Will knew he was staring like a fool at the doc, knew his jaw had gone slack and that his eyebrows were climbing toward his hairline, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He figured he was about as stupefied as a man could be and still draw breath.
Cole had no comment for Will’s reaction. His attention had already returned to his patient. “Tear one of the sheets into strips,” he said. “You can let go of her arms. Runt’s not going to fight us.”
“Then he must be dead.” Will didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until Cole barked the order at him a second time. He dropped Runt’s wrists like they were hot coals and grabbed one of the sheets. Using his knife, he quickly shredded it into bandages while Cole opened Runt’s trousers and union suit.
“I don’t see it, Doc,” he said, stealing a glance at Runt’s face. Not dead, just insensible. There was no belligerence or hint of challenge left in the set of Runt’s mouth, no jut to the jaw or flare to his nose. The loose features weren’t exactly peaceful either, and they resisted Will’s effort to see the female in them. “You sure Judah didn’t beat Runt’s privates to bloody pulp?”
“I’m sure.” Cole grabbed one of the bandages, folded it end over end into a pad and carefully placed it between Runt’s thighs. “Help me lift and turn her. We’ll use the slope to get her feet higher than her head. If I can slow the bleeding here, we might be able to move to the cabin.”
Will slipped his forearms under Runt’s shoulders and back. Cole supported her legs. On Cole’s count, they lifted her just the few inches necessary to make the awkward half turn on their knees. Runt never twitched.
“Take a few of the bandages and wet them in the stream.” Cole spared a glance at Will when the deputy didn’t move quickly enough to suit him. If one got past the greenish tinge, Will’s face was almost as pale as Runt’s. “Are you going to faint, Deputy?”
Will rose unsteadily to his feet. “Touch of vertigo.” He started off for the stream, remembered the sheets, and hurried back to get them. Coleridge Braxton Monroe rose in his estimation when he didn’t comment on the lapse.
Cole removed Runt’s boots, rolled down her trousers to her knees, then cut away part of her union suit with the knife Will left behind. When Will came back with the damp cloths he held out one hand for them. “Go wash out your shirt,” he said, gesturing to the wadded and bloody chambray lying on the ground. “Then fashion some kind of sling we can use between the horses to take Runt back.”
“I can make a litter. It’d be more gentle-like if we carried her back.”
Cole considered the distance and the time and weighed it against the caution they would be able to exercise. “You’re right. Make a litter.”
Relieved that he wasn’t needed at Runt’s side, Will decided his shirt could wait. He grabbed his knife and went off in search of a couple of limbs long and strong enough to use as poles.
A grim smile flickered across Cole’s mouth. In a whispered aside, he addressed his patient just as though she were able to hear him. “He’d never be able to look you in the eye again if he had to look at you now.” The cotton bandage between Runt’s legs was soaked with blood. Cole removed and replaced it, then began to mop the blood from Runt’s belly and thighs. “I don’t know if there would have been any satisfaction for you in seeing his face, but when he realized I was telling him that you’re a woman, he looked as if he’d been poleaxed. I’m not convinced he believes me now.”
The damp cloth in Cole’s hand was already dark red with blood. He tossed it aside and picked up a clean one. “I’m not convinced that you believe me,” he said quietly. The bloody smear on her skin was transparent enough now that Cole could see that some of what he’d assumed were streaks of dried blood were actually welts. The raised ridges ran diagonally on the flesh of her abdomen and upper thighs. Frowning, Cole set the cloth down and picked up Runt’s right hand. He stripped off the bloodstained glove and examined her hand for defensive wounds. There were none, neither on the palm nor the back of the hand. He examined her wrist with his eyes this time, not merely with his fingertips. Evidence that she had been restrained was burned into her skin. He gently cleaned her wrist and found rope fibers embedded in her skin.
“Mother of God.” Cole closed his eyes, but it was a brief indulgence. Setting Runt’s hand aside, he continued to work to staunch the flow of blood. He eyed the shape of her abdomen, then laid his palm over her belly to gauge the distention. It was difficult to know the length of her pregnancy without speaking to her, but he didn’t think he was wrong about the fact of it. The extent of the hemorrhaging concerned him. A woman in the first months of pregnancy could lose a child and only have ever had an inkling that she was carrying. The terrible proof that Runt’s pregnancy had progressed beyond the first trimester was in the angry wales that marked her skin. Someone had tried to beat the baby out of her, which meant it wasn’t solely her secret. Had she shared it, or had she been found out?
Looking at the raised stripes again, Cole couldn’t help but wonder about internal damage. Concerned that a crude examination in this setting would do more harm, Cole elected to wait. Runt had to survive the transport first.
He called out to Will. “How’s the litter coming?” There was a rustling in the trees off to Cole’s left, but he didn’t bother looking up. “Did you find anything you could use?”
Will came out of the woods dragging a trimmed and sturdy limb in each hand. “Sure did. I figure I got enough rope with me to lash a sheet to these poles. If I can tie it off, even better.”
Cole nodded. He pointed to a spot some distance away where the horses were grazing. “Make it over there.”
That no-account Beatty boy didn’t have to be told twice. He gave himself a lot of clearance when he passed and spared only the narrowest of glances at Runt. “How’s he doin’?”
There was no point in correcting Will’s pronoun. “Just balancing on the brink of consciousness,” Cole said. “The bleeding’s slowed.”
“Then he ain’t been drained.”
“No, Deputy,” Cole said dryly. “He ain’t been drained.”
Will came close enough to grab a sheet and returned to where he’d dropped the poles. “Hell, you know what I meant, Doc. I didn’t know a body had so much blood. I guess it’s a good thing and all, but I never saw the like before. There’ve been gunfights in town with less blood.”
“I assume the victims died quickly.”
“Mostly, yeah.”
“The heart’s just a pump, Will. Once it stops, blood flow’s only a matter of gravity.”
“Oh.” He thought about that. “Then Runt’s got a strong heart.”
“She does.” Cole decided not to mention her wounds were probably more grievous than a bullet. He looked over his shoulder to see how Will was coming with the litter. “Why isn’t Judah here?”
Will kept working. “You’ll have to ask him.”
“I will, but I want to hear what you think.”
“Not that it makes any kind of difference to the truth, but I suspect he’s not here because he’s mightily peeved. He and Runt don’t get along all that well. It’s my recollection that they never did, leastways it was different than how Judah could tolerate Rusty and Randy. He didn’t exactly warm to them, but he didn’t cuff them every chance he got.” Will paused, struck by a thought that could never have occurred to him before today. “Do you suppose he knew Runt was a girl?”
It was the deputy’s grave tone that kept Cole from ridiculing the question. He had to remind himself that Will was still struggling to accept a new truth. What Will had believed to be fact was, in fact, only perception. That