The Humbug Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

worked, his hands deft and sure. Blake cried out just once and almost blacked out when Hollister pulled the leg straight, but the boy never let out another sound, even while the makeshift splint was put on and tied in place. But his face was as white as plaster when Hollister finished.
    “OK?” Hollister asked, and his voice was different. Gentle. Deeper. He smiled at the boy.
    Blake beamed. He managed a grin because it was like a turning point in his relationship with the taciturn rancher. “OK,” he agreed.
    “Here.” Hollister handed his rifle to Maggie. “Wait a minute. Let me put the safety on.” He did that and handed it back. “Don’t shoot yourself in the foot,” he cautioned.
    She glared at him. “I know which end to point, thanks.”
    Tate didn’t smile, but his dark eyes twinkled. He lifted Blake very carefully, but Blake’s breath sucked in at the pain the movement caused. “This is doing it the hard way, I know,” he told Blake as he carried him to the buckskin, “but it can’t be helped. Back in the old days, the Plains Indians made a travois and pulled injured warriors back to camp on it.”
    “A…travois?”
    “That’s right.” Hollister propped Blake on the saddle while he swung into it behind him and turned him over his knees, wonderfully gentle even though Maggie could see the pain in Blake’s young face. “I’ll tell you about it on the way back,” he said, nodding to Maggie who’d managed to get the rifle back into Hollister’s saddle horn before she’d mounted the mare.
    She let Hollister take the lead, wondering at his skill as a woodsman as he led them right back up to the cabin with no fuss or side trips, talking softly to Blake the whole time, his deep voice steady and comforting. It dawned on her then that he wasn’t just making conversation. He was keeping Blake calm so that he didn’t go into shock.
    She wondered what she would have done if Tate hadn’t been around. She’d have done her best, but would it have been good enough? Just the thought of that wolf made her blood run cold. But the man she’d imagined Hollister to be would have killed the wolf without a second thought. Instead, he’d managed to run it away because he didn’t like to kill things unless he had to. Her gray eyes watched his tall form quietly, curiously, and new feelings began to bud inside her.
    “Keep him warm,” he told Maggie after they’d gotten back to the cabin and he’d put Blake carefully on the sofa. “A couple of aspirin wouldn’t come amiss until we can get him into Deer Lodge to the doctor. Keep him talking. It will help him fight off shock. I’ll take the horses home and bring the Bronco back as quick as I can. You left the keys in it, right?”
    She nodded and started to speak, but he was gone before she could get her mouth open.
    “Isn’t he something?” Blake sighed through his pain.
    “He is that,” Maggie agreed. She brushed back his dark hair. “Are you going to make it?”
    “Sure,” he said, grinning. “I’m tough.”
    “I guess you are, at that. I’ll get those aspirin.”
    By the time Hollister got back, Blake was in a little less pain, although he was still groaning a little.
    “I’ll put him on the back seat,” Hollister said, lifting Blake gently. “You’d better sit back there with him. The way the snow’s coming down, we may slide a bit getting down into the valley.”
    “I wish I could thank you enough—” she began.
    “Get the door,” he said tersely, ignoring her efforts to tell him how she felt.
    She sighed softly and did what she was told.
    All the way to Deer Lodge, holding Blake’s head in her lap, she wondered at her new acceptance of Hollister’s rough demeanor. He made her feel feminine. Watching the easy, confident way he handled the Bronco, she recalled the same ease with which he’d repaired the generator, handled the emergency of Blake’s broken leg, routed the wolf and got them down the mountain in deep snow. He