Keegan's Lady (58 page)

Oh, God . . . She cast an imploring glance at the sky. She didn't know what to do. Her brother shot in the back? Who would do such a thing? And why? The questions circled dizzily in her mind. She had no answers. And without them, she would lose her husband! Beiler would hang Ace without so much as blinking an eye. Caitlin knew that. Just as he'd taken part in hanging Joseph Paxton twenty years ago. She had to do something. Only what?

Caitlin straightened her shoulders. One thing was for sure. She would accomplish nothing here. Her brother lay close to death in town. She needed to go see him. While she was there, she would take stock of the situation. Possibly think of some way to help her husband.

She couldn't let him die at the end of a rope.

It had taken twenty-two years, but God had finally sent her a hero. She wasn't about to lose him. Not if she could help it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

By the time Caitlin reached town, a mob of about twenty men had already gathered in front of the jail. As she made her way down the street toward the doctor's office, she could hear them yelling, "Let's hang the bastard! Justice, Beiler! We want justice!"

She paused on the boardwalk outside the doctor's office, her gaze fixed on the small, barred windows of the marshal's domain, just across the way. Ace and his brothers were in there somewhere. She imagined them fitting in cheerless cells, their gazes fixed on the bars that held them prisoner. They had to be frightened. She knew file was. Those men wanted blood, and from the sound of it, they wouldn't be satisfied until they got it.

For a crazy instant, Caitlin entertained the notion of breaking her husband and his brothers out of jail. She was a good shot with a rifle. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that she could—

Foolishness. Utter foolishness. She could no more take on twenty armed men than a pig could fly. It was stupid to even consider it, and Ace would be the first to tell her so.

A sense of helplessness flooded over her. She felt cold inside. Her husband—her whole life—was over there in that jail, and there was nothing she could do to help him.

It took all Caitlin's strength of will to turn her back on the jail and enter the doctor's office. Patrick lay wounded. He might very well die. She needed to be with him right now. And deep down, she knew it was what Ace would want her to do. If he knew she'd even entertained the notion of a jail break, he'd be horrified. Are you out of your mind? he'd ask. And the sad truth was, he'd be right. Whether she liked it or not, she had little choice but to do what women had been doing since the beginning of time—wait and pray.

Doc Halloway's office was just as Caitlin remembered it. A clutter of medical books lined the walls of the Writing room, holding court over utilitarian chairs with metal legs and worn leather seats. Next to the scarred oak door that led into the examining rooms and surgery there hung a picture of a small girl with red jam smeared on her face and the front of her white pinafore. Over the years, Caitlin had stared at that picture for countless hours while she waited for Doc to finish with his other patients so he might treat her injuries.

Once, she'd come to him with a broken wrist. Another time, lacerations on her back and legs from her father's belt buckle had driven her to seek Doc's help. She'd even come to him once with loosened front teeth, which he'd saved by rigging her up a wire retainer to hold her teeth fast until they healed.

Doc. He'd always patched her up and never asked questions. He had even forgone his usual fees most of the time, understanding that she'd come to see him on the sly and that her father would raise Cain if he found out. Conor O'Shannessy had been strange that way. After his drunken rages, he'd wanted to pretend they never happened, and he had wanted her to do so as well. Sometimes, due to her injuries, that simply hadn't been possible.

Stepping to the door that led to the interior medical rooms, Caitlin hauled in a deep, bracing breath before she knocked. Almost immediately, she heard another door open and shut somewhere, followed by the familiar shuffle of Doc's footsteps. A second later, the oak panel creaked open, and Doc was standing there, just as he had a dozen times over the years, his kindly expression filled with silent understanding. Only this time, Caitlin doubted he was going to be able to fix what ailed her.

"Caitlin! Come in, lass. Come in."

Stooped with age and overweight from restricted physical activity, the old man scratched his grizzled head  and pushed his spectacles farther up on his bulbous nose as he moved back to allow her entry. His blue eyes were cloudy with sadness behind the thick lenses of his glasses. That had always been one of the nicest things about Doc; he truly empathized with people. Caitlin gave him a quick peck on the cheek,

"Hi, Doc. It's been a while."

"And aren't we glad of that?"

Caitlin couldn't help but smile. Shakily, to be sure, but a smile just the same. She truly did love this old man. Because of his profession, he was the one person in town who knew just how bad things had been for her sometimes. Except for Cruise Dublin's attack, of course. Even though she'd bled badly for days afterward, she'd been too ashamed to seek treatment that time. Until Ace, she'd never told a single soul about that night.

Ace. Caitlin realized she'd been blocking out the belt buckle had driven her to seek Doc's help. She'd even sounds of the men's voices across the street. Refusing to accept what their angry shouts portended. She guessed women had been doing that since the beginning of time as well—fooling themselves, pretending things weren't as bad as they actually were in an attempt to stay sane.

"How is Patrick?" she asked, suddenly feeling as though she were looking out at the world through a thin layer of cotton.

Doc shook his head. "Not good. He's got a high fever, honey. I've done all I can. Cleaned the wound. Stitched him up, inside and out. Now it's up to God."

"I'd like to sit with him a while. Will that be all right?"

"Sure, it will."

Doc shuffled along in front of her, the cuffs of his gray trousers dragging the floor. He wore suspenders, but, typical of Doc, he'd pushed the bright red straps off his shoulders, letting them hang uselessly at his waist. He'd never been one to be overly concerned with appearance. He had greater concerns, namely his patients.

"This way, lass. I have him on a cot in here in my surgery."

The smell of disinfectant and ether assailed Caitlin's nostrils as she stepped into the dimly lit room. At its center stood an operating table, over which three unlit lanterns were suspended. Many had been the time she'd lain on that table, blinded by the lights overhead, while Doc chased away her pain.

"I doused the lights," Doc explained. "Thought he might rest better that way." He stepped over to the cot, then turned to fix her with a thoughtful look. "He hadn't been drinking when they brought him in." He shrugged. "I just thought you might like to know that. He's been hitting the jug pretty heavily the last few months. You can't have been too happy about that, not after the way liquor did your father. Never met a nicer man than Conor O'Shannessy sober. Crazier than a loco horse when he got drunk, though. Patrick's the same way, I'm afraid."

Caitlin pressed a hand to her waist, glad for anything to distract her from the lifeless form on that cot across the room. It was almost more than she could face. Her stomach turned, felt burning hot. "He, um . . . didn't smell of whiskey when they brought him in? Are you sure?"

"I can smell the stuff a mile off. It's my guess he hadn't touched a drop for a couple of days. It lingers on a man who imbibes heavily. A doctor develops a nose for it after a while."

Her next words came hard. "He—was drunk—crazy drunk—when I saw him three days ago. We had words. I told him I never wanted to see him again."

"Ah . . ." Doc glanced down at his patient. "That probably explains it, then. I can't say a lot for the boy, his behavior being like it has the last few months, but no one can doubt that he loves his sister. Must have shaken him up pretty bad, you telling him something like that."

"Yes. Well, I don't really know. I guess, maybe."

Doc winked at her. "I'd say he tried to quit drinking. That's nice for you to know, hm? No matter how this turns out?"

Nice? Caitlin wanted to sink to her knees and sob. To think that her brother had spent the last three days thinking of her, that he'd tried, once again, to stay away from the whiskey . . . and this time, without her help. Oh, God. Now he lay dying, and she couldn't even be sure he would hear her if she told him how much she loved him.

Death was so final. It gave no second chances. Caitlin braced herself as she moved across the room to look down on her brother. In the gloom, his skin was so pale it reminded her of the underbelly of a fish. His tousled hair looked glaringly red against the starched white pillowcase. "Oh, Paddy," she whispered shakily. "Oh, God."

Doc rested a hand on her shoulder. "Now, now, Caitlin, lass. He might just surprise us and pull through, you know. Let's not be giving up hope. He's young and strong."

Caitlin sank onto the straight-backed chair Doc had pulled up beside the cot, the seat of which still felt warm. She realized the doctor had been keeping a vigil beside her brother's bed. She should have known. Doc always went the extra mile. On a small table, close at hand, sat a basin of water. With shaking hands, she wrung out the rag and bathed her brother's feverish face.

"Caitlin!" Patrick cried out suddenly. "Have to tell . . . Have to."

"He's been talking out kind of crazy," Doc warned her. "Saying your name a lot and all kinds of strange things. With such a high fever, that's to be expected."

Caitlin drew back the crisp sheet to stare at the bandage that swathed her brother's torso. She was horrified to see that blood had seeped through the strips of cloth. No stranger to bullet wounds, she knew the damage that could occur when lead entered at one side of the body and exited out the other. Patrick had been shot in the back.

"Oh, dear God. The bullet went clear through?"

"Now, now. It's not as bad as it looks. Better this way, actually. The bullet made a clean pass and did most of its damage on the way out instead of inside him somewhere. He's not spitting up any blood, which means it didn't get a lung. If you'll look more closely, you'll see that the lead glanced off to one side. Probably because of the angle from which it was fired. If there's any such thing as a good bullet wound, this one is it."

Caitlin focused on the bloodstain and saw that the darkest part of the seepage was indeed off to the right. "Do you think it hit anything vital?"