by Tony Masero
‘How you doing, Joe?’ Billy Lee asked.
‘Got to say not too well, Billy Lee. Damned thing hurts like blazes and its really beginning to stink. That ain’t good is it?’
Billy Lee cast a worried glance across at Doctor Jack over the man’s head and the Indian, shook his head slightly.
‘Don’t worry, buddy,’ said Billy Lee. ‘We’ll get you some help soon enough.’
‘Want to thank you two fellows,’ said Joe. ‘You done your best for me, I know it.’
They lifted Joe between them along the wide and busy road leading into town and were given directions from a passerby to a doctor’s house off Ferry Street at the junction with Mechanic Street where there stood an orphanage that had a doctor in residence.
The place was run by an order of Catholic nun’s and they were directed by one of the sister’s into a waiting room where a number of patients were already in attendance. The three seated themselves in a large white painted hall with long church bench pews along each side of a central aisle and they were shuffled along the seats in a queue as each patient was seen in turn. The room was silent as all doctor’s waiting rooms are, pregnant with an all too human air of dread and anticipation. The only disturbance being the bustle of the nursing nuns as they went about their business.
After a wait of some time, Joe was about to take his place at front of the queue when the door to the waiting room burst open and three burly fellows pushed their noisy way in.
‘Where’s the doc?’ one bellowed. ‘We got a sick man here.’
The pale-faced fellow they accompanied was most definitely in pain; his hand was packed with a bloody wad of cloth rag and looked as if it had suffered some nasty damage.
‘Sit yourself down,’ said the sister in charge. ‘I’ll get some bandages and you can see the doctor soon as he’s free.’
‘We ain’t waiting,’ said the first man, a dark, unshaven fellow with a fist-fighter’s face and rolled sleeves over tattooed broad arms stained with oil and dirt. ‘My man needs attention, busted his fist when the crown block blew off our rig.’
‘Please,’ begged the sister. ‘Take your place, I have to clean this wound.’
‘Goddamn it, woman, stand aside will you? Ned, get the door for me,’ he roughly brushed the nun aside as his companion forced his way to the front of the room and made for the door to the doctor’s surgery.
‘Hey, there!’ warned Joe. ‘Take a care, he’s got someone in there with him.’
‘I could give a damn?’ said the rigger called Ned as he pushed the door wide open.
There was a scream from the elderly half naked female patient inside the surgery and a cry of complaint from the doctor.
‘Get her out of here,’ ordered Ned, obviously as equally rough and unpleasant as his foreman. ‘We got someone hurt bad and that takes precedence. My foreman’s bringing him in right now so get your clothes on, woman, dress your scrawny frame and step outside. My God! Ain’t you a picture? I’ve seen some skinny women in my time but you surely take the biscuit.’
‘That’s enough!’ cried the sister in the waiting room. ‘Stop that, this instant!’
The foreman, still supporting his hurt workmate, sneered at her dismissively and with a raised arm elbowed the nun so hard that she stumbled and fell over across one of the waiting room pews. ‘Be lucky I don’t beat your ass, you holy bitch,’ he growled. ‘I look after my own and we’re going in there right now.’
‘Come on, Linus,’ Ned urged the foreman from the surgery door. ‘Get him in here, don’t stand there waiting on these assholes.’
The foreman bundled his man on down the aisle and Billy Lee stood up and stepped out before them, blocking the way.
‘Why don’t you just settle down and take your place?’ he said calmly. ‘The doc will get to you right soon, I’m sure.’
The foreman looked at Billy Lee as if he were a bug on the wall.
‘Get out of the way,’ he said, reaching up a hand to push Billy Lee aside.
Billy Lee coolly took the extended fingers between his own and forced the hand back and over, twisting it at the wrist, ‘I said, take your place and wait your turn.’
With a snarl, Linus dropped his wounded workmate to one side and swung his free hand as a broad fist aimed in Billy Lee’s direction.
Billy Lee could see the man was a bully and barroom brawler, well used to intimidating with his size and angry demeanor. He swung back releasing the foreman’s hand and moving out of range as the telegraphed fist zipped before his face. Catching his balance, Billy Lee leaned forward again and delivered a snapping jab to the face that brought Linus up sharply.
‘I don’t want to hurt you, feller,’ warned Billy Lee. ‘Just take it easy, will you?’
‘The hell I will,’ roared Linus, barreling forward and attempting to encircle Billy Lee in the narrow aisle between the benches.
‘Go get him, Linus,’ encouraged the smiling and confident Ned, still standing at the doctor’s door.
Linus grappled Billy Lee around the waist and Billy Lee swung sideways bringing the foreman around to smack his head against one of the bench arms alongside.
‘Goddamn!’ spat Linus, rubbing his sore noddle. ‘I’ll make you pay for that.’
He was bent over, crouching and ready to leap in again when Billy Lee swung up a boot and kicked him under the chin.
‘Can’t abide fool’s like you,’ said Billy Lee, socking down hard with his fist on the choking foreman. ‘Ain’t nothing for it but to bust you up good.’
Linus dropped to one knee, a dribble of blood running from his lip. ‘I’ll kill you,’ he croaked, his eyes red-rimmed and glaring. Slowly he pulled a long hunting knife from his belt at the back.
There were a collection of concerned cries and screams from the other patients as Linus drew himself up and stood in a knife-fighter’s crouch, waving the dagger before him.
‘That’s bloody murder, that is,’ shouted Joe Fish. ‘Take care of the blade, Billy Lee.’
With a smirk on his face, Ned was stepping up behind Billy Lee, ready to grab him from the rear. His arms were around Billy Lee’s unsuspecting shoulders when Doctor Jack stood up and, leaping across Joe Fish were he sat at the end of the bench, flung himself at the rigger. The two tumbled over and fell across the aisle and over a bench seat opposite, causing a flurry of waiting to patients to hurriedly back away in fear.
‘You damned Indian!’ cried Ned. ‘Get your stinking hands off me.’
The two wallowed in the well of the seat, each attempting for the upper hand in a flurry of fists as they beat at each other.
As they fought, Billy Lee tore off his jacket and wrapped it quickly around his left arm. Using the thick material for protection against the knife, he moved in threateningly towards the foreman. Linus looked into his opponent’s face and saw a cold and grim determination there and for the first time felt a dubious shade of hesitancy.
‘Come on then,’ he said unconvincingly. ‘I ain’t a-feared of you.’
‘You should be,’ warned Billy Lee softly.
‘Break him up, Billy Lee,’ Joe Fish cheered on from the sidelines.
Linus swung a flashing arc with the knife and Billy Lee accepted it on his protected arm as he stepped inside the blow and delivered a forceful punch. Linus fell back, his face working and lips twisting. Desperately, he moved again, slashing low and Billy Lee leapt back.
‘Aha!’ cried Linus at his success and he came on again. ‘I’m going to peel your ass.’
The two men moved up and down the aisle, first one having advantage and then the other. Billy Lee jabbed and punched where he could, hitting at whatever part of Linus’s body came within range. It ended when Linus circled with his blade in a wild blow that missed his target and stuck the knifepoint deep in one of the upright bench support. As he struggled to free it, Billy Lee stepped in mercilessly and beat at him with each of his fists one after the other. Good solid punches that had full contact with the harsh smac
king sounds of bone on bone. Linus dropped to his knees, his beaten face accepting each quivering blow with grunts and strings of blood flying from his open mouth. Panting and with split lips parted wide, in desperation Linus drew his last resort, a Remington over-and-under derringer pistol kept in his pants pocket.
He grinned up at Billy Lee, his bloody teeth hazed with a red mist as he cocked the derringer.
‘Got you now, sucker,’ he spat.
In one motion Billy Lee swung about and snatched up the knife still stuck in the bench and whirling back threw it overarm. The blade snaked through the air, spinning end over end, its path a flashing circle of silver.
Stunned, Linus watched its swift approach with wide eyes, his derringer forgotten in his hands. With an audible thud the knifepoint buried itself in his throat. Both Linus’s clasping hands flew up to grasp the penetrating blade as he fell over backwards, the derringer dropping from his fingers. Gargling, Linus struggled, writhing on the waiting room floor. He looked up desperately at the third man, his broken handed wide-eyed workmate, who wordlessly sat looking down at him; his damaged hand clutched one in the other.
Slowly, Billy Lee came towards the foreman down the aisle, his face set rigid and both eyes as merciless as a cold winter on frozen stone. Bending, he picked up the discarded derringer, checking the twin-barrel loads as he did so and then he came on. Billy Lee stood over Linus, who gargled vague sounds in a pleading attempt to beg an unspoken question of mercy.
Billy Lee negatively shook his head slightly and cocking the derringer, aimed, and fired both barrels. The .41 caliber slugs pattering two neat black holes in Linus’s forehead and killing him instantly. Slipping the empty derringer into his pocket, Billy Lee turned back down the aisle to where Doctor Jack and Ned still battled it out, the pair of them rolling around on the floor.
As he passed him, the wounded workmate looked up at Billy Lee and gasped in disbelief, ‘You killed him! You done for Linus!’
‘And now the world’s a better place,’ breathed Billy Lee indifferently.
Without further ado, he leant in between the benches and grasped Ned by the collar of his shirt, pulling him up and off of Doctor Jack. With no expression on his face, Billy Lee swung Ned’s head and banged it down on the bench seat. He continued with that practice for several seconds, repeatedly battering the rigger’s face onto the solid seat with a knocking sound like an axe-man chopping wood. When the body hung limp in his hands, he dropped Ned and reached across to help Doctor Jack to his feet.
‘I don’t know,’ observed Doctor Jack wryly as he brushed himself down. ‘We came here seeking medical assistance and all we do is bring more work to the doctor’s door.’
‘Didn’t aim to do that,’ answered Billy Lee.
‘Best damn fight I seen in an age,’ grinned Joe Fish from his seat. ‘Hell! I wish I’d have been mobile enough to join in.’
The patients still left in the room were mumbling together nervously and fluttering around the shocked nun who was being helped to her feet whilst the doctor brushed by to see to the fallen.
‘Well, you fixed those men up good,’ he said in final diagnosis. ‘One man dead and the other one not far off. I reckon you’d better make your way out of town double quick, mister.’
‘Why’s that?’ asked Billy Lee. ‘We didn’t start anything.’
‘These boys are part of a fiery crew of real hard heads,’ the doctor explained. ‘They’ll be coming for you whether you started it or not. These men will think nothing of seeing you dead and there’s an awful lot of them.’
‘Aw, hell,’ complained Joe Fish. ‘Ain’t you got no law in this town? I’m sure these folks here will stand witness for Billy Lee.’
The doctor shook his head, ‘Won’t make no difference, your friend here will be hunted down, of that I can assure you. It’s a wild town just now and populated by the dregs that work the rigs, they are are no better than brigands and murderers. It really is best if you make yourself scarce.’
Billy Lee stared blankly at the others, he was still wrapped in the tension of the fight, his mind elsewhere and his fingers vibrating with spent adrenalin.
‘Go,’ urged Indian Jack. ‘I will stay with Joe. You get out and head on to where you intend. It is best, I will follow when we are paid by Frisco and I will bring your wages with me.’
Indecisively, Billy Lee turned this way and that unsure of what to do. Joe reached up and caught his wrist, ‘Here,’ he said and pushed a roll of grubby dollar bills bound with a twist of baling wire into Billy Lee’s hand. ‘Take this, you get on the first train out of here, this’ll pay your way.’
‘I can’t take that,’ said Billy Lee.
‘Course you can,’ said Joe. ‘It’s a loan, Doctor Jack will see me straight when he gets your pay, won’t he?’
Billy Lee looked over, the question in his eyes and Doctor Jack nodded sober acceptance, ‘Do not hesitate, brother. It is best you leave directly, you can see what manner of men these are.’
‘Will you be alright?’
‘What have I to fear? It is you who did the killing.’
‘You really think I should? It seems crazy to just quit and get up and go.’
‘It is the intelligent thing, Billy Lee, am I not right, Joe?’
Joe nodded enthusiastically, ‘Just go will you, my damn foot is paining me and the longer you leave it the more it hurts.’
The doctor laid a hand on Billy Lee’s arm, ‘I will do what I can with the authorities but do not count on being safe from the riggers, there is no understanding these kind of men.’
‘Okay, doc, I get it.’
He turned and shook hands with Joe and Doctor Jack, ‘See you soon, Jack. Don’t you hang around, you hear?’
‘I am soon behind you, brother.’
‘Luck to you, Joe.’
Chapter Eleven
At five miles an hour average speed the Wells Fargo Concord coach was a slow moving animal. But then the six-horse team was pulling over two and a half thousand pounds of weight before you got around to the drivers, passengers and baggage. They carried full mail sacks too and under the shotgun messenger’s seat, a heavy strongbox with the real stuff inside.
That was what Jethro and the others were interested in.
It had been an arduous haul up from the last stopover twelve miles back and the coach was due for a changeover of team and a meal when they arrived at Reservoir Flats. Ludy Tennant had been driving the stage for the best part of fifteen years and his partner Columbine Ledbetter had ridden shotgun for him for ten of them.
Columbine, or Col as he was known, had a secret ailment that troubled him bad at this time and the nature of his employment did little to ease his suffering. He fidgeted constantly on his seat and Ludy, who was normally an easy going old cuss, had recently become irritated by his partner’s constant movement. It was bad enough that they rode a rough trail, grinding and popping over ruts and stones that even the bull hide springs could not soften but Col’s twitching and shuffling made matters no easier.
‘Hell’s Bells, Col, what the devil’s the matter with you? You ain’t sit still a minute since the last stop.’
‘It’s nothing,’ muttered Col, staring off into the horizon.
‘Something bugging you?’ asked Ludy.
‘Guess, I’m feeling a mite restless, is all. Need a walk about, fifty miles sitting down ain’t good for a body.’
‘Damn,’ sighed Ludy. ‘You been doing it long enough, should be well prepared by now.’
Col grabbed the handrail and winced as they hit a particularly large rock in the road. He growled under his breath and Ludy looked across at him a worried frown on his brow.
‘You sickening for something, Col?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ snapped the shotgun guard.
Ludy sucked on his chawing tobacco and stared straight ahead thinking that this was not like his partner at all. He spat a stream of juice to one side downwind of their direction and decided
to keep his thoughts to himself. You did not get to ride with a man this long and face all kinds of dangers and difficulties without knowing when to keep your mouth shut.
Col twisted uncomfortably on the seat, screwing himself sideways.
‘It’s my ass, if you want to know.’
‘Your ass?’
‘Yeah, my ass. I don’t know what’s wrong with it.’
‘What? Your ass is giving you grief?’
‘It is. Sore as hell and this bumping about don’t make it any better.’
‘How’d you do that, pard? It wasn’t that whore you been giving it to back the depot, was it?’
‘It’s my ass not my dick, numbnuts.’
Ludy shrugged, feeling a sneeze coming on from the dust, he transferred the reins to one hand and squeezed his nose between a gloved finger and thumb. ‘Sure, I know that. I was just…. you know, being polite…. kind of.’
‘What? You don’t think I know one end from the other? That what you’re saying?’ Col asked belligerently. ‘Goddammit, things is bad enough without you going all ladylike on me.’
‘Now, don’t go getting in all of a fuss. I was just saying, is all. You got a problem then we can discuss it like regular folks, can’t we? I mean, I’m here to help out if I can.’
Col took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat, ‘Sure, I know. I’m sorry, Col, it just makes me kind of edgy. It’s like a constant grind up my fundament and its like to drive me pure crazy.’
‘You think this is a medical condition of some sort?’
‘Sure as hell I don’t know.’
‘Kind of sore is it?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Like a saddle boil or something?’
‘No, it ain’t that.’
‘Cos if it is, I’ll cut her for you. No problem, we’ll do her at Reservoir Flats if it’ll ease your journey.’
They were quiet for a time as both considered the complex difficulties of such a personal and private matter. Ludy looked up at the steep and curving banks of hillside on the right of the trail and Col glanced out at the flat plain to their left. Staring in opposite directions avoided direct eye contact and made a space in the conversation that relieved Col’s embarrassing confession somewhat.