Cowgirl, Unexpectedly. Vicki Tharp

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      “There’s a handheld radio in my saddlebag,” Jenna said to Santos as she pulled herself together. Dink lay still in her arms, panting fast and heavy, thick ropes of saliva trailing down Jenna’s arm. Her eyes drifted to her rifle a few feet away in the sand and the air caught in her lungs.

      I knew what she was contemplating.

      “It’s bad,” I said, stating the obvious. “He’s in a lot of pain and he’s lost a lot of blood. I’ve seen worse. Much worse. We’re going to get him home and he’s going to have a long recovery, but he’s strong. He’ll be okay.”

      Jenna’s eyes held mine. She nodded once, needing to believe.

      I glanced over at Santos, who’d managed to gather all three horses. Luckily, there was a nice patch of tall grass, not twenty yards from where we were, that had captured the horses’ attention. He rummaged in one of the packs for the radio.

      “Right,” I said to no one in particular. I stood slowly, stiffness already setting in from the ride and my unscheduled dismount.

      We had to stabilize the bone and stop the bleeding. I’ve had more experience with field dressing wounds than I cared to remember. I walked around searching for sticks I could use for a brace. As mangled as the leg was, it would be important to support the leg from front to back as well as side-to-side to prevent as much pain as possible when we moved him, and to protect the delicate tissue from the cutting forces of the jagged bone.

      A few minutes later, I had the sticks gathered but I still needed something to bind them to the leg. I was wearing a sports bra, so I didn’t hesitate to strip off my T-shirt and use my four-inch fixed blade boot knife to cut the material into strips.

      “This is going to hurt,” I warned Jenna and Dink.

      Jenna nodded, her face pale but determined. Dink eyed me through half-slitted lids, his lips drawn back into a submissive grimace.

      “Santos, come hold his leg,” I ordered.

      He slid to the ground beside me and gently held Dink’s leg on either side of the break. The radio hissed beside him, the volume turned up full bore.

      “Were you able to get hold of anybody?” Jenna asked. Her eyes were dry now, but there were dirt streaks on her face where her tears had fallen.

      “Not yet.” He used his thumb to hold the strip of the T-shirt in place while I wrapped it around the leg, being careful not to get it too tight and cause more swelling. “When we’re done here, I’ll ride to the ridge and see if I can get a better signal.”

      * * * *

      We were halfway back to the ranch house by my estimation when Dale’s dilapidated farm truck lurched over the rise, belching black exhaust from a broken tailpipe. Moments later, Sierra’s ears perked up and she called out, shaking me in the saddle like a flesh and bone earthquake. Hoof beats sounded on the distance, then Hank and his horse popped out of a wash about a hundred yards from our position. Jenna sank into her saddle as if all the steel in her spine melted at the sight of help arriving.

      Santos and I dismounted and he pitched his horse’s reins to me and lifted Dink from the front of Jenna’s saddle. Dale alighted from the truck and Hank stepped out of his stirrups before his horse had completely stopped. I held out my hand to take Hank’s reins, but though his nostrils flared and his ribs heaved with every breath, his horse dropped his head and cocked a hind leg as if his rider had arrived at the saloon after a month-long cattle drive.

      Hank slid Jenna from the saddle, wrapped her in his arms, and held her to his chest. “You all right?”

      I looked away, feeling inexplicably as if I was witnessing something private. I turned my attention to Santos and Dale as they settled Dink onto the threadbare fabric of the truck’s front bench seat. The remnants of adrenaline popping through me made my veins itch and my stomach collapse on itself.

      The situation was surreal.

      On the one hand, I fought the urge to check the tightness of the chinstrap on my combat helmet. On the other hand, it was freeing to watch the evacuation of the wounded and not worry if the vehicle will make it back without running into an IED or the business end of an RPG.

      I stood there unseeing, lost in my thoughts, and unaware of my surroundings. Sierra nudged my back as if telling me to get on with it. Nothing rude, just a gentle reminder there were things she’d rather do than stand in the middle of a dirt road all day. It hadn’t even registered that Santos had retrieved his horse from me until the truck and Santos’s horse disappeared over the hill.

      Past its zenith, the sun was warm on the side of my face. Then it dove behind a gray cloud dousing the heat like carbon dioxide on a gas fire. I glanced up into Hank’s arctic-blue eyes and caught his assessing gaze.

      “Cold?” he asked with a nod toward my exposed midriff.

      I’d completely forgotten my state of undress. Not that I was embarrassed. Except for the size of my goose bumps, Hank didn’t seem the least bit interested in my present condition. After all, we were both adults, and the average bikini top showed more skin than my sports bra.

      “I’m fine.” My answer was as automatic as an enlistee’s quick salute and had nothing to do with a thorough assessment of my body’s current temperature.

      Silently, he unbuttoned his shirt, hooked it on one finger by the collar, and held it out to me. I accepted his offer and slipped my right arm through the sleeve. I came up short as I reached back for the other armhole. Pain radiated down to my hip and up across my left shoulder and I sucked in a choppy breath.

      “What’s wrong?” Hank grabbed the free end of his shirt to assess the damage hidden beneath.

      I stood stock-still and closed my eyes, awaiting the inevitable questions about the tangled web of pink scar tissue surrounding the divot in my shoulder where the bullet had ripped and chewed its way through me. A stab of heat burned my skin as his laser focus touched it. To my surprise, he didn’t comment. Then his fingers brushed against my side.

      “Ouch!” I yelped and jerked away, raising my left arm slowly to examine my side. There was an angry black bruise at the bottom of my ribcage about the size of my fist where I must have landed on a rock. A long, wide strawberry radiated down my side and dipped beneath the band of my jeans like the tail of a comet. Serum had oozed from the edges of the shredded skin, gluing dust to my side like a dirt bandage.

      “Jesus, Parish.”

      “Could be worse,” I commented.

      Hank repositioned the armhole for easy entry and I slipped my arm in as he gently lifted the fabric over my shoulders. A light breeze billowed the tail of the shirt behind me and I caught the scent of him on the fabric—a potent mix of clean sweat and ground-in dirt. It reminded me of desert sand and a hundred and twenty degrees in the shade half a world away.

      I buttoned up the shirt, the fabric a little stiff with dried sweat at the shoulders, but the heat his body had left behind warmed me.

      I turned back to my horse and mounted up. Hank was already in the saddle with a lead rope attached to Jenna’s horse. Jenna’s horse rubbed her face on Hank’s horse’s rump then gave it a light nip. Hank’s horse didn’t move, but it flipped an ear backward with an expression I could only describe as a sneer.

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