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He cantered through the long New Mexico evening in a land where a man expects guitar music and the smiles of beautiful, hot-blooded women.
They came for him in the half-light. One of them knocked him out of the saddle with a single shot, then another fired point-blank to blow his brains out.
But the light was bad. The bullet no more than ripped along the parting in his hair, creasing his skull. The devil, as the saying goes, looks after his own …
THUNDER IN THE WEST
STORM 6:
By Matt Chisholm
First published by Mayflower Books in 1972
Copyright © 1972, 2014 by Matt Chisholm
Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: April 2014
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader.
This is a PiccadillyPublishing book
Series Editor: Mike Stotter
Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.
Chapter One
Mart Storm should have died that night. No doubt about it.
He carried a thirty-thirty slug in his belly and a forty-four had creased his skull. A lesser man would have been dead within the hour. But Mart wasn’t a lesser man. The wind blew cold and the rain slanted like ice from the black heavens and not even they could kill him. Maybe it was as his brother Will had once told him, half-seriously: “You was born to be hung.”
The men came at him in the half-light of a rapidly falling dusk, three, possibly four of them. They knocked him out of the saddle with a rifle shot, then one of them rode up close and fired at him almost point-blank, intending to blow his brains out. Either because of the bad light or the fact that the man was a lousy shot, the bullet no more than ripped along the parting in his hair.
Mart parted with his consciousness, but he didn’t part with his life. Which might be accounted for by his toughness or by the old saying that the devil looks after his own.
He lay through the long New Mexico night in that land where a man expected to enjoy bright sunshine, guitar music and the smiles of beautiful hot-blooded women with the cold rain hitting him and in a temperature that would make even a sheep wish it had a thicker coat. With the dawn came a small show of life. He opened his eyes and gazed into an azure sky that boasted not a single cloud. The rain, the cold and the men with guns were goblins that belonged to the hours of darkness.
He could remember little, but he knew that he’d been hit. He knew that he was in pain. His skull felt as if it had been split open and the agony in his guts roared through him like a consuming flame. He found that he was lying in a narrow steep-sided gully.
After a while, he summoned up enough strength to raise himself a little so that he could have a look at the damage. What he found appalled him and filled him with dread. A long ride from civilization and a wound that should have carried him forever out of this vale of tears. Why he wasn’t dead he didn’t know, but he was near enough to satisfy the curiosity of any man.
He lay there holding his guts together with his hands and wondering how he had gotten into the gulley. It looked as if he must have crawled after he had been hit and fallen headlong into it. Certainly he felt as if every bone in his body had been jarred loose or was broken. He was in such a bad state that it was inevitable that he should ask himself just how long he had left to him. He faced the fact that he had good reason to be very frightened and was somewhat surprised to find that he had come beyond fear. A kind of urgency rode him, but there was little panic. It was too late for panic. He was on the edge of death and his whole mind was occupied with the business of surviving.
Now survival in this kind of country depended upon a horse. Therefore his first thought was to his own horse. Maybe the men who had shot him had run off with it or maybe it was still around. He would see which way his luck was going. He smiled ironically to himself. A gut-shot should have been indication enough. But Mart Storm was a born optimist. He had to be in the life he had led or he would be over the Great Divide by now.
His horse Old Stocking, a smallish bay with a white stocking on its off foreleg, was a one-man horse. Mart had him as a foal and had reared with the greatest care by hand. Sometimes he wondered why he even put lines on him. He was five years old and he knew his master’s mind. There was a perfect understanding between the two of them. The chances were, even if the bushwhackers had driven him off, he would drift back again. So Mart licked his parched lips and got as near to the whistle the horse knew as he was able. He whistled several times and then passed out.
When he came to, however, he heard a soft whinny above him and, looking up, saw Old Stocking looking down at him through the brush that grew on the lip of the gully.
“Stock,” he whispered, “you come on down here.”
The horse nodded his head in pleasure at the sound of Mart’s voice, but he didn’t make a move. The side of the gully was pretty steep and Mart didn’t blame him.
“Come on now,” Mart told him, “an’ don’t you play the fool.”
The horse made some show of trying to get down, but he funked it and stayed where he was.
Mart said: “You come on down here, you old bastard, or I’ll have the hide off’n you-all.”
Old Stocking whinnied and tossed his head a few times and seemed apologetic at not being able to obey his master.
The scene started to swim around Mart then and he gave up trying to get the horse to come down to him for a while. Then he started whistling again, doing the best he could with parched lips. Old Stocking started going up and down the edge of the gully as if trying to find a way down. But that didn’t get him anywhere either. He was stuck up there on the ground above.
Mart cursed him weakly but with some skill. He was so weak now that it took every effort to raise his head off the ground. He tried whistling again and this time the horse started to act frantically as if it found it intolerable that it couldn’t obey a command. Then suddenly, it launched itself through the brush and came crashing down the gullyside. It narrowly missed Mart and managed to jump him at the last moment. He kicked a lot of dust into Mart’s eyes and turned to nuzzle him.
Mart said: “Good boy.”
All he had to do now was to get into the saddle and once there had to stay there. Which was easier said than done.
His eye fell on the canteen of water hanging from the saddle-horn. Mart reckoned that if he drank now with the bullet lodged in his belly he could kill himself, but he had to have water. He felt as dried out as a section of desert.
Now started the fight to get to his feet. It was such agony to get himself over onto his belly that he nearly passed out again, but finally he made it to his hands and knees, reached up to gain a handhold on the wooden stirrup and slowly, with a great more pain, managed to gain his feet. Now he reached for the canteen, drew the cork with his teeth and let the water touch his mouth. He let it stay there for some time, fighting the desire to let the wonderful liquid go to his stomach, but, finally, he spat it out. With water cupped in his hand, he moistened the mouth of his horse. This he did several times. Then he stoppered the canteen and hung it back on the saddle.
Now began the terrible business of getting into the saddle.
As long as he lived, he didn’t want ever to go through that ordeal again. He felt as if he were wrenching the insides out of him, but he made it and slumped there on the leather. S
lowly, he unbuckled his belt and looped it over the saddle horn. He knew he wasn’t going to stay conscious for long and he wanted that horse to carry him to some human being who might save his life. He leaned forward in the saddle to do what he could to close the gaping hole in his belly. He reckoned he’d pass out again pretty soon. Later, he would either be dead or he would be alive. He managed to turn Old Stocking around and head him down the gully. He put the horse at a sloping side further down and the horse climbed it, taking him into broken rocky country that didn’t possess much vestige of life except from discouraged-looking brush. There was a trail of sorts and the animal headed along it going west. Mart now started once more to fight his reeling senses. He wound his fingers into the coarse black hairs of the horse and prayed. There wasn’t much else he could do under the circumstances.
When he came to his senses, he discovered, somewhat to his surprise, that he was still in the saddle. Only just, though. His horse had its head down and Mart was sprawled along its neck. It took some time to realize that Stock was drinking.
Mart forced his heavy eyelids open and saw crystal-clear water flowing gently before his very eyes. It was like going to sleep in Hell and waking up in paradise.
With considerable effort, he straightened himself up a little and took a look around. There was lush green grass here, willow trees, the chirping of birds. His eyes picked up deer tracks immediately.
That water might kill him, but he had to get at it just the same. Slipping his belt from over the saddle horn, he eased himself with enormous care to the ground, sank to his knees and crawled into the shallows. He lowered his face into the delicious coolness of the water. The sensation of touching water had never been more beautiful. He came up for air. The water was ice-cold against the burning heat of his body. He knew that he was in fever. He filled his mouth with water and spat it out several times.
After a while, he dragged himself away from the water and lay on his back in the shade of the willows. He reckoned that this was as good a place to die as any.
He had no sooner thought of dying than he heard the hoof-beats.
They were approaching.
Hope rose in him. He strained up on his elbows to look. The sound of the horse seemed to be right on top of him. He expected Stocking to whinny, but he didn’t, though he stood with his head up and ears busy.
Mart knew that this could be one of the men who had shot him returning. It could also be somebody who could help him. He reckoned he couldn’t afford to be choosy. With great difficulty, he drew his Colt’s gun from leather, cocked it and fired a shot.
The hoof beats were going past him. Now they suddenly faltered, stopped as though the rider were hesitating. Mart tried to shout, but he could get no more than a croak from his throat. So he fired another shot.
There seemed to be a silence as long as eternity and then the hoof beats started again and he knew they were coming toward him.
In a moment, a horse and rider appeared through the rocks about fifty feet away. He laid his gun down by his side, but he kept his hand on it. You never knew. And he wasn’t dead yet.
His dimmed eyes could see little, but as the rider came nearer and looked down at him, he saw, to his surprise, that it was a woman.
“Ma’am,” he whispered.
She stepped down from the saddle and came and stopped beside him, looking down at him.
“You hurt?” she said.
Her voice was devoid of feeling. Mart thought that was a damn silly question, him with blood all over.
“I sure ain’t lyin’ here for the fun of it, ma’am,” he whispered.
She dropped to one knee beside him and her face came into focus. Mart surveyed. She rode astride and that shocked him a little. Her dark eyes somehow matched her voice and he reckoned that shocked him a little, too. The face was thin, but there was nothing niggardly about it. It was if it had been honed down by life itself. The eyes were large and magnificent, the mouth large and generous. The nose was slightly aquiline and the cheekbones demanded attention. This was no drooping lily, this one never suffered from the vapors.
She lifted up the hand he held over his belly. Her own was gauntleted and small. When she saw the wound, she registered nothing on her face. Her eyes reacted not at all.
“You’ve been shot.”
“Right first time, lady. By a rifle, close up.”
“How do you know it was a rifle.”
“I heard it.”
She seemed to be assessing him.
“Maybe the bullet’s still in you.”
“Fair guess.”
She seemed to be thinking, weighing something in her mind.
When she spoke, her words were concise—
“You need a buckboard and a doctor.”
“Maybe you have a buckboard, but how do you raise a doctor in a place like this?”
She stood up. She was tall. Judging by her face, she should have been angular in the body. Sure, there was a sort of lankiness about her, but she was all woman from head to toe. The waist was slim, but the hips were proud. Her breasts, though small, challenged every man that looked at them. Mart reckoned he’d had his life saved by less desirable women in his time.
“The buckboard’s no problem,” she said in that hard voice of hers. “As for the doctor. We don’t exactly have a doctor, but we have the next best thing.”
Mart wondered what that was—a horse-doctor? Well, he reckoned that was better than nothing and he guessed if the man could take lead out of a horse there was no reason why he shouldn’t successfully take it out of a man. The principle was the same.
“It’ll be a few hours before I get back,” she said. “I aim to stop that blood, then I’ll ride.”
“You ride, ma’am,” he said. “I’ll hold onto this right smart till you get back. Go ahead now.”
“All right,” she said. “Maybe that’s best. Don’t move now.”
He smiled.
“I don’t have the inclination to go no place,” he said.
She didn’t respond to his smile, but turned abruptly and walked to her horse. She stepped into the saddle with ease, neck-reined the animal around and moved out pretty fast. Mart reckoned he’d never seen a female ride better.
He lay there, holding his belly and thinking about the woman. That kept his mind off himself and he didn’t want to think about himself right now. His mind switched to the horse she rode and there it stopped. All the Storms were horse-crazy and Mart was no exception. That horse of hers was something to look at, a real mover. It made old Stock look real shabby. And with that thought, he fell into a doze.
Chapter Two
He woke when his horse whinnied.
He felt around for his gun, found it and listened. Then he heard the buckboard. It came clattering through the rocks making one Hell of a racket. He experienced a faint surprise that the woman had kept her word. In Mart’s experience, folks didn’t keep their words too often.
He was never more glad in his life, because by now he was suffering and he felt as though his sanity was slipping from him. He was burning up with fever most of the time and the sweat poured off him. At other times, he was cold as could be and he shook like the leaf of an aspen. When the woman came back, his teeth were chattering like Mexican castanets.
The buckboard pulled up on the edge of the water, but it was no more than a dark shape, because now it was night. The woman who jumped down was a faint blur. He heard her say that maybe he was dead. He tried to deny this, but he couldn’t get any more than a croak out.
She came and dropped on her knees beside him.
“Man,” she said, “you alive?”
“Doin’ my best,” he said.
There was a halo of light coming toward him and he realized after a moment that there was a man approaching with a lantern. The light hurt his eyes. It fell on the face of a man in his forties, a face that was weathered and hard. But somehow the expression of the man’s eyes wasn’t hard. But it wasn’t soft either. Mart di
dn’t learn what it was until later. Right then he was really only interested in whether the fellow could save his life or not.
The man’s gray eyes met his. Mart knew that this one didn’t know much about fear. Neither did he carry a belt-gun. Which didn’t give him and Mart much in common.
The man’s eyes switched from Mart’s face to his belly. He lifted up the hand that clutched the belly and looked at the mess above Mart’s belt buckle.
“My bag,” he said.
His voice was deep and without force in it. The woman rose at once and went to the buckboard. The man cut a stick of willow and dug one end deep into the ground at an angle of forty-five degrees. Then he cut a forked stick with his pocketknife and propped the first up on the fork. When he had hung the lantern from this so the light fell on Mart’s belly, he gently started to remove the cloth of Mart’s shirt from the wound.
The woman was there with his bag which looked like an Indian parfleche worked with beads and quills. He opened this and took out a small bowl. He handed this to the woman and said: “Water.”
She disappeared into the darkness.
The man said softly: “Can you stand pain?”
“Try me,” Mart said.
“Ah,” said the man with a little smile, “an example of Western manhood.” There was no rancor in the tone. He cut away Mart’s shirt until he had bared the area around the wound. When the woman returned with the water, he poured something from a small bottle into it and then soaked some rag in the liquid. The man said: “It would be the understatement of the year to say this is going to hurt. You’re going to need every ounce of that Western manhood.”
The woman’s hard voice said: “You’ll most likely pass out. Then you won’t feel a thing.”
“Wanta bet?” Mart said.
The man said: “Fetch some blankets.”
The woman disappeared again and the man started to clean up the wound with the wet rag. At once, Mart knew what he meant. The pain was so exquisite that his teeth stopped chattering. Until that moment, he never knew what sweating meant. The sweat jumped from him. He clenched his teeth and let the wind sing out through them. The man kept his eyes on the wound. He washed a considerable area of the belly, then sat back on his heels, lips pursed.
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