Figures rushed in between. Hands grasped me, impelled me away, through a haze; voices spoke in my ear while I feebly resisted, a warm salty taste in my throat.
“I killed him. I didn’t want to kill him. He made me do it. He shot first.”
“Yes, yes,” they said, soothing gruffly. “Shore he did; shore you didn’t. It’s all right. Come along, come along.”
Then——
“Pick him up. He’s bad hurt, himself. See that blood? No, ’tain’t his arm, is it? He’s bleedin’ internal. Whar’s the hole? Wait! He’s busted something.” 253
They would have carried me.
“No,” I cried, while their bearded faces swam. “He said ‘’Nuf’—he shot me afterward. Not bad, is it? I can walk.”
“Not bad. Creased you in the arm, if that’s all. What you spittin’ blood for?”
As they hustled me onward I wiped my swollen lips; the back of my hand seemed to be covered with thin blood.
“Where he struck me, once,” I wheezed.