Perhaps it was the way he was positioned. Maybe it was the amount of time that had passed without anything being done to his cut. Whatever the explanation, the blood loss wait quickly its toll on Sam; he was barely conscious and using what little strength he had to hold the torch before him so the giant of a man carrying him could see where he was going.
“You said…you said your friend…was near…” he struggled to spit out.
“She near,” the man insisted, moving swiftly through the cave.
But after a couple more moments, even his ability to hold the torch up was failing. Unable to keep his grasp any longer, the torch fell from the horse thief’s hands, unintentionally brushing against his strange carrier as it did.
The giant man let out a yell at the burning sensation. As he looked down at Sam, he could see things weren’t good.
The torch hit the ground and essentially stopped serving its purpose, but there was another light source up ahead that was able to make up for the remaining lighting needed. The giant man rushed towards it, once more insisting “she near,” as he moved.
From their spot by the fire, Flat looked to the woman. He was confused by the sudden noise, but she incidentally was familiar with the source of the odd yell. To Flat, the yell had sounded a bit creepy but his female companion had barely reacted.
“I’m over here,” the woman called out, as if this were a common everyday occurrence, “same place as last time.” She did not seem overly fazed, though she rose to her feet.
“She near,” Sam could hear the unfamiliar voice say as it grew closer.
“Yes, I’m right here,” the woman said again, “Did you get lost when you went to go-”
As the giant man entered the area, Flat’s initial reaction to his appearance was the same as Sam’s. He was hulking, with two mismatched arms- the muscular right arm was really muscular, making the more normal sized left arm seem almost comically small in comparison. The man’s face was atrocious; it looked like a piece of wood that had been eaten by an army of termites who then threw up everything half-digested back on top.
“-What…who’s that you’re carrying?” the woman asked, noting Sam’s limp form.
Flat’s eyes quickly noticed too.
“Sam!” he exclaimed in horror as he rushed over to the man. The fact that he was an unknown giant monstrosity meant little to Flat, seeing his old friend and partner in his current shape.
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“He hurt,” said the man to the woman, setting Sam down on the stone ground. Flat hurried by him and started to shake Sam.
“Sam! Sam, can you hear me?” he cried out.
Sam was barely able to move. “UghhHhhh…” he responded softly.
The woman quickly came to the other side of Sam. “It’s his leg,” she noted, “it looks pretty bad.”
“On rock,” the giant man explained, he too growing concerned at his new acquaintance’s poor physical state.
“Is this your horse thieving partner? The one you said you came here with?” the woman inquired, almost surprised to see him.
“We gotta help him!” Flat insisted with noticeable alarm, “do you have any gauze? We have to stop the bleeding! Sam, hang on!”
The woman shot a glance to the giant man.
“Grab my spell book,” she commanded. Flat heard her give the order and for a split second remembered one of Sheriff Reynold’s requests for the duo once they reached the cave- to destroy that very spell book. But right now was hardly the time to think of the sheriff's needs. Still, he didn’t know what the woman's intentions were for retrieving her magic tome.
“What are you going to do?” he pressed her, though the woman did not answer. She instead went to look at the gash on Sam’s leg.
“He really has gotten himself a nasty cut,” she sighed, “but I think he’s still got enough life left in him that this should work.”
The giant man returned with the spell book, pulled out of an unseen nook or cranny in the cave wall. At once the woman started leafing through the pages.
“Sam, say something,” Flat begged his friend, but got only silence back.
Suddenly, a strange energy filled the air. Flat’s eyes darted back towards the woman. She was raising her left hand as she held her spell book in the other. From a small gray satchel between her cleavage she pulled out a pinch of white powder, which she sprinkled on Sam’s leg as she chanted in a language both horrible and mystical to Flat’s ears.
With no other idea of what to do, Flat held Sam’s hand, watching as the witchy woman went to work on his gaping wound. To Flat's immediate surprise, a warmth seemed to return to his partner’s skin; the pale of blood loss seemed to subside. Flat’s eyes wandered down to the injury; even that now had cauterized and seemed to be growing slightly smaller.
But as soon as she had started her spell, the woman slammed the spell book shut. Flat blinked.
“That’s it?” he asked.
The woman stared back blankly. “Yes?”
“Sam…he’s all healed?”
“I've stopped his bleeding and gave him some of his lifeforce back. I’m not going to waste all my holy powder on a guy I just met. Or, I suppose, haven’t met. It’s you I’ve just met.”
She handed her spell book back to the tall man. “Put it away.” The giant man lumbered off.
Flat looked over Sam. Sure, he wasn’t doing great, but the woman was right. He had stabilized now and looked more like he was sleeping than dying.
“Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot,” the woman said slowly, observing Flat and Sam together. “I have to admit, I wasn’t sure about your horse thieving story and being wanted by the US marshals and how you ended up in these caves. But I see you do have a partner and he does look like the kind of scheming devil who would think hiding amongst cave buffalo and stalactites is a good idea. He definitely looks more like a horse thief than you do, Flat.”
“I…I don’t know if that’s a compliment,” Flat admitted, “but thank you for saving him. I’m sorry you had to use any of your holy powder on him but I have a few coins in my pocket that could be used to by your more powder, ma'am.”
The woman flashed what seemed like her first genuine smile at Flat. “Please stop calling me ma’am,” she said, “My name is Meriem St. Mares.”