by Sierra Rose
Meanwhile, Hannah had taken herself to the kitchen to brew a fresh pot of coffee. This morning’s circumstance had been just shocking enough, just stressful enough, that she knew everyone involved would need the aid of a caffeine jolt.
By the time a polite knock at the front door announced the return of the lawmen, an inert, helpless Ben Forrester had been made snug and secure. Freshly washed, with boots tugged off and a light blanket covering his motionless frame, he would probably sleep for some time. Best thing for him, the doctor opined.
A busy Hannah began serving hot coffee in heavy earthenware mugs around the table. Before he himself could put aside medical concerns, Gabe sat Austin Blakely down upon a kitchen stool and began to unwind the layers of bandage from his reluctant head.
“What in tarnation did you use to stanch the blood, anyways?” the doctor demanded irascibly. “Looks to be seven layers of dirt involved.”
“If you must know, I tore off the leg of my long underwear. Didn’t happen to have anything else along. And,” the deputy, being fully conscious and in full control of his faculties, was not about to endure any more rough treatment at the hands of a sawbones, “you’d better have a care of what you’re doin’ there, Gabe. I ain’t in any mood to take guff from you.”
“Huh. You’ll take any guff I give you, and thank me for it later. Now hold still.”
It was the graze left by a bullet, whizzing past, that showed how near death could stalk without actually killing. Did Austin realize just what a close call he’d had? Probably. At some time the memory of this moment might even make him more cautious in his dealings with an enemy. Two men wounded, one grievously. What had happened out there, in the dark of night, in some alien territory?
“I wonder,” said the sheriff quietly, as these ministrations and quibbling were going on, “if we might prevail upon you for some breakfast? Think the last time we ate was some sixteen hours ago, and we’ve had sort of a—a busy time of it.”
“Why, of course,” assented Hannah, with a surprised glance toward her sister. “You must be starving.”
“Well, we could head on over to the Sittin’ Eat, but I figure you’d wanna know first about our little—adventure...”
“Absolutely.” Camellia needed physical activity, just to keep her anguished thoughts away from the recumbent figure sprawled so lifelessly on the settee. Even activity for which she had exhibited, thus far, no real talent. “If you don’t mind eggs and pancakes...”
Austin’s injury had been covered with a respectable bandage (one of Camellia’s treasured tea towels, willingly sacrificed to be torn in half). “Right now,” he drawled, hitching his stool in place, “I’d eat one of my own old boots, and that’s no lie.”
It wasn’t until the pancake batter was mixed and poured, the eggshells were cracked open, and the salt pork cut into thick slices, and everything was cooked, plated, and served, that the sheriff was able to comment on Camellia’s appearance. By then, everyone was seated and digging in with every evidence of enjoyment—a second meal for the doctor, whose appetite seemed never to abate; a mere nibble or two for the ladies.
“I sure am sorry for what happened to you, ma’am,” he said, still in that quiet, unemotional tone. A man probably in his early thirties, rough-hewn and rugged as were so many Texan males, he had laid aside his sombrero to reveal dark brown hair that seemed to have a mind of its own, in its impudent waves and curls. “The Putnam boys have been a thorn in Turnabout’s side for a right long time, now, but they’ve never gone so far as to attack a defenseless woman.”
“How do you know?”
“Well.” He paused in the act of cutting the pseudo-bacon. “No reports of any.”
“Perhaps,” said Camellia softly, “I’m not the first. Perhaps they’ve done this before. And, perhaps, their victims were too frightened, or too ashamed, to tell you.”
The two lawmen, struck, exchanged glances. “That’s as well may be, Mrs. Forrester. But it may be a moot point, from here on.”
“Why’s that, Paul?” Gabriel, watching and listening as if he were a witness at some murder trial, asked with interest.
“B’cause,” Paul Winslow replied, “they’re both dead.”
The room went utterly silent, intruded upon only by the heavy breathing of an insensible Ben Forrester, and a last-ditch spatter of grease in its cooling pan.
Their hunger was slaked. Time now for the story. Sensing the drama of the moment, Hannah rose to replenish empty cups as the tale began.
Chapter Sixteen
LUCKILY, BOTH THE SHERIFF and his two deputies were manning the jail when Ben had burst through the door early last evening. In his usual steady, no-nonsense terms, he described the attack on his wife and the probable reason for it. Then he had coolly announced that he was leaving to track down the perpetrators—those dastardly Putnam brothers—and the local constabulary could be either with him or agin him.
There could be only one side in this case, and that was the side of the law. Of course they would be with him.
Putting his younger officer, Colton Bridges, in charge of things on the home front, Paul Winslow and Austin Blakely had collected their weapons, looked to their supply of ammo, and then joined their mayor. This meant a determined trek across town, along the outer, less respectable edges, to the Prairie Lot.
Where, coincidentally enough, no one could say to just what unnamed locale the brothers had disappeared.
“Not a clue,” snarled the barkeep named Clunker (probably for his habit of “clunking” miscreants over the head with a shortened two by four). He was a tough, burly man who resembled a Neanderthal more than any modern homo sapiens, and his attitude would not encourage some chance patron to disobey the slightest order. “The boys stop in when they need to, to check on things and collect the till. Otherwise, I run the joint.”
That was true, reflected Ben, who had stood back for a few moments to let Sheriff Winslow conduct the interview. On the infrequent occasions of his own personal visits to the saloon / gambling parlor / dance hall and girlie joint—which he now recalled with a shamed blush to his cheek—he had watched while Clunker’s hard right arm had administered the Prairie’s particular brand of justice wherever he felt it necessary.
“So they’re not here now. And they haven’t been here all day,” Winslow summed up.
“That’s what I said,” agreed Clunker in a bored tone. His slopping of a dirty wet rag across the bar counter almost missed the sheriff’s striped shirt sleeve.
“Ahuh. You don’t mind if I have a look around, just to make sure you didn’t—ah—miss ’em—somewhere along the way?”
Clunker’s expression mirrored that of a bull about to charge: narrowed eyes, flaring nostrils, flattened mouth. One could just about visualize the horns beginning to sprout. “You do whatever it takes to get you outa here, alcade. Havin’ you and your toadies underfoot is bad for business.”
The search was quick, efficient, and thorough. And, except for the startled cries of those interrupted in their professional duties behind closed doors, and a couple rumbles of outrage, without incident.
“All right. Where to next?” the sheriff had asked, after, with a considerate tip of the hat, he removed himself and his toadies from the Prairie’s dank interior.
Dusk was starting to wrap itself down around the town. It was a quiet, weekday night, and those enterprises which kept normal hours were turning out lamps and locking doors before heading home at day’s end. Enough street side activity—wagons either hauling merchandise or emptied of merchandise, voices raised here and there from those lawfully occupied, occasional hearty laughter; but no riotous crowds, thank goodness, or flying bullets—kept Turnabout from looking ghost-like in the rising silver moonshine.
“Why, we head out to the place they’re wantin’ to mine, o’ course,” replied Ben, surprised by the very question. “They got a shack in the area that seems to be their hidey-hole. We’ll prob’ly catch ’em there.”
Austin was impressed. “Speakin’ from personal acquaintance, are you?”
“You might say.” Ben’s wide mouth turned down with disdain. “Remember the dog occurrence, when you near ran me into jail? I came out to make sure they weren’t keepin’ any other critters in distress on their property.”
Choosing their mounts from the stable corral, saddling and bridling, adding a few extra provisions from Norton’s stores, and they could be on their way toward Juniper Creek, and beyond.
A steady trot can consume a number of miles in record time, and is easier on men and horses than an all-out, full-blown gallop for too long. Upon their arrival, several hours later, at the isolated property, Ben found himself wishing he’d had the foresight to bring along a jar of hot, bracing coffee.
The cabin looked derelict and deserted, backed up against the smooth-flowing waters that curved and curveted for a goodly distance. Not in good repair, by any means. Walls leaned, shake shingles held an overgrowth of moss, one porch rail was splintered and another missing entirely.
“Huh,” muttered Ben, as they approached. “Figured the Lot to be makin’ a good profit for them boys. Maybe Clunker is robbin’ ’em blind.”
“Maybe,” posited the sheriff, “he’s more owner than the Putnams.”
No light shone through the spotty windows, no smoke from cooking fires curled up from the stone chimney, no movement drew attention anywhere. Most telling, no horses stood about in the makeshift corral.
“Either not here,” noted the deputy, “or layin’ low.”
Paul Winslow leaned one forearm across his saddle horn, taking a long measuring look around the property. “Any other place you wanna try for, Ben?”
Thus entailed, their guide considered for a moment. “The Putnams have been after me to approve their copper minin’ venture. I turned ’em down flat, and so did the council. But, this far out in the country, they might’ve already started work. Let’s have a look at where they wanted to prospect.”
“Far from here?”
“Few miles, as the crow flies.”
“Well,” sniped Austin, “since we ain’t crows, I reckon we’ll be takin’ the long way. Let’s go. I’d like to get these two coyotes under lock and key.”
Another hour’s ride took them through a moonlit night, along a trail through pasture and grasses, thence to a track made by some four-wheeled vehicle. As they drew nearer the designated spot, light from kerosene lanterns up ahead advertised someone’s presence. As did noise: hammers clinking on rock, the clatter of gravel being shifted and dumped, a muffled cuss word now and then.
“Huh. Shoulda come out here sooner,” Ben glowered, and pulled his horse to a walk.
Off in the distance a buckboard wagon had been parked in the weeds, waiting for some sort of load to be piled into the box. What exactly had these two semi-outlaws gotten themselves into, and what did they hope to gain?
Copper mining, were they fortunate enough to have actually stumbled upon a vein, would require vast sums of money for the initial start-up—digging out and crushing ore, treating the mineral with chemicals, shipping the concentrate to smelters, wherever one might be—and both intelligence and experience to run the operation.
Or had they, perhaps, located some investor willing to take the plunge...if only the mining rights could be secured and the metal might actually exist in quantity?
The sheriff swung down from his horse, dropped the reins, and started toward the confusing scene. “Putnam!” he called out, as a caution. “Paul Winslow here. Me and my deputy have come to have a little talk with you and your brother.”
“Talk? What about?” It must have been Earl, the chatty one, who put down a shovel and, in the semi-darkness, strode belligerently forward.
Winslow continued forward, swishing softly through the tall pasture. “About a crime you’re bein’ accused of commitin’ a couple days ago.”
“Oh, yeah? What crime is that?”
The two men were practically within spitting distance of each other. Winslow kept a wary eye on his adversary; he knew that his well-trained deputy, following a few steps behind, would be keeping an equally wary eye on the other brother—less talkative, just as furtive. If anybody could but see the hulking brute, somewhere off in the shadows.
“Seems you assaulted Ben Ferguson’s wife, right on her own front porch. He ain’t real happy about it.”
“Didn’t figure he would be. Reckon he got the message I left, then?”
“I got the message,” affirmed Ben, speaking up coldly from his own patch of shadows. “It still won’t fly, Putnam. You’re on open land right now, with a whole slew of charges bein’ brought against you. B’cause whatever you’re doin’ here is illegal.”
Earl Putnam laughed loud and long. “Whatever I’m doin’ here is gonna make me a boatload of money, Ferguson. And ain’t a one of you gonna stop me. We got a tunnel started, and we found a nice deep pit to nowhere.”
There was no more warning than that.
A blaze of red burst forth from the muzzle of Putnam’s Colt Army Revolver, across the intervening space, and then another immediately after, and a barrage of bullets. Interspersed with that came the lever action repeating shots from a heavy-duty Winchester.
The invading force was ready and instantly returned fire.
It wasn’t until every weapon was empty, and the smell of gunpowder was mixing with blue smoke in the air, that the sheriff could take stock. Breathing hard, shaking a little from the rush of adrenalin, he managed to call out, “Austin!”
“Yo!”
“You okay, son?”
“Yeah, I reckon. Took a hit above my ear, but I’m still alive and kickin’.”
“Ben!”
Silence. Utter silence, more pervasive now that the battle was ended. There was only the soft sound of a breeze careening through the trees, and the faraway squawk of some water fowl as its heavy body hit the waters of Juniper Creek.
“Ben, answer me!”
The sheriff, quickly reloading his Colt, just in case, stumbled to where he’d last caught glimpse of his trusty back-up. Only to find Ben dropped right where he had stood, leaking blood like a faucet from the bullet which had plowed into his chest.
Both Putnams, murderous swine, lay dead on the ground they had been working to tear up.
With Austin’s unsteady help, the bodies were rolled into canvas and burlap, to be collected on the morrow for a more decent burial than they deserved.
Wounds bandaged roughly and hastily, as a stopgap until medical care could be attained, they had loaded Ben into the wagon box, hitched up the horses, and started the return trip to Turnabout.
Just as dawn was breaking, and the birds were beginning to tweet their morning song as if this were a normal day like any other.
Chapter Seventeen
FIVE WOODEN CHAIRS parked around the kitchen table. Five earthenware cups emptied of liquid. Five silent, emotionally drained participants pondering the whole sorry business, drawn together, like family members, by tragedy.
“Rough night,” finally observed Dr. Havers, in what must surely be the understatement of the year.
Were the condition of the settee’s wounded man not so grave and worrisome, the others might have added a weak chuckle to the mix. As it was, Paul Winslow managed a smile. “For sure.”
Camellia was toying with a teaspoon; its bright metal reflected beams of sunlight as it flipped, bowl over handle, handle over bowl. She unkinked her swollen jaw enough to comment that apparently this whole awful affair stemmed just from the finding of a semi-precious ore.
“That it did. But then men, as you will find, Mrs. Forrester, make fools of themselves often enough over things that don’t really matter in the long run.”
“Reckon you officers of the law will have to head out and bring those bodies back for Christian burial,” noted Gabriel.
“Reckon we will. And I reckon you’re goin’ with us, Doc, no matter how tired all of us happen to be.” As if to prov
e the point, Paul stretched his arms above his head with an elaborate yawn. “Need to write up their deaths as authenticated, listin’ the cause and all.”
“And then track down whatever relatives they may’ve had,” added Austin gloomily. “Listen, Sawbones, you got anything in that magic bag of yours for a headache that’s about to split my skull in two?”
Gabe nodded. “Yeah, I think I can find somethin’ for you, deputy. Hannah, oh dear lady, might I prevail upon you for another cup of coffee?”
“Certainly.” She sent him a charming smile that bared her teeth. “Help yourself; the pot is keeping warm there, on the stove’s back burner.”
Before he could splutter an indignant reply, Camellia intervened with another question as to Ben’s prognosis. “He hasn’t moved in all this time,” she fretted. “When do you think he’ll regain consciousness? Talk? Eat? Recognize us?”
“In his own good time,” the doctor assured her. “As I explained earlier, Cam, this is gonna be a slow road of healin’ and recovery. The man took a bullet too close to the heart for him to be feelin’ very spry for a while. The trick for you is just to be patient.”
“You’ll leave me directions for his care?” she persisted anxiously. “And I can call on you whenever necessary?”
“Sure enough.”
“And the bill for your services—you’ll let me know what we owe?”
Gabriel harrumphed a little. “We’ll worry about that a bit later,” he said in the gruff tones that meant, with his patient sprawled at death’s door on the settee, it was a subject he felt uncomfortable discussing.
“Any other questions?” the sheriff put in at this point. “All right, then.” With another yawn, he pushed back his chair and hiked his tall, loose-limbed frame to its feet. “C’mon, Austin. Let’s skedaddle on back out to Putnam’s and do what’s needin’ to be done. You comin’, Doc?”
“I don’t s’pose you got an extra horse?” He groaned. “A buckboard is the worst dang thing to ride in. I ain’t gonna be in any shape to head out fandangoin’ after a few hours spent in that infernal, misbegotten piece of equipment.”