Scotsman Wore Spurs (9 page)

“I can take him on a travois,” Drew said. “I won't be good for a week or more anyway. San Antonio isn't that far. I can catch up with you later.”

Pepper shook his head. “There's a cattle town—Willow Springs—no more than fifteen miles east of here. Should have a doc.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Kirby said. “Before anyone goes anywhere, Pepper, take a look at Drew's arm.”

Drew reluctantly shed his slicker and shirt, shivering in the icy rain as the cook tested and probed.

“Sprain,” Pepper pronounced. “He's right. He won't be able to herd for a week at least.”

“He can't go alone, not with a wounded man and that arm,” Kingsley said, then his eyes lit on Two Bits. “You can do without the kid, can't you, Pepper?”

Drew heard a small protest escape the boy's lips but apparently neither Kingsley nor Pepper heard it—or they chose to ignore it.

“Never wanted him in the first place,” Pepper said.

“You can take one of the horses from the remuda,” Kingsley told the boy.

“I'd rather take Billy.”

Kingsley shrugged and turned back to Drew. “That all right with you?”

Drew wasn't sure whether the boy would be more hindrance than help, but he understood Kirby's reasons for not thinking he could manage alone—and that Ace's life might depend upon his having someone along with him. He also understood that his agreement to take Two-Bits would determine whether he was allowed to go at all.

He nodded.

“It's settled then,” Kingsley said. “Pepper, you fix Ace as best as you can, then get a sling on Cameron. The kid and I will make a travois. Come on, kid, let's get started.”

Drew watched as Kirby strode away, toward the hoodlum wagon. Two-Bits hesitated, giving him a wary look. Drew could feel the reluctance radiating from the lad's eyes, eyes that, in the dim light, were almost black. He wanted to say something reassuring, but he was just too tired and discouraged to make an effort.

Then, Kirby's shout came slicing through the strained silence. “Two-Bits! Get over here.”

The lad tore his gaze away and obeyed Kirby.

Drew sighed, thinking it was going to be a long ride to Willow Springs. An instant later, though, he forgot Gabe Lewis when Ace moaned. He leaned down and lifted the whiskey bottle to the man's lips while Pepper cut away pieces of his trouser leg and pulled them from the wounds. The cook hesitated, then poured alcohol over the torn and bleeding flesh. Ace screamed, then lost consciousness.

“You take a sip of that yourself,” Pepper advised. “You'll need it to keep going tonight. Town's a good day's ride. Faster you get him to a doctor, better his chances.”

Drew nodded and went to get his bedroll and a warm shirt. He was wet to the skin and freezing. His arm ached like bloody hell. He hadn't slept in eighteen hours. And he was facing a long grueling ride with a half-dead man and a green kid, who undoubtedly would cause him nothing but trouble.

Adventure, he thought, was for fools.

Chapter Five

Willow Springs, Texas

“I don't want to leave Ace,” Two-Bits protested. “I want to stay here with him.”

Drew bit back an angry rejoinder and took a deep breath. He was tired beyond exhaustion and his arm hurt like hell. He wanted to talk to the doctor—privately—then find a bed. Any kind of bed. A floor would do.

Standing in the tiny waiting room of the doctor's office, he tamped down his impatience with Two-Bits's stubbornness. “The doctor says he'll live and the leg can probably be saved,” Drew said, wishing he shared the doctor's guarded optimism. He took several heavy coins from a pocket and handed them to his companion. “You get us a room, two of them. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

Two-Bits stared at him sullenly, hands in pocket. He made no move to take the money. Drew's eyes narrowed, and finally, with an exasperated sigh, the lad gave in. Nodding curtly, he took the money and left the room.

Drew watched him leave, shoulders sagging, thinking that in truth the boy had a right to stay with Ace. He'd been a surprising blessing on the agonizing day-long trip to Willow Creek, not only keeping pace without complaint but nursing Ace with unfailing kindness.

He didn't know what he had expected, but certainly not the tireless, practical companion who changed bandages with a smile and deftness that seemed to ease some of Ace's pain.

That smile, however, had not extended to him, and while Two-Bits would sit and talk to Ace each time they rested, the boy had little or nothing to say to him. Only a mumbled word now and then.

With a sigh, Drew returned to the inner room where Dr. Sanders was treating Ace. The doctor, too thin and haggard, looked in need of his own services.

“Don't be too long,” Sanders said. “He needs to sleep.”

Drew murmured his agreement as Sanders passed him on the way out the door, leaving him alone with Ace.

Ace's face was lined with pain. “Doc says I'll walk again, but maybe not as good.”

Drew sat on a chair next to the bed. “You're on a horse all the time anyway,” he said.

“That's a fact,” Ace said, some of the anxiety leaving his face. “Used to pick cotton in Texas before the war. Never wanted to stay close to the ground again.”

Drew pulled out a small package of bills. “Mr. Kingsley wanted you to have this.”

Astonishment spread over Ace's face as his fingers shuffled through a number of bills. His mouth worked for a moment, his eyes misting. Then he looked at the bills again. “How … much is here?” he said.

Drew suddenly realized Ace probably couldn't cipher. Or read. “Two hundred dollars,” he said gently. “Should see you through four months or more.” He watched as the man fondled the bills.

Ace shook his head against the pillow. “Never had so much. Never heard of anyone doing this.”

“The boss is full of surprises,” Drew said with a wry smile.

“Tell him I'm mighty grateful,” Ace said.

“I will,” Drew said. “You be careful with that.”

“I'll pin it to my clothes, right next to my skin,” Ace said with a smile, then added hesitantly. “Scotty …?”

Drew lifted an eyebrow in question. He and Ace and Juan—the foreigner, the one black, and the Mexican—had shared the worst parts of a cattle drive, and a bond of sorts had grown between them. When Ace held out his hand, Drew sensed how tentative a gesture it was, how fearful he was that the offer would be rejected.

Drew grinned and grasped the injured man's hand tightly. “You'll be back in the saddle in no time.”

Ace looked skeptical but his handshake was firm. “I'll never forget what you did,” he said. “Coming back for me like that.”

“Anyone would have done the same, anyone on that drive.” Drew dismissed the sentiment, but he gave the other man's hand a squeeze before letting go.

Ace shook his head. “No, not everyone woulda done it. And I'll always be beholden to you an' Mr. Kingsley.”

Inwardly, Drew squirmed with discomfort. He disliked gratitude.

Ace sighed. “You and me, we never did get to play poker together. That's how I got the name, you know. I drew a straight the first night I came to Mr. Kingsley's ranch. Ace high. First time ever.”

Drew had heard the story several times. But, smiling, he let Ace continue. The injured man obviously wanted to prolong the conversation.

Drew just nodded. “You'll do it again. Get some rest now. Take care of yourself. And when the drive is over, I'll look for you. Leave word with the doctor where you'll be. If I ever get a ranch, I'll need a bloody good hand.”

Ace's eyes misted slightly. He nodded. “I'll do that,” he said.

“Take care of yourself,” Drew said.

“You too, Scotty.”

Morosely, Drew headed toward the town's one hotel, his thoughts occupied by Ace and his uncomplaining acceptance of a life marred by injustice and tragedy. The other drovers
had
ignored Ace, isolating him as they had isolated Drew in the beginning. But they had never accepted Ace as they were gradually accepting Drew. Bloody hell, but he was weary of class and race distinctions. That was one reason he left Scotland. One of the reasons he loathed his title.

As he reached the hotel, he tried to force all thoughts except sleep from his mind. He'd sell his soul for a hot bath and clean bed. What with a storm, a stampede, and two days in the saddle without sleep, he was as exhausted as he'd ever been. And more confused. For a man who had always considered self-survival and opportunism much-desired virtues, he was finding himself involved in more and more lives.

Feeling oddly unsettled about the perverse direction his character was apparently taking, he entered the hotel, only to find a disheveled Two-Bits sprawled asleep in a chair. The hat was gone, fallen to the floor, but the grime remained. Still, Two-Bits looked impossibly young—and innocent—with long eyelashes covering those indigo blue eyes that always regarded him so warily. Dirt and dust, though, layered the face, distorting and disguising the lad's features.

Damn, but he felt protective of the little imp. And the harder Gabe Lewis tried to reject his protection, the more compelled he felt to offer it. He didn't understand himself, not at all. He'd decided years ago that caring was for fools; it was usually for naught and bloody well painful to boot.

The desk clerk was gone, and it appeared as if the small hotel was full. Looking at the bare hooks where keys would normally hang, Drew noted that they were all empty. He leaned down and shook Two-Bits, who stirred a little, then curled back up. Drew shook him a little harder and the lad's eyes opened slowly. Their blue was glazed by sleep, but an instant later, when he succeeded in focusing and saw Drew standing over him, his eyes flew wide open.

“Did you get the rooms?”

Two-Bits dug around in the chair, then held out a key. “Only had one room,” he said with his usual brevity. “Clerk said he was goin' to bed, so I waited for ya.” He sat up. “I'll sleep in the livery stable. Already gave the man a quarter.”

“We'll share the room,” Drew said.

The lad's eyes widened with something like alarm. “Rather be on my own,” he sniffed.

Drew hesitated. Two-Bits must be as exhausted as he was. “No baths here, I suppose,” he said, studying the boy's grimy face. His must be just as bad, or worse. He hadn't shaved in two days.

Two-Bits looked even more alarmed at that thought, then shrugged indifferently. “Don't need a bath. Everyone knows too many baths make you sick.”

Drew lifted an eyebrow. “Pray tell, how many would
too many
be?”

For a moment, he thought he saw a sliver of amusement in the lad's eyes, but it disappeared quickly into a frown, so quickly Drew wondered whether he had imagined it. Two-Bits held out the key, waiting until Drew reluctantly took it.

“Rather sleep with Billy Bones than a foreigner,” the boy muttered balefully.

Drew sighed. The lad babied that horse like a mother with her first bairn. Just as Drew had Sir Arthur thirty years ago. His stomach tightened again. There were few stronger bonds than that between a boy and his horse, especially a boy who had nothing or no one else. Yet the result could easily be pain so deep and excruciating it never went away.

So he let the boy go. Nothing he said, no warning, would make a farthing's worth of difference.

Gabrielle slept in an empty stall next to Billy Bones. Truth told, she could have slept anyplace. She'd never been so weary in her life. When her head hit the straw, she didn't even think about Kirby Kingsley or the Scotsman. She simply passed out.

She didn't have that advantage the next morning, though, when she woke to see streaks of sunlight creeping through the various cracks in the building. She lay there in the hay, remembering how callous Kingsley had sounded as he'd said he didn't want to lose time while a man lay injured, moaning in pain from an injury received trying to save Kingsley's property.

What would Ace do now? Surely, it would be a long time before he could work again. If he ever did. What would a man do out here, being crippled and no longer able to perform the hard physical labor that was his only means of earning a living?

Chewing her lower lip, Gabrielle considered the situation. Most of the money that she and her father had saved, which wasn't much, was in a bank back East. She had brought little with her. But it was sure to be more than Ace had, and she decided to go over to the doctor's office and leave what she could with him.

She rose from her makeshift bed, greeted Billy, and gave him some oats. As she headed for the stable door, she shook the hay out of her clothes and hair. Sweet heaven, she would love a bath. But she didn't dare take one. No one looked too closely at the scruffy Gabe. A clean Gabe would be another matter.

She nodded to the livery owner as she left the stable, then crossed the town's only street and walked halfway down the block to a whitewashed house with a shingle hanging above the door. Doctor Charles Sanders. Finding the door unlocked, she entered.

“How's Ace?” she asked the long, thin man who was sitting at a desk.

The doctor glared at her. “'Bout as well as could be expected after being trampled.” She shifted from one leg to another, knowing how she must look. She took several bills from her pocket and handed them to the doctor. “Take out your fee and give the rest to him.”

The doctor's lips twitched slightly. “I've already been paid, but I'll hand this over to him. I don't usually get offered my fee twice.” He offered Gabrielle a smile. “Now I believe in miracles.”

She felt her cheeks flush. Must have been the Scotsman. Maybe she had misjudged him. A little, anyway. Ace hadn't been his responsibility. Yet he had been unfailingly compassionate toward the wounded man on the long ride to Willow Springs. And now apparently he'd paid his doctor bill.