Black Hills (9781101559116)

by Thompson, Rod

  After Shank had turned in, there were no thoughts of sleep in Lainey’s mind. Who in the world could be out there trying to help her to save the L-Bar? It had to be someone she knew. His comment about her red hair proved that, but who could he be? There had been a few suitors, but none that had generated any serious thoughts. There had been one with whom she had struck up a friendship while on the stagecoach coming west, but he was a small man and certainly not the type to do battle for her. She went to sleep and dreamt of a faceless rider following her everywhere and shooting anyone who came near her.

  CHAPTER 19

  After turning the dynamite over to a stranger he hoped was trustworthy, Cormac Lynch grabbed two handfuls of mane and pointed the horses in the general direction of camp, hoping they would remember the way. Horse and Lop Ear were plodding along side by side; plodding was a good way for them to cool down.

  Horse was covered in white sweat and Cormac was having a devil of a time trying not to slide off. He figured to have a better chance of staying aboard if he got himself into Lop Ear’s saddle. Every movement shot pain through him. Somehow, he managed to get from one horse to the other, but it took a lot out of him, and there wasn’t much left in there to begin with. And whatever there was seemed to be running down his legs, soaking his socks. He was probably going to have to buy a new pair of boots. He pulled Lop Ear to a halt. If he was to have any chance, he had to stop losing so much blood. Cormac was so very tired. To just slip to the ground and rest awhile was very tempting, but if he did, he knew he would never get up.

  Getting his belt off was difficult, getting his shirt off, a nightmare. The most blood seemed to be coming from a hole in his upper chest near his shoulder and from one of the holes in his back. A bullet must have gone into the front and kept right on going out the other side. He got his belt strapped around both before tearing his shirt in half and stuffing part of it under his belt to stop the leak in his chest, with the other half, he managed to plug the exit wound in his back. Cormac was bleeding from some other places, too, but not as badly, and he couldn’t do anything about them anyway. Offering up a silent prayer, he nudged Lop Ear to resume his plodding. They had covered many miles together, the two of them . . . the two of them and Horse. Most of the miles had been with his legs wrapped around Lop Ear. The three of them had gotten to know each other well, and Lop Ear knew that Cormac was in trouble. His gait seemed to have gotten smoother.

  Then they were stopped. Slowly it registered through the fog in Cormac’s mind that they were stopped, and Lop Ear’s muscles were tensed and trembling. With much effort, Cormac pulled himself out of his stupor and looked around. There was nothing unusual that he could see. Then all hell broke loose. The wild roar of a mountain lion, attracted by the smell of blood, woke him up for real, and something hurtled at him from the side of the mountain.

  Lop Ear saved him. He bolted and Cormac lost his grip on the saddle horn. Falling backward, narrowly missed by the lion, Cormac hit the ground in a jarring, bone-shaking smash and heard himself scream from the pain. Instinct and adrenaline took over. Cormac reached for his gun as he rolled to meet the lion, but his hand came up empty. He had not hooked the thong, and had lost one of his guns when he fell. Upon hitting the ground, the lion spun and charged back at him. Cormac yanked out his belt gun and pulled the trigger . . . the hammer clicked on an empty chamber.

  The lion hit him, and together they rolled across the ground with the lion trying to shake free of the gun jammed into his throat. Cormac pulled his pa’s knife, which he always wore on his belt, and began stabbing the lion as they rolled. It appeared to have no effect. The lion’s front legs were around Cormac, his claws trying to dig at Cormac’s back.

  The mountain lion was on top of Cormac when they quit rolling. Frantically, Cormac felt for a rock to use as a club but instead found the lost gun. He prayed there was a least one load left in it and jammed it against the lion’s head and pulled the trigger. It only clicked. Cormac knew he was a goner. He had once before wished to have died, when his family had been killed; now it was going to happen.

  The shrill trumpeting of two wild horses suddenly cut through the air, and Horse’s white-blazed face dove into his limited view around the lion’s head, wild-eyed, teeth bared, and her ears flat against her head. Her mouth clamped down on the lion’s neck as she reared up on her hind legs taking the lion with her. Backing away from Cormac and shaking the lion from side to side until the skin tore, she flung the lion through the air.

  It had only touched the dirt when Lop Ear’s rear hooves kicked it once again into the air toward Horse, spinning to align her powerful back legs for the death blow. The lion was catapulted yet again into the air and hit the dirt dead and limp an instant before Lop Ear’s front hooves crushed its skull, and the two horses continued to alternate blows, until, their fury spent, they backed off trembling, shaking their heads, blowing and prancing: using up the excess adrenaline-induced energy.

  Cormac Lynch fell back and lay there, looking upward into the heavens, fighting for each breath, the panic and fear ever so slowly leaving him, and his breathing slowing to normal. He became aware of the stars, each one so bright and so close. He found himself wondering how many days’ ride away they were. The mountains of Colorado were higher than the plains of Dakota, making the stars appear closer. Becky would have loved the sight of the sky so completely filled with stars.

  Many summer nights she had drug him with her up the hill behind the house from which flowed the artesian well. There, they would lie on their backs for hours talking and pointing out shapes in the stars.

  They must be hypnotic—that same calmness and peace grew gently and softly. It was a blessing to feel the pain seep away and a great sense of comfort and contentment take its place. The feeling steadily overwhelmed and wrapped around him like the blanket his mother had made for him. He clearly remembered climbing into a chilly bed on a cold night, shivering and enjoying the pleasantness of the light but warm goose down quilt beginning to replace the coldness with warmth and contentment. Now, the feeling was so complete, Cormac doubted he could have moved a muscle should he have wanted to, which he didn’t.

  He allowed his eyes to close so as to relax and allow the feeling to roll through him. Something seemed to be materializing out of a strange and far distant brightness and floating toward him . . . somehow Cormac knew it was something good. Something he wanted to see. He waited anxiously for its approach, realizing as it neared that it was separating into three individual shapes, which were beginning to look familiar. He wanted them to come more quickly. He wanted to join with them. So this was death? It wasn’t so bad. He was ready.

  He could not remember ever feeling so completely contented and fulfilled. The closest to it that came to mind was lying in bed at night back on the farm after a long day’s work and hearing the soft breathing of Lainey sleeping on the other side of the blanket . . . Lainey! . . . Lainey! . . . My God! . . . Lainey! He had to keep moving; he couldn’t die now!

  All he had accomplished so far was to postpone the dynamiting of Sweet River Pass. That wouldn’t stop Lambert. He would just keep on trying until he was successful.

  Cormac tried to move and failed, and tried again—again he failed. He couldn’t move; nothing worked. There was just no more there. He was empty. He willed his fingers to move, but they refused. He tried to open his eyes and couldn’t. He had tried as hard as he could; he was all in. But he couldn’t quit on her. He couldn’t abandon Lainey when she needed him.

  That’s why he had come, because she needed him. Now, in order to help her, he needed her; he needed her strength. He had always had the ability to concentrate and focus when he was trying to read or study and something else was going on in the room. He needed that now more than ever before. With strong singularity of purpose, he forced himself to concentrate on a memory of her.

  With tremendous effort, he strived to block out everything but Lainey. He blocked out his panic. He blocked out his weakness. He bl
ocked out his surroundings. Lainey, with her so-bright white teeth smiling at him through the red hair hanging over her shoulder: always beautiful. Lainey Colleen Nayle at her very best, and Lainey Colleen Nayle’s best was simply incomparable.

  But that was no good. That wouldn’t do it. He needed her anger. He needed her Irish up. He needed her rage. When truly enraged, the fierceness of her fury was a hurricane out of control, and that’s exactly what he needed now.

  Again he could see her face. She was mad. She was angry. He had pushed her too far. He had teased her too much. He had laughed at her too long, and she was furious! Her face was changing, he could see the softness becoming hard and her cheeks flush. He concentrated harder, blotting out all that was not Lainey.

  Her freckles became pronounced and her ears inflamed. He could see the strength of her savagely bitter fury taking control: her lips tightened, her brow furrowed.

  The numbness locking his muscles was striving to invade and overpower his mind; he had to resist it. Focusing all the strength he could muster, he held on to the image locked in his mind and fought back the terrible numbness. Again he attempted to move, and the pain flooded through him, replacing the peace and comfort, and all three figures disappeared. It was sad to see them leave; they had been somehow familiar. Cormac was confident that he would have been able to recognize them had they only come a little closer.

  The pain was excruciating, but it was a feeling, cutting through the numbness, and he heard someone in the distance groaning.

  Lainey’s eyes were flashing their warning, her freckles standing out, her lips were moving, out of a face full of anger she was screaming at him, targeting him with her fury.

  His eyes opened into slits and his fingers trembled. The groaner turned out to be him. He had to move.... He had to get to his feet.

  She was wearing her favorite green cotton dress, her hair falling loosely around her face. She was grabbing up a pan from the cupboard, preparing to throw it at him. He could see her face twist and that eye squint, taking aim, and then she let fly. The force of the throw sent the pan flying hard and fast toward him, spinning, turning, and twisting through the air.

  Sweat beaded his forehead, his face grimaced; he gritted his teeth, and strained upward to his knees, reaching out for something—anything. He desperately needed something on which to support himself, concentrating with every bit of strength he had remaining, he remembered.

  He was ducking, but not fast enough, the pan was glancing off his head as it passed, denting itself on the stone fireplace and bouncing and clanging across the floor.

  Cormac’s hands clutched a cottonwood tree and managed to get one foot underneath him.

  “Cormac Lorton Lynch! Damn you, Cormac Lynch! You get out of this house right this instant,” Lainey was screaming at him at the top of her lungs!

  Somehow, he managed to pull himself to his feet.

  The morning sun streaming in the window was lighting up her red hair and the beauty and thrill of her anger. He remembered his laughter mocking her, enraging her anger; she was grabbing up the heavy cast-iron skillet from off the stove with both hands and running after him, chasing him furiously out of the door with it held high. If she caught him, she was goin’ to lay him out cold!

  Eyes shut, grimacing, gritting his teeth, and groaning loudly, he was swaying; his arms wrapped tightly around the tree and holding on for dear life, for Lainey’s life. He was swaying. He was swaying, but he was standing, waiting for the dizziness and nausea to pass.

  She would have used it, too, if she coulda caught him.

  Cormac realized that, in spite of it all, he was smilin’. That girl was pure somethin’, she was . . . pure somethin’. He had to keep her safe. He couldn’t let her down.

  Recognizing the rock face from which the lion had attacked, he knew his stash wasn’t far, now if he could only get there. Don’t try. . . . Do! With no strength to waste, he ignored the lost gun in favor of trying to get to his stash. Staggering and crawling, he weakly recovered his gun that had been in the lion’s mouth, and by leaning heavily on a boulder, struggled again to his feet, but he was too weak to walk, and he fell. He crawled a few feet and collapsed, only managing to get to his hands and knees and continue a few more feet before collapsing again.

  Determined, he again forced his mind to focus on Lainey. Lainey was in trouble! Lainey needed help! Lainey needed him! He had to take care of Lainey! If he collapsed, he would stay there forever. He had to continue drawing strength from Lainey . . . protect Lainey!

  First, he had to get to his emergency supplies. Unfortunately, to keep them from being found by animals, he had hidden them on a ledge five feet above the trail and covered them with rocks. Crawling, falling, and scrambling agonizingly slowly, his only strength coming from adrenaline, he got up the hill. One of the factors in choosing this location had been a water seep that kept a small natural stone basin filled. He inch-wormed over to it and stuck his face in the water. He needed rest badly, but the holes in him needed to be cleaned and plugged first.

  Cormac could just reach the sack. Dragging it to him took long; building the small fire longer. Filling the little pan with water, he placed it in the middle of the fire and, while it was heating, put coffee makin’s in the metal cup and set it beside the pan. He needed coffee almost as much as he needed sleep. The best he could tell, he had gotten some deep gouges and scratches and taken six hits, two passed through the flesh at different locations around the edges of his upper body, going in the front and out the back, or vice versa, one through the meaty portion of his right side and one solidly through his left shoulder.

  It was good that the bullets were gone, bad that they had opened another hole on the way out. One of the hits must have been a .44 caliber slug, maybe an Army Colt such as his own, that went in small but flattened out to leave an exit hole in his back feeling, to his searching fingers, to be the size of Texas, but fortunately, apparently only taking small bits of flesh with it. Most of the flesh felt like it had mushroomed out like a doughnut around the hole, leaving it available to be pushed back into its original position.

  Two bullets, however, were still inside, and Cormac had to get them out or risk lead poisoning. Luckily, they were smaller than the .44, possibly a .38 and one of the cartridge-type bullets used by the Smith & Wesson similar to his own.

  The easy wounds, such as those on his legs that bled a lot but really only grazed the surface, he washed and patched first: a three-inch shallow graze above his left ear reminding him of the earlier wound he had taken when his family was killed, another deeper groove on the right side of his neck from which he bled like a stuck pig, and three minor scratches. One of the bullets remaining inside had rotated during flight and had entered his body sideways, penetrating only about a half inch and stopping when it hit a rib, making removal relatively easy. However, the other was deep in his left shoulder and would require a more serious operation. A solemn sounding word: operation. He was going to operate on himself.

  “This is goin’ to be great fun,” Cormac said to himself as he prepared for the operation. “Real easy to get out . . . sure.”

  After pouring a hefty amount of whiskey in the coffee, he drank it first, then, after another good belt for courage, splashed some on the knife blade, and went to work. Biting on a piece of wood to keep from screaming and attracting unwanted company, he dug, passing out from the pain, reawakening to dig some more and passing out again, repeating the process over and over several times until both bullets were out. He finished up by rinsing the wounds one last time with whiskey and packing them with whiskey-soaked clean moss from the water seep as he had been told was done by Indians.

  All in all, dying would have been easier, all of these holes in him were downright incommodious, and he was not even finished. He had sterilized the large wound in his back and pushed all of the protruding flesh back inside but it had yet to be cauterized as he had seen done to a man wounded in a mining accident. Cormac had placed the blade o
f his pa’s knife in the fire, and it was heating.

  “It’s me again, God; this is the best I can do,” he said weakly, looking up into the sky. “The rest is up to you, but I’m asking you to help me help Lainey . . . please. She’s a really good person, and she’s in trouble she doesn’t deserve.”

  With that, Cormac removed the knife from the fire, clamped down his teeth on a fresh stick, hesitated, took a deep breath, and in a sudden move, slapped the side of the knife flat against the wound for the few seconds that he could take before passing out.

  Lainey Nayle had eventually fallen asleep only to be re-awakened by the sound of horses coming in on the hard-packed trail toward the cabin. At first surprised that they were being allowed to get so close, Lainey remembered that Shank had quite a few drinks before turning in, and the others, who had been out patrolling, had gotten in late.

  Lainey hurriedly put on her robe and grabbed a pistol from the shelf on the way to the door, through which she stepped quickly and then to the side into the shadows as the riders neared the porch. Shank’s voice cried out to the other hands to wake them, and Lainey could hear feet running toward the house when the horses had come to a stop.

  “Hello the house,” the rider called urgently out of the darkness. “Hello the house!”