Wyoming Bride (23 page)

“That sort of mistake is what kills people out here,” she muttered. “You’d better look sharp, missy, or you might be the one whose body people have to go hunting.”

Emaline felt discouraged. The lack of water meant she was going to have to curtail her search sooner than she otherwise would have. Naturally, today the sun was hot as blazes. Wyoming was high desert, and she would dehydrate quickly.

Her stomach made a gurgling sound, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. She’d been too anxious about Ransom to eat supper last night and too anxious to get on the trail to eat breakfast this morning, although she’d fed the stock.

Of course, she’d brought nothing with her to eat, either.

Emaline huffed out a breath in disgust. Living together was supposed to prove how well suited she and Ransom were for each other. That she could be a helpmate and friend to him. That their lives together could be wonderful, even if they never had children. It wasn’t supposed to be full of disappointment and dread.

Emaline’s mount snorted and sidestepped, and she automatically reached out to pat his neck and say soothing words to calm him, at the same time looking ahead to see what might have upset the gelding.

She didn’t have far to look. Vultures were flying overhead in the distance. She nearly gagged when she caught a whiff of what her horse must have perceived a few moments before.

Emaline was a soldier’s daughter. As a child, she’d been close enough to a battleground to know that smell. It was the stench of decaying flesh.

She kicked her mount into a gallop, even though the looming vultures overhead told her what she would find when she got where she was going. She rode pell-mell, heedless of the danger, not caring if she was thrown, desperate to find out what had brought out those scavengers in the sky.

Maybe it’s what’s left of a calf some wolves have brought down. Maybe it’s a horse that stumbled and broke a leg and had to be shot. Maybe it’s some wanderer who lost his way and died of thirst. Please, please, God, let it not be the man I love
.

Emaline prepared herself to see death. The vultures were there for a reason. She drew hope from the fact they were still soaring overhead, rather than feasting on some carcass below. That suggested whatever carrion they’d found might not yet be dead.

Except, it didn’t explain the rotten smell.

Emaline came over a rise and yanked her horse to a halt. She dropped the knotted reins over the saddle horn and put both hands to her mouth to shut off the scream of horror that rose in her throat. She closed her eyes to shut out the awful sight, but it was already branded there forever.

Dead men lay sprawled around the black ashes of a campfire. Had she seen three? Or four? The cook wagon was turned on its side, and the mules that had drawn it were gone.

Emaline was afraid to move another step. Was Ransom down there among the dead? She raised her eyes to the vultures. Why weren’t they feasting on the carcasses? What was keeping them at bay? She made herself look again at the dead men sprawled on the ground.

And saw one move.

Emaline sat still as death. She stared, horrified, at the shocking carnage below her. In order to reach the body that had shown signs of life, she was going to have to walk past every putrid corpse down there. And she needed to do it
now
.

Whatever wounds the lone survivor had suffered were severe enough that he hadn’t been able to drag himself out of the searing sun into the shade provided by the overturned wagon. He must be conscious and able to move, though, because otherwise the vultures would already be feasting.

“Ransom isn’t down there,” she told herself. “Those men are his cowhands. Ransom wouldn’t be with them. He left by himself yesterday and said nothing about joining up with anyone.”

So why hadn’t he come home last night?

Emaline’s body began to tremble. She was afraid to look too closely at the dead bodies, afraid she would recognize Ransom. But staying put wasn’t going to change what she found.

She kneed her horse, but instead of moving forward the gelding sidled away. “Come on, Concho,” she muttered, giving the gelding a nudge with her heels to get him moving. The horse snorted and turned to eye her over his shoulder, but at last moved down the hill toward the awful scene in the valley below.

Emaline knew her mount was feeling her own anxiety. Whatever had happened here had occurred sometime yesterday, early enough that the relentless sun in a cloudless sky had done its work, drying the blood to an ugly brown and hastening the decomposition of the bodies. The menacing vultures had used that stink of death to discover the carcasses.

Emaline ground-tied her horse about ten feet from the nearest body, knowing Concho was trained not to stray so long as the reins dragged on the ground. She put a hand over her mouth and nose, but that did little to protect her from the awful smell. The buzzing swarm of flies laying their eggs in open wounds made her skin crawl. She forced herself to stop and look at each face as she passed three dead bodies on her way to the one nearest the wagon, the one that had moved. She studied throats looking for pulses and glanced at glazed, wide-open eyes to make certain none of the victims were still alive.

She didn’t recognize anyone. She presumed the dead were Flint and Ransom’s cowhands because she recognized the cook wagon, which had the Double C brand burned into its wooden side.

She had an awful feeling in her gut that Ransom hadn’t heeded Flint’s warning to stay away from Patton. Or maybe Patton hadn’t needed any excuse to do this. She’d never liked the man. He had so much, yet he was greedy for so much more. She would make sure her father brought down the might of the whole Second Cavalry on the wealthy rancher if it turned out he was responsible for this massacre.

Emaline tiptoed past the dead men as though they were only asleep and might wake if she made too much noise. She knew their souls had fled their earthly forms, but she nearly jumped out of her skin when the wind caused a red scarf around the neck of one man to flap. She screamed and jumped sideways, causing Concho to snort and rear his head and back away.

She froze where she was and turned to her horse. If the gelding panicked and ran, she was going to be in a great deal of trouble. “Easy, boy,” she said. “Everything’s okay.”

The horse’s head was up, his ears forward, his nostrils flared, as he stared at her. She stayed where she was until the animal relaxed, shivered his hide to dislocate the flies that had gathered on his neck and shoulders, and dropped his head to crop grass again.

Her scream had an unintended result. When she turned back, she discovered that the wounded man had rolled completely over onto his back. She could see his face now.

It was Ransom.

Emaline forgot her fear and ran to his side, dropping to her knees beside him. His eyes were closed, and it was impossible to tell by looking whether he was still breathing. “Ransom?”

She expected him to make some sound, to raise his hand, to sigh or speak or do
something
to prove he was still alive. But he lay unmoving. She stared at the two small, ragged spots of dried blood on his shirt, one near his heart, the other on his collar near his throat. She glanced at the short grass around him, which was crusted with an ocean of dried blood. Was she too late? Had he already bled to death?

She delicately put two fingers to the spot where Ransom’s carotid should be, near one of the wounds, and felt for a pulse. She let out the breath she’d been holding when she found it, slow and thready. He was alive!

Now what? Even if she managed to get him back to the ranch house, who was going to remove the bullets? She had a sudden thought. Maybe the bullet in his chest had gone all the way through. He groaned when she pushed him onto his side to look, and she said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I have to see something.”

Emaline took one look at Ransom’s back, then lowered him to the ground, closed her eyes, and said a prayer.

Whoever had shot Ransom must have been standing close. The bullet in his chest had gone all the way through his body. The hole in back was larger than the one in front, but neither wound was bleeding anymore. It looked like the weight of his body as he lay on his stomach had eventually stopped the bleeding in his chest.

If she had brought food and water, she could stay right here and nurse Ransom. But she hadn’t even brought supplies for herself, let alone for an injured man. She stared at the cook wagon, wondering if there was anything left inside that she could use. She jumped up and went to search.

Emaline cried out in delight when she discovered that several inches of water remained in a hollow in the overturned water barrel. And she found enough food for several men for several days in the wagon, including dried beans, flour, a slab of bacon, canned peaches, canned tomatoes, dried apples, and lard. At least they wouldn’t go hungry.

She also found medical supplies in the cook wagon, since Cookie was also responsible for providing first aid to injured cowhands. She looked through the box and found clean cloths for bandages, a small bottle of whiskey, a folding knife, a needle and thread, and sticking plasters. Emaline took a deep breath and let it out. She had everything she needed to treat Ransom’s wounds.

She found a tin cup and dipped it into the barrel and came up with half a cup of water, which she drank. Then she filled it with another half cup of liquid and carried it to Ransom.

She knelt down and held his head up and pressed the cup against his lips. “Drink,” she ordered.

Emaline didn’t know what she was going to do if Ransom wasn’t able to drink by himself, but he opened his lips wide enough for her to spill water into his mouth. He coughed and spit the liquid back out and groaned. She realized the water must have gone down the wrong way. She lifted his head a little higher and waited for him to stop coughing.

He turned his head away, but she put the cup to his lips again and said, “Drink some more.”

“Hurts,” he croaked.

“Do as you’re told!” she ordered, terrified that the terrible wound at his throat was making it impossible for him to swallow. “You can’t get well if you don’t eat and drink. As soon as you finish this water, I’m going to sew you up. Then I’m going to make you something to eat. Then we’re going to settle in here and wait for Flint and Hannah to return.”

Emaline realized as she was speaking that Flint had said they might be gone several days. It could be as much as a week if Flint and Hannah’s journey took longer than they’d expected, before they were found. She glanced toward the water barrel, wondering if it held enough water for two people for a week. Then she glanced at Ransom and wondered whether he would still be alive in a week.

She swallowed back her fear and said, “When Flint doesn’t find us at the house, he’ll come looking for us. Maybe by the time he finds us, I’ll have you well enough to ride out of here.”

She continued talking because it kept her worry at bay. She eased Ransom back down flat, then hesitated, unsure what to do next. She made a list in her head.

First, treat Ransom’s wounds.

Second, make a shelter near the wagon to get him out of the sun and drag him under it.

Third, move the dead bodies away from the wagon, stack them together, and cover them with the tarpaulin from the wagon so they won’t attract vultures or scavengers, and so they can be buried later.

Fourth, make a meal for Ransom and feed him and herself.

Fifth, unsaddle her horse and stake him out close to the wagon, where he can eat grass, but where she can shoot any predators that threaten them during the night.

Sixth, wait for help to come.

Making a mental list was something Emaline had learned from her military father. It helped her to organize her thoughts, and she was able to function in an emergency like this by doing each item in order as it came up.

Unfortunately, she also made a list of all the things that could possibly go wrong. Emaline was on the seventh item when she realized she was procrastinating, afraid to get started on the first item on her list of things to do.

She needed to treat Ransom’s wounds and make sure he survived until help could come. She trotted back to the wagon and collected the medicine box and carried it to where Ransom lay. She wet one of the cloths and used it to wipe the dirt from his dear face, which was shadowed with dark beard, to postpone what came next.

She leaned down and softly kissed his lips and heard him make a humming sound. Any sound at all was welcome, since at any moment she expected him to give up the ghost.

Emaline opened the folding knife and used it to cut Ransom’s shirt off his body, first the stitches in the chambray sleeves, then the buttons, then the fabric, before carefully separating the cloth from his skin. She used water to soak the cloth where it had attached itself with dried blood to his chest wound, blocking out his moan of pain as she pried it away.

She knew enough to disinfect the wound with whiskey. She knew she was hurting him because, although he made no further sound, Ransom writhed beneath her ministrations. She planned to sew the gaping hole back together, but her hands were shaking too much to thread the needle. She set down both needle and thread and took a swig of the whiskey, which made her eyes water.