Her Montana Man by Cheryl St.john

Warren fully dressed as though he hadn’t been to
    bed yet.
    “Somebody shot Jonas,” Yale told them.
    “The hell. We been up and down the alley on this side,” Warren answered. “Whoever it was is long
    gone.”
    “Or back inside,” George added.
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    “Who’d want to shoot you?” Warren asked.
    “I made that Baslow fella pretty mad,” he replied.
    “I checked on him a week ago, and he was on his ranch where he’s supposed to be,” Warren said.
    “Let’s get ya to Doc’s.” Yale gestured with the rifle barrel. “Get ya stitched up.” He walked around
    Jonas, squinting in the moonlight. “Can’t see blood in the back.”
    Jonas headed east on the boardwalk. “Great.”
    A few neighbors were gathered in front of the hotel, a couple carrying lanterns and most with rifles.
    Lilibelle and the other women were gathered on the hotel porch, and Jonas recognized Bonnie Jacobson
    in her flannel nightdress and shawl, walking toward him. “Dr. McKee is waiting for you.”
    Yale accompanied Jonas to Doc’s, which was another block’s walk. As soon as the small square frame
    house came into view, Jonas’s stomach clenched. Damned if he wouldn’t have to go inside.
    “Gonna pass out on me?” Yale asked.
    Jonas straightened and drew a sustaining breath. He could do it. He could walk in there and not see the
    blood or hear the cries that were a part of his darkest memories. He wasn’t ten years old. “I’m all right.”
    Etta McKee had painted the plaster walls yellow and hung checkered curtains on every window. The
    house looked nothing like it did in Jonas’s nightmares.
    The examining room was just as he remembered. The walls were lined with wood cabinets, and glass
    jars filled with utensils sat on every surface.
    “Let’s see what we got here.” Kerwin put on his spectacles. His wiry brown hair stuck up on one side
    as though he’d just climbed out of bed. He cut off Jonas’s shirt. “Slug’s still in there.”
    Etta hurried in with a half-full bottle of whiskey and a small glass. She poured a generous amount and set
    it on the worktable with a solid thud.
    “Jonas don’t drink,” Yale told her, then picked up the glass and downed the contents.
    Jonas took a seat on a sturdy chair. “Get to it.”
    He closed his eyes and resolutely thought about those fleeting moments with Eliza Jane before bullets
    had started flying.
    Yale moved to sit in the outer room in his union suit, drinking Etta’s coffee while Jonas cursed through
    clenched teeth. Forty minutes and a couple hundred inventive swearwords later, Jonas walked out of the
    examining room with his bare shoulder bandaged and his arm in a sling. He acknowledged the doctor’s
    missus with a nod. “Pardon, ma’am.”
    She waved a hand. “I was along when Laura Brinkley gave birth to twins last week. Now that woman’s
    cursing could strip the bark from trees. You get some rest.”
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    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Everyone had gone back to his or her beds, and the dark street was quiet, save for the sound of their
    boot heels on the boardwalks. Thunder rumbled across the heavens.
    “We got here just in time,” Yale said.
    Jonas was a mite unsteady on his feet the last several yards to the hotel. Just as the first rain pelted their
    heads and shoulders, Yale supported him and helped him onto the porch.
    Eliza was perched on the stairs inside, waiting, with Lilibelle seated on a chair she’d brought from the
    dining room. “Did your boy sleep through the commotion?” Lilibelle asked.
    “I checked on him twice to be certain. Tyler can sleep through anything.”
    At the sound of boots on the porch, Eliza got up and hurried forward, while Lily took a little more time
    getting to her feet.
    Looking unusually pale, Jonas was leaning heavily on another man as the two of them lunged across