by Bill Brooks
She knew he was right. She was already bone-tired. She and the Ranger would be at Johnny Montana’s mercy if he got his hand on the pistol. There would be nothing to stop him from having his way.
He could see the wavering doubt in her eyes.
“You toss me the key, Katie, and let me ride off out of here on the black and send you help. It’s the only way you or him stand a chance. You do that and we’ll all get what we want out of this thing. I’ll be free, and you won’t have to worry about me anymore.”
As much as she dreaded the thought of being stranded, she knew that she could not hold out until the Ranger regained consciousness. The wound had been a terrible one and he had lost a lot of blood. She could not risk falling asleep and letting Johnny get to the pistol.
“Well, what’s it going to be, woman?”
She reached into the lawman’s pockets and found the key to the manacles. She flung them the distance between her and Johnny.
“You unlock yourself,” she said. “But, I swear to you, if you make any move this way, I’ll pull the trigger. I wouldn’t have to be much of a shot to hit you at this distance.”
His grin revealed a row of even white teeth.
“You don’t have to worry about that none, darling. All ol’ Johnny wants is his freedom.” He had the shackles off in seconds.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come along with me, Kate? It will be some adventure, I promise you that, and a damn sight better than facing up to a hangman’s noose?”
His effort at trying to be charming no longer had any effect on her —quite the opposite.
“No, Johnny. I’ve gone as far with you as I am ever going to go. And, if you don’t send back that help you promised, I won’t be surprised.”
He laughed, shook his head. “It’s too bad you have come to feel as you have about ol’ Johnny. I always thought you were a woman of uncommon looks and up till lately, a good companero. But you never were much on grit.”
He started for the black.
“Toss over the two other canteens,” she ordered.
“Could be a long ways to water,” he said.
“That’s not my concern, you’re the one with the horse. We’ll be afoot. We’ll need the water more than you.”
Reluctantly, he did as she ordered.
“Go on,” she said. Go on and ride away from here and don’t come back!”
“It ain’t too late, darling. You can climb on board. I won’t even hurt that boy lying yonder if you want to go with me.”
She pulled the gun up high, aimed it at him.
“I’m losing patience with you, Johnny. Git before I pull the trigger.”
She watched the smile fade from his face, saw the last of the arrogant appeal.
“Have it your way, girl. But looking at what I’m seeing now, I’d say you made a poor choice.” He bashed the heels of his boots into the flanks of the black and rode off into the darkness.
She waited until she could no longer hear the thud of the black’s hooves, until there was only silence. Silence and the low whistle of wind that sounded like the mournful wail of a lonely land.
She took the horse blankets and covered the Ranger and herself. His face was feverish and damp and she poured a little more water from the canteen and dabbed his face with it.
The fire provided little heat and was nearly spent, so she scooped up dirt to put on it. Without the fire, Johnny Montana might have a hard time locating them if he decided to return.
Once the fire was banked, the blackness of the night surrounded her. She felt as cold and lonely and exhausted as she ever had. She knew the only thing that would permit their survival over the next few days would be whatever spare strength she could muster.
She lay down next to Pete Winter, and wrapping her arms around him for warmth, she pulled one of the blankets over her. Just before she felt the last ounce of strength leave her and sleep overtake her, she laid the pistol by her side.
Chapter Fifteen
Caleb Drew did his best to keep himself busy, but Al Freemont kept coming back to nag him time and time again. It was not that he felt particularly close to the old lawman, it was not that. Al Freemont was an irascible old cuss who had come to develop offensive manners and personal habits brought on mostly by his growing penchant for drunkenness.
Nonetheless, Caleb Drew knew his deputy to be a man who had spent the better part of his life upholding the law. And in spite of his own admitted shortcomings: “I ain’t the best shot that ever was,” he had often confessed, “And paperwork leaves me cold,” Al Freemont was a man that would not shirk his duty, and did not, even on his final assignment.
“He always stuck pretty good,” another deputy had said at hearing his fate. “Drunk or sober, happy or blue, Al rode whatever horse was given to him.”
In spite of everything—old, drunken, busted down—Al Freemont still merited the praise and testimony of his fellow lawmen for having upheld his office and duties. Caleb Drew, sitting in the shaft of dusty light of his conventional office, realized that the murdered deputy had been twice the lawman that he himself was, and the thought nagged at him.
At first, when the haunting of Al Freemont had begun, Caleb Drew tended to inwardly justify his own situation as an administrator. His chief responsibility was to see that assignments were made, reports filed, payrolls met, correspondence with the appropriate authorities made, and so forth.
That was his job—to make sure the law got administered. But now, it didn’t seem like enough.
He wore a badge and a cream-white Stetson hat, a string tie and a blue-steel Colt revolver...for all the world, he looked like a U.S. Marshal.
It seemed an illusion.
But still, he had refused to admit the truth to himself.
He had the command and respect of local businessmen, ranchers and politicians. He even had the ear of Judge Parker himself when it came to matters of legal advice. He had a good position in life, appointed by the President of the United States. He had a wife and dutiful children. Why risk it all because of some silly notion that he was a take to himself and others? That was the question that Al Freemont’s death had raised.
A question that begged an answer.
“I’m going to the Nations!” he announced to his assistant, Roy Stove.
“What fer?”
“I need to arrest a fellow.”
“That’s what us deputies are fer, Marshal,” rebutted the assistant.
“Not this time. This is something special.”
The assistant seemed confused, scratched a place under his hat brim and snuffled through his nose.
“Don’t seem right, Caleb, you doin’ a deputy’s work. Just don’t seem right.”
“It does to me, Roy,” said the lawman, removing a holstered pistol from his desk drawer. It wasn’t something he felt all that comfortable with, having never had a real need to use the thing. But, holding it now brought him a sense of himself and his mission.
“I ever tell you that before I became a U.S. Marshal,” he said to the curious-eyed assistant as he strapped the gunbelt around his waist, “that I used to sell barbed wire?”
“No sir, you never did,” replied Roy Stove.
“Yes sir, I sold a lot of barbed wire throughout this country. I was a successful salesman, made good money and had friends in high places. That’s how I come to get this appointment—through well-placed friends of mine.”
“Well, why in the world would you give it up to become a Marshal?” asked the deputy.
“I wanted to become a lawman. It was just something I thought I wanted to be.” He took one of several Winchesters riding in a rack along the wall and two boxes of shells.
“Well, you look set fer bear, Marshal, I’ll say that fer you. But, it ain’t necessary you go out on a job yerself.”
Caleb Drew started for the door but paused as he reached it.
“I know that you and some of the other deputies haven’t thought highly of me as a lawman, not
like Al Freemont was a lawman...”
Roy Stove started to wave a hand in protest, but Caleb Drew cut him off.
“No need to deny or discuss it,” he continued. “Truth is, up until now, I haven’t seen myself as much of a lawman. I reckon it’s time that I see if I can uphold the law as well as I once could sell barbed wire.”
“I reckon you just might, Caleb,” said the deputy with a toothy grin.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, or when I’ll be back exactly,” he told the deputy. “Just don’t let your backside get too fond of my chair, and don’t put any heel marks on the top of my desk. You do, and you’ll have me to answer to.” He stepped outside his office and headed toward the livery to acquire his horse.
Just walking down the middle of the street, well-heeled, with the Colt on his hip and the Winchester balanced in his hand, was beginning to make him feel like a true lawman.
Ardmore, The Indian Nations
She billed herself as THE YALLAR ROSE, and she was the largest soiled dove that ever escaped a gilded cage: three-hundred pounds of Chinese and Mexican with a face as round as a fry pan, arms as big as a miner’s thighs, and feet so dainty that no one could understand how they held her up.
She plied her trade in the Black Moon Club on Second Street. It was the best low place in the Nations and every evening it was beset by the crashing of piano keys under the brown worn fingers of a Negro in a straw boater, blue smoke, the high-pitched laughter of parlor girls, and on occasion, the bang of gunfire.
The Black Moon Club was the sort of place that Eli Stagg knew he could cut the wolf loose in after a long hard ride. And when he spotted the Yallar Rose, he knew he had fallen into good fortune.
He saw her sitting in a chair that seemed lost beneath her bulk, talking to a pair of miners, a cowboy and an Indian. It did not deter his attraction.
“I am Al Freemont and I’m a Federal Marshal,” he announced, over the protesting glances of her court. He pulled the badge out of his pocket and showed it to her, to her audience as well. They suddenly found other places they thought they should be.
She turned her attention toward him. Aside from the powdered face and cheeks rouged as red as apples, she had eyes as black as a horse-thief’s heart.
Upon giving the mountain man the once over, she cried out in a high thin voice: “Waugh, did you come here to arrest me or to screw me?” And then she laughed in a way that shook her entire body and threatened to bust out the sides of the velvet dress she was wearing.
He knew right off he was consorting with the devil. He liked everything about her.
“Ain’t never seen no woman like you,” he said.
“That’s ’cause there ain’t no other woman like me, Marshal.”
“That’s a fact. How about splitting a bottle of champagne?”
“Well gosh and be damned, if you ain’t the one,” she said. The red parting of her lips showed that her teeth had seen better days.
He ordered up a bottle of house champagne and blew the cork clear to the ceiling. It bubbled out of the bottle and spilled over his fingers as he poured it into glasses.
She drank the first glass down in a gulp, and so did he. He poured another and she did the same.
“What’s a high-toned woman like you doing in the Nations?” he asked.
“Same as everyone else, I just wound up here on my way to someplace else.”
“Well have another drink and let’s talk business.”
“Exactly what kind of business did you have in mind, honey?”
“The kind I believe you are selling.”
“You ain’t exactly a romantic man, I can see that,” she said, reaching for the bottle of champagne and refilling her glass.
“And you ain’t exactly somebody’s bride,” he said, foregoing the glass and tipping the bottle directly to his mouth.
“How much you willing to pay for the Yallar Rose?” she asked.
“Well honey, if you ain’t chargin’ by the pound, I reckon I can pay the freight. How much?”
“Judging by the dust on you britches, I’d say it’s been a time since you had a woman,” she said. “I reckon a man whose gone so long without a woman ought to be willing to pay thirty dollars for the privilege of being with the Yallar Rose.”
“Thirty dollars!”
“There’s cheaper around,” she said. “But they ain’t never going to do for you what the Yallar Rose will.”
“I’ll give you ten, not a cent more.”
“Honey, like I said, you ain’t much of a romancing man. Make it twenty and let’s go.”
He reached in his pocket and peeled off twenty dollars and handed it to her.
“This sure better be somethin’.”
“Don’t you worry none, mister, it’ll be a thing of wonderment.”
The next morning, he felt as though his head had been busted in from all the champagne. The Yallar Rose was a sonorous pile of flesh that weighed the springs of the mattress all the way to the floor.
He got dressed and rifled through her clothes until he found the twenty dollars he had given her the night before.
“Damn fool woman must’ve thought I just fell off a hide cart to think she’d clean me for twenty skins,” he said to himself, stuffing the money back into his pocket.
The next thing he needed to do was report in at the local law office, announce himself as Al Freemont, Federal Marshal and see if any Texas Rangers had showed up carrying two prisoners. If they had not, he’d just bide his time until they did.
He clumped down the stairs and saw the bartender sleeping atop the bar, curled up like a baby with his knees pulled up.
A cold morning light was filtering through the windows and the place was as silent as a graveyard.
He stepped outside into a muddy street that sucked at his boots as he walked. Sometime during the night a hard rain had fallen.
The town itself looked rotted and ready to fall down. He’d see the town law, have breakfast, and then just wait.
Chapter Sixteen
Pete Winter awakened from a fitful sleep; it felt to him like he had gone on a long and perilous journey. Waking up was both disappointment and surprise.
Katie Swensen pressed a canteen to his lips and the swill of water assuaged his dry lips and tongue. He swallowed and coughed and fell back into that deep dark place of unconsciousness.
She repositioned the horse blanket over him, wondered what hour it was. The night sky was indigo, the land hidden in blackness. She was trying to fall asleep herself again when she heard the call of wolves, their howl high and mournful. The dead horses were attracting their attention.
Reluctantly, she took the knife and cut more stalks and rebuilt the fire. She could hear something moving about beyond the circle of light, could hear sounds that threatened her nerve. But her resolve was clear: she would not let anything come into camp.
She held the Ranger’s pistol in both hands and cocked the hammer, just as he had shown her.
The growls and snarls drew nearer. She thought that she saw a shadow of something move just beyond the light. She aimed the pistol, holding it as steady as she could, and pulled the trigger. The roar of the shot echoed off into the night, and whatever it was that had been out there had retreated—at least for the time.
The silence that followed the gunshot caused her a deep sense of isolation. The imposing darkness, the threat of unseen creatures stalking the encampment, the severely wounded lawman next to her side—all were the source of a sense of dread for her.
She had resolved, however, that she would not let death come easy, either for her or the Ranger.
She fought sleep to maintain a vigil against the stalking predators. Whenever they came too near, she fired the pistol and they scattered. Whenever the lawman stirred from his feverish sleep, she gave him water. Whenever the fire began to flag, she fed it more yucca stalks. She would not just let “it” happen.
If the lawman died, she told herself, then it would
not matter what happened to her. She knew that she could not make it across this open country alone. She would save one bullet, just in case. If death reached her, she decided, it would reach her by her own hand and not that of another person, or another thing.
She checked the lawman’s wounded shoulder several times. The cauterization had worked, the bleeding had been stopped. She did not know if it would be enough. He seemed so young, the face of a boy in repose.
She stroked his face and held his hand and thought of songs she had sang as a girl and sang them to him in a low soft voice that, at times, was drowned out by the wind or the cry of the wolves.
She turned her eyes heavenward and watched for shooting stars on which to say a wish upon. There were none. Slowly the constellations, some that she had learned as a schoolgirl, passed in slow rotation in the vast night sky.
Something warm touched her face and she awakened to it. It was the rising sun, warm and gentle. Tears spilled from her eyes from the relief and joy that she was still alive. She had fallen asleep next to the Ranger, the pistol still gripped in her hand.
A moment’s joy turned suddenly to a moment’s fear as she remembered the wounded man’s condition throughout the night.
She quickly checked him. His breathing was now even and his skin was cool to the touch once more. The fever had broken. He stirred to her touch. His eyes opened and his mouth turned up into a smile.
“Katie,” he whispered in a dry, weak, voice. He struggled to sit up.
“Don’t thrust about so much,” she cautioned him. “It’s alright. You had a fever in the night, but it’s broken.”
He saw her tears, moved his hand to touch them.
“I’m alright,” she said. “I guess I’m just happy.”
He could feel the dull ache in his shoulder, but the worst of the pain seemed to have passed. He looked around him, remembering.
“Katie, Johnny’s gone!”
“Yes. I let him go. He rode out last night.” She saw the look of confusion in his face.