Between Hell and Texas

by Ralph Cotton

  Dawson protested as the sharp needle slid into his arm. “But I don’t want to be knocked out, Doctor! I want to know what’s going along around me.”

  “Oops, too late then,” said the doctor, plunging the syringe. He smiled, pulling the needle from Dawson’s arm and placing a short strip of gauze on the puncture. He patted Dawson’s forearm. “Don’t worry, I’ve never had a gunfight break out in here.”

  “That ain’t the point, Doctor…” Dawson said, already feeling a silvery gray fur begin to engulf him.

  “You’ll have to tell me about it later,” said Doctor Peck. He laid Dawson’s limp arm across his chest, and stepped away from the bed and out of the room.

  Dawson slept the rest of the day and most of the night, awakening only once for a few moments to the sound of the falling rain on the roof. He stared up at the ceiling, recounting the recent events that had so greatly changed his life. He’d come a long way, from breaking horses and driving cattle, to drinking morning whiskey with the likes of Mad Albert Ash. He pictured the two young men with guns in their hands, then he pictured them as he’d last seen them, both lying dead in pools of their own blood. Shaking his head slowly to put the picture out of his mind he murmured aloud to himself, “Lord, I’ve got to get home…” Then the gray-silver fur returned, taking him back into a mindless world of gentle darkness.

  When Dawson awakened again it was to the feel of a cool, damp rag on his forehead, the same cool damp feeling he thought he’d felt on other parts of his body moments earlier, before the veil of sleep began to lift. Opening his eyes, he looked up at a young woman who stood over him, dutifully washing his face, his throat, his chest. “Who— Who are you?” he asked, coming more and more awake.

  “I’m Suzzette,” said a soft, melodious voice as she continued washing him. “We met before, but you probably don’t remember me.”

  Coming even more awake, it dawned on Dawson that he lay stark naked except for a bandage on his lower belly. His hands went to cover himself as he suddenly tensed up beneath the young woman’s touch. “Ma’am, will you please throw that sheet over me?”

  Suzzette laughed playfully. “Don’t be embarrassed, Mister Dawson. It’s okay. I’m a whore. I see naked men every night of my life.”

  “Still,” said Dawson, reaching out with his right hand toward the sheet and blanket she’d pulled to one side.

  “All right, lie still,” said Suzzette. With her free hand she lifted the sheet and blanket as one and laid them gently over him, just high enough to cover him up to the bandage. “The doctor said for me to keep the dressing uncovered…‘to let it breathe,’ he told me.”

  “Obliged,” Dawson said. Growing more at ease, he looked closer at her face, then said, “Yes, I do remember you now. I met you and another lady at the Big Spur, my last time here.”

  “Yep.” Suzzette smiled warmly. She stopped wiping his chest and said, “That was Lizzy. She and I worked our way here from Missouri. Now she’s gone, and I miss her something awful.”

  Dawson just looked at her for a second, then said, “So, you work for the doctor, taking care of patients?”

  “No, not exactly,” said Suzzette. “I asked him if I could take care of you for a couple of days.” She gave him a coy smile. “Is that all right?”

  “It would be,” said Dawson, “except I don’t need any help, thank you all the same.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Suzzette, “you won’t have to pay me anything.” She shrugged. “I’m just doing this for you, to help you out.”

  “And…?” Dawson asked, encouraging her to speak further on the matter.

  “All right,” she said in resignation. “I was hoping maybe when you leave here you might take me with you.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Dawson. “I travel better alone.”

  She blurted out, “My friend Lizzy left here with Sammy Boy White, and I bet she’s made him real happy he brought her along…that’s what I would do for you, make you real happy, I mean any time you wanted me to. And it would be free. Just think, I’d be good company and a helping hand during the day, and someone you could have your way with of a night, every night for that matter.”

  “Suzzette,” said Dawson, “I wouldn’t envy your friend Lizzy if I were you. Living with a gunman ain’t the kind of life you might imagine it to be.”

  “Oh, I don’t envy her,” said Suzzette. “I just want to be like her. When she said she was leaving with Sammy Boy, I told her she was crazy. But then I saw the way she looked up on that horse, waving back at everybody, the whole world before her. I decided I have to do that, first chance I get.”

  “And I’m that first chance,” said Dawson.

  “Well, is that wrong, for me to want that?” she asked. “All I’m asking for is just one man to sleep with who’ll treat me land, instead of wallowing with every man in town and having them treat me like dirt—most of them drunk half the time.”

  “If that’s the way you feel, what you need to think about is changing your occupation,” said Dawson. “But I can’t take you with me.”

  “Am I not pretty enough for you?” Suzzette said, looking a bit hurt. “Everybody tells me I’m real pretty, especially with my clothes off.” Her expression made it clear that she was willing to step out of her dress if Dawson so desired.

  “Suzzette, you’re a beautiful woman. A man would have to be blind not to see that, with or without your clothes on. But the answer is still no…and believe me, I’m doing you a kindness not taking you with me. I’ve gotten caught up in this gunman’s world and it appears it’ll take some doing for me to get myself out of it.”

  “Get out of it?” she asked in disbelief. “Why on earth would you want out of it? Most men would give anything to get into it!”

  “Not once they saw it from inside, they wouldn’t,” said Dawson. He gestured with a hand at the bandage on his belly. “This is what it’s gotten me so far. This and a peppering of buckshot back in Brakett Flats, and a bullet graze before that.” He offered a smile of irony. “I’m beginning to think of bullet wounds as a way of remembering what day it is.”

  Suzzette smiled. “I heard what happened here,” she said. “You wouldn’t have had to warn Albert Ash. Not many gunmen would have. So, you took that on yourself.”

  Dawson nodded. “All right, you got me there. I’ve always had this problem of trying to do what’s right, no matter what the cost. In this case it got me shot. Still, what was I supposed to do? Let a man get backshot? Then I’d have to live with that from now on.”

  Without realizing why, he began talking to Suzzette about things that had been on his mind. As he talked she nodded and sat down carefully on the side of his bed. Dawson caught himself and said, “Listen to me, going on this way. I reckon it’s just having this belly wound and not being able to get around for awhile. I don’t mean to take up all your time.”

  “Talk about whatever you want to, Cray Dawson,” she said. “I’ll be here for you…for as long as it takes.”

  There was comfort in her words. Dawson found himself relaxing, finding a peacefulness that he hadn’t felt in years. He noted the gentleness of Suzzette as she laid a hand softly on his chest and idly drew circles with her fingertips.

  The following week passed quickly for Cray Dawson. It took very little effort on the part of Suzzette Sherley to convince him he should move from the small room behind the doctor’s office to her larger room in a two-story dwelling house, behind the Big Spur Saloon, that she had once shared with her friend Lizzy Carnes. “Don’t worry,” she’d assured Dawson the day she helped him walk up the stairs to her room. “We never brought any men up here…not customers anyway. This place is just for you and me. Our special place,” she’d said, taking off her bonnet and shaking out her long auburn hair.

  Two days later Doctor Peck stopped by to examine Dawson’s wound and the incision he’d had to make to get in and remove the bullet fragments. Probing the tender flesh carefully with his fingertip, inspecting the thick b
lack stitches where two incisions intersected below Dawson’s navel, he said, “No sign of any infection sneaking up on you. How are you eating?”

  “Good,” said Dawson.

  As if he couldn’t take Dawson’s word for it, the doctor looked for verification at Suzzette over the spectacles perched on his nose.

  “He hasn’t been eating heavy food, but he’s been eating the soups and broths like you told him to,” she said. “I don’t think he’s eating enough yet, but he’s eating.”

  “I haven’t been all that hungry, Doctor,” said Dawson. “I’m not doing enough to give me an appetite.”

  “Oh, really?” This time Doctor Peck gave Dawson a skeptical look, shooting a quick glance toward Suzzette.

  Dawson looked embarrassed. “You know what I mean, Doctor. I’m used to a day’s work, or at least a day on the trail. I’m not used to laying around in a bed.”

  Again giving a quick summary glance at Suzzette, the doctor said, “I would think you might welcome such a change.”

  Letting it pass, Dawson said, “The thing is, Doctor, I’m feeling good. I just need to get up and around. There’s no need in all this attention. It’s a small wound.”

  Raising a finger for emphasis, Doctor Peck said, “Now here is where I can express my authority. It may be a small wound, but the damage it has done can be lethal, if you don’t take care of yourself. This is the sort of wound that can linger for a long time, and even come back years later if you’re not careful. The human intestines are not made up of hickory and rawhide, Mister Dawson.”

  “I’m doing everything you said, Doctor,” Dawson replied. “I’m taking it easy, except for…well, you know.” This time he gave a short glance in Suzzette’s direction. She busied herself tucking up a loose strand of hair as if not hearing them.

  “I’m not opposed to a man doing that,” said the doctor, “although I can’t see how, given the pain. But I suppose a man finds a way?”

  Dawson let his question go. “I’m eating good enough for now, Doctor. That’s all you wanted to know, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but appetite is no small thing. How you’re eating is most important in keeping a check on these sort of wounds. Your damaged innards can fool you. A man loses his appetite, maybe it’s from lack of activity, but maybe it’s from this wound keeping his belly just enough upset that he doesn’t have the desire to eat. Doesn’t feel hungry. Has no taste for food, so to speak.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” said Dawson. “I promise, I’ll eat, even if I’m not all that hungry at the time.”

  “Yes,” Suzzette added, “and I’ll be there to see that he does.” She smiled and held her hand down to him. “Right, Cray?”

  Doctor Peck noticed that Dawson didn’t answer her, although he did take her hand and squeeze it firmly.

  “Well, I’ll be back in a couple of days to remove this bandage and take these stitches out,” the doctor said, standing up to leave. “Then I want you to start getting up and around some.”

  When two more days had passed, Cray Dawson held Suzzette’s hand mirror down and looked at the two healing incisions on his lower belly, and said, “Look, it’s a cross. Do you suppose the doctor intended it, or it just happened that he had to cut it this way?”

  Suzzette studied the healing wound and said, “I don’t know. Then, after consideration, she said quietly, “I’ve never been a very religious person, but the night I came to your room in the doctor’s office, I prayed that you were going to be all right.” She blushed slightly. “This might sound silly, but I think maybe this cross is a sign.”

  “A sign,” said Dawson, with no expression.

  “Yes, you know?” said Suzzette. “A sign that you were going to live and get well.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean by a sign,” said Dawson. “But I don’t think this wound was all that bad.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” said Suzzette. “You’re alive though. I call that an answer to my prayer, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I suppose.” Dawson felt uncomfortable. “I’m not an answer to anybody’s prayer, Suzzette. I don’t want to give you that impression.”

  “I can make my own impressions, thank you,” Suzzette said, offering a smile. “The thing is, I prayed for you to live…and you did live. Now I have a special promise I have to keep because of that.”

  Dawson tried to let the conversation go, hoping she would do the same. “Suzzette, you don’t need to keep any promises on my behalf.”

  Suzzette looked shocked. “But of course I do! I promised that if you lived I would find a way to quit doing what I do.” She smiled again. “See? You’ve had a big influence on me, Crayton Dawson. Whether you meant to do it or not, you have come very close to making an honest woman out of me.”

  Dawson didn’t know what to say. He’d made up his mind that he was leaving for Somos Santos in two more days. Now he had to figure the best way to tell her. He had made her no promises, yet it seemed that promises had been made; and though she would deny it if he brought it up, he knew she expected something from him, something he knew he couldn’t give, even if he wanted to.

  The conversation was stopped by the sound of a knock on the door, and the voice of Sheriff Neff saying from atop the stairs, “Suzzette, Dawson, it’s me, Neff, open up, it’s important I talk to you, Dawson.”

  Suzzette gave Dawson a questioning look. He nodded and said in a lowered voice, “Go on, let him in.”

  As soon as Suzzette opened the door Sheriff Neff stepped inside and turned, looking back over his shoulder toward the back of the Big Spur Saloon. Dawson stood up and looked past the sheriff to the alley below to see what held the sheriff’s attention down there. “Well, just as I said, Dawson, having you around is drawing trouble,” said the sheriff, finally closing the door after one last look along the dirt alley below. “There’s a cousin and a half brother of one of those boys Mad Albert killed. They’re here and they’re out for blood.”

  Dawson stared at the floor letting out a tired breath. “There just ain’t any end to it, is there, Sheriff?”

  “None that I ever saw,” said Neff. “One killing brings on another. Everybody has some kin or other who has to be as foolish as the one he’s come to avenge.”

  “Do these men know it was Mad Albert who did the killing? That those two were about to backshoot him, just to be able to say they did it?”

  “I told them, or I tried to tell them,” said Neff, “but it went straight through their ears, the shape they’re in. They’re both red-eyed drunk and armed to the teeth.” He shook his head, then said, “Boy oh boy. I suppose you’re starting to understand why I don’t like having gunfighters around, ain’t you?”

  Before Dawson could reply, Sheriff Neff cut in, saying with a twist of sarcasm, “Of course, you’re going to deny being a gunman, but just ask yourself: would these two be in town right now, had it not been for you and Mad Albert being here in the first place?”

  “You don’t have to hammer the point, Sheriff,” said Dawson, standing up stiffly, and reaching for his gun belt.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” asked the sheriff.

  “To straighten this out,” said Dawson. “I’ll get them to listen to reason on this thing before anybody else gets killed.”

  “Uh-uh,” the sheriff said, “I came here to warn you, to keep down any more bloodshed, not to cause more of it!”

  Dawson started to say more on the matter, but before he could a voice called out from the alley below. “Cray Dawson! We know you’re up there with the whore! Come down and let’s get settled up.”

  Sheriff Neff looked stunned and said, “I swear I was careful to make sure I wasn’t followed here.”

  “It’s like you said, Sheriff,” Dawson commented, raising his Colt and checking it as he spoke. “Word travels.”

  “Let me try to talk them away from here,” Neff offered.

  “No,” said Dawson. “It’s my mess, whether I meant to make it or not. I’ll clean it up.”r />
  “Sheriff Neff, stop him!” Suzzette pleaded, seeing Dawson step over to the door and start to open it. “He’s in no shape for this!”

  Dawson stepped out onto a small platform atop the wooden stairs and looked down at the two enraged faces staring up at him.

  “Then I’ll stop him!” Suzzette shouted.

  “Hold it, Suzzette!” The sheriff grabbed her around the waist and held her back as she tried to run out onto the platform behind Dawson. “You can’t go out there now. It’s commenced.”

  With a firm grip on the long wooden banister, Dawson eased down one cautious step at a time, his right hand poised an inch from the butt of his Colt. “I didn’t kill either one of those men,” he said.

  “You be Crayton Dawson?” one man asked, looking up at him.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” said Dawson.

  “I’m Bob Pulley,” said the big, burly man wearing a long deerskin riding duster that hung to his boot heels and carried streaks of mud and other matter around its bottom edge. “Clifford Tillis was my beloved cousin.”

  “And my beloved brother,” said the other man, thumbing himself on the chest. He was a shorter, slimmer version of one of the men Ash had dropped dead in the street. He wore a large gold earring that caused his earlobe to sag with the weight of it. “I’m Bennie Tillis.”

  “I want you to know the names of the men who killed you, Crayton Dawson,” said Bob Pulley.

  “If you want to know what happened, your brother and his friend got what they came here looking for,” said Dawson to Bennie Tillis.

  “Save it, Dawson,” Pulley replied for both him and Tillis. “We already heard how it happened from the man at the livery barn. He told us we’d find you here, laid up with some whore while my poor cousin is stuck in the ground.”

  “Yeah, my brother!” Tillis repeated, once again thumbing himself on the chest.