This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [63]
Summer screamed.
Pud’s footsteps faltered and he sank to the ground. There was another shot, and the man staggered back against his horse, his eyes seeking, his mouth open in surprise, a blossom of bright blood covering his chest. Sadie stood in the doorway, both hands holding the six-gun, waiting. . . . The man tried to raise his arm, but the gun slipped between his fingers as he began to vomit blood and collapsed in a heap between his horse’s legs.
The frightened horse shied, the rope about the Indian’s neck pulled taut and jerked him from the pinto.
Summer ran to Pud. He lay deathly still, and his blood poured out onto the ground. Instantly, Sadie was beside him, tearing open his shirt and stuffing the cloth from her skirt into the gaping wound to stop the bleeding.
“Summer! The Indian!” John Austin’s screams reached her consciousness.
The frightened horse was backing away, dragging the Indian by the rope looped about his neck. He was choking to death! She ran to the horse, but he turned as if to bolt. Desperately, she grabbed one of the trailing reins and pulled up, hard, turning the animal around. Frantically, she sought to unwind the rope from the saddlehorn.
The Apache was almost unconscious by the time she loosened the rope. She fell on her knees beside him and worked, frenziedly, crying in her frantic effort to pull the rope through the slip knot so he could breathe. He was bucking and thrashing and she placed her knee on his chest to hold him while her fingers pulled at the heavy rope. At last, it came free, and he lay there sucking in great gulps of air. His eyes had rolled back in his head, and his swollen lips were pulled back over his teeth while his tongue protruded.
“Bring water! Wet his tongue,” she commanded John Austin. “Don’t let but a trickle go down his throat, or he’ll choke.”
She hurried to where Sadie bent over Pud.
“Is it bad? Oh, God! Tell me it isn’t bad!”
“I don’t know. I’m a feared of taking out this wadding. Somebody’s comin’. Hurry! Hurry!” she shouted.
Summer only had time to register the sound of the rapidly nearing horses when Bulldog and Raccoon yanked their mounts to a halt and leaped to the ground. The old cowboy’s eyes took in the scene at a glance, pausing momentarily at the crumbled heap that was the dead man. Seeing the danger was over, he knelt beside Sadie.
“Here, now, let me see.”
Is he . . . ? Is he . . . ?” Summer whispered on a sobbing breath.
Bulldog gently moved the wad of Sadie’s skirt and the wound rapidly filled. He pressed it back and got to his feet.
“Ya done good, Sadie. Ya done real good, girl. Summer, get some cloth to plug the hole and we’ll get him onto a bed.” He glanced at the dead man. “Who shot him?”
“Sadie,” Summer sobbed. “If Sadie hadn’t a shot him, I don’t know what he would have done.”
“Yer a good woman, Sadie. Yer a good, strong woman.” A compliment from Bulldog was something to be treasured, but Sadie disregarded it. Her small, pert features were tight, her eyes cold.
“T’was no more than killin’ a . . . varmit!”
Summer gazed down at the boy and swallowed hard. A stray breeze ruffled his sandy blond hair, blood from his wound stained the ground where he lay.
“Will he . . . ?” She could hardly bring herself to say the words.
“Ain’t nobody a knowin’ that,” Bulldog said abruptly. “Move gal, we ain’t got no time for jawin’.”
Pud was moved, with the least amount of jarring possible, to the bunk in the kitchen. The wound in his side was cleaned, and a quantity of whiskey poured into it before clean bandages were wrapped tightly around his body. The bullet had gone into his side and out his back, miraculously missing ribs and vital organs. He remained unconscious, but Bulldog, who seemed to be an authority on gunshot wounds, said that was due to shock and loss of blood. They were to keep him covered, and as soon as possible give him several spoonfuls of honey.
Summer felt a tremendous amount of guilt. Her agony of regret was eased somewhat by Slater when he came. After hearing her tell the story over and over, he finally