CHAPTER XIX: LEFT FOR DEAD
Sleepy and Breezy were playing pool at the Oasis, when the proprietor of the livery-stable came in. He wended his way to Sleepy and informed him that Hashknife’s gray horse had come back to the stable, sans rider.
Sleepy dropped his cue on the table and headed for the door, followed closely by Breezy. They trotted down to the stable, where they found the horse in a stall still saddled. Sleepy examined the horse and saddle by lantern light, but found nothing wrong with either.
“Must have broke away,” said Breezy.
“This horse don’t break away,” said Sleepy nervously. “What do yuh suppose happened, Breezy?”
“I gave yuh my theory, and almost got bit.”
“Saddle yore horse and let’s git goin’. Wait! You take my roan and I’ll ride Ghost. If this horse pulled out on Hashknife, it’s the first time he ever did. I’ll saddle the roan for yuh. He’s kinda foolish about strangers.”
A few minutes later they rode out of the stable and headed for the Box S. Sleepy didn’t know the road very well, but he took the lead, and they went streaking down across the old bridge, where the hoofs of their running horses sounded like the quick roll of a snare-drum.
Nor did they draw rein until they swept into the yard of the Box S. Len and Sailor were in the bunk-house, but came out at the sound of their arrival. In answer to their questions, Len told them approximately what time Hashknife had left there.
“That should have made me meet him,” said Sailor. “I never rode fast. By golly, that makes me wonder! After I left town and was pretty close to the bridge, I thought I heard a shot. I wasn’t sure which direction it was, and when I hit the other end of the bridge my bronco shied at somethin’ in the dark. He’s in the habit of shyin’ thataway, so I yanked him around and went on. It was so danged dark I wouldn’t know I was on the bridge, except that I could hear it under me.”
“That don’t sound so good to me,” said Sleepy. “If somebody bushwhacked my pardner⸺”
“Who in hell would bushwhack him?” asked Sailor quickly.
But Sleepy didn’t answer Sailor’s question. He swung the gray around and said to Len:
“Lend me a lantern, will yuh?”
“I shore will, Stevens; and I’ll go along with yuh.”
A few minutes later the three riders left the ranch, carrying the unlighted lantern.
Hashknife’s trip through space was rudely interrupted by a souse of cold water, which brought back consciousness in a flash. He flung out his arms weakly and encountered water on all sides. He was dazed, choked, fighting for breath, hardly knowing what it was all about. His head bumped something, which he instinctively grasped. It was an old stump.
He clung to this, trying to pump air into his tortured lungs, while a heavy weight seemed to press down on his head. As yet he did not remember anything. His past, present and future were all a blank, but still he fought for life. After a few moments he began to get back a glimmering of intelligence.
It seemed unnatural for him to be in the water. As he seemed to remember, he was not an amphibian creature. If he could only get that weight off his mind. He lowered his feet and touched bottom. After due reflection he shoved past the stump and his groping hands came in contact with some gnarled roots on the bank, where he managed to drag himself out of the water.
Again the world whirled around and he lost consciousness, but in a few moments he recovered again, his mind more clear, but his head one bunch of thumping nerves. Nausea overcame him and he sprawled on the bank, too sick to care about anything. He was still there when Sleepy and Breezy rattled across the bridge, and it roused him up a little.
He felt a little better, and he was beginning to remember. The events of the evening came back to him, although they seemed to have happened years before.
His clothes were soaked and his boots were full of water. He managed to remove his boots and empty them. It was rather difficult for him to get on his feet because everything seemed to whirl around, but he gritted his teeth and staggered ahead to the road.
Things were clearer to him now. He realised that he had been shot, but was unable to discover the exact spot where he had been hit. He was so wet that he could not distinguish blood from water, but he had a suspicion that he had been hit in the head.
“Bushwhacked,” he told himself. “That’s it.”
He dimly remembered the voices he had heard, and that one had suggested shooting him again. In spite of his condition he chuckled. Luck had been with him once more. It seemed an interminably long time before he saw the lights of Lobo Wells. They danced before his eyes like lanterns on poles, but he kept bravely on.
Something prompted him to keep off the main street, and he managed to find the rear stairs of the little hotel, where he climbed up and went to his room without seeing anybody. After he lighted the lamp and surveyed his features in the cheap mirror over the pine dresser, he got an idea of the extent of his injuries.
It appeared that a bullet had knocked a chunk of flesh off just above his left eye, and another had struck him a little farther back, behind the left temple, and had cut a jagged furrow to the top of his head. He mopped the gore away with a towel and examined the wounds, which did not pain him so much now.
“Looks as though I had been caressed with a few pieces of buckshot,” he told his reflection. “That bushwhacker misjudged his aim just enough to slip me two outside pellets. No wonder he thought I was plenty dead. That whole load would have torn my head off.”
He washed out the wounds, bound his head in a piece of pillow cover, stripped off his wet clothes and went to bed. His head ached too much for him to sleep, so he was still awake when Sleepy came in, stopped in the doorway and stared at Hashknife’s bandaged head.
Then Sleepy shut the door carefully and came over to the bed.
“My Gawd!” said Sleepy. “What happened to you, Hashknife?”
Hashknife told him, while Sleepy whistled softly.
“How didja get home?” asked Sleepy.
“Walked, I reckon. Don’t remember much about it.”
“I’m goin’ to get the doctor,” declared Sleepy. “You lay still and don’t try to stop me. Here’s yore hat.”
Sleepy picked the hat off the floor, where he had dropped it when he came in.
“We found it on the bridge. And that ain’t all we found.”
Sleepy dug down in his pocket, took out an object and handed it to Hashknife. It was a derringer, forty-one calibre, with a loaded cartridge still in the single barrel.
“It was down in the rut on the far side of the bridge,” said Sleepy at the doorway. “I’ll get the doctor right away.”
“Derringer, eh?”
Hashknife smiled weakly and shoved the derringer under his pillow.