Free Lawman in Disguise by Laurie Kingery Page B

where you want to go.”
    That was apparently enough motivation, for Thorn took hold of the cup and swallowed the rest of the liquid. The face he made afterward would have been comical if the situation wasn’t so dire.
    â€œWhew! B-bitter st-stuff...” he muttered. “R-rotgut. Haven’t you got any g-good whiskey, Lucybelle?”
    â€œAfraid not,” Daisy said, realizing that it was useless to insist this was medicine, or to try to convince him to call her by the correct name right now. Even though he seemed to be able to hear her, the meaning behind her words wasn’t really getting through the haze of the fever. “But you drank it, and that’s good. You don’t have to pay for it since you didn’t like it, Thorn,” she added, when he reached into the pocket of his trousers as if fishing for coins.
    â€œOkay...thass— that’s —mighty kind ’a you...” He frowned, clearly thinking. “It won’t get you in trouble though, will it?”
    â€œNo, of course not. Don’t worry about that.”
    â€œLemme have th’ blanket, Lucybelle...cold in here. Musta had a n-norther blow in...”
    Daisy spread the blanket around his shivering shoulders, then dipped the cloth she’d brought into the bucket of cool water and began to sponge his forehead. But he was apparently too much in the throes of his chill, for he pushed the damp cloth away.
    â€œNo-o-o, t-too cold... Why are ya tryin’ t’ freeze me, w-woman?”
    â€œThorn, we have to get the fever down—”
    But it was no use trying to reason with a man who was out of his head with delirium. When he continued to struggle against her, she sank back on her heels, afraid he would strike out at her in his confusion.
    Then she heard the pounding of footsteps outside, and a moment later Dr. Walker burst into the stall, panting, with Billy Joe close at his heels. Thank You, God.
    Both the doctor and the boy were as red-faced as Thorn. Bless their hearts, they had apparently run all the way from the other end of town.
    Dr. Walker let his bag drop into the hay with a thud and worked to catch his breath as Daisy told him how they’d found Thorn feverish, then freezing. How he’d begun talking out of his head, and that she’d given him some willow-bark tea.
    â€œGood, good,” Nolan Walker muttered in approval. He pulled Thorn’s shirt up and lifted the edge of the bandage to peer at his shoulder wound, then checked the graze on his leg. Daisy told Billy Joe to go to bed, and for once, thankfully, he did so without argument.
    â€œHis leg seems fine, but the wound in the shoulder is infected, right enough. I’d worried about that one—it’s a bad wound, and he went quite a few hours before treatment. Still, I see no sign of gangrene,” Dr. Walker said, after the barn door closed behind the boy. “So he’s got a chance...”
    â€œA chance?” Daisy repeated, full of fear at the grim look in the doctor’s eyes.
    He nodded. “It could go either way. He’s going to need a lot of nursing and prayer, but with both of those, there’s a chance that he could survive.”
    She thought then that the doctor would insist on moving Thorn out of the barn and down to his house, where he had a two-bed infirmary, but he didn’t. “First, we’ve got to get that fever down,” the doctor said.
    He administered laudanum to sedate Thorn, who was still thrashing on the cot, and at last the wounded man lay quietly, not struggling against the cool wet cloths they wiped him down with. They worked on his body section by section, keeping the rest of him covered to battle against the chill that had him shivering from head to toe. They tended him for hours, fighting against the fever, coaxing him into choking down more tea, and quietly praying together.
    At last Dr. Walker, after feeling his forehead with a practiced hand,