Wildfire in His Arms (28 page)

She rode a little ahead of Degan so she could look back at him, but she couldn't tell where he'd been wounded. She saw no expression of pain on his face, either. Would a man who never showed his feelings show that he was in pain? He hadn't put his jacket back on and his vest was made of black silk. If blood was on it, she might not see it at a glance.

So she reined up and simply asked him, “How bad are you hurt?”

“Not so bad that I can't ride.”

That should have reassured her. It didn't, not when she'd been hoping he hadn't been shot at all. “Stop and let me have a look.”

“No.” A moment later he added, “If I get off this horse, I might not get back on.”

That meant he was badly hurt. A debilitating wave of fear washed over her.

“We should go back to that ranch house. It will only take a few minutes. They've got to have a bed in there. You need a bed!”

“No, I need to get to town. So stop taxing me with your prattle and ride.”

He took off ahead of her at a gallop. If he was so hell-bent on getting to town, then he knew he was hurt bad enough to need a doctor. But town was more than a day's ride away. Could he make it that far? Not if he was still bleeding.

When he slowed down again, he was no longer sitting quite so erect in the saddle. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him sway a little.

“You're not going to faint, are you?” she demanded sharply. He gave her a nasty look, so she quickly said, “I meant pass out.”

“If I do, you can find your way back to town, right?”

“Yeah, but I'm not leaving you alone out here, so don't even—”

“You may not have a choice.”

Panic was rising up in her. He couldn't be seriously wounded. Not Degan. What could
she
do to help him? She'd never had to deal with anything like a bullet wound before, just scrapes and bruises, and even then she'd had her grandmother's full arsenal of salves and cure-alls at her disposal. And Gran's knowledge. Gran knew how to fix anything!

“That trapper Artemus Gains can help,” she said desperately. “He can take the bullet out of you. He might even have some sort of medicine for emergencies, something to ease the pain at least.”

“Who says I'm in pain?”

“Aren't you?”

“Not anymore.”

She didn't know if that was good news or really bad news. But she guessed they were no more than an hour's ride from the trapper's cabin, which was on the way to town. Surely Degan could make it that far. Surely he'd agree to stop there. But thirty minutes later he swayed again, this time so far to the side she was afraid he'd already passed out.

“Degan!”

“What?” he growled.

“I thought you—never mind.”

“Start prattling again, Max.”

“We're almost to that cabin. Don't fall off your horse, damnit!”

She asked him a dozen inane questions, anything that would require an answer from him, and snapped at him when he didn't give one fast enough. Every time he swayed to the left or the right now, her heart leapt. She wouldn't be able to stop him from falling, but she knew if he did, he could end up hurting himself even more.

Frantically she said, “Hold on, Degan. The cabin is in sight now. Just a little farther, then you can faint all you want to.”

“I don't—faint.”

He stayed on his horse long enough to reach the cabin. But by then he was leaning over the palomino's neck. Max dismounted quickly and yelled, “Mr. Gains! I could use some help out here!”

But Jackson Bouchard opened the door. He didn't ask what had happened, just went straight to Degan, got him off the horse, and lugged him into the cabin and dropped him on the trapper's bed.

Degan made what sounded like a groan. Max pushed Jackson away and hissed at him, “You couldn't be gentle about it?”

Jackson shrugged. “He was about to—he's already passed out.”

She peered at Degan. Jackson was right. Degan had lost consciousness. She could see the blood now. The left side of his vest and his pants were soaked in it. She grabbed one of Artemus's blankets and tucked it underneath Degan to absorb the blood.

When she turned, Jackson was handing her a small pouch. “For the wound. An old Indian recipe from my grandmother. She was one of two women my grandfather traded for when he came down from Canada.”

“I'm not interested in your family history.”

“It draws out poisons.”

“Degan's not poisoned.”

He shrugged again. “She said it helps infections, too.”

Max didn't take it. She didn't trust Jackson. She was furious at him, knowing that Degan might not be wounded right now if this man had stayed to help instead of running off like a coward.

“Where's the trapper?”

Jackson tossed the pouch on the foot of the narrow bed. “Artie took off for town as soon as I returned. He'll probably be gone a week or more.”

She nodded toward the door. “You can take off, too. I'll watch his place for him.”

“I promised—”

She drew her gun on him. “Get. Your friends are dead.”

He picked up his gear. “They weren't my friends.”

“But you were working for them, weren't you.” She didn't phrase it as a question.

He shrugged once more. “They paid good for information. Too good not to take it—at first. But then they killed someone in one of those train robberies. After that, I tried to end the arrangement, but Nolan said they'd hunt me down.”

“There was a reward. Why didn't you just lead the law to them?”

“Because they said they'd take me down with them. I didn't want to end up on the run for doing a stupid thing just because I needed the money.”

She raised a brow. “So you hoped Degan would solve that problem for you?”

“Didn't he?”

“You should have helped.”

“I don't kill people, good or bad. Never have, never will.”

“What about saving them? He needs a doctor. Is there one closer than Bismarck?”

“No, and he won't last long enough for the Bismarck doc to get here, if the doc's even in town.”

She shouldn't have bothered to ask when the man couldn't be trusted. “Ride out. Your secret is safe with me. And Degan was only after Willie Nolan, so he won't care.”

“Come with me?”

She cocked her gun. He closed the door on the way out.

“Y
OU GUT ANIMALS, YOU
can do this.”

Degan startled her. She didn't realize he'd regained consciousness. She wished he hadn't. She'd been standing next to him frozen in place with her knife in hand, staring at the wound, which was still bleeding. It was on the left side of his waist, right above the belt line. She was going to have to dig the bullet out of him. She couldn't just leave it in there. Actually, she'd started to think she could. If she could just get the bleeding to stop, maybe she could still get him to a doctor in Bismarck.

Getting Degan's shirt off him had taken nearly ten minutes because he was dead weight. She'd had to pull it up beneath him to his shoulders so she could then yank it off his arms. That must have woken him, although he'd made no sound or said anything until now.

Max slowly met his eyes. They were half-closed but still staring at her. “I—I've never done this before,” she warned him.

“I have every confidence that you'll do fine.”

He did? Why didn't she?

She marched outside, gathered their saddlebags and his valise, and brought them into the cabin. She found Degan's bottle of whiskey. It was only half-full.

She shoved the bottle at him. “Drink this.”

“I don't need it.”

“But I need you to drink it. If you start yelling at me, I might slip and gut you for real.”

He still didn't reach for the bottle. “Pour some of that on the blade first, and on the wound, then I'll drink some.” But before she got out the door, he added, “And wash your hands.”

That's what she was going outside to do. It sounded as if he knew more about removing bullets than she did. When she came back in, she poured a little whiskey over the hole on his left side. He merely hissed softly, but it still felt as if a rough board had just scraped over her nerves. She took a swig of the whiskey herself before she handed it to him again. Wincing, he leaned up and took the bottle this time and gulped down a good amount of whiskey.

“Can you see the bullet?” he asked.

She peered at his wound and shook her head. “Too much blood.”

“Find it with your finger.”

“Hell no!”

“Max.”

She sighed. She raised her index finger, and letting it hover over the bullet hole, she squeezed her eyes shut.

“You're making me feel less confident about you.”

He was joking. He had to be joking. “I'm making sure nothing distracts me,” she growled.

She inserted her finger into the hole. One knuckle, two knuckles. She was afraid she was going to have to try again with a longer finger when she finally felt it. Degan made no sound, but then she'd been exceedingly careful to follow the path of the hole. She removed her finger and wiped it on one of Degan's clean handkerchiefs and took up the blade that she'd laid on his chest.

“Now would be a good time for you to pass out again.”

His eyes were closed but he said, “I'd tell you to hurry up and get this over with, but—”

“But I'd tell you to shut up.”

“Something like that.”

“
Please
don't yell.” She pressed the knife into him.

The wound wasn't shallow. Because she was being as careful as she could be, it took her forever to get the knife in position to start easing the bullet out of him. And then the bullet kept slipping! She was sweating profusely by the time she got it out, even though Degan hadn't made another sound. She glanced at his face to see why and saw that he'd been fortunate enough to pass out again.
Now
she needed to hurry to sew him up while he was out.

She tore through his belongings. He had to have a needle and thread in one of his bags. As fastidious as he was, he'd want to fix any loose buttons or tears in his clothing. So she reasoned, but she didn't find anything. She went through every drawer and container the trapper had, too, but there weren't many. The cabin was small and sparsely furnished with just the narrow bed, one chair at a small table, one cupboard with supplies filling the shelves, and a chest containing both the trapper's clothes and his bedding. He didn't have a needle either. She knew of only one other way to close the wound and stop the bleeding.

She got a fire going in the fireplace and stuck her widest dagger in the fire—and closed her eyes. She didn't know how long to leave it in the fire or how long to press it against the wound once it was hot. She couldn't ask Degan because he'd passed out. But that was a blessing for him, if not for her.

While the blade heated, she ripped up one of Artemus's clean sheets for bandages. She wouldn't be able to replace it. Maybe he wouldn't notice until they were gone. She also got the rest of Degan's clothes off so he'd be comfortable. She would have left him his smallclothes, but the blood had seeped through his pants. She stared up at the ceiling until she got a sheet draped over him. Tempted as she was to give him a full look, she didn't dare get distracted until she was finished with his wound.

She took Degan's bloody clothes outside, put them in a bucket, and pumped water from the well into it so the clothes could soak. She was surprised the trapper had even dug himself a well when a small pond was nearby. But she supposed he hunted by the pond because animals went there to drink, and he wouldn't want his scent all over the place to make them wary. She'd have to test that theory before sundown.

She was delaying a task she didn't want to do, but she knew she had to do it. The blade had to be hot enough by now. She wrapped one of her shirts around her hand before she lifted the dagger out of the fire. It had a leather handle, but metal was underneath it, so it might be hot.

The handle wasn't hot, but she still rushed to the bed and pressed the hot blade against Degan's wound. The sizzling sound and the smell of burning flesh and blood made her gag. Degan's eyes opened wide, and for the barest moment he started to sit up, but then he dropped back, passing out again, thank God. Unable to stand the smell any longer, Max pulled the blade away and ran outside to puke. She prayed that she'd done the right thing and left the blade on Degan long enough to cauterize his wound. If she had to do that again, she would die.