PART TWO:

He woke as the first pale signs of dawn began to streak the sky. Shivering, he clenched and unclenched his fingers several times. His entire body felt stiff, both from the cold and the

effects of the fall he'd taken. He closed his eyes again. What a goddamn fucked-up mess.

Sitting up with some effort, he beat his forearms across his chest. His hat! Where was his hat? His eyes scanned the immediate area. Ah, there! Reaching out, he snagged it, slapped it against his thigh to knock off the dust, then ran its brim through his fingers, straightening a bit of a

bend he didn't like. He settled it on his head, adjusting it to the tilt he preferred.

Now the damn ankle. He pulled his right leg up enough to reach his boot. Ankle was swollen.

He could tell from the way it seemed to fill his boot too tightly. There was a knife in his saddlebag and he sat there a long while, staring at his boot, trying to decide if he wanted to

cut it off or not. If it was going to come off whole, it'd need somebody pulling from the other

end. No way would he get it off himself without cutting it. Turning his head, he gazed in the direction he wanted to go. Nope. Couldn't manage that without his boot.

His stomach growled and he spread a palm over it as though to subdue it by will alone. Last meal had been roasted jack rabbit around noon the day before. No help for that. Not right

now. He'd just have to get on with getting on. He looked back at the black. Damn it to hell.

He really hated losing that horse. How many years now? Seven? Eight? Soon as he'd seen the black he'd known he had to have him. Too bad a Texas ranger happened to be mounted on

him at the time.

He rested his right hand on the horse's flank. Ranger. Best damn horse he'd ever had. Never

a lick of trouble out of him. Not like most people. Horses, especially this horse, were reliable. They did what you expected them to, what you'd trained them to do, what you required of

them. Sighing, he let his left hand join the other and, pressing hard on Ranger, heaved himself

to his feet. He stood, wobbling a bit, trying to let his right ankle take some weight. Hurt like

blue blazes, it did, but probably wasn't broken. He'd manage.

He managed about ten steps, saddlebag slung over his shoulder,  then had to sit quickly on a

big rock.  Looking back at Ranger from under the brim of his hat, he felt a momentary flicker

of anger that the horse had upped and died on him when he needed it most. "Damn waste of time," he growled to himself, mentally kicking the useless thought into the dust. What he needed to think about now was finding some sort of support, something he could lean on. He couldn't just sit there and freeze.

He tipped his head upwards. Sun was getting on. Didn't seem to be warming things up all that much, though. Wasn't supposed to be so damn cold this far south.  South. Yeah, that's where

he needed to go. Stay in Mexico for a bit, maybe Agua Verde or San Pedro. They'd most likely think he'd be headed for Naco or Nogales. But he wasn't going anywhere without something to lean on. Blasted ankle was shooting fire after just this little bit.

There was a hip-high outcropping of rock that ran for a good 50 yards or so and he made his way down it, scooting his right hand along its top as he went. By the time he got to the end of

it, he was puffing for breath. He was in real trouble and he knew it. Must be miles of empty nothingness around him every direction. He needed to find a place to hole up till his ankle got so's it could bear his weight. Little problem there of food and water, though.

He almost hopped the ten feet to the next big rock and propped himself against it. Felt like his ankle was swelling more. Boot was really starting to hurt. Damn, he really didn't want to have

to cut it off. A piece of dried wood, half-buried in the dirt, caught his eye and he hopped over

to it, pulling it out. Was a bit too short but better than nothing. He took a step, leaned his weight on the stick, and it snapped in half, sending him tumbling forward. His mouth full of dirt, his cheek scraped, he lay there giving strangled air time to every curse word he could think of.

Spitting, gagging, he rolled up onto his left hip, scraping grit off his tongue with his gloved fingers. He was sitting in a patch of snow and he grabbed up some, wiping in his mouth, over

his face. He mostly succeeded in smearing the dirt into wet mud on his skin. A lot more spitting still left his teeth gritting against each other.  And his hat was bent! His goddamned hat was bent! He grabbed it up, almost furiously straightening it. Only there was a small kink on the

left edge that was beyond help. He pulled his arm back to toss it away. No, his head was cold,

so he jammed it on, a low growl rumbling in his throat. Steeled with determination, he hoisted himself to his feet against the rock, hanging there, panting.

A minute later, he moved forward, his jaw clenched. He...would...do...this...thing. He made it over the crest of a low rise but there is always some point where physicality wins out over will and his knees buckled. The snow had blown deeper here and he knelt there up to mid-thigh in crusted whiteness. A wind whipped up from the narrow canyon in front of him, forcing him to grip his hat brim with both hands. He squinted, blinked, squinted again. There, against the

back wall of the canyon, was that some sort of adobe hut? Scrambling forward on hands and knees, he reached the edge of a steep slope.  His hands slipping on ice, he started to slide and

just gave into it, letting himself slither on his belly down the incline.

He lay there a moment but began to shiver, his teeth chattering grittily. Too close, damn it,

too close not to go all the way. Staggering, mostly crawling, he covered the 20 or so feet to the hut. He didn't so much open the door as hit it with his shoulder and fall inside. He blew out several long,  ragged breaths  before he could even manage to look around.  One room. Unoccupied, though somehow a small fire burned in some sort of large pottery container to

one side. Near it, a small pallet with a couple of blankets rested on the dirt floor. Dragging himself to it, shivering almost uncontrollably, he rolled up onto it, pulling the blankets up.

He'd rest a minute then see if there was food. Yes, that's what he'd do. Rest just a minute.
His eyes closed, the shivering slowed, and his head tipped to the side as sleep claimed him.

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