Pieces of Sky (6 page)

No one except Wilkins. She recognized that speculative look in those hard blue eyes. Apparently the dolt could count. No doubt he thought her wanton. Or a liar. Or both. Not that she cared. To prove it, she hiked her chin and returned his smirk, refusing to let him see her shame.

His mustache twitched. For a moment she feared he might say something, then thankfully, Mr. Ashford drew his attention. “Didn’t I hear Cook mention you had a ranch in this area?” he asked him. “Rose-something?”

With one long big-knuckled finger, Wilkins pushed back his hat and turned to study the man beside him. “RosaRoja,” he finally said in that husky voice.

“Ah yes. The Red Rose Ranch, named for the roses planted by the previous owners, the Ramirez family, I think it was.” Ashford brushed dust from his sleeve. “I hear it’s quite a spread. Part of an old grant sold for back taxes after the Mexican war. Pennies on the dollar, I heard.”

Wilkins didn’t respond. But that coiled energy was back.

Ashford seemed oblivious. “I do advance work for the Texas and Pacific,” he explained. “Banking, labor—”

“Right-of-ways?”

“That, too.” He didn’t appear to notice the chill in Wilkins’s voice. “Hard country,” he went on, nodding toward the window and the rocky slope rising on his side of the coach. “Frostbite in winter, heatstroke in summer. Unless you have water, of course. Good water is worth its weight in gold out here. Especially to a railroad.”

“Or a cattleman.” Wilkins’s unblinking gaze never wavered.

“Or a cattleman,” Ashford agreed. “Ever think of selling out?”

Before Wilkins could answer, something under their feet snapped with a crack as loud as a gunshot. The coach lurched to the left. Ashford fell into Melanie. Maude screamed. Above the shriek of metal on stone, Phelps shouted in panic. “Jump clear! Jump clear!”

The coach tipped up, then started over.

Jessica crashed against the door. Cursing, Wilkins threw out an arm to keep from falling on top of her, then yanked her clear as the coach slammed onto its side. The door exploded in splintered wood. Dust billowed in. Screams rose above the squeal of horses and the crack of breaking wood as the coach started to roll.

Jessica felt herself falling. Rough hands caught her. A flash of bright aqua eyes, then the next instant she was windmilling through sunlight and empty air.

The coach thundered past.

She hit hard on her side and began to slide down the slope on loose rock. She grabbed at a passing bush, felt her glove rip as branches tore through her fingers. Stones pelted her back. Dust filled her nose. In a roar of cascading rock, she slipped faster and faster.

A hand grabbed her arm, stopping her downward slide with a yank that sent a shock of pain through her shoulder. She clung to it, fighting for air as stones clattered past. The grip shifted and suddenly a hard arm clamped so tightly around her ribcage she couldn’t draw in air.

Time spiraled backward and fear exploded.

“Don’t!” She bucked, legs kicking. “John, no!”

His grip tightened as they teetered. “Don’t fight me or we’ll both go down!” he shouted in a voice that wasn’t his.

In mindless terror she clawed at his arm, ripping through cloth, digging deep with her nails. “John, stop! Let me go!”

A rock slammed into her head.

A burst of light and pain.

Then blackness sucked her down.

Three

PAIN CAME AT HER FROM ALL SIDES—HER BACK, HER SHOULDER. A pulse hammered inside her head. Sharp rocks dug into her back, and the ground beneath her was so hot it burned into her skin.

Then she felt hands moving across her body.

With a strangled cry, she tried to roll away, but the hands pushed her back down.

“Hold still. You’re safe. You’re all right.”

Squinting against the sun, she saw a dark, blurry shape looming over her. Wilkins. What was he doing? Why was he touching her? She felt his fingers move through her hair and flinched when they touched a tender spot beside her left ear.

“Just a bump. Move your arms and legs.”

She did, but it hurt. Bruised and battered but nothing broken. She struggled up on one elbow, then hung there as tiny suns collided behind her eyes.

“Do you remember what happened?” he asked.

Pain knifed through her shoulder as she lifted her head. Fifty feet away was a dark mound. Beyond it, the coach lay on its side like a giant wounded beast, spilling clothing and luggage across the ground like entrails. She remembered the coach falling. Someone grabbing her. She looked down, saw blood on her dress, and air rushed from her lungs. “No . . . oh no . . .”

“It’s mine. You’re all right.”

Befuddled, she looked over, saw a bloodstained rag tied around his forearm, and sagged in relief. Not the baby. Not Victoria.

Wilkins rose. “Can you stand?”

“I—I’ll try.”

He bent toward her, his broad hand reaching out to offer help.

She shrankback. “No. I can do it.” She knew it was rude, but at the moment she couldn’t bear to be touched. “Just—just give me a moment.”

He straightened. “Don’t take too long. I need help.”

As she watched him limp toward the coach, she realized the dark mound beside it was a dead horse. Behind it lay another. What of the passengers? With painful slowness, she turned to study the long slope behind her. Halfway down were two more horses, one motionless, the other frantically fighting the traces. A man—Phelps?—worked at the leathers to cut it free. Below them, luggage and clothing littered the slope in bright splashes of color, and near the bottom, thrown across the rocks like a discarded rag doll, lay the single twisted form of a man.

Swallowing hard, she looked away.

“Over here,” Wilkins called, bent over another still form beside the coach.

Untangling her legs from her tattered skirts, she struggled to her feet. Dizziness swept over her. Without warning, bile surged up her throat. She bent, heaves wracking her body.

When the nausea passed, she straightened, spots dancing behind her eyes. She took a shaky step and almost tripped on the tattered hem of her cape. Loosening the ties, she let it fall. Her hat was gone. Her gloves were shredded, but habit and principle wouldn’t allow her to discard them, so she tucked them into her skirt pocket. On legs as weak as warm pudding, she worked her way toward Wilkins.

As she passed the first horse, it stared blindly up at her, flat-edged teeth bared in a frozen grimace. A fly darted in and out of its nostril. The second horse was also dead, its forehead caved in, brains matting the dark fur like clabbered milk. The stench of blood made her stomach reel. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she forced herself to keep moving. When she finally slumped to the ground beside Wilkins, she was so dizzy she could scarce hold up her head.

“I need cloth,” he said.

She looked over and gasped when she saw the two-inch-wide sliver of wood stuck in Mr. Ashford’s side and the huge bruise darkening the left side of his face. Dear God, was he dead? Wilkins said something, but she could make no sense of it. Everything was suddenly off-kilter as if the world were slowly tilting.

“Hell.” Wilkins’s hand closed over the back of her neck and shoved her head down until her forehead almost touched her knees. “Breathe.”

She sucked in air. After a moment, the spinning slowed. As her mind steadied, she realized his hand was still there, a hot, heavy weight against her skin, his fingers so long they almost encircled her neck. She shrugged him away and slowly straightened.

“No more fainting,” he said gruffly.

“I do n-not faint.” Her tongue tripped over the words. “I have never done so, and I—” Her throat constricted when Wilkins ripped open Ashford’s vest. Blood was everywhere, soaking into Ashford’s shirt, caking in the creases of Wilkins’s hands. It smelled worse than the horses and left a sweet, metallic taste in the back of her throat. How could a man lose so much blood and live?

“Get something for a bandage,” Wilkins ordered.

What if he died? What if they all died?

“Do it. Now!”

She pushed herself to her feet. “Wh-What kind of cloth?”

“Anything clean. And check the driver’s box for whiskey and a canteen.”

Careful not to look at the dead horses, she retraced her steps to the front of the coach. In the driver’s box, more blood. Flies. Under the seat she found a canteen and a tin flask. As she climbed back to the ground, she chided herself for being such a coward. She had seen injuries before, even death. She had to pull herself together or she would be of little use to Wilkins and the others.

“Mrs. Thornton, is that you?”

Turning, Jessica saw Melanie limping toward her. She looked wretched, her skirts torn, blood from a dozen abrasions showing through a coating of dust. Absurdly, her prim bonnet was still pinned to a knot of hair halfway down her back. But at least she was alive and whole. “Are you injured?” Jessica asked.

“I’m all right, but I’m worried about Mama. Her ankle’s swollen. It’s not bleeding, but she’s in terrible pain and I don’t know what to do.”

Jessica blinked at her, feeling trapped in a slow-moving nightmare that seemed to go on without end. “Ashford is hurt,” she said in a hollow voice. “Wilkins will come when he can.”

“Please,” Melanie begged, reaching for her arm.

Jessica stepped back. “I can’t. He needs me.” She frowned, trying to think, then remembered. “I have to find cloth for a bandage,” she said and turned away.

Melanie called after her, but Jessica shut her out and concentrated on the simple task of finding cloth for a bandage. She knew it was cowardly, but she didn’t want to think about the Kinderlys or Mr. Ashford or that crumpled body on the slope. She simply needed time. Soon she would feel stronger and be able to do more. Until then, she would do as she was told and let Wilkins take care of everything.

When she returned with a shirt, two petticoats, and several men’s kerchiefs, she saw the piece of wood still protruded obscenely from Ashford’s body. Averting her eyes, she knelt beside Wilkins. “Will he live?”

Wilkins shrugged, his mouth a grim line beneath his dark mustache. “Whiskey?”

She held out the flask. He took it in fingers that glistened wet and red. “What about Mr. Phelps?” she asked.

He worked the cork loose with his teeth and spit it aside. “He’s managing.”

That meant the body on the slope was Bodine’s. She should have felt sad. Or relieved. Or something other than this terrible emptiness.

Wilkins thrust the flask toward her. “Hold this.”

She did. The metal was sticky with blood. Numbly, she watched Wilkins tear a petticoat into thin strips. “When I tell you,” he instructed as he tied the ends together to form one long band of cloth, “pour half the whiskey over his side, then the rest on a kerchief. Understand?”

She nodded, her stomach quivering.

“When I pull the stick out, there’ll be blood. As long as it’s not spurting, wait a few seconds, then pour. Ready?”

The flask started to jump in her hand. She took a deep breath, then another, and another. Yet the harder she tried, the less air she seemed to draw into her lungs.

“Stop that. You’ll pass out.”

Why couldn’t she breathe?

“Hell.” He jerked the flask from her grip, picked up one of the kerchiefs, and without warning, clamped the cloth over her mouth, cutting off her air. Frantic, she fought him, but he held her fast with his other arm around her shoulders, pinning her firmly back against his chest. “Breathe,” he ordered, cupping the cloth over her nose and mouth.

She gasped, drew in the warmth of her own breath. Within moments her vision cleared and the whirling in her head slowed. When reason returned and she realized he was still holding her, she shoved his hand away and straightened.

Setting the kerchief aside, he sat back on his heels, watching her. “Better?”

She pressed a palm over her thundering heart and nodded, not yet trusting her voice. She wasn’t sure which terrified her more, being unable to breathe or having Wilkins grab her like that.

“Then pick up the flask.” Turning back to Ashford, he gripped the stick. “Ready?” And before Jessica could respond, he yanked. A terrible sucking noise, then blood gushed in thick, dark rivulets down Ashford’s side and into the dirt. The smell was ghastly. “Pour.”

She tried, but her hand shook so badly she wasn’t sure if any whiskey got into the wound. Apparently some did. Even unconscious, Ashford’s body jerked like a puppet on a string.

“Now the rest over the cloth.”

Again, she poured.

“Press it against the hole. Hold it there while I wrap him.”

She did. The cloth grew hot and wet against her palm. Feeling her stomach roll, she tried to send her mind to a kinder place where pain never intruded and death—

“Let go.”

She blinked at him.