That someone appeared just out of our line of sight and began to drag him toward Ike Stockton’s Saloon.
“What was that about your confidence?” Middleton chided MacNab.
“Fuck you, John,” MacNab said, taking careful aim and firing again.
This shot hit Hindman in the head, and he was done, causing the person helping him to run for his life back into the saloon.
Widenmann ran over to us. “We need that arrest warrant Brady’s carrying!”
“He’s right,” MacNab said. “If we can get that, we take away their power for the time bein’ with concern to McSween. Who’ll run out to get it?”
“I will,” Big Jim French said.
“The hell you will!” I told him. “I’m the wisest choice here. I’ll go.”
But Jim was stubborn. “You think I can’t pull my weight?”
“It’s not that, I just think—”
I didn’t get to finish, for Jim opened the gate and was running diagonally to the left toward Brady’s body.
“Damn it all to hell! Cover us!” I said.
Dropping the rifle I’d been using, I ran after Big Jim. Pulling on some soul-energy for speed, I passed him just before he reached Brady. Gunfire erupted from Peppin and Mathews at Lola’s house, and I moved to shield Big Jim. However, he wasn’t called “big” for no reason, and a bullet missed me and hit him in the side.
Cursing with pain, Jim stumbled sideways as Long, who was hiding at the Torreon, began to shoot at us as well.
Caught in crossfire, I shouted at Jim, “Get outta here. You don’t heal like I do! I’ll get the warrant!”
He began to argue when a bullet clipped my hip and healed, followed by another, which passed through my left thigh. Damn thing took my breath away, dropping me to my knees. My hand flew to the second wound as blood gushed out of it, not healing like it should.
I was in trouble.
24
Killing Fever
Blood poured out between my fingers. “Son of a bitch! I’m not healing, Jim!”
Seeing the situation, Big Jim got an arm around me, helped me up, and we rushed back to the Tunstall Store as fast as we could go. Bullets zipped past us as we ran, and I prayed we didn’t get hit again.
Jim and I got back to the corral where MacNab immediately shut the gate behind us.
“We’ve both been hit,” I told him.
Jim winced but only said, “Billy is hurt badly.”
“Can’t you—” MacNab began.
“The well must be dry,” I explained, watching the rest of the Regulators mount their horses.
“Can you ride?”
“No way in hell. I need the doc.”
MacNab looked to the boys and me.
“Go!” I shouted at him. “I’ll be fine. You too, Jim. Saddle up and ride outta here!”
They both began to argue when I let go of Jim and used the building to hold me up as I worked my way to the back door, leaving a blood trail along the wall.
Not needing to be told twice, Jim and MacNab hurried to their horses and hoisted into the saddles.
Riding up to me at the back corner of the building, Jim said, “Billy, I—”
They didn’t have time, so I smacked his horse on the ass and said, “Ride!”
The five Regulators burst from the corral on horseback, riding out into the street, firing their guns and hollering for all they were worth.
I moved to the back door and fell into the Ealys’ quarters. “Reverend!”
Sam Corbett reached me first. “Billy! What the—”
“Shot in the leg, where’s the doc?”
“Right here,” Ealy said, rushing over to us.
Motioning to the blood soaking my pants, I said, “I’m thinking we might need to bandage this up.”
“Not right now we can’t,” Ealy said, helping Sam drag me farther inside. “Look, with the Regulators riding out, Peppin and the rest won’t hesitate to rush back here.”
Sam shut the door and dropped the bar to lock it. “He’s right, Billy, but I got an idea!” Stepping into the store, he grabbed the small handsaw and ran back into the living quarters. Bypassing Ealy and me, Sam dropped to his knees next to the Ealys’ bed in the corner. Ducking under, he used his shoulders to lift the frame and began to saw into the wooden floor.
“Mrs. Ealy, you got a blanket?”
“What the tarnation are you doing?” Ealy said as he wrapped a long strip of fabric around my leg a few times.
“I think I know what he’s doin’,” Mary Ealy said, opening a trunk and pulling out a quilt. Walking over to Sam, she added, “Will this do?”
“Sure will! Billy, come here!”
“I see what he’s about,” I told the Reverend. “Help me over to him.”
Ealy tied the material off to slow the bleeding down, put his arm around me, and helped me to where Sam knelt on the floor, the hole now big enough for a man to fall through.
“Give me your guns and get in,” Sam said as he lay the blanket under the wooden floor on the dirt below.
“I’m not giving you—”
“I need to reload them,” Sam explained.
“Oh.” I handed my guns over.
As the Reverend held the bed up, I eased myself down into the hole. I laid down on the blanket with a groan as Sam filled both six-shooters with silver-shot. Once situated, Sam handed me the guns, one revolver in each hand.
I looked up at Reverend Ealy. “All of ya get outta this room so you can claim to knowin’ nothin’ if I’m found. With a nod, Ealy lowered the bed as his wife fetched the children and Suzie. I watched as they all filed into the store just as Sam began to put the wood back over me.
“And what do I do if they find me?” I whispered to Sam.
“Shoot ‘em,” he said, as he eased the edge of the area rug to just cover the cut line. I could still see out through the cracks, though, and saw Sam salute me as he left to join the Ealys.
It wasn’t quiet long. Soon a desperate pounding came at the back door, and my heart rose to my throat. I did not want to be the reason this family got hurt or arrested. They didn’t deserve that.
“Reverend Ealy, open up!” Deputy George Peppin shouted through the closed and locked door.
“I’m in the store, hold on!” he yelled out, moving with a steady pace to the door. Opening it, Peppin barged into Ealy’s apartment, along with Long and a few others of the Dolan faction.
“Tear this place apart...one of them bastards is still here. Find him!”
The men of The House swarmed into the store like locusts and tore the place apart. I could hear Sam being roughed up a bit, and I cocked both guns. If they didn’t stop, I was going to come out and kill them all.
Soon, Suzie came into the room with the children, followed by Ealy and his wife.
“I don’t know what you’re lookin’ for, no one is here.”
“The blood trail leads into here,” Peppin said.
“Yes. I tied off his wound, and as far as I know, hurt too bad to ride, he ran on foot the other direction while the Regulators drew your attention the other way as they rode out of town.”
I grinned. Ealy was one smart man.
I watched as Matthews stepped into view, and my blood heated. If he so much as touched this family, I’d kill him here and now.
A man I didn’t know came into the room. He smelled of wolf, and the wound in my leg throbbed with fervor. It desired to be healed and the urge to burst out shooting became overwhelming, like I was some horny fifteen-year-old boy again with no control of how my body reacted to the sight of a beautiful woman.
To give in and explode prematurely out of my hiding spot would put the Ealys in harm’s way, so I fought it. I stopped breathing and with the smell not tugging at my needs, the fever building in me to kill him eased away. He needed to leave the room soon though.
George Peppin entered and forced his way into the other rooms of the Ealys’ apartments, pawing through the belongings of Suzi
e and the young girls in the front room as Suzie objected loudly to him getting his dirty hands on her things. Stepping back out into the main room, not more than ten feet from me, Miss Suzie Gates was on his tail, face red with anger.
“Anythin’?” Peppin asked the werewolf man I didn’t recognize.
“No one is here, Sheriff,” he replied.
Suzie scoffed. “Sheriff? Brady’s body still lays in the street, not even cold yet, and you’ve already decided you’re just the man to replace him? I think not.”
Peppin whirled around, his face in hers, but bit back the words he wanted to say. Instead, he muttered to Ealy, “I suggest you keep her in line, Reverend.”
Ealy raised an eyebrow at Peppin. “She’s a grown woman, and I’m not her father. She can say as she pleases. You, however, have barged in and destroyed my home, and you will not disrespect the women in it as well. Now get out.”
Peppin hesitated for a moment as Suzie stared him, hands on hips, not flinching an inch. With his eyes still on hers, he said, “Let’s go, men. He isn’t here.”
The others noisily left, their muddy boots pounding out the door back into the wet and cold as I slowly let myself breathe, out of my mouth only, hoping to not get a whiff of the werewolf among them again.
Thankfully, they were all out soon enough, and with the door shut and locked again, Mary drew the curtains, and Sam helped me out of my hiding spot.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I told them, sliding both guns into their respective holsters.
Ealy grunted, obviously unhappy. I wasn’t sure if that irritation was more for me, for what had occurred here today, or Peppin. I decided it was likely all three and limped away from him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Suzie said. “They are swarming out there, and you’re bleeding again. Doc?”
“What? Oh, yes, yes. Billy, come into the store and let me tend to that properly now. Sam, fetch me something to sterilize the wound with.”
I noticed Sam’s nose was bleeding and my blood boiled again. “Sam, are you okay?”
“This ain’t nothin’. Don’t you worry ‘bout it,” he told me and headed into the store to find what Ealy asked for.
We followed him into the store, the front windows covered so no one on the street could see in, and the Reverend motioned me toward the back window so he’d have good light. “Pull your pants down so I can see the wound better.”
I undid the bandage he’d tied around my wound, undid my belt, and let my drawers and long undergarments drop to my knees. Doing my best to cover my manhood with my long shirt that’d been tucked in, I sat on the stool in a way where the light hit my wounded leg.
Unfazed by either my nakedness or the blood, the doctor examined the wound. “You’re lucky, the bullet exited the other side.”
“Funny, I don’t feel lucky about now,” I said, the wound hurting me like it was on fire as Ealy pushed on it.
Sam ran up. “This is all I could find,” he said, handing something to Ealy.
“You’re about to feel even less lucky,” Ealy told me, “so bite down on somethin’.”
I pulled my leather belt from the straps of my pants and put it between my teeth as Ealy had tied a piece of material to the carved loop at the end of a slim, well-sanded, four-inch rod of wood. “Soak this,” he told Sam.
When he did, I smelled the kerosene. Yet, before I could panic further, the Reverend took action. Quick as lighting, he slipped the newly alcohol-covered wooden item into the hole the bullet had made, entering the thigh on one side and exiting out the other, pulling the material through it.
Screaming with my teeth clenched on the belt, my eyes watered as I fought to stay conscious.
“This silk handkerchief is all I had handy,” Ealy said as he cut the material off the wooden needle. Tying the two ends together, he added, “That should help stop the bleeding too.”
I nodded, the pain too much to reply in words, as I pulled up my pants.
“Best you stay put for a bit,” Ealy told me.
“Come rest in here for a while,” Mary said from the door between the store and living quarters. “Suzie made you a spot to lie down.”
Removing the belt from my teeth, I squeezed out, “Thank you,” before weaving my belt back through the loops of my pants. Once the buckle was set, I limped into the apartment and found that Suzie had cleaned off and brought out a single mattress into the back room from the front.
Covering it with a fresh blanket, Suzie motioned toward it. “Lay down and rest.”
I eased myself onto the straw mattress and thanked her. As she walked away though, I added, “The way you stood up to Peppin, that was applause worthy.”
She grinned. “Thank you, Mr. Bonney. But Peppin is a pervert and deserved it. Pawing through my things like you’d be hidin’ in my dresser drawers.” With an exasperated huff and eye roll, she walked away to gather the older child and took her to sit on her mom and dad’s bed.
I fell asleep listening to Suzie reading a book to the little girl, waking up about an hour or so later. When I woke, I found a note next to my head. I recognized the handwriting: Roy.
Opening it, I read that the Regulators were at Brewer’s waiting on me and that if I was going to ride with them, I needed to hurry along soon.
With a groan, I stood, shoved the note in my pocket, and made my way to the door.
“You are in no shape to ride,” Ealy said.
“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know,” I replied. “But I have to get movin’ on if I’m gonna rejoin the men. Besides, if I wait too long, Peppin and his crew are goin’ to surround the town waitin’ on me and I’d rather not get pinned in. Besides, it puts you all in danger.”
Ealy handed me my coat. “Keep the wound clean, and it should heal in a few weeks.”
I shuddered at that idea and slipped on the long jacket. “It doesn’t hurt too bad, to be honest,” I lied. “But here’s to hopin’ it takes less time than that to be back to normal.”
Truth was, I was praying I’d run into a werewolf or two so I could heal as soon as possible, for my leg hurt like the dickens. Grabbing my hat from a corner, I opened the back door and whistled for Colonel. The black beauty trotted up and bumped me with his nose.
I put my hat on my head. “I’m okay, big fella.”
With pain ripping through me like fire, I hoisted myself into the saddle. Reins in one hand, gun in the other, I thanked the Ealys again, and with a prayer on my lips, I bolted out of the corral about two hours after everything had gone down.
Riding out into the street, I saw Amelia Bolton and some other children and hoped they’d not been out on the street when we’d ambushed Brady. I smiled at her, and though it hurt like hell, I kicked Colonel’s sides and we were off.
We’d only gone a short distance when bullets started to fly toward me. Leaning down over Colonel’s neck, I fired my gun behind me three times and kept going. Just before the bend in the road, the man who’d smelled like a werewolf from earlier ran toward me, close enough for me to see his white teeth grinning at me as he pulled his weapon.
Our eyes met, I saw his pupils glow golden, and before I could even think about it, instinct kicked in, and I shot him in the forehead and rode out of town.
Power slammed into me, and I felt the wound try to heal. It stung more than it should, and I remembered the silk tied into the wound. As quick as I could while riding, I reached for my small knife, then undid my pants. Reaching down into my drawers, I cut the silk and pulled it out of the wound with a grunt. It healed, and I did up my pants.
Putting the knife away, I rode Colonel up onto the knoll just east of the Ellis store. The hill was just high up enough to see the whole town and for them to see me. With my wound now healed, I leapt down from Colonel onto steady legs. With a smile on my face, I removed my hat and made a big sweeping bow to the town.
With a laugh, I easily pulled myself back into the saddle, waved my hat again at the town, and rode on out of it,
headed for Brewer’s. However, when I arrived, what I saw there was not what I’d been expecting.
Wolves, at least ten of them, had Brewer’s barn surrounded with my friends inside. They were firing off a shot here and there, but it was evident they were saving ammunition. One glance told me they were also cut off from their horses, where their rifles and extra silver bullets would be.
None of them had seen me, and luckily, I was downwind, so the wolves hadn’t smelled me either. Easing Colonel and I behind some of the trees nearby, I replaced the silver bullets I’d fired leaving town, and without thinking about it too much, I locked the cylinder back into place and leaned down to speak in Colonel’s ear.
“We need to go in full tilt, and I got no energy to share. Can you do it?”
Seeming to understand, he pranced quietly in place.
“Good, we need to clear a path to their horses. Let’s go!”
We needed a bit more space to build up speed, so I rode Colonel away from the ranch a bit. Once far enough away, I turned him about, took a settling breath, and said, “Full out, Colonel.”
He nodded in his way and I hit his sides with my heels. He took off like the devil himself was on our ass. Coming around the bend into sight, I dropped my body to the side of the horse like I’d seen the Apache warriors do. I barreled toward the group who blocked my friends from their horses. Riding at a right angle, they couldn’t see anything but a big black horse running toward them, until it was too late.
I knew I had to do it quickly and get out of there before their souls hit me and I got too dizzy to stay on the horse. Falling off Colonel with wolves about and my head spinning would be suicide. But I needed souls in the chamber, and my men needed their horses.
Taking aim, I hit the biggest wolf first, then another and another, until I was empty. I pulled myself up seconds before the souls hit me. I lay with my face in Colonel’s mane, the world spinning, watching some of the Regulators run for their rifles as I reached the barn.
Counting the souls as they hit me, I said, “One, two, four...what comes after five?”
“Damn it, he’s worthless,” Charlie said, taking the rifle off my saddle. “It’s up to us. Fire!”
The Curse of Billy the Kid: Untold Legends Volume One Page 27