Starr looked around. “The table’s the best place, I guess.” He spoke to the girl. “Lady, set that lamp down on a chair and clear that stuff off the table.”
There were an almost empty bottle of whiskey and a scattering of dirty glasses on the table. The girl moved quickly, placing the lamp in one of the chairs and setting the glasses and bottle beside it. Longarm and Starr lifted the wounded man to the table. He was too tall for its length, so his legs dangled off one end.
“Put a chair under his feet,” Starr told the girl. “We want to get him stretched out as straight as we can.”
She’d been hovering around, trying to help. Longarm, seeing her for the first time in the light, wondered how he could have made the mistake of thinking she was old. Her face was smooth and unwrinkled, her lips firm and full, her eyes clear, though their lids were puffed from tears and the night wind. What had fooled him, Longarm decided, was her hair. It was ash-blonde, almost white, and she wore it long and loose, caught up only by a small pin that gathered it at the back of her neck. He squinted at her hairline in the lamplight; there was no telltale sign of dyeing.
Starr tried to move around the table and bumped into the girl. He said, “You get up on one of them chairs and light that ceiling lamp, miss. We’re going to need to see what we’re doing.”
A reflector-type kerosene lamp hung above the table. The girl moved a chair to stand on, and touched the match Starr had given her to the wick. The room grew brighter as she adjusted the flame to stop its smoking.
Longarm got his first good look at the unconscious man. The stranger was young, probably in his mid- twenties, as closely as Longarm could tell through the smudges of grime and trail dust that covered his face. The man was clean-shaven, though now his cheeks and jaws bore the dark stubble of a three or four days beard. His lips were full but bloodless, so that his face appeared almost to be lacking a mouth. Waxen white lines showed at his nostrils under the coating of dirt. The man was hatless, and a shock of thick brown hair was tousled around his ears.
Looking at the blood that was beginning to pool on the table under the stranger’s body and trickle in a slow drip-drip-drip to the floor, Longarm shook his head.
“He’s really hurt bad, isn’t he?” the girl asked. Her voice was still hoarse, and she spoke in a cracked whisper.
“He don’t look very good,” Longarm affirmed.
Starr had gone into the bedroom. He came out carrying a handful of white cloth. “One of Belle’s old petticoats,” he told Longarm, handing him the wadded cloth. “I’ll see if I can’t find some more in a minute. Looks like we’re going to need them.”
Longarm frowned. “Where’s Belle?”
“I don’t know,” Sam replied. “She’s a restless sleeper, you know. A lot of nights she’ll get up and walk down to the river, or up to the groves on the hill. I didn’t wake up when she slipped out of bed.”
Longarm was busy unbuttoning the man’s shirt. He pulled the front open and looked at the raw flesh just below the unconscious stranger’s ribcage. It was an exit wound, and the slug had torn out flesh and skin to leave a deep wound almost as big around as the palm of a man’s hand. There was a second bullet hole on the other side, but it was a mere scratch compared to the big wound, from which blood seeped steadily.
Longarm ripped pieces of cloth from the petticoat and made a wad to go into the bigger of the two wounds. He tore a wide strip from the hem of the garment and handed it to Starr.
“Slide this under him when I lift up his shoulders,” he said.
He lifted the limp form, and Starr slid the bandage under the man’s back. Longarm wrapped the improvised bandage as tightly as he could around the man’s chest, and tied the ends of the cloth. The man stirred and twitched, and his lips moved for the first time.
“He’s trying to say something,” the girl whispered. “Do you think he’s coming around?”
“Might be,” Longarm replied. He handed the girl a piece of the petticoat. “Here. Wet this and sponge off his face.”
“There’s water in the bucket back of the stove,” Starr told her.
High heels beat a tattoo across the porch and Belle Starr walked into the room. “What’s going on here, Sam?” she asked as she came through the door. Inside, she saw the unconscious form of the stranger on the table. “Who is he?” she asked nobody in particular.
“I don’t know,” Sam replied. “I haven’t had time to find out. Windy brought him down to the house.” He squinted through the lamplight at his wife. “Where the hell you been, Belle?”
“Down by the river. I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk.” Belle turned to Longarm. “You know who he is, Windy?”
“Nope. I heard a horse and what sounded like a woman’s voice, so I went out to look. Found this fellow on a lame nag, with this girl here holding him up. I got them down here and yelled for you and Sam.”
“I wondered where you were,” Belle said. “I stopped at your cabin.”
She saw Sam looking at her and added quickly, “To see if you were comfortable. Then I walked on down to the river.”
Booted feet grated over the dirt outside and clumped across the porch. Floyd came in. He had on boots and trousers and his gunbelt, but was shiftless. He blinked in the sudden light.
“What’s the trouble, Belle?” he asked. Then, as his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he saw the stranger lying on the table with the girl bathing his face and Longarm adjusting the bandage, which was now stained with blood.
Floyd’s eyes slitted and the corners of his mouth pulled down in an angry snarl as he said, “Goddamn! That’s Lon Taylor! Me and Steed been looking for him to get here.”
“He’s the fellow who was going to help you with-” Belle began.
Floyd cut her off. “That’s him. Who the hell shot him up? Is this some more of your goddamn work,
