The Texas Ranger's Secret (24 page)

“He’s probably on his rounds about now,” said an extremely thin man as he came around the corner, cleaning his spectacles with a white cloth. Snow followed closely behind him.

“Howdy, folks,” he greeted them. “Miss McMurtry here was telling me about your troubles. I don’t mind at all if you grab one of my cots in the operating room or the davenport over there to curl up on for the night. I’m blessed with some empty beds at the moment. Now, if it had been last night, you might have had to wrestle for them. Some of my more rowdy customers did a little too much Saturday celebrating.”

“I don’t need one,” Gage informed him, glancing at the ormolu clock on the doctor’s mantel. “Just wanted to make sure the women have a place to lay their heads.”

“I’ll take that little settee over there.” Myrtle pointed. “Me and it look like we’ll fit fairly well together.”

The physician settled his spectacles on the bridge of his nose, but they slid to a point just below his cheekbones.

“Where will you sleep?” Willow asked Gage, sensing his eagerness to leave.

Doc Thomas spoke up. “Still sleeping in the last pew over at the church?”

Gage nodded. “Just costs whatever I got for the collection plate. Warm. Safe. Open night or day. Clean to a fault and easy sleeping.”

Myrtle’s eyebrows rose as she sat on her bed-to-be and pressed her hands against the padding to test its comfort. “Does the preacher know you live there?”

“Yes, ma’am. In fact, he’s the one who puts a blanket and a pillow out for me each night. I’d suggest you all grab a pew, but another fella sleeps there. Didn’t seem right to bring it up.”

The cook smiled. “My kind of man, the preacher, and you’re free to tell him I said that, if you like.”

“I will.” Gage turned to open the door.

“Wait a minute,” Willow said, reaching for his hand to stop him. “You wanted to see the doctor?”

If looks had the power to peel, she’d have just been skinned. Fury set Gage’s features as he glared back at her and didn’t allow her contact. “Leave it alone, Willow. Leave
me
alone. I’ve got things to do and places to be.”

Confusion plowed a furrow on Doc Thomas’s forehead as his eyes studied Gage’s scars. “I don’t mind, son. No trouble at all. Like I said, it’s been a fairly easy night. You out of the salve I gave you for your face?”

“It’s his eyes, Doctor.” She dared to cross the line Gage had drawn in the sand for her not to step over. “Not the flesh.”

“Follow me.” Doc turned to head back down the hall from where he and Snow had emerged.

Clearly, Gage had wanted to leave, but he didn’t. Instead, he simply stood at the door, seething at the choice she’d made for him.

Finally, he slammed the door shut and walked past her. “This is my business alone.”

“Maybe once you’re gone from here, Gage Newcomb,” Willow countered, following him down the hall, “but as long as you’re near me, I’m making it mine. I care about you.”

“Don’t. It’ll get you nowhere. I told you. I can’t love you. I won’t love you.”

She decided she was going to fight him all the way if she must. No matter how stubborn Gage became. Whatever was wrong, she knew his anger was really an echo of fear. Better to know exactly what she had to help him face.

Lead me, Lord
, she prayed as she entered the room the doctor had chosen.
Give me the right words, the right advice to convince him this is the right thing to do. If it’s what I fear and he’s going blind, help me assure Gage that he still has a decent future ahead of him
.
These will be the most important words I’ve ever spoken and, Lord, You know how many have come out of my mouth. Don’t let me foul this up. Let me dig deep enough to make him hear, help him see, let him feel and understand that I truly want what’s best for him. Let this serve no other purpose but to set him free from what he fears.

Chapter Fifteen

A
nger consumed Gage as Dr. Thomas peered through the glass instrument and asked him questions. He’d been through this all before and it served no purpose now. The man would just tell him what he already knew, not what he wanted—no,
needed
—to know most. How much longer would he see? Was there a point where his eyes would ever stop getting worse or would they experience total darkness?

“Tell me again how this happened.” Doc Thomas leaned back and switched off something that looked like a bright light fastened to a miner’s hat. “Don’t spare any details.”

Gage glanced at Willow sitting in a chair next to the cot he sat on while the doctor examined him. She’d dug in deep and appeared unmoved by his deliberate anger toward her. She could be stubborn, mule-headed or whatever-she-preferred-to-label-it persistent, particularly if she thought she was right about something. And Willow was right about making him do this.

He’d thought about visiting a doctor again after she’d had to read Whitman’s poem to him. He’d known then his eyes had taken a turn for the worse.

Gage had convinced himself he wanted to know how long, how much, exactly when to expect whatever would occur. But faced with reality, he was afraid of really knowing. Of accepting his fate without knowing whether or not there was still an ounce of hope.

He did his best to make the retelling short, accurate and to the point. He knew Willow was listening hard, waiting to hear all he’d kept from her. “I tracked a man. In an effort to escape, he managed to throw a bucket of wash water in my face. The water was filled with lye. As you can see, my skin’s pretty much healed, but my eyes didn’t come out so fortunate. A doc down south in Laredo and another in Fort Worth both told me I’ll probably go blind. I’m hitching my hope to the prob’ly.”

The physician nodded. “Looks to me like spectacles are in order for now. Not just any pair. They’ll be pretty thick, but they’ll help for a while. I’d say you’re losing details, aren’t you? Can’t spot little things, but you still see the big picture?”

Gage nodded as the man offered him the pair he wore. “Yours will be twice as thick as mine, maybe more.”

Studying the eyeglasses, Gage tried them on for size. He shook his head, attempting to ward off the dizziness that immediately made his head spin. “These are supposed to help?”

The doctor pulled out a drawer and thumbed through a box that contained several pairs.

“You and I wear different lenses. You’re farsighted and I’m nearsighted. Direct opposites.” He chose a pair from the box. “Here, try these.”

Gage returned the man’s spectacles to him and replaced them with the new pair.

“Well?” Willow studied him, her face etched with eagerness.

“They’ll do.” He refused to give her the satisfaction of learning the doctor knew what he was doing. Everything came into focus better as Gage peered through the choice meant for him. It couldn’t be as simple as getting a pair of new spectacles, could it? The first two he’d tried months ago had ended up crushed in a fit of rage beneath his boot heel.

Willow stood beside him now, patting his back as though he were a little boy who needed soothing. She had not one inch of fear of how angry he was at her.

“You’re going to wear these from now on,” she stated matter-of-factly.

“Not in public,” he argued.

Exasperation exited in a rush of air from her lungs. “That’s when you need them most if you’re going to continue working as a Ranger,” she insisted. “How will you track anything if you don’t wear them?”

“They’ll make me look vulnerable...limited.” Gage stood and thrust the pair back at her, further angry that the doctor now knew what he did for a living.

Doc might as well know the rest of it since Willow felt so compelled to spill his beans. “That’s the whole point. I can’t continue my profession, and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. Rangering’s all I’ve ever done. Who I’ve ever been. I don’t know what else to be if I’m not that. I want nothing else but that.”

He hated to see the hurt on her face, but it had the effect he needed to make her understand she had to go away.

Doc Thomas closed the drawer and faced them both. “Looks like you two have things to talk out that aren’t my concern. So I’m gonna go get the other ladies settled in. Mr. Newcomb, I can see your frustration and I hope you find some kind of way to work through the circumstances you’re dealing with. I’ve heard fine things about you. But, sir, my advice to you is to wear those as long as they’ll help. After that point, put what’s left to use in a way you’ll be contented and will make you proud of yourself.”

He brushed a hand through his graying temple. “A doctor has to give up his profession one day, too, you know. Just as many of us must face the ravages of time or circumstances. It doesn’t make us any less worthy of respect, does it? The sooner you come to terms with your level of sight, the sooner you’ll find a happier way to live with yourself.”

He headed out the door and left Gage and Willow to a silence loud with the truth he’d spoken.

“He said what I’ve been trying to say, Gage.” Willow held his pair of spectacles. “Let me help you find a way to keep your independence and lead a productive life. For example, maybe you could tell me some of the stories you must have as a Ranger. I could write them down and send them off to my boss along with the story he’s waiting on from...”

Her face turned ashen as she whispered, “Oh, no, I left the envelope on the table. I didn’t think about it when I left ho— Oh, now what am I going to do?”

“What envelope? What table? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing important,” she said, looking slightly dazed and full of a brand-new secret. “Nothing that can’t wait until morning, that is. I think we’re both tired and need to get some sleep, don’t you? No use arguing this point any more tonight. How about we meet at the livery at the crack of dawn, grab the buggy and see if we can’t wrangle up the sheriff and some men to help us flush out Shepard?”

“You can wait till morning if you like.”

“Promise me you won’t do anything tonight.” She handed him the glasses. “It’s dark and you’ll see better in the morning. Handling Shepard and his men is going to be hard enough in daylight.”

“I may be almost blind, but I recognize that look too well.” Gage felt it in his bones. She was about to set something into motion and put herself at risk again. She was the one who needed to make a promise about staying put.

He only hoped whatever was troubling her had nothing to do with the horse thief. There was no room or time for mistakes where that man was concerned. And Gage wanted her far out of the way when he headed to Daisy’s ranch to serve Hutton his final justice. Soon as he left and conferred with the sheriff, he’d be fast on Hutton’s trail.

“Promise me you’re not planning anything foolish,” he demanded.

“When have I ever done something like that?”

“I want to leave here knowing that you can take care of yourself.”

“Then you still won’t stay, no matter what?”

She wasn’t asking him to remain in town until morning. Willow meant forever.

He stared into the palomino eyes that had come to mean so much to him. He wouldn’t lie. He couldn’t. “No matter what, I’m gone once I capture Hutton. It’s what has to be.”

Chapter Sixteen

T
he children were safe in bed at Bear’s, Snow and Myrtle long past asleep and Gage gone to, she prayed, his church pew. As tired as she was by the night’s events, Willow couldn’t sleep. She lay on the cot next to Snow’s and was grateful her sister had started snoring. That meant whatever sounds she made in sneaking out of the doctor’s office wouldn’t awaken Snow.

Myrtle, on the other hand, would be the one to pass with caution. How in the world would she get past the bell that hung over the door without the cook’s knowledge?

Sitting up carefully and hoping the wooden cot would not creak from the effort, Willow settled her boots to the floor. Fortunately, her sister had accepted the fact that she elected to keep her boots on in case trouble came during the night and they had to be quick about leaving.

A glance at Snow’s feet stirred a moment of appreciation for her sister’s support. Snow still wore her shoes, too.

Willow grabbed the blanket off her cot and tiptoed carefully out of the room and down the hall to the parlor. Just wonderful. Myrtle had left the lamp lit, or else the doctor had for whatever purpose he deemed necessary. A glance at the cook curled up tightly on the settee confirmed Willow’s need to be especially careful in not waking the woman. Her little round body barely fit, and it must have been hard finding just the right position for comfort.

Now, how to cover the bell with the blanket so the ring would be muffled when she pulled open the door?

She’d been blessed with height, but even on tiptoe Willow wouldn’t be tall enough to drape the blanket over the bell and stuff it between each side of the clapper. Everyone knew she wasn’t exactly the most graceful person on earth, and she would be putting herself in a precarious position if she attempted it without help of some kind.

No footstool in sight anywhere.

Only a table in front of the settee where the doctor had left some copies of
Harper’s Bazaar
for his patients to read if forced to wait. Most of his customers must be women. The year-old fashion magazine was all the rage in the East and she was surprised that its popularity had reached this far west already. Dare she try her weight on the table?

Over in the corner next to the locked medicine cabinet stood a pole with a covered birdcage hanging from its hook. Beneath that sat a burlap bag propped against the pole. Seeds? It looked full enough to add just enough height to make a difference.

Willow tiptoed over and checked the material that tied the bag closed. Her knowledge of rope now served her well. The rawhide was twisted firmly and secured the burlap adequately. Probably had to be tied strong to keep out little curious hands that liked to explore things while waiting and were eager to help feed the pet.

Hopefully, this would do the trick.

Willow tried to lift the bag, only to grunt with effort. Her eyes shot over to see if the sound had disturbed Myrtle. The woman wiggled for a second, yawned, then settled back into place.