Chapter 4: Edge of Death
The door to the old shack swung open, and Robert E. was the first to move inside. Horace and Loren followed closely behind. They were all three very disappointed to find that Wolf's scent had led him to the wrong place. However, Wolf scrambled inside and began to bark when he got over to one of the beds. The three men moved over to get a closer look. Horace pushed open the shutters of a window so a little sunlight could filter in. That was when they saw what Wolf had found. A dark red stain, still wet, was forming on the bed sheets. A piece of torn petticoat lay beside it.
"She was here," Horace murmured. Loren picked up the piece of cloth and held it gently in his hands. He looked down at the wolf and held the piece of fabric in front of his nose. Wolf barked gain.
"Find her, boy," Loren urged. The wolf began to sniff around, and whined at the door. Robert E. let him out and he sniffed around for a few minutes before he picked up the scent again. He barked and began to run through the woods.
"We best hurry after him!" Robert E. urged. "C'mon fellas!" The men rushed out of the shack and followed after Wolf.
Meanwhile, Michaela had made her way across the creek and was heading further into the woods. Once she had heard David's voice, she knew she had to escape before he found her and dragged her back to pose as his dead wife. She couldn't let him have that hold on her.
Michaela collapsed onto the ground and felt a stinging pain in her back and her side. She cried out, muffling her cries in her hand. She didn't want to be heard. She had run non-stop, and she was really beginning to hurt. What she had done, however, was tear off a piece of her petticoat to lay on the bed in case Sully came back to the cabin.
A moment later, she heard voices yelling, and she became frightened. She was about to pull herself up to run again when she heard Wolf's barks.
"Wolf! Here boy!" she cried out frantically. But, her voice was so strained that she wasn't even sure she could hear it herself. She began to claw at a tree, trying to pull herself up. She wanted to run back toward the shack, but she wasn't quite sure if she had gotten turned around or not. The way she thought she had come no longer looked familiar.
"Sully!" she cried out, but her voice was practically gone. She was so tired that she barely had the energy to open her mouth, but when she did, her voice wouldn't come out. She began to run toward the sounds of the barking Wolf, but soon, those barks faded, and she felt as if she was completely alone in the world.
The pain in her back continued to throb, and she suddenly got the feeling that Sully was hurt.
"Sully!" she screamed! "Sully!" Frustrated with her feeble voice, she collapsed again, and hoped that someone, anyone would find her and take her home to her family.
"She ain't here," Horace said, sighing with disappointment. Wolf had lost the scent at the creek, and the men knew they needed to get back to Jake and Hank before it started to get dark.
"Come on. We best be getting back. Jake's gonna need us." They headed back, forgetting their own petty squabble over following directions, and only focused on being able to help Jake with Sully. Sully didn't deserve that shot in the back. All he was doing was trying to find the woman he loved, his wife, the mother of his children. No man deserved to die this way for doing a good deed.
They reached Jake's side a few minutes later to find him desperately trying to stop Sully's bleeding. Hank was kneeling at Sully's other side, trying to put pressure on the exit wound.
"We gotta help him," Robert E. said quickly.
"Nothin' is gonna help him 'cept a doctor," Jake replied. "I ain't got the equipment that Dr. Mike's got. He's gonna bleed to death."
"We can't just let him die!" Loren yelled. "He's got a family!"
"Loren, there ain't nothin' I can do!" Jake replied. "You got any ideas, I'd sure as hell like to hear 'em!"
Meanwhile, Sully could feel himself slipping out his body. He felt as if he was slowly floating up and over the group of men that was surrounding him. He could see the blood leaving his body nearly as fast as his soul was. He saw how frantic everyone was, and he felt like it wasn't his time. He wanted nothing more than to get back to his body and fight for his life. He needed to fight for Michaela!
He soon found himself floating above the trees, and that's when he saw her.
"Michaela!" he called out. His own voice was foreign to him. He didn't recognize it, and he knew that nobody could hear him. "I have to fight. I'll find you!"
A moment later, Sully's eyes flew open and he knew he'd been taken back to his body.
"He's wakin' up!" Horace exclaimed.
"Come on, Sully. Hold on. We're doin' everything we can," Jake offered.
"Mi . . . Michaela," Sully sputtered. He tried to point in the direction he'd seen her, but his limbs were too weak. He couldn't move. He closed his eyes again as his spirit slipped into the corners of his mind. He was unconscious again.
"We gotta get him back to town," Loren said, shaking his head. "Hank, help me make a litter." Hank nodded, staring at Sully in shock. He couldn't believe how fast it had all happened. One moment, Sully was running to find his wife, the next he was lying on the ground dying. "Hank! Get a move on!" Hank snapped out of it and went to help Loren gather things to construct a bed to carry Sully home on.
"It ain't gonna do no good if he keeps bleedin'. We're too far from home, and he's gonna die if we don't stop the bleedin' soon. I've seen it happen before." The sound of a horse approaching quickly startled the men. Hank drew a pistol from his holster and Cloud Dancing appeared before them.
"What the hell are you doin' here?" Hank asked.
"The spirits told me you needed my help."
"Ain't nothin' you can do here." Cloud Dancing looked over to see Sully lying motionless on the ground. He quickly dismounted his horse and rushed to him. He knelt in the dirt beside his brother's bleeding body. He looked up at Jake.
"When did this happen?"
"'Bout five minutes ago."
"He will live."
"How the heck do you know that?"
"I can stop the bleeding, but I must act quickly."
"Ah, let him help, Jake," Loren grumbled, slapping Hank on the arm to get him to go back to work. Cloud Dancing pulled something from a pouch and sprinkled it on the entrance and exit of Sully's wound. He pulled needle and horsehair from another pouch.
"You hold him on his side and I will sew." Jake nodded, swallowing hard, willing to accept any help in order to avoid losing someone under his own care.
Horace and Robert E. helped Hank and Loren construct the litter, and they used rope in some of the saddlebags to tie it all together. Within twenty minutes, they had it rigged up to the strongest horse of the bunch, Sully's horse. They had also thrown an unconscious David Luther over the back of Hank's horse. They were going to take him into town, hold him, and wait for a federal marshal to come to charge him with the murder of the stagecoach drivers, attempted and possible murder of Sully, and the kidnapping of Michaela.
Cloud Dancing's stitch-work seemed to be working, and once he was done sewing, he checked Sully's pulse.
"He will live," he said quietly. "He must." Jake helped the Indian take Sully over to the litter. They put him down on it and mounted their own horses. "I will ride with you back to town. Sully will need blood."
"How do we get him blood?"
"He has lost a lot. Dr. Mike has performed something called a transfusion. I watched her do this before, and I will give my blood to save my brother. I will need the barber's help."
"Mine?" Jake asked. "I don't know how to do one of them things."
"We have no choice. If we try it, he could die, but if we don't, he will die."
The moon was up now, and hunger was causing Michaela to shake. She was already shivering from the cold, and this wasn't making it any better. Her cuts had stopped bleeding, and she had somehow made her way back to the shack. The piece of her petticoat was gone, and she knew that they had gone to the shack. Her hopes were dashed, however, because she figured they wouldn't be back.
She was curled up under the ratty old blankets, coughing and clutching her growling stomach. She felt as if she hadn't eaten in weeks, which it had only been a couple of days.
Michaela could still feel a bit of pain throbbing in her back and her side, but it was easing off. She had a horrible feeling that something had happened to Sully. She could vaguely remember hearing gunshots earlier, but her memory was so hazy, and her head was clouded and dazed from hunger, worry, and fright. She knew that something terrible had happened, and whoever was out searching for her wasn't there anymore. There was no sign of David either, so she hoped they had gotten him. She also hoped he wasn't dead. Although she hated him for taking her away from her family, she felt sorry for him, because he was only grief-stricken from losing his wife in a terrible fire.
Michaela coughed and knew that if she wasn't careful, she would catch pneumonia. She had been taking quinine to help with the fever she had received while being out there. Thank God she had her medical bag with her, otherwise, she may not have survived the night before.
She had just started to drift off to sleep when she heard the howl of a wolf in the distance. For a split second, she thought it might be Wolf, so she stumbled over to the window on her sprained ankle and threw open the shutters.
"Help!" she screamed as loud as she could. Her voice had returned, but her air passages were raw and scratchy from coughing so much. It felt as if little knives were cutting into her lungs and her trachea. She didn't care though. She needed to be found. "Help me! Please!"
When silence followed her pleas, she sat down on the bed and began to cry into her hands. She swore to herself that she was setting off toward home in the morning. She was determined to find it, and if she couldn't, she decided she was going to die trying. She knew her family was waiting for her, and she knew that Sully had made it back to town with the boys. How did she know? If Sully hadn't made it back with the boys, a search party never would have thought to look for them. Everyone would have assumed that they were spending an extra few days in Denver. But, she had heard what sounded very much like Loren Bray's voice, so she was certain that Sully had gotten Connor and Daniel to safety.
As for Sully's safety, Michaela couldn't be certain of anything. However, the feeling she had in her soul at that moment told her that he wasn't doing well at all. Whether it was physically or emotionally, she couldn't be sure.
Sleep finally washed over Michaela, giving her temporary relief from her physical pain. Her emotional and mental anguish, however, bled into her dreams, and she felt as if her soul was drowning in an ocean of blood.
The townsfolk held a vigil outside of the clinic. Jake, Cloud Dancing, and Sully were inside of the clinic, while Hank and Horace reunited with their respective lady loves. Brian was sitting on Matthew's lap while Colleen held her sleeping baby brothers. Everyone was praying that Michaela was safe and that Sully would pull through, though nobody could be sure their prayers would be answered.
Mary was sitting on Horace's lap, and she hadn't let go of him since he arrived back from searching for Michaela. Holly couldn't help but feel her heart lighten a bit when she saw the man she loved with her little girl. It was obvious that Horace loved Mary and she loved him. In fact, she practically had him wrapped around her little finger. Every time she would look at him with puppy dog eyes, he'd go to the mercantile and buy her a piece of candy to cheer her up.
Brian had recently been calmed down from his tears. As soon as the men had returned to town, Hank took the prisoner, whose name they still didn't know, to the sheriff's station. Horace directly wired for a marshal, and the children had run to see their father. Sully hadn't woken up, and everyone was afraid that it was too late for him. Brian had cried for a good hour about how he had last his real ma, his real pa was bad, and now he may have lost both his new ma and new pa. Matthew and Colleen tried to tell him that everything was going to work out just right, but they weren't too sure of that themselves.
Inside of the clinic, Cloud Dancing had done all that he could remember Michaela doing. He had placed Sully on a cot next to the exam table, and he was now lying on a table that was higher up. He had found the tube Jake needed to perform the procedure. He had seen Michaela give people on the reservation blood transfusions before, but only two or three times. He hoped that this would work, because he couldn't let his brother die. Sully had to live in order to bring Michaela back to her family.
"Are ya ready for this?" Jake asked nervously, his hand shaking as he started to stick the needle into Cloud Dancing's arm.
"I have to be."
An hour later, Jake walked out of the clinic with Cloud Dancing. Everyone stood, eager for news of Sully's condition.
"He survived through the transfusion," Jake pointed out.
"Can we go see him?" Matthew asked.
"Go on. He ain't awake yet. Don't know if he's gonna wake up either." The children hurried into the clinic and Cloud Dancing began to walk away. "Wait." As the crowd began to break up, Cloud Dancing turned to look at Jake. "What you did for Sully, well, that was real decent of ya."
"He is my brother."
"Not by blood."
"He is my brother because we share a spiritual bond."
"I don't understand."
"No one expects you to," Cloud Dancing replied.
"Well, anyway, thanks for helpin' with him." Cloud Dancing nodded and walked off. "Hey, are you comin' on the search tomorrow?"
"I'll be here at dawn."
"That's when we ride."
"Then yes. I will come." Jake turned and walked back into the clinic to clean up. Holly walked in with Mary behind her.
"Mary, sweetheart, go on up to bed. I'll be up soon."
"Okay ma," Mary replied. She started up the stairs and Holly smiled at Jake.
"I see you worked things out with Horace."
"I did," Holly replied with a smile. "I wanted to thank you for all of your help."
"Are ya kiddin'? I had fun makin' him jealous." He looked away and began to rinse his hands off in a basin of water. Holly watched him, and she knew he had fallen for her. She hadn't meant for that to happen, and she needed him to know that.
"Jake, be serious."
"I am bein' serious."
"I know you have feelings for me."
"I don't."
"Look me in the eyes and say that." Jake said nothing and continued to rinse off his hands.
"Do we gotta talk about this?"
"Yes," Holly replied, crossing her arms. Jake turned to look at her.
"I ain't good with expressin' my feelin's. Do I care about ya? Yeah. But I know you and Horace wanna be together. I see that now," he replied. "Don't worry 'bout me. Just do whatever ya wanna do. Nothin's stoppin' ya."
"Well, what I want to do is be with Horace."
"Why are ya tellin' me this?"
"Because I want you to know where I stand here."
"You're makin' it pretty clear."
"I consider you a very good friend, Jake." Jake nodded and Holly decided that she was making him feel worse. She slowly turned around and walked up the stairs, hoping that Jake could find someone to make him as happy as Horace made her.
Meanwhile, upstairs, the children were sitting around Sully's bed. Matthew sat to his right, Colleen to his left, and Brian was sitting on Matthew's lap. Colleen was still holding the twins, and they were starting to fuss.
"Shh, it's okay," she whispered, rocking them both in her arms. "Pa will wake up any minute now. It's gonna be okay."
"Ya can't die, pa," Brian whispered. "Please wake up."
"We need you," Matthew added. "Ma needs you. Ya gotta get well." The night wore on, and the Sully children stayed at their father's bedside, hoping that a miracle would bring him back to them and help him bring their ma home.