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“Shortly after you left,” Lauralee said, leaning against his hand, melting inside at his mere touch.
Then a thought came to her that made her grow cold inside. She drew his hand away and held it on her lap. “Lord, Dancing Cloud, had I not had cause to come to the hospital, I may have never known you were here,” she said, her eyes wavering into his. “You would have been here among total strangers.”
Another thought sent shivers up and down her spine. “The man who shot you,” she said, her voice drawn. “I wonder if he knows that you were brought to the hospital?”
Then she sighed when another thought came to her. “But you are protected from him,” she said. “A man of law has been placed outside your door.”
“A lawman?” Dancing Cloud said, trying to lean up on an elbow as he looked toward the door. He groaned when the pain forced him to lay flat on his back again. “He is guarding someone he surely sees as an enemy?”
“It’s not entirely that. But yes, it is mainly to protect you from those who do still hold deep feelings against those who they fought against during the war,” Lauralee said. She once again stroked his perspiration-laced brow. “But there are only a few heartless cads who would act on their resentments. You just ran into one of those men today while leaving Mattoon.”
Dancing Cloud’s jaw stiffened as he recalled having come face to face with his wartime ha-ma-ma, enemy again. It was obvious that the man’s mind was twisted and might do anything to avenge his wooden leg.
“I do know the man. My bullet wounded him during the war,” he said, giving Laur
alee a sudden look. “I am almost certain that one of his legs is gone and that a wooden one has replaced it. I could tell by the way he sat on his horse and by the way he held the leg out away from him so stiffly. This is how deep his resentment lays over having lost his leg—that he would perhaps go to any lengths to see me dead.”
“You know the man?” Lauralee gasped. “His name, Dancing Cloud. Tell me his name. I will go to the authorities so they can hunt him down and arrest him.”
“Clint McCloud,” Dancing Cloud said solemnly. “I have remembered that name with much anger in my heart since the war. I have remembered the face of the man.”
“Describe him to me,” Lauralee said anxiously. “That should help the sheriff. A posse can be sent out to look for him.”
“I am certain that many a man fits the description of my assailant,” Dancing Cloud said tersely. “I would be the only one who knows for certain that it is he. In time we shall meet face to face again. I then shall make sure he does not harm anyone else again.”
Lauralee’s heart ached to realize now just exactly what had driven the man to shoot Dancing Cloud. And if he knew that Dancing Cloud was not dead . . .
“I shan’t leave you tonight or any other night until you are safely out of this hospital and with me and the Petersons,” she blurted.
“You heard the doctor,” Dancing Cloud said, taking her hand. “You will got to the Petersons and get a full night of rest, as I shall get mine here. O-ge-ye, do not fret so over this Cherokee who allowed himself to get too careless.”
He looked slowly around the room. His gaze stopped on his clothes that were slung over a chair, as well as his saddlebags. His eyes locked on his rifle.
Then he shifted his gaze and caught sight of his sheathed knife where it lay among his moccasins and other articles of clothing on the chair.
“I see that someone brought my belongings to me,” he said, his voice revealing his fatigue. “Among them are my weapons.”
“I imagine Noah Brown found your horse and belongings,” Lauralee said softly. “Your belongings are safely with you now. I will find out where your horse is being lodged and will see that it is taken to my uncle’s stables.”
A young woman, wearing a floor-length white dress and apron, entered the room with a tray. She smiled over at Lauralee, then Dancing Cloud, as she set the tray on a table beside the bed. “Ma’am, Dr. Kemper said that you would be feeding the gentleman?” she asked as she poured a glass of water from a pitcher.
“It would be my pleasure.” Lauralee smiled down at Dancing Cloud. Then she gazed over at the nurse. “And thank you for bringing the broth for Dancing Cloud.”
She could see the nurse’s eyes waver at Lauralee’s mention of Dancing Cloud’s Cherokee name.
But Lauralee ignored this and went to the other side of the bed. She scooted a chair close and smiled another thank you to the nurse before she left.
She plumped a pillow beneath Dancing Cloud’s head in an effort to position him higher so that he would not choke on the liquids that she would feed him.
“You frightened me when you were asleep for so long,” Lauralee said, lifting the spoon of broth to his lips. “The ether. I am sure the ether was the cause. Some doctors use more than others to be assured their patients don’t awaken during surgery.”
Dancing Cloud felt the flow of the warm broth move down his throat and into his stomach and heartily welcomed it. It was not so much that he was hungry. He knew what was required to get his strength back.
Food, and exercise.
He would get out of bed as soon as his knees would hold him up. He had to be able to defend himself should the red-haired Yankee show up again.
Dancing Cloud had been alert enough after the ambush to know that Noah Brown had told the Yankee that he could not allow Dancing Cloud to die.
