Cactus Flower

by Duncan, Alice

  “So am I,” announced Gabriel Fuller, likewise adamant.

  “Reckon I’ll go, too,” said Junius.

  The sheriff glared at the three men, removed his hat from his head and slapped his leg with it, and said, “Aw, hell.” But he knew better than to argue. “All right. Sandy, lead the way.”

  So Sandy led the way. It was slow going, since the men had to maneuver over rocks, cacti and boulders to get into the draw, and neither Nick nor Junius were as slim and snaky as Sandy Peete, nor were Gabriel Fuller and the sheriff.

  Nick was first to top the rise encircling the draw. Using Sandy’s pointed finger as a guide, he tentatively lifted his head to peer into the draw. By damn, Peete was right. There, big as day, were Patsy Gibb, pressed back against a boulder and hugging her knees to her chest, while Gilbert Blankenship added fuel to the fire.

  Turning, Nick pressed a finger to his lips. “I’m going to try to creep down in there.”

  “Be careful, Nicky,” Junius advised. “Don’t forget he’s got a gun and ain’t afraid of usin’ it.”

  “I won’t forget.” How could he? Eulalie still lay wounded in Doc Canning’s office, and he, Nick, wasn’t there to supervise. The sooner Blankenship died, the sooner Nick could get back to the woman he loved.

  “I’m the sheriff, Taggart,” Wallace reminded him. “I should be the one going in there.”

  He didn’t press his point when Nick looked at him. Even Sheriff Wallace, who could be stubborn and humorless upon occasion, knew better than to buck Nick Taggart when he looked like that. The sheriff held up his hands in surrender and said, “Shit. All right, Nick. Just don’t blame me if the son of a bitch shoots you.”

  “I won’t.” And Nick started slithering down the side of the hill toward the campsite. He heard someone behind him and turned, determined to kick whoever it was in the head. When he saw Gabriel Fuller on his belly, slithering along in the same direction, he changed his mind. After all, Fuller had a stake in Blankenship, too. A big one.

  It was slow going. For one thing, even though it was dark, they tried to keep themselves hidden behind rocks and bushes—and the bushes in the area were low-growing shrubs like creosote and prairie grass and cacti. For another, the ground was rough and rocky, and it took a good deal of effort to keep from dislodging pebbles and starting landslides. Fortunately for both men, Blankenship was unfamiliar with the hazards of territorial life, and Nick figured he couldn’t be expected to differentiate between the progress of a man and, say, that of a startled jackrabbit or lizard.

  Nick was approximately fifty or so feet away from the fire and felt as if he’d been crawling over rocks and spiky plants for a century at least, before he could make out the words being spoken by Patsy and Blankenship. He heard Patsy’s voice first.

  “This is insane, Mr. Blankenship. Don’t you realize I want nothing to do with you?” Her voice sounded ragged, as though she’d worn it out screaming or crying. “And why did you shoot Eulalie?” Nick heard her sob. “Oh, why did you do that?”

  “She tried to keep you from me,” Blankenship said calmly. “Naturally, I had to get rid of her.”

  “But I don’t want to be with you!”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll take care of you better than anyone else ever could.”

  “Take care of me!” Patsy cried. “You nearly killed me!”

  Nick watched as Blankenship turned from the pile of wood he’d been stacking and looked at Patsy. Nick supposed he’d been adding to his supply for several days, because wood wasn’t easy to come by out in this part of the world. So. Evidently, the bastard had planned this abduction in advance. He clearly didn’t know what he was doing, or he’d have developed his scheme more fully. He hadn’t taken into account the territory itself or the territorials who inhabited it.

  “That was punishment. You were misbehaving and had to be taught a lesson.”

  “You’re crazy,” Patsy whispered.

  “That’s not nice.” Blankenship frowned at her. “I don’t want to have to punish you again, Miss Patsy. I want us to have a nice, happy life together.”

  “A happy life? You’re … you’re insane.”

  Blankenship set the log he’d been holding aside and reached into his scabbard to withdraw a knife. “It’s not nice to call people names.” He felt the knife with his thumb. “I don’t want to have to punish you again.”

  Patsy pressed her head to her knees, evidently deeming it prudent to stop calling Blankenship names. Nick agreed, although he hoped to be able to tell the bastard exactly what he thought of him soon.

  “Do you know what they do out here to things they want to mark as their own?” Blankenship asked pleasantly.

  Patsy shook her head.

  “They brand them. I’ve decided the best way to keep you in line and to make everyone understand that you belong to me is to brand you.”

  Nick heard Fuller’s hiss of breath and poked him with his elbow. They couldn’t afford to show themselves yet; they were still too far away. And Blankenship had not merely his knife, but a gun as well.

  Patsy lifted her head and gaped at Blankenship. “Brand me? You’re going to brand me?”

  “Yes. I thought I’d do it with this.” He held out a piece of metal. “It’s a pretty shape. A cloverleaf. I think it’s supposed to be a seal. You know, in wax. But I had it soldered to this piece of metal to use as a brand. I think it’s a good idea.”

  “He’s a lunatic,” whispered Fuller.

  “Shh,” said Nick.

  They’d worked their way to the bottom of the hill. Nick slowly and carefully stood up. He reached out to help Fuller do likewise. Blankenship, wearing thick leather gloves, was holding his “brand” to the fire.

  Worried and looking as if she were about to faint or break down or both, Patsy slowly got to her feet, too. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  It looked fairly obvious to Nick, but he supposed there was no harm in keeping Blankenship talking. If he were involved in conversation with Patsy, he’d be less likely to hear Nick and Fuller sneaking up on him. Nick hoped like fire Fuller wouldn’t decide to shoot Blankenship. Patsy was too damned close to take a chance on that.

  “Why, I’m heating my branding iron, of course,” said Blankenship.

  “You don’t need to do that,” said Patsy. “I’ll go with you without that.”

  “Oh, but this is necessary. You see, this way everyone will know that you’re mine, and they won’t try to steal you away again.”

  “That bastard,” muttered Fuller in Nick’s ear.

  Nick couldn’t fault him for the sentiment, but he wished the man would keep quiet. No wonder the army had undergone so much trouble with the Indians, if they were all this noisy on secret assignments. It looked to Nick as if Blankenship was about satisfied with his branding iron, which was glowing red in the fire.

  They weren’t going to have much time. Nick and Fuller were still at least twenty yards away from Blankenship and Patsy. Nick wished Patsy would do something instead of merely standing there, awaiting her fate. Eulalie would have killed Blankenship by this time—or at least tried to. But Eulalie was one of a kind, Nick supposed, and Patsy couldn’t be faulted too much for playing the role generally assigned to women in society. Which meant she aimed to continue standing there like a helpless lamb while Blankenship, the wolf, stalked her.

  “Ah, that looks about right.” Blankenship stood, admiring the glowing end of his makeshift branding iron. “I think the thigh would be a good place to brand you. And perhaps your arm, as well.”

  Finally, Patsy decided to take her fate into her own hands. She shrieked, “You’re a maniac!” and she rushed away from the boulder against which she’d been huddled. About damned time, Nick thought.

  Startled, Blankenship said, “What are you doing?”

  By that time, Patsy had skirted the fire and retrieved a big pot. In the meantime, he and Fuller had picked themselves up and were running like stampeding cattle towards Blankenship.<
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  “Drop it!” Nick hollered. He retrieved his Colt and tried to aim and run at the same time.

  Blankenship whirled around. His eyes widened, and he dropped his branding iron and fumbled at his waist for the gun he’d stuck into his belt.

  “Halt!” roared Fuller, who had already drawn his own gun.

  “Gabriel!” shrieked Patsy. Nick didn’t mind that she ignored him. He understood.

  “Stay where you are!” cried Blankenship, having found his gun, which he now aimed at Nick and Fuller.

  Because neither man was a fool, they both stopped. Nick, panting slightly said, “Drop it, Blankenship, and let the lady go. She doesn’t want to go anywhere with you.”

  “Nonsense,” said Blankenship, and Nick could scarcely credit the fact that he sounded honestly offended. “We’re going to get married. We’ve been planning this for months.”

  Oh, brother, now what? “Then put the gun down, and let’s talk about it, all right?” The absurdity of the situation didn’t escape Nick. Here he and Fuller were holding guns on Blankenship, and Blankenship was holding a gun on them. In the meantime, Patsy cowered in the background. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  But wait. Patsy wasn’t cowering any longer. In point of fact, she had moved. Nick didn’t want to stare, but he was pleased to note that she seemed to be sidling around behind Blankenship while he was occupied in holding Nick and Fuller at bay. While her action might well prove useful, at the moment, it wasn’t at all, since if either Nick or Fuller pulled the trigger, Patsy might well be on the receiving end of a bullet. He decided to try to keep Blankenship’s mind on other matters.

  “I understand you know the Gibb sisters from Chicago, Blankenship.” He tried to keep his tone conversational.

  “Yes, that’s where we met.”

  “Is that where you cut her up?” snarled Fuller.

  Nick hissed at him to shut up. He didn’t want the man to get riled.

  Fuller, clearly too irate to take hints, didn’t. “What kind of man cuts a woman with a knife? A coward, is what kind. Put the damned gun down!”

  “Oh, I see,” said Blankenship, focusing his attention on Fuller. “So you’re the one who’s been trying to steal my Patsy. You’re an idiot if you think you can break our bonds of love.”

  Patsy, as pale as a frosty window, had made her way behind Blankenship. Now, obviously straining weak muscles, she lifted the pot, a cast-iron number that must weigh a ton. Nick prayed for her, even as he wished the noble lieutenant would stop being so damned noble and shut up.

  “Cut it out, Fuller,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

  The lieutenant shot a malignant glance at Nick, as if he didn’t know why he should do any such thing.

  “You’re both wrong about Patsy and me. We love each other. We’re going to get married. And I’m going to mark her, so that no one will ever doubt that she belongs to me.”

  At that moment, Patsy made her move. With a stumbling rush, she lifted the pot and bashed Blankenship on the shoulder with it. Nick figured she’d been aiming at his head, but didn’t quite make it. It didn’t matter. Blankenship staggered sideways, and his gun discharged into the dirt. Patsy, exhausted by her recent efforts, sank to the ground along with her pot, which made a dull thump as it hit the dirt.

  Both Nick and Lieutenant Fuller fired at the same time. Nick didn’t know whose bullet connected, or if both did, but Blankenship howled out in pain and fell into the fire, where he continued to scream.

  “Shit,” Nick murmured. He wanted the fellow dead, but he was a humane man and didn’t care to see even vile creatures like Blankenship suffer unnecessarily. Before he was able to ascertain whether or not Blankenship might be rescued, another shot rang out, and the man fell back into the fire, limp as a rag. Dead, Nick presumed. When he turned his head to look, he saw Fuller stuff his gun back into his holster and head for the crumpled form of the woman he loved. Then, as the lieutenant and Patsy embraced, Patsy weeping pathetically against Fuller’s formerly blue uniform, Nick pondered the spectacle of Gilbert Blankenship, roasting in the fire he’d built in order to brand Patsy Gibb. Brand her, for God’s sake.

  A small avalanche announced the arrival of the posse. “Jesus, Nick, we were watching the whole thing. We didn’t dare shoot for fear of hitting the girl.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” said Nick as the smell of roasting meat filled the air.

  “God, we’d better get him out of the fire,” said Wallace, wrinkling his nose and looking uncertainly at Blankenship’s legs, which were the only parts of him not being cooked.

  “I expect you’re right,” said Nick. “You want to get one leg and I’ll get the other?”

  “Yeah, I reckon.”

  So they hauled the remains of Gilbert Blankenship out of the fire, and Nick decided he’d never look at the annual Rio Peñasco barbecue supper the same way again.

  The posse didn’t bother taking Blankenship back to town. For one thing, they didn’t want to wait until he quit smoldering, and for another, none of them had any interest in exerting so much effort on so puny a specimen of humanity as he. Therefore, using tools Blankenship himself had brought, they dug a shallow grave, rolled him into it, and covered him up with dirt. So that there would be no possibility of any sparks escaping the hole and igniting prairie grasses, however unlikely such a contingency might be, they rolled a few boulders over him.

  “I expect those rocks won’t keep out the coyotes,” muttered Nick.

  “Well, that’s all right,” said Junius in his usual jolly mood. “By the time they dig him up, he’ll have gone out.”

  When the posse rolled the last boulder over the grave, Nick’s nerve had begun screeching like seven untuned fiddles, he was in such a state about Eulalie, who, as far as he knew, was still under the knife in Rio Peñasco. Before the posse reorganized itself to ride back to town, he grabbed his uncle.

  “Let’s go, Junius. I’ve gotta make sure Canning isn’t slicing off her leg.”

  Junius patted him on the back. “She’ll be all right, Nicky. Canning might be slow, but he’s a good-enough doc.”

  “For Rio Peñasco,” Nick observed sourly. He knew good and well that Canning had never gone to medical school. Canning, like most of the doctors who set up practice in the western territories, had got his training by serving in the United States Army. He supposed that might give Canning experience in digging out bullets, but he didn’t like to think of his Eulalie suffering under Canning’s knife.

  “Well, sure,” agreed Junius, as if that went without saying.

  Nick mounted Claude, and Junius mounted the poor horse he’d borrowed from the sheriff, and the two took off towards Rio Peñasco before the rest of the men knew what they were about. The sheriff didn’t try to stop them, which Nick considered sensible of him.

  * * * * *

  Eulalie knew she was home when she awoke, because she recognized the pretty curtains Mrs. Sullivan had sewn for her and the chenille bedspread she’d bought from the Loveladys’ store. But Nick wasn’t there. And neither was Patsy. Rather, she recognized the stocky form of Dr. Canning, who was placing a bottle of something on her night table. Her leg hurt like thunder, too.

  Where was Nick? Eulalie wanted Nick. She wanted him so badly, and she felt generally so horrid, that she very nearly succumbed to tears.

  “Oh! She’s awake.”

  Who the devil …? Eulalie turned her head and frowned at where the words had come from. Was that Mrs. Johnson? She couldn’t tell for sure because she wasn’t wearing her spectacles. “Louise?” she croaked, alarmed when she heard her voice. Was she sick? Is that why she was lying in her bed with the doctor in residence?

  And then it all came back to her.

  “Gilbert Blankenship,” she muttered, her heart sinking and beginning to ache along with her thigh, where he’d shot her. He’d shot her!

  “I’m afraid so, dear.” Mrs. Johnson placed a cool, damp cloth on Eulalie’s forehead.

  Eulalie appr
eciated the woman’s ministrations, but she wanted information more than she wanted damp rags. “Patsy?” she whispered, hoping she wouldn’t have to add any more words to her question, since she felt remarkably weak. She supposed that happened when a body got shot. Damn Gilbert Blankenship to perdition.

  Mrs. Johnson didn’t answer. Eulalie, who had allowed her eyelids to drift downward, opened them again instantly. “Louise?”

  With a sigh, Mrs. Johnson said, “The men went after them. I’m sure she’ll be fine, and they’ll bring her back here safe and sound.”

  “He got her?”

  “I’m afraid so, dear, but you know Nicky. He and that lieutenant feller and the sheriff and a whole posse rode out of here a couple of hours ago. Junius Taggart found out which way the man rode with your sister. I’m sure the posse will prevail. They know their way around out on that desert, you know, and I can’t feature that feller who snatched Miss Patsy is any match for them.”

  Perhaps. But it only took one bullet. Or a well-placed knife thrust, and both Louise and she knew it. Eulalie couldn’t help it; she started crying. She’d tried so hard to keep her sister safe, and this is what it had come to. Gilbert Blankenship, who had been the plague of both their lives ever since he’d seen Patsy on stage three years earlier, had come back to haunt them. And he now had Patsy.

  Louise Johnson tutted and patted her hand. “There now, Eulalie, don’t cry. Nicky won’t let any harm come to your sister. He wouldn’t dare.”

  Dr. Canning came to Eulalie’s bedside and loomed over her. “Listen to Louise, Miss Eulalie. Nick Taggart will bring her back. And you have to stop worrying, or you’ll make yourself sick. We have to watch out for infection when it comes to bullet wounds. Won’t do to allow yourself to get weak. Here. I’m going to give you another little dose of laudanum.”

  Eulalie thought about protesting, then realized that to do so would not merely keep her in pain, but would be for naught. She couldn’t do a blessed thing to help her sister now. She’d done what she could already, and it hadn’t been enough. She whispered, “Very well,” and resigned herself to sleep. Sleep was better than wakefulness right now. Oblivion was what she needed. Sweet unconsciousness.