Rebel Fire by Andrew Lane Page B

apart from the laboured rise and fall of his chest. His right eye, from what Sherlock could see of it, was a crater of red flesh, while blood seeped through the bandage on his head, which was rising up as the flesh beneath it swelled even as Sherlock watched.
    The man was like some supernatural force, impervious to pain and injuries that would fell a normal man. Sherlock felt his breath burning in his chest as he waited for Gilfillan to struggle to his feet again. Were all Americans like this? he wondered. Something to do with that frontier spirit that he had heard about? Part of him wanted to step forward and bring the rifle down several more times on the man’s head, making certain that he would never move again, but Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure whether that part of his brain was worried about Gilfillan regaining consciousness or whether he just wanted revenge for what the man had done to Amyus Crowe and tried to do to him. After a while he lowered the rifle. He wasn’t a murderer. Not a deliberate murderer, anyway.
    When he was quite sure that Gilfillan wasn’t going to move for a while, he backed away, still watching, until he could hear Amyus Crowe’s horse whickering behind him. He turned.
    Amyus Crowe lay in the dusty road. In the reddish light of evening, the blood on his forehead seemed almost to glow with a demonic intensity.
    â€œIs he—?” Sherlock started to ask, but he couldn’t bring himself to finish the question.
    â€œHe’s still breathin’,” Virginia answered in a rush. Her accent had become more obvious.
    She reached into a pocket and removed a scrap of linen—a handkerchief, Sherlock supposed. She was about to use it to wipe her father’s head, but Sherlock took it from her.
    â€œI’ll wet it in the river,” he said.
    She nodded gratefully.
    He dashed across to the point where the diving American gunman had cut a swathe through the rushes with his body before emerging and shooting Amyus Crowe. Getting as close to the river as he could without falling in, Sherlock moistened the handkerchief, then returned to where Amyus Crowe lay. Virginia had straightened out his arms and legs so that he was lying more normally, not twisted up in the way he had landed. As Sherlock bent to join her, he noticed that Crowe’s chest was moving up and down and his eyelids were fluttering. It seemed like ages since Crowe had fallen from his horse, but Sherlock realized that it could only have been a couple of minutes at most. The fight with Gilfillan hadn’t been long, but it had been intense, and that had made it seem long.
    Virginia was running her hands up and down her father’s arms and legs. “No broken bones, far as I can tell,” she said. “Don’t know about his ribs, although I’d be surprised if he hadn’t cracked a couple. He’s got a whole load of cuts and grazes, mind.”
    â€œHe was lucky,” Sherlock pointed out. “This close to the river, the ground is soft and muddy. If he’d come off the horse earlier, where the ground was baked hard, he might be dead by now.”
    Virginia took the handkerchief from him and ran it across Crowe’s forehead. It came away bloody, revealing a long scratch that immediately began to bleed again.
    â€œI think this is where the bullet hit,” she said.
    â€œAnother bit of luck. A couple of inches to the left and it would have gone through his temple.” Sherlock took a deep breath and tried to stop his hands from shaking. “We ought to find a doctor.”
    Virginia shook her head. “We need to get him back to the cottage. I can look after him there. As long as there’s no broken bones, what he needs is rest.” She sighed. “I’ve got a feeling he’s been through worse than this and survived.” She glanced at Sherlock, glanced away, then glanced back again, noticing his various bumps, scrapes, cuts, and bruises.