He had used a different tactic when it came to outrunning the slide and had run up the hill, rather than away from it. He stood on the upside of the hill with his arm draped over his horse’s neck.
“You okay?”
“As soon as I quit shaking, I will be. I’m going to go back the way we came because there is no way to get down to you guys from here.”
Gina saw the way the hill had slid away from the piece of land that Andy and the horse were standing on. They would have probably both broken something if they tried to descend the perpendicular wall of rock.
Gina waved at Andy acknowledging she heard him. She looked at Gus and realized how stupid it was to have him tied to Sailors saddle. If one of them fell, they would take the other down with them. She decided to turn Gus loose and unclipped the lead line from his halter. He turned and ran away from her. She thought Gus was smart enough to take himself back to safe ground and watched as he trotted back the way they had come, the saddle bags bumping his sides urging him on. She knew he wouldn’t go far from Sailor or the other horses.
As much as Gina would have liked to follow him, she watched and waited for Sam. With the three horses crowded around her, she had to keep moving to see the two men. All three horses were lathered with sweat, and she knew it was as much from fright as from exertion. Gina wrapped Sailor’s reins around a bare branch, knowing he wouldn’t move and led the other two horses away. She found Andy inspecting his horse's foot in a glade of trees that if she hadn’t just witnessed the complete annihilation of a hillside, she would have thought they were in a park setting. With Sham and Clyde both tied up she turned to go back for Sailor.
She found John sitting at the base of the tree where she had tied Sailor with Sam kneeling in front of him.
“Is he okay?”
John nodded, “I think I am. Nothing’s broke as near as I can tell.” He was feeling his ribs as he spoke. He grimaced when he pushed on something that hurt. “I’m going to have some sore spots for sure.”
Sam reached down and helped John to his feet. “Let’s get back to where it’s a little safer, and we can decide what to do from here.
“Is there anywhere safe anymore? I’m beginning to wonder.”
“I admit this is one time I wished we lived somewhere out on the prairies.”
Gina laughed, “We don’t know if the prairies even exist anymore. The way the landscape around here has been changing daily, it makes me wonder what is out there.”
Sam helped John up onto Sailor when it was clear that he wasn’t going to walk very far as beat up as he was. Gina led the horse back to where the others were tied, and Andy had begun making camp. He had already established a ring of rocks with a small fire burning cheerily in the center. He was setting their metal grate on the rocks as they walked up.
“I thought I’d get camp started because and it looks like I was right; we won’t be going any further today. How you doing John? Thought you were a goner for a minute there.”
The side of John’s face and one eye were already beginning to show deep bruising, and he rode with his arm clamped to his side as if protecting it. “I’ve been better.”
Sam helped him down, while Gina dug out their medical kit. Sam helped John out of his jacket and shirt when it became apparent he couldn’t do it alone. He groaned every time he tried to move his arm, and Gina prayed he hadn’t broken his collarbone or shoulder. When he was sitting shirt free, she saw the problem immediately.
His shoulder was dislocated. While it wasn’t an injury she had dealt with before, it was one that she did know how to fix. Gina was surprised by John’s apparent high tolerance for pain. Everything she had studied about dislocations said they were painful, sometimes debilitating injuries. With Andy’s help they laid John flat on the ground, and with Andy putting tension on the arm, Gina manipulated the humerus back into the socket.
John’s face, which had been tight with pain, relaxed almost as soon as Gina felt the pop when it slid back into place. With deft hands, Gina wrapped his shoulder and produced an old-fashioned sling made from a square of cotton, folded and tied behind his neck.
Gina dug through the kit and produced Neosporin and gauze to clean up some of the deeper cuts on his face. On his back, she painted a bronzey-red colored liquid on the worst graze that ran across his shoulder. It only took a second to get a reaction.
“Yeow…”John screeched. “Damn…what the hell?”
“Oh, stop. It’s just an antiseptic, Mercurochrome and we have lots of it. I am saving the Neosporin for the more serious cuts.”
Laughing at John’s discomfort, Sam helped him on with his shirt. Buttoning it up with his arm inside.
“Why can’t my arm be outside my shirt and jacket? Do you know how awkward this is?”
“Because as well as I know you, you’ll be trying to use it without thinking.”
“We have some aspirin if you need it,” Gina offered as she packed everything back into their medical bag. She chuckled softly to herself at John’s reaction to the Mercurochrome. Her mother had sworn by the stuff and used it liberally on any of her cuts and scrapes. She knew how much it burned when applied. She also knew that it had great antiseptic properties and used it liberally herself.
Andy had prepared them each an MRE while she and Sam were working on John. To save on complaints, he had made them all the same, and while they weren’t haute cuisine, they were edible, followed by coffee from the included packets.
As soon as they had eaten, Sam and Gina pulled the tack from the horses and Gus. Gus was still loose, but they had no fear that he would wander away from the other horses. Next to the jenny, Sailor was his best friend.
When Andy and John climbed into their sleeping bags, Gina and Sam prepared for the first watch. They would wake Andy up when one of them, or both, grew sleepy.
They had let the fire burn itself out, content to sit leaning on a tree trunk that had fallen sometime in the past.
“I know you can’t be expecting us to get attacked in our sleep, so why are we standing guard?”
Sam slid closer to her and took her hand and rested their joined hands on his knee. “Nope. These shakers seem to be getting longer and happening more often the past few days. I don’t want all of us to be asleep when the next big one hits.”
“Why do you think I put each of our saddles beside the horse it went on, and packed all of our belongings up? We don’t feel them so much when we’re on the horses, but I’ve seen the trees shake and Sailor always gets antsy just before one hits. When you see Gus stop and plant his feet, you can count on the trees to start vibrating.”
“I noticed him too. I actually wanted to talk to you about John. I think we need to send him and Andy back to the ranch. John won’t be any good to us if we have to fight and I don’t think he will enjoy what I’m afraid is in front of us.”
Gina squeezed his hand, “Well, at least you aren’t trying to send me back too.”
“Don’t think I didn’t think about it, but I knew you wouldn’t go. I’m going to be surprised if John will go. He blames himself for Lucas and Matt taking off which is stupid. Lucas is doing what he or I would have done under the same circumstances. I’m actually proud of Lucas for choosing to help his friend. However, I’m pissed that he felt he had to run off in the night and not tell anyone.”
“Maybe he didn’t think his Dad would have let him go and he’s at the age where he’s testing his wings.”
“Oh geez, don’t remind me. John and I got into some pretty deep shit when we were his age. Of course, it was nothing like this, but there was a time or two we could have both gotten killed.”
They sat in companionable silence until well past what they thought was midnight when Gina began nodding off. Sam shook her awake, and she went to wake Andy without complaint.
Just before dawn Gina rolled over and groaned, no part of her didn't hurt. She could imagine how John must feel. She had only run uphill to escape the rock slide, John had been caught, t
rapped and beat up by the avalanche of rock and dirt. She wondered if he would put up much of a fight about going back. Sam seemed to think he would, but Gina didn’t. She had noticed the strain John was under with each passing day. She knew his thoughts were back on the ranch and he worried about something happening while he was gone. He hadn’t come out and said as much, but she remembered his comment about choosing one of his family members over the others, and she wondered if he would feel that the choice was now out of his hands.
Gina looked at Sam, with one eyebrow raised and her mouth turned up on one side. It hadn’t taken much encouragement on her part for John to agree to go back with Andy. She had stressed the need to keep his arm immobile and his various scrapes and cuts clean and infection free. As soon as Sam mentioned him and Andy heading back, Gina had seen the relief that crossed John’s face before he had caught himself.
After a couple brief protests he acquiesced, and let Sam help him on Sham after Andy and Gina got the horses tacked. Gina gave Gus’s lead line to Andy and told him to tie the mule onto his saddle horn.
“We’ll bring them home John. You can count on it.” Sam’s words were said with conviction, leaving no doubt he meant them.
“I hope it’s that easy,” Gina muttered and went to untie Sailor.
“Wait just a minute. We need to have some sort of a plan. We can’t go east unless we ride way out of our way around that,” he pointed at the open maw of the crevasse, “So, I think we should go back up the hill and see if there’s a way to cross over it up there. We already know what we have here.”
Gina shrugged, she had wondered how they were going to get across the ravine herself. When they were sitting in the dark watching, she heard the occasional rocks rolling down the hill and figured the ground had to be unstable. She wasn’t about to put Sailor in a position to get him hurt. As soon as they found the boys and got back to the ranch, she was going to go and find herself another horse to ride and preferably a mare. If Sam and John were right, they would be needing to use the horses for transportation for a long time to come and having a mare she would be able to raise another foal like she had Sailor.
Gina tripped and fell, sliding almost under Sailor’s feet who was following on a long lead line behind her. He lowered his head and nuzzled her as if asking if she was okay. Gina just lay there and looked up at him. His neck was shiny with sweat, and it ran from the corners of both of his eyes. His body trembled from the exertion of the past five or six hours. They had run out of water for the horses and Gina, and Sam were both down to a single bottle each.
Gina wasn’t even sure if they were making forward progress at all. It seemed to her as if everywhere they turned it was either up or down. She knew Sam was as discouraged as she was.
Sailor backed up when Sam knelt down beside her. When she made to climb to her feet, Sam sat down beside her, and she slumped back down.
“I don’t feel like we’re moving east at all. We need to find some water for these horses, and my ass is dragging. Sam, I don’t think I can go for much longer.”
“Okay,” he said as he tied Clyde to the tree beside her. “Let me check something out. I’ll be right back.”
She watched him scramble up a steep ten-foot incline, using clumps of grass and debris to help him to the top, sending rocks and dirt cascading to the bottom. Gina was too tired to care when some of them rolled her way. She knew she should either make a place for a fire or at least find something to eat for the both of them, but couldn’t force herself to her feet.
She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep when Sam’s yelling woke her up. She sat up trying to decide what had woken her when she heard him yell again. She thought she heard the panic in his voice, but having never heard it from him before, she couldn’t be sure.
Gina couldn’t tell from where his voice came from, but he hadn’t sounded far away, or she wouldn’t have heard him in her deep sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
“Sam?”
“Come up here! Tie the horses and follow my tracks. Bring the medical bag.”
“Aw geez…what now?” Gina grabbed the kit from her saddlebag and with a reassuring pat on the side of Sailor’s neck, she followed Sam’s trail up the embankment. Every few minutes she called out to Sam until he answered her back. His trail was easy to follow once she had reached the top of the slope. Gina jogged when she could and crawled when she had to. One thing she had determined was they would not be bringing the horses this same way. Trees had fallen, and boulders were ripped from the earth lying precariously on the side of the hill.
“Sam, where are you?”
“Here! You’re going to have to go around that rock, but be careful. It looks like the whole hillside is ready to go at any second.”
When Gina crawled under the trunk of a fallen fir tree, she saw why Sam had not come to her. Lucas’s horse was nowhere in sight, but Matt’s mare was down. She saw Sam, put his handgun to the mare’s head, turn his face away and pull the trigger. Although she saw him do it, Gina still jumped at the sound.
She wanted to scream at him to stop, but she saw the grief on his face and knew the horse had to be suffering or Sam wouldn’t have done it.
She stood staring at the dead animal. “What happened?” She walked slowly toward the mare. She saw her front leg was broken and knew Sam had done what needed to be done. Even in the best of times a broken leg on a horse was usually a death sentence.
“Where…” Sam cut her off by pointing. The jenny lay down the slope not moving. The trunk of a large pine tree lay across her girth. She had probably died instantly, or so Gina hoped.
Gina drew in a deep breath, prepared to find out the boys were both gone. “Lucas?”
Again Sam turned and pointed without speaking. Lucas sat beside an old fallen log with Matt’s head in his lap. Lucas’s eyes were swollen and red as if he had been crying for a long time. Matt’s hair was wet with fresh blood. Gina felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach and hurried to the boys. Matt’s eyes were closed, and at first, she thought he was gone until he groaned.
Gina threw herself to her knees beside them. “What happened?”
Lucas looked at her and began to sob. She couldn’t understand what he was saying. She could see that he was close to being hysterical. “Lucas, stop right now!” She used a tone she had never used before, and it got his attention. “Now, tell me what happened.”
“The trees fell, and the rocks rolled down all around us. We had nowhere to run.”
As she listened, her hands searched Matt to see where else he might be hurt. He had a gash on his head that had bled profusely. Parting his hair with her fingers, she saw it was only a scalp wound, but it would need stitches to close it up. As she worked her way down his body, she kept talking to Lucas, “Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No.”
“Good. Who put this on?” She asked, feeling for a pulse in Matt’s ankle. His boot had been removed, and he had two broken limbs one on each side of his leg tied in place with leather belts.
“I did. His leg was bent all funny. I thought it was broke.”
“Well, you did a good job. It is broken, and we’ll have to set it.” Her fingers were gently running over the bump in his lower leg. She could see where the ends were not aligned. Without a hospital to take him to and no ambulance to drive him there, it was up to her to fix it the best she could.
Matt moaned softly, but his eyes remained closed, and he didn’t move. Gina hoped he didn’t wake up. It would be easier to set the leg without him knowing what was going to happen.
She looked Lucas, “Are you sure you aren’t hurt anywhere?”
He shook his head, and Gina could see that he was, but not physically. They had been gone almost a week, and she wondered how they had survived. She suspected by the haunted look in Lucas’s eyes the boys had gotten more than they’d bargained for.
Gina took her jacket off and rolled it up, careful to not jar Matt, Gina had Lucas slide out from under
Matt’s head and slipped the rolled jacket under his neck.
“Walk for me,” she told Lucas. He looked at her with a frown and walked in a circle keeping his eyes on her.
“I’m not hurt. Not even a little bit.”
“Good. Now go help your Uncle Sam.” Her voice was low and forced out between her clenched teeth. She fought the urge to reach out and slap him. She couldn’t have explained it if she tried, but right then she was as angry as she could remember ever being. Looking around at the destruction, the uprooted trees, the boulders the gaping wounds in the hillside, both boys could have been killed, and she felt she and Sam carried some of the blame.
Gina closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to calm herself. Being mad at them wasn’t going to get Matt’s head fixed. She would need her wits about her to handle this like any other emergency.
Feeling calm, Gina threaded the needle and went to work. She cleaned the laceration as well as she could and then flushed it with alcohol. Matt moaned, but she didn’t let it stop her. Her mind on autopilot, she put fourteen stitches in Matt’s scalp. Gina could have closed it with thirteen, but her superstitious mind wouldn’t let her stop there and added one more. Using a cotton square and vet wrap, she bound his head wound. He hadn’t woke up, and Gina was grateful. She would need him asleep to continue with her doctoring. Now she needed Sam’s help.
Gina got to her feet and walked to where Sam had piled the tack from both Matt’s mare and the jenny. Lucas was sitting slump-shouldered against the saddle. She could only imagine how he felt with the mare laying silent in front of him. She hoped he was giving their actions some thought.
“Where’s Sam?”
Right then Gina heard Sam cursing and the sound of breaking branches. He came around the root ball of a fallen tree dragging Lucas’s gelding. The horse was obviously terrified. His eyes were round, and sweat dripped from his chin. His lathered sides heaved, and water ran off its belly. The horse was clearly in distress.
Beyond the New Horizon (Book 2): Desperate Times Page 24
