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“I’m not clumsy!”
“You are! You couldn’t hit a whole barn if it was a foot in front of you!”
“Nate…” Isabel began, warning him off before a full-fledged battle could ensue.
“Oh, Matt, you’re such a baby,” Nate said, kicking at the dirt with the toe of his boot. “You just can’t aim, that’s all. But I knew you could heal it, Mama, so we ran all the way back home.”
“You did just the right thing, Nate. Now both of you, please be still while I finish or you’ll startle this little one. Here, Matt, you can help me. Gently now…”
Fixing her eyes on the bird, Isabel reached into the basket at her side, being careful not to make any quick movements that would startle the small creature. She sensed its pain and fear, and, even more strongly, Matt’s distress, and wanted to do something to quickly ease both.
In a worn leather pouch, she found a bit of lizard tail root. She spread it on a piece of cotton and added a dribble of water from a small bottle before folding the cloth into a square.
Then taking Matt’s small hand in hers, she guided him to caress the bird’s head and body while she bound the poultice to the bird’s wing with a strip of cloth.
“Speak quietly to her. There…that’s right…”
“You’ll soon be well, little bird, and running with your friends again,” Matt whispered. He began to hum softly to the roadrunner, one of his favorite bedtime lullabies.
Isabel smiled, watching him pet and soothe the bird. After a few minutes, she felt the timid creature settle easily into her hand, its heartbeat slowing, its eyes no longer frightened. Her greater reward, though, was seeing the beginning of hope on Matt’s face.
“It looks better. Is it?”
“Much. She’s only bruised. She just needs a little rest, that’s all.”
“I think she likes me.”
“She likes your touch,” Isabel said, watching Matt stroke the roadrunner’s sleek feathers. “And that’s one of the most important parts of healing. You are doing it exactly right. In a few days, I promise you, she’ll be running with the wind again.”
“Can we take her home until then? Please, Mama?”
“Matt, we have so many of your wounded animal friends at home we need another house just to keep them all.” Isabel relented at the pleading on Matt’s face, unable to deny him. “All right,” she agreed, smoothing back an unruly lock of his hair, smiling. “She can stay a few days, until she’s fully healed. Now, I should take this little one inside and you should get on to the meeting house before Aunt Katlyn misses you for lessons.”
Making sure they had their books and lunch pails, Isabel hugged them both, then watched them scamper off in the direction of the rustic cabin that served as both community center and schoolhouse. She gathered up the roadrunner and rose to her feet, smiling a little at her boys’ energy and their faith in her healing skills.
Matthew and Nathan were all she had left of her marriage—the best part, she’d decided.
Douglas Bradshaw hadn’t left her much when he decided the promise of gold, whiskey and women in California appealed more than a series of failed prospecting ventures and raising a family in Whispering Creek. Isabel could admit now that her marriage to Douglas had been a farce from the beginning. He’d wanted someone to nurse him through a bad bout of influenza, to clean, cook and care for his stepsons after his wife died. And she’d longed for someone to love, to give her the complete family she’d never had.
She had trusted him with her dreams and he had lied to her.
But this past winter, with snow piled to the windows and the smokehouse and root cellar practically empty, when the high country was at its fiercest, the torn and smudged letter arrived telling her Douglas had died in a drunken fight with another miner.
In that moment she remembered very little of the caring she once felt for him. Regret, yes, that Matthew and Nathan had not only lost both their parents but a man they thought would be a father, and a lingering ache at Douglas’s abandonment. But in her heart, Isabel had been a widow since the day just over a year ago when Douglas left suddenly after telling her he couldn’t stomach the prospect of a lifetime stuck in Whispering Creek with her, her grandmother, and his late wife’s children.
But of all the regrets she had about her marriage, Isabel never rued Douglas’s leaving behind his two stepsons. She might not have birthed them, but in her heart Matt and Nate were no less her own. Along with her grandmother and her half sister Katlyn, they were part of her family now and she would do whatever it took to raise them right in the town where they had lived all their lives.
That was why after Douglas left, she’d decided to use part of the house she’d inherited for business, offering her skills as a healer and herbalist. The upstairs loft room she rented to boarders or used as a shelter to those needing a place to rest or recover from injury or illness, or to those who simply had nowhere else to go in Whispering Creek.
Overall, the rambling house was humble, but it afforded her a means to keep food on the table without the help of any man. And that, she determined after Douglas’s leaving, was something she would never allow herself to need again.
Nothing would ever force her to give up her home. And nothing would ever persuade her to risk her heart again for the sake of a dream.
Holding the roadrunner gently in the crook of her arm, Isabel walked around to the back of her cabin, to the small garden there, looking for one of the baskets she used for gathering herbs and vegetables that might serve as a temporary home for Matt’s new boarder.
A harsh cawk greeted her and she looked up to where a large raven sat perched on the edge of the garden fence, eyeing her with an unblinking stare.
“Hello, Trouble,” she called.
“Hello, hello!” the raven croaked. “Cookies, please!”
Isabel laughed, knowing Trouble had learned the phrase from Matt and Nate after following her boys into the kitchen so many times. In fact, his uncanny ability to sneak inside and wreak all manner of havoc had led Nate to give him his apt name.
“Ah, is Nana baking again? I promise, I’ll save one for you and you can share with the boys this afternoon.”
Isabel was still smiling a little to herself when she stepped in the door, lost in her thoughts, not expecting to find anyone in the kitchen at this time of the morning.
The moment the door closed behind her, though, her grandmother pounced on her with a triumphant cry.
“Isabel! At last!”
The old woman’s sudden motion set the dozen strings of varied colored beads she wore swaying and clattering. Tall and scraggy with a snarl of black-and-silver hair, Esme Castillo looked as if her body and face had been roughly hewn from old wood. She gripped a long serving fork in one hand, brandishing it like a sword in Isabel’s direction.
“What is that?” Esme asked flatly, stabbing the fork at the roadrunner. “No, no, no—do not tell me. It is another of Matthew’s orphans. Ay, why do I ask? I should know we will never be rid of these creatures!”
“Oh, Nana, you know I can never say no to someone in need,” Isabel said, laughing. She settled the roadrunner into a small basket by the stove. “Besides, there aren’t that many creatures here.”
“A lizard, a desert rat, a very ugly squirrel, a raven with the tongue of the devil, and now—this! Soon we will have no room for your human orphans.”
“Oh, we’ll find room. And you’ll do as you always do with our guests, slip treats to each and every creature and human when you think no one is looking.” Isabel smiled at Esme’s scowl, then gave her grandmother a quick hug, kissing her cheek. The old woman huffed a bit, making a show of despising any kind of fuss over her, but Isabel saw the satisfied twinkle in her eyes.
“I could put her in Mr. Davis’s room,” she teased Esme, glancing at the roadrunner. “His arm has healed and he told me this morning he’s moving out today to try his luck in Nevada.” Isabel sighed then, her tone losing its humor. “I suppose it means looking for another boarder.”
Esme shrugged. “It will not be difficult. Most of the prospectors would rather have something more than a bedroll and camp food. And ay, that food! I would as soon as eat boiled owls and rat dung than the poison that man over at Lone Gulch mine who calls himself a cook prepares!”
“Well, you look as if you’re preparing for a feast here.”
Isabel waved a hand at the disarray of pots, serving vessels and utensils, various piles of half-readied corn and beans, and raw slabs of goat meat. A chaos of smells permeated the long, narrow room, from the sweet richness of chocolate, to the sharp burn of red and green chilies, combined with various scents of odd and familiar herbs.
Esme helped with the cooking for the family and the boarders as far as she was still able. But when she was angry or upset she attacked the kitchen with a vengeance, soothing her frayed temper by turning out large elaborate meals or concocting one of her seemingly endless potions or remedies.
Glancing at her grandmother, Isabel saw the expression in Esme’s heavy-lidded eyes was shuttered, giving her her usual air of hoarding a great secret. Esme walked over to the black monstrosity of a stove and began vigorously stirring a pot of soup.
“Sheriff Reed, he comes here today to tell me about some robberies nearby. As close as the La Belle, Anchor and Midnight City mines he says. These robberies…” Esme drew a long breath. She turned from her cooking to look at Isabel, her face softening with concern. “The sheriff says they remind him of that man you knew as a girl.”
Isabel shook her head, glancing away, not willing to see the questions in Esme’s eyes. “Of course it isn’t him. It’s been so long, why would he ever come back here?”
“My child, we have all heard the stories that most of the gold he stole from the mining camps around Taos County is hidden in the mountains near here.” Esme hesitated then added, “And of course he always told everyone he cared for you, although I could never believe it of a man like that.”
“Jerico only cared for himself,” Isabel said, knowing it wasn’t quite the truth. She and Jerico Grey had been childhood friends, and for a brief time Isabel imagined she loved him. It had been fleeting, a foolish feeling when she was still a girl and smitten with the wild, wicked attraction of an older boy who’d called her beautiful and promised her paradise.
Except Jerico Grey’s idea of paradise was bought and paid for with someone else’s gold.
“He would never come back here,” Isabel said again, as much to reassure herself as her grandmother.
“Ah, well, I am sure you are right. Let us forget this foolishness. Cal Reed is growing old and loco. He should not be telling tales about robbers and ghosts of the past.”
“I’m sure he was not telling tales. Cal knows his business. But you’re right. We should forget it. I’ll fix us some tea, shall I? One of your special mixes. And Trouble tells me you made cookies, too. Cinnamon, I hope.”
“Cinnamon for you, and jam tarts for the boys. I had extra pastry that had to be used,” Esme added quickly when Isabel smiled knowingly. “Cinnamon is very soothing, too. Just the thing for you, pepita.”
The endearment, a relic from her childhood, only served to show Isabel how worried her grandmother was about the possibility of Jerico Grey touching their lives again. Shaking off a cold touch of uneasiness, she turned to warm the kettle and find the cups when Chessie, one of the girls from Elish Dodd’s saloon, came rushing in, breathless, loudly banging the door behind her.
“Isabel, you have to come now. There’s a man at the Silver Rose who wants a doctor!”
Isabel hid a smile and with a few gentle questions managed to elicit the facts that one of Chessie’s would-be customers had been shot and needed healing. Leaving her grandmother to her frenzy of cooking, Isabel gathered up her basket of remedies and other supplies. “All right, Chessie, let’s go see what the damage is.”
As they approached the Silver Rose, Chessie paused. “Maybe you better come in the back door.” The young woman slid a sideways glance at Isabel, as if not sure if it was a good idea to suggest such a thing.
Watching the shifting expressions on Chessie’s face, Isabel easily read her thoughts. She suppressed a smile, knowing that Chessie, like some, thought she practiced some form of witchery passed down from her Spanish ancestors. It would be so easy to impress Chessie—a dark drape of shawl over her head, a sprinkle of powder and a few chanted words and Chessie would believe Isabel could raise the dead—or at least charm one of Chessie’s admirers into an unlikely marriage.
On the other hand, Isabel knew Chessie truly fretted over anyone in trouble and was only trying to help in sneaking her up the back stairs so she could help a wounded man.
“Perhaps the back stairs would be best,” Isabel said, making her voice and smile kind.
Chessie’s face relaxed, and Isabel smiled to herself.
“There’s a lot of blood,” Chessie said, as she led the way to the second-floor rooms.
“Is there? It’s all right, I’ve seen it before. Let’s just hope your friend isn’t faint from it.”
Chessie stopped in front of the door at the farthest end of the hallway and looked at Isabel, biting her lower lip. “You ought to know something. He ain’t gonna be too glad to see you. He asked me to get the doctor, but I knew you’d be better for him and besides I couldn’t get somebody who ain’t here. I hope you won’t mind nothin’ he says. He looks like the kind that’s always one step from the noose, but he ain’t gettin’ around so good right now so I don’t think he’ll be too much trouble.”
How comforting, Isabel thought, as she followed Chessie into the room.
Chessie’s doubtful reassurance didn’t improve the picture she had so far of this reluctant patient of hers. He was probably like every other man she’d met who used a gun to make a living, on one side of the law or the other. In the New Mexico high country it was hard to tell the difference between the two, most of the time anyway. But it didn’t matter to her. She was here to heal his body, not his soul.
She did wonder, though, what Chessie had told him about her. Heaven knows, she thought, probably that I intend to heal him with chants and spells and boiled bat dung. And won’t that impress him.
A foul combination of whiskey, blood and sweat assaulted Isabel the moment she stepped inside. If nothing else, Chessie’s friend needed a bath and a night to become sober.
“Mister, it’s me,” Chessie called out. “You’ll be feelin’ yourself again soon, don’t worry. I got just the person you need.”
Something between a grumble and a growl answered her. “I hope you found a doctor.”
“Oh, no, I told you I couldn’t do that. I brought the witch.”
Chapter Two
Isabel glanced heavenward and shook her head. “Chessie—”
“Dammit, I told you to bring me a doctor.”
The man lying on the bed half rose up on one elbow and looked Isabel over as if he expected her to have a broomstick and a peaked hat.
“She doesn’t look like a witch,” he said, falling back, one forearm covering his eyes. “She looks like a skinny woman carrying a basket who’d rather be picking flowers than traipsing around a whorehouse. Now, where the hell is the doctor?”
Isabel brushed by Chessie to the side of the bed. “There’s no doctor and I’m not a witch, but if it pleases you, I can mutter a few chants and wave feathers over your head. Although no matter what I do, I’m probably wasting my time since you’ll just walk out of here and get yourself shot up again.”
She set her basket on the rickety oak nightstand next to a nearly empty whiskey bottle, noticing with a sidelong glance the gun belt he’d draped over the bedpost within hand’s reach. Probably another gambler or gunslinger whose luck went sour over a card game or a woman. Deliberately ignoring the guns, she looked at him, appraising him with a long up and down gaze.
He was a big man, and older than she expected, mid-thirties she guessed, with a harshness around his eyes and mouth that looked permanently ingrained by experience and the elements. Hard lines shaped his face and body, giving her the impression there was no flesh to him, only tough brown skin covering honed muscle and bone.
The yellow wash of lamp glow did nothing to dispel the darkness of him. From his unkempt hair and beard to the heavy black denim and leather of his clothing to the look in the clouded eyes that glared at her when he pulled his arm back, nothing about him suggested he could or should be approached.
Isabel found herself holding her breath, staving off the chill his very presence seemed to evoke.
A pain-ridden groan escaped his throat. His dark brows drew together. “What are you still doing here? I don’t want any crazy woman cutting me.”
“I suppose you would rather bleed to death.” Isabel ignored the gathering storm on his face and instead focused on the task at hand. She bent to gently pull away one end of the bloody bandanna. “Of course, if you have the strength, you may live long enough to die of lead poisoning.”
His mind dulled by Elish’s whiskey and two days’ loss of blood, Jake tried to think of a nasty retort that would send her away. Nothing came to him and it made her seem all the more irritating.
“You must be a witch. You’ve only been here five minutes and I already feel cursed.”
“Perhaps I am. And perhaps later I’ll wave some essence of burnt toad over your head and make your leg disappear. Then it won’t trouble you further. For now, you’re going to find out that I can cut out a bullet as fast and clean as any so-called doctor.”
Before he could stop her, Isabel whipped a knife from the waistband of her skirt. With the skill of a surgeon she sliced through the bandanna in one clean swipe. The quick motion brought Jake halfway to his feet, his left hand slapping instinctively to his hip, his right reaching behind for the nearest Colt.
“Dammit, woman—”
She twisted the knife and pointed it at him, tip first.
“Be quiet and lie back. I don’t expect your undying gratitude, but I won’t fight you for the privilege of cutting a bullet out of your leg while you curse me for it.”
From behind, Chessie let out a gasp, reminding Isabel she still lingered in the room.
“Don’t worry,” Isabel told her, flipping the knife blade back down, “I haven’t killed anyone—yet.” She gave Jake a hard-edged glance. “No matter how rude they are. Or perhaps you’re just afraid of pain.”
Jake studied her a moment, wondering why anyone would think she was a witch. The flush in her cheeks and the sting of her words made her look and sound far too real to be anything magical. He knew about Mexican women who used herbs and faith to doctor those who believed a handful of weeds and a touch could heal. But this Isabel didn’t look Mexican, or even Spanish, with her pale hair and eyes the color of New Mexican turquoise.
“Who are you?” he heard himself ask, wondering why he cared.
“Isabel Bradshaw. I’m a healer.”
“Bradshaw? That’s not very Mexican.”
“Considering my husband was an American, I wouldn’t expect it to be. And you didn’t answer my question. Are you afraid of pain?” She moved closer, still gripping the knife. “Or of me?”
