Cindy Holby Read Online Free PDF

situation. “Obviously he’s hurt and needs help.” She put her tray on the bar and went for her coat.
    “It could be an Indian,” one of the miners volunteered.
    He wasn’t Indian. Leah wouldn’t dignify that statement. “He’s burning up with a fever,” she said.
    “Hope he don’t have the pox,” another miner said.
    Miners. They stuck together like glue, yet were afraid everyone was after their claims. There was nothing more to say. Leah went back out into the night and Priscilla followed with a lantern.
    “Holy Mother of God,” Priscilla exclaimed when the wind hit her. “It’s colder than a nun’s lonely bed out here.” Pris had been raised in a Catholic orphanage. She’d left it behind when she was sixteen and headed west. She knew at a young age that her personality was better suited to theatmosphere of a saloon than a convent. “Hard to believe it’s only the middle of October.”
    “I was just thinking the same thing,” Leah admitted. Dodger stood in the snow, halfway between the statue and the saloon, anxiously awaiting her return and yet not giving up on his rescue. Jake and Ward were already with the man. Ward took something from the man’s pocket and walked to a pool of light that poured from Heaven’s Gate’s window.
    Priscilla held the lantern over the man while Jake turned him onto his back. He unbuttoned the thick coat, and pushed aside another one beneath. The lamplight was not needed to see the dark frosty patch of blood that covered his shirt.
    “He’s been shot.” Jake’s diagnosis was quick, yet accurate. “We need to see if the bullet’s still inside him.”
    “You can put him in my bed,” Priscilla volunteered brightly.
    “Pris,” Leah chided.
    “Have you looked at him? He’s gorgeous.”
    Leah couldn’t admit in front of Jake that she had. Not that it meant anything. Jake was as handsome as sin if you liked the carved from stone type.
    “Pris, you are going straight to hell,” Ward said. “According to this letter I found in his pocket, this is our new pastor, Timothy Key.”
    “What a waste,” Pris sighed. She tilted her head to get a better look. “If the priests back in Boston had looked like this I might have stuck around.”
    “Maybe he’ll inspire you to repent,” Jake said as he tucked the coat back around Pastor Key. “That’s supposed to be his job after all.” Jake scooped up a handful of snow to clean his hands as he stood.
    “From the looks of him he might not live that long,” Pris said.
    “God only knows.” Ward stuck the letter inside his coat. “I guess we best take him to Leah’s place.”
    “My place?” Leah’s heart jumped in panic against her breast. The wind swirled around the statue and picked up her skirts.
    “Isn’t that where he’s supposed to live?”
    Visions of Nate when he was carried into their home, blood pouring from his chest, staining his clothes, the sheets, the mattress, and even the apron she wore filled her mind. Memories of the frustration that no matter what she did, she couldn’t stop the flow of blood. Of knowing he was dying right before her eyes. Of keeping Banks from the room so he would not be haunted with nightmares of his father’s death. The plaintive sound of Dodger howling when Nate finally gasped out his last panicked breath.
    Dodger looked at her hopefully and gave a slight wag of his tail. “Bring him on,” Leah sighed. “It’s not as if we’ve got a doctor to take care of him.”
    “Leah, are you sure you want to do this?” Jake asked.
    The plain and simple truth was, there was no place else to take him. There was no way they could take a preacher to the saloon, especially a Baptist preacher. God would surely strike them dead. The Swansons, even with all of Bettina’s posturing, were not that charitable, although she did deign to let the schoolmarm, Margy Ashburn, live with them. Jim Martin, the blacksmith, and his wife, Gretchen, were generous people, but had no room in