Chapter 15 #2
The breakfast of coffee, last night’s beef, beans, and biscuits helped, and Caleb felt heartened about the journey ahead.
He was moving a little easier, but he was far from right.
Before packing up, he opened the bag containing medical supplies.
He decided that the dressing on his wound could wait till evening.
The cookies couldn't.
He ate the last of them, sitting beside the fire, and found himself wishing he'd saved one. Not because he was hungry. Because they reminded him of the woman who had baked them.
“I’m counting on you doing some of the work today, Pirate,” Caleb said, once he hauled himself up into the saddle. “Thought I was gonna have to carry you last night when that sun started dropping low.”
The horse flicked an ear.
“Don't start eyeballing me like that. Sheila already thinks I can’t even take care of myself.”
Pirate seemed unconvinced.
Caleb proceeded in a westerly direction, following the creek.
The red bluffs often hemmed them in, but the sky was clear and mountain blue.
He continued to descend steadily. Once, he needed to double back a ways when a waterfall provided no passable route for the horse and rider.
Eventually, he found a steep path that allowed them to climb around the obstacle.
The sun was again sinking in the west, but they still had an hour or so of daylight when the steep-sided ravines they’d been passing through suddenly broadened out into a thickly forested valley. The air was warmer here, and the light took on that golden hue that Caleb had always been partial to.
For as far as he could see, groves of pine, spruce, cottonwood, and scrub oak covered the rugged terrain, and tall peaks and red-stone ridges hemmed it all in, north and south.
Caleb directed Pirate toward a wide pool formed by a beaver dam forty yards or so downstream. Tall clumps of meadow grass ran down to the edge, and reddish boulders jutted up through both soil and running water. The boss beaver, fat and brown, was sitting on his haunches on top of the structure.
Sheila would have laughed at that beaver. Then she'd have given him a name and insisted on explaining his personality.
He was keeping an eye on the newcomers and surveying the work of two other beavers who were in and out of the water at the base of the dam.
Caleb should have been paying more attention to his own business, however. He didn’t see the hole and, apparently, neither did Pirate.
The horse stepped into the depression and stumbled. The hole had been dug out by some hungry coyote, no doubt, burrowing after some rodent. The damn thing was hidden under a clump of matted grass.
When Pirate faltered and stopped short to right himself, Caleb plunged headfirst over the mount’s neck.
Before he knew it, he’d gone clear out of the saddle and was tumbling ass over tea kettle.
Somehow, he managed to hold onto the reins as he flipped through the air.
Not that it mattered to Pirate—he wasn’t going anywhere—but the reins gave Caleb something to keep him upright when he landed.
When he hit the ground, the outside of his left boot struck the edge of a rock, wrenching his whole body.
Bullets of hot fire shot inward from the stab wound.
He almost managed to stay on his feet, but his left leg gave out, and the momentum of the fall threw Caleb onto all fours in the stony dirt.
When he tried to get up, he felt the pain in his ankle, and he cursed with enough violence to cause Pirate to back up a step.
“Don't you even think about squawking to Sheila about this,” Caleb growled.
The horse remained unsympathetic.
He took a deep breath and let go of the reins. As he hobbled over to a flat boulder, his horse wandered over to the beaver pond and lowered his head to drink. Pirate showed no embarrassment or concern. He was clearly taking no responsibility for Caleb’s fall.
Caleb sat down, pulled off his boot, and tucked the knife belonging to Elijah Starr into his vest. He felt his ankle through his woolen sock.
He’d twisted it pretty well, but it wasn’t broken.
He rubbed the sprain for a few minutes, but he knew he’d need to get his boot back on before the joint swelled up.
He scowled at his horse, and Pirate flicked an ear and turned an eye toward him.
“You do realize that your job is to avoid holes like that and keep me in the saddle.”
The horse went back to drinking, refusing to defend himself.
“And just the other day, I was telling Malachi Rogers you were as surefooted as a mule. Guess I was talking you up a little too high.”
Pirate shook his head and turned his attention to a nearby clump of grass.
Getting no satisfaction from his horse, Caleb stared at his ankle. He had to do something about it. He glanced at his saddle bags. There were the bandages Doc had sent along. He decided it would be best to wrap the injury now and then try to pull the boot back on.
Caleb pushed himself upright and limped toward Pirate, carrying his boot in his hand. He was eyeing the coyote hole his horse had stepped in when his foot brushed against another clump of grass.
There was no rattle to warn him. That is, it came only a split-second before Caleb caught a glimpse of the deadly triangular head darting toward his unbooted leg.
He knew what was coming, but he had no time to react. The rattler flew at that woolen sock with the speed and snap of a Montana bullwhip, and hit his calf with its jaws wide open.