Susan Wiggs - The Drifter

The stranger’s wife lay in an alcove bunk on freshly laundered muslin sheets, her head centered on a plump pillow, her eyes closed and her face pale. Suddenly, Leah no longer saw the run-down boat or the faded opulence of the stateroom. All her fear and anger fled. She focused her attention on the patient. Without looking at the man, she motioned for him to bring a lamp. She heard the rasp of a lucifer and a sibilant hiss as he lit one and brought the lamp forward.

“Hold it steady,” she commanded. “What’s her name?”

Another hesitation. Then, “Carrie,” came the gruff reply.

Observation. It was the most basic tenet of healing. First, do no harm. Generations of doctors had violated that rule, poking and leeching and bleeding and cupping until a patient either died or got better out of sheer exasperation. Thank heaven it was more common practice these days for well-trained doctors to stand back, to observe and ask questions.

And so she observed. The woman called Carrie appeared almost childlike in repose. The dainty bones of her face and hands pushed starkly against translucent flesh. Nordic blond hair formed a halo around her small face. Her dry lips were tucked together in a thin line. Frail, defenseless and startlingly beautiful, she slept without seeming even to breathe.

And she looked as if she was on the verge of dying.

Leah unbuckled her slicker, shrugged it off, and held it out behind her. When the stranger didn’t take it immediately, she gave the garment an impatient shake. It was plucked from her hand—grudgingly, she thought. She refused to let her attention stray from the patient.

“Carrie?” she said. “My name is Dr. Mundy. I’ve come to help you.”

No response.

Leah pressed the back of her hand to Carrie’s cheek. Fever, but not enough of a temperature to raise a flush on the too-pale skin. She would have no need for the clinical thermometer.

Gently, Leah lifted one eyelid. The iris glinted a lovely shade of blue, vivid as painted china. The pupil contracted properly when the lamplight struck it.

“Carrie?” Leah said her name again while stroking a thin hand. “Can you hear me?”

Again, no response. The skin felt dry, lacking resilience. A sign of dehydration.

“When was she last awake?” Leah asked the man.

“Not sure. Maybe this afternoon. She was out of her head, though. Didn’t make a lick of sense.” The shadows shifted as he leaned closer. “What is it? Will she be all right?” Tension thrummed in his voice.

“I’ll do my best to figure out what’s wrong with her. When did she last have something to eat or drink?”

“Gave her some tea with honey this morning. She heaved it up, wouldn’t take anything else. Except—” He broke off, drew in a breath.

“Except what?”

“She asked for her tonic. She needs her tonic.”

Leah groped in her bag for the stethoscope. “What sort of tonic would that be?”

“Some elixir in a bottle.”

Elixir. Snake oil, most likely, or maybe a purgative like calomel, Leah guessed. It had been her father’s stock-in-trade for years. She herself was not that sort of doctor. She found her stethoscope. “I’ll want to analyze that tonic.”

She adjusted the ear tips and looped the binaurals around her neck. Working quickly, she parted Carrie’s nightgown at the neckline. Again, she was struck by the freshly laundered cleanliness of the garment and bedclothes. It seemed incongruous for an outlaw’s lady. A gunman who did laundry?

Pressing the flat of the diaphragm to Carrie’s chest, Leah held her breath and listened. The heart rate was elevated. The lungs sounded only slightly congested. Leah moved the chest piece here and there, listening intently to each quadrant. It was difficult to hear. Storm-driven waves slapped the ship’s hull, and a constant flow of water trickled somewhere below.

She palpated the areas around the neck and armpits, seeking signs of infection. Then she moved her hands down the abdomen, stopping when she felt a small, telltale hardness.

“Well?” the stranger said. “What’s wrong?”

Leah removed the ear tips of the stethoscope, letting the instrument drape like a necklace. “When were you planning to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” He spread his arms, looking genuinely baffled. It was probably all an act, though, she thought.

“That your wife is pregnant.”

His jaw dropped. He seemed to deflate a little, sagging against the wall of the hull. “Pregnant.”

She tilted her head to one side. “Surely you knew.”

“I…” He drew his hand down his face. “Nope. Didn’t know.”

“I estimate that she’s a good three months along.”

“Three months.”

Ordinarily, Leah loved to be the bearer of this sort of news. She always got a vicarious thrill from the joy and wonder in a young husband’s eyes. Such moments made her own life seem less sterile and lonely—if only for a while.

She stared at the stranger and saw no joy or wonder in him. His face had turned stony and grim. He certainly didn’t act like a man who had just learned he was going to be a father.

“So that’s the only thing wrong with her,” he said at last.

“It’s not ‘wrong’ for your wife to be pregnant.”

For a moment, he looked as if he might contradict her. “I meant, so that’s the only thing ailing her.”

“Hardly.”

“What?” he asked harshly. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? To begin with, your boat is on the verge of sinking.” She glanced pointedly at the aft hatch. The rudder seemed to be hanging by a thread—or by a waterlogged rope, to be more precise. Worm-eaten wooden bolts lolled uselessly along the deck. Big gaps separated the caulking of the hull. The line holding the post in place strained with a whining sound.

“This is no place for a patient in her condition. We’ve got to move her.” Leah coiled the stethoscope and tucked it back into her bag. “As soon as it stops raining, bring her to the house, and we’ll put her to bed—”

“I guess you didn’t understand,” the man said in an infuriating drawl.

She scowled at him. “Understand what?”

He stuck his thumb in his gun belt and drummed his fingers on the row of cartridges stuck in the leather loops. “You’re coming with us.”

A chill seized her, though she took care to hide her alarm. So that was why he’d abducted her at gunpoint. This outlaw meant to pluck her right out of her own life and thrust her into his. “Just like that,” she said coldly, “without even a by-your-leave?”

“I never ask leave to do anything. Remember that.”

By the time Leah had finished neatening her bag, she had worked herself into a fine fury.

With a quick movement that had him going for his gun, she shot to her feet. The old boat creaked ominously.

“No, you don’t understand, sir,” Leah said. “I have no intention of going anywhere with you, especially in this leaky hulk. I’ll treat your wife after you bring her to the boardinghouse where she can enjoy a proper recovery.”

Leah tried not to flinch as he trained the gun on her.

“She’ll recover just fine right here with you tending her,” he said.

Leah glared at the too-familiar blued barrel, the callused finger curling intimately around the trigger. “Don’t think for a minute that you can intimidate me. I won’t allow it. I absolutely won’t. Is that clear?”

His lazy gaze strayed over her and focused on her hands, clutching the bag in white-knuckled terror. “Clear as a day in Denver, ma’am.”

She hated the mocking edge to his voice. “Sir, if you hope to give your wife a decent chance to recover, you’ll let me go, and after the rain you’ll bring her to the house where I can treat her.”