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surprisingly shaky, “Now your sock.”
    It might’ve been called growling, but Tucker just nodded around the low sound he was making as Shannon eased the sock off his poor foot. An ugly-looking bruise showed right above where his ankle joined to the foot.
    “It’s got to be broken, but it looks straight. I’d say it’s a simple fracture. If I can splint it, and you can keep your weight off it for a while, it’ll heal all right.” Saying it out loud helped her somehow.
    “How am I supposed to keep my weight off it when I need to hike out of this cave and walk across a mountain all the way back to Aspen Ridge?”
    A good question.
    “One thing at a time,” she replied. “That log over there, the one jammed into the cave opening, has some branches on it. I’ll see about using them to splint your leg. The tricky part will be getting to the branches without falling back in the river. Once your leg’s rigid, that should lessen the pain. And once I’m done with that, I can go explore. No sense worrying about hiking until we find out if there’s a trail to hike on. We may find ourselves back in that awful river before the day is out.”
    Shannon stood and found herself yanked right back to her knees. Tucker had a firm grip on her wrist and a grim expression on his face.
    “What’s the matter?” she asked.
    “Shannon, we can’t go back in the water.”
    “We may have to.”
    His grip wasn’t as tight, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he seemed to caress her arm, ran his thumb over her pulse. “The tail end of this river is the nastiest stretch of water known to mankind. I’ve never heard of a man coming through it alive.”
    “N-never?” She swallowed hard. Tucker had lived out here all his life and knew this land as well as anyone, except maybe Sunrise and the other Shoshone.
    “Never. Mountain men talk and they like to boast. The ones who’ve died didn’t go in on purpose. They all fell in by accident.”
    Or were thrown in by a blamed fool woman, Shannon thought.
    “If someone had made it, I’d have heard. And I’ve seen animals float through those rapids. They fell in somewhere upstream and then got killed coming through.”
    Shannon glanced at the log, then cleared her throat. “Well, I guess we’re going to do some exploring then.”
    Now she had a new worry—hanging on. She inched out on the log to reach for the nearest branches, terrified of falling into the river.
    As if she didn’t have enough to worry about already!

4
    I f you were wearing a skirt like a proper woman, you could tear strips off your pretty, lacy petticoat to bind up my leg.”
    “If I was wearing a skirt, I’d have drowned at the first falls.”
    “That’s true.” Tucker hated handing over his pack, but it was that or his shirt or pants, and he wasn’t giving her either of them. But they really might miss that pack later.
    “I’ve saved enough of the pack it can still carry things.” She gritted her teeth as she knotted the last strip of leather around the sticks she’d cut off the tree trunk.
    “You’ve really trained with a doctor, haven’t you?”
    “Yep.”
    Tucker studied his injured leg. “You did a good job. Thank you. Now let’s see about hiking out of here.” Tucker had to keep talking or he’d faint from the pain, although maybe fainting would have been better. He wouldn’t have minded sleeping through having his broken leg boundup. He wasn’t sure how he was going to climb around inside the cave and find a way out. But he’d figure a way somehow. He hadn’t survived in the mountains all his life by being a man who gave up easy.
    “You just stay put,” Shannon said. “I’m going to scout around a little.”
    “You sure as certain are not.”
    “I’m not going far, Tucker. I’m not even going far enough to leave your sight. The back of this cave looks like a tunnel that stretches into the mountain. If it does, I’ll come back and we’ll figure a way for you to come at least to the