Jake limped up to the bar, tossed down a handful of coins, and from the shadow of his slouched hat glared at the man behind the long length of scarred and pitted wood. The cowboy glanced once at his face and the Colts riding low on his hips, then edged nearer to the end of the bar. A saloon girl sidled a step closer.
The bartender, polishing glasses with a rag as gray as his grizzled hair, took one look at Jake and grinned, showing a crooked row of yellowed teeth.
“Well, it looks like the devil comes a callin’ and it ain’t even my birthday.” Without asking, he shoved a whiskey bottle and a smudged glass toward Jake. “You don’t seem to have done too well fer yerself, friend. You’re ugly enough to give a brave man a fright. But never let it be said that Elish Dodd turned away a payin’ customer, no matter how ugly they get.”
“Thanks for the welcome. I hope everyone in this town is as friendly as you.”
“Depends on what day it is and why you’re here.”
Jake took a long pull from the bottle, ignoring the glass. “I need—help.”
“I can see that. You’re bleedin’ all over my floor,” Elish observed, leaning over the bar to glance at the pooling blood. “It ain’t real good for business.”
“Then I’ll take my business upstairs. I need a room and someone who can cut out a bullet without taking off my leg in the process.”
“And I need a bag full of gold and a good woman. This ain’t a mission of mercy. Most of the girls couldn’t patch up a skinned elbow without losin’ their breakfast on your boots.”
“I’m sure one of your girls is good enough to get me a doctor.”
“Doctor! Too long in the sun’s turned you loco, amigo. There ain’t no doctor here. And the ones that have come through here pretendin’ to be, why I’d as soon spit at a rattlesnake than let them get near enough to see the color of my hair.”
Jake pulled himself upright, wincing as his weight settled on his bad leg, and, grabbing up the half-empty whiskey bottle, turned to the stairs leading to the second-floor rooms. “Just send up one of the girls. I’ll figure out something.”
“You please yourself. Take the room at the end of the hall, though I can only promise it to you if business is slow. This ain’t a hotel.”
“I noticed.”
“I’ll send Chessie along, then. Chessie don’t like it rough, though, and I don’t like the walls or the customers full of lead,” Elish added, starting on the glasses again. “You remember that.”
“You and Chessie don’t have to worry.” Jake threw his battered leather saddlebags over his shoulder as he dragged his bad leg up the uneven stairs. “Not tonight, anyway.”
He heard Elish holler into the curtained room next to the saloon for Chessie and the sound of it grated on him. He didn’t like having to depend on anyone for help, no matter how little. But he didn’t have much choice at the moment.
The room Elish allotted him had the familiar feel of old boots. Nothing fancy, but comfortable, and with the advantage of being secluded from most of the noise of the saloon. Someone had pulled the shades to ward off the sun so the edges of everything looked eroded by the diffused yellow light.
Putting down his bottle by the bed, Jake unbuckled his gun belt and draped it over a chair, tossed his hat and duster on top. He pulled up the shades, leaned against the sill and looked out over the main street of Whispering Creek.
In the valley, the heat warmed the shades of green and brown, softening the outlines of the log-and-rock buildings lining either side of the dirt street, muting the sounds of the town so in a moment of stillness the cicadas sang with the wind. Looking up to the jagged evergreen peaks on either side of town, Jake imagined he could smell the complex warm and sharp blend of ponderosa pine, blue spruce, fireweed, and red clay earth that belonged only to the rugged mountains of the northern New Mexico territory.
If there had been any poetry in him, the moment might have given him a sense of peace. But it only agitated his restlessness, and made him more aware of the ache in his thigh and the time he’d lost because he hadn’t been lucky enough this time to stay out of the way of a bullet.
Jake hated the idea of having to stay in Whispering Creek more than a day or two, but he reluctantly admitted it might be a week or longer before he’d be able to ride so that he could track Grey and finish his business.
Not that Jake had any particular place in Texas to go back to; he’d left San Antonio long ago, forced out by the ghosts of his past. This wild, beautiful country was in his blood though, and that made it easier to keep moving, fast and often enough so he’d never come close to putting down roots. So he’d never make the mistake of calling any place home again.
A tentative knock at the door turned him from the window. A girl with rusty curls the color of Indian paintbrush stuck her head into the room, looking him over as if she expected him to fall down dead at any minute.
“You’re not bleedin’ everywhere, are you?”
“Probably. Get in here,” Jake said, gesturing impatiently. “I need your help.”
Chessie edged into the room and stood with her back pressed to the door. She was a tall girl, plump, with a generous mouth and eager eyes. He imagined that usually, she wasted no time in coming to the men who enjoyed her company. This time, she hung back as if he had the plague.
“I don’t know anything about doctorin’ and I ain’t gonna touch anything that’s bleedin’. I don’t like anybody that much.”
Jake glanced at her white face and decided she meant it.
“Just get me the doctor,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He ran a hand over his hair, suddenly feeling tired and heavy.
“Doctor?” Her disbelief echoed Elish’s. “A doctor that lives here?”
“Unless you’re going to volunteer to dig this bullet out.”
Chessie’s eyes bulged. “Not me. But there ain’t no doctor here and if there was, he wouldn’t do you no good.”
“You got a better idea?”
“Sure I do. I’ll get the witch for you.”
“You’ll get what?”
“Isabel. The witch. She don’t like bein’ called a witch, and I suppose Elish might be right when he says she ain’t really magic or nothin’, but she can fix ’bout anything and she’s a lot nicer than any doctor. Why, everyone tried to tell me the nettles and cedar Isabel gave me when I had the fever would more ’n likely kill me than cure me, but in just one day I was back workin’.”
“Woman—” Jake lay back on the bed and slung an arm over his eyes, shutting out the sunlight and Chessie’s jabbering about the so-called witch. “I don’t believe in magic or witches. Just get me someone who can cut out a bullet without killing me.”
Chessie looked at him a long moment, chewing on her lower lip. He’d tied a bandanna around midthigh, partly covering a jagged rip in his heavy pants, and she could see the dark patch staining both. Without saying anything, Chessie hurried out to find the witch.
The roadrunner lay quivering in the cradle of Isabel Bradshaw’s palm, one wing hanging limply. Kneeling on the rocky ground, her worn cotton skirts bunched up around her, the hot dry breeze scattering wisps of dark-gold hair around her face, Isabel gently stroked her fingers over the bird’s tiny body, soothing, judging its injuries with her touch.
“It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you,” she murmured, her voice soft and soothing. She ran her fingertips over the roadrunner’s wounded wing, her eyes never leaving the small bird.
“Don’t