McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [137]
Weaving through all that ruckus, Holt was sure he heard the braying of a mule.
He hoped that didn’t mean what he thought it did.
The Indians were out in the open now, coming at him and Rafe from every direction. They fought back, each one covering the other while they reloaded, and reloaded again.
A shotgun boomed, and one of the braves flew backward off a high rock, arms outspread. After that, it rained bullets. The battle seemed to go on forever, but it probably lasted about fifteen minutes. At the end of the fury, a peculiar, reverberating silence fell.
Rafe slid down the rock, sat with his back to it, sweating and gasping for breath. He was feeling that arrow now, that was for damn sure.
Holt risked raising his head for a look and saw dead Indians everywhere. John, the Captain and Frank were there, on horseback, surveying the carnage, rifles ready for any fresh trouble that might happen to crop up. And with them, riding that damnable mule of hers, was Lorelei.
Holt felt a surge of horror, and something else he couldn’t identify, so powerful that it made him feel light-headed.
“Rafe’s hit,” he told the men, but he was looking at Lorelei. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, for fear she’d topple forward with an arrow in her back.
Whoops and more gunfire sounded in the distance; he’d been right, for all the good it did him. The Comanches were helping themselves to the herd, and the wranglers were fighting back.
“Get back there and lend them cowboys a hand,” John told the Captain and Frank. They hesitated, took a last look around, and rode out.
Lorelei jumped down off that mule and ran past Holt to drop to her knees next to Rafe. She dabbed at his wound with a wadded up bandana and asked the bone-stupidest question Holt had ever heard.
“Does it hurt?”
Pale as death and bleeding like a speared hog, Rafe chuckled. “Indeed it does, Miss Lorelei,” he said. “Indeed it does.”
Holt got Lorelei by the arm and hurled her back. While she was still regaining her balance, he yanked off his belt and wrapped it around Rafe’s upper arm for a tourniquet. Rafe gasped when he pulled it tight.
John loomed over them both, handed Rafe a flask. “You better take a good dose of that,” he said.
Rafe nodded and unscrewed the lid with his teeth while Holt assessed the damage. The flint arrowhead and a good four inches of the shaft were sticking out the back of Rafe’s shirtsleeve. There was no telling how badly he was hurt, but one thing was for sure. The next couple of minutes were going to be worse than the initial injury.
“Least it isn’t my gun arm,” Rafe said, and downed some more whiskey.
“I’m sorry about this, Rafe,” Holt told him, and he wasn’t just talking about what he had to do next. It was his fault that Rafe was hurt.
“Just do it,” Rafe ground out. “And do it quick.”
Holt snapped the arrowhead off, then wrenched the shaft out with his other hand. Rafe didn’t make a sound, but Lorelei let out a scream shrill enough to wake two or three dead Comanches. Blood spurted from Rafe’s wound, and Holt gave the tourniquet another hard tug to stanch it.
Rafe finally passed out.
Neither Holt nor John spoke as they hoisted Rafe to his feet. He stumbled between them, his head rolling on his shoulders, and came to enough to stand. With help from both men, he managed to gain the saddle of John’s mount, the spotted pony Melina usually rode.
John put a foot in the stirrup and swung up behind him, reaching around Rafe’s slumped frame to grab the reins.
Holt turned on Lorelei then, and her eyes widened in her dusty, tear-streaked face when he stalked toward her.
“Get on that goddamned mule!” he told her, through his teeth.
She backed away from him, her eyes bigger still, but there was a tilt to her chin that said she wouldn’t give much more ground. “Will Rafe be all right?” she whispered.
Holt stopped, bent to snatch his hat from the ground. Rafe’s was a few feet away, so he got that, too. Handed it to Lorelei. “Get on the mule,” he repeated.
She obeyed, which was a wonder in and of