“Yes, he sure did. Now hold still and grit your teeth while I dig this slug out of your back. I think I can see it just under the skin. It almost went through.”
Longarm cut Dan’s flesh just under the shoulder blade. The blood really started to flow, but that wasn’t necessarily bad because it would carry out the infection. Dan didn’t do much other than grunt like a rutting boar while Longarm fished out the rifle slug, then rinsed the wound with his canteen and finally bandaged it tightly.
“Am I going to make it?”
“Of course you are,” Longarm said, taking care of his own leg wound. “But I have to tell you that we are both going to be a little under the weather for a few days.”
“Give us time to rest up and explore these caves,” Dan whispered between clenched teeth. “Maybe find poor Jimmy’s grave.”
“I doubt that they’d have bothered to even bury Jimmy,” Longarm said. “These kind of men aren’t generally so kindly disposed, if you know what I mean.”
“I guess that I do,” Dan said.
“Let’s go on up to the caves,” Longarm suggested. “I’ll bet that there is food and water waiting up there. We can rest up tonight, then tomorrow start poking around.”
“What about our horses?”
“All right,” Longarm said, “I’ll lead them up after the sun goes down. We’ve got grain, water, and hobbles. There’s enough feed up here to keep them going awhile.”
“Okay,” Dan agreed, allowing Longarm to help him to his feet. Dan leaned heavily on him as they slowly made their way up to the caves.
Despite the fact that they were both bleeding and in considerable pain, Longarm made a slight detour so that the preacher did not have to witness the terrible sight of the headless ambusher. If Dan realized that fact, he didn’t say anything. They both collapsed in the first cave they reached, gasping for breath.
“You wait here,” Longarm said. “I’ll be back soon.”
“You going for my horses?”
“Not until I’ve had a little look around,” Longarm said.
“Don’t make it too long,” Dan fretted. “Those horses might just have broke away during all that shooting. If they did, we’re in a terrible fix ‘cause they’ll head straight back to Wickenburg.”
Longarm realized with a jolt that Dan was right. Forgetting about the caves, he hurried back down the slope and made his way through the brush to where they’d left the horses.
“Well, gawdammit!” he swore, seeing a faint trail of dust leading off toward Wickenburg. “Dammit anyway!”
The only good part was that Dan, always worrying about the condition of his horses, had unsaddled them during the long afternoon wait, so at least their supplies, the Winchester rifle, and Longarm’s other belongings had not gone south with the runaways.
Still, as Longarm gazed out at the merciless desert, he could not help but feel a powerful sense of foreboding. Things could have been worse, but they could also have been a hell of a lot better.
Chapter 12
Longarm wasn’t in a very good mood as he hobbled back up to the caves with his rifle, their water, and a few of their supplies. His leg wound was throbbing like the devil, and the preacher looked very pale and feverish where he lay stretched out in the cave.
“The horses ran away,” he told his suffering friend. “We’re stuck out here, and neither one of us is in any shape to hike back to Wickenburg for help.”
“We’ve got food and you can hunt rabbits,” Dan said. “And maybe we’ll find other things to eat here.”
“I expect that we will,” Longarm agreed. “And that spring where you found your gold isn’t but a long day’s walk, so I’m not worried about dying, if that’s what you mean.”
“Have you looked around yet?”
“No,” Longarm said, collapsing on the floor of the small cave and tightening the bandage on his leg because he was bleeding again. “But I’m about played out for the moment and it’s getting damned hot outside. Think I’ll just rest this leg and my eyes for a while.”
“You do that,” Dan said, nodding with approval. “I’ve spent most of my life in this desert country and the best thing to do is take a long siesta in the afternoon. Get your business done early in the evening and late in the day when it’s cooler. The Mexican people are smart enough to understand that simple fact of life.”
Longarm laid his head on his saddlebags, knowing that he would go right to sleep and expecting that old Dan would do the same. The preacher was in rough shape and had lost a great deal of blood from his shoulder wound. The man’s eyes were sunken in his face and his complexion was the color of wax. Longarm knew that Dan was trying to put on a good show, but he was weak and suffering. It would take weeks for Dan to regain his strength, but they didn’t have that much time. A way would have to be found to get the preacher back to Wickenburg where he could receive proper rest and medical attention. But right now, damned if Longarm could think of one.
They both slept right through the day and that night, waking up at dawn the next morning. As the light grew stronger, Longarm got up, stretched, and then hobbled back down to where the horses had escaped. He collected the rest of their supplies and lugged everything up to the cave. His leg was very stiff and painful, but the bleeding had stopped and, when Longarm rebandaged the wound, he was happy to see that it was healing without infection. Once again, he’d been real lucky.
After breakfast, Longarm went over to the headless corpse and dragged it over to a little rock slide. It was truly a ghastly sight, and even a seasoned lawman like Custis almost gagged as he searched the man’s empty pockets looking for some clue as to his identity. Finding none, he removed the man’s side arm. It took very little time and effort to climb a few yards up a nearby rock slide and get enough shale moving to bury the hideous corpse. When
