Eye of the Wolf
Page 18
Ulring loomed like a tree; the sky seemed full of him. The sun behind his head aureoled his hair like a tawny nimbus, his face a dark broken mask, streaked and snarling, between his raised arms. Will-Joe's left hand jerked the trigger.
The shot slammed Ulring in the chest, stopping him as if he had run into a wall. Suddenly the blue-bright sky was empty, and he was down on his back. His clutching fist came up to his chest, then twitched open and was still.
Will-Joe did not get up quickly. His muscles hardly seemed to work. He picked up his crutch. The end had split off, but the rest of it would take his weight. He maneuvered delicately to his feet. He limped to the rim of the ledge, dreading to look down.
Rainbow Girl was moving. Crawling up the rocks with a terrible inching effort, using one arm only. She stopped and looked upward. The despair in her face gave way to something else.
"Jahzini…" Her voice was very faint.
A trembling seized him. He stood quietly till it ebbed to a few rubbery tremors.
Miss Bethany came shakily up beside him. Her face was bloody and bruised, but her back was straight, her eyes clear. He wondered what kind of country it was, that New England which had produced her. Granite country, it must be. Granite people.
"I think she is all right," Miss Bethany said. "The shock… the bullet passed through her arm. And her head hit when she fell."
He started limping down the ridge.
"Will-Joe… let me help you."
"You always help." He stopped and looked up at her, and almost smiled. "I help myself now, thank you."
He moved on down the slope, tired and stumbling, catching himself somehow, going straight on down the ridge. All that he had been thinking, fragments of talk, scenes jostling against each other, memories jumbling, Dennis McAllister and Bloodgood and Ulring, even Miss Bethany—all of it was unfocusing now, letting go, blurring away as if it had never been.
Only Rainbow Girl was left. Only she was real.