He didn’t know whether Dan was her kid or her man. He didn’t care. He told her, reassuringly, “I’m putting you to bed, ma’am. You’re in shock and we got to get your body warmer and your head cooler.”
She didn’t answer. In her semi-conscious state she couldn’t understand his words, but they seemed to have a calming effect on her.
Longarm covered the woman with his blankets and rain tarp. Then he wet the old socks with canteen water and wrapped them around her skull like a clumsy gray bandage. He poured more water over the wool once he had her head still again. As he did so he saw the tip of her tongue moving between her pale lips. He took out his kerchief, wet that cloth, too, and let her suck on it some.
There was nothing else he could really do for her. He rose with his Winchester at port to see what else needed doing in these parts. He levered a round in the chamber and ducked out the door and to one side, fast, as he scanned the surrounding scenery. The only thing moving in his line of sight was a scrawny chicken pecking at a fresh horse apple Ramona had left in the dust of the dooryard. Longarm grimaced and said, “Yeah, a lazy nester can save feeding you birds regular if he lets you rustle your own grub, even if you do wind up sort of stringy. Those of you as ain’t eaten by varmints, I mean.”
He circled around to the back, ready for anything. He was still surprised at how rundown the layout was, despite how fresh the bark on the unstrapped bark of the mostly lodgepole pine construction looked. The outbuildings and corral on this untidy spread were already turning to punkwood. But he was more worried about punks inside the sheds than the condition of their flimsy walls. So he examined them all with care.
He found the goat milking stand the kid had mentioned in one shed. Where the goat or goats had run off to was anybody’s guess. He saw more chickens grubbing in the grass all about. They didn’t seem to have any other livestock. But he found some badly smoked beef in their smokehouse and muttered, “I sure hope you had the sense to bury the branded hide far and deep, you wife-beating, stock-stealing ass.”
He went back into the cabin. The woman on the floor looked dead. But when he put his fingers to her waxen throat he felt a moth-wing flutter and told her, “You can make it if you really try, ma’am. I know there’s times when life don’t feel worth all the bother. But you got your boy to think of.”
To his surprise, she’d heard him. She didn’t open her eyes, but her voice, while soft, was steady as she murmured, “Waiting for Little Dan to grow tall enough to make it on his own is all that’s kept me going. Now that he’s almost as tall as Big Dan I feels I’ve done my duty. So if it’s all the same to you I’d sure like to be on my way to join the heavenly choir now.”
He had to keep her fighting. He leaned his Winchester against the free-stone fireplace and hauled out one of her limp hands to hold. “If you go before your son gets back he’ll never forgive you for leaving without saying your proper goodbyes. I’ll be mad at you, too.”
She sighed. “You’re always mad at me, Dan. Lord knows I’ve tried, and we loved each other, once. At least, you told me you loved me, and I really did love you. What happened to us, Dan? What happened that made you start hitting me instead of kissing me like you used to?”
There were times to talk sense and there were times a lady was in no condition to make sense. So he kissed her limp wrist and told her, “I’m sorry, honey. I was wrong to hit you and I’ll never do it again, hear?”
There was a little more grit in her delirious voice, as she told him, “You’ve told me that time and time again, Dan. Lord knows I want to believe you, but this time you even hit the boy. I thought you loved our only child, even when you’d been at the jug. But this time you hit Little Dan, too, and I don’t reckon I mean to forgive you this time. So let go my fool hand and let me fly on over Jordan, hear?”
He insisted, “Hang on. The boy is on his way with a trained nurse, and he needs you. We all need you. You got to hang on.”
She sighed. “Well, maybe just until Little Dan gets back, then. I would like to kiss my baby one more time afore I heads for heaven. Lord knows, I’ve served my time in hell.”
The next time he spoke to her she didn’t answer, but he could tell from her more relaxed breathing that she was more asleep than delirious, now. He wet the wool on her brow again and rose, still facing her with his back to the open door. He was sorry he’d done a fool thing like that when a male voice behind him demanded, “What are you doing in here with my woman, stranger?” in a tone midway between a growl and a whimper.
Longarm kept his hands polite as he slowly turned to face a disgusting mess with a twelve-gauge trained on him. The wife-beater was a tall, skinny drink of water dressed in ragged denim, gum-boots, and a blood-caked mop of greasy black hair. He could have used either a shave or a regular beard as well. Longarm ignored the shotgun trained on him, and said, “Howdy. My name is Custis Long. I was passing through when your son informed me the lady of the house was feeling poorly. As anyone can see, he told me true. So I’ve done what I could to make her comfortable until the boy gets back with some medical attention.”
The man scowled. “You had no right laying your hands on my woman, and if you’ve trifled with her honor, well, we both know what a man has to do about a thing like that.”
Longarm snorted in disgust. “You sure worry a lot about your woman’s honor, for a man who just beat her half to death, and we’ll see if it was only half, when that nurse gets here.”
The nester couldn’t meet Longarm’s knowing eyes. “That was a family argument I don’t have to explain to no damn saddle tramp,” he muttered. “You can leave, now. I’ll take over in here.”
Longarm said, “Not hardly. I ain’t about to leave an alley cat in your tender care, after seeing how you’d treat a wife and mother. As to whether I get to ride on, or have to take you back to town before I do, that will depend on whether she lives or not. Do you want me to take a look at that split scalp of your own whilst we wait? You ain’t bleeding fresh, but he surely gave you a good smack with the flat of that old axe, didn’t he?”
The man in the doorway raised the muzzle of his twelve-gauge as Longarm took a step toward him. “Don’t try nothing. I’ll kill you. I mean it,” he warned.
Longarm growled, “Aw, shit,” grabbed the muzzle in his left hand, and made the man let go the other end with a right cross that sent him flying out the door to land on his rump in the dusty dooryard.
As Longarm tossed the twelve-gauge one way and stepped the other to stomp some sense into the silly son of a bitch, he saw the man he’d downed had rolled up into a ball on one side to whimper and bawl, “Don’t hit me again! Please don’t hit me again! I’m hurt bad. My own son just slew me with an axe and I ain’t in no shape to fight right now.”
