Winter Fire by Elizabeth Lowell

when provoked, she used them.
    Sarah ducked her head to hide her smile at her brother’s chagrin. Lola was as hard and blunt as a stone ax, but she wasn’t cruel. She simply had no patience for thick-skulled male foolishness.
    Nor did Sarah.
    Quickly she folded clean cloth into a pad and pressed it over the wound. When she applied more force, Case groaned. She bit her lower lip and kept on pressing down.
    After a time she cautiously lifted a corner of the cloth. Blood still flowed, but slowly.
    â€œMore,” Lola said. “Ain’t stopped yet.”
    Sarah repeated the process with a new cloth. Her teeth sank into her lower lip when he twitched and moaned.
    â€œDon’t fret,” Lola said. “He ain’t really feeling it.”
    â€œI hope you’re right.”
    â€œHell, gal, he’s an outlaw, not some fine, fainting lady.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean he can’t feel pain.”
    â€œI’ll mix the poultice” was all Lola said.
    Finally the bleeding slowed enough for Sarah to finish dressing the wound. Lola handed her a jar of strong-smelling poultice.
    Holding her breath, Sarah smeared the blend of herbs, oils, and moldy bread onto a clean bandage, placed it over both wounds, and waited while Lola did the same to the wound on the back of Case’s thigh. Quickly Sarah wrapped his leg with clean ribbons of cloth that still smelled of the sunny winter day.
    â€œThat’s it,” Lola said. “Cover him, put some warming bricks in the bed, and leave him be.”
    She was still talking when Sarah started pulling the top layer of bricks from the fire ring. They were hot. Breath hissed between her teeth as she wrapped the bricks in old flour sacks. She tucked the bricks at Case’s feet and addeda few more along his legs for good measure.
    â€œFeverish?” Lola asked.
    â€œNot yet.”
    She grunted. “It’ll come.”
    Sarah bit her lower lip, but didn’t argue. Lola’s experience with gunshot wounds was greater than her own.
    â€œWill he…make it?” Sarah asked.
    â€œHope so. Shame to waste prime males. Ain’t enough of them as it is.”
    Sarah pulled up the covers and tucked them around Case’s shoulders. Like everything else in the cabin, the bedclothes were as clean as hard work, hot water, and soap could make them.
    Lola grunted, heaved herself to her feet, and walked to the door. With each step the folds of her flour-sack skirt swung briskly over her knee-high moccasins. Her homespun blouse was the color of unbleached muslin. The headband she wore to hold back her thick gray braids was finely woven, colorful, and spun from the hair of goats she kept for their milk, meat, and silky wool.
    â€œCheck the rifles and shotguns,” Sarah said to her brother without looking away from Case. “Is there more fresh water?”
    â€œI’ll get it,” he said. Then, almost reluctantly, “What do you think? Will he be all right?”
    For an instant she closed her eyes. “I don’t know. If his wounds don’t infect…”
    â€œYou pulled Ute through.”
    â€œI was lucky. So was he.”
    â€œMaybe this one will be lucky, too.”
    â€œI hope so.”
    She stood and looked around the cabin, listing things that had to be done.
    â€œMore water from the creek,” she said, “more firewood, a place for me to sleep next to Case, Lola will probably need help with her medicinal herbs…”
    â€œI’m gone,” Conner said.
    Sarah smiled as her brother hurried out of the cabin. He was a good boy, despite a wide streak of wildness in him that kept her awake nights worrying.
    Conner needs something more to look up to than outlaws , she thought. I’ve got to find that treasure. I’ve simply got to .
    Case moaned softly and tried to sit up.
    Instantly she was on her knees beside him, holding his shoulders down.
    He swept her aside as though she was