by Lauran Paine
Bannion twice had to correct the direction of Austin and Al, because the wind made them reel easterly. Both times, benumbed, they failed to make a good enough correction afterward.
Then Ray began to lose ground, to weave unsteadily. He finally went down, struggling to the very last but overcome by exhaustion, and came to rest, still hugging Judith to him, upon his knees. Bannion instantly yanked on their ropes fetching back Austin and Al. The four of them crowded up close to give Ray and the unconscious girl what protection they could.
Al would have taken Judith when they started out again, but Ray would not release her to him. He and Austin went ahead and this time Hank joined Bannion, one on each side of Ray, bolstering him onward. When a sudden momentary hush came, once, Bannion distinctly heard the sobbing gasp of Ray King’s labored breathing. Then that second passed and Bannion had to fight ahead, correct their position again, and drop back to resume his station beside the staggering oldest King brother.
There was no sensation of time passing. It might have been still the morning of this frightful day, except that in each man the knowledge lay solidly that this day had to be nearly spent. To Bannion this meant that the Santa Ana must begin to subside, for rarely did these wild storms last longer than one day. About this one, though, he could only speculate; it was following precedent only in a loosely general way.
He was unconsciously straining to hear the coming of a lull, which generally began near the end of a Santa Ana. They came, gustily and infrequently at first, then, later, they came more often until, for whole minutes at a time, there would be nothing at all but the distant scream of high wind passing overhead.
None came now though, and after a time, when Bannion was sure they had reached Perdition Wells again, he forgot to listen for them.
They had missed the main roadway entirely and came down into a back alleyway where Bannion had to halt them long enough to get his bearings, before he could lead them onward again, replacing Al who went back to join Hank in supporting Ray. This alleyway was fortunately the one that led due south to the rear of Bannion’s jailhouse. It offered protection east and west, but none whatsoever north and south, which was the way of the wild wind, and in fact, because that unfettered howling pressure was compressed here, it made the last hundred yards the most punishing of all.
Bannion got ahead, crashed open the rear door of his building, and guided them one by one inside as they materialized out of the dust. Hank, the last one in, stumbled over their dragging lariats and fell heavily half in, half out of the doorway. He tried to rise up but dissolved loosely back down again. Bannion tore off his face mask, yelled at Austin to help him, and between them they got Hank inside and the door forced closed and barred.
At once an incredible silence engulfed them, its only disturbing sound the rattling, hacking breathing of men who sank down wherever they stopped, and lay like stone.
Chapter Ten
Bannion lit a lamp, removed his hat and windbreaker, and went over where Ray King sat in a half-dead posture, still holding Judith Rockland. He took the girl in both arms to a strap-steel cell and put her tenderly upon a bunk there.
He next got water and washed her face, forced a trickle down her throat, and unbuttoned her jacket. He then left a soaked rag over her forehead and went after a long, cold drink of water for himself.
Austin King sat up from where he’d dropped, along with his brothers, upon the jailhouse floor. He probed his eyes very gingerly, rose up, and groped to the water bucket to begin that gentle bathing that eased the pure agony almost at once.
When he looked around and saw Bannion loosening the coats of his brothers, he said: “Damned if you aren’t the toughest little man I ever saw, Sheriff.”
Bannion twisted from the waist. “Size only means you make a good target and it takes more food to fill you up.” He resumed his work and rose when Hank and Al and Ray were divested of hats, masks, and coats. “Give them each a dipper of water,” he ordered.
Time ran on. In the near silence of the jailhouse the outside raging storm continued to tear at Perdition Wells and its furious howl sounded very distant, very muted.
Hank coughed and retched and jack-knifed his legs. There was red froth at his lips.
Ray was nearly an hour before moving. Meanwhile young Austin and Doyle Bannion worked over Judith and the others. Austin, possessing the resiliency of youth, shook off the terror and suffering of that ordeal much sooner than did his older brothers.
Once, watching Bannion as he gently worked over the girl, he said: “One thing I’d like to know. Why do they call this kind of a storm a Santa Ana?”
“Santa Anna,” explained Bannion, “was a great Mexican general. He was the fellow who led the attack on our Alamo. He was also the president and dictator of Mexico. But that’s not why this kind of a wind was named after him. In the early days, when Texans revolted against Mexico, Santa Anna came marching north up out of Mexico with an enormous army. Folks said you could see the dust that army raised for fifty miles. Ever since then these terrific dust storms have been called Santa Anas.”
“How long do they last?”
“¿Quién sabe?” muttered Bannion, watching dark color come into Judith’s cheeks. “Who knows? Usually about a day...sometimes maybe two days. I wouldn’t make any guesses about this one. It’s not following the usual pattern, at all. Fetch me a dipper of water, would you?”
Austin got the water, watched Bannion hold the girl’s head up while she drank, then he turned when Al groaned, and went over to his brother. A moment later Bannion appeared, putting on his windbreaker. Austin looked up quickly.
“Now what?” he asked.
“We need a doctor here. I’m going for him.” Bannion nodded toward Al King. “His eyes are in damned poor shape. He shouldn’t have come with us.”
Al’s lips parted. “Damn you,” he rasped at Bannion. “If I could stand up...if I could see you...damned if I wouldn’t bust you in the snoot.”
“What for?”
“For being so healthy, that’s what for.”
Bannion grinned.
Austin grinned back. “I’ll wash him while you’re gone,” the youth said, “unless you need me with you.”
“No. You watch ’em. This won’t take long.”
Bannion went back out into the roadway. His old enemy was waiting. It struck him a savage blow, carrying him along in its shrieking grip until he managed to reach for the woodwork of a recessed doorway. There, he got in safely and banged with a balled fist until someone inside opened the door, leaned against it to keep it from being flung back, and poked a screwed-up face forward.
Bannion recognized what of this leathery countenance he could see and shouted over the wind: “Come with me, Doc! I got some folks for you to look at up at the jailhouse.”
The man behind that door said something fierce and scalding, closed the door, and reappeared moments later wrapped in a ragged old Army greatcoat and a shapeless old forage cap. He and Bannion locked arms and began the return trip. They got to the jailhouse and pushed their way inside.
There, the grizzled old medical man flapped dust from his coat and glowered around him.
From the floor where he was sitting, holding a bloody handkerchief to his mouth, Hank King said: “A damned Yankee.” He was referring to the doctor’s Union Army blue greatcoat and his forage cap.
The medical man whirled, put an iron-like look downward, and spoke right back. “If you don’t want Yankee help, you can damned well cough your guts out for all I care!”
Austin, helping Al sit up, swung his head around.
Bannion seized the doctor’s arm and hustled him into the little cell where Judith Rockland lay, unevenly breathing and with a strange, unnatural pinkness to her cheeks.
The doctor halted dead still. “Why...this is Judy Rockland,” he said, sounding aghast.
“She tried t
o ride home,” explained Bannion. “The storm caught her and we went searching for her. How does she look, Doc?”
The medical man flung aside his cap, shook out of his coat, and went toward the bunk. “Go on,” he ordered Sheriff Bannion. “Go on out of here. Go nurse those smart-talking Rebel whelps out there. I’ll take care of Miss Judy.”
Bannion left the cell.
Austin had Al up and was guiding the nearly blind man over to the water bucket. He shot Bannion a look. It was dark and menacing.
Bannion matched his look right back at him.
“Son, that war is long over now. An aftermath of it is what’s caused all this today and yesterday. That doctor in there, it just so happens, worked on about as many Confederates as Yanks. He saved lives for four years without caring which side they belonged to. And in case you’re interested...he’s only got one lung to show for all the suffering he endured, too.”
Austin’s hard look began to fade, but he said caustically: “He’s mighty sharp with his tongue, Sheriff.”
Bannion nodded. “Around here we put up with it. You see, we figure being in pain a lot of the time like he is, that’s his privilege.”
Austin moved closer to the bucket with Al. He reached for a wet rag, and Al, his face inflamed and badly swollen, said through locked teeth: “You leave that doctor alone, Austin. Now give me a wet rag.”
Bannion had a half-empty bottle of confiscated whiskey in his desk. He got this, poured out a double shot of it, and made Ray drink it. He then gave another drink to Hank, and helped him up onto a bench where the ill man immediately stretched out his full length and went limp all over. He breathed with difficulty and kept the red-flecked handkerchief to his lips.
Ray came back to full awareness very gradually. He was the most used up of them all and his face was putty-gray except around the eyes. There, he was as swollen- and damaged-looking as the others. He watched Bannion move among them for a time, then he levered himself upright, got to his feet, and wobbled there as a great oak weaves in a high wind.
“No need to move,” Bannion advised. “Just sit down and rest. The doctor’ll get to each and every one of us after a bit.”
“Sheriff?”
Bannion went over beside Ray. “Yes?”
“How was she?”
“The doc’s with her now. I think she’ll be all right. She’s got a lot of sand inside her, but she’s conscious and she’s breathing.”
Ray sat down upon a chair, covered his eyes with both hands, and said: “Austin? Austin, where are you?”
“Over here. What do you want?”
“Some water on a rag.”
Bannion got it for Ray and took it back to him. He helped the eldest of the Kings to rid himself of the residue of grit and sand, and, after that, to bathe his blood-red anguished eyes gingerly.
The doctor came out into Bannion’s office, looked bleakly at the battered and broken men, and blew out a big breath. “Tough Texans,” he growled, passing over to Hank. He stood over him, looking down. “Why, hell...your pappy would be ashamed of you.” He put forth a rough hand, yanked away Hank’s lip covering, and bent over. “Mica!” he exclaimed. “Mica’s in your lungs, boy. Try not to take any real deep breaths.” He straightened, and turned his gaze toward Ray. “You’ll be fine in a couple of weeks,” he said to Hank. “Just avoid all exertion, and make sure you eat plenty, and rest. Get lots of rest.”
He pulled Ray’s hands away from his face, squinted, and as he studied the eldest King’s eyes said to Bannion: “Sheriff, you got any boric acid in this rat hole you call a jailhouse?”
Bannion said he had a bottle of it in his gun cabinet.
The doctor drew upright, frowning. “It won’t do your guns any good, dammit. Go fix this man a big cup full of the stuff and have him bathe his eyes one at a time until the foreign particles wash out of them.”
The doctor then moved over to where Austin and Al were standing at the water bucket. He viewed Al for a silent moment, then he said: “Same thing for you. Boric acid. Don’t rub your eyes...any of you. I know they itch, but I don’t give a damn. Just don’t rub them, unless, of course, you’d like to have impaired vision the rest of your lives.”
Then he turned his attention to young Austin, teetered up and down on his heels as he considered him. “Nothing wrong with you,” he said. “Probably had sense enough to keep your back to the wind.”
Austin stood there steadily, regarding the old doctor, his face smoothed-out and his manner restrained.
“You remind me of someone,” the doctor said, his tone changing. “Someone I once picked a musket ball out of. A Rebel officer. You’re the spitting image of him, boy...except that he didn’t have to get that tough look on his face because he was tough.”
Bannion looked over at the youngest King, saw Austin’s lips flatten, his eyes flash quick points of fire. Then the old doctor was speaking again, apparently entirely unimpressed by the warning he could not avoid seeing in Austin’s eyes. He now had both hands clasped behind his back as he teetered up and down.
“You’re too young and probably too scatter-brained to ever have heard of this Rebel officer, sonny, but all the same you’re a dead ringer for him.”
Austin stepped clear of Al. He was white from throat to eyes.
Bannion got up swiftly, ready to lunge between those two. But the old medical man stood firm, speaking again, his faded old eyes utterly fearless in the face of Austin’s menacing stare.
“That Rebel officer’s name was Alpheus King, sonny. Ah, but that was another time, sonny, another age. They made real men in those times...not would-be men.” The doctor began to turn away, still with his hands clasped behind his back.
From in front of the water bucket Al, in that ripped-out way he had of speaking, said: “Austin, leave that man alone.”
A solid hush filled the office.
Over on the bench Hank King used both hands to push himself upright. In his chair Ray King lifted his head, put his bloodshot stare straight ahead, and Bannion said, later, that despite the storm you could have heard a pin drop in his office.
The doctor strode over to Bannion and stopped. “Miss Judith will need a lot of care. She’s got the fever that goes with sand sickness, Doyle. When her paw comes for her, you tell him not to try and take her out to the ranch. She should be put to bed over at the hotel and kept there for at least a month. If she’s subjected to any draught or is allowed to have a visitor with a chest cold...and she catches the thing...she’s likely to die. You tell John Rockland that. And you tell him, if he doesn’t like hearing that from you, to come see me and I’ll tell him enough to curl his damned ears.”
Bannion walked to the door with the doctor. Behind them four sets of inflamed but very steady eyes followed the old man. Bannion helped the old man into his greatcoat and handed him his old forage cap.
The doctor turned, ran his brittle stare over those watching men, and said: “Every man is actually two men. I’m no exception. I’m a doctor first, and just like anyone else when I’m not doctoring. Of course I know who you are. I’d have to be deaf and blind not to have heard all that’s been said since you rode into this town. Well, let me tell you one thing...I knew your father during the war. I also knew him here. I recognized him the same week he drifted into town. You don’t dig in a man’s guts without remembering certain things about him. Your pappy used to sit out the summer evenings with me on my back porch, drinking a little, smoking a little, and talking about the things that used to be.” He shot a look over at Austin. “You favor him most, boy, except for one thing. Just like I told you, your paw was a real man. He didn’t have to look tough ever...he was tough.”
There was a long silence. The old man sighed, put out a hand to the door latch, and spoke again, more softly this time, and with his wintry gaze softening, too.
“You boys come and see me when you’re
fit and able. I want to tell you something the colonel told me about the lot of you one time.” Then the doctor lifted the latch, held that quivering panel, and concluded with: “You’re wondering why I, a Yankee, didn’t turn your father in for the reward. I’ll tell you why. Because he was worth a hundred of the kind of men who were seeking him, and I’ve always held manhood supreme...Rebel or Yankee manhood. When you’re a doctor, you do silly things like that because ideals don’t mean as much to you as the great men, big and little, who sometimes have to die for ideals.”
Bannion went out with him into the storm and guided the doctor back to his residence. Afterward, he stood a moment, alone and quiet with his private thoughts, in the doctor’s doorway, before fighting his way back to the jailhouse.
Chapter Eleven
Bannion got Judith moved to the hotel the following morning. The Santa Ana was beginning to fade out in a gusty way. He also guided the King brothers to their room and helped them bathe and bed down. After that Bannion soaked his own carcass for a solid hour in a hot bath, then fell into bed and slept like a log until late in the afternoon.
When he arose, the wind had turned to a whipping, stinging freshet, still strong enough to make people bend into it, but without that ground force that had earlier filled it with sand and mustard-colored dust.
Perdition Wells began to come out, to take stock, to shovel and sweep out. At the general store they measured a piece of glass and cut it, but they could not yet install it. Nor would they until the wind died entirely.
The wind, being higher from earth now, was cleaner. It was also pleasantly cool. The overhead sky, though, retained its coppery hue. When the sun sank this second day of the storm, it was a murky, diluted red.
Bannion, in fresh clothing and wearing a lighter coat, made his rounds of town. His eyes were still bloodshot, they still grated in their sockets, but nearly all the pain was gone from them. He heard from two score residents about the damage they had incurred. He also heard profane pronouncements concerning this particular Santa Ana.