Friends

by Charles Hackenberry

  I answered the knock at the door and let the doc in.

  "Doc Sayles," the white haired gent said. "I was told I was needed here." He pulled the covers down past Banty's opened-up neck. "Jesus!" he said, and then pulled them back up over Banty's face again. Doc Sayles looked me over. "Something wrong with your eyes?"

  "No, but I need your help … in catching the man who did this."

  "What shall I do?" he asked.

  "Just have a seat 'til Bullock's deputy gets back. What's his name, anyway?"

  The Doc sat, wrinkled his brow and stared at the floor. "Sam something-or-other … Hayes, I think. This better not take too long. I have a miner sitting over there in my office waiting for me to set the bones in his foot. Dropped a goddamn rock hammer on his metatarsals and broke three of them." He started explaining to me about how a man's foot was put together, and I listened, though I didn't understand it much. Helped him pass the time, I figgered.

  Before he was all done, Sam knocked and come in the room and then they both looked at me. "Well, this is what I aim to do …. Doc, you have a sick room? Where men stay when they're hurt?"

  "Yes," he said, nodding his head.

  "I want to take this dead man-Banty Foote was his name-over to your sick room, pretending it's Clete Shannon, the man who the killer was really after. Also pretending he's still alive. Could you go along with that, Doc?"

  "Certainly," he said.

  "Well then you lay him out in a bed over at your place like he's just hurt, maybe bandage up his neck some. The man who killed Banty was really trying to kill Clete, and if he thinks Clete's alive, it's my guess he'll try 'er again, try and do the job right. And when he does, Sam and me, we'll be waiting for him."

  "I don't know," Sam said, shaking his head. "If I'd a cut a man's throat, the way that man's is, I don't think I'd fall for it."

  "It's worth a try, though," Doc said, standing up. "Goddamn lawless town, anyway. I'll go over and get a stretcher and some men to carry him. You two walk beside his head so nobody can see his face very well. Talk to him, too. That'll help make folks think he's still alive."

  And that's what we done. Sam got someone to sit in Bullock's office for him and then snuck into the woodshed of the house next door to Doc's after the sun went behind the ridge. The miner with the broke foot was going to spend the night there already, so Doc give him a gun to put under his covers. He didn't fancy going to sleep in the same room with a dead man anyway. Doc put a lamp beside the only window of his sick room and then sat at the desk in his office room with a pocket revolver in his lap. I walked out to Doc's outhouse, no more than fifty feet from the lit-up window, trying to look like I was just doing the regular thing, in case DuShane was watching from somewheres. It stunk some in there, of course, and I would rather of had my scattergun, but how can you walk into an outhouse with a scattergun and have it look like you're only going in there to do your business?

  It was a small two-holer with no lids, like in fancy outhouses. Which meant I had to sit on one of the holes or stand up. I could see through the cracks between the boards pretty good, and the door also had a slice of moon cut out of it that I could get the barrel of my .36 through, though it was a little high for aiming. It was a long wait, I remember, probly seemed longer than it really was, but after a while it started getting dark. I wondered what'd become of Clete and what he'd have to say about me trying this, worrying if it was the right thing to do or not.

  At least I was in the proper place to answer nature's call, and I was no more than halfway done when I looked through a crack in the door and saw a tall man in a high crowned black hat up close to Doc's window, looking in. He brought his gun up all of a sudden to shoot inside. There was nothing for me to do but stand up and let my pants fall to the floor, take aim through the moon hole and fire.

  I missed him. He pulled up and put a ball through that old outhouse, right by my ear. I heard Sam shoot and then I pulled up my pants and stepped out. DuShane was running into the alley, but he turned and threw off a shot that hit Sam as he was coming around the woodshed and put him down.

  I took off after DuShane. He was more a shadow than a man, but I saw him crouched down, close to some lady's kitchen window, and I squeezed off three shots. A dog was barking at me and some men were yelling and I burned a chunk of time crawling up there on my hands and knees. I saw then what I'd sneaked up on was only a barrel full of garbage.

  I run on down the alley and was about to give it up when his gun fired pretty close in front, the blast lighting up the alley for a second. Rolling to the side, I come up shooting. I could hear from his footsteps he was running down the street so I took after him again. A hundred yards ahead of me, I seen him tum left into Deadwood's main street, heading downhill past the Redbird and the Green Front both. Lots of people was out on the street when I run down it after him. Some yelled and some laughed, but none of them men would help me get after him.

  I come to the livery just as DuShane was hurrying his horse out the gate. I held with two hands on my gun, aimed careful, and missed him again.

  He dropped the reins, ducked behind a trough and let one fly at me. I shot back and then stepped behind a shed, keeping an eye on where he was hid. My gun was empty then, but I'd remembered to put my spare cylinder in my coat pocket before this whole mess started. While I had him cornered, I yanked the pin that released the barrel of my .36 and then pulled off the empty cylinder. I was watching for him the whole time I reloaded, waiting for him to break for his horse and hurrying to be ready. I slid the full cylinder in and put the barrel back on just as he jumped up and run. I stepped around the comer of that shed and aimed as best I could at a shadow moving fast in the dark.

  When I squeezed the trigger, the whole night exploded at the end of my arm. Next thing I knowed, I was on my ass with bells ringing in my ears and dots of light that looked like pink beans dancing around in front of my eyes. I heard a horse run off and tried to stand, but fell back down again, so dizzy I was.

  After a while some men from the livery helped me up and walked me over to Doc Sayles', but I was only about half with 'em. I kept trying to tell them men I had lost my hat, but I couldn't get it out. It was like the idea was in my head, all right, but all the words I knowed was locked in another room somewheres and I couldn't find the damn key.

  Doc was putting a bandage on Sam's knee when we walked in. "What happened to you, for God's sake?"

  "I don't know," I told him, the words coming back to me in little bunches. "I'm not hit nowheres, but something happened to my gun, I think." I was still holding onto it and held it up then. Nothing was left but the grip, the back of the frame and the trigger and trigger guard. The barrel and the cylinder both was missing. What I was holding onto was only about half a gun. I knowed then what I done. When I was hurrying so to reload I must of forgot to push the pin back in-the one that holds the barrel and cylinder in place. I must of flung that barrel and about half a dozen balls at him all at the same time, what you might call a Texas shotgun.

  Doc come over and stood in front of me. "What happened to your forehead?"

  I reached up and touched it, and it was swelled way out but not bleeding. "I don't know," I told him, kind of surprised myself.

  Doc sat me down and put a wet cloth across it and leaned me back. "Gun came up and hit you," he said, looking in my eyes, one then the other. "I've seen it before. I'm surprised you're still walking around."

  That was the strangest bang on the head I ever got. It didn't hurt much, except if I pressed on it, and I didn't remember nothing hitting me at all. At the same time, I didn't feel entirely right, either. Sort of like I was standing outside myself watching things happen to me. Doc made me sit there while he fussed around some with his heart-listener and what-all.

  He was still fussing over me when Clete opened the door without knocking and walked right up, looking at me as worried as a mother hen missing a chick. "Damn, Willie, are you all right?"

  "I think so," I told him.<
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  "Bad bump on the head," Doc said, putting his gear away. "He'll be fine in a day or two."

  "You able to ride?" Clete ask.

  "Yeah, I guess. Where are we going?"

  He looked at me mighty peculiar, but damned if I could figger out where he wanted to go. "He'd be better off not to," Doc said, going back to work on Sam. Bullock come in then and wanted to know what'd happened, so Sam and me and Doc pieced it together between us.

  "He's dead? That little runt who followed me back at Marsh's? Banty Foote?" Clete looked like he couldn't believe it and was maybe wondering if I'd been seeing things that wasn't there.

  I explained how Banty'd showed up that morning, wanting to help us some more.

  "That sonofabitch," Clete said, meaning DuShane, though I thought at first he meant Banty, that's how addled I was. "I'm going after him. Can you trail him with a lantern, Willie?"

  "I don't know, I never done it. I'll give it a try."

  "Like hell you will!" Doc Sayles said. "You're staying here tonight so I can keep an eye on you. This man has probably bruised his brain, Sheriff. Time enough to get after your killer tomorrow."

  "Maybe not," Clete said, and then set his jaw.

  "Let's go take a look," I said, "down at the-the, uh … What the hell's that word?"

  "What do you mean?" Clete ask, looking at me strange.

  "Aw, you know, where they keep the horses. I could use some air, anyway." Damned if I could remember that word.

  "Don't you go off anywhere," Doc Sayles yelled after us. Bullock got us a lantern and then went back to talk to Sam. Clete and me walked down to where my gun'd haywired. I found the cylinder nearby and my hat too, but the barrel was way over beside the livery fence.

  I stood and tried to put my .36 back together, but the pieces didn't seem to want to fit.

  After a while Clete handed me the lantern, put my gun together himself, and give it back to me. "You all right, Willie?"

  "Yeah, I'm okay. I almost forgot, though. I found out DuShane's first name. It's Jezrael. Woman at the Red Bird told me." Then I spelled it for him, best I could.

  "Jezrael? What the hell kind of name is that?"

  "Damned if I know, but that's what it is." I looked at Jezrael DuShane's tracks beside the trough. A spot of blood the size of a silver dollar was soaked into the dust almost where he'd got on his horse. He had fell down first, though, before he rode off, for I seen the same handprints as was on Banty's bedspread and where he was on his knees a minute.

  "Yeah, you hit him," Clete said. "Put a groove in him, it looks like. Think you could ride?"

  "I believe I could, but we'd best wait 'til morning."

  Clete twisted his mouth up, but then relaxed it some before he spoke. "You feeling that bad, huh?"

  "No, I'm all right, and it ain't because the doc said not to. Remember, it'll be damn slow going for us and fast for him. We'll get tired out sooner than him too, because we'll be walking and he'll be riding. I might be able to trail him carrying a light, but not riding my horse I couldn't. Besides that, if he was to lie in wait for us somewheres, we couldn't be no better targets, holding a damn lantern. He'll have to sleep some time, and we can catch up to him when we can see good. We'd be smarter to sleep now and start at first light."

  Clete pushed his hat back. "I guess you're not as brain-scrambled as I thought."

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Clete and me walked back towards Doc Sayles' place, where I was going to spend the night. Suited me all right, because I didn't think I'd get much sleep upstairs at the hotel anyway, where Banty Foote'd got his throat cut. When we walked in, I seen somebody'd moved Banty's body out of the sick room. Clete said he'd get our things together tonight and come around for me early. I tossed and turned some in one of Doc's narrow little cots after he left, but at least that miner with the busted foot didn't snore much.

  Seemed like I'd hardly fell asleep when Clete was shaking me awake.

  "What time is it?" I ask him.

  "After four," he said, turning the lamp up some. "You better now?"

  "Yeah, I'm all right." I felt pretty stiff getting up and into my clothes but my head didn't hurt none.

  When we went outside I seen it was still pitch dark, the stars shining bright and rolled way over toward summer. Clete'd brought our horses up to the rail there, all saddled and loaded and ready to go. "I thought we'd travel light and do without a pack horse," he said, untying the gray. "We'll make better time. That all right with you?"

  "Sure, but it's still too early to read the sign."

  "I know," Clete said, leading Whatever away from the rail and starting up the street. "We've got something to attend to before we go."

  I untied my bay and followed him, no idea at all where we was going. That was the quietest I heard Deadwood since we rode in. Wasn't but about three or four saloons still open, and I thought about getting a wake-up shot of rye before we left.

  We went up the street a block or two, and I seen lots of horses tied outside one place and it all lit up inside. I thought at first it was another saloon, but when we got closer and I read the sign over the door, I seen it was an undertaker's parlor. I knowed then what we was attending to.

  We tied up and went inside. Seven or eight men stood there, yawning and shuffling their feet and looking half asleep. Bullock was there too, so I thought maybe they worked for him. "Strange time for a funeral," Bullock said. "We're all ready except to load him."

  Three men stood aside and there lay Banty Foote in a wooden box, his face all sober.

  Clete and me walked up and looked him over. In the button hole of the new coat they had on him was a big red flower. Dressed in a dark striped suit, he was, his neck still bandaged, and laid out in the fanciest silk-lined coffin I ever seen. Only it was also the biggest coffin I ever seen, too, both width and length.

  "Seems a little large for him, don't it?" I ask.

  A fellow I took to be the undertaker sidled up to us. "I'm dreadful sorry for that," he said, twisting at a big diamond ring. "It was the only one we had on hand at such short notice. God knows what I'll do with Mr. Thompkins now, and his funeral's at ten."He glanced at Bullock, worked on his ring some more and shook his head a couple of times. "Does he look all right, gents?" he ask.

  "Yeah, I guess he looks about as good as a dead man can," I told him, which was true and seemed to make him a good deal more comfortable.

  "Well, let's get this done with so I can get the rest of my sleep," Bullock said.

  The undertaker and his man nailed the lid of the coffin down tight and then some of Bullock's men carried it out the back door. I followed Clete out the front and pretty soon a glass-sided hearse come around the building pulled by a matched pair of blacks with black plumes sticking up between their ears, its four lamps at the comers all lit and flickery.

  Another of Bullock's men was handing out lanterns for everyone to carry as they rode, and then we started off after the hearse two abreast. Up the street and then off to the left and then up a long steep hill. That hill kept going up and up and getting steeper and steeper. After a while I thought maybe we was going to deliver Banty right up to the Pearly Gates.

  When we got to the top I seen two men digging by lantern light. They said they wasn't quite done, but Bullock decided it was deep enough. Clete and me helped the four men carry Banty's coffin. But when we went to put it down in the hole with ropes, we seen right away the hole was too short. First we tried putting the foot end in and slanting it up, but the head end was nearly up to the sod. And then we all heard Banty slide down that slick silk and go thump against the footboard, and that surely wouldn't do.

  "Take it out and dig it longer, down at the narrow end," Clete said after a minute, so that's what they done.

  While they was digging, I took my lantern and read what was carved on a tall marble gravestone nearby. I was surprised to see a name I reconized and pointed it out to Clete.

  "James Butler Hickok," he read out loud. "Yeah, I fo
rgot he was buried up here. Banty'd probably like the idea of being planted close to Wild Bill, wouldn't he?"

  "I suspect he would," I told him.

  When the gravediggers finished, we lowered Banty in again, all the way down this time. The undertaker said a few words and then handed Clete a spade. He pitched a shovelful of dirt in and then I done the same. We left the rest of that work for the men who'd dug the hole in the first place and then we all rode down the hill just as it was starting to get gray toward the east, Clete dropping back with Bullock.

  When we was almost in town a young fellow brought his horse up beside mine. "Are you Sheriff Goodwin?" he ask me.

  "No, I'm just a deputy," I said, "but my name's Goodwin. Who's askin'?"

  "Bret Roth," he said, lifting his derby hat. "Please excuse me, Mr. Goodwin. I work for the Pioneer. Did you know the man who was buried?"

  "Yes, I did," I told him.

  "Was he a lawman, Mr. Goodwin? Mr. Foote, I mean. The reason I'm asking is that I'm writing up the killing and the funeral for the Pioneer. It's my first story and I'd like to get it right."

  "Yes, he was a lawman," I said. "One of the best damn deputy sheriffs in the West. You write it up that way and you'll have it correct. Most men, the only name they make for themself is the one on their tombstone. But he was something, was Banty Foote. And spell his name right. Be sure to put an e on the end of it. Nothing worse than a man's name spelled wrong in his own obituary."

  "I will, sir," he said, tipping his hat to me again. He rode off quick-to write his story while it was still fresh in his head, I guess.

  We got back to the undertaker's and Clete had a word with Bullock, handed him some money, and then we mounted back up.

  "Thanks again for your help, Seth," Clete said.

  "No trouble," Bullock said, and then yawned. "Won't change your mind about taking more men?" he ask. "It's probably against the law, as you said, but nobody would care much."