Revenge and the Wild(29)

“It’s been a long ride,” Westie said. “I’m bushed.”

James bowed his head to her. “It was good to see you again,” he said.

She nodded and went inside, bounding for the stairs.





Fifteen


The next morning Nigel and Westie left for town to pick up Alistair from Doc Flannigan’s office. Westie breathed slowly through her mouth. It was hot as a kiln out, but she shivered as her nausea crept up again. After James had left the evening before, Westie had snuck into Nigel’s office, where he kept a stash of absinthe on hand for entertaining guests. She’d only meant to have one drink, but somehow one became four.

“Stop the wagon,” she said, hopping down before he had the chance. She bent over, hands on her knees on the side of the road, and stayed that way until the feeling passed.

Nigel frowned. “Is this something I should be concerned about?”

Westie spit in the dirt. “Must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me.”

He mumbled under his breath, then went to his medical bag and pulled out a cup. He filled it with water and dropped what looked like a sugar cube inside. When it started to fizz, he handed it to her.

“Drink this. It will make you feel better.”

She wrinkled her face in disgust upon tasting the chalky drink, but once she got it down, her stomach began to settle. They climbed back into the wagon without another word spoken between them.

Their next stop was in front of the doc’s office, where an old man sat in a chair, whittling away at a piece of basswood. Westie jumped out of the wagon, her clothes clinging uncomfortably to her skin. A few horses waited in the shade of an awning, but the streets were mostly abandoned.

She reached for one of the boxes Nigel had brought to give to the doc in exchange for Alistair’s care.

“What the hell did you pack in this thing?” she asked, lifting the box with her machine and steadying it with her flesh arm. It was big enough that she couldn’t see a thing in front of her. She balanced the box on her knee before trying to brave the steps. “Are you and the doc cutting up dead bodies again?”

Westie had been only eleven years old when she’d walked in on Nigel, the doctor, and the old sheriff performing an autopsy. What took less than a minute to witness took years to finally get out of her head.

“Just a few inventions I came up with. Thermometers and alarms, mostly,” Nigel said.

As Westie reached the top step, a scream punctured the doldrums of the lazy day, the kind of shattering sound that turned blood to ice and muscles to stone. She dropped the heavy box and heard the tinkle of something delicate breaking within as it tumbled down the steps.

“What in the heavens was that?” Nigel said.

The sheriff barreled out of the jail next door. His shirt was untucked, drool crusted on his chin, and he had the puffy eyes of someone woken suddenly from a nap.

Westie’s heart jittered as she looked around, waiting for something to happen.

A woman erupted from the dark space between the general store and the tailor, tripping over the wagon ruts in the road and landing on the ground before pushing herself back up and running again.

“Help me,” she cried, her eyes wild, blond hair unraveling from its bun, dress torn and bloodied.

She was just a streak of color and noise as she passed Westie, who pulled the sword from her parasol.

The sheriff reached for his gun, but he wasn’t wearing his belt. “Dammit, my gun’s still in the jail. Wait right there,” he said to Westie, but it was too late. She was already running in the opposite direction, toward the alley where the woman had come from.

Westie’s mind scrambled for the different scenarios she might encounter. The hard soles of her boots made it difficult to maneuver over the ruts, and several times she nearly went down when her ankles buckled. She was vaguely aware of the sheriff’s shouts from behind her and of the slower steps following behind her. By the time she reached the darkness, whoever had been there with the woman was gone.

Westie panted as she buried her blade in its sheath, the heat of the day making her feel light-headed. Behind her, Nigel leaned heavily on his cane, trying to catch his breath. “Anything?” he said with the toothy grimace of a man in pain.

“Nothing.”

The woman had collapsed in the sheriff’s arms in front of Doc Flannigan’s office, her body quivering from her racking sobs.

Others spilled out of shops, cluttering the porches to see what all the commotion was about. Isabelle stood in front of her parents’ apothecary, eyes alight with intrigue. Westie took Nigel by the elbow and helped him make his way back to the sheriff.

“Westie, I told you to wait,” the sheriff said in his Texas drawl, and spit a thick stream of tobacco juice on the ground beside her.

Westie wasn’t sure why all the women in town thought he was the handsomest man in Rogue City. Sure, he was tall and lean and packed with muscle. But he was also hairy and slightly horseshoe legged. But mostly it was his personality that made him ugly to Westie. If he were a horse with a disposition like that, he would’ve been put down by now.

“I didn’t realize you were talking to me,” Westie lied.

“Do you see any other dumb shits around here with a death wish?” The sheriff rarely cussed, but when he did it was usually at her. He still hadn’t gotten over the embarrassment she’d caused him when he’d nearly hanged an innocent man for cannibalism.