Page 2 of Flesh and Bone

Everett staggered against him, dizzy and weak. Marshall slung Everett’s left arm around his shoulder and set off. Everett’s right arm swung loose by his side, dead weight, until Marshall clamped a hand over it.

“Did you see what got you?” Marshall asked. “I saw it against the fire for a second, but I don’t know what I was looking at. Too big for a coyote, that’s for damn sure.”

Everett shook his head. “Don’t know.”

“How bad are you hurt?”

His arm felt wet. He couldn’t figure out more of a sensation than that. Every lurching step he took against Marshall’s side felt more unstable than the last.

“You know that cabin by the bend in the creek?” Marshall asked, not slowing his pace. “Where we stayed a night last year? We’re gonna hole up there, get you fixed up, and then we’ll take care of whatever the hell this thing is come daybreak. Okay? I’ll track the fucker to its den and put it down for good. You just stay with me.”

“Sure thing,” Everett mumbled.

The cabin was half a night away: a long trek with their horses run off, and Everett was losing blood by the pint.

“Too easy to pick us off like this,” Everett slurred against Marshall’s shoulder. “Gotta keep your gun up…”

“I clipped it, whatever it was,” Marshall said grimly. “It’s run off to lick its wounds. You shut up and let me worry about it.”

“That thing’s the devil. We got the devil after us.”

Marshall didn’t miss a step, but his grip tightened around Everett’s shoulder. “That’s the blood loss talking. Ain’t no devil here or anywhere else.”

When Everett stumbled one too many times, Marshall hefted him over one shoulder like a sack of flour and kept at it, his mouth set in a thin line. The sudden movement made Everett’s stomach swoop as the last of the blood rushed away from his brain. His body felt like it belonged to someone else, hollowed out and buzzing full of flies. His thoughts were scattered over the range, driving down into the dust and the rocks. He couldn’t do anything except hang limp over Marshall’s arm, clinging to consciousness by a thread. The thought of slipping under terrified him. If he passed out even for a second, Marshall would be setting down a corpse in that cabin. A corpse with Everett trapped inside, unable to move, unable to so much as scream.

The horror was offset by guilty relief at the same thought. If he was dead, that was the end of it.

The cabin by Pekisko Creek wasn’t more than four thin walls and a rickety roof against a backdrop of evergreens stabbing into the sky like knives, but Marshall carried him inside and shut the door behind them like he expected it to keep them safe. Stripped of his duster, propped up on the narrow bed, Everett tipped his head back against the wall, staring blankly into the ceiling beams. Black splotches swam around the edges of his vision like big ugly catfish, and he couldn’t get his eyes to focus.

When Marshall tore away the sleeve of Everett’s ruined shirt, Everett couldn’t feel it. His arm was hot from the shoulder down, but touch and pressure didn’t register.

“Let’s see how bad it got you,” Marshall muttered, more to himself than to Everett.

He had the oil lamp lit on the little dresser, enough to take the edge off the night, but barely good enough to see by. Everettwasn’t sure he wanted to see anyhow. Marshall put a rumpled pillow in Everett’s lap and moved Everett’s bad arm to lay on top of it, peeling the tattered blood-soaked cloth away.

“Shit,” he hissed.

Cold fear trickled down the back of Everett’s neck. He tried to lift his head from the wall.

“Don’t look,” Marshall said quickly.

Everett’s stomach twisted. “That bad?”

“Nope,” Marshall said after a split-second-too-long pause. “Just messy, and you’re a pussy about blood. Once I get this clean, you’ll heal up just fine.”

Marshall wasn’t a liar, but Everett didn’t believe a word out of his mouth.

“Here,” Marshall said, tossing something over Everett’s arm. Everett forced his vision to cooperate and found Marshall’s coat covering him like a shroud. “Let’s get some booze in you. Take the edge off.” He searched Everett’s duster for his flask, offering it to Everett’s good side.

“That bad,” Everett repeated.

“Just don’t look,” Marshall repeated in turn. “It looks worse than it is. It ain’t gonna kill you and you ain’t gonna lose the arm. Drink this, shut your eyes, and don’t worry about it.”

As Everett took his first drink, Marshall got a fire going in the tiny hearth and set a pot of water to boil over it, shredding strips from the bedsheets to sterilize for bandages. Everett watched him, not totally present, like he’d watch the herd milling in a pen, following the movements without investment. He couldn’t move his fingers. Couldn’t sense anything but wet, blinding pain.From the elbow down, his arm felt like something attached to him that wasn’t his anymore.

He gulped down more of the booze, clumsy enough to spill it over his chin and down his front. If he drank enough, it would numb the blind panic; that was more important than the pain. His stomach twisted, half hunger, half nausea. The booze would get him drunk quicker on an empty stomach. The blood was so thick in the air he could taste it, but under that, he could smell Marshall’s sweat, the scent as familiar to him as the cattle, or the smell of gunmetal, or fresh rain stirring the dust under the grass. More familiar, maybe, with the way it was burned in his memory. His stomach growled, though he doubted he could keep solid food down if he tried. When the flask was empty, he let it drop to the bedsheets and Marshall wordlessly handed him his own to keep going.

“Should we talk about it?” Everett asked eventually, once he was good and drunk.

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