Chapter 6
It was a crisp day. The sun was out, but it was beginning to be covered with large gray clouds again.
All around them, the countryside was riddled with frost and ice.
It lent a delicate, fragile beauty to the landscape, adding something indefinable to the brown and gray husks of plants that stood rigid in the wintery air.
Ethan was wary as they rode along. He was painfully aware that they were a buckboard alone on the road, with no other vehicles or travelers in sight.
It was early, and the light tended to play tricks on a man’s eyes.
The strange shapes of plants, stripped of their leaves and left clawing at the air, could make a man think he was being followed when there was nothing threatening in actual fact.
Also, this was the kind of weather when coyotes and wolves would be out and about looking for something to eat. They wouldn’t want to attack a group of humans, but they could scare the horses, and that would be disastrous. If the buckboard tipped and the crates fell out and were lost …
He gave an involuntary shudder.
Looking over at Diane, he noticed that she was deep in thought and had a notebook open on her lap. She was chewing the back of a pencil.
“Won’t you get lead poisoning from chewing that?” he asked.
She blinked. “I doubt it; they’re made of wood, clay, and graphite.”
Ethan smiled. “Now, how do you know that particular fact?”
“I asked someone once,” Diane said, returning his smile. “He suffered an injury while on the job at a pencil factory and was happy to explain all about it while I treated him.”
“I’ll bet Duncan knows it’s graphite,” Matt said. “With all his drawings and such.”
The conversation turned to Duncan’s art for a moment.
Ethan wasn’t any good at judging art. He wouldn’t know if it was good or not.
He could only judge it by whether he liked it or not, and he liked Duncan’s sketches.
The man had a gift for capturing something in his drawings.
When he sketched, he seemed to find the person’s soul and bring that to the fore.
It was so hard to marry that intuitive side with the side of the man that wielded a gun for a living.
“So, what are you working on?” Ben asked Diane. “You’ve been busy for a while now.”
“I’m making a list of everything we’re going to need to expand the apothecary store,” she said, jotting another note. “We’re thinking of taking over some of the offices next door.”
“That’s smart,” Matt said. “With the way people get hurt in Unity, I think we need a proper hospital.”
“You do?” Diane asked.
Matt nodded. “You weren’t there when the bandits came through last time. I thought we were all going to die, and we only arrived back at the end of the onslaught. It was chilling to see how many men El Aguila was willing to sacrifice to try to get inside the walls.”
Having been there, Ethan didn’t have to imagine. He knew exactly how terrifying it had been.
“We could do with a hospital,” he agreed.
“Julie said she tried to get a doctor to come out to Unity,” Diane said. “She had no luck. We can’t have a hospital without a qualified doctor. But I think opening the other offices will help. Then we can see more people and train a few folks to help. It will work for now.”
They rode on for a while in silence. They were approaching a part of the journey where the road wound between two ridges.
It wasn’t the best place to have to pass through and there had been several ambushes there, but it was the most direct route to San Antonio.
Going around wasn’t much better, with broken rocky land to the west and the creek cutting off the way to the east. This was the part of the journey that always put Ethan on edge, and he could feel all of his muscles tensing.
He paused at the mouth of the ravine, looking to see if there were any signs of trouble.
The ridges looked barren and empty. Giant rocks hunkered down on the ridge like gargoyles.
“Time to be alert, gentlemen,” Ethan said. He reached under his seat and picked up his shotgun. He turned to Diane. “I know you need lessons, but do you think, if things go sideways, that you might be able to shoot at any people intent on killing us?”
She considered his question. “Yes, I think I can.”
He handed her the pistol he carried in a holster on his hip. “All you have to do is point and pull the trigger.”
She nodded, accepting the gun with a slight shake of her hands. “Got it.” Then she hesitated. “Do you think it’s likely that someone will attack us?”
“Yup!” Ben said with forced cheer. He was looking up at the ridge. “They’re usually waiting for us here.”
“Do you see them?” Ethan asked.
Ben shook his head. “Not yet.”
He checked his shotgun, and when everyone said they were ready, he urged the horses into a gallop.
It was the only way. They would have to race through the ravine and hope the bandits were bad shots.
If they could get through the other side, there were trees and rocks they could use as cover. This was always the worst of it.
The horses sprang into action, and the buckboard jerked and lurched forward. It skidded a little as the wheels gained traction on the pebble-ridden ground and then caught. They sped forward, racing through the ravine.
Every eye was trained on the ridge, looking for any sign of movement, any glint of sunlight off steel. There was nothing. Ethan looked to his left, then to his right and back again. Nothing.
Ben and Matt were also scanning the walls of the ravine, hardly blinking, their guns up and ready. But there was nothing. Ethan set his jaw and kept his eyes on the end of the ravine, the gap they would have to charge through to get to freedom.
It was coming closer and closer.
Please, Lord. Let us make it through safely.
“Anything?” Ethan called back.
“Nothing,” Matt said. “No sign.”
They were almost there. The gap rose, wide and inviting, in front of them. Ethan looked over at Diane, and she gave him a hesitant smile.
They burst out of the gap at last and into the grassland. Ethan reined in the horses, and the buckboard came to a halt.
He was panting as though he had done all of the running and looked back at his companions. “We made it.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “Maybe the bandits aren’t here today.”
“Maybe they’ve given up,” Matt said, and he laughed.
There was a boom, and then something struck his shoulder. Matt’s eyes went large and wide, and then he keeled over backward.
Diane threw herself into the back with the injured man, yelling, “Go! Go!”
Ben climbed into the front with Ethan and, raising his gun, returned fire.
Where had the shot come from? Ethan had no idea except that it had hit Matt, and he was bleeding badly in the back of the buckboard.
Diane was there, crouching low over him, her black bag at her side.
“Keep your eyes on the route!” Ben yelled. “I’ll find the shooter. You got a pistol or something I can use?”
Ethan handed him the shotgun and Ben hefted it. “Thanks.”
Now it was up to Ethan to steer the horses. Trees and boulders littered this space. It was as though some giant hand had scattered them carelessly on the grassy plain. They could use that. Ethan concentrated as shots rang out around them.
He began to weave in and out, going around clumps of trees and boulders, trying to be unpredictable. It wasn’t easy with a buckboard and horses, but he seemed to be relatively successful as the bullets zoomed overhead or struck a tree or boulder.
Round and round and in and out, Ethan steered the horses as they galloped for all their worth.
Up ahead was a bridge over a river. It was a place where several busy routes met their not-so-frequently-traveled one.
Ben alternated between his rifle and the shotgun.
“They’re not mounted,” he said. “There are a lot of them, but they’re hiding behind the boulders and the trees. They’re not coming after us, just trying to hit us from their hiding places. I think if we can get far enough out of range, they’ll give up.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Ethan said. He could see the bridge; it wasn’t far. He urged the horses on, and the moment their hooves hit the wood, Ethan felt a jolt of joy rush through him.
As he’d hoped, the gunfire petered out the moment they were beyond range. Ethan didn’t slow down until they had crossed the bridge. Then he pulled off the road and let the buckboard come to a complete stop.
The horses were breathing hard, and he found that he was too. Ben turned to him. “That was some impressive driving. Well done.”
“Thanks,” Ethan said. Then he turned to the back of the vehicle. “Diane, how is he?”
“I could do with an extra pair of hands,” she said.
A cart pulled up alongside them.
“You folks all right?” the driver, a heavyset man with thick jowls, asked.
Ethan left Ben to speak to him as he hurried to give Diane the hand she needed.
There was blood leaking from a wound in the top right corner of Matt’s torso. He was clearly in a lot of pain, his face pale, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Diane had a pair of metal scissors thrust into his wound.
“Just hold him still for me,” she said. “I’ve almost got the bullet, but he keeps jerking away and then I miss it.”
“Sure,” Ethan said. He placed his hands on Matt, trying not to get in Diane’s way. She was so focused, so intent. He couldn’t believe she was the same person who smiled and joked with him. There was no levity in her now.
Ethan was aware that more onlookers had gathered around them. They were watching Diane digging in Matt’s shoulder. It was eerily silent.
“Ah, got it!” Diane finally said and held a bullet up to the sunlight.
“Water,” she said. “Anyone got any?”
An onlooker pulled a water skin out and handed it to her. She poured the water over the bullet and held it up again.
“Okay, it didn’t fragment,” Diane said to Matt, who had opened his eyes. “I can clean the wound and stitch you up.”
“Am I going to make it?” he asked in a weak, pain-filled voice.
“I don’t see why not,” Diane said and smiled.
Matt smiled back blearily and then passed out.
Diane poured more water over the wound and used something from a little bottle in her bag to disinfect it. She then stitched up the wound, applied a salve around the stitches, and wrapped a clean white bandage over the area.
Someone started clapping their hands. Others joined in, and Diane looked around in surprise.
“Are you a doctor?” a woman asked.
“A nurse.”
“I ain’t seen a doctor do better.”
“Thank you, but it’s all in the training,” Diane said.
The crowd dissipated then, having heard what happened from Ben and seen Matt patched up.
Ethan took the reins again, and they set off for San Antonio.
“You were amazing,” Ethan said. “Anyone would think you’d been shot at before.”
Diane shrugged. “I’ve been in stressful environments before, but thank you. I haven’t pulled a bullet out of a man on a moving buckboard before though, so that was new.” She smiled. “I’m glad we made it through. At one point I thought we would all be shot.”
“Yeah, me too,” Ben said. “I don’t think those were El Aguila’s men. They’re usually better prepared.”
“Agreed,” Ethan said. “These were other folks. I guess the winter has been hard on everyone.”
It took them another hour to reach San Antonio, but the ride was undertaken in a long stream of other travelers all heading that way.
Word traveled fast about the nurse who had saved a man’s life, and Diane set up a kind of mobile clinic in the back, helping anyone who rode up to inquire about her services.
She gave out salves and tinctures for leg ulcers, chronic back pain and headaches, sleeplessness, and a host of other complaints.
It certainly passed the time. Ethan listened with half an ear, marveling at the woman who had come into his life.
Diane was truly amazing. She listened to each person in turn and then helped as best she could.
She took payment from those who could offer it but didn’t ask for money.
Some offered goods in exchange for her assistance, and by the time they reached the town, they had new scarves and mittens, a box of preserves and jellies, and clay mugs and bowls with swirling patterns painted on them.
“I quite like them,” Diane said, holding one up for Ethan to inspect. “What do you think?”
They were like rainbows, if the person looking at the rainbow had been spinning very fast while looking up.
“They’re … interesting,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he liked them.
“They’re happy,” Diane corrected.
“I think they’re pretty,” Ben said. “And they’re a nice size. Most mugs are too small for me.” He picked one up, and it looked good in his large hand.
“Then you simply have to have them,” Diane said. “For saving our bacon and shooting so well.”
Ben smiled. “Thanks.”
They agreed that staying the night in San Antonio would be the best thing to do. After all, Matt needed rest, so Ethan drove them to the Lucky Bull Inn.
Clara Sparks, the proprietor of the establishment, got them rooms on the second floor, which was easier for Matt, who was pale and weak.
Then Diane, Ethan, and Ben met in the dining room to have a late lunch.
So far the trip was full of adventure, and Ethan was just glad that he had Diane with him.
She was quite the find, and he was so glad she had chosen him.
Her strength, compassion, and cool head under pressure were just some of the qualities that Ethan found himself drawn to.
She was a jewel, and he thanked God for this greatest of blessings in his life.