by Ralph Cotton
“No,” Dahl said. His hands fumbled, trying to hide their contents from her sight, but it was of no use. Four of the dead outlaws’ ears twisted and turned on a thin rawhide string dangling from his hand. Another ear fell from the cloth and landed on the ground at her feet. She let out a short scream and jumped back as if he’d dropped a rattlesnake.
“I tried to hide them—” Dahl’s words were cut short as she stopped him with a raised hand. Her mouth agape, she backed away, turned and ran back inside the cabin.
Dahl let out a breath, picked up the loose ear, sat back down and resumed his work. He wiped dirt from the ear that had landed on the rocky ground and strung it on the thin length of rawhide with the others. He did the same with the last ear. Then he held the string up and inspected it. Of the six ears, two were black—Pete Duvall’s. Two were small and a bit pointed, one with a deep, jagged scar halfway down it—Lou Jecker’s. The last two were Sattler’s, one still wearing the gold Mexican half-moon.
Lilly . . . , he thought. He needed to go inside and say something to her, something to calm her down. He regretted her having seen this. His work was not something he took pride in. Killing was grim, dark and ugly, and yet killing was what he did. He did it, and he did not try in any way to justify it. What purpose would justifying it serve? He knew what he’d become, what his life had brought him to. He needn’t delude himself.
A killer of men . . .
Yes, he needed to say something to her—to Lilly, he thought, liking the sound of her name in his mind.
He jiggled Sattler’s half-moon ear ornament with his bloody fingertip. Then he tied the rawhide strip end to end, forming a circle, and laid the gruesome proof of kills onto the bloody canvas. He wrapped them and put the bundle down inside his saddlebags sitting on the ground beside his chair.
Inside the cabin, Lilly watched Dahl’s black silhouette walk straight and steadily toward the open doorway in the first gray light of encroaching dawn. All right, she had been wrong about him, she told herself. It wasn’t the first time she’d been wrong about a man. But it had been a long time since she had allowed herself to even think of one as anything more than a customer, a client, a means of her making her living.
Whatever goodness, kindness she thought she’d seen in this man was now gone. She’d managed to put it away, to get rid of any feelings she might have begun to have for him. He had saved her life. She had to give him that. But nothing more. If a round or two in bed would pay him in kind, she would give it up free of charge. But that was all she’d give—no more soft dreams of the two of them lying together in the heat of a warm hearth.
A string of ears, for God’s sake . . . Be tough about this, she told herself. Her jawline tightened as she heard his boots step onto the porch and walk across it. But when he stepped inside and stopped, as if first seeking her permission, she sighed to herself and felt her toughness leave as hastily as it had been summoned up. Then he took off his hat.
Took off his hat . . . ? For her . . . ? What kind of man was this?
“I—I brought you some coffee, Miss Lilly,” he said in a quiet tone. “May I come in?”
She stalled for a moment, wanting to object, searching her mind for a reason, but finding none. “Are your hands clean?” she asked, but even in asking she realized that she was past the shock of his bloodstained fingertips. She had seen worse, much worse, both last night and throughout her life.
“Yes,” said Dahl, “they’re clean—” He stopped himself and said, “That is, I washed them when I was finished. See?” He held both hands forward for her inspection, one holding the steaming cup of coffee, the aroma filling the small cabin.
“Yes,” she said, and she looked away and put a hand to a loose strand of hair and looked embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to ask you that. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw you doing.”
Dahl set the coffee on a battered table. “I’m sorry you had to see that—”
“No, please,” she said, cutting him off. “It was just a shock. I’m over it now.” She paused, then offered a short, nervous laugh. “I should be glad it wasn’t their heads. Last night I thought that was what you meant . . . when I said ‘don’t tell me’?” She fidgeted and stepped forward toward the table. “I know some manhunters do—don’t they?—take the heads back to prove they’ve done the job.”
“Yes, they do.” Dahl nodded and looked away himself, offering nothing more on the matter.
“It was silly of me,” Lilly offered. She picked up the cup of coffee, blew on it and sipped it. “You told me what you do for a living. I should not have been so shocked.”
Dahl dismissed the matter and went on to say, “I found your buggy under the lean-to. Someone took off the front wheels.”
Lilly’s face turned ashen for a moment above the coffee cup in her hand. “So I really wasn’t leaving here alive. . . .” She let her words trail, considering what the grim outcome of the previous night could have been had this man not shown up when he had.
“But you are now,” said Dahl. “I picked out the best horse for you, and set the others free. They’ll fare well on the grass plains north of here.” He said it as if he assumed that she might be concerned with the horses’ well-being.
“That’s good,” she replied with a nod. She sipped the coffee and once again caught herself staring at him. His build was medium to slight, but range hardened, she thought, coining an old drover’s phrase she’d heard countless times. His face and hands were seasoned and burned to the color of copper. His hair and mustache were the color of pale new wheat, his beard stubble darker, not yet exposed to the scorching sunlight.
“How long have you . . . you know”—she shrugged, uncertain of how to ask—“been doing this kind of work?”
“It seems like forever,” Dahl said. Weariness showed in his pale blue eyes as he spoke. “I fought with a forward group of Northern cavalry in the war. I had a hard time settling into normal life afterward. I’d been a schoolmaster before that.”
“Yes . . . ?” Lilly sipped the coffee and stared at him, wanting more.
“So I came back and taught school for a while,” Dahl said, “but it didn’t last.” He reflected with a slight shrug; a veiled look of regret moved over him.
“Oh? You quit?” Lilly asked.
“Not exactly,” said Dahl, “but there were circumstances . . .” He paused, then said, “A gang of rebels attacked the town and burned my school to the ground. I rode off with a posse searching for the men who did it. . . . I never managed to find my way back.”
“Did you find the men?” Lilly asked, experienced in knowing how long to keep a man talking and knowing when to shut him up. Sherman Dahl hadn’t talked this much in a long time, she decided.
“Yes, we found them,” he said, and he elaborated no further on what became of those men. Instead he continued, saying, “Of course, catching them did not rebuild the school, or repair the damage they did to the town. Nothing ever repairs the damage such men as these do.”
“I know,” said Lilly. She watched his eyes. He would stop any moment now. This was as much as he would share about himself at this point, perhaps as much as he would ever share period.
But surprisingly he went on to say, “Instead of going back to that small town, to my old teaching job awaiting me, I traveled all the way to Minnesota, visited family, tried my hand at a few things. I sold farm implements, brokered cattle, horses for the army.” He paused. “Eventually I found myself once again carrying a gun for a living.”
Dahl sighed, almost as if the exasperated sound summarized his entire life. “So here I am, stringing ears for a living. Doing what I seem to be most suited to . . . killing men like these, before they kill me.”
Lilly thought about it. “You’re an assassin, then?”
“There are those would say I am,” Dahl replied. “But I think of myself as a fighting man. My hope is that I keep myself fighting for the right side. Fighting men can go wrong so quickly they hardly notice it until it�
�s too late.”
“A fighting man . . .” She pondered the title. A silence set in as a morning breeze swept past the front of the cabin and moved on across the rocky yard. Finally she asked hesitantly, as if fearing the disappointment his answer would bring, “Are you—spoken for, Sherman Dahl?”
He gave her a curious look.
Spoken for . . . ? As soon as she’d asked, she’d regretted it. You’re a whore, Knee-high Jones! Good Lord! What on earth had she meant asking a man such a thing as that? She shook her head as if to regain her senses. “What I meant is, are you—”
“Am I married. Betrothed. I understood what you meant, Lilly,” he answered in a way that made her asking seem all right. “No, I am neither. There is no woman in my life. I was once married, but it ended shortly before the war. My young wife died in childbirth, as did our child.”
“I’m sorry,” Lilly said gently. She set her cup on the table and took his hand. “I fear I’m prying too deeply where I have no right. . . .”
“It’s all right.” He shook his head slowly, his eyes closed for a second. “You’re not prying. I offered. It’s been a long time since I spoke to anyone on matters of this nature.” He paused in contemplation. “A very long time.” He paused again, then said, “At any rate, I never remarried. I never found anyone, I never tried. Now, as things are, I would not inflict this life of mine on a woman I care for.” He managed to summon up a trace of his cropped smile. “It’s hard enough on me.”
She continued holding his hand, feeling its warmth against hers. There were things about him she wanted to know. There were injured places inside him. She wanted to help him heal those places. There were flaws and fractures within his nature and his life that she wanted to tell him with authority would be all right, things that she could make all right, somehow, given the time, the place, the two of them.
Here you go . . . , she told herself, studying his hand in hers. You saw the shooting, the men dying, the string of ears. Yet here you are, thinking about—
“Lilly?” Dahl asked her quietly.
“Yes?” she said, as if just returning from some distant place.
“May I have my hand back?” Dahl asked gently, giving her an expectant look. “It will be daylight soon. . . . Time to ride on.”
“Oh! Yes,” she said, turning loose of his hand quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, I enjoyed it,” said Dahl. “But for now we have to go.”
“Yes, I understand.” She pulled herself together. “So you can ride in and kill Curly Joe Hobbs,” she said.
Dahl turned and picked up his Winchester from where he’d leaned it against the wall in the night. “Yes, exactly,” he said in a resolved tone, “so I can kill Curly Joe Hobbs.”
Chapter 4
Big Chicago arrived late in the night at Pine Ridge. As soon as his horse’s hooves touched the town limits, the tired animal tried instinctively to slow down to a walk. Instead, Chicago booted the animal on, straight to the Eubanks Fair and Square Saloon, a huge, garish red and yellow building standing at the end of a wide, empty dirt street.
Along either side of the street, flames from oil fire-pots still flickered on the fronts of buildings with a ghostly glow, even though most of the inhabitants of Pine Ridge had long since retired to their beds, cots and blankets. From the dark shadows of an alleyway, only a scrawny cat watched the gunman’s arrival with any noticeable interest.
At an iron hitch rail, Big Chicago stopped the horse, stepped down from his saddle and spun the animal’s reins around the rail. From a darkened room above the saloon, Curly Joe Hobbs stood naked, gun in hand, and looked down at the street as Big Chicago shook the sleeves of his riding duster and disappeared beneath the saloon’s overhang.
From the big feather bed behind him, Geneva Darrows rose onto one elbow. “Who is it, Joe?”
“It’s Goines,” said Curly Joe, disgruntled to see the gunman in town. He knew that Chicago’s presence at this hour meant something was wrong.
“Who’s Goines?” Geneva asked.
“It’s Big Chicago. Chester Goines is Big Chicago’s real name,” said Curly Joe. “Damn it,” he cursed under his breath. “This better be something awfully important.”
“I didn’t know that was his name . . . Goines,” she said, as if trying the name out.
“You know it now,” Curly Joe said gruffly. “Go on back to sleep. I’ll see what he wants.” He walked to where his clothes and gun belt lay over a chair back beside the bed. He hurried into his trousers and reached for his battered boots standing at the edge of the bed. “If they got out there with that whore and got drunk and burned my cabin down, I’ll kill them. . . .”
At the bar, Henry Eubanks stood counting the night’s take. But he instinctively circled his forearms around stacks of paper money, loose coins and small pouches of gold dust when Big Chicago burst through the bat-wings doors and stomped across the floor toward him, a grim, hard look on his dust-streaked face. “Whoa! What is this?” Eubanks said. Across the bar a stocky, bald bartender swung a sawed-off shotgun into sight.
Big Chicago came to a sudden halt and spread his hands in a show of peace. “Where’s Curly Joe?” he said. “I’ve got to talk to him.”
“That’s no way to walk into a man’s saloon this late at night,” Eubanks commented.
“Where’s Curly Joe?” the gunman repeated in a stronger tone. “I told you, I’ve got to talk to him.” He stood firm, his derby cocked to the side, low over one eye.
Eubanks scrutinized him closely, then gave the bartender a look. The bartender’s shotgun sank out of sight. Easing his forearms from around the money, Eubanks said to Big Chicago, “Joe can’t be disturbed just now.” He gestured a nod toward the stairs leading to the bedrooms on the second floor. “He’s busy.”
“The hell you say,” said Big Chicago. “I’m talking to him.” He started toward the stairs; the shotgun came back from under the bar; Eubanks stepped over quickly, blocking his way. The two met chest to chest. Chicago’s hand squeezed around the handle of a Walker Colt tucked behind a black sash at his waist. Eubanks’ fists clenched at his sides.
“It’s all right, Henry. I’m coming,” said Curly Joe from atop the landing rail above them. With his gun belt looped over his shoulder and his shirttails out, he started down the stairs.
Eubanks stepped aside, but with a hand raised, as if to hold Chicago in check until Curly Joe had descended the squeaking stairs and walked over toward them. “Ever get in my way again, barkeep, I’ll shoot holes in your belly,” Big Chicago growled just between himself and the saloon owner.
“I’ll remember you saying that,” Eubanks growled in reply, not backing an inch.
“Back here, Goines,” Curly Joe said, jerking his head toward a table in a rear corner. To the bartender he said, “Stan, bring Chicago a bottle. . . . Bring two glasses.”
“I didn’t like having to wake you up, Joe,” said Big Chicago. “But I figured I needed to.”
Curly Joe slung his gun belt from his shoulder and sat down at the table. He kicked a chair out across from him. “Sit down.”
Chicago sat as the bartender hurried over with a bottle and two glasses, which he stood on the table in front of Curly Joe, then disappeared. Curly Joe poured two shots of rye whiskey and slid one in front of Big Chicago with his left hand. His right hand rested on the tabletop near the butt of his holstered Colt. “All right, Goines, you’ve got about five seconds to make me understand why I’m down here listening to you while Geneva is up there.” He gestured upward toward the bedrooms.
“There was shooting out at the cabin,” Chicago said quickly. “I knew you’d want to hear about it.” He snatched up the shot glass and emptied it in one gulp.
“Yeah, what kind of shooting?” Joe asked warily. “Was it drunken gunfire or something more serious?”
“This was no drunken gunfire,” Chicago said, making up his own version as he went. “This had the makings of a posse to it—an ambush,
I’m thinking.”
“An ambush . . . ?” Joe considered it as he sipped his whiskey. “Where the hell were you when all this shooting started? Why weren’t you in there with Sattler and the rest of them?”
“I was on my way here, Joe,” said Chicago. “I was all finished with the whore. I was riding back for more whiskey, you know, for the rest of them.”
“You were going to ride all the way back here for whiskey?” Joe asked skeptically. “Then ride all the way back there?”
“Hell, I’ve ridden farther than this for whiskey, Curly Joe,” said Chicago. “Like I said, I was through with the whore. I was ready to come back to town for a while anyway.” He shrugged. “I thought you’d be damn glad I rode straight here to tell you.”
But Curly Joe glared at him. “Why’d you ride straight here when the rest of them could have used your help at the cabin?”
“To warn you, Curly Joe,” Chicago said in his own defense. “Look, for all I know, Sattler and them might have killed whoever it was came to ambush them. But if it didn’t turn out that way, it wouldn’t do you much good if I got myself shot down too. I thought I’d best let you know what’s going on, in case whoever it is rode on in here after you. Tell me if I did wrong by coming here. I’ll ride back out there.”
“Naw,” said Curly Joe, “forget about it.” His right hand eased away from his gun butt atop the table. “You did right, coming here. If Sattler and the boys got ambushed, I expect it is best I be ready for whoever it is.” He stood up and tossed back his whiskey. “Go round up Russell and Thatch. We’ll make a street fight for whoever comes riding into Pine Ridge.”
At midmorning, Dahl and the woman stopped their horses at a fork in the rocky trail. To the left lay Pine Ridge; to the right lay a ten-mile stretch of grown-over stage trail that ran through a maze of buttes and tall rock ledges before swinging back to a newer trail on the far side of town.
At the fork, Dahl stood in his stirrups and looked all around, squinting in the harsh sun’s glare. “I’m not riding into town just yet, Lilly,” he said as he scanned the rugged terrain stretched out before them.