“Boy, you’re crazy,” Tobin Heathcock objected. “They’ve got us. Do as they say and we got a chance.”
“Ain’t many o’ them,” Rat argued. “Two chased us in, and I count maybe one or two other rifles. Don’t have enough fire or they’d taken us by now.”
“Might have help comin’,” the merchant pointed out.
“Well, we may have some ourselves,” Rat muttered.
Nobody seemed very eager to follow a stumpy nineteen-year-old’s orders, but there wasn’t any other plan. Rat nodded to his companions, then darted forward, He raised the Winchester to his shoulder and opened up on the far slope. Ed Robson helped Tobin Heathcock drag his injured brother along to the coach. Meanwhile rifle fire descended from both sides upon the coach.
It was momentary madness. Bullets splintered rock and sliced into the stagecoach. The horses reared and stomped in an effort to free themselves from the confines of their harness. One figure made a move down the south hill, but Rat sent him scrambling back to safety. Then two rifle bullets chased Rat from cover, and a third tore through his left arm.
“Rat?” Palmer called.
“I’m all right,” Rat screamed as he dove behind another boulder and dragged his rifle along. He felt the blood running up his arm and soaking his sheepskin coat, but there was no time for making repairs.
“Give it up down there!” the outlaw leader urged. “You got no chance.”
“Come down and see what chance we got!” Rat barked.
“Don’t need to, friend,” the voice on the hillside answered. “We can wait you out, come by dark.”
“Can you?” Rat responded. “When this coach doesn’t reach town, Sheriff Cathcart’s sure to send a posse.”
“Won’t do you no good. Y’all be dead then.”
“We got Miz Gardiner to think of,” Palmer called. “Rat?”
“No!” Rat yelled as he painfully fired his rifle. He then motioned Palmer to climb up and started toward the coach himself.
The outlaws hesitated just a moment. It was what Rat had hoped for. Tully Gardiner scrambled inside, and Palmer lumbered up and retook the reins. Even as Rat tossed his rifle up and followed, the raiders suddenly descended.
“Get ’em!” the leader yelled.
Rat lifted the Winchester with his right hand and managed to steady the barrel. A masked figure filled the sights, and Rat fired. A bullet knocked the thief’s feet from beneath him. A pistol shot from the coach drove off a second outlaw.
“Rat, behind you!” Palmer shouted as he whipped the horses into motion.
Rat had but a second to act. He whirled and saw a solitary masked ban dit clamber up the side of the coach. The outlaw pointed the cold barrel of his pistol toward Rat’s face, but Rat managed to knock the gun aside using the Winchester’s barrel. Then, as the surprised raider frantically threw himself atop the coach, Rat discarded his rifle and drew the remaining pistol from his twinned holsters.
“Shoot!” Palmer shouted, and Rat rammed back the hammer with his thumb and fired a single round through the attacker’s forehead. The masked figure collapsed in a heap amid the neatly arranged trunks and boxes.
“You got him!” Palmer cried. “Rat, you got him!”
“Sure, I did,” Rat said, trembling as he glanced back and watched the remaining outlaws falling far behind. “Now get this coach to town. Hurry!”
Rat occupied himself that next hour and a half stemming the blood flowing out of his arm. Already he was growing light-headed, and he could barely keep his eyes open. Danger remained, of course, for the raiders had horses. In the end, though, the Western Company’s eastbound rolled into Thayerville without further incident.
The coach had hardly stopped when Tobin Heathcock jumped out and called for a doctor. Onlookers stared at the bullet holes in the side of the coach, and soon a crowd gathered. Nate Parrott sent a boy off to locate Dr. Tom Jennings, and a party of men managed to carry Roy Heathcock inside the stage office.
“Never mind about the doc,” someone announced. “That fellow needs buryin’.”
“Not yet!” Tobin objected.
But when the doctor arrived, he pronounced Roy Heathcock dead.
“Can’t you boys check a pulse?” Doc Jennings complained.
“Trip’s not wasted, Doc,” Tully Gardiner announced, helping his mother out of the coach. “Ma caught some splinters, and Josie there’s got herself nicked, too.”
“Nothin’ we can’t tend to,” the doctor assured the boy.
“Rat’s got himself shot, too,” Pop Palmer said, pointing to the pale guard slumped across the driver’s bench.
“Who’s that up there with the cases?” the doctor asked.
“One o’ the ones that hit us,” Palmer explained. “Was young Rat did it!”
Sheriff Cathcart parted the crowd and climbed up atop the coach. He tore away the mask and then handed down the corpse.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” Parrott exclaimed. “It’s Curly Bob Clark.”
“It is!” Ed Robson agreed. “I seen his posters.”
“There’s five-hundred dollars reward out on him,” Cathcart added. “Made yourself a rich man this day, Rat. Rat?”
A dozen hands reached up and drew Rat Hadley down from the coach. There were no mocking grins or cruel taunts now, though. An odd sort of respect flooded the crowd of faces.
“You folks’ll put him in an early grave!” Doc Jennings complained as he examined Rat’s shattered arm. “Get him along to my place, why don’t you? He’s near bled to death!”
“Pick him up, boys. Get him over to Doc’s,” the sheriff barked. “Hurry.”
The entire town seemed out on Main Street now, and the best part of the people migrated to Doc Jennings’s surgery. To Rat it was all a blur, though. He felt a ringing in his ears, and a terrible numbness began to take possession of him.
No! he wanted to shout. Death wouldn’t, couldn’t be so cruel as to steal him away now, in his one moment of triumph!
Cold fingers seemed to grip his lungs, though, and breathing wasterribly hard. He could feel his heart pounding, but his feet and legs were ice. Then a great haze enveloped him, and he drifted away.
Chapter Twelve
Rat awoke to a world of fuzzy shapes. He lay in a hard slat bed in the side room of an unfamiliar house. As the dizziness began to pass, he detected a wash basin atop a small wooden stand, a window framed by simple gingham check curtains, and a solitary chest standing on the far wall beside an open door. Sitting in a chair beside him was a boy of around twelve years, whose curly yellow hair and bright blue eyes seemed out of place in the drab chamber.
“You awake, Rat?” the youngster asked.
“Parts o’ me,” Rat confessed, raising his head slightly. His left side felt as if nailed to the bed, and his legs remained asleep.
“Doc said you’d come ’round this morn in’. Me, I figured it’d be later on.”
“Where … “
“At our place.” Seeing Rat’s confusion, the boy laughed to himself and explained further. “Guess it’s changed some since you come here last time. Five years.”
“Where …” Rat began again.
“Don’t you recognize me?” the youngster asked with slightly hurt eyes. “I’m Busby Cathcart.”
“Yeah?” Rat whispered. “Well, ain’t seen you much o’ late. Changed some, too.”
“Gotten ornery, Pa says. He’s been by to see you, but you was sleepin’.”
“How long?”
“Been two days since Doc plucked that bullet out o’ your arm. You bled all over the place, he said. Pa thought you dead sure, but not Becky. She ordered you brought over here, and she took to tendin’ you herself. ’Cept at night and early morn. I saw to you then, this bein’ my room and all.”
“Thanks,” Rat managed to mutter as he blinked his eyes. The feeling was returning bit by bit. He saw he was lying between crisp linen sheets. His head rested on a feather pillow. His left arm was swathed in bandages.
Otherwise he was naked.
“You up to sippin’ some broth?” Busby asked. “Ma can heat you up some. Or you can wait for Becky to come along.”
“Where’d my clothes get to?” Rat interrupted.
“Doc fair butchered your shirt, Rat. The rest was pretty much bloody. Ma give ’em a scrub, but it wasn’t much use.”
“I’ve got some things over at Pop Palmer’s house. Maybe you could … “
“That’s a fine idea,” Rebecca Cathcart announced as she entered the room. “Buzz, why don’t you walk over there and collect Rat’s clothes. He’s sure to be here a week.”
“Meanwhile Pa’s got a nightshirt he can spare,” Busby declared. “Makes a man unsettled to have women hoverin’ ’round ’em, ’specially when he’s got only a sheet for cover. And I wouldn’t let her give you no more baths, neither, Rat!”
“What?” Rat cried. His mind seemed to clear of cobwebs, and he drew the sheet up against his chin with the fingers of his good right hand. Busby only laughed and darted off.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Becky said as she took her brother’s place beside the bed. “I’ve done my share o’ bathin’ people, boys included. Wish I had a silver dollar for every time I washed Buzz. I’ve got cousins, too, remember.”
“So’ve I, but I never gave ’em any bath,” Rat grumbled. “They weren’t full-grown, either.”
“Well, I admit this was my first turn at a full-sized one,” Becky said, grinning shyly. “Ma would’ve done it, but she was off somewhere, and you were just about covered up with mud and blood. Doc said you needed scrubbin’ then and there. I wager there’ll be talk come o’ it, though.”
“Likely so,” Rat said, swallowing his embarrassment and thinking of the string bean of a girl washing away the aftermath of battle. “I fear yer reputation’s soiled. Havin’ dealin’s with no-account Hadleys ain’t a thing folks forget easy.”
“Oh, that’s a long time forgotten, Rat.”
“Is it? Yer own pa spoke to me ’bout stayin’ clear o’ you just lately.”
“Did he?” she asked, surprised. “Well, he’s changed that tune, Rat. Wouldn’t hear o’ the Morrises takin’ you in. You set too much stock in gossip anyhow. And the truth o’ it is most o’ the town folk’d have us headed to an altar.”
“That’d surely be a worse fate for you’n havin’ ’em gossipin’, Becky. Bein’ chained to Rat Hadley! Best you leave my nursin’ to Busby.”
“He’d make short work o’ you. And besides, I don’t know I’d agree marryin’ a hero’d be such a poor bargain.”
“Hero?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling. “The man who shot Curly Bob Clark and saved the Western Stage. You’ve gone and gotten famous, Rat. And rich to boot. Curly Bob was posted, you know.”
Rat shook his head in dismay. He only recalled bits and pieces of the fight, and nothing at all of its aftermath. Becky laughed and retold the whole story, borrowing liberally from the boastful stories of Ed Robson and Tully Gardiner. Envisioning himself as a rifle-toting gunman was too far a stretch for Rat, though, and he welcomed Busby Cathcart’s return for putting a close to the wild tale.
As he mended those next days, Rat started to realize the better part of Thayerville believed every exaggerated word of that story. The Gardiners paid him a visit on the return leg of their journey, bringing along copies of a Ft. Worth newspaper detailing his gallant exploits. Ed Robson provided a small packet of telegrams from folks expressing their high regards for him. One or two offered jobs. Colonel Ned Wyler paid a bonus and promised a full wage while Rat was recovering his health.
“Don’t hurry yerself none,” Pop Palmer explained. “Colonel told me so himself. Likely he’ll come along and tell you the same thing one o’ these days. Business’s been pickin’ up, what with Curly Bob planted.”
Doc Jennings soon cut away the dressing and drained Rat’s wound. Afterward Busby Cathcart brought friends by to stare at the scar or shake hands with Thayerville’s new hero. Rat did so with as straight a face as he could manage and afterward chuckled to himself.
Mitch Morris appeared every evening, bringing bits of news or something his mother sent over from the mercantile.
“Things’ve sure changed, Rat,” Mitch observed. “Ma’s got nothing but fine words for you. Me, I walk the devil’s road. You get yerself well, hear? I got nobody to swap tales with or chase through the river.”
But of all his visitors, Rat most appreciated the quiet hours he spent with Becky Cathcart. When others were around, the seventeen-year-old seemed full of jests and energy. But when they were alone, Rat discovered she possessed a serious nature. She shared books and spoke of the trials that perhaps lay ahead. And every once in a while they dared to reveal dreams.
“I won’t be ridin’ guard on a stagecoach forever,” Rat vowed. “I figure to have a little place o’ my own, maybe run horses and some cows. Nothin’ like the Circle H, mind, but a good solid future for me and mine.”
“Me, I’d like to teach school somewhere,” Becky confided. “I’d want a good husband to love and care for, and children to raise. Maybe we’d have a little place off from town, like this house. Little ones need some room to run, don’t you think? In town they grow up too fast, I’m thinkin’.”
“They grow up too fast lots o’ places,” Rat muttered, recalling his days at the Plank farm. “Overnight sometimes.”
She recognized the pain in his eyes and provided a comforting hand. Her quiet nod acknowledged understanding, and it endeared him to her even more.
Rat was a week on his back at the Cathcart place. Later, when he walked about, his left arm hanging limply in a cloth sling, he contributed what he could to his new family. One day he sliced tomatoes. Another time he mixed dough and made a batch of one-handed biscuits.
“I’m astounded,” Cora Cathcart cried when she tasted one of the flaky discs. “They’re just fine, Rat.”
“You make a fair cook,” the sheriff added.
“Well, you pick up a thing or two on yer own,” Rat told them.
“We’ve no need of learn in’ just what,” Becky declared.
Busby grinned. The sheriff and his wife exchanged knowing looks. An hour later Lemuel Cathcart led Rat out to the porch.
“I know what’s on yer mind, Sheriff,” Rat said, avoiding the lawman’s steel-eyed gaze. “I’m on my feet again, and the wound’s clean-scabbed. Time I was packin’ up and movin’ on.”
“Son?” Cathcart asked, stepping closer. “What makes you think that?”
“I ain’t altogether stupid,” Rat muttered. “Since Pa died, folks’ve been takin’ me aside, urgin’ me to move on. You get to where you see it comin’.”
“You’re wrong this time, Rat.”
“Am I? Didn’t you tell meyer feelin’ where Becky’s concerned? Well, I didn’t plan it out this way, you know. Did I ask you to bring me here, to have her carin’ for me? You should’ve left me at the doc’s. I got a fair share o’ strong feelin’ for her, Sheriff. Ain’t no backin’ away from it.”
“I don’t suppose you figure this town’s given you much of a chance, eh, Rat?”
“Has it?”
“And me?”
“You saved my life when you took me off the Plank place,” Rat said, frowning as the memories flooded his mind. “I was all cold inside then, dead more’n alive. You and the Morrises put me back on my feet. Now you’ve gone and done it again. I know you’d rather Becky turned her eyes in other directions. And I guess if you say the word, I’ll do my best to step aside. Be like cuttin’ out my heart, but I’d try. I owe you that.”
“Rebecca’s closin’ in on her eighteenth birthday, son,” the sheriff replied. “She’s full grown and sure to make her own choices. As are you.”
“And so far as the two o’ us … “
“Look, Rat, so long as you’re honest with her, and you do her no wrongs, you’ll have nothin’ to answer me for. Whether you think so or not, I’ve always liked you. It’s been a
steep trail you’ve had to climb, but you made it to the top as I see it. I expect you’ll find others deem it so, too.”
“I got some hard memories,” Rat confessed.
“I can’t see how it’d be otherwise. I’ve heard half the boys in Thayerville describe the scar on your arm. That’s the easy one to see, though, isn’t it. It’ll fade by and by. The long healin’ ones are deep down, and some o’ them never do mend. I think Thayerville’s offerin’ you a fresh start, though, Rat. Maybe some think it should’ve been given before, but what’s done is done. You’ve got some money comin’ for Curly Bob, and the stage line’s certain to hold you in high esteem for some time to come. That’s the kind o’ future I hope lies in store for Busby. It’s the man I hope he grows to be.”
“I take that for high praise,” Rat declared.
“Was meant to be,” Cathcart declared. “Rat, you stay on here as long as you like. Buzz likes havin’ company in the side room, and it won’t be much longer you’re operatin’ one-armed. Later, once you mend, you may care to move to the hotel. But should you choose to remain, well, nobody’d be displeased.”
“Nobody at all,” Rat added. The sheriff smiled, and Rat felt warmer inside than anytime he could recall.
The following afternoon the promised reward arrived, together with an extra twenty-dollar bounty Ned Wyler brought in person. The Colonel inspected Rat’s arm personally.
“You look fit, Hadley, but a stagecoach does a fair degree of bouncing. Give it another week before you climb up with that Winchester.”
“I pass another week useless, I’ll go daft,” Rat confessed.
“Nothin’ to keep you from mindin’ the freight office, is there? Don’t tote anything heavy, but you can watch out for trouble. I’ll pass the word to Nate Parrott.”
“I appreciate that, Colonel,” Rat answered.
Rat’s return to work wasn’t the only sign of his healing. That next Sunday, following services at the new Methodist Church, the reverend announced plans for a barn dance.
Boswell's Luck Page 10