Authors: Jo Goodman
Mary bent her head and stared at the map. The lines ran together and place names blurred. A fat, heavy tear slipped past her lowered lashes and splattered on the paper.
"Mary?"
She shook her head, not trusting herself to say anything and not wanting him to speak.
Ryder forced himself to sit up, wincing as he slid his legs over the side of the stone bed. He was glad she hadn't looked up, glad that she couldn't see the pain in his expression. She would think it was all because of his leg, and she would have been wrong. He hadn't meant to make her cry. "No more tears on my account, Mary," he said. "I don't want—"
She sucked in a sob and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
Ryder managed to push himself off the bed. Relying heavily on his uninjured leg, he hobbled toward where Mary sat on the floor. He nudged aside the maps with the toe of his foot, putting himself in her line of vision.
"Go back to bed," she said hoarsely. "There was no reason for you to get up."
"There was every reason."
She raised her head. "You're a horrible man."
She said it as if she meant it, and Ryder had no doubt that in that moment she did. "Worse than horrible," he said.
"Don't patronize me."
"I was agreeing with you." He held out his hand to her. "Take it, Mary, or I swear I'll get down on my knees beside you." That threat had her slipping her hand into his. Ryder drew her to her feet. She was stiff and unyielding when he pulled her into the circle of his arms, but he held out, keeping her close in a loose embrace until she relaxed against him.
"You're not going to die," she whispered. Mary's tears dampened his shirt. "You're
not."
Ryder said nothing. It was a certainty that his life wouldn't end by her hand or with her cooperation. He regretted that he had let her think, for even a moment, he might ask it of her.
She was going to fight for him, and in the end, if her ministrations and her prayers weren't enough, he would do what he had to without any help from her.
Mary knuckled her tears aside as she felt Ryder's weight shift toward her. It was harder to know who was holding whom now. Slipping her shoulder under his arm, Mary aided him back to the bed. His face was pale, and parenthetical lines of pain creased the corners of his mouth. He didn't argue when she rearranged the blankets over him and examined his leg.
The swelling and redness had spread. Ryder's knee looked inflamed with the infection from the injury. A thin red line was now visible, snaking from the base of the wound toward his calf.
Mary knew what she had to do. "I'm going to have to cut these stitches," she said, "and clean the tissues again. It's going to hurt like hell." When Ryder didn't respond she stopped her examination and glanced in his direction. He was out cold. "Just as well," she whispered. "I can't spare any liquor for an anesthetic."
Numbing her senses to the task at hand, she began working. She sliced the lower third of the visible stitches and laid open Ryder's skin. Sanguineous, malodorous fluids seeped from the infected tissue. She cut the second layer of stitches, and more of the infection was revealed. Mary cleaned the wound, this time scrubbing it with the hard, alcohol-soaked bristles of Ryder's hairbrush. Splinters of wood came to the surface, and she used a needle to extract every one that she found. The wound bled freely again, and Mary let the bleeding run its course before she began the task of suturing.
Ryder never woke while she worked, but occasionally his body would jerk in response to the deep pain she was inflicting. All the while her lips moved in the ceaseless litany of prayer.
When she was done Mary knelt at the well and washed her hands. Having done all she could was not the same as having done enough. It was the disparity between the two that troubled her.
She sat in the wing chair, her long legs curled under her, and watched Ryder sleep. How serious had he been, she wondered, when he'd compared his situation to Joe Panama's? Did he really think she might give him a gun so he could kill himself? Was that his idea of being cruel to be kind?
Mary's head throbbed. Fingers of tension seemed to be pulling the skin tightly over her pounding temples. Bright flashes of light, created by the deep ache behind her eyes, began to cross her vision. The steady roar in her ears reached tidal wave proportions.
Mary's head fell forward. Her shoulders slumped. Only the curled position of her body kept her from sliding to the floor from the chair. Eventually her dead faint became a deep, healing slumber.
* * *
Standing unnoticed in the entrance to the chamber, Jarret Sullivan slipped his Colt back into its holster. The showdown he had anticipated and prepared for was not going to happen, at least not immediately. He turned down the lantern he had carried with him into the cavern and then set it aside. There wasn't any need for it in Ryder McKay's well-lit hideout. Jarret counted six lanterns, all of them burning with varying degrees of brightness. Mary's idea of prayer candles, he decided. He doubted Ryder would use his supply of oil so frivolously.
Jarret could see that both occupants of the room were sleeping deeply, but he had no difficulty in discerning the differences in their slumber. His tread was silent as he passed Mary's chair and went straight to the stone shelf-bed on which Ryder lay. Jarret had only glimpsed Ryder at Fort Union, but he had been given a photograph that left him with no doubt that it was Ryder McKay he was seeing.
Jarret looked for the injury that engraved Ryder's face with pain and brought beads of perspiration to his upper lip. Finding none visible, he raised the blanket and whistled softly. "Hell of a thing, you bastard," he said softly. "I could almost feel sorry for you."
Lowering the blanket, Jarret turned his attention to Mary. She didn't appear to be injured, only exhausted. There were shadows beneath her eyes and no color in her cheeks. He had never thought of her as particularly fragile, but she had that aura about her now, looking too slender and delicate in Ryder's clothes. "If he hurt you," he said under his breath, "I'll break his knees."
The threat would have been a familiar one to Mary. She had used it herself on four different occasions. Jarret first heard it when he stood up as best man for his friend Ethan Stone. Mary had been looking out for her sister Michael that time. She had given Jarret a similar warning when he'd taken Rennie in hand. Connor Holiday hadn't been spared when he'd made Maggie his wife, and Walker Caide had heard the same threat when he'd exchanged vows with Skye. Mary Francis always looked out for her sisters. She would have protected them with her life if it had come to that.
"And who's been looking out for you?" he asked softly. Jarret saw the cloths lying out to dry beside the well. He picked one up, dipped it in the icy water, and carried it back to Mary's side. He laid it gently against her brow and then wiped her tear-stained cheeks. She stirred slightly but did not open her eyes. When he touched her cheek with his hand she turned and pressed her face against his palm. "Ah, Mary," he said, understanding. "Who do you think I am?"
"Ryder."
The word was hardly spoken, was more an expulsion of air, but Jarret didn't mistake that it was in response to his question. Moira was right, he thought, Mary Francis felt something for the renegade Army scout.
When Jarret hunkered beside the chair his foot caught one of the maps peeking out from beneath it. He started to push the paper aside; then he saw what he was kicking and stopped. Laying the washcloth over the arm of Mary's chair, Jarret picked up the uppermost map and looked at it.
Months earlier, when Rennie had first considered expanding Northeast Rail in the territory of the Southwest, she and Jarret had poured over maps of the area. While they had studied the land around the Holland Mines most particularly, they had also examined a number of other locations. Jarret had no difficulty recognizing the map he held as marking the territory in and around Colter Canyon. The next map showed him Colter Canyon itself in more detail. He recognized some of the markings as indicating different types of ore deposits.
His dark brows were raised admiringly as he looked over it. Rennie would have paid a lot of money for a geological survey as detailed as this one. The ones she had gotten from the government men paled in comparison.
Jarret put the document aside and quickly scanned the third and final map. It was territory he didn't recognize at all, with markings that made little sense to him. Puzzled, he held it up to get a better look at it.
"Put that down or I'll shoot you where you sit."
Jarret didn't move. "In the back?" he asked Ryder.
"In the backside if I have to."
Jarret lowered the map and carefully slid it under Mary's chair with the others.
"Keep your hands up," Ryder said. His voice wavered slightly with the strain of talking.
"I've already looked under those blankets," Jarret said evenly. "The only thing you had under there worth noting was a bum leg." He turned around slowly and stood, hands at his sides. He could see clearly that Ryder's threat was an empty one. "I expected a little more from you."
Even Ryder's shrug was painful. "I got you to put those maps down, didn't I?" he asked, striving for carelessness in his tone. "You weren't completely sure."
Jarret tipped the brim of his hat back a notch, conceding the point. "You been awake long?"
"Long enough to hear you threaten my knees. Hate to disappoint you, though. I've only got one leg worth breaking." His pale gray eyes took Jarret's measure and immediately recognized a worthy adversary. The man didn't flinch under his scrutiny. "You must be one of the in-laws," he said finally. "Rennie's husband?"
"That's right," said Jarret. "How did you know?"
It was a struggle to sit up, but Ryder managed. Feeling less at a disadvantage even though he was out of breath, he said, "I always figured I had more to fear from her family than from any three units the general might send out." Ryder raked his hair with his fingers. "You must be the one who used to bounty hunt."
"Did Mary tell you that?"
Ryder shook his head, a slight smile lifting one corner of his mouth. He looked past Jarret to where Mary slept, still slumped in the wing chair. "She played her cards very close to the vestments."
Jarret's faint smile was a salute of sorts. "Jay Mac taught her well. Her sisters will tell you she's the best one at the table." His smile faded. "So how did you know?"
"She forgot about Walker Caide."
Now Jarret's dark brows knit. His eyes narrowed. "You know Skye's husband."
"For years," he said, not explaining their friendship began at West Point. "When Walker married Skye he wrote about her family. He had a line or two for you." Ryder winced as he shifted his weight. "I didn't connect you and your wife with Mary when you first came to Fort Union."
The trial had been underway then, Jarret remembered, and the testimony had been damning. "You had a few other things on your mind," Jarret said.
Ryder's rueful grin acknowledged the truth of that. "Just a few." And only a few less now, he thought. "You tracked the blood?" he asked.
Jarret nodded. "Hell of a fall you took back there. I half expected to find a body at the bottom of that ravine."
"Disappointed you didn't?"
"Glad I didn't find Mary."
"I don't suppose you and I would be talking if you had."
"That's right." Jarret tapped the butt of his Colt. "I would have killed you. No questions."
It was nothing less than Ryder would have expected. He was a little surprised that Jarret was carrying on a conversation now. "I may ask you to do it anyway," he said. "Mary can't."
"Jesus," Jarret said under his breath. "You
asked
her?"
"I told her I was considering it."
"Jesus," he said again. "You had no right. Not Mary. You know what she is... what she was. She'd never give up. She'll kill herself working to save you."
"Do you think I don't know it?" Ryder asked quietly. His eyes strayed back to Mary's exhausted figure and lingered there. "You've got to get her out of here."
It was what Jarret came to do. However, he hadn't expected to be invited to do it. He pointed to Ryder's injured leg. "What the hell were you doing on the lip of that ravine anyway?"
"Trying to cover our tracks."
"Mary was with you when you fell?"
"God, no." He closed his eyes briefly, thankful she hadn't been around when the ridge of stone had given way beneath his feet and sent him plunging over the edge. "I left something along the route, and I had to go back to get it."
"Clothes," Jarret said.
"That's right. How did you—"
"You missed a sock." Jarret raised one hand, holding off the question he saw in Ryder's eyes. "It's all right. I have it now. I cleaned up the trail, too. Just in case it led me to you. I didn't want anyone else finding it."
Ryder didn't thank him, his mind already racing ahead to the obvious question. "Anyone in particular?"
"A Tonto scout."
"Rosario."
"That's right. Jay Mac upped the ante. Rosario gets a bonus above what's already being offered for—"