The door of the cabin was wide open when he staggered inside. “Jennifer?”
No answer.
He was not ready for what he found. Weak-kneed, he stood looking at her form sprawled on the bed, naked from the waist down. Not moving. Her blue eyes open wide, staring for eternity at the underside of the cedar-shake ceiling. At the sight of her, Slocum closed his eyes to shut out the vision of her before him. Those damn worthless cowards had raped and then killed her. The blue cast to her face told him they must have smothered her.
How could he, one-armed, ever dig a grave for her, let alone lug her out of here? The clock was ticking for him. He needed to put her in the ground. There was no one to help him dig that grave. The slug in his back needed medical attention or someone to treat it. No way could he do much of anything. His stomach curdled inside and he thought he'd puke.
Where could he go and find the help he needed?
He collapsed in a chair. The fire in his back about blinded him. He hugged his left arm. There was no way to escape the pain raging in his body.
At the table, he used a small pencil to scribble a note on the back of an old calendar.
Two men named Deushay and Roberson raped and killed Jennifer. I was shot and have gone for help. If anyone finds her, maybe you'll see that justice is served by ending those two men's lives.âJohn Slocum
The note written, Slocum went over and covered her up with a blanket. That would have to do for now.
His stomach churned as he staggered out the door and then closed it. He caught himself on a hitch rail to try to clear his blurring mind and jumbled thoughts. It took a great effort for him to get to the pen, and he still had to catch the horse, saddle him, and get up into the saddle.
He pushed for the gate, then his knees buckled and he passed out. He awoke with his face in the powdered horse shit and, too dry-mouthed to spit it out, he wanted to clean it away, but gave up. On his hands and knees, he used the rails in the gate to crawl up to stand.
The next few minutes were all a blur to him. He recalled catching the horse, and perhaps the smell of his blood caused Red to break away with Slocum clinging to him. At last he somehow bridled the animal, feeling the deep, hot flashes in his shoulder, and one-handed tossed the saddle on him.
No easy deal, the girth gave him hell, but when at last it was in place and tight, Slocum grasped the horn, clenched his teeth, and climbed aboard. Bent over the horn, he could hardly control Red to keep him from running. Jerking on the reins sent jolts to his shoulder, but at last he brought the horse down to a jog. Unable to concentrate, he let the horse have his head.
Late in the day he found a valley and rode toward a thin stream of wood smoke coming from a chimney. He tried to see if the smoke was real, but his vision was so blurredâat last he decided it must be real.
Then his blurred vision faded away entirely, and the rest was lost.
He opened his eyes and looked up into a red-faced woman who hovered over him. “Who shot you?”
“Two crazy murderers.”
“Who?”
“Deushay and Roberson.”
“Them two sonsabitches?” Her brown eyes flew wide. She gave off lots of body odor when she got close; bathing must be a luxury she seldom indulged in.
He nodded. “They killed Jennifer Duncan.”
“Oh, my God, no. They kilt her?”
“Raped and killed her.”
“Them no-good bastards. We've got to get you inside so I can look at that wound. It's bleeding again.”
“I can crawl,” he said with some effort.
“No, you can't. Help me get you up.”
He struggled with the big-breasted woman until she was under his good arm and half supporting him. They moved as one in a wobbly fashion for the cabin doorway.
“Your man around?” he asked.
“I ain't got one, 'less it be you.” She laughed aloud at the notion.
“Oh.”
“Here, lie down on the bed. Facedown. I've got to see about that wound. When did they shoot you?”
“Early this morning. I just rode for help. She needs to be buried.”
“We'll get to that later. Man, that shirt is plastered and stuck to your back.”
“Don't worry about the shirt.” He was lying facedown on the quilts, which smelled strongly of her body odors. She worked at peeling his shirt away from the skin. Once she had the shirt cut off him, she crawled off the bed, talking to herself about some whiskey she had cached somewhere.
“Man, you're a big sumbitch,” she said when she returned. “This is going to burn, but I want to try to stop any infection.”
The cold liquor made him tense, then it set fire to the wound. Moving in and out of consciousness, he jerked when she found the slug embedded in his back muscles, probing with the point of a thin-bladed knife.
“It ain't deep. I can get it out. Can you stand the pain?”
Weak and sweating, he nodded and clenched his teeth. He felt the bed give as she climbed on the mattress to work on him. When she started to dig for the slug, he let out a scream. Then she got off the bed, and the lead bullet fell into the wash pan with a
clunk
. He passed out.
When he awoke it was dark save for a flickering candle on the table and the fire in the fireplace, which threw orange light into the room.
“You're coming around?” she asked.
He could see that she was taking a sponge bath. Her large breasts rode on top of her ample belly. Slocum looking at her naked as she used the washcloth didn't seem to bother her. She might as well have been dressed. But he was grateful that, if she was going to be close to him, she wouldn't smell so bad.
“I guess you were passed out when I disinfected that wound. I poured some gunpowder from a couple of your bullets in that wound and set them on fire. You feel that?”
He nodded. “Thought you blew me up.”
“That cauterized the bleeding too. Tough way, but without a doc closer it was the best I could do. I got some chicken soup for you. They say it cures anything. Want me to set you up?”
“I need to piss worse than anything.”
“I've got a thunder mug under the bed. Can you stand up there by the bed? I'll help you.”
She came over, still dripping, naked as Eve, and bear-hugged him against her large boobs to set him up, then lifted him to stand. He stood on wobbly legs as she undid his britches, then with her index finger drew his soft tool out. She then bent over and set the pot at his feet.
He must have pissed a gallon. The relief to his bladder made him weak-kneed and she helped him sit down. He softly thanked her.
She shrugged on a dress to cover her nudity. “Hell, I thought I was going to need to build an ark before you got through.”
He laughed even though it hurt. She went over to the fireplace and dipped out a steaming bowl of her soup. Then, armed with a spoon and the soup, she came back to sit down on the edge of the bed, making the bed ropes squeak under her.
Spoonful by spoonful, she fed him until he was so sleepy he thanked her and quit eating. She rose, went over for her bottle of laudanum, and fed him a spoonful of it.
“You won't care in a little while. You need to rest.”
The last thing he could recall were her large, dark, rosette nipples under the thin material close to his face as she bent over him, settling him in the bed. Then he fell into never-never land and slept until morning.
She was cooking breakfast when he managed to sit up. No way to clear out his fogged-up head.
“I'm going over and give Jennifer a burial.”
“Iâ”
“You rest. You ain't fit to do anything. I can't load you on your horse when you're passed out. I've dug enough graves in my life. I sure as hell know how.”
“Be a tough job. You know her well?”
“Not well. But we met and talked some. I mind my own business. She minded hers.”
He nodded.
“There's oatmeal up here, you want to chance walking over here to the table.”
“I'm going outside to piss first.”
He regretted that statement. Bracing himself as he reached the door, he wished he'd used her pot. But finally, dizzy and light-headed, he was able to piss off the porch by hugging the post. Then she held his good elbow and guided him inside to the table.
The oatmeal stuck to the roof of his mouth. Her roasted barley coffee hardly moved it for him to swallow. When he'd eaten all he could, she gave him more laudanum, and then, with him back in bed, she rode off to bury Jennifer. No need to protest her doing something he couldn't do in the shape he was in. His eyelids shut, and when he woke in the afternoon, she was still gone. He collapsed on the porch after emptying his bladder, then he crawled back inside over the rough-sawn boards and got on the bed to wait for her return.
Past dark she came in, after having put his horse in the corral. “You still kicking, big man?” she called out as she came into the cabin.
“Yes. You all right?” he asked.
“My back won't be the same, but she's buried.” Hands on her hips, she stretched her back muscles.
“Sorry. Did you catch any sight of those two?”
“If I had, I'd've busted some caps at them. Did you know that poor woman was smothered to death under a pillow by them bastards?”
Slocum nodded, so weary he knew he wouldn't last much longer without falling asleep.
“They had her body to rape, why kill her?” she asked, sounding bewildered by it.
“I don't know.”
“How is your shoulder?”
She walked over and removed the blanket from his shoulder. With her hand she felt his back for any sign of fever, then smiled. “So far, we're winning the battle.”
“Thanks.”
“I'll wake you to eat. You need to eat.”
He nodded and slumped back down on the bed. His shoulder complained, but he ignored it. Weary of his down condition, he wanted so badly to be well again. He slept until she woke him to eat some brown beans.
During the next few days, his strength slowly returned. He began walking around her rough homestead to recover his depleted strength. A sponge bath came next, and while his shoulder still hurt, he could sustain the discomfort and quit taking the laudanum.
He finally learned her name was Wilmaâno last name. She wasn't sure of it since she'd been married several times and never divorced.
“I buried three of them. Neal had been shot, another had a heart attack and a stroke, and the third died due to his own damn foolishness.”
“What do I owe you?” he asked, sitting across from her, eating some fresh venison she'd shot with his rifle.
“You leaving?”
“I want to run those two down.”
She put down her fork and shook her head at him. “And faint off that red horse and get killed falling in some canyon? You better wait awhile and get your strength back, mister.”
“Maybe you're right.”
“Damn right, I'm right. Why, a kid could tackle you off your feet.”
“You think those two're still in the country?”
“Sure. They probably don't think anyone found you or her except the magpies and some mangy, starving coyote. By the time that lazy old man of hers got up here, she'd be rotted and he'd never know what kilt her. There's no one but you to point a finger at them.”
“Is there any law up here?”
“What could they do? Dig her up? You'd be the first and last suspect they had.”
“You're a lot of help,” he grumbled and went back to using the side of his fork to cut up the venison on his plate.
Shaking her head, she took his plate and cut the meat into bite-sized pieces for him
“Make you feel any better, I'll go along and back you arresting them when you're stronger.”
He shook his head as if lost. “I'll get stronger.”
No need to think about it until he was more himself. He simply hated to admit she was right. The deer meat didn't taste bad at all. “Where are they at, do you know?”
“I guess over near that Cheyenne battlefield where the army fought that bunch they found after the Little Bighorn catastrophe.”
“It's in a long, high meadow west of the divide that goes to Ten Sleep?”
“Yeah. You've been there?”
“I spent a winter with an Indian woman up there. There's a big spring east of that site.”
Busy eating, she nodded her head and the stringy, graying hair swished in her face, forcing her to take her hands and gather it at the back of her head. “You've been there.”
He nodded.
“Where were you headed this time?”
“Oh, off down into Texas, I guess, before I was snowed in up here.”
She nodded and snuffed, “Uh-huh.”
“I shot a guy over a card game up in Montana. He was drunk, and he challenged me. I had nothing else to do.”
“That's called self-defense.” She was waving her spoon at him.
He shook his head. “Not when your father's rich and the most powerful rancher in the country. He didn't take the shooting of his heir very good.”
“That's what I call good ol' boy law.”
He agreed and finished eating. He wanted to be well, wanted to be on the trail of the killersâbut he hardly had the strength of a pup. Damn.
3
His wound was healing and Wilma found a shirt big enough for him to wear. To build up his strength, he chopped cooking wood for a few hours each day. Wilma, with the help of a stout horse, had dragged in lots of dead trees to be cut into firewood. She wasn't going to run out with her huge stockpile of logs and stacked wood. But Slocum wasn't ready to tackle a saw job. The effort would require two hands, and his left side was still sore.