Stone Dreaming Woman (25 page)

“Jenny! Run! This way!” he screamed. Her trance snapped and she flew toward him. He continued to shout at her, trying to distract the bear as it closed the distance between them. It was perhaps a scant fifteen feet away when he dived. His left elbow hit Jenny, knocking her backward. He rolled to his right, brought the rifle up in one motion, and, firing from the prone, he snapped off a shot just as the bear started up on its hind legs. The big Winchester roared, its muzzle flash shattering the day.

The bear collapsed, skidding on its chest before it somersaulted past him and landed a few feet shy of the waterline. Just as Jenny considered picking herself up from the gravel, he shouldered the rifle again. She decided to stay put. Then she saw the exit wound the .303 had left, directly on top of the shaggy neck behind the skull, and the odd angle the bear’s head made with its body. There was no doubt in her mind the animal was dead. His perfect shot had shattered the first cervical vertebra.

The silence around Jenny was a palpable thing, a weight holding her down. She watched him as he lowered the rifle and climbed unsteadily to his feet. At the same time she picked herself up and ran to him, flattening herself to his chest. He laid the rifle down and wrapped his arms around her, steadying her as she trembled against him. For a moment she sobbed silently, tears forced from her by sheer terror. He wrapped his arms around her as far as they would go.

“It’s all right now, Jenny. It’s dead. You’re safe. We’re both safe,” he said gently.

“Oh, Shane…”

“Shhh.
C’est fini
. Just hold me for a while,
non
?
Tout… C’est bon
.
C’est bon
.” His English slipped away in the face of the close brush with death. She gulped and got hold of herself by main force, willing the head-to-toe shaking to stop.

“You saved my life…”

His hand pressed her head to his shoulder to silence her, and she felt his face against her hair. Then her initial fright passed, and she relaxed against him.

“Are you all right?” he asked at length. “I hit you pretty hard.”

“I’m fine. But are you? It looked like that thing fell right on top of you.”

“It didn’t touch me. But that was way too close for comfort.” Thoroughly terrified, she clung to him, listening to his racing heart. He drew a shaky breath. “I see I’m going to have to give you a lesson about bears. Are you sure you’re all right? Like I said, I knocked you down hard.” She backed off to arm’s length.

“Well, aside from being frightened out of ten years’ growth…”

“You’re not the only one! That’s about the biggest grizzly I’ve seen in years. Do you know what she would have done to you? If she’d caught up with you, you wouldn’t have lasted a minute. Jenny, if you ever see a bear cub, the mother is right there someplace, and they’re as mean as piggy sows and a heck of a lot bigger. I know cubs can be cute, but stay away from them.” She took his shaking hands in hers, recognizing the unsteadiness as the aftermath of adrenaline wearing away.

“I think we’d both better sit down a minute,” she said with a sigh. He led her to the shoreline, and they sank down side by side. He stretched out on the sand, deliberately laying his head in her lap, and closed his eyes. She looked down at him, noticing that his face was still white with shock, and he had grass in his hair. Gently she brushed it away, toying idly with the mussed wave that slopped over the right side of his forehead. She had nearly coaxed it into place when he opened his eyes and smiled up at her. Guiltily she jerked her hand back.

“Don’t quit,” he murmured. She deliberated, hearing Aunt Martha tut-tutting in a compartment in her mind. Then she shut the door on her aunt and combed her fingers through his heavy, satiny hair.

“Shane, that bear could have killed you,” she said at length.

“Either of us, or both.” Reluctantly he sat up. “But there’s no use worrying about that now. Everything turned out all right, so don’t let it frighten you. But now do you see why I carry that rifle around? I’d hate to think what would have happened if all I had was this.” He patted the blue .45 on his hip. “Come on. Let’s take a look at what you were up against.” He rose and gave her a hand.

The bear lay stretched out on the sandy beach, looking much larger than Jenny had thought. He bent down and picked up one forepaw, and the curving, scythelike claws nearly made her ill.

“Not only that, but they have teeth, too.” He lifted a flew with his thumb, baring a huge, yellowed canine that looked as long as her little finger. Then he ran a hand over the gleaming fur. Jenny saw that what she had interpreted as grey was actually an overlay of silvery-white guard hairs over denser brown undercoat. “This is a prime pelt, too. Too bad we can’t take it with us. The North Village people would appreciate it. This bear’s in good condition.”

“Why can’t we take it with us?”

“It’d take me a good two or three hours to skin it out. We haven’t that kind of time.”

“If you have an extra knife I’ll help you. Just show me what to do.”

“I do carry a spare, but I don’t want you to help me. Skinning’s messy, smelly, and bloody, and this hide is probably full of ticks.”

He looked surprised when she laughed. “Shane, I’m a surgeon! I know how to handle a knife! I’ve cleaned up a lot of really disgusting messes, autopsied a corpse that had been under water for two weeks in August, and blood doesn’t bother me in the least!”

“The fact remains that if we stop and skin this bear out we’ll be spending the night in the woods. Actually I do know what we can do. We can stop at Thomas Wise Hand’s ranch, and I’ll send him back here. He and his boys can take care of it. However, I do have to slit the throat so it’ll bleed out. That keeps the meat from getting sour.” He stopped to pick up his rifle, then went back to his saddlebags and produced a fearsome Bowie knife that looked to be razor sharp. It was no easy feat to lift the bear’s huge head and get the knife into the proper spot to sever both pairs of jugular veins and arteries, but he knew what he was doing. A moment later a growing pool of dark, deoxygenated blood soaked into the fine gravel. Then he walked out on the same log Jenny had availed herself of earlier, washed the knife, and rinsed his hands. As he returned the knife to his saddlebag, he flinched and rubbed his shoulder. Jenny was on it in an instant. She came to him and cupped his elbow in a gentle palm.

“Are you all right, Shane?” she asked, her voice soft.

“I think so,” he responded cautiously. “I think I do have a bruise, though. I landed on the point of my shoulder with most of my weight, after I pushed you out of the way.”

“And you were moving fast. Let me look, please? You may have hurt yourself and don’t realize it yet. You were pretty full of adrenaline for a while, and that keeps people from feeling pain.” She saw the grass stain and a dirty scrape on his shirt where it lay over his shoulder. He was right about having hit hard.

“All right, Jenny. You’re the doctor,” he capitulated. She gave him her best warm smile and was gratified when he made a great effort to return it.

“Good. I’m sure you’re fine, but I’m glad you’re letting me reassure myself,” she said, leading him back toward the beach. “Come over to that big log and sit down.” Before he sat, she tugged his shirttail out of his breeches, then eased his shirt off, left arm first. When she saw his bare chest, her mind veered off in a totally unclinical direction. She had often observed that his waist seemed slender in proportion to the rest of him. Now she saw why. His upper chest and shoulders were bulky and strongly defined in a way that told her he exercised hard; every muscle was corded and cut. She was reminded of Michelangelo’s exquisite David. Her trained eyes picked out the heavily developed pectorals and trapezii that obscured his clavicles, and, wrapped around his ribs, the small, highly defined serratus anterior and latissimus dorsi stood out in plain relief. She reluctantly left off recounting after the abdominal rectus and obliques. This was, after all, no anatomy quiz.

“My God, Shane, you look like a kinesiology text!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t know if I’ve been insulted or complimented. What’s kinesiology?”

“The study of muscles,” she responded with a giggle. “And it’s a high compliment. Do you work out with weights, then?”

“Yes, plus running and swimming and calisthenics. I had to get into shape to play hockey in college, and I just kept it up. When your worst enemy is the town blacksmith, you have to stay strong.” His wry smile made her chuckle again. Then she came back to earth when she saw the darkening bruise on the point of his shoulder. She touched it, but he did not wince.

“Painful?” she asked.

“Not too much. I really don’t think anything is wrong.”

“Hopefully not. That’s what we’re going to find out.” She looked him over, making sure his shoulders were symmetrical. She checked that from the back, too. And there she encountered more of the same exquisite musculature. The developed deltoids made wonderfully sharp indentations over his shoulder blades, and she could even pick out the tiny teres major and minor just below his armpits. She ached to caress that marvelous power; she did allow her fingertips to trace the tops of his shoulders, just to let him know she was indeed doing something besides ogling him. She swallowed heavily and walked around to his right side.

“All right. I’m going to check your collarbone. But I don’t know how I’ll find it under all those muscles. From now on, let me know if anything I do hurts, all right?” Her fingertips probed gently, finding the proximal end of the clavicle. She pushed on it, at first gently and then with some firmness, eventually palpitating its entire length, but he did not react. Then she turned to his shoulder joint. A blow to the point of the shoulder could result in separation or dislocation, but that caused the patient to carry the affected arm low and immobile. She had already ruled that out by the easy way he had been moving for the last half hour. But she could not rule out a fracture of the scapular fossa. She reached over his shoulder and palpitated the top of his shoulder blade. His fine, fair skin was sensual, and beneath it the muscles felt like marble.
Oh, Doctor Jennifer Catherine Weston, where is your professional detachment
? she asked herself. Then she took his arm and manipulated it through a full range of motion, encountering the bunched biceps brachii, and its fraternal twin, the triceps. She located the bursa down the front of the shoulder joint and squeezed with some firmness.

“Still no pain?” she asked as she eased his arm around in a big circle for the second time.

“Not really. It’s just sore where I landed on it.”

“Well, you’re probably right. You’re not really hurt except for that bruise. It’s coloring up already, which is just what I’d expect for somebody with skin as fair as yours. If we were at Mount Hope I’d prescribe aspirin, an ice pack, rest for twenty-four hours, and then if you were experiencing stiffness or discomfort, moist heat. But the real curative would be Tincture of Time.”

“Tincture of Time?”

“Yes. It’s medical jargon for the fact that most patients eventually get better on their own no matter what you do for them.”

“Then I’ll live?” he asked mischievously.

“Well, when you do die, it won’t be from this.” She laid her hand over the point of his shoulder, feeling the heat of the coming bruise. “If you’re stiff or sore tomorrow, try aspirin and a hot shower or a hot towel. Or just tough it out. But if it really bothers you, let me know, and I’ll check you again.”

“I have a sneaking feeling that it will. In fact, by tomorrow morning it may become excruciatingly painful.” She cuffed the top of his head.

“You really are Irish, aren’t you? Here. I’ll help you with your shirt.” She eased the sleeve over his right arm, then guided his left arm down the opposite sleeve. When she settled it over his shoulders, she saw the tiny, dark scar below his left collarbone, the remnant of the gunshot wound that had been responsible for their rocky beginnings.

“Does that ever bother you anymore?” she asked.

“No. For a while I woke up stiff in the morning, but that hasn’t happened for a long time.” She nodded approvingly, but her fingertips did not want to lose contact with the soft warmth of his skin. She knew she was pushing the situation. With a sigh she buttoned his collar, then worked down the front of his shirt. He caught her hands.

“Thank you, Jenny.”

“For what? You’re fine.”

“For being gentle with me.”

“Doctors are that way, Shane.”

“I’m grateful for your concern. It’s touching. But now we’ve been here about as long as I want to be. Let’s get back on the trail.” However, she stood her ground, looking up at him, until he leaned forward and gently touched his lips to hers. She did reach around him then, her touch as ethereal as the summer breeze. One gentle, reassuring kiss was enough.

Moving tiredly in the aftermath of the crisis, he led her back to where the horses were tethered. He turned to give her a hand up.

“How far are we from Thomas Wise Hand’s ranch, then?” she asked as she turned Fleur abreast of Midnight.

“Oh, half an hour, maybe. And when we get there, please do me a favor? Pretend you’re a proper Iroquois maiden? It’s best if you don’t look too directly at Thomas, and don’t speak to him. If you have anything to say to him, say it to me and I’ll relay it. And if I signal you to stay behind, just stop and stay where you are until I either beckon to you or come back. All right?”

“Certainly. The last thing I ever want to do is give offense or embarrass you. But why can’t I speak to him? Doesn’t he understand French at all?”

“Not really. Moreover, the Iroquois would consider it immodest because you’re a woman and a stranger. He’s a shaman and he’s old-fashioned and reclusive, even for an Iroquois.”

The trail narrowed and forced her behind him. She watched him riding ahead, noticing that he had started to look tired. Her clinical mind told her it was the aftermath of the huge adrenaline rush, while the young woman in love wanted to take him in her arms and console him.