A Promise in Defiance: Romance in the Rockies Book 3 (4 page)

Doc probed the wound,
eliciting twitches and more hisses from Smith. “You don’t exactly wear out the
idea of gentle, do ya?”

“You want gentle, go to
a hospital with nuns. There’s one in San Francisco.” Doc straightened and
stepped back. “All right. Finish cleaning the wound, Hannah, and stitch him up.”

“Wait, what?” Smith
protested. “I don’t want no tow-headed little girl sewing on me.”

Doc dropped his hands
on his hips and stared blandly at the man. “She needs the practice and you’re
not hurt that bad.”

“Quit your crying, you
big baby.” Shelby walked over from the window, still leering at Hannah. “This
pretty gal probably has good hands.” His eyes roved over Hannah and her skin
crawled into gooseflesh. “I sure would like her to work on me.”

From nowhere a scalpel
appeared in Doc’s hands and he pressed the tip into the man’s throat. “Now,
none of that, son. You’ll behave in here.”

The fella backed up a
step, hands raised.

“You disrespect my
nurse and I’m not likely to forget that. Could be a problem the next time you
need my services. You’re liable to lose all kinds of valuable parts.”

Smith waved his friend
away. “Shelby, hush your mouth and let her be.” Scowling, he slid his arm forward
to Hannah. “Go ahead.”

Hannah went to work,
remembering the stitches she’d put in Billy out on Redemption Pass. Nothing but
whiskey and a saddle repair kit to work with, but she’d saved her man’s life.
God had blessed them. And she’d never felt so good, so fulfilled, as she did
when she was nursing. Besides being a mother, it was her calling.

“So,” Doc began,
peering over Hannah’s shoulder, “This Indian boy who cut you, was he about, oh,
fifteen or sixteen?”

Smith winced at a
prick. “Not exactly.”

Shelby laughed and
settled into a chair by the cold stove. “Nah, it was a little kid. Not more
than ten or twelve.”

Hannah gritted her
teeth, determined to concentrate but she knew they were talking about Two
Spears. Her heart sank.
Will that boy never learn to stay out of trouble?

“Mean as a snake,” Smith
argued back, “and fast as a rabbit, but I’ll break him of stealing horses and
stabbing white folks—ouch!”

“Sorry,” Hannah rolled
her tense shoulders and tried to care. “It would help if you wouldn’t talk.”

Doc leaned a hair
closer. “But patients do, Hannah. And oftentimes they’ll say things you don’t
want to hear. You have to learn to separate yourself from anything but the
medicine.”

“I understand.”

Shelby raised his feet
and rested them atop the stove. “Nah, the boy ain’t no trouble. It’s the man
you ought a worry about, Smith. You try to get back at Logan, you’d better do
it in the dark from behind.”

“Will you shut up!” Smith
yelled, jerking away from Hannah. The needle pricked his skin and he yowled at
her like a scalded dog. “Woman, I’m gonna backhand you—” Doc’s scalpel appeared
at Smith’s throat this time and the patient gulped.

“You boys need to calm
down now and let Hannah finish her work.” Doc placed the blade against Smith’s
jugular. “Understand?”

Smith nodded at Doc,
more out of anger than fear, judging by his clamped jaw. Hands shaking, Hannah
dabbed at her patient’s arm, a fresh trickle of blood coming from where she’d
nicked him, and continued her work.

“This fella Logan,” Doc
said, pressing the blade deeper, “That wouldn’t be Logan Tillane, would it?”

Smith peered down at
Doc’s hand. “Yep.”

“Two things you should
do, Smith, if you want a long life. Pay your doctor’s bill . . .
and leave Logan Tillane alone.”

“He’s gone again?”

Naomi’s sister, Rebecca,
spoke in an accusatory tone, and it pricked McIntyre a little. She flung her
thick brunette braid over her shoulder and went back to inking with a roller
the blocks of type that composed her front page.

The opposite of her
petite, fair-haired sisters, Rebecca was tall with thick dark hair and regal
features. Significantly older than Naomi and Hannah, about forty he guessed,
she was also a thunderstorm of wisdom and elegance. McIntyre respected that
spark, that passion.

And she was now turning
said passion toward a newspaper. Every prosperous, civilized town needed a
newspaper. Working on a Washington Printing Press, she and her husband, Ian,
had paid dearly for the thing, an iron monster the size of an ice box. And they
had it positioned right in the front window of McIntyre’s old saloon, sending
the message that Defiance was, indeed, up-and-coming,
civilized . . . safe.

McIntyre could guess
the first headline:
Charles McIntyre Unfit Father
. He’d never said he
was fit. He had a great number of fears over what kind of father he would be,
due to the scallywag his own father had been. But claiming an illegitimate
half-breed involved far more than mere paternity. The clash of cultures he
could see coming might well be epic. It worried him. Specifically for the boy’s
safety.

“Naomi tells me you don’t
spend any time with him.” The acrid smell of India ink permeated the former
saloon. Rebecca set the roller back on the ink table and carefully transferred
the page form to the press’s bed. “Perhaps if you would show the child some
compassion, he might settle down.”

McIntyre controlled the
urge to let a petulant tone creep into his own voice. “Neither you nor your
sister seem to grasp the gravity of what I have been asked to do.” He grabbed
the Devil’s Tail, the press’s handle, and waited for Rebecca to
slide the page forward.

Satisfied
things were in place, she cranked a spindle, rolling the page beneath the
press’s weight, called a tampen, then reached up and took hold of the handle.
“I’d rather do this myself. I’m still learning.”

McIntyre acquiesced
with a nod and stepped back. “You’ve read the newspapers from around the
country, Rebecca. You know how most people regard Indians.”

She grasped the handle,
positioned herself to pull, but paused. “What I know is nearly all of the
newspapers out West print the most blatantly outrageous falsehoods and bigoted
comments I’ve ever read in my life. It’s as if they are determined to cause the
annihilation of the Indian.”

“Slaughter and lies
always sell newspapers.”

“Well, our paper isn’t
going to be like that. We’ll print the truth—and only the truth—on all stories.
No opinions. We will refer to the Indians by their tribal names. They deserve
respect. They’re human beings—not
Injuns
or
redskins
.”

Tired of talking to her
back, McIntyre strode to the other side of the press. “I’m not sure Defiance is
ready for the unvarnished truth about anything, much less about the Indian problem.”
None of this, however, was the reason for his visit.
“I
did not come by to discuss that or Two Spears. I wanted to let you know you’ll
have an extra guest for dinner tonight. A preacher has come to town and he will
be staying here until his church is ready.”

Rebecca straightened up.
“A preacher? A real one?”

“Well, if by real you
mean a Godly man, then yes, I think he is. His conversion may be even more unbelievable
than mine.”

Frantic, moving like if
her hands were on fire, Rebecca released the handle and rolled the bed back
from the press. “I have to redo the front page. I have to write a new story.
Where is our preacher?” She removed the chase containing the page and took it
back to her desk. “I need to see him right away.” She scanned the news stories,
painstakingly laid out backward with blocks of type. “Here, I’ll pull the story
of Wilhelm Fassbender’s gold nugget.”

McIntyre watched as
Rebecca removed the story, one word, sometimes one letter, at a time. “Rebecca,”
he softened his voice and stepped over to her. “Our preacher has a past.”

Her hands slowed.

“He would be most
fortunate if it did not follow him to Defiance. If he does not want to answer
all your questions, don’t push him . . .please.”

Logan paused at the
front window of what was once the Iron Horse. He noted for an instant his rough
appearance: dirty saddlebags tossed over one shoulder; worn clothes in need of
washing., shaggy hair. The gun on his hip felt showy. Back in Willow he had
quit wearing it. He knew he couldn’t be so trusting in Defiance.

The traffic streamed
past him in the glass and he took a deep breath.
I’m not sure I’m ready for
this, Lord. Am I solid enough?

A woman’s face appeared
on the other side of the window. Logan tipped his hat and strode to the door.
He let himself in and the acrid scent of India ink assailed him.

The woman wiped her
hands on her apron and approached him. “You’re not by any chance our new
preacher, are you?”

He removed his hat and
ducked his chin. “Yes, ma’am; that’s the plan leastways.”

“I’m Rebecca Donoghue.”
The two shook hands. “Charles told me to expect you. Get you settled.” She motioned
to the printing press behind her. “You can see the Iron Horse serves several
different purposes now. It’s a town hall and a newspaper office. There are
bedrooms upstairs. He said you can stay as long as you need.”

“That’s generous of
him, but,” he let the saddle bags slide off his shoulder, “as soon as the
church is livable, I’ll be staying there.”

“I understand.” Rebecca
shifted uncomfortably and her brow creased. “I was wondering if I might
interview you for the paper. The town needs to know you’re here.”

Logan rubbed his chin
with the back of his hand. She was right, of course. Folks had to be made aware
they had a place to come and hear God’s Word. “I guess that would be all right.”

The crease didn’t leave
her brow. “You don’t have to answer any questions you’re uncomfortable with. I
understand you, uhm . . .have a past.”

A past. A gun for hire
by anyone with the gold, no questions asked. A reputation for a lightning draw
and a long trail of nameless corpses. A hard-fought battle to defeat his taste
for whiskey. “Ma’am, a gunslinger-turned-preacher doesn’t just have a past. He
has a target painted on his forehead.”

Her mouth fell open
into a little ‘o.’

“And the truth is,” he
went on, “I’ve been hiding out with a small church in Kansas, avoiding what I’ve
been called to do—preach the Gospel in Defiance.”

Her hand slowly slid
into a pocket on her apron and emerged with a pencil and note pad. “May I quote
you? Or some form of that?”

Logan couldn’t say why,
but he trusted Rebecca in spite of not knowing her from Adam’s house cat. He’d
met a few reporters, and even a dime novelist, in his time. She didn’t strike
him as that shallow . . .or hungry. She was not a
sensationalist, and he was rarely wrong about people. His lips slid into a
sideways grin. “How ’bout
some form
?”