Medicine Wheel

by Ron Schwab

  “I generally go by ‘Miss Cavelle’ if you don’t mind,” Kirsten replied.

  “Sorry, ma’am. The complaint says ‘Brannon’ and that’s what it will be. Now if you will go with Deputy Dagenhart—”

  A dark, cadaverous man with aquiline features emerged from the shadows behind the sheriff. “Follow me,” he snapped.

  Cam interceded. “Sam, I’ve asked my brother to take a look at the facilities and help my client get settled. As you know, she suffered severe injuries little more than a week ago, and she’s far from recovered. Thad has been her physician, and I expect him to have ready access to Miss . . . Mrs. Brannon to look after her continuing care.”

  Dagenhart snorted. “A goddamned horse doctor. Well, she’ll be boarded in a horse stall. Maybe they’re a good fit.”

  The sheriff turned and glared at the deputy. “Shut up, Gid.” He sighed and spoke to Cam. “You’ve never given us any trouble, Cam. I don’t see why Thad can’t help get your client moved in, and as long he stays out of the way of our work, he can visit no more than once a day for a reasonable time . . . and we’ll decide what’s reasonable.”

  “Thanks, Sam. We won’t abuse your courtesy.”

  Cam assured Kirsten he would return the next morning to discuss her case and then departed.

  “Follow me,” Dagenhart ordered.

  Kirsten and Thad walked side by side down the wide hallway, which he suddenly realized was the now plank-floored walkway between two rows of horse stalls that had been converted to jail cells, with the space between the wood partitions and ceiling filled in with stout steel bars that matched those of the front wall and cell doors. It appeared there were five cells lined along each side of the hallway and the three nearest the office area were occupied.

  Kirsten had been assigned the last cell at the dead-end of the hall. Dagenhart pulled the barred door open. “This is your room in our hotel. Your jail garb’s on the bed. Get out of your things and into your new outfit. Your doctor friend can take your clothes with the bags.” He nodded at the carpet bags Thad had taken from Cam.

  Kirsten’s eyes sparked. “My underthings are in one bag. If I cannot have that one, I insist on speaking with the sheriff.”

  She had wasted no time initiating combat with one of her keepers. Thad feared this was not a good start. “Surely one of the bags can do no harm,” he said. “I understand you’ll need to check the contents. I’d appreciate your consideration.” Kirsten looked at Thad with disgust.

  The deputy scowled and opened his mouth to retort before evidently thinking better of it. “You can keep one. Get in there and get changed while I go through the bags.”

  He made no move to leave while Kirsten changed, so Thad stepped between the deputy and the cell bars in an effort to partially block his view. Dagenhart got down on one knee and began rummaging through the bags, holding up her undergarments and studying them lasciviously and then tossing them haphazardly on the floor.

  Shortly, Kirsten tapped Thad on the shoulder, and he turned to see her standing in the doorway, dressed in what looked like wool pajamas, drab gray in color. The outfit draped on her slender form like a scarecrow’s costume, and the pant legs fell just short of her ankles, but he had seen the woman at her worst, and it seemed nothing could make her ugly. She handed him the dress and petticoat with some long stockings. “These go back to Pilar.”

  He noticed she was barefoot. “Do you have anything to cover your feet?”

  “No. I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “I’ll bring some moccasins tomorrow. Maybe the sheriff has some socks. I’ll ask on my way out.”

  “We’ve got socks,” Dagenhart said. “And I’m the head jailer. You ask me if you want something.” The deputy dropped the allowed carpet bag at Kirsten’s feet. “Pick up what you want and put it in your goddamn bag. Then be in your cage when I come back.” Then he shot Thad a disdainful look. “You got five minutes, Doc.”

  Kirsten sorted through the scattered clothes, and Thad helped her separate them into the two bags. She kept mostly undergarments, and he stuffed everything else in the bag he would leave with Pilar. When they finished, they stood there silently perusing her new residence. It was worse than bleak, he thought. There was a narrow window opening in the rough limestone exterior wall, perhaps 18 inches wide, divided by a single bar. The room included a sagging cot with a straw mattress covered by a ragged, wool blanket decorated with streaks and spots of brown and yellow stains from sources he preferred not to know. A rickety table about three feet square and a spindle-legged chair sat in the far corner of the room, and on the floor nearby was a lidded crock, which would obviously serve as Kirsten’s latrine. The reality of her incarceration here suddenly struck his stomach, and it made him queasy.

  Kirsten broke the silence. “I’ve dealt with worse. I’ll just pretend I’m camping out on the range.” Her voice cracked with the last words and betrayed her tough façade.

  Thad heard the door to the sheriff’s office open, signaling Dagenhart’s return. He turned to Kirsten. “I will check in on you tomorrow. You can count on it.”

  She nodded her head and gave him a tight-lipped smile. Thad impulsively wrapped his arms around her and gave her a gentle and lingering hug. She did not protest.

  He released her as Dagenhart approached and brushed past him without a word. As he walked down the hall, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of great sadness. He could not unscramble what he felt about Kirsten Cavelle. Before the night of Max Brannon’s death, he had known her only as an occasional client, who was married to a faceless man who never seemed to be around when they were working cattle. Then, that fateful night she had launched herself uninvited into his life, and somehow he had ended up as her physician, photographer, business partner, agent and friend. Yes, he had become Kirsten’s friend, he admitted. She may have killed a man—technically murdered her husband, he supposed—but he was determined to wear all the hats she’d dropped on him and take this journey to the unknown destination with her.

  29

  THE NEMESIS HAD decided to rendezvous with Father at the saloon late afternoon. Knowing the bitch was locked up within a few blocks of his workplace was almost more than he could bear. During his workday he had been distracted and unfocused, and a torturous headache had descended, almost sending him home sick when Father threatened to visit him at work. That could not be allowed to happen.

  He had somehow fought his way through the assigned tasks, even forcing a smile when a customer’s telling of a feeble joke called for it. He was not a serious drinker, but this afternoon he had already downed a second whiskey. He would probably drink Father’s before he departed the place, since Father never touched spirits, and the Nemesis only ordered him one as a courtesy.

  The odor of stale sweat and tobacco began to drift into the corner where his table sat, and he waited patiently for Father to make himself known. Father had visited often of late it occurred to him. On the other hand, Father usually made more frequent appearances during the days before the kill and the triumph of justice.

  “You seem agitated, my son.” The sound of Father’s voice came from behind him.

  The Nemesis turned to the sound and spoke. “I was afraid you were not coming, and I am desperate for your counsel.”

  He was aware of Father taking the chair next to him where the barmaid had deposited the extra glass of whiskey. “What troubles you, son?”

  “The woman. She has been charged with murder, and she is being held at the jail.”

  “Then, she will die if convicted.”

  “But she may not be convicted. As I have told you, she has a lawyer of substantial reputation. He is wily and will stop at nothing in defense of his client.”

  “You have nothing to lose by waiting. If she is not convicted, you will take her when she is released, and then you can do all of the things you want to do before you kill her.”

  “But if she is sent to prison, she will live, and I may not have the opportunity to ki
ll her. I am so afraid she will escape her punishment.”

  “Do you know where she is kept?”

  “Yes, I easily drew that information from a deputy caught up in his own self-importance.”

  “Is there a window in the room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still keep the serpents?”

  “Of course, I have always had my snakes.” And then he understood. And Father was gone, leaving the whiskey behind for his son.

  30

  KIRSTEN LAY ON her back staring at the warped ceiling boards. Moonlight sifted through the narrow window, lighting the cell enough to allow her eyes to make out the blurred lines of the bars and outlines of the sparse furnishings. No oil lamps were allowed in the cells, of course, so her hours of light followed nature’s clock.

  This was her fourth night in the “county hotel,” as some locals called it. The days passed quickly enough. Thad Locke had brought a stack of books from her home library. Her friends, Alcott, Twain, Thoreau and several others had kept her entertained between visits from Thad, Cam and Pilar. Yesterday, she had asked Thad to bring Alexis de Touqueville’s Democracy in America for some more serious reading. Between running the ranch and the ongoing battle with her late husband, she had neglected her reading passion, another legacy of her father’s, for too many months. This was a hell of a way to find the time, she thought. Nonetheless, she treasured her library, which had been stocked largely by Ben Cavelle before his death.

  Thad had not stopped by today. He and Chet were going to inspect fence on the Rickers place, even though they couldn’t start repairs until after closing. He was also busy with calving, and he had warned that he would not be able to get back in for a few days. They had agreed the line between their quarter sections would remain unfenced for now, since C Bar C cattle would be running on both quarters for the foreseeable future. The barbed wire fence separating the pasture from the bottomland was pretty much broken down and would take some days to put in shape. Thad, with her approval, had taken on a new hand, a young eighteen-year-old, not dry behind the ears, but eager to learn the cow business. Thad thought Asa Morgan might be foreman or manager material someday. They would split the cost for now and lodge him at Kirsten’s, since Thad didn’t have a bunkhouse yet.

  Kirsten’s senses suddenly leaped to the alert. Someone was outside the window again. She heard the footsteps crunching softly on the crushed limestone covering the path that ran between the jail and the adjacent court building. Then it was quiet for some moments before she heard the raspy breathing, like someone catching breath after a long run or under serious stress. Tall as she was, the window was a good foot above her eye level, so she could not get even a glimpse of the visitor who had been there for an hour or more every night since her arrival. She had mentioned it to Dagenhart the morning following the first visit, and he had simply laughed at her. She had said nothing about the subsequent visitations.

  This time she heard the visitor mumbling softly, almost like cooing to a baby. Then, suddenly she sensed, more than heard, motion at the window, which was three or four feet from her bedside. After the first visit from the eavesdropper, she had moved the bed from under the window, concerned that some unpleasant object might drop through the window.

  She looked over her shoulder when she heard the plop on the planked floor. She noticed a pile of something on the floor, lifted her body up on one elbow, and then froze. The heap began to unravel and elongate. Shit. A snake. She remained still as a statue as her uninvited guest began to writhe across the floor. It had to be a timber rattler. She could make out the dark, irregular bands on its back, and it was a good three and a half feet long, too big for a copperhead, and she thought she could discern rattles on the tail-end, which a copperhead would lack. The more common Flint Hills rattlesnake was the massasauga, which might average no more than two feet or so in length, but they were mean, feisty devils, Kirsten remembered. The timber rattler, on the other hand, shied away from people and wouldn’t strike unless surprised or cornered. She decided to give him all the space she could in her cramped quarters and hoped the snake would find its way to the front of the cell and exit between the bars.

  The rattlesnake started to head toward the front as Kirsten had silently suggested but abruptly made a sharp turn, slithered over to the crock and appeared to be examining it before slipping into a comfortable coil and taking up a station adjacent to Kirsten’s chamber pot. And, of course, she had to pee.

  Kirsten remained motionless, her eyes fastened on the snake. She didn’t know anything about a rattlesnake’s eyesight, but she had the sensation he was staring back. She couldn’t wait out the night with this guy. For one thing, the more she thought about it, the worse she had to pee.

  She became aware of the breathing of the man outside—she assumed the night visitor was male, but you never knew. Maybe Max had a girlfriend who was seeking revenge for her lost lover, but she strongly doubted it. It occurred to her that the rattler might have some friends being readied to join the party. A man crazy enough to cart around a poisonous snake might own a herd of them. She wondered if you could have a “herd” of snakes—certainly not a flock. What would you call a collection of snakes? Why was she even thinking about this?

  She decided she was not going to wait for another snake to catapult through the window, and, furthermore, she was not going to wet her pants—that bastard Dagenhart would never let her forget about it. The snake was not going to attack her, as long as she left the big guy alone. She knew from catching rattlers with her brothers that the snakes were not especially muscular and strong as snakes went. Paps had told her they were kind of lazy and caught their meals by poisoning their victims and didn’t have to work their bodies like some snakes did. They could not strike effectively suspended in the air and were pretty much helpless if you got them off the ground. As a twelve- and thirteen year-old, she’d grab small rattlers slithering out of her way by the tail and then swing them over her head like a lasso and see how far she could throw them. But Paps had caught her doing that once when they were out on round-up and told her in no uncertain terms how stupid that trick was. She lived for Paps’ approval and gave up snake throwing then and there.

  This reptile was larger than any she’d ever handled, and she sure couldn’t whip him head-on, but right now he wasn’t within striking distance. She slowly lifted her feet off the bed and planted them on the floor, ready to move in an instant. Then she stood and inched along the bedside, moving a bit further away from the snake. She stopped when she reached the wall, a few feet from the window, leaning against the rough limestone and keeping her eyes locked on the rattlesnake. The man was still outside the window, his breathing rapid and heavy.

  “I hear you out there, you son of a bitch,“ she said softly and deliberately, “and if you’re still here by the time I count to three, I’m going to scream so loud I’ll wake the whole goddamned county. One, two—“ She heard the crunch of feet on loose rock and decided she had quickly cut her adversaries in half.

  Now she stepped toward the snake which uncoiled and started slithering across the room and nearly made it under the bed before Kirsten raced after it and snatched the tail. She yanked it back and held the rattlesnake suspended in the air, twitching and jerking helplessly, before starting to swing it back and forth, raising her arm gradually until momentum carried the snake above her. She moved closer to the barred entrance, swinging the snake faster and faster before she slammed its head against the bars; then she swung it around a second time, striking the bars again and splattering blood on her face and prison clothes.

  “Hey, what the hell’s goin’ on down there?” It was the voice of a drunk who had been tossed in for a night’s lodging in one of the front cells.

  “I’m killing snakes,” she replied, as she gripped the still writhing rattler by its tail-end, recognizing that its muscular length had not yet caught up with its dead brain.

  “Well, be quiet about it.”

  She heard
the man stumble back to his bed. Kirsten then pressed the snake’s spasmodic body between the bars and let it drop on the hallway floor, where it twitched for a few more minutes before its body became still. She stared at the dead reptile for a few minutes, collecting her thoughts about what had just happened. Abruptly, her body took control. Damn, I’ve got to pee—bad. She turned and rushed to the crock, removed the lid and pulled down her britches. After relieving herself, she crawled into bed and fell instantly into deep sleep.

  31

  KIRSTEN WAS AWAKENED by a blood curdling scream. “A snake. A fucking rattlesnake!” Deputy Dagenhart yelled.

  Another voice said, “Shit, I thought I was dreaming. She said she was killing snakes.”

  “Don’t go anyplace,” Dagenhart ordered. “I’ve got to find the sheriff.”

  “Now, where in the hell might I be going?” the prisoner called after the retreating deputy.

  Kirsten pulled her blanket over her head and went back to sleep. An hour later she was awakened again by the sheriff’s voice. “Mrs. Brannon? Are you alright?”

  She tossed back the blanket and sat up. “Yeah, I’m fine, Sheriff. I’d just like to get some sleep.”

  The sheriff stepped over the dead snake and unlocked her cell door. “What in the hell happened here?”

  “Some bastard dumped a rattler through the window. Big son of a bitch.”

  “He was dead?”

  “He is now. I killed him. Am I going to be charged with murder?”

  The sheriff failed to catch her attempted humor.

  “You killed it?”

  “It sure as hell wasn’t that dumb deputy of yours. He about scared the shit out of me with his screaming this morning.”