The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [108]
He brought his left hand over to the wound, his face tightening as his fingers touched the blood-smear of shirt that was stuck fast to the wound. It was still bleeding and now a dark stain was forming on the light wool blanket that covered the mattress.
She watched the stain spreading on the blanket where it touched his side and again she felt the squirm of life within her. She felt suddenly faint.
She remembered the afternoon her mother had given her the blanket and how she’d folded it into the chest with her linens and materials. She had seated herself on the chest then and clasped her hands contentedly, listing her possessions in her mind and thinking, smiling: now all I need is a husband. She had giggled then, she remembered.
For the bed, they used Dave’s heavy army blankets. The cot served as a sofa and deserved something bright and dressy enough for the front room.
Red lifted his boot to the cot, and stretched it out tensely, and as the heel slid over the blanket a streak of sand-colored clay followed the heel in a thin crumbling line.
And then she no longer recognized the blanket. It became something else with this man sprawled on top of it. It became part of him with his blood staining it. And she saw the man and the blanketed cot as one. The wound was in the center. It was the focal point.
His face grimaced again with the pain and he groaned.
She said softly, “Haven’t you done anything for it?”
He was breathing through his mouth as if his lungs were worn out and there was a pause before he said, “I stuffed my bandanna inside till it got soaked through, then I threw it away.”
She stared at the bloodstain without speaking. Then, suddenly, she laid the pistol on the table and went over to the stove.
Red watched her pour water from a kettle into a shallow, porcelain pan before reaching for a towel that hung from a wall rack. His eyes drifted to the gun on the table and his body strained as if he would rise, but as Virginia turned and moved toward him, he relaxed.
She caught the slight movement and stopped halfway to the cot, her eyes going from the man to the table. She hesitated for a moment, then went on to the cot where she kneeled down, placing the pan on the floor.
She poured water on the wound and pulled at the shirt gently, working it loose. When it was free she tore the shirt up to the armpit, exposing the raw wound. It looked swollen and tender, fire-red around the puncture then darkening into a surrounding purplish-blue.
She looked into his face briefly. “Didn’t your friend offer to help you?”
“He had to worry about getting us out.”
“After he got you in.”
Red said, irritably, “I’ve got a mind of my own.”
She held the wet cloth to the wound then took it away, wringing the strained water from it. “Then why don’t you use it?” she said calmly.
Red looked at her hard, then flared, “Maybe Jeffy was right. Maybe since you quit swingin’ your tail in a hash-house, all of a sudden you’re somebody else.”
Virginia’s head remained lowered over the pan as she rinsed out the cloth, squeezing it into the water. “You don’t have any cause to talk like that.”
She went to the wall rack and brought back a dry cloth and neither of them spoke as she folded it and pressed it gently against the wound.
And as she did this, Red’s eyes lowered to the streak of clay on the blanket and he brushed it off carefully. He looked at the bloodstain and said in a low voice, “I’m sorry about your cover.” He was silent for a moment then said, almost dazedly, “I’m going to die—”
She made no answer and now his eyes lifted to her faded blond hair and then over her head to roam about the room. He was thinking about the soiled blanket and now he saw the raveling poplin curtains that looked flimsy and ridiculous next to the drab adobe. On the board partition there was a print of a girl in a ballet costume, soft-shadowed color against the rough