Luther’s eyebrows rose and a flush darkened his skin, but he didn’t back away. “Hamm had some legal questions about the sale of his store and asked if I would ride with him.” Luther placed a hand on Dal’s sleeve. “You’re out of line. It was just bad luck.”
He didn’t believe it. Eyes narrowed down hard, he watched Caldwell sit up and rub his jaw. “If you pull another stunt like this,” he warned, speaking between his teeth, “I’ll break both of your legs and leave you to crawl to the nearest town.”
Caldwell muttered an obscenity and pushed to his feet. “I won’t forget this, Frisco.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t.” Dal took a step forward and would have beaten the sneer off of Caldwell’s mouth if he hadn’t heard Alex scream. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw Drinkwater riding toward the chuck wagon, carrying Les in front of him. Even at a quarter of a mile, he saw the blood glistening on her trousers.
Sprinting back to the chuck wagon, he tossed Alex her crutch, then started opening drawers and bins on the chuck box. “Where are the medical supplies?” he demanded, frustrated.
“Top drawer on the left,” Alex whispered, her gaze fixed on the approaching horse. “I’ll need a basin of water, the whiskey, a needle and catgut, and bandages.”
“I’ll get the water,” Hamm said, running toward the barrel.
“Get the hell out of here,” Dal snarled, looking at the bottle of medicinal whiskey he held in his hand. “Luther? Get him away from here!”
“That’s Les,” Hamm said hotly, scarlet pulsing in his face. “I have a right to be with her.”
“Listen, you pompous idiot. The widow Roark came forty-two beeves closer to winning your fiancee’s inheritance today. Do you want to hand over the rest of the herd by being where you’re not supposed to be? Do you think Caldwell is going to look aside at any infraction?” His hand tightened on the whiskey bottle. “Get back where you belong.”
Hamm backed away, his face red and filled with hate.
Behind him Alex called, “Put her on this sheet.” She was up on her crutch, awkwardly shaking out a bedsheet. Drinkwater slipped off his horse and caught Les in his arms when she toppled, then he carried her to Alex. She ripped open Les’s pant leg, exposing a long deep gash across her thigh. Dal heard her suck in a sharp breath, then he relinquished the whiskey bottle, took Drinkwater’s arm, and led him away from the women.
“What happened?” He knew the answer, but asked anyway. When he heard about Drinkwater finding Les laid out on the ground, he nodded and swore under his breath. “Any other injuries?”
“The usual bumps, bruises, and cuts,” Drinkwater said, clenching his fists and turning a grim face toward the river when Les screamed. “Hate to hear a woman hurting,” he mumbled.
Dal didn’t look toward the sheet either. “As soon as the wagon is cleared out, we’ll bring the rest of the herd across,” he said, his voice clipped and angry. He listened to Les’s screams until she fainted, and he kept thinking it could have been Freddy. Freddy laid out with her thigh gashed open and pouring blood. He wasn’t squeamish, but his stomach tightened.
He let another minute pass before he returned to the observers’ camp to speak to Luther, passing Hamm standing between the two campfires. Dal resented his presence, but the woman leaking blood all over the sheet was the woman Hamm planned to marry.
He stopped. “She’s going to be weak, and she’ll hurt like hell, but she isn’t going to die.”
Hamm glared and his lip curled. “You’re not God. You don’t know if she’ll die!”
“Yeah, I do,” he said tersely. “You put men and longhorns together and a few men are going to get gashed. I’ve seen it before.” He continued forward, stopping when Caldwell stood up beside the fire. It pleased him that Caldwell already had a dark bruise rising on his jaw. Luther looked at both men then hastened forward.
“How bad is it?” Luther asked anxiously.
“Bad enough. Laudanum will keep the pain manageable, but she’ll be plenty uncomfortable and unable to ride for at least a week. We need a ruling, Luther. Is she out of it? Or do we put her on the chuck wagon with Alex and give her a week to get back in the saddle?”
“What would you do if it was one of the Webster boys?” Luther asked, examining his face. “Would you leave him in Austin and hire on a new man?”
That was exactly what he would have done rather than move the herd with one man short. On the other hand, he’d already planned to rest the herd and graze them for forty-eight hours. That cut a shorthanded week to five days. He glanced back at the bloody bedsheet.
She’d worked hard, and she deserved better than losing her chance at Joe’s inheritance simply because she’d been doing the job and run into a bad-luck beeve.
“I’d let the drover have a say in the decision,” he answered carefully. “Is there anything in the conditions of the will that prohibits Les from staying on if she wants to? Anything that says she’s out if she can’t work for a week?”
“I’ll check.” Luther looked toward the river. “How many cattle were lost?”