rotting log. “How is he?”
“He’s almost dead,” Miranda replied. “He told me that his name was George Goddard, and he said that the one that tried to save him was his older brother Jeff. He said he was sorry for all the bad things they’d done, and asked me to pray for him and his poor brother.”
“Well,” Longarm said, going over to touch the man’s wrist and see if there was still a pulse, “I’m glad he asked you, because I’d have told him that he could go straight to Hell without the comfort of my prayers.”
“You’re not a very forgiving man, are you.”
“Not when it comes to murderers, thieves, and ambushers,” Longarm answered, discovering that George’s heart had stopped beating. “Miranda, he’s gone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I am.”
She came over and checked George’s pulse for herself. He saw that her teeth were chattering from the cold, and he knew that she was going to become ill if she didn’t get into dry clothes and get warm beside their fire. “All right, I guess we can go back to the stagecoach now,” he said. “You need to get warm and dry.”
“How is Trent doing?”
“Not well.”
“He really loved Esther.”
“I know. She was a fine girl.”
“Custis, she told me that she was only twenty years old. That’s so very young to die.” A sob escaped Miranda’s lips, and she began to cry.
“Come on,” he said gently as he led her back upstream.
It was nearly dark by the time they arrived at their survival campsite. Trent was seated cross-legged beside his wife’s body, his hand resting on her shoulder. He was staring into the flames with an expression of such profound sadness that Longarm hated to look at the man.
“Miranda,” Longarm said, “I’ve got your bags laid out over here. I want you to change into some dry clothes and then come and sit close to the fire.”
“Did you find that basket of food that we were nibbling on yesterday?”
“No,” Longarm said. “I guess that it must have fallen out up near the top of the mountainside. I’m going up now, though.”
Miranda and Trent both seemed to snap out of a daze, and it was Trent who said, “You can’t go now. It’s dark and you could-“
“I need to catch up with the outlaws’ horses, if that is still possible,” Longarm explained. “I’ll tether them up so they will be waiting for us in the morning when we climb out together. We’ll need horses in order to reach Durango and help.”
“I’ll come with you,” Miranda offered.
“No,” Longarm replied, going to the stream and drinking his fill of the icy mountain water. “Miranda, you really need to stay here and conserve your energy for what will be a difficult climb out tomorrow morning.”
Miranda was distraught, but she was still reasonable. “Yes, I suppose that I do.”
It took Longarm nearly an hour to scale the steep Mountainside and reach the road high above. It had been a tough climb mainly because the footing was so loose with shale. It seemed as if, for every yard he climbed, he would slide back a foot or two. By the time Longarm got to the road, he was trembling with fatigue. The sun had gone down, and it was completely dark except for moon and starlight.
At first his heart sank, for he could see no sign of the outlaws’ horses. But after walking up and down the road for a short distance, he heard one of them nicker somewhere off in the brush, and then he quickly found the animals. All five horses were securely tied where they could not have been seen by anyone just passing down the road.
“Easy, easy,” Longarm said as one of the horses snorted and began to pull back on its tie rope, “I’m not here to hurt you, so just take it easy.”
The animals were calmed by his gentleness. Longarm untied all of the saddlebags and searched them, finding plenty of jerked beef, bread, corn, and even some cheap whiskey. He stuffed the food into one of the saddlebags until it bulged, and then he slung it all over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry that I can’t water you horses tonight,” he said, knowing that the animals would be both hungry and thirsty. “But we’ll be up at first light and then we’ll see that you get water.”
Longarm hurried back into the gorge with his bounty. He slipped so often that he finally just sat down and sledded on the shifting shale until he reached the bottom, then hurried over to his friends.
“We’re in luck,” he said, emptying the saddlebags and handing food to Miranda and Trent. “We’ll not go hungry, that’s for sure.”
“How are the horses?” Miranda asked.
“They’ll be waiting when we climb out tomorrow.”
“I won’t leave Esther,” Trent said again.
“We’ll carry her out some way,” Longarm assured the man. “Don’t worry about that.”
“Okay.”
They all felt much better after they had eaten. Miranda huddled up close by Longarm, and they fell asleep by their bonfire. Trent didn’t sleep, though. At least not much because, each time Longarm roused in the night, he
