Elmer Woods looked pretty much the same. He was heavier, a lot thinner on top, and sported a paunch that showed his life was a most comfortable one.
Ben made sure his old friend was alone, then stepped out of the back room. “Elmer.”
Elmer almost jumped. “Who the hell—”
“It’s me. Ben Cullen.”
Elmer hurried toward the back. “Goddamn, Ben! It is you!”
Ben forced a grin. “How you doing?”
“Fine,” Elmer said. He walked up closer to Ben, holding out his hand. As they shook, the ex-outlaw immediately knew what the situation was. “You’re on the run, ain’t you?”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “And I’m dawg-bit to boot.”
“Dawg-bit?”
Ben held out his arm. “It’s festering, Elmer. I need a doctor.”
“There’s one next door,” Elmer said. “But, Ben, there’s word out on a fugitive. If he sees you in your condition, he’ll know something ain’t right.”
“I look perty bad, don’t I?”
Elmer nodded his head. “And smell worse.” He led Ben back to the rear of the store. “But don’t you worry none. There’s gotta be a way to get things fixed up for you.”
“I don’t want to cause you no trouble, Elmer,” Ben said. “But I gotta tell you straight off. I’m tuckered bad.”
“Yeah,” Elmer agreed. “But don’t fret none, Ben. I could never forget how you took a chance and left me safe there in Fort Smith.”
Ben grinned through the pain. “I see of Judge Parker didn’t hang you, pard. How many years did he give you?”
Elmer grinned back. “Hell, none! I told the doctor and the sheriff I got shot up over a card game in the hills. They didn’t know nothing about that train robbery back in Little Rock. Those damn railroad detectives didn’t even know we’d escaped.”
Ben looked around the store. “It don’t appear you went back on the owlhoot trail.”
“I sure as hell didn’t,” Elmer said. “That last episode scared the shit outta me. I went straight as a man could. I even got a job and worked as a drummer for a while. I peddled hardware. That’s how I met my future father-in-law. I called on his business reg’lar. Me and his daughter hit it off and got hitched. Later, when he took sick, I got the store here. He died a couple of years ago.”
“You’re married, huh?”
“Yeah,” Elmer said. “I got four kids, Ben.”
“Aw, hell, Elmer,” Ben said. “I’m leaving. This ain’t gonna be nothing but trouble for you.”
“Just hold on,” Elmer said. “There’s a shed in the alley for storage.”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “My horse is hitched in the rear of it.”
“That’s a good place,” Elmer said. “And you can stay there. In the meantime I’ll see a doctor about getting some things. He won’t ask no questions if I tell him I’m thinking o’ selling medical stuff to folks that live out in the country. That way I can treat your arm myself.”
“It’s bad,” Ben said.
“I’ll tell him what the symptoms are,” Elmer said. “The sonofabitch is a damned drunk anyhow. As soon as my clerk gets here I’ll take care o’ things.”
“Obliged, Elmer. I truly need the help.”
“Let’s get you out to that shed,” Elmer said. He went to the door and looked up and down the alley to make sure there was no traffic. “C’mon, Ben!”
Ben was led to a small frame building that measured ten by ten feet. Once he was inside, Elmer closed and locked the door, leaving him alone.
The fugitive had only a couple of hours to wait. Elmer came back and slipped through the door. He had a cloth poke with him. “I got bandages, swabs, and some carbolic acid,” Elmer said.
“What the hell’s car-baw-lick acid?” Ben asked. “The doc says it kills infection,” Elmer said. “Now let’s get to work here and cut away that old wrapping you got around your arm.”
“Use this,” Ben said, pulling his knife out and handing it over.
Elmer began slicing away the covering. “You still good at throwing this thing, Ben?”
“That’s part o’ my problem,” Ben said.
Elmer removed the old shirt-sleeve. “Lord above, Ben! Look at that arm!”
The injured limb was black and swollen, the flesh looking pulpy and dead. Ben almost turned away. “It don’t smell good either.”
“The doc said it would be a good idea to cut a bad wound open to drain the pus,” Elmer said.
“Cut away,” Ben said.
“It’s gonna hurt, pard,” Elmer said.
“Hell, I didn’t think it’d tickle,” Ben remarked. “Have at it.”
Elmer took the sharp blade and gently laid it against the forearm, and applied growing pressure until the weapon’s edge slipped into the flesh. Pus and blood exploded outward, but some of the swelling immediately subsided.
“I didn’t feel nothing,” Ben said.
“I figgered you didn’t,” Elmer said. “Or you woulda jumped.” He began bathing the limb in the carbolic acid. After giving it a generous soaking, he carefully wrapped clean, fresh bandages around it. “I don’t know, Ben. There’s something terrible wrong here. That smell worries me.”
“It’s gonna kill me, I know,” Ben said. “I tried to fool myself, but I can’t no more.”
Elmer finished. “I’d rather die by flying lead than—” he pointed at the arm “—than that.”
“If they catch me I’ll end my days at the end of a rope,” Ben said.
Elmer’s expression showed his sincere concern. “Oh, Ben, I wish to hell there was something more I could do.”
“You done enough, pard.”
“What’s your plans? Where are you gonna go?” Elmer asked.
Ben took a deep breath. “I’m going back to Pleasanton.”
“Your old hometown? I remember you talking about it.”
“That’s where all my trouble started,” Ben said grimly. “And I got some scores that need settling before I check out o’ this game. I’m gonna find Oren Beardsley and put a bullet in that sonofabitch’s head.”
Elmer was silent for several minutes. “You do what you must, Ben. I’ll get you some stuff from the store to take with you. You got a can opener?”
Ben shook his head.
“I’ll get you one and some canned goods. They’ll last and give you some nutrition.” Elmer stood up. “I’ll be back by dark.”
“I hope nobody takes my horse.”
“Nobody’ll bother him back here,” Elmer said. “See you later, Ben.”
~*~
Ben waited twelve hours in the shed before he could leave. Elmer came back more than once. He brought some food and a bottle of bourbon. He could remember his old pal’s tastes in liquor.
Elmer returned the final time a little past ten o’clock that night. “Your saddlebags is packed, Ben.”
Ben struggled to his feet. He allowed his friend to help him to the horse. “I’m truly obliged,” he said, swinging up into the saddle with Elmer’s aid.
“I owe you, ol’ pardner,” Elmer said. “You took a hell of a chance when you left me on that doctor’s porch.” He paused thoughtfully. “Damn! How long ago was that?”
“A lifetime,” Ben said. He grinned sardonically. “At least a outlaw’s lifetime, huh?”
“Yeah,” Elmer said. “Ben, I never had a better friend than you. And that’s the goddamned pure truth.”
Ben looked down at him. “There’s only two things I don’t regret about my life, Elmer,” he said. “One is having you for a pard.”
“What was the other?” Elmer asked.
“Being able to love a certain woman,” Ben said.
“Did you have a wife, Ben?”
Ben shook his head. “Nope. Nothing like that. But I did have the sweet knowledge that not only did I love her, but she loved me back.”
“I’m glad you was able to experience it,” Elmer said. He knew he’d never see Ben again.
Ben pu
lled on the reins and headed the horse up the alley toward the street. “So long, Elmer.”
“So long, Ben.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ben rode into Pleasanton late in the afternoon as the sun, its heat still beating down on the dusty main street in relentless waves, had begun a hesitant descent toward the western horizon.
Once again Ben’s arm throbbed, and the fever in his head added to his discomfort in the hot, still air. Elmer Woods’s treatment had failed to stop the infection and it had grown worse during the two days the journey from Medicine Lodge had taken. A bitter smell, its intensity sure to increase, wafted up from the now-dirty bandage around his arm. Ben knew that his own body odor, after days of not washing, was also sour and disagreeable. But such things were now of no importance to him.
The town had changed much in the past twenty years. It had spread out with a larger population, and showed every indication of having become the business center the city fathers had talked about many years previously. Larkins’ Livery and Feed Store was gone, but there was another farther out on the edge of the business district. A large, two-storied frame house rested on the lot where his mother’s shack had been. Other similar domiciles indicated that this had become the better section of the town as it expanded and evolved to its present size.
Ben reined in at what had been the Beardsley store. An apothecary now occupied the premises. Ben turned the horse toward the hitching rack and dismounted. After a careful look up and down the street, he walked into the establishment. A dapper, short man wearing pince-nez glasses looked at him with a hint of distaste across his face. “Yes, sir? What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for the folks that used to own this store,” Ben said.
“I am the only person who has been the proprietor of this business,” he man said. He noted Ben’s bloodshot, glazed eyes. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Yeah. I’m fine, thanks,” Ben said. “Well, what about the Beardsleys? They had a store here once.”
“Yes, indeed,” the druggist said. “A dry-goods store, as a matter of fact. I bought the property from the Beardsley family about nine years ago. The father had died and the son—”
“Oren?”
“Yes. Oren,” the man answered. He took another, closer look at the fugitive and sniffed. Then he spotted the bandage. “Mister, you need medical attention bad.”
“Yeah. Where is—”
“That’s one hell of an infection you got there,”
“I reckon,” Ben said. “Could you—”
“Gangrene,” the druggist announced. “In the initial stages. You’ll lose that arm, if it’s not already too late. You need a doctor quick”
“Is any of the Beardsleys around?”
“Certainly. Mr. Oren still lives here in Pleasanton,” the man said.
“In the same house they always lived in?” Ben asked.
“As far as I know,” the druggist said. “You want me to take you down to the doctor, mister? Gangrene kills, y’know. And it’s not a particularly pleasant death to rot away slow like that. And look at you. You’re so sick you’re swaying like a drunken sailor.”
“I’ll take care of it. Thanks,” Ben said. He walked back toward the front door.
“Do you know Oren Beardsley well?” the druggist asked.
“I sure do,” Ben said. “But I ain’t seen him in years.”
“Then, I should tell you that Oren Beardsley is—”
“I know where he is,” Ben said. “I been there before.” He got his horse and swung into the saddle, riding down the main street to turn off on an elm-shrouded lane that brought long-forgotten memories exploding into stark clarity in his mind.
Ben recalled the pathetic desire to have someone—anyone—like him; the old schoolhouse in the winter with the welcome warmth of the stove such a contrast to his mother’s shack; people looking or talking down to him; good old Art Larkin who’d given him a job at the livery; pretty Maybelle Beardsley so painfully unattainable and lovely; and the cruelty of her brother Oren. All these remembrances flooded his feverish brain.
Within moments he saw the picket fence around the Beardsley home. And he could remember standing outside of it wanting so desperately to be invited around to the other side. He also recalled the rocks thrown at him by Oren.
Ben slid from the saddle and had to hang onto the horn for a moment as wildly pulsating waves of dizziness swept over him. He waited for the sickness to subside before he stepped on the other side of the horse and looked up at the house.
Although freshly painted with wooden shutters added, it was still the same as he remembered it. His eyes swept from the side to the large front porch.
Ben froze still.
He spotted the figure sitting on the porch in the stiff high-backed chair. The slope of the shoulders and the tilt of the head were maddeningly familiar. Loosening the pistol in his holster, Ben stepped across the walk and went through the gate.
The man in the chair spoke. “Howdy.”
Ben stared at him for a full five seconds. Fat and bald, yet there was no doubt. Here was Oren Beardsley. “Howdy, Oren.”
“Who are you?”
“Don’t recognize me, huh?”
Oren smiled. “I don’t hardly recognize nobody, mister.”
It was then that Ben noticed Oren’s eyes. They were colorless and clouded over, with one drifting off to one side while the other sat still as if staring straight ahead.
Oren Beardsley was blind.
“What happened to your eyes, Oren?” Ben asked heartlessly.
“Cuba in ’98,” Oren said. “Caught a Spanish Mauser bullet in the neck. They say it done something to my nerves” He paused. “Who are you, mister?”
“Ben Cullen.”
“Who?”
“Ben Cullen. I used to live here.”
Oren was thoughtful for a minute. “Didn’t you and me go to school together?”
“When I went—yeah.”
“Hey!” Oren straightened in the chair. “I remember you, sure! Didn’t you like my sister Maybelle a lot?”
“Yeah. I thought she was perty.”
“She still is, they tell me,” Oren said. “She’s married to a lawyer over in Wichita. Doing real good, he is. So damned good, as a matter o’ fact, you’d think a blind brother could go live with ’em, wouldn’t you?”
“I reckon,” Ben said, fighting a sudden wave of dizziness.
“But they won’t,” Oren said. “I’m a real pain in the ass, to most folks.”
Ben’s head cleared a little. “Sounds rough on you.”
“I get a government pension … ” He paused. “Say! Didn’t you bust into my pa’s store?”
“Yeah.”
“And went to jail, didn’t you?”
“Ten years,” Ben said in a flat, low tone.
“Goddamn! You spent ten years in jail, huh?”
“Sure did,” Ben said. He eased the pistol from its holster and pointed it at Oren’s head.
“Ben, you don’t smell too good, you know that?” Oren said. “Ever’ since I lost my sight I been able to hear and smell real good. And, boy, I’m sorry to say you stink to high heaven.”
“I reckon I do,” Ben said. His thumb rested on the hammer.
“It ain’t just a dirty smell neither,” Oren went on. “There’s death in it, Ben. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Ben said with forced bravado.
“I feel something,” Oren said. “Are you pointing at me, Ben?”
Ben made ready to cock the pistol, but he stopped. He thought of Jim Baldwin and Arlena—especially Arlena. His mind quickly turned over how she would have wanted him to handle this meeting with an old enemy who had caused him so much pain. Ben fought these emotions while he held the revolver for several more moments. Finally, he sighed aloud and slowly lowered the pistol and reholstered it. He took a deep breath. “Oren Beardsley, if you done me wrong—well, it’s all right. I—I forgiv
e you, Oren.”
The blind man didn’t seem to understand, so he ignored the remark. “You want something to drink, Ben?” Oren said. “There’s a lady that comes over to look after me in the evenings. She makes my meals and all. Maybe you’d like to eat with me. I got some good liquor.”
“No thanks, Oren. I got to go.”
“You can have a bath if you want, Ben. I got cigars if you smoke. They’re good-uns. And that liquor ain’t nothing to turn your nose up at. How about getting drunk with me, Ben? I get drunk ever’ night.”
“I ain’t in the mood,” Ben said. “But thanks.”
Oren smiled weakly. “I don’t get many visitors.”
“I don’t suppose you do.”
“I’d be obliged for your comp’ny.” There was a deep pleading in Oren’s voice.
“I can’t stay.” Ben walked down to the gate and stopped. He turned around and looked up at the fat, blind man on the porch. “Oren!”
“Yeah, Ben?”
Ben remembered a saying that Jim Baldwin used a lot. “Live in peace.”
Ben got back up in the saddle. He let the horse amble slowly up the street while he took a quick assessment of his present situation. Things were so bad that he couldn’t see how they could get worse. Ben was sure to lose his arm—or worse, the poison in it would spread through his body to bring about a lingering death that would torment him like a Comanche torture. Getting proper medical care for it would not only be time consuming now, it would lead to his capture and a certain appointment with the hangman.
Either way, Ben Cullen knew that he had reached the end of his journey across God’s green earth.
Maybe if he hadn’t been so infatuated with Maybelle Beardsley; maybe if he hadn’t broken into that store; maybe if the judge hadn’t given him ten years in the penitentiary; maybe if someone had stepped forward to help him; maybe—maybe—maybe. It didn’t matter anymore, his choices were now limited to just one thing:
What way would he like to die?
No doubt the forces of the law would be closing in within a few days. This would give him a brief respite that would be marked by long periods of intense pain as his dying arm continued to rot and stink in its own private death throes.
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