She was pale but nodded shakily. “Fine. You?”
Cal breathed again. “He missed, thank God. Stay here, I’ll see to it.” He galloped toward the tree, shouting, “George, stay away!” to his niece who was about to dismount.
“He’s alive, I think,” she said. “But he doesn’t seem to be able to move.”
Cal flung himself off his horse and bent over the man. His eyes were open, but he was breathing with difficulty. From the angle at which he lay, Cal thought he might have broken his spine.
“Joe Gimble?”
The man tried to nod, couldn’t and grunted. It confirmed Cal’s suspicions. This man was dying. “Keep everyone away, George,” he said quietly, and turned back to Gimble.
“You’re the Scorpion.”
There was a short silence, then the man rasped, “Dying, ain’t I?” A bubble of blood came from his mouth.
“Yes.” There was no point pretending otherwise. Soldiers were realists.
“Wanted you... my last kill... Bastard,” Gimble gasped. “Lock up... wife... children...”
“Not me,” Cal said. “I had no part of that.”
“Jerry... told me... you...”
Jerry was the name of the drunk who’d died. It all fitted.
“It wasn’t me. But don’t worry. Your wife and sister-in-law and children—they’ll be released. They will be all right, my word on it.”
The man swore. “Going to... ’merica... brother...”
“I know about your brother Bert in America. I’ll make sure they get there.”
Gimble struggled for breath. There was blood in his mouth. His eyes were desperate. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
Gimble looked at him. “Money in pocket. Give... wife?”
Call felt in the man’s pocket and found a thick roll of notes. He held it so Gimble could see it. “I’ll make sure this goes to your wife and no one else. My word of honor.”
Again Gimble tried to nod and couldn’t. He was fading fast. “Tell her... love...” Blood bubbled from his mouth as the man who’d been the Scorpion breathed his last breath.
There was a long silence, broken only by the breeze in the bushes and the far-distant sound of the city waking up.
“Is he dead?”
Cal looked around. It was Emm. She sounded shaken. The girls waited a short distance away, watching with somber eyes. Emm’s horse took a few steps closer.
He straightened. “Don’t come any closer, Emm, it’s not a pretty sight. I’ll wait here with the body while you and the girls go for help.”
Her horse took two more steps toward him. “The thing is,” Emm said in an odd voice. She was as pale as parchment. “He didn’t miss after all. I love you, Cal.” And she toppled off her horse in a dead faint.
Cal leapt to catch her. He lowered her to the ground and, frantic, ripped open her jacket. The shirt beneath was soaked with blood.
***
Cal ripped open Emm’s blouse. Somebody screamed. Her whole chest and shoulder was covered in blood. He found the source of blood—a shoulder wound—and breathed again. It was serious, but not necessarily fatal, not if she got good, swift medical attention.
And if no infection came afterward. Infection was usually the killer, not the wound itself.
