Letter Of The Law

by C. J. Crigger

  Dropping his unfinished bacon on the plate, he rose to his feet. "Sheriff Birdsall bad off?"

  "Yes. He's fallen out of bed, and I can't lift him. He's bleeding again."

  He heard a sob catch in the back of her throat, and her hand went there as though to hold the sound in. Scared, he thought.

  "Just tell me what you want done," he said, "and I'll do 'er."

  She whipped around. "Come with me."

  For a little woman, she covered ground in a hurry. Tuck took long strides, and he still couldn't keep up with her. Almost before Tuck could set foot in the room, she was already on her knees beside the sheriff where he lay sprawled on the floor.

  Blood seeped out from under Birdsall's body, staining the smooth pine boards. A lot of blood.

  "Quick," Mrs. Birdsall said. "You take his shoulders, and I'll get his feet. Be gentle now. Don't jostle him."

  Tuck was surprised when she bore her share of the sheriff's weight like a trooper. He guessed there must be truth in that old tale about fear lending strength. Once they had the sheriff on the bed where he lay limp as a new-killed deer, they stood gazing down at him. But for all the way she'd taken command a moment ago, she now seemed paralyzed. She clasped her stained hands beneath her chin, her face nearly as white as her husband's.

  "Best get the doc," Tuck suggested, gentle as he knew how. Should've mentioned a priest, he thought, or the pastor, in case there was one in town.

  "Yes." Clearly she was reluctant to leave the wounded man's bedside. "Could you..."

  Tuck wasn't plumb crazy. "Not me, ma'am. Anybody sees me loose, they'll figure I'm out to escape and shoot me down. Might even ask for a reward." He'd heard the Garnet County commissioners were bent on running the outlaw element out of the county. Meanwhile, the outlaws were just as determined to stay. He suspected this was why Birdsall had been shot.

  Her dark blue eyes raised to his. "Then will you keep an eye on him while I go?"

  "Me? You trust me? Aren't you scared I might run off?"

  She spared a faint smile. "I guess if you'd wanted to run, you already missed your best chance."

  Feeling foolish, Tuck replied, "Yes, ma'am. I reckon I did. Hadn't et my breakfast yet. 'Sides, I got no money and nowhere to go. Jail ain't so bad."

  He guessed it was agreement of sorts. She must've thought so because she said, "Thank you. I'll be right back." She spun around and dashed out of the room, fast as a trout can take a bug.

  Left alone with the sheriff, Tuck leaned over the bed and peered down. Birdsall's lips were as pale as his face, a sure sign he'd lost more blood than was safe. Looked like the pad his missus had bound over the wound was slowing the flow some, although Tuck thought it might be a case of too little, too late.

  Not knowing what else to do, he dragged a low rocking chair from along the wall to the bedside and sat down, hands dangling between his knees. He saw the sheriff's colorless lips moving and bent closer to hear the faint, slow voice.

  "Look after my wife," Birdsall whispered.

  Tuck reared back. "Your wife? Me?"

  "Until I'm up." The sheriff spoke slowly, halting for breath after each word. "See she doesn't get hurt."

  "Why me?"

  "You don't fool me, Moon." A tremor shook Birdsall from head to toe. "Boomer can't help her. You can." At that, his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.

  Tuck about had a conniption for a minute, thinking the sheriff had cashed in his chips, but then he saw the minuscule, shuddering rise and fall of Birdsall's chest under the sodden bandage. Although Tuck was sweating, he dragged the blanket bunched at the end of the bed up and drew it over the unconscious man. He'd lost blood a time or two himself and knew how it made a body grow cold.

  Now why'd the sheriff go and say a thing like that? Tuck wondered, seating himself in the rocking chair again. Why tell him to look after Mrs. Sheriff? He noticed he'd been told, not asked. But why not the deputy? On the other hand, he guessed he knew why Birdsall hadn't appointed Herschel. Still, he'd druther the sheriff picked somebody else. Most anyone would be better than miserable Tuck Moon.

  Muscles flickered in Tuck's face. There wasn't anybody lower than a gunfighter without a gun--unless it was a man who'd lost his self-respect. The shooting of a beardless sixteen-year-old boy, even with the boy shooting at him point-blank, haunted him. There was no redemption possible for a man like him.

  Too late. The words echoed through his mind.

  Sighing, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the chair to wait for Mrs. Birdsall's return with the doc.

  Now what should he do? Dad gummit! The sheriff's request was enough to make a man think again about scuttling off to the hills.

  * * * *

  Delight ran flat out along the street, disregarding the way Arnold Bower at the bank shook his head upon spying her bloodstained dress and hands.

  "Have you seen Doc?" she stopped to ask.

  "Not this morning." Bower's expression grew anxious. "Has the sheriff taken a turn for the worse?"

  Delight sped on without answering, only to stop outside the drugstore and call through the open door to the druggist inside. "Have you seen Doc?"

  She could hardly miss the meaningful glance the druggist exchanged with his customer, a vacant-eyed woman clutching a new bottle of Lydia Pinkhams.

  "I'm afraid not. If I were you, I'd check O'Hanlon's place," he said, taking the woman's money. "That's his usual hangout."

  From what she knew of Doc, his advice made good sense. She hurried on, her gaze darting here and there, as though to cut through the walls of the wooden buildings until she found her prey.

  Delight spied a young swamper a few doors beyond the drugstore, where he desultorily swept dirt off the step leading to O'Hanlon's Saloon. She smelled the thin layer of clean sawdust he'd already spread over the tobacco-stained floor as he cleared the mess left from last night. The boy cocked a thumb toward the bar's interior at her repeated inquiry about Doc Miller.

  "He's in there," he announced. "Drunk as a hoot owl. Like always. Been here all night, I guess. He ain't no good to anyone, shape he's in."

  Peering over the kid's shoulder into the dark and dreary barroom, Delight spied the figure of a man slumped at a table littered with shot glasses and a brown bottle turned on its side. He'd buried his face against his folded arms, and he was snoring loudly enough to rile the horses in the livery corral next door. She recognized the clothes Doc had been wearing last night, right down to the stain on his left trouser leg. Pelham's blood. He must have come here directly from Pel's bedside.

  "Doctor Miller." Her call drew no response. Knowing Pel wanted to protect her from the more sordid aspects of town life, she'd damped her curiosity about such places. She'd always refrained from casting so much as a sideways glance into any of the several drinking establishments lining the streets of Endurance, especially the Bucket of Sudz, a joint of ill-repute if she'd ever heard of one. But that was before. Needs must.

  Pushing through the batwing doors of O'Hanlon's, she entered, wrinkling her nose against the odor of stale booze, stale tobacco, and even staler men. The fresh sawdust smell gave bare competition. Marching across the room, she went over and grabbed Doc's arm, giving it a hearty shake. "Doctor Miller, wake up. Sheriff Birdsall needs you."

  Doc's head thumped from his arm onto the table. His eyelids never flickered, his snores never ceased. An almost tangible haze of alcohol hung over him.

  Drunk, indeed. Anger flared along her nerves. Old sot. Why'd he have to go on a toot now?

  A bucket of cold gray water stood on the bar, a cleaning rag hanging half in, half out. Delight stomped over and, snatching the bucket up, brought it back to Doc and dumped the contents over his head, rag and all.

  "Hey," the swamper, having followed her in, protested. "That was the lye soap water I use for washing off the tables."

  "You can draw more," Delight said, watching Doc snuffle watery bubbles out of his nose. Then he gave a giant snort a
nd leapt up, eyes weeping from the sting of the soap. He stumbled against Delight.

  "What the--" he croaked, scrubbing at his eyelids with the backs of his hands.

  "Wake up, Doc. This is an emergency. My husband--Sheriff Birdsall--needs you."

  "Birdsall?" Doc shook his head and groaned. Propping himself against the table, he swayed, trembling like a birch in a breeze. "Figured he'd be dead by now."

  "Well, he isn't." Delight felt the tendons along her clenched jaw knot and strain. "And he won't be if I have anything to say about it. Come with me. Where's your medical bag?"

  Doc stared at her, his gaze vague and unfocused, and waved a hand toward the chair he'd been sitting in. She saw his bag beneath it, stuffed between the rungs.

  "I suspect he could use a dose of laudanum if he isn't dead," he said. He picked the brown bottle from the table and shook it. "And I need a drink."

  "I hardly think..." Delight began, but Doc, with manners more appropriate to a hog rooting for its dinner than an educated physician, pushed past her toward the bar.

  "No, ma'am. I need the drink," he said. He sighed and looked down at his hands, head bobbing. "Hair of the dog. Helps the shakes."

  Hair of the dog? Delight wondered if that mean he was so drunk he wouldn't be able to function. His eyes were as red as the fresh blood on her dress, and she knew it wasn't all caused by the lye soap. Her heart sank. Damn him! Pelham needed his help so badly.

  Doc reached behind the scarred old mahogany bar, found another of the brown bottles, and poured a convenient glass half full of clear amber fluid. Teeth clamped, he sieved the raw whiskey through them, shuddering as he swallowed. Tossing two-bits on the bar, he turned to find Delight, her lips compressed into an angry line and tapping her toe, waiting for him, his bag in one hand.

  "I'm ready," he said, and just as though he were sober and fit as a circuit-riding Methodist preacher, he led the way outside, squinting and blinking in the bright sunlight.

  Delight caught hold of his coat tail. "This way," she said, when he would have gone opposite. Disgusting, incompetent, dissolute--but he was all there was. In a voice as hard as ice and just as frigid, she said, "Watch what you're about, Doctor Miller. If my husband dies, I'll hold you responsible."

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  Tucker Moon, on the watch at Pelham Birdsall's bedside, perked his ears as footsteps sounded downstairs in the office. The clatter of heels on the puncheon floor was audible all the way to the bedroom. He wondered how the Birdsalls ever slept on nights the sheriff hauled in three or four cantankerous drunks who like as not cursed, puked, and sang themselves to sleep with ribald songs.

  Shrugging, Tuck rose from the rocker, relieved his watch was over. Mrs. Birdsall must've had a hard time finding the doc, she'd been gone so long.

  But then, though he listened, there was no sound of anyone talking or mounting the stairs. He light-footed it out of the bedroom and down the hall to the landing. From there he had a view of the desk in the jailhouse's front room, enough to see a pair of large, dirty boots propped across the paper-littered top. The boots were worn by feet crossed at the ankles, and they in turn were attached to brown-trousered legs. Tuck had seen the britches before on the hefty form of Deputy Boomer Herschel.

  Apparently Herschel, as unobservant as ever, hadn't thought to check on the prisoner because there'd been no hullabaloo about the empty cell. A good thing. He could imagine what the deputy's reaction would be. Herschel wouldn't turn a hair at gunning old Tuck Moon down with that pistol the deputy wore slung around his hips, no explanation asked. He'd try, anyway, Tuck thought with grim humor. He reckoned he'd have a little something to say about it.

  Herschel wasn't showing much concern for the sheriff, either, come to think on it. Not even enough to climb the stairs and inquire if the sheriff had made it through the night, let alone see if he could help the missus with anything. Tuck grimaced. He guessed that was why Birdsall had said what he did to Tuck about taking care of his missus. Hadn't made much sense then, but it seemed a little clearer now.

  Tuck went back to watching the sheriff. Inside a scant minute or two, the noise of Herschel's snoring drifted up the stairwell. Tuck might've felt inclined to join him, given the peace of the quiet bedroom, if it hadn't been for the distressed whisper of Birdsall's breathing. Made him right nervous, that did. He looked around, noticing the way the sun sparkled through a spotless window, and how the scent of lemon and lavender, fragrances he remembered from his ma's flower garden many years in the past, permeated the room. He reckoned if he was to get up real close to Mrs. Birdsall, he'd discover that was her scent, too. Soft and flowery, yet sharp with a little acid bite.

  Tuck like to shot out of his boots when something landed smack dab in the middle of his lap. Something that made him chuckle when he got a good look at it, even though a set of razor sharp hooks latched into his thighs made him wince.

  "Where'd you come from?" he asked the little white-and-gray cat. The creature squeaked a reply, disengaged its set of claws, and turned in a circle before curling in a ball and settling down. He placed his hand on its soft fur, stroking lightly. When he looked up from the cat, the sheriff had awakened again. Birdsall's eyes were open, but hazy and confused looking.

  "My wife?" Birdsall whispered.

  Tuck leaned forward. "Gone for the doc. Oughta be back any minute."

  "Hurts," Birdsall said. His eyes closed again. He didn't stir as, right on top of Tuck's assurance, a door slammed in the room below.

  "Get your feet off that desk," Tuck heard Mrs. Birdsall say. "You're getting dirt on Pelham's paperwork."

  Tuck was gladdened by the sound her voice. A second later, a double thud told of feet landing on the floor. He grinned a little. That would be the lemon part, the acid bite, coming out in Mrs. Birdsall. He figured this wasn't a good day to cross her. Guaranteed, he didn't intend to.

  "Hurry, doctor," she said. "Pelham was bleeding again when I left, and I've been gone a long time."

  Doc mumbled something, and there was a clunk as a man knocked against the wall hard enough to rattle the handrail. A pithy curse resounded in the closed space.

  "Be careful," Mrs. Birdsall said. "I don't want you falling down these stairs." And a few seconds later as they drew closer, Tuck heard, "Here we are."

  She pushed into the bedroom past the doc, rushing forward and dropping to her knees beside the bed. She touched her husband's cheek, felt his forehead--and frowned. Doc, panting and sweating and looking sick as a poisoned coyote, dropped his bag on the floor and swayed unsteadily as he bent over the patient. A few seconds later, Herschel appeared, clumping along at the rear.

  "How is he?" Mrs. Birdsall asked, looking up at Tuck. "Has he been awake at all?"

  The question went by the wayside as a pistol barrel was shoved up against Tuck's ribs. Shoved hard, too. Herschel! Tuck might've known. He jumped and grunted, then several things happened more-or-less all at once.

  The cat leapt off his lap and disappeared under the bed as Tuck flung up his hands. But, at the same time, he rocked the chair violently backward, feeling a crunch as Herschel's toe got caught under the runner. Tuck's raised hand slapped the pistol aside and then, as if by accident, he grabbed the barrel, forcing it down. The gun fired, the bullet burning a crease in the chair seat right next to Tuck's thigh. It went on to create a hole in the bedroom floor, but missed any of the room's occupants.

  Sheriff Birdsall groaned, twitched, and tried to rise.

  "Get off. Get off my toe," Herschel yowled, trying to yank his foot free and damn near upsetting the rocker with Tuck still in it. "Son of a bitch!"

  He about deafened Tuck, whose ear was too close for comfort.

  Herschel trying to be a gunman was downright laughable--except Tuck wasn't laughing. He stood up and took the pistol away from the deputy.

  "Mr. Herschel," Mrs. Birdsall said, all prissy-like, "I'll thank you to watch your language. And please keep the noise down. My husband is too il
l to be disturbed by your foolishness. The idea...shooting off a gun inside a sickroom!"

  "My foolishness?" Boomer yelled in reply. "What the hell're you yammering about? Ma'am, this here desperado has escaped from the jail downstairs. Looked like he was getting ready to shoot Sheriff Birdsall."

  A day late and a dollar short, that was the deputy, all right.

  "Don't be ridiculous." Mrs. Birdsall wagged a forefinger at Herschel. "You're the only one brandishing a gun. See that it doesn't go off again." She turned to the doctor, who stood there looking like his head ached something fierce. "Well?" she told him. "Get busy."

  Her blue gaze returned to Tuck. "Did Pel wake up?" she asked again.

  Tuck, not knowing what else to do, handed Boomer Herschel the pistol. "Yes, ma'am," he told Mrs. Birdsall. "For just a minute."

  "Did he say anything?"

  Tuck nodded. "Said he hurt. Asked where you was."

  "Oh." Her generous mouth turned down. "And I wasn't here."

  "He wasn't awake for more 'n half a minute," he said. With the deputy standing right here, he didn't think he'd let on about the sheriff being wakeful twice, enough so to tell him to look after her. Birdsall had probably been out of his head when he said it. That's all Tuck could figure. Most likely, he wouldn't even remember. 'Sides, Tuck wasn't real good at taking care of himself, let alone a woman like Mrs. Birdsall. He didn't know anything about women of her kind--or any other kind, for that matter.

  Mute, he pushed the chair up close to the bed so Mrs. Birdsall could sit down. She ignored the gesture, keeping a sharp watch on the doctor, muscles visibly tensed, as if to leap forward in case the old drunk started to fall over on his patient. Meanwhile, the doc wasn't paying anyone but the sheriff any mind.

  "Hand me another one of those straws," Doc muttered. "Crazy galoot ruined this one. Wonder he didn't run it right through his lung."

  Mrs. Birdsall hastened to rummage through his bag for the straw.

  Herschel had the wit to shove his.36 in the holster and muffle his complaints about his sore toe, although the hard stare he aimed at Tuck said plenty. The deputy's crushed appendage couldn't be any sorer than Tuck's ribs anyhow, and he didn't believe those were worth mentioning in the same breath with the sheriff's injuries.