Chapter 4 #2
Sid didn’t think Boog’s arm was broken, but Sid was no doctor. Boog gritted his teeth as he pulled off his bloody shirt. The blood had soaked through the heavy padding they’d bandaged him with. The man didn’t so much as moan.
Harv had complained all night like a little girl. His cuts were bad, especially where that wild woman had slit his chin, nearly cutting Harv a new smile in his chin hair. But Boog had a bullet pass through his shoulder and he’d never made a sound. He was tough—no denying it.
Sid shoved the iron deep into the flames.
“Don’t you come near me with that thing.” Harv scooted away from the fire, a dirty kerchief tied around his jaw to staunch the bleeding from his face.
“It’d help, Harv.”
“No one’s gonna close a wound on my face with a runnin’ iron.”
The running iron with its hooked tip could be used to alter any brand. They didn’t rustle big-time, just enough for some odd cash. Sid had a lot bigger dreams than rustling. He aimed to rustle an empire from Mort Sawyer.
But money got tight for whiskey, so sometimes they’d grab a few calves, drive ’em in this dead-end canyon.
They’d fix the brands, then let the animals grow a while before they sold ’em so the brand healed and looked pretty good.
They’d even registered brands that were easy to twist around and turned Sawyer’s M Bar S, Linscott’s Double L, and Dawson’s D Bar into the brands the gang claimed.
Now that the gap had melted and they could get into that high valley the Harden Ranch claimed, they could run off a few cows from there too.
“It’s not like you’re purdy’r nuthin’.” Paddy laughed as he leaned back against a tree trunk alongside their campfire.
Harv’s fingers twitched, and for a second, Sid thought Paddy had pushed himself right into the business end of a shootout. But Harv didn’t draw, and Paddy was too busy laughing to notice he’d almost died.
Boog, who didn’t miss much, slid his cold eyes between the two, his six-gun strapped down. His shooting hand still worked just fine. “Let’s get this over and done.” Boog sat down by the fire and reached for the iron.
“I’ll do it.” Sid needed Boog—make no mistake about it. He needed Harv, too, and that gnawed at his gut because Harv was slowing them down. “You can’t burn your own wound.”
“I have before.” Boog’s ice-blue eyes, as cold and dead as coffin nails, flickered away from the iron and steadied on Sid’s face.
Death whispered across Sid’s skin like sleet. He moved cautiously, as if Boog was a ten-foot rattler. “So you want help or not?”
Boog nodded.
The dull rasp of the iron against the burning wood brought Harv forward, eyes riveted on the red-hot metal. Even Paddy shut up and got serious.
Carefully, Sid barely touched the oozing wound, then pulled back the instant Boog’s skin hissed.
The four of them were silent as Boog closed his eyes, his teeth clamped shut against any sound of pain. The smell of burnt flesh burrowed into Sid’s nose.
Boog looked up at Sid. Killing-mean eyes. Sid’s stomach churned. One wrong move right now and Sid would be dead on the ground just because Boog hurt so bad, he needed to hurt someone else.
“Now do the other hole.” Boog’s voice sounded like a thousand miles of jagged rock.
Sid swallowed his fear as he moved around to stab this dangerous man in the back. Again the hiss. Again the silence. Sid had a new appreciation for the steel at the core of his saddle partner.
Sid set the running iron aside and went back to his place by the fire while they all waited silently for Boog to stop wanting to kill someone.
At last Boog spoke. “We need…need to get back to Sawyer’s.” His faltering speech was the only concession he’d make to the pain. “We’ve been gone long enough. Questions will be asked if we’re away longer. But I’ll be laid up a couple more days.”
Really, Boog should have been laid up in bed, with a doctor’s care, for two weeks. Instead, he asked for two days.
“I’ll go back now with Paddy.” Sid was glad for the excuse to be rid of both wounded men. “We’ll leave you and Harv here to heal and tell the cowhands you got sidetracked and’ll be along shortly.”
Boog’s gaze slid to Harv. “No, I’m not sittin’ here listenin’ to Harv whine like a little girl for days.
I’ll kill him just to shut him up. And there goes that gold you’re so hungry for, Sid.
I’m going along with you. We’ll tell ’em we had a run-in with rustlers.
Tell ’em they dry-gulched us and got away. ”
“What if we see that spitfire of a girl? She can identify me.” Harv plucked at the caked blood in his black beard and fell silent.
No way would Harv survive being left behind with a wounded, surly Boog. The only reason Sid hadn’t plugged him was that gold. “We’re biding our time until the boss dies. No heirs since he cut that worthless bum of a son out of his will. Once Mort is gone, I’ll stake my claim to the ranch.”
“There’ll be some others that want it for themselves,” Boog warned.
Sid nodded. “And they can fall off their horses just as easy as Mort did.” He stood and started saddling Boog’s horse. He knew better than to ask, because Boog wouldn’t accept help from any man. He’d saddle his own bronc if he were hog-tied and buried up to his neck in scorpions.
Boog’s gaze narrowed, but he let Sid work.
“What about the gold? We don’t need the ranch if we get the gold.” Harv’s shifty eyes darted between Sid and Boog. He was a man without honor, so he expected none from anyone else. Clearly, Harv realized his knowledge of that cache of gold was the only thing keeping him alive.
Harv had the situation with the gold and the ranch about right. Sid grunted. “I want both. The ranch and the gold. And if Mort don’t up and die pretty soon, I might just give him a shove right through the Pearly Gates.”
Boog made a sound Sid had never heard from the man before. Narrowing his eyes, Sid said, “What?”
“Mort Sawyer in heaven.” Boog snorted, shook his head, and then snorted with amusement again. It was as close to a laugh as Boog had ever come in Sid’s presence.