“Plumb center—and only a chunk of his haid showin’ above the gal! If you ask me, that’s shore some shootin’!”
“An each o’ the other two with a shot—jest a left an’ a right!” 304
“Gets the gun with one barrel an’ the man with the other. Did you-all see it?”
Her feet were refusing to carry her, leaden and weighty as they seemed. Her knees were trembling and her head swimming. Yet she retained consciousness, for, in front of her, De Launay was crumpling forward, and sinking to the muddy shambles in which he stood.
Friendly hands were holding her up and she swept the cobwebs from her brain with her hands, determined that she would conquer her weakness. Somehow she staggered to De Launay’s side and, heedless of the mud, sank to her knees.
“Mon ami! Mon ami!” she moaned over him, her hands folding over his lean cheeks, still brown in spite of the pallor that was sweeping them.
A man dropped to his knees beside De Launay and opposite her. She did not heed his swift gesture in ripping back the buckskin vest. Nor did she feel the hand on her shoulder where Sucatash stood behind her. The crowding bystanders were nonexistent to her consciousness as she raised De Launay’s head.
Then his eyes fluttered open and met hers; were held by them as though they were drawn down to the depths of her and lost in them. Over his mouth, under the small, military mustache crept a smile.
“Morgan la fée!” he whispered.
Solange choked back a sob. She leaned nearer and 305 opened her eyes wider. De Launay’s gaze remained lost in the depths of hers. But he saw at last to the bottom of them; saw there unutterable sorrow and love.