When Words Fail

Ike!  The name screams across his brain, shooting through the twisting flames of pain.  The heavy blackness of the night presses down on him and again he’s reminded of the passage of time.  A stillness, like death approaching, fills the canyon and sends chills down Jimmy's spine as he staggers to his feet like a drunken man.  In desperation, he peers through the night for his friend, and his stomach lurches violently when he finds him, still dangling like some fiendish marionette from the tree.  Forcing his limbs to respond, he approaches Ike’s limp form, dread carving at his insides.

“Ike, don’t you dare be dead!” he whispers, shattering the stillness and turning the  nightmare back into reality.  Pressing his hand hesitantly against Ike’s battered chest, relief washes through him when he feels it rise and fall in the uneven rhythm of faint breathing.  But relief is quickly replaced by a flood of guilt and drowning fear.  Ike’s not dead, but his ghastly pale face leaves no doubt that he’s close.  The wave of terror finally kicks Jimmy’s sluggish body into motion and clears his pain-crazed mind.  He needs a knife!  Has to get Ike down!  Blindly, he runs back up the canyon slope to where he left his horse what seems like years ago, cursing himself loudly as he stumbles in his haste.  Fumbling in his saddle bag, his hand finally closes on the cold smoothness of a blade and he jerks it out.  Almost as an after thought, he grabs his blanket as he sprints back to Ike’s side.  He’s got to lay Ike on something, and the dirt isn’t an option.

Dashing around Ike, Jimmy’s breath is sucked out of his lungs as his eyes fall on Ike’s back.  Not even the night’s thickness can mask the damage done by that whip.  Bile rises in his throat and he fights the urge to retch as he stares in shock at the mass of bloody, red pulp running from shoulders to waist.  He squeezes his eyes shut, but even that doesn’t block the image now branded on his mind.  Taking a deep breath he opens his eyes again and forces himself to concentrate on the task before him.  Ike’s life is in his hands.  With calmness born of sheer willpower, Jimmy spreads the blanket on the ground behind Ike.  Positioning himself to catch his helpless friend, he strains to reach high enough to cut the ropes above his hands, purposefully averting his eyes from the raw, tortured flesh of Ike’s back.  With a hiss the rope surrenders to his knife and Ike sags like a dead weight into Jimmy’s arms.  Using uncommon gentleness, Jimmy lowers him onto the blanket, trying to keep his mangled flesh from the dirt and silently thanking the heavens that Ike’s bruised chest continues its faint motion. 

“Ike, please just keep on breathin’,” Jimmy pleads.

Feeling a great sense of urgency, he grabs Ike’s hands to finish removing the offending ropes, only to stop short once more at the sight that meets his eyes.  The ropes around Ike’s wrists are so tight, they’ve dug trenches into the skin, letting the blood flow and cutting off circulation to his hands.  These gentle hands are now puffy, mottled, and almost purple from lack of blood, but that’s not what makes Jimmy gag.  At the end of each finger is an open, oozing wound exactly where each nail should be.  Trails of blood run down Ike’s hands and arms from each one, leaving dark stains on his pale skin.  This senseless act of pure cruelty fans the fires of rage in Jimmy’s soul and at the same time brings tears to his eyes.

“I swear I will hunt down the men that did this to you!” he utters through gritted teeth to the unconscious Ike as he tries to gently ease the ropes from around Ike’s wrists.  It’s like removing something that’s molded itself to the skin and Jimmy’s grateful for the first time that Ike’s unconscious.  Finally, the blood soaked bindings are lying on the ground and the injured hands free.  Knowing that time is wasting, but feeling that he should care for them somehow, Jimmy glaces frantically through the dark for something to use.  A patch of white catches his eye and he hastens over to find Ike’s other clothes laying in a heap.  Grabbing the whole pile, he rushes back and begins tearing Ike’s shirt into long strips.  Not quite sure how to bind the battered limbs, Jimmy at last settles on just carefully wrapping each one up to the wrist.  It will have to do for now.

The pounding in his head and the awful stillness of the empty canyon are getting to him, making it hard for him to think clearly.  Ike has endured so much and lost so much blood that every second Jimmy wastes could be the fatal one.  He’s breathing for now, but he needs a doctor soon or it will be too late!  In complete frustration, Jimmy weighs his options, which aren’t many.  It’s closer to go on to the station than back to Ft. Laramie, but they’re still a good three or four hours away, he doesn’t have a wagon, and there’s no way Ike can stay on a horse!  As far as he can see, there’s only one solution.

“Alright, Ike,” Jimmy says out loud.  Talking to Ike helps him pretend everything’s going to be okay.  “Here’s what we’re gonna do.  I’m gonna wrap this blanket around you the best I can an’ then I’m gonna put ya up on my horse and then git up behind ya.  Then we’re gonna head back to Sweetwater as fast as we can and yer gonna promise me that yer not gonna die on me on the way, ya hear?”

Jimmy stares down at Ike’s still form for a second.

“Well, never being a man of many words, I’m gonna take that as a yes.”

Once he has a clear path of action, Jimmy attacks it like a pouncing wild cat.  In only minutes, Jimmy has his horse standing ready in the canyon.  He quickly finds Ike’s mount, leads it over and transfers his and Ike’s belonging to it, making sure to add Ike’s hat and other clothing he found.  It seems almost calloused to be thinking of it at a time like this, but he knows Ike will want them if, no when, he gets better.  Finally, Jimmy secures the other animal’s reigns to the saddle horn of his own.  Grabbing Ike’s blanket and snatching his gun from the ground where it’s been laying forgotten all this time, Jimmy rushes back to Ike.  Totally at a loss for how to treat Ike’s gruesome injuries, Jimmy does the only thing he can think of.  Kneeling down, he tightly binds the blanket Ike’s been laying on around his back as a sort of make-shift bandage and then drapes the other about him to try and ward off the night’s chill; all Ike needs now is to get sick, too!   His fear growing every moment, Jimmy almost jerks the animals over to Ike’s side in his haste. 

It takes all of Jimmy’s strength to get Ike’s limp form up on the horse.  He’s worried about causing Ike more injury, but he has no alternative.  After a short struggle, Ike is sagging in the saddle and Jimmy quickly mounts behind him before he can slump back off.  Gently, he cradles Ike back against his chest,  wrapping his arms around him to hold the reigns.

“Now ya better keep that promise, Ike,” Jimmy tells him softly.  Then he turns his horse towards Sweetwater and kicks it to run like the devil himself is after them!