stove. One large, two small. One small to heat vinegar and herbs to clean the wound. The second was water, to get the first batch hot faster. The third was a big pot of water so they could have all the clean water they needed. There were hot water wells on the stove, too, but Molly wanted to have plenty.

  She pulled one long piece of fabric over the table, then went to the small corner of a cupboard where she’d placed all the supplies she’d used when Win was shot. She wanted them close to hand rather than spend time ransacking the house when trouble came again.

  As she concocted her vinegar rinse, she thought of Wyatt and prayed over and over again. Dear Father in heaven, guide my hands. Steady my hands. Steady my mind and heart.

  Wyatt had been so angry that first day at the train station. Not one bit happy to see any of them, yet he’d let them move right in, fed them, treated them decent. And now he’d been shot, and it had to all be tied in with this mess involving Clovis Hunt’s will.

  She heard more thundering hooves. They wouldn’t be bringing him that fast. She rushed to the back door to see another rider coming into the yard. And beyond that, a fair distance, she saw six more riders. She recognized Cheyenne because she favored a beautiful white horse, and that critter was there.

  Swallowing hard, she didn’t see anyone who looked shot.

  Seeming to come an inch at a time, they rode into the yard. They came straight to the back door, and Molly could finally see Wyatt.

  Fighting the need to cry, she rushed down just as Falcon firmly took her arm. “We need to lift him, Miss Molly. We’ll turn him over to your doctorin’ hands as soon as we get him inside.”

  Cheyenne went to the offside across Wyatt’s unmoving body from Falcon. Then Falcon said, “Vincent, get over here.”

  A strapping young man, who Molly assumed was from the Hawkins Ranch, rushed over.

  “Stand there where Cheyenne is.”

  “Falcon, I’m—”

  “He’s heavy, Cheyenne.” Falcon’s voice snapped like a bullwhip. “We don’t have time for your feelings to be hurt. Let Vince in there.”

  Frowning, Cheyenne did as she was told.

  Molly knew he was heavy, and they didn’t have time for Cheyenne to want to help and fail.

  Still, to see Falcon back Cheyenne off. It took Molly a minute to notice her jaw was gaped open.

  She shoved aside the shock and closed her mouth about the same time Falcon and Vince hauled an unconscious Wyatt into the kitchen.

  Not wasting a second, Molly said, “Falcon, cut his shirt away.”

  Leaving the cutting to Falcon, she rushed to the stove, ladled boiling water into a basin that she had ready, and brought it to Wyatt’s side as Falcon finished. She knew he carried a razor-sharp knife all the time, and he seemed well able to use it.

  Wyatt was stripped to the waist. Cheyenne stood across from her.

  Molly talked to her, recognizing the love and terror in Cheyenne’s expression. “Your cowpoke said the bullet went all the way through.”

  Bathing the blood away, Molly saw the neat round hole. It made her sick that something so damaging could be so small.

  Kevin came running in, Win a step behind him. “What happened?”

  Falcon began talking, but Molly ignored him to pay attention to what she was doing. She worked in silent urgency to clean the wound in Wyatt’s chest. No bullet, thank the good Lord. Cutting a bullet out of someone was hard, and Molly had no fine tools to make it less brutal.

  Cheyenne didn’t so much as spare the talking men a glance.

  Molly lost track of the time, but it felt like she was hours cleaning the wound. When she was satisfied the wound was as clean as she could make it, she looked Cheyenne in the eye. “Get me the funnel I set beside the stove, and there is a pan of vinegar I added healing herbs to. It’s going to sting like blue blazes, but I was taught vinegar has healing properties. I pulled it off to cool a bit after it boiled, but it’s still steaming hot, and that’s a good thing.”

  Cheyenne was back with both in seconds.

  Molly placed the funnel over the wound, explaining as she set it in place. “I want to try and flush the wound out as well as possible. When someone is shot through a shirt like this, there are threads that go into the wound. I’ve picked out anything I could find, but it’s almost impossible to get it all. A thread or bit of dirt, anything left in the wound can cause an infection.”

  Without speaking, Cheyenne said, “I’ll hold the funnel. You handle the vinegar.”


  Molly let Cheyenne take it, very careful to keep it centered over the wound and pressed hard against Wyatt’s chest.

  “I doubt my brew will go in as deeply as I’d wish. It’ll flush the wound a bit, then flow all over.”

  Looking up, she saw Win. It seemed as if she were ready and willing to help.

  “Get towels.” Molly’s hands were full, but she nodded her head in the right direction. “I gathered a stack over there. Use them to collect the vinegar as best you can. No sense making a terrible mess.”

  Win came with the towels.

  Now came the worst of what Molly would do.

  Lifting the pan of boiled vinegar, she poured the thinnest stream she could manage through the funnel.

  Wyatt, unconscious until now—thank heaven for that—roared. His body surged until he nearly sat up.

  “Kevin.” Molly’s single word brought Falcon and Kevin to the table. They’d finished their talking and been standing ready. “Hold him. I think his collarbone is broken. Everything I do is going to hurt him worse than just a bullet wound would. You have to hold him still.”

  Falcon, beside Molly, shoved both hands against Wyatt’s chest and held him down on the table. Kevin, beside Cheyenne, threw his weight over Wyatt’s legs.

  Cheyenne got the funnel back in place. Molly went back to pouring.

  A scream, deep and awful to hear, erupted from Wyatt’s throat.

  Molly glanced up, expecting Cheyenne to have murder in her eyes for Molly after hurting her brother this way. Instead, Cheyenne only focused on holding that funnel, tears raining down without a sob to go with them.

  Molly finished flushing the wound. They rolled him over, and she repeated her treatment on the back.

  “I’m not as worried about the back. You said the bullet hit him in the front, so it would shove threads along with it. The back, where the bullet exited his body, has a better chance of being clear of trouble.”

  Still, she flushed the wound carefully, taking as much time as she felt the job needed.

  The day was wearing down by the time she’d bandaged him. Molly straightened from the doctoring, and her back kicked up such a fuss, she began to fall.

  Falcon caught her and held her until she was steady.

  “Thank you.”

  “Welcome, little sister.”

  She’d’ve smiled if she had one ounce of good humor in her anywhere. She did give him a nod.

  “We need to keep at least two people with him so he doesn’t roll off. I don’t want him up in his room yet. And I don’t want his left arm to move. We’ll have to splint it somehow. This hard surface is a better place for him until he regains consciousness. And besides, I can keep an eye on him better here. Hopefully only for a couple of hours. We can probably boot him off there in time for supper.”

  Wyatt was lifted above the messy table. A new cloth was put down, and they returned him to lying on it. Cheyenne straightened away from Wyatt, once he was settled again. “How do you know all this, Molly?”

  Shaking her head, Molly said, “Learned in a hard school. A doctor should know more, maybe have medicine I don’t, but it seems I’m all you have. That’s how it was when I was back in Kansas, too. So I learned.”

  Cheyenne pulled a chair over to the table. Win sat down on the other side of Wyatt. Molly wanted to protest, afraid the two women weren’t strong enough if Wyatt got to thrashing. Before she could speak, Kevin sat by Win, and Falcon sat at Cheyenne’s side.

  Molly gave her back a few minutes to stop jabbing at her, then she began cleaning her ruined kitchen.

  A woman’s work was never done around here.

  “Now tell us who shot him,” Win said.

  Falcon and Cheyenne exchanged a furious look and started talking.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Wyatt had never in his life lain down while the sun was still up.

  If his ma could be believed, though in this she might’ve been exaggerating, he’d given up napping before the age of two, before the age Wyatt could remember, so his memory of naps, or the lack thereof, fit what he knew of himself.

  And yet here he was, waking up from a nap while golden sunlight streamed through the windows.

  Worse yet, surrounded by people who weren’t napping but were instead talking endlessly, or so it seemed to his tired ears.

  He needed to get up and slip outside to get to work. To that end, he moved.

  The pain came roaring to life along with the memory of what was going on.

  “I’ve been shot?” The words slurred, but they came out well enough.

  The whole room fell silent and whirled to look at him. He thought they should have been looking at him already, considering the bullet he’d taken.

  He remembered it all. Not who’d shot him. The bullet came from . . . from . . . behind him. He’d heard something. Thought it might be Cheyenne. He’d turned, and the bullet had struck. He hadn’t seen anyone though. He’d been shot by someone under cover.

  The cowardly, evil work of a rabid skunk, and whoever’d done it needed to be put down just like they’d do with the skunk.

  Except, of course, the skunk would’ve only done it because he was sick and out of his head. Whoever had hidden themselves and taken that carefully aimed shot had no such excuse beyond evil.

  “Wyatt, you’re awake!” Cheyenne was at his side in seconds. She rested a firm hand on his upper arm and squeezed, very gently, but he saw her pleasure and worry.

  Cheyenne and Win, his childhood tormenters. And he’d tormented them right back. His grown-up friends and family, yes even Win. A sister of the heart and now, married to his brother Kevin, a sister in fact.

  Falcon and Kevin looked at him from behind Cheyenne, their eyes a match for their concern and relief.

  Then Molly came over and somehow, without saying a word or laying hands on anyone, shoved them all back. She slid an arm behind his head, met his eyes, and said, “Drink some water. You’ve lost a lot of blood, and you’ll need plenty to drink.”

  Lost a lot of blood sounded serious.

  “How bad is it?” He realized he couldn’t move his left arm. Not an inch. He glanced down and saw it strapped to his body by someone who was serious about tying him up.

  For all that he was surrounded, it was Molly he asked and who answered, the rest of them letting her take charge.

  “You’ve been shot in the chest. The bullet was through and through. It didn’t hit anything vital, your heart or lungs. It may have broken your collarbone, only I think the fall off your horse did it because the wound is lower, and the bone seems to be snapped clean, not fragmented like a gunshot. It’s going to take time for it to heal. We kept you down in the kitchen—”

  “I’m in the kitchen?”

  Molly nodded. “You’re on the kitchen table.”

  “Can I get up to my room?”

  “In a little bit.” She gave him a kindly smile. “We’ll need to clear the table before supper, so you’ll have to move.”

  That made him smile back, or at least he thought he did. If his thoughts didn’t quite reach his lips, it was because he felt like he’d been run over by a stampeding herd of wild mustangs.

  “D-did you doctor me, Molly? Like you did Win?”

  “Yes. I’m a schoolteacher by training, but I think I could have a solid career as a doctor, considering the need in this town.”

  “It’s mostly just the need here on the RHR. You can be our doctor. You already are.” A stab of pain almost lifted his head off his shoulders.

  Then his eyes fluttered closed even though he had no intention of taking another nap.

  He heard Molly’s voice in the distance, added to a few others. Cheyenne, maybe. But it was such a muddle he didn’t even try to figure out what they’d said. He just wished they’d be quiet so he could sleep. Yep, with the sun up and everything.

  “He’s passed out again.” Cheyenne reached for his good shoulder. Molly grabbed her wrist before she could try to wake Wyatt up.

&
nbsp; “Let him rest.”

  Cheyenne yanked against Molly’s grip. Suddenly furious with her for denying her more time with her brother.

  Falcon’s arm came around her waist and lifted her off her feet, swinging her around. “Calm down,” he said, quietly, into her right ear. “I know you’re worried sick. I know you love him. And I know Molly’s right. You know it, too.”

  Gritting her teeth, Cheyenne resisted the urge to fight, to take out her terror on all of them.

  Because she did know Molly was right. Falcon was right. It was a fool’s move to wake up a sick man. To shake an injured man. But for one moment she’d been desperate to see those bright eyes, the flashing sparks of gold in the brown.

  She quit struggling and patted Falcon’s strong arm around her belly. “I know you’re right. Let me go.”

  He did, but he stayed where he was.

  Almost as if he was blocking her way to Wyatt.

  Almost as if he didn’t trust her.

  Almost as if he knew her pretty well.

  “Uh-oh.” Falcon’s eyes went wide. He said a single word. “Ralston.”

  The crazy faded from Cheyenne’s eyes, and she winced. “We left him out there, tied up.”

  Falcon looked around the room. “We need to decide right here, right now, no one goes out alone again. From now on, we take a herd of cowpokes with us. Plenty of folks to return fire. These fools are vicious cowards. It’s a thread through the whole business, shooting from cover, picking off people with their backs turned. We should’ve never let Wyatt go haring off alone but, well, but who’d’a thunk a woman’d do such a thing?”

  Falcon shook his head and looked at Cheyenne. He felt so guilty for letting Wyatt ride off after Mrs. Hobart alone. He saw the regret in Cheyenne’s eyes to match his. “I know Cheyenne here is a tough, knowing woman. It shames me to think I didn’t worry enough about another one.”

  “There’s a chance it wasn’t Mrs. Hobart.”

  All eyes turned to Win.

  “Did you know her at all?” Kevin asked.

  With a shrug, Win said, “I’ve met her, of course. I wouldn’t say I knew her really, not personally. She was a good cook. She kept the house tidy.”