that Mr. Hutton was right. Giving in to him smarted, but it wasn’t only her pride at stake here. Irv’s life was at risk. “All right. I accept your offer to help.”
“Good.”
She swiveled her head to look up at him. “But I don’t like it.”
“I know. You don’t want to be beholden.” His gaze stayed steady on hers for several beats, then he turned his attention to Irv. “Let’s get him out of his shirt.”
The cloth had turned stiff with drying blood, front and back. Whenever they had to readjust his position to work his arms free of the sleeves, he hissed through clenched teeth. When the garment was off, Laurel wadded it up and tossed it into a corner.
“This isn’t going to be pretty,” Thatcher said.
He lifted Irv’s left arm and removed a balled-up shirt from his armpit. It was more blood-soaked than Irv’s had been. “Yours?” she asked, as she sent it the way of the other.
“It was the only thing I had handy.” He gave his shirt no heed as he assessed the raw, gaping wound. “This is where the bullet came out.”
“And went in where?”
“On the back of his arm. Help me roll him over.”
Following his directions, she went around to the other side of the bed and helped him turn Irv toward her. Her father-in-law wasn’t too drunk to spew some colorful expletives.
“Sorry,” Thatcher said to him. “Bullet went straight through a fleshy part of your arm. Best I can tell, it missed bones. All told, you’re lucky.”
“Told ya it weren’t gonna be bad. But right now, I ain’t feelin’ so lucky,” Irv grumbled. “Where’s the whiskey at?”
* * *
The girl moved like a whirlwind. She made several trips in and out of the room, depositing everything that she’d been sent to scavenge. She placed them on a table that Laurel had cleared for that purpose and had moved close to the bedside.
Thatcher put the tweezers and scissors in a washbowl and poured boiling water over them. While he organized the things they would need, Laurel stayed at Irv’s side and plied him with moonshine from their own still.
At one point, as Thatcher was packing towels beneath Irv’s left side, he said to her, “Go easy on that whiskey. We’ll need it for later.”
“There’s plenty more.” Then, realizing her slip, she added, “He keeps another jar hidden in the bottom of that barrel. He doesn’t know that I know.”
Thatcher gave her a wry grin. “Before we’re done, you and I may need a swig.”
“Don’t be giving away my whiskey, Laurel,” Irv mumbled into his pillow. “Or my secrets.”
She leaned down and whispered directly into his ear, “Our secrets. And I won’t.”
When everything was ready, and Irv was good and looped, Thatcher and she bathed their hands with rubbing alcohol. They worked on the entry wound first since it was the minor one. Irv remained stoic.
But when they repositioned him on his back, placed his arm above his head, and began to clean the exit wound, Thatcher had to restrain him while Laurel tweezed out a scrap of his shirt fabric from deep inside. Irv yelped, swore, then fainted. He remained blessedly unconscious while they continued.
At last, Thatcher said, “I think that’s the best we can do.”
“We’re going to leave the wounds open?”
“You want to close them with stitches?”
She shuddered. “I dread the thought, and I’m not sure closing them would be best anyway.”
“I don’t advise it,” he said. When she looked up at him, he gave a small shrug. “One time one of the ranch hands got shot by a rustler as we were chasing him. The boss, Mr. Hobson, sent for a doctor. The doc got the bullet out and wanted to stitch up the hole. Mr. Hobson wouldn’t let him. He said the cowboy might survive the blood loss, but then die of infection.”
“Did he live?”
“Yeah, he did fine. Well, until he tried to ride a bull on a dare. He got gored. Bled to death after all.”
Laurel looked over to see if he was joking, but his brow was furrowed with concentration as he flooded Irv’s wound with rubbing alcohol.
She stood by to blot up the runoff, then covered the bullet holes with folded patches of cloth. Only then did the tension drain from her shoulders.
Thatcher must have felt similar relief. He leaned against the wall and wiped his perspiring hairline with the back of his hand. “He’s a tough old coot.”
“He is.” Laurel regarded the sleeping Irv with affection as she