Cowboy Incognito. Alice Sharpe

glasses and a bushy white mustache. The guy instantly turned toward the woman and pushed her hard. She went down amid a clatter of trays and equipment and the man disappeared out of the room.

      Zane finally untangled himself and got out of bed. The nurse who had been knocked down struggled to sit up. He bent to help her just as an orderly arrived. “What are you doing to her?” the orderly demanded, trying to loosen Zane’s grip on the nurse’s arm.

      “Tom, don’t be silly, he’s trying to help me,” the nurse said as she finally got to her feet. She was a solidly built middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense approach. Her forehead was bleeding, but she paid it no attention. Fury raged in her eyes, but her expression changed to one of horror as she looked at Zane’s throat. “Oh my gosh,” she said. “That man was trying to choke you.” She directed her next comment to the orderly. “Don’t just stand there, Tom. Alert Security. Have them call the police.”

      The orderly took off back down the hall.

      “The man who attacked you looked like Mark Twain,” the nurse said as she blotted her forehead with a cloth. Her gaze dipped to Zane’s neck again. You’d better get back into bed.”

      Zane shook his head and wished he hadn’t when the room spun. “I think I’ll sit for a while. I’m not anxious to lie down again.”

      “The stitches on your face look red. I’m calling the doctor right now.”

      “Please, I’m fine.”

      She pushed the intercom button that hung around her neck, speaking into the unit, asking for the doctor who showed up quickly and checked Zane over. He seemed to be about Zane’s age, with fine blond hair and a boyish smile. He was the same doctor who’d checked on him earlier.

      “Y’all are having yourself a heck of a day,” the doctor said in a rich Southern drawl.

      “That’s one way of putting it.”

      “I’ll stick a bandage on those stitches, just for the night. I don’t think it needs to be redone. Open your mouth now, let’s take a peek at your throat.”

      Zane did as ordered. He’d noticed his voice was deeper than it had been and his throat felt raw. “I’ll prescribe some soothing spray,” the doctor said. “Not much else we can do unless you want us to up the pain medication for a while.”

      “No,” Zane said. “Thanks, anyway.”

      The doctor chuckled. “I took a look at all your X-rays. You have a fair number of healed breaks. Seems like you might lead quite an active life in some capacity. But you apparently mend well, so I suppose a little bitty concussion and a torn ligament or two won’t be much of an obstacle to you.”

      The doctor left soon after. The nurse had yet to go tend to her own cut and hovered close by, obviously distressed that something like this had happened on her watch.

      “I’ll get your meds,” she said at last.

      “No, thanks. I don’t want any more medicine.”

      “Did you know the man who tried to choke you?” she asked.

      He gave her a look and she shook her head. “Sorry. I’m kind of rattled. For a second I forgot about the amnesia.”

      “Don’t worry about it.”

      Detective Woods himself showed up a little later. He listened with narrowed eyes as Zane and the nurse related what they’d seen.

      “Was he apprehended?” Zane asked at last.

      “No one saw anyone who even vaguely resembled the man you two have described,” Woods said. “We’ll take a look at hospital video...” His voice trailed off as a security guard entered the room. He carried what looked like a white mop head in his hands.

      “We found this on the second floor, stuffed in a trash can,” he said, and Zane realized they were staring at a wig. “We also found one of them novelty masks, you know, the kind with the bushy eyebrows and glasses and a mustache. I put it in a paper bag for you.” He now raised the bag proudly.

      Woods snatched the bag away. “Next time just leave things where you find them and let us take care of it,” he said. “I’ll get someone to go check out that can, meanwhile, please make sure no one else touches it. And put the wig in another sack. I’ll need to print you.”

      “I guess that explains the Mark Twain vibe,” the nurse said as the guard left.

      “And how he was able to leave the hospital without being noticed,” Woods added.

      The nurse, sporting a bandage on her forehead, insisted Zane climb back into bed. He met her gaze directly. “No,” he said.

      “You’ve had a traumatic event. I know the doctor said you’ll be all right, but it’s time for another sleeping tablet and you need to be in bed to take it.”

      “No more medicine,” Zane said. He knew he was drawing a line in the sand but he’d had it.

      “Really, sir.”

      “No, listen,” Zane said. “You undoubtedly saved my life tonight. I’m very grateful to you and I promise to be a good patient starting tomorrow, but for right now, I need time to sit and digest everything that’s happened and I don’t want to be bothered by anything or anyone. I’m fine, the doctor said so. Go coddle someone who needs it, okay? Please?”

      She produced a reluctant smile. “I’ll check on you in a while.”

      He just nodded.

      Woods shook his head as the swishing door behind the nurse sent chills racing down Zane’s spine. His gaze dipped to Zane’s neck and back to his face. “How are you feeling?”

      “A little sore, a little confused, a little scared, to tell you the truth,” Zane admitted. “And mad.”

      “I’m going to arrange to have Security post someone on your door. You’ll be safe here.”

      Zane had heard that before. He gave a vague nod and waited until Woods had left the room, deep in thought but with a growing sense of conviction.

      He knew what he had to do.

      The closet Woods indicated earlier did indeed hold what was left of his clothing: two black boots, size eleven. That was it. Zane didn’t know if his other clothes had been destroyed when he fell or confiscated by the police to search for fingerprints or some indication of the man who had attacked him on the street and stolen his identity, phone, what have you. He stuck the boots on right over the socks the hospital issued. After grabbing Woods’s card and his own keys off his tray table, he opened the outside door.

      The hall was clear except for a nurse engrossed in entering data into a computer mounted against the wall. Her back was to him. As quietly as he could, he pushed his IV stand the opposite direction, ignoring stiff, aching muscles and a headache he suspected would fell an ox. He’d seen a break room on one of his loops around the hospital floor and he made for that now.

      His luck held. The room sported a table and chairs, a coffeemaker, fridge and microwave, but no people. He easily removed the IV from his arm and abandoned the stand in a corner. He found a pair of scrubs hanging on a hook and hastily put them on, adding a white lab coat that someone had left draped over the back of a chair. His keys and Woods’s card went into the pocket. The hall was still empty. He knew the elevators were right across from the nurses’ station so he used the stairwell, undoubtedly following the same path the man who had tried to choke him had taken an hour or two earlier. When he opened the door on the lobby floor, he half expected to find a security guard waiting for him, but the cavernous space was almost empty. A second later, he said good-night to the guard on duty at the exit and walked purposefully away from the hospital as though he did so every night of his life.

      Was he really leaving without telling a soul where he was going? Was this what an innocent man did after a murder attempt?

      What else