“What are you doing out here, honey?” Daisy frowned. “I told you to wait inside until I was sure it was safe.”
“But I heard ya cryin’, Mama. Are ya hurt?” Concern darkened Ollie’s eyes. “Ya didn’t give me time to see if ya got hurt.”
Daisy bent and hugged her. She hadn’t even considered Ollie’s worry for her. Of course the poor baby feared losing another parent. “I’m fine, sweetheart, but I’d feel much better if you’ll stay with Bear until I’ve finished here.”
Daisy offered an apology to the blacksmith for scaring him then added, “I don’t know where her uncles are today. I think they’ve gone boar hunting. Do you mind if she goes with you to get the—”
Bear didn’t let Daisy finish the question. He grabbed the seven-year-old and lifted her onto his shoulders. “Don’t worry about Tadpole. We’ll find the sheriff then me and my missus will take care of her.” He motioned up the street. “Doc’s headed this way. He just came around the corner of the mercantile with some men.” His attention refocused on Daisy. “You sure you don’t want me to stay instead? Let you and Ollie go on home?”
“I’m sure. There’s a lady inside. Her brother’s hurt, and she’s been through a lot. I think she needs another woman with her right now. Since this is our fault, I must stay.” Images of the violence threatened to return, but Daisy willed them away. “Ollie doesn’t need to see any more of this.”
“Ahh, Mama. I can take it.” Ollie tried to sound tough. “Besides, that stranger’s talkin’ again. Says he needs you to come see to his sister. She’s white as Old Bessie’s milk and bawling like a calf that can’t find her mama.”
“Go on.” Daisy shooed them away. “She’s probably just scared. I’ll check on her.”
She watched her daughter’s honey-colored braids bounce against her back as the burly blacksmith trotted down the street. Assured that Ollie had a chaperone who wouldn’t let her get back into harm’s way, Daisy returned to the wounded inside.
“Where is everybody?” Petula glanced up from fanning her brother. Fear and anger mixed to darken the blue of her eyes against her ashen face. “Didn’t you bring someone? He’s going to bleed to death.”
“Now, Pet, she’s doing all she can.” His voice sounded weaker with each word. “I’m not the only one hurt.”
Daisy hurried and bent down beside him, staring at the fistfighter’s face. Pale and splattered with blood, she couldn’t tell if it was from the wound in his shoulder or from something more. She took off her bonnet and pressed it over the shoulder trying to stem the flow. “Are you hurt anywhere else, sir?”
“Just t-there,” he informed, staring at her as if he wanted to say more but didn’t have the strength.
There was serious enough, she thought as she noticed his uninjured arm reaching out to his sister, patting her hand to reassure her. He seemed a truly caring soul, his love for his sibling stronger than his obvious pain.
Daisy felt herself invisibly adding his qualities to Ollie’s list, then realized her foolishness. If he didn’t get better help soon he’d be no part of any list. He would bleed out on this floor. Daisy’s heart beat faster with another fervent prayer that he would survive. She needed to be able to thank him for saving her and Olivia’s lives.
“Doc and a group of men are just a few businesses away.” She smiled trying to assure him that all would be well and the situation was firmly in hand. “They should be here any second.”
“Just promise me,” he said, as his breaths became shallow and he looked as if he might lose consciousness again, “make sure my sister is taken care of. She doesn’t handle things like this well. Hopefully your banker is hearing this. Cardwell, make sure she gets paid well for her efforts.”
“I h-hear you.”
The way he said “sister” filled Daisy with compassion. Daisy nodded. “I promise, but I need no money.”
The words barely left her mouth before Doc Thomas appeared, followed closely behind by others who carried a stretcher.
“This man’s shot in the shoulder. He’s lost a lot of blood,” Daisy informed the physician. “He’s breathing but it’s shallow.”
She pointed toward the teller’s cage. “Sam’s behind there badly hurt, no matter what he says otherwise. I heard it in his voice.” She explained that the banker wouldn’t let her take time to examine him.
“You two men watch over Sam ’til I check on this one,” instructed Doc Thomas, a reed-thin man with spectacles who looked older than his forty-some-odd years.
He motioned for two others to come closer as he pulled white cloth from his medicine bag and bent to examine the fistfighter. He laid Daisy’s bonnet aside, studied the wound and placed the clean cloth over it. “’Fraid that goes to the scrap bin, Widow, but it helped. Good thinking.”
He stood and gave his assistants instructions. “Carry this man to my office and somebody make sure you keep this over the wound until I get there.”
“But he can’t wait. He’s going to die if you don’t take care of him now. Here.” Petula’s fear rose with each word.
“He belongs to you?” Doc asked.
Petula nodded, her voice breaking, “He’s m-my only kin. My brother.”
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “Just sick to my stomach.”
He handed her another cloth. “Then keep this pressed down hard on his shoulder while those two men carry him. Keep changing it with new bandages until I get there. That’ll stem the flow. You’ll find clean cloths stacked on my shelves.”
She shook her head again and moved her hands away as if he were asking her to grab a snake.
“The sight of blood makes me sick. I might faint. I can’t press hard enough anyway.”
Impatience etched Doc’s face, making him look even older. He shoved the bandages into Daisy’s hand. “Widow Trumbo, will you help?”
The wounded stranger’s blue eyes opened for a moment only to close as quickly as he lost his words. “I need—”
Daisy wanted to stay and help Sam, but she couldn’t leave this man’s care to his hysterical sister. She owed him that much. “I’ll do my best, Doctor.”
She pressed the cloth firmly against the darkest part of the bloodstained shoulder. The stranger flinched, groaning from the pressure. His body reacted and tried to jerk away from her touch.
“Keep him still,” Doc Thomas ordered. “The more he moves, the more he bleeds.”
“Please, sir, don’t move,” she whispered in his ear, hoping he was conscious enough to hear her. Daisy motioned the men to lift him onto the stretcher while she attempted to distract him. “I’m sure it hurts, but it won’t take us long to carry you if you’ll stay as still as you can. Your sister’s coming with us.”
