She finally managed to free them and herd them into their own stalls in the shed, giving each of them some oats. Feeling sorry for Jake Harkner’s buckskin, she removed the gear and saddle from it also, hanging everything over the wall of the stall. She took his rifle and shotgun and hid them behind some bales of hay in the corner, deciding that at least if Harkner came to, he wouldn’t be able to find his guns and use them on her.
Suddenly she realized that in her concern for the horses, she had left her own rifle inside the house. She quickly took down the lantern and closed the shed doors, then hurried back to the cabin to find everything the same. She went into the bedroom to check on Jake once more, only to find he had not moved. His breathing was deep and rhythmic, and she thought his forehead already felt a little cooler.
She picked up his clothes and carried them into the main room, where she took down a wooden laundry tub and set it near the fire. She threw his clothes into the tub, poured hot water over them and added some lye soap, figuring the clothes needed a good soaking. She would scrub them and hang them out in the morning. At least that would leave the man even more helpless for the time being—not only would he not have his guns, but he wouldn’t even have any clothes to put on!
Miranda stretched and arched her back in an aching weariness. There was nothing left to do now but wait for morning. She turned down the lantern. She could think of nothing more wonderful now than to sleep, but she decided not to undress. Lord knew what Jake Harkner would do if he did come around, and she had better be ready. She turned back the covers of her father’s cot and lay down, ankle-high shoes and all, then pulled the covers over her. Miranda positioned the rifle beside her in such a way that she could easily raise it and fire.
Fire? After doing what she considered a damn good job of treating a man’s bullet wound, could she turn around and shoot him if he came out of that bedroom and threatened her? Had she gone through all this and saved the man just to go and get the law tomorrow so they could come and hang him? Or had she unconsciously saved the man just so she could collect five thousand dollars for him instead of three thousand?
No, she knew without a doubt that she hadn’t been thinking about the money at all, and deep inside she knew it would be difficult for her to turn and hand Jake Harkner over to the law. With those two things ruled out, what else was she to do, let him ride off scot-free to rob and kill and rape again?
She couldn’t say why she had done what she did, why she had shot him in the first place, or why she decided to help him. Now she had no idea what she should do about Jake Harkner tomorrow. She closed her eyes and tried to make herself sleep, realizing the much-needed rest was not going to come easily. It had been a long day. It was going to be an even longer night.
Three
Miranda saw the flash of a gun. Was it the one she was holding, or someone else’s? Everyone moved slowly. A stranger turned to look at her, then reached for her. She tried to run, but her feet felt bolted to the floor. The stranger came closer. He was bleeding everywhere. He shoved a barrel out of the way to get to her, and it made a scraping sound.
It was that sound that woke her from the nightmare. She gasped and sat up, struggling to collect her thoughts as bright sunshine poured through a back window and into the main room through the bedroom doorway. The doorway! She turned to see the curtain pushed aside, and only a few feet away stood Jake Harkner, grasping the back of a chair.
Miranda grabbed up her rifle and leaped from the cot, blinking sleepy eyes in order to see better. The dream, the sound that had awakened her, the leap from her bed, had all happened in a matter of seconds. Now she knew where the sound had come from. Jake Harkner had managed to get out of bed and must have scraped the chair on the floor when he grasped it for support. Now he stood there staring at her, and she was staring back, both startled, both confused, neither saying a word. She could see Jake’s body shivering, and he was breathing deeply from pain. Blood stained the gauze she had wrapped around his middle, and with his free hand he held a towel in front of his privates.
“You’d best get back in that bed,” she told him, trying to sound authoritative.
“You!” he said in a near growl. “You’re the lady—”
“I’m the lady who shot you yesterday. And if you came here to kill me, your plan failed! My bullet nearly put an end to you before you could do the same to me.”
He looked around the room, back at her. “I don’t understand… You live here?”
“That’s right.” Miranda, most of her hair now hanging free of its once-neat bun from her tossing through a restless night’s sleep, kept the gun steady. “How did you find out? You rode out of town before you could have known.”