Page 34 of Heart on the Line

Can you describe his physical appearance?

Tall, brown hair, mustache.

No beard?

Never seen him with one. Might not shave while in the field, though.

That earned a frown from Grace, and no wonder. Dunbar seemed the type of man who used his looks as a weapon. Such a fellow would always look his best.

What about his eye color?

Don’t know. The tapping grew thicker and less precise, as if the sender were growing agitated. Never looked close enough to notice. Why all the questions? If he’s got the badge, he’s Detective Dunbar. The only way a Pinkerton loses his badge is if it’s stolen from his corpse. Quit clogging the line with your fretting. I have real work to do.

Grace thanked the operator for his assistance then raised her gaze to Amos. “The description matches.”

Amos frowned. “Tall. Brown hair. Mustache.” He shook his head. “Grace, that description matches half the men in Texas. I wouldn’t exactly call that substantive proof.”

She slumped backward in her chair. “I know. I hoped to uncover something more definitive, but it seems all I’ve done is confuse matters even further.”

“How’s that?”

“I thought we only had two possible scenarios to decide between. But now it appears we have three.”

Amos ached over the weariness and strain in her face that seemed to deepen as he watched. “Three?”

Grace released a heavy sigh and nodded. “Until now I thought I had two choices. Mr. Dunbar is trustworthy, or he’s been corrupted, possibly coerced, by Haversham. But according to the Pinkerton operator, there’s a third option.”

Amos thought back over the words of the Philadelphia operator in an effort to follow Grace’s logic. He had insisted Dunbar was exactly who he presented himself to be because . . . Amos’s back stiffened. “The badge.”

Grace’s gaze melted into his. “There could be a Pinkerton agent lying dead somewhere between here and Colorado.”

17

Helen sawed the stranger’s pant leg with a dull serrated knife she kept in the cabin for eating purposes. After five minutes, with only a two-inch slit to show for her effort, she abandoned the knife and used her hands instead. Grabbing the ragged edges of denim, she yanked them apart as hard as she could. The fabric gave way and tore several inches straight up the front. She repositioned her hands, and repeated the motion three more times, until she finally had his left pant leg split wide and hanging open to a point several inches above his knee.

Unfortunately, her yanking on the denim tore away most of the clot that had formed over the wound on his thigh, and blood started seeping out of the bullet hole. Blood and a disturbing whitish fluid that hinted at infection.

Helen bit her lip and turned her head as an inconvenient lightheadedness assailed her. She needed help. She could give him basic care, but if infection had already set in, that required nursing skills she didn’t possess.

But who could she trust to keep her secret? Because her stranger had to remain a secret, at least until Helen figured out who he was. She might not care for Malachi Shaw’s male presence in Harper’s Station, but even she had to admit that the marshal was extremely protective of the ladies who lived there. With him on high alert over the threat to Grace, he’d probably either lock the stranger up or kick him out of town without sufficient care for his wound. Helen couldn’t let that happen. Not to Rachel’s brother.

She pulled a clean handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it against the bullet hole. Judging by the size of the stains on his trousers as well as what he’d left on the dirt and grass outside, the stranger had lost a bucket’s worth of blood. He was running a fever, mumbling out of his head, and had early signs of infection.

He represented no threat. He didn’t even carry a weapon. No one traveled through wild country without a way to defend themselves from animals or the occasional outlaw, yet her stranger wore a gun belt with an empty holster. A leather sheath large enough to hold a hunting knife hung at his left hip, but it too was missing its occupant. This fella didn’t even have any boots. He’d been stripped.

Whoever had shot him had made good and sure his opponent couldn’t give chase. Had her stranger shot first, bringing retaliation upon himself? Or had he been ambushed?

Helen tilted her head to get a better look at the man’s face as she continued pressing her makeshift dressing against the hole in his thigh. He couldn’t be more than twenty-five or twenty-six. There weren’t enough lines on his face or leather in his hide for him to be much older. Surely a man who would sacrifice himself for his sister when he was fifteen couldn’t have hardened into a woman-hunting mercenary with no conscience in so short a time.

Helen straightened as another, more disturbing thought crossed her mind. He might not be the kind to hunt a woman for personal gain, but what if someone threatened his sister or someone he cared about? Helen frowned. Such a man would do anything to save the people he loved.

Maybe she ought to tie his wrists to the bedstead before she left. The iron was old, but it hadn’t corroded. It would hold him, especially in his weakened state.

First things first, though. She needed to clean that wound.

Helen left the blood-soaked handkerchief resting on his leg, then collected the water pail and hurried through the pecan grove to the creek. Maybelle, the town’s healer, always boiled her water and instruments before tending an injury. She said boiling made the water cleaner somehow and minimized the threat of infection.

Helen’s stranger couldn’t afford any more infection, so even though it meant moving like a snail when her instincts demanded she streak like a thoroughbred across the countryside to find help, Helen took the time to stoke a fire once she returned to the cabin and poured half the water into the kettle to heat. She poured a second portion into a glass retrieved from her supply box, which held one plate, one glass, and one set of flatware. She never expected company. Never wanted it. Now that she had some, she feared she’d lose him before she could extend better hospitality than hurling his unconscious body onto a bed made for someone considerably shorter in stature.