Chapter 3

The man looked down at the naked girl that was sobbing at his feet. Hunched over as she was, he could plainly see the scratches and marks that the two dead men had caused to be on her back. He knew that the rest of her body was in the same condition, as he had seen it when she was looking around the clearing.

Striding over to his saddle bags, he took out a part-used bar of soap. He picked up a blanket from where she had discarded them, and the cloth he had used to bathe her face.

Going back to the distraught girl, he carefully picked her up, wrapping her in the blanket in the process. She buried her face in his chest as he carried her over to the stream, standing there on the bank while she continued to cry.

His horse, which had been contentedly grazing on the bank a few yards downstream of where he stood, looked up to see what all the noise was about.

After a while, her sobbing died away, and he gently set her down on her feet. She looked up at him as, with his hand, he brushed her hair away from her face.

He showed her the soap, and the cloth, and pointed at the stream. "Clean yourself up," he said, though he knew she wouldn't understand him. "You will feel better afterwards."

She seemed to understand, his gestures rather than his words, but she gave a small nod. He then turned away and went back towards the fire, giving her some privacy - although his horse continued to watch her carefully.

Going back to the fire, he wondered how things would turn out. She had obviously been hurt by the men, but not badly injured. He was more worried about her reaction to how she had been treated. If she had been jumped when she and her companion were clearing the camp before departing, she could have been abused by the men for a number of hours before he had turned up.

Looking at the sky, he realised that time was passing. It would soon be getting dark, and if he was going to move to a new campsite he really needed to do it straight away. However, the girl needed to feel clean again, the horses were settled, and he frankly didn't feel like packing everything up. So he decided that they would stay the night there, and move on in the morning. Hopefully, the girl would be too tired to worry, and he would stay up and keep watch - for other men passing by as well as wild animals attracted to the two bodies under the blankets at the far side of the clearing.

Getting the fire going again, he retrieved his coffee pot from his packs. He didn't want to disturb the girl but he still had water in his canteen, so he emptied that into the pot and put it on to boil. Then he sat and took out his revolver. He hadn't cleaned it since he'd shot those two men earlier, and he knew how important it was to keep all the intricate parts clean. He'd had a gun jam on him once before, and it wasn't an experience he wanted a second time.

Putting it back in the holster for the time being, he went to his belongings and pulled his rifle from its boot. It gave him only a single shot, but at least he wouldn't be helpless while he cleaned his revolver. He also took his cleaning kit from a saddlebag and the sat back down.

Drawing his revolver again, he pulled both the barrel and the cylinder off with practiced ease. Taking care of the three chambers that were still charged, he carefully cleaned out the two he had used and also cleaned the barrel. He then applied some oil to the working parts and reloaded the two empty chambers. Finally he reassembled the gun, taking care to locate the hammer between two chambers and making sure that the three unused chambers would be the ones he used first next time. After one final check, he placed the revolver back in its holster under the left hand side of his vest.

Next he took up the two pistols he had taken off the dead rapists. Both were dirty, and one had not been cleaned since it was last fired. He assumed this was the gun that had killed the girl's companion, and that the two men had been so keen to get at her that cleaning a pistol had been low on their list of priorities.

Looking them over, he chose the one that seemed to be in the best mechanical condition. He stood and retrieved a blankets from the pile, laid it on the ground in front of him, and started to disassemble the gun completely. This one was still loaded, but, taking care, he soon had it down into its component parts, and saw that they needed a thorough clean.

He stood again, and was about to pick up one of the empty canteens when a rustling noise made him look round. The girl came round the bushes, wrapped completely in the blanket he had given her. All that he could see was her head at the top, her bare feet at the bottom, and one arm that was both holding the blanket closed and also grasping his soap and cloth. Not looking up, she came over to him and offered them back to him.