Adam, Devils on Horseback: Generations, Book 1 Read online

  That made her sad and let a bit of regret dance around on her conscience. She pushed it aside. Today she survived and tomorrow she would thrive.

  Eve huddled in the corner of the kitchen and sipped at the hot brew. She watched the laughter, the genuine affection on people’s faces and the congratulations the cousins offered Adam. The aunts and uncles were more subdued, talking in low tones to each other. A few glanced at her with concern, but no malice or accusatory frowns.

  She managed not to cling to Adam, although it was a near thing. Eve wanted to hang on to him as an anchor in the unfamiliar sea in which she swam. She wasn’t afraid, just uncertain. He was easy to spot, tall and redheaded as he was. His laugh was deep and booming as one of his cousins said something that elicited the humor.

  Eve hadn’t heard him laugh before. She’d married him and he’d never once laughed with her.

  Sadness again settled over her heart at the thought. Adam knew what he was doing when he proposed, especially considering the marriage today was his idea. She shouldn’t be feeling low because they were strangers. There was no artifice to their relationship, which was new to her.

  They would get along well enough for a time. Eve would know when that time was over and she would move on. Adam would be grateful when that happened, she was sure of it. People weren’t meant to stay their whole lives together. Circumstances and emotions got in the way of happiness, and who wanted to live like that?

  A few folks headed for the door and the thought of a wedding night flitted through Eve’s mind. She certainly knew what happened between a man and a woman. She had guarded her body and the value it held. She had protected herself for the last five years, another reason she carried a knife on her thigh.

  Curiosity and excitement pushed aside any fear she might have. Sex between a husband and wife was older than time. There was no shame to be excited about it. Eve wanted to enjoy her wedding night with her new husband. Maybe she would.

  A sound rose in the distance, one she didn’t recognize. It grew in volume until everyone in the house stopped to listen. It sounded like an animal in pain. No, not in pain, in agony.

  Mrs. Sheridan dropped her mug of coffee, the brown liquid splashing up in an arc on her yellow dress. She ran for the door, followed by Adam and his uncles. Eve remembered Mr. Sheridan had left earlier and hadn’t returned.

  Dread and fear tightened around her heart as she followed everyone out the door and toward the mill. A woman’s scream split the air. Eve ran as fast as she could, only to run into a crowd of big men packed into the mill.

  “Jake! Oh my God, Jake.” Mrs. Sheridan’s voice echoed through the building.

  The smell of blood hit Eve first.

  She moved faster, pushing people out of her way. By the time she reached the center, a full minute had passed, but it felt more like an hour.

  “Shut down the water, Rose!” Adam shouted with something like desperation in his tone. The veins stood out on his neck and arms as he pressed a large rock between the two massive grinding wheels to halt them. His uncle Zeke stood behind him, back to back, giving him his weight and strength.

  Mrs. Sheridan knelt by her prone husband. Jake’s hair and his shoulder were caught between the two enormous stone wheels. A scarlet river of blood puddled around him from the entire upper half of his body.

  The wheels were sandwiched within a circular wooden structure that was partially open. A hopper and another piece of wood lay on the floor beside him. It looked as if he’d been cleaning or doing something to the stone wheels and his shirt was pulled in between them.

  Eve wasn’t someone people would expect to have training for medical things, but she did. In one of her former selves, right before she met the Roma, she had lived and worked at a hospital, assisting the triage nurses.

  She might not be the most ideal wife for Adam, but she was going to do her best to save his father’s life.

  Chapter Six

  Adam had never known what panic felt like until now. Seeing his father trapped between the grinding wheels made him want to vomit, scream, run and howl at the heavens, all at once.

  The hopper was disconnected and the tun was unlatched and open, which meant Pa wasn’t actually grinding anything. The protective wooden piece not only channeled the ground wheat, but it kept the wheels a safe distance away from hands and injury. When the mill was running, they were dangerous to touch and hot from the grinding. For some reason Pa must’ve been in here alone, checking the stones, and unlatched the tun, exposing the dangerous spinning wheels.

  Adam managed to stop the stones temporarily, but unless the machinery was halted, he could only hold on for a short time, even with Zeke helping him stay in place.

  Rose had somehow managed to shut down the waterwheel and Ann or Mary turned off the rest of the equipment. The only sounds were his breathing, his mother’s sobbing and the steady drip of blood into the puddle beneath his father.

  Adam let go of the rock with reluctance, as though the wheels would start up on their own. Zeke patted his shoulder, but Adam shrugged it off. He wouldn’t accept any praise for what he did. If he hadn’t gallivanted off to get married, his father wouldn’t have been in the mill alone, grinding the wheat to make a deadline.

  “I’ll go find Elias.” Zeke ran from the mill, his face ashen. Adam’s cousin Elias was the town physician and the quietest of the second generation.

  Eve started barking orders, “Get towels and rags to stop the bleeding. We need to cut his hair to see how he’s trapped.” She touched his mother’s arm. “I can help him if you let me.”

  Mama nodded through her tears. She turned to Adam’s sisters. “Towels and rags. Now.”

  Ann and Mary ran from the building. Eve knelt beside his father. His face was turned toward the floor.

  “Mr. Sheridan, I’m going to cut away your hair so I can see. I know you’re in pain and we’re going to help you as fast as we can.” Her voice was low and melodic. Pa didn’t answer, but a moan sounded from deep in his throat.

  Adam wanted to move the two-thousand-pound stone off his father with his bare hands. Rage and fear kept him from turning into a howling animal.

  His uncles stood beside them. Gideon looked as though he was in as much agony as Pa.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Lee’s voice was hard as steel.

  “I do.” Eve continued examining Pa before she reached beneath her skirt and pulled a six-inch knife from somewhere under there. If Adam weren’t scared shitless that his father was dying, he would have been impressed.

  As she gently cut away Pa’s hair, locks of red floated to the floor. Soon she had cleared away the hair from where Pa was trapped. Blood coated her small hands as she examined him. Part of his shoulder and scalp were sandwiched between the massive stones. Adam didn’t want to know how much pain his father was in.

  “Can you get him free?” Gideon finally spoke, his voice rough with emotion.

  “I can get his scalp free, but it will bleed a lot. Head wounds always do. I can bind up the wounds quick and bandage him.” Eve looked up at Mama. “It’s his shoulder and arm that are the bigger problem.”

  Mama seemed to understand what Eve was saying without asking. She nodded. “We need to reverse the stones.”

  Pa made an awful noise and Adam fell to his knees beside him. Blood seeped onto his trousers, hot and sticky. His father lay in front of him, no doubt in agony, and Adam did nothing.

  “Tell me what to do, Pa.” Until this moment he’d wanted to escape, to leave the mill and find his own way in the world. The mill was for his parents, not for him. Now he could lose everything he had almost cut from his life.

  He was a fool.

  Of course Pa couldn’t answer. This was the time for Adam to make the choice. One that could kill his father or set him free.

  “It’s going to hurt him, no matter what we do.”
Adam leaned closer to his father. “Pa, we need to move the stone.”

  There was no response, not that he expected one, but he had to try. Adam got to his feet and returned to the crank. He reached for the handle. “Are you ready, Eve?”

  She positioned herself at his father’s front. “Mr. Blackwood, please sit behind him and hold him as steady as you can. When Adam moves the wheel, Mr. Sheridan won’t sit still.”

  Gideon grimaced as he knelt behind Jake. The look on his uncle’s face was pain and love, an intensity so deep Adam felt like he was intruding just seeing it. He knew they were close, best friends, although as with all men they didn’t show it often. Until it might be too late to make sure they knew how important they were to each other.

  Lee and Mama accepted the towels and rags from the girls and knelt in front of the wheel, waiting as everyone did for the stones to move. The last thing Adam wanted to do was turn the crank. His stomach did flip-flops as he took hold of the metal handle with slippery palms.

  “We’re ready.” Eve held his father’s face in her palms.

  “I’m sorry, Pa,” Adam whispered as he turned the wheel.

  A few things happened at once. The sound of bones beneath the stones echoed through the mill, along with the most gut-wrenching scream he’d ever heard.

  “Hold him!” Eve shouted.

  “There’s so much blood, Mama!” Rose cried from behind him.

  “Jake, let us help you.” Gideon’s voice was as rough as the stones that ground Adam’s father’s bones and blood into porous voids.

  “Jesus.” Lee’s voice caught on a sob.

  Adam couldn’t turn around. He could only continue to crank the wheels in reverse as slowly as possible.

  “Almost there.” Eve was the only calm person in the mill and Adam thanked God she was there. “Press the towel into his shoulder. We need to control the bleeding.”

  “Jake.” His mother cried openly, her sobs mixing with the screams bursting from his father.

  Adam’s throat closed and he held back his own tears with effort. He had to be strong for his father, his mother and his sisters—and his wife. The Sheridans taught their children to be strong and to survive, and to respect and love each other as they did.

  “He’s free.” Eve barked more orders as Adam pried his hands loose from the crank. He turned around and braced himself, but it wasn’t enough. His knees wobbled at the amount of blood on the floor, on Eve, on Gideon and Lee and Mama. Not to mention the river of crimson coming from Pa’s head and shoulder.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Wrap the rags as tight as you can, then the towels.” Eve showed them all what to do as she spoke. “We need to try to control the blood until the doctor can stitch him up.”

  Lee got to his feet, his boots sliding in Pa’s blood. “Holy Christ.”

  “We can move him into the house now.” Eve tied off the last bandage around the towel on Pa’s head. “The four of you should carry him as gently as you can. Mrs. Sheridan, please prepare a bed for him, boil water and start making more bandages from anything you’ve got.”

  Mama was visibly shaking, but she nodded. “Thank you, Eve.” She turned to her daughters. “You heard her, girls. Let’s move.” The five of them scrambled out of the mill.

  Eve braced Pa’s head while Adam, Lee and Gideon positioned themselves to lift. Adam met Eve’s gaze and tried to tell her with his eyes how grateful he was for her help. She was focused on his father, her expression grave.

  Adam held his father’s still body with shaking hands. He’d never seen Pa so still, almost lifeless. It sent a shaft of fear straight through his heart. What if he didn’t live through this? His right shoulder and head were swathed in bandages, his complexion a dull gray.

  Adam pushed aside the morbid thoughts and helped his uncles carry Pa to the house. All thoughts of a wedding night gone. His bride had to help save his father’s life and Adam had to take care of his family.

  * * * * *

  Eve worked beside the doctor who arrived at the Sheridan house. The young man wore spectacles that framed his large brown eyes. He wore a black vest, white shirt and black trousers, along with a flat-brimmed hat. He said his name was Elias Blackwood as he rolled up his sleeves, and that was the end of the small talk. She wondered which large man he was related to, but didn’t ask. There was no time for it. Adam’s father was gravely wounded and there was no time to chat about anything but how to save his life.

  “You did the right thing by binding his wounds.” The doctor readied his instruments and washed his hands in the hot water Mrs. Sheridan set down. “Have you worked with a physician previously?” he asked her.

  “I worked at a hospital in Galveston for a couple years, assisting the nurses.” Eve hadn’t spoken of the hospital since she left, the memories of her time there surging back. “I learned a lot by helping and watching.”

  “That’s good enough for me. You can assist me.” He pointed to the basin. “Wash up and we’ll get to work.”

  Eve glanced down, surprised to see the blood all over her hands and the sleeves of the pretty gingham dress. She pushed her sleeves up as well, then thoroughly washed her hands in the basin, then replaced the water with fresh from the kettle left on a rag on the side table.

  As the doctor began to unwrap the bandages on Mr. Sheridan’s head, he woke and began to thrash. Elias frowned. “I didn’t want to dose him, but given he won’t lie still if we don’t, I’ll have to.” He pointed to his battered black case on the floor. “There is laudanum in there, in a brown bottle. Put two dropperfuls in a glass of water.”

  Eve was glad he was there to guide her. The intensity of the incident in the mill had shaken her. She didn’t really know these folks, although how they acted when Jake was injured told her they loved deep and wide. The big men were crowded in the hallway with Adam’s sisters, watching as he was tended to.

  The only others in the room were Adam, who stood in the corner, his brows carved in a permanent V as worry was etched in his expression, and his mother, who sat on a chair beside the bed, her hands in her lap, tears silently rolling down her cheeks. The air was charged with emotion, fairly crackling with it.

  Eve managed to get at least half the water down Mr. Sheridan’s throat and he swallowed it. The doctor readied a needle and catgut to stitch; then he readied a second. He set the pouch of the rest of the stitching supplies beside him.

  Mr. Sheridan had quieted and the doctor started unwrapping the bandages again. His head wound bled profusely, which she knew was common for that type of injury. The doctor made neat work of stitching the tear in his scalp, using both pieces of catgut to create neat, even stitches. Eve wiped the blood away as he worked. They found a rhythm, which surprised and pleased her.

  When she’d worked at the hospital, she was more or less there to clean, and helping the nurses became a habit. They taught her without realizing it and she became who they needed her to be, which was how she always survived.

  They applied fresh bandages, supplied by the Sheridan women’s quick work, and bandaged Jake’s head. Elias met Eve’s gaze before he untied the shoulder wound.

  “Tell me what you saw of the injury.”

  Eve knew what he was asking. The possibility that Mr. Sheridan could lose his arm and part of his shoulder was real. She didn’t want that to happen and she suspected the doctor didn’t either, but they had to prepare for it.

  “He was trapped beneath the two wheels. From what I saw, his shirt had been pulled in and he couldn’t get free before he got trapped. The wheels ground his skin and bones beneath them, caught because the machinery had run into an obstacle.”

  Eve swallowed the lump in her throat, the horrific scene vivid in her mind. “We had to reverse the wheels, which probably caused more damage to his skin, but it meant there wasn’t more damage to his bones. It stopped just above where the ball
of his arm connected to the shoulder—” she gestured to her own, “—and went down as far as five inches down his arm. I think it was mostly skin and muscle, but I can’t say it didn’t crush any bones.”

  Mrs. Sheridan made a sound of distress but didn’t speak. Adam remained stoic. The doctor nodded. “Then we’d better get started.”

  The next several hours were a blur. Mr. Sheridan must have been in agony when he was beneath the wheel. The rough stone had torn a great deal of his skin away. Eve wondered who would have to clean the wheel and decided she would offer to do it so the Sheridans didn’t have to experience the accident over again.

  Elias stitched and repaired as best he could, which was pretty good in Eve’s eyes. She had seen many accident victims and shoddy doctors. He was precise and patient, never losing his concentration. Eve wiped his brow as he worked and assisted when he asked.

  “Aunt Gabby, are you all right?” he spoke to Mrs. Sheridan as he stitched the last of the wounds. There was an ugly crisscross pattern of stitches across Jake’s arm, shoulder, chest and back, where the skin was missing or damaged and had to be pulled back together.

  “As best I can be. Elias, I don’t know how to thank you.” Mrs. Sheridan dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief.

  “This young lady here deserves thanks. If she hadn’t handled that situation right, he might have bled to death before I arrived.” Elias kept his gaze on the stitching. “I want to tell you to be ready. You too, Adam. He may never have use of this arm again. There was significant damage to nerves, a few bones were damaged or chipped, and he’ll be in a lot of pain.”

  “What do we do?” Adam’s voice was low and gravelly from behind her.

  “Don’t let him give up. He may want to because it’s going to hurt like hell. Pardon my cussing, Ladies.” Elias snipped off the last of the catgut and looked up at Mrs. Sheridan and Adam. “If he loses the use of his arm, he may want to give up on everything.”