The kid told him to swing left at the next fork. When they topped a gentle rise, and Longarm saw wagon ruts through the grass running in to join the main trail, he did so. The grass was taller and greener at this altitude. The tracks led across the bottomlands of the Beaver to run between two big granite outcrops. Then they were in a shallow dell, surrounded by more rim-rock, and occupied by a mighty lazy homesteader’s notion of an improved claim.
The cabin and outbuildings had been thrown up sort of cockeyed, with as little labor as possible, and skinny logs even a weakling could chop through with a few blows. Plank roofing like that was supposed to be shingled or at least sodded unless one enjoyed cold unexpected showers every time it really got to raining, and up here it was only dry most of the time, not all the time. It was the wrong time of the year to worry about cabin chinking, so Longarm didn’t comment on cross-ventilation as they rode in. He asked the kid behind him where they might expect to find the man of the house, and in what condition.
The boy said, “I reckon he’s dead. I had to make him stop.”
Longarm thought that over before he asked quietly, “How did you stop him, son?”
“With an axe. There was one by the fireplace and when he knocked me headfirst into the kindling wood, I just come up swinging what was handy.”
Longarm whistled softly. “Well, a boy has to protect his mom, I reckon. How come your old man was acting so ornery in the first place?”
“I don’t know. Neither of us had done nothing to make him mad. But when Pappy got to drinking, he didn’t need much excuse. I was out back milking the goat when I hear Mom screaming for mercy. When I run into the cabin Pappy had her on the floor as he went after her with that whip he’d made of bobwire. I took holt of his arm and begged him to stop, but he hit me with it as well. I tried to grab him again and he backhanded me clear over the table into the fireplace. That’s when I come back at him serious with the axe. Do you reckon they’re going to hang me for hitting Pappy with that axe, mister?”
Longarm shook his head. “Not if your mother lives to back your words, son.” He reined in by the wide-open cabin door and added, “She’s what we got to worry about now. Justifiable homicide can always wait until the law gets around to it.”
They dismounted and went inside. The interior smelled clean despite the chinks of daylight showing through the log walls and the stale scent of boiled greens.
There was only one body on the rolled dirt floor. It was moaning. Longarm stepped over the axe on the floor between them and hunkered down to see what needed to be done.
The badly beaten woman was a once-pretty woman of, say, thirty-five. Had she been living more civilized he’d have figured her for fifty. Her cheap calico mother-hubbard was so torn it made it easy to examine her without asking the patient to undress. The multiple lacerations from the bobwire she’d been lashed with had stopped bleeding and were starting to scab over. Lacking a quart or two of iodine, Longarm figured it best to count on the early bleeding having washed any lockjaw bugs out of the shallow wounds, and scabs would do as much or more for her than picking them open and fussing with them.
He gently opened one eyelid and held a lit match near the dilated pupil a moment before he told the boy in the doorway, “The whipping didn’t do her as much damage as the jar her skull seems to have taken, whether from a fist or from hitting the floor.”
The kid’s voice pleaded more than it asked, “Is she gonna be all right, mister?”
Longarm said, “I don’t know. It would take a real doc to say. She’s suffering shock and concussion. I’ve seen folk in this condition recover natural and I’ve seen it go worse. Where’s the nearest doctor? I know there’s no damn hospital in the village I just rode out of.”
The boy said he’d been running for the local midwife, who’d had some training as a hospital nurse one time.
“I reckon she’d know more than me,” Longarm said, “so here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go out and get my Winchester saddle gun, saddlebags, and possibles roll. After you bring ‘em in here I want you to fork that mare and ride for that medicine lady. What are you waiting for, boy? Do it!”
The kid gulped, ran out of sight, and was back by the time Longarm had rummaged about, found some much-mended but clean wool socks, and pulled the injured woman’s skirts down neater. As the boy piled Longarm’s gear on the dirt beside them he asked, “Did you want this rifle gun because you’re afraid Pappy ain’t really dead?”
“That thought had crossed my mind. Men killed entire with an axe hardly ever get up and go somewhere else. So it seems safe to assume you hit him with the flat of the blade, however hard you tried to split his skull. Was your old man armed with anything more serious than bobwire when last you noticed?”
The boy looked around and said, “I don’t see the shotgun he had over the fireplace, before.”
“All right. Get going. Don’t you want your mother to make it?” Longarm asked.
The kid vanished from view and a few moments later Longarm could tell from the fading sounds of Ramona’s hooves that he was headed somewhere fast.
Longarm unrolled his bedding beside the battered wife. As he was gently sliding her atop the ground cloth she murmured, “What are you doing, Dan?”
He didn’t know whether Dan was her kid or her man. He didn’t care. He told her, reassuringly, “I’m putting you to bed, ma’am. You’re in shock and we got to get your body warmer and your head cooler.”
She didn’t answer. In her semi-conscious state she couldn’t understand his words, but they seemed to have a calming effect on her.
CHAPTER 11
Longarm covered the woman with his blankets and rain tarp. Then he wet the old socks with canteen water and wrapped them around her skull like a clumsy gray bandage. He poured more water over the wool once he had her head still again. As he did so he saw the tip of her tongue moving between her pale lips. He took out his kerchief, wet that cloth, too, and let her suck on it some.
There was nothing else he could really do for her. He rose with his Winchester at port to see what else needed doing in these parts. He levered a round in the chamber and ducked out the door and to one side, fast, as he scanned the surrounding scenery. The only thing moving in his line of sight was a scrawny chicken pecking at a fresh horse apple Ramona had left in the dust of the dooryard. Longarm grimaced and said, “Yeah, a lazy nester can save feeding you birds regular if he lets you rustle your own grub, even if you do wind up sort of stringy. Those of you as ain’t eaten by varmints, I mean.”
He circled around to the back, ready for anything. He was still surprised at how rundown the layout was, despite how fresh the bark on the unstrapped bark of the mostly lodgepole pine construction looked. The outbuildings and corral on this untidy spread were already turning to punkwood. But he was more worried about punks inside the sheds than the condition of their flimsy walls. So he examined them all with care.
He found the goat milking stand the kid had mentioned in one shed. Where the goat or goats had run off to was anybody’s guess. He saw more chickens grubbing in the grass all about. They didn’t seem to have any other livestock. But he found some badly smoked beef in their smokehouse and muttered, “I sure hope you had the sense to bury the branded hide far and deep, you wife-beating, stock-stealing ass.”
He went back into the cabin. The woman on the floor looked dead. But when he put his fingers to her waxen throat he felt a moth-wing flutter and told her, “You can make it if you really try, ma’am. I know there’s times when life don’t feel worth all the bother. But you got your boy to think of.”
To his surprise, she’d heard him. She didn’t open her eyes, but her voice, while soft, was steady as she murmured, “Waiting for Little Dan to grow tall enough to make it on his own is all that’s kept me going. Now that he’s almost as tall as Big Dan I feels I’ve done my duty. So if it’s all the same to you I’d sure like to be on my way to join the heavenly choir now.”