to the horses. Cal groaned and whined and fat tears of pain flowed down his smooth cheeks as Ike helped him up to the saddle.
“We'll take it easy. It won't take long to get back to the cave.”
“That old bastard! I think the bullet broke my leg.”
“It's just a flesh wound,” Ike said, holding him in the saddle. Ike swung up on his own rugged little paint. “Another thing,” he said thoughtfully. “The boys back at the cave will want to know what happened, and you'll tell them it was an accident.”
Holding to the saddle horn, Cal glanced angrily back at the dead preacher. “You'll have to do somethin' about the bodies.”
“I'll take care of that after I get you to the cave.”
Behind the flimsy fortress of weeds and underbrush, Dunc lay as still as the dead preacher in the clearing. This thing had happened too fast for him. His brain grappled with what he had seen and heard, but the subtler details of Ike Brunner's violence escaped him.
Stupid farmers. What had Ike meant by that? And what had he meant by saying the gang was going to make them rich? They shared and shared alike, didn't they? How could Ike and Cal get richer than anybody else?
For a moment this worried Dunc more than the two bodies in the clearing. He lay there listening to two horses plodding slowly back toward the higher peaks, turning this new thing ponderously in his mind. Stupid farmers. The way Ike had said it angered him. But what had he meant?
At last Dunc could no longer hear the horses. He glanced at the sun and reckoned he had about an hour before Wes Longstreet would come to relieve him on the ridge, and there'd be hell to pay if he wasn't there. Then he turned his attention to the clearing and felt a vague sickness churning inside him. He didn't like anything about this. Killing a preacher was bad enough, but killing a woman—that was about the worst kind of luck there was. Damn it, he thought heavily, I sure do wish Ike hadn't done that!
After a while he got to his feet and walked reluctantly down to the clearing. Gently Dunc rocked Mort's body with the toe of his shoe. The preacher was as limp as a rag doll. Well, Dunc thought stoically, maybe he's better off like this, for all we know.
What he wanted to do was find his horse and get back to the ridge and try to convince himself that none of this had happened.
It didn't pay to get in bad with Ike Brunner. Once you got in the gang there was no getting out of it—unless it was Dove Wakeley's way. Although there was a cool breeze there in the clearing, Dunc felt uncomfortable and sweaty as he turned his gaze toward the trees where the Stringer girl was lying: Damn that Cal, anyway! There were plenty of girls in the hills; why did he have to pick on this one?
Time was running out and he ought to be getting back to the ridge, but Dunc found his reluctant feet moving him toward the edge of the clearing. A kind of morbid curiosity took hold of him and he could not make himself leave until he had made certain that the girl was dead.
When he was close enough to see her clearly, he thought, Well, she's dead, all right. She lay partly on her side, her face pressed to the soft, clean carpet of pine needles. Something within Dunc's conscience cried out in protest as he looked at the fair, regular features of the girl's face, her partly opened lips, her long-lashed lids barely closed over her eyes, as though she were asleep. The curve of hips, the swell of firm, youthful breasts were all too apparent beneath the flimsy material of her shirt dress. Dunc felt himself sweating again, and his thoughts of Ike Brunner were bitter and angry.
At last Dunc dropped his head and fixed his gaze on the pink heels of the girl's bare feet. He had the desperate feeling that something should be said, that some gesture other than violence should be made, but he could think of noticing. His hard young face was bleak and bewildered as he sought for impossible answers and reasons, and at last he spoke harshly, in a voice no louder than a whisper. “Goddamn it, anyway!” Then he turned to walk away.
The girl moaned.
Dunc Lester whirled, staring at the girl with enlarged eyes. The girl moved her arm and tried to draw up one leg. Slowly she opened her eyes and gazed glassily at Dunc. “Help me,” she said. The sound was so weak that it was hardly a sound at all. “Help me,” she said again, this time more strongly. She tried to lift herself on her elbow but fell back coughing.
Dunc knelt beside the girl and stretched her out in order to make her as comfortable as possible. Gently he probed the bloodstained dress below her left breast, and she whimpered weakly.
“Ma'am,” Dunc said in wonder, “I sure had you pegged as a goner. Maybe you're not, though. We'll see.”
He took out his pocketknife and slashed at the dress. The hole, he saw, was neat, although there was plenty of blood. His immediate problem was what to do about that wound, and he pondered this in his mind. At last he took off his leather belt and sawed it between the girl's clenched teeth. “You can bite on this,” he said. “I think I can get this bullet out without much trouble.”
At the entrance of the knife point into the wound the girl fainted, which was just as well. Dunc worked fast, probing with knife and fingers. He found the bullet just under the rib cage and drew it out.
Bright blood flowed from the wound and Dunc worried about how to stop that. He could see her face getting paler and paler. If the shock of getting shot doesn't kill her, he thought, surely she'll bleed to death if I don't do something fast! He cut the sleeve off his shirt, folded it in a square pad, and placed it over the wound. Then he took his belt from the girl's mouth and buckled it around her, holding the pad in place. He wished that he had some whisky or applejack to pour over the wound, but he had nothing.
Well, he thought, with the tools I've got to work with, I guess that's about the best I can do.
He hunkered down on the soft bed of pine needles, watching the girl's still face and wiping his bloody hands on his trousers. The longer he looked at her, the less blame he could place on Cal Brunner for wanting her. She had not the crude square build of so many of the hill girls. This one was lean and light, supple and strong. There was a feeling of grace and soft texture about her, and the longer Dunc watched her, the more he liked the thing he saw.
He found himself reaching out timidly to touch her dark hair, then felt foolish and uncomfortable and wiped his hands again on his trouser legs. What the hell am I goin' to do with her? he wondered.
