The big gundown

by J. A. Johnstone

  “Aw, Ma, can’t I stay and watch?”

  “No, you can’t. Now do like I told you and scoot!”

  When the boy was gone, the woman pulled down the sheet that covered The Kid. He felt a momentary surge of embarrassment when he realized that he was pretty much naked, but the woman was brisk and businesslike about what she was doing, which helped. She went to fetch a clean cloth, and the man came back with a bottle of whiskey and what looked like the ramrod from an old muzzle-loading rifle.

  “This ought to do,” the man said.

  The woman leaned over the bed. “Let me take this bandage off.”

  When she lifted the bandage, The Kid thought he smelled the rot setting in already. That was probably just his imagination, as there hadn’t really been time for the wound to fester that much. At least, he didn’t think so.

  “What…day is it?”

  “The same day it was you got shot, mister,” the man replied. “You were out for a couple hours, that’s all.”

  That was long enough. The Kid didn’t like the idea that he’d been helpless during that time, although clearly he had nothing to fear from these people. He had saved their lives, after all.

  The woman drenched the cloth with whiskey, wrapped it around the end of the ramrod, and said, “Are you sure about this?”

  The Kid nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Wait a minute,” the man said. He took the bottle from his wife, slipped his other hand under The Kid’s head, and lifted it. “Take a swig of this first.”

  “Good…idea.”

  The man tipped the bottle to The Kid’s lips. The Kid took a long swallow of the fiery liquor. It burned all the way down his gullet, but that fire was nothing compared to the blaze that seared his leg as the woman pushed the whiskey-soaked rag through the wound. The Kid’s head tilted back against the pillow. He closed his eyes and felt the cords in his neck standing out as he clenched his teeth against the pain.

  “Oh, God, Sean, he’s bleeding again!”

  “Of course he is. Don’t worry about it, Frannie. The blood will help clean the wound.”

  The Kid opened his eyes to look up at them. “Sorry about…your sheets.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Sean said with a shake of his head. “That’s a small price to pay for the lives of my family.”

  The Kid winced as the woman withdrew the ramrod, and he nodded toward his leg.

  “Pour the whiskey on it. Soak it good.”

  Sean did so. The fresh surge of pain brought a grunt from The Kid’s lips. As the woman wrapped fresh bandages around his thigh a wave of drowsiness began to steal over him.

  “I’m Sean Williams,” the man said. “This is my wife Frannie. And you’ve met our boy Cyrus. You don’t have to tell us your name, though. I know it’s sometimes not considered polite to ask about such things.”

  “I…don’t mind…Name’s Morgan…They call me…Kid Morgan.”

  Sean’s eyes widened. “The gunman?”

  “Yeah…Lucky for you…right?”

  “Damn right. We owe you our lives.”

  Frannie had another wet cloth, wet with water this time, not whiskey. She wiped its cool softness across The Kid’s brow. The gentle touch felt wonderful.

  “You sleep now, Mr. Morgan. Just rest, and we’ll take care of you.”

  “Those men…”

  “Don’t worry about them.” Sean’s voice was grim. “I’ve already dragged them off behind the barn. I’ll bury them, although it’s more than they deserve. I ought to just leave them for the buzzards.”

  Whether the dead men were buried or not wasn’t what concerned The Kid. What he was worried about was that they might have friends who would come looking for them.

  But the darkness came up and carried him away again before he could say anything more.

  Chapter 3

  For an unknowable time after that, The Kid drifted in and out of consciousness. He woke up once and it seemed that he had been lying there in the bed for years. He woke up the next time and it was if only moments had passed since the thunder of guns and the acrid tang of gunsmoke filled the air. Sometimes he recognized the blurry faces of the man and woman who fed him and changed his bandages and took care of him, and other times they seemed like perfect strangers to him.

  And there was the little boy—Cyrus? Was that his name?—who stood and watched with a tentative smile on his face, sometimes with a fat little puppy clutched in his arms. The Kid remembered…something…about a puppy, but he wasn’t sure just what it was.

  He knew he was sick because he could see the fear in the eyes of the woman as she leaned over him and wiped his forehead with a cool, damp rag. She was afraid he was going to die.

  The Kid wasn’t afraid. The only thing death meant to him was that he would see the woman he loved again. He would see Rebel…unless, of course, all the blood on his hands meant that he would be headed down instead of up. It might be the Devil waiting for him on the other side, instead of St. Peter.

  To be honest, The Kid wouldn’t be surprised either way.

  Finally, the time came when The Kid opened his eyes and not only was his vision clear, but his mind was, too. He remembered everything in detail: the way he had approached the ranch, just drifting, looking for a place where he could water his horse and maybe get a hot meal; the man he had seen sneaking into the back of the barn; the ominous sound of the shot he’d heard a moment later. Curiosity had driven The Kid to slip through the rear door of the barn himself. He had found a man who looked like a rancher, probably the owner of this place, sprawled on the ground with a pool of blood around his head. The wound wasn’t as bad as it looked, and as the man began to come around, The Kid had told him to stay put, then gone to see what the screams and the other shots were about.

  Rage had filled him as he saw how the woman was being manhandled. When the intruders threatened the pups and kicked the little boy, The Kid knew that if he didn’t step in, those bastards wouldn’t leave anybody alive when they rode off and left the ranch behind them.

  The Kid didn’t go out of his way to look for trouble. He didn’t have to. It always seemed to find him. But he didn’t turn his back and walk away from it, either.

  He heard yipping and looked toward the open doorway. The boy was just outside, playing with the pups. He had a short piece of rope in his hand, and all four puppies had hold of it, trying to pull it away from him. The Kid smiled. It looked like fun.

  Growing up in a fancy house on Boston’s Beacon Hill, he’d never had a dog. His stepfather, the man he had believed for many years was his real father, was a good man, but he hadn’t been much for animals, especially not in the house. That was just one of the things The Kid had missed growing up and had not even realized until years later.

  Frannie Williams laughed and came into The Kid’s view as she crossed the room to stand in the doorway and look out at her son playing with the puppies. “I swear, Cyrus, you spend so much time with those pups I think you’re going to start growling and yipping just like them.”

  The boy looked up at her and grinned. “I wouldn’t want to be a dog, Ma. I like eatin’ the food you fix for us!” He glanced past her skirts then and spotted The Kid watching them. “Ma! Mr. Morgan’s awake again!”

  Frannie turned quickly from the door and came across the room toward the bed. She wore an anxious expression as she bent over The Kid.

  “Mr. Morgan, how do you feel?” She rested a hand on his forehead. “You’re cool! The fever’s broken at last.”

  The Kid’s brain was working again, but his mouth didn’t want to, at least at first. He struggled to say, “How…how long…”

  “How long have you been here?” Frannie guessed. “Four days. You were so sick we thought we were going to lose you.”

  The Kid let his head sag back against the pillow. He wasn’t surprised by what she had just told him. He had sensed that he’d lost a considerable chunk of time while he was out of his head with the fever.

  �
��But you’re going to be all right now,” she went on. “The fever’s broken, and I’ll bet you’ll be up and around before you know it.”

  The Kid hoped that was true. For a man who lived the life he did, to be flat on his back was just asking for trouble.

  “Those men…”

  Frannie’s expression clouded at The Kid’s words. Cyrus had come inside and followed her over to the bed. She looked at him now and said, “Run on back outside and play, Cyrus.”

  “But, Ma, I want to talk to Mr. Morgan,” he protested.

  “There’ll be plenty of time for you to talk to Mr. Morgan later. Now, scoot like I told you.”

  Cyrus went outside, but on the way, he muttered, “I’m all the time havin’ to scoot.”

  Frannie turned back to The Kid. Keeping her voice low, she said, “If you’re talking about those horrible gunmen, Sean buried them, like he said he would.”

  “Where?”

  “Up in our north pasture.”

  “But still on your range.”

  She frowned. “Of course. He wouldn’t have taken them onto somebody else’s land to bury them.”

  “Why didn’t he…take them to the nearest town?”

  “That would be Bisbee, which is two days from here by wagon.” Frannie shook her head. “It may not be the height of summer yet, Mr. Morgan, but it’s still too warm to spend two days on the road with some dead men.”

  The Kid couldn’t argue with that. He was worried, though, that if friends of the dead men came looking for them, they might find the graves and figure out what had happened. That could mean bad trouble for the Williams family.

  “Did he dig four graves…or just one?” The Kid didn’t know Sean Williams, didn’t know how smart the rancher was.

  “He didn’t actually dig any graves. He hollowed out under the bank of an arroyo a couple of miles from here and then caved it in on top of the bodies. No one knows they’re there except for the vaqueros who work for us.”

  “You can trust them?”

  Frannie nodded. “Of course. All four of them have been with us for five years, ever since we came here. I’d trust them with my life. More importantly, I’d trust them with the lives of my husband and son.”

  “That’s just what you’re doing,” The Kid muttered.

  Frannie crossed her arms. “I know that. Sean said we might be in danger if anybody found out what happened here. That’s why he was so careful to put the bodies where nobody would ever find them. He led their horses about five miles from here and turned them loose, too.” She sighed. “It’s ridiculous. We’re only a few years away from a brand-new century, and yet out here, it seems like nothing has changed. We have to worry about Apaches and banditos raiding from across the border, we have gunmen like those four passing through, and the only law that really means anything…”

  “Is the law of the gun,” The Kid finished for her as her voice trailed off.

  “I mean no offense, Mr. Morgan, truly I don’t,” she said quickly. “You saved our lives, and I can’t ever repay you for that. But if you hadn’t been faster on the draw than those men…if you hadn’t been better at killing than they were…well, I guess none of us would still be here. It’s a shame that life comes down to that.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I agree with you. But it’s always been like that, and I suppose it always will be, at least to a certain extent.”

  She smiled at him again. “You don’t exactly talk like a gunfighter, Mr. Morgan. You seem more like an educated man.”

  “A man can be handy with a gun and still be educated.”

  “There I go again, saying things that sound worse than I really intended them.”

  The Kid shook his head wearily. “Don’t worry about it, ma’am. I’m in your debt as much as you are in mine. You and your husband saved my life.”

  “You wouldn’t have been hurt if it wasn’t for us.”

  “No, ma’am, that’s not right. I wouldn’t have been hurt if it wasn’t for those four men who rode in just before I did. They’re the ones who caused all the trouble, and it doesn’t make any sense to blame yourself for what they did.”

  “I know.” Frannie paused. “My goodness, I’m about to talk your ear off, and here you are just now starting to recover from the awful fever. I’ll bet you’re thirsty.”

  The Kid’s mouth was like cotton, and talking hadn’t help. “Yes, ma’am. Parched.”

  “I’ll get you some water. And how about some food?”

  The Kid hadn’t realized it until she mentioned it, but he was starving. “I could do with something to eat,” he admitted.

  “Stay right there.”

  He smiled. “I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere just yet.”

  But soon, he hoped. He needed to be back on his feet just as soon as he could.

  Before trouble came calling again, as it always did.

  Chapter 4

  By evening, The Kid was sitting up in the bed with pillows propped behind him. When Sean Williams came in, the rancher grinned to see him doing so well and came over to shake hands.

  “I haven’t had a chance to properly thank you yet, Mr. Morgan,” he said. “You’ve been, uh, out of your head for a while, at least most of the time.”

  The Kid nodded. “I know. There’s no thanks necessary. You and Mrs. Williams saved my life.”

  “After you saved ours.”

  The Kid gestured toward the bandage that Sean still wore around his head. “How’s that bullet graze?”

  “Just about healed up. I probably don’t even need the bandage anymore.” Sean inclined his head toward the stove, where Frannie was stirring a pot of stew with her back to them. “But she thinks it’s a good idea.”

  “I heard that, you know,” she said without turning around.

  Sean grinned. “Anyway, I’m fine, and I’m glad to see that you’re on the mend, too, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Call me Kid.”

  “That’s all? Kid?”

  “It’s enough.”

  “Sure. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  The Kid waved a hand to show that he wasn’t bothered by what Sean said. “You haven’t had any blurred vision, double vision, anything like that?”

  Sean frowned and shook his head. “No.”

  “Any loss of memory?”

  “Nope. Those sound like questions a doctor would ask. You’re not—”

  “A doctor?” The Kid shook his head. “Not hardly. I’ve just been around men who had head wounds before, and sometimes they didn’t realize just how badly they were hurt until a few days later.”

  “Well, I’m fine. I had a headache for the first day, but once that went away, I’ve never been better.” Sean lowered his voice again and held up his hand with his thumb and forefinger almost touching. “There’s something about coming this close to dying that makes a man really appreciate living, you know?”

  The Kid nodded. He knew, all right. Despite the fatalism that gripped him most of the time, he had experienced those moments of sheer exhilaration that sometimes followed a brush with death. He had drawn in a deep breath and realized that the air had never smelled sweeter, even though a tinge of gunsmoke might linger in it.

  “I was wondering about my horse.”

  “I found him picketed up on the hill behind the barn. He’s in there now with my horses. Don’t worry, we’ve been taking good care of him. Heck, Cyrus brushes him twice a day.”

  The Kid smiled. “I’m much obliged.” He and the buckskin had been through a lot of hardships together in a relatively short time. His expression grew more serious again as he went on, “Mrs. Williams told me about what you did with those four men…”

  The young rancher’s face stiffened into a grim mask. “Seemed like that would be the smart thing. I didn’t want anybody to know that those varmints had even been here.”

  “That’s right. If anybody comes looking for them, you never saw them.”

  Sean nodded. “I’ve talked about that with Frannie and
the boy, and with the fellas who work for me. We’re all agreed. We’ll keep our mouths shut.”

  “No other strangers have been around?”

  Sean shook his head. “Nope. It’s been peaceful around here—just the way I like it.”

  The Kid hoped it stayed that way.

  “The stew’s ready,” Frannie announced. She stepped to the doorway and called, “Cyrus! Supper!”

  There was no response.

  Frannie frowned. “That’s funny. I thought he was just right outside with the puppies. The pups are here, but I don’t see Cyrus.”

  The Kid felt his gut clench suddenly.

  Sean looked worried, too. He left the bedside and went over to the door as Frannie walked farther outside.

  “Frannie!” His voice was sharp. “Get back in here.”

  She turned to look at him. The expression on her face was a mixture of confusion and fear. “But I can’t find Cyrus—”

  “I’ll find him.” Sean picked up the Winchester he had leaned against the wall beside the door when he came in. He strode out, took Frannie’s arm, and gently steered her back into the house.

  The Kid’s jaw was tight. He wished he could go out there with Sean. His eyes went to the gunbelt that was coiled nearby and placed on a chair beside the bed, along with the holstered Colt. The gun was in reach if he needed it. He looked around the room for something he could use as a crutch if he had to.

  Holding the rifle slanted across his chest, Sean walked away from the house, calling, “Cyrus! Cyrus!”

  “I’m here, Pa!”

  Relief washed through The Kid as he heard the little boy’s voice call from somewhere fairly close by.

  But then Cyrus went on, “We got company!”

  The Kid tensed again. Out here, company wasn’t necessarily a good thing. In fact, chances were it could mean trouble.

  He watched through the open doorway and saw Cyrus emerge from some brush about a hundred yards away from the ranch house. As the boy had said, he wasn’t alone. A man on horseback followed him, and then several more riders came out of the brush. As Cyrus ran toward the house, the men followed him, riding single file in a slow, deliberate pace.