Zeke

Zeke awoke with a shudder, his grey eyes blinded by the midday sun as he opened them. He felt a deathly chill despite the searing-hot sands upon which he lay. His head was throbbing as if he had been hit, and he felt a terrible pain in his left side. Zeke touched his hand to where it hurt—his fingers came up bloody. Up until this point, he had only a faint memory of what had occurred, but as he cocked his head at the sight of the gunshot wound to his stomach, everything came flooding back. He knew he had been left for dead.

Only an hour or two could have passed since he had been shot. Any longer, and Zeke would have bled out. Now was decision-making time: either remain there and let the circling vultures pick his bones clean, or try his best to drag himself to society and get medical attention. Zeke went with the latter. Today was not a good day to die.

Although the bullet wound made it incredibly painful, Zeke managed to sit up to survey his surroundings. He was not entirely certain where he was, but seeing the SheridanMountains a short ways off in the distance behind him, he guessed that he was probably not too far from Madness Gulch. It would be difficult, but he figured he could limp his way there. At Madness Gulch, Zeke would be able to get patched up, then hitch a ride back to Milltowne. He no longer cared about completing the posse's mission. He only cared about surviving to see tomorrow.

The scorching rays of the sun were beating down on him, and the vultures overhead began to descend. Zeke's general lack of movement must have had them thinking he was dead, or very close to death. They flew on to other carrion when Zeke managed to get on his feet.

Details of what had happened were still a little fuzzy, on account of Zeke's apparent head injury. He was lucky that he remembered his own name. Scrambled thoughts raced through his mind as he feebly tried to gather them up and make sense of the situation. Only nineteen years old, this was Zeke's first time on a posse. It was going to be his last. He wondered where the others were—Lucy, Walker, and Dave. Zeke figured he had gone down early on, because the last time he was conscious, they were all with him. Maybe they were able to finish off the Garrison Gang; maybe the Garrison Gang finished them off. Zeke didn't know. He intended on worrying about that later.

A few yards away lay a boulder large enough to use as a chair—it probably rolled down from the mountains during one of the recent landslides, then was carried here by the torrential desert rains. Zeke slowly made his way to it to have a seat. He took even this minuscule journey very easy. He knew that if he went too fast, he'd overtax himself before reaching Madness Gulch, and the vultures would get their dead meat after all. Carefully settling down on the rock, it was burning hot. It didn't matter—a seat was a seat. The gunshot wound had mostly stopped bleeding, but he had still lost enough blood that he felt quite weak, and more than a little dizzy. Zeke would have to take rest stops like this as often as possible if he were to make it into town.

His eyes had adjusted somewhat, but the sunlight still made his eyes pulse painfully in his skull. Forming a visor with his hands, Zeke looked around. Madness Gulch was barely visible off in the direction opposite the mountains. It would definitely be a trek of at least a few miles, and it would be agonizing. There wouldn't be nearly enough large boulders to rest on along the way.

Before getting up to begin the walk in earnest, Zeke took off his once-white shirt—now stained with sweat and blood—and tied it around his waist to form a rudimentary tourniquet. Of course, without the shirt, his bare skin would be burned to a crisp in the sun, but that was preferable to bleeding to death if the wound were to open up again. In addition to bandaging himself up, Zeke also checked his person to see if any of his belongings were still there. It was just as he suspected—whoever shot him had stolen his stuff as well. This was going to make it harder to get back to civilization. Starting out the mission with a compass, a pocket watch, two canteens of water fresh from the Red River, some hardtack and beef jerky, and plenty of extra ammunition, Zeke had tried to come prepared. All that was gone now. The Garrison Gang might as well have taken his clothes too—then he'd really have nothing.