This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [77]
It seemed an eternity before he pulled the horse up.
Fighting to stay conscious, he relaxed the death grip he had on the saddlehorn, kicked his feet from the stirrups, and slid to the ground. He crawled into the underbrush. His last thought was of Summer. I can’t die . . . I can’t leave her.
He fought his way back to consciousness in broad daylight. He lay in a nest of dried grass, flat on his back, half under a bush. The sky beyond was blue and spotted with fluffy clouds. He lay very still, afraid to move, trying to locate where he was. He could hear Estrella cropping grass nearby, and he moved his head carefully until his eyes found him.
Memory returned. Memory of shots out of the darkness. He cursed himself for a stupid fool. He had let himself be bushwacked! Yet . . . how could that be? He scowled. Who had known he would be on the trail? It was no accidental meeting. The place had been carefully chosen, and the drygulcher there well ahead of him. The trail he had used was well-known to his own men, but to few others.
Now the pain made itself felt. It was his left shoulder. Two bullets had hit him, one had gone through his shoulder below the collarbone and the other skidded off his hipbone, ripping the fleshy part of his side. Son-of-a-bitch, he cursed. An inch or two and either one would’ve killed him. He rolled over carefully, using his right hand to push himself up into a sitting position. He looked around, turning his head carefully on his stiff neck.
He wasn’t far from the place he had planned to camp. He must have had some grip on that saddlehorn. Undoubtedly, he had lost a lot of blood, his thoughts were hazy and he couldn’t bring his eyes to focus clearly on any object. He lay back and stared up at the sky.
Knowing he was hunted quarry prompted him to move. He sat up again, let the world stop swaying, then struggled to his feet and staggered to the horse. He tried to mount, but his weakness was too great, and he went sprawling on the ground. Bright lights flashed before his eyes, his head seemed to explode, and he sunk down into a pit of blackness.
It was sunset when his eyes opened again. The air was cool and a slight breeze was blowing. He lay there in the grass. His shoulder was on fire and his head pounded. A long time later, his right hand searched the grass beside him for the canteen. His thirst seemed without end, and he remembered from somewhere that thirst usually accompanied a heavy loss of blood. Thank God he was near the stream.
The pain in his head was agonizing, and his shoulder burned like fire. He tried to decide what to do. He’d not make it into the saddle, but he had to have food, water. His stomach rumbled and he dug into his saddlebag for biscuits and meat and ate hungrily. While untying his blanket, his mind dully remembered that this was the second night he had been out . . . or was it the third? He had to get his strength back and get on the horse. Summer would be worried.
It was night. He settled himself in the grass and pulled the blanket around him. His mind told him that he must do something about his shoulder before the fever that he knew was coming set in. He crawled to the stream, made a poultice out of the wet biscuits, refilled his canteen and crawled back to the blanket. His head pulsed with slow, heavy throbs, his shoulder felt as if someone had put a torch to it. He kept flexing his fingers, turning his stiff neck, afraid of stiffness, knowing that