He didn’t want to share his fears with her, but Doc was thinking of this rogue sheriff.Loot or no loot, he had a feeling their chances of survival were shrinking.
In spite of her fever, the deep-brown eyes were earnest and the gaze steady.“I trust you, Dr.Burnett.”
He nodded.“Is the fortune nearby?Is it hidden somewhere around this camp?Could they drag you around the camp until you showed them where?”
“I haven’t a dollar to my name.There’s no money or gold left.”
He stared at her, not believing what she said.But why should she trust him?“I understand your hesitation, even though you say you trust me.”
“I mean what I say.There is no fortune.”
Again, she knocked the wind out of him.Questions arose in his mind, but he silenced them.Lucas cried out in pain, and Mrs.Fields’s face turned to the door.
“Whether there is or there isn’t, these men believe you have that fortune.They want it, and I think they’ll do anything to get it.”
Certainly, murder was not beyond them.
“I’m asking because if they think they can beat the truth out of Lucas…or you…we’re in deep—perhaps fatal—trouble.However, if they think the money is somewhere distant and they need you to take them there, then we can use that for leverage and force them to keep you both alive.”
Dodger’s voice lifted above the others outside.“Like I told you, he don’t know nothing.It’s the mother we gotta squeeze.”
Lucas’s pained response was muffled, but Doc could hear the note of impassioned pleading.
He had to hurry.Half-baked plans formed in his head.
“Do you understand?If you physically cannot answer their questions, and your survival is questionable, then they need to keep Lucas alive.”
She closed her eyes and then shook her head.“But for how long?”
“I don’t know.All I’m trying to do right now is to buy us some time.”He lifted the bottle to her lips again.“Drink this.”
“It doesn’t make me sleep.I just drift in a dream somewhere.But over these past few days, I still heard most of what you and my son said to each other.”
“Then pretend.Play possum.You have all the symptoms of a dying woman.”As she should, he thought, keeping this to himself.“Giving them any information won’t save our skins.Yours, mine, or your son’s.”
Footsteps were approaching the door.
“Do as I say,” he urged her.“Trust me, and we may be able to save your son’s life.”
For one fleeting moment, he thought of the trust he had failed to earn from his own daughter since his wife died.Then he pushed the thought aside.This was not the hour for regret.It was the hour to keep someone’s child alive.
The woman nodded, and she drank what was left of the sedative.He pocketed the empty bottle.
“Now close your eyes,” he ordered.
Mrs.Fields did as she was told, and barely a second later, men barged into the shack.
“See here, Sheriff,” Doc said sharply as he stood to face the man.“I have a wounded woman here.”
Horner ignored him and looked past him to Mrs.Fields, lying on the cot.Behind him, Dodger and another man dragged Lucas in and dumped him unceremoniously at Doc’s feet.Two other ruffians that he recognized as the sheriff’s deputies crowded in as well.
“I’m telling you I won’t have you and your men parading through,” he said, stepping between Horner and Mrs.Fields.
Horner looked at him, spat on the floor, and cleaned some tobacco juice off his drooping mustache with the back of his hand.
He turned to his men.“You and you, go bring the horses up and bed ’em down in that there corral.”As the two men went out, he gestured to the one who’d helped bring Lucas in.“You get out there and keep watch.And drag that carcass off somewheres.I don’t want to be tripping over him.”
That left only Horner and Dodger in the shack.
