CHAPTER THREE Skin and Steel #5
Jude glanced back. “That sounded nearly human.”
“The chain won’t reach.”
“That sounds more familiar.”
He moved until his back rested against the wall beside Gideon’s. Their shoulders touched.
Gideon placed the coat over both of them.
Jude shifted carefully to avoid his injured side. His freed legs extended toward the mouth of the cave. One boot remained close to Gideon’s revolver.
Gideon noticed.
Jude noticed him noticing.
“If I wanted it,” Jude said, “I’d have taken it while you were trying not to scream.”
“I did not scream.”
“You breathed very fiercely.”
“Sleep.”
“One of us should keep watch.”
“I’ll take first.”
“You can’t keep your eyes open.”
“I have done more with less.”
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“Worse. You have survived worse. You have done more with less. Do you ever permit the present wound to be enough?”
Gideon turned his head.
Jude sat close enough that their temples nearly touched. Moonlight outlined his profile: scarred eyebrow, straight nose, battered mouth.
“You speak as though pain is something to be respected,” Gideon said.
“It is something to be admitted.”
“Admission doesn’t lessen it.”
“No.” Jude looked toward the desert. “But it keeps a man from becoming its servant.”
Gideon considered him.
“You learned that from Noah?”
“I learned it after.”
Silence returned.
The canyon had emptied of gunfire, horses, and men. Out in the desert, wind moved softly over stone. The coyotes had gone quiet.
That concerned Gideon.
Predators stopped calling when larger danger approached.
He reached for the revolver.
Jude’s free hand closed over his forearm.
“Lie down,” he said.
Gideon looked at the hand.
Jude released him immediately.
“Please,” he added.
The unfamiliar word sounded difficult in his mouth.
Gideon lowered himself onto the folded coat.
The movement pulled painfully at the stitches. He lay on his left side, facing the cave entrance. Because their wrists remained connected, Jude had to lie beside him or keep his arm stretched backward.
Jude settled at his back.
For several minutes, they maintained a careful inch of distance.
The cave was too cold to preserve it.
Jude shifted first.
His back touched Gideon’s shoulder blades as he turned to face the entrance. Their cuffed wrists rested between them. Gideon felt Jude’s warmth through both shirts.
“Your breathing is wrong,” Jude said.
“My breathing has been reviewed extensively today.”
“You’re holding it whenever the stitches pull.”
“Then stop listening.”
“Difficult when you’re nearly on top of me.”
Gideon opened his eyes. “You’re behind me.”
“Details.”
Another gust of cold entered the cave.
Jude drew the coat higher around Gideon’s shoulder. The movement brought his chest against Gideon’s back. His cuffed arm crossed Gideon’s side, carefully above the bandage.
Gideon went still.
Jude did too.
“I’m moving the coat,” Jude said.
“I know.”
“I’m not touching the wound.”
“I know.”
“You can tell me to move.”
Gideon looked out at the moonlight.
“Stay.”
The word barely carried.
Jude’s arm settled.
His free hand remained on the sand near Gideon’s revolver, but his cuffed one rested against Gideon’s stomach. Not gripping. Not claiming. Simply there.
Warmth collected beneath the coat.
Gideon felt Jude breathing behind him. Slow now. Controlled. The outlaw’s chest moved against his back with each inhalation. His knees rested behind Gideon’s legs, close but not entwined.
The intimacy of it was more dangerous than the loaded revolver.
Gideon had slept shoulder to shoulder with cavalrymen, deputies, drunks, and corpses. He had shared blankets during snowstorms and pressed wounded men against him to keep them alive.
This was different because neither man pretended it was necessary.
Not entirely.
“You should sleep,” Jude said.
“So should you.”
“I’m keeping watch.”
“You’re the prisoner.”
“And you’re bleeding into your own shirt. We all contain surprises.”
Gideon’s eyes closed.
He intended to rest only a moment.
“Jude.”
“Yes?”
“If you see movement, wake me.”
“I will.”
“If anyone enters the cave—”
“I will wake you.”
“Do not attempt to fight alone.”
“Gideon.”
He opened his eyes.
Jude’s voice was beside his ear.
“Sleep.”
The order should have angered him.
Instead, something inside Gideon released.
His breathing deepened. The pain remained, but it no longer consumed the entire shape of him. Jude’s arm lay across his middle, the cuff joining them at the wrist. The chain moved gently whenever either man breathed.
Gideon drifted.
Before sleep fully took him, he felt Jude shift behind him.
A hand touched his shoulder.
Lightly.
Checking.
Then Jude rose as far as the chain permitted and settled near the cave mouth, positioned between Gideon and the open desert. His freed legs gave him the balance the irons had denied. Gideon’s revolver remained untouched beside the wall.
Jude kept watch.
Gideon slept.
And sometime before dawn, when the fever tightened and Gideon began to shake, the man accused of five murders returned to his side, drew the coat around them both, and held the marshal together until morning.