by Monty McCord
“My word on it. I will notify her,” Joe said. “Now, why did you shoot Adam? Did you kill Luther and Cookie? Tell me damnit!”
Tillmer coughed again. His eyes were becoming glassy. “It wasn’t Adam . . .”
Little bloody bubbles emerged from his lips and popped, quickly at first, and then slowly, until one last bubble formed and held. His head rolled slightly to the left. His bulging eyes stared without seeing.
The repeated gunshots had quieted the celebrants on the main street. An uneasy crowd watched men rushing around the corner of the North Star. The music had stopped, and people whispered to each other.The shots had sobered the crowd inside the saloon as well. The piano was silent.
“Look. Look there. Someone’s being carried to Doc’s place!” one man shouted.
“Was it the marshal?” another asked.
A young boy ran to the crowd and issued his report. “Adam Carr got shot. They’re takin’ him to Doc’s!” As people do, rumors were started by those who had no knowledge of what had taken place.
Budd Jarvis returned and mounted the chair again to restart the party. “Folks, there was a little trouble. Everything’s all right now. Please enjoy yourselves. Start that damned fiddle again, Sam!” Jarvis walked inside and motioned to the little man to get the piano going. He went behind the bar and poured himself a whiskey. The merriment commenced again and nearly regained its previous level.
“What was all the shootin’?” The voice held no excitement considering the subject of the question.
Jarvis looked up at the customer. He didn’t know the man. He would have remembered those dark eyes.
“Just a little shootin’ scrape. Everything’s fine now,” Jarvis said. “New in town?”
“Just rode in, in the midst of all the shots.”
“Hellava’ way to welcome you to our town. Buy you a drink?”
“That’d be real nice,” the stranger said.
Jarvis was off-put, slightly, by the way the man replied, by his stiff face, and the way only his lips moved when he talked, but shucked it off to a bad night. He refilled the man’s whiskey and picked up his own. He noticed the butts of two pistols protruding from under the man’s long coat as he turned around to watch the piano player.
Byron Siegler signaled for Jarvis from the other end of the bar. When he joined him, he noticed Siegler’s worried look.
“Budd, what the hell was all the shooting? I’d taken a steak home for Fern when we heard it.” Jarvis motioned him to step outside away from the crowd.
“Mundy and Adam Carr ran back to the alley where the shots came from. Adam got shot, and Mundy killed the man who shot ’im. It was . . .” Jarvis looked down shaking his head.
“Who? Who in the hell was it?”
“Clyde Davey,” Jarvis replied.
“What? Canfield’s deputy? Why—”
“But that ain’t his name, either,” Jarvis said. “Said it was Herm Tillmer. Wanted his mother in Falls City told he was dead.”
“Why? Why’d Davey, Tillmer, or whoever he was, do that?” Siegler said.
“I think he was tryin’ for Mundy.” Budd looked at Siegler.
“Don’t like all this. Don’t like it at all,” Siegler said shaking his head. His eyes darted around the street.
Jarvis looked back at the saloon. “What is it?” Siegler said.
“Ah, some stranger I jus’ talked to. Just something off-center about ’im.”
Siegler nodded. “Doc working on Adam now at—Wait! What’d this stranger look like?”
Jarvis said, “It’s nothing Byron, just—”
“What’d he look like!”
Jarvis frowned at Siegler. “I don’t know, had real dark eyes, though.”
“Was he wearing two pistols, butt forward?” Siegler asked.
“Yeah, he was. How’d you—”
“Oh, God.”
“What is it?” Jarvis said.
“He’s from Kansas. He’s come to kill Joe—”
“Christ! Mundy sure is popular. What the hell for?”
“Can’t tell you now.Where’s Joe?” Siegler said with a renewed urgency.
“Think he’s down at Doc’s,” Jarvis said. “That hombre is still in my saloon. I’ll just go throw a rope on ’im, drag ’im out of town, by God!”
“Budd, you’ll do no such thing! You leave him alone! You have no idea what that man’s capable of,” Siegler said and looked toward the Texan. “I’ll explain later. Your word on it? Leave him alone, and don’t say anything ’til I talk to Joe?”
“All right, all right, Byron. Jesus, take it easy, ’fore you have a spell.”
Siegler started to say something and then walked off a few steps. He stopped and turned around. “Nothing, do nothing, say nothing to anyone!” He pointed a finger at Jarvis.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Hold him still, damnit!” With his hands covered in blood, Doc Sullivan worked the probe into Adam’s shoulder. Two of Jarvis’s cowhands were trying to keep Adam still as he worked.
“Ahhh. Ahhhh!” Adam screamed and twisted back and forth. Sullivan exchanged the probe for forceps and went in again.
“Hold him still!”
“Ahhh!” The piece of buckshot made a “tink” sound when Sullivan dropped it into a small tin pan to join the first two.
“Okay, Adam, okay, I’ll give you a break.Take another drink,” Sullivan said. Doc lifted Adam’s head slightly and put the whiskey bottle to his mouth.
Adam was panting, trying to catch his breath. Sweat ran down his face, and his hair was soaked. He choked a little on the whiskey, and some leaked out of his mouth and ran down his cheek.
Sullivan took a draw on the bottle himself and wiped the sweat from his own eyes.
“Let’s finish this up, Adam. Now hold on. You hear me, son? You’re doing fine, just fine,” Sullivan said, easing the probe into another hole.
“Ahhh!” Adam swung his head from side to side.
“Hold him still, goddamnit!”
Joe walked in and leaned the ten-gauge against the wall. He threw off his coat and moved in to take the place of one of the cowhands at the examining table. “How’s he doin’, Doc?” Joe looked at the blood pool at Adam’s side. He could count five distinct holes in the upper right side of Adam’s bare chest. Blood ran freely from the hole Doc Sullivan was working in, and slowly oozed from the others.
Joe could see the stark terror in Adam’s eyes when they met his.
“I know it’s painful, but you’ll be okay. Do you understand me? You won’t die,” Joe said. “You’ll be okay.” Adam blinked his eyes and tried to mouth words that wouldn’t come.
Joe felt dizzy, and his stomach was turning again. “I’ll be right back.” He motioned for the spare cowhand to return to the table. Joe stumbled outside and fell to his knees and wretched. He heard footsteps in the snow but couldn’t stop.
“Joe, what happened? Are you all right?” Sarah said and knelt down by him. “Oh my God, you’re wringing wet!”
“It’s Adam. Go help Doc. I’m okay,” he said and wretched again. The sight of blood wasn’t what bothered him. Joe knew he was getting sick.
“There, there, Adam. We’re all done. Got them all out. Now you try to rest.” Doc Sullivan carried his instruments and metal pan to a kitchen table. He thanked the two hands for their help before they left.
Sarah finished cleaning the blood from Adam’s chest and the table under him. He was slowly catching his breath when Sullivan returned to bandage him. “His right arm’s broken. We’ll need to wrap this tightly around these splints.” Sarah helped support his arm while Doc wrapped it.
Joe sat across the room leaning on the muzzle of the ten-gauge, watching. Pastor Evans finished checking on the young boy in the patient room and came out and sat down at the table. “Is that safe, Marshal?”
Joe swiveled his head at Evans. “It’s unloaded.”
“Doc needs to look at you.”
“When he’s fini
shed with Adam.”
The door opened, and Byron Siegler stepped inside. He surveyed the room before proceeding over to Joe. “Need to talk to you outside—it’s very important.”
Joe looked up without lifting his chin. “Afraid you’ll have to sit down here and tell me, Mister Siegler. Not feelin’ like any walks.”
Siegler said, “You’re all sweaty, Joe.You don’t look so good.”
“We’ve already established that, Mister Siegler. What the hell is it?”
“I think he’s here.”
“Who’s here?” Joe’s impatience showed more quickly than when he felt well. Evans was looking at Siegler now.
“The gentleman from Kansas,” Siegler said. “At Budd’s saloon.”
Joe slowly raised his head from the shotgun. “You seen him?”
Siegler shook his head. “Budd did. The way he described him, just like you said, dark eyes, two pistols butt forward. Budd thought he was a little strange.”
“Shit. Not now . . .” Joe said. He rested his chin back on the shotgun.
“Pardon my eavesdropping, but is this man from Kansas a problem?” Evans asked with concern.
“Likely,” Joe said.
“He’s intent on killing Joe!” Siegler said. His outburst was easily heard by Doc Sullivan and Sarah.
“Who wants to kill Joe?” Sullivan said.
Sarah looked up from her work. “Is he here?”
Joe looked at Siegler.
“I’m sorry, but they need to know what’s going on, too,” Siegler said.
“None of their business, Mister Siegler. Only my business, just like I said before.”
“I can gather up Budd, Gib, the Martins, couple of Budd’s hands and—”
“You’ll do nothing!” Joe said. “Yeah, you might get ’im, after three or four of you are dead. I won’t have it!” He got up and staggered over to a slop bucket in the patient room, dropped to his knees, and wretched. He fell over on his side and let the shotgun lay.
“Oh, dear God, he can’t even defend himself!” Sarah said.
Siegler and Evans took hold of Joe’s arms and sat him up. “Leave me alone. Just need to rest before I . . .”
Doc Sullivan finished with Adam’s arm and knelt next to Joe. He felt his forehead. “He’s got a fever.”
The four of them stood him up. Sarah pulled the cavalry Colt from his belt and unbuckled the gun belt before they walked him to the bed across from the young boy. Sarah placed the gun belt and extra gun in a drawer next to Joe’s bed.
“I just need to rest a bit . . .” Joe said.
Doc Sullivan slipped a thermometer into his mouth. “One hundred two,” he said to no one in particular. “I’ll check it again later and see if it’s still rising.”
“It’s the influenza, isn’t it, Doctor?” Evans asked. Sullivan nodded.
“He . . . he hasn’t felt right . . . couple days,” Adam’s voice was weak and slurred, but they could all hear him.
“Okay, Adam, you stay quiet and rest,” Sullivan said.
“Doc, I’ll sleep a little while, then you wake me up. I mean it,” Joe said.
Sullivan said, “Okay, Joe, just get some sleep.” Sarah looked at Doc and started to say something, but he shook his head. They all stepped out of the room.
“You’re not going to get him up later, are you?” Sarah said.
“No, of course not. If the fever gets worse, he won’t be able to anyway,” Sullivan said. “But I would like you and Pastor Evans to stay if you would.”
They both nodded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Got your message, Byron,” Jarvis said. “What’s going on?” He stepped into Siegler’s tiny office at the rear of the store and closed the door. It was midafternoon on Saturday. Harold and Harvey Martin were already present.
“I need to explain to you what has transpired and what may,” Siegler said. He related to them Joe’s shooting in Baxter Springs and the reason the dark-eyed stranger was in town. When he finished, there was silence and looks of disbelief on the faces of Jarvis and the Martins.
“What’s Kinney wanted for?” Harold Martin said.
“He killed a family in cold blood. The father, mother, and a baby in the mother’s arms,” Siegler said.
“Good God!”
“Why don’t Mundy arrest him before any trouble starts, if he’s a wanted man?” Jarvis said. “That is his job as I recall, why you two hired him.”
“He can’t,” Siegler said. “Not right now, anyway. He’s sick as a dog, in bed at Doc’s. Doc thinks it’s the influenza.”
“Jesus, and Adam is shot. That means we’re without a lawman again,” Harold Martin said. His searching eyes darted to the other men. “We have to send for Sheriff Canfield right away!”
“A man was sent this morning to notify him of his deputy’s death. I’d expect him anytime, but . . .” Siegler let the words hang while he thought about how to proceed. “I think I need to tell you that Joe was informed by Luther Brennan and Cookie Jones that it was Canfield and his deputy they rustled cattle for.”
“The men killed behind MacNab’s?” Harold Martin said.
“What?” Jarvis said.
“The same.”
“You believe Mundy?” Jarvis said.
“We have no reason to doubt him, Budd!” Siegler said.
“Before being killed, they also told Joe that Deputy Sheriff Davey killed that Carlson fellow, on Canfield’s order, right in front of them. That’s why they came in to tell their story. They were afraid Canfield would kill them eventually. And the good sheriff has made it known that he suspects Joe of killing Carlson.”
“So, you’re saying we can’t trust the sheriff to do his job, like arrest this Lute Kinney?” Jarvis said. He rubbed his chin whiskers as he talked.
“Wouldn’t you say that the attempted assassination of our marshal and Adam, by Canfield’s man, casts an even larger shadow on him?”
“I’m a little confused, Byron,” Martin said. “Why would the sheriff want Marshal Mundy dead?”
“Joe thinks the sheriff suspects those two men talked before they were killed.”
“Hell, looks like the sheriff will have to wait in line,” Jarvis said.
“I fail to see the humor in that, Budd,” Siegler said.
“It wasn’t meant to be funny. Just seems like this town’s gone to hell in a handcart since Mundy came.”
“These outlaws were here. Joe rooted them out, doing his job!” Siegler said.
Jarvis nodded and held up his hands as if fending off an attack.
“I guess we . . .” Light tapping on the office door interrupted Siegler. “What is it?”
“Byron, Sheriff Canfield is here to see you,” Earl said.
“Tell him we’ll be with him in a minute.” They listened to Earl’s footsteps as he walked away.
“What I was going to say is, I guess we tell Canfield about Kinney while he’s here, and see if he’ll arrest him. I gave Joe my word that none of us would try to take Kinney. Did Kinney get a room at the hotel?”
Harold looked at Harvey, and they both shook their head. “We’re full up, but no one like you described, Byron,” Harvey Martin said.
“You’d have remembered him,” Jarvis said.
“All right. Let’s go out and see the sheriff. It’s too close in here,” Siegler said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Standing on the top of a tall ledge, he could see all the way across the mighty river and the land on the other side.The water raced by, tossing huge walls of brown water that tore viciously into the bank, cutting away the earth inches at a time. He soon had to step back as the water splashed ever closer. He wondered what made the water move so violently, there being no wind. Panic filled him as he saw two heads bobbing up and down between the waves. Even though the eyes were wide with terror, he saw no hands or arms flailing at the water. They raced by, petrified, though seemingly resigned to their fate. He knew that he must help them, but c
ould only stand on the ledge watching, his body immovable. He felt his stomach ulcerating, bile leaking from his mouth, as punishment for his inaction.
A legion of riderless horses coming across the river from the other side drew his eyes away from the heads. They magically vaulted into and out of the deep water, their shimmering forms mesmerizing. With each leap, golden streams flowed from their backs. Brown fluid gushed from their noses and ears. As they approached his side of the river, the horses’ heads transformed into those of hideous disfigured dragons, ragged fins protruded from their backs. The golden water that streamed down their bodies changed into blood and turned the river red. Instead of flames shooting from their mouths, blood spewed forth. Their eyes turned narrow, green, and evil. He turned to run, but his feet wouldn’t move. He pulled, feeling muscles tear as the horse-dragons came closer . . .
“What is it now?” Sarah said. It was difficult to wipe the sweat from Joe’s face with his head swinging back and forth. He arched his back and then sat upright. His eyes were mostly closed, and he mumbled things neither she nor Sullivan could understand.
Sullivan eased Joe back down on the bed. “It’s still a hundred and three.”
“Has it leveled out? Will it start going down now?”
“Maybe,” Sullivan said. “If it doesn’t . . .”
“Isn’t there nothing more we can do?” Her eyes were moist. She held one of Joe’s hands and wiped at his face with the other.
“Keep wiping him with cool water. Time will tell.”
“Pray to yourselves, if not out loud,” Pastor Evans said.
They didn’t hear the front door open and close. The stranger was standing in the patient room doorway when they first noticed him.
“Can I do something for you?” Sullivan said.
“You the doc?”
“I am. Doctor Thomas Sullivan. And you are?”
“Passin’ through. Thought I’d stop and say hello to Joe, an old friend.” He stepped up to the bed and looked down.
Sarah was instantly frightened by the man. She didn’t know why, but his black eyes were part of it. She realized that this could be Lute Kinney. Would he try to kill Joe right there? She prepared to jump at him if he pulled one of his pistols. Sullivan glanced at Sarah and Evans.