Tattler's Branch by Jan Watson Read Free Book Online Page A

waited.
    “You may, Timmy, but don’t forget to put the cloth back over the cage when you finish. Tweety was already covered for the night.”
    Timmy sauntered through the office, his sharp brown eyes taking everything in. “You need to take your hat off,” he said to the man.
    “Timothy,” Lilly warned.
    “But my teacher says a gentleman don’t wear a hat indoors. He’s being disrespectful.”
    Pain flashed across the man’s face when he raised his arm and removed the brown felt fedora. His hair uncoiled like a snake, spilling a long blond braid halfway down his back.
    “Wow,” Timmy said. “I never seen a man with braids before. Are you an Indian? But no, then you wouldn’t have yellow hair, would you?”
    Lilly could almost see the gears turning in Timmy’s brain. Maybe the boy would elicit some history from the stranger.
    “I know! I know!” He waved his arm as if he were the onlystudent in school who had the correct answer. “You’re like that girl that was kidnapped by the Indians   —Daniel Boone’s daughter.” A satisfied look played across Timmy’s freckled face. “Do you live in a tepee?”
    “Timmy,” Lilly said, “Daniel Boone was a long time ago. Now either go play with Tweety or go find your mother.”
    “Sorry,” the boy said. “I was curious is all. Can I give Tweety a bedtime snack?”
    With a flip of her wrist, Lilly waved Timmy away.
    The boy hopped on one foot down the hallway that led to the waiting room. “I’m a champion at hopscotch.”
    “Lie back,” Lilly said as she prepared to examine the stranger’s gaping wounds. “I want to see how deep these are.”
    “I think I stuck my gut,” the man said.
    “More likely your liver. How did this happen?”
    The man’s hands tightened on the edges of the table as Lilly probed the first puncture. “Cleaning a fish   —” he grunted in pain   —“and knife slipped.”
    “Twice?”
    “I’m clumsy. Sue me.”
    Lilly ignored his condescending manner. Pain brought out the worst in people. “Your wounds are clean   —no sign of infection. Your ribs probably deflected the blows. Have you had any trouble breathing?”
    “No   —just weak as a sore-eyed cat.” He let out a small groan. “Can you sew me up?”
    “These need to heal from the inside out,” Lilly said while packing sterile gauze soaked in hydrate of chloral into thesites. “We’ll need to change this twice a day for a week or so. Come by during office hours and one of the nurses will take care of it.”
    “I ain’t likely to get the gangrene, then?”
    “No, I wouldn’t think so.”
    The hard lines of the man’s face clinched as he sat up and slid off the end of the table. “What do I owe you?”
    “You can pay when your plan of care is complete.”
    He straightened his shirt and flung a gold piece onto the desktop. “I thank you kindly, ma’am.” With that he was out the door.
    Lilly watched his fading back. She wondered about his story and about what brought him to this particular place. Was he a stranger just passing through or a transient looking for a few days’ work in the coal mines around Skip Rock? In any case, she would bet he wouldn’t return for wound care.
    She put a vial of laudanum in her bag, switched off the light, stepped out the door, and turned the key in the lock. It was getting late. She’d have to wait until morning to check on the baby. Armina needed her attention now.
    As she walked toward home, her mind whirled with thoughts of the day, especially the stranger. Lilly did not for one minute believe his story. Most likely he’d been in a bar brawl   —fighting over a card game gone wrong or over a woman done wrong. Why wait so long for treatment, though? The wounds were not fresh. And why the stealth? Unless he’d killed someone   —and she thought she wouldhave heard if that were so. Gossip and rumors swirled around the coal camp like dead leaves in a dust devil.
    Besides that, Chanis Clay, the sheriff,