Whispers on the Wind Read Online Free

the
stairs. His arms ached from the weight of the woman who hadn’t
weighed that much when he’d first picked her up. Now he couldn’t
wait to put his burden down and get out of his damn heavy
coat
    Once in the room, he placed
the girl on the bed and shrugged out of the wet fur, then tossed
the long coat over a heavy chair in the corner to dry. He glanced
around the room and decided it wasn’t bad.
    It was clean. There was a
small fire in the fireplace which was the first thing that needed
adjustment He tossed several logs onto the grate and stirred the
coals until the flames were jumping over the logs.
    “That’s more like it” he
said as he stood and wiped his hands. The heat felt good on his
face. “We’ll be warm in a minute,” Carter told the unconscious
girl. The color had returned to her face, but she had one hell of a
knot on her forehead and dark circles under her eyes. He really
couldn’t say she was pretty in her abused state. Her blond hair was
tangled and dirty. He reached down and picked up a strand of hair,
noticing there was dried blood on the end.
    Carter felt the hairs on
the back on his neck stand on end. Hmm. He rubbed his chin. The
blood hadn’t come from the knot on her head, so where had it come
from? Maybe it was some sixth sense he had developed over the years
as a lawman that warned him something was wrong with this woman.
He’d bet a month’s pay she was running from something.
    The big question was,
what?
    One thing was certain: he
couldn’t get any answers until she woke up. He shrugged. Well,
there wasn’t anything else he could do for the moment, so he washed
up and changed into clean duds while he waited for the
doctor.
    Twenty minutes later, Doc
Elliot arrived. He shrugged out of his coat and grumbled, “Ain’t
fit for man or beast out there. Surprised you made it, though.” The
doctor turned and looked at Carter over his spectacles. “You don’t
look sick.”
    Carter pointed toward the
bed. “It’s the girl.” “Your wife?”
    “Nope.”
    “Hmm,” the doctor said as
he placed his bag beside the bed. “Help me get the dress off her.”
Together they removed the faded gray dress, and Carter placed it on
the other side of the chair. He noticed her drawers were not fancy
like most women’s, so she hadn’t come from wealth.
    The doctor began to examine
her. He grunted and clicked his tongue, but no intelligent words
came out of the man’s mouth.
    “Do you know her?” Carter
asked.
    “Me?” Elliot gave him a
quizzical look. “I thought she was with you.”
    “Nope. I found her upside
down in a snow bank. Figured she could be a runaway or something
and thought maybe she was from Appleton.”
    “Don’t think she’s from
here. I know most folks around here, and I haven’t seen her
before,” Doc
    Elliot said as he listened
to her chest “Her heart is strong and her lungs are clear, so
that’s a good sign. I’m a bit surprised she doesn’t have
consumption from being out in the cold.”
    “I wonder where she’s
from,” Carter said. “Maybe the mountain. There are lots of small
mining towns up there, but I’ve never heard of a woman living on
the mountain. Life’s too hard,” the doc said, and then he looked at
her hands
    “ However, appears she has done some hard work by these hands.
But no woman could hold up under mining, so I’d rule that thought
out”
    Someone knocked on the
door.
    “Come in,” Carter
called.
    Rick entered and nodded
toward the doctor. “Horses are taken care of, and I’ve ordered us
some grub. It will be ready shortly.”
    Carter made the
introductions before asking the doctor, “What do you think about
the girl?”
    Doc Elliot straightened and
stretched the kinks out of his back. “She has a concussion”—he
paused—“but other than that she appears healthy.”
    “What can we do for
her?”
    “Not a thing,” Doc Elliot
said as he placed his instruments back in his black beg. “She may
wake up tomorrow or it may