Kitabı oku: «Jake's Angel»

Chapter One

Whispering Creek, New Mexico, 1874

Jake Coulter limped up to the doors of the Silver Rose leaving a trail of blood and dust behind him. After two days of hard riding with a hole in his leg, no sleep, and nothing but a bottle of bad whiskey for solace, he felt mean enough to shoot the next man who crossed him.

He hadn’t planned on dragging into Whispering Creek looking and feeling like something the vultures left behind; he hadn’t planned on coming to Whispering Creek at all. But Jerico Grey had decided to run home to the New Mexico territory, and Jake hadn’t spent nearly six months tracking him just to let him steal his freedom by crossing the border.

Jake tried to remember how much whiskey he’d drunk when he agreed to take on a job no one else wanted, deciding it was just what he needed to change his luck. His delusion lasted until he’d met up with three bandidos near Santa Fe. The encounter left him with a piece of lead in his thigh and a temper to rival the desert heat.

Pushing his way inside, Jake gave a quick, hard look around the saloon, almost sorry there wasn’t anyone who invited trouble to take out his frustration on.

But with morning just turning to midday, the Silver Rose was nearly empty. Three old men, as brown and worn as old leather, sat hunched over a corner table dealing cards, and a stringy cowboy leaned backward against the bar, watching one of the saloon girls tempt with a swish of bright-yellow satin and a flash of dark eyes. Even the air felt lazy, baked hot and dry by the late morning sun and tasting of dust.

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 be afraid, little friend. I only want to help you.”

The roadrunner made a feeble attempt to flutter free and Isabel paused, practicing the way her grandmother had taught her so long ago of using the quiet rhythm of her own body and mind to reassure and calm frightened spirits.

“Mama? Is she all right?”

Turning her attention from the roadrunner, Isabel smiled at one of the two black-haired boys crouched at her side. Matthew looked up at her, his narrow face screwed up with concern, a tremble in his chin. He dragged the back of his hand against his nose, muffling a sniffle.

“Will it live? I knew you could help it so I brought it to you quick as I could. I didn’t mean to hurt it.”

“It’s only because you’re so clumsy with that slingshot, Matt,” the older boy said, giving his brother a push on the arm.

“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.”