Dorothy Garlock (28 page)

The tinhorn doctor had heard about him and judged him unworthy of a handshake.
To hell with him.
How the hell did he know what he would have done under the same circumstances? Smith backed away and jerked his head toward the house. When he spoke, he clipped his words and his voice was tinged with hostility.

“Go on in. Upstairs. The first door on the left.”

Smith made no move to lead the way.

The doctor appeared to be surprised by Smith’s sudden coldness. The silence between them became awkward. He looked up at the big house, then back to Smith.

“This is quite a place.”

“Yeah. Ain’t it?” Smith never took his cold gaze from the doctor’s face. “Give your instructions to Miss Hammer. When you finish, your pay will be on the kitchen table.”

John Hendricks, usually the most patient of men, felt a sharp prickle of irritation that goaded him to say:

“You don’t know my fee.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be enough.”

“Why should I be worried?”

The doctor waited for a reply and when none came, he lifted a brow and headed for the house. He had been warned that Smith Bowman was as touchy as a snake with a knot in its tail. He must have said something to get his dander up. Damned if he knew what it was and damned if he cared.

John Hendricks had no more than hit town when he had heard about Eastwood Ranch and the woman who lived there. He had been told that she hadn’t left the house since her husband had been killed. Bowman, the man’s foster son, had been with him at the time. He hadn’t paid enough attention to get all the details straight; but after meeting Bowman and seeing this place, it was a story he’d like to hear.

18

S
uffering the woman’s verbal abuse in silence, Willa hurried to make Maud ready for the doctor.

When the doctor came in, he listened attentively as Willa explained Maud’s injury. Maud resisted every move he made to examine her, and the words she used to berate him embarrassed Willa to the extent that she could not look at the man, although he didn’t seem to be the least bit disturbed by the obscenities coming from the elderly woman.

“Give her another dose of laudanum,” he said after Maud began to get hysterical and thrash about on the bed. “How much has she had?”

“This much.” Willa held up the small vial. “It was full at noon yesterday.”

“This is the last she’ll get,” he said firmly. “But she must be relaxed while I set her leg.”

While waiting for the laudanum to take effect, he asked Willa to make up a pot of thick starch.

“You’ll find starch as well as a bag of powdered glue in the back of my buggy. Add a cup of the glue powder to the starch after it has cooled.”

Willa tore strips from sheets and rolled them into bandages while she waited for the water to heat. She then located a soft flannel nightgown to tear and use as padding between Maud’s leg and the starch and glue cast.

“Whoever put the leg in the splints did a good job,” the doctor said, while wrapping the flannel strips around Maud’s leg. “The ends of the bones were placed nicely together.”

“Mr. Bowman did it. Because we thought her hip was broken too, we were very careful when we lifted her to the board to bring her up here to her bed.”

“She’s lucky. It isn’t broken. She wrenched it. Only rest and time will heal it. She’ll not be an easy patient to take care of, but I guess you’ve already discovered that.”

“She has a very colorful vocabulary,” Willa said with a half smile. “I don’t mind. She’s frightened and hides her feelings behind her bluster.”

The doctor looked up. His sharp brown eyes met Willa’s.

“Are you kinfolk?”

“No. Heavens, no. I’m . . . I’m just passing through on my way to Sheridan and happened to be here yesterday shortly after she fell.”

After that the doctor worked silently, wrapping the limb with the strips of cloth. He applied the starch and glue mixture with his hands after each layer of cloth until Maud’s leg was encased in a thick bandage.

“It will take about twelve hours for this to dry,” he said, washing his hands in the china bowl. “She must not move.”

“Her fever ran high last night. I sponged her to bring it down.”

Doctor Hendricks dried his hands. Miss Hammer was worn out although she tried not to show it. The dark circles beneath her beautiful blue eyes and the tired lines around her mouth told him it had been days since she’d had sufficient rest. He
had heard her stomach growl. That told him that she hadn’t taken the time to eat.

“Have you had nursing experience?”

“Some.”

“I thought so. You appear to be handy in the sickroom.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll leave some quinine. Give her one powder mixed in water every four hours.”

“That’s for the fever. What about the pain?”

“She can have laudanum no more than twice a week or she’ll become addicted. There’s not much I can give her for the pain. She’ll have to tough it out for a few days.” He looked down at Maud. “She needs some good food in her. A breeze would blow her away.”

“She’s lived in this house by herself for six years. I don’t think she did much cooking.”

“Are you staying with her until she’s on her feet?”

“Mr. Bowman seems to be in charge here. He asked me to stay and take care of her.”

The doctor looked long and carefully at the woman standing beside the bed. Her back was straight in spite of the fact that she was so tired she was about to drop. The dress she wore was too big for her and had seen better days. She wore no stockings. It was plain to him that she had fallen on hard times. What was her connection with Bowman?

“You could use a rest and I could use a cup of coffee. Mrs. Eastwood will sleep for two or three hours.”

“I don’t know if I should leave her alone.” The thought of Jo Bell standing beside Maud’s bed flashed through Willa’s mind. Another thought followed immediately. The girl wouldn’t do anything while the doctor was here. Besides, the malice she saw on Jo Bell’s face could have been her imagination.

“She’ll be all right.” Doctor Hendricks snapped his bag
shut and set it up on the bureau. “I’ll stay until she wakes. I want to talk to her again.”

“Well . . .” Willa smiled. “She’s quite . . . salty, as my stepfather used to say.”

“A tough old bird.” The doctor flashed her a grin and followed her out of the room and down the stairs.

If he noticed the unkempt condition of the house he never let on. Willa glanced at him; he seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.

John Hendricks had suddenly and unexpectedly felt the stab of loneliness and pain tearing at his insides again.

Bertha!

Bertha had died horribly and alone, attacked while he was away tending a patient. Bertha, who was beautiful and tender and thoughtful, who could not bear to see anything suffer, had died in their Missouri home at the hands of a man crazed with pain in his head.

Dr. Hendricks had stayed in Missouri for as long as he could, trying to live with the awful rage that burned within him. Finally he had turned his face toward the west. Bertha was gone, and the thought of life without her, even after two years, was at times almost more than he could cope with.

This silent, proud, shabbily dressed woman reminded him of his Bertha in the way she moved and quickly obeyed his instructions. Bertha’s hands had been almost an extension of his own hands. They had worked as a team. Somehow he thought it could be so with this woman, but she or no other woman would ever take Bertha’s place in his heart.

Willa was not sure if she felt relief or irritation that Jo Bell was not in the kitchen when they reached it. Coffee was simmering on the stove, put there, she was sure, by Charlie or Smith. The doctor should be offered a meal, but Willa wasn’t sure that it was her place to do so.

Charlie came in as she carried the coffee cups to the table. He placed a small kettle on the cookstove before he spoke.

“Howdy, sir. I’m Charlie Frank.” The boy stepped forward and shook the doctor’s hand. “Smith said for ya to come on down to the cookhouse for the noonin’.”

“Thank you. Do I have time to finish my coffee?”

“Shucks, yes. Billy’ll keep it hot.”

“I hope you brought a meal for the lady. She could use one.”

“Oh, Lordy, Willa! Ya didn’t get no breakfast, did ya? Smith’ll have my head. He tol’ me to brin’ ya some flapjacks and I done forgot.”

“Don’t worry about it. We won’t tell him.”

“There’s chicken and dumplin’s in the pot. Billy thought it’d do Aunt Maud good too.”

“Mrs. Eastwood is your aunt?”

Willa sat silently while Charlie explained. He was careful to leave out the circumstances that had brought Willa to them.

“You plan to stay on?” Dr. Hendricks asked, his curiosity pricked by the unusual condition of the house and the boy’s story.

“For a while. At least until Aunt Maud is on her feet.”

“That might be a while.”

“Charlie! Damn yore rotten hide!” Jo Bell came storming into the kitchen, her hands on her hips. She ignored the doctor and Willa and thumped her fist against her brother’s chest. “Why’d ya take Starr’s trunk outta the wagon? Them’s Starr’s things.”

Charlie grabbed his sister’s wrists and forceably backed her toward the door. He didn’t speak until they were on the porch, but his voice carried into the kitchen.

“Because I wanted to. Ain’t you got no manners? Now stop makin’ a show of yoreself. I’m takin’ the food stuff out,
too. There ain’t no use them settin’ out there spoilin’. We ain’t goin’ to use ’em.”

“Don’t strip down that wagon. I’m goin’ to Sheridan as soon as I find a man to take me.”

“Jo Bell, I’ll swear. You don’t have the brains God gave a goose. You’re not takin’ that wagon ’n’ goin’ off with the first man that comes along. Now, dammit. Listen to me.”

“That’s what ya think, ya flitter-headed ninny. I’m not stayin’ here and takin’ crumbs throwed out by that crazy old woman ’n’ kowtowin’ to Smith. I’m goin’ to Sheridan ’n’ see one of them lawyers. It’s what Papa’d done.”

“Is she giving you trouble?” Smith’s voice. “It seems I told you to stay in that room and stay away from the bunkhouse.”

“You ain’t the boss of me,” Jo Bell’s voice rose to a screech. “This ain’t yore uncle’s place. Yore just a hired hand. I ain’t doin’ what you say.”

“No?”

“Ye . . . ow. Put me down! Damn you to hell!”

Smith came through the door with Jo Bell slung over his shoulder, his arm locked about her thighs. She was kicking and beating his back with her fists. Smith crossed the room to the door leading to the hallway.

“Open it, Charlie. I told her to stay in that room, and for once in her life she’s going to do what she’s told. Stop it, you little she-cat.”

“All ya ’n’ Charlie care ’bout is that . . . slut. I hate her! I hate her!”

“Hush up!” The flat of Smith’s hand came down hard on Jo Bell’s bottom. She yelled and burst into tears.

With a half smile on his face, Charlie opened the door, waited for Smith to pass through, then followed him and his sister up the stairs.

Staring into her cup, Willa blinked rapidly. She would not cry. She would not let the embarrassing scene make her cry.

Dr. Hendricks pushed his chair back and stood. “I think I’ll amble on down to the cookhouse and get a bite to eat. You’d better eat too, Miss Hammer. Your stomach probably thinks you’ve deserted it.” He looked down and saw two tears slip from Willa’s eyes and roll down her cheeks. “You’re tired . . . and weak,” he said gently.

“I’m . . . embarrassed,” she said so low he just barely caught the words.

“Why? Do you think Bowman is abusing
her?”

“No! She’s . . . impossible to reason with.”

“Her brother seemed to approve.”

“Smith is afraid she’ll cause trouble among the men. She’s very . . . pretty.”

“Is she? I didn’t notice. Buck up, now.” He placed his hand on her shoulder. “You’ll have your hands full taking care of Mrs. Eastwood. The others can sort out their own problems.”

Willa, pale and wrung out, with a kind of downtrodden stoicism, wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. It was humiliating to sit here and be unable to control her emotions. She longed to crawl into a dark hole and cry to her heart’s content.