“Right now you and Mom need me more. I’ll talk to them in the morning, and I’m sure Brian will give them an earful. I don’t know where in hell Little Jake got that gun, but he’ll learn real quick to never do something like that again. I’ll take care of those boys. You take care of Mom.” Lloyd squeezed Jake’s shoulder before hurrying out.
A moment later, Brian came in with his doctor bag and canteen. He knelt beside Randy. “She’s probably dehydrated,” he told Jake. “Randy, you need to drink some water.”
“No! No! No! Go away! I’m…filthy.”
Brian looked at Jake with pain-filled eyes.
“I’m sorry, Brian. I know how hard this is for you,” Jake told him.
“Try to get her to drink some water.” Brian uncorked the canteen and handed it to Jake.
“Por favor, mi querida. Drink some water.” He tipped it to her lips.
“No! Stop!” she screamed, pushing it away.
“Randy it’s me! Jake! I just want you to drink some water!”
She covered her face. “Jake…they did an ugly thing…” she repeated.
“Then wash it away! Drink some water and wash it away!”
She stared at the canteen, then took it with shaking hands. She managed to tip it up, and Jake wanted to scream at the bruises on her jaw and neck. The blanket fell away, and Jake could see her arms and back were also bruised. He quickly held the blanket over her breasts while she poured water into her mouth, then suddenly spit it out. She did it over and over, drinking and spitting, her sobs deepening. “Get it out of me!” she kept crying. She drank and spit again.
“Randy, you have to swallow some of that water,” Brian told her.
Finally, she obeyed, then threw down the canteen. “Jake!”
“I’m right here.” He held her while Brian ran his hands over her back and arms.
“Randy, tell me what hurts. Is anything broken?”
“No. It’s just…bruises and—” She began panting in a panic as she moved her hands to her face again. “My…jaw. They…” She curled up against Jake again. “Hold me! Don’t let go, Jake!”
“I’m right here.”
Brian reached into his medicine bag and took out a bottle of laudanum. “See if you can get her to drink some of this. It will calm her down and help her sleep.” He set it on the table near Jake, then picked up Lloyd’s coat and laid it on the bed. He brought over an extra blanket and laid it over Randy. “I’ll leave for a bit and let you talk to her more. Try to calm her down, Jake. You won’t be able to clean her up until she’s half out of it with that laudanum, but I don’t want her taking any of it until she has something in her stomach, so try to get her to eat. I’ll come back in and help you wash her up and get some clean clothes on her once she’s calmer.”
Jake nodded, pulling her close and kissing her hair. “She hates being dirty. She usually always…smells like roses.” His voice broke on the words.
“Jake, you hang on for her sake. You have to stay strong and stay sane, understand? Right now she needs you more than you’ve ever needed her. Most of your married life it’s been the other way around. You get her to eat and get her to sleep. In the morning, you can take her to that line shack.”
Lloyd came back inside with a gunnysack of food. “I’ll heat some water,” he told Jake. “And I’ll find a pan. Rodriguez gave me some bacon. He said the bacon fat will be good for her.”
Jake nodded. “Stir that fire some more. It needs to be good and hot.”
“Jake,” Randy groaned. “Don’t let go.”
“I’m right here.”
“Peppermint. You always…have peppermint.”
Never without a couple of sticks of their favorite candy, Jake shifted enough to take a stick of peppermint from inside his shirt pocket.
“I’ll cook the bacon,” Lloyd told him.
Jake brushed the short stick of peppermint across Randy’s bruised lips. She opened her mouth a little, and he ran it inside her lips so she could smell and taste it—something fresh and clean, something they’d shared more times than he could remember.
She licked the peppermint, grasping his hand as she did so. “Tell me…you still love me, Jake.”
Her body jerked in a sob. Jake drew her close, taking the other end of the peppermint stick in his mouth. Because it was so short, his lips touched her bruised and swollen ones. He kissed them as gently as possible, then moved his lips softly over her bruised jaw. “Yo te amo, mi querida,” he told her in a near whisper. “This is something that was always just between you and me, mi vida. Just you and me. The peppermint. That’s just ours. Nothing has changed.”