The Oregon trail

The Walking wounded

Alex's P.O.V

All eyes were on us as we came flying down from the mountain pass like our asses were on fire.

I was no more than a few strides behind The Virginian and Steve who was slumped over in the saddle. His horse being led by the Ramrod.

The mob of cows we had rescued were all but abandoned, our main focus was to get back to the rest of the herd.

By the way we came galloping in, every knew there was trouble. The chuck wagon coming to a stop.

We rode through the cloud of dust the cows kicked up, dodging beef as we ran through the middle of the herd. The cows soon backing out of the way as they heard us coming.

"What happened?" Clay Grainger, the owner of Shiloh demanded as we came to a screaming halt, right beside the wagon.

"Mountain lions, whole den of them," I replied, as I slipped out of the saddle. "Alex?" My brother asked riding over to us, he quickly dismounted.

"Here hold onto this," I told him, basically throwing the poor calf into his arms, before I rushed to help the Virginian lower Steve onto the ground.

My stomach clenched as he groaned lowly in pain. Rolling up my sleeves, I unbuttoned Steve's shirt. Pulling it off as I assessed the damage.

It was worse then I thought it would be. The claw marks were deep. The flesh torn open so deep that I could see the muscle in places.

"Do you know what your doing?" Clay asked me as he rested a hand on my shoulder, I balked at his words, of course I didn't know what to do. I wasn't a doctor by any means.

We were in the middle of now where, Steve wouldn't survive a trip into town. It was more than a nine hour ride from here.

I was the best chance he had.

"Sure," I replied, hoping my doubt hadn't seeped into my voice.

A medical bag was handed to me. I unbuttoned the clasp. Popping it open. "I need some alcohol, preferably whiskey," I said out loud, rifling through the bag until I found a roll of thread and a needle.

"Where's Stacey?" Clay asked worried, "He and Trampus are still up there," The Virginian told him as they talked over me.

"Take a few swigs of this," I told Steve pressing a bottle of whiskey to his lips. Now suddenly thankful for the alcoholism in cowboys. "This is going to hurt,".

Balancing the bottle between my legs, I quickly disinfected my hands, before I began to pour the amber liquid over his wound.

He grimaced as the alcohol burned his cuts. There was no way around it, this was the only way to kill any germs. No doubt they would be plentiful, especially considering the state of the mountain lions den.

With shaking hands I threaded the needle, it took me more than a couple tries to get the thread through the eyelet.

Kneeling on his non injured part of his arm, I pinned him down. Gently squeezing the flesh together with my left hand so I could see it closed.