Read Killoe (1962) for Free Online

soaked with it. He'd dragged himself a long distance, you could see that, but he had a knife in his hand, gripped so hard we couldn't get it loose.
    Milo indicated the ripped and torn sleeves of the wounded man's jacket. "Wolves been at him." He pointed at the lacerated condition of the man's wrists. "He fought them with the knife . Must have had one hell of a time."
    I'll get back to the cattle," Tap said. "You help Milo. Free Squires is out at the herd,"
    The Mexican stirred and muttered as we cut away his bloody clothing. As we examined him, the story became clear.
    Somewhere, several days ago, he had been shot and had fallen from his horse. Obviously his horse had stampeded with him and dragged him at a dead run over the rough country.
    Somehow the Mexican had held onto his gun long enough to shoot his horse . . . which was one reason guns were carried, for a man never knew when he might be thrown from one of the half-broken wild horses.
    Then he had probably started to crawl, and the wolves had smelled blood and had come after him. He must have used up what ammunition he had, and sometime later they had grown brave enough to rush in on him and he had fought them off with a knife.
    "He wants to live," Milo said dryly; "this one really put up a fight."
    "I wonder who shot him?"
    Milo glanced at me. "I was wondering about that, My bet is that he came from the west."
    We heated water and bathed his wounds and his body. The bullet wound and the drag wounds were several days old and some of them were festering. The teeth marks had all come later. ;
    The bullet had gone all the way through him and was pressed against the skin of his Back. Milo made a slit with his Bowie knife and took the bullet out. Then he made a poultice of ground maize and bound it on both bullet holes.
    It was broad daylight by the time the wounds were dressed, and one of the wagons had pulled alongside to receive the wounded man.
    We were the last to move out, for the cattle had already started, and the wagons had all gone but the one into which we loaded the Mexican, bedding him down in the wagon on a mattress Tim Foley had found he could spare, The day was clear and bright. The cattle had moved off at a good pace with only a few of them striving to turn back.
    Lingering behind, I watched them trail off, and then rode my horse up to the highest bluff and looked off across the country. As far as I could see, the grass moved lightly under the wind, and there was nothing else. In the distance a black object moved out of a draw and started into the plain, then another followed . . . buffalo.
    Searching the plain, I thought I could see the track that must have been made by the Mexican, for grass that is damp does not immediately straighten up when pressed down, and this track had been made, in part at least, during the night.
    Holding the Patterson rifle in my right hand, I rode down the slope and scouted the vague track I had seen. Even when I was on the ground and close to the track, it was scarcely visible. Nevertheless I found it.
    There was blood on the grass.
    As I walked the horse along, I saw so much mute evidence of the man's courage that I felt hatred swell within me for whoever had done this to him. Yet I knew that there were many men in Texas, some of them close to me, who believed any Indian or Mexican was fair game.
    Whoever the man was, he had come a 10ng way, and he had come with courage, and for that I had only respect. Courage and bravery are words too often used, too little considered. It is one thing to speak them, another thing to live them. It is never easy to face hardship, suffering, pain, and torture. It is always easier to die, simply to give up, to surrender and let the pain die with you. To fight is to keep pain alive, even to intensify it. And this requires a kind of courage for which I had only admiration.
    And that Mexican, crawling alone and in darkness, had come a long way, and against fearful odds. I thought of him out there