Read Online An Apocalyptic Need by Sam Cheever - Free Book Online Page A

fragrant head landed with a painful thud on his chest.
    Grimm rolled her carefully to her side and stood, reaching down to pick her up and looking around for help.
    Several shocked gazes stared at them from beneath deep, wide bonnets. The woman wore rough cotton dresses in muted colors and dusty black boots with laces that climbed their shins. A shrill cry had him spinning around, Cari’s dangling legs snapping against his hip. A horse danced on the end of a tether, its brown eyes wide with fear and nostrils flaring.
    Beyond the horse was a log fronted building with swinging doors. Above the doors a sign swung in a building wind.
    Dust swirled around Grimm’s ankles and filled the air until he coughed.
    The doors to the building across the street opened and slammed back, spitting a man in a dirty white hat and leather chaps from its maw.
    The man stopped when he spotted them, his jaws working something that made his cheeks puff.
    “I need a doctor,” Grimm told him, taking a step closer.
    Cari moaned softly, her body trembling. Grimm looked down and saw that his hands were covered in her blood. His boots were speckled with it and, as he watched, a bright red drop fell and slid over the dusty toe of one boot. “Fast.”
    Grimm strode toward the building but stopped as the cowboy lifted a long muzzled gun toward them. “What in tarnation…?”
    “We don’t mean you any harm,” Grimm tried. “The woman has been shot.”
    The man tipped his hat back and narrowed his gaze on Cari. “She don’t look good, mister.”
    “That’s why I need a doctor.”
    He turned his head and spat a wide stream of brown liquid into the street. “Doc ain’t here. He’s gone to deliver a calf out at the Miller place.”
    Grimm wanted to scream. “When will he be back?”
    The cowboy dropped the pistol into its holster, hanging low on a gun belt over one hip. He shook his head. “No idea.” He leaned against the post and pulled a packet of chaw from his pocket, stuffing a fresh wad between brown teeth. “Your whore don’t look like she’ll make it nohow. Even if’n he come back tonight.”
    Grimm didn’t blame the man for the insulting moniker, Cari’s dress wasn’t…normal…for the time they found themselves in. The chaw-chewin’ cowboy was right about something else too. Cari was in bad shape.
    “If you’d like, I can take a look at her,” a soft voice said from behind Grimm. He turned to look at the woman, whose wide shoulders were exposed above a deeply cut burgundy gown with wilted yellow lace around the edge.
    Her face was just as worn as her gown, but he guessed she’d been pretty once, before years of lying on her back for rough-handed cowboys took it out of her. “Thank you, miss…”
    “Scarlett.” She smiled shyly. “Just Scarlett. I ain’t no doctor but I tend my whores. Maybe I can help you with yours.”
    “I’d appreciate any help you can give me, Scarlett.”
    The woman inclined her head. “Follow me then. I just got a fresh batch of leeches and maggots in this morning.”
    Grimm gulped. Alrighty then. “Um.” The woman stopped, looked back. “I’m sorry. I think she needs all the blood she has left.”
    Scarlett just stared at him for a minute and then nodded. “Don’t you worry none, honey. Ol’ Scarlett’s done this a time or two before.”
    Grimm reluctantly followed the woman toward a low-slung wooden building whose sign declared it the saloon. The covered porch was crowded with women wearing revealing homespun, their cheeks garishly rosy and their eyes bright with interest.
    As Grimm climbed the steps, several soft, pale hands snaked out to feel Cari’s gown. A chorus of murmurs followed and, as Grimm followed Scarlett through a low doorway into a dimly lit room, someone tweaked him on the ass.
    He flinched but kept on going, frowning at the giggling that ensued behind him.
    Scarlet led him through a large room that smelled like old beer and stale sex. A well-rubbed wooden bar ran