“Here you go,” Jesse said, and I was mighty glad to have my mind turned away from the track it’d been following.
She held up a shirt that was dark with dried blood.
“Nope,” she said, and dropped it. “Ripped too bad.”
Continuing with her search, she picked up quite a few more shirts, one at a time, groaning some with the pain and effort. They all looked quite bloody. A couple had rents in the back. None had any bullet holes at all. One didn’t even have a tear in the fabric.
The shirts showed how Whittle must’ve murdered the posse. He’d killed the men with his knives. Likely dispatched them one at a time in the cave’s darkness, and hauled them outside afterward.
While I pondered over that, it came to me that few of the dresses or petticoats or other female garments were soiled with blood. Whittle must’ve stripped the gals naked before laying into them. That came as no great surprise, actually.
I could wear a dress and stay shut of strangers’ blood if I didn’t mind looking like a girl. But the notion didn’t thrill me much.
“That’ll be fine,” I said when Jesse picked up still another shirt.
“It’s awful bloody.”
“They all are.”
She held it up toward the light of a torch. “Well, least this one ain’t torn.”
“He must’ve slit that poor bloke’s throat.”
A corner of her mouth turned up. “Same as I done him.”
She helped me into that shirt. While it was still open, she ran her hands all over my chest and belly and sides. The caresses felt just splendid. Too soon, she quit and pulled the shirt together and buttoned it all the way up.
“We’d best get moving,” she said.
She took a few steps backward, watching me as I had a go at walking. Then she fetched the torch that she’d used during her earlier venture outside. With the torch raised high, she led us to the front of the chamber.
There, I took a quick look back at the array of horrors. At the carved bodies. At the scalps and such on pikes. At Whittle, sprawled out dead. Finally, at what was left of Sarah. I hated to leave her in such a place. There was no way to take her with us, though.
One thing I’ve learned, the dead don’t need help. They call for some grieving and often need vengeance, but not much else. It’s those still alive who matter.
And so I turned away and followed Jesse toward the outside.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
The Downward Trail
The coyotes scampered off, silent and eerie, when we came out into the moonlight. Jesse tossed the torch aside. It fell near a headless body, casting light on the ghastly work done by Whittle and the other beasts.
We staggered on, and reached the tethered horse. Jesse patted his neck and spoke gently to him.
Was this Matthew Forrest’s horse, Saber? Quite likely.
I recalled the morning, so quiet, so lovely with fallen snow, when Sarah and I had entered the stable and discovered that Saber had gone missing. And how we had plotted together to deceive her grandfather. It seemed so long ago. It seemed almost as though a different fellow, not myself at all, had been the one to conspire with her.
Yet this must be Saber. Here, standing before me.
Quite suddenly, the many miles and months between that morning near Coney Island and this night somewhere in the Arizona Territory shrank down to nothing. It had been me, not a different fellow at all. It might’ve been yesterday when Sarah and I gazed into the empty stable stall.
Everything felt like yesterday. Standing there among the carnage while Jesse swung the saddle bags onto Saber’s back, I quite fell apart. I bawled like a child. For Sarah. For McSween. For all of those who’d crossed my path and died. Even for strangers butchered by Whittle, as every victim this side of the Atlantic had died on my account. Maybe I cried for some I’d killed my own self, though certainly not for him.
Jesse took me into her arms. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”
“It’s awful,” I blubbered. “So many. So many dead.”
“I know.”
She held me for a long while. At last, her embrace and caresses soothed me down. She brushed the tears from my cheeks. She kissed me. “You ready to go?”
I nodded.
She led Saber through the savaged remains of man and horse. At the boulder where we’d set our ambush, she tied our rifles together. She slung them over Saber, just in front of the saddle, then looped the straps of two canteens and the water bag over the saddle horn.
Holding the reins with one hand, she climbed atop the boulder. She lifted her long skirt, bunching it up so high I glimpsed the bandage around her thigh, then stepped into a stirrup and swung her wounded leg over the saddle.
I climbed the boulder. As Jesse snuggled the horse in close, I heaved a leg over his back and rather leaped with my other. Risky work, having no use of my arms. But Jesse stopped me when I started to fall off the other side. Her arm struck where I was gunshot on the left, and I yelped. But at least she saved me from a nasty tumble. I squirmed about until Saber was square between my legs.
“You okay?” Jesse asked.
“I’ve been better, actually.”
“Same goes here. You ain’t gonna fall off, now, are you?”
“Hope not.”
“You can’t hold on at all?”
“Not with my arms.”
She started Saber walking. Instead of heading away, though, she turned him around. Steered him into the midst of the bodies. There, she dismounted. She limped over to a dead horse, fetched a coil of rope off its saddle, and came back. She made a loop at one end of the rope, swung it about a few times, and lassoed me. Stepping up close, she raised the loop beneath my arms, then slipped it tight around my chest.
At the boulder again, she hoisted her skirt and climbed aboard the saddle. She wrapped the rope around herself. When she finished, we were bound together, only enough slack between us so I wasn’t quite mashed against her back.
“That oughta hold you,” she said.
“It’ll be a spot awkward if we need to climb down.”
“I don’t aim to take us nowhere the horse can’t carry us,” Jesse said. “We just gotta find where the posse came in.”
She set Saber to moving at a slow walk. By and by, we found a gap that was wide enough for us. In we went, leaving behind the cave, the ghastly clearing, Sarah and Whittle and all the other dead.
It was mighty good to be going away from such things.
I figured we were lucky to get out alive.
And lucky to have a horse. Not that the bouncing about felt good. It shook me up considerable, and never gave me a rest from the pain. But this sure beat walking. No telling how we might’ve faired afoot. Not well, likely. But if we rode on steady and didn’t get ourselves lost in the maze, we ought to be down off the mountain before sunup. From the trail at the base of Dogtooth, we’d be less than two days from Tombstone. We’d likely get there sometime tomorrow night.
I judged we could both last that long. Then we’d find ourselves a doctor and get patched up proper, and have no more business but to rest and recover.
The trick was to stay aboard Saber.
On a level trail, that wouldn’t have been much of a problem. But our course through the rocks was rough. We not only had to wind this way and that and sometimes back out of dead ends, but every so often Saber had to charge up a steep place.
The first time that happened, it took me and Jesse by surprise. I yelped and pitched backward. I tried to reach for her, but my dang arms wouldn’t move fast enough. The rope jerked taut, pretty near tearing Jesse out of the saddle. She cried out with pain, but clutched the pommel in time to stop us both from smashing to the ground.
At the top of the grade, she reined in Saber. Then she hunched over. I put my face against her back, and felt how she was twitching.
“This won’t do,” I told her.
She didn’t answer.
“You�
�d best let me down. I’m fit enough to walk.”
She sniffed. “You stay where you’re at,” she said, her voice tight and shaky. “We’ll get by.”
“That must’ve hurt you terribly.”
“I ain’t gonna have you walking.” Slowly, she unhunched herself and sat up straight. “Next time, I’ll give you a warning. Just lean up against me tight as you can.”
So that’s how we played it. Enough moonlight made its way down through the narrow walls of rock for her to see ahead of us. Usually. And usually, she gasped out “Lean!” just before Saber lunged up a slope or leaped across a gully. We’d both duck forward and come through it fine. Sometimes, though, he surprised us.
No less than eight more times, on our way across that damn valley, Saber took unexpected jumps or clambered up night-shrouded slants in such a way that I was thrown backward against the rope. Each time, my fall was stopped by Jesse. It’s a pure wonder that she was able to hold on, again and again, as the rope tugged so savagely at her chest. But hold on she did.
She rarely cried out, though the pain must’ve been terrible.
By the time we finally came out of the valley and halted before starting our descent down the mountain, my back was so abraded by the rope that it burned near as bad as my bullet holes. I felt blood sliding down beneath my shirt. Jesse’s chest, I knew, could be in no better shape than my back.
I leaned forward against her. She was bent over the pommel, shuddering and sobbing.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasped, weeping myself for her torment and bravery.
I longed to wrap my arms around her.
And did so, though the pain almost drove me senseless.
My hands met warm, slick blood.
“Oh, Jesse,” I murmured.
She sat up a bit. Her trembling hands found mine and pressed them to her. She sniffled. After a while, she lifted my hands. She crossed them at the wrists, then eased them inside the open front of her dress and held them to her breasts. I pushed my face against the side of her neck. Later, I kissed her there.
We stayed that way for a long while, Saber shuffling beneath us but going nowhere. Off in the east, the horizon was going pale with the approach of daylight.
Jesse finally sat up straight and took a deep breath. “Reckon your hands ain’t useless, after all.”
I realized that I was caressing her with them. “They’re all right for this, anyhow,” I said.
“Lord, that was a hellish ride.”
“You were bully.”
“I sorta kept a lookout for General. Maybe we’ll find him down below.”
“Maybe.” I couldn’t bring myself to care a whole lot, one way or the other.
“Least we didn’t run into no rattlers,” she said.
“Matters were dicey enough without them.”
“Well, we’re likely past the worst of it. Downhill won’t be a problem.”
“Before tomorrow morning, we ought to be in Tombstone.”
“Not if we sit up here all day.” She let go of my hands. They fell. I gasped and flinched. She caught them by the wrists. “I’m sorry. Lord.”
I hissed through my teeth for a spell. Then said, “Quite all right.”
Jesse gently lifted them, reached around, and eased them down on my lap.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Take it slow and easy.”
She clucked her tongue and Saber started down the steep, narrow trail. It was easy going. All we had to do was lean back some and keep our balance, and Saber took care of the rest.
As we descended the mountainside, the sun came up, spreading its rosy glow across the desert. A glorious thing to see. And wonderful to feel its warmth after the rather chilly night.
The morning was lovely, and ever so quiet and peaceful. There seemed to be no other sounds than Saber’s hoofs thudding on the trail, some birds calling out, bugs buzzing and chittering. Every so often, I heard the quiet chh-chh, chh-chh-chh of rattlers. Though they unsettled me some, they sounded far off, and I didn’t let them ruin how good I felt to be riding down that trail with Jesse in front of me, her hair all agleam in the sunlight.
Sore and stiff as I was, I did feel good. It was the fresh, new morning. It was being with Jesse. It was knowing that my hunt for Whittle was over.
Jack the Ripper would never harm another poor soul.
Jesse and I had the world before us, all splendid and bright. After Tombstone, after recovering, we would be free to go on about our lives together. Of course, I would ask for her hand in marriage. More than likely, she’d accept. Maybe she’d even stoop to wearing a gown for the wedding, and I wouldn’t need to get shot again before seeing her in another dress.
We weren’t a great distance from the foot of the mountain, and I was busy entertaining myself with thoughts of having Jesse for my wife, when Saber bellowed out a frightful scream and reared up. I flew back till the rope stopped me. Jesse cried out. Though jerked so roughly I feared her spine might snap, she stayed in the saddle. I hung from her as Saber scurried backward on his hind legs, staggered and stepped off the trail. Squealing, forelegs kicking at the sky, he dropped into space.
“No!” Jesse yelled.
She leaped sideways, hurling us both off Saber’s back, no doubt hoping we might land on the trail.
But we fell short. The slope struck us. Down it we tumbled. It was frightfully steep. It flipped us this way and that, all the while drubbing us with its rocky wall. Tethered together, we crashed against each other as we rolled. My weight pounded Jesse against the mountain. The back of her head clubbed my brow and cheeks and nose. Over and over we went.
As we plummeted, I somehow hugged her to me and clung to her with what little strength I possessed in my feeble arms.
On we tumbled, skidding and rolling, battered by rocks, torn now and again by brambles as we crashed through them, only to be gouged and hammered by more rocks.
Then we went off a ledge.
I was on top of Jesse as we plunged straight down. I twisted myself about in hopes of turning us over so that I might be first to crash against whatever might wait for us below. But I failed. All too soon, we slammed the earth, Jesse’s body saving me from the brunt of the impact. My face hit the back of her head. Darkness swallowed me.
When I regained my senses, I found myself sprawled on Jesse’s back. I raised my throbbing head. A mat of her hair lifted with it, glued by blood to my face. It peeled away as I looked about.
We had come to rest at the foot of the mountain. Saber lay nearby, dead, a buzzard plunging its beak into his vitals.
Was Jesse also dead?
I spoke her name, my voice dry and rough. She didn’t respond.
My arms were trapped beneath her, one hand flat against her belly, the other higher. With it, I felt the rope that bound us together. And her skin. Her skin was sticky with blood. I lay very still, all my thoughts on that hand, hoping to detect the throb of Jesse’s heartbeat.
I felt nothing.
Perhaps my hand was too low, too far from her heart. Or perhaps it was so ruined by my many injuries as to be rendered incapable of finding so small a throb.
I tried to move my hand higher. All I gained for the effort was a burst of pain from my gunshot and battered shoulder.
“Jesse!” I gasped. “Jesse, wake up! Please!”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t stir at all.
“You’re not dead!” I blurted. “You’re not!”
At that, I quite lost my wits. I bucked and thrashed until my arms came out from under her, and kept at it. Finally, I managed to turn myself over. I lay there, gasping and whimpering, the sunlight blazing in my eyes, my back to Jesse’s back.
I sat up, straining against the rope. Jesse came up with me. Lunging forward, I got to my knees. Then to my feet, quickly ducking low and bouncing till I jarred Jesse higher on my back.
I commenced to walk. Stagger, actually.
A few steps toward Saber. I needed a canteen. The buzzard flapp
ed off. But I turned away. How could I fetch a canteen? How, with arms all but useless? How, with Jesse hung on my back?
So I stumbled past Saber, and found the trail.
The trail would lead us…where? Somewhere. Away. Where we could rest and get better.
On and on, I trudged.
Jesse’s head wobbled against the side of my neck. Her arms hung behind mine, and all four swayed like the limbs of a lifeless beast. Her legs swayed, too. I couldn’t see them, but often felt the heels of her boots bump against the backs of my legs.
I liked the feel of that.
The bump of her boots. As if she was alive and giving me playful kicks.
On and on, we made our way together down the trail.
Now and then, I fell to my knees. But I always made it back onto my feet again, and struggled onward.
Near sundown, we came upon a covered wagon stopped by the side of the trail.
I couldn’t make it that far.
My face met the dust.
Sprawled out under Jesse, my mind half gone with weariness and agony and grief, I tried to call out for help.
When I opened my eyes, I was seated, propped up against a wagon wheel. Jesse was stretched out on the ground, just beyond my feet.
Her face was bloody, her dress a tattered ruin. It was primly spread over her legs and its front was buttoned shut, but her poor skin showed through a score of rents. Her hands were folded together atop her chest.
The wagon wheel shook against my back as someone jumped down out of the rear.
A big old man, white-bearded, his head crowned by a bowler hat with white feathers rising from both sides like jackrabbit ears. Fringe trembled all around his shirt and knee-high moccasins as he bustled toward Jesse, a bottle of red fluid in his right hand.
I knew him.
“Dr. Jethro Lazarus, at your service. We meet again, Trevor my lad!”
Savage Page 45