style="font-size:15px;"> She tugged André’s blankets higher around his shoulders and lay down again. “Bonne nuit, Simeon. Good night.”
The wolves answered for him.
CHAPTER FIVE
“SHE’S BACK,” Miriam said, pausing breathlessly in the doorway of the barn where Elijah was shoeing Federico’s dun mare. “Miss Tally’s back!”
Eli set down the mare’s hoof and straightened to wipe the sweat from his forehead. His heart thumped several times like a blacksmith’s hammer and then settled into its regular rhythm. “How does she look?”
“I can’t tell yet. Pablito saw her coming down the road in a wagon. God grant she’s found Mr. André.”
Eli closed his eyes. “I’ll ride out to meet her.”
“How’s that leg?”
“Fine. I told you it was nothing.”
“You’d say that if it was cut off at the knee. You take care while you ride. I’m getting that poor child something to eat.” She rushed off, full of purpose, as she always was when she had someone to care for. Especially Tally. They had a long history together, sisters in all but the color of their skins.
When he’d first met Tally and Miriam, Eli had envied that unique female intimacy. Miriam had been born into slavery, and Tally Bernard had endured her own brand of servitude, but she’d been free enough to make her own choices. Just as Eli had.
He led the dun mare out to the corral and saddled his own favorite, a big-boned grullo gelding he called Hierro for his iron coloring. Pablo, Federico’s ten-year-old son, was in the yard, excitedly repeating his news to his little sister Dolores. Bart and Federico were combing the range for cows with newborn calves, but they would be back in time for supper.
Elijah rode out of the yard, past the outbuildings and the main house to the rutted dirt road that ran alongside Cold Creek. Road and creek emerged from a bosque of sycamores, ash and cottonwoods into a spare land of broken hills dotted with oak and piñon pine. On every side rose mountains— Liebres to the west, Chiricahuas to the northeast and Pedregosas to the south. A few cattle—pitifully few—stood out against the dried grasses like fat ticks on a yellow dog’s hide.
A plume of dust marked the wagon’s position, and Elijah spurred Hierro to meet it. He could just make out the bundled human shape in the bed of the wagon.
André. He wasn’t moving, but Tally hadn’t covered his face. His head was bound in heavy bandages, and his right arm had been splinted and strapped to his chest. Tally’s features were strained and weary, yet she still summoned a smile for one of the few men she trusted.
“Elijah,” she called as he pulled up beside the wagon. “Thank God you’re here.”
Eli touched the brim of his hat. “I’m sorry I gave you cause for worry, Miss Tally. I just got back last night. I rode over half the Valley looking for word of Mr. André, but—” He choked on his excuses and shook his head. “You found him.”
“Two days ago, up in Castillo Canyon.” She glanced over her shoulder at her brother, and Eli saw the fear she so seldom revealed. “He’s alive, but badly hurt.”
Eli stared into the wagon bed. André didn’t look alive. Any man might mistake him for just the opposite. “When Miriam told me you’d gone on from Tombstone…”
“Don’t blame yourself, Eli,” Tally said. “I know you did what you could.” She frowned. “What happened to your leg?”
He rubbed the stiff limb. “Hierro caught a prairie-dog hole and threw me. It’s just a little sore.”
“I’m glad you’re all right.”
His health was the last thing he wanted to discuss. “Miriam said you’d hired a tracker. She’s been sick with worry herself.”
“I know.” Tally clucked to her footsore team. The horses had already smelled the water from the spring and increased their pace, ears pricked toward the green swath of trees. “The tracker rode straight for Tombstone to bring the doctor. I expect both of them any time.”
“Miriam knows you’re coming, Miss Tally. I’ll tell her about Mr. André.” Eli wheeled Hierro about and rode back to the house, grateful to escape the horrible sight of André’s pale, staring face. Miriam came out as soon as he dismounted at the garden fence.
“She’s found André,” Eli said. “He’s hurt bad, but a doctor’s coming.”
“Then we’ll need an extra bed made up,” Miriam said. “Miss Tally?”
“As well as you’d expect. Bone-weary and downhearted.”
“Alone?”
“Someone patched André up, but she’s by herself now. That tracker she hired is getting the doctor in Tombstone.”
Miriam pursed her lips. “I didn’t know back then if Miss Tally did the right thing in hiring him, but I was wrong to doubt her judgment.” She peered up at Eli’s face. “And why the sorrowful looks, Sergeant Patterson? The Lord’s blessed us this day.”
Eli pretended to adjust Hierro’s bridle. Miriam always knew what he felt inside, even when he didn’t show it. “I failed Miss Tally, Miriam.”
She gripped his forearm with a strong, slender hand. “It was Mr. André who failed her first. Now go help Miss Tally and let me get back to my work.”
She rushed inside, leaving the faint comforting scent of flour behind her. Pablito dashed up to Eli and tugged at his sleeve. “Can I ride Hierro, Eli?”
Now you hide behind a child, Eli thought as he scooped the boy up onto the saddle. But he was glad for Pablito’s incessant chatter, especially when Tally made the last turn away from the creek and past the outermost corral. Eli met the wagon, letting Pablito stay on Hierro’s back while he carried André into the house.
Miriam gave Tally a firm hug in the doorway and spoke softly to her friend. Tally answered, but Eli didn’t hear her words. André felt like skin and bones in his arms. He didn’t stir even when Eli laid him down on his bed.
“Thank you, Eli,” Tally said. She touched his arm and knelt at her brother’s bedside.
“Do you know how this happened?” Eli asked, sick in his belly.
“Don’t you be bothering her with questions,” Miriam said. She put a basin of steaming water on the side table. “You’re just getting in the way, Elijah Patterson.”
He knew she was right, but he lingered for a few moments, watching André’s face for some sign of awareness. “I’m sorry, Miss Tally.”
But she was lost in her own worries, and Miriam had no time for him. He left the room and the house, swung Pablito down from Hierro’s back, and rode for a certain hill where a man could see most of the valley and the road along Cold Creek. At dusk he glimpsed a funnel of dust and then two riders approaching at a steady lope.
He
