by Dunlap, Phil
“When do you figure Cotton will get back?” Arlo, the saloon’s bartender, asked as Jack downed his second whiskey/beer interlude.
“He’ll get back when he gets back, Arlo. That’s the way it is with our sheriff. He has his own schedule. I have no idea where he is right at this moment. Probably got himself in some tight spot and is figuring a way out,” Jack said with snort. Arlo gave him an understanding grin and moved down the bar to serve a new customer.
Melody glided down the stairway, one hand on the polished railing, slowly surveying everything that was happening below. A couple of tables were surrounded by consummate cardplayers deeply ensconced in their games of chance, while two of her girls were trying to entice cowboys to let go of their dollars for a visit upstairs instead of blowing it on watered-down whiskey, and one rangy man in coveralls could be seen leaning on the bar sucking the foamy head off a glass of warm beer. One of the girls found her efforts successful and had latched on to a young, scrawny wrangler and was directing him toward the stairs. The kid kept glancing around, appearing shy and embarrassed, unsure of what he was about to get himself into.
Melody walked up to Jack and slipped her arm through his. The top of her dress was open far enough to reveal more than most men could tolerate and control themselves. Jack, on the other hand, knew every inch of her body and was less moved to a public reaction than another might be. A satin ribbon that usually tied at the bodice was undone and dangling free, adding to the enticement. She smelled like wildflowers, and not one person in the house let it go unnoticed as she strolled by. Jack liked the idea of being kept by a real head turner.
“Melody.” Jack acknowledged her arrival and squeezed her arm. She smiled a coquettish smile and moved her head in a way that suggested they retire to their upstairs hideaway. Before he could respond, a tall, mean-looking hombre pushed open the swinging doors and limped inside, getting everyone’s attention by his noisy arrival. Melody showed her immediate disdain for the man with a grunt of disapproval.
The man, wearing a Remington .44, a flat-brimmed hat, and a large red scarf draped around his neck, headed straight for the bar, paying no attention to the other patrons. He seemed to have a singularity of purpose as he slammed his fist on the bar and demanded a whiskey. “A double, and leave the bottle,” he growled in a most unfriendly manner. His face was sunburned and dirty. A long, thin nose had a bump in the middle, making him look not unlike a buzzard.
“Comin’ up,” Arlo said as he slid a bottle in front of the man and placed a large glass beside it. “That’ll be fifty cents.”
The man dug into his dusty coat pocket and pulled out two coins, tossing them on the bar so hard they bounced across and onto the floor. Arlo frowned as he bent over to pick them up. The man snorted at Arlo’s discomfort. But, gentleman that he was, the bartender seemed to take no offense and went back to doing what he’d been doing prior to the man’s rude appearance.
The man turned to notice the badge on Jack’s shirt.
“Say, Deputy, can you tell me where I might find a feller named Burke?”
“You mean Sheriff Cotton Burke?”
“Hell yes, the sheriff. I doubt you got more than one Cotton Burke in this pitiful town.” His sneer was anything but the kind you’d expect from a friend. That wasn’t lost on Jack, as an instant dislike of this rude oaf welled up in him. “So where can I find this ‘sheriff’?”
“Can’t rightly say. He could be here or he could be there. He hasn’t been around for a spell. What’d you want with him?” Jack asked.
“Just a little unfinished business for Judge Arthur Sanborn. And it ain’t none of yours.”
“I’ll tell him when he gets back to town. Who shall I say was lookin’ for him?”
“Ain’t important. I’ll just hang around and wait. No hurry.” The man poured himself another glass of whiskey and strolled over to watch a table of serious-looking cardplayers with a pot that really didn’t amount to much, but which had certainly captured the imagination of those involved. The stranger stood, drink in one hand, the other hand hanging on his gun belt, with a thumb stuck through a loop. He said nothing.
“What do you suppose he wants with Cotton?” Melody whispered.
“I have no idea, but whatever it is, I have a sneaky suspicion Cotton isn’t goin’ to like it.”
“I don’t like men like that hangin’ around. Why don’t you shoo him off?”
“He hasn’t bit nobody yet. Seems bent on keepin’ the peace. So, until he strays from the herd, I’m obliged to keep hands off.” Jack took Melody’s arm, with the intention of leading her toward the stairs. She pulled away and walked over to stand beside the rough-looking man. He gave her a quick glance.
“I ain’t interested, lady. Maybe some other time,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
“I’m not offerin’, mister, but you said something about wantin’ to find the sheriff.”
“Yeah. You know where he is?”
“Maybe. Sometimes he stays out at the Wagner ranch with his lady friend, straight up Old Hill Road about five miles to the north. You can’t miss it.”
The man grumbled something unintelligible, then limped away and pushed through the doors, taking his bottle with him. Melody returned to Jack’s side and took his arm, with the clear intention of continuing their liaison upstairs.
“What’d you say to get him to leave?”
“Nothin’. Just said he might be out at the Wagner ranch,” she said with a smirk.
Jack stopped mid-step. “Melody, I swear sometimes you do the dumbest things.”
“I didn’t want him in here. Seemed like a good way to get rid of some trash.”
He pulled away from her and left the saloon, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
After leaving the saloon and getting mounted, the man in the red scarf stopped at the livery before venturing into a countryside he didn’t know his way around in. He asked the stable boy how to get to Old Hill Road. The young boy leaned on his pitchfork and looked at him as if he were stupid.
“You makin’ fun of me just because I’m muckin’ out horse shit?”
“I’m not makin’ fun of you at all. Just want to know where the damned road is, that’s all. If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll be on my way.”
“You’re on it, mister. Don’t you know nothin’?”
The man’s first impulse was to draw his Remington and put a hole straight through the scrawny smart-mouthed kid, but he decided instead to ride on, erasing his anger by sucking on the whiskey bottle as he went.
As soon as I find that sheriff’s lady friend, he thought, I reckon that’s when my job begins.
Chapter 11
Emily had come out on the porch when Henry Coyote called to her about an approaching rider. As she took a step closer to Henry, the rider pulled up just in front of the steps. He did not offer the courtesy of tipping his hat to a lady but instead leaned forward, dark, brooding eyes searching about as if he expected to find someone else.
“What can I do for you, mister?” Emily said.
“I’m lookin’ for a gent I was told would likely be here.”
“What gent would that be?”
“A man named Cotton Burke. Where is he?”
“Why would you figure him to be here?”
“I was told in town that if he wasn’t there, this is where I could find him. Spoke like you was his woman. You sayin’ that ain’t true?”
“I reckon you’ve been led astray. I’m nobody’s woman, and he isn’t here. Now it’s time for you to move on,” she said, and turned to go back inside. “And don’t come back or I’ll have you thrown off the ranch.”
“Don’t believe a word you’re sayin’. I can see it in your eyes. And don’t you show your backside to me, lady. I won’t stand for dismissal from no damned bitch. Now tell me where I can find this Cotton Burke. And be quick about it. I ain’t a patient man. Got a message for him.”
“What message would that be?”
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“I been on the road a spell, and I’m plumb tuckered, so tell me what I want to know, or else you ain’t gonna like what comes next.”
The man in the dusty black flat-brimmed hat clenched his teeth as he drew a nickel-plated .38 from a shoulder holster beneath his duster. He thrust it out straight, pointing directly at her. Emily froze in place, her eyes wide in a mixture of surprise and fear. No one had ever pointed a gun in her direction before.
“I told you once and I’m not going to tell you again, he isn’t—”
Before she could finish her sentence, the man followed her with the little spur-trigger .38, a couple inches to the right in the direction she’d moved, keeping it aimed directly at her as he cocked the hammer and placed his finger on the trigger.
“Last chance,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
Emily stood her ground with a defiant jut of her chin, arms crossed.
“Go to hell,” she spat, with a venomous scowl.
That’s when he made his move, but Henry moved quicker. He shoved Emily out of the way, taking the full force of the explosion himself. He fell on top of the surprised woman. As the stranger raised the gun to shoot again, one of the ranch hands came around the corner of the house, six-shooter drawn. He pulled off a quick shot that hit nothing but air. It did, however, serve its purpose. The man yanked hard on his reins and wheeled his horse about, then spurred the mare to a dead run toward the gate.
Struggling to free herself from beneath Henry, Emily felt something wet as she gripped his arm. Blood dripped onto her shirt and onto the porch. Henry had been shot. She felt a jolt of panic as she looked into his wandering, questioning eyes. She scrambled to untangle herself from beneath the Apache, finally managing to roll him over just as the ranch hand rushed up the steps to help.
“Oh, my god, Henry’s been shot! Teddy, go get some men, hitch up a team, and bring the buckboard around. We have to get him to the doctor before he bleeds to death. Scoot!”
Teddy Olander, a twenty-year-old kid from Arkansas she’d hired only a week before, and the one who’d scared the shooter away, nearly tripped over his own feet as he lit a shuck for the bunkhouse, shouting as he went. Three cowboys tumbled out of their bunks and scrambled to see what all the yelling was about.
“Henry’s been gunned down by some scoundrel that tried to shoot Miss Emily. Get the buckboard hitched up and be damned quick about it!”
For a brief moment, as the seriousness of the situation slowly sank into the suddenly awakened cowhands, they stood in stunned silence, trying to rub the sleep from their eyes. Then, one must have caught on, and he broke ranks, pulled his suspenders up, and stumbled toward the corral. That was sufficient for the others to scatter in search of their part in the job at hand.
Emily carried several blankets from the house and placed them in the bed of the buckboard. She rolled a couple up to place on either side so the Indian wouldn’t be jolted so badly that the bleeding would increase, cutting his chances for survival even further. They all helped lift the old Apache onto the blankets as gently as rough, calloused cowhands could be expected to do.
“Teddy, you drive. I’ll stay back here with Henry and try to stop as much bleeding as I can.”
Teddy slapped the reins like a hardened teamster as the horses strained at their traces, thundering through the front gate and out onto the road toward Apache Springs. Emily held Henry’s head up, while attempting to stop the blood from flowing by pressing a wetted compress against the wound as best she could. She prayed Henry would live as the buckboard bounced and rattled along the rutted road. Cotton, I need you. Please come home.
As the straining, heavily lathered team thundered down the Old Hill Road and slid around a corner onto the main street of town, Emily was already screaming for the doctor. Teddy yanked the reins back and pushed as hard as he could on the foot brake to stop the buckboard. It shuddered to its final last few skidding feet right outside the Dr. John Winters’s office porch.
“What in tarnation is all the fuss about, woman? Oh, it’s you, Miss Emily, sorry.”
Doc Winters was wearing his usual baggy, wrinkled pants held up with suspenders. Along with the top to his long johns, which appeared to have been washed less than regularly. In his hand was a half-empty bottle of whiskey, which he tried to move behind him but failed. Emily’s eyes immediately shot to the bottle then to the doctor, whose stance was unsteady at best.
“Whatever’s in that bottle better be medicinal, Doc, or you’re about to wish it was. I’ve got a badly wounded man here and he needs tendin’ to. And not by some drunk. You up to it or do I have to hold a gun to your head?”
Doc Winters was at once embarrassed at the dressing down he’d just received. He could find no words to rebut her condemnation. He was a drunk. Had been for years. Truth be known, he’d never made an attempt to change, either.
“Get your man inside, Miss Emily. I’ll be just fine. You can keep your gun tucked in that holster. Who’s been shot?”
“Henry Coyote.”
“The Injun?”
“Yeah. That gonna be a problem?”
“Uh, well, uh, no, I reckon not. Never operated on no Injun before, though.”
“Don’t worry none about that, Doc. He is no different than any other man. He bleeds when he’s wounded, and he dies when he isn’t tended to properly. I’d surely hate for something like that to happen to one of the best men I’ve ever known. You do understand, don’t you?”
Emily’s hand slowly dropped to the butt of her revolver, holstered and drooping on a belt that dangled loosely around her small waist.
“I, uh, understand, ma’am. I’ll do my best. You can bet on it.”
“Teddy, help me get Henry inside.” The two of them lifted the Apache as gently as they could and, draping one of his arms over each of their shoulders, half-carried, half-dragged him up the steps and across the threshold into the doctor’s office. The doctor waved his hand to direct them to heft him onto a table in a room that brought back bad memories for Emily. It was where she first saw Cotton after hearing he was still alive, dangling his legs over the edge of the table, and trying to shrug into his bloody shirt. Only hours before, he’d been shot and nearly killed by one of the Cruz gang. That terrible moment brought relief only after Cotton refused to be denied the destiny he’d sworn to keep with the vicious outlaw. That destiny was finally served as Virgil Cruz lay dying from Cotton’s deadly aim in the very cabin where Emily had suffered humiliation at the hands of a degenerate gunman.
As Henry lay on the table, the doctor began fumbling around on another table, this one laden with instruments—shiny, sharp, and unfriendly. Emily prayed that somewhere in that jumble was the one that would save Henry’s life.
Teddy leaned on the back of a pressed-pine chair across the room. His stomach had been full of butterflies ever since he first saw Henry lying across Emily, blood flowing over her dress. When the doctor finally selected a long, thin pair of tweezers and started probing around in the wound, Teddy’s stomach began to grumble its disdain. The sight of blood was nothing new to the boy, but when it was someone he worked with and the possibility of death loomed large, he was sorely tempted to make a beeline for the door and some much-needed fresh air.
But his feet would not move. No matter how badly he wished to be somewhere else, he felt as though his boots had been nailed to the floor. Watching the old Indian’s complete control over what Teddy could only imagine had to be insufferable pain astonished him. The Apache held perfectly still and made no sound, neither groan nor curse. Henry’s black eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling above, intensely focused, drilling through the beams, the roof, and beyond. The boy was transfixed by the man’s capacity for pain and an apparent ability to be at peace with all that had happened. Henry had waved off the doctor’s attempt at sedation with laudanum. He wouldn’t even accept a drink of whiskey. The doctor merely shrugged and went to work.
Teddy was instantly roused from his trance by the sharp so
und of a hunk of lead being dropped into a metal cup. A small bottle of powder sat nearby and the doctor sprinkled a bit of it over the wound. Teddy watched as the man, who’d been stumbling, presumably from too much libation prior to their arrival, wiped his hands on a white cloth, quickly threaded a curved needle, and began the job of sewing up the crimson hole in Henry’s shoulder, with the deft hand of an accomplished seamstress.
After he clipped the thread and tied it off, the doctor reached for the whiskey and, after pouring a healthy amount of it over the wound, lifted it to his lips and guzzled the rest of the bottle’s contents.
“Keep him quiet for a few days. If he gets up and wanders around, he could open the sutures. If he starts bleeding again, get him back here as quickly as possible. Do as I say and he’ll live.” The doctor walked from the room, out into the sunlight, and lit a cigar. He leaned on the porch railing and took a deep breath.
Emily followed him.
“I’m sorry I was a bit disagreeable with you, Doc. I reckon I wasn’t myself. Henry is very important to me. He saved my life for the second time by jumping in front of a bullet that had been intended for me. Please accept my apologies.”
“No apology necessary, Miss Emily. I had it comin’.” He sighed deeply and took another draw on the cigar. “Your Indian’s going to survive, Miss Emily, but he’ll need rest for a few days. He’s too weak to travel just yet, however.”