LITMIR.BIZ

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but alive. Callie and he were in danger. It was up to him to get them all to safety before it was too late.

      Fahad stared at him with dark eyes and open mouth, struggling for oxygen. With each breath, a sucking sound emanated from his chest wound. Efraim pressed his wadded-up shirt against the wound. Within seconds it was soaked with blood, warm and sticky on his hands. The sound continued.

      He looked up at Callie, climbing the last few feet of rock-strewn slope. “Plastic?”

      “I have a slicker and some first-aid supplies.” She held up a bundle cradled in her arms.

      He needed those supplies. And she couldn’t climb the last rock wall while carrying them. He rose to his feet to take them from her.

      A second shot split the air. Rock exploded next to his face.

      Efraim hit the deck. His foot hit Fahad’s rifle, sending it careening into the canyon. Still climbing the rocky slope, Callie flattened. Beyond her, a horse whinnied. Steel shoes clattered on stone.

      The horses. They were running away.

      Keeping low to the ground this time, Efraim crawled to the slope. His thoughts raced. The shot had hit the stone near him, Callie had to be merely taking cover. She had to be okay.

      Reaching the edge, he peered over.

      She looked up at him, her freckles streaked by dust, her blue eyes wide. “Here.” She pushed the bundle toward him.

      He took the saddle bags and slicker. “Stay low.”

      “I’ll climb up. I can help.”

      “No.” The last thing he wanted was for Callie to attempt to climb the ridge and get shot for her efforts. “I’ll tend to Fahad, then you can help me move him.”

      He moved back to Fahad’s side. His cousin was still conscious, still fighting. He moved his lips, but no sound came, just the sucking noise mixed with each gasp for breath.

      “Hold on. I have supplies. It will be all right.”

      His cousin gave a light bob of the head.

      Efraim folded the slicker and pulled an elastic bandage from the saddlebags. He wasn’t sure this was going to work, but he did know that if he did nothing, Fahad would die.

      He had ripped Fahad’s shirt open as soon as he’d found him. Now he pushed the tattered and bloody fabric aside and pressed the slick side of the raincoat against the wound. Grasping the bandage roll in sticky hands, he strapped it across Fahad’s chest, fitting the slicker tight against his skin. It was far from sterile, far from ideal, but it was the best he could do. He just prayed it would work.

      Something scraped rock and Callie slipped to her knees by his side.

      “I told you to stay—”

      “It will go faster with both of us.”

      He shook his head and peered down at the badlands below. “You have to go back down the slope.”

      “I know you’re trying to protect me. But faster is better. For Fahad and for both of us.” She set her chin and gripped Fahad’s shoulders. “Now, are you going to help me sit him up or not?”

      He helped her tilt Fahad toward him. Callie wrapped the rest of the slicker around his side and over the exit wound in his back. They wrapped the bandage around his chest, securing the slicker as tightly as possible to the wound.

      Fahad gasped again and again, but this time he seemed to be getting air. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes and trickled down the side of his face and into his beard. Beads of sweat bloomed on his forehead.

      “Fahad, who did this?” Efraim asked.

      “Followed you.”

      “Who?”

      He shook his head, the movement barely perceptible. “Don’t know.”

      Efraim’s pulse beat in his ears, loud as gunfire. Any second another shot could crack through the canyon, a bullet could plow into one of them and end it all.

      “Have you spotted the shooter?” Callie asked.

      He took a quick glance around the canyon formations. Between the hoodoos, crumbled cliffs and pocks of vegetation, he couldn’t pick out the form of a man. All he had to go on was the trajectory of the shot that had missed his head. “I think he’s to the north. And I think he’s somewhat below us because he didn’t see me until I stood.”

      “Your horse. The gunshot spooked him.”

      He glanced up. He’d assumed both horses had run. “Just mine?”

      She nodded. “I’ve competed in shooting competitions on horseback, too. Sasha’s used to it. She’s waiting at the bottom of the slope.”

      He let out a breath. At least one thing had gone right in all this. They’d need a horse if they hoped to get Fahad out of here and to someone who could help him.

      “The horse will probably head for one of the ranches around here. My dad’s. Helen’s. He’ll be all right.”

      Efraim hadn’t been thinking of the horse. He’d been more concerned about their being all right. But he gave her a nod all the same.

      Callie grabbed another bandage from the saddlebags, this one a self-adhesive horse wrap. They wrapped until they’d covered Fahad’s back and shoulder.

      Now came the tricky part. “We need to move him, get him down to the horse. And we’re going to have to stand up to do it.”

      “Maybe not.” She reached for the saddlebag. Opening the second side, she pulled out a small thermal blanket. “We can drag him.”

      “Do you have everything in that bag?”

      “I was a Girl Scout.”

      He must have missed something. “A Girl Scout?”

      “They teach you to be prepared. Always good, because around here, people are few and far between.”

      They spread the blanket and lifted Fahad onto it.

      The canyon was quiet, nothing but the wind whistling through rock formations. Efraim would like to think that meant their shooter was gone, but he doubted that was the case.

      Keeping low, Callie picked up one corner of the blanket near Fahad’s head. Efraim took the other, and they slid him across rock to the three-foot drop down to the incline.

      At the base of the steep slope, the palomino mare stood, reins draped to the ground, shifting her hooves in the dust.

      Efraim jumped off the rock shelf. His boots skidded on loose rock and debris. He went down to a knee before catching himself.

      “You okay?” Callie said, her voice breathless.

      He nodded. “I’ll take him from here.” He gathered Fahad in his arms as if cradling a baby. Fahad was only five feet eight inches tall, but he was built like a bulldog. A muscled bulldog at that. Efraim’s arms ached with his limp weight. At least the sucking noise had stopped. His cousin’s breathing was still labored, but he was breathing.

      Efraim half skidded, half ran down the slope to the horse, Callie right behind him. The place she’d left the horses was protected on several sides. Except for the rock shelf above, most of the canyon plummeted downward from their perch, and afforded a decent view of the area. Not that there was anything to see.

      And that made Efraim nervous.

      He lowered Fahad to the ground and hunched down beside him.

      “How is he?”

      “He’s breathing better but unconscious.”

      “The pain. The blood loss. It probably got to be too much.”

      An understatement. He’d never had a gunshot wound, not in all his years in

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