Page 35 of Heart on the Line

She peeked at the wound and murmured a prayer of thanks when she noted the bleeding had slowed. Looking around the sparse room for something to use for bandages, she frowned. A sheet would be ideal, but the stranger’s heavy carcass lay sprawled atop the only ones she had in the cabin. And she wasn’t about to move him.

The curtains? She smiled at the thought of binding his wounds with red floral calico, but she cleaned the cabin so sporadically that the curtains not only had dust coating their length, but spider webs in their corners.

That left her petticoats. She was wearing two. Her favorites. The ones that had softened with use and many washings, instead of the stiff, itchy new ones back in her wardrobe. Helen sighed, then reached beneath the front of her skirt to untie the waist string. She’d prefer to tear up the ugly black dress she wore, but if she showed up at the farm house without a skirt, she’d be pelted with questions from every angle and would never get away in time to fetch medical help.

While the water heated, she tore her top petticoat into strips. She rolled several strips into bandages but set aside two to use as bindings. As much as she hated the idea of tying her stranger up, she had more than herself to consider. He might be a noble hero to Rachel, but if he planned to harm Grace, even to save another, that made him the enemy.

Steam rose from the kettle spout and a low hiss started to build, indicating a boil was close. Helen dragged her chair next to the bed, placed the rolled bandages in her supply box, and set the box on the floor beside the chair.

“Time to clean out that hole,” she whispered, needing to say the words aloud to galvanize her into action. She’d nursed her mother hundreds of times and knew every trick in the book for dealing with bruises and black eyes and sore ribs, but she knew nothing about gunshot wounds. And though she was ashamed to admit it, the few glimpses she’d had of the hole in the stranger’s leg had made her rather queasy.

“Get over it, Helen,” she grumbled softly as she marched over to the small stove in the corner. “There’s no one but you to do it, so quit bein’ a sissy about it.” Wrapping a towel around her hand for protection, she clasped the kettle handle and poured most of the hot water into the chipped basin she kept for her personal needs. Steam rose to moisten her face. As if she wasn’t damp enough already after gathering pecans and wrestling a full-grown man into bed. If he ever did regain his senses, she’d have to hope the Lord would strike him with temporary blindness. Seeing a five-foot, bedraggled black crow bent over him would surely send his health into a sharp decline.

Helen touched the tip of her finger to the surface of the water, then immediately yanked it back with a hiss. Too hot. She’d scald him and herself. Taking the glass of water she’d set aside earlier, she poured a third of its contents into the basin and stirred with a wooden spoon. She tested the water again. Still hot, uncomfortably so, but not unbearable. She rolled her sleeves to the elbows, then, gritting her teeth, plunged her hands into the water and rubbed them vigorously with a small cake of soap.

Taking the basin in hand, she pivoted to face her patient. “Your turn, mister.”

Helen set the basin on the seat of her chair, then lifted her stranger’s leg and placed every spare towel she had beneath his thigh. Then, washrag in hand, she got to work. Kneeling beside the bed, she dipped the rag into the hot water and squeezed it out over his wound, letting it flush out as much dirt and debris as possible. The stranger moaned slightly, but thankfully there was no thrashing about. Not until she soaped up the rag and started scrubbing.

He bucked, and his arms swung wildly. Not knowing how else to stop him, Helen jumped to her feet and threw her body across his chest. She grabbed for his shoulders and used her weight to pin him to the bed.

“Easy,” she crooned next to his ear. “No need to get all worked up. You’re safe. Just got a hole in your leg that needs tending.”

His flailing subsided as she spoke, but the tension in his muscles remained taut. “Rachel?” His lashes fluttered and finally parted. His gaze met hers, and his brow furrowed. “Not . . . Rachel.”

Helen pulled back a bit, not sure if she was glad he was lucid enough to realize she wasn’t his sister. She knew he’d never hurt Rachel. But Helen Potter? That was an entirely different basket of nuts.

“No, I’m not Rachel. My name’s Helen. I found you outside. Shot.” Something flashed in his eyes. Not surprise. A memory, maybe? Then his focus returned to her, and all at once Helen became aware of her position pressed against his chest. She ducked away from his gaze and lifted off him, keeping her palms braced against his shoulders to make sure he stayed down. “I’m . . . ah . . . trying to clean your wound.” Why was she the one embarrassed? It was his fault they were in this predicament. He was the one who got himself shot. And he was the one who’d started thrashing around like a kid having a tantrum. She scowled at him. “You think you can manage to stay still long enough for me to finish?”

His mustache twitched. Was he smiling at her? It was hard to tell with that giant caterpillar on his lip.

“Yes . . . ma’am.”

Would that caterpillar be soft or prickly, should a woman get close enough to feel it? Not that she was considering such a thing, of course. She was simply curious. Curious and apparently dimwitted, for she still hadn’t removed her hands from him, even after he promised to lie still.

She scrambled away and reclaimed the washrag that had fallen on the bed. She’d already cleared away the worst of the dirt and dried blood from the outer edges of the wound, but she needed to clean as much as she could from the inside. She soaped up the rag and folded it over her smallest finger.

He must have pieced together what she intended, for his muscles tensed even further. “Can’t you just pour some whiskey on it and be done with it?” he grumbled.

“Sorry.” Helen shook her head. “I don’t have any.”

His eyes slid closed again and his jaw clenched. “Figures.” He curled his hands into fists. “Do what you gotta do.”

She did. And it nearly killed her, watching his face drain of all color and his fists press hard enough into the quilt to lift his torso several inches off the cot. She moved as quickly and as gently as she could, afraid to cause more damage, yet more afraid to leave something to fester inside him.

“There. It’s done.”

His hands unclenched, and his face relaxed a fraction, but not completely. He was still in pain. Helen rinsed the blood from the rag then folded it over and used the damp cloth to wipe his brow.

Slowly, his lashes lifted. “Thank you,” he croaked, “Helen.”

She froze. Hearing her name from him set her heart to sputtering and her lips to muttering nonsense like, “Well, I couldn’t just let you die.”

“You could have,” he argued as his lashes lowered again to hide his green eyes, “but I’ll be sure to thank God that you didn’t.”

A smile touched her lips. She might just thank God herself.

If he lived.