Redemption FinalWPF6 7 by L. E. Harner Read Free Book Online

he
left the last, unwilling to surrender another inch to river. Not this time,
bitch.
    ****
    “God, move,” Diane begged the unconscious Uriah, even as her
hands scrabbled over his face, brushing at the strands of black hair that clung
to his blood-streaked and sweat-dampened skin. No time, no time, no time …the
phrase played in her head, and she forced herself to stop fussing over the head
injury. However bad it was—it would wait. Had to wait. She needed to get them
out of the line of fire. With a grunt that was suspiciously close to a sob,
Diane pushed at the massive shoulders, trying to move the big man the last two
feet she needed in order to get him completely under the overhang in the cliff
wall that created a protective shelter. Maybe not quite deep enough to call it
a cave, but it should work.
    “Wake up and move. Jesus, Uriah…come on, honey.” Diane
swiped at the hair on her sweaty forehead with her arm and shifted to push at
his legs and hips. The fact that he’d gone down so fast and so hard at the
sound of the second shot scared her to death. Oh god…to death. Not that. He's
alive, he's breathing. But damn the blood. So much blood.
    Even as she continued to try to move the two of them into
the protective shelter of the cave, thoughts raced through her mind. Where the
hell was the man who’d offered help? She could really use a good strong back
right about now. Unless he was the one with the gun…no, the shot had come from
above them. Uriah had definitely been looking up when he’d shouted the first
warning, just before he’d grabbed her around the waist and started running
toward the shelter. She looked toward the river again, but no help appeared.
Maybe the gunman had already found the good Samaritan.
    From her knees, she angled her shoulders against Uriah’s
back and shoved. The big man rolled, his body loose, limp. His face mashed
against the course sand, but she’d managed to get him as close as she could to
the rock wall of the canyon. Now to figure out how bad he was hurt.
    The good news was the bleeding seemed to have slowed. The
bad news was she couldn’t do much without water, and although their packs were
a mere twenty feet away, they might as well have been twenty miles. With a long
look, Diane knew it wasn’t worth the risk of exposing herself to gunfire. Uriah
needed help, and she would have to make do with what was on hand at the moment.
She pulled her shirt over her head and began to brush at the sand and pebbles
matted in the mass of his black hair, obscuring the real wound.
    Movement caught her attention and she stifled a scream as
she saw a man staggering toward her from the river. It was a long moment that
had her already thudding heart threatening to leap from her chest before the
shape became familiar.
    “Gabe! Oh my God, what happened to you?” she asked as she
stood and ran to help him. She pulled him so that they both hugged the cliff
wall as they crouched and ran toward where Uriah lay, still unmoving.
    “Give me this,” Diane said and pulled his heavy pack from
his shoulders. He grunted in apparent relief but seemed to be focusing on
breathing and moving at the same time. Everything about Gabe was dripping wet,
as if he’d fallen in the water. She noticed a long gash on his temple, and a
pronounced gimpiness in his walk. “Are you okay? Jesus, I’m glad to see you,”
she said, and pulled him along. “Hurry, Uriah’s been shot. I don’t know—“
    “Where?” Gabe gasped. “Fuck.” He started running, despite
the limp. “Get my water, and in my bag there’s a first aid kit. And a clean
T-shirt.” His words were terse, and he knelt bedside Uriah, reaching first for
a pulse, while his eyes scanned the other man for signs of trauma.
    “Okay, pulse is strong. Obviously we have a head injury,
anything else?” he asked. Gabe lifted each lid, then ran his hands quickly over
Uriah while she spoke.
    “Just the head I think. He came down on top of me. It