Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (48 page)

      
Gold eyes met pale blue ones defiantly. “So, still as feisty and beautiful as ever, champion of the redmen. Too bad you stumbled onto my land deals. You know I'll have to kill you now that Seth has failed me. A respectable rancher and businessman like me—”

      
“Everyone knows about your conspiracy with the renegades—Walkman and Blaine's deals with you, your buying up Broughton's and Ryan's ranches—even your plans to burn my husband's ranch and get it, too. Jim Slade, Jeremy Lawrence, and my husband all were in on this trap to catch Gall and Blaine so this fool here would confess and lead them to Walkman and you. It worked,” she finished with grim satisfaction. “You can kill me, but it won't help you, Greer—it'll only make things worse for you. My story is already in print,” she added with a bluff of cool bravado.

      
Melanie was rewarded by a shadow of doubt flickering in Greer's eyes. “She may be lying about the news story, but judging from the trap you escaped, Blaine, I don't doubt that someone higher up knows about our plans,” he said speculatively.

      
“Try someone as high up as Sam Houston,” Melanie shot back.

      
Now, Greer swore in earnest at Blaine. “And you brought her to my ranch to cement his case! You crack-brained, fucking moron!”

      
Blaine whitened, both at the mention of the senator's name and at Greer's unleashed fury. “We kin git away, Mr. Greer. I know lots o' real important fellers up in Injun Territory. With this here leetle gal as pertection, we kin cross th' Red without th' rangers botherin' us.”

      
The veins in Greer's bull neck stood out as he ground his teeth. “I do not intend to pass the rest of my life living in filthy shacks with your half-breed cronies!” He reached for Melanie and yanked her roughly out of Blaine's grasp.

      
“Watch it, Greer. She's quick ‘n mean as a snake. She nearly got Seth ‘n me at th' post with a busted bottle,” Blaine cried as Melanie twisted suddenly free from Greer and darted toward the nearest open door. It led to his study.

      
The gun racks on the wall were instantly in her line of vision and she dashed for a .54-caliber Sharps rifle. She yanked it off its pins and turned to aim it at Greer, who burst through the door with Blaine behind him. Greer was unarmed. Blaine was not. Using the thick, muscular body of the rancher as a shield, the whiskey runner fired at his small target with his pistol, hitting her before she could fire the heavy long arm. It clattered to the floor as she was propelled backward by the impact of the slug.

      
A cry as fearsome as any uttered by a Comanche raider echoed down the hallway as Lee burst into the house, shooting Blaine at point-blank range with Lawrence's Colt. The .44 slug ripped into Blaine's fat gut from the left side, splattering the blue silk wallpaper behind him with red gore as he pitched headlong down the hall, dead before he landed.

      
Greer vanished into the study, intent on getting the rifle from Melanie, but Lee was on him before he could free it. Fearful of hitting his fallen wife if he fired, Lee tossed his gun behind him and yanked Greer away from her, rolling him across the wide floor until the two of them hit the large oak desk with a solid whack. Although shorter than Lee, Laban Greer was muscular and thickset, built like a bulldog, with all the strength and tenacity of the breed. He reached for Lee's throat, intent on gaining a choke hold. Lee pummeled and gouged his antagonist, breaking the deadly grip only when he pressed his thumb into Greer's right eye.

      
Dazed from the near strangulation, Lee shook his head to clear it as he struggled to his feet. After they broke apart, Greer reached inside a desk drawer behind him and extracted a knife. “Now, you greaser son of a bitch,” he snarled and lunged at Lee.

      
Lee had his own knife freed instantly in a reflex action. “Walkman and Blaine are already dead, Greer,” he rasped. “I'd like you to die slower, but I don't...have...time,” he said with seemingly methodical detachment as he feinted low, parried Greer's slower thrust, and then brought his own blade up to slice the squat thick neck cleanly across with surgical precision. Greer's eyes glazed over and large bubbles of red frothed from his mouth. He slid down the desk and sat flat on the floor, his head lolling at a bizarre angle in death.

      
Lee whirled and raced to Melanie. He knelt and gently stretched out her crumpled body to examine the extent of her injuries. His hands were trembling as he peeled the silk shirt away from her blood-soaked side.

      
Melanie moaned as she fought her way back to consciousness. Sharp pain stabbed at her side, but a low, soothing voice comforted her, Lee's voice, her husband, her love.

      
“Shh, Night Flower, be still. I have to stop this bleeding. You'll be all right, darling,” he crooned softly as he worked, tearing his shirt into strips for bandages.

      
“Blaine—Greer—I heard shots,” she whispered in confusion.

      
“Don't worry. They're dead, sweetheart. They can't hurt you anymore.” His callused fingertips stroked her face with tender reassurance.

      
Suddenly, his words of endearment registered—“darling,” “sweetheart.” She struggled to focus her pain-darkened eyes on the harsh, angular planes of his face. Now, it had lost all traces of forbidding anger or sarcastic scowl. It blazed with love and fear for her.

      
Before she could pursue that thought further, Lee's voice again broke in. “I have to move you, Mellie—carry you out to Sangre and get you to town to the doctor.”

      
With surprising strength she raised one small hand and pressed the palm against the rapid pounding of his heart. His naked chest felt warm and hard, reassuring to her. “No, not town. Take me home, Lee—home to Night Flower. Kai's better with bullet wounds than Dr. Westin, anyway. I want to go home...please,” she entreated.

      
“Oh, Mellie, I love you. Whatever you want,” he whispered in a stricken voice.
She'll be all right. She can't die.
“Come on, darling, I'm taking my wife home,” he said softly as he gently scooped her up and strode from the room.

* * * *

      
Lee paced Sangre as smoothly as possible, trying not to jar his injured wife any more than necessary. He had no more than cleared a few hundred yards when Jim Slade's big buckskin skidded to a halt in front of him, followed by half a dozen other riders kicking up dust and pebbles.

      
“Jeremy told us what happened,” Slade said tersely. “Melanie?”

      
“She's been shot in the side just below her ribs. I can't tell more, but I'm taking her to Night Flower. Send someone to town for Doc Westin,” Lee said quickly and kneed Sangre forward with no more ado, calling over his shoulder, “Blaine and Greer are dead in the house.”

      
By the time Dr. Westin arrived, it was well past sunrise. A careworn but calm Father Gus accompanied him. Kai already had Melanie's wound cleaned, disinfected, and wrapped. The bullet had entered and exited her side cleanly. Despite having treated numerous bullet wounds, the Kanaka was uncertain of whether any vital organs had been damaged. He was also uncertain the doctor could do anything more than he could, even if that were the case. Nevertheless, he had left the final stitching to the physician and simply wrapped the injury with great care.

      
The old physician, too, had tended many bullet wounds and knew when he unwrapped Melanie's side that it was serious. He looked up at Lee and Kai. “How much has she bled?”

      
“I packed the wound tight before I rode home with her,” Lee said anxiously, turning to Kai.

      
The big man's expression was grave. “He kept her from bleeding bad. Before I cleaned the wound I applied more packing. Seemed to slow it, but she's such a little thing...”

      
“She's young and strong. Since shock's not set in yet, I think she has a good chance. No vital organs hit,” he concluded, then checked her pulse. Westin issued orders to Genia, who stood in the background wringing her hands, to bring more clean linens. He instructed Kai to assist him by holding Melanie in case she came to while he stitched.

      
Lee nodded for the big Kanaka to move away and he sat down beside his wife, taking a position on the edge of the bed. “I'll hold her, Doc. Just get it done while she's out.”

      
Westin assessed the set features and calm hands. “Yep, reckon you can handle it. Some men haven't the stomach—especially when it's someone they love.”

      
Someone they love
. The words accused him. Did it take a bullet to convince him? He knew so surely now that he loved her, wanted her for his wife, was proud of her and everything she was and did.
And she may die never knowing it. No! I won't let you, Mellie, my Night Flower, my love
. She moaned in his arms, in an unconscious stupor, as the doctor worked deftly. Lee stroked her cheek softly with one hand while his other arm held her shoulders firmly. All the while he murmured soft reassurances in her ear, willing her to fight for her life.

      
When the doctor finished, the priest took him quietly aside and ushered him outside the door. “Is there any need for me to give her last rites, Doctor? I do not want to upset her husband, but I am not sure...”

      
The doctor shook his head. “No, Padre. I don't think you have to do that now. The next twenty-four hours will tell the tale.”

      
Mercifully, Melanie did not awaken during the course of the day. Lee kept a tense vigil by her bedside, listening to her moans and simply watching her laudanum-induced sleep. By noon Charlee Slade arrived, and stalked into the room, where she took one look at Lee's unshaven face, bloodshot eyes, and generally exhausted appearance. She ordered Kai to draw Lee a bath and turn down his bed.

      
“You get some rest and have those cuts and scrapes tended. You'll do your wife no good if you frighten her into shock with your haggard looks when she wakes up, which Doc Westin assures me won't be for another twelve hours, at least. How long since you've slept?” she queried, giving him no chance to debate her commands.

      
Lee thought dazedly over the past thirty hours since he'd left Melanie in her room at the boardinghouse. “Early yesterday morning,” he replied vaguely. “But I have to talk to her when she wakes up,” he added with despair in his voice. If
she wakes up.
He forced that thought aside.

      
Charlee was slight, but she could be formidable when she chose to be. “Your wife is going to be all right, Lee. But with all the laudanum the doc gave her, she won't wake up for hours. Get some rest so you'll be clearheaded and know what to say to her when she does come around,” she said patiently, as if talking to one of her children.

      
“You'll have the rest of your lives—long lives together—to tell her everything.”

      
“Whar is thet child! Jeehosaphat, turn my back one minute ‘n she's off agin gettin' in a fix,” Obedience's voice boomed from the front hall.

      
Even Lee managed a half smile at that, and Charlee said with a grin, “Now, with the two of us watching over her, you can rest easy for a few hours—in the next room. Father Gus is here too. We won't let her down, Lee.”

      
Melanie slept as the doctor had predicted. Late that evening a roomful of fretful people took turns sponging her brow—Charlee, Obedience, Kai, and Genia. Lame Deer waited outside, praying for his beloved Melanie with Father Gus.

      
“She seems warm, Doc,” Charlee said worriedly to the doctor.

      
Westin nodded. “I was afraid she might get a fever. The first battle is the shock of the wound and blood loss, and she survived that miraculously well. The next is a slower-moving danger—fever. Don't let her take a chill. Sometimes it's best to sweat a fever out, but—”

      
“Jeehosaphat! Child's already burnin' up,” Obedience interrupted forcefully. “I pulled many a youngun, includin' my own Joseph, outa fevers—use cool sheets ‘n keep changin' em.” She arose and virtually seized Genia, instructing her to bring a tub of springwater and ignoring the spluttering doctor.

      
“Yes, well, I was going to say, Mrs. Oakley, that the other school of medical opinion favors your methods,” Westin added pettishly, realizing that, surrounded by three hostile females and a towering Kanaka, he would not carry the day, even if he were so rash as to contradict Obedience Oakley.

      
Just then, Lee burst into the room from the adjacent one, where he had awakened from a fitful but exhausted sleep. “What's this about a fever?” Without waiting for the doctor or anyone else to answer, he rushed to Melanie's side and removed the compress Charlee had just placed there. “She's on fire!”

      
“No,” Charlee replied calmly. “She has a fever, but we all agree it isn't that bad.”

      
“We'll git it down quick 'nough,” Obedience added as she and Genia left the room, intent on their project.

      
After carefully checking the wounds for signs of inflammation or fresh bleeding, the doctor rebandaged her side and departed, promising to return early in the morning.

      
In the next twenty-four hours, Lee more than once thanked heaven and Charlee Slade that he had taken her advice and gotten the few hours of desperately needed sleep and medical attention she insisted upon. Melanie's fever raged; and he, Kai, and the three women soaked sheets with cool water and placed them on her heat-racked body. Even the priest and young boy fetched springwater and wrung out sheets.