Summers stepped forward and said in a mild, intelligent voice, “Bring him on inside, Mr. Creel.”
“It looks like the boy has been shot,” Bo said. “The slug left a pretty deep graze on his right side.”
Summers nodded and stepped aside. He was a slender man of medium height, with thinning dark hair and a neat goatee. His thin face usually had a solemn cast to it, probably the result of all the pain and suffering he had seen in his medical career. Bo recalled Summers saying during a previous conversation that he had been a field surgeon for the Union Army during the Late Unpleasantness. Bo and Scratch had stayed out of that war, except for a few times they had given a hand to some Confederate intelligence agents on missions that brought them West. Being Texans, they had supported the South, but they didn’t hold any man’s being a Yankee against him.
Bo carried the youngster on into the house, the front several rooms of which contained Summers’s medical practice. The doctor ushered them into a small room furnished with an examination table and several cabinets full of medicine and medical instruments. A couple of lamps hung from the ceiling so that the table was particularly well lit. Following Summers’s orders, Bo placed the boy on the table and stepped back. He had blood on his hands. Summers handed him a clean towel to wipe them, then bent to examine the wound in the boy’s side.
“My God,” Rawhide said as she crowded into the room along with Scratch. “I know that kid. He’s the Thompson boy. Lester Thompson, I think his name is. His family has a little spread south of here, what some folks call a greasy-sack outfit. They raise horses mostly.”
Summers looked up from the table. “I concur with your diagnosis, Mr. Creel,” he said. “The bullet didn’t penetrate, simply plowed a furrow through the upper layers of flesh, causing blood loss and tissue damage. There was a time when such a wound might have proven fatal due to blood poisoning, but now, as long as it’s cleaned properly and kept clean, I see no reason why the boy shouldn’t recover.” He unbuttoned his shirtsleeves and started rolling them up. “I’ll get started right away.”
Summers cut the rest of the bloodstained shirt away. As he did so, Bo asked, “When do you think he’ll wake up so he can tell us what happened, Doc?”
“There’s no way of knowing,” Summers said with a shake of his head. “He’s passed out from loss of blood. He might come around at any time, or he may not wake up until tomorrow morning.”
He began using a wet cloth to swab away the dried blood around the wound. When he had done that, he soaked another cloth with carbolic acid and started cleaning the wound itself.
That must have hurt, because Lester Thompson groaned and shifted slightly on the table. Summers looked around and said, “You men hold him so he doesn’t move around.”
Bo and Scratch stepped forward to do so. As they gripped Lester’s shoulders, Summers resumed wiping carefully at the wound, which slowly welled blood.
Suddenly, the boy’s eyes popped open, his head jerked up, and he screamed.
A second later, however, it became obvious that he wasn’t screaming in pain, even though what Summers was doing must have hurt. Instead, Lester Thompson cried out, “Injuns! Oh, God, Pa, watch out! Apaches!”
Then his head fell back to the table as unconsciousness claimed him again.
CHAPTER 18
A stunned silence filled the room, broken only by Lester’s strained breathing. Finally, Dr. Summers spoke up.
“Did he say…Apaches?”
Scratch nodded and replied in a bleak voice, “That’s what he said, all right.”
“But I thought…Indians used bows and arrows.”
“They did in the old days,” Bo said, his tone as grim as his fellow Texan’s had been. “Some still do. But the white man taught ’em how to use guns, too…along with a lot of other things they learned from us, like scalping and breaking treaties.”
Scratch added, “Most ’Paches are as good or better with a rifle than most white men. Some of ’em even carry revolvers and can handle them pretty well, although I never saw one who claimed to be a fast draw. They don’t go in for such boastfulness. They take their killin’ seriouslike.”
Rawhide had gone pale under her golden tan.
“There hasn’t been any Indian trouble around here for a long time. Close to ten years probably.”
“What about what happened to Harry Winston’s wife?” Bo asked.
Rawhide grimaced at the memory. “That was just one lone renegade, off on a loco killin’ spree. It’s not anywhere near the same as a war party attacking a ranch.”
“We don’t know for sure that’s what happened here,” Scratch pointed out. “All we’ve got to go on is what one kid said, and he’s probably out of his head from the pain of his wound.”
“Lester Thompson’s a pretty level-headed boy,” Dr. Summers put in, and Rawhide nodded in agreement with that opinion. “I don’t think he would have imagined such a thing as an Indian attack.”
“There’s only one way to find out for sure,” Bo said. “We’ll have to ride out to the Thompson spread and have a look. Let’s head back to the office and inform the marshal.”
“Tonight?” Reilly practically yelped after Bo finished telling him the facts. Bo wished he’d get his nerves under control. Rawhide might start to wonder why the famous fighting marshal was getting so antsy all of a sudden.
Bo didn’t answer Reilly’s question directly. Instead, he asked Rawhide, “How far from town is the Thompson place?”
“Eight or ten miles,” the young woman replied. “It’s pretty much due south of Whiskey Flats, so you can’t miss it.”
“I hate to say it,” Scratch drawled, “but in the time it took that younker to ride from there into town, whatever was happenin’ at his folks’ place got over and done with. We’ll ride out there in the mornin’ and see just how bad it is. Be enough light then to pick up the trail o’ the war party, too.”
Bo nodded. “Scratch is right.” He left unsaid the fact that Lester’s escape was a miracle. The Apaches wouldn’t have left anybody alive out there.
But he wouldn’t say that in front of Reilly, who already looked shaken enough.
Instead, he went on. “For now, it would probably be a good idea if we kept what we’ve heard here tonight to ourselves.”
“You mean we shouldn’t warn the townspeople that the Apaches are raiding again?” Rawhide shook her head. “I don’t like the sound of that. Folks have a right to know if they’re in danger.”
“I don’t think there’s much danger of the town being attacked. Apache war parties are usually small. They target isolated ranches, like the Thompson spread.”
“They ain’t like the Comanch’,” Scratch added. “I recollect a time, back when Bo and me were young, when a giant war party rode down out of Comancheria and raided all the way to the Gulf Coast, layin’ waste to the towns they come to on the way. ’Paches don’t hardly ever do anything like that.”
Reilly said, “But they could.”
Scratch shrugged. “Fella could go plumb loco tryin’ to predict what an Indian will do. You can’t never tell.”
Bo said, “But I can guarantee that if you start running up and down the street yelling about Apaches, you’ll have a panic on your hands, and probably for no good reason. Let us check it out in the morning, and then we’ll figure out what we need to do next.”
Reilly must have realized that he hadn’t been acting like the lawman he was supposed to be, because he squared his shoulders, gave a decisive nod, and said, “That’s exactly right, Deputy. The last thing we need right now is for the citizens of Whiskey Flats to panic. We’ll stand guard all night, though, so that just in case there’s an attack, the town will have some advance warning.”
“Good thinking, Marshal,” Bo said. He had been about to suggest the same thing, but Reilly had beaten him to it for once. Maybe the young man was finally starting to think like the lawman he was supposed to be.
“I suspect that the kid will be awak
e in the morning, if you want to talk to him before we ride out to his parents’ ranch,” Bo told Reilly. “Dr. Summers couldn’t guarantee it, though, and he won’t allow the kid to be disturbed if he’s still resting.”
“I reckon we’ve already got an idea what we’re gonna find out there,” Scratch added. “And it ain’t gonna be anything good…”
The four of them switched off standing guard during the night, two at a time, one at each end of town. Just because the Apaches had attacked a ranch south of Whiskey Flats didn’t necessarily mean that any attack on the settlement would come from that direction.
Since Scratch and Rawhide had worked together before, Bo suggested that the two of them take the first turn before Reilly could suggest that he and the young woman stand guard together. Bo figured that Reilly was too nervous about the Indians to get any romantic notions, and anyway, they would have been at opposite ends of the town, but in the long run it was better not to put temptation in Jake Reilly’s path. He didn’t have a good history of resisting it.
Reilly went to his room in the hotel to get a little sleep. Bo stayed in the marshal’s office and jail, where Chesterfield Pike was still snoring peacefully, if loudly. Like most frontiersmen, Bo had picked up the knack of being able to doze off wherever and whenever he got the chance, so Pike’s stentorian rumbling didn’t disturb him at all. He took off his hat and coat—but not his gunbelt and boots—stretched out on one of the cots, and was asleep in less than a minute.
He slept dreamlessly until Scratch woke him with a hand on the shoulder and a low-voiced word. Bo came awake instantly, fully alert, another trait that most men in the West developed if they wanted to live very long.
“Everything’s quiet,” Scratch reported. “I ain’t seen hide nor hair of any hostiles, and neither has the gal.”
Bo swung his legs off the cot and stood up, stretching muscles that grew stiff every time he slept, no matter how comfortable the bed. That was just one of the prices a man had to pay for growing old.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “I figure it was a fairly small group of bucks. They wouldn’t want anything to do with taking on a town this size.”
“Want me to go wake up the kid?” Bo knew that Scratch meant Reilly.
“No, I’ll do it,” he said with a shake of his head.
Scratch grunted agreement. “I’ll turn in then. I ain’t so young as I used to be. These night watches get to be a mite long and tedious.”
Bo knew the feeling. He put on his hat, shrugged into his coat, and left the marshal’s office. By the time he went out the door, Scratch’s snores were playing harmony with Chesterfield Pike’s.
At this hour of the morning, the street on this end of town was quiet and dark, although a few lamps turned low still burned in a few of the buildings, and the lobby of the hotel was lit up. As Bo passed the alley that ran next to the Morning Glory Café, he glanced along it and saw a light burning in the kitchen window. Velma Dearborn and Ole Borglund were probably in there already, preparing for breakfast. Running a café in a frontier town meant long, hard hours.
At least, the window of the room where Harry Winston was staying was dark. Bo hoped that meant the former lawyer—and future judge, if everything went as planned—was sleeping. Winston ought to be getting over the worst of his sickness soon. Bo hoped that he wouldn’t hear about the Apache raid on the Thompson ranch. Such a reminder of what happened to his wife might set him back and cause him to lose all the progress he had made so far. That was another reason for keeping the news quiet for now.
He went into the hotel lobby, which was deserted at this time of night. Keeping his steps light, Bo ascended the stairs and paused in front of the door to Reilly’s room. He rapped softly on it.
Reilly didn’t answer. Bo knocked again and called, “Marshal? It’s Bo Creel.”
Still no reply. Bo tried the door and found it unlocked. He opened it and stepped into the dark room, feeling his skin crawling as he did so. He had never liked setups like this. His hand dropped to the butt of his gun and his fingers closed around the walnut grips.
A raspy snore came from the bed.
Bo relaxed and grinned to himself. Everybody in Whiskey Flats was sawing logs tonight. The lamps in the hallway were out, but enough light came from downstairs for him to be able to make out Reilly’s sleeping form in the bed. Bo stepped over to him and gave his shoulder a shake.
“Rise and shine, Marshal,” he said.
Reilly let out a howl like Comaches had staked him out on an anthill, and went straight up in the air. “Indians!” he yelled.
Even though Bo was startled, he reacted quickly. He grabbed Reilly, pushed him back down in the bed, and clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Hush!” Bo hissed as he leaned over Reilly, who had started to struggle frantically, clearly confused about what was going on. “Marshal, it’s me, Bo! Settle down now!”
Reilly’s eyes were so wide that a ring of white showed all the way around them. He must have been having a humdinger of a nightmare, Bo thought, probably about being chased by savages.
But as the seconds passed, he stopped fighting. Bo put his mouth close to Reilly’s ear and asked, “Are you all right now, Marshal? You know who I am?”
He felt Reilly’s head bob up and down, and took his hand away from the young man’s mouth. Reilly didn’t say anything, just panted for breath.
Bo hoped the outcry hadn’t waked up half the guests in the hotel. Reilly’s voice had been strangled as he yelled, and even though Bo had understood what Reilly said, maybe anybody who happened to hear it would have taken it for the incoherent yelp some people let out upon waking up from a bad dream. Bo listened intently for any reaction. The rest of the hotel remained quiet and peaceful.
With a sigh of relief, Bo went on. “Time to wake up and stand our turn on guard, Marshal. Scratch and Rawhide didn’t have any trouble during their turn.”
Reilly sat up and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I was dreaming,” he muttered. “This big Indian…as big as Chesterfield Pike…was trying to scalp me.” He looked up at Bo. “Indians don’t grow that big, do they?”
“Some do,” Bo answered honestly, “but it’s rare, just like it’s rare to see a white man as big as Pike. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about an Indian like that scalping you.”
“Why not?”
Scratch was usually the jokester of the pair, but this time Bo couldn’t resist. “Because any Indian that big would probably just pull your arms right off and beat you to death with them.”
Reilly shuddered and didn’t look amused at all.
Reilly’s outburst was the most excitement either of them had the rest of the night. Whiskey Flats continued its tranquil slumber until the sky turned gray with the approach of dawn and folks started moving around. Bo, Scratch, Reilly, and Rawhide met at the marshal’s office, Rawhide knuckling sleep out of her eyes as she came in.
“I stopped by Doc Summers’ place, and Lester isn’t awake yet. Doc says we can’t wake him up either because he needs all the rest he can get. So do we get mounted up and ride out to the Thompson spread to find out what happened?” she asked.
“You don’t,” Reilly said. “We do.”
Bo had discussed the plan with him before they returned to the marshal’s office. Reilly didn’t like it, since it involved him possibly putting himself in danger, but Bo had convinced him there was no way the townspeople would continue to accept him as John Henry Braddock if he shirked his duty.
“I’m not sure this even is my duty,” Reilly had argued. “I’m the town marshal, remember. According to Rawhide, that ranch is eight or ten miles out of town.”
Bo had shaken his head and said, “Doesn’t matter.
You’re the law in these parts now. You handle any trouble that might affect the town, even if technically it’s not in your jurisdiction. That’s why we need to get to the bottom of that rustling business, and we sure can’t let an Apache war party go gallivanting around the
countryside without even at least seeing what they’ve done.”
“Yeah, yeah, I guess,” Reilly had muttered, but he wasn’t happy about it.
Just like Rawhide wasn’t happy now about being left behind. “I told you that I wasn’t gonna let you stick me here at the jail all the time,” she said. “And now what do you do first thing?” She threw her hands in the air in exasperation.
“This is different, Rawhide,” Bo told her calmly. “We may run into a whole band of Apache out there. I’m sorry, but no man is going to let a woman deliberately risk that.”
“Especially not a Texan,” Scratch added.
“Besides,” Reilly said, “we have a prisoner here, remember? Somebody has to keep an eye on Pike. I want to keep him locked up here for another day, if we can, so when you talk to Jonas McHale about a hearing, see if he can’t come up with some reason to postpone it for a day or two.”
“Chesterfield won’t like it, and neither will Dodge Emerson. He’ll have that tame lawyer of his, Carrothers, up here spouting all sorts of habeas corpus malarkey and things like that.”
“You’ll just have to fend him off,” Reilly said. “Tell him that you can’t take the responsibility for making any decisions. Tell him I told you to keep Pike locked up, and that’s it.”
Rawhide continued to fume, but after a few minutes she agreed disgustedly to stay in Whiskey Flats. “But it’s not fair, the three of you ridin’ off to have all the fun!”
As the men headed for the livery stable, Scratch said, “I don’t know what that gal expects us to find out there, but I’m sure as hell willin’ to bet that it won’t be fun!”
CHAPTER 19
They took their Winchesters and plenty of ammunition as they rode out of Whiskey Flats, heading south. McHale wasn’t at the livery stable to ask where they were going, and Bo was grateful for that. He supposed that it was too early for the mayor to be stirring. Old Ike the hostler was there, though, and was clearly curious, but he didn’t ask any questions.
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