The girl moved like a whirlwind. She made several trips in and out of the room, depositing everything that she’d been sent to scavenge. She placed them on a table that Laurel had cleared for that purpose and had moved close to the bedside.
Thatcher put the tweezers and scissors in a washbowl and poured boiling water over them. While he organized the things they would need, Laurel stayed at Irv’s side and plied him with moonshine from their own still.
At one point, as Thatcher was packing towels beneath Irv’s left side, he said to her, “Go easy on that whiskey. We’ll need it for later.”
“There’s plenty more.” Then, realizing her slip, she added, “He keeps another jar hidden in the bottom of that barrel. He doesn’t know that I know.”
Thatcher gave her a wry grin. “Before we’re done, you and I may need a swig.”
“Don’t be giving away my whiskey, Laurel,” Irv mumbled into his pillow. “Or my secrets.”
She leaned down and whispered directly into his ear, “Our secrets. And I won’t.”
When everything was ready, and Irv was good and looped, Thatcher and she bathed their hands with rubbing alcohol. They worked on the entry wound first since it was the minor one. Irv remained stoic.
But when they repositioned him on his back, placed his arm above his head, and began to clean the exit wound, Thatcher had to restrain him while Laurel tweezed out a scrap of his shirt fabric from deep inside. Irv yelped, swore, then fainted. He remained blessedly unconscious while they continued.
At last, Thatcher said, “I think that’s the best we can do.”
“We’re going to leave the wounds open?”
“You want to close them with stitches?”
She shuddered. “I dread the thought, and I’m not sure closing them would be best anyway.”
“I don’t advise it,” he said. When she looked up at him, he gave a small shrug. “One time one of the ranch hands got shot by a rustler as we were chasing him. The boss, Mr. Hobson, sent for a doctor. The doc got the bullet out and wanted to stitch up the hole. Mr. Hobson wouldn’t let him. He said the cowboy might survive the blood loss, but then die of infection.”
“Did he live?”
“Yeah, he did fine. Well, until he tried to ride a bull on a dare. He got gored. Bled to death after all.”
Laurel looked over to see if he was joking, but his brow was furrowed with concentration as he flooded Irv’s wound with rubbing alcohol.
She stood by to blot up the runoff, then covered the bullet holes with folded patches of cloth. Only then did the tension drain from her shoulders.
Thatcher must have felt similar relief. He leaned against the wall and wiped his perspiring hairline with the back of his hand. “He’s a tough old coot.”
“He is.” Laurel regarded the sleeping Irv with affection as she sponged dried blood off his arm and torso. “But I don’t know what I would have done without him.”
Thatcher let that hover for a moment, then said, “Tomorrow when you change the dressing, it probably wouldn’t hurt to apply a little coal oil.”
“I planned to,” she said around a light laugh, “but I wasn’t going to admit it. My mother swore by its healing properties.”
“Keep the moonshine handy, too.”
“I also planned to do that.” She used a clean towel to dry Irv’s damp skin where she had washed.
“Ready to wrap?” Thatcher asked.
The girl had left them with neatly stacked bands of cloth. Together she and Thatcher began winding them around Irv’s torso, being as gentle as possible when they rolled him from one side to the other.
The room Irv had created for himself wasn’t that spacious, but the quarters had never seemed small to Laurel. Until now. When sharing it with Thatcher Hutton.
As they wound the bandage, their movements were so in sync they could have been choreographed. Or perhaps they were just keenly attuned to each other, so attuned they read each other’s mind.
Occasionally their fingertips brushed. When even a whisper of contact was made, she felt his eyes on her, but she didn’t have the nerve to look into his. She kept her head down and pretended that her concentration was solely on their task.
But her awareness of him was breath-stealing. The five-button placket on his undershirt was open, revealing a wedge of dark chest hair that looked soft. The long sleeves had been rolled up to above his elbows, tightly cuffing his arms just beneath his biceps. Plump veins ran down his forearms all the way to the backs of his hands, which she watched now as long, strong fingers tied a knot to secure the bandage.