This Scorched Earth

by William Gear

“It’s a hard world, Brother.” She made a face. “Discovering that? Well … believe me, the epiphany is not only humiliating but rather painful.” Her drugged gaze wavered. “Thank God for bustles. The lords of fashion never could have devised a better place for a hideout gun.”

  “Those were good shots on Parmelee. I’ll see if I can’t get over and clean up the blood before you get home. Dave Cook’s deputies should have carted the body off to Walley’s by now.”

  She stared into the past. “I gave him a hell of a lot more chance than he ever gave Bret, or me, or Aggie.”

  After a long silence, Doc asked, “I know you spend time with Pat O’Reilly on occasion. Think you’ll ever marry again?”

  “What I had with Bret was a miracle. God doesn’t grant two such in a lifetime. Pat’s a … what? Business partner? Friend? Sometime lover? I don’t know. But I’ll never marry again.” She glanced at him. “You?”

  He shook his head. “We understand each other.”

  The door to the street opened, the bell ringing.

  Doc had no more than started for the surgery door when Butler called, “Philip? Assistance, please!”

  Doc burst into the dimly lit front office to find Butler staggering under a young man’s weight. The newcomer wore a fringed buckskin jacket; one arm was hung around Butler’s shoulder. He was staggering, dragging a leg, and even in the dim light, the dark stain down his trousers had to be blood.

  Doc got a hold, and together he and Butler dragged the bleeding man into the surgery. They heaved him up onto the table, where Doc stripped off the coat. He was checking the young man’s eyes as Butler held up the coat, saying, “Four bloody holes in the back. Turn him over.”

  With Butler’s help, he rolled the body.

  “Dear God,” Doc whispered as he cut away the bloody shirt and took in the entry wounds. Butler pulled the trousers down; the wound in the buttocks looked the worst. “It’s Shiloh all over.”

  “God, Billy,” Sarah whispered. “What did you do?”

  “Billy?” Doc wondered, bending down to inspect the young man’s bearded face. Yes, he could see the family resemblance. How had the boy he had once known grown into this face, lined with pain, and groggy as it was.

  Faces. Memories of them—young like Billy’s—came flooding back from the past. The feel of blood caking on his fingers. Of impotence as desperate eyes looked up at his, praying for a miracle.

  I couldn’t save them.

  As he reached for his surgical kit, his vision began to silver with tears.

  126

  June 30, 1868

  “C’est bon. Reckon she be one beautiful woman,” Kershaw noted.

  “She is indeed,” Butler replied.

  “Too bad,” Pettigrew muttered where he leaned against the surgery wall. Beside him morning light streamed in through the dirty-paned window.

  “Woman like her”—Phil Vail bent over Sarah’s sleeping form—“why, she could have had any man.”

  Pettigrew smirked. “Hell, given her profession, she’s probably had ’em all a time or two.”

  Butler stiffened, pointing a hard finger at Pettigrew. “I thought you all heard my orders. You’re to keep a civil tongue. Or I’ll bust you right down to private.”

  He must have spoken too loud. When he looked back, Sarah’s eyes were open, looking steely blue in the morning light.

  “It’s unsettling when you do that,” she told him. “Doc says it’s one part of your brain dealing with another part. That you’ve given different bits of your mind an imaginary character. That it’s your way of arguing with yourself.”

  “Doc is a very bright doctor. Maybe that’s exactly what I’m doing.” He gave her a welcoming grin.

  “Then why don’t you stop, Butler?” She sat up, almost yipped with pain, and eased back down. “Son of a bitch!”

  “You didn’t used to talk this way.”

  “And you didn’t carry on conversations with the empty air.” She paused. “Sorry my language bothers you.”

  “Why don’t you just stop, Sarah?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Throwing my own medicine back at me? Maybe I’m no longer a lady, big brother.” At his smile she pulled her long hair back and looked at the far bed. “How’s Billy?”

  “Philip dosed him rather heavily with morphine. He removed the bullets and irrigated the wounds. Billy’s got a broken shoulder blade, a bruised kidney, two bullet-broken ribs, but the worst is the wound to his buttock. A rifle ball. It tore up the muscles pretty bad. How Billy could even stand, let alone walk, is beyond me.”

  Sarah said, “It’s a miracle you found him last night.”

  “That was Phil Vail’s work. He’s always been our best scout.”

  Off to the side, Vail gave a two-fingered salute.

  She stared at Butler as if uncertain if he were making fun. Then she shook her head—as though banishing an irritating fly—and asked, “Where’s Philip?”

  “Out on the waiting bench, trying to sleep. I told him the men and I would stand watch.”

  “The men and you,” she said absently.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “I’d worship you. And food if we have any.”

  “I’ll bring you a cup and then walk over to the Broadwell Hotel. They let Doc charge for meals to go.”

  It took Butler longer than he thought, it being almost a half hour before he was back with a basket. It was going to be a hot day, one of those brassy-skied, bake-you-dry ones.

  He slipped in the door, careful to open it slowly so the bell didn’t wake Doc. The man looked uncomfortable with his head on the railing, his feet hanging off the far edge.

  “Poor Doc,” Johnny Baker noted as he followed Butler in. “He tries so hard.”

  Butler led the way into the surgery to find Sarah white-faced, her position on the couch changed. On the floor, the thunder mug was full.

  “You should have waited for me,” he told her. “I could have helped.”

  Her look was scathing. “Somehow, after working with Doc at the Angel’s Lair, helping him examine the girls, and watching him dig a bullet out of my leg, it wasn’t as embarrassing with him helping last night. He’s a doctor. You … and your men? That’s another matter.”

  “But you let so many strange men who…” He froze, quivered. Set the basket down and tried to stop the twitching in his hands as he went to check Billy’s fevered breathing.

  “Sometimes, Cap’n,” Kershaw told him, “you jus’ ain’t smart.”

  “Sergeant, I don’t need you to remind me of my shortcomings.”

  “It’s all right, Butler.” Sarah’s voice was forgiving. “I’ve done what I’ve done. Philip told me to expect occasional, well, uncomfortable moments when talking to you. Now, why don’t you stop torturing yourself and bring me that basket? And while you do, you can tell me about this Indian princess of yours.”

  “She’s not a princess.” Avoiding her eyes, he set the basket on the examining table and began removing biscuits. “She’s just a woman. I call her gwee, which means ‘wife.’ We have our own lodge and what you’d call a family. I really, really miss her. If it hadn’t been for Paw, I’d have never come back.”

  Sarah took the plate he handed her. “What about us? Your family here? And Billy’s back. We still haven’t heard his story.”

  Butler glanced shyly at the men. “I only came back to tell Philip about Paw. I guess it was just luck that you and Billy showed. It was worth it to know how Maw got in that grave, and to see that you’re alive. But I have to get back. There’s winter to prepare for, and I have to make sure that everyone knows I properly disposed of Paw’s evil.”

  “Are they that much better for you than we are?” She took a fork and stabbed at a sausage.

  “They don’t judge.” Butler tried again to still his hands. “My wife loves me for who I am. She doesn’t care if I’m crazy. And when I talk to the men, her eyes don’t get that worried look. We laugh, and share, and hold each other. We wo
rk side by side, and it’s … well…”

  “Go on.”

  He wiped at a sudden pesky tear, his chest full as if to burst. “I love her! I really miss her, and I can’t wait to get back.”

  Sarah was studying him with thoughtful eyes. “But Butler, Philip and I, we love you, too.”

  “Then I am doubly blessed. But Sarah, don’t fight me on this. I’m going back. I have to.”

  The bell out front rang, a voice calling, “Sorry to wake you, Doc. Can I have a word?”

  “Marshal.” Doc sounded groggy.

  Butler walked to the surgery door, seeing Dave Cook, the city marshal.

  “Don’t look like the marshal got much sleep last night,” Phil Vail noted.

  “Neither did we,” Pettigrew retorted.

  Butler waved them down, noting the bland look on Cook’s face. The man had a high forehead, straight nose, and a knobby chin—all emphasized by his full mustache. He wore a long linen coat over a colorful checkerboard-patterned vest, and baggy trousers. A polished leather gun belt hung at the man’s hips.

  “Doc?” Cook asked. “You got a man here? Young galoot, blond, maybe twenty? Might have a couple of gunshot wounds?”

  Cook held out a paper flyer, that Doc took, asking, “That man look familiar?”

  Doc rubbed a hand over his face as he studied the picture. “My brother Billy.” Then his expression fell. “What’s this wanted business? A reward? For murder?”

  “It gets worse,” Cook told him. “You ever hear of the Meadowlark?”

  “The hired killer?” Doc asked. “Thought he was more myth than real?”

  Cook took the flyer back. “If that’s your brother, he was bragging to half the Criterion saloon that he was the Meadowlark. That he worked for George Nichols … doing his hired killing.”

  Doc looked sick, his face lining with worry. “My sister says Billy went after Nichols after the shooting at Sarah’s yesterday.”

  “Well, he found him. Shot him down in the Criterion in front of about twenty witnesses. Paused long enough to put a meadowlark feather in the bullet hole. Nichols was unarmed. Which, given what went on at Mrs. Anderson’s, might have been justified. I’m not sure it even would have gone to trial. But on the way out, your brother shot and killed a bystander who tried to stop him. Fella by the name of Swede Halverson. Well liked by his friends.”

  Cook paused. “And then there’s the warrant from End-of-the-Tracks.”

  Butler’s heart was thumping, a hollow desperation beginning to ache. “Our Billy?”

  Cook shot him a look. “So, you’re back? Must be a Hancock family reunion.”

  Doc rose unsteadily to his feet. “Butler found Billy on the street last night. He’s in the surgery. He was pretty shot up. Especially the hip. Femoral artery stopped the rifle ball without rupturing, if you can believe it.”

  “Doc.” Cook lowered his voice. “I need to see him for myself.”

  “Of course, Dave.” Doc led the way, Butler retreating and the men scattering to clear a path.

  Cook removed his hat, nodded respectfully at Sarah where she sat frozen, a buttered biscuit halfway to her mouth, having no doubt heard the whole conversation.

  “This is your brother? Billy Hancock?” Cook asked, matching the face with the drawing as he leaned over the comatose Billy.

  “It is.” Doc sounded half dazed.

  Cook lifted the blanket, inspecting Billy’s wounds. Then he asked, “Son, can you hear me?”

  Doc replied, “Dave, he’s drugged. It will be hours before—”

  “Sssss awright, Doc,” Billy whispered hoarsely, blinking his eyes open. “I’m tougher than I look.”

  Sarah called, “Billy, you don’t have to—”

  “Sis,” he rasped, “can’t cheat the Devil forever. I been dreaming. Maw’s rising from the grave, telling me it’s time. She’s coming to get me. Gonna drag me to hell where I b’long.”

  “Son, did you kill those men at End-of-the-Tracks?” Cook asked.

  “Yep. And I left a string of dead whores behind me. Started with little gal named Margarita down to New Mexico. Thought she was Sarah’s ghost … reaching … reaching down … And I’d try to kill her.”

  “I don’t understand,” Cook said.

  “Isss th’ demons.” Billy licked dry lips, eyes vacant. “Ol’ Hob had his joke on this child, didn’t he?”

  “And the Meadowlark murders?” Dave Cook leaned forward.

  “Make you a deal, Marshal. When Philip fixes me up to where you can get me to a jail? You hand me a pistol with one shot. You do that … and I’ll tell you the whole thing in front of a court recorder. Full confession.”

  “Billy!” Sarah snapped, struggling to stand. Face strained with pain, she wobbled forward on her wounded leg. “Don’t you say a word! Not until you talk to Bela Hughes.”

  “Who?” Billy asked dryly, then waved it away with a feeble flip of the wrist. “Don’t matter, Sis. I been tempting the Devil to come get me. Took the lazy old shit way too long as it is. Just give me that one shot, Marshal, and the rest is all yours.”

  Butler waved the men down as they broke into a cacophony of questions and protests.

  “Dear God,” Philip whispered under his breath. “Is this true?”

  Billy smiled wearily, eyes closed. “Best hunting there ever was.”

  Dave Cook straightened. “Doc, you’re a good man, and I hate to do this, but your brother is under arrest. How soon can he be moved?”

  “Maybe a week depending on how bad the infection is,” Doc said dully. “Especially in that pelvic wound.”

  Given the confusion in Doc’s expression, Butler ached for him. He winced at the horror in Sarah’s face as she stared disbelievingly at her brother. Billy and Sarah, they were the close ones.

  “You give me your word, Doc?” Cook asked. “You won’t let him out of here? Won’t put your brother in a wagon some night and sneak him outta town?”

  “You have my word, Marshal.” Doc closed his eyes, looking as stricken as if he were denouncing Jesus in the garden.

  “And mine as an officer and gentleman,” Butler told him. “The men will follow my orders regarding my brother’s disposition.” He glanced at his men, all crowded and cowed in the back of the surgery. “Isn’t that right?”

  At their assent he added, “There, Marshal. See?”

  The corners of Cook’s mouth tightened, but he nodded and looked at Sarah.

  She pursed her lips, eyes thinned in misery, and nodded.

  127

  July 2, 1868

  Butler stood with his hands on his hips as he studied Sarah’s parlor floor. He couldn’t help but admire his work. The floorboards still had a slight discoloration in the grain—but only if a person knew what to look for. Had Parmelee’s blood not sat for so long, he might have even managed to scrub that out.

  The men had provided encouragement as he’d worked with the bristle brush, and they’d pointed out places he needed to concentrate on.

  The sound of hammers and sawing reassured him. The workmen were back at it. A sign that Sarah’s life was returning to normal for her. Or as normal as it would ever be again.

  Life just seemed to kick her around.

  He tossed the brush up and caught it, then stooped to pick up the rags he’d used to dry the floor. Walking into the dining room, he disposed of them in a bucket and went to pour a cup of coffee before seating himself at the table across from Sarah. Sunshine beamed in through the bay windows.

  “Unless you know what to look for,” he told her, “you’ll never know it was there.”

  “I really appreciate it,” she told him. “I feel guilty.”

  “You were shot in the leg. You can’t be bending down and breaking that wound open. You worry us enough when you climb up and down the stairs.”

  “I wanted to sleep in my own bed. With my big revolver at hand.” She drew a breath that thinned her nostrils. “Didn’t entirely work. It’s one thing to know that Parmele
e and Nichols are dead, and another for the feeling of threat to go away.” She glanced off to the side. “Assuming it ever really does.”

  Butler shrugged. “I lived in terror from the moment I was placed in command of Company A. I should never have agreed to lead the men up that hill.” He shook his head. “Funny, isn’t it? I can remember the charge, the Yankee guns and smoke and noise. And then it’s a haze of dreamlike images. I remember pain. And then waking up among a group of prisoners and feeling such relief that so many of the men were still with me.”

  He glanced at where they lounged at the peripheries of the room. Several nodded in reply.

  She rubbed her eyes, looking exhausted. “I think we’re all crazy in one way or another. You hallucinate dead men to soothe your guilt. Philip’s a suffering saint trying to save the world when he can’t even save himself. I turned to prostitution as a way to punish myself for something that wasn’t my fault. And Billy? My God, he’s a…”

  She knotted a fist, knuckles going white. “I should have stayed with him back at the trapper’s cabin. But, damn it, Butler, I couldn’t face it. Day after miserable day. Couldn’t stand the way he’d look at me. It was the horror and pity in his eyes. And then he brought Danny to see, to share…”

  Butler stared into his coffee. “Maybe we’re all bad seeds. Maybe that’s why Maw stuck it out. She was trying so hard to turn us into good people, all the while wondering about the sins of the father, and wondering if they’d come home to roost.”

  “It would break her heart to know about Billy.” Sarah stared dry-eyed into the distance. “And he knows it. That’s why he goes on about his nightmares, about Maw rising from the grave. And God knows what part I play in them. He said I was naked and raped, and I reached for him. Damn, he won’t even look at me when he talks about them. It must be so horrible…”

  “It’s partly my fault.”

  “Yours? How?”

  “I should have talked Tom Hindman out of issuing Order Number 17 that created the partisan rangers. Of all the mistakes, that was the worst.” Butler gestured in futility. “In the end we just turned the people loose on each other. There would have been no Dewley. No Darrow. So what if the Federals had taken the entire state back in sixty-two? Yankees were going to win in the end anyway; and you, Maw, and Billy would still be at the farm. The mills wouldn’t have been burned, northwest Arkansas wouldn’t have been turned into a wasteland. I could have stayed a staff officer, and maybe someone competent would have kept Company A from disaster.”