Promise Me Texas (A Whispering Mountain Novel) Read online

  The boy nodded, looking like he didn’t believe her plan would work, but he was willing to give it a try.

  A moment later he ran for the back door of the café, and she marched to the front.

  An hour ago she’d been too frightened to face Lamont and fight, but now Beth knew what she had to do. The kids’ lives depended on her, and marching into trouble seemed to be her one talent.

  She grabbed a lantern from the porch and stepped into the cold night. As she walked down the center of the street, she swung the lantern just beyond her skirts so that no one would mistake her for a man.

  Before she reached the barn, the sheriff shouted at her. “Get out of the way, lady. We’re in the middle of a gunfight here.”

  Beth kept walking toward the barn, holding the lantern high so that anyone could see her plainly. “Hold your fire!” she yelled. “I have to talk to the man in the barn.”

  All gunfire stopped, but the cussing continued like a loose pot lid rattling over boiling water.

  When she was within twenty feet of the barn, she shouted, “Mr. Peterson, are you in there? I need to talk to you about something that can’t wait.”

  “What do you want, pretty lady?” A man’s voice came through the darkness, sounding almost friendly. “I ain’t seen nothing as pretty as you in years.”

  The sheriff yelled for her to get back, but Beth ignored him. She stood dead center between the barn and the sheriff.

  “I was wondering if you’d sell me that pinto you got? I saw it in the corral and would love to have a fine horse like that.”

  The sheriff’s cussing could be heard for half a block away, and Chesty Peterson yelled back, swearing he’d double-kill any man who fired near the lady.

  When all was silent, the outlaw said, “I’m kind of busy right now, lady. Don’t have time for horse trading.”

  “I’ve got a twenty-dollar gold piece I could pitch you. If this fight doesn’t go your way it’ll pay for a real nice funeral.”

  Laughter rattled from inside the barn. “Twenty-five and any horse you want is yours.”

  “Twenty and I’ll take the pinto.”

  The outlaw swore. “You got yourself a deal, pretty lady. I ain’t got time to bargain. Toss the money in the opening and take your horse. I’ll even throw in the saddle. Don’t look like I’ll be using it.”

  “Thank you kindly, mister.” She curtsied politely. “It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

  Beth tossed the gold piece in and opened the corral door. To her surprise the outlaw walked the horse out of the darkened corral, careful to keep behind the animal. He stopped, checking the saddle before slapping the horse on the rump hard enough to head her toward the gate.

  When Beth reached the pinto, she could barely make out the outlaw in the shadows. He tipped his hat to her. “I’ll be seeing you, pretty lady,” he said, loud enough for her to hear.

  “Who knows? Life does take strange turns now and then,” she replied, though she doubted their paths would ever cross again. Beth wouldn’t take a bet that Chesty Peterson would live the night.

  A few minutes later, when she brought the pinto out into the lamplight, all the men on the street were silent as she walked first past the sheriff and then his deputies.

  “You really are crazy, lady,” the sheriff said. “LaCroix was right.”

  “I simply wanted to buy a horse.” She smiled. “Now, I suggest you get back to your business, Sheriff, and I’ll get back to watching over my husband.”

  The gunfire didn’t resume. Evidently the sheriff figured if she could talk to the outlaw, so could he. Within ten minutes Chesty Peterson surrendered without another shot being fired.

  When Beth got back to the hospital, she tied the pinto out front and found two small boys curled up in old blankets in the hallway, sound asleep. She pulled a new blanket from the supply shelf and covered them both before checking on Andrew.

  He was sleeping, so she didn’t wake him. His color was better, but he’d need days to heal. The bandage around his neck almost looked like a fancy tie, but the one across his forehead was spotted with blood that had dripped around the stitches.

  She was surprised how much it bothered her that most of his wounds probably happened because he’d been protecting her when they’d jumped from the train. He might have been about to rob the train, but in that moment he’d been a hero. He’d almost been a man worth the loving, she thought. Someone she’d been looking for all her life. No man ever measured up, and this one didn’t either. But for a moment he almost had.

  She brushed his chestnut hair away from his bandaged forehead. The memory of the way he’d kissed her lightly, like he’d done it a thousand times, crossed her mind. On impulse, she leaned down and gave him back his light kiss. “I told you I’d be back,” she whispered. “I’m staying here with you all night.” She didn’t add that it was the only place she’d feel safe.

  As he slept, she pulled a chair near and searched the room for another blanket and something to use as a step stool. The room, though it looked like a small ward across from a doctor’s office, didn’t seem to be used much. Maybe the doctor was slowing down, but he didn’t even keep the ward staffed or properly stocked.

  In the shadows she walked to the other man several feet away from Andrew. No one had checked on him since she’d arrived. She lit a small lamp, wanting to make sure he was still alive.

  His skin was so pale he matched the sheet pulled to his chin. Knowing she shouldn’t, Beth pulled the sheet away slowly. His arm was bandaged below the elbow, and red streaks ran up and down his arm. Snakebite, she thought, having heard how one bite could poison the blood in an arm or leg so badly the victim could lose a limb.

  But bites didn’t cause a man to go mad, she thought, so why strap the patient to his bed? She looked closer. His wrists and ankles were tied beneath the covers. If he’d been a prisoner brought in for care, wouldn’t the sheriff have at least looked in his direction when he’d been here earlier?

  Maybe the sheriff didn’t know the man was so near death. He’d have no reason to inspect other patients. The doctor would know, though, as would the nurses who worked during the day.

  She turned his face to the light and was shocked to see a young man, maybe not out of his teens. One eye was black, and the imprint of a fist was bruised along his jaw. She remembered what the boy had said about snakes not usually beating up folks before they bite them.

  Levi suddenly appeared at her side, startling her. It took a moment for her nerves to settle. “Has this ever happened before to someone in the hospital?” she whispered.

  “I’ve been helping out for two months. Women come in to have babies sometimes. Old people already half dead come in so the doc can make their last days not so painful. Town folks drop by to be patched up across the hall. One other time a stranger came in who had no one with him and no visitors. The doc said he fell off a horse. That night, I saw the midnight nurse start what she called treatments, and they buried him two days later. I figure this guy’s got maybe two more treatments before they start digging his grave.”

  “The midnight nurse?”

  “Yeah, that’s what me and my brother call her. She comes before dawn. She usually gives a shot, checks to make sure her patient is still tied up, and leaves. Don’t try to talk to him or nothing like the day nurse does.”

  Beth felt a chill. She patted the young man’s cheek, harder, harder. On the third slap, he came to, but his eyes were blurry and couldn’t seem to focus.

  “Do you need help?” she asked. “Is there someone I can contact? Family? A friend?”

  He whispered something, but she couldn’t hear.

  She leaned closer.

  He whispered again. Two words. “Murdering me.”

  Beth needed to be sure. “Someone is murdering you?”

  He nodded very slightly, and Beth shook with frost crawling over her body even though the temperature in the room hadn’t changed.

  She took the hand
of the stranger and said, “Don’t worry. I’m staying close.”

  CHAPTER 5

  AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN, ANDREW SLOWLY STOOD AND moved silently to the window. He felt kitten weak, but he needed to push himself. Every minute he lay in bed put him in more danger. With Chesty Peterson in town, Dallas was not a place he wanted to be. The outlaw wouldn’t be happy to know Andrew had survived when all his men died. Andrew wouldn’t be surprised if the man came gunning for him if he escaped, and knowing Peterson, he’d escape.

  Andrew had watched Beth tie his horse to the railing out front last night, and the animal was still waiting for him now. It seemed unlike her to leave the animal out, but maybe she figured the horse wasn’t her problem anymore. She’d gotten the pinto for him, and that was where her duty ended. He wished he’d asked her to at least bring in his saddlebags. Two weeks of his writing was tucked away in his journal amid his dirty clothes.

  She drifted through his thoughts like she belonged there. Dressed in her leather trousers and duster she looked well seasoned to this western way of life, but dressed in skirts she was every inch a lady. When he wrote about her, and he would definitely write about Beth McMurray, she wouldn’t be easy to describe. So beautiful she took his breath away. He’d never met a woman like her. In fact, he doubted there was another like Beth. She seemed to run toward life while he spent most of his time running away.

  He saw her move from the shadows now and realized she’d been with him all night.

  “Morning, husband.” She smiled, still playing their make-believe game. Tiny curls had pulled free from her braid and now framed her face. Her reddish-brown hair looked darker. He wished he had the right to touch it, but he was no more than an imaginary lover, and that was about as close as he’d risk.

  “What are you still doing here?” he asked as his eyes drank her in. “I figured you’d be off for parts unknown by now.”

  “I’m watching over you and the guy in the other bed. He’s been restless the past few hours, mumbling in his sleep, fighting the straps. I believe he thinks he’s about to be murdered.”

  Andrew watched her closely. “Of course he is.” The woman’s entire life must read like a novel with a villain behind every corner.

  “No, I’m serious. He thinks the nurse is slowly poisoning him.”

  Andrew decided he’d play along. “All right, if you say so. What can I do to help?”

  “We have to keep the nurse from giving him a shot. Levi says she comes in before dawn to give him medicine that she pushes into his arm. When she’s finished, he doesn’t move for hours.”

  “Who is Levi?” For all he knew Beth had an imaginary friend.

  “The boy sleeping in the hallway.” She looked bothered that he wasn’t keeping up. “He said the man came in with a snakebite and he’s getting worse every time the nurse gives him a shot. He says the man is tied down so he won’t fight.”

  Andrew looked toward the door and saw the wide eyes of a child staring at him.

  “She’s coming,” the boy whispered.

  A few moments later, the chubby little gray-haired nurse opened the main door and clomped down the hall. She told the boy to go back to sleep and hurried into the ward, not even noticing Andrew and Beth standing in the shadows by the window.

  She went straight to the young man’s bed and opened her case. There was something hard and uncaring about her manner, as if this were simply a chore she had to do. She tossed the sheet back and tugged his arm toward her as far as the strap would allow. “Time for your treatment.” She laughed. “This should settle you down, cowboy.”

  As she lifted the needle, Beth rushed into the light. “What are you doing, Nurse? Can’t the shot wait until the doctor shows up?”

  The gray-haired woman turned to Beth and frowned as if bothered. “It’s only an elixir to make him sleep. He missed his shot last night because of all the racket you caused. The doctor told me to hurry over early before he wakes up and starts complaining. By the time the day nurse comes in he’ll be causing no problems around here.”

  “But he’s getting weaker with each shot. He told me so.”

  The old woman’s face hardened. “You’re not a doctor, miss. You don’t know. The doctor says this shot may not help him, but it will block the pain from his brain. He has to take it twice a day until he gets better.” Her voice shook slightly. The nurse obviously didn’t believe her lie and added in a whisper, “If he gets better.”

  The young man in the bed woke and began to shake his head. Beth saw panic in his drugged stare. This time his eyes were less foggy. Missing a shot may have cleared his mind. He glanced at the huge glass-and-metal needle, then back at Beth as if begging her to stop the nurse.

  “Now see what you’ve done,” the nurse complained. “Your questions woke him before I could get the shot into him. I hate it when they’re watching me do this.” She leaned closer to the man’s face. “Now you keep quiet or I’ll gag you again. This ain’t no place to be yelling.”

  “No,” he managed to whisper through chapped lips. “Oh God, no.”

  Beth moved to the same side of the bed as the nurse. “Why are his hands tied?” She said the first thing she could think of to stall what was about to happen.

  “He fights me, I already told you. This young cowboy doesn’t know what’s good for him. The first day they brought him in he knocked me down with one blow, but since the doctor prescribed these shots he’s been pretty quiet.”

  Beth was several inches taller than the nurse and had no trouble reaching around her quickly and covering the hand that held the shot with her own. “If it’s nothing but an elixir, why don’t you take the shot instead?”

  The nurse panicked. “No. I’m only doing what the doctor told me. The patient is dying and we’re just helping him rest easy till the end comes.” She tried to pull her hand away, but Beth was half her age and held tight. “It’ll mean my job if I don’t do this, miss.”

  “If the shot doesn’t hurt him, it won’t hurt you.” Beth began forcing the nurse’s hand down so that the needle pointed toward the nurse’s middle.

  The nurse jerked hard, sending the glass cylinder flying across the room and shattering. Dark liquid spilled across the floor in fat little pools.

  Beth let go of the nurse.

  “You don’t know what you’ve done.” She stormed toward Beth. “It will take the doctor hours to make another, and this man will be awake and in pain the whole time. I’ll be fired. At my age it won’t be easy to find another job.”

  Beth almost felt sorry for the nurse. Her reasoning had been such a circle of lies Beth wasn’t sure what the woman believed to be true. “Then how about we don’t tell the doctor you broke this one. He’ll never know. I’ll be here when the cowboy comes around and I’ll keep him quiet.”

  The nurse must have feared more for her job than she cared what happened to the patient. “You won’t say anything? After all, this was your fault, not mine.”

  “No, but if you do I’ll tell everyone what is happening here. If this man dies, you’ll be the one who goes to prison because you were the one who gave the shots that killed him. The doc’s not helping him, don’t you understand? For some reason, he’s killing this young man.”

  The nurse shook her head, not wanting to believe such an outrageous claim. “Tell the cowboy to act like he’s asleep when the doctor checks on him at noon, and don’t untie him no matter what. He’s a man in his last days, the doctor told me for a fact. You’ve only prolonged his suffering by not letting me give him the shot he needed.”

  She wanted to believe the doctor, but Beth could see her fighting with the truth. “I’m not killing him with the shots, miss. They make him sleep. Doc told me it was better than him dying screaming.”

  Beth could see how the nurse had been pulled into this crime, but young men don’t just die. “Has the bite been treated?”

  The nurse shook her head. “Only bandaged.” She held her head up. “Doc said it was fatal, so there w
as no need. I don’t know what else is wrong with him. Doc said his number was up.”

  “It’s all right. I’ll see to him from here on out.” Beth tried to look like she knew what she was talking about. “I’ve been trained in these matters.”

  The nurse gave a jerky nod and ran.

  For a moment the room was silent, and then Beth heard Andrew whisper as he neared, “You were right. They were trying to kill him, and that woman knows the truth even if she won’t admit it.”

  Beth smiled at her make-believe husband. “As long as we’ve been married, and you haven’t learned that I’m always right, dear?”

  They both moved to the young man, who was shaking like a newborn calf. “Thanks. About the time my mind would start to come back, she’d poke me with another shot. Each one sent me further under,” he whispered in a voice that sounded like he hadn’t used it for a while.

  “Who are you? Why are they doing this to you?”

  “Name’s Colby Dixon, and I have no idea why anyone would want to kill me. Three days ago I was on my way farther south to my ranch. I thought I’d spend a night here before I headed on. Biggest mistake I ever made.”

  She wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Are you in pain?”

  “Yeah, but it’s better than being in that dark hole of nothing.” He swallowed a little water and drifted back off talking. “Watch over me, lady, until I come back around. I thought you were an angel. Glad to know you turned out to be real.”

  “I’ll do that, Colby,” she said, knowing he hadn’t heard her.

  Andrew pressed his finger along the side of the boy’s throat. “His breathing is regular and his pulse seems solid.”

  “Do you think he’ll live?” she asked, not sure she wanted to be told the truth.

  “He’s at least got a chance now. I noticed a nurse giving him shots yesterday every time he made a sound. The doctor only checked him once, and I didn’t miss how frustrated he looked. I thought it was because the fellow wasn’t getting any better, but maybe it was because he wasn’t getting any worse. Now, if the drug in his system can work its way out, he should start to improve.”