Page 23 of At Love’s Command

She clasped Lizzie’s arm. “Have the Horsemen left yet?”

Josephine had paid a call to the Dalton ranch yesterday, removed Mr. Wallace’s stitches, and given him permission to engage in mounted travel as long as he wore the sling for at least another week. Now she wished she hadn’t been so eager to rid herself of them.

“They left early this morning,” Lizzie said, confirming Josephine’s fears. “They stopped by the mercantile to purchase supplies.”

“Did they say where they were going?” She had to know. Please, Lord. I need a direction.

Lizzie scrunched her nose like she did when totaling a grocery bill. “North, I think. Paul put their order together. I was in the storeroom with Grant.”

Listening at the door, thank heavens. Never had Josephine been more grateful for her friend’s penchant for information gathering.

“I think they said something about a ranch.” Lizzie’s eyes brightened. “Burnet! A ranch outside of Burnet.”

“Thank you.” Josephine gave her friend’s arm a squeeze, then dashed for the clinic.

She was already two or three hours behind them. She’d have to rent a horse, and nothing at the local livery would compare to the cavalry mounts the Horsemen rode. Her only hope was that Captain Hanger would enforce a slow pace in deference to Mr. Wallace’s injury.

In truth, their pace didn’t matter. She’d ride through the night if necessary. Her brother’s life depended on it. Matthew Hanger might be a bur in her brain that wouldn’t shake free, but right now he was her best hope to save Charlie.

CHAPTER

NINE

Josephine pounded up the clinic steps to her bedroom and stripped out of her skirt and petticoats. Rolling them into a ball, she shoved them into a carpetbag and dug through her bureau drawer for the trousers she kept for emergencies. One couldn’t grow up at Gringolet with a former cavalry officer as a father and not know how to ride. Not only ride, but ride like a soldier. Astride. And ready for anything.

Which meant donning the black pantaloons she hadn’t worn since graduating from medical school. But if Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, renowned war surgeon and recipient of the Medal of Honor, could don men’s clothing for ease of work, Dr. Josephine Burkett could don trousers to save her brother.

After pulling on the trousers, she grabbed the longer of her two jackets, the one that fell past her hips, and shoved her arms inside. She tossed a hairbrush, pins, a clean shirtwaist, and clean stockings into her bag, then ran downstairs to grab foodstuffs. Not knowing how long she would be on horseback, and not wanting to be a burden to Captain Hanger and his men when she caught up to them, she scraped all the tins from her kitchen shelves into the top of her carpetbag, remembering at the last minute to pull a can opener out of the drawer and add it to her supplies. Crackers, tinned salmon, kidney beans, peaches, condensed milk. If it was edible, she grabbed it. For once in her life, her inability to cook was an asset instead of a liability.

With her carpetbag stuffed and heavy enough to make her waddle, Josephine headed to the examination room and collected her doctor’s bag. She never traveled without it. And while she prayed she could reach Charlie before he needed her professional skills, she planned to be prepared for whatever she might encounter once she found him.

Mr. Radisson at the livery gave her an odd look when she showed up in trousers. His eyebrows climbed clear into his hairline when she propositioned to purchase his hat.

“My hat?” He pulled the black slouch hat from his head and looked at it as if he’d never seen it before. “I just bought it a couple days ago. Ain’t even got it properly broke in yet.”

“Then you won’t mind breaking in another one, will you?” Josephine smiled and handed him five dollars, which was likely twice what he’d paid. “I’d buy one myself, but I’m in a terrible hurry. I need your fastest horse with saddle and tack. And your hat.”

The wider brims of men’s hats offered much better protection against sun and rain than the stylish bonnets she owned, and right now fashion held no place on her list of priorities. The only things she cared about were items that would help her get to the Horsemen and then to Charlie. In fact, she hadn’t given headgear a second thought until Mr. Radisson sauntered out of his office to assist her and the newness of his chapeau caught her attention.

His gaze zeroed in on the money she offered, and he slowly handed over the hat. “Well, if it means that much to ya, I ’spose I can let ya have it.”

“Wonderful.” Josephine snatched it from his slow-moving hand and flopped it onto her head, trying to emphasize her need for haste. “Now, if you’d fetch your best horse, please? I really must be on my way.”

“I got a nice, gentle mare that’d be a good mount for a lady such as yourself,” he said as he turned.

“You’re not speaking of that swayback nag with the spotted flanks, are you?” Good heavens. That horse had to be at least twenty years old and probably wouldn’t even survive the trip.

Radisson stopped. “Myrtle is a sweet little lady with an easy gait. She’ll suit you just fine, Dr. Jo.”

“I’m not paying a social call, Mr. Radisson. I’m riding cross-country and need a mount with speed and stamina. A sturdy quarter horse with a deep chest or a mount with some mustang blood in him. Do you still have that palomino I saw in your corral last week? That one would suit my needs.”

The livery owner stared at her as if she’d just spoken in a foreign tongue. “Sandy’s a cow pony, ma’am. He won’t take to a sidesaddle.”

“Well, I don’t take to them much, myself. I’ll be riding astride, hence my unconventional clothing, in case you were wondering.”

He kicked at the dirt. “Well, I didn’t want to say nothin’ . . .”

Josephine shoved twenty dollars at him, enough to cover a multiday rental plus a generous bonus to help him find a sense of urgency. “Just have Sandy saddled and ready to go in five minutes. I need to leave immediately.”