Blood Lands

by Ralph Cotton

  “Peerly . . . leave the poor woman alone . . . you cowardly little snake,” the sheriff wheezed.

  “Now you’ve hurt my feelings, Daltry, calling me all kinds of names,” Peerly said, his smile going away. “When me and Reese go visit that woman, we’ll be sure and tell her it was you who invited us there.”

  The dying sheriff’s hand tried to crawl to the gun on his hip. But Peerly clamped a boot down on his wrist, pointed the rifle down only inches from his forehead and pulled the trigger.

  “Why didn’t you let me do that?” Reese asked, walking up beside him. “I wanted to help.”

  “Why wasn’t you right up here where it was all going on?” Peerly responded.

  Reese only shook his head, having no answer worth giving. “Think it’s true about that woman? I mean about her not wanting any trouble?”

  “Yeah, it’s probably true,” said Peerly. “She scares awfully easy.”

  “So, are we going to leave her alone?” Reese asked.

  “Hell no,” said Peerly. “If she’s this easy, I plan on going to visit her any damn time I feel like it.” He jacked a fresh round into his rifle chamber, turned and walked back toward his horse. “Drag him off the trail if you want to do something to help,” he called back over his shoulder. “And hurry the hell up; we’ve got drinking money to spend.”

  Shortly after the sheriff had left her house, Julie finished cleaning and reloading her revolver. She checked the rifle and walked to the horse and the mule standing in the half-fallen corral she had patched up with some scraps of timber and fence wire. She saddled the horse and turned the mule loose to graze unhobbled while she was gone. Filling her canteen at the spring, she closed the house without locking it and rode the black to the spot in the woods where Daltry said he’d seen Peerly and Reese.

  After only a moment of deliberation, she nudged the horse forward and followed the two sets of hoofprints off in a wide half circle that she began to suspect would lead her back to the trail toward Umberton. Once she saw that she’d been right, she got a sinking feeling in her stomach. Then, at the point where the tracks rejoined the trail she saw Daltry’s horse wandering amid the tall grass and knew that her bad feelings had been well-founded.

  She collected the horse by its reins and saw the spray of blood on its rump. “Easy, boy,” she said, settling the animal when it reacted to having a strange hand on its reins. She roamed back and forth alongside the trail until she saw a wide smear of blood where the sheriff’s body had been dragged off the trail and out of sight. She stepped down and followed the blood, leading both horses behind her.

  When Julie finally stopped short to keep from stepping on the dead sheriff, she stooped down, looked at his pale, lifeless face and murmured, “God bless you, Sheriff, you did the best you could.”

  She stood up, took down her canteen and then sat in the tall grass, sipping from the canteen until the afternoon sun had dropped low in the west. If she made a camp overnight, she could ride into Umberton before noon the next day. Or, if she pushed hard, leading the dead sheriff across his saddle, she could ride in tonight after dark.

  After considering her choices, she stood up, capped the canteen, and went about the task of raising the limp body upward and over the saddle. After a struggle, she felt the body slide over the saddle and hang there limply until she took a rope from the sheriff’s saddle horn and tied the sheriff securely in place. With her mind made up in favor of the darkness, she stepped up into her saddle. Holding the reins to the sheriff’s horse, she rode on. . . .

  Two hours ahead of her on the trail, Peerly and Reese rode into town just as the sun began to sink in the western horizon. By the time they’d taken their horses to the livery barn and handed them over to Merlin Potts, darkness had taken over the evening sky.

  “Are we going to be having any trouble out of you tonight, old man?” Nez Peerly asked the livery tender, grabbing him roughly by his shirt front. He remembered the day he and Kid Kiley had tried overpowering Julie Wilder in the big livery barn.

  “I—I only do my job, boys!” said Potts, looking frightened. “I try not to go meddling in anybody’s business!”

  “See to it you mean that,” said Reese, pointing a finger in the old man’s face. “You don’t know me. I’ll gut hook you if you do meddle in my business.”

  Peerly turned the old man loose with a shove and said as the two turned to leave, “See to these horses like they’re your own. We’ll pay you when we come back for them.”

  “Yeah, or sometime real soon.” Reese grinned.

  “Cheap bastards,” Potts swore under his breath as they walked away.

  Stepping through the saloon doors, Peerly saw three townsmen look at him and Reese and cut their drinking short. “Don’t nobody walk out that door on us, gawddamn it!” Peerly warned. “I’m damned tired of seeing every sonsabitches’ backside the minute we come in here to get ourselves a little toot.” He spread his arms and herded everybody to the bar. “Besides, the drinks are all on you unless me and Reese here say otherwise. Anybody unhappy with that?” He glared from one drinker to the next.

  At the end of the bar, Councilman Oscar Bales said under his breath to the barkeeper, Jim Addison, “Their attitudes worry me. These two have been up to no good; mark my words.”

  “Yeah, they act like they know there’s no one around to rein them in,” said Addison. He wiped his hands on a towel and headed away along the bar to serve the two militiamen.

  “Set up a bottle of that Philadelphia whiskey that you keep for the town councilmen, and two glasses without fly specks on them.”

  The bartender gave Bales a what-can-I-do look, reached under the bar, brought up a bottle of whiskey and pulled the cork. He set the bottle on the bar in front of the two and produced two shot glasses as if out of thin air.

  “Now, get out of here and give us some room.” Peerly sneered, snatching out the wad of money he’d taken from Sheriff Daltry’s pockets and slapping it atop the bar.

  “Yeah, we’ve got some serious drinking to do,” said Reese.

  Chapter 22

  Constance Whirly had stayed up way past her usual bedtime. She stood looking cautiously out a front window toward the sound of sporadic gunfire and wild laughter coming from the direction of the saloon. Where in the hell are you, Colbert? she asked herself, getting more and more concerned that she hadn’t heard anything from the sheriff since he’d left town the day before. One thing was for certain, he wasn’t within hearing distance, she told herself. Sheriff Colbert Daltry would never stand for this sort of drunken behavior.

  When she heard a sudden knocking at the back door, she turned with a slight gasp. Startled at first, she quickly collected herself, picked up the oil lamp from a table beside the window and hurried through the house, saying aloud, “It’s about damn time, Colbert . . . you worry a person to death.”

  At the sight of Julie on the back porch, Constance was surprised, yet now even more concerned. “Julie Wilder! Get in here!” she said. “There’s fools roaming the streets with guns!”

  “I know,” said Julie, stepping inside with a grim look on her face.

  “What on earth brings you back here? I thought you might never leave Colorado.” She gave Julie a look full of curious speculation. “Did you find Baines Meredith where he said he lived?”

  “I did,” said Julie. “I’ve been living there with him these past few weeks.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Constance, with a trace of a wicked grin.

  “It’s not like you think, Constance,” Julie said. “He taught me some things he thought might come in handy, if I ever came back to Umberton.”

  Constance took on a serious look. “And now, here you are.” She studied Julie’s eyes closer, saw her clouded brow and asked, “What’s wrong, Julie? I see that something bad has happened. Is Baines all right? Because if something has happened to—”

  Julie saw the fear in Constance’s eyes and cut her off quickly. “Baines is fine, Constance,” she
said, taking both the woman’s hands and holding them firmly. It’s Sheriff Daltry . . . I know how close you said the two of you were.”

  “Were?” Constance’s eyes widened; she picked right up on Julie’s choice of words.

  “He’s dead, Constance,” said Julie. “I—I found his body along the trail on the way here. He’s been shot dead.”

  “Oh no, Colbert!” Constance sobbed into her hands. “I knew it, I just knew it.” She shook her head and spoke to him into her trembling cupped hands. “You old fool, I just know you did something stupid and got yourself killed.”

  “I brought his body here,” said Julie. “Forgive me. I didn’t know where else to take him.”

  Calming her grief, Constance breathed deep and said in a crushed voice, “No, dear, you did right. This is where the poor man belongs. I’m the only person he’s ever been close to here. I’ll see to his arrangements.” She sniffled, drew a kerchief from her robe pocket and touched it to her nose. “Can I see him?”

  “Are you sure you want to?” Julie asked gently.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” said Constance.

  Julie picked up the lamp Constance had set on the long kitchen table. She reached out, opened the rear door and ushered Constance out and down to where she’d left the two horses tied to the back fence.

  After only a few seconds of staring at the dead sheriff, Constance turned to Julie and said, “He left here yesterday tracking two of Plantz’s men. They’re the ones who did this. Those murdering bastards!” She clenched her fists in rage. “I hope you came back here to kill these sonsabitches! I hope whatever Baines has taught you is enough for you to—”

  “Shhh,” said Julie, hearing Constance get louder with each word. “We don’t want anybody to know what we’re saying here.” She took Constance by her slim shoulders. “One thing Baines taught me is to keep my intentions to myself. These men masked their faces. I’m masking my intentions.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Constance, sniffling again. “Is Baines coming to help you kill these men?”

  “No, I’m on my own,” said Julie. “That’s why I can’t afford to make my intentions known.”

  Constance looked disappointed. “Are you going to face these men alone?”

  “No,” said Julie, “all I want to do is live in peace. I don’t want any trouble. Can you understand what I’m telling you?” She held Constance firmly by her shoulders, staring into her eyes.

  Constance looked confused and shaken. “No, I suppose I don’t, Julie. You’re making no sense at all.”

  “Then, you’ll just have to watch what happens and keep quiet,” Julie said. “Just remember, if anyone asks, I didn’t come back here looking for any trouble with anyone, all right?”

  “All right,” said Constance, nodding, yet with a look of uncertainty.

  “Good,” said Julie. “I’ll leave the sheriff with you. You can contact the barber and make his funeral arrangements come morning.”

  “Who should I say brought Colbert’s body here?” Constance asked. “Is it going to be all right to use your name?”

  “Yes, I want you to tell him I found the sheriff along the trail. Make no secret of it. I want the militiamen to know I’m back, that I found the sheriff.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Julie,” Constance said in a warning tone.

  “So do I, Constance,” Julie replied.

  All of the townsmen had left the saloon when Julie walked in and crossed the floor to the bar. She took off her leather riding gloves, shoved them down behind her belt and looked back and forth along the empty bar. At the far end of the bar Delbert Reese stood alone, staring back at her with a drunken smirk.

  “Say, I know you,” Reese said with a strange whiskey-fueled gleam in his red eyes. “You’re the colonel’s daughter. Come over here; I want to buy you a drink,” he snickered knowingly. “I figure I owe you one.”

  “Why would you owe me one, Mister?” Julie asked in a clipped tone. “I’ve never seen you before in my life, have I?” She gave him a cold stare and refused to take her eyes off him.

  Finally Reese had to shrug and say in a relenting voice, “Hey, I’m just being neighborly.”

  Only then did Julie look away from him and at the bartender who had stood up from a stool and faced her across the bar. “Pay him no mind, Miss Wilder, ma’am,” the bartender said quietly, knowing her name even though she had never stepped foot into the saloon until tonight.

  “I’ll have a mug of beer,” Julie said, shoving her hat brim up on her forehead.

  Looking all around the empty saloon, the bartender said with a sigh, “Ordinarily we don’t serve womenfolk at the bar, Miss Wilder. But this one and his friend have run everybody off for the night. If you can stand being around them, I’ll buy you a beer myself.”

  “Obliged,” said Julie. She jerked her head toward Reese, and asked, “Is that who was doing all the shooting in the street a while ago?”

  “Yes, ma’am, him and his friend Nez Peerly,” the bartender said. As he spoke he picked up a clean beer mug, stuck it under a tall tap handle and filled it until foam spilled over its edge. “I kept hoping the sheriff would step in any minute and crack both their heads,” he said. He stood the foaming mug of beer in front of her. “But I get a sneaking suspicion they know he ain’t coming around to stop them.” He gave Julie a grim, knowing look.

  She didn’t respond, not knowing this man any better than she knew the rest of the townsmen. For all she knew she could be talking to one of her worst enemies. “Where’s his friend?” she asked, hooking her fingers into the wet beer mug handle. She turned up a long sip of cool beer.

  “He went out back to the jake,” said the bartender. “I expect he got back there in the stench, heaved his guts up and passed out.”

  Julie only nodded. She took another long deep drink of beer, then another, this one almost draining the mug.

  “Well now, that’s some thirst you brought with you, ma’am,” the bartender mused. He picked up the mug and started to reach it over under the tap.

  “One was all I wanted, thank you,” Julie said. She saw Reese watching, listening from the end of the bar. “Now I need to get my horse over to the livery barn and get him stalled for the night.”

  “You’ll be tending your own animal tonight, ma’am,” said the bartender. “Ole Merlin rode out of here the minute all the shooting started. I expect he’ll spend the night under the stars somewhere.”

  “Then I best get started,” said Julie, her voice raised enough for Reese to hear her. “Obliged again for the beer.”

  “You’re most welcome, Miss Wilder,” said the bartender, watching her turn and walk out the door.

  Listening to Julie’s boot heels resound across the boardwalk until she stepped down to the hitch rail, Delbert Reese grinned slyly to himself, raised his shot glass and tossed back a mouthful of whiskey. He waited a few contemplative minutes, then said as he picked up a cork and stuck it into a whiskey bottle, “When my pard gets back, tell him I’m taking myself a for little walk . . . Need to do some thinking.”

  “Sure thing, I’ll tell him,” said the bartender, but under his breath he growled, “I hope he fell down the jake and drowned.”

  At the livery barn, Julie opened the door wide without looking back to see if anyone had followed her. She led the black into the barn and inside the first empty stall she came to. Using the grainy light of a half-moon through the open door, she turned and closed the stall without taking the saddle off her horse.

  From halfway up the street, Reese saw a lantern come to life and glow outward through the open barn door. He stared at Julie from within the darkness as she appeared at the door for a moment and seemed to stare straight at him. Was that an invitation? Reese asked himself. “Damn right it was,” he answered himself under his breath, “whether she knew it or not.”

  Drawing closer, he watched her close the door and step back. But he noted to his satisfaction that she had not
closed it all the way. “Woman, you are toying with me, aren’t you?” he murmured. Taking a deep breath to help clear his head a bit, he walked forward, his whiskey bottle hanging loosely in his hand.

  At the partially open door, Reese looked inside and saw Julie step over and pitch a fork full of fresh hay into the horse’s stall. He grinned to himself again, seeing her gun belt hanging on a wall peg, eight feet away.

  “Now, that is plumb dangerous,” he said to himself, feeling bold all of a sudden. He shoved the door open, stepped inside and slung it closed behind him.

  Julie turned, looking startled. Yet she remained silent, giving a glance toward her gun belt, hanging just out of arm’s reach.

  “Evening again, ma’am,” Reese said, an evil shine to his red-rimmed eyes. “It looks like we just can’t escape one another.” Noting her glance toward her gun belt, he said confidently, “Put the thought out of your mind. I heard all about you and guns.” With his free hand on his pistol butt, he gestured loosely with his whiskey bottle toward the pitchfork in her hands.

  “Mister, I don’t want any trouble,” Julie said.

  “So I heard,” said Reese, remembering the dying sheriff’s words. He knew the young woman was harmless, with or without a gun. It didn’t matter. “You can just drop the fork where you’re standing; get over here and make yourself to home. I’m taking me another taste of you right here and now.”

  A calmness seemed to have suddenly come over the woman, he noted. “Another taste?” Julie asked, letting the pitchfork drop to the straw-covered floor. “You admit that you are one of the ones who killed my father . . . who raped me?” she asked bluntly.

  “Did I say that?” Reese replied, looking surprised at himself. He took a quick blurry-eyed look around as if to see if anyone could hear him. “Ooops!” he laughed, satisfied that they were alone. “Just between the two of us,” he said, keeping his voice lowered and taking a step forward, “you didn’t mind it . . . except when the going got a little rough, did you?”