by Jory Sherman
“Let me handle this,” Colter said.
“Those are U.S. marshals,” Dan said. “I wonder what they want.”
The two men wore U.S. marshal badges on their vests. And they both carried rifles.
“You men are under arrest,” one of them said. “I’m United States Federal Marshal Calvin Garner and this is Leon Simms.”
“I’ll take that money,” Simms said, walking toward Colter.
“What’s the problem?” Colter asked.
“Those cattle are stolen,” Garner said. “Someone took a running iron to the Two Bar Seven brand that was on them. As you know damned well.”
Colter held out the money. As Simms was reaching for it, Colter dropped the money in a heap at his feet and drew his pistol. He was lightning fast. As the pistol cleared his holster, he thumbed back the hammer. Before Simms could react, Colter fired. The Colt belched flame and smoke, spewed out a lead ball that slammed into the marshal’s heart. He dropped like a sack of meal, a hole in his back from the exit wound the size of a man’s fist.
Marshal Garner went into a crouch and brought up his rifle, cocking it. Colter’s pistol barked and Garner went into shock as the bullet smashed into his neck square in the Adam’s apple. Blood spurted all over Dan, who turned toward Colter, clawing for his pistol.
Colter’s pistol roared once again and Dan fell to his knees, a bullet through the middle of his forehead. He crumpled over as Colter stepped up and brought his pistol down with great force atop Jed’s head, knocking him cold. Jed folded up into a heap.
Colter, with a calm coolness, reached down and picked up the money. He stuffed some in Jed’s shirt, then removed Jed’s pistol from its holster. He placed his own pistol in Jed’s right hand, holstered Jed’s pistol on his own gun belt. He walked out the back of the barn and outside to his waiting horse. Smoke wove lazy patterns inside the barn over the dead men, hanging over them like some wispy wraith in the dead silence.
Three men lay dead and another, with a cracked skull, sank deeper into darkness, blood seeping from a deep gash in his head, trickling onto the straw and earth of the barn, forming into a bright crimson pool.
CHAPTER
7
JED’S HEAD WAS A SEPARATE BEING.
It was a fire-breathing, snorting, throbbing muscle that occupied his mind, his body, his senses, even his fingertips. It was a demon he could not see, but which robbed him of his very identity while it boiled his thoughts to a scrambled mush of alphabet soup. He was sure, when his eyes opened, that he was in hell and was being tortured. He was almost sure of it when he saw the grizzled face of a devil not more than six inches away from him, moist red eyes glaring at him from a face that was covered with black-and-white wire all bunched up as if it had been squeezed into a ball.
“I wondered when you were going to wake up,” a voice said. It seemed to be coming from that satanic face, a voice with a whiskey rasp and a deep bearish growl. “I have to put stitches in you, boy, but I need you awake to do it. If I give you the chloroform, you might not ever wake up.”
“Huh?” Jed couldn’t move. He felt paralyzed. There was pressure on his shoulders and someone was sitting on his legs, pinning him down to the iron cot with its lumpy, smelly mattress.
“You got quite a crack on your skull, young man. I can see bloody bone underneath the open wound. I’m Doc Bellum. James Bellum. That feller sitting on your legs is Don Kercheval, my assistant, and the man holding your arms down so that you don’t knock my teeth out is Jeff Bryant, who’s a swamper here in the jail.”
“Jail?” Jed said, trying to refocus his eyes. Everything suddenly blurred when he moved his head.
“What’s your name?” the doctor asked.
“Jed. Jed Brand.”
“Well, Jed, Bear River found you in the barn with three dead men. The pistol in your hand had three bullets fired. Three empty cartridges in the cylinder of your pistol. Each of the three men had one bullet hole in them. Smith says you’re going to be tried for murder.”
“I never killed anyone.”
“Um, well, you’ll have to convince a judge and a jury of that. In the meantime, maybe you’d better start praying. There are other charges against you, too.”
“Huh?”
“Cattle rustling, for one. That’s a hanging offense, too. Brand altering. That carries a pretty stiff sentence. It looks as if they’ve got you hog-tied and branded for a host of criminal charges.”
“I’m not guilty of anything. A man named Silas Colter killed those men in the barn. And one of them was my brother, Dan.”
“Try to relax, Jed. I’m going to bathe that wound in alcohol and then start sewing up your head. You’ll think I poured fire in it, but it’s just to guard against sepsis. Now, hold still.”
Jed looked up but the doctor slapped a wet towel over his eyes. Then he felt a hot stinging sensation on the top of his head. It felt as if fire had been poured into the wound, just as the doctor had said. Then he felt more pain as the doctor worked the needle and thread through his flesh, squeezing the wound together. Jed could feel all that and see it in his mind. His mother had sewn a cut on his arm when he was small and that’s how she had done it. Jed winced and gritted his teeth. He did not move. The men holding him down pressed even harder once the doctor started sewing up the gash in his head.
Jed felt a last tug or two and then the doctor lifted the towel from over his eyes.
“Done?” Jed asked.
“Done.” But the doctor smiled and poured more alcohol on the stitches. Again, the liquid burned like fire.
“Okay, Don, Jeff. You can let up now,” the doctor said.
The men climbed off the bunk. Jed looked up at them. They both stared down at him.
“He don’t look like no owlhooter,” Bryant said.
“He’s a Texan, ain’t he?” Kercheval remarked. “Just like the rest of ’em. Full of piss and vinegar and to hell with the law.”
“Now, now,” Bellum said. “We mustn’t judge young Jed Brand here until he’s had his say in court. You’ll get a fair trial, Jed, if that’s any comfort.”
“Not much.”
Bellum laughed. He reached down and picked up a black leather satchel, packed away scissors, alcohol, needle, and waxed thread. He closed the valise and stood up.
“If it starts to itch, Jed, you leave it alone. It’s healing. If it swells up and starts to suppurate, you tell the jailer to come and get me. That means you have an infection and that could be trouble.”
“Likely he’ll hang before that gets infected,” Bryant said.
Doc Bellum shot the man a withering look.
“You mind what I say, Jed,” Bellum said.
“Thanks, Doc.” Jed tried to sit up, but the room spun around and he closed his eyes and sank back down on the bunk.
“Take it easy, Brand,” Kercheval said. Then he called to the jailer. “Boggs, get us out of here.”
Jed heard a door open, then footsteps. There was a jangle of keys, then a rattling of a key in a lock and the sound of the cell door opening. He saw the backs of the three men as they left, but not the faces, nor the face of the jailer. He closed his eyes and listened to the cell door clang shut. More clicks as the jailer turned the lock in the door. More footsteps going down the hall, then a door slamming. A loud noise as a bolt slammed into place. Then it was quiet.
His head throbbed and there was a series of piercing sharp pains where the doctor had sewn the stitches. It felt as if Bellum had stuck him with three or four needles and left the needles sticking out of his scalp.
Jed heard muffled voices coming from the outer room, which he took to be the jail office. He couldn’t make out any of the words, nor recognize any of the men speaking. He kept his eyes closed and wished that the pain would go away so that he could think about his situation. He had no memory of being carried to the jail, so Colter had probably hit him pretty hard with something. He was sure it had been Colter who knocked him out. The bastard.
; Jed tried to shut out the image of his brother Danny going down with a bullet in him. It seemed so unreal, but he knew it had happened. And he had been powerless to stop it. Everything had happened so fast. The U.S. marshals were a surprise, but Colter had been ready for them. All too ready. Dan had acted bravely, but it had cost him his life. And now he was being accused of killing not only the two U.S. marshals, but his own dear brother.
The voices in the jail office died away. It was quiet for a few moments as Jed lay there with his eyes closed, fighting back the pain in his head. Then he heard a rustling nearby, in his cell. His eyes fluttered open, but he did not move his head. He stared at the ceiling, the wall next to his bunk.
A moment later, he heard a hammering outside, the ping and ring of a nail being driven into wood. More voices, from outside the jail. Gruff voices that he could not identify.
“They ain’t never hanged nobody in Abilene before,” a voice said, so close it startled him. He had thought he was alone in the cell. Jed slowly turned his head and looked across the room. There was another bunk there and a man sat on it, looking straight at him.
“What?”
“They’re building you a gallows, Mister. Right out there on Texas Street. They’re going to stretch your neck.”
The hammering grew louder, and he heard the slam and slap of lumber.
“I’m innocent,” Jed said.
“I heard ’em when they brought you in here. They found money on you that had just come from the bank. They said it proved you sold stolen cattle and killed those U.S. marshals and that other feller, who was in on it with you.”
“That was my brother.”
“Yep. I heard that. That’s why they say the judge ain’t goin’ to show you no mercy. You’re going to hang, brother, and may God keep your soul.”
Jed struggled to get up. He sat and let the room spin once again. Then he focused on the man across from him.
“Maybe they’re building that gallows for you,” Jed said.
“Nope. Not me. I got drunk in the Bull’s Head Saloon, that’s all. This is a new jail. Some of your Texicans burned the old one down. They don’t take kindly to Texicans here in Abilene, Kansas.”
“You don’t look drunk.”
“I ain’t now. That was last night. I’ll be gettin’ out in about a hour. Should be a wild night tonight. A big herd come in a while ago and the Bull’s Head will be plumb full. You might get yourself some more company before morning.”
“Who are you?” Jed asked.
“Me? I’m Phil Coe and I ride with Ben Thompson. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”
Jed’s heart sank. He had heard of Phil Coe and Ben Thompson. Both were famous gunfighters. Everybody had heard of them.
What had he gotten himself into? What kind of town was Abilene?
For him, now, it was a town built in hell.
CHAPTER
8
JED REALIZED THAT HE HAD STEPPED INTO SOMETHING that he was ill-prepared to handle. He looked down at his bunk where his head had lain and saw the bloody towels. It was no wonder he felt dizzy. There was a lot of blood soaked into the towels.
Coe rolled a cigarette, offered the makings to Brand. Jed shook his head.
“You lost some blood,” Coe said.
Jed nodded.
“And I got kicked out of my own saloon.”
“You own the Bull’s Head?”
“Ben and I own it. But I got drunk and started fighting with a fellow Texican I don’t like much. Ben wasn’t there, so Bear River locked me up. If he hadn’t, I might have killed that no-good jasper. He’ll pay the fine, though, and I heard that the man I was fighting with lit a shuck for Texas.”
“I heard Thompson was from Austin.”
“That’s right. He was born in England, though. Some little town called Knottingly.”
“I know he was a Texas Ranger,” Jed said.
“He and I fought in the Civil War together.”
“I was too young.”
“Well, you ain’t too young to be hanged.”
“I don’t want to think about it. I didn’t kill those men and I certainly didn’t kill my own brother.”
“Well, maybe the judge will believe you. He’s honest enough. Fair, some say.”
“Do you know a man named Silas Colter?” Jed asked.
Coe puffed on his cigarette, closed his eyes against the sting of fumes. His head was wreathed in a blue halo of smoke. He leaned back against the wall and waved some of the smoke away so that he could look at Jed.
“He’s run some cattle up here a few times. Small herds, mostly. I talked to him in the Bull’s Head a time or two, but he don’t say much about himself. I’m a gambler and he sat in on a game once.”
“What did you make of him?”
“Shady. Very shady. Fair poker player. Good at bluffing. Nervy, too. One of his drovers got likkered up one night and started ranting that Colter had cheated him. Colter heard him, walked up to the man and kneed him in the nuts. When the man doubled over, Colter took out his pistol and coldcocked him. Didn’t nobody say anything, but Colter walked out and left the man. After that, nobody saw the drover again and some said Colter had taken care of him.”
“You mean …”
“I mean Colter killed him. If the story was true. I took it to be true. You get so you can read a man’s eyes. Colter has fish eyes. They don’t talk none.”
“Then how can you read his eyes?”
“A gunfighter stays alive by reading men’s eyes. When you can’t read ’em, you’re reading ’em right. Colter’s a killer. Ben said so, and I say so. You don’t get eyes like Colter’s less’n you’ve killed a man or two. I wouldn’t play much poker with a man like that. And I didn’t, after that first time.”
“I wish I had you as a witness at my trial, Mr. Coe.”
“I wouldn’t make you a good witness, Brand. I’ve got too many notches on my gun.”
Jed looked across the room, trying to read Coe’s eyes. They were pale blue, like Colter’s, and gave him the shivers. Cold, vacant eyes, just like Colter’s. Unreadable, Jed thought.
As if reading his mind, Coe got up and walked over to Jed, looked him hard in the eyes.
“I know,” he said. “I got the same eyes. Like Colter’s. You got brown eyes. The best kind, kid. They can turn black and fill up with smoke and get cloudy. Brown eyes is the best.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you want, if you learn how to do it, Brand, you can keep people guessing. Brown eyes can flash, can spark, can shoot fire. With those eyes, you can scare hell out of a man and maybe live a while longer. With eyes like mine, so pale, so cold, they’re always boring into a man and they don’t change. They look like death and that usually keeps men away.”
“I never thought about eyes that much, Mr. Coe.”
“Some people say the eyes are the windows into the soul, but I don’t hold to that idea. I look for shadows and flickers and nerves behind the eyes. You got good eyes, Brand. They can hold on a man without blinking and a man has to look pretty hard to see in ’em. Me? My eyes tell a man he’s going to die if he steps across the line. A man can read his own death in my eyes. That helps keep me alive, but it also tempts men with itchy trigger fingers. Those kind of men want to put my lamp out. And I got to draw faster than them, like Ben does, and put them down real quick.”
“I can’t help how my eyes look,” Jed said.
“No? Well, if you live long enough you can, kid. You keep them steady like you do and a man will think twice before going up against you with a gun. That Colter, who coldcocked you. He hit you from behind, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Well, that’s because he didn’t want to look in your eyes. And maybe he didn’t want you lookin’ into his. If you can read a man’s eyes, you can see his intentions, with cards, with a gun, with a woman.”
“I guess I never thought about such, Mr. Coe.”
“Don’t know why I’m tellin�
�� you all this, Brand. You’re not going to live long enough for it to do you any good. Likely, before the week’s out, you’ll be droppin’ through that trapdoor they’re buildin’ out there and your neck will snap like a twig.”
Jed listened to the hammering. It was starting to bother him. Coe walked away from him, stood before the bars and looked through them at the empty cell on the opposite side of the hallway. The hammers continued to pound and, underneath, he heard the sound of sawing, and men talking to one another. He heard a dog bark and a child laugh. They were building a gallows out there. Just for him. And he was innocent.
Jed lifted his right hand and touched the base of his neck, stroked it with his fingers as a man will stroke his beard. He hated to think of dying like that, with a broken neck, his body dangling there, lifeless, but still kicking, like a chicken with its head cut off. Kicking long after he was plumb dead.
Coe turned away from the bars and began to pace the cell. But Jed could tell that he was not nervous, nor restless. He appeared to be mulling something over in his mind. It was that kind of pacing.
“Brand,” Coe said, “do you know what muerte means?”
“It means death in Spanish.”
“And what about el destino.”
“Destiny, I think.”
“Yeah, destiny. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes, when Ben comes to get me, but I been thinkin’ about your situation. You might get out of this, after all.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Destiny. Maybe you’re not supposed to die just yet. I got a feelin’ about you. A hunch, maybe. And I’ve learned to play hunches. As a gambler, it can sometimes mean the difference between winning and losing.”
“What is destiny, anyway? Like your life is already mapped out and you can’t change it?”
“Maybe. If your destiny is to live, you won’t die. I mean die before your time. If you got a destiny that says you’re going to live to be an old man, then maybe nothin’ can change that.”
“But we don’t any of us know what our destiny is, Mr. Coe.”
Coe nodded in agreement.
“No, we don’t. But I think we get an inkling every now and then. Your brother was murdered, and you want revenge. Or justice. It may be that destiny will play a hand in this. You might get out of that rope party so you can go after this Colter and kill him or bring him in to hang in your place. Something to think about, anyways.”