“Jed...” Belle murmured. She slowed her Horse so it fell behind his for protection.
Jed pulled on his reins, bringing his black Horse to a halt. He raised a hand in greeting.
“Gentlemen,” he said, expressionlessly.
A man stepped forwards, evidently the leader of this half-dozen hellions. He spat loudly and visibly into the dirt.
“Fine pair of hosses,” he observed. “We’re mighty grateful to you for bringing them to us.”
The other men laughed at this. Politeness in outlaws is hilarious to other outlaws.
“And a mighty purty young filly too,” the leader leered at Belle. She shuddered and looked away. The outlaw laughed.
“Check the panniers, boys,” he instructed his men. “Maybe there’s money there too. Not a bad day’s work and it ain’t even noon yet.”
Laughing, a couple of men approached each Horse, while the fifth kept his rifle trained on Jed. The men froze when a blast from Jed’s pistol blew a hole clear through their leader’s head, putting a circle of daylight where his face used to be.
The men fumbled for their weapons but Jed felled two of them before they could think. The outlaw with the rifle shot but it went wide. Jed returned fire, cutting the man in two. Belle screamed, involuntarily spurring her Horse to dart into the trees. Jed had no choice; he had to follow. He couldn’t afford for the Horses to separate in case his exploded.
The surviving bandits fired rounds after them and then gave chase, knowing the Horses would have to slow down as the trees became thicker.
Jed found Belle soon enough. Either she had fallen from her Horse or had been knocked to the ground by a low-hanging limb. He reached down and pulled her up by the arm, virtually throwing her onto the saddle behind him, all without stopping. Bullets and blasts sizzled past their ears. Jed willed the Horse to keep calm. How he missed the connection with his own Horse! He would only have to think it and Horse would respond. With this one, he had to translate his thoughts into gestures and actions. He tightened his knees into the critter’s flanks. The Horse snorted but allowed itself to be controlled.
They came to an impasse. The trees led them to a rocky wall.
“What now?” Belle gasped; her arms were tight around the gunslinger’s chest.
“We turn around,” Jed replied. “And we find your Horse.”
Belle blanched; she realised what it would mean if the Horses weren’t reunited.
“You can set me down here,” she squirmed. “I can manage on foot.”
Jed clamped her hands to his breastbone.
“We stay together,” he said grimly.
A bullet pinged off the wall above their heads.
“Put down your weapons!” one of the bandits called out from behind a tree. “We only want the Horse. Get down from the saddle and send the critter towards us.”
Jed could feel Belle wriggling to climb down. He held onto her wrist.
“We’re staying put,” he murmured. Louder, he added, “If you want him, you’re going to have to come and get him.”
Silence followed.
Belle, despite herself, held onto Jed. His broad chest would provide something of a shield if the gunfire resumed.
There was a rustling and a screaming from the undergrowth. One of the bandits staggered into view, clawing at his skin and crying out in agony. Grey and brown dust was swelling all over him, like a swarm of hungry insects. Within seconds he was completely covered. He fell face forwards and was silent. His body retained its shape just briefly and then dissolved into a puddle. The dark dust settled and took on the appearance of an innocuous patch of dirt.
“What the Hell...?” The other outlaw came forwards, horror stricken by what had happened to his buddy. He looked accusingly at Jed and raised his shotgun. “You did this!” he snarled.
“Look!” Belle cried. “Look at his leg!”
Too late the outlaw realised there was dark dust crawling up his leg. He tried to fire off a shot as if killing the gunslinger would put a stop to this horror but the dust had hold of him and pulled him to the ground. As the dust surged up his body the outlaw rolled and screamed. Jed sprang from the saddle, pulling Belle with him. He took aim and fired, blasting the man’s head away. Belle screamed.
“It was a kindness,” Jed said.
“What is this stuff?” Belle gasped, wary of where she put her feet.
“It’s a plague on Vultures’ Moon,” Jed replied. “And I reckon your boss is behind it somehow.”
“My boss?”
Jed looked her in the eye.
“Farkin Plisp,” he said. It was clear from Belle’s reaction that she had never heard the name before, but that didn’t mean squat; Plisp had many aliases, Jed knew that.
“Now, we need to find your chestnut afore...”
It was too late. The black Horse gave a cry of distress. It took a step towards them. Jed had just enough time to pull Belle behind a tree trunk before the critter exploded.
***
There was nothing left. Surrounding branches were on fire and there was a stench in the air of burned flesh and metal.
“What now?” Belle said, peering around the gunslinger’s thick arm to see the damage.
“Well,” Jed said in a drawl, “I reckon I’m off scot free. No doubt your granddaddy will know the Horse has blowed up. He’ll think I went sky high along with it. I’m free to do as I please. Ma’m.”
Belle looked scandalised.
“You wouldn’t!” she cried. “You wouldn’t leave me here! With this stuff! You wouldn’t!”
Jed gave her a look she couldn’t interpret.
“Who knows what I would and wouldn’t do?” he said flatly.
Belle swooned. He caught her before she hit the ground. She coughed and spluttered. The explosion must have stirred up some of the dark dust. Jed was immune to it but Belle, unenhanced and unaltered as she was, was not.
Dang, thought Jed. He scooped her up into his arms.
“Looks like we’re stuck together a mite longer,” he said. He carried her away, keeping an eye out for the chestnut Horse.
***
Jed tracked the critter easily through the undergrowth. The distinctive, deep prints of its irons and the flattening of grasses and shrubs showed that a Horse - an ailing one - had stumbled this way. They came across it slumped with its chest in the mud beside a gurgling creek. Some instinct or residual glitch had led the Horse to water but of course it could not drink. Jed lay Belle on the grass and inspected the critter. It was as he feared: the Horse had gone too long without fodder. Jed attached the feeding hose to the beast’s belly; there was not much left. They had only brought enough to get them to Wheelhub and half of that supply had gone up in smoke when the black Horse exploded.
“Is it bad?” Belle ventured to ask. Her question was punctuated by a hacking fanfare.
“Might get another mile or two out of him,” Jed patted the critter’s flank. He did not say he was more concerned about her. That cough was becoming more frequent and was sounding nastier all the time. She had dark dust in her lungs; if she didn’t get to a surgeon before much longer - well, she wouldn’t have much longer left.
“And then what?” she spluttered.
“Then we shut him down; come back for him on our way home.”
“I mean, how are we going to get to Wheelhub? I cain’t walk and you cain’t carry me all that way.”
“Oh, I cain’t? We’ll see about that.”
Jed unhooked a saddlebag and filled it with provisions for their amended journey. Trail mix. Dried goods. Water. He slung it over his shoulder and picked Belle up in his arms.
“This is crazy,” Belle said to Jed’s grizzled chin. “You cain’t possibly...”
“I’m doing it, ain’t I?” Je
d said. His teeth were gritted but more from controlling his temper than the effort of lifting the woman. He placed her on the saddle. Instantly, the Horse became more alert. Jed took its reins and led it further into the woods.
Half a mile later, they came to the edge. The ground suddenly gave way into a ravine. Beyond that was desert.
“This ain’t the road to Wheelhub,” Belle observed weakly.
“No kidding,” Jed grumbled.
“So, what we going to do?”
“Time to say your farewells.” Jed lifted her from the saddle. “We’ll follow the edge of the ravine, see if we can find a place to cross. If memory serves, this gulch gives out onto the plains. There’s a staging post on the plains. Bound to be. We’ll be able to get you some attention there, or if not there, we’ll find some means of getting us somewhere where we can.”
“Attention? Why would I need attention? What kind of attention?” She wheezed and hacked out a coughing fit. “It’s just a little cough.”
Jed agreed. He told her it was annoying all Hell out of him and if they didn’t get her some cough medicine afore long, so help him...
It wouldn’t do to have the girl fretting about the mortal danger she was in.
He set her down, leaning against a tree trunk, while he shut the Horse down. The critter’s eyes rolled upwards and its neck drooped. Its head swung between its front knees a couple of times and then was still.
“Will he be all right?”
“He’ll be fine. He’s sheltered here from the weather. And there ain’t no hoodlums going to find him here.”
He picked Belle up again and treading carefully, began to make his way along the lip of the ravine.
Belle watched the chestnut Horse receding and felt a pang of sorrow. She knew it was foolish to feel attached to such a critter, a form of transportation, and in the end she had to look away.
“Do you miss him?” she said when the chestnut was no longer in sight. “Your Horse, I mean.”
Jed felt as though she had slapped him across the face. Images of his Horse sprang up. He hoped it was being treated well, or at least being left alone. There was a connection between them - that was undeniable. They had been through a lot together but it was more than shared experience that bound them. Someone who hadn’t had a Horse like Horse could never understand.
“Do you?” Belle prompted.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jed said flatly. “And it’s best if you don’t talk at all. I mean, your cough, of course. Ma’m.”
They continued in silence. Belle looked up at the gunslinger’s profile, at his square jaw blue with stubble, his high cheekbones and his broad forehead. He wasn’t a bad-looking cuss - far from it - but he sure as Hell was an ornery varmint.
Whenever Jed caught her looking at him, she looked past him to the sky. The branches that fringed her vision gradually became fewer, until her view was uninterrupted.
She had no idea how long he carried her. One hour, maybe two. But then he set her down and used the saddlebag to prop up her neck. He took out a water bag and gave her the first swig. When she was done, he put the spout to his lips and paused. What if some of the dark dust was in her backwash? What if it got into his own system?
Heck! It didn’t matter. He was immune to the evil stuff anyways. It was when they got in the company of other folks he would have to be more careful about spreading infection. For all Doc Brandy’s saying, Jed was wary of the dark dust. He reckoned if it could find a way to spread from person to person, it would.
For the time being, he had to concentrate on where he put his feet. He didn’t fancy slipping on some scree and keeling over into the abyss. The girl in his arms was ailing. Sweat slicked her features and she slipped into unconsciousness. She became a deadweight; in some ways this was preferable to her constant yammering and questioning, but in others it made for a lonely walk.
There was a dull ache inside him that worsened whenever he thought of Horse. He missed that critter something powerful. It wasn’t just the companionship. There was more to it than that. Their connection was more than emotional. A part of Jed was in Horse and vice versa. That was why Jed wasn’t concerned that anyone would try to ride off with it. Horse would simply not go anywhere or do anything it didn’t want to. Jed’s main fear was that they - and by ‘they’ he meant Old Gramps - would try to dismantle it to see what made it tick. The old man had given his word that Horse would come to no harm in Jed’s absence but the gunslinger knew better than to trust anyone unreservedly.
He imagined Horse would be missing him too. He tried to picture the critter - was it indoors or out? Was it resting? Fuelling up? He couldn’t get a fix on it. The distance between them was too great.
Belle shifted in his arms and looked likely to wake up but then her head lolled again. Jed put her down and teased some drops of water between her lips. He stretched his arms and back, enjoying the tingle of their gratitude for this respite. He took stock of their whereabouts. The ravine was shallower - or rather, the cliff face had shrunk towards the floor of the crevasse. The gap was also widening, yawning like an invisible river into an ocean of prairie grass.
This plain was the next obstacle to cross. The going should be easier, Jed reckoned, but there was still a long way to go before the staging post. There he hoped to acquire some means of transportation to the city and perhaps some kind of medical attention for Belle. If not, Jed doubted the blonde would survive another day.
Her skin had taken on a grey pallor and her shirt was drenched from the inside out. Dang; what if she died? Would the old man still give Jed back his Horse? Even if he rescued the other granddaughter and brought her home in safety? Would the rescue of one negate the loss of the other?
All Jed knew was he had to try. He couldn’t bear to be without Horse for much longer.
He was gazing absently across the expanse of grass that was waving this way and that as currents of wind danced their way through it, when he realised there was something else moving on the plain. He shielded his eyes with his hand and peered more intently.
There was a wagon of some sort trundling across the landscape, pulled by a horse of the natural variety. Had the canvas covers not been so gaily painted, Jed might not have noticed it until it was too far away to tell what it was - even with Jed’s enhanced eyesight. He hooked his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistled. His notes rang out across the plain, cutting through the air like the shrill cry of an eagle.
Jed snatched the red neckerchief from Belle’s throat and waved it high above his head, whistling again.
The wagon came to a standstill.
“I’ll be right back,” Jed said over his shoulder to the unconscious blonde. He hurled himself down the slope, trampling the grass in long strides as he ran towards the wagon.
“Stop right there, mister,” a man’s voice warned from the other side of a rifle. “I don’t want no trouble.”
Jed ignored the double negative. He stood with his palms raised, knowing that the young man would be able to see the pistols at his hips.
“Nor me neither,” Jed replied. This close he was able to read the bright lettering along the side of the awning.
DOC SWALLOW’S TRAVELLING MEDICINE SHOW.
There were accompanying illustrations for the benefit of the illiterate: A scrawny fellow pouring liquid from a green bottle into his throat; in the next panel, this fellow is rippling with a new muscular physique. In another pair a bald man drinks from a similar bottle and just one panel later, he is sporting a huge bush of hair and an accompanying grin.
Jed couldn’t believe his good fortune. Of all the people to come across in the middle of nowhere, here was someone who could solve his most immediate problem. (What Jed regarded as his most immediate problem was transportation; he had no truck with elixirs and patented medicines and knew better than to
be seduced by the patter or the promise of the illustrations.)
“Any chance of a ride?” Jed thought it best to get straight to the point.
“Where you headed?” the young man frowned suspiciously and did not lower his gun barrel.
“All the way to Wheelhub,” Jed switched on a smile, “Although the staging post along the way would be good enough.”
“Can you pay?”
Jed spat sideways.
“You’ll be paid,” he said.
The young man thought about it. The sun caught the glass in his spectacles making the lenses flash like signals. He scratched one of his patchy mutton chops.
“How do I know I can trust you?” He looked Jed up and down again; his eyes lingered on the pistols.
“How do I know I can trust you?” Jed echoed.
“You’re the one as wants something,” the young man attempted to spit in the manner demonstrated by Jed. A thin string of spittle linked his shoulder to his chin.
That botched gesture told Jed a lot.
“Easy now,” he said, and slowly reached for his pistols. He drew them and turned them, butt-first, towards the young man. “You can take these as a sign of good faith.”
The young man tried to wipe the spit from his chin while maintaining a cool exterior.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said, evidently coming to a conclusion of his own about the gunslinger. “Hop on board.”
“Thanks. Mighty decent of you.” Jed took a couple of steps towards the wagon but then made a show of having just remembered something. “My friend will be relieved.”
The young man’s jaw dropped and his eyes flashed panic.
“Your...friend?” He raised the rifle again and scoured the surrounding area for the gunslinger’s confederate.
“My friend, Miss Belle. She’s up yonder.” Jed nodded back the way he came. “You’ll like her; she’s blonde.”
The young man was frowning, unsure whether he approved of this development.
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