Mystic Cowboy(2)

Or was it? Why was this particular past coming back to him now? Why had the horse—the footprints—led him here?

He looked for any sign of life. Some had lived: the tribe had survived this sickness. Someone had to have lived.

There were the footprints again, but this time they were different. The tracks stopped next to each body, and what looked like knee prints were pressed into the snow. Someone else had been here. Someone else knew of the sickness.

He studied the tracks. For the life of him, he couldn’t tell if the horse—the person—who’d left them had brought the sickness or had tried to stop it. Tried and failed. Everyone here was dead, except for him.

The horse appeared again, agitated and wild. Foam dripped out of its mouth. The horse was sick too. And it was charging. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t get out of the way of this death bearing down on him.

“What do you want?” he shouted, hoping the horse could hear him, praying it would listen.

“I came here looking for you,” a voice said. It didn’t come from the horse, but from the wind around him. He couldn’t tell if it was a threat or a promise. The horse—death—blew blood out of its nose as it ran faster and faster at him.

He closed his eyes, bracing for the impact. Instead, the cold, the snow, the horse, the voice all disappeared, and he found himself once again sitting in front of his fire on a cool May night. His blood was pounding, and he was so dizzy he was sure he was going to throw up. After a moment, the feeling passed. It always passed.

But what he’d seen didn’t pass.

The sickness was coming again. And someone was coming with it.





Thank goodness, Dr. Madeline Mitchell thought as she hurried into the sterile gown and snapped the shield over her face. Anything to get her away from all those half-hearted well wishers at her farewell party.

“Drugs!” the woman—girl really, probably no more than seventeen—who was sprawled on the stretcher screamed. They hadn’t even made it to a room in the E.R. yet.

At least it’s not a boring night, Madeline thought as she bent to check. The baby was already crowning. The girl screamed again, and another inch of the head emerged. They would barely have time to get to the room. Drugs were out of the question. She was just going to have to tough it out.

Madeline let her training take over. She loved the E.R., loved the unexpected. In fact, right now she was loving the unexpected more than she normally did. It was her last night working before she bailed on Columbus, Ohio, and to bring a new baby into this world as her final act at the hospital seemed fitting. She was doing a last little bit of good.

Madeline followed the stretcher as they raced down the hall, keeping her hand on that little head. You can do it, baby, she thought, almost as much to the girl as to the infant. “I want you to push,” she said, keeping her voice low and steady as the door shut behind them. Then she looked at the nurse for some explanation as to why this girl was in the E.R. and not the maternity ward.

The nurse shrugged. “Her mother said she’d been in pain all afternoon. Thought it was an appendix. When we told her the daughter was in labor, the mother passed out in the waiting room.”

“Where’s the on-call O.B.?”

The nurse rolled her eyes. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Drugs!” The girl’s voice careened off the walls. The head gained another inch.

“She’s a screamer,” the nurse said under her breath.

The girl was probably in six degrees of shit with her parents right now and was about to have a natural childbirth, whether she wanted one or not. Madeline could see from the terrified look in her eyes that she felt alone. The last thing she needed was a snippy nurse making her feel even smaller.

“I’m right here, honey. You’re not alone,” Madeline said in her most soothing tone as she shot the nurse the look that everyone referred to as the Mitchell sneer. It came in very handy at times like this. The nurse backpedaled and shut the hell up. “You can scream if it helps, okay? But I need you to push.”

The girl nodded and sucked in a huge breath. Madeline barely had the chance to wish for earplugs before she was cradling the newborn baby boy.

Perfect, she thought as she did the quick check. Of course, they’d run tests on him—it sounded like he’d gotten no prenatal care—but he was perfect. The girl, who was now sobbing, had needed Madeline right then more than anyone else in the world, and she’d been there for her.

This is what she lived for.

In the middle of the adrenaline rush, a tinge of sadness snuck up on her. She’d never see either of them again, never know if they turned out all right and lived happily ever after. She was leaving. The weight of her decision hit her in the sternum.