Even over the roar of the fire and the shooting into the front of the mercantile, Will heard hoofbeats, whoops, and war cries alongside the building. He vaulted onto the renegade’s horse, grabbed the single rein, and put his heels to the animal’s side. He’d barely gotten the horse into a full gallop when there was a tremendous crash behind him and a stinging rush of hot air and red, smoking bits of wood swept over and past him. He looked over his shoulder: the entire structure of the store had collapsed to the ground, freeing hungry flames to reach twenty and thirty feet into the sky as the conflagration sucked at and fed itself with the fire-feeding air.
Will One Dog assume I’m dead, my tomb a burned mercantile? The two dead Indians and Gentle Jane’s body won’t tell One Dog much, nor will the missing horse—and more than likely the first renegade down’s horse ran off, too, its instinctual fear of fire easily overcoming any training it may have had.
He asked the horse he was riding for yet more speed.
Now it’s not only Hiram and his family’s revenge I’m seeking. I’ll draw blood for both Austin and Jane, or I’ll die trying.
The horse Will had taken from the Indian he killed with his knife must have been a recent steal by the renegade. Will felt some fat around the animal’s withers, and the horse seemed willing enough to cover ground. He was shod; Will could tell that from the ringing sound of hooves striking bits of rock. The horses One Dog and his crew rode were unshod.
Will reined down to a fast walk after a couple of miles at a lope, figuring the gang wouldn’t be able to track him in the now-full dark. The battle in memory seemed a speck of time, but in reality, it had covered several hours. Images of the fight cluttered Will’s mind, clashing with one another, out of sequence, an amalgam of gunfire, flames, blood, and death.
The faces of Austin and Jane floated in front of him like mirages, one on either side of Hiram’s face.
The side of Will’s head tortured him—it felt as if he were still in the mercantile, forcing his way through smoke and flames. He explored the painful area with his fingertips and encountered what felt like minute strands of strings. He grasped one between his thumb and forefinger and tugged it free, puzzled. Then it struck him: the stitches! The fire had singed the exposed parts of the sutures, parting them. Within a few minutes, Will had removed the entire line. He probed where his eyebrows had been. Now there was nothing but seared flesh. He found his eyelashes were gone, as well. His Stetson was burned all the way around and it smelled strongly of scorched felt. He put his palm on the grips of his Colt: it felt fine. He wondered about his gun belt: he was carrying, he thought, thirty rounds of volatile .45 cartridges. But as he ran his hand around his waist he found many of the leather loops were empty—he’d loaded and reloaded automatically, without realizing what he was doing. Will reached back to his saddlebag for a fresh box of Remingtons and realized that he was riding without a saddle—without his own saddle and supplies—and that the horse he was riding wasn’t Slick.
The pain struck suddenly. His face felt as if it were on fire, his arms screamed for relief from the heat, and his gut, upper body, and back felt as if he’d been horsewhipped. The crazy hot blood of the battle, the Sharps . . . and his two friends, Austin and Gentle Jane, were gone—gone for good. Will was dizzy with pain. His left hand let go of the single rein and it dropped on the horse’s neck, giving the animal free choice as to where he was going.
Will mumbled to himself—and moaned, now and again—but for the most part, he sat the horse, not knowing where the hell he was, and not really caring.
The fatigue, the pain, the pounding ache in his body and in his heart, fell on Will like a heavy, impenetrable blanket. His eyes closed and he slumped forward at the waist, his face only a few inches above the horse’s ears.
The animal was, of course, not saddled. Only Will’s many years of riding, both bareback and in a saddle, kept him aboard the horse. Will’s body shifted with that of the animal rather than against it, and although he wasn’t consciously aware of it, his legs exerted just enough pressure to keep him centered.
The horse, confused, danced a bit and huffed through his nostrils. When there was no reaction, no command, from his rider, the animal did as his instincts demanded. He headed toward the place where he’d last known safety, hay, and water: the camp where One Dog and his troops had settled prior to their siege of the mercantile.
Will wasn’t asleep, but he wasn’t exactly awake, either. Instead, he was in a sort of twilight, unaware of his surroundings but realizing that the horse under him was walking steadily, moving well. To where he didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter.
The sun had risen by the time the horse stopped. When his rider failed to dismount he became nervous. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be, the way they always were in the past. Further, there were no men and more importantly, no other horses—simply signs of cook fires, piles of manure, and remnants of bales of hay. He danced again, this time circling, raising a cloud of grit, frightened by what should have been familiar, but wasn’t. He arched his back and bucked, all four hooves off the ground, and came down hard. Will toppled off his back and hit the dirt and manure like a full sack of grain tossed from a wagon. The horse trotted to the murky little puddle that provided water to the camp. After he drank, he began snuffling through the scraps of hay left behind by the renegades, salvaging what he could.
The sun flexed its morning muscles, adding its own fire to the agony of Will’s face and arms. He groaned and fought his way to consciousness. He was neither hungry nor thirsty, but he realized he needed to eat and drink to stay alive. He pushed himself to a sitting position and rubbed the crust from his eyes. He recognized that there’d been a camp here, but little further registered—at least until he focused on the horse he’d ridden in on. He was what horsemen call “right pretty,” a tall, well-muscled pinto with large expanses of white and equally large splotches of a deep chestnut. His nut sack looked like a tanned deerskin bag with a pair of doorknobs in it: he was obviously a stallion, and a young one, at that. But Will’s eyes swung past the horse to a scrawny jackrabbit picking through the dirt for bits of spilled grain.
Will’s hand found the grips of his .45 easily, smoothly, regardless of his pain. He took a breath, aimed by instinct, and squeezed his trigger. The sharp metallic snap of the hammer striking an empty cartridge was loud in the heat and the vastness of the prairie. The horse swung his head toward Will, and the jack ran ten yards or so before stopping and looking back over his shoulder, still ready to run.
“Goddammit,” Will muttered through cracked and bleeding lips. He swung open the cylinder of his .45, dumped the empties, and fumbled along his belt until he found three fresh cartridges. He eased the cylinder shut. That faint click startled the jack. The pinto paid no attention.
The few bits of grain were a mighty lure for the starving rabbit. The midsummer sun had burned his usual forage to stunted brown blades with no more life to them than the arid dirt around them. Her mate had died, as had all seven of her latest litter. She’d eaten two of them but there hadn’t been enough to them to maintain her life.