Part 48 (1/2)

It was about half full.

I held it up for Jesse, sloshed the whiskey around, and watched her smile.

”This should help the steaks go down a spot better,” I said.

Then I sat on the ground and took over my own share of the cooking. It wasn't long before the slabs of meat were good and crispy on the outside. We swung them away from the flames, waited till they quit smoking, plucked them off their sticks, and commenced to rip into them with our teeth.

If I hadn't known my steak was mule, I would've known anyhow that it sure wasn't beef. It was tough and stringy and had an ornery flavor.

After a couple of mouthfuls, I was mighty appreciative of the whiskey.

I took a swallow and offered the bottle to Jesse.

She used one hand to take the steak away from her mouth. With the other, she wiped the grease and soot off her lips and chin. Looking at the bottle, she chewed real hard for a spell. She rolled her eyes upward, and kept on chewing.

I grinned. ”How's supper?”

”I've eaten worse,” she judged, her voice a bit m.u.f.fled. After a grimace and a swallow, she took hold of the bottle.

”This is better than rattlesnake?” I asked her.

She had herself a sip, and gave the bottle back to me. ”Didn't say that.”

We both took to laughing. Then we ate more mule and drank more whiskey. The more whiskey I drank, the better the mule tasted. Not that the critter ever did quite reach the stage where it gave me any great pleasure in the eating.

I was glad to swallow the last of it and be done.

”What we should've done,” I allowed, ”was spare the mule and eat the German.”

Jesse laughed so sudden and hard that it sprayed her last mouthful into the fire. I looked on, mighty pleased with myself till she commenced to choke. Then I pounded on her back. She took turns coughing and laughing for a while. When she finally got herself under control, her eyes were teary, her nose running. I fetched the bandanna out of my pocket. It was still moist from my swim in the creek. She used it to clean herself, then stuffed it into a pocket of her dungarees.

”Didn't want it back, did you?”

”Consider it yours,” I told her.

”You dang near killed me.”

”I'm bound to kill you sooner or later,” I said. ”I gave you fair warning yesterday, didn't I?”

When I said that, it took some of the fun out of matters. Not just for me, but for Jesse as well.

She looked at me somber. ”You're a good man, Trevor Bentley. Don't go running yourself down that way. Now let's go and gut ourselves a mule.”

”Let's finish the whiskey first.”

We pa.s.sed it back and forth a couple of times. When it was empty, I held it up and said, ”I don't suppose this will hold enough water to suffice us on the trail.”

”If you've got a few more like it.”

”Only the one, I'm afraid. Though I did have an opportunity to purchase ten bottles of Glory Elixir a couple of days back.”

”Glory Elixir?” she asked, getting to her feet.

”Good for what ails you.”

Then I told her about my encounter with Dr. Lazarus and Ely while we went over and got to work on the mule. She seemed to enjoy the tale, and telling it helped take my mind off our ghastly task.

Not that it was all that ghastly for me.

Jesse took it upon herself to slit open the mule's belly and haul out the guts. Mostly, I stood guard. I wasn't exactly worried that intruders might come along, but keeping watch gave me a reason to avert my eyes from the mess.

The few times I did look, it put me in mind of poor Mary in her Whitchapel digs and poor Trudy the way she'd been the last time I saw her on the yacht. What with all my other troubles, it had been some time since I'd given much thought to Whittle.

I wondered how many more women he'd butchered since those luckless ladies in Tombstone. And where was he now? And how was I to go about tracking him down?

It wouldn't be an easy trick, but I judged there was no advantage to worrying about it. For now, what mattered was to take care of a day at a time and get us safe to Tombstone.

”How much of this do we want?” Jesse asked.

I figured it was time to join in. We cut off two sections of intestine, each about a yard long, and stretched them out along the ground. They looked like a pair of slimy fire hoses.

We mashed them flat to empty them, then laid them across a rock by the creek.

After shucking off our boots and socks and rolling up our trouser legs, we picked up the guts and waded in.

We held them under the surface so water flowed in one end and out the other. Kept them under for a long time. When we judged they were as washed out as they were likely to get, we tied a knot at one end of each and filled them up till they were swollen and heavy. Then we twisted them shut at the other end and lugged them back to the fire. With short pieces of the rope that the German had used to tie Jesse, we bound the twisted ends.

We hefted the bloated tubes onto the buckboard, stepped back, and grinned at each other.

”Looks like we got us traveling water,” Jesse said.

”I'm quite surprised it worked, actually.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE.

No Rain, Storms Aplenty The sun went down while we packed some innards back inside the mule and dragged it to the water. We watched it float off toward the south, then washed ourselves and the knives. We carried our things back to the fire.

We added some more wood and sat there, warming our bare feet.

”It's a shame we drank up all the whiskey,” I said.

”We can have us a smoke.”

So we rolled cigarettes and used a brand from the fire to light them up.

”Hope it don't rain,” Jesse said.