The axle groaned, lifted an inch, 2 in. She dropped to one knee, seized his arm with her free hand and dragged. He came loose with a sound she did not want to think about. The axle crashed back down. She sat in the dirt beside him, breathing hard, and checked his leg.
Bruised badly, possibly cracked. She couldn't be certain, but the bone hadn't broken through the skin. That was something. His shoulder was worse. Whatever had happened before the wagon came down had already done damage there.
The blood was older, dried at the edges, but the wound beneath his shirt was deep. Clara opened her canvas bag. She had packed for a new life in Montana. She had not packed for field surgery, but she had a spare blouse she could sacrifice. And she had the small bottle of spirits she'd brought for nerves.
Mrs. Aldrich's suggestion, and she had her grandmother's bone needles and thread, because her grandmother had taught her that a woman alone should always be able to close a wound. She worked in silence for a long time. He stirred while she was still working on his shoulder, a sharp hitch of breath that told her the pain had found him even in unconsciousness. Stay still, she said.
You're going to be fine. Just stay still. A sound came from him. Low, not quite words. I said, "Stay still," she repeated in the voice she used for 8-year-olds who thought they knew better.
"I mean it. " He went still. She finished the stitching. She tied the cloth bandage as firmly as she could manage. She sat back and looked at what she had done and thought that her grandmother would have done it better. But her grandmother was 30 years gone, and Clara was the only one here.
She reached into her bag and found the biscuit she had wrapped in cloth that morning, the last of what she'd bought at the junction in Billings. She had been saving it. She had not eaten since before dawn. She looked at the man on the ground. She unwrapped the biscuit and set it within his reach for when he woke.
Then she sat down in the shade of the broken wagon, pulled her knees to her chest, and waited. The sun had dropped considerably when his eyes finally opened. She knew because she was watching. She had been watching for the better part of an hour. He blinked at the sky.
Blinked again. Then slowly, with the careful deliberateness of a man testing whether the world was real, he turned his head and looked at her. He had dark hair streaked through with dust. Strong jaw several days unshaven, eyes that were blue gray in the afternoon light, the color of mountains in cloud shadow. A face that had been outdoors for most of its life, and looked it weathered at the edges, deeply tanned with the kind of lines that come from squinting against sun rather than from years.
He stared at her for a long moment. "You're not a dream," he said. His voice was rough, dry with thirst, but the tone was almost wondering. "I am not. " Clara agreed. "How long? " He tried to sit up.
His face contracted sharply. "Don't. " She said, "Your shoulder is stitched. Your leg is badly bruised. If you sit up too fast, you'll undo both. " He held still. He looked at his shoulder.
He looked at his leg. He looked at her again. "You did this," he said. "Yes. " "Why? " Clara considered that. "Because you needed it done. " He said nothing for a moment.
"My horse," he said then still there. She nodded toward the animal who was cropping grass at the edge of the scrub with unruffled patience. She seems like a sensible creature. Something moved across his face, not quite a smile, but adjacent to one. She is, he said, smarter than most people I know.
I believe that. Clara stood dusting off her skirt. Do you think you can try to sit up slowly? I need to check your leg properly and you should eat something. He did it slowly, the way she'd told him, pausing twice when the pain sharpened and settling once he was upright with a long measured exhale.
The biscuit, she said, nodding to where it lay. He looked at it. Then he looked at her. Have you eaten? I'm fine.
He didn't pick it up. That's not what I asked. She met his eyes. They were steadier than she'd expected for a man who' just spent the afternoon unconscious in the dirt. There was something careful in them, something that was paying close attention.
"Eat it," she said. "You need it more than I do right now. " He held her gaze a beat longer. Then he picked up the biscuit and broke it in two and held out the larger half. "Then we share," he said. "It wasn't a question. " The way he said it left no room for argument.
Clara looked at the half of the biscuit in his hand for a moment. All right, she said. She sat back down across from him and they ate in silence. My name is Jack, he said. Jack Miller.
He said it evenly the way people say things they've said many times. No hesitation, no crack in the tone. Clara looked up from wrapping a final bandage around his calf. Clara Bennett, I'm from Boston. She paused.
I was supposed to be met at Ridgeline station. Supposed to be. The person who was supposed to meet me didn't come. He was watching her face. I'm sorry to hear that.
I expect I'll manage. She tied the bandage off. Cedar Falls is 3 mi west. I was on my way there when I found you. There's lodging in town presumably.
There is, he said. The Gilmore House. Mrs. Gilmore keeps a clean room. Fair price.
You know Cedar Falls some she sat back and looked at him properly. He looked back at her without flinching. Most men in her experience got uncomfortable when a woman looked at them directly. This one seemed either accustomed to it or unbothered. "Can you ride? " she asked.
He moved his shoulder experimentally. The restraint with which he controlled his reaction told her it cost him more than he let on. I can ride, he said. Your leg I've ridden on worse. That, she said, is not reassuring.
The corner of his mouth moved. No, I expect it isn't. He looked out at the landscape. The sun was lower now, casting long orange light across the grass. The broken wagon threw a dramatic shadow.
"You can take my horse," he said. "I don't ride," he looked at her. "You don't ride. I'm from Boston, right? He considered this.
I can walk. With that leg, you'll be walking until midnight. Is there a better option you'd like to suggest? She looked at him. She looked at the horse.