"You ought to go on," he said, again. "You can make the river. Pea Eye ain't far from the river. Just follow the Rio Concho into Mexico for half a day. You'll find him." "Captain, I can't ride off and leave you to die," Lorena said. "If you die, I'll go--but not until then." "Foolish," Call whispered. "I might linger for a week. I can't get well. I'd be obliged if you'd go." "Am I such poor company?" Lorena said, trying to josh a little. His breathing was labored, and she didn't expect he would live.

"You've got a family, I don't," Call whispered.

"You need to quit talking and rest," Lorena said.

That was easy advice to take. Call found that just lifting his tongue to make words was heavy work.

It was as hard as lifting the side of a wagon to fix a busted wheel. A few words, just whispers, and he had to rest.

In the night the sky cleared, and the cold grew more bitter. Just before first light, Lorena used the last of her wood. She could hear the Captain breathing; there was a rasp in his breath. She had to walk a long way to find an armful of frozen sticks. For a moment she thought she was lost; but luckily, it was still dark enough that she caught a flash of her own fire. She made it back to camp and fed the fire, holding her cold hands over it.

Despite the good fire, the Captain was shivering. Lorena managed to pull and tug until she got the saddle free of his dead mount. She wanted the saddle blanket. They had only three blankets, and she put all of them on the Captain, placing the heavy saddle blanket over them. She had to keep arranging the blankets, because the Captain became restive.

When he shifted, he cried out from the pain in his arm and leg.

Lorena knew she had to choose from between lesser evils. She could try to get the Captain on a horse and take him with her, or she had to leave and hope she could find a town and get back with help before he died. Probably he would die in either event, from moving or from staying.

He was not a large man; in the years since she had last seen him, he had become older and smaller. She was sure he hadn't been so small when she had known him before her marriage.

She felt sure she could lift him onto a horse, but whether the movement would kill him, she didn't know. When it warmed a little, she would have to make her choice.

She tried to feed Call a little coffee with a spoon, but he was shivering so that most of the coffee spilled onto his shirt.

"You need to take a little, it'll warm you," she said. But Call was unconscious; he didn't respond.

Lorena decided then to take him with her. If she could get him on a horse while he was unconscious, the pain might not be so sharp. A few buzzards were circling in the cold sky, attracted by the dead horse and the dead deer.

Lorena's horse was an old black plug named Blackie. The Captain had chosen a solid mount for her, one that would not act up and throw her some cold morning.

She saddled Blackie and walked him over to the dead horse. The frost was so intense that the dead horse didn't smell, not yet. The corpse would make a good stepladder, she decided; it was the only one available to her. She didn't want to give herself time to think about the task too much.

She didn't want to waver.

When she lifted the Captain, she was shocked by how little he weighed. Clarie, her fifteen-year-old, far outweighed him. She had been tussling with Clarie not long before they left home, and had tried to lift her off the ground. It was all she could do to lift her daughter and carry her a few steps.

Captain Call wasn't as heavy as Clarie, not nearly. It seemed absurd to her that this man, old and small, was still the man they sent after the meanest killers. They should have found a younger manhunter long since, and Captain Call should have been living a safer life.

That was wisdom come too late, though. As she was carrying him to the horse, the Captain woke.

He looked at the ground, as if surprised that a woman was carrying him. But his eyes were not focusing, for he was in great pain.

"Captain, do you think you can ride?" Lorena asked. "I caught that other horse--I'll put you on Blackie." Call blinked; the world was hazy. He saw the black horse standing by the dead horse. Lorena was carrying him as if he weighed nothing. The fact was, his weight had dropped in the last few years. But not being on his own feet startled him. It made him wonder if he was still himself.

He had always had his own feet on the ground.

To be carried, even the few steps to the horse, was like floating. He felt he was floating into another life, a life so different from his old one that he wondered if he would even have the same name.

"I ain't been carried since my ma carried me, I guess," he whispered.

Lorena got his good foot in the stirrup.

Call pulled up with her help, but when he swung his bad leg over the saddle, he yelled out; then he vomited and fainted.

At least he was on the horse, Lorena thought.

He was unconscious. She cut his lariat into sections with the big bowie knife he kept in his saddlebags, and then she tied him on.

The buckskin stray was jumpy when she first mounted, but she walked him until he settled down. Captain Call was alive, but only just.

She didn't want any jumpy horses causing his death. She led Blackie, and led him slowly.

She hoped Call would come to from time to time, to direct her if she strayed off course.

Call did awaken several times during the day, but he was too weak to speak. The pain in his leg was so intense that he could not hang on to consciousness for more than a few minutes. Lorena checked on him frequently. She was hoping for directions, but Call's whispers were incoherent. He muttered a name, but she didn't catch it.

Lorena stopped well before dark. She wanted plenty of time to gather firewood. They stopped by a little creek with a trickle of water in it. She wanted to heat water and try again to wash the Captain's wounds. He had wet himself during the long day horseback. She knew she could never manage to change his pants with the shattered knee, but she could at least put him by the fire and dry him. The wound in his chest was still leaking blood. She cleaned that and then cleaned off the saddle; it was a bloody, smelly mess.

Lorena gathered an abundance of firewood and drank several cups of strong coffee. She gave the Captain some and he came awake enough to drink it gratefully. All they had was bacon.