Stone Dreaming Woman (5 page)

The last stop before returning home was the Post Office. She tethered The Girls one last time and climbed down, using the wheel hub as a step. When she opened the front door, a bell on a spring tinkled brightly.

“Coming,” a feminine voice called from the back of the building.

“Hello, Miss Grayson. Does Uncle Richard have any mail today?” Jenny asked.

“Miss Weston, good afternoon. How nice to see you again. Ummm…let me see. Yes, he does. Two letters.” She took them from a bank of pigeonholes behind her and handed them across the white-painted wooden counter.

“Thank you, Miss Grayson.”

“Ruth, please,” she responded, her voice softly sweet. “And I do look forward to seeing you at church Sunday.” In spite of being reminded of the disastrous box social, Jenny was touched by Ruth’s sincerity. She took her leave, tucked the two letters into her skirt pocket, untied The Girls’ reins, and climbed back up into the driver’s seat. She flicked the reins against the rumps of the ancient mares and clucked them up into their lumbering trot.

January was an odd time for a thunderstorm. However, as Richard had observed when she arrived in Elk Gap, the weather had been unseasonably warm. When she cast a critical eye aloft, the freshening wind and the boiling mammatus clouds overhead disturbed her. She clucked again to the old mares, trying to speed them up, but when their gait did not change she resigned herself to a soaking.

Lightning had already started to flicker when she became aware of hoofbeats behind her. She turned and saw Sergeant Adair coming toward her, posting precisely to a high trot. He rode a handsome jet-black warmblood gelding with tall white socks and a blaze face. She spent a moment envying him his elegant mount; it did not escape her that his posture was equally elegant. He drew up beside the buckboard.

“Miss Weston? It looks as if we’re in for a storm. Would you like me to drive for you?” Jenny, already fed up with years of being patronized by men, saw red.

“It might surprise you, Sergeant Adair, but in spite of the fact that I am a woman I do many things quite well for myself. Driving is one of them.”

“At least let me escort you home.”

“Thank you, no,” she said decisively.

“Forgive me for offering where nothing was necessary…”

“Or welcome,” Jenny snapped.

“Good day, Miss Weston.” Totally aloof now, Shane touched the brim of his hat and heeled his horse into a high trot again. His use of her name came out somewhere between cool and disdainful. What was worse, for the third time she found herself saying “good day” to his retreating back. Furious, she slapped the old mares with the reins. They tried to come to a choppy trot, but they could not decide which one would be first to change gait.

Just then the sky opened, and immediately on the heels of a violent lightning flash came the ripping crack of a very close strike. Both mares reared, screaming, and in an instant Jenny found herself fighting for control. For all that they were ancient, the mares were still much stronger than she was. Shane whirled his horse, leaped down and grabbed for the team, and as the lightning flashed again, a half-grown black bear burst from the underbrush and galloped across the road, bawling in fright as it ran. The gelding went straight up, tearing his reins from Shane’s left hand. As the mares settled, the black tucked his rump under and fled in sheer terror. Jenny looked on with horror as he headed straight for a barbed-wire fence. Then suddenly he went down on the grassy verge, his forelegs tangled in a loose loop of wire discarded by the farmer who had built the fence. She leaped from the buckboard and bolted toward the fallen horse.

Shane obviously had the same idea. The Girls were quiet old things. Even if they did not stay put, it would be a small matter to catch them later. He loosed a long-legged stride but could not match her head start. As the rain poured down, she threw her jacket over the gelding’s head and held him down, quelling the thrashing that threatened to shred his forelegs.

“Easy, easy, big man,” she murmured. “Whoa, now. Easy. Easy, boy. Easy, now. Yes, that’s the way. Easy. Whoa, now. Shhh. Hush. Settle down. That’s a good boy.” Under the blindfold, with the gentle touch of her hands and the soothing sound of her voice, the gelding quieted. Shane came to his knees next to her.

“You’re stronger than I am. Hold his head and keep him still,” she commanded. She moved to the barbed wire around his legs, where the pouring rain sluiced the blood away. Gently she unwound the wire and freed his legs, ignoring the insults the barbs inflicted above her driving gloves. When she finished with the coil of wire, she tossed it out of the way, up against a fencepost. She ran knowing hands down the gelding’s forelegs, testing the tendons and flexing his knees. Then she looked up at Shane. “He appears to be all right. All of those cuts are small and shallow. I know it looks bad, but a little blood goes a very long way in the rain, especially on white. See if you can get him up.” She removed her jacket from the horse’s head.

“Come on, Midnight. Up. Up, up, come on, Midnight. Get up,” Shane urged, lifting on the reins and prodding a wet shoulder with his boot. The horse rolled up onto his chest and levered himself upright. He stood spraddle-legged and shaking with fear, his eyes still rolling wildly. Shane quieted him, speaking a few words she could not understand and stroking his neck and head until the gelding calmed.

“Thank heaven he’s back on his feet,” Jenny breathed, ignoring the pouring rain. She went to the horse’s head, stroking underneath his jaw and talking to him softly. “But you can’t ride him yet. You’re much too upset, aren’t you, big man? But you’re all right, Midnight. We’ll get you in a nice, snug stall, and you can get over everything. That’s okay. You’re doing just fine now, aren’t you?” Almost as an afterthought she turned to Shane. “Come to Uncle Richard’s with me. We can put him up in the barn and see to those cuts.” She shivered abruptly, realizing she was chilled to the bone. For all the good it would do, she pulled her sodden jacket back on. She gathered The Girls’ reins and climbed up to the driver’s seat while Shane tied Midnight to the back of the buckboard. He came around to her side.

“Now will you let me drive?” he asked.

“Do I have any choice in the matter?” she snapped. Mutely he walked to the shotgun position and took one long-legged step up, wrapped his rain poncho about himself and sat as far from her as he could manage. She roused the mares to their usual stiff trot.

“Thank you very much for saving Midnight,” he said at length.

“Tell me that when we’ve had another good look at his legs,” she responded through gritted teeth. The fright was still very much with her. When the lightning flashed and thunder roared again, The Girls decided their barn was the best place to be and picked up their pace.

By the time they made it to the barn, she was wet to the skin, although her wool jacket was still reasonably warm. Shane stepped down and swung the barn doors open, and The Girls gratefully pulled the buckboard inside. Jenny secured the reins to the brake lever and scrambled down before he could offer to help her. He looked at her, shrugged when she ignored him, turned Midnight into a vacant loose box, and closed the barn doors as Toby came out of his room.

Toby turned his attention to the team while Shane unsaddled Midnight. Jenny went into the tack room, snooped through the contents of several shelves, and came up with a bottle labeled “Universal Livestock Disinfectant” that advertised itself to be a sovereign remedy for wounds, saddle sores, ulcers, umbilical cords, and virtually anything else since the beginning of time. She uncapped the bottle and tipped a drop or two onto her fingers and sniffed it. It appeared to be alcohol seasoned with iodine. She dug into her jacket pocket for her handkerchief.

“Here, Sergeant,” she said as she let herself into the loose box. “I’ll need to clean those cuts. This should do the trick.” He looked at the bottle. “I’m glad you haven’t taken his bridle off yet. You’ll need to hold him. He may go through the roof. This stuff is almost pure alcohol.” She soaked her handkerchief and knelt next to Midnight’s forelegs. Gently she sponged at one or two of the smaller punctures to see how the horse would react, then worked her way up to the largest cut behind his left fetlock. The gelding shivered and started to lift his hoof; otherwise he tolerated it while she adorned his white socks with patches of brown goo. She could hear Shane murmuring to him, but she could not understand what he was saying. At length she realized she did not even recognize the language he was using. It was full of unfamiliar long vowels, choppy consonants, and sibilants like wind in grass.

Her task finished, she stood up. “There. We’re done. Fortunately it’s all superficial and he should heal uneventfully. None of those cuts is deep enough to require sutures. However, if it’s possible, you probably shouldn’t ride him until tomorrow, so you’ll have a chance to see if he’s going to come up lame.”

“Thank you very much,” Shane responded stiffly, looking into the indefinite space over her head. Nevertheless, he ran his hands down the gelding’s legs, avoiding the patches of cattle medicine, then made him lift his hooves and flexed his knees and shoulders. Finally he looked directly at Jenny. “I truly owe you a debt of gratitude.” Jenny did not reply, but stood watching as he removed Midnight’s bridle and paused to rub the gelding’s poll. The horse relaxed under his master’s touch, his ears flopping comically.

Toby, finished with the two mares, let himself into the loose box. He pointed to himself and then to Midnight. Shane nodded and moved aside as Toby began rubbing the gelding down with an old towel.

“Well, I guess you’ll have to come in, won’t you?” She heard the hard edge in her voice and did not like it, but then, she did not like Sergeant Adair much either. For all that he was a handsome man, he had all the endearing charm of a dill pickle. She began to feel sympathetic toward Ruth Grayson.

“I assure you I will stay out of your way.” His tone had an arctic blizzard behind it. She went to return the bottle to the tack room and pulled the door shut behind her. In the dim, storm-filtered light she scooted her left sleeve up. A ragged wound on the inside of her left wrist looked worse than anything Midnight had; not all the blood on the white stockings had been his. She held her breath and sloshed the viscous disinfectant into the cut, gasping at the sting that brought tears to her eyes. Then she looked up to see Sergeant Adair in the doorway, an expression of genuine concern on his face.

“Miss Weston, are you…”

“I’m all right,” she interrupted, dropping her sleeve and standing as tall as she could. She replaced the bottle and brushed past him, leaving him to close the tack room door.

Rain still poured from the dark sky. She decided to leave her purchases in the buckboard until it abated. Shane sprinted to the house, running only far enough ahead to open the front door for her. Mavis turned from the kitchen counter with surprise on her face.

“Jenny! Shane! Whatever happened? Jenny, you’re soaked!” she exclaimed. Richard put his week-old newspaper aside and came into the assembly room.

“If you will excuse me, I need to go upstairs and change. As you noticed, I’m wet to the skin,” she said, looking at her uncle and pointedly ignoring Shane.

Once in her room, she removed the two wet letters from her pocket and set them on the still warm railroad stove to dry before she took off all her clothes, more or less in a wad, and dumped them in the drawer at the base of the armoire. Everything would need to go to the laundress except her wool jacket. Hopefully that would dry. She hung it over the foot of her bed where the air could get to it. Shivering, she donned fresh underthings, then reached beneath the bed for the medical bag she had yet to use. She sat at Aunt Alix’s desk and cleaned her hands with alcohol, gritting her teeth for a second pass at the cut on her wrist
. Here I am,
she thought,
first in my class at med school, brilliantly successful internship and residence years behind me, and my first patient is a horse.
She wound gauze around her wrist and made a clumsy knot, tightening it with her teeth. Then she rubbed a dab of Honey Almond Cream into her hands and spent a moment working it into her cuticles.

Downstairs, Shane ritualistically hung his hat, rain poncho, and gun belt on the pegs by the doorway, pausing to tuck the free end of the pistol lanyard into the front of his tunic. In his oilskin rain poncho he had fared better than Jenny; his tunic was dry and his breeches only minimally damp about the knees. He accepted his customary Blue Willow mug and stirred the usual one-third of a teaspoon of sugar into the steaming tea. He was ready to take his place at the round dining table, but Richard led him into the parlor. They sat in the two leather wing chairs that flanked the fireplace.

“So, what happened out there today?” Richard prompted at length.

“There was a slight…incident with Midnight,” Shane said carefully. He recounted to Richard what had happened. “Fortunately he seems all right, but I definitely can’t ride back to Elk Gap tonight.”

“Of course you must stay here. You know you’re always welcome.”

“I appreciate your hospitality.”

“And if Midnight does come up lame, I’ll drive you to town tomorrow.” After a moment, Richard changed the subject. “But as soon as you’re up to it, I do need a favor.”

“Anything I can do. You know you needn’t ask.”

“Can you go to Thomas Wise Hand and find a saddle horse for Jenny? She told me she was going to go to Josh Barnes, and I certainly don’t want that. There’s also a nice, light saddle in the barn. Hopefully it’ll fit. Otherwise the livery stable will have something appropriate. I don’t care what I have to pay. Just get a dependable, well-broke horse. And keep in mind that Jenny is an expert horsewoman. She’s even ridden in dressage and hunt seat competition, so don’t insult her with a broken-down old nag.”

“I wouldn’t recommend Josh Barnes to my worst enemy. He’d cheat his own mother. If Midnight is all right, I’m going out to North Village tomorrow. I’ll see what I can do. And yes, I could tell Miss Weston knows her way around horses. She…doesn’t know about what happened to me, does she?”