Wild West

by Elmer Kelton

  He tried to take off the shirt, but the dried blood had stuck it to the wound. He waited impatiently while the water heated. Then, gingerly, trying to keep from scalding the boy, he soaked the dried blood and pulled the shirt away.

  Looking at the raw wound, he swallowed hard. A deep blue color had already spread far outward from the bullet hole. The smell of rotting flesh pinched Clay’s nostrils, made him pull his head away.

  He tried to shut his ears to his brother’s ragged breathing. He blinked at the stinging in his eyes. Not a chance in a hundred now. Dazedly he went on trying to cleanse the wound, but his hands shook. He felt the woman’s arm brush against his. She took the wet cloth from him.

  “You’d better let me do it,” she said. She seemed to have found her voice again. With only a little hesitation, she finished cleaning the wound. She started putting on a bandage.

  Watching her, Clay noted that her lips were drawn thin and pale as she worked. But her fingers were sure. He noted a slight trembling in her slender throat. He let his gaze settle on her figure, fully rounded down to where it was lost in the fullness of a skirt that trailed the floor.

  “What’s your name?” he asked her. “Who lives here?”

  “I’m Mary Sloan. There’s just my husband and me. He’s out looking at the cattle.”

  “When’s he coming in?”

  “For supper, any time now. Maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour.”

  Zack Bratcher shoved through the door and set down the bucket. He took off his hat and shook the water from it. “I put the horses out there in a corral and gave them a little of the feed I found. They’ll be handy in case we got to leave.”

  He looked toward the unconscious boy. “Wish he’d hurry up and do whatever he’s going to, so we could shove on.”

  Clay jumped to his feet, face hot, fists clenched. He caught himself and tried to force down the hatred that edged through him. Some day, Zack, he thought, you ’n me will find out which one is the fastest. But it won’t be today.

  Clay sat back down on the edge of Allan’s bed and anxiously watched the boy’s face. After a while he became conscious of Zack seated on a hide-bottom chair in a corner, his gaze following the woman as she worked at the stove. A hunger began to look out of those muddy eyes. The woman walked over next to Zack and reached up to get a can of coffee down from a shelf.

  Zack shoved up from the chair and grabbed her. He crushed her body to his and eagerly sought her mouth with his thick, stubble-rimmed lips. She cried out in fear and anger.

  Clay jumped up. He grabbed Zack’s big arm and pulled it away from the woman. She jerked out of Bratcher’s grasp. Choking, she grabbed a quirt from a peg on the I wall and lashed it across the outlaw’s dark face once, twice, and a third time.

  Clay shoved Bratcher back into the chair so hard that the man’s head bumped against the rock wall. He wrested the quirt from the woman’s trembling hands.

  “Get this through your thick head, Zack,” he roared, “we want this woman’s help with Allan. That’s all we want from her. You got that?”

  Bratcher rubbed his hairy hand across his face and felt the raw welts rising beneath the black beard. There was poison in his eyes.

  “All right, you wench,” he gritted. “When we leave here, you’ll pay for that.”

  “Shut up, Zack!” Clay snapped. But he saw sudden dread wash across the woman’s face.

  Clay jerked his head up. From over the drumming of rain on the roof he thought he heard a halloo. He listened intently. It came again, from up around the foot of the hill.

  “Jim!” the woman gasped. She ran toward the door.

  Clay caught her. “Your husband?” She nodded in fear.

  Gun in his hand, Clay took position by the small, many-sectioned window to watch the rider coming in through the rain. “Open the door so he can see you,” he commanded. “But don’t let on there’s anything wrong.”

  The tall young horseman reined up thirty yards in front of the house. His leather chaps flapping, he swung down and yelled a greeting as his wife opened the door.

  Then she screamed. “Keep away, Jim! For God’s sake, run!”

  She darted out the door and into the rain. Catching a sharp breath, Clay bounded after her. He caught her and jerked her roughly to a stop. Instead of running away, the cowboy hurried toward them, anger in his face.

  He stopped short as Clay brought up the gun. “What is this, anyhow?” he asked quickly. Clay noted with satisfaction that the puncher wasn’t packing a six-shooter. He let the woman run to her husband and throw her arms around him, sobbing.

  “You better come on in,” Clay said. Inside, out of the rain, the young woman clung tightly to her husband. Zack was grumbling. “If it’d been me, I’d’ve shot them both out there.”

  Clay flicked Zack a hard glance that told him to shut up. Looking at the woman, and not knowing why, he felt something like pride rising in him. She had courage, that one did. He found himself envying the cowboy. Clay had never known a woman who would risk a bullet in the back for him. Some of the kind he been around would have put a bullet in his back, if they thought there was money enough in his pockets to make it worthwhile.

  “You’ll both be all right as long as you don’t go acting foolish,” he told the couple. “Now I think we need some supper.”

  Clay managed to get a little broth down Allan’s throat. But Allan never regained consciousness enough to eat. Clay could feel fever rising in the boy. Cautiously he looked under the bandage. The blue was spreading.

  What about our milk cow?” Jim Sloan asked after supper. “We’ve got to go milk her or her bag’ll spoil.”

  Clay looked at Zack. It wouldn’t do to take Sloan out and leave the woman alone with Zack. It wouldn’t do to leave Sloan with Zack, either. Bratcher’s gun hand was too itchy today.

  So Clay followed both the Sloans out toward the cow pen and left Zack to watch Allan. Clay felt a strong respect growing for Sloan as he looked at young ranchman’s corrals.

  Half the fences were made of mesquite limbs and trunks. The rest were of piled rocks. This far from town, and this far from timber, plank corrals were too expensive. But the rock was here. All it took was labor. Sloan had put in plenty of that. Clay thought unpleasantly of his father. All Pa had ever worked at was meanness.

  While Jim Sloan unsaddled his horse the woman turned a big heifer calf in with the milk cow. She left her a few minutes then put a short rope around her neck and led her off to a smaller pen. Jim started milking.

  “That heifer calf’s about big enough to butcher,” Clay remarked as the woman returned with the short rope.

  She shook her head. “Oh, no saving her for a cow. When our baby gets here, we’ll need more milk.”

  Clay’s eyes opened a little wider. “Baby?”

  She nodded. “It’s due in the spring.”

  He glanced at Jim Sloan. He caught the pride in the cowboy’s eyes. Clay wondered, and unwelcome memories crowded to his mind, memories of his boyhood.

  His parents had had a deep hatred for each other. They had never really wanted him. It had been a long time ago. But sometimes even yet in a nightmare Clay could imagine Pa was hiding him with a razor strap, taking it out on the boy for something the old woman had said.

  Clay had saddled an old plowhorse in the dead of night and headed west before there was any fuzz on his face. He had never gone back but once, years later. He had found Pa and the old woman treating Allan like they had treated him. Clay stole his brother away and took to the rough country with him. Anything was better for the kid than staying with the folks, he thought.

  Now Allan was dying an outlaw’s death, and Clay wondered. He let his eyes brood on Jim and Mary Sloan. Things would be different with their baby. These folks weren’t like Pa and the old woman. Trouble was, the baby would never be born. Like Zack had said, when they pulled out of here they couldn’t afford to leave anyone behind them.

  After nightfall the rain drummed intermittently on t
he roof. Allan’s breathing became more labored. Fever burned in his face. In delirium he turned his head from one side to the other, mumbling in coherently.

  Clay’s throat grew tight and his pulses quickened. Wasn’t there something somebody could do for the boy?

  Mary Sloan did all she could. She put cool cloths over the boy’s burning forehead. She tried to keep the wound clean. By midnight she was dragging her feet. Jim Sloan stood quietly behind her, helping whenever he could.

  Zack Bratcher had taken a couple of quilts and thrown them on the floor in another corner. Once in a while he would turn over, grumbling.

  After midnight Clay let the Sloans spread blankets on the floor and get some sleep. He sat up alone with Allan, keeping the fire going, watching the fever mount, feeling the life ebb lower.

  At daylight all were up again. Zack was grouching about being hungry and muttering that Mary Sloan had damn well better get to work at the stove, if she knew what was good for her. But first she came over to the bedside and looked at Allan.

  Clay swallowed and blinked his eyes that burned from worry and anguish and lack of sleep. He hasn’t got a chance, he thought woodenly. It’s just a question of time.

  Zack was rummaging around in the little pantry next to the cabinet. “I’m starved plumb to death. Where’s the beef?”

  Mary Sloan said, “We used the last of it for supper.”

  Zack glared at her, mumbling in his beard. He stomped outside and shoved the door shut behind him.

  While Clay sat on the edge of the bed, running his fingers through his hair and blinking back the sleep from his eyes, Mary Sloan re-cleansed Allan’s wound. Her face paled as she worked. She knows it too, Clay thought bleakly. The kid hasn’t got long to go.

  Presently Zack came back in, lugging a heavy hind quarter of fresh-butchered beef. “Now, woman,” he growled, “we’ll have steak for breakfast.”

  Mary Sloan’s slender hand went up to her pale mouth. Her eyes widened. “Our calf,” she cried. “You butchered the calf we were saving for our baby!”

  Angrily she stepped toward him. Quickly Jim Sloan grabbed her. “Stop it, Mary. Don’t be a fool. He’d shoot you for no reason at all.”

  She sobbed. “It was our baby’s heifer—our baby’s.”

  Zack grunted. “Shut up and start cookin’. When we leave here you won’t be worried about calves or babies or anything else.”

  Clay stood up angrily. “Damn you, Zack, can’t you keep that blabbing mouth of yours shut?”

  Mary Sloan choked. “Jim, they’re going to kill us!”

  Sloan’s face turned a shade whiter. He gripped his wife’s shoulders. “Get hold of yourself, Mary,” he said in a moment. “I’ll put some wood in the stove and we’ll get breakfast.”

  Sloan went to the woodbox and took out a couple of big sticks of dry mesquite. Zack hovered over the stove, an expectant grin on his whiskered face as he looked at the quarter of beef. Sloan shoved the wood in the stove and settled the coals with a long poker.

  Suddenly he swung the poker up and brought it down across Bratcher’s skull. The gunman fell heavily to the floor.

  “Get out, Mary,” Sloan yelled. “Run!” The woman dashed in desperation toward the door.

  Clay was on his feet and grabbing at his gun. Sloan rushed him, the poker swung back over his shoulder. He brought it down just as Clay pulled up his gun hand. The poker struck the bone of the wrist, and sharp pain lanced through Clay. The gun clattered to the floor.

  Throwing his weight against Sloan, Clay managed to knock the cowboy off balance and tumble him backward. In an instant Clay scooped up the fallen gun with his left hand and swung it at Sloan’s head. The cowboy went limp.

  His wrist burning like fire, Clay jumped to the door and shoved outside. Mary Sloan was running for the barn. Her long skirts were tripping her, and the deep mud was slowing her down. Clay caught up with her and grabbed her arm. She struggled a moment, then gave up. All hope in her eyes slowly died.

  Getting his breath back, Clay said flatly, “Can’t say as I blame you for trying. But it was foolish.”

  The feel of her soft, slender arm under the heavy grip of his left hand sent a peculiar but pleasant tingle through him. Not hard to see why Sloan had married her. For a moment he felt an impulse to pull her to him, to know the thrill of her body against his own.

  But that was the way Zack Bratcher did things. Clay fought down the urge and led her back toward the little rock house.

  * * *

  Jim Sloan was struggling to push himself up off the floor. With a sharp cry, Mary Sloan ran to him. She dipped a cloth in cool water and tenderly washed his face. As he came around, she put her cheek to his and hugged him tightly.

  Watching them, Clay swallowed, real folks, these two. If Pa and the old woman could have been that way.…

  Zack Bratcher was on his hands and knees, straining to get to his feet. Once up, he steadied himself on the stove’s guardrail. He blinked his muddy eyes, Memory came back to him and he reached shakily for his gun.

  Clay’s voice had the edge of whipsaw. “You put that gun up, Zack!”

  Bratcher’s brownish eyes were hard as rock. His hand wavered only slightly. Clay could feel his heartbeat quicken. He let his own hand ease down toward his gun.

  Allan’s feverish voice made Clay whirl around. The boy was threshing about deliriously. Heart in his throat, Clay caught the boy’s arms and pushed him back down onto the bed. Allan struggled another moment. He relaxed then, and the heavy breathing stopped.

  Unbelievingly, Clay shook Allan, cried for him to breathe again. He was suddenly caught up in a roaring black storm. He cursed himself, he cursed the San Angelo bank, he cursed Pa and the old woman. But there was no use. It was over.

  After a bit, Clay made himself look at the other people. He could see dread in Mary Sloan’s eyes and pity, too.

  Zack Bratcher’s voice was brittle. “Well, now that it’s all done, we better be riding.”

  Woodenly, Clay shook his head “Not yet. I want to bury him first.” The rain had stopped. They wrapped Allan in a patchwork quilt and carried him three hundred yards from the house, at the foot of the long hill. There Jim Sloan dug a grave and Allan Forehand was laid to rest.

  Sloan had brought along a short plank. As Clay was finishing filling the grave and and noticing dully the growing stiffness of his wrist, Sloan took out a pocket knife and began to carve on the wood.

  “What’s that for?” Clay asked abruptly, laying down the shovel. Sloan looked up in surprise. “A headboard. You want to mark the grave, don’t you?”

  Clay jerked the board out of Sloan’s ands and hurled it away across the rocky slope. “No!” he cried. “You think I want people saying here’s the grave of Allan Forehand, shot down while robbing the San Angelo bank?”

  He tried desperately to keep his voice from breaking.

  “It wasn’t the kid’s fault he ended up like this. I caused it. Me, and Pa, and my old woman. It’s better for us to leave him here without a trace than to bury him with an outlaw marker over his head.”

  Sloan didn’t argue. Quietly he picked up the shovel and finished filling the grave. Cooling a little, Clay felt strangely grateful. The cowboy had wanted to help.

  * * *

  The job done, the group started back toward the little rock house. Jim and Mary Sloan walked in the lead, the cowboy holding his arm around his wife’s shoulder. Clay was next, stumbling along, his head down, his eyes blurred. Behind him stalked Zack Bratcher, itchy hands rubbing the butt of his six-gun.

  As they reached the house, Bratcher’s voice called out harshly, poison as a snake. “Turn around, you Sloans!” Clay blinked hard and raised his head, the Sloans had stopped. They had their arms around one another, waiting for Bratcher to squeeze the trigger. There was fear in their faces, all right, but they weren’t running and they weren’t begging. They were staying together right to the end.

  A sudden thought struck Clay. Where might Allan b
e right now if he had had folks like these instead of Pa and the old woman? In his mind he could see again Mary Sloan working until she was dead on her feet, trying to ease Allan’s pain. He thought on Pa’s shiftlessness, and on Jim Sloan’s rock house and rock corrals. He heard again the cursing and bickering of Pa and the old woman, and he looked at the young couple in each other’s arms.

  Before he realized it, he had his hand on his gun. His wrist was still stiff.

  “Keep your gun in your holster, Zack,” he said sharply. “They’re not going to die.”

  Bratcher’s muddy eyes cut furiously to Clay’s. “The deal was that we left nobody alive. You backing down on that, Clay?”

  Clay’s voice was firm. “I’m saying we owe more than we can pay them. We’re leaving them alone.”

  Bratcher snarled, “I owe them nothing but two slugs. I’m paying that debt if I’ve got to cut you down first, Clay.” The wolfish look came to his face. “If I beat you, I’ll be three times as rich as I was yesterday. And I’ll never again have to listen to you tell me what to do.”

  Clay could feel his heartbeat quicken. For a long time he had known this would come, if he stayed with Zack too long. Now here it was. The butt of the gun under his hand was slick with cold sweat.

  He was aware of the Sloans moving cautiously toward the door of the house. Then he saw that sudden warning in Bratcher’s eyes a split second before the outlaw’s hand jerked upward with the pistol. Clay pulled his own gun.

  Sharp pain stabbed through his wrist, slowed his draw. The lick from that damned poker, he thought desperately. Bratcher’s first slug spun him half around. He thought he heard a door slam. Falling, he squeezed off a wild shot at Bratcher and knew it had missed.

  Another slug ripped into him. Flames roared through him. His head reeled. The gun slipped from his stiffened fingers. He tried to push himself up from the ground and felt cold mud ooze around his hands.

  He raised his head painfully and blinked away the haze. Bratcher was stepping cautiously toward him. The whole scene was swaying back and forth. Bratcher leveled the gun again. Clay tried to make himself search for his fallen pistol, but he could do nothing.