"No, not Bonnie. Even if someone did fancy her, she'd never go along. She'll never marry. She believes her mission as a nurse is as great a calling as a nun's to the church.”
Drum handed Sage the reins to her bay. "Well, if she jumped off that dock with a man, you might want to reconsider your measure of her.”
"No. Trust me, Bonnie would die of fright before she'd ever let a man touch her hand.”
He offered Sage a step up into the saddle, then brushed her leg as he made sure her boot was solid in the stirrup. "How about you? You ever going to let another man touch you?"
"No," she answered. "And do me a favor; don't ask me again."
They didn't speak for an hour. She followed close behind him as he picked a path through the rocks, heading northeast. Since Skull Alley was to the south, she guessed most of the men chasing them would be searching in that direction. The few who came north, if any did, had the rain to slow them down. There was also a good chance none of them knew about the passage. Only a boy climbing around on rocks would have found it.
Drum pulled up and climbed off his mount. When he reached her, he whispered, "We'll have to walk for a while. The ground slopes off in a long slide from here on. If we make it down, we're home free, but it's too dangerous to risk riding”
She understood. A horse tumbling with a rider could very easily crush the rider in a fall.
They led the mounts. The slope was steep, but the rain had softened the earth. Sage dug her heels in with each step, knowing that if she tumbled, it would be more than a hundred feet before she stopped.
The moon seemed to follow them down the incline. She kept her distance from Drum. If she fell, she didn't want to take him with her. Halfway down, they both froze at the sound of a coyote howling in the distance. The black, sleeping earth spread for miles before her. She felt so alone and couldn't help wondering if the coyote felt the same. She'd never been afraid of the dark, but being alone was another matter. Her vision of hell wasn't fire and brimstone but isolation.
Drum started down once more, leading Satan. As they neared the bottom, shadows crossed one another over uneven ground, making it impossible to see the solid footing clearly. The coyote howled again, causing both horses to grow uneasy and jerk against the reins.
Drum fought to control Satan with his one good arm while holding the injured one against his side. About the time he gained control of the huge beast, Drum's foot slid on a loose rock, and he tumbled. Satan pulled free and whirled, almost hitting Sage.
She grabbed the flying reins and spoke to the horse in a language she'd learned as a child, calming nonsense words that settled Satan. With both horses in tow, she carefully continued down.
"Drum?" She moved into the blackness of a ravine. "Drum, where are you?"
Satan pulled at his reins, determined to move to the left. When Sage followed, she found Drummond. Dried brush had stopped his roll a few feet from a shallow creek bed. She tied the horses to the brush and felt along his body, trying to see if he'd broken any bones.
Warm blood dripped from a cut on his forehead, and he moaned when she touched the bandaged wound on his arm. Other than that, he seemed alive and intact.
"Come on, Drum," she whispered. "Get up”
He didn't cooperate.
"Come on." She pulled on him. "We made it out of the canyons. We're almost to safety. Come on! We can't be here come dawn, or they'll be able to pick us off.”
He moaned and tried to stand.
Sage slid her arm around him and walked him to Satan. He was heavier than she thought he'd be. The horse was well trained and didn't shy as she helped Drum up.
"Can you stay in the saddle?"
He nodded.
"Then we ride”
Sage headed north, having no idea where she was going. The land leveled out, and Drum managed to stay in the saddle, but he leaned forward as if fighting to stay conscious. She pushed as hard as she dared in the darkness, and by first light they were into a wooded area. Sage turned southeast and began following a stream, hoping it would lead her toward Galveston.
Drum hadn't said a word. When it was light enough to see his face, she wasn't surprised to find the head wound still bleeding. He'd nodded that he was fine every time she'd offered to look at the wound. Now, from his eyes, she could tell that he'd lied. Even before the fall he must have been in trouble. He hadn't allowed her to doctor him. Getting her away was far more important.
She found a cove well covered on three sides. The one side that faced the water was open, but unless someone rode in the stream, they wouldn't spot them camped. The morning was cool and the sky busy with clouds so low they almost touched the treetops.
Sage built a fire and took care of the horses. When she returned to the water's edge, she found that Drum had stripped to the waist and waded into the stream. He was using his shirt to wash away blood from both his face and arm.
Smiling, Sage kicked off her boots and walked into the cool water until she stood in front of him. "You remind me of a wounded bear."
He looked at her. She saw the fever in his gray eyes once more.
"Drum. let me help” He looked like he might push her away, but she moved closer. "We need to get you out of here and to the fire as soon as possible. You're in no shape to be standing in a stream." She tugged the wet shirt and bar of lye soap from his hand and began washing the infected wound.
He didn't argue or make a sound, but she knew the lye would burn against the wound.
She cleaned away the blood and then pulled him out of the water. By then he was shaking from fever and cold. After helping him strip off his remaining clothes, she insisted he lie on one open bedroll by the fire, and she covered him with the only blanket.
Near panic, she rushed to do everything that needed to be done. Without her bag of medicines, Sage drew on what she'd learned from her grandfather years ago. The Apache knew natural treatments, if only she could remember them.
She bound the cut on his forehead with a strip of cloth from her shirttail. Then she packed the infected bullet wound with a mixture of dried willow leaves and the soft interlining of elm bark. She found another shirt in his bags and helped him put it on, then she hung the rest of their clothes over branches to dry. Her underwear dried quickly on her body as she moved close to the fire.
She couldn't tell if he was sleeping or had passed out, but she made a soup from the last of his supply of jerky and wild turnip roots she found growing near the water. He had coffee and beans in his saddlebags as well, but she'd save them for later. The horse she felt sure Daniel Torry had stolen for her had nothing of use in the saddlebags. One broken gun, a pile of old clothes, and several cheap knives. The clothes were too dirty to use for bandages.
She finally decided to use the rags as a pillow for Drum. By nightfall she'd eaten half the soup and had even gotten him to eat a few bites. His fever still raged.
Sage built the fire as big as she dared and then curled beside him. He was so warm she had no need for the blanket but kept it wrapped tightly around him. She'd been so busy she hadn't had time to think about the men chasing them, but in the stillness, she worried. If they did find them, she needed to be prepared for that as well.
She moved the guns within easy reach and listened. The lone coyote reminded them that he was still trailing them. Logic told her he wouldn't go near the fire, and coyotes never attacked humans.
Sometime in the night Drum's fever broke, and he slept soundly. She was furious that he hadn't told her the wound on his arm wasn't healing. When he came to his senses, she planned to give him a piece of her mind. He was impossible to understand. He'd risked his life to save her, then he'd made her mad by telling her he wanted to bed her. The coyote probably had better courting skills than the man beside her. If her brothers knew half the things he said to her, they'd probably shoot him.