Twelve
Renee Hart replaced the limp drying rag with a cool damp cloth upon the little boy’s brow. She watched Benjie’s chest heave with the desperate struggle to breathe. The child’s eyes were lidded and dull; he was half-conscious and murmuring.
She smoothed the compress and slumped in her chair.
Until a little while ago the child had been tossing violently in the delirium of his fever. Finally it seemed that fatigue had overcome him. He had collapsed back onto the cot. The straw ticking had been soaked clear through with his perspiration. Renee had held him in her arms while one of the men had taken the ruined mattress away and brought another. The child seemed to have no weight to him at all: feather-light. Nothing but a ghost.
Still, she could not give up hope.
Benjie—eleven, but tiny as a four-year-old. Came all the way to America from faraway Wales, only to be orphaned by a cave-in.
Now he had no one. No one but Renee to watch him wheeze so pathetically with the grippe.
His eyelids fluttered shut. The sound of his breath dwindled to a shallow rhythm she could barely hear.
No. No, dear Lord. Don’t let him slip away now ...
How many hours had she sat here waiting for his fever to break?
In her reeling weariness she didn’t hear steps behind her. Nellie Cashman’s gentle voice took her by surprise: “You’re exhausted, Renee. You need to go back to the hotel and sleep.”
“I can’t leave him.”
Nellie pressed a warm bowl of broth into her hands. The scent of it came up rich into Renee’s nostrils. “Drink this, now. And then go to bed. You can’t keep this up. You’ve been ministering to him like a guardian angel for days.”
“The fever’s going to break,” Renee said. She was surprised by her own voice. It seemed unfamiliar—a stranger’s voice. The hollow dulled tone of it shocked her. “The fever’s going to break. It’s got to.”
Nellie smiled down at the boy. Then her luminous smile moved to Renee. “Why, my dear, don’t you see—it already has broken. He’s past the worst of it. He’s going to live now. Thanks to you.”
Renee leaned forward, agape. And saw slowly that Nellie’s words were true. She’d been so tired her mind hadn’t even absorbed that the boy’s frenzied thrashing had ended and he had lapsed into his present state, which she now saw to be an increasingly normal sleep.
She whispered, “Thank you, Lord.”
“Go on now, Renee. To your own bed.”
She lurched straight toward the bed. No energy to remove clothes or turn down the coverlet. She sat down, suddenly and heavily, on the side of the bed. Her eye fell on the telegram that sat half folded on the bedside table. It took a moment before she remembered what was in it.
She fell back on the bed and lay limp, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling of her hotel room. Her nerves seemed to rattle. She realized after a little while that she was too tired to sleep. Her mind raced fitfully for a time; finally her thoughts settled on the one thing that was central to her being:
Sam.
Sam would be back soon. She knew he would.
How could she tell him? I lived in New York once. I had a romance with a young man there. Your friend Philip Merrivale. The man who’s coming to Sunrise next week to see you. The man whose life you saved last year in New York from that attack by the Gas House Gang. He doesn’t know about you and me. He doesn’t know I live in Sunrise. He doesn’t even know me by the name I use now. But Philip and I—well, we were close, Sam. Very close.
Suppose she told him now?
With Philip arriving on the doorstep it would be a lot for Sam to swallow all at once.
Perhaps too much.
She should have told him long ago. Oh, why didn’t I?
Because—well, she was afraid.
Working with Nellie Cashman had taught her something about what things were important and what things weren’t. She knew now that one thing was more important to her than everything else. That one thing was Samuel Hornblow Jones.
She didn’t want to lose Sam ...
Sam and Luke were covered with trail dust when they rode into Tombstone that late afternoon at the end of October.
Their attention was drawn by the undertaker’s building. Three open caskets were lined up on the boardwalk in front of the building.
There was a dead man in each coffin, neatly dressed in suit and tie.
Their faces looked like waxwork reproductions; they had the ghostly unreality of death. But Sam had no trouble recognizing them. The young Clanton kid and the two McLowery brothers.
The banner flapping above the coffins was painted with high letters that could be read from blocks away:
MURDERED IN THE STREETS OF TOMBSTONE.
Luke Short said drily, “Looks like we missed the fun.”
Wondering what had happened, they continued along to the Occidental and dismounted, tying their horses to the hitching rail.
They found Bat Masterson inside at the bar with Wyatt Earp.
Bat had just arrived. He was describing humorously the history of a poker game in Agua Prieta—the same game from which John Ringo had ridden away.
Luke and Sam exchanged glances. Neither of them mentioned Ringo.
Wyatt told them of the events of the preceding few days. It didn’t take Wyatt long to bring Sam and Luke up-to-date on the fracas outside the OK Corral. He concluded by saying, “We’re all technically under a charge of murder. We’re out on our bond. There’ll be a trial in a few weeks. Guess it’ll be dismissed as justifiable homicide. Those boys came into town spoilin’ for trouble. I feel sorry for ’em, and for them they left behind. But I feel sorrier for Virg. He’s lost the use of that shoulder. He’ll be crippled for life.”
Sam said to Luke, “We’ll go visit him directly after supper.”
“You bet.”
Bat said, “How’re your Indian friends?”
“Just fine, thank you. On their way back to the White Mountain Reservation.”
There was no need for further explanation.
Sam said, “Believe I’d like to get freshened up.”
“Me, too,” said Luke. “I get any more dirt on me they’ll be plantin’ potatoes on my hide.”
Wyatt Earp said, “Well, good luck, gents. Maybe we’ll see you later, play a little cards.”
Bat Masterson grinned and waved as they turned away.
When Sam and Luke left the bar, Sam said to his saddle partner, “What now for you? Stay on here a while, deal cards?”
“I don’t know, Sam. You know that fracas with poor old Charlie Storms kind of soured me on this town. I get a feeling my luck’s run its course here in Tombstone. Maybe it’s just superstition, but I reckon I’ll do a lot better someplace else.”
“What about Nellie Cashman? Thought you had some interest in that lady.”
“A passing fancy. Who wouldn’t? A woman like that? But me, I’m a confirmed drifter—and hardly the sort of gent a woman of substance like Nellie might take a notion to settle down with.” There was, Sam noted, a soft echo of regret in Luke’s voice.
“Where d’you think you might go, then?”
“Dunno for sure. Maybe drift on over to Texas a while. I hear there’s some big card games nowadays, what with those big ranchers makin’ fortunes on the risin’ price of beef.” Luke shrugged it off with an easy smile. “Anyways—what about you, Samuel?”
“I’ll have to check with my lady friend. Then I’ll let you know.”
“Been a pleasure ridin’ with you.”
Luke Short’s words echoed pleasantly in his mind as Sam headed up the stairs.
Renee Hart closed the door and faced Sam, her face upraised. He felt her tremble.
He said, “It’s all right. I’m here. Everything’s all right.”
After they kissed, she remained in the circle of his arms. She felt heavy, as if she were using his strength to support her. He said, “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing much. I
’m very tired. Been helping Nellie with one of her little patients—I guess I forgot to get any sleep for a few days ... Oh, Sam, there’s been a wire from Sunrise. Your friends James Gordon Bennett and Philip Merrivale are expecting to arrive there next week. Thursday.”
“Then I reckon it’s time t’ go home. We’ll be in plenty time to meet ’em.”
She looked away. “The little boy—Benjie—he’s had a very close call with death, Sam. Eleven years old and no bigger than a grasshopper. Such a sweet boy, you can’t imagine ... He’s only just passed the crisis. He’s still so fragile. He’s still in danger. I can’t leave him yet. Not for a little while. He’s got nobody on earth. Nobody but Nellie and me—and Nellie’s attention has to be spread across so many others ...”
She turned away, nearly lost her balance, and had to brace herself with a hand against the doorjamb. “You go on home tomorrow, Sam. I’ll join you when I can. As soon as I can.”
His intuition told him there was something more. Something she wasn’t telling him. But her eyes came up then, wide and deep, silently asking for his trust.
He thought of the long, lonesome ride back to Sunrise. He looked into Renee’s face and knew it would be all right. She didn’t need to ask for his trust.
He crossed the room slowly. “All right, darlin’. You’ll come home when you can. Right now you need sleep. Let’s tuck you in.”
When he tipped her chin back with his finger she was smiling, waiting for his kiss.
About the Author
William Robert Cox (1901-1988) was a writer for more than sixty years, and published more than seventy-five novels and perhaps one thousand short stories, as well as more than 150 TV shows and several movies on film. He was well into his career, flooding the market with sports, crime, and adventure stories, when he turned to the western novel. He served twice as president of the Western Writers of America, and was writing his fifth Cemetery Jones novel, Cemetery Jones and the Tombstone War, when he passed away. He wrote under at least six pen names, including Willard d’Arcy, Mike Frederic, John Parkhill, Joel Reeve, Roger G. Spellman and Jonas Ward.
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