CHAPTER THREE Skin and Steel
The desert did not need chains to keep a man prisoner.
It used distance.
By the time Gideon found the opening in the sandstone ridge, every direction had become another form of death.
Salt Knife Canyon lay several miles behind them.
Santa Reina remained more than seventy miles ahead.
To the north, the land rose into broken shelves of stone without water or shelter; to the south, it flattened into pale salt country where daylight would cook the moisture from a man before noon.
Behind them, coyotes had already descended upon Bishop.
Gideon heard them as he and Jude climbed out of the dry arroyo: first the excited yipping, then the lower sounds of animals fighting over something that had belonged to Gideon less than an hour earlier. He did not look back.
Jude did.
Only once.
He had Gideon’s coat wrapped around his shoulders and the nearly empty canteen hanging across his body.
His right wrist remained cuffed to Gideon’s left, the six inches of chain forcing them to climb side by side.
The ankle irons Gideon had fastened again before leaving the arroyo shortened Jude’s stride, making every rise in the uneven ground a negotiation.
Gideon had told himself the leg restraints were necessary.
The gunfight had proved Jude could run, fight, ride, and kill. Saving Gideon’s life did not erase five murder charges. It did not make the outlaw innocent. It did not transform instinct into trust.
That was what Gideon told himself.
The truth was less orderly.
The truth was that the coyotes had begun circling before Bishop’s body was cold.
Gideon had been exhausted, surrounded by darkness, and connected at the wrist to a man who could handle a revolver nearly as well as he could.
He had restored the ankle irons because the familiar ritual steadied him: key, lock, tug, inspect.
Law turned into steel. Uncertainty given a shape he understood.
Jude had watched him fasten them without complaint.
That silence followed Gideon now.
They climbed beneath a cold moon, moving toward the base of the sandstone ridge. Gideon carried the revolver in his right hand. Jude’s left remained free. Whenever the chain between their wrists tightened, one man had to yield or both risked falling.
They learned to yield without discussion.
When Jude’s shackled boots slipped on loose stone, Gideon caught him around the waist and hauled him upright.
When dizziness caused Gideon to misjudge a ledge, Jude braced his free hand against Gideon’s chest and kept him from pitching backward.
Their bodies met again and again in darkness—shoulder against shoulder, hip against hip, Jude’s breath close to Gideon’s face whenever the terrain forced them together.
Necessary contact.
Gideon labeled every touch that way.
The name did nothing to lessen its force.
“Stop,” Jude said.
Gideon continued climbing.
The chain snapped tight.
“Marshal.”
“We need shelter.”
“We need you conscious.”
Gideon looked back. “I’m conscious.”
“An impressive performance.”
Jude stood one step below him. The difference in height placed his face level with Gideon’s chest. Moonlight silvered the scar through his eyebrow and caught along the dark stubble covering his jaw.
He was staring at Gideon’s coat.
Not the one around Jude’s shoulders.
The trail coat Gideon still wore.
A darker patch had spread along its right side.
Gideon glanced down.
Blood coated the heel of his hand.
For one disconnected moment, he could not understand where it had come from. Then the pain beneath his ribs found him.
It arrived without warning and without mercy, a burning line from his back toward his stomach. Gideon’s knees weakened.
Jude moved before he fell.
His free arm wrapped around Gideon’s waist, catching him against the slope. Their cuffed hands struck the rock above them. Jude widened his stance as far as the ankle chain permitted and took Gideon’s weight across his body.
“Easy,” Jude said.
Gideon heard his own word returned to him.
“I’m standing.”
“You’re leaning.”
“Temporarily.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“So were you.”
“I had the decency to mention it.”
“You did not.”
“Then I had the decency to bleed somewhere you could see.”
Gideon tried to straighten. Pain drove inward beneath his ribs.
His vision narrowed.
Jude’s face moved closer. The teasing disappeared from it.
“Look at me.”
Gideon did.
Jude’s free hand came up, hesitated beside Gideon’s face, then settled against the back of his neck. His palm was warm. His thumb rested beneath Gideon’s ear, directly over the frantic beat of his pulse.
“How long?” Jude asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Were you hit in the canyon?”
“Apparently.”
“How much blood?”
“If I knew that, we wouldn’t be discussing it.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“That was a very fast lie.”
Gideon breathed slowly until the darkness retreated from the edges of his sight.
He pointed toward the ridge. “There.”
A narrow black seam split the sandstone twenty yards above them. From below, it resembled nothing more than shadow, but the surrounding rock curved outward in a shallow overhang. Rainwater had carried pale sand from the opening.
A cave.
Jude followed his gaze. “You certain?”
“No.”
“Reassuring.”
“Would you prefer the coyotes?”
“I’m beginning to understand why none of your stories contain poetry.”
They climbed.
The final twenty yards required both of them.
Gideon could no longer hide the weakness in his right side, and Jude could not take a full step with his ankles chained.
Gideon went first, using his free hand to grip the rock.
Jude followed close enough that his shoulder remained pressed against Gideon’s back.
At the steepest point, Jude slipped.
The wrist chain jerked Gideon sideways.
Jude fell against him, one arm closing around Gideon’s middle. His hand landed directly over the wound.
White heat tore through Gideon.
He struck the wall and made a sound he could not contain.
Jude pulled his hand away as if burned. “Damn it.”
“I’m all right.”
“You’re bleeding through your coat.”
“I’ve survived worse.”
“Do you practice saying that before you get hurt, or does it come naturally?”
Gideon turned enough to see him.
Jude’s face had gone pale again. Not from his own pain.
From Gideon’s.
That realization was more disorienting than the blood loss.
“Put your hand back,” Gideon said.
Jude stared at him.
“I need the support.”
“On the wound?”
“Lower.”
Jude slid his palm around Gideon’s waist, beneath the torn place in the coat. His fingers spread across Gideon’s stomach.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
The word came out strained.
Jude tightened his arm and helped him climb.
They reached the seam in the ridge together.
The entrance was scarcely wide enough for Gideon’s shoulders. He turned sideways, guiding Jude into the darkness ahead of him. The short chain brought them chest to chest as they exchanged positions.
Jude’s free hand rested against Gideon’s bare throat.
Neither man moved.
The cave breathed cold air around them. Outside, moonlight outlined Jude’s shoulders beneath Gideon’s coat. His face was shadowed, but Gideon could feel his gaze.
“Go,” Gideon said.
Jude slipped through the opening.
Gideon followed.
The passage widened after several feet into a low chamber carved from red sandstone.
Wind had pushed fine sand across the floor, smoothing it into shallow ripples.
The ceiling remained low enough that Gideon could touch it without fully extending his arm.
At the rear of the chamber, the stone narrowed into darkness too tight for a man to enter.
No tracks disturbed the sand.
No bones.
No animal smell.
It was not safety, but it was shelter.
Gideon reached the wall and leaned against it.
His legs failed.
He slid into the sand with Jude pulled down beside him by the chain.
Jude caught Gideon’s shoulder before his head struck stone.
“Marshal.”
“Stop calling me that as if it’s an accusation.”
“What should I call you while you bleed to death?”
“I’m not bleeding to death.”
“Gideon, then.”
His name entered the darkness softly.
Gideon lifted his head.
Jude was kneeling beside him, close enough that their legs touched. One hand remained at Gideon’s shoulder. The other—the one chained to Gideon—rested across his lap.
“Better?” Jude asked.
“No.”
“Good. You’re still irritating.”
Jude removed the canteen and Gideon’s coat from around his shoulders. He folded the coat onto the sand, then looked toward Gideon’s right side.
“We need light.”
“Matches in my vest.”
Jude reached for the pocket, then stopped.
“May I?”
It should not have mattered.
Gideon had searched Jude in a jail cell. He had opened the man’s shirt, put his hands against his ribs, dressed him, restrained him, and lifted him onto a horse. He had exercised authority over nearly every part of Jude’s body.
Yet Jude waited before touching the outside of Gideon’s vest.
“Do it,” Gideon said.
“That is an order.”
“Yes.”
“I asked permission.”
Gideon exhaled through the pain. “Yes, Jude. You may touch me.”
Jude’s fingers entered his vest pocket.
The touch was practical, but the back of his hand brushed Gideon’s chest as he searched. Gideon felt it through the sweat-damp shirt. Jude found the brass match case and withdrew it.
He used two matches before a small flame caught in a nest of dry grass and shredded linen.
They had no wood, but Jude fed the flame several pages from the dead gunman’s empty notebook, then added dried stems gathered near the entrance.
The fire remained low and fragile, barely more than a lamp, but it gave them enough light to see.
Jude looked at Gideon’s side.
“Gun belt first,” he said.
“I can manage it.”
“Then manage it.”
Gideon reached for the buckle.
His right hand shook so badly the leather tongue struck uselessly against the brass.
He tried again.
Jude watched without speaking.
Gideon’s fingers refused to obey.