He turned into the stinking yard of the hide warehouse and this smell brought back sharply his memory of the previous months out on the plain hunting buffalo. It brought back memory of Ike Solomon. He glanced at the warehouse windows, but they were dark. He passed the bleaching pile of bones, swung over, and entered the crib street, which, so far as he knew, was unnamed.
For the hour, the street was quiet. A drunk staggered from one of the darkened doors and stumbled up the street, a dimly seen shadow from a hundred yards away. Otherwise, Sloan saw no one. It was almost as though the street had gone to sleep. Here, then, was where it would happen. Here, bullets would come cutting out of some dark doorway. Here the town would see its marshal die, or see him win and live. The sleeping anger awoke in him as he rode along the street. His faith in human nature waned. Every person along this street knew that an ambush had been laid. Its silence told him that. It was disillusioning to realize that not a single person of all those who knew would speak. Every nerve and muscle tense, he kept his eyes straight ahead, as though in contempt of what he knew. But he was not as foolhardy as he seemed. His eyes were on his horse’s head, his full trust in the animal’s alert senses.
Ahead, a little light filtered between two buildings from a garishly lit gambling room in the rear of one of the saloons on Texas Street. And, since it was the strongest light along the length of the street, Sloan guessed the attempt would be made as he passed through it. Nearing it, the tight, empty feeling in his stomach increased. His chest was cold. The war had been easy compared to this. There is security in companionship, strength in the knowledge that you do not face death alone. Yet his left hand holding the reins was steady, his right not visibly tensed to seize his gun. A dozen paces—half a dozen. The horse’s ears pricked the instant he entered the light. His head swung nervously to the left.
Sloan leaned forward; his heels touched the nervous animal’s sides. The horse lunged ahead at the precise instant the first gun flared from the shadows on the left, at the precise instant a woman screamed, “Marshal, look out!”
As though this first shot had been a signal, now others lanced from the darkness, from right and left, from straight ahead. The horse reared as one of the bullets ticked his chest, reared in the middle of that deadly shaft of light. Sloan whirled him as he came down. His gun was in his hand, hammer back, and he fired twice at a flash on the edge of the street. Outnumbered, he knew he had no chance as long as they could see him and he could not see them. He slammed his revolver down against his horse’s rump and the animal leaped as though he had been shot. Straight out of the light, straight toward those flashes to Sloan’s left. They broke as he thundered down upon them, one scurrying to the right, one to the left, still a third down a narrow passageway between two buildings. Sloan rode one of them down, heard the man’s high scream as the black struck him, knocked him down, then plunged on over his prone body.
Again now, Sloan whirled the horse, fired at a running shadow and saw it melt into the shadows lying close to the ground. Bullets were still coming from the other side of the street. Thoroughly furious, with both caution and fear gone before his raging anger, Sloan turned and thundered across the street. A bullet slashed across his thigh, bringing instant numbness, an instant rush of blood. Involuntarily he swung the black, veered aside, and left the saddle. He hit the ground running, but the wounded leg gave way and he fell, rolling in the deep, dry dust. He heard their pounding feet, heard their high, exultant yells, “Got him! Got the son-of-a-bitch!”
Hidden by darkness and the cloud of dust he had raised himself, Sloan scrambled to one side, felt the boardwalk under his hands, and pulled himself up. Let them come. Let them come as close as they would. Surprise at seeing him up, at seeing his gun flare from an unexpected place should make them break and run as the others had.
They were coming, sweeping across the street like a wave of wind rippling a high stand of prairie grass. Sloan’s leg was wet all the way to the ankle, wet with blood, and suddenly he felt the weakness come. It swept up from the pit of his stomach, closed his throat, and made his head swim dizzily. His eyes blurred until he could not have shot accurately at a man two dozen feet away. He clung to the post beside which he stood and knew he was doomed.
The past days had been too much—the beating, the strain, the sleeplessness—and now this wound, which, while it hadn’t crippled him, had made him lose enough blood to weaken him disastrously. A sibilant sound on the walk behind him made him turn his head, made him tense and raise his gun, but had the sound been made by one of his enemies he would have been too late. He felt a small, soft hand touch his arm, heard a throaty voice he had heard in this street before, “Don’t stand there, fool. Come on.”
Those in the street had slowed; caution had slowed them, and they were coming more carefully now. To each, death and danger had become personal things that lurked in the shadows toward which they walked. Only this circumstance made it possible for Sloan to edge back from the post, to enter the door a dozen yards downstreet toward which the woman had drawn him.
The air inside smelled of cheap perfume that was strong enough to be a tangible and almost solid thing. He heard the bolt eased into place on the door and stood blindly in the darkness, swaying nearer to the void of unconsciousness than he had been in a long, long time.
There was a rustling of skirts, and the woman came up beside him, caught his arm, and pulled him gently across the tiny room. “Come on. Lie down. The windows are shuttered so I can light a lamp. Maybe I can tie up that leg or something.”
“How did you know … ?”
Bitterness faintly touched her voice. “You forget, Marshal. We live in the dark … particularly those of us who aren’t as young as we used to be. I saw you limping and saw your leg give way.”
Sloan sank down onto the perfumed bed. A match struck and touched the wick of the lamp. A moment later she came toward him, carrying it. She was dressed in a red wrapper. Her hair was long, and also red. Brick red originally, he guessed, for there was a bridge of pale freckles across her nose. Now her hair, dyed with henna, was a deep, auburn red. A woman who looked forty—who was probably less than thirty. Yet there was something in the depths of her eyes right now that was very young.
Sloan closed his eyes as she lifted his leg to the bed and cut the cloth of his pants leg awkwardly with a small pair of scissors. He said, “Your bed … the blood …” and tried to move, but she pushed him firmly back. She found the wound, and he smelled the strong, raw stench of whiskey, felt its acrid coldness against his skin and against the raw flesh of the bullet’s gash. He entered a world neither altogether unconsciousness nor consciousness and hung there for what seemed an eternity. With gentle hands she washed the wound, not with water but with whiskey, then bound it up and soaked the bandage liberally out of the bottle. She pried open his mouth and poured a little of this same antiseptic into it. He choked, gagged, swallowed, and opened his eyes.
There was a racket in the street now to which she seemed oblivious. He said, “Blow out that lamp.”
She did. He eased the leg over the side of the bed and sat up. His head swam, and he shook it angrily. He said, “Help me up.”
“No. You’re not strong enough …”
“Damn it, I’ve got to be.” His voice was harsh. “I was bleeding like a stuck hog out there. If they’ve got lanterns, they’ll trail me straight to your door.”
He crossed the room, staggering, sometimes blundering into a piece of furniture as he went. He came up against the wall and edged along it to the window. He shoved the curtains aside, groped for the latch on the inside shutters, found it, and eased the shutter back the slightest crack.
He saw the light in the street instantly. It was very close. He latched the shutter and turned. “Back door? Window?”
“There’s a door. Over here.”
He crossed the room, feeling stronger and less dizzy than he had before. The
back door opened, and the freshness of air straight off the prairie blew inside, only contaminated slightly by the smells of the town. He said, “How about you?”
“I’ll yell bloody murder the minute you leave.” Her voice was a little breathless—excited—and not as it had been before. He started to move past her, but she blocked his path. She stood in tiptoe and kissed him on the mouth. “Good luck.”
He put a big, callused hand on either side of her face, then bent his head and kissed her back, missing her mouth and kissing her nose instead. He said, “Thanks. Any time I can …”
Someone pounded on the front door. She said, “Hurry. Go on.”
He stepped out into the alley and heard the door close quickly behind him. He cut across, through vacant lots and tin-can dumps, to the rear of Texas Street, thence between two buildings and out into the busy street again.
He heard her screaming behind him, her screams muffled by the walls at first, unmuffled later as his pursuers opened the back door and streamed into the alley in search of him. But he was safe. He was moving unnoticed along the darkened upper end of Texas Street toward the jail.
IX
He was almost exhausted when he reached the jail, and was wryly considering contrasts in his mind. He had ridden out with the pleasant aftertaste of a good cigar in his mouth, his nerves alive and alert to the threat he knew he faced. He had ridden down Texas Street like a tall, immovable rock, had ridden into the planned ambush as though unaware that it was there or as though he didn’t care. Now he was returning, dizzy, sick, weak from this wound, and still smelling of the perfumed bed on which he’d lain. His trouser leg flapped around his bloody shank, and he reeked of the whiskey that had been used to disinfect the wound. But the very contrast gave him an idea, one that he knew would set his ambushers back on their heels for the rest of tonight, at least.
He pushed open the door and stepped inside. The sight of him brought Sid rushing toward him. “God! What happened? I heard the shots and I almost …”
“Good thing you didn’t. It’s ten to one they had someone waiting to grab Burle out the minute you left.”
He sat down. Sid looked at the leg and saw that it had been bandaged. His nose wrinkled as he smelled the perfume and whiskey, and suddenly a grin was born behind his pale blue eyes, a grin that reached out and lightly touched the corners of his wide, thin mouth. He said, “By God, there’s nothing I admire more than a man that can fall in the outhouse and come up smelling like a rose. Or is it rose? More lilac, seems like.”
“Shut up.”
“And whiskey, too.” Sid’s eyes were exaggeratedly solemn. “Mebbe being a marshal’s deputy ain’t going to be so bad after all. Man could learn something in this job.”
“Shut up and go over to the hotel. Get me my extra pants and a clean shirt.”
Sid grinned at him impudently and went outside. Sloan got up and found a wash pan and a bucket of water. He poured the wash pan full and splashed water into his face and over his head. He lathered with strong soap, rinsed, then toweled himself dry. He found a cigar that wasn’t broken too badly and lit it. He sat down and waited, drawing the smoke into his lungs.
Back in the cellblock, Burle was quiet. After a few moments Sid returned with the clothes Sloan had sent him for. Sloan put them on with considerable difficulty while Sid looked on, grinning unsympathetically. At last Sloan said with good-natured irritability, “Damn you, I could’ve got myself killed.”
Sid sighed with mock delight. “What a way to die.”
“Ahhhhh!” Sloan buckled on his gun belt and sat down to pull on his boots. He stood up and set his hat at a jaunty angle. “Go down to the livery barn and get my horse. He’s probably standing outside the corral fence.”
“You’re not going to ride this town again?”
“I sure as hell am. Just like nothing had happened.”
Sid studied his face a moment, sobering. Then he nodded, turned, and went outside. Sloan called out, “Bring the horse up the alley!”
He waited again, and as he waited, he began to grin in spite of the gnawing pain in his leg. Seeing him ride down the street, unruffled, apparently unhurt, ought to set them back on their heels. They were sure they had hit him; they’d seen him go down. They had followed a trail of blood to the red-haired woman’s door. But by the time they were through speculating, they’d be thinking either that Sloan was the devil come to life or that they’d ambushed an unsuspecting cowhand who happened to look enough like Sloan in the darkness to be mistaken for him.
He heard the sound of hoofs out back, and a few moments later Sid came in the front. Sloan nodded to him and said,“Thanks,” and went on outside. He reached the horse by tramping around to the back through the weeds, mounted, and rode back the way he had come. He was hurting for sleep, and was groggy enough to have difficulty sitting straight in the saddle without swaying from side to side. But for all the town could see, there was a ramrod in his back and calm, implacable strength in his steady eyes.
He rode down Texas Street in the exact center of the street, looking neither to right nor left, past the noisy line of saloons that faced him from both sides of the street, and he heard the silence that followed him along like an ominous calm in a storm. He circled the depot and rode through the dark alleyways between the cattle pens, thence back through the depot to cross Texas Street at its foot. Then to the hide warehouse and beyond, to the street of the prostitutes, which he traversed in an almost complete silence broken only by the measured sound of his horse’s walking hoofs.
On Fourth, he turned right and returned to Texas Street, and now, as he rode into it, a stillness hung over the entire brawling town, a stillness that reached into the saloons, into the bagnios, and lay in the streets like a cold, wet fog. With a grim, tight grin on his nearly colorless lips, he dismounted before the jail and stepped inside. He said, “Blow out the lamp. Then go over to the hotel and borrow a cot. If I never do another thing, I’ve got to sleep right now.”
* * * * *
Sloan Hewitt awoke at sunup, to the sounds of Burle bawling to be released. He sat up, startled, not immediately remembering where he was and what had happened. But the sharp, immediate pain in his leg reminded him quickly enough. He winced, and his face twisted with pain.
Sid, who had been sitting on a box outside in the street, now came in, carrying it. He put the box down. “Feel better?”
Sloan nodded, rubbing his eyes and running his hands through his hair.
“You’d better see the doc about that leg.”
Sloan nodded again. He gestured with his head toward the cellblock in the rear. “Turn him loose.”
Sid went back and unlocked Burle’s cell. He came out again, following a sullen, angry Burle. Burle said, “Damn you. I’ll see you in hell for this.”
Sloan stared at him steadily. “You sure won’t be seeing me any place else.” He didn’t stand up, and he didn’t move. He doubted if Burle knew he had been hurt, and he didn’t want the man to know. Burle could hardly have been directly responsible for the ambush last night, but Sloan didn’t doubt it had been laid by Burle’s friends and probably by his employees, too.
Burle glowered at him and headed for the door. He met Doc coming in. Doc glanced at the marshal and then at Burle. He said, “Jeff, you lost a couple of men last night.”
“What the hell you talking about?”
“About Hughie Revel … and Dan Purdue. They were working for you, weren’t they?”
“I’m not their keeper.”
“No, I guess you’re not.” Doc stepped aside, but he kept his sour, steady glance on Burle’s face until the man was past and out the door. Then he turned to Sloan. “You look like you might’ve lost some blood.”
Sloan said, “Leg. Come on back here in one of the cells and take a look at it. Don’t talk about it, though. I’d as soon they didn’t know.”
He got up, turning pale and breaking into a sweat. He limped toward the rear. Doc said grumpily, “I don’t know how the hell you’re going to keep it secret. You’re limping like a man with a wooden leg. Your face is as gray as the belly of a toad.”
Sid carried the cot back, and Sloan sank down upon it. He gritted his teeth as Doc unwound the makeshift, blood-soaked bandage. He felt his consciousness slipping as Doc pulled the last of it free.
In a haze of half-consciousness, he began to think bleakly that he’d bitten off more than he could ever chew. One man couldn’t face down a whole town that was determined to have his hide. Not a whole man, nor half a man like he was now. This wound would sap his strength for several weeks to come, and he needed all his strength if he was going to stay alive.
He gripped the sides of the cot as Doc redressed and cleaned the wound. Doc growled at him, “Don’t fight so hard. You’ve got all day.”
“Can you make me well by night?”
“No. You damn well know I can’t. But if you’ll listen to me, I can make you well enough to do your job.”
“How?”
“Get a good breakfast and then hole up here and sleep until the sun goes down. Nobody’ll think anything about it … you’ve been up all night. Get up at sundown, drink some whiskey, and eat a steak. Remember to move real easy and slow and you’ll be all right.”
“How bad is the leg?”
“Clean, round hole. Bullet went in and came on out. Tore up some flesh and muscle and cut some veins. But, unless it infects, it will heal. Whoever tied you up did a good job. Who was she, by the way?”
“Red-haired woman down on the crib street. If she hadn’t let me in, I’d be dead right now.”
Something made him open his eyes, and he saw Merline Morris standing in the door of the cell.
Doc said, “That would be Rose.”
Lawless Town Page 13