by Paul Bagdon
He wanted with all his heart and all his being to run. Even though he knew how incredibly stupid that would be, his senses demanded he flee the storm, like a mouse fleeing an attacking blacksnake. In the frigid and unforgiving cold, sweat broke on his forehead; panic flared in him like an August prairie fire. He attempted a few deep breaths to calm himself, but the icy air in the depths of his lungs brought on paroxysms of coughing. He crouched, scooped snow with his hands, and forced it into his mouth. The razorlike burn of the melting snow helped to steady him. His breathing slowed; the moisture on his forehead froze and was whisked off by the wind.
Ben took his best guess on the direction of the cave and took a step. He took another, and then another, slightly longer this time. Then he walked into Snorty’s side.
He didn’t know who was more surprised. Snorty, reins snapping in the wind, lived up to his name. He snorted loudly and pushed at Ben with his muzzle. Ben wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck and clung to him for a long moment. He realized that Snorty’s instinct to run from the storm was even stronger and more compelling than his own had been—and yet the horse had stayed, waiting for his master. Ben shook his head in wonderment, hugged Snorty’s neck again, and then stepped into a stirrup.
The closer they came to what was only a slightly less gray mass ahead, the more the howling power of the wind was deflected. When they were still ten yards out, shapes began to form: striated, sculpted banks of snow striped with bands of sand and dirt; a long, tall, sheer stone face that stretched back into the storm on both its ends; and a darker blotch that was the cave. Snorty picked up the pace on his own, surging toward the promise of shelter.
The ceiling at the mouth of what Ben now saw was a cavern rather than the smaller, more tightly confined space of a cave, was high enough for him to ride into, away from the pummeling storm. Toward the rear of the cavern, a small fire glowed. He dismounted and led Snorty deeper into the darkness, toward the blue-yellow flames.
A harsh, raspy moan stopped him in place for a moment, his right hand dropping automatically to his hip for his side arm. His clumsy fingers found only frigid air—his Colt was tucked up under his shirt. He bit down on his right glove with his teeth, dragged his hand out of it, and brought out his weapon. It couldn’t be a bear or a cougar, he knew—Snorty would’ve pitched and kicked in fear if he’d picked up either scent.
Ben moved forward slowly, leaving his horse ground tied. When he was closer to the fire, he saw a form next to it and hurried forward, the frozen heels of his boots clattering against the stone floor. Henry was flat on his back, one arm extended, the other wrapped around his chest. The boy moaned again as Ben crouched next to him. The front of Henry’s coat was saturated with blood, and a puddle of dark liquid, frozen and shiny like the ice of deep water, extended around the upper part of his body.
Ben opened the boy’s coat. The wound was a bad one, and he was bleeding copiously. The bullet had struck him midchest—the rasp of Henry’s breathing told Ben a lung may have been nicked or even punctured. When the boy’s eyes fluttered open, he didn’t seem to see Ben hovering over him. His pupils remained fixed, glinting in the light of the fire.
Ben stood, hauled off his coat, and tore off his shirt, not taking the time to work the buttons free. He ripped off a sleeve, crumpled it into a tight ball, and then tore long strips from the body of the shirt. He placed the cloth ball over the wound, pressed it inward as much as he dared, and then worked three of the ragged strips under the boy and around his chest, tying them securely enough to hold the makeshift compress in place.
Henry cried out in pain as Ben moved him closer to the fire, and for a moment, his eyes found Ben’s. “Preacher . . .” the boy whispered. “Get preacher . . .”
“I’ll get him, Henry. There’s a wagon nearby—we’ll take you to Doc. You’ll be . . .”
Ben didn’t finish the sentence. Henry’s eyes had shut, and he was unconscious again, the only signs of life his shallow, hoarse breathing and the slow tapping of the pulse at his throat. The compress was saturated already, and Ben tightened the strips of cloth holding it in place. He made the boy as comfortable as possible, tucking his coat around him, and then ran to where Snorty stood.
He grabbed his rifle from the saddle scabbard and trotted out of the cavern. He worked the lever and fired, waited to a count of ten, and then fired twice rapidly, the concussive boom of the shots separated by the smallest part of a second. He waited three minutes and then repeated the procedure. As he waited for another three minutes to elapse, he searched for tracks outside the cavern. As he’d suspected, the keening wind had broomed away any signs of whoever had shot Henry. After completing four three-shot cycles, he returned to the wounded boy.
The cavern was well equipped, Ben found. There was a mound of branches, cut logs, and kindling next to the fire. A large, flame-blackened kettle rested next to the embers, and there was a large sack of jerky next to it. Two dime novels with brilliantly colored covers had been placed on an army blanket, one opened to the middle, as if set down by someone whose reading had been interrupted. Ben read the titles: Buffalo Bill’s Duel with Destiny and Deadeye Dick Tames the Cherokees.
He took the kettle out into the storm and packed it full of snow. In a matter of two minutes, the fire reduced the snow to water, which Ben placed in front of Snorty. He was stripping off his tack from the horse when he heard a shot, a pause, and then two quick reports. He sprinted to the mouth of the cavern and echoed the shots he’d heard. When he received an answer, he began firing a shot every minute or so, guiding the other person to him.
Carlos appeared suddenly, as if he’d stepped out from behind a white curtain. Ben couldn’t help but grin; Carlos looked very much like a snowman, complete with protruding white belly and an old hat squashed down on his head. He was leading his horse, which Ben noticed was favoring its right front hoof.
“Ahh, Ben,” Carlos groused, “this cayuse ain’t got the sense of a cheeken. I theenk pretty soon I cut heem open an’ climb inside heem for the warmth, like soldiers an’ buffalo hunters do. Bill Cody, he do this once an’ waited out a blizzard, all nice an’ warm. Save hees life.”
“What happened to your horse?”
“He sleeped on ice, which ain’ so bad. But he come up in great fear an’ struck at a rock an’ split hees hoof. He’ll be OK—the hoof, it’ll grow out.” Carlos looked around, awed by the cathedral-like aura of the cavern. “You made a fire already? Maybe there’s coffee, no?”
Ben filled in Carlos on how he’d come to the cave as Carlos pulled the cinches on his saddle and lifted it and the saddle blanket off his horse’s back.
“One shot is all you hear?”
“Yeah. Just one. Henry’s hit hard—probably has a bad lung.”
“Weel he live?”
Ben shook his head. “I dunno. We need to get him back to town, get him to Doc. He’s got no chance at all out here.”
“We can no ride in thees, Ben.”
“Yeah. I know. We need to wait out the storm and we need the wagon. Where are the others? Is Lee all right?”
Carlos ground tied his horse and tugged off his gloves, shaking the snow and ice from them. “I gather them up aroun’ the wagon an’ told them no one leaves. That preacher, he ride out anyway. Lee, she argue with me. I tol’ her me an’ Maria ride away from the Busted Thumb for good if she ride into the weather. She knows I speak truth in such times.”
“She’s OK, then?”
“Mad as the wet hen, no? But OK.”
“The others all accounted for?”
“I theenk so.”
They walked back to the fire. Carlos crouched beside the boy and felt his forehead. “Muy caliente,” he said. He gently lifted away Ben’s coat and inspected the wound, sighed, and draped the coat back over Henry. “Muy mal,” he said. “But maybe if we can get heem to Doc, he have a chance.”
Ben chewed on his lower lip. “We gotta get the wagon here. We can’t wait out the storm—he’ll never
make it.” “The wagon, it ees maybe three or four mile. I take
Snorty an’ go there. You stay here with the boy.” “I’ll make the ride. You stay here. I’ll—”
“No. I know the way an’ you don’. You want to be like the preacher, ridin’ like a crazy man, not knowin’ where you are? No, I go.”
Ben tore off another piece of his shirt and wet it in the water at the bottom of the kettle. He stretched it across Henry’s forehead and let it settle. The boy stirred slightly, coughed, but didn’t open his eyes. Blood mixed with saliva trailed down his chin.
Both men saw it. Neither commented. There was nothing to say.
“Hello? Helloooo?” A weak voice reached into the cavern. Ben and Carlos ran to the front, Ben snatching up his rifle on the way. Once outside, he put two shots into the air. There was no response. He fired another pair and waited. There was no answering report, but the voice sounded again.
“Soun’ a leetle closer,” Carlos said. Ben emptied the 30.30 into the sky, firing at thirty-second intervals. When he stopped to reload, he heard the ringing clatter of steel horseshoes on stone.
“He’s riding too fast,” Ben said. “He’s gonna go down.”
The horse and rider didn’t go down. In fact, Duncan Warner nearly collided with the two men. The preacher hauled his horse to a stop and dismounted. Chowder’s breathing was wet and croupy as he struggled for air.
“Thank God!” Warner exclaimed. Carlos and Ben stood still, their eyes shifting from Chowder to the preacher. Warner took a step back. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Ben stepped to Chowder’s side and peeled off a teninch-long line of dried blood. He patted the horse lightly on his rump and moved forward, placing his ear just in front of the stirrup leathers, tight against Chowder’s hide. “You might have broken this horse’s wind,” he said tightly. “There’s a lot of crackling in his lung, and it’s probably the same thing on the other side. He was sucking too much cold air too fast.”
He glared at the preacher with such intensity that Warner took a step back. “Should I have died so my horse could live?”
“There ees no reason for anyone to die. You are alive now, no? But you hurt the horse who carry you to here.” Carlos held Warner’s eyes for a moment and then turned away. When the preacher began to speak, Ben cut him off.
“There’s no time for this. We got a dyin’ boy here, an’ we need the wagon.”
“You found Henry?” Warner’s voice raised in excitement. “Thank the Lord! We found him!” His eyes rested on the fire and the figure stretched out next to it. “He’s hurt?”
“He’s got a gunshot wound in his chest. You know any medicine, Rev?”
“Some. I helped out on the battlefield during the war. I watched the surgeons treat wounds as big as your fist and pull the soldier through. Maybe I learned enough to help the boy.”
The preacher hustled to Henry’s side, Ben and Carlos on either side of him. After lifting away the coat, he eased his fingers under the blood-soaked compress. He shook his head and withdrew his hand. Then he put his index finger on Henry’s pulse point. When he stood to cover the boy, there was a fingerprint of blood on the spot he’d just touched.
“We need to do two things,” he said, as if preaching to a congregation. “We must pray, and we must get Henry to Doc’s office. The bullet’s probably still inside him, and he’s bleeding terribly. The slug has to come out and the bleeding must be stopped, and I can’t do that.”
Henry’s eyes jerked open and focused on the preacher. His Adam’s apple moved up and down spasmodically as he tried to force sounds from his throat. His right hand trembled on his chest, and beads of sweat trickled from under the cloth on his forehead.
“He asked for you earlier, Rev,” Ben said. “Maybe he wanted you to pray over him.”
Warner touched Henry’s pulse point again, and the boy’s right hand began a spastic dance on his chest. “We don’t have much time,” the preacher said.
“We no got but one good horse, Ben,” Carlos said. “Mine can carry no weight, an’ Chowder, he can no go out till he rest maybe two, three hours. Snorty knows me. I go, no?”
Ben nodded. “I wish we could ride together an’ leave Rev here.” He looked toward the front of the cavern. “Doesn’t look to be calmin’ down any out there.” He chewed his lower lip. “You’re the one who knows the way, Carlos. You’re the logical one to find the wagon an’ the folks and bring them back here. There’s no other way.” After a moment, he added, “Vaya con Dios.”
After Carlos left, Ben added wood to the fire and helped himself to a few sticks of jerky. When he filled the kettle with snow again, he let Chowder and Carlos’s horse drink, then refilled it and soaked the cloth from Henry’s forehead with the cool water. When he touched the boy’s face, he felt the vehemence of the fever. He cupped a few tablespoons of water in his hand and let it dribble between Henry’s parched, colorless lips. Henry, unconscious again, didn’t attempt to swallow. The water seeped from his mouth, tinted with blood.
“Rev—gather some snow for water. Carlos’s horse needs it, and so does the boy.”
There was no reaction. Ben turned and saw Duncan Warner sitting with his back against the cavern wall, his head tilted downward, his hat tugged over his eyes. Words began in Ben’s throat, but he cut them off. Instead, he picked up the pot and walked toward the mouth of the cavern. He better be praying, Ben thought, because if he’s sleeping with that kid about to die . . .
The pitch of the wind had changed from its manic howl to a lower, less-threatening key. The wind was strong enough to bite exposed flesh, but its intensity had waned. Ben crouched to jam the pot full of snow and then stayed in that position. He thought of how he had found Henry on the cavern floor. Had there been the smell of gunpowder then? He couldn’t be sure—his nostrils had been plugged with snow. He couldn’t have smelled a polecat if one had let loose in his lap.
Ben shoved handfuls of the fluffy snow in the pot until it was full, and then stood. Whoever shot Henry must’ve ridden out into the storm. If that’s true, the man is dead. No one could survive for more than a few hours out there. Unless, of course, he found shelter in a cave or came upon another cavern . . .
When Ben came inside, the preacher was leaning next to Henry, his index finger gauging the throb of the neck pulse.
“How’s he doing?” Ben asked.
Warner shook his head. “His pulse is slowing down, and it’s uneven. And he’s burning up with fever. The best I can do for him now is pray.”
“Best anyone can do.” Ben set the pot on the embers. “Soon as that’s melted down, keep wiping his face. That might cool him a bit at least. I’m gonna take a look at Carlos’s horse.”
Rabbit was the name of the big bay Carlos had selected from the Busted Thumb string for the search. Ben recalled that Rabbit was dumber than a shovel of dirt but had heart and bottom and would go all day and all night without complaint. About six years old, Rabbit was tall and rangy, but his chest was broad and his muscles hard. Ben had backed the horse in a flat race against a heavyset Appaloosa once; the bay had won him a piece of pie and a cup of coffee at the café.
Ben faced the rear of the horse and brought the injured left front hoof up and between his knees. He poked ice from around the frog of the hoof and picked at the crack a bit, cleaning away grit and ice. The hoof wasn’t as bad as it had looked initially. The break began at the toe, swerved right an inch, and then continued upward toward the coronet—the hairline at the top of the hoof.
Ben eased away from Rabbit, letting the hoof free, and walked to Carlos’s saddle. He found what he was after: a farrier’s knife with a thick blade and a sharp hook at its end. He lifted Rabbit’s hoof again, trimmed away some of the frog’s tissue, and then used the hook to further clean the crack. There was a shard of stone jammed into the hoof wall about halfway up the separation.
Rabbit flinched as Ben got the hook under the bit of stone and snapped it out. The two sid
es of the fissure moved together immediately, the shape of the hoof seeking its natural configuration. Ben gave Rabbit back his hoof, but the horse still refused to put weight on it. There would be little pain now, Ben knew—but the horse didn’t know that.
Ben walked around the horse and stood at his right shoulder for a moment. Then he butted Rabbit just as he would if he were forcing a locked door with his shoulder. Surprised, the horse squealed, tottered for a second, then put his left front hoof to the floor to keep himself from falling. As soon as he was balanced, he began to draw up the hoof, hesitated, and then put it down again.
“Nice work,” the preacher called out from near the fire.
“He can’t carry a man for a couple weeks, but the hoof came together real good. Like Carlos said, he’ll be fine.”
Rev Warner walked over to Ben and Rabbit. “I guess a man’s got to know a little bit about a lot of things to survive out here.”
A sudden groan from Henry brought both men to his side. Ben leaned over the boy and wiped his face with the cloth from his forehead. Henry’s eyes fluttered open, closed, and then opened again. He focused briefly on Ben’s face. “Preacher . . . the preacher,” he whispered, his voice raspy and wet sounding.
“He’s right here, son,” Ben said, easing out of the way so Warner could take his place.
“Don’t try to talk anymore, Henry,” the preacher said softly. “I’m with you now. Close your eyes, and I’ll pray over you.”
The boy groaned again, barely louder than his whisper had been. His eyes quavered and then closed.
Warner began praying, his words too low for Ben to hear. But he could hear the tone of comfort, of caring, in Warner’s voice. He suddenly felt like an intruder at a very private time, so he walked to the front of the cavern, forming his own prayer for Henry in his mind.
