The Daughter by C.B. Cooper (best value ebook reader .txt) 📕

was furious that I did that to you, so I had no choice but to shut her up for awhile."
"What?" he asked, his eyebrows knitting, "Is she alright?"
"Oh, yes. She's fine. I tucked her into one of the far corners of her mind, and gave her a sedative of her own. She's been sleeping this whole time."
Sam frowned, "When will she wake up?"
Angel's eyes turned as dark as her troubled expression, "That’s the problem. I've never encountered this before. The bodies are always vacant when I take them over. But I've been thinking about how to go about this. You see, normally once I've done my job, the body must die in order to release me."
"What!" Sam cried, his panic rising to the surface. "You cant die."
Angel grabbed his arm, squeezing hard, "That is why you have to save me. Save her."
Angel's urgent words snapped him back into the present. Spinning towards the Medicine man who was still struggling with Buffalo Hump's men, he grabbed his knife on instinct.
With his Bowie in hand, he ran across the room, taking the medicine man by surprise when he grabbed him by the throat with his free hand, running with him backwards, until he rammed into the wall, his head bouncing off of the wood.
Raising the knife in the air, Sharp screamed, "Aaahhh!" as he brought the huge knife down, stabbing the wood next to the frightened Indian's head, burying a good three inches of the blade into the solid wall beside his ear.
Sam snarled over his shoulder, "You tell him that if he doesn’t save her her, I'll cut his fucking heart out." He turned back and screamed in the man's face, "You tell him that if she dies, he dies!"
Buffalo Hump spoke rapidly in Comanche, the medicine man listening to his warning. When he was finished speaking, Waters That Fall spoke slowly, spitting his reply, while his eyes skittered angrily between the two.
"He said, he will help as much as he can, but he will not touch her. He will instruct you on how to save her yourself from afar. That is the best he can offer."
Sam glared into the defiant Indians eyes. Sam could tell by the look on the mans face that he wasn’t going to change his mind, "Alright, lets get started."

"Let him see the wounds." Buffalo Hump told him.
Zeb, who had taken up Sam's spot when Sam had ran across the room, moved the rags, revealing the gunshot wounds, then moved out of the way.
"Now, roll her over, let him see the back."
After Sam had showed him her back, the Indian grunted, then spoke.
Buffalo Hump translated, "He said, you must remove the bullets."
The medicine man spoke rapidly again, then started walking away.
"Where in the hell is he going?" Sam demanded.
"He must get some necessary items."
Sam watched the Indian, escorted by Buffalo Humps braves, walk towards the doors.
"Tell him that if he doesn’t come back, I'll hunt him down and kill him."
The Indian raised his arm, "Aeeh." he said, making a swatting motion.
Sam looked back at Buffalo Hump, who just shrugged, "He knew what you said. He will be back."
Sam grabbed his small, razor sharp boning knife, and after dumping whiskey over the blade, he held it over the shoulder wound taking a deep breath.
"You can do it, Son." Zeb urged quietly. "Jest keep yer hands steady."
Sam frowned at the knife shaking in his hand.
"Here," Buffalo Hump grunted, handing him the bottle of whiskey. "Take a drink of that. It will help."
Sam looked from the bottle to Angel, "Go ahead," she sighed weakly, "It cant hurt."
Reluctantly, he grabbed the bottle and took a long swig, feeling it burn all the way down. As an after thought, he took another, and then another, before he handed the bottle back.
Taking a deep breath, he steadied his hand, which was a lot easier to do now that the warmth of the alcohol was spreading through his veins.
He had positioned the tip of the knife at the opening of the wound, when Angel cried out, "Wait!" scaring the bejeezes out of him.
"What!" he cried back, startled.
"Get me something to bite down on." She shrugged, "It's the body's natural reaction to grit it's teeth. I don’t want her teeth to break— or her jaw."
Sam frowned at the image he had of her teeth shattering, or hearing her jaw break while he was trying to dig the bullet out, "Zeb, find her something."
The old man looked around, spying the cards scattered on the floor. Bending down, he scooped up a big pile and arranged then neatly before handing them to her.
Angel frowned, but bit down on the stack anyways. Once she had a firm bite, she nodded for Sam to start.
He slowly worked his knife into the hole, feeling the bullet hit the tip, he began to work his way around it.
Angel's body stiffened, but she didn’t make a sound. It took him a good five minutes before he picked it out and plinked it into a glass nearby.
On the table, the cards fell from Angel's lips, a huge bite taken out of them. Turning her head to the side, she spit the rest of the deck out onto the table.
"Jesus Christ!" Zeb exclaimed."Would ya git a load a that!"
Sam ignored him, stuffing one of the rags over the hole. It was bleeding worse now, the blood running down her side and pooling on the table.
Just then, Waters That Fall returned.
He spoke to Buffalo Hump for a moment, then handed Sam what he had collected. As Sam took it, he noticed that the Indians hands were covered in drying blood.
Holding the stuff in his hand, he examined it. It appeared to be a strip of white pliable material, and as soon as he tested its strength, he knew exactly what it was— it was a piece of tendon.
"Clean that with the whiskey, then cut it in half and stick part of it in the hole you just pulled the bullet from."
Sam did as he was told.
"Now, use your knife to push it in as far as you can."
Glancing across the table, he told Zeb, "Find her something else to bite down on."
Zeb looked all around from where he was, then grabbed a nearby chair and broke one of rungs free from its back, handing it to her.
While Zeb was doing that, Sam cleaned and cut the piece of tendon that he held in his hand, wondering where the medicine man had gotten it. It's not like there was a bunch of animals roaming around at this time of night, so how did he get a piece of fresh tendon? Then, feeling a little ill, he remembered all of the dead men laying right across the street.
As soon as she was ready, he pushed the piece of tendon as far as he could into the hole. He could hear the squeak of her teeth biting through the wood as he worked, but she held her body rigid. When he had finished, he noticed that she had broken into a sweat, persperation beading up on her forehead, and dampening the hair aroud her face.
"Take this and pour it into the hole."
Sam turned and caught the leather pouch that Buffalo Hump threw at him.
Undoing the leather string at the top he stared at the contents.
"Pack the wound well, then light it."
Sticking his nose to the bag, he sniffed, frowning. Gun Powder.
"It will stop the bleeding and keep it from getting infected."
Shit, he thought as he poured the fine black grains into the hole in the front of her shoulder. He wasn’t looking forward to doing this. He couldn’t imagine how much pain this was going to cause her.
Angel reached up re-adjusted the wooden rung in her mouth. The bite marks she had already left were deep.
Taking a deep breath, he lit the wooden match and touched it to the packing.
There was a small pop as the powder ignited, followed by Angel's muffled scream, her eyes bulging as she bit down hard on the piece of wood, snapping it completely in half.
Then her eyes drifted shut as she passed out from the pain.
"Work quickly while she's away, White Warrior. It'll be easier on both of you.
Sam gratefully took the opportunity and did as he was told, working as fast as he could. Before he knew it, both wounds had been cauterized and packed with a special poultice that, Waters That Fall, had prepared, and dressed with clean bandaging that Zeb had found upstairs in one of the working girl's bedrooms.
Buffalo Hump stood across from him, wetting rags and patting her sweat slicked forehead. "Now, we wait."
The old Indian chief stayed with the girl as Sam And Zeb stepped outside.
The street was bathed in a orange glow from the fire across the street.
The Grand was almost totally engulfed in flames, and the buildings on either side of it, had small fires smoldering on their rooftops. It wouldn’t be long before the fire spread to include the whole block, if no one stopped it.
They each rolled a cigarette as they watched the building burn.
"Ya know what?" Zeb asked. "I'm plumb tired." he said wearily.
"Me too." Sam admitted.
They were quiet as they smoked, each thinking back on the events of the past few days.
Zeb finally broke the silence, "You reckon she's gonna make it?"
"I sure hope so."
"Wall, which ever way it turns out, ya did the best that you could."
Sam knew that the old man was just trying to make him feel better, but if she died, he'd never be able to live with himself. That thought alone brought out a powerful thirst deep inside of him, and when he went to take a drag off of his cigarette, he noticed that his hand was shaking.
"She knew that he was going to shoot her, and she didn’t do anything to stop it."
Zeb, who had taken up a seat on the bench against the wall, looked up at him, "What?"
"Up in the hallway— she knew. I seen it in her eyes just moments before he shot her."
Zeb frowned, "Why would she let him do that?"
Sharp shrugged, "I don’t really know. She just told me in there, that it has to happen like this. That she has to die in order for her to be released from the body." He looked at his friend with a deep sorrow in his eyes, "I don’t know what to think, Zeb. I thought I understood her motives in the beginning. Revenge, its not something that we're unfamiliar with… but this whole dual personality, or whatever you want to call it, I just don’t understand it. She claims that Gracie is still alive in there, locked in her mind somewhere."
Zeb nodded grimly, "You think she's insane, and that she wants to die."
"Yes. Yes I do."
"The mind is a strange and powerful thing. You could be right though. It could be that everything she's been through, might' a broke her for good. But, what if what she claims is true? You seen her back at Buffalo Humps camp. She looked like something that stepped straight out of a haunted man's nightmare."
Sam shrugged, "It could have been a trick of the light."
Zeb snorted, "You seen her, same as we all did. Her face, wasn’t her own. Crazy or not, no person has the ability to that."
Sam shook his head, it was all just to much to think about.
"Son, lets jest see