Read Online Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] by Midnight Blue - Free Book Online

ain’t a lass to be pushed, son.”
    “What’ll I do, Ma?” Pack said wearily.
    “There be one thing—”
    “No! That I’ll not do unless all else fails.”
    “Ye got to be gettin’ on yer feet. Do ye be feelin’ a fever comin’ on? Yer side ain’t bad, just a cut as the shot went by ye.”
    “My damn leg burns like hellfire, I ache in a hundred places and I’m about to starve to death. Aside from all that I’m in pretty good shape.”
    “Ye be lucky to be alive,” Brita murmured. “I be thinkin’ ye’d not make it when ye was brung in.”
    “I wasn’t sure myself, Ma.”
    “The Holy Mother was watchin’ o’er ye, son. She sent Mara Shannon to see to ye.”
    “Holy Mother had nothing to do with it. More than likely it was old Jim at the station. He didn’t want to be the one to help me. He sent Mara Shannon to do it.”
    “Was Cullen in on it?”
    “I didn’t see him.”
    “Who done it, son?”
    “It’s best you don’t know, Ma. It’ll not happen again.”
    “Ye can’t be havin’ more laudanum.”
    “I don’t want any. I’ve got to keep my head clear.”

Chapter
    FOUR
    Pack ate several soft biscuits for breakfast but was unable to chew the fried meat because of his sore jaws. Mara thought he hadn’t missed anything. The meat was so salty that she could hardly eat it herself. She longed for a bowl of cold mush, honey, and cream and coffee that didn’t taste as if it were made from boiled acorns.
    After the meal Brita asked Mara if she would help Trellis change the bandage on Pack’s side. She could feel his eyes on her face as she bent over the bunk and carefully pulled away the bandage. Sam had done a good job closing the wound. The bullet had apparently passed through the fleshy part of his side. Although Mara kept her eyes averted from Pack’s face, she knew he was breathing faster than normal by the way his stomach moved beneath her touch.
    When she finished, she found a reason to be out of the room and left Trellis to change the bandage on Pack’s thigh which was the more serious of the two bullet wounds. The boy bathed it with vinegar water and placed a cloth sprinkled with burned alum against it when Mara brought it from the kitchen.
    After they had finished, Brita motioned for her to come close and whispered in her ear. Trellis stood awkwardly at the end of the bunk with his face averted. Her own face flamed. She felt the complete fool for not realizing the man would have to, at times, relieve himself. Mara left the room and closed the door, vowing to have as little as possible to do with the tending of Pack Gallagher.
    She worked in the kitchen, using what meager supplies she could find to make it clean. She tied a rag around the straw broom and wiped down the walls before she swept the floor. Making suds in the warm water with strong lye soap as she had seen the kitchen help do at the school, she washed all the utensils and scrubbed the workbench, trestle table, and wash bench before using the water to scrub the floor.
    It wasn’t work she was used to doing, but she welcomed it because she did her best thinking while her hands were busy. First things first, she told herself. Make the house at least livable, then make Aubrey give an accounting of the money so she would know how much they had to live on. Thank goodness she had saved a major portion of the allowance he had put in the bank in Denver. She was not entirely without funds.
    Trellis brought a hunk of deer meat from the smokehouse. Mara cut it in cubes, browned it in the iron kettle, then covered it with water and set it on the cookstove to simmer. When the meat was tender enough for Pack to chew, she would make dumplings in the broth if she could get Trellis to bring her flour and lard from the cookshack.
    Mara mopped the floor, poured several buckets of clear water over it, and swept it out the door with her broom. She smiled at the thought of what Miss Fillamore would say if she could see her now. No doubt it