Chapter Four

Everything ached.

Lying on his side didn't improve matters. Then again, how could sitting upright soothe every batter and bruise? It wouldn't. Not when there was a pulsating lump right over his south section. He could still envision the rock that tortured that part of his hide. He must have bounced a mile high when he hit it. And the crash back down, not only did it make Peavey's roar even louder, the landing was a direct smack in the same place. Far worse than anything his pa gave during a woodshed session.

That had only been one hit, maybe not even the hardest. There were many more rocks, bumps and scrapes that left their mark. Some dug deep, some took a full bite, others were merely a puffed up bruise. But there really was no point assessing the full dose of damage. It was easier to say he hurt. Everywhere.

His neck given a twist to allow some of the pressure away from his cheek, he rested his head against the floor. That was a mistake. Feeling the knot along his ear protest, he pulled away from the floor with a sharp intake of breath that was suddenly stopped short with his gasp. He couldn't move very far.

Maybe he should have been grateful that Peavey had him trussed like a hog got dressed for a hoedown. Moving left, right, up or down would have shot his body with more jabs of pain than he could tolerate. He didn't exactly want to open oblivion's black door so soon after leaving it.

Especially when he wanted to focus on escaping.

Looking down at the rope that had more loops than he wanted to count, he didn't think escaping would come easily. Or without a price. He was willing to take the challenge of both.

While the fog hadn't rolled completely out of his mind yet, he hadn't forgotten that he wasn't the only one in Peavey's clutch. Wanting to see beyond the walls that held him, he bent his neck again so that his eyes could do a thorough wander from one corner of the room to the other.

He was in a cabin, slightly dilapidated by the way the roof sat at a slant. The floor below that obvious dip was grayer than the rest of the surrounding wood. Rainfall was the blame for the suffering condition. Forced to puddle at the corner of the shack because of the roof's decline, it seeped in, soaked in and turned soggy.

While it seemed far away with his body stuck in the opposite nook, he studied the lines of the floor and its attaching wall with a tremor of anticipation. Its pliable softness, and its probable escape route, would depend on the last downpour. He shifted his eyes to the ceiling to think. Laramie wasn't suffering a drought, but it had been long enough since thunder boomed that he couldn't put a date on it. But even if the ground hadn't tasted more than morning mist since the spring thaw, he wouldn't dismiss the hope.

That very hope giving his belly a leap, he shuffled his body to a better position to face the damaged wood. The pain that seared through every point of his frame, including his insides, attempted to squelch that hope. If he closed his eyes to it, he would succumb to the darkness. It was safe in that unknown place, comforting and quiet. But he was the kind of man that would rather die among the battlefield, shoulder to shoulder with his comrades, instead of making the final departure stuck in a barren hole.

Besides, it was because of those very comrades that he was pushing himself toward the opposite corner. Peavey already had one. While he was knocked cold, the other could have fallen into Peavey's clutch. Hang the pain. Better yet, hang Peavey. He wasn't going to let what wracked his body stop him.

But something else would.

His entire body flinched at the sudden noise from the opposite wall. From the surrounding silence at his wakening, he thought he was stuck in the ramshackle shack alone. He wasn't. His heart hammering the throb of Peavey's name, he envisioned Peavey's laughing entry, coming near hysterics to grab him by the hair, dragging him back to the corner. There might even be enough slickness in his teeth to take another swipe at his skull.

He tried to force the lines of worry away from his forehead. The inner power that he depended on couldn't soften his face, but being startled into the depths of winter could. A stifled scream made everything freeze, everything but his heart. In a way, it gave a similar shout.

Another muffled scream tore through the air. While his blood was curdling, somehow the sound didn't seem to come from the same source. There was almost gaiety in the back of the throat, somehow existing only in the back of the screamer's mind.

But then it suddenly changed to that of horror.

Dear God! What was happening?

He tried his own muffled call, using a name he hoped wouldn't respond. It wouldn't matter even if he was right. The sound couldn't push past the kerchief's knot. Attempting to loosen his tongue, he put his chin into his shoulder and rubbed at his mouth. He was failing. He could feel the fabric digging deeper into the corners of his lips, igniting pain, drawing blood. When it started to trickle down his chin, he hesitated to continue. It was then, when nothing but his breath entered his ears, that the scream came again. It was followed by a haggard cough, then it changed to a lilt. He tipped his head. Was that really a song, or someone mourning? The sudden realization changed the position of his head again. Now he was lowered to a solemn bow.

He finally understood. Someone was drunk, or at least suffering the effects of a bottle.

Peavey? While it was possible, he didn't think the likelihood was strong enough to let his mind linger on it. He listened again. He knew the voice, or at least the familiarity tickled his senses hard enough to say that he knew it. It was the stifled side of the wail that made it more difficult to decipher. And the drunkenness. But then again, the sopping sound could be his guide.

Shuffling his frame to put his ear closer to the wall, he groaned behind his own stifling. He did know it.

Using his boot tip, he gave the wall a triple kick. His response wasn't what he expected. Fear exploded on his other side, and while all of the other words were just a pile of mush, there was one he could make out. Peavey.

He gave his head a shake. How could he tell his friend that he wasn't Joel Peavey?

Trying his throat, he offered the name. Too much of a struggle to bring out the proper notes, he offered another tap with his boots, softer, to indicate friend instead of foe. The return was another garbled shout for Peavey. His message didn't get through.

He almost added a harder punch with his heel to break through the barrier so eyes could attach, understanding could be made, and more importantly, so that the strength of two would be better than one. There was no point entertaining a wishful thought. He had already examined this set of boards. They weren't going to give. But there were some others that could.

Down to his belly, he inched across the floor. He felt like a caterpillar, eagerly crawling toward a garden full of greens. He wouldn't mind his appearance, with the odd stretching of his shoulders and the wiggle of his bottom to get there, as long as he came out like a caterpillar's destiny, growing wings to fly.

Shifting his bound body so that his back could brush against the decayed wall, he stretched his fingers to feel the siding. Just as he had hoped, the wood was soft. It might not have been next to crumbling, but his chest offered a flicker of hope as he examined the feel. He just might get lucky and bust a couple of planks loose with his boots.

The first strike was enough to send a flare through his pulse. Watching as the wall quivered all the way to the ceiling, he pushed his boots even harder in. The crack made him bend with the wood, and offer another kick. All it took was to put a shoulder into the hole, and the taste of liberty went farther than the tip of his tongue, but all the way down to his core.

Strange, but his thought about having a flight to freedom wasn't too far off.

Being unconscious during the ride to the shack, he didn't know the surrounding terrain. It took five seconds to learn. Perched on the edge of a slope, the backside of the cabin was already seated on a slope. No wonder the rain ran the way it did. It would be no different with his body, going the exact same route. Down.

Rolling, he replaced the caterpillar's image with a log, gaining speed as the land's slant increased. He knew his spin was too strong, yet he tried to dig his heels into the ground to slow his fall. All his boots accomplished was leaving a well-marked trail. He would never thank the man, but at least Peavey pulling his body in his horse's wake gave him experience in bracing for a strike.

He saw the boulder coming, and then a large crop of shale behind. Of course it would be loose. Avoiding the boulder with a sharp fold to his frame, he hit the shale, becoming a centerpiece of a rocky avalanche. Every small piece of earth bit into his frame and pulled out more blood, darkened more of his skin. But they were doing something else, too. The rocks were chipping away at the rope.

Looking down to his middle, he saw the fray and purposely started to flail. His teeth slammed together from the protest of his limbs, but he had to keep thrashing. There was more reason than to watch the rope drop into a crumpled pile at his feet. The hill he was tumbling down didn't have a soft end, but a long, straight fall that would take him into an instant, earthen coffin.

He saw the larger stone near the cutoff and tried to avoid it. Unsuccessful, the sharp jab into his side nearly sent him underneath the shadows. Oblivion and its deadly follower would have won if he didn't feel his arm starting to pull free. With a hard jerk, the rope completely unraveled and his right arm jutted out. He wouldn't begin to understand how he caught the ledge in time.

Gratitude and fear draining the sweat from every crevice of his hide, he gave his dripping hair a shake and then pressed his nose into his sleeve. Somehow he needed to keep his hand dry. That grip was all that was keeping him from going down to his death. One slip and he would be gone.

He urged his mind to be calm, to still the tremble and look up. There was opportunity to pull upward. The stone that gave his arm the ability to escape the rope was solidly placed. If he could haul himself over its edge, it would hold him.

How he would rise he didn't know. What he would do after he got there, he didn't know that either. He only knew he couldn't hang over his sure death for long. It would take him. That was a guarantee. How soon, he didn't even want to venture a thought.

Digging his fingernails into a narrow crevice would be the only easy part. At least in this he was successful. He hated having doubts about his own ability, but it was impossible to place an invincible attitude over his head. Another stretch of his fingers to go in deeper, he begged his muscles to withstand further torture, to be able to pull his torso and legs up and over.

The first inch completed, the positive move buoyed his strength to gain another. Now that his front was closer, he swung until he felt the smack against his torso and with a shuffle of each shoulder, he rose high enough that his head was above the ledge. He could see it now, even feel the victory as it took the hard pulse out of his skull and back into his chest where it belonged. One more pull and a solid leap and he would be safe.

He would never make it.

A blast cutting his core in half, he slid backward, so hard and fast he thought his shoulder would disconnect. Another shot threatened to throw his body completely over. The third was the one that hit his head. Not literally, but as a wakeup call that Peavey wasn't peppering the ground around him. The bullets weren't even coming close.

Then where were they?

Turning his head gave him nothing but another view of what his headstone would look like if he dropped. He craned his neck to a different position, desperate to know where the bullets went. There was no man standing with a smoldering iron anywhere around him. He couldn't even hear the devil's taunt, bellowing out of Peavey's mouth in his direction.

So if not at him, then who was Peavey's aim?

The next shot pulled his eyes to the right place. He still couldn't see him, but fear was putting together a solemn story, written entirely by Peavey's hand. It wouldn't take much of a look at the cabin to know what he had done. Peavey was a coldblooded killer. His kind wouldn't even hesitate when it came to pulling a trigger that would end another man's life. Was this Peavey's retaliation of his escape by ending another man's life?

He shuddered. One of his friends must have paid the final price. But then the shudder increased. There had been four shots. Did that mean that both had gone down? He tried to command his thoughts to not remain locked in the dark, to find some kind of light, some kind of hope. It was impossible. The gunshots had gone quiet, yet it was as if he could hear their aftermath, the thud that pronounced the death. But was it one or two?

Who?