“He just drank some of our water,” Katie answered, and looked back at the stranger.
“Is he dead?” Florrie asked again.
“No.” Katie moved to him, and knelt.
She was leaning away from him, sitting on the ground, rubbing her forehead, when Florrie and Gary came up behind her.
“Did you see how I got that horse, Katie?” Gary asked.
She lowered her hand, nodded, and made herself say something, although she didn’t know exactly how it came out or what she had actually said.
“How is he?” Florrie asked.
Katie shrugged. “He’s alive.”
“Well, are you going to help him?” Florrie demanded.
“Like he helped us.” Katie felt the acid on her tongue. She turned her head and spit into the dust.
“Well …,” Florrie said.
Katie twisted her head and looked up at her sister. “Can you ride back to that church?”
“Ride what?”
“His horse!” Katie practically screamed.
“That wild thing?”
“It’s not wild,” Katie said. “It just got …” She smelled the stink now, and tried to think of something else. “It … it was that … wind. You can ride.”
“You can ride, too.”
“I have to stay here. And you ride better than anyone in our family. Even Ma said so.” She closed her eyes, tried to calm herself and steady her breathing and her voice. “Florrie. It’s not that far. You could be there before sundown. I’ll stay with Gary … with him.” She nodded at the stranger. “You just bring back help.”
Florrie turned, looked at the horse, and shook her head. When she faced Katie again, she pleaded: “I can’t, Katie. Do you see those stirrups? How long they are?”
Looking at the stranger’s horse, she stared at the saddle. It was old, probably had been made especially for him. She could see the laces and knew her sister was right, but Katie couldn’t hide the desperation in her voice. “Can’t you shorten them?”
To Katie’s surprise, Florrie walked closer to the wild horse that now seemed contented and maybe even asleep. Katie frowned when Florrie’s head shook, and she turned away from her sister to look at the man, who remained unconscious.
“No,” Florrie was saying. “Even if we got the leather laces out, they wouldn’t come up short enough for my little legs. You might be able to ride her though.”
Katie let out a humorless chuckle. “You’ve seen me ride.”
“I bet he had that saddle made for him,” Gary said. “Special.”
Katie snorted. “Yeah, a hundred years ago.” She looked at her sister. “You don’t need the stirrups.”
“On a horse like that anyone does,” Florrie said. “You saw how that horse bucked. And I sure won’t try riding that monster bareback.”
“All right.” Katie made herself look at the man. “It was a stupid idea.” She wiped her face.
“Well,” Gary said.
“Well what?”
“Are you just going to sit there and watch him all day?”
Florrie added: “And hope he dies?”
Katie swore underneath her breath, and leaned closer to him. Her hand reached out, hesitated, and finally came to his shirt. She could smell his sweat, that rank odor of the unwashed. Her hand moved to his forehead, and she felt the knot on the side of his head, about the size of a pecan. His eyes fluttered, her hand shot back to her side, and she heard him mutter words that made no sense—a name she couldn’t quite catch. His head turned one way and the other, and she wondered what would happen if he woke up.
She was about to learn. His eyelids moved, and he stared at the sky briefly before finally turning toward Katie. His mouth opened, but if he was thinking about saying something, he decided to just let out a long, heavy sigh.
“I ain’t no Good Samaritan,” he said. “You’d be smart to …”
He slipped back into that void.
Katie’s shoulders sagged. She leaned back, shook her head, and found that resolve again.
“Florrie,” she said, “heat up some water in the kettle. Gary, I think we still got some of the salve Ma always liked to rub on us somewhere in that carpetbag. And, Florrie, there’s Ma’s old camisole. If you can find it … I don’t have any notion where it might be in that wagon … just tear it into strips about this wide.” She measured the distance with her hands. “We can use those for bandages.”
“He was holding his side,” Gary said, and showed her about where on his own tiny body.
“Right,” Katie said. “Busted ribs. Maybe we should wrap them up. I don’t know.” She pursed her lips. “We still have some soap somewhere, too. Put that in a bowl with the hot water.”
“You’ll have to take off his shirt to wrap his ribs,” Florrie said in utter disgust.
“Uh-huh.” Katie nodded. “Get that knife. The one that’s sharp.”
* * * * *
It wasn’t the devil kneeling over him. Of course, it wasn’t St. Peter, either. Long minutes passed before the figure came into focus, and he recognized the blond-headed girl as she placed a cool, wet rag on his forehead and dabbed away the dried blood, the filth, the grime with gentle fingers. She knew he was awake, knew he kept staring at her, but she ignored him as she pulled the rag away and wrung it out, letting the water drip back into a bowl.
He studied her hand. Sunburned. Scratches with the scabs broken. He could make out the rope burn between her thumb and forefinger. The hand returned with the same rag, wet again, and he noticed the blackened thumbnail. She’d probably lose it, but he doubted if she would care one way or the other. As her hand gently swabbed at the wounds on MacKinnon’s face, she brushed the bangs from her forehead with her other hand. Still, she did not look at MacKinnon.
He looked the other way, seeing the front wagon wheel and the legs of the mule. The other two children had to be somewhere around, but he saw no trace of them. He smelled the smoke from the fire and heard the faint crackling of burning wood. The sun he could not find, but from the color of the cloudless sky and the length of the shadows, it had to be late afternoon.
His head throbbed unabatedly while his right side tormented him only when he breathed. Every muscle in his legs ached, as did his lower back, and he knew he would not be climbing into a saddle any time soon.
With the rag going back to the bowl, MacKinnon turned his head again. Honey? He couldn’t quite piece together everything that had happened. He thought he might have been riding away. The wind had spooked his mare. And … and the smell. The stink of death. That’s what had caused Honey to buck him off. That had to be what had happened. Why else would he be here on the ground? A twinge in his ribs caused him to grimace, but the dampness and coolness of the water-soaked rag relieved him for a moment.
His eyes found the blond, but she kept refusing to acknowledge him. MacKinnon couldn’t blame her for that.
His lips parted, he swallowed with difficulty, and he made himself break the silence. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.
It took a while before she answered. MacKinnon wasn’t sure she was going to, and when she did, she still refused to make eye contact.
“It’s what people do.” She returned the rag to the bowl and then squeezed the water out of it.
Not everyone, MacKinnon thought. His ribs throbbed. After flexing the fingers of his left hand, he brought it to his chest. He felt his skin, and knew his dirty old shirt had been removed, as had his filthier muslin undershirt.
The girl spoke. “I don’t know if wrapping those ribs is the right thing to do or not. I don’t know if they’re broken or cracked or just bruised.”
He made himself smile. “I’m fairly certain they’re more than just bruised.”
Smiling would be foreign for her. He couldn’t blame her for that, either.
“I had to cut off your shirt,” she told him. “Didn’t want to pull it off over your head.”
At least she was talking, even civilly, to him. He licked his lips. She looked at him now, leaving the cloth in the bowl. She tried to think of something to say, or maybe she was waiting for him to say something. He thought of what he should say.
“Thank you.”
Her eyes rolled.
“I take it my horse took off for parts unknown.”
Her head tilted. “Gary caught him up. Her up, I mean.”
His eyebrows arched, and he looked around, trying to find the sorrel.
“On the other side of the wagon,” she said, gesturing with her head.
He couldn’t see Honey, but he didn’t think the girl would lie to him. He wet his lips again. He could use a drink of water, or, better yet, something more potent, but he couldn’t push his luck. He thought about asking her again to explain why she would bother to help him. Instead he asked: “Gary’s your …?”
“Brother,” she said. “Five years old.”
“How …?” His tongue and throat failed him.
Shaking her head and letting out a tired sigh, she turned to retrieve a canteen—his canteen, MacKinnon understood, but the water in it had come from the barrel, the property of the three siblings. He watched in silence as she unscrewed the cap. She shifted over and used her free hand to raise his head while her right hand tilted the canteen. He swallowed once, twice, then his head was being lowered and the canteen pulled away. He closed his eyes, listening to the wind, the cap being screwed tightly, and the crackling of burning wood. There were voices, too—soft, like one might hear in church.
Now he realized the blond’s eyes were burning through him, and he stared back at her. His lips moved, his tongue shrank, and he asked again: “How long have you been here?”
“A few days,” she told him.
“Your … folks?”
Her head turned north. She did not blink. Nor did she cry. But he could see her lips trembling and the worry scratched into her furrowed forehead.
“Ma died,” she said at length. She looked back down at him. “It was her lungs. She’d been sick for a long, long time.”
“And your … pa?”
Her head shook. “My father’s dead. A long, long time. The cad Ma was married to … he’s gone.”
“For help?” MacKinnon asked.
“To hell,” she said. “Or, so I hope.” She reached for the rag, picked it up, wrung it out, and dropped it back into the bowl.
“If you can stand, I’ll bring your horse over,” she told him. “There’s enough light left in the day that you can cover some ground.”
His head bobbed. Night riding certainly suited MacKinnon.
“The no-good left behind some clothes. He’s skinnier than you, but I think they’ll fit good enough.” She stood, brought her hand up to shield her eyes, and called out to her little brother.
“Gary, fetch one of your pa’s old shirts. Florrie, get his horse. He’s riding out.”
It didn’t sound to MacKinnon as though he had a choice. He tried to push himself up, but his ribs wouldn’t let him. He let out a gasp and collapsed back on the blankets underneath his old body.
“What?” she said, staring down at him with more hatred than he had ever seen in a woman’s eyes.
“Maybe …,” he said. “Maybe … in the morning.”
Chapter Fifteen
Four-Eyes Sherman’s horse dropped, and even though the old fool should have been expecting this, he barely managed to leap out of the saddle and avoid being rolled over by the dying animal.
Which, Jace Martin thought, might have been better for everyone had that happened.
After reining up, Martin twisted in the saddle. He swore, turned around, and called out to Chico Archuleta, who was riding a few yards ahead. “Hold up!” Looking back at Sherman and the gelding, Martin cursed again.
The youngster, Harry Parker, slid off his gelding, and started back toward Sherman, but stopped when Martin told him: “Don’t waste your strength, boy. Not till we make Juarez Spring.” Martin pulled off his black hat, and wiped his wet forehead and sticky hair with his dusty shirt sleeve.
Sherman had managed to sit up, and now he dipped his fingers inside his shirt pocket and slowly withdrew his spectacles. The old man’s shoulders sagged, and he dropped the eyeglasses between his legs. “Busted,” he managed to mouth, and dropped his head.
Martin returned the hat to his head, pulled on the ends of his black mustache, and looked back east. He saw no dust, but a man like Nelson Bookbinder, and especially that Mescalero scout, wouldn’t raise any dust. He glanced at the saddlebags in front of the saddle, and looked up the trail at Chico Archuleta.
“How far …?” He had to stop. Those two words had scarred his throat. He reached for the canteen, but stopped himself, stared back at the Mexican, and started to finish his question.
He didn’t have to. Chico Archuleta understood. “¿Quién sabe? Seis o siete kilometers.”
That wasn’t too far. Martin started to pull up the canteen, but stopped when he looked back at Four-Eyes Sherman and saw him drawing his revolver.
“Not the gun, you old fool!” he barked, and moved his right hand to the butt of his Schofield. “If that law dog is anywhere near here, he’ll hear the shot.”
Four-Eyes Sherman stared.
“The knife,” Martin told him. “Use your knife.”
Parker dropped the reins to his gelding and walked over to the horse. The kid’s horse dropped its head. Cakes of foamy sweat covered the gelding’s neck. The horse sure wasn’t going to wander off, and Martin wondered if Parker’s mount could even get the four or five miles to the water hole at Juarez Spring.
Four-Eyes Sherman shifted, and reached into his pants pocket. He struggled but eventually drew out a large pocket knife. It must have taken him two or three minutes to get the blade open. The man squinted as he stared at the horse just a few feet away from him. Sherman’s lips, cracked and swollen, trembled, and he looked up at Martin for help, then back to his horse, up at Harry Parker and even over at Chico Archuleta. When he looked back at Martin, he whispered: “Please.”
“He doesn’t need a knife.” Harry Parker looked from Sherman’s horse to Martin. “It’s dead.”
The old man’s shoulders sagged, and the knife slipped into the dirt.
Parker moved to Sherman and held out his hand. The kid would need to grow up fast, and figure out that helping a fool like Four-Eyes Sherman wouldn’t do him any good in the long run. A man’s first priority was his own hide. But Sherman took the kid’s proffered hand and let himself be pulled to his feet.
Sherman staggered over to his horse and started to reach for his canteen.
“Pour the whiskey out, Four-Eyes,” Jace Martin told him.
Slowly, the old-timer straightened, turned, and did his best to wet those ugly lips with his tongue.
“If you’d put water in that canteen,” Martin said, “you might not be afoot. Let’s go. We’ve burned enough daylight. See you at Juarez Spring.”
He smiled once he had turned around and kicked the buckskin into a walk. If you live getting there, he thought.
Once he reached Chico Archuleta, Martin reined in to look behind him. “Idiot,” Martin said, and swore underneath his breath.
“Ambos son tontos,” the Mexican said.
Harry Parker, green as a pea, had let Four-Eyes Sherman climb up behind him. The gelding labored, but kept plodding along.
Shaking his head, Jace Martin clucked his tongue and kicked his mount into a walk again. Chico Archuleta rode beside him. Neither said a word. It was too hot, and they were too tired to talk anymore. Neither looked behind them. It was too hot, and they were too tired to move. And the long and the short of things was simple: If Harry Parker and Four-Eyes She
rman did not make it to Juarez Spring alive, there would be more money for Martin and Archuleta.
* * * * *
You could find water in this country. If you knew where to look. Apaches knew where to look, but not Jace Martin. Well, he knew the main places, those he had been told about, those where he had slaked his own thirst, and those on the map he had bought at the trading post in Tularosa. To the north he could find the Río Hondo, and down south, the Río Felix and the Río Peñasco. They flowed, intermittently, at least, but rarely this time of year. But Jace Martin was riding in the wasteland between the Hondo and the Felix. East he knew he would find water in the Pecos and at Roswell, but the river and the town were one long, hot, dry ride from here.
He had planned it this way, though. A man didn’t make his pile without some struggles. The way Jace Martin had figured things, Charley the Trey would come after him and his compadres as soon as he could catch up horses and enough men with iron and sand. Martin would buy some more time and miles by leaving Sam MacKinnon in the mountains south of the mining town. Charley the Trey might not quit so easily, but most of the men the gambler would have rounded up in Bonito City would turn back once they realized that the thieves were striking out through the desert. And eventually Charley the Trey would figure out he was losing money chasing the thieves when he could be cheating customers at his saloon and getting most of that stolen money back.
But Nelson Bookbinder and his Apache had been in town, too—at least Sam MacKinnon had said they were there. So Bookbinder would be leading that posse.
Trying to swallow, Martin again looked at the saddlebags with the money he had stolen from Charley the Trey. He still had not found time to count it, to see how much richer he was.
Because even the best-laid plans …
Or however that saying went.
He wanted to look back, not to learn how much farther Parker and Sherman had fallen behind, but to see if the posse had come into view. Jace Martin wouldn’t do that, though. Looking behind you meant you were nervous at best, scared at worst.
Martin let out a rough laugh, which sounded more like a cough, and shook his head. But even Bookbinder would have a hard time keeping his posse together. They might give up and ride back to the shade and coolness of Bonito City. The lawman and the Apache? They wouldn’t.
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