Part 61 (2/2)

She led Saber through the savaged remains of man and horse. At the boulder where we'd set our ambush, she tied our rifles together. She slung them over Saber, just in front of the saddle, then looped the straps of two canteens and the water bag over the saddle horn.

Holding the reins with one hand, she climbed atop the boulder. She lifted her long skirt, bunching it up so high I glimpsed the bandage around her thigh, then stepped into a stirrup and swung her wounded leg over the saddle.

I climbed the boulder. As Jesse snuggled the horse in close, I heaved a leg over his back and rather leaped with my other. Risky work, having no use of my arms. But Jesse stopped me when I started to fall off the other side. Her arm struck where I was gunshot on the left, and I yelped. But at least she saved me from a nasty tumble. I squirmed about until Saber was square between my legs.

”You okay?” Jesse asked.

”I've been better, actually.”

”Same goes here. You ain't gonna fall off, now, are you?”

”Hope not.”

”You can't hold on at all?”

”Not with my arms.”

She started Saber walking. Instead of heading away, though, she turned him around. Steered him into the midst of the bodies. There, she dismounted. She limped over to a dead horse, fetched a coil of rope off its saddle, and came back. She made a loop at one end of the rope, swung it about a few times, and la.s.soed me. Stepping up close, she raised the loop beneath my arms, then slipped it tight around my chest.

At the boulder again, she hoisted her skirt and climbed aboard the saddle. She wrapped the rope around herself. When she finished, we were bound together, only enough slack between us so I wasn't quite mashed against her back.

”That oughta hold you,” she said.

”It'll be a spot awkward if we need to climb down.”

”I don't aim to take us nowhere the horse can't carry us,” Jesse said. ”We just gotta find where the posse came in.”

She set Saber to moving at a slow walk. By and by, we found a gap that was wide enough for us. In we went, leaving behind the cave, the ghastly clearing, Sarah and Whittle and all the other dead.

It was mighty good to be going away from such things.

I figured we were lucky to get out alive.

And lucky to have a horse. Not that the bouncing about felt good. It shook me up considerable, and never gave me a rest from the pain. But this sure beat walking. No telling how we might've faired afoot. Not well, likely. But if we rode on steady and didn't get ourselves lost in the maze, we ought to be down off the mountain before sunup. From the trail at the base of Dogtooth, we'd be less than two days from Tombstone. We'd likely get there sometime tomorrow night.

I judged we could both last that long. Then we'd find ourselves a doctor and get patched up proper, and have no more business but to rest and recover.

The trick was to stay aboard Saber.

On a level trail, that wouldn't have been much of a problem. But our course through the rocks was rough. We not only had to wind this way and that and sometimes back out of dead ends, but every so often Saber had to charge up a steep place.

The first time that happened, it took me and Jesse by surprise. I yelped and pitched backward. I tried to reach for her, but my dang arms wouldn't move fast enough. The rope jerked taut, pretty near tearing Jesse out of the saddle. She cried out with pain, but clutched the pommel in time to stop us both from smas.h.i.+ng to the ground.

At the top of the grade, she reined in Saber. Then she hunched over. I put my face against her back, and felt how she was twitching.

”This won't do,” I told her.

She didn't answer.

”You'd best let me down. I'm fit enough to walk.”

She sniffed. ”You stay where you're at,” she said, her voice tight and shaky. ”We'll get by.”

”That must've hurt you terribly.”

”I ain't gonna have you walking.” Slowly, she unhunched herself and sat up straight. ”Next time, I'll give you a warning. Just lean up against me tight as you can.”

So that's how we played it. Enough moonlight made its way down through the narrow walls of rock for her to see ahead of us. Usually. And usually, she gasped out ”Lean!” just before Saber lunged up a slope or leaped across a gully. We'd both duck forward and come through it fine. Sometimes, though, he surprised us.

No less than eight more times, on our way across that d.a.m.n valley, Saber took unexpected jumps or clambered up night-shrouded slants in such a way that I was thrown backward against the rope. Each time, my fall was stopped by Jesse. It's a pure wonder that she was able to hold on, again and again, as the rope tugged so savagely at her chest. But hold on she did.

She rarely cried out, though the pain must've been terrible.

By the time we finally came out of the valley and halted before starting our descent down the mountain, my back was so abraded by the rope that it burned near as bad as my bullet holes. I felt blood sliding down beneath my s.h.i.+rt. Jesse's chest, I knew, could be in no better shape than my back.

I leaned forward against her. She was bent over the pommel, shuddering and sobbing.

”I'm so sorry,” I gasped, weeping myself for her torment and bravery.

I longed to wrap my arms around her.

And did so, though the pain almost drove me senseless.

My hands met warm, slick blood.

”Oh, Jesse,” I murmured.

She sat up a bit. Her trembling hands found mine and pressed them to her. She sniffled. After a while, she lifted my hands. She crossed them at the wrists, then eased them inside the open front of her dress and held them to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I pushed my face against the side of her neck. Later, I kissed her there.

We stayed that way for a long while, Saber shuffling beneath us but going nowhere. Off in the east, the horizon was going pale with the approach of daylight.

Jesse finally sat up straight and took a deep breath. ”Reckon your hands ain't useless, after all.”

I realized that I was caressing her with them. ”They're all right for this, anyhow,” I said.

”Lord, that was a h.e.l.lish ride.”

”You were bully.”

”I sorta kept a lookout for General. Maybe we'll find him down below.”

”Maybe.” I couldn't bring myself to care a whole lot, one way or the other.

”Least we didn't run into no rattlers,” she said.

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