Wolf and Iron

CHAPTER 25

Three days later a large change had been accomplished. The horses were much better for the rest and the steady feeding. That trek from the stream by the willows up past the ranch had undeniably taken it out of them, but they were at last showing the signs of complete recovery. Now they were both almost frisky; even Sally, normally so staid and quiet, seemed impatient at being tethered.

As for himself, Jeebee considered both his arm and leg now almost as good as ever. He had even tried sleeping that second night in the cave of the meadow without even one Dilaudid, taking just aspirin instead, and found that, tired as he was, he had dropped off and slumbered without trouble.

Since then he had taken four doses of Tylenol in the last three days, and that was all. Now, while both leg and arm protested at being bumped against something or the muscles in them being used too abruptly, for the most part he could simply ignore the fact that they had been hurt. Both arm and leg still showed dark from the bruising, but the swelling in each was almost gone.

He had benefited from this improvement during the last couple of days by being able to ride Brute down at night into the flatlands. He had even gone out beyond the destroyed ranch, in hopes of finding a range cow and shooting it; and had actually done so.

The job he had done of butchering out the more eatable portions of meat had been clumsy. And packing them back on Brute to the meadow had been a problem. Brute had objected ardently to carrying the meat, which smelled to him very strongly of blood. But Jeebee limped back on foot, leading the horse firmly by the head, with a close grip on the reins just in front of his teeth. Brute’s only option was to follow.

It was a long walk for Jeebee and a hard one. Particularly hard given that he had come tired to the first slopes behind the ranch house and had to lean into them to climb them. Of necessity, he ended up doing what he had done on his first venture back from his camping spot on foot with the crutch, going a small distance and stopping to rest, then going another short distance and stopping again, and so on.

He had started, out of eagerness, early that morning and had reason to be grateful for this, because it was still only midafternoon by the time he was well into the foothills. Up ahead of him was the one stretch he had been thinking of and dreading. This was the shale slope, where he did not think he would dare sit down and rest.

Theoretically, if he did sit down in the middle of the slope, he should be able to use Brute to help him climb to his feet, literally using the horse’s leg and back and saddle as handholds to pull himself upright.

But that was only theoretically. He had noticed on the last few stops that he dared not rest too long, because the leg, in particular, was beginning to stiffen up when he did. That meant that taking a long rest before starting out across the slope would be dangerous.

He reached the nearer edge of the slope eventually. He sat down, keeping a steady tightness on the reins, while Brute stood over him and gazed at the slope itself.

At first glance it looked innocent enough. Merely an open space to be walked across with due care for the fact that it sloped very sharply away to his right. A closer look showed the points of reflection of sunlight from the sharp and loose pieces of bare rock covering it.

He looked almost longingly up to the top of its slope, past the hole that probably at one time had been some animal’s den, to the short vertical bluff and the trees crowning it. It was tempting to try to go up and around it that way. But he had examined that possible route the first time he had crossed it with the crutch. Above the bluff the trees grew too closely and the slopes on both sides climbed at such a pitch that it would be both crowded and unsafe to lead Brute through there.

Moreover, he was eager to get back to the campsite. His leg in particular was paining him as it had not pained him for some days now. After a bit, he faced the fact that he dared not sit, with the leg stiffening, any longer. He got to his feet and started leading Brute carefully across the slope.

He could have used the crutch now, for Brute behind him went as gingerly as he did; clearly the horse’s stance was no more firm on the slope among the loose rocks than his was. He sweated under the sunlight, working his way toward the far edge of the rocks.

But he made progress. The far edge came closer and closer, and in spite of the fact that his leg was complaining, he began to feel a sense of triumph. The edge was only about twenty yards away now. In a few moments he would be safe off the slope. He began to stride out more strongly.

His attention was all on the far edge he was trying to reach. So suddenly that it seemed to have happened before he realized it—though afterward he could remember the stone slipping and turning under his left leg and the leg sliding across in front of his right leg to trip him up—he fell.

Only his grip on the rein, and the fact that Brute’s hooves were all on solid ground and the horse braced himself immediately, kept him from rolling free down the slope.

Panting with relief that he had not made the long fall, Jeebee turned his attention to getting back on his feet again. As he did so a spear shaft of pain lanced up through his left leg from the ankle below it. He woke to the fact that it had turned under him as he fell with his body partly on top of it.

Gasping, he straightened the leg and ankle out. The fierce pain backed off slightly, but he was aware of something decidedly damaged in the ankle. He pulled himself up, hand over hand against the reins, in spite of Brute’s protesting neighs.

Once upright and holding on to the saddle, he cautiously tried the experiment of putting some weight on the left leg.

The ankle gave almost immediately, and the pain lanced upward again, as if the limb above were a hollow tube through which it could strike. Quickly, he took the weight off again. He hung to the saddle with both hands, sweating. There was no way he was going to be able to walk the rest of the way back to the campsite, from here.

He would have to ride. That was the only possibility. To ride meant necessarily having to sit in the saddle, and that meant dumping all the meat he had gathered. He had tied the plastic-wrapped bundle of it on top of the saddle, since Brute had strongly objected to it being put anywhere he could feel its unfamiliar touch.

There was simply no choice in the matter. Jeebee undid the rope holding the bundle in place and let it fall to the ground. He would come back for the plastic later if there was anything of it to salvage. But he doubted that there would be. Wolf or other predators would have taken care of the meat. Then, taking a firm grip on the saddle horn, he hopped with his good leg upward, pulling with his arms as he did so, and managed to get the toe of his good foot into the stirrup and his bad leg, to the tune of an excruciating stab of pain, thrown over the saddle to the other side.

Then he urged Brute forward.

Brute was even unhappier now than he had been earlier. But he, too, saw the edge of the shale ahead of him and was eager to reach it. In a moment they were on solid ground.

The load of meat Brute had been carrying had been light. The horse was not the least bit tired, but the pain in Jeebee’s leg at each jolt as Brute’s hooves struck the ground kept him from putting the animal to any faster pace than walking; though he would have liked to have headed for his campsite with all possible speed. There turned out to be another three quarters of anhour of traveling before Jeebee at last slid out of the saddle—to the accompaniment of another silent scream of protest from his injured leg and ankle—and tethered Brute with his reins to a tree by the river, close enough so that the horse could drink.

Brute headed immediately to the water. Jeebee, holding on to the saddle and hopping along beside him, loosened the cinch strap while Brute drank, and then, pushing and tugging forward on the reins, got him back to where he could once again tie him to a tree and dropped the saddle off him. In taking off the saddle, he had also gotten his backpack and rifle, the saddle blanket, and a half-filled water bag.

These, his most necessary possessions, he kept always with him. He got down now on hands and knees and crawled, dragging all this, together with his rifle, behind him until he reached his sleeping spot by the water, upstream. Lying on the blanket, with the saddle under his head and the rifle beside him, he was able to dig out from it his medication pouch.

He had told himself he would not take another Dilaudid. But now he did, telling himself he would take this one and no more, just enough so that when it took effect he could get back down to the water, only about some twenty feet away.

In about twenty minutes it began to work. He crawled to the stream and began soaking the ankle in its cold water. With the Dilaudid and the numbing effect of the water, the pain dwindled to the point where he could begin to think of rigging some kind of a splint for the ankle to hold it unmoving. He already had a possibility in mind. It had been part of a ski rescue manual he had studied before he left Stoketon.

He made the crawl back with fair comfort, but taking every care to bend the ankle as little as possible in the process. Once there, he took Brute’s saddle blanket, folded and refolded it until he had a thick, short length he could bend around under the instep of his foot with two sides extending up the sides of his lower leg. He took from a hip pocket the lengths of leather thongs left over from those he had taken to tie shut the plastic sheet in which he had bagged the raw meat.

With these he laced the blanket tightly in place around hisinstep, ankle, and leg. He tied the thongs as tightly as he dared without running the risk of cutting off circulation in the leg. Then he rearranged the saddle and backpack so that he could sit with the leg propped up, his back against a tree trunk.

He was left with his thoughts. Uppermost in his mind was fury at himself for being so careless. A second’s thoughtlessness and he was back to being almost helpless again. It was almost as if an inimical fate had deliberately chosen to kick him when he was most vulnerable.

He shook off the self-pity of that thought. He had simply failed to look, and what had happened was all his own doing. He should have been watching at each step, to make sure the foot was set down on something firm. It had been nothing more than his impatience to get off the slope that had led to this situation.

Not for the first time, he realized how even a small hurt—as small as a sore toe—could threaten the life of a wild animal by crippling its normal ability to escape its enemies and gather or capture its food. He was in exactly that position, simply because he had let himself get hurt again at the wrong time. Low on food, immobilized for at least several more days.

He made himself deliberately consider the brighter side of the situation. He was infinitely better off than any hurt animal. His weapons were still as effective, even though he might be crippled, personally. There was little likelihood anyone would stumble across him here, or that anyone would come hunting him. The slaughtered cow would almost undoubtedly be blamed on the horse nomads if anyone came looking. To his surprise, and as far as he could read sign around the burned ruins, no one had. There remained the fact that he could not climb up to his pack-load where his flour and bacon were. He had no food. Well, a few days without food would not hurt him. The Dilaudid had almost completely lulled the pain in his ankle. He gathered some nearby fallen branches for a fire, but did not light it. He would want it more after dark. He sat back against the tree. The afternoon was wearing on.

He slept.

He was wakened by Wolf licking at his face. It was twilight.

They had their usual greetings; differing only in that Wolf almost immediately appeared to take note of the fact that Jeebee, while being as comradely as ever, did not stir about as usual in the process.

In fact, Wolf made play invitations, and Jeebee, knowing the other better now, suspected they were at least partly a test to see if Jeebee had some reason for not moving.

To put an end to any further speculation, Jeebee lit the fire. Wolf gave up his attentions and settled down by it. Jeebee lay looking at the fire and thinking of how the delay from this turned ankle would affect his plans for travel.

Altogether he had lost more than a week with the bear, and it was into August. At the altitudes even of the flatlands of the ranch territories—here around three thousand feet—he could expect fall weather and even snow as early as late August.

He might be lucky. On the other hand he might not. But, since his memory of his boyhood drive to the ranch was all he had to go on, he probably would have to explore a considerable area to locate his brother’s place. Luckily there was one thing that he had clearly in his memory. It was the brand on his brother’s cattle, which was that of two overlapping triangles. If he saw any cattle with that brand on them, he would know he was close to his goal.

He had taken advantage of the camping period to get out his compass and maps and establish where he was.

At his best estimate, the territory in which his brother’s ranch must lie was still some sixty miles northeast as the crow flew, from where he was now. Going back down to the flatlands, circling any possible habitations, and generally staying out of sight, could triple or quadruple that distance. In all, he figured it could take him at least a couple of weeks to reach the general territory he had to search, moving always at night, at a walk, and stopping to gather food where he could. Then no one could guess how much time for the search itself.

Events had cut his timetable dangerously short. The thought of being caught in a sudden blizzard on the open flatlands before he had found his brother’s ranch was frightening. Under those conditions, he would simply not survive. If he had enough warning of the onset of winter to get off into the hills and den up like an animal in one of the holes in the earth like the one above the shale slope or the one here…

But even then, survival was unlikely.

His ankle was beginning to hurt again. He tried three aspirin to head off the pain. In any case he had some days now to do nothing else but think.