Briggs’s head snapped back, his heel caught on a stone, and he fell flat on his back, his head fairly bouncing from the sandstone floor.
Rex fell to his knees from the force of the blow, his right arm and hand paralyzed for the moment, but he got to his feet and staggered out to the entrance, where he found the gun. Nan was sitting against the wall, crying, as he came back, and he looked at her curiously. Briggs had not moved.
Rex picked up some scattered wood and threw it on the fire.
‘This is a better place than we were, Nan,’ he said calmly. ‘At least we have a roof over our heads.’
She took her hands from her face and stared at him. It was such a ridiculous thing to say after what had happened.
‘Rex, are you all right?’ she whispered.
He looked at her and grinned.
‘You’re damn right! Isn’t that what Hashknife would say?’
‘Oh, I’m glad, Rex. I—I don’t know what to say. It is all like an awful dream. I thought you had lost your mind, too.’
‘Me?’ Rex blinked some of the blood out of his eye. ‘Perhaps I did, Nan. I don’t remember much about it. But I was sane enough to realize that he would kill me. I guess I missed him with the stone. I wonder if I killed him.’