Amelia shut her eyes, a look of anguish twisting her features. “I’ve been raped by savages,” she said in a voice so low, Summer could barely hear. “Do you honestly think any white man is going to look at me after that?”
“Yes,” Summer replied quietly. “No man worth his salt would hold your assault against you.”
“No? Name a single man who could overlook what happened to me.”
“Dusty Murdock, for one.”
Amelia seemed startled. “Our foreman?”
“Yes. You may not have known it, but Dusty was sweet on you before you married Limmel.”
“He…he never said anything.”
“I should think not. You never gave him the slightest encouragement—and he worked for us, for goodness’ sakes. If he had dared make unwanted advances, Papa would have fired him on the spot. You know that.”
Amelia made no answer, but Summer left satisfied at least to have given her sister food for thought.
She was more satisfied by her brother’s relationship with her husband. Reed and Lance had begun to get along even better than she’d hoped.
On Thursday morning, the day after Lance’s trip to Austin, as Summer carried a basket of laundry to wash up at the house, she spied the two of them in a side corral and stopped to watch. Lance appeared to be teaching the crippled Reed how to mount with only one leg. His methods seemed unorthodox, but they brought results.
His well-trained sorrel stood patiently while Reed, positioned on the right, grabbed a handful of mane and tried to lever himself up onto the animal’s back. All he managed was to catch the stump of his left leg, which had been padded with a blanket, on the back of the saddle.
Swearing brutally, Reed fell back to the ground, but Lance prodded and taunted him to keep trying.
“You’d damn sure never make it as a Comanche. They wouldn’t put up with a one-legged man for a day. Fact, a warrior would rather be dead than live as a cripple.”
Summer gasped at the cruelty of the observation, even though she was certain it was true, but Reed merely gritted his teeth and tried again, putting every ounce of energy into hauling himself up. He didn’t make it this time, but he came close, so close Summer found herself leaning forward in silent encouragement.
“Use the one leg you do have,” Lance advised him. “Quit trying to pull yourself up and spring from the calf.”
Breaming hard, Reed rested a minute before he attempted it. This time he made it, much to Summer’s
delight and obviously his own. Dragging himself upright in the saddle, Reed gave a shout of triumph and pumped his arm in the air.
Lance seemed unimpressed. “Time to celebrate when you can do that ten times out of ten.”
Walking around to the sorrel’s left, he adjusted a loop of buckskin to support Reed’s severed leg. A crutch had been tied to the saddle, Summer noticed, but she was surprised when Reed unfastened it and tucked it under his left arm, letting it hang straight down.
Under Lance’s supervision, he directed the sorrel around the corral, using the end of the crutch in place of a left spur. Eventually he put the animal through its paces, both horse and rider becoming more familiar with the unusual aid. It was a child’s lesson, reminding Summer of when her brother Tyler had taught her to ride, but Reed, instead of being offended, concentrated as if his life depended on learning this knew skill.
And after a time, when he trotted back to Lance, he was grinning from ear to ear. “By God, it works!”
“On my sorrel, yeah, because I taught him. We’ll have to train a couple of other horses to respond to you, though. And to come when you whistle. Wouldn’t want you caught out on the range without a mount.”
“Would you consider selling this fellow?”
“Sorry, he’s not for sale.” Lance patted the animal’s neck fondly. “We’ve been through too much together. I’ll loan him to you for a while, but I want him back.” He looked up at Reed. “Think you can get down without falling on your face? You need more practice mounting.”
“Sure.”
He hooked the crutch over the saddle horn, where he could reach it once he’d dismounted, then tried to slide off.
Despite his confidence, though, as soon as his right boot touched ground, he lost his balance and fell, landing hard on his right side.
Alarmed, Summer took an automatic step forward, but Lance’s sharp drawl stopped her. “Good thing you’re a rich man, Weston. You can pay somebody to pick you up and wipe your skinned knee.”
Astonishingly, Reed grinned up at him. “Somebody should have washed your smart-ass mouth out with soap a long time ago, Calder.”