“Try again,” Longarm urged her.
This time, Taylor managed to get a good swallow of the whiskey down his throat. Holding him by the shoulders, Longarm could feel the muscles of his back beginning to flex.
“Go on,” he urged Taylor. “Swallow it on down.”
Taylor finally managed to get his vision under control. He looked up at Longarm. “Who’re you?” he asked. His voice was thin, almost inaudible.
“He’s the man who helped us get here,” the girl answered before Longarm could speak.
Taylor turned his eyes to look at her. “Susie. You got me here, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But you’re hurt real bad, Lonnie. You just lay back now and try to rest. You’ll be all right, I know you will!”
“Hey! He’s come around!” Floyd exclaimed. He stepped up to the table, followed by Steed and Bobby. They jostled against Longarm, and he stepped away to give them room.
“Said-I’d-be-here,” Taylor said in a series of gasping whispers.
“Lonnie! Don’t talk now. Save your strength!” the girl urged.
Belle drew Longarm away from the table. “I don’t know about him. That bullet took him in a bad place.”
“I know,” Longarm agreed. “I’ve seen men hit high in the belly there before. Mostly, they hang on and you think they’re going to get over it, but then they just fade off.”
“Why’d you decide to sleep in the barn?” Belle asked.
“I didn’t like those windows up above the bunks in that cabin. Not with Floyd just a little ways off.”
“Don’t worry about Floyd. He’ll do what I tell him to,” she assured him.
“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see how things turn out.”
Sam Starr came up frowning, carrying steaming coffee cups. “I don’t like this a bit, Belle. Somebody might have been trailing that fellow. He could have led a posse right up to our door.”
“I’d have heard them, if there was anybody behind him,” Longarm told Sam. “There wasn’t.”
“How in hell do you know, Windy?” Starr asked. His voice was somewhat uncertain, despite the bluster in his words. “They might be tracking him, five or ten miles behind.”
“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said in a long time, Sam,” Belle told her husband. She called. “Steed! Bobby! Come here!”
When the two outlaws got to her side, Belle said, “Get your rifles and stand watch up at the gully. We don’t know there isn’t a posse tracking your friend. It damned sure wasn’t any friends of his who shot him.”
“They’d have got here by now, if they was after him,” Steed objected.
“Not if they were waiting for daylight to pick up his tracks,” Belle said. She gave Sam no credit for having been the first to come up with the idea. “Now, you stay at the gully until about noon. I’ll get Yazoo to bring you some breakfast after while.”
Steed looked as though he wanted to object still further, but Belle’s black look kept him silent. He shrugged and said, “Come on, Bobby. Belle just might have an idea there.”
Longarm went back to the table to look at Taylor. Floyd was still standing there. The girl, too, still stood on the other side of the wounded man. Taylor’s eyes were closed, and his chest was rising and falling irregularly.
Floyd asked Longarm, “How’s he look to you?”
“I’ve seen shot men who looked better. He had to wait too long to get those holes plugged up.”
“How many holes has he got in him, for Christ’s sake?” Floyd asked.
“I saw two, but I didn’t go over him too good. I was too busy getting that real bad one stopped up.”
“We’d better look him over, then,” Belle said. She’d come up to the table, following Longarm.
They searched Taylor’s prone form, and did find a third wound, a shallow graze, high on one side, almost in his armpit. It was no more than a scratch, raw but not bleeding now. They agreed that it would be better to leave it alone rather than to disturb Taylor by moving him to get a bandage on it.
“Whoever it was chasing him, they sure did intend to stop him,” Floyd commented. He looked at the girl, who hadn’t moved while they were making their examination. “You feel like telling us what happened, lady? There’s not a hell of a lot we can do for Taylor right now. Not until he gets better—or worse.”
“You’re right, Floyd,” Belle agreed. She raised her voice. “Sam!
Come watch Taylor while the rest of us go out on the porch. We need a breath of fresh air. You can start breakfast when we get back.”
“Sure, Belle.” Sam moved obediently to the table, pulled up a chair, and sat down. “If he comes around again, I’ll call you.”
“We’d better take care of Taylor’s horse,” Belle said when she saw the animal still standing in front of the house. “I’ll get Sam to take care of it as soon as he has time.”
“Never mind, Belle. I’ll lead it into the barn and unsaddle it,” Longarm told her. “I need to get my vest, anyhow. It’s got my cigars in the pocket.”
He led the animal into the barn, took off its saddlebags and tossed them in a corner, then loosened the cinch and lifted the saddle off. He set it beside the saddlebags, then he went up to the loft, slid his arms into his
