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POOR COWBOY SAVED A 22-YEAR-OLD APACHE GIRL — THEN THE WHOLE TOWN TURNED AGAINST HIM

Chapter 2

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Reeves froze. His breath caught sharply in his throat."Jake..." the old doctor whispered, his hand tightening around the glass. "What in hell is this?""She needs water, Doc," Jake said, his voice flat, dry, and raspy from choking on trail dust for twelve hours. "And she needs a bed."Dr. Reeves glanced past Jake’s shoulder toward the street. Already, dark figures were gathering at the edge of the cottonwood trees—men in work aprons, cattle hands with holstered revolvers, storekeepers wiping their hands on dirty aprons. The sun was dipping behind the western hills, casting long, sharp shadows across the dusty road."You understand what you’re doing, don't you?" Reeves asked, his voice dropping to an urgent whisper as he stepped aside to let Jake pass. "You know what bringing her through town looks like?"Jake carried the girl into the cool, dim interior of the cabin and laid her gently on a clean canvas cot in the corner."I’m helping somebody who’s dying," Jake said, straightening his back with a groan."That isn answer to a question I didn't ask, son," Reeves said quietly, closing the door and throwing the iron bolt into place.Jake finally turned his head to look at the old doctor. His blue eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by deep ringlets of trail dust, but they were as cold and solid as river granite."It’s the only answer I’ve got, Doc."The old doctor stood motionless for a long three seconds. He looked at Jake’s exhausted face, then down at the fragile creature lying on his cot, shivering despite the heat of the room. Reeves let out a long, heavy exhale that rattled in his chest, set his brandy glass down on his workbench, and reached for his medical bag."Get me a bucket of fresh water from the well," Reeves ordered, pulling off his spectacles to clean them on his shirt sleeve. "And grab those clean linen rags from the cupboard. Move, Jake."For the next hour, the cabin was filled with the quiet, methodical sounds of medicine.Severe dehydration. Extreme heat exhaustion. Sunburn so intense her skin was beginning to blister across her shoulders. But as Reeves cut away the dark wool of her traveling blouse, he uncovered something worse—a jagged, ugly gash along her left shoulder blade. It looked several days old, likely caused by a sharp stone or a glancing strike from a knife, but mercifully, the desert sun had dried the wound before putrefaction could set in deep.Dr. Reeves cleaned the injury with carbolic acid, his hands surprisingly steady for a man who had spent forty years stitching up gunshot wounds and set broken legs on the frontier. Jake sat beside the cot, holding a small tin cup of cold well water against her cracked lips, letting small drops trickle into her mouth one at a time.Outside, the murmuring crowd had not dispersed. It had grown.Through the thin wooden walls of the cabin, the voices carried clearly into the room."Should’ve left her out in the wash where he found her," a harsh voice spat."She’s probably scouting for a war party," another man replied, his tone thick with anger. "They send the women in first to look at the town's defenses. Next thing you know, fifty of 'em come riding down the ridge at midnight with torches.""Bringing danger straight into town... Turner’s gone crazy."Jake’s jaw tightened until the muscles worked beneath his stubbled skin. He stared down at the floorboards between his boots, his hands resting on his knees.He had found her that morning beside a dry wash nearly fifteen miles south of his small homestead. He had been tracking a pair of stray calves that had drifted through a broken fence line. The sun hadn't even cleared the horizon when he spotted a dark shape collapsed in the alkali dust near a clump of withered prickly pear cactus.
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POOR COWBOY SAVED A 22-YEAR-OLD APACHE GIRL — THEN THE WHOLE TOWN TURNED AGAINST HIM

15 Part