Savage. Part 62

"Matters were dicey enough without them."

"Well, we're likely past the worst of it. Downhill won't be a problem."

"Before tomorrow morning, we ought to be in Tombstone."

"Not if we sit up here all day." She let go of my hands. They fell. I gasped and flinched. She caught them by the wrists. "I'm sorry. Lord."

I hissed through my teeth for a spell. Then said, "Quite all right."

Jesse gently lifted them, reached around, and eased them down on my lap.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Take it slow and easy."

She clucked her tongue and Saber started down the steep, narrow trail. It was easy going. All we had to do was lean back some and keep our balance, and Saber took care of the rest.

As we descended the mountainside, the sun came up, spreading its rosy glow across the desert. A glorious thing to see. And wonderful to feel its warmth after the rather chilly night.

The morning was lovely, and ever so quiet and peaceful. There seemed to be no other sounds than Saber's hoofs thudding on the trail, some birds calling out, bugs buzzing and chittering. Every so often, I heard the quiet chh-chh, chh-chh-chh chh-chh, chh-chh-chh of rattlers. Though they unsettled me some, they sounded far off, and I didn't let them ruin how good I felt to be riding down that trail with Jesse in front of me, her hair all agleam in the sunlight. of rattlers. Though they unsettled me some, they sounded far off, and I didn't let them ruin how good I felt to be riding down that trail with Jesse in front of me, her hair all agleam in the sunlight.

Sore and stiff as I was, I did feel good. It was the fresh, new morning. It was being with Jesse. It was knowing that my hunt for Whittle was over.

Jack the Ripper would never harm another poor soul.

Jesse and I had the world before us, all splendid and bright. After Tombstone, after recovering, we would be free to go on about our lives together. Of course, I would ask for her hand in marriage. More than likely, she'd accept. Maybe she'd even stoop to wearing a gown for the wedding, and I wouldn't need to get shot again before seeing her in another dress.

We weren't a great distance from the foot of the mountain, and I was busy entertaining myself with thoughts of having Jesse for my wife, when Saber bellowed out a frightful scream and reared up. I flew back till the rope stopped me. Jesse cried out. Though jerked so roughly I feared her spine might snap, she stayed in the saddle. I hung from her as Saber scurried backward on his hind legs, staggered and stepped off the trail. Squealing, forelegs kicking at the sky, he dropped into s.p.a.ce.

"No!" Jesse yelled.

She leaped sideways, hurling us both off Saber's back, no doubt hoping we might land on the trail.

But we fell short. The slope struck us. Down it we tumbled. It was frightfully steep. It flipped us this way and that, all the while drubbing us with its rocky wall. Tethered together, we crashed against each other as we rolled. My weight pounded Jesse against the mountain. The back of her head clubbed my brow and cheeks and nose. Over and over we went.

As we plummeted, I somehow hugged her to me and clung to her with what little strength I possessed in my feeble arms.

On we tumbled, skidding and rolling, battered by rocks, torn now and again by brambles as we crashed through them, only to be gouged and hammered by more rocks.

Then we went off a ledge.

I was on top of Jesse as we plunged straight down. I twisted myself about in hopes of turning us over so that I might be first to crash against whatever might wait for us below. But I failed. All too soon, we slammed the earth, Jesse's body saving me from the brunt of the impact. My face hit the back of her head. Darkness swallowed me.

When I regained my senses, I found myself sprawled on Jesse's back. I raised my throbbing head. A mat of her hair lifted with it, glued by blood to my face. It peeled away as I looked about.

We had come to rest at the foot of the mountain. Saber lay nearby, dead, a buzzard plunging its beak into his vitals.

Was Jesse also dead?

I spoke her name, my voice dry and rough. She didn't respond.

My arms were trapped beneath her, one hand flat against her belly, the other higher. With it, I felt the rope that bound us together. And her skin. Her skin was sticky with blood. I lay very still, all my thoughts on that hand, hoping to detect the throb of Jesse's heartbeat.

I felt nothing.

Perhaps my hand was too low, too far from her heart. Or perhaps it was so ruined by my many injuries as to be rendered incapable of finding so small a throb.

I tried to move my hand higher. All I gained for the effort was a burst of pain from my gunshot and battered shoulder.

"Jesse!" I gasped. "Jesse, wake up! Please!"

She didn't answer. She didn't stir at all.

"You're not dead!" I blurted. "You're not!"

At that, I quite lost my wits. I bucked and thrashed until my arms came out from under her, and kept at it. Finally, I managed to turn myself over. I lay there, gasping and whimpering, the sunlight blazing in my eyes, my back to Jesse's back.

I sat up, straining against the rope. Jesse came up with me. Lunging forward, I got to my knees. Then to my feet, quickly ducking low and bouncing till I jarred Jesse higher on my back.

I commenced to walk. Stagger, actually.

A few steps toward Saber. I needed a canteen. The buzzard flapped off. But I turned away. How could I fetch a canteen? How, with arms all but useless? How, with Jesse hung on my back?

So I stumbled past Saber, and found the trail.

The trail would lead us...where? Somewhere. Away. Where we could rest and get better.

On and on, I trudged.

Jesse's head wobbled against the side of my neck. Her arms hung behind mine, and all four swayed like the limbs of a lifeless beast. Her legs swayed, too. I couldn't see them, but often felt the heels of her boots b.u.mp against the backs of my legs.

I liked the feel of that.

The b.u.mp of her boots. As if she was alive and giving me playful kicks.

On and on, we made our way together down the trail.

Now and then, I fell to my knees. But I always made it back onto my feet again, and struggled onward.

Near sundown, we came upon a covered wagon stopped by the side of the trail.

I couldn't make it that far.

My face met the dust.

Sprawled out under Jesse, my mind half gone with weariness and agony and grief, I tried to call out for help.

When I opened my eyes, I was seated, propped up against a wagon wheel. Jesse was stretched out on the ground, just beyond my feet.

Her face was b.l.o.o.d.y, her dress a tattered ruin. It was primly spread over her legs and its front was b.u.t.toned shut, but her poor skin showed through a score of rents. Her hands were folded together atop her chest.

The wagon wheel shook against my back as someone jumped down out of the rear.

A big old man, white-bearded, his head crowned by a bowler hat with white feathers rising from both sides like jackrabbit ears. Fringe trembled all around his s.h.i.+rt and knee-high moccasins as he bustled toward Jesse, a bottle of red fluid in his right hand.

I knew him.

"Dr. Jethro Lazarus, at your service. We meet again, Trevor my lad!"

Crouching by Jesse's head, he clamped his teeth around the bottle's cork, popped it, and spat it toward a nearby cactus.

"We'll have her fit as a fiddle!" he called, and winked at me.

"Is she...alive?"

"Dead as a doornail, sorry to say. But don't fret." He hoisted the bottle toward me and gave it a shake. "Glory Elixir. Good for what ails ya."

"Howdy there," Ely greeted me, coming into sight from somewhere near the wagon's front, all gawky and grinning. He flapped a hand in my direction.

He looked so...chipper.

Dead. Jesse was dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a doornail.

Of course, I'd feared as much.

I stared at her. My "pardner." My love.

I'd known it would come to this, if she rode with me.

Lazarus pried open Jesse's mouth.

"All set to watch the miracle of the Glory Elixir?" he asked me.

All the Glory Elixir under heaven wouldn't be enough to bring Jesse back to me. And I hated the old fraud for playing out his game.

"Just leave her be," I muttered.

"Leave her dead? When I, Dr. Jethro Lazarus, am possessed of the mighty revivification powers of the Glory Elixir? Prepare yourself for the miracle of miracles!"

"Hallelujah!" Ely shouted, and clapped his hands.

Lazarus poured Glory Elixir toward Jesse's mouth. Some splashed off her b.l.o.o.d.y lips and chin, trickled down her cheeks. But not all of it. Plenty found its target.

And Jesse coughed.

EPILOGUE.

Wherein I Wind Things Up Jesse and I talked it over considerable, later on, and judged she'd likely never been dead at all. That's our opinion, and even Lazarus confessed he hadn't been sure, one way or the other, when he gave her that dose of his Glory Elixir.

Though a flimflam artist down to the soles of his moccasins, Lazarus claimed to be an actual doctor. He had surgeon's tools to prove it, and did a fine job with them when he went into me for the bullets.

He and Ely spent most of the evening patching us up. Ely stank considerable, but we didn't complain.

Jesse was in awfully poor shape. Among her many injuries, she had a split on her forehead, and underneath it a lump the size of an egg. It had likely come from the last part of the fall, when she crashed to the ground facedown. She stayed out cold after choking on the Elixir, and didn't wake up till late the next day. Then she was too dizzy and weak to move under her own power.

Lazarus and Ely seemed in no great rush to press on. For a week, we all stayed put at their wagon by the trail. They took the casket out of the wagon, and we slept in there at night.

They tended to us like a pair of nervous mothers. They cleaned us, fed us, saw to all our other needs, and poured Glory Elixir into us every chance they got.

By the end of the week, Jesse and I were both on our feet. We were still banged up and hadn't a lick of strength between us, but we were eager to move on.

We moved on with Lazarus and Ely, riding in their wagon.

And got to Tombstone.

Jesse entered the town inside the casket. I didn't like the notion, but she'd insisted. She'd also insisted that she lay in that casket by herself, saying to Ely, "You just keep that dang stinky varmint outa here, pal!"

After a crowd gathered, Lazarus and Ely dragged the casket out and set it onto the ground. Lazarus was in fine form, expounding on the miraculous healing powers of the Glory Elixir. Soon, he threw the lid off. Jesse, stretched out in the pine box, her face still cut and scabbed and bruised and swollen (with some fake blood added to improve her appearance), her dress soiled and torn, looked so ruined and dead that the sight of her made my heart sore.

Then Lazarus dumped some Elixir into her mouth.

She slurped it down, groaned, and came to life so spry it was purely astonis.h.i.+ng. I was dumbfounded, watching her. She cried out "Glory hallelujah!" as she sprang from the casket, then acted like a nitwit and hobbled out and hugged just about everyone. She hugged me, too. I was the only chap she kissed. She had a grand, merry sparkle in her eye.

Afterward, Lazarus allowed as how he'd never sold so much Glory Elixir at one show.

Well, Jesse had put Ely out of his job. He didn't seem to mind, though.

We joined up with that pair of flimflam artists and traveled south with them.

Down in Bisbee, we got married. It was Lazarus's idea to make it part of the show. Jesse figured it was a bully notion. So she no sooner got herself revivified than her eyes lit on me and she limped over and threw her arms around me.

"Marry me!" she cried out.

"But we don't actually know each other," I claimed.

"Don't matter! I been dead and now I'm alive, thanks be to the Glory Elixir! You're a handsome feller! I've gotta have you!"