[May 2025]  

 

Chapters: 1

Word Count: 4,870

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Warnings:  H/c-Angst

 

A FRIEND IN NEED

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by

Eleanor Ward

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Sometimes, a friend turns out to be not quite who, or what, you expect.

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Hannibal Heyes pulled his horse to a stop near the edge of the gulch and pulled out his pocket watch.  From here the trail forked, one path going the more scenic, but much longer, route to the town he was headed, the other going around the inside of the wall of the gulch. Shorter, but less safe to travel.

 

He studied his watch, weighing up his options.  He was already two days late on his journey to meet Kid Curry and he knew he would be worrying about him.  If he took the longer path that would make him later still, but while the route around the gulch was much shorter there had been a lot of rain lately, making the already challenging route more dangerous.

 

Putting away his watch he looked at the narrow trail cut into the wall of the gulch, which was maybe two hundred feet deep, descending in a seventy degree slope down to where a shallow stream wound through the bottom, trees and bushes growing alongside the edge of the waterline.

 

His natural self-confidence, and his instinct to tempt fate  - and win - saw him decide to take the route around the gulch.  Weary, after two days in the saddle, and keen to see his friend, he felt the time this route would save on his journey made it well worth taking the risk.

 

Turning the horse towards the gulch, he set off. 

 

He picked his way carefully along the narrow trail, which was just wide enough for one horse and rider, his mind on the steak dinner he was looking forward to having that evening.  The job he’d just completed, for Patrick McCreedy, had paid well and he was looking forward to spending some of it on a bath, a couple of steak dinners for himself and Curry, and a buy-in at some high-stakes poker game.

 

He was pulled abruptly from his daydreaming as his horse suddenly pulled up.

 

“What is it, boy?” asked Heyes, looking around him for a sign of what had brought the animal to a halt.  A snake on the path perhaps? A quick glance eliminated that idea.

 

He attempted to get the horse to move on but it refused, nervously shifting its feet and shaking its head.

 

“Come on, boy.” Heyes tried to coax the horse but it continued to shift its feet and shake its head.

 

He was about to dismount and attempt to lead the horse forward when, up ahead, he noticed some small stones beginning to slide down the side of the gulch. That was why the horse had stopped. It had sensed danger up ahead.

 

Heyes glanced around him.  The trail wasn’t wide enough for the horse to turn around, his only option was to try and get it to back up, but the animal seemed rooted to the spot unwilling to move in either direction.

 

Then, before he had time to think of what to do next, a whole section of the gulch began to break away and slide down towards the stream below.

 

Heyes watched in morbid fascination as the trail up ahead broke away, hoping it would stop before it reached them but, the next thing he knew, the ground beneath the horse’s feet began to break up and then they were falling.  Tossed out of the saddle he was sent hurtling down the side of the gulch along with rocks and other debris. The horse’s scream of terror along with his own yell of panic were the last sounds he heard before he whirled down into black oblivion.

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*    *    *

 

 

Pain, pulsating through his body, pulled Heyes back from the blackness. He attempted to move, causing the pain to intensify and pushing him back into the black void once more.

 

When he next became aware of himself the pain was still there. He lay still, trying to get his muddled thoughts into some kind of order.  What had happened? Where was he? Why did he feel so cold? What was the reason for the pain he was in?

 

Gradually his thoughts began to crystalize.  There had been a landslide and he and his horse had been engulfed by it.

 

With an effort, he lifted his head a couple of inches and looked around him.  His horse lay dead, some distance away, partially buried under rocks and debris.  He himself was sprawled, face down, on the edge of the shallow stream, his legs, up as far as his knees, in the water.  That was why he felt cold, he acknowledged.  He attempted to move himself out of the water but gave up as pain washed over him, causing him to cry out.

 

He lay there for some time longer before attempting to assess his injuries.  The pain seemed to be on his right hand side. Breathing was painful, which probably meant some cracked or broken ribs.  His right arm seemed to not want to respond to his command to move it and the throbbing pain extended all the way from his shoulder to his fingertips. He attempted to move his legs to push himself into a sitting position but was stopped by the sudden shaft of pain that shot through his right leg. It was clear that it was broken.

 

A sense of panic washed over him. If he couldn’t walk, and with no horse to carry him, getting himself out of this gulch would be impossible, and with the trail above now demolished no other human beings, from whom he might seek assistance, would be coming by either.   If he was to have any chance of survival, he had to find a way of getting out.  He would freeze to death if he stayed here, or starve, or perhaps even be eaten by a bear. He had his gun for protection, but he couldn’t move his arm to reach it, and a glance at his horse showed that his rifle must have been dislodged in the fall and was nowhere to be seen. He was truly at the mercy of the elements.

 

He made a renewed effort to move, using his uninjured arm and leg, but couldn’t. Closing his eyes, he lay, shivering with cold, trying to think of a way out of this mess and cursing himself for having chosen to take the shorter route to save himself half a day’s travel.

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Kid Curry sat on his horse at the fork in the trail from the town he’d just ridden from, and the narrow track that cut through the gulch.  He’d hung around in town for several days, in the hope that Heyes would turn up at the hotel they’d agreed to meet in after taking on separate jobs in towns in opposite directions, but equal distances from it, before deciding to back track along the trail he knew he would ride in the hope of finding him.

 

He eyed the gulch trail anxiously.  Surely Heyes wouldn’t have been foolish enough to risk taking the short cut after all the rain they’d had lately?  They’d been through there in the past and had commented at the time that it would be unwise to do so because of the loose composition of the rock that could easily slip after heavy rain.

 

Deciding he ought to at least check it out before backtracking to the town Heyes had completed his job in, he turned his horse and cautiously headed onto the trail.

 

The ground was saturated and the animal's hooves sunk into the mud, slowing its already restrained progress.

 

Suddenly, the horse stopped walking and Curry stared aghast at the scene before him.  A large part of the trail ahead of him had vanished in a landslide that extended all the way down to the base of the gulch some two hundred feet or so below.  There was no way to continue.

 

He was about to dismount and try to get the horse to go back, when his eyes suddenly fell on the head and neck of a horse protruding from the debris at the foot of the gulch.  He couldn’t be sure from up here, but the horse looked very like the one that Heyes had been riding.

 

His heart jumped into his mouth as he looked around for a way to climb down and investigate, but it was impossible.

 

Dismounting, he went to his saddlebags pulled out a pair of binoculars and focussed them on the animal, his stomach doing a cartwheel when he saw that it was indeed Heyes horse.

 

“No…” he gasped, frantically, scanning around the area for a sign of Heyes, but there was none.

 

“No!” he groaned, staggering backwards as he lowered the binoculars.  If Heyes had been riding the horse then he must have been buried under the mountain of rubble.

 

He stood there for some time, just staring, unable to take in the fact that his friend was dead.

 

How could he have been so foolish as to risk taking this path? he asked himself.  But then it was typical of him, he reflected, to risk it in order to save time, not considering the dangers.  A decision that had ultimately cost him his life.

 

“You idiot!” he shouted down into the gulch. “How stupid could you be?”  He broke off as a sob caught in his throat.

 

He continued to stand there, feeling numb, having no idea what to do next. He and Heyes had been together so long losing him was like losing a part of himself and he had no idea of what to do, or where to go.

 

Eventually, he moved to back his horse up and led it back the way he had come, unaware of anything except the overwhelming feeling of sorrow and emptiness that consumed him.

 

Once off the trail, he remounted and headed off at a slow trot, having decided to go to the only place he felt any degree of safety, while he tried to process what had happened.

 

 

*    *    *

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“How can you be sure he’s dead?”  Lom Trevors looked anxiously at Kid Curry who was hunched over his kitchen table, his head in his hands.  It had taken him three days to reach Porterville, three days in which he still hadn’t come to terms with what had happened.

 

“I saw his horse, Lom, half buried in the rubble.  He must have been buried under it. “Curry shook his head. “There’s no way he could have survived that landslide.”

 

“Perhaps he was thrown clear and set off somewhere on foot?” Lom suggested, but Curry shook his head.

 

“It’s been more than a week.  If he was still alive he’d have got a message to me, or to you.”

 

Lom just stared at him, not sure what to feel or to say.  He didn’t want to believe Heyes was dead, but the evidence seemed pretty overwhelming.

 

“I can’t believe he would be so stupid as to take that trail after all the rain we’ve had, but if he was running late, it would be typical of him to risk it and to hell with the consequences.” Curry said, angrily.

 

They were both silent for several minutes before Curry said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

 

Lom nodded, before saying, “Well, you’re welcome to stay here until you get yourself together.”

 

“Thanks.” muttered Curry, his mind elsewhere.

 

“What about the amnesty?” Lom ventured, a few moments later.

 

“What about it?”

 

“Are you still going to carry on trying for it?”

 

Curry sighed, his eyes bright with unshed tears.   “I don’t know…” he said, presently.  “What’s the point….?”

 

“It’s what you’ve been working for, for nearly two years. He wouldn’t want you to quit trying for it.”

 

“I know he wouldn’t… But…” he shrugged, “I don’t know if I can do it on my own… or even if I want to…”

 

Lom put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Well, don’t rush into any rash decisions.  Take some time, to process things.”

 

Curry nodded, vaguely.  “O.K.”

 

 

*    *    *

 

 

Heyes was roused to consciousness by something bumping against his arm. Initially, he ignored it, his senses too fogged with cold and pain to react. The bump came again, followed by a strange sound.  A snort? 

 

He forced his eyes open and focussed in the direction of the noise, to see himself looking into the face of a white horse.

 

The horse stared at him, seeming somehow to understand that he was in trouble.

 

“Hey.” He managed to croak.

 

The horse responded by nudging his arm again, as though to push him to get to his feet.

 

Heyes tried to move but gave up with a yelp of pain and closed his eyes, just wanting to drift into oblivion.

 

The horse snorted, loudly, and nudged him again, harder this time.

 

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes to see that the horse had dropped to its knees alongside him and was looking at him as if to invite him to mount it.

 

It was several moments before Heyes realized what the horse was doing and that if he wanted to survive, this was his only chance.

 

“O.K. boy, here goes.”  he croaked.

 

With his left arm, he grasped hold of the horse’s mane, and with his uninjured leg, pushed himself towards it.  Pain threatened to overwhelm him but he gritted his teeth and after several attempts he finally managed to pull himself across the back of the horse before sinking into unconsciousness once more.

 

Carefully, the horse got to its feet and set off at a walk, to where, only it knew.

 

 

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“Cora, come and look at this.”  Richard Manning called his wife, who was washing their dinner dishes in the sink, over to the window.

 

 “What?” Drying her hands she crossed to look out.

 

“What do you make of that?” Richard pointed.

 

Cora peered through the window to see a white stallion outside their fence, pawing the ground and nodding its head.  Across it’s bare back a man lay unconscious.

 

“Oh, my! ” exclaimed Cora.  “It’s almost like it knows we’re here and wants us to help that man.”

 

“That’s what I was thinking.  What an extraordinary thing.”

 

“Well, we’d better go and do what it wants.” said Cora, heading for the door.

 

They headed down the path and opened the gate.  The horse stood still, waiting while Richard and Cora lifted its unconscious cargo and carried him inside the house to their spare bedroom, laying him carefully on the bed.

 

“He hasn’t been shot or anything.” said Richard, as he quickly checked their patient for bullet wounds. “Looks like he’s been in an accident or something.”

 

Cora nodded.  “He has some cuts and scratches on his face but they don’t appear to have been caused by a fight.  He’s soaked through, go and get some spare underwear from the closet while I get these wet clothes off him.”

 

Richard nodded and left the room, returning a few moments later with a set of underwear.

 

“His leg appears to be broken, but I don’t know what other injuries he might have.” said Cora, after giving him a brief examination. “You’d better ride to town and fetch Doctor Jacobs.”

 

“It’ll be dark in half an hour, I’d better wait until morning before I head to town, and even then it will take me half the day to get there, and the same to bring him back.” said Richard, as he removed Heyes'  damp underwear and manouvred his body into the clean pair while Cora turned her back, to preserve his dignity, and stared out of the window.

 

“Well, he’s in no fit state to make the journey himself, so we’d best keep him comfortable here until the doc can get here.”

 

Just then, Heyes groaned and his eyes fluttered open.

 

“Wh… where… am I…? he muttered, looking around in confusion.

 

“You’re in our cabin.” said Richard. “I’m Richard Manning and this is my wife, Cora.  Do you remember what happened to you?”

 

Heyes stared at the ceiling as he tried to recall.  “I was… riding… through the gulch… there was a landslide… we fell…”

 

“Was it the Black River Gulch you were riding through?”

 

Heyes nodded.

 

Richard and Cora exchanged glances.  Black River Gulch was a good two hour ride from their cabin.

 

“How did I get here? Heyes asked, looking confused.

 

“You were on horseback.”

 

“But... my horse was killed…” muttered Heyes, drawing in a sharp breath as he moved and pain washed over him.

 

“We’ll talk about that later.” said Cora, thinking that he was still confused. “In the meantime, can you say whereabouts you’re hurting?”

 

“All over.” groaned Heyes. “My leg… my ribs… I can’t move my arm… and my head hurts.”

 

“You broke your leg, but you may well have some other internal injuries.” Cora told him.  “Best you just rest here and Richard will go and fetch the doctor for you in the morning.”

 

Heyes gave a vague nod.  “Thank you.”

 

“Think you can manage a little soup in a while?” Cora asked.

 

“Thank you… but I’d rather just sleep if that’s O.K?”

 

“Yes, you rest.  We’ll keep an eye on you.” said Cora, following Richard out of the room.

 

“Hey look, the horse is gone.” said Richard, pointing through the window.

 

“Probably just wandered off somewhere.” said Cora, moving to put water on to boil.

 

“Probably.”

 

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