Outlaw Hearts Page 4

  She went into the main room to get her father’s doctor bag. “Why are you doing this, Miranda?” she muttered to herself. “Just let him die.” Wouldn’t society be better off? That was what Sheriff McCleave had said. Still, her Christian upbringing had taught her that every man had value, and she reasoned there had to be a reason why this man had led the life he led. Why had he shot his father, if indeed that was true? What was the whole story? How old had he been? She could not forget the strange sadness in his voice when he had told the clerk this morning that it took more than a war to make a man lead a lawless life. Had it been only this morning? It seemed like such a long, long time ago.

  She set the doctor bag on the table and quickly built a fire in the stone fireplace at the kitchen end of the cabin. She hung a kettle of water on the pothook to heat, then grabbed more towels and the doctor bag and went back into the bedroom. She watched Jake Harkner while the water heated. Had God led him here deliberately? Was she supposed to help him? How ironic that this man had invaded her life twice today. To her it seemed a kind of sign, that for some strange reason he was supposed to be a part of her life, that there was some purpose for his being here. She rolled her eyes then at the ridiculous thought.

  She took a bottle of laudanum from the bag and uncorked it, again leaning over Harkner and raising his head slightly. “Try to drink some of this,” she said. “It will help kill the pain. I’ve got to try to get out the bullet, Mr. Harkner. I doubt that it went very deep. It was a small gun I used, and the bullet had to go through your woolen jacket first.”

  “San…tana,” he muttered. “I tried…sorry…Pa. Pa!”

  The word “Pa” was spoken with a hint of utter despair. Miranda found herself feeling a little sorry for him, then chastised herself for such feelings. If the man wasn’t in such a state, you’d probably be dead by now, she told herself. Again she felt like a fool for wanting to help him, yet could not bring herself to let him just lie there in pain. She shoved the slim neck of the bottle into his mouth and poured. Jake swallowed, coughed and sputtered. “No, Pa,” he murmured. “Stay…away. Don’t…make me drink it!” His eyes squinted up and he pressed his lips tight when Miranda took the bottle away. He let out a whimper then that sounded more like a child than a man.

  Miranda stepped back in astonishment. His whole body shuddered, then he suddenly lay quiet again. He had mentioned his father twice, the first time with such utter pain, this time with an almost pitiful, childlike pleading. She reminded herself that time was important now. The laudanum would take effect quickly. She went back into the main room and rummaged through a supply cabinet until she found some rope. She went back into the bedroom and used the rope to tie Jake’s wrists and ankles to the sturdy log bedposts, afraid that when she started cutting into him he would thrash around and make her hurt him more—or perhaps he would come awake and try to grab her.

  “As soon as this is over and I see you don’t have a fever, I’ll give you a bath and a shave,” she said as she fastened the ropes tightly. “You’ll feel a lot better then. I don’t mean you any more harm, Mr. Harkner.” She had no idea if he heard her. She only knew she had to keep talking to keep up her own courage. She had seen her father remove bullets a couple of times, but she had no real experience of her own. All she knew to do was to dig with a knife, or perhaps she would have to reach inside the wound with her fingers to find the bullet. Somehow it had to come out.

  She went back to the fireplace to find the water was finally hot. She poured some into a pan and brought it back into the bedroom, setting it on a small table beside the bed. She then retrieved a bottle of whiskey from her pantry, something her father always kept around for medicinal purposes only, for he had not been a drinking man himself. She thought about the time Wes had gotten into the whiskey, how there had been times when she and her father had come home from church to find her brother drunk and acting silly. It had been a source of heated arguments between her brother and their father, and one of the reasons Wes had left—so that he would be free to do as he pleased, to drink and smoke and gamble and do all the things his father hated.

  She put aside those thoughts and doused Jake’s wound with the whiskey. His body jerked, but his eyes did not open. She poured more whiskey over her own hands and her father’s surgical knife. She drew a deep breath then and said a quick prayer. “Heavenly Father, if you meant for me to do this, then help me do it right.”

  Fighting to keep her hands steady, she began digging. Jake’s body stiffened, and a pitiful groan exited his lips, but he did not thrash about. Miranda fought tears as she dug deeper and more sickening groans welled up from what seemed the very depths of the man. She swallowed, then reached inside the wound with her fingers, feeling around until she touched what she thought must be the bullet.

  “Please let it be,” she whispered. She got hold of the object between two fingers and pulled, breathing a sigh of relief when she retrieved the bullet and held it up to look at it. She smiled with great delight, an almost victorious feeling coming over her then as she dropped the bullet onto the small table beside the bed.

  She wet a cloth with the hot water and began washing around the wound to get rid of as much fresh and dried blood as possible. She poured more whiskey over it, then threaded some catgut into her father’s stitching needle. She soaked some gauze with whiskey and ran it over the catgut, then doused the wound again with the same whiskey before beginning to stitch up the hole.

  Doctors were not sure yet of the reasons, but it seemed that if wounds were cleaned with pure alcohol, or at least whiskey, infection, which could kill a person from even a simple wound, could often be avoided. When her father left the medical profession, there had been heated debates going on at the time over how to prevent infection. She wondered how those debates had turned out. Her father had always been adamant that wounds must be washed or kept clean with alcohol.

  She hoped she had done the right thing. It would be a shame now, after all her good work, if Jake Harkner should die from infection. Bad as he was, she would be very disappointed if that happened. It felt good to do what she had just done. She thought how proud her father would be, and how she had often wished women were more accepted into the medical profession. She would have liked being a doctor. There was no reason why a woman couldn’t do this as well as any man.

  She finished the stitches, then untied Jake’s wrists and ankles and managed to get his arms out of his long johns so she could pull the top of them down under his hips. Then she wrapped the wound, reaching under his hard, heavy body over and over to bring the gauze around and then tie it. She decided then that all his clothes needed washing, and realized the man could have another kind of accident while lying there unconscious. She pulled the long johns all the way off him and tossed them to the floor, then wrapped a towel around his privates and between his legs, feeling a little embarrassed, but knowing it had to be done. Any nurse in a hospital would have done the same. When it came to medicine, there was no room for modesty.

  “I’ll give you a good bath when I’m sure you’re all right otherwise,” she told him. There came no response. She removed her prize quilt from the bed, glad to see he had gotten no blood on it. She replaced it with an older blanket and covered him, but his legs were so long that his feet hung over the end of the bed. As she drew the blanket up to his neck, she noticed another scar at his left shoulder, a sign of stitches at his right ribs, and as she drew the covers to his neck, a strange, wide scar at the right side of his neck.

  She dipped some gauze into the hot water then and began washing the wound at the side of Jake’s head, noting that the blow of Luke Putnam’s rifle had left a deep gash from just in front of Jake’s left ear across his left cheekbone. An ugly blue swelling surrounded the cut. She cleaned it as best she could and dabbed at it with more whiskey. “I’m afraid you’re going to have another scar here,” she said.

  She jumped back then when Jake’s eyes s
uddenly flew open. He stared at her a moment, his dark eyes looking glassy and blank. “Santana?” he muttered. His eyes closed again. Miranda put a hand to her chest and breathed deeply to stop her sudden shaking. Was she crazy to do what she had just done? She clenched her fists, forcing herself to stay calm. The man certainly couldn’t do her any harm tonight, and he didn’t even know where his guns were. She gathered the doctor bag and utensils and carried them out to the table, then retrieved the pan of hot water. She washed the surgeon’s knife and the stitching needle and put them back into the bag. She put away the whiskey and the laudanum, and a sudden sense of utter exhaustion overcame her then. She realized that nearly every part of her body ached. It had been the longest, most trying day of her life, one that was not just a physical drain but an emotional one. She realized there was nothing more she could do for Jake Harkner tonight, and what she would do with him after this would have to be decided in the morning.

  She went back into the bedroom to get her rifle. The man still lay quietly resting. She hoped it was more of a sleep now than unconsciousness. She took the rifle and set it over near her father’s cot in the main room. She stoked up the fire against what she knew would be a chilly night in spite of the warm day. She straightened then, rubbing her hands at her aching lower back. She longed to just lie down now, but she remembered the poor draft horses were still in harness. She lit one lantern and set it on the table, then lit another and carried it outside.

  It was dark now, which made everything seem more frightening. She hung the lantern in the shed and began the arduous task of removing the harness from the horses, a job difficult for most men and doubly difficult for her small arms, especially tonight, when her whole body screamed from a day of emotional upheaval and a tenseness that brought physical pain. The only thing that gave her the strength for this was realizing how miserable the poor, loyal horses would be if she left them in harness all night.

  She finally managed to free them and herd them into their own stalls in the shed, giving each of them some oats. Feeling sorry for Jake Harkner’s buckskin, she removed the gear and saddle from it also, hanging everything over the wall of the stall. She took his rifle and shotgun and hid them behind some bales of hay in the corner, deciding that at least if Harkner came to, he wouldn’t be able to find his guns and use them on her.

  Suddenly she realized that in her concern for the horses, she had left her own rifle inside the house. She quickly took down the lantern and closed the shed doors, then hurried back to the cabin to find everything the same. She went into the bedroom to check on Jake once more, only to find he had not moved. His breathing was deep and rhythmic, and she thought his forehead already felt a little cooler.

  She picked up his clothes and carried them into the main room, where she took down a wooden laundry tub and set it near the fire. She threw his clothes into the tub, poured hot water over them and added some lye soap, figuring the clothes needed a good soaking. She would scrub them and hang them out in the morning. At least that would leave the man even more helpless for the time being—not only would he not have his guns, but he wouldn’t even have any clothes to put on!

  Miranda stretched and arched her back in an aching weariness. There was nothing left to do now but wait for morning. She turned down the lantern. She could think of nothing more wonderful now than to sleep, but she decided not to undress. Lord knew what Jake Harkner would do if he did come around, and she had better be ready. She turned back the covers of her father’s cot and lay down, ankle-high shoes and all, then pulled the covers over her. Miranda positioned the rifle beside her in such a way that she could easily raise it and fire.

  Fire? After doing what she considered a damn good job of treating a man’s bullet wound, could she turn around and shoot him if he came out of that bedroom and threatened her? Had she gone through all this and saved the man just to go and get the law tomorrow so they could come and hang him? Or had she unconsciously saved the man just so she could collect five thousand dollars for him instead of three thousand?

  No, she knew without a doubt that she hadn’t been thinking about the money at all, and deep inside she knew it would be difficult for her to turn and hand Jake Harkner over to the law. With those two things ruled out, what else was she to do, let him ride off scot-free to rob and kill and rape again?

  She couldn’t say why she had done what she did, why she had shot him in the first place, or why she decided to help him. Now she had no idea what she should do about Jake Harkner tomorrow. She closed her eyes and tried to make herself sleep, realizing the much-needed rest was not going to come easily. It had been a long day. It was going to be an even longer night.

  Three

  Miranda saw the flash of a gun. Was it the one she was holding, or someone else’s? Everyone moved slowly. A stranger turned to look at her, then reached for her. She tried to run, but her feet felt bolted to the floor. The stranger came closer. He was bleeding everywhere. He shoved a barrel out of the way to get to her, and it made a scraping sound.

  It was that sound that woke her from the nightmare. She gasped and sat up, struggling to collect her thoughts as bright sunshine poured through a back window and into the main room through the bedroom doorway. The doorway! She turned to see the curtain pushed aside, and only a few feet away stood Jake Harkner, grasping the back of a chair.

  Miranda grabbed up her rifle and leaped from the cot, blinking sleepy eyes in order to see better. The dream, the sound that had awakened her, the leap from her bed, had all happened in a matter of seconds. Now she knew where the sound had come from. Jake Harkner had managed to get out of bed and must have scraped the chair on the floor when he grasped it for support. Now he stood there staring at her, and she was staring back, both startled, both confused, neither saying a word. She could see Jake’s body shivering, and he was breathing deeply from pain. Blood stained the gauze she had wrapped around his middle, and with his free hand he held a towel in front of his privates.

  “You’d best get back in that bed,” she told him, trying to sound authoritative.

  “You!” he said in a near growl. “You’re the lady—”

  “I’m the lady who shot you yesterday. And if you came here to kill me, your plan failed! My bullet nearly put an end to you before you could do the same to me.”

  He looked around the room, back at her. “I don’t understand… You live here?”

  “That’s right.” Miranda, most of her hair now hanging free of its once-neat bun from her tossing through a restless night’s sleep, kept the gun steady. “How did you find out? You rode out of town before you could have known.”

  Jake blinked and shook his head, wondering if he was just having a bad dream. “I didn’t know. I just…rode till I found someplace…where I could hole up. I was going to ask…whoever lived here to—” He looked down at himself, realizing he was standing naked in front of this slip of a woman, except for the towel he managed to keep in front of himself. “Where in hell are my guns?”

  “You won’t be needing them.” Miranda swallowed as she watched an angry fire rise into his dark eyes.

  “Where are my guns, damn it! Turn them over, or I’ll come over there and take the one you’re holding!”

  “Will you?” Miranda noticed how pale he was. “My bet is you can’t even walk across this room. If you want this gun, come and get it.”

  He let out a sigh of frustration. “Look, lady…I didn’t come here…to kill you. I didn’t even know…this was…your place. It’s just a goddamn, cruel twist of fate, but then that’s my…kind of luck. Now give me my guns…and I’ll get dressed…and get out of here. That’s all I want.” He looked around the room again like a caged animal. “Does the law know…I’m here? Is there anybody else here? A pa? A husband?”

  “Have you forgotten what that clerk told you yesterday in the store? My father was shot by marauding outlaws, men like you!” She lowered the rifle just a little. “
The law doesn’t know you’re here. No one does—yet. By the time I found you last night, it was too dark for me to go for help.”

  Jake looked down at himself again, still trying to wade through the confusion in his mind. “I don’t understand. You shot me…but you…it looks like you tried to fix me up.” He raised his eyes to study her again. “Why? You…could have just let me lie there and die and…collected your three thousand dollars.”

  “Unlike you, Mr. Harkner, I don’t consider money more important than a human life, even the life of someone like you.”

  Jake stared at the fragile woman who looked at that moment very capable of using the rifle. She stood there with frazzled hair, wrinkled dress, tired eyes—the rifle looking almost too big for her to handle. He wondered how long she would be able to stand there holding it in a shooting position before her slender arms got too tired to hold it up. If he were not so confused and in so much pain, the sight of her would be humorous. Ordinarily, he would laugh at something like this and find a way to lunge at the puny female and get the gun away from her, but she had him at a disadvantage, and she knew it. Damn woman. How in hell did this annoying female manage to keep moving into his path and messing up his plans?

  “Nobody values my life, lady. I know…why you saved me. You want…the extra two thousand dollars…I’m worth alive. Well, it won’t…work, because…I’m getting dressed and getting…out of here.” Why in hell did he feel so weak? He had to be strong, had to be firm with this woman. She was here alone. She ought to be easy to scare. “You won’t…use that rifle on me. Not after going to…all this trouble of…fixing me up. Now you just…tell me where my guns are…my clothes. I won’t…hurt you unless you force me to. I just want…to get out of here…and be on my way.”