Tame a Wild Wind by Cynthia Woolf

so well.   This big appaloosa was the most stubborn horse Sam had known.   He named him Satan because it was appropriate to the horse’s nature.
    Sam thought he was finally getting him broke when the horse got a second wind and caught Sam unaware.   Sam went flying over it’s head and landed flat on his back.   He’d done it several times today, but this one was different.   There was a lot of pain in his chest.
    “Sam!”   Cassie flew to his side and knelt.   “What the hell were you doing?    You’re supposed to be the foreman, not the bronc buster.”   She ran her hands over his arms then up and down his right side.   When she started on his left, he winced and would have flinched away but it hurt too damn bad.
    “I wanted to make the deadline for the Army contract.   And we will.   Joe will have to finish with this horse.   I don’t think I’m going to be able to.   Ha ha Owww .”
    “Hush now.   No laughing or teasing or anything else.”  
    She sniffled and Sam looked over at her.   “Ah, Cassie, honey.   I didn’t mean to worry you.   I’m going to be just fine.”
    “You don’t know that.   You’ve got bruised, maybe broken ribs and who knows what kind of damage inside.   Davy” she hollered at the stable boy standing nearest.   “Go to town and get the doctor.”
    “Yes ma’am.”   The young man took off running for the barn and the fastest horse she had available, Lightning.   He was a paint and one of the first mustangs they’d captured.   His wide patches of black and white with a white head were unique and so Cassie and Michael had kept him rather than sell him to the army.
    Davy took off out of the barn at a full gallop.   Lightning could easily make it the ten miles to town in about an hour.   He should be back with Doc Wright in about three hours.   That’s a long time when you’re in pain.
    “You boys see if you can get him up and walk him back to the house.   I’ll meet you there.”
    Cassie ran to the house.   She grabbed the laudanum put several drops into a glass of water.   Sam was going to need some help until the doctor got here but she wasn’t giving him enough to do more than take the edge off.  
    She threw the tea kettle on the stove to boil.   The next dose of laudanum would be bigger and the stuff was nasty tasting and bitter.   She’d make him a cup of tea with sugar to cut the bitterness and make it more palatable.   Hopefully he’d get the whole thing in him before he passed out.   Otherwise he wasn’t going to be   asleep and out of pain for very long.
    Bridget heard what happened and was already ripping a sheet into long strips to bind Sam’s chest with.   He’d need to have those ribs immobilized as much as possible.   She was going up the stairs when the men came in with Sam.    She carried a tray with the glass of water and the bandages on it.
    “Come on, bring him up here,” Bridget said from halfway up the stairs.   “What you think you’re doing Sam?   You’re not a kid.   You shouldn’t have been on those horses.   You probably gave Cassie a heart attack.   That’s how she lost Michael you know.   He thought he had to break that horse himself.   Big black devil, he was.   A monster, like you tried to ride today or so I’m told.   He couldn’t let the professionals that Cassie made him hire do it.   Broke his damn neck getting thrown from him.”
    “I didn’t know.   I was just trying to help out so the contract would be filled on time.”
    “No.   You thought you’d have some fun just like Michael did.   That’s what all you men think about.   How much fun you can have.   You don’t think about the consequences of the fun .”
    Cassie listened to the exchange between Bridget and Sam from the top of the stairs.   One thing about Bridget…she told it like she saw it.   No beating around the bush.   As soon as she saw Bridget’s head she moved back to Sam’s room.    She’d