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One of the uniformed men made his way to the stranger who was seated on a bench with his back against the side of the railcar, his hand pressed to his ribs. “Find something for bandages!”
Spurred out of her frozen state of shock, Elisabeth straightened and stepped into the aisle. She raised her hem and, holding it in her teeth, tore a wide strip from her petticoat. “Here.”
Others provided handkerchiefs and scarves, and the conductor handed over the wad of material for the fellow to press against the wound. “Sit tight,” he said. “We’ll get you to the doctor in Jackson Springs quick as we can.”
Several men dragged the robbers’ bodies to the back of the car, the dead men’s boot heels painting shiny streaks of blood on the wooden floor. Her stomach roiled and she thought she might be sick.
“Are you all right?”
She swung her gaze to those green eyes, now dark with pain. “Y-yes, I’m fine.”
Had he killed all of those men? He made a halfhearted attempt to sit a little straighter, but grimaced and stayed where he was.
He’d probably saved her life. Without a doubt he’d saved her from losing her precious ring. She perched on the edge of the seat beside his leg, and reached to replace his hand with hers, pressing the cloth against his cream-colored shirt, where it was soaked with blood that flowed from his side. “I’m Elisabeth Hart.”
“Gabe Taggart,” he replied.
“That was a very brave thing you did.”
His expression slid into a scowl. “Didn’t have much choice after the stupid thing you did.”
Taken aback, she was at a loss for words. Before that horrible man had reached for her, she’d been prepared to hand over the ring. Now she felt foolish for ever hesitating.
Steam hissed and the train jerked into motion, picking up speed along the tracks. The stranger winced at the jerking movement. The woman who’d been sitting behind them made her way along the aisle in the rocking car. “Thank you for rescuing us,” she said to Gabe.
Casting a disapproving scowl at Elisabeth, she returned to her seat. Elisabeth glanced at a few of the other occupants of the railcar and noted an assortment of scathing looks directed toward her. None of them understood the value she placed on the ring or the reason for her delay. She hadn’t meant to endanger anyone.
Silently, she prayed for his life, asking God to forgive her for putting him at risk because of her selfish attachment to an earthly treasure. Out of habit, she reached into the jacket pocket of her traveling suit and rubbed a smooth flat stone between her fingers. The keepsake was one of several she’d picked up during her family’s perilous journey to Colorado. The stones reminded her of the sacrifice and dedication that had brought them to a new state and a new life.
The train rocked and turned a bend. Several other passengers expressed their thanks to Gabe as the train neared its destination. When at last they reached Jackson Springs, the tale spread to the baggage men and the families waiting on the platform. Several men carefully loaded Gabe Taggart into the bed of a wagon and drove him away.
Grateful this particular chapter of her life was over and that Taggart would be getting medical attention now, Elisabeth released a pent-up breath and joined the others disembarking.
“Thank the Lord, you’re safe.”
Elisabeth turned with relief and embraced her stepmother, their bodies separated by the girth of Josie’s growing belly beneath her pretty green day dress.
“What happened to that man?” her six-year-old half brother Phillip asked. He had shiny black hair like their father’s and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
“He prevented robbers from stealing our things,” Elisabeth answered, trying to keep panic and guilt from her voice.
“Lis-bet, Lis-bet!” Peter and John, the three-year-old twins, jumped up and down waiting for her to greet them.
She picked up Peter first, kissing his cheek and ruffling his curly reddish hair. After setting him down, she reached for John. He kissed her cheek, leaving a suspiciously peppermint stickiness on her skin.
Josie turned and motioned forward a slender dark-haired young woman that Elisabeth had assumed was waiting for another passenger. “This is Kalli Tyler. She’s my new helper. Your father thought I needed someone full-time, and I didn’t argue. She’s a godsend, truly. You two are going to get along well.”
“I’ve heard all about you,” Kalli said with a friendly dimpled smile. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” She kept her voice steady, but her insides quivered in the aftermath of that drama. She collected herself to study the other young woman.
As her father’s assistant, the notary public and a tutor, Elisabeth did have her hands full. It was wise of Father and Josie to hire additional help. At seventeen and sixteen, her sisters, Abigail and Anna, were busy with school, studies and social activities, and their bustling household did need extra assistance to keep things running smoothly.
“I brought a wagon and Gilbert,” Josie told her. “You had bags, and I’m not up to the walk.”
“Of course,” Elisabeth answered. “Phillip, help me find my bags, please.”
She turned toward the pile where luggage was being stacked just as two men carried one of the robbers from the train on a stretcher. He’d been shot in the chest and his vest was drenched with dark glistening blood. The man was quite plainly dead.
Chapter Two
“Stop!” Stunned, Elisabeth grabbed her little brother and spun him away from the sight. “We’d better wait until the crowd thins out so we can find my satchels.” Thankfully, the throng of onlookers had prevented Phillip from seeing what she’d just witnessed.
“I wanna see!” He wriggled, but she held him fast, staying behind him and keeping him faced the other way.
Josie had to give him a stern look before he stopped struggling. Finally, he leaned back against Elisabeth. Regret ate at her stoic confidence. Her ring definitely didn’t seem as important as it had before. Especially if her hesitation had been the cause of these men’s deaths. She swallowed hard.
At last the final body was removed and the crowd thinned. Phillip joined her in locating her satchel and another bag and carried the biggest one with both hands on the handle, the weight of the case banging against his shins.
A tanned hand reached to take the leather bag from him, and Elisabeth glanced up. “Gil!”
Her longtime friend was now a deputy. The silver star on his vest winked in the sunlight. He wore his hat cocked back, revealing his smiling blue eyes, and his familiarity was a comfort. “Heard there was some excitement,” he said.
He hefted both bags into the back of the wagon, and while her family climbed onto the seat and over rails into the wagon bed, she gave him a friendly hug.
“You’re trembling, Lis.”
“I’m a little shaken up, I guess.”
He was the only person ever allowed to call her by a shortened version of her name. At about sixteen, she’d stopped letting his teasing bother her, and thereafter it had become his habit. “I’m glad you weren’t involved.”
“Well, actually…”
“Actually what?”
She thought better of what she’d been about to reveal and pulled away. “Actually, I read an entire book in the two evenings I was in Morning Creek,” she answered, avoiding her involvement.
“You’re a wild one, you are,” he said and helped her up to the bed beside her younger siblings and Kalli. Josie was on the springed seat, and he climbed up beside her. “I’m going to deliver you home, but I need to get right back and help with the paperwork and identifying the—uh—criminals.”
Kalli occupied the boys by singing a nursery rhyme, and Elisabeth was grateful for the distraction she provided. Gil halted the team at the bottom of the hill, where the church sat beside a tiny empty parsonage.
Her father exited the church’s side door and crossed the lawn, his black hair shining in the afternoon sun and a smile on his handsome face.
“Papa, there was robbers on the train!” Phillip called.
Samuel Hart’s smile faltered and he studied Elisabeth with concern. “Are you all right?”
She jumped down to embrace him, and gave him a brief explanation.
“I’ll head over to Dr. Barnes’s to pray for the wounded hero,” her father said. Elisabeth had expected nothing less of her father, a man of compassion and faith.
Gil led the team up the hill toward their home at the top of the tree-lined street. When the shrubbery and mature trees that surrounded their vast yard came into view, Elisabeth sighed with appreciation. Josie had been a wealthy widow when Father had married her, and her inheritances had supplied this dwelling where, in the years since, love had abounded and faith flourished.
While the others bustled around her, Elisabeth studied the asymmetrical house with its bay windows, balconies, stained glass, turrets, porches, brackets and ornamental masonry. The structure was two-storied, except for a third floor at the top of one pointed turret. That was the room where she and her sisters had spent hours reading and dreaming. She still used the space to relax and find a peaceful spot away from the boys.
Elisabeth exhaled with relief at being safely home.
She found her bags just inside her doorway where Gil had set them. She needed to unpack. Father would have duties piled up for her.
Sweat trickled along his spine, but the bandanna he’d tied around his head beneath his black cowboy hat kept perspiration from his eyes. Vision was critical when a keen eye meant the difference between life and death.
Gabe studied the cabin baking beneath the blistering sun. The man he’d been hunting for the past six weeks was holed up in there with a bottle of whiskey and a slug in his thigh. If he hadn’t passed out from pain or bled to death, heat and starvation would drive him out eventually. Gabe rested his rifle against a bolder and reached for his canteen. Empty? He’d only just filled it. His throat was burning and dry; he needed water badly.
Heat more searing than the sun licked up his side. The dry grass around him was on fire! He jumped up to escape the flames and a shot rang out. His prey had exited the cabin and aimed another shot at Gabe, now standing and exposed.
Gabe reached for his rifle. It was gone, and in its place a coiled rattler lifted its head and shook its tail in warning.
Gabe jerked awake.
He lay drenched with sweat and his side throbbed. His tongue felt too big for his mouth. For a moment he didn’t recognize the room, but then the train robbery and his subsequent ride to the doctor’s home came back to him.
“He’s one stubborn fellow.” Vaguely, Gabe remembered the doctor removing the bullet from his side, but now instead of a blood-spattered apron, the man was wearing a clean white shirt and tie.
“Heavy, too.” The black-haired fellow beside him threaded his hair back from his forehead and stared down.
Grimacing, Gabe raised up on one elbow.
“No more getting out of this bed,” the doctor ordered and poured a glass of water from a nearby pitcher. He had silver hair at his temples, but was probably only ten years older than Gabe.
That’s right. He’d made a foolhardy attempt to use the outhouse on his own. Gabe gulped down four glasses of the cool liquid before he lay back. “How long was I out?”
“You blacked out when I removed the bullet yesterday. It cracked your rib, but traveled a ways. Now stay put or I’ll tie you to this bed. Good thing the reverend came along or I’d never have gotten you back in here.”
Reverend? “Am I dying?”
“You’re not dying,” Matthew Barnes assured him. “You’re just weak from losing so much blood. You need to rest and build up your strength.”
“Why’d you call the preacher?”
“He didn’t call me.” The man offered his hand. “I’m Samuel Hart. My daughter was on the train yesterday. She’s one of the passengers you saved from being robbed. She told me all about the incident.”
“Hart,” he said with a scowl. “The blonde?”
“That’s Elisabeth.”
Gabe groaned. “She had a strong aversion to parting with her neck chain.”
Samuel Hart nodded. “She’s worn the ring on that chain ever since my first wife died.”
Gabe glanced around the room, finally noting there was another man lying on a cot several feet away. He looked to be sleeping or unconscious. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Snake bite,” Dr. Barnes replied. “Just got here an hour or so ago.”
Gabe turned his attention back to the preacher. “If the doc didn’t call you, why are you here?”
“I came yesterday, too, though you never woke up. I prayed for you and came back to see how you’re doing.”
Gabe couldn’t recall anyone praying over him before. “I hurt like I’ve been dragged behind a team of horses.”
The man in the other bed moaned, and the doctor moved to attend to him.
“Well, thank God you’re alive,” the preacher said.
Gabe studied him again and attempted to sit up, but pain lanced through his side and took his breath away. He rested a hand over the bandages. “I’ve been shot before, but it never hurt like this.”
“Cracked ribs hurt more than a wound,” the doctor said. “But you can’t take a chance on opening that hole or letting it get infected.”
“I can’t stay here,” Gabe objected. For one thing, if any of the train robbers’ friends had heard of him being shot, the first place they’d search would be the doctor’s. “I have business to see to.”
“Where do you plan to go?” the doc asked him. “You need close supervision for at least a week or better.”
“Looks like you’ve got your hands full with the snake-bit fella,” Gabe replied.
“You can come home with me,” the preacher said.
Gabe gave him a sidelong look.
“I have a big house full of women who can help me look out for you.”
“I do have to head out this afternoon and make calls,” the doc advised. “Plus look after this fella. You’d likely get better care at the Harts’.”
Gabe hated to admit it, but the thought of moving more than his toes made him sweat. He’d pulled through a lot worse than this, though. “All right. The preacher’s house it is.”
Chapter Three
Elisabeth returned from the clothesline with a basket of her clean folded clothing in time to hear a commotion coming from the front hall.
“Not there!” a man shouted. “Don’t grab me there, for pity’s sake!”
She didn’t recognize the voice, but then her father’s more calming words reached her. “We’ll have you settled in just a minute, Mr. Taggart.”
Taggart? She entered the enormous sunlit foyer from the back hallway, stopped and stared.
Her father and Gil supported the tall man, one on each side, and Dr. Barnes followed, carrying his bag in one hand, a carton in the other.
“Just a little farther,” Sam coaxed.
“Any farther and you might as well just shoot me again,” the man growled. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his swarthy face had turned pasty white. A steep set of narrow stairs led from the street up to the house, and he’d just maneuvered them with a bullet wound.
