Down on Gila River by Ralph Compton

Author:Ralph Compton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2012-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

“How is she?” Sam Sawyer said.

“The bullet was not deep,” the Kiowa said.

“Why in tarnation don’t you ask me?” Lorelei said, lifting her head from Hannah’s lap.

“How are you?” Sam said.

“Did James mangle me?”

“No, he didn’t,” Hannah Stewart said. “You’ll only have a small scar.”

“Only, the schoolma’am says,” Lorelei said. “Only a small scar.”

She glared at Sam in the thin darkness. “What are you looking at?” she said, the whiskey still in her.

“You,” Sam said. He smiled and all the winter fled his face. “I heard you caterwauling all the way to the mouth of the arroyo.”

“I reckon you’d caterwaul too if you was bein’ butchered by a wild Apache,” Lorelei said.

“I’m a tame Kiowa,” James said.

“Same difference,” Lorelei said.

“Rain’s almost gone,” Sam said to the woman, “and it will be light soon. We got to move. Can you ride?”

“You shot my horse.”

“I know,” Sam said. Then almost sadly: “I shot the skewbald pony stone dead. Mayor Meriwether up at Lost Mine was gonna pay me forty dollars to bring it back.”

“That was Meriwether’s hoss you shot?” Lorelei said.

“Nah, his daughter’s hoss.”

“Don’t show your face back in Lost Mine again,” Lorelei said. “Jerome T. will shoot you fer sure. He sets store by that fat, pimple-faced kid of his.”

She struggled to rise and Hannah helped her to a sitting position, but Lorelei fell back again. Lorelei groaned and touched her forehead. “Whoa, too much whiskey,” she said. “Let’s give it another whirl, schoolma’am.”

After a lot of help from Hannah, Lorelei finally got to her feet and carefully pulled the shoulder of her dress over her wound. The Kiowa had bound it up with a bandage torn from Hannah’s petticoat, and the bleeding seemed to have stopped.

The rain had thinned to a mist, and the newly bathed morning was coming in clean. Somewhere, gray among the green hills, a wolf howled, then fell silent.

“Lorelei, can you ride?” Hannah said.

“I sure can’t walk,” Lorelei said.

“We’ll let you set the pace, ma’am,” Sam said. “When you say go, we go. When you say stop, we stop.”

“Got it all figured out, don’t you?” Lorelei said.

“I reckon,” Sam said, his expression defensive.

“How’s all the starting and stopping going to go with Apaches around and Dan Wells on our back trail?” Lorelei said.

“No use building houses on a bridge we ain’t come to yet,” Sam said.

“So you’re a philosopher as well as a hoss shooter,” Lorelei said.

“Sammy speak truth,” the Kiowa said. “Long ride no good for you, woman. You must take it easy.”

“I’ll keep up,” Lorelei said. “Just knowing that Dan Wells is tracking me will keep me upright on the horse. You better believe it.”

* * *

Sam Sawyer and the others left the arroyo as the night brightened into morning. To the west a single blue star still stood sentinel in a copper-colored sky, and the clear air smelled of sage and the high timber.

Hannah and Lori rode together, and Lorelei, complaining and cussing, shifted constantly as she tried to get comfortable on the bony back of the Kiowa’s paint.

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