‘‘Stay right where you are, mister. Even in the dark I can scatter your brains.’’
McBride knew that voice. It was Clare O’Neil.
‘‘Clare, it’s me! It’s John McBride!’’ He felt a sudden surge of joy and relief.
A silence followed, so intense McBride felt it drift out of the shadow-scarred hills and surround him. He was aware of the mustang grazing close by, its reins trailing.
Then, finally, ‘‘John, is it really you? I thought you were dead.’’
‘‘It’s me, and alive as ever was.’’ He hesitated. ‘‘Well, more or less.’’
‘‘Stand up. Let me get a good look at you.’’ Clare was taking no chance and McBride didn’t blame her for that. He rose to his feet, shoved the Colt back in his pants and said, ‘‘See, it’s really me.’’
‘‘Yes, I’d recognize that hat anywhere,’’ Clare said.
Then she shot him.
McBride felt a sledgehammer blow to his belly and for a moment he stood still, shocked, leaning into the wind. Then the pain hit him like a mailed fist and he collapsed and mercifully knew no more.
He dreamed of Bear Miller.
They were on top of a high mountain, on raw, blue granite swept by a soaring wind. McBride lay on his back, his belly on fire.
‘‘Snow’s coming,’’ Bear said. ‘‘Cool you down some, son.’’
The old man’s long hair shredded over his left shoulder and his blue eyes were like glass. ‘‘You’re shot through and through,’’ he said. ‘‘Didn’t I tell you to ride on?’’
McBride watched the scarlet sky where vultures glided like kites on the end of strings. ‘‘It was the woman shot me,’’ he said. ‘‘I didn’t expect it, not to be shot in the belly like that.’’
‘‘I told you to ride on,’’ Bear said.
‘‘You warned me about a woman,’’ McBride said. ‘‘Was Clare the woman?’’
‘‘You got woman problems and you’ve got men problems, boy. And you can’t step back from either one.’’
McBride raised his head. Someone was reeling in the black kites. ‘‘What do I do, Bear, huh? What do I do?’’
‘‘You live, that’s what you do.’’
Bear picked up his Henry rifle. ‘‘I got to be going now.’’
‘‘Don’t leave me here,’’ McBride said, panic slashing at him. ‘‘I’m gut shot and I don’t want to be alone on this mountain.’’
Bear had been walking away, but he stopped and said, ‘‘You climbed it, John. Now you have to get yourself back down to the valley where the grass is green and the air is clean.’’
The old man stood for a few moments looking down at McBride, smiling, the red sky at his back. Then widening pools of crimson rippled over his body and Bear Miller slowly faded until all that was left was the sky.
A vulture, flapping like a black blind in a high wind, landed on McBride’s chest, its cold, merciless eyes on his. It squawked; then its head moved, swift as a jackhammer, and the vicious, curved beak stabbed into his belly.
McBride raised his face to the sky and screamed.
McBride’s eyes fluttered open. The mustang’s hairy nose was nuzzling his chest, its natural curiosity overcoming its fear of blood’s smell. McBride patted the horse’s muzzle, then pushed its head away. He lay still for a while, wide awake, and let the rain fall on his face. The sky above him was laced with lightning, and thunder growled as it paced among the mountain peaks.
After a while McBride slid a hand under his slicker and laid it on his belly. The hand came out running with blood and rain. He’d been hit and hit hard and now he needed a place to hide out. Painfully, he struggled to a sitting position, determined to die like a civilized man with his boots off and a roof over his head.
The mustang was standing a few feet away, head down, its wet hide glistening white in the lightning flashes like a ghost horse. McBride struggled to his feet, and staggered, bent over, to the saddle. He clamped a hand on the horn to support himself and for a few moments clung there, his head on the seat of the saddle, fighting down his pain and exhaustion.
The pain in his belly didn’t seem so bad, but McBride was not fooled. He had heard what happened to gut-shot men, how they screamed in agony for hours, cursing God, man and the mother who bore them. He was determined that wouldn’t happen to him. When the pain got too bad, he vowed, he’d end it with a bullet.
After a few tries McBride got his foot in the stirrup. His jaw was tight, the muscles bunched and his labored breath hissed through clenched teeth. He climbed into the saddle, sat for a minute to regroup his failing strength, then swung the mustang toward the O’Neil cabin.
Clare might be waiting for him with her rifle, but that was a chance he’d have to take. She probably figured he was already dead anyway. She’d told him that most times she hit what she was aiming at. The woman had aimed for his guts, had seen him drop and must believe he was dead. If that was the case, she was right—she had killed him, only he was dying a little more slowly than she’d intended.
McBride rode into the violent night, bent over in the saddle. He had lost blood he could ill afford from his previous wound and his head spun like a child’s top. Around him the land flared stark white as lightning flashed and the rain threatened to beat him from the saddle. After an hour of painful, jolting misery, he saw the cabin. The place was in darkness, but he looped wide around it and came up on the barn from the north.
He rode inside, into a dry darkness that held the memory of horses. He climbed out of the leather and swayed dizzily when his feet touched the ground. It took a great deal of effort and most of his waning strength, but McBride unsaddled the mustang and led it to a stall. Staggering now, groping his way around, he threw the horse hay and a handful of oats he found in a burlap sack.
Luck is a fickle lady and recently it seemed she’d decided not to stand at McBride’s shoulder as he rolled the dice. But that night he threw a natural when he bumped against an oil lamp standing on the partition of the stall in which he’d chosen to die.
He tore off his slicker and slumped into a corner, the lamp in his hands. After several attempts he managed to light the wick and a thin orange glow spread around the barn but left the corners in darkness.
Preparing himself for the worst, McBride opened his coat, then unbuttoned his bloody shirt. He’d expected to see blue intestines looping out of his belly, but saw no such thing. A raw, furrowed scar about five inches long creased his stomach just above the navel. The bullet had not dug deep, but the wound had bled considerably. He reached down and eased the Colt out of his waistband. To his surprise, the back strap of the handle’s steel frame was slightly bent, the walnut grip splintered.
McBride’s addled brain was slow to put it together, but in the end he realized what had happened. The handle of the revolver had deflected Clare O’Neil’s bullet and it had then plowed across his belly. It was a painful wound, but not deadly, and he felt relief wash over him. But with that sense of elation came the realization that he must now continue along a much more difficult trail—to go on living.