by Rusty Davis
“Drop dead!” she screamed.
One gunshot came first, then several more, and then loud screams.
“Janie!”
“You shot her!” Kane heard.
“They shot a woman!” someone said near him.
Wood was now raging. A rapid series of shots rang out as he fired into the air.
“Bring them both.”
Kane almost passed out from the pain as he was dragged to the middle of the town’s street and dumped. He was aware someone was dumped next to him.
“Now all of you, listen,” called out Wood. “Boys and I have a thirst. A powerful thirst. May take a while to settle. Anybody want to move either of these two before we’re done, you can git what they did.”
He tossed the board he had been holding to the ground and stalked into Noonan’s.
Kane could hear noises. Talking. The buzz lingered but faded. He tried to move, but the second his arm flexed, the pain overwhelmed him.
Rakeheart was melting away, not wanting to see what was in the street. Anger flared briefly as it mingled with the pain. Wonderful folks to have at your back. The sun felt hot on his congealing face.
“Kane?”
He made a response. It didn’t sound like a word to his ears.
“They said . . . said they had a job for you . . . didn’t mean . . . Oh, Kane!”
Kane’s battered mouth was beyond words. They did not form. He only heard noises from his mouth.
An icy hand grabbed his.
“You cold, Kane? I’m cold. Don’t . . . let go.”
That he could do. He could squeeze her cold hand with his usable left one.
Now she, too, was only making noises. The hand quivered. He tried to say something. He tried to move his head, to lift himself up to see how badly she was hurt. White light flooded him, and Rakeheart vanished.
When he awoke, the sun had left his face. Dark. Too dark for his eyes anyhow. Janie’s hand was in his. It was cold. Stiff. He tried to move his hand, but her arm would not budge. He pulled his hand free. Pain flared. He reached it toward where he thought she was. Felt something damp and sticky by her body. Girl must be dead. He’d meet her there soon. Wherever “there” was. He tried to raise himself up. He fell down a dark hole.
A moment later. Hours maybe? It was pitch black out. Or his eyes were failing. Someone was near. He tried to move. Nothing. He could sense that Janie was gone. They must have taken her. Dead. The thought ran through his head. He failed. He made a noise.
“Shh!” was all that was said. Pain rippled white hot as he was lifted like a sack and tossed on a saddle. He tried to say something. A hand that smelled of dirt and tar covered his mouth. A smell of lilac came, too.
The horse started to move. He tried to protest. He was not ready to be buried yet!
If any sound came out, it produced no response. The horse kept moving slowly.
The sounds changed. No more town. They stopped. His hands and feet were now bound under the horse. The horse lurched, faster now. Not a gallop but moving faster.
Kane pulled hard to free his hands, but the pain in his right arm sent him down into a deep, black pit that had no end.
“Mama!”
The word came clearly to Kane. For longer than he knew, he had been floating and drifting, like a small rowboat on the wide parts of the old Red River. When his eyes opened here and there, he had no idea what he was seeing. Sometimes light. Sometimes darkness. Once there was a storm, and he knew he was indoors somewhere.
White flashes of pain surged in the dark now and then. There were voices, at times. A little girl talking about her garden on the moon. Most of the time, there was nothing.
This time, his eyes could focus. Mostly. One would not quite open. Sad-eyed Libby looked down on him. She smiled.
“I win.”
This puzzled Kane, who tried to express it, but his lips seemed stuck together.
“Mama said to do this, so if it hurts blame her.”
He felt a moistened finger running over his lips. The water felt good and cool. The pressure of the finger almost hurt. Back and forth.
“Poke your tongue through your lips,” she said. “It hurts less if you do it to yourself than if I do it.”
He tried.
“I told Mama you would wake up today because yesterday your foot twitched. She said I was silly, but I was right.”
Poking his lips apart did hurt, but his mouth was open. Breathing. Oh, breathing! It hurt, but it was delicious.
“Mama took Jeremiah fishing, but she’ll be back soon. They never catch anything, but he likes to go. He gets very bored watching you make up your mind whether to die or live. Little kids are like that.”
He wanted water. The word he heard sounded like anything but that, but Libby understood. She dribbled it into his mouth. He swallowed, choked, swallowed, choked, and swallowed.
“Mama said that’s what happens when you give cowboys water and not coffee,” teased the girl.
“How . . .” It sounded like a word. He was sure of it. She frowned, and he repeated it. The light dawned in her face.
“Ol’ Seamus Halloran brought you. Uncle Seamus. He’s the only man in that place who ever wanted to play with me!”
“He . . . here?”
“No, he went back. I’m pretty sure he’ll be back in a few days, but I think he did not want to be missed.”
“Help . . . move.”
She appeared amused.
“Mr. Kane, you have a busted arm, some busted ribs, two broke fingers, your face is purple and blue and black and green, and a huge bunch of you is all dark, bruised, prune color. The swelling on your eyes has gone down enough so that they kind of open. I don’t think you should try to go anywhere right now. Your feet might work, but everything else from there up . . . well, it doesn’t!”
He kept trying to move. It hurt.
She reached under his arms. “Mama said you would not listen, and I should have a stick to beat you! Here, try sitting.”
He groaned unconsciously as she pulled him up. By now, his eyes were working, except for the big something in the way of the left. He guessed it was something swollen. The first thing he saw were his toes poking out from under a blanket. He wiggled them.
“They work!” giggled Libby. “It is about all of you that does. You got shot in the leg, too, but Mama said that is more like a big bee sting than anything else. She knows a lot about putting people together when they get broken things.”
Kane saw a long strip of cloth wrapped tightly around his right arm, with sticks underneath the wrapping. Three fingers on his right hand were tied together and wrapped. Nothing on the left. The blanket had fallen to his lap. More bandage was wrapped around his ribs. As he was waking up, he was realizing how much he hurt.
“Water. More.”
Libby held the cup. He drank on his own this time.
“How long?”
“Five days,” she said. “Mama thought you would live, I think, but it took a couple of days for her to be sure. She knows when you’re hurt and when you’re not. I can never fool her when I want to pretend to be sick to get out of chores.”
He could hear fast-moving feet, but they stopped suddenly. Turning his head was an effort. Rachel was framed in the doorway. Kane could vaguely see some emotion on her face but could not define it, if it was even there and not a trick of blurry vision. It passed.
Libby turned to her mother.
“Can you watch the patient now so I can feed the calf?”
“Yes, boss,” replied Rachel.
“You split anything open that Mama sewed shut, and I am going to be mad because she promised me we are going riding later, and, if she has to sew you again, we can’t go!” Libby admonished Kane before leaving.
Rachel sat on the edge of the bed. Kane could see that she was watching Libby as she left. Even with blurry vision, there was a smile on her face.
“You and my daughter. A pair.” A hand reached out. Touched his. “She
made herself a bed and has been in here since Seamus brought you.” She inspected him briefly. “I did not see the entertainment in that, myself.”
Kane said nothing. A less-intense Rachel Wilkins was not something he understood, and his mind was not comprehending much other than being alive.
“Why here?”
“I believe that Seamus thought you were a family friend,” she said, mouth twisting as she accented the last word. “He knew Jared was not what the world thought he was, and he was very kind to Libby when the children in town were cruel. He knew you came here because of us, but he did not know why. I did not tell him. I told you I was waiting for the Spirit to tell me what I should do. It was not the message I expected, but I accept it.”
Kane could not follow. Halloran? “Why did he . . .”
“Who knows?” admitted Rachel. “Seamus has so many pasts that I don’t know if any of them are real. From what he said before he left, and that was not very much, he thought you were trying to do the right thing for those people in Rakeheart without knowing that they were all rotten.”
He still did not understand. Perhaps another time.
“Janie?”
“Some woman in town took her. I do not know if she is alive or dead. If she was your friend, I am sorry. I think she always thought Clem would sweep her away some day to some better place.” Rachel shook her head. “She never knew him. Another woman who doesn’t know her man.” Bitter.
Kane recalled what he could remember from the street. It was not pleasant.
“I should leave. This is dangerous. They said . . .”
“No. We have so little to do with the place, no one comes here very often. The last time they came to ask about selling, which was about a week before you arrived, I made it clear who was and was not welcome on my land. They might come back to push me off, but Seamus made it sound as though they have bigger problems right now.” She paused. “It is good for you that they will not show their faces. I think Jeremiah could beat you in a fight the way you look right now.”
“Can you help me up?”
“You will try, I suppose, if I leave you here alone, and then you would fall and do exactly what Libby told you not to do. I will help you, but you will not like what happens. And if you wonder what you are wearing, it is a nightshirt of Jared’s. Your clothes had so much dried blood on them we all but cut them off of you.”
She was right. Sitting was bad. Standing, if she was not holding on, would have been impossible. Even with her grabbing him, he thought he would fall over. He was determined to stay standing as long as he could. Revenge was already calling.
“How bad is my arm?”
“A month and you can use it. Maybe less; maybe more. One bone was badly broken, the other cracked. Seamus said they used a piece of lumber to break it. You are lucky the bone was not crushed.”
“My hand?”
“One finger broken, but not badly. Others bruised. A week or two and you will be using it. Your ribs will heal in time. I don’t know how badly they hurt you inside,” she added. “The buckshot in your leg was the least of it, but it was in deep, and I don’t dig out tiny shot very well, so you will limp a while. About everything from your hips to your shoulders was a bruise. They beat you pretty good.”
“They did.”
“Why?”
“Man said it was business that got personal.”
“Did you go up against the Riders?”
“Might say so.” He pulled her hard as a wave of dizziness came. She put both arms around him to steady him.
“Sit.”
But the doorway called. Air and life. It took time, but they finally reached the doorway, where he stood, supporting himself on the door frame as he breathed fresh, clean air that smelled of life. He took a step outside, then leaned against the wall, dizzy.
“Here.” She brought a chair from the house, pushed it against the outside wall, and guided him into it. She brought a coat and draped it over him.
“Sit and stay. I have to cook some food, or we will all starve. I assume now that you have rejoined the living, you will make up for lost time eating.”
There was that smile again. He wondered what the one he tried to make back at her looked like.
Food. He felt his stomach rumble. He listened to her noises. He smelled the land and felt the air. The sun on his face was warm and healing, not what he had felt face up in the street back in Rakeheart. What to do next would come to him. For now, he was alive and making plans to make someone regret that.
Libby hauled the small wagon. It was heavy for her, but she would not hear of Kane pulling it. He had found a gun. For three days he had been loafing and eating. Enough was enough. Man with work to do had to do it.
Halloran had used Tecumseh to toss him on when he rescued him from Rakeheart. Kane was glad to see the stallion. Men were fools about animals, and he was no different, but he was certain the horse was glad to see him, too. Kane had yet to try to ride. It meant moving more parts than could move.
He had to start with what would take the longest.
Kane realized how hard the chore would be after he barely managed to pry the top off the box of shells Libby had hauled. Then he tried loading the gun. It was something he did without thinking, back when he had two arms and two hands.
“Do you need help?”
He had pride. He had plans. Plans won. He showed Libby how to load the revolver. She knew how to load a rifle and had brought hers along, so it was easy.
“How can you shoot with your arm like that?” she asked.
“Got two arms,” he told her.
He held the gun in his left hand. Strange but not unfamiliar. He looked at the hunk of wood Libby had set on a fencepost. Hefted the gun. Went back to a different time.
The farm was a hard place, and 1862 was a hard year, especially after Shiloh. A skinny fourteen-year-old boy who thought he was the family’s protector was going to be ready to fight the Yankees when they came. Hours they spent together. Him, that old gun, and Nightmare, a massive, black barn cat who sat on a fence post and watched Kane practice for what seemed like hours.
He was left handed by birth. Shot that way until Uncle Zeb brought home a gun belt with the holster on the right and told him real men shot with their right hands. Worked so well he never went back. Until now.
He tried aiming. Everything felt wrong. He could see from Libby’s face after loading the gun for him several times that watching an adult fail miserably at something he was trying hard to get right was as hard on her as it was on him.
“Takes time,” he told her. “Learned it once. I’ll learn it again.”
“Are you going after the men who hurt you?”
Lies were an attractive option when talking to children. Libby would spot it.
“Expect so.”
“I don’t think you should.”
“Why not?”
“Mama was saying you would do that and get killed, and it would be a shame because you were a good man. Mama likes you, you know.”
“And she spent all that time sewing me back together.” Kane grinned at the girl.
“Well, that, too, of course,” she replied. “But she had to. Otherwise you would make such a mess all over.”
She handed the loaded gun back.
“Last time,” he called. Miss after miss.
Then he could hear Uncle Harry, who was not his uncle but some family friend who lived on the farm while he was hiding from the law.
“Not your hand and your eye. Aim with your soul,” he told Kane when first teaching him to shoot.
The piece of wood spun. He had barely nicked it, but for today it gave him hope. It would come. In time. He did not have much. Mid-August would slide into fall quickly. This had to be done before the snow.
“There!” Libby said. “Is there anything else I can teach you today?”
Kane grinned.
For the first time since he had awakened on the Wilkins ranch, Kane felt that he was going
to get better—not only to stay alive, but to even the score.
“Guess you won’t be dying this day, Friend Badge,” Halloran grunted after surveying Kane.
“You seem mighty sober for a drunken fella,” Kane observed as they walked to stable Halloran’s borrowed horse in the Wilkins barn.
“There is not time for a drop when there is work that must be done,” he said. “Later, I shall talk to you, Friend Badge.”
Libby’s whooping, unrestrained joy at seeing Halloran stirred an odd pang of jealousy in Kane. The child loved the curmudgeon, for whatever reason. And she was hardly Kane’s. For a moment, he realized he was merely passing through all these lives.
Passing through. Was that all his life was? Seemed so.
The children were in bed, although Kane was pretty sure Libby would lie awake and listen, when he, Rachel, and Halloran huddled by the small fire still glowing in the hearth.
Halloran had repeated the full story over and over. No one was really sure who shot who on the night Kane was beaten. Two Riders were injured, that was for sure. One might have died later. Two townspeople were wounded as well.
Janie was shot bad but was not dead. Tillie Witherspoon had taken her in and threatened to shoot anyone who came near, including her father. No one Halloran knew had the courage to broach her defenses.
Pete Haliburton was wounded, but no one knew how badly until they found him the next morning in his stable, where he had passed out on the floor, blood all over. Some people there said Janie had wounded him. The bullet damaged his right shoulder. He would live, but he would most likely never swing a hammer again or work as a blacksmith. Others said the wound was minor, but Haliburton had used it as a pretext now that his daughter was shot so badly she might not live.
Halloran said the Haliburtons were damage from a showdown that grew beyond anyone’s control.
“Best I can tell, it all got out of hand,” Halloran said, with more anger than usual and minus his usual jovial patter. “They came to use you to teach the town a lesson. Noonan pretty much said so a few days ago. I think Janie thought Wood was sweet on her, and then she figured he was using her, and I think she might have been drunk, too.”