Sam found himself in an awkward position.

His leg was gushing blood from his run-in with the unseen stalagmite. He needed to find a way to stop that quickly or he may as well accept the Cheyenne Crossing Caves as his death bed. And he wasn't ready to die there.

But before him, stopped only by the narrowness of the passage, was a furious cave buffalo that wanted nothing more than to gorge and trample Sam for disturbing its peace.

Even more alarming, Sam was also now aware that the monstrous man (presumably the one who had robbed the Fox Den National Bank and the sheriff was convinced was a reanimated corpse with his right arm) was standing right beside him.

But apart from the snorting and movement of the cave buffalo, everything was quiet. Sam sat a moment, unsure what was going to happen next.

But as the silence dragged on, the horse thief began to wonder if the blood loss and shadows on the cave walls were just messing with him. He could have sworn he saw the hideous face of that man with uneven arms clad in all gray but...really, how could he have seen that? He was lost in a dark massive cave system. What was the probability he'd hurt himself and trip into the exact passage where the robber was already hiding? Astronomically low, he reasoned.

To reassure himself, Sam lit another match.

To his dismay, when he held the match up, the ghoulish man was still standing besides him, face mangled up like it had been run over with a rototiller and then kicked a couple times for good measure.

You have to be imagining this, Sam thought to himself, refusing to believe the figure was real, it's just something really, really odd about this space, the rocks are reflecting the light in a way that it casts what looks like the shape of a giant man, but not actually -

The man suddenly blinked, maintaining his gaze on Sam.

"Jesus Christ!" cried Sam, dropping the match and jumping back. The match went out as it fell, returning the area to darkness.

Then, once again, silence.

With his leg bleeding as it was, Sam could not keep sitting still indefinitely. He had to do something. Whoever that man was, and whatever he was doing standing there, he didn't seem like he intended to do anything hostile. If he wasn't going to harm Sam...perhaps he could help.

"Hello...hello there," Sam ventured, hoping to get a friendly response.

The man said nothing.

"I'm... I'm hurt," he continued, "my leg got cut getting away from that cave buffalo. I need to do something about it before much longer or... I'm in dire straits."

Sam continued to be greeted with silence.

"Can you hear me?" He asked.

He was startled by a response: "Yes." The voice was surprisingly higher-pitched than the brief glance of a man that size would have suggested. It was almost lilting.

"So, then, you saw I'm hurt?" Sam pressed.

"No."

"You...you didn't see? Can't you see in the dark?"

"No."

Sam paused. "Oh. Then...why are you here?" This seemed like a strange place for someone who couldn't see in the dark to end up.

"Got lost," the man replied.

"You...got lost? How?"

"Taking piss. Got lost."

Sam thought a moment. "So, you went to relieve yourself and in the process somehow something went wrong and now you're here," he interpreted.

"Yes," the man replied.

"What went wrong?"

"Pissed torch."

"Pardner, why'd you have to go and pee on your light source?" sighed Sam, understanding the man's speech patterns surprisingly well, "no wonder you got lost."

"You light."

"Yeah, I have my matches, but they can only burn so long. I'd offer to re-light your torch for you, but if you've peed on it it's probably too wet-"

"Dry piss!" The man exclaimed, with a strange hopefulness to his voice.

"Wait, you're saying your torch is dry already? Have you been standing here long enough for it to dry?"

"Yes."

"Well, where's it at? I can light it for you."

Sam fumbled for another match. He was beginning to feel a bit light-headed from the blood loss, but he struck one and held it up.

The man's face had not gotten easier to look at, but the figure was now grasping for a stick on the ground. He thrust it forward, nearly smacking Sam in the nose as he did so. It smelled strongly of urine.

"Whoa, pardner, get that thing back a little," said Sam, tears forming in his eyes at the scent. The man complied, and, true to his word, Sam lit the torch.

Once the fire took, the room became much easier to see. It was not a very big space; incidentally, it was a regular bathroom stop as a pile of feces lay not far away in the corner. There was only one way in and out, and the cave buffalo was doing a good job blocking it.

"Thank you," the man told Sam. In brighter light, the rest of his body was physically impressive enough despite his unappealing face. Strangely shaped, he had long legs and a broad chest. His left arm, which held the torch, seemed about the same as a normal man's arm, but his right arm was a muscular marvel. It was bulging and manly beyond words. Sam had to stare at it a moment just to gawk in awe.

But then the dizziness of blood loss set in again.

"H-hey," Sam said, glancing down at his injured limb, "how about you do me a favor? I lit your torch, what say you tie something around my leg to stop this bleeding? I'm in trouble bad if you don't."

"Tie what?" the man held up his torch but apart from the rocks and excrement, the small space was empty of usable tourniquets

"How about you tear my pant leg and tie that? It's ripped from running into the rock already."

The man did not respond.

"Hey...are you listening?"

"Yes."

"Can you do that? Tie the cloth from my pants leg?"

"Nice pants," said the man.

"Nice pants or not, I'm dying here," replied Sam. "I can get new pants later. Please."

"She help," the man suddenly said.

"...who? You have someone here with you who can help?" Sam repeated.

"Yes."

"Um, from what I see no one else is here. And I'm...I'm really bleeding out."

"She near."

"That's great that your friend is nearby, but there's a cave buffalo guarding the only way out of this area."

As if on cue because it was acknowledged, the cave buffalo let out a fierce snort. It tried to ram its head through the narrow passageway once more to no avail.

The man stared a second. Then he extended the torch to Sam.

"Hold," he said. Sam took the torch, but was perplexed.

"Why?"

The man walked over to where the cave buffalo was. The creature again tried to butt its way in, but as it moved, the man suddenly grabbed one of its horns with his massive right hand. He then began to spin the buffalo's head as if he were uncorking the top of a bottle; in a few twists, to Sam's shock, the buffalo's head was ripped off as if no challenge at all, its red blood spewing down on the area like a shower.

"Jesus Christ!" Sam exclaimed, turning away to keep the blood from putting the torch out again.

The man kicked the remaining cave buffalo corpse away from the doorway to clear a path and turned back to Sam.

"She near," he repeated.

"G-Good..." Sam wasn't sure what to say, after what he had just witnessed. With that, the man walked over and, using his right arm, scooped Sam up under it. Sam gripped the torch tight in front of him, arms extended, so that the two could see.

"We go," the man announced.

"Yeah, sure, we can go anywhere you want, pal," answered Sam. He was growing more and more dizzy, but he wasn't going to disagree with a man who could behead a cave buffalo using brute strength.