The pain in his damaged left leg reminded him of how it had been crooked across the saddle through most of the long ride.
He dragged up his left pants leg as far as he could, to look at the wound. But he could not pull it up far enough. In fact, it was too uncomfortable to pull further, since at this point the cloth of the lower leg was tight against the swollen limb. It seemed to him, however, that the leg was more swollen than it had been twenty-four hours before, and fear of infection passed briefly through him. But at that point the pain registered on him.
He glanced at his watch. Certainly it had been over eight hours since he had gone to sleep.
He turned to his backpack, got the pouch behind his saddle that held the medicine, took out the Dilaudid, and washed it down with water from the water bag. He lay for a little while clutching the bag, occasionally drinking a little bit more from it, waiting for the Dilaudid to take effect.
Slowly, it began to work. Slowly, the pain receded somewhat. He was able to think beyond his own body and look beyond himself. The first thing to catch his attention was the fact that Wolf was not there. Also the two horses were looking at him. Sally had a literally piteous look in her eyes, and even Brute’s gaze held an unusual appeal.
He waited a little longer to get the most out of the Dilaudid. Then he got to his feet with the help of the crutch and went first to Sally, limping badly but being able to bear a little of his weight for a very short time on the hurt leg. He loosened the cinch strap that held the saddle blanket with the load above it, and the load itself fell with a thump to the ground.
Sally gave what was literally a sigh of relief. Jeebee held himself to her backbone for a few moments while he took the weight off his bad leg, then made his way around her body to within grabbing distance of Brute, who, for once, did not try to move away from him.
He had to go around Brute to get at the side where the cinch strap was fastened by the buckle. He did so, for once not thinking of Brute’s heels, and, again, Brute did not try to take advantage of this to kick him. Slowly, under the difficulty of working with one hand, Jeebee loosened Brute’s cinch strap as well and let the saddle slide off.
This much done, Jeebee went over to the little stream and sat down beside it. He unbuckled his belt, with difficulty, pulled off his pants and left boot and sock. He then immersed his left leg in the running water.
It was icy, but after the first shock it felt good on his leg. It was not as swollen from his ride as he had feared. Now he took the time to roll up his sleeve and put his hurt arm into the water, too.
He lay this way for some time. The stream here seemed clearer than the one among the willows, below, and eventually a pleasant numbness came to reinforce the effect of the Dilaudid in both limbs.
As the personal, physical side of his problems receded into the background, Jeebee’s mind began to concern itself with larger matters. He had realized on waking that he was in no shape to travel any farther—today, at least.
Not only was he not up to it, the horses were not up to it. Both of them had already lain down, a sure sign that they were at their limits. It was to be expected. Particularly after their carrying saddle and packload for so many hours. They should be given a couple of days to rest and eat, anyway. There was a fair amount of graze in this little opening among the pines, here and around the stream.
Here, he should be fairly safe. For the moment, anyway, there was no need to search further for a resting place.
There was nothing in these hills to attract raiders, and any neighbors who came to investigate the results of the raid would hardly travel any distance into the hills to see if anyone was still lurking in the vicinity. Nor was there any reason for one of those who’d recently killed and burned to stay around. So he and the horses were probably safe here for the present. He could have stumbled on worse spots.
Meanwhile, it was of vital importance that his wounds go on healing. Above all, it was important that he get physically able as soon as he could.
He lifted his left leg out of the stream and was certain that the swelling had gone down by more than a little since he had put it in. He made allowance for the fact that he was possibly letting himself be influenced too much by the fact that the skin was white and shrunken into ridges from being underwater as it had been. Still, he was sure the leg looked better.
Incredible that he could make such a ride and be so well. Perhaps the good food while he was with the wagon and the exercise of past months had not only strengthened him, but made him more fit to resist injuries than he had ever been before in his life.
How much fitter he actually was, he discovered when he put his pants back on and struggled back up on to his feet with the help of the crutch. There was more flexibility in his left leg than he thought.
He made his awkward and uncomfortable way back to the saddle he had dropped off Brute. There, he allowed himself a fair allowance of the trail mix that was all that was left in the backpack. He told himself that if he had to stay here at least another day, he would get the flour and salt out of the pack goods Sally had been carrying and make bannock. This was not quite bread, but baked on a stick slowly over the coals of a fire, it was the closest thing to bread, and it had food value. It would be some time yet before he could hope to do any hunting, even if he wanted to risk the sound of his rifle carrying perhaps to other people on the flatlands down below. The .30/06 was really too heavy for small game like squirrels and rabbits.
Once back in the rugged and wooded part of these foothills, near the real beginnings of the mountains, he should be far enough away to shoot at anything that looked eatable with some safety. At least, he would have a reasonable certainty that the shot would not be heard.
Even if it was heard, with reflecting rock surfaces all around him, a single shot would probably not pinpoint his location. In Sally’s pack there was also bacon, but he was saving that for real needs later on, when he could save the fat and use it as an extra part of his food.
As soon as he could set up a semipermanent camp in these hills he must go down and try to slaughter one of the ranch’s range cattle for beef. The carcass would probably be blamed on the raiders if he was able to go in the next week or so. Even if he could not get it within that time limit, the body would soon be attacked by Wolf, or other predators, and it would look as if these had been responsible for its death.
Meanwhile, if his leg held up to it, it would probably be a good idea to ride Brute back to a place where he could take a look, with the binoculars Merry had given him, at the ranch that had been raided. Certainly, the raiders must be gone. But it would be wise to check.
His first idea of riding Brute, however, foundered on the fact that neither Brute nor Sally would be ready to be ridden for several days at least. Jeebee considered the distance to the highest ridge behind him. It was not more than about three hundred feet; if he took it in slow stages…
He remembered a first-aid training class, which was one of the things he had managed to take when he had first begun to have the sense to accumulate the electric bike, the watch with the one-hundred-year battery, and the other items he had carried out of Michigan with him. He could not see the page that it had been on in his mind’s eye, but the orderly, academic part of his mind knew it had been on page one hundred and twenty-nine of the manual that had come with the course. It had been in the paragraph on bruises, particularly severe bruises.
Exercise, the manual had said, “is indicated as soon as the swelling is down enough and the patient feels capable of using the limb. Exercise at this point will hasten recovery, helping to pump the engorged blood out of the tissues and promote healing.”
He looked down at his leg, remembering it as it had looked when he had taken it out of the water. He had no way of telling whether the swelling was “down enough.” But certainly he was able to bend it further. It felt better—although probably that was because of the Dilaudid rather than any natural healing process. He felt a wild animal’s need to be able t
o move. If he took the trip from where he was now to the top of the ridge, in easy stages, maybe he could do it and help the leg rather than hurt it further.
However, first he needed something more solid in the way of a crutch—something better than the stick with a wad of cloth at one end. He still had the Swiss army knife, and a somewhat larger folding, lock-bladed knife for ordinary work, in a button-down sheath on his belt. He got the latter out now and proceeded to see if he could spot any dry timber close by that looked capable of giving him the material he needed.
There was nothing close. However, some of the young trees, or larger saplings—it was hard to know which to call them—might still be stout enough. A piece of one of them might bend a little, as green wood might, but still support the weight he would want to put on it as the staff of a new crutch.
He found a likely sapling about an inch in diameter and cut a piece from it. He worked away at it with his knife until he got himself a length to fit comfortably under his left armpit.
He deliberately made it a little long, figuring he could always whittle it down if necessary. He put a point on the upper end of it and found another, shorter and thicker section in which he made a hole for the pointed end of the staff, using first, the point of his knife and then the leather punch of the Swiss army knife.
He pushed the hole in the crosspiece down on the pointed end of the staff as far as he could and bound it firmly with leather thongs. Then he put the lashed end under the water of the stream and held it there until it was thoroughly soaked.
It was hard to give it time to dry, but he waited a good hour. Finally, he put the still-damp end under his armpits and began his trip.
Wolf had not shown up at all since he had awakened, for which he was grateful. He was more certain now of Wolf’s concern, if that was the right word for it, on the evidence of Wolf’s licking of his wounds. But especially since he had read the books on wolves, Jeebee was wary of what the reaction of the other’s instinctive system might be to the sight of Jeebee hobbling along in an obviously vulnerable condition. Disliking himself for doing it, but without any real hesitation, he stuck the revolver in his belt, where it would be easier to get at in his present crippled condition, and took the rifle as well as the binoculars. He was no longer sure he could bring himself to shoot at Wolf. Even months back, coming up from the root cellar, he had reversed the rifle to use its butt as a club.
But in any case, Wolf was far from being the only danger he might have to face. He felt better having the loaded weapons with him.
CHAPTER 24
But the trip turned out to be more than he had bargained for. He had counted on the leather thong holding the top of the crutch firmly in place. But it did not do so anywhere near as well as he had expected. Perhaps he should have been more patient about waiting for it to dry so that the cord could shrink itself tight in its wrapping—the way he had always understood leather did on drying out.
In any case, gradually his use worked the crosspiece more and more loose, so that it wobbled on the end of the vertical staff. His left leg, in spite of the Dilaudid, hurt and felt weak, and the heavy weight of the powerful binoculars swung back and forth with each step to bump his chest.
The latter was a minor thing, which he would have ordinarily scarcely noticed. But on top of the pain from his arm, leg, and scalp, it was an irritant. He found himself growing irrationally angry at anything and everything, and it was only by positive determination that he at last put the anger out of his mind.
He made the trek to the top of the ridge eventually, moving in small journeys, from point to point. He would pick out ahead a tree to which he could cling, and with which he could lower himself to a seated position on the ground, with his left leg out straight before him and the tree trunk also supporting his back, once he was down.
Then, after a short rest, he would pick out another tree farther on, haul himself upright with his good arm, and go forward once more.
The real problems came when he had to cross the stretch of loose shale on the slope he and the horses had walked over so gingerly on their way in.
He had picked the shortest possible crossing place. It was as far up near the top of the slope as he could go, before it became so steep he was afraid of slipping and falling. The very top of the slope rose at last into the vertical face of a small bluff.
Even where he chose to cross, it was a long stretch and he dared not sit down to rest partway over. With the crutch alone, and the loose rock under foot, he was not sure if he could get to his feet again. Also, even here, the pitch of the slope was steep enough so that if he fell, he might tumble for at least several hundred yards—for the shale spread out in a fanlike manner down the slope, until it brought up against a more level area, below.
He had known he must make this crossing. But he had not fully imagined what it would be like to go over it, crippled as he was. He rested, accordingly, for longer than usual before starting on the near side of the loose stone shards. Then he pulled himself up with the crutch and started out with determination, steadily inching his way across the open space.
He made most of the trip with his eyes on the ground, just ahead, examining the next few feet before him. It was necessary to pick a place between the loose stones to put down the tip of his staff. Also, he wanted firm, level spots on which to plant his good foot when he set it down.
Soon, again, he was enmeshed in a small world of sweating and straining, with his eyes almost hypnotized by the surface a few feet ahead, except when he raised his head to make sure of where he was going.
It was in a moment of such near ground-hypnosis that something dark became noticeable for a moment out of the corner of his right eye, upslope. For a second he ignored it. Only when he had found firm support for his crutch tip and his feet did he stop to turn his head for a better look.
Higher up, only about fifteen feet or so and under a natural outcropping of more solid rock among the shale, there was a good-sized dark hole that looked uncomfortably like the entrance to some animal’s den. It would have been hidden from his sight on the trip in by the night darkness, even if he and the horses had passed close at all.
He had swung the muzzle of his rifle instinctively to cover the entrance the minute he recognized the dark circle for what it was. There were a few seconds in which he waited tensely; then he made himself relax.
The hole was big enough to take a fairly large beast. But anything large enough to den up there should not be likely to be shy about coming out to defend its property, as close as he had now come to it. At the same time, he now knew that all wild animals followed no rule book, but reacted in individual manners. The cougar, which was the most likely animal to be in there, would hardly be present in the middle of the day, since the big cats were daytime hunters.
Nonetheless… he kept the muzzle on the rifle on the opening as he began to move again, working his way on past.
But nothing emerged from the den. He heard no stir of movement inside it. Looking at it from a little distance, he became more and more convinced that the den—if indeed it was that at all… but what else would dig a hole that size into the soft earth under the shale?—was not and probably had not been in use for some time. It might be a bear den. But if so, it was summer now, when bears were out of their dens and, like most large animals, having their time fully taken up by their search for the food they needed to live.
He was worn out and traveling on a last burst of determination when he reached the far side of the shale slope and collapsed.
But he was now at the foot of a fairly short and steady, if steep, slope with no loose rock. As soon as he could catch his breath and get a little of his strength back, he made the last leg of his journey. On the way, a thought occurred to him that he should have had earlier. It was that, of course, the den was unoccupied; otherwise the horses would have reacted when they caught the scent of its owner on the way past, coming in last night.
At the top of the ridge he flopped down on
his belly and put the powerful binoculars to his eyes. He focused on the ruins of the ranch house and its outbuildings.
It was clear that the raiders had gone; and they would have left no one behind. For one thing, there would be no reason for them to leave anyone behind, alive. For another, there was not a sign of life—even, when he swept the surrounding area with the binoculars, of any neighbor coming to investigate.
Either this ranch house was far enough removed from others that its neighbors did not know what had happened, or else these had seen the glow of the flames against the night sky, but prudently decided that they probably were not in numbers sufficient to take on a hundred or more of the horse nomads from an unfortified position. Certainly, none of them were in sight now.
Looking through the glasses, Jeebee was surprised to see how much of the ranch house still stood and how much of it and its outbuildings had survived the fire.
He had noticed before, in crossing the farmlands of northern Indiana, how often a house seemed to have been put on fire and yet the flames had died of their own accord before the building was consumed. Apparently, old and solid pieces of timber, large roof beams and such, had a fair resistance to fire.
It was not simply a matter of starting an edge of one smoldering and expecting the whole thing to continue until the whole thing burned up. Often, he had been able to see where the fire had begun on such a beam and given out. So that sections of the house often still stood, often with part or all of the roof immediately above them in place. He had sheltered in a number of such isolated ruins in his first dash out of Stoketon.
Now, as he looked down, he could see that nearly three quarters of the ranch-house roof seemed intact, although all the windows he could see through the binoculars were little more than blackened holes in the sides of a black and blistered building.
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