by J. Birch
“That’s very kind of you,” Tracker said, “although I’m sure it wasn’t necessary. You didn’t hurt that boy.”
The door shut.
“Andy?”
No response.
“All right. A good evening, then.”
Tracker turned back and headed for the staircase. As he descended the stairs, he saw Delilah behind the bar and tipped his head toward the rear hallway. Delilah called for Agnes and then followed him. They stopped outside the wash room.
“Make it quick, Sheriff,” she said. “I got a room full of thirsty men out there.”
“Andy just told me he’s giving Jimmy a funeral.”
She glanced up as if she could see straight through the ceiling and into his room. “I know it,” she said irritably. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll be the one up at crow’s piss dressing that poor boy and putting the powder on him.”
“The funeral is tomorrow?”
She nodded. “Andy thought it right to bury him as soon as possible. He said the family should start their mending. Sylvia and Tate agreed.”
Behind them, Agnes shouted for help.
“I have to get back,” Delilah said.
“Of course,” Tracker said. “Thank you, Delilah.”
“My pleasure, Sheriff. You come visit me whenever you please. Half price for lawmen.” She winked at him and hurried back to the bar.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Come on out,” Cole Smith said. “Do it quick, and do it quiet.”
Jack thought about grabbing Charlie and retreating into the dark alley, but Cole would be prepared for that. He’d shoot them down before they moved an inch.
“He didn’t do anything,” Charlie said.
“He murdered a whore,” Cole said.
“I don’t believe that.”
“It don’t matter what you believe, redskin. Now get out of here before I do the army a favor.”
“No,” Charlie said.
“It’s all right,” Jack said, standing. “I’ll not have you shot on my account.” He stepped out of the alley and left the darkness behind him. In the light, Cole looked thin and haggard. His coat and hat were missing, his shirt tucked haphazardly into his trousers. His cheeks and chin were thick with growth. His eyes appeared larger in his gaunt face.
“How did you get out of the Badlands?” Charlie asked.
“I know people all over this land,” Smith said. “Made it to a nearby farm and borrowed a horse and gun.”
“Borrowed?” Charlie said.
Cole smirked.
“So you’re just as much a thief as we are,” Charlie said. “Aren’t you afraid Jack will speak of your crime?”
“No,” Cole said. “I am not.” He motioned to a horse that sat tied to the Turtle Dove’s hitching post. “Up you get,” he said.
Jack moved over to the horse, the shotgun barrel digging into his back. Reaching the post, he started unwrapping the reins. He tried to catch the eye of anyone who might help, but no one looked his way.
“Hurry up,” Cole said.
With the reins free, Jack gripped the saddle horn and lifted his foot into the stirrup. Beside him, the Turtle Dove blazed with light, the windows trembling from the noise and music.
When would Cole do it, he wondered. When they reached the edge of town? Or would he lead him into the darkness of the prairie, far away from prying eyes.
“I said move,” Cole snarled.
Jack made to pull himself up when he heard the unmistakable click of a hammer pulling back.
He shut his eyes.
Cole wasn’t going to wait. He’d do it now, blow his head off for the whole town to see.
He’s gonna put me down, just like a horse with a broken—
“Hold it, mister.”
That low, graveled rumble could only belong to one man. Opening his eyes, Jack turned his head to see Sheriff Garnell with his hand on the grip of his Remington. He’d discarded his coat onto the street. His badge glinted in the gaslight. “I like your shotgun,” he said. “Have one like it myself. Is it a Colt?”
Cole hesitated, glanced across the street, and then nodded at the sheriff. He must have seen the two deputies crossing over; one was the same man who couldn’t stop staring at Charlie, the other a younger man chewing a plug of tobacco. They both held shotguns, cocked and ready to fire.
“Once shot me a bear with mine,” Garnell chuckled. “Darn near blew its head off.”
Now folks were interested. They stopped on the sidewalk, poured out of the Turtle Dove, ducked behind rain barrels. Cole looked at them, at the deputies, back to the sheriff. He looked nervous. He’d lowered the shotgun, but his knuckles were white.
“Yup. Fine gun,” Garnell said, looking completely at ease as if talking weather with a local. “Unfortunately, I’m the only one allowed to carry her or any other firearm inside town limits.”
“I was just leaving,” Cole said.
“That boy going with you of his own accord?”
“No,” Cole said. “He’s a wanted man. I’m a bounty hunter.”
“A bounty hunter?” Garnell said. “Hell son, I have blisters older than you.”
“I caught Willy Thompson.”
Garnell spat. “Who you got there?”
“Jack Devlin, wanted for the rape and murder of a whore in Gasher Creek.”
“Gasher Creek?” Garnell said. “Sheriff Tracker still out there?”
Cole nodded.
“He sent you?” Garnell said, cocking an eyebrow. “Usually he sends Seth Manlin or Mad Dog Murphy.”
“Well I ain’t them, now am I?” Cole snapped.
The two deputies moved closer.
“Tell me,” Garnell said, “how’s Tracker’s wife, Mildred, doing these days?”
Sighing impatiently, Cole said, “She’s fine, now can I—”
“Caroline,” Garnell interrupted him. “His wife’s name is Caroline.” Sticking his old, mottled nose into the air, the sheriff sniffed and said, “Something smells rotten here, boys.”
The deputies nodded.
“You come all this way north, I assume you got a warrant for this boy’s arrest.”
“What?” Cole said.
“War—ant,” Garnell said, clicking his teeth.
“Oh yeah,” Cole said, stepping away from the horse. “I got one.” He opened fire, shooting Garnell in the chest. Ducking, he rolled in the mud as the younger deputy’s shot missed and hit one of the onlookers. Cole emptied his other barrel into the young deputy, then flattened himself against the street as the remaining deputy’s blast went wide and tore a strip off the edge of the saloon.
Jack cowered on his knees, watching Cole pull a revolver from underneath his coat and fire, striking the deputy in the head. The deputy crumbled next to his shotgun.
When the smoke cleared, all three lawmen lay dead in the street.
Screams filled the air. The crowd trampled each other to get back inside the Turtle Dove. A man lay dead on the sidewalk. Jack couldn’t see Charlie.
Cole pushed himself onto his knees, planted one foot into the mud, and stood. He gasped for breath. He looked down at Jack and said, “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I was going to wait until we got out of town, save you a trial.” He pointed his revolver. “But now you’ll only slow me down.”
Jack shut his eyes.
He heard the shot.
He tasted blood.
After a moment of clenching his teeth, he vaguely wondered how he could taste anything with a bullet in his brain. He opened his eyes and looked up. Cole faced the opposite way as blood spurted from a wound in his back. His head lay cocked to one side. The fingers of his right hand twitched.
Then he fell onto his knees and pitched forward onto his face.
Jack wiped the blood from his eyes. He groped his skull, his neck, his chest. He was uninjured. It wasn’t his blood. But Cole’s gun lay next to him and he could feel its heat. It had been fired.
“Jack.”
In the street, Jack spotted Charlie holding the deputy’s shotgun.
“Charlie,” Jack said. “What are you—”
Charlie collapsed onto the street.
Jack scrambled to his feet and rushed over. Charlie’s sleeve was drenched in blood. Ripping it open, Jack found a deep graze on the outside of his left shoulder.
“I shot him,” Charlie said, shivering.
“Lay still,” Jack said. “I’ll get you some help.”
“I—I shot him.”
“Jack!”
Silas leapt off the sidewalk and ran to their side. His shirt and boots were missing. His trousers hung under his backside. “What in hells bells!” he exclaimed.
“Charlie saved my life,” Jack said.
“Who’d he shoot?”
Jack nodded at the crumpled body of Cole Smith. Silas whistled. “Good shot redskin. Who shot Charlie?”
“Same man.”
“A Double Dixie,” he marveled.
“He’s losing blood,” Jack said. “Go find a doc.”
“Damned if a white doctor will take a look at him,” Silas said, hitching up his trousers.
“Just do it!” Jack shouted. “I’ll not let him die.”
* * *
Brush had one doctor, and he was hard to find. Three people didn’t know where he was, and the fourth said he did know, but he’d never go to him on account of he was odd, and Irish.
Reporting back to Jack, Silas said, “I know how to find him. He’s odd, but he’s Irish, so that should balance things out.”
Doc O’Malley lived in a small log cabin he’d built when Brush was still a village. He liked Brush when it was a village but now it was full of eejits and he hated the winters so he was thinking of going back to Ireland but that was no one’s damned business but his own.
“Didn’t ask you in the first place,” Silas said. Leaning toward Jack, he whispered, “Sorry. I think the oddness won.”
They stood inside the doctor’s cabin: a pile of wood and mud that sagged to one side and creaked in the wind. A chair, a cot, and a fireplace gave it the appearance of a home, but Jack figured most rats wouldn’t fix on staying. It smelled like onions.
Charlie lay on the doctor’s dinner table next to a crusty roll and a half-eaten bowl of stew. O’Malley stood over Charlie, frowning as if he’d never seen a shoulder wound before. He was a big man with messy red hair and a bulbous nose splotched from drinking. He wore thick glasses that gave him the owl eyes.
“What have we here,” he said, poking the wound with his finger.
“Don’t hurt him,” Jack said.
“He’s out,” O’Malley said, still poking. “Can’t feel a thing.”
“Just stitch him,” Silas said.
“Oh, stitch him, will I? And I suppose you’re a doctor.”
“No, but I know enough not to rub my dirty finger into an open wound.”
O’Malley sniffed his finger. “It’s not dirty.”
“We’re sorry,” Jack said. “Please, continue.”
“Continue, will I?” O’Malley said, throwing up his beefy hands. “I was dreaming about a field of naked women and you woke me. I’m hungry but you won’t let me finish my meal. Now you want me to rush. Well I can’t rush. If I rush, your friend might perish. You want me to rush?”
“No,” they said.
“Cause I’ll gladly finish me dinner.”
“No.”
“Are we civil?”
“Yes.”
“Grand,” he said, grinning.
After a careful examination (which consisted of poking the wound several more times), O’Malley held a rag to the gash until it stopped bleeding. Then he started stitching. Despite his thick fingers, he worked the thread with the dexterity of a seamstress.
“Blood,” O’Malley said. “We need plenty of it. This Indian has lost most of his. He’ll need to rest a few days.”
“But he’ll be fine?” Jack asked.
“Tough breed,” O’Malley said, turning to face them. “Almost as tough as the Irish.”
Silas smiled.
“Thought you’d like that one,” O’Malley said. He finished stitching the wound and wrapped it in a bandage.
“I’m much obliged,” Jack said. “How much do we owe you?”
“Two dollars,” the Doc said, wiping his hands with a rag.
“Two dollars!” Silas exclaimed.
“I don’t do Indians.”
“But you just did.”
“I know, that’s why it’s two dollars.”
Jack dug into his pockets but knew he wouldn’t find anything. “I don’t have it,” he said.
O’Malley looked at them over his glasses. “I understand, lads. Times are hard.” He moved back over to Charlie, lifted the cloth bandage, and started to pull out the thread.
“What are you doing!” Jack shouted.
“Taking my thread back.”
“But you can’t—”
“No money, no stitchy,” he said.
Charlie groaned as the wound started to leak.
“Stop,” Silas said, pulling a handful of bills and coins from his pocket. “I got your money.”
Jack stared at it. “You have two dollars on your person?”
“I was planning on doing more humping tonight.”
“How much more?”
“Plenty,” he said, holding the money out to the doctor.
O’Malley took it. “Always trust a Cork lad,” he said.
“I was born here,” Silas said.
“But your da was from Cork.”
“How’d you know?”
O’Malley shook his head and sighed. “I need to go back home.”
* * *
Charlie lay unconscious beside the campfire. Billy, Silas, and Jack sat watching him. They drank coffee and ate stale corn bread. Mary had gone to bed in the wagon.
“Hell of a thing he did,” Silas said. “Saving your life like that.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “I was a dead man.”
“Why’d that bounty hunter want you so badly?” Billy asked.
Jack shook his head. “Mistook me for someone else. Kept calling me Brenner.”
“Didn’t you correct him?”
“Tried to,” Jack said, and took a sip. He’d never been much of a liar, but Charlie needed a place to rest. If a lie provided a few hours of sleep, so be it.
Billy nodded. “Strange folk, bounty hunters. Most of them squirrelly from the beatings they take.” He chewed his bread. “Think they’ll put a warrant on Charlie for the shooting?”
“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “He shot the man who shot the sheriff. Half the town tried to shake his hand on the way to the doc’s house.”
“I’ll be mighty glad to leave come morning,” Billy said. “First, I nearly got stabbed over a sack of sugar at the dry goods store, and now Charlie gets shot. Towns rot people.”
Jack chewed his bread, waiting for it.
“You coming with us to Lone Pine?” Billy asked.
“He has till morning to decide,” Silas said.
“If he hasn’t made up his mind by now, a few hours of sleep won’t change things,” Billy said. “He ain’t as slow witted as you are.”
Jack stared into his coffee, wishing Billy had waited until the morning. He reckoned it made sense though. Cole was dead, but that didn’t mean other bounty hunters weren’t looking for him. The farther north he went, the further his chance at freedom. And when he got there, he’d have his own plot of land. Virgin land. Rich, black soil, free of rocks. He could plow the dirt and plant some crops, maybe even raise a few pigs. He could become respectable, a man in favor. No one would ask about his past. And even if they did, the Dorgans would vouch for his character. Perhaps, after the farm was working and his belly was fat, he could finally, at long last, have his bite of peace.
Hearing a groan, Jack looked up from his coffee cup. Beside the fire, Charlie grimaced in his sleep.
But then t
here was Charlie. He was in pain, and it was Jack’s fault. Charlie didn’t even like the sound of a gun, yet he’d killed a man to protect his friend. If Jack left with the Dorgans, what would happen to Charlie? Come sun up, he’d be just another wounded Indian without a penny for food or a place to stay. No one would help him. He’d have to try for his pa’s ranch on foot and that would kill him.
Jack stared into the fire and saw his land burning up.
“I have no choice,” he finally said.
Silas leaned over and clapped him on the back. “Well all right then—Jack’s coming north.” He raised his cup. “To lone Pine. May my brother find fertile land, and we find fertile women.”
“That’s not what he means, you seed,” Billy said.
“Charlie saved my life,” Jack said. “I have to make sure he gets home.”
“Nonsense,” Silas said. “We’ll take him to his ranch, hand him over to his pa, and then carry on north.”
“We can’t,” Billy said.
“Is Mary still in hitches?” Silas said. “Our redskin’s tame. He didn’t even want any of the girls at the Turtle Dove, and they were fine as wine, let me tell you—”
“It’s not that, you fool,” Billy said. “It’s his wound. You can’t carry a wounded man in a wagon. All the rumbling and bouncing will tear his stitches open. He’s got to lay still and heal.”
“Then we’ll wait!” Silas shouted, throwing his cup. “That Indian got us here in one piece and I’ll not repay his kindness with a fart and a fine good morning.”
“We can’t wait,” Billy said. “See all these other wagons? They’re headed for the same land we are. If we don’t keep moving, we’ll lose our chance.”
Silas kicked a clump of dirt.
“Stop throwing and kicking things.”
“Go dig a ditch.”
Shaking his head, Billy said, “You could always follow us after seeing him home.”
Jack nodded, although he had no money for a horse and wasn’t about to steal another one. Enough people wanted him dead already.
“Son of a bitch,” Silas said, digging into his pockets.
“What are you doing now?” Billy asked.
“If we’re tucking tail, then I’m gonna be the good Samaritan.”
“Good Samaritan; you been reading my Bible?”