Rising Sun

Sunlight gleamed for a second on polished brass as the Henry repeater came up and was braced against the side of a tree. It wasn't a long shot, but the rocking and bouncing of the stagecoach made it an iffy shot. The shooter took sight on the shotgun guard, centering the sights between his shoulder blades.

The gun barked sharply, the coach came up; the bullet dug a narrow furrow in the luggage rack and rammed home right where it had been aimed. Good luck for the shooter and bad for the guard. The double-barreled shotgun cradled in the guards arms tumbled into the boot of the coach as his arms flew up and out from the unexpected impact.

The driver's head snapped around to look at his partner slumping over in the seat, a look of astonishment on his face. The sound of the shot spurred him to snap the double set of reins over the team's backs. It wasn't a conscious thing, it was pure reflex; a shot was trouble, and speed was the only weapon he had now that the guard was dead.

The second shot hit the driver in the left shoulder as he whipped the reins into the horse's backs a second time. It felt like a hearty slap on the back, followed closely by a stinging burning sensation. His left arm dropped to his lap and he watched the four lines slip out of his numb fingers.

'How odd,' he thought, just before the third shot took him right at the base of the skull.

The team was at a dead run as they exited the narrow canyon into a wide flat valley. A lone rider came out of the trees and grabbed the harness of the left lead horse. He tried to pull back on the harness but only succeeded in turning the whole team to the left.

As the turn grew tighter, the stage came up on the right two wheels and seemed to balance for a second, and then it laid on over on it's side, in a shower of rocks, grass, and dust. There was a shrill scream of fear that was cut off short, but the rider didn't hear. He was too busy calling to the horses and cussing, as the team broke free of the coach and his grip.

At twelve to fifteen dollars apiece, the eight horses were worth a small fortune and the boss would be pissed if he lost them. Getting the boss pissed wasn't a healthy idea for any reason, but money was the worst one at the present time. Their last bank job had netted them a whole nineteen dollars and had gotten the boss's brother killed.

The mine payroll on this coach should be worth a couple of thousand easily.

*****

A lone rider sat on his horse a hundred yards up the side of the valley. The gray mare, his flat black vest, and brown rough britches blended with the shadows of the timber. The shots had brought him down from higher up just in time to see the coach turn over. It was none of his business, so he was just watching for now.

Jack Jones had lived twenty-five of his forty years in these mountains, and the outside world held little for him. A small town and trading post to the west were his only connections to civilization, a necessary evil as he thought of it. If it wasn't for bullets, beans, salt, coffee, and tobacco he wouldn't even need that.

The rider finally caught up with the team and got them under control. He headed back for the coach as another rider came out of the canyon with a rifle balanced across the front of his saddle. This would be the shooter, Jack thought, as he pulled his own rifle from its scabbard. It paid to be extra careful with guys like this around.

Jack moved slowly and carefully at an angle down the hillside, keeping to the shadows. The fact that these two were robbing the stage was of no concern to him. It was the law's business. When he got far enough along to see the two bodies piled up on the ground, that thinking changed.

Bushwhackers were not good people to let roam around. You could never tell who would be next on their list. Jack didn't like the idea of having to watch his back all the time. Dropping the reigns, he stepped off his horse, his rifle in his hands. He didn't worry about the horse moving; he was well trained and would stay there as if he were tied up until called.

Jack studied the terrain below him for a second, picking a route with the best cover and concealment. He followed his route and ended up forty feet from the coach and the two men standing over a strongbox. The man who had captured the horses squatted and used a mallet and spike to try to break the lock.

"I could just shoot it off," the other man said.

With a frown, the first man replied, "There's been enough shooting."

"So you'd rather go face to face with a scatter gun? Anyway, who's going to hear us?"

"The Indian's say these mountains have ears," the first man said softly.

Whatever the second guy was going to say was cut off by the whack of the mallet and the snap of the lock. The lid squeaked noisily as it opened, and both men stared inside.

"Fuck! It's empty," the guy with the rifle, yelled.

The guy with the mallet and spike sat back on the ground and shook his head. "You killed two men for nothing."

The guy with the rifle spun and fired one shot catching the seated man right between the eyes. "Make that three men," he yelled.

A scream from the coach caused him to jump as if he had been shocked. He spun toward the coach and fired four shots into the roof. The hammer clicked on an empty chamber and he dropped the rifle to his side, drawing his pistol.

"Freeze!" Jack yelled, standing up and stepping into the open.

The man whirled and fired. The bullet hit the dirt at Jack's feet. The old fifty caliber Sharps in Jack's hands bellowed and the man staggered back a step to fall flat on his back, his arms and legs sprawled. Jack levered the empty cartridge out, slipped it in a vest pocket, and loaded a fresh round into the rifle.

Jack advanced on the scene slowly, checking both dead outlaws as he passed them. He checked the driver and guard; both of them were dead, as well. He turned his attention to the coach lying on its side. Four holes were in a line across the length of the roof. Anyone standing up in the coach would have caught a bullet.

The scream had sounded female and this had shook Jack for two reasons. One, he had had very little to do with them, and two, why would anyone in their right mind shoot blindly at a lady. Apprehension at what he would find and the coach on its side slowed him on looking inside.

At first glance, a heap of women's clothing and a lot of blood spatter made him cringe and shake his head. He levered the door up and back before slowly lowering himself through the opening. He stepped gingerly, trying not to put his feet on the person on the floor. Squatting down over the body, he found a dainty wrist and checked the pulse. It was weak and fast but present.

The young woman was crumpled up, and it took him several minutes to get her laid out on her back. He was very conscious of some of the handholds he'd had to use. There was a large bloodstain on her dress at her left hip. Pulling the cloth away from her body, he used his knife to cut a slit about a foot long.

Pulling the slit open, he was confronted with more blood soaked cloth. He cut a slit in the petticoat and found even more cloth. His mind went to the image of an onion as he shook his head. He made a third slit and finally came to blood smeared skin. A puckered hole was visible just to the right of her hipbone and it was oozing blood.

He cut a wide strip off the hem of her dress and pressed it to the wound. From the spray of blood on the floor of the coach, the bullet had to have passed through and through. He had to release the pad of cloth over the entry wound to roll her over on her side. Being limp and dead weight, she didn't want to stay that way. Jack ended up on his knees with one in her back and the other behind her thighs.

He ripped the slit in the dress larger. He had to cut the elastic at the top of the petticoat and the drawstring at the top of the bloomers. The jagged exit wound was at the top of her left butt cheek and bleeding worse than the front one. He knew what had to be done but the fact that she was a woman stalled him.

With a deep breath and a long slow exhale, he tried to put that fact out of his mind. He slit the dress to the hem and got the petticoat and bloomers out of the way. Having a lady naked from the waist down in front of him made his hands shake as he cut a dozen long strips of cloth from the clean part of the petticoat.

He made two pads out of the clean legs of the bloomers and used the strips to tie them in place. He placed the knots in the cloth so they would add pressure to the wounds. That was as much as he could do at the moment. He needed moss and mud to do things right and needed to get her out of the coach. For the latter, he had to wait for her to wake up.

Gently, Jack rolled her onto her back and covered her up with the dress. He hunted around in the tangle of stuff on the floor and found a comforter. He covered the woman with it and climbed back up to the top of the coach.

From there he looked around, four dead bodies, a wounded woman, a team of horses, and a rolled over stage. It's funny how a half an hour can change a man's life. There was still a few hours of daylight, enough time to set up a camp and get the things he would need to doctor the bullet wound better.

Jack whistled shrilly, and a few minutes later, his horse came into view at the edge of the wood line. He jumped down from the coach and the horse came over to him, pushing his head against Jack's shoulder.

"Yes I'm fine," he told the horse as he scratched its jaw and rubbed the dark forelock between its ears. "You worry too much," he added, as much to himself as to the horse. "If the lady wakes up and can get out of the coach, there won't be a problem. If not, then we'll just have to find a way to right it with her inside."

It took him a little while to round up the bandit's two horses and to get the mud and moss he needed. He wrapped the bad guys in their own ponchos and laid out the driver and guard under a tarp from the stage. On inspection, the coach wasn't badly damaged. Other than a broken linchpin where the team had pulled loose, there wasn't much wrong with it.

On farther study, he found that there was an oilcloth cover on the roof under the luggage rack. Using the mallet and spike, he broke the rack loose and cut a hole big enough for him to get through in the cloth. The woman still lay as he had left her. He checked her pulse; it was even but still weak.

*****

Jack used the two dead outlaw's bedrolls to make a bed for the woman next to the fire. The camp was over near the wood line, far from the dead bodies. He had cut the roof open wider and carried her over to the bed. She had moaned several times but hadn't regained consciousness.

Removing the bandage showed that most of the bleeding had stopped. Jack packed the wound with a mixture of mud and moss and replaced the bandage. He had tried to use water from his canteen and a piece of the bloomers to wipe away as much of the dried blood as possible. His hand shook the whole time, and there were areas he couldn't force himself to look at much less touch.

He tried to make her as comfortable as possible before he left to try to get the stage back upright. Using his rope and one from the saddle of an outlaw, he used two long poles, and the team to pull the coach over onto its wheels. The two poles attached to the ropes, working as levers to pull the coach up as well as over. It worked better than he expected.

He left the team in harness and hobbled the three riding horses. That would keep them from running off too far. By dark, he was worn out and hungry. It was too late to hunt, so jerky and coffee would have to do. He spent a while chewing the jerky and drinking coffee, his eyes on the young woman's face. The light from the fire made flickering shadows on her serene beauty.

Jack missed the flickering of her eyelids as he nodded off. Her scream startled him into throwing the piece of jerky he held in his hand and rolling away from the fire. He came up on his knees looking for his rifle. It was still on his bedroll.

The woman's eyes were wide with terror and her mouth was open just as wide. Jack saw her starting to take a deep breath and figured she was going to scream again. Trying to prevent the scream, he said, "You're alright, and the guy that shot you is dead."

This seemed to make her pause, and the scream came out as a deep sob.

"Please don't move and please don't scream again. I have the bleeding stopped and I don't want it to start again. The scream scared me and probably everything else for a hundred miles," Jack told her.

Jack saw the woman's hands move under the covering blankets as they went to her hip. Her eyes got wide again as her hands moved over her body.

"Where are my clothes?" she asked in a croaking whisper.

"I had to cut part of them away so I could doctor your wound, and I used those to bind the wound."

The woman blinked several times and then asked, "Who shot me?"

"The same guy who shot and killed the driver and the shotgun guard. He also killed his own partner."

"You killed him." It wasn't a question but a statement.

"Yes, he shot at me and missed. I didn't."

The woman's eyes closed for a moment, and then she opened them as she asked, "Can I have a drink of water; my mouth is so dry."

Jack got his canteen and poured some of the water into his tin cup. When he turned back to the woman he said, "I don't think you should sit up just yet; I don't want you bleeding any more. You've lost a lot of blood as it is."

The woman looked at Jack for several seconds and replied, "I don't think I have the strength to sit up even if I wanted to. Can you raise my head a little? I think that would be the easiest."

Jack sat the cup down and moved over to sit above her head. He lifted her head and shoulders enough to stuff a folded blanket under her upper shoulders and neck. The woman groaned softly as Jack lowered her head to his thigh.

Her hands came out from under the blanket as Jack brought the cup up to her mouth. Her hands were surprisingly warm as they covered his while she drank greedily from the cup. He refilled the cup twice before she indicated she had had enough by shaking her head.

When he started to move her head, she whispered, "Please, please don't move away, I feel safer with you touching me. I shouldn't, but I do."

Jack nodded and pulled his saddle over so he could lean back against it. His rifle was out of reach, which bothered him, but things seemed safe enough. "I'll stay here for a while; you get some sleep if you can."

The woman nodded, sighed, and closed her eyes.

*****

Jack awoke with a crick in his neck and a knot in his lower back from sleeping sitting up. The fire was down to embers, and he had to pee. When he shifted his weight, the woman mumbled softly in her sleep. With her shoulders and neck on the blanket, he was trapped in a position of not being able to move without putting her neck in a bind.

He didn't want to wake her, so he spent a few minutes pulling and tugging on the blanket as he eased backward. Her head dropped a short ways onto the blanket but didn't wake her. Blowing out a long slow breath that was almost a sigh, Jack got to his feet and went to relieve himself.

Jack had the fire built back up and had made a round of the animals. He was squatting next to the fire pouring the last of the coffee when the woman mumbled again, followed by a sharp gasp as she moved.

"Damn, that hurt," he heard her whisper as much to herself as anything.

"I wish there was more I could do." Jack told her.

"You've done plenty," the woman whispered back, "I owe you a lot, starting with my life."

"Nope, you don't owe me anything, I should have done something about those two men earlier. Maybe you wouldn't have gotten shot, if I had."

"It wasn't your fault; I shouldn't have screamed."

"Your scream scared everyone, me included. I didn't have any idea that there was anyone in the coach, much less a woman."

"I remember the coach started to move faster and it was bouncing me all around. I remember it turning over but nothing after that. I must have been knocked out. When I came to, I heard voices and got to my feet, about then the gun went off and it scared me so I screamed," the woman said in a rush and then paused.

"After that, I remember hearing more shots and something slapped me in the hip, I jerked and I think I hit my head again," she added, her voice getting shriller as the memories came clearer.

"Easy now, you're safe," Jack reassured her.

"I... I know but..." She started to say, but a crashing in the trees near the camp stopped her.

In one swift move, Jack grabbed his rifle and ended up lying next to the woman, looking in the direction of the sound. The fire was between him and whatever was in the woods so he couldn't see much but on the other hand, they were also hidden by the glare.

After a moment, she asked in a whisper, "What was it?"

"I don't know," Jack answered honestly. "A large animal, most likely. A bear drawn to the blood or an elk that our voices startled."

"How about Indians?" She asked in a shaky whisper.

"We would have never heard them before they were on us." Jack replied. "You stay put," he added as he got to his knees, and then he sprinted for the woods.

About five minutes later, he reappeared at the edge of the firelight. "Whatever it was is gone now," he said. Before she could reply, he went on, "It's only a little before daylight, I'll start getting the team and things ready for us to get out of here."

"Where are we going?" The woman asked as she shifted on the blankets, using her good leg and arms to try to sit up. She groaned loudly and then lay back down. "I'm not going to be any help, it hurts too much just trying to sit up."

"Don't worry about it. I'll fix you a pole and fir bough bed in the coach. As for where to take you, there are two choices, the relay station at the end of this valley or back to the last town. The relay station is closer, but there's no law there, only the station manager, and his two sons. Back to town would be best."

"Is there a Doctor there and a place for me to stay?" She asked.

"Yes, there is a Doctor and a hotel, although the boarding house would probably be more comfortable. The woman who runs it is quite respectable and has two daughters that could help you. I've stayed there from time to time when I come to town."

"You live here in these mountains? Alone, that is."

"I live a ways north of here, but yes, I live up here alone. I like it that way."

"Oh, I see," she replied softly.

*****

Jack carried the woman down to the coach and placed her on the fir bough bed built over the seats. As he covered her with a blanket, she asked, "What are you going to do with the guards?'

"They're laid out on top of the coach. The two outlaws are across their horses. I'm taking everything to the sheriff."

"How long will it take us to get there?"

Jack smiled and replied, "We'll be there by dark at least. I'm going to take it slow at first and see if you're up to it. There's water in the canteen and some jerky in that sack. Help yourself and if you need to stop, beat that tin cup on the wall."

The woman smiled back and said, "You seem to have thought of everything."

"I'm doing my best."

"Yes you are.... Uh, there is one thing though...."

"Yes ma'am and what would that be?" Jack asked, confused.

"I don't know your name," The woman said with a shy smile.

"Jack Jones, at your service."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Jones, I'm Margaret Smith."

"Miss Smith, it's an honor."

There was an awkward silence for a few moments, and then Jack whispered, "I guess we need to be on our way."

"Uh.... Yes, I... Yes," Margaret whispered back.