Blood on the Hills

by Matt Chisholm

  Supposing Charlie was right and Shawn still had friends outside who would want to break him out of jail. There was danger too from the town itself. Beyond that, if he lived to see it, would be the routine work of a county sheriff—the collecting of taxes and all number of things beyond Jody’s understanding or knowledge. Maybe it would all be up to him.

  He started to sweat.

  Don’t die, Froud, he thought. He stared at the still form, willing the life to stay in it.

  After a while, a fist pounded on the door and Charlie’s voice bellowed for him to open up. He dropped the bar and opened the door. Charlie walked in, glared and said: “You’re crazy to open that door without a gun in your hand. Maybe some fellers had me covered.”

  However, on this occasion, he had with him only a Mexican woman. At first glance, Jody didn’t rate her high. Just another Mex woman. Then he caught the brightness of the fine eyes and saw her walk when she went across the office and stood by Froud’s bed. He replaced the bar and watched her as she dropped on her knees beside Froud.

  There wasn’t any doubt in his mind then. This was Froud’s woman. Her small shapely hand was on his forehead. Her anxious eyes were turned on Charlie.

  “By God,” she said, “when will these men stop playing around with guns like small boys?”

  He could see that Charlie didn’t understand the Spanish.

  Jody said: “When the law-breakers stop using them, senorita.”

  She showed surprise.

  She stood—“Señor, I am Consuelo Rodrigo.” There was the air of a grand lady about her as she said this.

  Jody had his manners. His mother had seen to that. He gave a small bow.

  In English, he said: “Proud to know you, ma’am.” He gestured to the sheriffs still body. “Anythin’ you can do for him, ma’am?”

  “First, we must break the fever. We need boiling water and hot bricks. I have herbs here with which to make a brew and with which to dress the wounds.” She smiled faintly. “I am the local witch,” she added. “The people fear me, but they come to me.”

  He never thought witches looked like this one, nor had eyes like this.

  “There’s a pump inside yonder,” Charlie said.

  Jody went through into the cell area. Shawn was standing at the grill of his cell, gripping bars with both hands.

  “You aim to starve me to death before you hang me?” he demanded.

  “When I think Froud has a chance,” Jody told him. “I’ll feed you.”

  Shawn looked interested and amused.

  “You mean he’s like to die?” he demanded.

  Jody didn’t waste any more time on him. He toted the water into the office and put wood on the stove. The woman was inspecting Froud’s wounds, sucking breath in through her teeth as she exposed each of them.

  “That doctor,” she said, “should be a butcher. I never saw human flesh like it. How do they call you, young gentleman?”

  “Jody Storm, ma’am.”

  “How sharp is your knife?”

  “Like a razor.”

  “Make it sharper and prepare your nerves. The sheriff must be cut. This flesh is bad.”

  Jody didn’t like the sound of this. Did this woman know what she was about? He looked at Charlie. The deputy shrugged which maybe meant he didn’t trust and he didn’t distrust her. Certainly there was nobody else around here who could help the sheriff.

  Jody didn’t enjoy the next hour or so. Consuelo Rodrigo certainly had tougher nerves than he did. She went about her work surely and coolly. The sweat stood out in little beads on her upper lip. She seemed to take her eyes only from Froud’s face when she demanded the two men hand her something. It was as if she were reading it to gauge his strength. Once, when she was using the knife, Froud started to go out of his head and both Charlie and Jody had to hold him down by his shoulders and legs while she worked. When it was over Jody felt drained.

  Consuelo herself was exhausted and sank back on a chair. She wiped the perspiration from her face.

  “I have done all I can do,” she said. “Now we must wait.”

  Charlie shuffled his feet.

  “We need you, Consuelo,” he said, “one of us’ll come.”

  “I shall stay,” she said.

  “Now, see here, this ain’t…”

  “I shall stay,” she repeated. And that settled it.

  Froud had stopped raving and now was either sleeping or unconscious. His breathing was alarmingly shallow.

  It was hot in the office. Every now and then Shawn would bellow for food. Several times Charlie took a look at the street. Tonight would be the time, he said. Then if there was going to be trouble with the townsfolk, they would see the first signs of it. Maybe it would take them a couple of days to get to boiling point. At this moment, Shawn’s friends in town would be measuring the pulse of the place, choosing their own good moment. Charlie didn’t seem in any doubt that it would be a race between the two factions.

  They had another sort of trouble, which they should have foretold.

  Around noon, when Charlie had fetched food for the three of them and for the prisoner, they ate and soon after that when Charlie was starting to think of various ways Shawn’s friends could think of breaking him out and the others in town could plan to get a noose around his neck, they heard men’s voices outside their door. Knuckles rapped on the wood.

  “Open up, Charlie.”

  The deputy looked alarmed.

  “Jumpin’ Jehosiphat,” he exclaimed. “This is somethin’ I should ought to of thought of.”

  “Who is it?” Jody demanded.

  “The mayor.”

  “What’s so wrong about the mayor?”

  “He ain’t a-comin’ in. Nobody ain’t a-comin’ in. Froud said not. Good enough for me.”

  “Heck,” said Jody, “what’s so wrong about the mayor comin’ in? This is his town.”

  Charlie looked mad.

  “This is the county jail. The goddam town don’t come into it.” He rose and walked to the door.

  “Who you got with you, Mr. Mayor?” he asked politely, winking grotesquely at Jody.

  The voice replied: “The county commissioners. Open up, Charlie.”

  Charlie said to Jody: “I’m a-goin’ out there to talk with them, boy. You drop the bar after me. Hear?”

  Jody thought this was a lot of fuss about nothing, but he agreed. Charlie picked up his shotgun, dropped the bar and slipped out. Jody put the bar back in its bracket.

  Almost at once he heard angry voices raised outside. Charlie was laying down the law, but the rest of them were doing the same and by the sound of the voices there were four or five of them. Charlie didn’t sound as if he was getting the best of it.

  A voice shouted: “You can be fired like any other man, Charlie. Don’t you fool yourself about that.”

  “Nobody can’t fire me but Froud,” Charlie roared back. “An’ Froud said nobody was to come in here. An’ nobody don’t come in here.”

  They swamped his voice with authoritative demands. In a couple of seconds fiat, Charlie was getting the worst of it. Nobody could blame him for that. These men were, at the end of the day, his employers. Froud was on his back. And, if Jody read the signs right, Froud ran this county in his own iron way. The time had come for these men to have their own way.

  Jody reckoned he owed something to Froud. He wasn’t quite sure what, but something. Beside that, he didn’t like the way they were pushing Charlie. He hadn’t known the deputy for more than a few hours, but he liked him, sour as he was. Any road, they were on the same side. If Froud and Charlie didn’t want a living soul inside this office, Jody meant for it to be that way.

  He opened the door and sure enough Charlie had his back against it. He might as well be holding a fairy wand as a sawn-off shotgun.

  Jody pushed up beside him and shut the door.

  The gentlemen stared at him and he stared right back at them.

  There were one or two well-heeled busin
ess men among them. One was a hard-bitten out-of-town rancher looking like he was carved out of granite and had conquered the West without any help.

  “Gentlemen,” said Jody in his most conciliatory tones, “Charlie’s right, but he’s putting it the wrong way, I reckon.”

  Charlie snarled: “You keep your two cents worth outa this.”

  “Now, see here,” roared the rancher.

  “Charlie’s only tryin’ to do his duty, gentlemen,” Jody went on. “Mr. Froud gave him an order and he’s carryin’ it out. Charlie, Mr. Froud is askin’ for you. Git along in, will you?”

  Charlie glowered at him.

  “When I’m through here,” he said.

  My God, thought Jody, this fellow’s thick.

  “Mr. Froud,” he said firmly, “says for you to talk with him right this minute, Charlie.”

  Light dawned. Charlie nodded, stepped back through the doorway and closed the door behind him. The group of worthies surged forward.

  “Out of our way, boy,” said the cattleman.

  “Gentlemen,” Jody said, trying to look like a cold self-confident killer, “Mr. Froud hired me for a certain talent. He knows the kinda job we have ahead of us. He’s hurt a little an’ he’s restin’ up. So you can’t see him. The prisoner is bein’ held incommunicado. That lets him out. So why do you want to go in there?”

  “Young man,” said a pompous fool who had to be the mayor, “do you realize that we are the city and county officials? You will kindly stand aside and allow us entry.”

  “Boy,” shouted the cowman, “you stand aside or I shall personally toss you into the street.”

  Jody said: “Back up.”

  His gun was in his hand.

  They stared at it unbelievingly.

  The mayor backed up, pointing a shaking finger at the weapon.

  “Do you realize what you just did, you young fool?” he cried. “I’m the mayor of this town. I demand you put that weapon away this very minute.”

  “You’re through here,” another said. “Put up that fool gun, get on your horse and ride.”

  “Mister,” Jody said, “you’d best hear this good. Mr. Froud says keep all around the courthouse clear. That goes for every man, woman an’ kid in this burg. You get the hell outa here now an’ if you come too close, I’ll break a leg.”

  The rancher took one horrified pace backward.

  “By God,” he said in an awe-struck whisper, “he means it. Froud’s hired a gunhand.”

  Jody said: “That’s because that’s what he needs.”

  The whole group started to move backward.

  The mayor said: “This isn’t the last you’ve heard of this, young man. We have real law here. The judge will see you get your comeuppance.”

  “There’s fellers in this town want Shawn free,” Jody said. “There’s other fellers want him hanged before trial. Try an’ see it our way. We’re paid to do a job an’ we’re doin’ it.”

  “Maybe he has something there,” one said.

  “Don’t be a bigger goddam fool than you were born,” the rancher bawled. “Jesus, we don’t even know if Froud’s alive.”

  “That’s a fact,” said the mayor. “I heard tell he was all shot up. Maybe he died.”

  “Froud ain’t dead,” Jody said. “You’ll find that out if you hang around here.”

  “This is an outrage.”

  “I demand that Froud come out and talk to us.”

  “Boys,” said Jody, patiently, “you just ain’t keepin’ the peace, the way I see it. Pretty soon I’m goin’ to point this shooter at somebody in particular an’ he’s goin’ to find himself in the next cell to Shawn.”

  He raised the gun and pointed it at the rancher’s belly.

  Pick on the toughest, Uncle Mart had always told him, and make him back down. The rest’ll follow.

  The cowman looked a mite sick.

  “If that’s the way you want it,” he said, hanging on desperately to his dignity, “that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  They walked away. They grouped on the far side of the street and, talking among themselves, they looked back at Jody. He didn’t move. A man walked down the center of the street, stared at the gun in Jody’s hand for a moment and walked back the way he had come.

  The group over the way broke up and scattered. Jody went back inside. He didn’t doubt that the town had noted everything that happened. He’d gotten himself a job all right. Those old fools were right. He should get on his horse and ride.

  Charlie was mad and he said things in front of Consuelo that a man shouldn’t say in front of a lady.

  Jody cut him short—“I got rid of them, so what’s your bellyache?”

  “I can handle anythin’ on two legs,” Charlie shouted.

  “All right, all right,” Jody told him. “You’re the smartest toughest hombre on earth.”

  “You didn’t have no call...”

  “Charlie, you’n’me, we’re on the same side.”

  It took Charlie an hour or more to simmer down.

  The town settled down under the heat of the day. Horses” tails flicked lazily, a dog slept in the dust. Only the flies were busy. As far as Jody could see, that is.

  Chapter Ten

  Toward evening when the shadows were lengthening and the heat of the day was slowly retreating, Froud opened his eyes and seemed quite lucid. Consuelo was sitting at his side and he recognized her and spoke to her at once, his voice a soft murmur. Charlie was watching out back.

  Jody crossed to the bed. Froud raised his eyes and looked at him.

  “How you makin’ out, boy?”

  “All right.”

  The voice was no more than a dry rustle of sound. Jody went closer to hear.

  “Don’t let ‘em know I’m this way.”

  “Don’t aim to.”

  “How long I been here?”

  “Not long. You sleep now. You’re goin’ to be all right.” He saw that Consuelo was holding Froud’s hand. Jody turned and walked away. He went into the cell block and passed Shawn’s cell. The man was lying on his bed with his hands behind his head.

  “No action yet, eh, kid?” the outlaw said.

  Jody ignored him and went down to Charlie at the rear door.

  “Froud’s come around,” he said. “He’s makin’ sense now. But I don’t reckon he has much chance of lastin’ long.”

  Charlie said: “I ain’t payin’ no attention to what you think.” He tramped down past the cells and went into the office. As he passed Shawn’s cell, the outlaw said something to him that Jody didn’t hear. Charlie snarled back over his shoulder: “You talk that way to me you’ll have a hatful of teeth.”

  As Jody came abreast of the cell, Shawn rose from his bed and said: “I want a lawyer first an’ then I want to be took to a safer place. I ain’t safe here, Jode. You know that. I have to be took to some place like Tucson where I can be protected.”

  “Sure,” said Jody. “But you’ll be protected, Shawn. Why, me an’ Charlie, we’d lay down our lives for you. You know that.”

  “Quit foolin’ around,” Shawn said. “I’m serious. There’s real danger. That kid was killed. I didn’t fire that shot, Jode, I swear it. You talk Froud into gettin’ me outa here. Will you do that for me?”

  “I’ll mention it.”

  He went into the office. Froud had fallen asleep. Just like that.

  Jody said: “Shawn wants to be took to another jail where he’ll be safe. He also wants a lawyer.”

  Charlie said: “He wants a hull lotta things he don’t stand much chance of gettin’.” He jerked his head toward the street. “Time you went and fetched us some grub.”

  “All right,” said Jody.

  It was good to be out in the open air after the closeness of the office. He took the opportunity of walking around the courthouse and inspecting the neighboring buildings. It wouldn’t be hard, he could see, for a man to get into the courthouse without being seen from the sheriff’s office. He wondered i
f there was any way of getting down from one to the other. To the rear of the building, there was a clapboard building that looked like some kind of a storehouse. He walked around this and saw that a baby could have broken into it.

  He headed for the restaurant. Folks eyed him in the dusk, but nobody spoke. He thought he could feel a kind of tension in the air, but he knew that this could be his imagination. When he reached the Rest, the saloon was full but the eating section was empty except for the girl behind the counter.

  She smiled and it was like seeing the brightness of spring sunshine.

  “Hello,” she said.

  It was nice to be just looking at somebody his own age. Nicer still that the somebody was a girl who looked like this one. She store made a fellow’s blood run hot. He tried to get a grip on himself. You had to be cool with this kind or you lost them.

  “Hello yourself,” he said with studied carelessness.

  “How you making out over at the sheriff’s office?” she asked.

  “Fine, just fine.”

  “Is Mr. Froud hurt bad?”

  He gave her a careful look and he knew that she had been waiting for him to come in here. She had been primed for the question. He wondered if the man with the cowlick and mustache was listening beyond the half-open kitchen door.

  “He’s hurt,” he admitted. “But he ain’t hurt all that bad. Mostly tired. He ain’t so young any more an’ he’s restin’ up. Tomorrow, he’ll be right as rain.”

  “I’m real glad to hear that.”

  “How about some bait for some real hungry men?” he asked.

  “I surely hate to feed a man like that killer,” she said.

  “Sure,” he said. “I don’t fancy takin’ it to him much. But the law don’t allow us to starve him to death, only hang him.”

  She didn’t make a move for the kitchen to fetch the food. She leaned forward over the counter and looked up into his eyes. He didn’t meet her gaze because on leaning forward she had revealed the tops of the delicious white globes of her breasts. He felt a pulse beating in his temples.

  Steady, Storm, he told himself.

  “It sure is nice to have a young person like you around,” she said softly. “I get kind of tired of all the old men who come in here eyeing me and such.”