Shotgun

by Courtney Joyner

  “God only knows, and I’m obliged to you both.”

  Bishop brought his horse around slow for that last look, and then heeled her. The bay took off toward the blue-black silhouettes of the rising hills, and the high Colorados beyond.

  Spitter whistled with gums and two fingers, but Dr. John Bishop didn’t hear it. His horse was running strong into the winter night, knowing where to go, even if his mind was taking him someplace else beyond the hurt—maybe back to his wedding day, or the birth of his son.

  Behind him, a rider was charging hard to catch up, a Cheyenne war club in their hand.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Fox

  White Fox kept her body low and tight against the painted stallion. They moved as one, racing down the trail, the snow kicking up around them like bursts of brake steam. She grabbed the horse’s mane, fingers tangled in wiry brown, and gently pulled. The painted slowed as the path through the trees widened into an easier slope that led to the “town” just below. It was a mule squat for drifters who still had hopes for the played-out silver strike at Cherry Creek—stop for a drink or an ash hauling, and ride on.

  But this was where Bishop had to go, so White Fox had to follow.

  She pulled up to watch Bishop’s silhouette pause outside Huckie’s, say something with a roll of his shoulders, and then go in. White Fox dropped from the painted, and walked him around the burned skeleton of an old barn to a water trough thick with ice. She broke the icy surface with a kick and tossed away the pieces.

  The painted inspected the trough with his nose, then drank.

  While he watered, she scraped packed snow from his hooves with a six-inch blade. She had the feeling everything in this place was dying or dead. Two loud voices from Huckie’s stopped her.

  White Fox stepped into the moonlight, craning her neck toward Huckie’s to hear. A voice she didn’t know was yelling about Jesus. Two shotgun blasts followed; that low rumble mixed with those louder cracks that ring in the air and ears.

  The painted lurched as the blasts smashed against the hills. White Fox said, “Nâhtötse,” close to the stallion’s ear, calming him, before swinging herself on his back, and circling around the far side of the barn. She saw Bishop on his bay, talking to the Spitter on the porch. White Fox dug in, and the painted broke into a run, while Bishop rode off without looking back.

  The Spitter whistled loud after Bishop, before looking up to see White Fox charging toward him. It was either an image from some kind of holy book or his best damn whiskey dream ever: the beautiful Cheyenne woman, onyx hair spreading behind her, riding out of the night just to take the old man away. White Fox pulled a war club she’d tethered to her belt and held it high.

  Spitter closed his eyes and smiled, thinking, This is a hell of a way to go, and why not?

  White Fox rode close, swinging the club into the skull of the drunk standing next to the Spitter, creasing his head. The drunk fell forward, the revolver in his hand hot-blasting the muddy snow instead of John Bishop’s back, where he had been aiming.

  Spitter grabbed the pistol for a trophy, and White Fox threw him a stony nod while the painted galloped toward Bishop. Bishop turned at the sound of the shot, just as White Fox rode up next to him, still holding the war club. They rode side by side for a moment, the legs of the painted and the bay falling into sync.

  White Fox said, “Hetómem.”

  Bishop spoke through the bloody handkerchief, “He remembered me.”

  White Fox pointed to the nearest mountains with the club, and broke ahead. Bishop heeled the bay.

  The cave was a huge, yawning smile beneath a jagged slope of blue rock, sheeted by snow and protected by daggers of ice formed by the water flowing from up-mountain. Bishop followed the barely-there trail for more than a mile, guided by a small fire White Fox had left burning inside the cave’s mouth, its drifting heat melting hanging icicles. Bishop felt comforted by the distant, flickering orange, even as a raw burning raced across his face and down his right half-arm.

  The painted was tied to a Rocky Mountain birch, eating fresh snow, when Bishop reached the cave. White Fox stood just inside, waiting to see if he could get down from the bay by himself. He did, a scream jamming the back of his throat. Fresh blood specked Bishop’s sleeve and the shotgun barrels. She took a step toward him that he stopped with a raised hand. He nodded that he could beat it, allowing himself a moment to let the throbbing from his arm and face ease with deep, cold breathing. It didn’t.

  White Fox slipped herself under his shoulder and helped him to the fire. “Bi-shop.”

  Bishop smiled at the way she said his name, breaking it gently in two, as if each syllable had a spiritual meaning. She eased him onto a blanket on the cave floor, where he stretched out, propping himself on his right elbow, the shotgun rig resting on his knees.

  White Fox pulled off the blood-flecked duster and folded it carefully, before putting more wood on the fire, sparking the flames. She then opened one of the redware jars she’d arranged around the cave, along with bedrolls, a cook pan, a coffeepot, a lot of ammunition, and a small leather satchel that had Bishop’s initials stamped on it in gold.

  Bishop said, “You’re nesting—Jesus!”

  He cried out raw as she peeled the pink handkerchief from the drying blood caking his cheek. White Fox tossed the rag, and dabbed the wound with a soft cloth she’d wetted with melted snow. It was cool, and felt good against the damage.

  Bishop said, “Stitches. You know how.”

  White Fox ran her fingers along the inside of the jar, gathering yellow salve. She smeared the mixture on the wound, then cut a piece of yucca in half, opened it flat, and pressed it against Bishop’s face.

  She took Bishop’s left hand to hold the plant in place and he said, “This won’t be enough. Ma’heo’o Ôhvó’komaestse.”

  Bishop got the words out, but White Fox didn’t hear them. Her jaw was set, which meant that she would take care of him in her own way; she didn’t need white medicine.

  She unbuttoned his shirt, and he automatically leaned forward so she could pull the right sleeve free, gathering the rest around the shotgun rig, then slipping it off. The shirt caught on the hammers, and White Fox yanked it.

  Bishop swore in Cheyenne, and White Fox gave the back of his head a gentle slap before allowing him a swallow of mescal.

  Bare-chested, he leaned to one side, his back toward her, so she could unhook the canvas strap that was tight across his shoulders and connected to the two triggers of the Greener twelve gauge. The strap dug into him, leaving marks like the bite of a whip, and was connected to a looped piece of fabric that ran down his right arm and anchored to the triggers, so that the action of bringing the shotgun up to waist level would pull on the strap, firing either or both barrels.

  The bleeding started around the leather cup that was fit to Bishop’s right arm just below the elbow joint. It was a standard prosthetic that rebel and union boys now wore as a battle prize, but had been modified to allow the short stock of the Greener to fit where a metal hook would replace the patient’s hand. The stock was secured in the cup with small metal bands that joined the shotgun and prosthetic together as one.

  White Fox loosened the ties that held the cup tight to Bishop’s arm, and pulled the entire rig away, revealing a bleeding stump. More mescal from the heel of the bottle, and Bishop’s head lolled back, his hand still holding the yucca against his cheek as she checked the arm for fresh wounds.

  He said, “Nothing’s opened up?”

  She examined the corrupted skin and muscle that was a knot around the bone, and saw that none of the crude surgical scars lacing it together had ruptured. The blood was smeared from small wounds around the elbow, where the amputation point met the healthy rest of the arm. White Fox swabbed away the streaks of wet red.

  Bishop said, “It’s not setting right, rubbing raw. I know you don’t understand everything, but you did a fine job. I’m the doc, but you’re the surgeon.”

  Whit
e Fox dressed the wound with salve and wrapped it, saying, “I still am, Bi-shop.”

  “Not always, not always.”

  White Fox allowed the corners of her mouth to turn up, as she settled Bishop down on the blanket. A last bit of mescal and he closed his eyes at her touch treating his wounds.

  “Where’s my medical bag?”

  “Close.”

  Bishop barely opened his eyes to see the small, black leather bag, age-cracked, with LT. BISHOP embossed in flaked gold on one side. It was Bishop’s field kit, bloodstained and heavy with instruments. White Fox had arranged it among the other supplies, but knowing that piece of himself hadn’t been lost eased Bishop, and he closed his eyes again.

  Bishop said, “You take care of me.”

  White Fox rested the shotgun rig between the medical bag and the stacks of ammunition, all the time watching Bishop as he drifted, his words folding into each other.

  “When your husband stabbed you, I sewed you up. And when he broke your arm? You were a good patient.”

  White Fox treated the slice on Bishop’s face with the last of the yucca pulp. His eyes were heavy with sleep coming, but his thoughts were fighting the peace.

  “Pardee had never seen anything like me. Nobody had.”

  Bishop lifted what remained of his right arm to reach out to White Fox, but he couldn’t. She touched the side of his face, lightly tapping the pulp onto the wound so it would dry in place.

  Bishop said, “I’ve watched a lot of men die, but I never killed one. Not even in the conflict.”

  White Fox lay next to Bishop, pulling a blanket over them both, keeping one hand on his chest.

  Bishop said, “It felt different than I thought it would.”

  White Fox understood but didn’t react; she just lay next to Bishop, feeling the still-excited, rapid beat of his heart and quietly murmuring his name until his body eased, and he fell, peacefully, asleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Deadeye

  “Death ain’t much of a threat.”

  The Spitter pounded his glass on the counter of the old exchange station for another pour, while Lem “Deadeye” Wright tried to cut through his jabber. “I got no interest in killin’ ya, old man.”

  “You’re the ugliest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen. You tellin’ me you never killed nobody?”

  “No, I just ain’t interested in you. Yet.”

  Wright rubbed his white-curtained eye, and took in the rest of Huckie’s with an exasperated breath. The saloon was now empty, save for the whore, a deaf miner, and the fat-neck behind the bar. Fat-neck poured the drink that separated night from morning, pocketed his cash, said nothing, and wandered off.

  The Spitter said, “He took it in the guts right there.”

  The poker table had been righted, and the whore was sharing Pardee’s chair with the miner, letting his grubby hands absently roam while she dozed. Wright moved to the spread of dried blood on the floor in front of them, then looked to the shattered door, figuring the distance between Pardee and the stranger who had killed him. He could still smell the shotgun’s smoke.

  Wright said, “I’ve seen some things, but nothin’ like what you’re talking about.”

  Spitter was getting the last of the shot glass as Wright scraped the red-black stain with his toe. Spitter asked, “Want me to tell it again?”

  It was damn late, and Wright’s patience was running thin, his sightless eye aching him, but he had his task. Wright said, “Just about the fellow with the shotgun. I got the rest.”

  “He was younger than you, and a damn sight better lookin’.”

  Wright let it pass. “You said he knew Pardee?”

  “Called him by name.”

  “And the shotgun was under his coat?”

  The whore yawned awake and said, “More like it was a part of him.”

  “So you rode with that sheep dip, he was a friend of yours? Or some kind of kin?”

  Wright let the Spitter fix on his dead eye, and then, “That why you thought I’d kill ya? To revenge Pardee?”

  Spitter puffed out his boney chest as far as it would go, coughed, and then said, “It’s happened before. I’ve done it, and I’m ready for your worst.”

  “Stand down. Pardee was no friend, no kin. But we were supposed to meet up. Where’d you put him?”

  Lying with the empty whiskey crates next to Huckie’s outhouse seemed as good a place as any for Chester Pardee, who was supported by mounds of packed snow under his head and back, with a small rise beneath his knees to keep his body straight for burying. Ice locked his hands on his chest as if he were praying, while a comforter of new snow covered him, hiding his open wounds and their stains. Someone had grabbed his boots, and his toes were turning from blue to black to match his lips. His eyes were frozen-open blanks.

  Spitter said, “At least he’ll keep. We don’t got no undertaker here.”

  Wright’s teeth were chattering as he tried to pull apart Pardee’s fingers, but they wouldn’t give. He said, “You could use one. He don’t look natural with his hands like that.”

  “If you’re worried about it, leave me twenty and I’ll make sure they burn off a piece of ground, warm it up for diggin’, so he can be planted. If you don’t, he could be here ’til the spring thaw.”

  “I ain’t worried.”

  “So what now?”

  Lem Wright squinted his good eye and blew a hole in the Spitter’s chest, sending him spinning, and spraying Pardee with fresh red. The sound brought the whore to Huckie’s back window, but this was her second killing in less than a day, and she hadn’t been the one who had taken the bullet, so it didn’t matter to her. Not in this place, not this morning.

  Wright stood in the blowing snow, with two dead men, as small traces of morning broke apart the night sky. A few minutes, and there was enough light for him to see to go into Pardee’s pockets.

  The coat was stiff with blood and ice, but Wright found the letter, and held it close to his good eye with just enough new sun behind him to read it.

  Except the page was blank.

  Wright turned it over, and then he heard Chaney behind him. “You’re pretty quick with that Colt, but I’m dead-center on your head.”

  Chaney was on his horse, new snow spotting his bowler as he aimed down at Wright. Wright took a few steps back, gun holstered, before turning around.

  Chaney said, “There’s been a lot of blood spilled, my friend.”

  Lem was calm. “You want some more? I’ll accommodate you. You’ve got a good chance at a dead shot aiming down from that saddle, but all I have to do is take a half-step to the left, and I can put one in your throat before you’ll know what happened.”

  Chaney lowered his gun, just a bit. “You don’t have to do that. We can bargain; seems to me there’s more than enough gold to go around.”

  Wright shook his head. “Christ on a busted crutch, you got the letter.”

  “I’m one of the few in this dog pile who could read it.”

  “It’s a crock.”

  “Not according to Pardee. He was a hell of a chatterbox when he was at the poker table, so it’s a good thing he was cut down, or everybody in the territory would know.”

  “We got no money, and all Pardee got was a belly full of twelve gauge.”

  Chaney touched his false tooth with his thumb, as he always did when considering a situation. “Except this Major Beaudine wants to see you about something, and the man with the shotgun wants you dead. When folks get this worked up, it’s always about money.”

  “And you’re cuttin’ yourself in?”

  Chaney found some of his gambler’s bravado and said, “Let’s call it taking over Pardee’s share. Besides, I’m thinking you need somebody to watch your back.”

  Wright said, “Or shoot me in it?”

  “We’ll see how it goes.”

  Wright half-smiled at the thought of killing Chaney right then. He walked around Huckie’s and got on his horse, pulling up his collar aga
inst a sharp lash of wind from the mountains.

  In less than a moment, Lem had pulled his gun and fired, blasting apart the buckle of Chaney’s gun belt. Chaney scrambled to grab hold of his holster, steady his gun, and fire back. He managed to do nothing.

  Lem still had his Colt out, and said, “Just so you know how things really are. But I might find some use for you if you want to tag along.”

  Lem turned his horse around, and started for the miles of white that lay between them and Cheyenne. His back was a perfect target, but he never flinched.

  After a few minutes, Chaney fell in alongside, his gun belt slung over his saddle, but the pistol within reach. Lem said nothing to him, and neither of them looked back at the dead men lying together in the blood-pink snow, waiting for someone to give a damn.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Major

  Major Beaudine called the young woman by her Christian name, even though she claimed it was something else.

  Beaudine said, “Being truly coy is an attractive and vanishing art, Miss Nellie, but you don’t have to be that way with me. Certainly not now.”

  Knowing better, she didn’t protest. She would listen, call him “Major,” hand him his cooled julep, keep the pipe filled, and then listen more. Sometimes he would pause to emphasize a phrase, looking for a reaction. If she reacted correctly, then he would chuckle because they’d shared a moment. She always tried to react correctly, because she didn’t know what would happen if she did not.

  Beaudine heard her call him “a man of power.”

  They would lie together, and he allowed her questions, even when they touched on painful memories. He’d answer them as well as he could, even helping her take notes so she’d have them for her newspaper articles.

  Beaudine knew she’d try to be impartial, but lying next to him, her body tangled close, her questions whispered, the best she would be able to tell her editor was that her impression of Major Beaudine was “tainted. In a sweet way.”

  Beaudine spoke without looking at her. “People don’t understand how two such as ourselves could ever be brought together.”