"Hang onta my shirt tight, Miss Kitty. Gotta take off the extra weight o' yer skirt…beg yer pardon, Ma'am," Festus instructed as he found the two buttons at the waist, and slowly pulled at the heavy, soaked material until it fell down. She then carefully stepped out of it, one foot at a time in a dangerous balancing act as Festus held tightly to her upper arms. They teetered together and regained their balance as Thad watched in nervous appreciation, before making his body sway over towards them.
"Ya ready fer Miss Kitty, Thad?" Festus yelled, and after seeing him nod, took a deep breath, put his hands on either side of her waist and lifted her as high as he could. As Thad's hands clasped her upstretched ones, Festus slipped off the boulder into the swirling water. Looking up through the clear water, he was relieved to see Thad and Kitty slowly ascending towards the circle of sky. The way back to life. Then he struggled towards the surface again.
Matt gladly felt the extra weight on the rope tied around him, and leaning back, pulled on the rope with all of his mighty strength. His calloused hands were bleeding as Thad's booted feet emerged from the hole, but he gripped even tighter and pulled even harder until he had dragged the young man out on his back. Thad's hands clung tightly to Kitty's, and he rolled over, keeping his grip until Kitty emerged. Feeling a surge of renewed, exultant energy, Matt hauled back even harder until she was on her back on the rocky ground, blinking in the sunlight.
"Don't move, Kitty! The ground may still be unstable!" Thad warned as he kept ahold of her hands and carefully wriggled backwards on his elbows away from the hole. Matt's eyes met Kitty's and they exchanged a flash of love and relief before he lay down on his stomach and wriggled to the edge of the hole and peered down. What he saw and did not see sent a deep chill through him. The rush of water had increased along with its depth, and Festus was nowhere to be seen. Cupping his hands around his mouth, the worried man yelled, "FESTUS! FESTUS! WHERE ARE YOU?! WAVE A HAND!"
Festus had surfaced and sunk several times since Kitty had been rescued. The water now was too high for standing on the boulder. After multiple attempts, he had finally been able to remove his boots, but had swallowed water with each struggle. Now he was tiring, cold to the bone, and becoming resigned to his fate. "As long as Miss Kitty's safe, it ain't so bad," he thought, but hearing Matthew's shout shook him from his encroaching lethargy, and he fought to the surface once more.
As soon as Matt spotted the white, drawn face, he motioned for Thad, still with the rope around his ankles, to crawl over. "Gotta hurry, Thad! He looks about done in and barely able to keep afloat, You ready? Here we go again," he said as he lowered the young man down as far and fast as he could. "I won't EVER let go, Thad!" he added through gritted teeth. With the rising water level, it was a much quicker trip down to the surface. The Marshal braced himself as Thad swung over to reach Festus, who was weakly raising an arm.
"FESTUS! Come ON, grab my hands!" Thad yelled, desperately stretching his fingers towards his friend's hand. But as soon as their fingertips touched, Festus smiled sadly and began to sink below the surface. "MARSHAL! LET ME DOWN MORE! HURRY!" The desperate young man had to fight an involuntary gasp as his arms and head were suddenly dunked beneath the frigid water, but his searching hands found Festus' still outstretched hand, and gripped it tightly. Raising his head above the water, Thad yelled, "GOT HIM! PULL US UP!"
He felt like his arms would be pulled from their sockets at any moment, but Matt held on, as he promised he would. The strain and pain in his hands, arms, shoulders, and neck was like an immeasurable burning-worse than any of the many hot lead projectiles that had struck him over the years. But still he held on, his strong legs afire as he leaned back. The memory of Brad Tucker's muddy hands slipping through his own mud-slicked grip, and then screaming as he fell to his death was seared forever in Matt's memory. His once good friend had stolen a stage full of gold and an inevitable battle to the death had taken place between them in another cave on a cliff. Nothing good ever happened in a cave.
Kitty had crawled up and now clutched the rope in front of Matt, the palms of her soft hands raw and bleeding as she pulled. Glancing back at him, her heart clenched at the sight of his handsome face grimacing, his eyes closed in concentrated effort, and the veins of his strong neck distended. "Matt? Matt, are you all right? Can you hold on?" When his eyes opened a little and squinted at her, she knew he couldn't expend the energy to reply, or even to nod. But he would hold on.
Pulling on the rope as hard as he could, Matt moved backwards an inch at a time, digging his heels into the ground and leaning back. He knew Kitty was pulling too, but could not spare any energy to even acknowledge her.
"MARSHAL! MARSHAL! The water is coming up fast! It's almost up to Festus' chin!" Thad yelled as loudly as he could while tightening his two-handed grip on his friend's cold hand. Festus had weakly managed to clutch at Thad's wrist with his other hand, but the young man was afraid to try to grab it.
Kitty glanced back with wide eyes at the straining man behind her, and ignoring her bleeding palms, tried to pull even harder. While she feared that big, strong Matt's heart would burst from the effort, she also now worried for her dear friends still needing rescue.
The relentless cold water had now reached Festus' bottom lip. He knew that Matthew was doing his very best, and was the strongest and finest man he had ever know, but even he had a limit to what he could do. The big man had already expended tremendous energy lowering Thad to Kitty, pulling them both up, and then lowering Thad down again. Pulling the combined weight of Thad and himself up from the cave would be close to impossible. Now, as the water was rapidly rising, young Thad was also in danger of dying. "Thar's only one thin' can be did! I gotta let go and then Thad kin be saved," Festus decided. The water lapped up into his eyes as he looked up into Thad's. Winking and nodding his head, Festus opened his hands and prepared himself for the long drop into the wet darkness. "Sure am glad Miss Kitty got out, and I know my Ruth will be taken care o.'"