by John Legg
No one moved.
Coffin studied the bright flames for a moment, then said, “Looks like it’s a little late for help there, friend. Now, since you’re not distracted by your elegant hotel there, maybe you’ll give me some of your attention.”
“Whatcha want?” the man growled.
“There a real hotel around here?”
“No,” the man spat.
“There any kind of lawman around? Or a jail?”
“No.”
Ochs laughed. “Looks like you ain’t got no place to go, Mr. Big Shot Marshal.” His face was still a mess, covered with striped red welts, bluish-yellow bruises, dirt, and dried blood.
“You got any real buildings in town?” Coffin asked the hotel owner, ignoring Ochs.
“Not a goddamn single one,” he gloated.
“You’ve been a big help,” Coffin said sarcastically. He looked up at the sky and figured he only had another hour or two worth of daylight. He was well aware that Bendersville was little more than a waystop for outlaws in the region. He decided he would leave the town behind and take his chances with a camp out in the wilds. But first he would eat, despite his remembrance of the rotten grub he had gotten last time. At least he would not have to cook it.
He untied Davenport’s legs and eased him down onto the ground. Then Coffin did the same for Ochs. As soon as Ochs’s good foot hit the ground, though, he balanced and swung his bound-together wrists at Coffin.
The marshal sidestepped the attempted blow and then punched Ochs in the kidney area, Ochs groaned and sagged, then fell. Coffin grabbed a handful of shirt and hauled Ochs up. “Care for another?” Coffin asked.
Ochs spit at him, and missed.
Coffin whacked him a good shot in the solar plexus. “I can stand here all day and pound on you, if that’s your wish,” Coffin said coolly. “Or you can behave for ten minutes and get some grub I ain’t cooked.”
“Hard choice,” Ochs grumbled, “but I’ll take the grub for now.”
“Fine.” He shoved Ochs toward the restaurant next to the remains of the hotel. Davenport automatically slid under Ochs’s arm.
The men in the restaurant had formed a quick bucket brigade and doused their tent-restaurant to keep it from catching fire. It seemed they had succeeded. Coffin stopped and looked at the small crowd of hard-eyed, heavily armed men. “Any one of you messes with my animals, and I will shoot you dead then and there.” He turned and shoved Ochs and Davenport forward again.
The food was every bit as bad as he remembered. Coffin gave the cook two dollars to bring a bottle of whiskey over to help wash down the foul meal. Coffin even took pity on Ochs and Davenport and gave them each a couple of drinks.
Coffin could not even drink the coffee, and settled for a cigarette and sips on the bottle of whiskey to remove the lingering bad effects of the supper.
Finally Coffin rose and stretched. “Time to go, boys.”
“I ain’t done,” Ochs protested.
“Yes you are. Now get up.”
Davenport stood first. He had come to think that Coffin was not all that bad, even if he was a lawman. The young man thought that maybe, just maybe, if he behaved himself on the ride to Madison, and if he told Coffin all he could about Merkle and his men, then he might get off fairly easily. It was a hope—the only hope he had.
Ochs remained seated, steadfastly shoveling in food. He would show this young punk of a lawman that he was not a man to be rushed for anything.
Coffin grabbed the back of Ochs’s shirt just under the collar and twisted it several times. The front of Ochs’s shirt, buttoned all the way to the top, swiftly tightened on his neck. He could neither breathe nor swallow. Coffin bent over close to Ochs’s ear. “Are you ready to go now?” he asked politely.
Ochs, whose face was red, nodded vigorously.
Coffin pulled a little on the shirt, getting Ochs started up, then he released the shirt. Ochs stood, sucking in breath, almost choking again, this time on the food. He angrily beckoned Davenport to help him walk.
Just as they stepped outside, a gun fired to Coffin’s left, and he grunted as he was struck by a bullet. He started to swing that way, drawing a Remington and crouching as he did. Another gun fired, behind him, and knocked his hat flying.
“Shit,” he mumbled. He saw a gun-wielding man in front of him, and he fired twice. Without waiting to see if he had hit the man, he half jumped, half dove to his left. He came to a stop on one knee. A fleeting glance told him that the man he had shot at was hit and down.
Coffin saw the second gunman and fired the three balls left in the Remington. He was certain as soon as he fired that the man was dead.
He stood, sliding away the empty Remington and pulling the other. He surveyed the crowd. All looked threatening, but he figured that was their normal look. No one seemed to be particularly upset that he had just gunned down two men. He glanced down and saw blood on the front of his shirt, and the left shoulder holster was hanging oddly. Carefully he pulled his shirt out a little. He nodded, understanding. The bullet had clipped the metal buckle of the holster, which diverted the ball a fraction of an inch, and it had slid across the width of Coffin’s chest.
Warily, Coffin went to the man he had first shot, and he checked the body over. The man was dead. Coffin quickly went through the man’s pockets, taking the eighteen dollars and four cents he found.
Coffin walked to the other body and looked down at the Twisted face. He had no name for the man, but he remembered that scarred, ugly face as being in Merkle’s camp just before the battle had started. Coffin figured the man had cut and run as soon as the first shot was fired. How he came to be here with another man, both trying to kill him, was puzzling to Coffin. He shrugged. There would be no answer to it here, he figured. And until he had an answer, there was nothing to be done about the situation. The men had tried to kill him, but he had killed them instead. That was all he needed to know.
He knelt and rifled that man’s pockets, too, and came up with an additional twenty-seven dollars and seventy-eight cents. “Mount up, boys,” he said as he rose.
Ochs glared at him in undisguised hate; Davenport looked at him with awe, and fear. But they mounted their horses. Coffin did the same, and they all rode out of town. It was difficult, but Coffin reloaded the one Remington so that it would be ready.
An hour or so after leaving Bendersville, with darkness sweeping down over them, Ochs turned in his saddle and yelled, “When the hell’re we gonna stop?”
“Later.” After a few minutes, Coffin called a stop. He pointed. “Take that trail,” he ordered.
“You’re out of your goddamn mind,” Ochs argued.
“Might be. Do it anyway.” Coffin wasn’t sure this was where he wanted to go, but he decided it was his best chance. Enoch Pembroke had showed him this route on a map. It was not a well-known trail, and so the chances of them encountering anyone was small. It also would allow him to avoid Virginia City and go straight to Madison.
Twenty minutes later, Coffin called a halt. While he didn’t think they had put enough distance between them and Bendersville, taking this mountain path in the dark was suicide. He found a place where the wind had gouged a shallow impression in the side of a cliff just off the trail. Coffin figured that would be as good a place to stop as any.
After unsaddling the horses, unloading the two mules, tending the five animals, hobbling all the animals, gathering wood, starting a fire, and cooking and eating supper, he finally rested.
He had a cigarette and another cup of coffee before he pulled his shirt off. He poured some of his one bottle of whiskey on the raw, oozing wound. He hissed as the alcohol burned into the open flesh. He got his one extra shirt and tied it around his chest as a primitive bandage. Then he lit another cigarette and relaxed a little. Sipping whiskey helped somewhat.
“How the hell old are you, boy?” Ochs asked suddenly. “Twenty, twenty-one maybe. I ain’t too sure of my birth date. Why?”
“It’s a s
hame,” Ochs said with a sad shake of his head, “for you to die at so young an age.”
“You’d be a hell of a lot better off if you was to worry about you gettin’ killed.”
“You’ll never make it back to Madison.”
“If Merkle sends idiots like those two back in Bendersville, I ain’t got a thing to worry about.” He paused. “Of course, you do. I still ain’t married to the idea of gettin’ you back to Madison.” He smiled viciously.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The trek across the mountains was worse than Coffin had expected. The trail was ribbon thin, at times looking out over sheer cliffs that fell hundreds of feet. At other times, the mountains closed tightly in on the trail. All of it spooked the men and the animals.
After two sleepless nights, they had come down the western side of the mountains, and Coffin set his camp along the Ruby River, even though there was still plenty of daylight left. But the horses needed rest, and so did he.
They put in a long day the next day, and then the one after that, they rode into Madison about noon. Not really stopping much, Coffin turned Merkle’s horses into the corral at the livery. “I’ll be back later about them animals,” he shouted to Ray Hudson, the livery owner. Hudson was working in his barn, and just waved.
Coffin and his two prisoners moved toward the center of town and the jail. Coffin was exhausted as well as filthy, being covered with mud, blood, dust; he smelled of alcohol from the whiskey he had poured on his wounds. His clothes were tattered, and he had several weeks’ worth of beard that scratched his neck. Despite all that, he did not think he warranted being watched by everyone in town, all of them seemingly with gloomy faces.
He stopped in front of the office and got Ochs and Davenport down from their horses. He was a little surprised that he did not see Enoch Pembroke, but he figured his friend was off somewhere, or just busy. Coffin locked Ochs and Davenport into separate cells—the two back corner ones. Only one other cell was occupied, by a man snoring off a drunk by the look and smell of him.
“Get comfortable, boys,” Coffin said to his two prisoners. “I’ll be back after a spell and see you get somethin’ to eat.”
He left the other two horses and the two mules tied in front of the office as he mounted his horse for the ride to the Pembroke home. Despite his tiredness, he was eager as a young pup to see Amy. He smiled, thinking of how surprised she would be when he walked in, after all her worries about his safety.
Doc Smith’s carriage was out front of the house, and as he dismounted, Coffin wondered who was sick. He also hoped it was not Amy. She seemed so small and frail that she could get sick from a little breeze, though he knew she was healthy and robust.
The physician opened the door to exit as Coffin was reaching for the front door knob. Both men were startled, Coffin less so than the doctor.
“Somebody sick, Doc?” Coffin asked.
Smith harrumphed, then said, “Come in, boy. Come on in.” He backed inside, giving Coffin some room.
“Is it Amy, Doc?” Coffin asked, fear clutching at him. “She all right?”
“You best talk with Enoch, boy. Come, I’ll bring you to him.”
“I know where the hell he is, if he’s home,” Coffin said vehemently. “Now what’s wrong with Amy, dammit.”
“Calm yourself down, boy,” Smith instructed. “And do as I say. Now, come, let’s go see Enoch.” He took Coffin’s left arm and tugged him along.
Coffin reluctantly let himself be towed toward and then up the stairs. His worry grew with each step he took. At the top of the stairs, he turned toward Amy’s room, determined to go see her.
But Smith blocked his path. “Please, Joe,” Smith said. “Do what I tell you for right now.” He held an aging finger toward Pembroke’s room.
Coffin glared at him a moment, and then turned. Numbly he entered Pembroke’s room.
Enoch Pembroke was sitting in bed, propped up with pillows against the headboard. He looked pale and worn. He wore no shirt, and his chest was swathed in white bandages. “Sit,” he croaked listlessly. He pointed weakly to the chair at the side of the bed.
Coffin ignored it. “Where’s Amy?” he asked, voice rough and with a ragged edge of nervousness.
“Sit,” Pembroke said again.
“No. Now where the hell’s Amy?” he demanded.
Pembroke looked up at Coffin, who was shocked by his old friend’s appearance. Pembroke looked as if he had been crying steadily, and all the light seemed to have gone out of his eyes. He was no longer the big, strong, animated Major Pembroke or Marshal Pembroke. He was simply an empty shell of a man.
“What happened to her?” Coffin asked quietly, deadly calm.
“Best go on about your business, Doc,” Pembroke said, waving his hand limply toward the door.
“You sure, Enoch?” The physician was very skeptical.
Pembroke nodded. When the doctor left, Pembroke said, “There’s a bottle in the chest of drawers, bottom drawer. Get it.” His voice had gained strength.
Coffin stared at Pembroke for a moment, emotions whipped up into a tornado inside of him, yet outwardly he was calm. Then he turned and walked to the chest of drawers.
“Get my pipe and tobacco while you’re there, Joe, if you please.”
Coffin found the bottle and picked up the pipe and a buckskin pouch of tobacco. He took them all to the bed. He handed Pembroke the pipe and tobacco. Then Coffin pulled the cork on the bottle and tossed it on the small table next to the bed. He took a long, long drink. Then he set the bottle on the night table. “Tell it,” he ordered.
Coffin sat and began rolling a cigarette. Pembroke took another moment to get his pipe fired up. Then he sighed and the hurt, pained look came back into his eyes. And when he spoke it was in a dull, flat monotone that had no life or energy.
“Sunday was a fine, fine day. Birds singing in the trees, nice temperature, a little breeze. The kind of day a man wants to go sit out by a pond fishing and just let his cares go for a spell.”
He paused, blinking away tears as he spread billowing clouds of pipe smoke careening around the room.
“Well, I walked Amy over to church, like either me or Beryl...” He sucked in a breath to try to settle himself. “Like me or Beryl were used to doin’. And, just like always, Amy asked if I wanted to come on in and listen to Preacher Ames. I must admit, I’ve been right neglectful of going to church and such since the war. I always seemed to find an excuse for not goin’. I was always too busy.”
He looked up with those pained eyes, almost pleading with Coffin for understanding. Coffin nodded just a little. Coffin knew what Pembroke was going through.
“I don’t know what the hell come over me, Joe. I really don’t. Maybe I had some kind of premonition, and I was tryin’ to square things with my Maker a little before he took me. I just don’t know. But I went in, instead of goin’ over to the office like I was used to doing.
“I don’t even remember what the sermon was about. I just kind of sat there with the preacher’s words dulling my senses. It was peaceful in there, Joe. Lord, was it peaceful.”
“Folks like you and me ain’t had much peace of any kind since we got into that war,” Coffin commented, his voice a strange growl.
“That’s a fact.” Pembroke stared at his pipe for a few minutes. “And I don’t figure we’re ever going to know real peace again, unless it’s the peace of the grave.”
“Men like us, that can’t be too far off.”
Pembroke nodded. He almost seemed to have fallen asleep, except for the regular sucking on the pipe stem. Finally he pulled the pipe free. “I need a drink, Joe.”
Coffin handed him the bottle and helped him take a few swigs. “That’s better,” Pembroke said. Coffin took another healthy sip before putting the bottle back on the table.
“Anyway,” Pembroke continued after what had seemed like a lifetime, “after services, we stood outside talking to folks. Preacher Ames was some astonished to have seen me in c
hurch, though he chided me a little for having worn my pistol inside. I didn’t feel like explaining that I had had no intention of going into the church, so I let it drop.”
He paused to wipe a shaking hand across his face, clearing away a fresh batch of tears. “Amy was more beautiful than I’d ever seen her, her face full of life and energy. It was you who made her so. Since you asked for her hand, she’s been beaming like the noonday sun. She was talking to the other ladies after services, telling them of getting married and asking for their advice and such. Happy. She was so happy. So goddamn happy. Just so goddamn, son of a bitching, goddamn happy.” He was blubbering now, tears flowing freely. And he was getting crazy.
Coffin stood and leaned over the bed, holding Pembroke down through sheer strength of his hands on his friend’s shoulders. “It’s all right, Enoch,” he said quietly and firmly. “It’ll be all right.”
Pembroke slowly got control of himself to some degree. Coffin released him and gave him another drink of whiskey. Then he sat back in the chair. “Take your time, Enoch,” he said. “We ain’t in no rush here. Tell it at your own pace.”
Pembroke took more time to compose himself. With trembling hands he refilled his pipe and lit it. When it was going well, he lay back against the pillows, and shut his eyes. His breathing was ragged.
Then his eyes reopened. The bloodshot orbs held a lifetime of pain in them. “We started walking back here...” His voice cracked, and it took a little time for it to come back. “Just walking down the street, minding our own business when...Jesus, Jesus...There were three of them, and they just seemed to come out of nowhere. I didn’t even get a good look at them. Three horses just appeared. I know it was Merkle, though.”
“How do you know that if you never got a good look at him?”