Thief of My Heart (Watty Awards Finalist 2012)

Chapter 43

It was colder underground than it had been above.  Heyes knew that most caves and cellars stayed around forty-five degrees.  That meant it must have been in the fifties above ground.  It had been warmer up there today than it had been the whole time they'd been running.  So somehow they had survived three days in forty degree weather riding fast without coats.   Kid's words came to his mind just then... "A man can make it through a whole lot more than he thinks he can if he's got just a good enough reason."   Revenge against a murdering Danny Bilson had been Kid's reason then.   Staying alive had been his motivating factor this time around.  Evangeline had been Heyes' reason.  Making it through another day so he could see her face one more time was all that had kept him going in the last three days.  He was worried sick thinking about her being worried sick over him.  As soon as this whole thing was over and they were able to leave their underground fortress,  he'd send her a letter and tell her how sorry he was for all the trouble he had brought into her life.  She was no doubt in Nashville by now, settling into her new bedroom at the Heavenly Hills Estate.   He smiled weakly.  That's where she belonged.  Safe and warm and pampered.  Everything he thought he could provide her but knew now that he couldn't. 

Holding the lantern high over his head he turned in circles until he found what he was looking for.  An opening at the base of the well.  Kid was sitting a few feet from it.  It was the opening to a long narrow passageway  chiseled through the solid rock of the canyon wall.  The tunnel was narrow and tight but just big enough for a man to crawl through.  It  gradually inclined upwards for about twenty yards and eventually lead to the earth beneath the grass land that spread out for miles at the top of the northern side of the canyon.  When the rock became earth the tunnel leveled out and stretched another ten yards.  Rising Gulch had been a typical mining town like the hundreds of others that had sprung up overnight after the gold rush of 1849.   The only difference...there was practically a whole town underground beneath the streets and buildings of Rising Gulch.

There was a network of tunnels and walkways that connected large open spaces that people had once lived in.  When the gang had been forced into this canyon by McMaster's relentless pursuit two years ago, they had accidentally discovered the well when Griffin and Lobo decided to take their anxiety out on each other and get into a fist fight.  Griffin had punched Lobo making him fall backwards against the well pump.  When the well pump moved exposing the opening and the ladder beneath they discovered the underground burgh.  Most likely Indians had carved out these tunnels and chambers.  But the people of Rising Gulch had been living in them too.  No one knew why, but the evidence was there.  They had left behind household goods and furniture.  The gang had survived down here for two weeks living off the rations they had each packed in their saddle bags and the extra canteen of water each man had with him.  One thing Hannibal Heyes had always taught his men...Be prepared for anything.  It was one lesson he and the Kid had forgotten in their complacency when they'd left the McCreedy Ranch three days ago.  But he wasn't worried about food or water now.  Over the last two years, he and the Kid had returned here several times.  Each time bringing supplies and stock piling their secret hiding place.   They knew that someday they may have to come here again to escape the long arm of the law.   At the end of this tunnel, was a large chamber with food, water,  clean clothes, a pot bellied stove, and plenty of wood for heat.  There were two cots with pillow and blanket  and a table with two chairs.  Heyes had even brought some books on his last trip here.  The only thing they hadn't brought but had talked about bringing the next time they came was medicine.  Just in case.  Now Heyes was wishing they had brought it in the first place.  Too late to dwell on it now.  He just prayed infection didn't set into Kid's wounds.

The heat from the lantern he held in his hand felt good.  His hands had been nearly numb for three days now.  And now they were almost home free and he wasn't running on pure adrenaline.  So his lack of food and sleep was starting to show.  They hadn't had time to hunt and cook meat.  And wild berries and nuts were scarce this time of year.  Kid had tried to share the few strips of dried beef that he had in saddle bags, but Heyes had refused most of his share.  He just couldn't eat.  Now he wished he had.   His legs felt weak and wobbly.  It was a long uphill crawl though the tunnel to get to their hiding place.  He was beginning to doubt his own ability to do it, so he knew the Kid was going to have trouble. He checked the Kid.  He was semi conscious.  "Come on Kid.  We've just got a little way to go and then we'll have food and heat.  Can you stand up?"

He tried but found the pain and weakness too much for him.  He slumped back down to the ground and leaned heavily on the rocky wall of the well.  "I don't think I can crawl all the way up the tunnel, Heyes,"  he gasped out.

"We can't stay here in the well.  Too much risk of being caught.  And you need to get warm and have some food and water.  And I need to get a good look at your wounds.  You've got to give it a try, come on."  Heyes pulled his friend to his feet and it took all of his strength to get him to the opening of the tunnel.  Heyes crawled inside and placed the lantern several yards up the tunnel then returned and sat on his rump with his back to the opening and hooked his hands under Kid's arms and started scooting his way backwards through the tunnel, pulling his wounded partner with him.  Kid helped as much as he could by pushing with his feet but the effort was costing him what energy he had left and was making the bleeding worse.  He groaned in pain with each push. 

"Heyes, I don't think I'm gonna make it,"  Kid sighed weakly.

"Now, what kind of talk is that?  We've made it this far.  I'm not going to let anything happen to you now,"  Heyes said with a confidence he didn't really feel.

Kid didn't reply.

"Kid?  Kid?"  Heyes turned Kid's whisker roughened face around towards his.  He was out cold.  For the first time since they'd left Cold Springs, Heyes felt a little panicky.  And that was an emotion he rarely felt.  It was foreign to him and he didn't like it.  But he took a moment to swallow down his fear.  They would make it.  They had to.   Nothing to do now but keep trudging on.
 
Turn. Crawl a few feet with the lantern.  Go back.  Drag the Kid a few feet.  Turn. Crawl a few feet with the lantern.  Go back.  Drag the Kid a few feet.  And so it went for the next half hour.  Soon the tunnel would turn from hard stone to hard packed earth.  And once it turned to earth the ground would level out and he wouldn't have to pull Kid's dead weight uphill any longer.

The smell of damp earth began to permeate the chilly underground air.  They were getting closer.  Thank, God.  He didn't know how much longer his arms, legs  and back could hold out.  His hunger and stress weakened body was exhausted.  And the flesh wound in his shoulder was starting to burn like hell fire.  He looked down at it.  It was bleeding again.  He stopped for a moment, catching his breath.  Even in this damp cold tunnel, the exertion was causing him to sweat.    He put his palm to Kid's chest.  His heart was still beating,  His chest rose and fell with the breath of life.  Heyes closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.  "Hang on, Kid.  We're almost there."  He trudged on.  He turned to crawl a few more feet and he felt the surface beneath is hands turn from rock to dirt.  The rest of the way would be easier.  He just hoped he had enough strength to get them there.  Pulling Kid all that way up hill had taken a tremendous toll on Heyes.  But he wouldn't quit now.  Not when they were so close.  He gathered every ounce of strength he had left and  trudged on.  Crawling and pulling.  Crawling and pulling.

He turned and crawled a few feet further and the tunnel opened up and the lantern illuminated the large room sized chamber.  It was just as Heyes remembered it.  He entered the chamber and stood on weak and shaky legs.  He put the lantern on the table in the center of the room then went back to pull Kid the rest of the way through the tunnel. 

The muscles in Heyes' arms and legs began to tremble as he lifted his partner's limp, unconscious body from the cold earthen ground and heaved him onto one of the cots.  He sank to his knees beside his partners bed, spent.  He was so tired.  He  unbuttoned the bloody shirt Kid still wore and removed it.   He peeled the ruined undershirt off over his partner's head.  The cotton cloth stuck to the round dark exit wound on Kid's side.   The bullet had passed through.  It had obviously missed any vital organs or else the Kid would have bled to death by now.   Heyes lifted him and peeled the matted cloth from the hole in Kid's back where the bullet had entered.   Last he gently removed the blood encrusted shirt from the wounds in the front and back of his partner's left shoulder.  He needed to clean the wounds and dress them.  He needed to start a fire so he could boil water.  He needed to find the food they had stored.  He needed a drink of water. His canteen.  He had left it with his saddle and tack back in the well.  He needed to go back and get them.  But exhaustion, hunger and thirst were sucking the consciousness from him like a starving leach.  A stack of small barrels full of water were on the opposite wall,  along with wooden shelves holding clean linens and towels. But that wall was twenty feet away.  He fought his body's desire to collapse into the depths of unconsciousness.  His legs were gone.  Pushing himself and the Kid all that way uphill had rendered his legs useless.  He would have to crawl.  He got to his hands and knees, but his arms began to tremble again with the effort to support his own weight.   He fell to the ground with a grunt.  His eyelids were made of lead.  He couldn't hold them open.  "Kid,"  he croaked out of his dry throat as he reached his hand towards his partner.  It was no use.  He was too exhausted to help anyone right now.  A blanket lay at Kid's feet.  Heyes reached out from his spot on the floor and spread it over his partner's wounded body.   With strength that came from somewhere he didn't know, Heyes managed to drag himself to the empty cot that sat at a right angle to the one Kid lay on.  He pulled himself up and collapsed onto it.  He didn't even have the strength to cover himself with the blanket at this feet.  The image of his beautiful Evie came into his mind suddenly and clearly.  She was on Rusty's regal back, riding hard, her silky hair blowing in the wind.  "I'm coming, my love,"  she said.  He heard her voice in his head as clearly as if she were standing next to him.  If only it were true.  If only he could see her one last time.  With one last look to make sure there was still a steady rise and fall of Kid's chest,  he closed his eyes.  Then the blackness came. Surrounding him.  Enveloping him.  Claiming him.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buzzards circled in the sky.  Something was dead or dying.  And they were waiting to swoop down on it and feast.  A cold chill wracked Evangeline's body and she shivered inside Hannibal's coat.  She drew her black cloak closer around herself.  Although it had warmed considerably today, there was still a bite to the air when Rusty was running.  She slowed the stallion and waited for Preacher to catch up to her.

"Something is dead up ahead,"  she said as she pointed to the circle of scavengers in the distant sky. Dread filled her as she thought about all the possibilities of what those birds were so eagerly awaiting to die.  What...or who was it? 

"Want me to go check it out alone?"  Preacher offered, knowing what she was thinking.

"No.  Whatever it is I've got to face it."

There were already several of the large turkey sized buzzards sitting atop the carcass when they arrived.   All the birds scattered when they approached except for one large brave one who sat atop the dead horse with its wings spread, claiming its prize and daring anyone to take it from him.  Preacher picked up a rock and threw it at the ugly bird and it reluctantly relinquished its claim to the carrion.

Preacher knelt to inspect the downed animal.  It had been shot.  The saddle and saddle bags were still in place.  Evangeline felt a wave of nausea roll in her stomach as she recognized clearly the horse that Jed had ridden out on last Saturday morning. His saddle and saddle bags were still on the horse.  

"Been dead about three hours I'd say.  Probably took it a while to die.  That means it probably got shot about four hours ago."

Was this horse the only one to get shot?  They both wondered but neither said it out loud. 

"And now they're both on one horse.   Can they outrun a posse riding double, Preacher?"

He didn't answer.  He just looked at the ground avoiding eye contact with her.  He didn't want to be the barer of bad news.  "Riding double on a horse that's been going for three days now...I hate to say it Miss but, it'd take a miracle.  And from the look of them tracks half of that posse was hot on their heels."

"I guess fresh horses did make a difference.   They managed to get ahead of us even though we took that short cut."   She went back to Rusty and swung up into the saddle.  "Well, we've come this far.  I'm not giving up now.  How far are we from the canyon?"

"Another couple of hours ride I'd say."

"Let's get going.  Let's pray that God has one more miracle left for two needy ex-outlaws."