Carbon Copy Cowboy. Margaret Daley

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      “Won’t be long now,” he promised her. “Help’s on the way.”

      While he waited, Jack brushed her hair from her face again, pressed his bandanna to the cut on her head until it stopped bleeding and made a cursory search of the car. Unfortunately, he came up empty and didn’t find so much as a piece of paper, let alone a handbag. He noted, too, that she wore no rings, despite the wedding veil. Ten minutes later, a squad car showed up, followed by the area’s lone ambulance and Doc Garth’s pearly white pickup truck, which was adorned with a long, metal ladder and a couple of wide boards sticking out over the tailgate. Using the ladder to span the ditch, they laid the boards atop it, inside the rails.

      After removing the bridal veil and tossing it into the backseat of the small car, the doc—dressed in boots, jeans, a plaid shirt and pale, straw hat—did a quick examination. Outside of the clinic, the stethoscope sticking out of his shirt pocket was often the only sign of his occupation, and many of the cattlemen in the area could attest that he was as good a cowboy as he was a doctor.

      “Scalp laceration,” he announced. “Probably a concussion. No other obvious injuries, but she’s out cold.” He waved at the police officer and female nurse who served as EMTs for the Grasslands Medical Clinic. “Let’s get her out of here.”

      While the pair worked to get the victim out of the car and onto a gurney, Jack watched from the side of the road with the fiftyish doctor and the sheriff.

      “We need a warning sign up on that hill,” Doc Garth decreed, pointing.

      “Kids hereabouts just keep stealing it,” George Cole, the Grasslands sheriff , reported laconically. A stout, balding fellow of midheight in his mid-forties, George was as laid-back as it was possible for a man in his position to be. He lifted off his tan felt hat and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his uniform shirt, saying, “But I’ll pull together some statistics and petition the county for a replacement any ol’ how.”

      “Let me know if you need help with that,” Doc said, moving aside as the gurney rolled past him. “We’ve had way too many accidents out here, including some fatalities.” He trudged off toward the ambulance in his heavy, scuffed cowboy boots.

      “I hear tell a whole family died back before my time,” George commented to no one in particular. “Well,” he went on, looking at Jack, “I reckon you better come into town and fill out a report, seeing as you’re the closest thing we got to a witness.”

      “I’ll do that straightaway, George,” Jack promised, watching the EMTs cover the blonde’s pretty face with an oxygen mask. “What do you think the deal is with that veil?” he asked.

      “Don’t know,” the sheriff replied, gingerly crossing the ladder to poke around inside the car. “We’ll ask her when she wakes up. Maybe she was running away from her wedding.”

      “Maybe so,” Jack mused, rubbing the stubble on his chin, “but if that’s true, why isn’t she wearing an engagement ring or a wedding gown instead of jeans?”

      “I got some more questions for you,” George said, backing out of the car. “Who is this gal? She’s got no ID at all unless it’s in her pockets. Hey, ya’ll,” he called out to the medical personnel, “check her pockets for a driver’s license.” He waved at the vehicle, adding, “Car’s got no tags, even. I noticed that right off.”

      Jack walked around to get a look at the back of the vehicle, which was as bare as the chief had said. “Car’s a late model, though. Can’t be many around.”

      George reached inside to turn the key in the ignition. “This baby’s brand spanking new,” he proclaimed. “Less than a hun’erd-fifty miles on the odometer.”

      “Nothing here,” Doc called just then.

      The sheriff parked his hands at his waist just above his gun belt and pushed out a sigh. “She’s a mystery, sure enough.”

      Jack turned to watch as the gurney was loaded into the back of the ambulance. Lifting off his hat, he swept his hair out of his eyes. A beautiful mystery.

      * * *

      It felt as if someone had driven a spike into her head. She couldn’t imagine that to be the case, but she couldn’t think of anything else that could hurt like this.

      A voice said, “She’s coming around.”

      Despite having been spoken in soft, well-modulated tones, the words reverberated inside her skull like tolling bells. Moaning, she clamped her hands over her ears, aware that the movement awoke aches in other parts of her body.

      “Is she all right?” asked a different voice, a masculine one that felt oddly familiar. Yet, when she tried to put a face and name together with the sound, she drew a blank.

      “Back up,” ordered a third voice, also masculine and quietly authoritative. She sensed a presence hovering over her, then a finger lifted her right eyelid, sending a shaft of pain straight through her eyeball. She clapped a hand over the eye, only to have the procedure repeated on the left side, blessedly with less pain. “She’s conscious.”

      Shuffling sounds followed. Then “Miss, I have some questions for you.” The words came out rough and gravelly.

      “Leave her alone, George,” a woman snapped.

      “I got a job to do,” the sheriff pointed out plaintively.

      Cracking her eyelids open, she let the light bathe her retinas and sighed with the lack of pain from that quarter, at least. Emboldened, she opened up all the way and stared at the four heads bending over her. Two obviously belonged to medical personnel, the woman and a prematurely graying gentleman who was even then shrugging into a lab coat. A tag sewn to the white garment identified him as “Dr. Garth.” The third face, round and balding beneath a tan cowboy hat, bore the unmistakable stamp of a cop. The last face nearly took her breath away.

      So handsome that he was almost pretty, despite the dark slash of his brows peaking out from behind unkempt chestnut hair and the shadow of a beard on his smooth jawline, he had unusual dun-colored eyes—light brown like the coat of a buckskin horse, ringed with dark lashes. Everything about him screamed Cowboy! From the style of his faded blue shirt to the battered, sweat-stained hat that he held in his wide, long-fingered hands.

      “How are you feeling?” he asked.

      She watched his dusky lips forming the words, and the sound of his voice told her that she ought to know him, but she didn’t. She didn’t know any of them. Suddenly alarmed, she jackknifed up into a sitting position.

      “Where am I?” she began, but the pain exploding inside her head stopped all but the first word. Clapping both hands over her face, she felt the bandage that covered her forehead and held back her hair. Obviously, she had been injured. Gulping back the nausea that clawed at her throat, she fixed her gaze on the doctor and rasped, “H-how many s-sutures?”

      “Ten,” he answered matter-of-factly.

      She relaxed marginally. It couldn’t be too serious, then. Ten sutures in a human seemed relatively minor, though how she knew that, she couldn’t be sure. Still, she did know it. Even as she mulled that over, the pain began to recede to bearable levels. Her eardrums still throbbed, but she no longer felt as if someone had buried an ax in her skull.

      “Now, СКАЧАТЬ