Patrick coughed and more blood came, and that’s what was truly bad. Jack braced himself on the slope and leaned close, set his pistol aside, and touched his brother gingerly. Rolled him just a fraction, and then closed his eyes when Patrick tried to scream and got nothing for his efforts but a strangled howl. Jack felt along his ribs and found the problem. There was plenty of trouble on the inside of his brother. The outside looked bad, but Patrick could endure it. Jack knew that he could. The edges of those sheared ribs, though, could have done a great deal of damage. He was not certain that even the likes of Patrick could endure what was wrong on the inside.
It wasn’t until Jack moved his hand away and leaned back that he saw the lower leg. No bone visible here, but Patrick’s left foot was bent to the side in a way that suggested he no longer had control over it, and the swelling was already pronounced and grotesque.
Jack sat down in the dust and looked into his brother’s blue eyes and said, “Pretty bad.”
Patrick nodded. “Foot’s no good,” he said. “And in the chest…” He stopped when a rivulet of blood dripped from his mouth and choked his speech. The jaw was giving him trouble but he was getting the words out, albeit with a lot of blood. He licked some of it away and neither of them spoke until he’d cleared his lungs best as he could. “In the chest is the real trouble. Am I right?”
“It would be hard going for us,” Jack admitted.
“It wouldn’t be going much at all.”
“I can patch you up a bit. I can carry you. It’ll hurt, and it’ll be slow, but it’ll still be going.”
“Going where?” Patrick said, and this time he was able to spit some of the blood out. “Up that mountain? Down the others?”
Jack didn’t answer.
“We are a long way from home,” Patrick said.
“Yes.”
“How many dead to get here, do you think? And for how much money?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Say what you know, then. Tell me what I want to hear.”
“What’s that?”
“How many fights lost.”
“None, Patty. None.”
Patrick nodded. “Strange life,” he said.
“Took what we could from it.”
“Always. Came a time, didn’t think anyone could take it back.”
Jack looked away from his brother and scanned the rocks again, searching for Serbin.
“You see him?” Patrick asked, understanding.
“No. You fell down the wrong side of the mountain.” Here on the western slope, the rising sun hadn’t crested the peak, and around them was nothing but gloaming light and shadows. Another hour, maybe just thirty minutes, and all would be illuminated. For now, though, the darkness lingered.
“I’ll go find him,” Jack said. “Bring him back so you can see him yourself.”
“No time for that.” Patrick blew out another bloody breath and said, “You know how badly I want to see that boy dead now?”
“I’ve more of a mind to see Serbin dead, myself. And his wife.”
“It started with the boy,” Patrick said. “End it with the boy. Make him first, at least.” He hung his head down and found a few more breaths after a lengthy search and then said, “Hell with that. Kill them all, Jack. Every one of them.”
“I will.”
“You know it’s time for you to get moving.”
“Past time.”
Silence came then and held them, and still Jack Blackwell sat with his brother.
“The question is yours to answer,” Jack said finally.
“Yes.”
“So tell me, then.”
“At your hand.”
Jack looked away. His jaw worked but no words came.
“Not at theirs,” Patrick said. “And not alone. The end would probably come for me before they did, but I’d be alone.”
Jack still did not speak.
“Please,” Patrick said. “Don’t let me go alone. Not after all these years. This life.”
Jack picked up his pistol and rose to his feet. He brushed the dust from his pants, turned to look at the forest fire they’d given birth to, its smoke beginning to show in the sunrise. He stood with the burned side of his face toward his brother and said, “I’ll start with the boy, but I’ll finish with them all. You know that. You believe it, yes?”
“I do.”
“I’ve never enjoyed traveling alone, though. Not a bit.”
“You never had to. But you’ll be fine. You’ll be just fine.”
Jack nodded. “You as well.”
“Of course.”
“You’re sure of this.”
“I am.”
“And so here the paths part. For a time.”
“Love you, brother,” Patrick Blackwell said.
“Love you too,” Jack Blackwell said, and his voice was coarse. He coughed and spit into the shadowed stones and breathed a few times. The mountain was silent but for the wind. When he turned back, Patrick’s eyes were closed, and they remained closed when Jack fired one bullet into the center of his forehead and then two more into his heart.
Jack removed the black Stetson he’d worn since arriving at Ethan Serbin’s cabin and used it to cover his brother’s face so that when the sun rose above the summit, it would not shine on the blood or his dead eyes. He spun open the cylinder of the revolver and removed the three casings, still warm, touched them to his lips one at a time, and put them in his breast pocket.
Then he reloaded with fresh bullets and began to pick his way through the rocks and toward the fire and the killings yet to come.
39
Ethan was one of the dying kind now, and he knew it. He had spent his life instructing others on how to avoid joining this group and yet here he lay, bleeding into the dark rocks.
Survivor mentality: blank.
Positive mental attitude: at least he’d killed one of them.
Or he hoped he had. Here in the broad shadow of the mountain, he could not see where Patrick Blackwell had landed. For a time he had tried to watch for motion but then darkness came and he folded beneath it and when he opened his eyes, he was not certain he was looking in the right direction even, let alone the right place.
Got him good, though, he thought. Got him good.
There was something to be proud of in that, wasn’t there? All his mistakes aside, he’d swung when he needed to.
He wondered where the rifle had gone. That was the killing tool, that was what threatened the boy most, and if they got the boy, then all of this…He couldn’t think about that. Not now. He’d just let the time pass and let the end come, knowing that he’d done the best he could and lost and that there was still honor in that.
He wished he would bleed out quicker. Every time he closed his eyes he didn’t expect to open them again, but time and again he did, and then he was more aware of the pain and of his predicament and he wanted to be gone from all of that. He’d come far enough that he deserved the peace.
His eyes kept opening, though. He couldn’t control those two bastards, one went with the other, and then he was awake and almost alert and watching the sun edge toward the summit of the mountain he’d fallen from, and finally it was bright enough for him to assess the damage.
A lot of blood. That much he saw early and found some hope in. A man couldn’t bleed like that for too long before the end, so he was close; all that was required of him now was patience.
Other than the blood, it was not so bad. Bruises, yes. Breaks, probably. His left wrist had turned into a pincushion, and somewhere below it his hand remained, but he didn’t have much interest in that, because he saw no need for the hand between now and the end. His right shoulder ached in a way that suggested something broken, but he didn’t move enough to be sure because he saw no need for the shoulder either.
Damn that sun. Kept right on rising. It was hard on his eyes, even when he closed them. He’d blink back into consciousness and see the widening band of scarlet in the east and the peaks taking shape before it.