Open Country Read Free Page B

the rear platform, and other men were pawing through the wreckage of the baggage car, looking for survivors. Once she made certain the children were unharmed, Molly settled them at a safe distance from the wreckage, then went back to help where she could.
    Most of the injuries were relatively minor—bruises, scrapes, a few broken bones and cuts from flying glass. But three people were missing, and it took an hour for the men digging through the rubble to find them. Both the conductor and a brakeman were dead. The third man was barely alive. The bearded man.
    An hour later, after loading the dead, the injured, and the rest of the passengers into the less damaged of the two passengers cars, the train continued on, finally limping into El Paso several hours later.
    Luckily, word of the catastrophe had already reached town, and a railroad representative named Harkness, the local physician—a gaunt man with a dark patch over one eye—and several townspeople led by a Reverend Beckworth and his wife, Effie, were waiting at the depot to meet them. While the Beckworths herded the battered passengers to their nearby church, and the undertaker carted off the dead men, the physician, Dr. Murray, had the injured man carried directly to his infirmary on Front Street.
    “Not that I can do him any good,” Molly overheard him say to the nervous railroad representative. “Poor bastard will probably be dead by nightfall.”
    “Christ.” Harkness wiped a handkerchief over his sweating brow as he studied a column of figures in a small tablet. “This will cost the railroad a goddamn fortune. Two already dead, and another on the way. That’s three hundred each in death payments to their families. And I haven’t even added up the cost of repairs or what we’ll have to settle on the injured. Christ.”
    After assuring the Beckworths he would come to the church as soon as he had finished with the bearded man at the infirmary, Dr. Murray hurried down the street, leaving Harkness muttering and scratching numbers into his book.
    Molly and the children followed the other passengers to the church. Again, she helped where she could. As she stitched and bandaged, Harkness’s words kept circling in her mind. Three hundred. Not much for a life, but enough for a new start. A widow could live a long time on three hundred dollars.
    As soon as the doctor came into the church, Molly settled the children in the rectory under Effie Beckworth’s watchful eye, and ducked out the back door.
    An idea had come to her—a despicable idea—but she was desperate. And if she had to do something despicable to keep the children safe, she gladly would.
    Unless she was too late and the bearded man was already dead.
    She found Dr. Murray’s infirmary easily enough. After slipping through the side door, she paused in the shadowed hallway, listening. Outside, the chaos continued—dogs barking, men shouting, the clang of the fire bell. But inside, all was quiet. She started down the hall, checking doors as she went.
    The doctor’s living quarters were on one side of the house while the infirmary rooms opened along a long hall heading toward the back. Praying Dr. Murray would remain at the church awhile longer, Molly moved silently toward the medical rooms in the rear.
    The familiar odors of unguents and balms and chemical solutions wafted over her, pulling her backward in time. For a moment she thought she heard Papa’s voice reassuring a patient then realized it was a groan coming from one of the two rooms at the end of the hall. The door on the right was closed. The one on the left stood open.
    She peered inside.
    It was deserted and dark, the single window shaded by a thin curtain. A desk faced the door. Two chairs stood before it, their slatted backs at rigid attention as if braced for bad news. Against one wall stood an examination table partially hidden by a privacy screen; against the other, an overflowing bookcase.
    Not the room she sought.
    She moved to the