A Man with a Past by Mary Connealy
TWENTY-TWO
Cheyenne had a few piggin’ strings with her. She had Ralston bound hand and foot when they heard gunfire from back down the trail in the direction Wyatt had gone.
“Wyatt!” Cheyenne launched herself to her feet and sprinted down the trail to her horse.
“Either he is shooting Mrs. Hobart, or she’s shooting him.” Falcon was behind her a half step. They untied their horses and were riding down the rugged, narrow trail as fast as the horses could run.
No talk. The race was against time, not each other, but Cheyenne was in the lead, and Falcon was keeping up, just barely.
A tree branch hit Cheyenne hard enough she almost lost her seat. “Look out!”
Afraid to turn and look back because she needed to be looking ahead to know when to duck next, she heard his horse and hoped Falcon was still atop it and galloped on.
She reached the trail where they’d split off from Wyatt. Falcon came on just a horse length behind her.
He’d made it.
This trail was wider, and they went at a flat-out gallop.
Wyatt’s riderless horse came tearing up the trail straight at them.
Cheyenne’s stomach roiled.
God, please don’t let Wyatt be shot and killed. Please, God. Hold him in your hands. Protect him with a heavenly shield. Please, please, please.
Never had a prayer been torn from her heart and soul as this one was.
They’d been separated for a good stretch of time, and Wyatt had gotten down this trail a piece.
Protect him, God. Please, please, please.
Then she saw him. Flat on his back. His chest a river of blood.
Flinging herself off the horse, she skidded to her knees and touched his neck. “I feel a heartbeat. Weak but steady. He’s losing too much blood though.”
Falcon was there across from her, stripping the kerchief off his neck and folding it. Cheyenne had one, too, and tore it free. And Wyatt’s.
Falcon yanked Wyatt’s shirt open and a neat round bullet hole—high enough to have missed his heart, but not by much—bled freely.
It was as if life itself was flowing out of her brother.
Protect him, God. Please, please, please.
Falcon pressed the kerchief on the wound; gradually but relentlessly, he pressed harder and harder yet. “I’ve got the blood staunched as much as I can. I’ll lift his shoulder, and you can just feel back there under his shirt for a bullet hole.”
She pulled his shirt open farther, then slid her hand around to his back, afraid to bump him around at all. She pulled bleeding fingers away from the wound she’d found in back.
“Yep. There’s a hole in the back of his shirt, too.”
“Good, the bullet went through. I’ll hold the kerchiefs, back and front, while you figure out how to tie off a bandage. Once we get the bleeding stopped, I’m going to build a travois. Get him home that way.”
Cheyenne dragged piggin’ strings out of her pocket. “Tie it off with these. I know how to build a sledge, I think that’s what you mean by travois.”
“Two poles joined over a horse’s shoulders with the other end tied together so we can carry Wyatt?”
“Yep, I’ll get to work on it.” Her voice was dry as a bone. She had to swallow hard to shut down the tears. Tears were useless.
“Help me tie this off first. It’s a two-person job.”
She did her best, hating how her hands trembled. Once the bandage was secure, Falcon kept pressure on the wounds, and Cheyenne jumped to her feet and got to work. She found the best branches she could that were close to hand and set to work, using her horse to rig the sledge that would carry Wyatt home.
Please, God, please, please.
She drew the rigging close to Wyatt as Falcon rose from his side.
“I’m ready to move him. I’ve done all I can here.”
“It had to be Hobart.” Cheyenne got on one side of her brother. The only person in this world she truly loved and trusted.
“Probably,” Falcon said, his voice grim, his face pale with worry. He moved so he stood right across from her. “When we lift, we lift together.”
Cheyenne had maneuvered the travois so the wide end of it was by Wyatt’s head.
“Move him as little as possible,” Falcon instructed. “We’ll just lift a few inches and walk him right on up.”
Nodding, Cheyenne gripped the side of Wyatt’s shirt and pants.
“Can you get him? Is he too heavy?” Falcon’s eyes were serious and thoughtful, as if he were thinking of every move, considering all that could go wrong.
“I can do it. I will do it.”
He wanted Wyatt to survive just as much as Cheyenne did. Maybe not out of a deep love and trust, but because it was good and just that a fine man survive a low-down sneak attack.
“I think the bleeding has stopped, but he’s lost a lot.” Falcon caught Wyatt’s clothes on his side. “Ready?”
Cheyenne nodded.
“Lift.”
They made the shift.
Wyatt groaned, and his eyes flickered open. “Whaa happened?”
“Hush, be still,” Cheyenne said. “You’ve been shot. All three of you Hunt brothers have taken a bullet. I hope they don’t start on non-Hunts next.” She thought of Win, also shot. Well, she was a Hunt now.
“Shot?”
“Did you see who it was?” Cheyenne asked.
“Let it be for now.” Falcon cut her off, and she was glad of it, glad he was taking charge. “I can promise you thinking is a hard business, takes more strength than a man has sometimes. I’ve sure enough learned that.”
Falcon took the shirt off his back, so he stood there with only longhandles on, and twisted the shirt into a rope. He tied the rope around Wyatt, under his arms and to the poles supporting him.
“It’ll keep him from sliding off and adding pressure to the wound. Do we head for home or Bear Claw Pass? Is there a doctor there?”
Cheyenne heard the way Falcon said home, and it put strength into her. Steadied her when she wanted to cling to Wyatt, tend him somehow right here instead of adding to his pain by taking him on a long rough ride, however carefully they moved.
“Home is closer than Bear Claw Pass, and Molly’s a better doctor than the one in town.”
“I’ve been to Dr. Murphy,” Wyatt put in groggily. “I’d as soon stay away from him and his shaky hands.”
Cheyenne looked at that chest wound. No bullet to dig out, so that’d let Molly avoid operating. Shaking her head, Cheyenne said, “Let’s go home.”
They moved at an achingly slow pace. Cheyenne riding the horse pulling the travois. Falcon leading his horse and walking beside Wyatt.
They passed near the Hawkins Ranch, and Cheyenne said, “I’m gonna signal Kevin and Win that we’re passing.”
Falcon looked at her, and she gestured with her gun. No sense surprising the man.
He gave his chin a firm nod.
She fired into the air.
A cowhand came running around a stand of trees, gun drawn. A man ready for trouble. Cheyenne recognized his face but couldn’t say his name.
“Tell Win we’re heading home, and she should come along.” She never let up on the slow steady walking of her horse. “We ran into trouble. Wyatt’s been shot.”
The man holstered his gun as two more came a-running. “She already headed home, Miss Cheyenne.” The man jogged up to look at Wyatt.
“He looks bad, miss.”
“I know.”
“Maybe you had oughta bring him into the Hawkins place.”
Cheyenne considered it. But so much trouble was coming from this direction that she couldn’t stand the thought of it. “A woman staying with us has a lot of doctoring skills. I want to get Wyatt to her.”
“Did you see anyone riding out from here?” Falcon rarely took his eyes off Wyatt, ready if the bleeding should start up or the ties holding him on the travois should break.
“Besides Mrs. Hobart, you mean?” The other men were gathering around. “And of course Miss Winona and her husband rode away.”
Another cowpoke said quietly, glancing behind him, “And that must’ve made the boss mad because he came out and started hollering and sent us all to bring in a herd that didn’t need to be brought in. He wouldn’t let up and we figured him to be hurtin’ ’cuz his little girl got hitched, so we done what he asked, every one of us.”
“He made me saddle his horse before I rode out,” the first cowpoke said. “He takes off alone on horseback time to time.” Then he said, “I’ll saddle up and ride along with you folks. No one should be out without good protection. This is the third shooting we’ve had around these parts.”
He didn’t wait to hear what Cheyenne had to say, just pivoted around and took off for the ranch. Two others went with him.
She welcomed the armed guard.
They kept moving, as slow and steady as . . . as . . . Cheyenne couldn’t help the thought that pounded in her head. As slow and steady as a funeral procession.
But Wyatt wasn’t dead, and the things that could be hit right there, heart, lungs, spine, would kill him quick. There seemed to be every chance he’d survive the gunshot wound. But would he survive the fever and what came after?
Sickened with worry, she focused on keeping things slow and steady.
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.