"Audra, send Ciego for Howard. Nick, Jarrod, carry him upstairs to a guest room." The softness in her voice when she spoke to him was gone. This was an iron woman, strong, capable of anything.
"MOTHER! The bunkhouse surely?" Nick would save him. Nick would get him out of this house. Nick wouldn't want him here.
"You may not have shot him, Nick, but you bear some of the responsibility for this." There was an icy tone he never wanted to hear directed at him. He had done this already. He had turned this woman to anger and she had turned it on her son. How much anger would there be if they all realized?
Then there were arms and hands and movement. The room spun crazily as if they were spinning him in circles instead of carrying him up the stairs. The pain and the spinning room and he feared he would be sick. Oh, please not that, not sick on this beautiful rug, in front of these beautiful people, not throwing up all down his front. He fought the pain and bile in his throat until they had him up the stairs. They laid him in a bed. It was so soft. It smelled of lavender like a high meadow in summer.
"Get his boots off and his shirt and pants." She was a general in the field. But that was as far as he would go with her.
"Leave me be." He pushed against the hands fighting now in earnest. This last humiliation they would not have.
"LIE STILL, BOY."
He fought harder. "Leave me be."
"Oh, for heaven's sake. Listen, you need to get in this bed and wait for the doctor. You aren't getting in that clean bed in those filthy clothes." She was trying to reason with him. At least the hands had stopped at his belt and his shirt.
"Not filthy…" He'd washed them yesterday. He tried to remember how bad his shirt looked but had no idea what he was wearing. Probably looked bad after Nick knocking him around the yard. But he was not taking it off here. He was not baring his body to these people. "Leave my clothes be."
"Nick, take his boots off and leave him be for now."
"Mother, wait out in the hall. Let me see what I can do." Jarrod, the lawyer, going to reason with him. He heard her sigh with exasperation. He had heard that same sound from his mama enough times to know that her mouth was drawn down and her eyes were glaring at him. Didn't even need to look to know that 'woman angry at a man she can't buffalo' look. He heard the door close and the lawyer started in on him.
"I know she can come on to a man, without concern for his dignity." Jarrod was sitting on the side of the bed now. Heath opened his eyes and saw nothing but kindness there. He just couldn't meet him part way on this, he just couldn't.
"Let me help you off with those pants. You'll be a lot more comfortable and keep these sheets a lot cleaner." Heath felt those nasty tears threaten again. It would be so easy to be undone by their kindness. To just give in and let them do for him. But he couldn't. He had to hold something for himself. Something away from these people who were digging their way into his dreams without realizing it.
"Leave it," he said and returned the lawyer's stare with one of his own.
"OH, FOR GOODNESS' SAKE." No lawyer voice of reason from Nick. He almost smiled; this was the brother from the Brother Game. This was the tone a big brother would take, bullying a little brother to his face and watching out for him with all others. But this was not the Brother Game. That was a game he played by himself, not with these Barkleys, not with this for true brothers who must never know.
"Just rest here. The doctor will be here shortly and he'll sew that hole back up for you." So much kindness from Jarrod was undoing him. He turned his mind to the pain. Let the pain keep him company and not this kindly brother. He closed his eyes on the apparition of brothers and focused on the reality of pain, his old friend. He didn't understand about the kindness of these people but he knew all about pain. Pain he could understand just fine.
"What happened, Nick?" He felt the bed move as Jarrod stood up.
"You know what happened. You saw him shooting this morning at Sample's. I just wanted to know who he was. What he was doing here." Nick turned away from the bed and paced across the room, his voice moving away. "No one shoots like that except a lawman or an outlaw. No lawman would be digging irrigation ditches for fifty cents a day." He let Nick's words roll over him, not trying to understand what they were saying. Just listening to the sound of their voices, the feeling of their being there.
"Didn't it ever occur to you that an outlaw wouldn't be fighting the railroad at Sample's?"
"Yeah, that's why I wanted to know what was going on with him."
He let the pain take him away down a tunnel into a sweet darkness of clean sheets and soft beds.
A hand on his shoulder woke him back to his pain. "Well, young man, I'm Dr. Merar. I'm just going to take a look at this stomach of yours."
He studied the man sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at him. The lamp at the head of his bed gave enough light to reveal the older man; he looked like a doctor should. He had kind eyes and he was looking directly at him as he spoke. He nodded his permission and moved his hand away from the still seeping wound.
"I need to take off your shirt. Can you let me do that?" The man was wiping away at the wound with a cool cloth, very gently. He turned his head and he could see Mrs. Barkley standing beside the doctor a basin of water in her hands.
He looked back at the doctor and shook his head 'no.' The doctor followed his look to Mrs. Barkley and smiled slightly.
"Victoria, could you just leave the basin for us, please?"
"Oh, for heavens sake. I have two grown sons. There is nothing under that shirt I haven't seen a thousand times."
He glanced up at her anxiously. He didn't want this woman angry with him over a shirt, but he couldn't take it off with her in the room. It was almost all the pride he had left. He couldn't meet her eyes and glanced away quickly, casting his eyes down. So ashamed he had to ask this of her, but sure she hadn't seen what was under this shirt a thousand times. Sure if he had his way she would never see it.
"All right, Howard, but get those filthy pants off him at the same time please. I don't want to be doing this again." She was a real lady. She didn't allow her annoyance to show by more than a hint in her voice and she shut the door quietly as she left.
"Thanks," he said to the doctor.
"No problem, son. I'm going to take this sleeve off and then let you roll a bit and we'll get the other one off." The doctor's aid was kind and efficient and the shirt was off in an instant. He tensed as he felt the doctor's hand on his back, moving the shirt under him but the man's face never changed expression and he said nothing to him about what he had to feel.
"Let me help get those pants off too, that way I can get a good bandage on over that hole in you." This also was done with minimum fuss. The doctor kindly drew the sheet most of the way up to his waist before returning with his rag to the wound.
"I didn't want her to see…" He wasn't sure if he could explain the shame to this man.
"I understand. It's your body, son, you don't have to show it to anyone you don't want to."
He couldn't think of anything to say to this absurdity. It reminded him of the kindness he had received in Pinecrest. He guessed California must have the best doctors in the world.
Or maybe if you paid for the doctoring, it was different than if you got it free from the army. Maybe when you got doctoring from the army they just naturally already owned your body. Could tell you to march here or march there, die here, kill there and when the doctors got a hold of you, they could just do whatever they wanted to you. He guessed that must be it. But this line of thought reminded him he didn't have any money to pay this kind man who had come all this way to sew up this hole. Then the doctor pressed on his broken ribs and he forgot all about kind doctors and paying them.
"You have two broken ribs there as well as some major bruising. This wound is infected and is going to need to be drained and left open for a couple of days to clean out." The doctor wiped the moisture off Heath's face with a cool rag while he waited for him to get his breath back from the rib pressing.
"Doctor, I'm sorry… I got one dollar to my name… nothing I can sell… my horse and saddle."
"Well, young fellow, let's get you mended. We can worry about your bills then." The doctor gave a kind squeeze to his shoulder. "I'm going to need Mrs. Barkley back in here to help me with opening this wound and draining it."
He turned his head away. He didn't know if he could bear this shame.
"Wounds on your stomach. I suspect that's the part she'll be helping me with."
He looked up at the kind face and nodded his thanks. He didn't think anyone had been this kind to him since Mr. Finch at the livery had taught him to ride; he had just never looked for a man to be so kind, and him not even able to pay his bill. What could he say to this man?
"This is going to hurt. I can bring Nick or Jarrod in to help hold you down, or can you lay still through it?"
"Reckon I'm alright."
"I want you to swallow this. It will help with the pain."
He knew the taste of the laudanum. He'd practically lived on it for a few months back in the hospital. The drink of water after did little to dull the bitterness but he knew it would do for his pain and the taste was eased by its familiarity.
"Okay then. You just stay there. I'll go get my instruments clean, get a little help and be back." The doctor pulled the sheet and blanket up to his neck and gave him another of his kind smiles. "These are good folks. They wouldn't mind about your back."
"I would," he told him, turning his head away from the kindness. He heard the door close and shut his eyes, breathing with the pain, feeling that hot poker in his side moving each time he took a breath, wondering that the pain could feel so fresh after three weeks of healing.