CHAPTER FIVE The Water Between Them
The shadow beneath the door stopped moving.
Gideon held the revolver in his right hand and listened.
Jude sat beside him on the broken bunk, the rough blanket gathered around both their naked bodies. Their wrists remained cuffed together beneath the wool. Jude’s chest was still warm against Gideon’s cheek from the embrace in which they had awakened.
Outside, leather creaked.
A horse snorted.
Then a spur dragged softly across the porch.
Whoever stood beyond the door was trying not to be heard.
Gideon lifted one finger to his lips.
Jude nodded.
The storm had passed less than an hour earlier, but water continued dripping through the roof and whispering beneath the door. Gray morning light entered through gaps in the shack walls. Their clothing hung around the broken stove, damp and steaming faintly above the ashes.
None of it was dry.
It would have to be dry enough.
Gideon pointed toward Jude’s trousers.
The movement pulled their cuffed wrists beneath the blanket.
Jude followed his gesture, then looked back at him with one eyebrow raised. The silent question was unmistakable.
How?
Four armed riders waited outside. Gideon and Jude wore nothing but bandages, one blanket, and six inches of federal steel.
A second shadow joined the first beneath the door.
Gideon set the revolver beside his thigh and lowered the blanket. Cold air touched his bare chest and legs. Jude’s gaze dropped before he could stop it.
This was no slow undressing beside the stove. No boundary carefully established before movement.
Gideon stood, pulling Jude with him.
The blanket fell.
For one charged instant, they faced each other without its protection.
Then Jude snatched his trousers from the nail.
The damp garment resisted his legs. He shoved one foot through, hopping when the wet cloth caught at his calf. Their connecting chain jerked Gideon forward.
Gideon caught him around the bare waist.
Jude’s body struck his.
“Balance,” Gideon whispered.
“I had it.”
“You were falling.”
“I was falling attractively.”
A fist struck the front door.
“Federal marshal!” a man called. “Open up.”
Gideon recognized neither the voice nor the lie within it.
He released Jude’s waist and grabbed his own trousers.
Dressing while cuffed together required them to stand nearly chest to chest. Their connected hands crossed between their bodies as they pulled wet fabric over their hips.
Gideon’s knuckles brushed Jude’s stomach.
Jude’s free hand landed briefly against Gideon’s bare chest when a bootstep sounded outside.
Neither apologized.
The man struck the door again.
“Shaw! We know you’re in there.”
That changed the nature of the silence.
Jude’s eyes met Gideon’s.
The men outside knew his name.
Gideon fastened his trousers and handed Jude the revolver. Jude accepted it without surprise.
“Window,” Gideon whispered.
A single shuttered opening occupied the rear wall above the bunk. It was too narrow for Gideon’s shoulders and had been nailed closed years earlier.
Jude pulled on his shirt without buttoning it. Gideon dragged his own torn shirt over his right arm and left it open around the bandage. Neither bothered with underclothes, suspenders, or stockings.
The front door groaned beneath another impact.
The table Gideon had wedged against it shifted several inches.
Jude climbed onto the bunk. Gideon followed, forced close by the chain. Jude used the revolver butt to knock the wooden pin from the shutter.
The first blow cracked the frame.
The second broke it open.
Cold daylight entered the shack.
The rear opening looked even smaller without the shutter.
“You first,” Gideon said.
Jude looked at Gideon’s shoulders. “Obviously.”
He thrust the revolver through the opening, then followed headfirst. His right arm could not pass far because of the cuff. Gideon climbed onto the bunk and reached after him.
The chain stretched through the window.
Jude twisted outside, one shoulder scraping the frame.
The front door splintered.
Gideon heard the table fall.
“Move,” he hissed.
“I am moving.”
Jude’s boots disappeared through the opening.
The chain snapped tight around Gideon’s left wrist, dragging his arm toward the frame. He pushed the revolver after Jude, then turned his own body sideways.
Behind him, the front door crashed inward.
A man shouted.
Jude seized Gideon’s forearm from outside and pulled.
Gideon’s right shoulder struck the frame. Pain tore through the fresh stitches along his side.
He forced himself onward.
The wall scraped across his bare chest and back. For an instant, his gun belt caught, pinning him halfway through.
Jude’s face appeared beneath his.
“Breathe out.”
“I am.”
“You’re built like a courthouse.”
“Pull.”
Jude planted both boots against the shack and hauled on Gideon’s arm.
Gideon exhaled and twisted.
The leather cleared the frame.
He fell through the window directly onto Jude.
They struck the mud together.
Jude landed on his back with Gideon across him. The revolver disappeared beneath Jude’s shoulder. Their cuffed wrists were trapped between their chests, and Gideon’s right hand had caught Jude behind the head to protect him from the ground.
For one breath, their faces stopped inches apart.
Jude’s shirt had fallen open. Mud streaked his chest. Gideon felt his heartbeat against his own.
A bullet tore through the wall above them.
The moment ended.
Gideon rolled aside, pulling Jude with him. Jude recovered the revolver and shoved it into Gideon’s hand.
The back of the shack faced a low ravine choked with mesquite. Rainwater still raced along its bottom, though the flood had diminished to a muddy stream.
“Run,” Gideon said.
They ran.
A man came around the northern corner of the shack.
Gideon fired once.
The bullet struck the wall beside the tracker’s head, forcing him back.
Gideon and Jude plunged into the ravine.
Mud swallowed their boots to the ankles. Branches tore at their wet shirts. Their wrist chain alternately tightened and slackened as each man fought for footing.
Behind them, one of the trackers shouted, “Two north! Brigg and me after them!”
Four riders.
Two remaining at the shack.
Two coming after them.
Jude heard it too.
“Two,” he said.
“Enough.”
“We’ve had worse.”
“Stop trying to sound like me.”
“I thought you’d be flattered.”
The ravine bent sharply west.
Gideon seized Jude’s waist and pulled him behind a wall of mesquite as hoofbeats entered the wash behind them. The trackers had recovered their horses.
They could not outrun mounted men.
Jude looked uphill.
A seam in the earth rose between two sandstone shelves, too narrow for horses but steep enough to kill an injured man.
“This way.”
“You know it?”
“I know Harrow country.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is when you spend eight months hiding in it.”
Jude climbed.
The cuff dragged Gideon after him.
Their damp boots slipped on the rain-darkened stone. Jude used exposed roots for handholds while Gideon pushed from below. When Jude’s cracked ribs prevented him from hauling himself onto a ledge, Gideon planted one hand beneath his hip and lifted.
Jude rose against him.
His body slid upward along Gideon’s chest. One mud-covered boot found Gideon’s thigh, and Jude used the support to reach the shelf.
Gideon’s palm remained against the hard curve of his hip.
Jude looked down.
“Necessary?” he asked.
Gideon pushed him higher. “Entirely.”
Jude reached back with his free hand and caught Gideon’s wrist.
Their arms locked.
Gideon climbed.
By the time the trackers reached the base of the seam, Gideon and Jude had entered a narrow ravine between sandstone walls.
A rifle cracked below them.
Stone shattered near Gideon’s shoulder.
He pulled Jude around the bend.
They ran deeper into the canyon.
It narrowed until their shoulders almost touched both walls. Rainwater had polished the sandstone smooth, turning every surface red and gold beneath the returning sun. Mud covered both men from the knees down. Blood had begun seeping through the bandage around Gideon’s side.
Jude saw it.
“Your stitches.”
“Later.”
“That is my line.”
“You use it badly.”
The canyon divided ahead.
Jude chose the left branch without slowing.
“Where does this lead?” Gideon asked.
“Water.”
“You’re certain?”
“No.”
Gideon tightened his hold on the wrist chain.
Jude looked down at it. “Trust continues to flourish.”
“Move.”
They reached a dry fall where the canyon floor dropped nearly ten feet.
Jude jumped first.
The short chain pulled Gideon forward before he was prepared. He landed badly, pain cutting across his side, and nearly drove both men into the stone.
Jude caught him around the chest.
Gideon’s momentum carried them against the canyon wall.
Their bodies collided hard enough to empty both lungs. Gideon’s right hand struck the sandstone beside Jude’s head. Jude’s free arm remained around his waist.
“You all right?” Jude asked.
Gideon breathed through the pain. “Yes.”
“Fast lie.”
“Not now.”
“Your blood is on me.”
Gideon looked down.
A dark smear marked Jude’s open shirt where Gideon’s side had pressed against him.
“It can wait.”
Jude’s expression suggested disagreement, but the sound of approaching boots ended the argument.
The trackers had abandoned their horses.
“They’re coming down,” Jude whispered.
Gideon checked the revolver.
Four rounds.
The canyon walls curved inward, making gunfire dangerous. A missed shot could ricochet unpredictably. The trackers would know that.
Jude lifted their connected wrists. “Unlock me.”
“No.”
“I can fight better with both hands.”
“So can you escape.”
“I could have escaped three times since yesterday.”
“And you count every one.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Gideon heard stone shift beyond the fall.
No time.
He reached beneath his waistband for the emergency key.
Then stopped.
One of the trackers appeared above them.
Gideon raised the revolver.
The man vanished before he could fire.
Jude pulled Gideon toward the next bend. “Decide while moving.”
They retreated deeper into the canyon.