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  He walked off, eyes cast down at the ground, looking for something that would work. Behind him, some of the women also started to look. Abigail sat down and sulked. Delilah stood by the makeshift lever and fulcrum.

  “This is never gonna work,” Abigail said. “We’re going to die here.”

  “Oh, be quiet, Abigail,” Delilah said. “Mr. Adams will help us get out of here.”

  “And then what? He’ll rape us.”

  “All of us?” Delilah asked.

  “Why not?” Abigail asked. “He’s a man.”

  “I think we’d be able to defend ourselves against one man, Abigail,” Delilah said. “Besides, he’s not that kind of man.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “He stopped to help us, didn’t he?”

  Abigail stared at Delilah and then said, “Oh, don’t tell me you’re lusting after him.”

  “Abigail!”

  “God,” Abigail said, “one handsome man stops to help us and you act like a harlot.”

  “Abigail,” Delilah said, “I swear, if you don’t shut up . . .”

  Rosemary came up alongside Clint and asked, “Will this do?”

  Clint looked at what she held in her hand. It was a branch that looked the right width and length. He took it from her, held it in both hands and tried to break it. If it had been longer, he might have succeeded. The length—or lack thereof—made it stronger.

  “Let’s try it,” he said. “Good find.”

  They walked back to the wagon, gathered all the other women around.

  “All right,” Clint said. “When I’ve wedged the lever underneath the wagon, four of you will put your weight on it. Once you lift the wagon up high enough, you’ll have to hold it there. Understand?”

  They all nodded, except for Abigail. But that was okay. They didn’t need her enthusiasm, just her weight.

  Clint looked at Rosemary. “You’re going to help me lift the wheel up and slide it on. Then you’ll just have to hold it in place while I slide the carter key on.” He held up the branch she’d found.

  “Okay.”

  “Are we ready?” he asked the women.

  They nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “Put all your weight on the lever . . . now!”

  They did. The wagon creaked, groaned a bit, and then lifted.

  “Just a little more.”

  The ladies leaned harder, even Abigail on the end. The branch made a sound, but held.

  “Let’s lift the wheel,” he told Rosemary.

  They picked the wheel up, straightened it, then lifted it to put it back on. They got it onto the hub, but it wouldn’t sit straight.

  “Hold on!”

  He left Rosemary to hold the wheel. He had the makeshift carter key in his left hand, reached behind with his right, placing his arm beneath the wagon. He reached behind to try to steady the wheel, then slid the carter key into the hole with his left. It went in, and stopped part of the way. That was good. It was big enough to wedge in there. He pushed harder so that it did just that.

  “That’s . . . almost . . . got it,” he said.

  Abigail heard him say, “. . . got it . . .” She said, “Good,” and took her weight off the branch.

  Without her weight the other women couldn’t hold it and the wagon came down hard . . . trapping Clint’s right arm beneath it.

  FOUR

  “Oh my God!” Rosemary shouted. “Lift it, lift it. He’s trapped.”

  The pain was intense as something metal beneath the wagon punched into Clint’s arm. He yelled again in pain.

  “Abigail!” Delilah yelled.

  “It’s not my fault!”

  “Just get back on it!” Jenny yelled.

  The women leaned on the lever again, lifting the wagon. Whatever had stabbed into Clint’s arm caused pain and further damage as it slid out. There was a spurt of blood and then the pain was so bad he passed out.

  “Oh my God,” Rosemary said again.

  His blood soaked her, but she managed to get her arms around his waist and pull him out from beneath the wagon.

  “I’ve got him! I’ve got him!”

  The women let the wagon come back down and then rushed to see how Clint was.

  “Oh, god, his arm,” Jenny said.

  “There’s so much blood,” Delilah said.

  “How bad is it?” Morgan asked.

  “We’ve got to stop the bleeding,” Rosemary said. “Then we’ll be able to tell.”

  She turned around and looked at the women. “I need a belt, some water, and some bandages. Hurry, girls!”

  They scattered, even Abigail moving quickly.

  Rosemary got Clint onto his back and began tearing off the right sleeve of his shirt. The wound looked ragged, but there was so much blood she couldn’t tell. She knew she had to stop the bleeding somehow. She removed his gun belt, then the belt of his trousers. She wrapped the belt around his right upper arm, pulled it tight, and held it that way. That seemed to stanch the blood flow. She maintained her hold on the belt until one of the other girls returned. It was Jenny, with a belt; but since Rosemary had already pressed Clint’s own belt into service, she had Jenny hold the spare.

  Morgan returned with a bucket of water and some strips of cloth for bandages. Rosemary soaked some of the rags and used them to clean the wound. It was a deep puncture, and the edges were ragged. The belt had slowed the bleeding, so she packed the wound as best she could with some rags, then used the rest to wrap it tightly.

  “Let the belt loose, then tighten it again,” Rosemary said. “We’ll have to keep doing that until the bleeding stops.”

  “What if it doesn’t stop?” Jenny asked.

  “Then he’ll bleed to death before we can get him some help.”

  “Help where?” Morgan asked.

  “He told me there’s a town about ten miles ahead.”

  “If the wheel stays on that long,” Delilah said.

  “If it doesn’t,” Rosemary said, “one of us will take one of the team—or Mr. Adams’s horse—and ride ahead for help. For now, we need to get him into the back of the wagon.”

  While Jenny continued to hold the belt on Clint’s arm, Morgan, Delilah, and Rosemary picked Clint up and carried him to the wagon. Thankfully, he was still out, so they didn’t have to worry about causing him any pain.

  With difficulty, they lifted him into the back of the wagon. Eventually, Jenny got in the back and lifted his head onto her lap. She would remain in charge of the belt on his arm as long as possible. After settling him in, the girls tied Eclipse to the back of the wagon.

  “Okay,” Rosemary said, “let’s get going and see if this wheel holds up.”

  Rosemary climbed up to take the reins. Abigail decided to sit next to her. Morgan also sat with them, and Delilah climbed into the back. There was plenty of room so that she didn’t crowd the prone Clint. They started off, expecting with every foot they traveled to hear a crack from the wheel.

  FIVE

  The wheel held.

  The town they came to was called Big Rock. It was a decent-sized town, and Rosemary was hopeful it had a doctor.

  She stopped in front of the sheriff’s office, because it seemed right to ask him.

  “Stay here, all of you,” she said.

  She walked to the door and knocked.

  “Come in!”

  She entered, saw a man standing by a potbellied stove with a coffeepot in his hand. He was tall and fairly young—in his thirties—and had a pleasant, open face

  “You’re a stranger in town,” he said. “Nobody else would knock. What can I do for you?”

  “We have an injured man in our wagon, Sheriff,” she said. “Is there a doctor in town?”

  He put the pot down, grabbed his hat, and said, “Yes. How was he injured?”

  “He stopped to help us repair our wagon wheel, and the wagon came down on his arm.”

  The lawman took his gun belt from a drawer in his desk and strapped it on. �
�Come on. I’ll show you where the doctor is.”

  “Thank you.”

  He not only showed her where the doctor’s office was, but he got some men to carry Clint—who was finally conscious—into the office.

  He had woken up along the way and looked up at Jenny.

  “What happened?”

  “You got hurt,” she said. “Your arm.”

  He looked down at his bloody right arm and started to try to move it but was stopped by the pain.

  “Don’t try to move,” she said.

  “How bad is it?” he asked.

  “We’re taking you to a doctor.”

  He remained quiet the rest of the way and gritted his teeth only once when the men carried him into the doctor’s examining room and put him on a table.

  “All right,” Doctor Sam Jacobs announced to everybody in the room, “everyone out, now! Let me see to my patient.”

  The men left easily. The women lingered, but the doctor finally shooed them out.

  “All right, Mr. Adams,” the doctor said to Clint. “Let me have a look.”

  He unwrapped the wound, inspected it silently.

  “How bad is it, Doc?” Clint asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” the doctor said. “It will take some time.”

  “Doc,” Clint said, “I can’t move my fingers.”

  Outside the office, the women divvied up their tasks with help from the sheriff.

  “I’ll get us hotel rooms,” Rosemary said. “Jenny, you take Clint’s horse to the livery.”

  “Right.”

  “The rest of you, find someplace safe to put our wagon. It has all our possessions in it.”

  “I’ll show you where the hotel is. The best one in town.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “you better show me the cheapest one in town.”

  He laughed and they started walking.

  “I don’t know your name, Sheriff,” Rosemary said.

  “It’s Evans,” he said. “Cal Evans.”

  “Cal?”

  “Calvin,” the sheriff admitted, “but I don’t use the whole name. What’s yours?”

  “Rosemary Collins,” she said.

  “And the man with the wound?” he asked. “I heard you call him Clint.”

  “Yes.”

  “Clint what?”

  “Adams,” she said, “Clint Adams. He came riding up on us early today and helped us to fix the wheel.”

  The sheriff stopped walking.

  “Wait. Clint Adams?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The Gunsmith?”

  She thought a moment, then said, “I suppose. I didn’t realize . . .”

  “Jesus,” he said, “if I have the Gunsmith in my town I have to know.”

  He started to turn back, then stopped and stared at Rosemary.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “I can find a hotel by myself.”

  “Just got a couple of more blocks,” he said. “The hotel’s on the left. It’s very reasonable. Just don’t go near the Big Rock Hotel. That’s the expensive one.”

  “I understand.”

  “Jesus,” he said, “the Gunsmith,” and rushed back the way they had come.

  SIX

  The sheriff entered the doctor’s office again, heard voices in the other room. He stuck his head in and saw the doctor standing over a prone Clint Adams.

  “Hey, Doc Jacobs?”

  The doctor turned. “I’ll be there in a minute, Sheriff,” Jacobs said. “Just need to finish up.”

  “Okay.”

  The sheriff sat by the doctor’s desk, nervously bouncing his legs. When Jacobs entered, he jumped up.

  “Doc, do you know who that is?”

  “I do,” the doctor said. “I assume this means that you do, too?”

  “I had to make sure,” Evans said. “Is it . . . him?”

  “Is it who?”

  “The Gunsmith!”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Jesus,” Evans said, “the Gunsmith in my town. If word gets out, there’ll be blood in the streets.”

  “You’re bein’ too dramatic, Cal.”

  “Am I? What do you think would happen if him being here became common knowledge?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Gunmen will come out of the woodwork,” Evans said, “that’s what. How long is he stayin’?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, how bad is he hurt?”

  “I don’t want to feed into your drama,” Jacobs said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “At the moment,” Doc Jacobs said, “the Gunsmith can’t move his hand.”

  Evans stared at Jacobs.

  “Sheriff?”

  “Huh? Oh, uh, you mean . . . his gun hand?”

  “That’s what I mean,” Evans said. “The puncture wound in his arm has affected the motor functions of his hand.”

  “Doc!”

  “Like I said,” Evans replied, “he can’t use his right hand.”

  “Jesus!” Evans said. “If this got out, we’d be drowning in gunnies.”

  “Why would it get out?” the doctor said. “I’m not going to tell anyone. Are you?”

  Clint stared down at his bandaged arm. The doctor had cleaned the wound as best he could and then stitched it closed. While the pain had subsided somewhat, Clint was very concerned that he could not move his hand.

  His gun hand.

  The one that had kept him alive all these years.

  He reached out to touch his gun belt, which was on a table within reach. He had fired his gun left-handed before, and was probably better than most. But that wouldn’t help him against experienced guns. If he couldn’t use his right hand, he’d be a sitting duck for every two-bit gunny who came along.

  The doctor kept avoiding the subject of how long the paralysis would last, which made Clint worry that the man either didn’t know—or he knew and wasn’t telling.

  He pushed himself to a seated position, swung his legs around so that his feet touched the floor. He was about to try to stand when he got dizzy. Spots appeared in front of his eyes, so he closed them and began to breathe deeply.

  It didn’t help. If the doctor hadn’t come back in at that moment and caught him, the Gunsmith would have hit the floor.

  SEVEN

  When Clint came to, he was looking at the ceiling again.

  “Doc?”

  The doctor rushed in from the other room and looked down at him.

  “How are you feelin’?”

  “Terrible,” he said. “Come on, Doc, you’ve got to tell me. How long is my hand going to be like this?”

  “The truth is, I don’t know, Mr. Adams,” Doc Jacobs said. “There was significant damage to the ligaments in your arm.”

  “Will they heal?”

  “That’s what we have to wait to find out.”

  “How long?”

  “Honestly? I have no idea.”

  “Doc, look,” Clint said, “do you know who I am?”

  “You’re the second person to ask me that today. Yes, I do know who you are, Mr. Adams: the Gunsmith.”

  “If word got out that I couldn’t use my right hand—” Clint started.

  “I understand that, Mr. Adams. I assure you, no one is going to hear it from me.”

  “Second,” Clint said.

  “What?”

  “You said I was the second person today to ask you that,” Clint said. “Who was the first?”

  “Oh, the sheriff. He just asked me that a little while ago.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “What I told you.”

  “So he knows I can’t use my right hand?”

  “He does,” the doctor said, “but as far as I know, he doesn’t plan to tell anyone.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he won’t, at some point.”

  “He’s the law, Mr. Adams.”

  “Sorry, Doc,” Clint said, “but I’ve run into a lot of badge-toters who had their own i
deas about upholding the law.”

  “I see.”

  “Can I leave?”

  “You can’t even stand,” the doctor said.

  “I can at least try that again.”

  “Okay,” Jacobs said, “let’s try it.”

  He helped Clint into a seated position, then backed away so the man could try to stand on his own. This time, Clint made it to his feet.

  “Okay,” he said. “I can stand.”

  “Next,” the doctor said, “try takin’ a step.”

  Rosemary got two rooms at the hotel. She figured she would share one with Jenny. The other three girls would share the second room. If Delilah and Morgan didn’t kill Abigail by morning, it would be a miracle. Maybe Rosemary would take the older woman instead.

  She waited in the lobby for the four other women to appear. They had brought whatever they could carry with them.

  “How’d you know which hotel I’d be at?” she asked.

  “We asked the man at the livery stable which hotel was the cheapest,” Jenny said.

  “Okay, here,” she said, handing Jenny a key. “You share a room with Delilah and Morgan. Abigail, you’re with me.”

  “Fine.”

  “Take our belongings to the rooms,” she told them.

  “Where are you going?” Abigail asked.

  “I’m going to go and check on Clint.”

  “Why are you worried about that man?” Abigail asked. “We don’t need him anymore.”

  “Abigail,” Rosemary said, “he got hurt trying to help us.”

  “It wasn’t our fault,” Abigail said.

  “It was your fault,” Jenny said to her.

  “It was not!”

  “Yeah, it was,” Morgan said.

  “Girls,” Rosemary said, “just go to your rooms. I’ll be back in a while and then we’ll get something to eat.”

  She turned and left them in the lobby, still arguing.

  Clint took a step, then two, then three. There was no dizziness.

  “I can walk,” he said.

  “But walking isn’t the problem, is it?” the doctor asked.

  “No,” Clint said, “staying alive is.”