Chapter Seven

Oh, dadgum. Why can't I breathe? The way my ribs ache, I'll diagnose myself with a pair of broken ribs, but unless one jabbed my lung, I shouldn't feel like the earth's caving in on me. As the rim of my hat sat over my eyes, I couldn't see anything, but I doubt there'd be much of a tell-all with my vision anyway. Can I even bat an eyelash?

Both arms feeling like they were lead weights, I tried to pick up my prominent right. Dadgum, I musta been tied down. I can't move! Well, I've been snug with ropes and rawhide alike before and've wiggled out. Lemme try again. Maybe my spurs could reach that high. Come on, legs! Surely my whole body ain't stuck in confinement. There now, I think I can get my knee up. That's right. Now if I turn my back just so, I might be able to…

The screech sounded like it came right outta a Halloween story. The extra creepy kind that's only fit for telling after the midnight hour's rolled through. "He's moving!"

"It can't be, he's dead!"

"I know, but he's moving!"

"Look, he's covered in a foot of dirt! How can he be alive?"

"I don't care how much dirt's covering him up. He's moving so he must be alive!"

"Jesus Christ, forgive me!"

"That ain't Jesus, you numbskull!"

"Who else's ever risen from the grave?"

"I think somebody named Lazarus walked outta his deathbed. But don't ask me to tell you how to look it up to know if it's truth. I ain't read the Bible since I was a kid."

"I wonder if there's a Jess Harper in the Bible?"

"I think there's a Jesse."

"Who's he?"

"A father of somebody."

"Jesus' pa?"

"No. Somebody else."

"Well, whoever Jess or Jesse is, he must be somebody great, because as sure as we're all watching a miracle take place, he's alive!"

"Get him outta there! He'll die with all that dirt covering him."

"We can't let him die now! Now he's really a hero!"

"Get Sam back here so he can take another picture!"

"Let's get him outta the hole first!"

"Here now, grab his arms. Now his legs. All right. Everyone together! Lift!"

I have no idea who all these people are. I don't rightly care. But dadgum, I wish somebody'd tell me how in blazes I ever got a mouthful of dirt. Too weak to spit it out, I tried hacking. That was a mistake. Somebody hit me squarely on the back.

"Keep breathing, man!"

I'd do it a lot better if he hadn't attacked me with his fist. Another cough ripping through my throat, I gagged out a stream of brown and then sucked in the first cool draft I'd felt in awhile. I wish I could say I felt better, though. My lungs were kinda happy. The rest of me? Dadgum, there ain't enough dadgum's to express how bad I hurt. I reckon I'd've felt better if I was dead.

My head in a slight lift, I blinked at the strangers around me. Kinda pale skinned, they are, like not a single one of them ever goes out in the sun. I wonder what's got them all worked up. It must be something big, though. That stubby-legged fella that smells like the bottom of a whiskey barrel just fainted.

I looked at the man directly across from me, the one wearing a suit. "Somebody die or something?"

"Yeah."

"Are you the preacher in these parts?"

He lifted a corner of his mouth. "Apparently I am today."

"Oh. I musta woke up right in the middle of a funeral, huh?"

The man gaped at me. "Something like that."

Trying to shrug, but failing because of the hands on my arms, I angled my head to find the face over my left shoulder. "You fellas gonna let me walk or am I gonna have to get carried home?"

"I don't reckon you can walk, Mister."

"Well, lemme try. I'd imagine I've come through worst fights before."

That might be true, but for the moment, I couldn't remember at all what kinda fight I'd just come outta. Maybe I could walk, maybe I couldn't. But I was about to find out. The release on each side taking place at the same time, I swayed, and the buckling of my legs made the world tip toward darkness, toward something deeper and rather ominous.

"Don't let him go, you idiots! He'll drop right back into the hole!"

More hands on me, I felt my body get propped up and again I sought the suit. "What happened?"

"Demon happened."

Hearing the ground getting pawed in the distance, I attempted to nod. "Oh, yeah. I won, though, right?"

A toothless grin hovered over my vision. "You sure did! You musta been thrown a mile after, though. Why, you even reduced the fence to splinters before Demon trashed your hide from one end to the other."

I reckon that's what's wrong with me then. But then I pointed to my mouth. "What about the dirt?"

"Oh, we buried you."

My attention more'n rattled, I searched for the hole in the ground. Yup, there it was, with me currently being held up by a coupla men not three feet away from its edge. I reckon I did wake up during a funeral. Mine. "Dadgum."

"We thought you were dead. No, wait. Bert said you were dead. Bert, how could you make such a stupid mistake?"

"I don't know! I swear I couldn't hear a thing when I laid my ear over his chest."

"How can you hear anything when every spare minute you have is blasting that obnoxious tuba of yours? The insides of your ears must be made out of mush!"

"I can't help it! I had to practice for my solo in the parade. I thought everybody knew that."

Dadgum. I wish all these fools would quit yapping at each other. With all that noise, my head's pounding as if Bert was blasting that obnoxious tuba in my direction. The pain starting a roll of nausea, I groaned out my discomfort and even held upright, my body started to bend toward the ground.

"Say, he don't look so good, Mr. Danforth."

"Not many would after what he's been through."

"Yeah, but how're we gonna patch him up? The closest doc's in Sheridan."

"Maybe you should take him in. After all, it was your horse that downed him."

"I didn't promise to nursemaid him, only to make sure he got what's coming to him if he won. Say! That's an idea."

"What is, Mr. Danforth?"

"Right before Harper took hold of the saddle he said he wanted me to give his winnings over to somebody named Sherman. He said he was in a shack about an hour's ride from here."

"A friend of his?"

"Must be. Why would anyone give his winnings to an enemy? We'll take him there and whoever this Sherman is can take care of him."

"Sounds good. Somebody get a team and wagon hitched. There ain't no way Harper can sit a horse. Did you see how much his pants got split back there?"

I thought I was feeling a breeze that didn't belong, but even if I'd lost all my layers downstairs, I don't think I'd be paying much attention to being halfway naked. The pain had such a strong hold of me there ain't nothing else that could clamor loud enough to get past my ears and into my head. There was something though. There had to be. Why else would I be feeling something prickling my spine? And no, my ripped jeans ain't got anything to do with it. Something else was wrong. But what?

"Oh, wait. I almost forgot."

"What, Mr. Danforth?"

"What he rode Demon for in the first place. Congratulations, Mr. Harper."

Feeling the set of bills go into my pocket and with the added pat, somehow I was able to tell the wad was the full five-hundred. "Thanks."

The money felt good sitting against my chest, but I figured out right away that not getting what I was owed ain't the source of my concern. Where're they taking me again? I remember something about a doc being in Sheridan. But ain't that a day or longer away?

Through the blur of my vision I saw the wagon bed coming at me before I was laid inside. Too bad somebody didn't think to drop something soft down first. The moment I was let go from both sides, my head dropped, the sound so heavy, it coulda been a rock let loose.

"Sorry, Harper."

The voice a fading drumbeat, the hands of darkness started to pull me under its shelter. Needing to know where I was headed, I didn't go all the way out, though. But my desire to learn couldn't last. Sometime during the sway of the wagon I drifted to the land of nothing. And dadgum, I was down much deeper than whatever sized grave I'd been thrown in before. This was a hole like no other and even if my mind couldn't comprehend exactly what kinda ground surrounded me, somehow I knew I was gonna have quite the fight to get outta it. It was the kinda fight that'd need an extra hand to get outta it. But I didn't have one. Maybe I never will again.

.:.

Well, I'll be dadgummed. I ain't dead. Although if I've ever paid attention to the fire and brimstone type preachers, they say hell ain't a painless place. And I was hurting. Bad. But since I wasn't being eaten by flames or being raked by a blazing pitchfork, I reckon I haven't made that final trek into tombstone territory yet.

I wonder how long it's been since I was last awake. Somehow I don't think it's been long enough. Dadgum. And here I thought oblivion was gonna hang onto me forever, or at least until I'd mended some, but here my hide feels just as trampled as when I was getting jumped on. Maybe I'm even worse. I could swear I'd left that town without a bullet in me, but now it's like I've got a glaring gunshot wound in me now. Ain't that blood I feel pouring off my head?

"Jess?"

I flinched. Who's that? There shouldn't be anyone hovering over my aching carcass. I'm a drifter, a literal nobody with literally nobody that cares about me and since that's the kinda definition I'll wear forever, I reckon there's only one conclusion. My mind must be teasing me. After all, it's gotta look worse than scrambled eggs in there, especially if it's me at the cook stove.

But then my name was said again.

This time it was like the notes were caught in a tin can somewhere far off, making it easier to believe that my brain was creating the sound from the darkest places of my memory. Wanting to be rid of the taunt, I turned my head. But how did the breath I felt on my cheek move right along with me?

"Jess?"

My brows furrowed, increasing my pain. "Leave me be."

"Jess. Come on, Jess. Look at me."

"Huh?" Batting my lashes, I know I saw something, but I don't think my eyes were in wide enough slits to identify anything other'n a sliver of light. Was there someone there? I had the sudden thought of an angel, but that couldn't be right. No one in heaven would take time out to visit me. The thought got worse. No one on earth would do the same and I squinted again, still only able to recognize that I was looking at light, not darkness. "Who… who are you?"

"It's me, Jess."

I felt slapped in the face. "Slim? Dadgum, no. He said he was gonna shoot me if he saw me again." Suddenly feeling the warmth against my head turn to wicked heat, I sprang upward. He had shot me! "Slim!"

"Jess, lay back down. What're you trying to do, undo everything I've done for you?"

I couldn't make any sense in what he was saying, but it didn't take no hard thinking to remember what he'd said to me before. Dadgum, I ain't even seeing clearly, yet inside my vision was everything that I owned, tossed out the front door of the ranch house. And there was the five hundred paid next to Heckard Channing's name with Slim's signature as bright as the blood in my veins. And I could see Slim's gun rising toward my face. Was that last part happening right now or was that scene stuck in my memory? I dunno. I just knew I had to go. Now.

"I'm sorry, Slim. I'll go. I'll go," I said, and as my eyes finally focused on one thing—my bare feet as I thrust them outta a blanket's covering—I moved my head to try and see whatever was on the floor. Hopefully a matching pair. "Just lemme find my boots's all."

"Jess, stop."

Hands grabbed me, but I flung them off and stood. Dadgum, I'll go without my boots if I have to! "No. I'm going before you cut me down again."

"Jess, whatever makes you think that I…"

"I didn't get this by playing solitaire," I said, flinging my thumb at my head, although I reckon by the way I tossed my arm, maybe I'd just thrown a punch toward the door instead. Wait. Was there a door in this place? "Where am I anyway?"

"I have no idea, but will you stop walking away from me?"

"I can't. I can't. I gotta get outta here. I gotta get away from Slim before he kills me."

"Jess!"

I started to spin, but I reckon where I really started to go was down. Dropping to the floor, I writhed against the torture so hard that it felt like my entire body was seized in a tight grip that'd never let me up again. Looking for the door, I knew there was no way I could walk there. I reckon I couldn't even crawl there. And as I continued to roll in my agony, the pain made a sudden switch to fear. Since I couldn't get out on my own, I had the feeling I was gonna get put out. By Slim's gun.

"Go ahead," I said. "Do what you have to. Dying can't be worse'n what I've already been through."

"Jess."

Hearing the deeper tone, I looked up and saw a face, kinda red, kinda not. I know. It's that half-breed. Now I know what's wrong with me. My brain's caught in such a fog that I only thought it was Slim, but it ain't. It's that half-breed. Thank God. Grabbing his pant leg, I pulled myself up until I was able to look him in the eye. Strange, I never remembered that he wore a glistening blue. Didn't he wear something closer to the shade of coals, barely lit by the embers in the bottom of a campfire? It didn't matter. I had to tell him. I had to make him understand.

"I'm gone. Tell Slim I'm gone!"

"All right, Jess," he said, and I felt a gentle hand cup my jaw. "You're gone. But not forgotten."