“He needs a doctor. I’ll stay with him while you run down to Dr. Musgrave’s office and fetch him—”
“N-no.”
Everett stared. He hadn’t realized that Jackson had regained consciousness. The gunslinger turned his head slightly so that he peered up at Everett through one narrowly slitted eye.
“No,” Jackson grated again. “N-no doctor . . .”
“But . . . but you’re badly hurt!”
“Ph-Philomena . . .”
She leaned closer. “I am here, Señor Jackson. You must have the curandero—”
“You can . . . take care of me,” he broke in. “I don’t want anybody to . . . know about this.”
Understanding dawned in Everett’s mind. “With your reputation, you’re afraid that if word gets around about you being incapacitated, your enemies will show up and try to kill you.”
Jackson didn’t confirm or deny that theory. He just said again, “No . . . doctor.”
Everett looked over at Philomena and asked, “Can you care for him?”
“I . . . I can clean the blood off his back and keep wet cloths on the wounds,” she said. “I can squeeze the juice from a plant that grows here and spread it on his back. It helps injuries to heal.”
Everett thought it over for a moment and then nodded. “That’s probably just about as much as Dr. Musgrave could do. We’ll give it a try. We can always seek the doctor’s help later if we need to.”
“You are sure about this, Señor Everett?” She didn’t sound like she thought it was a very good idea.
Everett nodded again. “We might be putting Jackson in more danger by exposing what happened to him. Right now, you should heat some water, and we’ll start cleaning him up.”
Jackson lifted his head slightly and husked, “Mescal.”
“I don’t know if a drink would be a good idea—” Everett began.
“He needs something for the pain,” Philomena said as she straightened. She fetched a jug from a shelf and poured liquid from it into a small glass. Everett smelled the strong aroma of alcohol coming from the glass as she brought it over to the bunk.
“Hold his head up carefully,” Philomena instructed. Everett supposed it wouldn’t hurt anything, so he did as she said. It might even help, he told himself. Doctors often gave their patients a slug or two of liquor before performing procedures that would be painful.
Careful not to spill any of it, Philomena trickled the fiery mescal into Jackson’s mouth. He swallowed gratefully. Everett thought a bit of color came back into his face. He lowered Jackson’s head to the pillow again. The gunslinger seemed to be breathing a little better now. The mescal had definitely had a bracing effect.
Jackson was going to need it for what happened next.
Philomena poured another glass of mescal and set it on a small table beside the bunk. “Give this to him if he asks for it,” she told Everett. Then she went to the stove, kindled a fire, poured water from a bucket into a basin, and started to heat it.
The next hour or so was an experience that Everett would never forget. A lot of the blood on Jackson’s back had dried there, so Philomena had to dip cloths in the warm water and then lay them on the wounds to soak the blood before it could be cleaned away. Fresh blood welled up to replace what had dried. The wounds themselves, which crisscrossed Jackson’s back at a variety of angles, were ugly, gaping things, exposing the raw flesh beneath the torn skin.
Philomena left Everett there to gingerly swab away the new blood while she went out into the night to find one of those plants she had mentioned. By the time she came back carrying several thick, green leaves, the bleeding had begun to slow down, and in some cases had even stopped.
Everett had given Jackson two more drinks of the mescal, and the lines of strain that had etched themselves on the gunslinger’s face had eased slightly. He lay there with his eyes closed, but Everett knew he wasn’t completely out. From time to time, Jackson murmured something. Everett leaned closer now, trying to make out the words.
“What’s he saying?” he asked Philomena.
“Never mind about that,” she said. Her earlier hysteria was long gone. She was calm and self-possessed now. She squeezed a thick, clear juice from the place where she had cut off one of the thick leaves, forming a little pool of it in the palm of her other hand. She began spreading it gently over the cuts on Jackson’s back. His breath hissed between his teeth at her touch, and his muscles tensed again from the pain. But he relaxed as the cooling, soothing qualities of the thick juice began to take effect.
It took the juice from all of the leaves Philomena had gathered to cover the damage on Jackson’s back. When that was done she spread clean cloths over the cuts. Jackson sighed in relief.
He opened his eyes, cocked one at the young reporter, and said, “Everett.”
“What is it?” Everett asked as he leaned closer.
“Don’t tell anybody . . . about this. Keep it between . . . you, me, and Philomena.”
“But why?” Everett asked. “Who did this to you? This attack should at least be reported to the sheriff!”
“Nothing . . . Brennan can do . . . about it. Damage is . . . already done. But I won’t give that bastard . . . the satisfaction of... spreading the word for him.”
“What bastard?”
“The H-Hand . . . Hand of God . . .”
The answer didn’t surprise Everett all that much. “You found him?” he asked, ignoring the warning glance Philomena gave him. He knew she didn’t want him tiring out Jackson any more than necessary. Jackson would need a lot of rest to recover from the ordeal he had suffered. But at the same time, Everett had to know what had happened.
“He found . . . me,” Jackson replied. “A couple of his men . . . jumped me. I killed one of ’em . . . wounded the other . . . trailed him back to . . . the Winged T.”
“Tillman! I knew it. We knew it. He’s the Hand of God, isn’t he?”
Jackson didn’t answer that. He went on. “The fella I killed . . . was one of the hombres who braced me in the saloon . . . first day you and I met . . . remember?”
“Of course I remember. Was the one who got away the other man from that encounter?”
“More’n likely . . . I remember now . . . caught a glimpse of him at the Winged T . . . a couple of days ago . . . coming out of the barn with Dawson. Knew he looked familiar . . . but I didn’t get a good look at him and . . . didn’t recollect at the time . . . who he was.”
“So those men worked for Tillman. That makes sense, I guess. What happened then?”
“Señor Everett . . .” Philomena warned.
Jackson moved a hand. “No, it’s . . . all right . . . got to tell Everett . . . the Hand and the rest of his men . . . lassoed me . . . tied me to a tree . . . then one of ’em went to work on me . . . with a bullwhip.”
“The bastards,” Everett said as Philomena pressed a hand to her mouth.
“The Hand said he was . . . punishing me . . . but not killing me . . . because he wanted me to come back here . . . tell folks in town all about him . . . tell them that he was going to punish all the sinners . . .”
“But instead you don’t want me to say anything to anyone about this?”
“No. Let him do . . . his own dirty work. Gonna lie low . . . let him wonder . . . what happened to me.”
“Then what?”
A savage smile pulled at Jackson’s mouth. “Soon as I’m up to it . . . I plan to meet up with the Hand again . . . and do a little punishing of my own.”
Chapter 27
The next few days were miserable ones for Jackson. By the morning after the whipping, he was so sore and in so much pain that he could barely move. Philomena kept spreading the juice from the plants on his back, and that helped some. But he got awfully tired of lying on his stomach on her bunk, and it bothered him when he realized she was sleeping on a pallet on the floor. He offered to move down there, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
Despite the pain he was in f
rom his back, his brain still worked all right. He wanted to keep his presence at Philomena’s a secret, so that the Hand of God would wonder what had happened to him and why the message he had given Jackson to take back to Death Head Crossing had not been delivered. The first night, he had Everett take his horse and hide it in a shed that belonged to one of Philomena’s friends, another of the women who worked at the boardinghouse. Philomena also sent word to Mrs. Morton the next day that she was ill and wouldn’t be able to work for several days.
“That won’t cost you your job, will it?” Jackson wanted to know.
Philomena shrugged. “If it does, I do not care. I would rather stay here and take care of you.”
“Just like a woman,” he said as he summoned up a smile. “You see somebody in as bad a shape as I am, and you just can’t resist taking care of him.”
“You did what you could to help my grandfather, Señor Jackson. This is a debt I will never be able to repay.”
It was more than that, though, and Jackson knew it. He hoped Philomena wouldn’t take it too hard when the time came for him to leave Death Head Crossing, as it inevitably would.
But not until he had settled the score with a certain hood-wearing madman . . .
Everett served as Jackson’s eyes and ears, dropping in at Philomena’s several times a day to report what was going on in the settlement. When Jackson first asked him to do that, Everett said, “Are you sure you trust me to take care of something so important?”
“Everett,” Jackson said in a chiding voice, “you’re not mad at me because I told you to let me handle things for a while, are you?”
“Well . . . it seemed like you didn’t trust me anymore!” Everett burst out. “I thought we were partners, but then everything changed.”
Jackson wasn’t the sort of man who made a habit of explaining himself, but in this case he said, “I knew I might be running into some trouble—hell, I hoped I’d be running into some trouble—and I didn’t want to put you in danger. I didn’t want what happened to me to happen to you. A beating like this probably would have killed you.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Everett admitted. “But I don’t mind running a few risks. A journalist has to do that sometimes.”
Jackson nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
By the time several days had gone by, Jackson was able to sit up and move around a little. The cuts on his back were beginning to heal, thanks to Philomena’s care. She wrapped bandages around his torso to hold the torn flesh together and to protect him from further injury. It would be a good while before Jackson was back to normal, but at least he could feel the progress he was making, and that was encouraging.
In the meantime, the Hand of God had evidently been lying low too. Sheriff Brennan told Everett that there hadn’t been any more trouble, and Everett reported that fact to Jackson.
The three of them sat together around the table in Philomena’s hut that evening. Jackson felt good about being up and around again, although Philomena warned him about not trying to do too much too soon.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I know I’m not ready to strap on my six-gun and go looking for the Hand of God just yet. That showdown will have to wait a while longer.”
“I was thinking about riding out to the Winged T again,” Everett said.
Jackson frowned. “I’m not sure that’d be a good idea.”
“Tillman has to be puzzled about your disappearance,” Everett argued. “He might let something slip that would prove he’s behind all the trouble.”
“Anything he said to you wouldn’t prove anything unless other witnesses were around to hear it too,” Jackson pointed out. “And he might decide to just kill you and not take a chance on you telling anybody else.”
“Well, there is that possibility,” Everett admitted.
“Maybe you’d better wait a while. Let Tillman stew in his own juices for now.”
Philomena said, “You are certain that Señor Tillman is the one who calls himself the Hand of God?” She added under her breath, “It is blasphemy.”
Everett began, “Of course he’s—” The young reporter stopped when he saw the frown on Jackson’s face. “You are convinced of Tillman’s guilt, aren’t you?”
“Everything seems to revolve around the Winged T,” Jackson said, “and Tillman’s loco enough that I wouldn’t put anything past him. The way he jumped you that day is proof of that.”
Everett lifted a hand to his face and touched one of the scratches from the rosebushes that could still be seen faintly. Most of them already had healed up.
“But something bothers me about this whole thing,” Jackson went on. “Something’s not right about it.”
“He is insane,” Philomena said. “Of course it is not right.”
“We’ll see,” Jackson said. “We’ll see.”
The next day, in fact, they saw.
Everett was in the newspaper office, talking to Malcolm Graham. Rosalie wasn’t there, which had come as a disappointment to Everett when he walked in and found Graham working at the composing trays, setting type for the next issue of the Journal.
After a few minutes of small talk, which elicited the information that Rosalie would be in later, Graham asked, “Where’s that friend of yours these days, Everett? I’m still waiting to do that interview with him.”
“You mean Mr. Jackson? I don’t really know. I haven’t seen him for several days myself.” Everett shrugged. “We’re not really friends. He goes his own way. He may have even left this part of the country.”
“But I thought you were going to travel with him and write about him,” Graham said with a puzzled frown.
“That didn’t work out as well as I had hoped.”
Graham seemed to accept that answer. “Well, if you happen to run into him, tell him I’d still like to talk to him and maybe take his picture.”
“You’re a photographer too?”
“I dabble in it,” Graham said with a smile. “I’ve given some thought to opening a photographic studio here in Death Head Crossing, if the town ever grows big enough to support one.”
Everett was interested in that, and would have asked Graham more questions about the subject, but at that moment they heard the sudden clatter of hoofbeats from the street. Someone was in a hurry, and that meant news.
Both men hurried to the door to look out. They saw Ned Dawson, the foreman of the Winged T, gallop past the newspaper office. Everett caught a glimpse of Dawson’s face, and was surprised to see how pale and shocked the man seemed to be. Dawson fogged it on down the street, pulling his lathered horse to a stop in front of Sheriff Ward Brennan’s office.
Everett and Graham exchanged a look, and without saying a word, they started toward the sheriff’s office. Dawson dismounted and hurried inside without looking around, obviously intent on the mission that had brought him to Death Head Crossing.
As Everett and Graham entered the sheriff’s office, Brennan was saying, “Slow down, slow down, Ned. What’s all this uproar about?”
Dawson said, “I’m tellin’ you, there’s bad trouble out at the ranch.” He glanced at the two newcomers. “Damn it, do these newspaper fellas have to be here?”
“I’m sure you’ve heard of freedom of the press, Mr. Dawson,” Graham said. “Mr. Howard and I certainly have a right to be here.”
Brennan rumbled, “This is still my office, and I’ll decide who stays and who goes.” He glared at Dawson. “But I can’t figure that out until I know what the hell’s goin’ on. Just spit it out, Ned.”
Dawson rubbed at his grizzled jaw for a moment, then shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t even know where to start. You’d better just come out there and have a look for yourself, Sheriff. I sure don’t know what in blazes to make of it.”
Brennan sighed in exasperation. “You can’t even tell me what happened?”
“That’s the hell of it,” Dawson said. “I ain’t rightly sure. I just know it’s bad.”
Bre
nnan nodded curtly and reached for his hat. “All right, I’ll ride back out there with you. But this better not be a waste o’ my time, that’s all I’m sayin’.”
“I’m coming too,” Graham declared. “I’ll saddle my horse.”
Acting on a hunch, Everett followed his instincts and said, “I’ll accompany you.”
“Dad-gum it!” Dawson burst out. “Pretty soon we’ll have the whole blamed town traipsin’ out there!”
“No, just these two fellas,” Brennan said, “and I reckon they’ve got a right to be there, bein’ journalists and all. Or do you think I need to take some deputies too?”
The foreman’s face was bleak as he shook his head. “No, you won’t need a posse. Whatever happened, it’s all over now.”
Everett didn’t much like the sound of that. The finality of Dawson’s statement was obvious.
Brennan looked at the two newspapermen and said, “I can’t stop you from comin’ along, but that don’t mean I have to wait for you. You’d better hurry up if you’re ridin’ with us.”
Everett and Graham hustled out of the sheriff’s office. Since their horses were kept in different places, they agreed to meet back in front of Brennan’s office as quickly as possible. “Don’t waste any time,” Graham warned. “Sheriff Brennan means what he says.”
Everett hurried to the stable behind the boardinghouse and slapped the saddle on his horse. He wished there was time to stop by Philomena’s and let Jackson know that something important was going on, but he couldn’t afford the delay. Everett’s movements as he saddled up were still awkward, but he was getting better at it with practice.
Graham was waiting on horseback when Everett rode up a few minutes later. “The sheriff and Mr. Dawson just left,” Graham said. “We can probably catch them if we hurry.”
“By all means,” Everett agreed.
The two men rode hard out of Death Head Crossing, following the lawman and the foreman of the Winged T. Everett couldn’t help but wonder what they would find when they got to the ranch. The way Dawson had acted, it couldn’t be anything good.
Death Head Crossing Page 17