Finally, exhaustion and alcohol overcame Foster’s pains enough for him to sleep until he was awakened by the straining sextet of troopers who bore Webster’s massive weight into the tent The big man’s body was covered from head to foot with slimy, brown mud, and he was dripping foul-smelling water and fouler curses.
“Goddamm it, Bud Webster, I thought you were finally out of my hair for good. Somebody told me you were dead. Now you come roaring in here and wake me out of the best, and only, sleep I’ve had in—”
Webster almost screamed when the troopers placed him on the ground, and Foster abruptly ordered, “You, there, Allison, isn’t it? Fetch my man, Nugai, in here. At the double, trooper!”
Between grunts and groans, between wheezes of choked-backed cries as Nugai and the troopers stripped his armor and boots and clothing from off the fair-skinned body that looked to have become a single blue-black-and-red bruise, Webster told Foster, “Well, thishere galloper brung word from Ole Wolfie to swing round wide an’ hit the lef and front o’ them half-nekkid, screechin’ devuls.”
“That was your left, but the Scots’ right, Bud,” corrected Foster gently.
“It don’ matter a good diddlysquat, do it? Enyhow, we swung wide, a’right, and come back hell-fer-leather and we’uz ackshuly close enough to of pistoled the damn bastfds and nex thing I knowed ole Trixie my mare come to rear up and I could feel she’s gonna fall and ‘fore I could pull leather, she’uz down top o’ the mosta me and the onlies’ reason this ole boy’s still a-kickin’ is a-cause the groun’ was so fuckin’ soft
Then a whole passel of them friggin’ Scots come a-runninf and a-roarin’ at us and I think I yelled at the boys to pull back, enyhow, they did, them as still could, leastways. I jest played possum. Them thievin’ cocksuckers! They took my pistols offen Trixie’s saddle and my good sword and even my fuckin’ helmet.
“Well, ole buddy, I tell you! I laid in thet friggin’ swamp all day and all fuckin’ night, too. It’uz purely all I could do jest to keep my face outen the dang water and ever’ time I seed or beared somma them damn Scots a pokin’ round, I jest tuck me a deep breath and let my haid go under. Ever’ time I tried a-pullin’ out from under pore ole Trixie, it’uz all I could do to keep from howlin’ like a dang coyote, the way my dang kg hurt me. And I—
“GAWDAMN1RECKON! Bass, you git yore tame slope-head offen me or I’ll flat tear him in two. You hean?”
Nugai had probed the bared, terribly discolored right leg of the big man with gentle, sensitive fingers; now he turned to Foster. “Herr Hauptman, zee zhigh bone breaken iss undt zee grosser bone ahv zee leg. Set must zhey be undt tight-tied mit boards.”
Foster had to listen carefully to the thick, singsong accent to decipher its meaning, then he shook his head. “Allison, you’d better fetch back some more men, a dozen anyway. Captain Webster is going to take a lot of holding down.”
But Nugai caught his eye. “To pardon pliss, Herr Hauptmann Forster, better vay iss.” Rummaging in his leather bag, the Tartar brought out a small brass cup and a leather flask. He poured the cup half full of a thick, viscous, dark-brown liquid, then added an equal measure of Foster’s “liberated” whiskey, stirred it with a yellow finger, then proffered it to Webster.
“To drink all, pliss, noble Herr Hauptmann Vebster. Sleep vill undt no pain feel, ja.”
“What the fuck is that goddam witchbrew?” demanded Webster, making no move to accept the cup.
“Do what he says, Bud, drink it,” said Foster. “Nugai knows what he’s about”
“GOODGAWDIRECKOW Grimacing, Webster flung the emptied cup from him. “Thet fuckin’ stuff tastes like a swig of liquid manure, I swan. If you done let that slant pizen me, Bass, I swear to God, I’m gon’ haint you till you dies.”
Within bare minutes, Webster lay unconscious, and when Nugai returned with the needed materials, he, Foster and Allison were able to easily accomplish a setting and rough splinting of the breaks, with never a voluntary movement or a sound from the recumbent patient.