Narrow Escape

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-seven

It was late afternoon before they made it to Stephenville and found Doctor Summers' office. They all said a silent prayer of thanks when they found the doctor in his office and not out on some house call. Hart carried Charlotte into the office having taken her from Lane when they arrived.

Hadley, Belle and Eleanor followed them into the examining room.

"My wife's been hurt in a fall," Lane told her doctor as they put Charlotte on the examining table. "Since we found her she's not moved or said anything."

"How long," the doctor asked as he unwrapped the blanket she was in. He first looked at her head wounds.

"We found her after sunup in a ravine," Lane answered. "I'm not sure how long she'd been there or how long she's been unconscious."

"I want all of you out of here, except the two ladies I'll need their help if their not the squeamish kind of women."

Hart tugged on Lane's arm and they left to go to the front room to wait.

"I'll see to the horses and getting some rooms," Hadley told the two men

Hart nodded to him and looked around the room they were in. On a small stove he found a pot of coffee and poured Lane a cup and stuck it in his friend's hand. "Charlotte will attest this is the hardest part," Hart told him. "She didn't care much for waiting around to find out how you were going to be anymore than you care for the wait either."

"As soon as I know she's going to be all right we're going after Stewart," Lane told him. Lane took a drink from the cup in his hand noticing how it was shaking. "I'm going to see the bastard hang for what he's done to her and killing his foreman."

"Why don't you stay here with Charlotte and let me and the others go on and arrest him?" Hart asked. "Charlotte's going to need you."

"No I want to be the one. I want to see his face when I put the handcuffs on him and cart him back to MineralCity to face a trial. I want to see him locked up in my jail and the wait until he's hung. Killing him out right would be to easy on him."

* * *

"How did she come to fall in this ravine," the doctor asked the two women as he started cutting away Charlotte's clothes.

"A Charles Stewart and his men took Charlotte from MineralCity against her will. One of his men tried to help her escape last night and her horse was shot out from under her and the man was shot and killed. Best we figured out in her haste to getaway from Stewart Charlotte ran off the cliff in the dark," Belle told him. "Her husband is Lane Preston the sheriff of MineralCity. They've been married only a short time. Charlotte came here from England."

"I see," he said as he concentrated in cutting away her clothes. He was working in the leather riding skirt.

* * *

Hadley returned after getting everyone settled at the hotel and brought back a bottle of whiskey with him that he poured a generous amount of into Lane's cup. "Drink this," he told his nephew. "Have you heard anything yet?"

"No we haven't," Hart answered him as he poured some of the whiskey in a cup for himself. "He's probably looking her over real good she's got a lot of bruises on all over her from the fall."