by Ralph Cotton
“You’re doing fine,” Shaw reassured her, glad that she was in such good spirits and rebounding so well from the gunshot.
“Is it going to hurt?” she asked, her tone suddenly turning a bit concerned.
“It will,” Shaw said. “It would be better if we had some whiskey to dull it a little. There’s a village a day’s ride—”
“No,” Tuesday said, cutting him off. “This is my first gunshot wound. I want you to be the first to cut my bullet out. It will be sort of like starting all over for me, don’t you think?”
Shaw winced a bit, having a hard time understanding her thinking. “Yes, if that’s what suits you,” he finally said. He let the two wagon horses ride on at their own slow walking pace.
Within minutes, the slow rocking of the wagon and the weariness from the loss of blood had caused Tuesday to fall asleep against Shaw’s shoulder in the hard wagon seat. Without waking her, Shaw waited until he’d reached a wide pull-off along the trail and reined the horses over into it. Stopping the wagon as gently as he could, he eased Tuesday over onto the seat and set the long hand brake.
He stepped down from the wagon and, within only a few feet from the trail, managed to rake together enough twigs, short downed pine limbs and dry bracken to build a small fire. Into the edge of the licking flames he stuck the blade of his boot knife. Atop the fire he boiled water from his canteen in a tin coffee cup while he spread his ragged bedroll blanket on the ground.
He walked to the wagon, pulled the slumbering woman into his arms, carried her to the blanket in the firelight and laid her down gently, hoping not to wake her just yet. Then he removed the tin cup from the fire, picked up his knife and stuck the blade down into the bubbling water.
The knife blade sizzled in a rise of steam.
Picking up a short piece of hardened cedar, he walked over, knife and cup of boiled water in hand, and kneeled down beside Tuesday Bonhart. She awakened slightly as he rolled her carefully over onto her stomach and peeled the swallow-tailed coat from her back. “Are—are we ready to do it . . . ?” she asked sleepily, her head turned to the side looking up at him.
“We’re ready to do it,” Shaw said in an apologetic tone. He reached down and slipped the piece of cedar crosswise between her lips. “Bite down on this when you need to.”
But Tuesday rejected the piece of wood and spat to rid her mouth of any trace of it. “No,” she said adamantly, “I’m through having things stuck into my mouth that I don’t want there.”
“I understand,” said Shaw, “but this part is the worst.” As he spoke he loosened the two strips of cloth and removed the dark sticky bandage. He stuck the edge of the bandage into the water and shook it to cool it, then wiped the wound in order to better see the bullet hole.
“It’ll be all right,” said Tuesday. “I’m the toughest little whore you’ve likely ever seen in your life.”
Shaw nodded and patted her bare shoulder. “Here goes,” he murmured.
In the darkness on the winding upward trail, a long, loud, bloodcurdling scream echoed down from the higher ridges, causing Jane Crowley’s spooked horse to rear beneath her.
“Mother of God!” she shouted as the frightened animal twisted in midair and tried to turn in the opposite direction in order to bolt away as soon as its hooves touched ground. “Somebody’s being skinned alive!”
But Caldwell reached over and grabbed her horse by its bridle as it came down, assisting her in getting control of the animal even as his and Dawson’s horses also tensed and recoiled at the shrill terrible sound. “Easy, boys,” said Caldwell in a strong yet soothing voice, settling both his and Jane’s horses.
“I don’t need help with my damned cayuse, Undertaker! Thank you very damned much!” Jane said angrily, jerking her horse away from him. Without missing a note she asked the two lawmen, “What the hell was that anyway?”
“It sounded like a woman screaming,” Dawson said as he and Caldwell stared up along the dark ridges in the light of a pale half-moon.
“I’m sticking with somebody ‘skinned alive,’ ” Jane said, staring up with them, “until something convinces me otherwise.”
“How far away do you say it was, trail scout?” Dawson asked Jane without taking his eyes down from the high dark ridges towering above them.
Liking the respect that his question showed, Jane considered it. “An hour, maybe less.” She pondered the matter a second longer. “It come from the same direction as the gunfire we heard earlier, only much closer, I make it.”
Caldwell gave a short wry grin. “We’ve had gunfire, we’ve got screaming. I’d say Shaw is somewhere close at hand.”
“Yep, let’s go,” said Caldwell, turning his horse back to the trail ahead. “He might need our help.”
“Hmmph,” Jane said under her breath as she nudged her horse along behind them, “he ain’t so far. . . .”
The three rode on.
Atop the winding trail, in the glow of firelight, Shaw felt the white gooseflesh on Tuesday’s back shiver beneath his bloody left hand. In his bloody fingertips he held the misshapen bullet he’d picked out from between her ribs. In the last attempt at removing the bullet, he’d held the wound open with the blade of the knife and reached into her back with his fingers and gripped it between his short nails.
“Now, now, breathe deep, relax,” he coaxed her soothingly. “It’s all over. I got the bullet out. It was wedged deep—that’s why I had to keep digging, loosening it.”
“Oh my God,” she sobbed, “I never had anything hurt so bad in my life. If I ever see Madden Corio, I’m going to kill him an inch at a time.”
“You did good, Tuesday,” Shaw said. He patted her naked shoulder and brushed aside her dark hair from her face as she turned and looked at him tearfully.
“I wasn’t nearly as tough as I thought, was I, Fast Larry?” she said.
“Nobody is,” Shaw said quietly as he began dabbing the corner of the bandage at the wound, hoping the heavy bleeding would not start anew. “Most times a person passes out from the pain. You didn’t.”
“So I am a tough a little whore like I said?” she asked, her voice less trembling now that the ordeal was over.
“If that’s what you want to call yourself, yes, you are,” said Shaw. Now that the bullet was out, he squeezed the wound shut and tied one of the strips of cloth around her back to hold it shut. Then he put the bloody bandage back in place over the wound and tied it down with the other cloth strip.
“Well, it’s what I used to be,” Tuesday said, her voice sounding even more relieved. She turned herself stiffly onto her side and looked up at him, her face resting on an arm folded under her cheek. “I don’t have to be a whore any longer. I’ve got money to burn.”
Shaw brushed her dark hair from her cheek again. He spread the swallow-tailed coat over her. “Yes, you do,” he said gently. “Now get yourself healed up and ready to start spending it.”
“What about you, Fast Larry?” she asked. “How’s your wound healing?”
“I’m healing right along,” Shaw said. He touched the dirty bandage at his forehead. “Another day or two, this is coming off. I’m coming back to my senses, clear as ever.”
“Good,” Tuesday said, her eyes closing for a moment, then coming slightly open again as she caught herself drifting off. “I want you to come with me to Paris. . . .”
“We’ll see,” Shaw said. She moved just enough to cause her large firm breasts to peep from behind the coat. Shaw reached out and tried to adjust the coat, but it didn’t help for long. He breasts soon exposed themselves as if willfully.
“No, I mean it,” she said, realizing that he was only placating her. “I want you to come to Paris with me.”
“What would I do in Paris?” Shaw said, placing a hand on her shoulder as she drifted off to sleep.
“We’d do all sorts of things,” she said, her eyes closed, her voice turning relaxed and dreamy. “We’d visit the Roman Coliseum . . .”
“Th
e Roman Coliseum, in Paris . . . ?” Shaw cocked his head dubiously. “Tuesday, you might want to think about that some. . . .”
“And we can see the Great Wall . . . ,” Tuesday said, drifting further.
“The Great Wall. . . .” Shaw smiled to himself and tried once again to cover her bare breasts. Again his effort failed. “I’m no historian,” he offered to the sleeping young woman, “but I don’t believe the Great Wall is in Paris.”
“Yes, it is . . . it’s been there a hundred years,” she offered.
“But, Tuesday—” Shaw’s words stopped short.
“Well now,” Jane Crowley’s voice boomed from the outer edge of firelight, “I hope to hell we’re not interrupting something here.”
Shaw looked at Jane, and the two lawmen flanking her. Rather than have them think they’d caught him off guard, he said, “You’re not interrupting. I heard you coming a while ago, but I was busy with my fingers in this young woman’s back.”
Jane stared, enraged, seeing Tuesday’s bare breasts beneath Shaw’s coat. “I’m damn certain you had something of yours in something of hers.”
“We’ve no time for this,” Dawson said, stepping his horse in ahead of Jane in an attempt to keep down any further heated words from her. “Shaw, are you all right? We’ve been tracking you for a long time.”
“Much of it in circles,” Caldwell added, also stepping his horse forward, the two now sitting ahead of Jane Crowley.
The lawmen looked down at the woman, then at the blood on Shaw’s fingers, then at the dark dried blood all over his chest. Dawson said, “All the shooting earlier, I take it that was you, and the Gatling gun lying there in the wagon?”
“That’s right,” said Shaw. “I wandered around in the desert after getting shot in the head. But I knew we were searching for Madden Corio and his gang. I stumbled onto Dexter Lowe and hooked up with Corio in the midst of a big gun-running deal with Sepio Bocanero.”
“Madden Corio’s gang and Sepio Bocanero and his rebel army . . . ?” said Dawson. “That’s some big game. The Mexican government is going to want to know where to find Bocanero.”
Shaw shrugged. “That’s easy enough. Last I saw him he’s lying dead up the trail.” He nodded over his shoulder.
“You killed him?” Caldwell asked, surprised.
“Him and a few of his men,” said Shaw. “They came back to get the Gatling gun and some grenades they’d already paid Corio for.”
“But Bocanero wasn’t even our concern,” said Dawson. “That should’ve taken the whole Mexican army, somebody that big. What made you do something like that?”
Shaw considered it. “I’ve been a little off my game with this head wound. Maybe I wasn’t thinking real straight.” He paused in reflection, then continued. “Anyway, the Mexican army wasn’t there—I was. Bocanero is dead.” He stood up. Picking up the cup of water with him, he poured the warm water over his bloody hands, washing them.
“Who is this?” Dawson asked, nodding toward the sleeping woman.
“This is Dexter Lowe’s gal, Miss Tuesday Bonhart. She has saved my life more than once through all this. She’s been my ace in the hole.”
Jane sneered under her breath.
“Dangerous Dexter Lowe’s gal?” Caldwell asked in disbelief.
“She was until she killed him,” Shaw said, slinging water from his hands. “Look, I know we’ve got lots of catching up to do. But we can catch Corio and most of his men if we get moving.”
“What about her?” Caldwell asked, nodding down at Tuesday Bonhart. “Is she going to be able to ride?”
“She hasn’t missed a step yet,” Shaw said. “She can keep up with anybody here.”
Jane stepped her horse forward with a sour expression. “If she can’t she’ll be left behind.”
“Easy, Jane,” said Dawson. “Nobody who rides with us ever gets left behind.”
“I did,” Jane replied to Dawson, giving Shaw a harsh stare.
“No, you didn’t,” said Shaw. “I remember we split up the same night I got this.” He tapped his bandaged head.
“That’s something the two of you will have to thrash out between you,” said Dawson. “But this is not the time or place. We need to get on Corio’s trail.”
Shaw stood in silence, knowing Dawson was right. He watched as Jane grumbled under her breath, backed her horse and turned it away into the darkness. “I’ll put us on the damn trail. Don’t worry about that. Jane Crowley always does her part.”
When she was gone, Dawson and Shaw looked at each other and shook their heads. Then Dawson asked, just to get an idea where he stood on the matter, “Who shot you, Shaw?”
“I have no idea,” Shaw said, “only suspicions. What about you? Have you heard anything?”
“No,” said Dawson, not wanting to fuel any trouble, “no idea at all.”
“Any suspicions?” Shaw asked.
“Suspicions can get people killed if they’re not well founded,” said Dawson, backing his horse to turn it. “So I try to avoid having any.”
Chapter 22
At a fork in the dark, winding trail down from the hill line, Madden Corio stopped his horse and turned it to face the rest of the men gathering to halt. “Did we make a good pot for ourselves, men?” he asked cheerfully.
As the men nodded and hooted, he added, “You damn well bet we did!” He turned his horse back and forth restlessly as he spoke, and patted his saddlebags. “And there’s going to be plenty more coming! Damn soon!”
The men cheered in the darkness. Arnold Stemms reached over playfully and jerked young Matthew Ford’s hat down on his forehead. “Hear that, Matt? Did Jesse and Frank ever treat a man any better than this?”
“Hell no,” said Ford, grinning, straightening his flop hat.
“Now it’s time we split up and leave anybody tracking us to chase their own tails,” said Corio. He looked around at their faces. “Matt Ford, Stemms, Little Dick and Dade Watkins—”
“It’s Richard Little,” said an irritated voice, “not Little Dick.”
“All right, whatever.” Corio chuckled, too excited and keyed up to even mind Little cutting him off, something that might ordinarily get a man killed. “I want the four of yas to ride north to Cedrianno.” He nodded toward one fork in the trail. “When you get there, get yourselves and your horses fed, watered and rested. But don’t dally around longer than you need to. I want all four of yas to cut out of there in different directions.”
The four grinned, each with his share of the gold in his saddlebags. “But you don’t mind if we load up some whiskey or mescal for the trail, do you?” Arnold Stemms asked. “It’s torture for a man to have gold and a powerful thirst, and not do something about it.”
The men gave a chuckle.
“All right, get something to go with you,” said Corio. “But get it and get out of there. We’ve got some big jobs coming up and I can’t afford to lose any more men, especially after what happened to poor Bert Jordan.”
“Don’t forget Irish Tommie, that poor high-leaping sumbitch,” said Robert Hooks in a somber tone.
“Yeah, him too,” said Corio, offhandedly, already having dismissed the big heavy Irishman’s death from his memory. He looked at Hooks and three other men, Brule Kaggan, Harvey Lemate and Max Skinner. “You four are riding with me on into Nozzito. Skinner, now that Bert is gone, you’re my new right-hand—my segundo. Any objections?” He gave Skinner a flat, level stare.
“None,” Skinner said quickly. “You call the shots, I’ll make ’em, dead center,” he said with determination. He looked from face to face. “I expect everybody here heard what Madden said, loud and clear. So, when I give an order it’s the same as it was with Bert Jordan. I expect it to be followed.”
“All right, enough said,” said Corio. “Let’s ride.” He turned his horse back to the trail and booted it forward.
Matt Ford, Arnold Stemms, Richard Little and Dade Watkins sat their horses and watched the others ride away behind
Corio. “I don’t think it’s by mistake that he does that,” Little said quietly.
“What’s that, Richard?” Stemms asked.
“All the time calling me Little Dick,” the seething gunman said. “I think he knows it gets to me.” He spat in the darkness and ran a hand across his lips.
“You’ve got no complaints,” said Watkins, who’d been smoldering in silence. “Look at me, I’ve been with Corio since the war. What’s he do? He chooses Skinner ahead of me. How would that make you feel?”
“Aw, hell, forget it, the both of yas,” said Stemms, turning his horse to the north fork of the trail. “We got gold, and it’s less than a three-mile ride into Cedrianno. Let’s go live it up some.”
Turning his horse alongside Stemms’ big bay, Matthew Ford asked, “Are there going to be whores in Cedrianno, you reckon?”
“Oh my goodness, yes, lad!” said Stemms. “There are whores there, I reckon.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” said Ford. He booted his horse up into a run. Behind him the other three followed suit, laughing and catcalling into the night until the silhouette outline of the town drew closer and closer.
In moments the four horses rumbled onto the dirt street at a full run in the middle of the night. The only light still burning along the row of adobe and weathered clapboard buildings was a lantern sitting atop the bar at Rosas Salvajes Cantina.
Upon seeing and hearing the riders coming, the only working girl still on her feet hurriedly dampened the lantern to blackness as the four rolled out of their saddles at the hitch rail out front. But before the lantern went completely black, or before she had time to go drop an iron bolt in place, the big doors burst open and Arnold Stemms pounced into the middle of the floor like a large bear. “No, you don’t, little darling!” he cried out with a crazy laugh. “This night ain’t even begun yet! Is the Wild Roses Cantina open to me and my long-rider friends or what?”
“Oh, Senor,” the young prostitute said, recovering quickly now that she knew she had to. She put on her best and friendliest face in spite of the fact that she’d been ready to retire upstairs and go to bed, alone, for the night. “Of course we are open to your long-rider friends. And for a big handsome bull like you,” she added, “we are always open.”