Santa Fe Woman (22 page)

Callie grew relaxed, and as he began to talk, she was fascinated about the life of someone who was of his station. She was so intent on listening that she did not hear the buzzing sound of a rattlesnake. Her horse suddenly went up in the air in a wild effort to escape the snake, and Callie found herself thrown free, then she hit the ground. Before she could move, the hind foot of the horse caught her in the shoulder, and a pain such as she had never felt went through her.

Mark’s horse had also reared up, but he had managed to stop it. He awkwardly came off his horse, then saw the snake. Running forward he pulled Callie’s revolver and fired it. He missed the snake, but the reptile crawled away. He turned then to Callie and saw that her face was pale. “Callie,” he said, “are you all right?”

Her right hand went up to her shoulder, and her lips were white. “My shoulder. I think it’s broken.”

The sound of thundering hoofbeats came, and Mark turned as Pedro came up quickly. “Is she all right?” he said, coming out of his saddle. He held onto the lines of his horse and knelt down. “Are you all right, Callie?”

“My shoulder. It hurts so bad!”

“Can you get up?”

“I—I don’t know.”

The two men helped her, and she cried out as Mark touched her left arm. “Don’t touch me,” she said. “It’s—”

“We’d better get her to camp, Mark,” Pedro said. “A broken shoulder is a bad thing.”

* * *

“IT’S GOING TO BE all right, Leland,” Kate said. She was sitting on the wagon seat driving beside her brother-in-law. She had
seen he was discouraged and was trying her best to cheer him up. “It’s kind of hard right now, but think how wonderful it will be to get to Santa Fe. We’ll have a whole new life there.”

Leland turned to face Kate. He shook his head with admiration. “I wish I had your faith, Kate. This has been the toughest thing I have ever known.”

“It could actually turn out to be good. You know the Scripture. All things work together for good to those that love God.”

“I’m worried about Mark.”

“He’s had a hard time, but you know, Leland, hard times make good men, not easy times.”

The two suddenly straightened for the sound of a gunshot had come to them. “I don’t think that was a hunter,” Leland said. He pulled the wagon up and saw that the rest of the wagons had totally stopped too.

They came off the wagon and Leland said, “There comes Pedro and Mark. Something’s wrong with Callie.”

The two moved forward, and at once Mark said, “Callie’s had a fall and got kicked by a horse.”

Kate saw that the girl’s face was pale, and she pulled a box out from the back of the wagon and set it on the ground. “Here, sit down, Callie. Which shoulder is it?”

“Left one,” Callie said through clenched teeth.

A crowd began to gather, and several of the teamsters had come to find out what the trouble was. Rocklin, who never seemed to be far away, came at once. He stood before Callie and listened as Mark explained what had happened. “We’ll have to fix you a bed in one of the wagons.”

“What if it’s broken?” Callie whispered.

Rocklin had no answer for that. “We’ll just hope it’s not. Lots of times you just put a stress on something. You’ll probably be all right in a few days.”

Carleen pushed her way through those who were watching, and Molitor was beside her. “What happened to Callie? She get shot?”

“No, a horse kicked her. Don’t pester her now, Carleen.”

“Did it hurt bad, Callie?”

“Of course it hurts bad!” Callie snapped. “A broken bone always hurts.”

“I’ll go fix a bed for you, Callie.”

“I can sit up.”

Suddenly Molitor moved to stand beside Callie. “Can you lift your arm at all?”

Callie looked up with surprise. Molitor was watching her carefully. “A little bit,” she said.

Paul Molitor reached out and began to run his hands over Callie’s shoulder. Callie stared at him, and he said, “Does this hurt?”

“No.”

“How about this?”

“Yes! Oh, that hurts ver’ bad!”

Everyone was watching Molitor. He seemed like a different man. There was an assurance about him that they had not seen. Everyone’s eyes were on him as he ran his hand over the girl’s shoulder. He looked up to Rocklin. “It’s not broken, just dislocated.” He looked back to the girl. “I know that hurts bad enough.”

“Dislocated?” Callie asked between tight lips. “What does that mean?”

“It just means that the bones have kind of popped out of place.” He hesitated for a moment then said, “I think I can help you, but it might hurt a little at first.”

“Anything to stop the hurtin’.”

“All right.” He came to stand in front of her and said, “Put your left hand on your other shoulder.”

“It hurts.”

“I know it does, Callie, but you’ll feel better in a minute. Just hold it right here.” He guided her hand to her shoulder and held it and said, “Now listen, Callie, I’m going to pull your shoulder back into place. It’ll hurt. I know it’s hard to relax when you know you’re going to be hurt. The natural thing is to tense up. You’re a strong, young woman, and I’m not all that strong myself, so if you tense up, I’ll be pulling against your muscles. And if you resist, I just can’t do it.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to be absolutely relaxed for just a moment.” He shifted his hands on her, and there was absolute silence in the circle. “I want you to think about yourself as … as a big piece of liver—like you didn’t have any bones. Can you do that for me?”

“I … I can try.”

“All right. That’s fine. I can tell you’re relaxed. I’m going to count to three, and while I’m counting, you try to relax even more so that by the time I get to three you’ll be perfectly relaxed. All right?”

“All right.”

“Here we go then. One—two—”

And then suddenly Molitor made a move that was so unexpected that no one caught it. Callie was waiting for the three, and she grunted with pain and cried out, but then her eyes flew
open with astonishment. “How does it feel now, Callie? Can you lift your arm?”

Callie’s arm was at her side, but she began to lift it. “Why—it doesn’t hurt hardly at all. It’s fixed!” She stared at Molitor. “How did you do that?”

“I’d like to know that myself,” Rocklin said.

“Well, I had a friend who was a pretty good man with bones. I saw him do that a few times.”

“Is it really all right, Callie?” Carleen demanded. “It doesn’t hurt?”

Callie experimented with her arm. “Why, it’s a little sore. I’ve probably got a bruise, but the bone seems all right.” She turned to Paul and said, “Are you a doctor?”

Molitor shook his head. “Just a trick, Callie. I’m glad it wasn’t worse.”

“He looks like a doctor to me. You act like a doctor to me,” Kate said abruptly.

Molitor was aware that every eye was fixed on him. “My father was a doctor. I learned a few things from him. I’m glad you’re all right, Callie.”

* * *

JORI FOLLOWED ROCKLIN AS he moved away. “What did you think of that, Chad?”

“I think it’s a good thing we got Paul Molitor here with us.”

“You know, I was wrong about Callie.”

Rocklin turned and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“You were right to bring her on the train. It was cruel of me to even suggest leaving her there with those men.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that.”

“I know you think I’m hard and I’m spoiled. You must think I’m unbearable.”

Rocklin grinned at her. “No, I can bear you well enough, Jori. Besides, if you don’t behave, I’m the wagon master and I can always chastise you.”

“Why, you wouldn’t!”

She saw he was laughing at her and then shook her head. “I need it, I know, at times.”

She turned and walked away, and Rocklin looked after her. He was remembering the kiss, and the memory stayed with him like a rich fragrance. He turned abruptly and walked back toward his horse.

SLIPPING A BROAD KNIFE underneath the pancake in the skillet, Kate flipped it over and looked up at Carleen who was watching every move. “You see how easy it is?”

“Let me do the next one, Aunt Kate.”

“Of course you can. You’ve got to learn how to cook sometime.”

“Did you learn how to cook when you were as young as me?”

“Younger than you, sweetheart.” Kate’s eyes were fixed on the young girl, and she smiled suddenly. “I must not have been more than six when I started learning how to cook.”

“You learned very well,” Leland said. He had come to sit on a box and was eating one of the pancakes. “You make the best pancakes on earth—or anywhere else for that matter.”

“You’re just being sweet, so I’ll give you another pancake,” Kate smiled.

“You know what I want to be when I grow up, Papa?”

“I guess you would like to run away with a circus and do flips off the backs of horses.”

“That’s silly,” Carleen said. “Who’d wanna do a thing like that? No, I want to be a doctor.”

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, honey, but you can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because there aren’t any woman doctors. All doctors are men.”

Carleen stuck her lower lip out in a habitual gesture when she was challenged. “Then I’ll be the first,” she said.

Kate laughed. “You’re stubborn enough. If you make up your mind to it, you might just do it. Here, take this pancake.”

Carleen took the pancake on the tin plate, poured molasses over the top, and cut it up into pieces. She got up and started off. “Where are you going, honey?” Leland called after her.

“I’m going to give Herendeen this pancake.”

“He won’t thank you for it.”

“Yes, he will,” Carleen said defiantly and continued striding along the line of wagons. She got to the wagon that Herendeen drove and saw him sitting with his back against the wheel. The other drivers had made a fire and were sitting around eating. Herendeen looked up. She came to stand before him and said, “Here, I brought you a pancake for breakfast.”

Herendeen’s face was still battered from the beating he had taken. His left eye was barely open, and he peered at the girl. “Why you givin’ that to me?”

“Because it’s hard for you to chew with your mouth all beat up. This pancake will be easy. Here, I’ve already cut it up and poured molasses all over it.”

Grat Herendeen could not answer. He was studying Carleen almost with disbelief. “Why you givin’ it to me? I ain’t never done nothin’ for you.”

“I told you. Your mouth is sore, and this is easy to eat. You want me to feed it to you a bite at a time?”

“I don’t reckon.” Herendeen took the plate, took his knife out, and speared one of the pieces. In truth his mouth was sore, for
the inside of his lips had been cut by Rocklin’s smashing blows. He chewed carefully, swallowed it, and nodded. “That’s good, missy. Did you make it?”

“No, but my Aunt Kate, she’s going to teach me how.” Carleen sat down directly in front of Herendeen, crossing her legs Indian fashion and watching him as he ate. “Are you married, Herendeen?”

“No, not now.”

“You mean you were once?”

“Yes, I had me a wife once.”

“Did she die?”

“No, she didn’t die. She took up with a gambler in a saloon. The two of ’em ran off and left me. Good thing they did, too.”

“Were you real sad when she left?”

Herendeen shook his head. “You ask a lot of questions. I was mostly mad, I guess, to think a woman would take a gambler over me.”

“Did you have any children?”

“No. That’s a good thing.”

“You don’t like children?”

“A man can’t be a mule skinner and have kids. He’d have to leave ’em behind all the time.”

Carleen sat there watching and popping questions faster than Herendeen could answer them. He had been sullen and withdrawn ever since he had taken his beating, and he knew nothing about children. It somehow amused him that she would ask the most intimate questions with total innocence. Finally he asked, “Don’t you ever get tired of asking questions?”

“No. That’s the way I learn things, Herendeen.” She got to her feet and reached out for the tin plate. “Do you want another one? I’ll cook it myself.”

Herendeen hesitated. “That would be mighty good.”

He watched as the girl skipped off, as innocent as if she were one of the flowers that bloomed on the prairie. The thought came to him that one day she would lose that innocence and somehow this saddened him. He was a rough man in all his ways and had little respect for anything in this world, but something in the girl had touched him, and as he sat there waiting, he thought,
She’ll
probably have a lot more questions. I never saw a young ’un like her
before.

* * *

“GOOD NEWS, I WANT us to have a service this morning.”

Good News was eating the pancakes that Kate had fixed for him. He looked up, his eyes widening. “A service? What kind of a service?”

“We’ve been on the trail now for weeks, and we haven’t had a single service.”

“Well, we don’t have a preacher.”

“That doesn’t matter. You know enough Scripture, and you’ve learned how to read some.”

“Well, I’m no preacher. No one would listen to me.”

Kate had risen and looked down on him. When he glanced up at her, he saw an odd expression on her face. “I’d listen to you,” she said quietly. “Will you do it?”

Good News laughed. “Well, sister, it’ll probably be just you and me, but I’ll do the best I can.”

“Good. Carleen, you go pass the word around that we’re going to have a service. Tell everybody to come.”

“Good, Aunt Kate. I’ll tell ’em all.”

Carleen began her mission with her usual enthusiasm. She went first to the drovers and told Pedro and Callie, and Pedro shook his head. “Somebody’s got to watch these critters.”

“Will you come, Callie?”

“I guess so. I don’t know much about church, though.”

“I’ll explain it to you,” Carleen said. “Hurry up. We’re going to start pretty soon.”

She ran quickly, up and down the wagons, and finally got to where the mule skinners were sitting around, some of them still eating. She said loudly, “We’re gonna have church. All of you need to come.”

Jesse Burkett stood while taking a sip of coffee. The tall, lanky man nodded and grinned broadly. “Are you gonna do the preaching, Carleen?”