Chapter Thirty
Depressed and enraged at what the Wilkies had done, Will strained his eyes and his ears for any sign of life in the barn. Instead, the worst of sounds came. The crackle of flames, the creaking of wood snapping apart, and the rumble of falling timbers and collapsing walls. From the house. And from the barn.
Will hung his head. Everything he had worked for during the past three years of saving up money from his hired gun, ranch hand, and drover days, and then the past few months of trying to get this homestead going─all destroyed. Possibly the two horses he had put in the south pasture were still there, unless the Wilkies had taken them. But the cattle were all either stampeded beyond his property line─probably to be rebranded by the Wilkies─or they had been shot where they ran. He had lost it all.
And the one and only person in the world he would call a friend, Jess Harper, was gone too.
Suddenly, the wind shifted, blowing the smoke and the noise in a different direction. Will heard something and jerked his head up. What was it? Was it what he thought it sounded like? A frantic neigh. Followed by severe coughing. The sounds came from the barn! And as he saw a wall collapse, there a few feet outside the door, in the midst of a cloud of smoke, ash, and dust, appeared a bedraggled figure, staggering forward.
Jess Harper was naked from the waist up, his blue shirt wrapped around the head of the horse to cover its eyes as Jess led him through the flames. Leading the buckskin on a rope looped over its head, Jess wearily fought to coerce the panicked horse forward. Will ran toward him, reaching him just as Jess dropped to his knees, choking and coughing and desperately trying to pull air into his lungs. He raised his hand that held the rope, and Will understood the message to take the terrified horse and get it secured away from the still flaming ruin.
As the scared stallion reared up and tried to pull away, it took both Will's hands and all of his strength to keep the horse steady and lead it to the paddock where Traveller and his horse were tied. Once he had Buck inside the fence, he removed the rope and the shirt. Able to see again, the horse settled some and, favoring one of its front hooves, loped to the far side of the paddock, sidling up close to the fence.
Will sprinted back toward Jess, who was now on his hands and knees crawling away from the still burning remains of the barn, choking and gagging as he slowly moved forward. Will stopped briefly at the water trough and pulled a sopping wet blanket from it. Before Will reached him, Jess had collapsed, lying completely sprawled in the dirt, face down and unmoving.
Will knelt beside him, wincing at the sight of reddened and blistered skin from various burns across the shoulders and back where flames or burning debris had touched him. But he was breathing, although raggedly. Somehow Jess was still alive.
Will shook his head as he laid the blanket out on the ground. "You're seven ways a fool, Harper. Pulling a dang stunt like that. The dumbest thing I've ever seen anybody do." Maneuvering Jess over onto the blanket, still face down, he noticed the blue eyes were trying to open. "But it looks like you just might live."
Taking hold of the edge of the blanket, Will pulled it along, with Jess on it, to the fence at the paddock where their horses nervously waited.
After a few more minutes of coughing and gasping for breath, Jess managed, with help, to sit up. Sitting in the grass, Will held a canteen while Jess, too weak to hold it himself, tipped it up to drink.
Will eyed Jess' burns. "As soon as you think you can hang onto a saddlehorn, we need to get you to town. Gotta see the doctor."
Between coughs, Jess grimaced and mumbled in a hoarse, harsh whisper, "And the sheriff."
Will snorted. "Sure. Like that'll do any good against the Wilkie bunch."
More coughing, and Jess rasped, "Gotta try."
"Yeah, I know, Harper. You never give in. Okay, we'll see if we can take the Wilkies to court."
They waited for a few more minutes, allowing Jess to try to recover some breath and a little strength. They sat in the pasture beside their mounts and silently watched in fury as the fire burned itself out in the collapsed barn and house.
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Jess was still coughing once in a while, but his breathing sounded more steady, the gasping and struggling for air lessened. He sat still, staring into the smoldering rubble of what used to be a house. The look of pain on his face worried Will. He couldn't tell if it was due to the burns alone or also to something else. Jess seemed to be seeing something that Will couldn't fathom.
"Hey, buddy? Jess?"
Still unblinkingly focused on the smoke rising from the charred home, Jess gave no response. Will wondered what thoughts were going through the Texan's head.
Grabbing the blue shirt he had pulled off the horse, Will took it to Jess. "Got no bandages to keep the dirt from blowing onto those burns, Jess. So, just get your shirt on." He shook the shirt out, noticing it had been torn all the way down the front and had no buttons left on it. "Just ripped it off, huh? Yeah, I guess you were in a hurry. Well, hope it gives ya some protection."
It wasn't until Will dropped the shirt into his friend's hands that Jess' awareness was drawn back to the moment. Holding onto the fence rails, he made it to a standing position. Slipping his arms into the shirt, Jess winced and groaned as he pulled it up onto his shoulders, and the pressure of it brushed against the burns.
Jess pulled himself into the saddle, but then sat staring across the distance, at the carcasses of the cows the Wilkie raiders had shot. Silently, he calculated how many head they had run off. Sitting on his horse, Will did the same. Both faces showed sadness and intense anger.
Jess gritted his teeth, as much at the sight and the loss, as at the pain he was in.
From his time in the war and what he had witnessed then, Will knew most of Jess' burns were second degree, and he needed treatment not only for the pain but also to prevent shock and infection. He gathered up Traveller's lead. "Just hang on to the horn, Jess, and concentrate on staying in the saddle. I'll handle Traveller. Let's go get your burns tended."
Jess sucked in a breath. "Buck… is he hurt?"
Will hadn't really checked the horse too closely, being more concerned with everything else at the time. So he dismounted and gave Buck a quick look.
"A couple of minor burns. He's in a lot better shape than you."
"Can't leave 'im here."
"Got no choice, Jess. With that hoof of his, he ain't in no shape to go to town. And you ain't in no shape not to."
"Gotta tend to him before we go," Jess rasped.
"Got nothin' to tend to him with. Besides, his injuries can wait. Yours can't."
Will held Traveller's lead and started forward.
"Don't worry about Buck. He'll be okay. The Wilkie bunch is gone for now. After I get you to the doc, I'll get what I need from the vet to come back and tend to him."
"Gimme Trav's lead, Will. I can make it okay."
Will knew that was highly unlikely, but he sighed and handed the lead to his stubborn friend, knowing eventually he would be taking it back. Jess would need all the concentration he could muster to handle the pain and stay conscious and in the saddle.
The two men took one last look at the destruction.
"One of us shoulda stayed here while the other went to town," Will said angrily.
"Then that one of us would be dead now." Jess' voice came low, gruff from smoke, and full of pain.
Will looked over at him and saw how Jess was squinting his eyes, gritting his teeth, and breathing quick, shallow breaths.
"Come on. Let's get you to the doc."
Leaving the smoky remains of what used to be a home and a growing ranch, they began the trek to Willow at a slow trot.
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Unbeknownst to the two ranchers, they were being watched.
From a hill to the east, sitting on his horse and silhouetted amongst the background of rocks, Blake Wilkie had supervised the raid and viewed everything that had happened, including the rescue of the horse trapped in the barn.
"I'll give you this much, Harper," he mused aloud. "You're quite a man."