Chasing the Sunset(46)

“Drink,” he said. “I put some whiskey in it. You need it,” he said sternly. “Come and sit beside me and drink it all down.”

Numbly, Maggie went with him. She sat down and drained the cup without comment, letting it dangle empty from her fingers as she contemplated her toes. It was an eternity before Duncan came back into the room, still wearing a bloody apron. Maggie could not ask the question that trembled on her lips. She opened her trembling mouth, and then shut it again without saying a word. She was afraid of the answer, and for the first time since Nick had awakened her, tears came to her eyes and ran down her frozen cheeks. She stared at Duncan, mute and prayerful, too focused on what he had to say to even wipe them away.

“He is going to be all right,” he said wearily. “We pulled two bullets out of his shoulder, and I do not think they did any major damage there. He was lucky. It should heal up as good as new. The worst thing is all the blood that he has lost, and the fact that he lay there for a while before anyone found him. He has some mild frostbite on his chin and the top of one ear, but that is all; I suspect from all the red dog hair on his collar that Sadie was curled around his head, and that kept it from being worse. He is in bad shape right now, but overall Ned is healthy and in good physical condition for his age, and with good care and a little luck, he should do all right. I want to keep him here for at least a week with around the clock care, where we can keep an eye on him. It is all a matter of prayer now.”

Duncan looked over at Nick. Maggie sat down heavily and began wailing tears of relief, and Nick hugged her to him with one arm.

"It will be all right, Maggie," he said softly. "I promise you, it will be."

“I want to see him,” Maggie said, her face white. “I want to sit beside him for a while.”

Duncan escorted her to Ned’s bedside where she grasped his still hand in hers and brought it to her face. He found himself blinking back tears at the poignant sight.

“I am here, Uncle Ned,” she whispered softly. “I will not leave you.”

Duncan pulled her up a chair beside Ned’s bed and settled her in it before pulling Nick out into the hallway and closing the door behind them. He made sure that they were several feet away from the door before he spoke, to reduce the chances of Maggie hearing them.

“Any ideas what happened?” he asked, rubbing his face, fatigued both from the rude awakening Tommy had given him, and from the surgery. Damn, but he hated taking bullets out of a man; especially old Ned, who he was very fond of.

“None,” said Nick grimly. “The best guess I can make is that he surprised someone in the stables, maybe a horse thief . . . only there are no horses missing. Maybe he scared them off, I do not know. It is very strange. I am going to speak to Sheriff Vanderiest now and see what he thinks.”

“I pulled two bullets out of his shoulder,” Duncan said. “If one of them had gone just a fraction down and to the left, he would be dead. Nick, if they were there to steal horses . . . I do not know why a thief would shoot him twice.”

Nick told him about the suspected dog bite and asked him to keep an eye out for any such injury, and to let the sheriff know if he came across any. Then he forced himself out into the bitter cold, telling his cousins to wait there in the surgery, and that he would come back for them.

The sun had been up for only a little less than an hour, and it was a clear, beautiful day already in the way that only cold days can be, as if somehow the cold makes the light from the sun glow brighter. Nick squinted against the blinding rays and hunched his shoulders against the chill.

The sheriff was not very much help; he scratched his balding head and spit tobacco at the urn by the door, and Nick winced when he missed by nearly a foot. That was a common occurrence, judging by the state of the floor around the spittoon. But however terrible his manners were, and however much the sheriff tried to look like an ignorant hillbilly, the illusion was ultimately doomed to failure. The sheriff was not polished, it was true, and he had absolutely no refinement, but no one spending more than five minutes in the man’s company could mistake him for anything but what he was—a highly intelligent, tenacious bulldog of a man. Nick had dealt with him before, and he liked him quite a lot. The man had integrity. If the sheriff told you that it was so, then it was most certainly so.

“Wall, Nick,” he said now. “I cannot figger why anyone would shoot Ned? You say there was no robbery, and no horses missin’?”

When Nick affirmed this, the sheriff agreed with Nick’s assessment of the situation; Ned must have surprised someone in the act as they intended to take a horse. Until Ned woke up, guess was all that they could do. The sheriff sent a deputy out to study the scene at the stable, and Nick told him about the dog bite he suspected the would-be thief had taken. The sheriff laughed heartily at the idea of three-legged, gentle Sadie taking a bite out of anyone; he owned three of her pups himself, and while they were all good trackers, like their mother they had not more than an ounce of aggression in their whole bodies.

“Just keep an eye out,” said the sheriff, shaking the hand that Nick proffered. “Put a guard on the stables in case whoever it was comes back.”

Nick was walking back to the surgery when he realized they had not left word for Kathleen, and that she was going to beat them there, to an empty house and a bloodstained parlor. The deputy was on his way, but Kathleen was bound to be ready to murder him when she saw him next. He took off at a fast run for the building where Duncan and Doctor Fell kept their offices and small surgery.

Maggie could barely be pried away from Ned’s bedside where she still sat holding one of his hands. The only thing that coaxed her into going back to the farm was hearing from Duncan that Ned would probably not wake up for three or four more hours due to the medicine he had given him. Nick promised to bring her right back, after she changed clothes, ate something and rested for at least an hour. This last was said sternly, with one eyebrow raised imperiously, and Maggie reluctantly agreed. She knew if she did not do as he asked he was quite capable of throwing her over his shoulder and making her leave, and Duncan would probably help him.

Nick borrowed a closed carriage from Doctor Fell. No sense in all of us suffering, he told

them. He had the Doctor keep the horse Tommy had ridden into town on, too. He would send someone for the horse and wagon, and to return the carriage, he said.

“Glad to do it,” Doctor Fell said gruffly. “I do not want to have the rest of you back as patients tomorrow, and that might happen if you do not stay out of the wind.” He threw Nick a sympathetic look. “I have got a coachman’s coat around somewhere. It was left here last winter, and I never got around to throwing it out. Good thing for you, too.”

As they stepped out the door, it began to snow. Maggie put her face up to sky, feeling the biting kiss of the weather on her warm cheeks. She smiled, and stuck out her tongue to taste the snowflakes. The cold, wet flakes felt good in her dry mouth, and she realized with a sense of astonishment that she was quite thirsty, and hungry, too. She wondered how she could still feel these mundane things while her uncle lay near death in the building behind her.

“I will have you home soon, and you can get some coffee and hot food inside you,” Nick said from behind her almost as if he had heard her thoughts. Maggie turned to look at him, swathed in the many-layered coat, and she felt a rush of love for him that had her swaying dizzily. “No sense in you getting sick. Ned would not care for that, matter of fact he would be downright angry with you if you did not take care of yourself while he was down.”

Maggie leaned on his strong arm briefly when he handed her up into the coach. His arms closed around her for much too short of a time in a hard hug, then he released her gently, pushing her into the seat beside Joanne. Ronald and Tommy huddled on the other side.

“Sit close together,” he ordered. “Cover up with this blanket and share your heat. It is better that way.”

Maggie’s brows drew together. Nick would be out in the weather all the way home, with no one to relieve him, and he was worried about them.

“We will be warm enough in here,” she said. “What about you?”

“I will help drive the team,” Tommy said. “I do not want you to be out there alone.”

“No, you will not. You near got frostbite on the way here and there is no sense in both of us freezing. Stay in the carriage. This coat is made of wool and lined with fur, and it is so heavy I can barely walk. It will keep me warm enough. If I needed help, I would say so, but I will be all right.” Nick pushed Tommy firmly back onto the seat and gave him a quelling look that had him subsiding even as the boy started his argument back up again. “I will be fine. Don’t you worry,” he said. “I am going to race for home like my tail was on fire. I do not want to spend a minute more up on this box than I have to. If I think the cold is getting to me, I will stop and let you drive for a little while, and I will get warm inside the carriage before I go back on top.”