Cort lay in the cave where Sam had left him, with no memory of seeing his brother or of being moved.
His feverish mind raced across a violent lifetime. Blurred sights and sounds of the past came hurtling into his numbed consciousness. In his delirium, he glimpsed the silhouette of a woman moving across a bright background. But that was only one of the many shadows that flitted through Cort’s nightmarish mental landscape.
“They won’t listen to reason, Chuck,” he muttered in his troubled sleep. “If they storm us, we’ll have to shoot into the crowd ... ” Cort suddenly rolled to his left and yelled, “Look out, Chuck!” His wound opened. The pain on Cort’s face, however, came not from bleeding, but from the flash memory that saw his best friend writhing before the door of a sheriff’s office in the last moment of his death throes.
Then Cort was calm. His thoughts tumbled through him quietly until he grew thirsty. “There’s water at Marcosa. Just ten more miles of walkin’,” he said fiercely.
Clare Bell, the silhouette against the bright light of the cave’s opening, brought a cup of water to Cort’s lips. Watching him drink, she thought of how bloody and hard this man’s life must have been over the last dozen years. There was a friend who had probably died, a dry march through the desert, and God knew what else. She had known him as a boy. Now he had come back from a self-imposed exile. What kind of man would he be?
The bullet that hit Cort’s leg was still embedded in his thigh. Having no choice if she were to save his life, Clare chanced a small, smokeless fire inside the cave for boiling water. Then she began to cut, only pausing in her probing for the bullet to pour whiskey on the festering wound.
There was nothing more she could do now except hope that Cort hadn’t already lost too much blood. She kept herself busy by periodically bathing his wound and mopping the sweat from his brow. And all through the day and into the night, she studied her patient’s face and wondered.
Long after midnight, Cort’s fever broke. He slept peacefully ’til dawn.
It was the itch of his bandage that awakened him. He stirred slowly. Opening his eyes, Cort gazed into Clare’s beautiful face as she hovered over him. He said nothing, did nothing, showed nothing. He just looked at her.
She told herself that she was this close to Cort in order to keep him from moving abruptly and opening his wound. Yet she gave no word of caution, nor touched him to hold him still.
Because of her near twenty-four hour vigil, Clare was understandably unkempt. Hair fell loosely about her head, a smudge of Cort’s blood was on her right sleeve, and, due to the heat in the cave from the fire, the top buttons of Clare’s blouse were undone.
Her bust, only partially concealed, heaved against the thin, cotton shirt with every breath she took. It was easy to see how full and firm she was by the press against the fabric. The creamy white of Clare’s exposed breasts, just inches from Cort, made the white of her blouse appear gray. How desirable she was. And how easy it seemed to simply reach out and caress her lovely body. If it hadn’t been Clare, he might have done so.
This extended, charged moment ended when Clare felt Cort’s gaze upon her breasts. Instinctively, she looked down, and saw, to her shock, how much of herself was revealed. Immediately she buttoned up while blushing a dark crimson.
Cort was suddenly amused.
“No need to be embarrassed,” he spoke quietly. “A woman ought to be flattered if a man takes to lookin’ at her.”
“I’d take it as a compliment if the man was a gentleman, instead of a notorious gunfighter,” she spat back at him.
“I don’t see a difference between the two,” he responded. “Both a gentleman and gunfighter would see the same things if they looked at you. Anyway, I meant no harm. I guess I couldn’t get over how much of a woman you’ve become. You were a skinny, pretty little thing of sixteen when I pulled out twelve years ago,” he said wistfully. “Now, if you don’t mind my sayin’, you’ve filled out into a mighty handsome woman—and maybe a sight prettier, too.”
“That’s kind of you to say,” she said brusquely.
Then the lightness he felt went away, and a cloud came over Cort’s face. He looked away from her and stared at the wall of the cave. Clare watched him, puzzled by the change in his mood
“Is the bandage too tight?” she asked with some concern.
“No, it’s okay ... and thanks for patchin’ me up.”
“I’d do as much for anybody.”
“Yes, I suppose you would. But thanks just the same,” he said wearily.
“You must be very tired. Sleep is the best medicine,” she advised.
Cort ignored her. “Is this the cave Sam was tellin’ me about?”
“I guess so.”
“And does anyone beside the two of you know that I’m hurt and laid up here?”
“No one outside of Sam and now me know of this cave, and no one outside of the Five Fingers knows that you’re wounded.”
Cort brooded This was information he had to have, yet there was something else that needed to be said. Only he didn’t know how to begin, so he asked those questions ... all the while looking at the cave wall, hoping to find the right words. But there were no right words, and he knew it. Finally, he turned his head to face her and said simply, “I’m sorry about John.”
Clare turned her glance to the dying embers of the fire. A stick of wood had burned to ash and, falling apart, sent a few sparks into the air. The small flare of the fire brought her reverie to an end, and she asked, “Why are you sorry about John? There’s no reason to be. He was a good man who did what he had to do. Feel sorry for him? No. He acted like a man from the moment I met him to the moment he died. No need to feel sorry for me either, because I was lucky enough to be his wife for twelve years. Now John is gone,” her voice trembled, “and like my Ma told me, living in the past won’t change anything. I loved him—I’ll always be proud of that—and there’s not a thing ... not one thing, for anyone to be sorry about.”
Cort was impressed. “Handsome female be damned,” he thought, “this woman has sand. If I had as much courage twelve years ago, I wouldn’t have run away ... And if I had been more of a man, and less a reckless kid,” Cort berated himself, “there would never have been a need to run away in the first place.
“I’m sorry,” he said aloud, “not for what’s happened in the valley over the last few weeks, but for what happened at the Five fingers twelve years ago. I’m sorry for what I did to your man ... .to my friend.”
“No need for an apology. John was seldom bitter about his leg. When we would occasionally hear of you outgunning some well-known outlaw ... . or well-known lawman, John would smile from ear to ear and crow how he was the only man to ever survive a gun-duel with the famous Cort Lacey. In truth, he knew you could have killed him. While all of us wished that you hadn’t forced him to draw, John, for one, was glad to be alive.”
“Knowin’ you two didn’t hate me ... it eases my conscience some,” Cort said quietly, almost in a hush.
“I didn’t realize this weighed on your mind. The last twelve years must have been a lot tougher for you, Cort, than for John and me.
“Look, we’ve talked far too much,” she said suddenly. “You need plenty of rest. Sleep for a while, then I’ll make more broth—and if you’re a good patient, some coffee.”
Cort gave her a grateful look, then closed his eyes. Minutes later he fell into untroubled sleep.
Over the next few days, Clare took care of this lean, raw-boned man, and helped him gain back his strength. When Cort didn’t sleep, and she wasn’t either feeding or doctoring him, they would talk.
At first Cort was reluctant to be drawn into conversation, for fear that Clare would inevitably begin questioning him about his past ... Did he really outdraw Bo Vreen up in Silver City? Did he really empty both barrels of a shot gun into a lynch mob when sheriff Charles ‘Chuck’ Belmont was killed on the jailhouse steps? He preferred to keep these, and so many other events of his life, buried and, hopefully, forgotten.
Only she never asked those questions.
“I hear Oregon’s beautiful,” she said once, “have you ever been there, Cort?”
“Yes.”
“Is it as lush and green as people say?”
“On the ocean side of the mountains it’s like that. Tall pine, redwood, and fir everywhere.” He warmed to the subject. “East of the green belt, though, is the Oregon I really love. It’s all high country, with snow peaks dotting the sky. There’s rich grass and the air is cool and crisp like a tonic. If you’re unprepared, it can be a murderous country in the winter, but snug in a cabin, with lots of firewood and smoked beef, there’s not a quieter, more peaceful place to be on all this earth.”
Clare watched wonderingly, as, right before her eyes, a seemingly world-weary gunfighter became a lover of beauty and peace. There was so much more to Cort Lacey, the man, been to Cort Lacey, the boy, that it was hard for her to realize they were one and the same.