none, we’re going to take care of your man.” She forced Aggie to look at her and not Hank. “But we’re going to need your help. You understand?”
Aggie pulled in the frayed strings of her emotions and forced herself to take a breath. “All right. We can take care of him. We can.”
The no-nonsense directness of the older woman had helped and she allowed Aggie no time to think of what might be beyond this moment, this crisis. “First,” Lizzy said in her low, Southern voice, “we get him to the house.”
Aggie looked back at Hank. “We can do that.” She raised her chin.
Lizzy smiled. “Right you are.”
“His leg probably is broke.” Blue voiced what they all knew. “We’ll have to be real careful moving him. Once he’s inside and the blood’s cleaned off, we can see the damage. If he’s still breathing, I’ll ride for the doc.”
It took all three of them to lift Hank without moving his leg more than necessary. He moaned once, telling Aggie he was still alive, but his normally tanned face looked almost as white as his shirt.
Aggie held his head while Blue and Lizzy removed his boots and trousers. There was no doubt the leg was broken; a jagged bone had ripped the flesh from inside out. Blue straightened it as best he could, then tied both legs together with a strip of bandage. He explained that he’d seen doctors do that in the war when there was no time to look for splints.
With only a nod toward his wife, Blue left to get the doctor.
Lizzy brought cold water from the well and handed Aggie bandage after bandage for his head. Each time they switched, blood covered the cotton. They talked, trying to convince themselves that his being unconscious was better than if he were awake and in pain, but Aggie could tell Lizzy didn’t believe their reasoning any more than she did.
In what seemed like minutes, Blue was back with the doctor, a man who barely looked old enough to shave, much less finish medical school.
To Aggie’s surprise, the doctor asked her if she wanted to stay while he examined her husband. Part of her wanted to run as far away from the smell of blood as she could get, but another part knew she belonged here. She was bound to this man she’d known less than two days. Bound by honor as well as the law.
As the doctor worked, stitching up the long gash in Hank’s hairline, Aggie gently held his head in her lap. The wonder that she could care for a man so quickly danced in her mind with the grief that would come if she lost him.
In the few hours they’d been together she’d taken him into her heart, and there he would remain whether she loved or mourned him for a lifetime. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember the moment she’d known he could be someone to depend on and trust. Though she liked his laughter and the way he gently teased her, it had been something far more basic that drew her even during their conversation outside the dugout. Hank listened. He really listened to her. Could something so simple form a bond that would weather them through hard times?
She looked down at his lean body. Strong and tan from hard work. It occurred to her that she’d never seen so much of a male body before and she should be embarrassed, but she wasn’t—somehow this man belonged to her—was a part of her.
“Keep his head as still as you can, Mrs. Harris,” the doctor ordered. “I don’t want him thrashing about when I set this leg.”
Aggie placed her hands on Hank’s cheeks and noticed her tears were falling across his face, but it didn’t matter; nothing mattered but Hank. She could not, would not, lose him.
When the doc and Blue set the leg, pulling the bone back in place, Hank groaned in pain. Aggie pressed her face close to his and whispered over and over, “You’re going to be all right, dear. You’re going to be fine.”
Aggie watched, feeling the pain with him as they sewed up the cuts and strapped his leg to a board that ran from his knee to his foot. She washed his face and chest, keeping him cool as the doctor checked his head wound again and again.
Finally, a little after dawn, the doc packed up his things, saying all that was left to do was to wait and