Page 2 of Follow the Lonesome Trail
“As in Carter’s Run, yes.”
A heavyset man at the bar turned toward Hansen. “As in Carter’s Run, Carter’s Saloon, Carter’s Mercantile, Carter’s Livery, Carter’s Sawmill. We’d have a St. Carter’s Church too, only we never built it.”
“You’ve had enough for one day, Joe. Go on home.” Although the bartender didn’t raise his voice, he obviously meant this as a command, not a suggestion.
Joe grabbed the half-empty tumbler he’d been nursing and tossed the rest back quickly, as if afraid Carter might take it. “I hope your friend O’Rourke never came through here. For his sake, and yours.”
While he spoke, the door opened again, and a woman stepped in. She had straight shoulders, but her brown eyes were too large in her thin face. She wore an apron over her plain gray dress, and her head was bare, her dark hair pinned up in a high bun. She overheard Joe’s words and flicked a questioning glance at Hansen, then ignored him.
Hansen was surprised that the sight of a shaggy stranger hadn’t made her gawk the way he’d expected. What sort of a woman marched into a saloon and practically ignored a man as out of place as he must look?
Wordlessly, the woman marched straight to a gray-bearded man slumped over a table in the corner. She grabbed one of his arms and put it around her shoulders. The man’s head lolled to the side, and he opened one eye, then shut it again. The woman bent her knees, put her other arm around the man’s back, took a firm grip with both hands, and straightened. She shuffled sideways, dragging him off his chair.
Not one man there offered to help. Half of them didn’t even pay her any attention. Hansen set down his glass of what Carter passed off as beer and said, “Ma’am, would you allow me?”
“I can manage.” Her voice was mellow and pointed at the same time.
“I’m sure you can, but I’d be glad to carry your load wherever you need it carried.” Hansen wasn’t sure why he suddenly hoped so much that she’d accept his help. Something about her voice. He told himself he’d like to hear her speak again, that was all.
She pressed her lips together, about to refuse him.
Behind the bar, Carter coughed. It wasn’t a real cough, but more a dry laugh disguised as one.
The woman locked eyes with Hansen and smiled. “Thank you, kind sir.”
Hansen scooped up the old man in his arms. “After you, ma’am.”
She opened the door for him, then shut it behind them harder than necessary. “This way.” She hurried back toward the graveyard.
For a small woman, she was a fast walker. Hansen didn’t have to shorten his stride so she could keep pace. The man in his arms made a light enough burden, no heavier than a pronghorn doe, but hard and sinewy. Probably light and active by nature, not an old man wasting away. Occasionally, he would open his eyes and look blearily up at Hansen or their surroundings.
The woman led him straight to a building at the end of town, across the street from where Hansen had seen a curtain move when he arrived. Beside the front door hung a sign that read “Doctor T. J. Masterson.”
“Ma’am, wait a moment.” Hansen shifted his burden a little. “He don’t need a doctor. He’s only…” He tried hard to think of a more genteel word for ‘drunk.’
“You’re right, he doesn’t need a doctor.” She opened the door wide. “Heisthe doctor.”
“Oh.” Hansen sidled through the doorway, trying not to bump the doctor on the frame or his own hat on the top of the doorway. It felt wrong, entering a building with a woman andnot removing his hat, but his hands were too full. Odd how it hadn’t struck him as necessary to take his hat off when she showed up in the saloon. He must have been too surprised by seeing a woman there.
“This way.” She led him past a desk and a bookcase to a small room with its door open. “He’ll be all right in here.”
Once he’d laid the doctor down on the cot in the room, he swept his hat off and stepped backward to let the woman tend the nearly-unconscious man.
She drew a blue woolen blanket over him, set a bucket nearby, and then led the way back out of the room, not shutting the door. “He’ll be all right,” she repeated. “Life just hits too hard some days for him to stand up on his own.” Holding out her hand, she added, “Thank you. You’ve saved me a weary ten or fifteen minutes dragging him back here.” Her voice rose and fell with a pleasing rhythm you could almost dance to.
“You’re welcome.” He took her hand, pleased by how firmly she gripped. “My name’s Saul Hansen.”
“Yes, I thought it would be.”
He squinted at her, curious. “You sound as if you’re expecting me.”
“I am.” She withdrew her fingers from his. “I’m Julia Masterson.”
He remembered the sign outside. “The doctor’s your father, then?”
“Father-in-law.”
Hansen was surprised by the disappointment pooling inside him. “Well, you’re welcome, Mrs. Masterson. I’m glad I could help.” He stepped toward the door.
