little help since two minutes later he was just as sweaty. Gwen sat propped against him, fitfully napping. Every now and then she would mumble to herself. The Texan had his big hat pulled low and rode as limply as a scarecrow.
The Apaches would find them easy pickings.
Fargo willed himself to go on. Even when the heat sapped almost all his energy, even when he could barely lift an arm or keep his eyes open. In due course they came to a gravel-strewn slope that linked the tableland to a series of canyons.
Gwen stirred, saying thickly, “I can’t go much further, Skye. We need to rest. Please.”
“Soon,” Fargo said.
Gravel slid out from under their mounts, cascading below them. The Ovaro slipped but regained its balance. The mule slipped, and didn’t. Burt Raidler lurched and would have fallen had he not gripped its neck. Legs pumping, the mule sought to stay upright, its efforts dislodging more and more gravel. It stumbled, then gravity took over.
“Roll clear!” Fargo shouted.
The Texan had the same idea. Pushing off, he saved his leg from being pinned. But when he tried to scramble erect, the treacherous footing hindered him. He was only halfway up when the mule slid into him and bowled him over. Both were swept toward the bottom by the increasing avalanche of loose stones and earth.
Gwen had awakened. “Hurry! Help him! He’ll be hurt!” Fargo would have liked nothing better than to help, but he dared not spur the Ovaro or they would suffer the same mishap. Legs taut against the stirrups, he carefully descended, stopping whenever the gravel threatened to give way.
Stones rattling, dirt spewing, the mule kept on sliding until it was at the bottom. Raidler clung to its neck, the lower half of his body underneath the animal, the Spencer and his hat gone. When the mule came to a stop, they both struggled to stand, Raidler crying out when he applied weight to his legs. The mule shook itself, its coat marred by cuts and abrasions.
“What’s wrong with Burt?” Gwen asked.
Once on solid ground, Fargo dropped from the saddle and rushed to the Texan’s side. The cowboy had staggered to a flat boulder and was lying across it, eyes shut, face contorted in a grimace. “How bad is it?” Fargo asked.
Raidler grunted. “My left leg feels like a bull stomped on it.”
Gwen helped Fargo roll him over. Fargo started to hike Raidler’s pants but Raidler grit his teeth and sputtered in torment. Drawing the Arkansas toothpick, Fargo stooped to press it against the cowboy’s jeans.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Fargo thought it should be obvious. “We need to cut your pants.”
“Like hell. They cost me fourteen dollars, cash money. And money doesn’t grow on trees.” Huffing and puffing, Raidler sat up. “Have Miss Pearson turn around and I’ll pull ’em down.”
“I’ve seen naked men before,” Gwen declared.
Something told Fargo that if she had, it wasn’t very many. He motioned and she pivoted, folding her arms.
Raidler fumbled at his belt, hissing in frustration when his fingers couldn’t do as he wanted. Swaying, he swore softly and tried again. The blood drained from his face and a groan escaped him. “I can do it,” he said, bitter at his failure. “I know I can. Just give me a couple of minutes to catch my breath.”
“We don’t have the time to spare,” Fargo responded. A surge of his shoulders and the razor-sharp toothpick slit the pants leg from above the boot to below the knee. Raidler squawked but the damage had been done. Fargo widened the opening, half fearing he would find shattered bone jutting from ruptured skin. The leg appeared to be undamaged. But when he put a hand on the shin, Raidler yelped like a stricken coyote.
“Damn! What did you do?”
“I just touched you.” Fargo probed along the bone.
Another cry was torn from the Texan’s throat. Raidler collapsed on his back, a forearm over his eyes, his chest heaving. “Lawsy! I haven’t hurt this bad since I was ten and had a bellyache from eatin’ a bucket of green apples.”
“I think it’s fractured.”
“With the run of luck I’ve been having, what else did you expect? I must have had a bad case of the simples when I bought that stage ticket. I’d have been better off shootin’ myself.”
Fargo uncurled. “We need a splint but there aren’t any trees handy.”
Raidler chortled, then said bitterly, “Of course not. It’s what I get for not having the brains God gave a squirrel. My ma was right. I should’ve been a clerk instead of a cowpuncher. Pushin’ papers is a might borin’, but at least when they fall on you, they don’t bust bones.”
Nudging Gwen, Fargo said, “Give me a hand. We have to get him on the mule.”
The Texan moaned. “I’d rather you just leave me.”
“Will you quit joshing?” the blonde bantered. “A big, strapping man like you shouldn’t let a little thing like a broken leg make a crybaby out of him.”
“A crybaby?” Raidler repeated, his dander up. “Those are fightin’ words in the Pecos country, ma’am. I’ll prove to you I’m as much a man as the next fella.” Suddenly sliding off the boulder, he pushed to his feet on his own. And promptly paid for it by going as white as a sheet and keeling forward.
A quick bound, and Fargo caught the cowboy before he hit the ground. “I’m surprised you’ve lived as long as you have,” he joked, but Raidler was in no condition to appreciate the humor.
“Hit me over the noggin with a big rock. That ought to stop the torture.”
Fargo regarded the mule a moment. There was no easy way to do it, no way to spare the cowboy tremendous agony. “Gwen, take his other side.” They locked eyes as she obeyed. “On the count of three,” Fargo said, and Gwen nodded.
Raidler gripped their shoulders. “Lord, have mercy,” he breathed.
It would have gone well except Gwen’s grip slipped as they were swinging Raidler up and over. His body tilted, his fractured leg hit the mule, and he barely stifled a scream, his face so red he looked ready to burst a vein. Fargo slipped both arms under the Texan’s chest and pushed. Like a schoolyard seesaw, Raidler teetered upward and roosted on the mule’s back, his good leg over the side but his damaged leg as limp as a wet rag. Fargo lowered it, being as gentle as he could.
“There,” Gwen said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
The Texan looked at her as if she were loco. “No,” he croaked. “I could do it once a day and twice on Sunday.” He rolled his eyes, his arms dangling.
“Why do men always fall apart over a little pain?” Gwen asked Fargo. “My ma used to say that every man is a baby in bigger clothes. Why, if men had to give birth to real babies, like we do, there wouldn’t be another child born. You couldn’t take labor and all we go through.”
Fargo had heard the same argument from other women, and he had the same answer for her that he gave the others.
“It all balances out. Women have to put up with the pain of giving birth, and men have to put up with women bragging about how tough it is.”
“Typical man,” Gwen huffed.
“I’m all male and proud of it.”
“That wasn’t what I meant and you know it.”
To nip her indignation in the bud, Fargo suggested they search for the Spencer and the Texan’s hat. Five minutes of cautious prowling turned up the latter but not the rifle. Buried, Fargo reckoned, under the small avalanche.
They couldn’t spare any more time. Fargo forked leather once more. Gwen clambered up behind him, wrapped her arms around his middle, and pressed against him so tight he could feel her breasts mash against his back. He wondered if it was her way of hinting her interest hadn’t waned.
Fargo rode to the southeast. They needed water, they needed rest. Most of all, they needed to fix a splint for Raidler or infection might set in. Fargo had seen it happen once to a man with a busted arm even though the bone never broke the skin. With the nearest sawbones hundreds of miles away, Raidler would be as good as dead.
The rocks, the boulders, the ground itself gave off heat in stifling waves. Fatigue set in again. Combined with
