by Matt Braun
Boyd glanced over at the kid and his sober expression deepened. “Belle, it seems you are harboring a paragon of modesty as well as a fugitive. According to a hundred or so eyewitnesses, Kinch personally accounted for four of the dead and two wounded. One of whom is as good as dead right now.”
“Oh, my God.” Belle sank into a chair.
Sugartit stared unblinkingly at the boy, her eyes glazed over with shock. Belle was aghast, unable to get her breath for a moment, and finally she looked up at the little physician in complete bafflement.
“He didn’t say a word.”
“Precisely.” Boyd treated the kid to a benevolent smile. “Along with unerring aim, he has the virtue of modesty.”
“Five men.” Sugartit’s statement came in a dazed whisper.
“And a sixth wounded,” Boyd noted in a clinical undertone.
Belle shook her head in numbed disbelief, and at last her gaze settled on the boy. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Kinch gave her a hangdog look and shrugged. “I figured you had enough on your mind. Hearin’ about Mike, I mean.”
“But how in God’s name did you do it?”
“I dunno. It all happened so fast I ain’t real sure.” The kid mulled it over a little, trying to sort it out in his mind. “Mike and Anderson went down just as I come through the door. Then the rest of them Texans ganged around for a looksee and I started shootin’. Funny thing is, they just stood there. Didn’t try to run or duck or nothin’. It was sorta like knockin’ over tin cans, the way Mike showed me when we used to practice.”
Silence descended on the kitchen, and for a moment everybody stared at him in dumbstruck wonder. Presently the doctor cleared his throat and tugged reflectively at his ear. “I’m not much of a shot myself, but offhand, I’d say you had a damned good teacher.”
“Best there ever was,” Kinch agreed. They exchanged glances and the boy frowned. “Something you said bothers me, though, Doc. I ain’t no slouch with a pistol, but Mike never taught me how to get six men with five shots. Y‘see, he believed in carryin’ the hammer on an empty chamber, and I only had five loads. That’s what throws me. There was only five of them Texans and I drilled ever’ one of ’em dead center.”
Boyd eyed him speculatively. “What about the trainmen?”
“What trainmen?”
“There were two Santa Fe men seated at the table next to Mike’s.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Doc. All I saw was that bunch of Texans standin’ over Mike and Anderson.”
Belle gave the physician a keen sidewise scrutiny. “Doc you’re hinting at something. That’s why you snuck in the back door, isn’t it? You didn’t want anybody to see you coming here.”
“I’m afraid so,” Boyd admitted. “One of those killed was Pat Lee, a Santa Fe engineer.” He paused and looked at the boy. “Anderson swears it was your shot that killed him.”
“Anderson?” Kinch spit the word out, glaring thunderstruck at the doctor.
“Why, yes. Perhaps I forgot to mention it, but Anderson is going to live. Despite a very serious chest wound he’ll make it with any luck—”
Kinch kicked a chair out of his way and headed for the door. Boyd surprised even himself by darting across the room and blocking the boy’s path.
“Now wait a minute, son. Don’t go running off in circles like a bee had stung you.”
“Get out of my road, Doc.”
“You’re going after Anderson, is that it?”
“Damn right! He killed Mike, didn’t he?”
“And I suppose Mike taught you how to walk in and shoot a wounded man while he’s laid up in bed. Was that one of the lessons?”
The kid just stood there a moment, half mad with rage, then he wheeled around and started pacing the kitchen. Belle and Sugar looked at one another, unnerved and not a little frightened by what they had seen in his face. After a moment Boyd regained his composure and came back to the table.
“Kinch, the night Mike McCluskie carried you to his hotel room I promised him I would look after your health. In a way, that’s what I’m still doing. Now suppose we all remain calm and I’ll explain what brought me down here.”
When no one objected, he went on. “There are a number of things happening in Newton at this very moment. First off, Bob Spivey has telegraphed to Topeka for a U.S. marshal. He means to put the fear of God into this town, and there is already talk that a swift hanging would be just the thing to turn the trick. Secondly, Anderson’s statement against Kinch is backed up by one of his cowhands. The one who’s going to live. Son, from where I sit, that makes you the prime candidate for a necktie party.”
Kinch stopped pacing and glowered back at him. “I didn’t kill no Santa Fe men. All I shot was Texans.”
“I don’t doubt that for an instant. But it’s your word against theirs. Now, you’re in no danger from the Texans. From what I heard at the dancehall they don’t think much of the way Anderson and his crew ganged up on Mike. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the townspeople. Or the U.S. marshal, for that matter.”
“What about Anderson?” the kid demanded. “Hadn’t somebody better charge him with murder for what he did to Mike?”
“Probably they will. But from the little I’ve overheard, I suspect his men intend to sneak him out of town before morning. That won’t change a thing, though. Anderson’s statement will still hold, and when the U.S. marshal arrives, he’ll come looking for you. Whether or not you actually killed the engineer would be a moot question at that point. The townspeople are in an ugly mood. They want to make an example out of somebody, and I’m afraid you’re it.”
The logic of Boyd’s argument was hard to dispute. Everybody looked back and forth at one another for a while and there was silent agreement that the boy had worked himself into a bad spot.
At last Belle turned to face the doctor. “What you’re saying is that we have to get Kinch out of town before some drunk gets busy and organizes a lynching bee.”
“That’s correct,” Boyd nodded. “The sooner, the better. Oddly enough, there happens to be a horse out back right now. With a bill of sale in the saddlebags.”
Belle turned her attention to the kid. “Kinch, I’ll try to tell you what Mike would say if he was sitting here instead of me. He was a gambling man, but he always knew when to fold a losing hand. That’s what you’re holding right now. It’s time to call it quits and find yourself a new game. Otherwise Sugar’s liable to be burying her man the same as I’ll have to bury mine.”
That struck home and the boy swallowed hard. “Maybe so, but I’d feel like I’m runnin’ out on Mike. I sorta had it in mind to finish what he’d started with them Texans.”
“You’re not running! Get that out of your head. If you had it to do over, you’d have told Mike to leave. Wouldn’t you? Well this is the same thing. Sugartit and me, we’re asking you to go for our sake.”
Sugartit flew out of her chair and rushed into the kid’s arms. “Please, honey, do it for me. Just this once. Wherever you go, you let me know and I’ll be there with bells on. I promise.”
Boyd cleared his throat and looked away. “Son, I suspect there’s little time to waste. You had best be off while you have the chance.”
“Yeah, sorta looks that way, don’t it?”
Kinch pulled Belle into a tight hug and afterward shook the doctor’s hand. Then Sugartit threw herself in his arms again and gave him a kiss that was meant to last. Finally she let go and he headed for the door. But halfway out he turned and looked back.
“You want to hear something funny? I ain’t never been on a horse in my life. This oughta be a real circus.”
The door closed and they just stood there staring at it. Somehow the whole thing seemed a bad dream of sorts. A nightmare that would pass with the darkness and leave their lives untouched. But moments later the spell was broken and reality came back to stay.
Hoofbeats sounded outside and slowly faded into the night. Like a
drummer boy tapping the final march, they heard a faint tattoo in the soft brown earth.
Kinch Riley would return no more.
SIXTEEN
The kid often came to a grove of cottonwoods along the riverbank. There was something peaceful about the shade of the tall trees and the sluggish waters gliding past in a silty murmur. Yet it was only within the past week that the Red had settled down and started to behave itself. Spring rains had been heavy, and the snaky, meandering stream had crested in a raging torrent for better than a fortnight. A mile wide in some places, roiling and frothing in its turbulent rush southward, it had been a watery graveyard of uprooted trees, wild things dead and bloated, and a flotsam of debris collected in its wandering rampage.
Kinch hadn’t cared much for the river in flood. It reminded him somehow of an angry beast, hungry and drooling, devouring everything in its path. Watching it had disturbed him, almost as if the river and the thing gnawing on his lungs were of a breed. Kindred in the way of things carnivorous and lurking and ever ready to fatten themselves on the flesh of the living. That the thought was far-fetched—a figment of the nagging fear which shadowed his thoughts these days—made little difference. It was no less real, and in some dark corner of his mind he was obsessed with but one thing.
He must not die. Not yet.
But as the flood waters receded, and the warmth of spring came again to the land, he found a measure of hope. The prairie turned green as an emerald sea, and overnight bright clusters of wild flowers seemed to burst from the earth. New life, borne in on soft southerly breezes, was everywhere he looked. He drew strength from its freshness and vitality, and with it, the belief that he might, after all, hold on till his work was completed.
While his thoughts still turned inward, he dwelled not so much on himself these days as on the happier times of a summer past. That brief moment when he’d had it all. The excitement and laughs, friendship and love. When the Irishman and Belle and Sugartit had given him something that neither time nor space could erase.
Seated beneath the leafy cottonwoods, soaking up the warming rays of a plains sun, his mind often wandered back. There, in a bright little cranny far off in his head, McCluskie still lived. Tall and square-jawed, alert and tough and faintly amused. Busted nose and all. Kinch could summon forth at will the tiniest detail. How the Irishman walked and talked and knocked back a jigger of whiskey. The hard-as-nails smile and the quick grin and that soft grunt of disgust. The deliberate way he had of rolling a smoke and flicking a match to life with his thumbnail. Every mannerism and quirk acquired on the long hard trail from Hell’s Kitchen to the dusty plains of Kansas. It was all there, shiny bright and clear as polished glass, tucked neatly away in the back of his mind. Etched boldly and without flaw, indelible as a tattoo.
Still, the kid wasn’t fooling himself. The image existed only in his mind’s eye. Along with it persisted the certain knowledge that the man he summoned back so easily was dead and long buried. Mike McCluskie, that part of him which was flesh and bone, had been under ground some nine months now. The other part, what the preachers always made such a fuss over, was somewhere else. Though just exactly where, nobody had ever nailed down for sure.
Kinch had given that considerable thought. Particularly at night, when he came to sit beneath the trees and listen to the river. Head canted back, searching the starry skies, he wondered if there was a heaven. Or a hell. And if so, the further imponderable. Which place would the spirit of Mike McCluskie most likely be found? Somehow he had a feeling that the Irishman had made it to the Pearly Gates. Probably fighting every step of the way, too. Heels dug in and squawling like a sore-tailed bear.
The kind of people McCluskie had enjoyed most in life were the rascals and the highrollers. Being separated from them in the hereafter was something he wouldn’t have counted on. If he had gone up instead of down, it had doubtless taken some mighty hard shoving on somebody’s part.
Which way he had gone didn’t mean a hill of beans, though. Not to the kid, anyhow. He himself wasn’t all that hooked on religion, and so far as he could see, one way looked about as good as another. Just so he could tag along with the Irishman when his time came, he didn’t give a tinker’s damn whether it was heaven or hell or somewhere in between. When he checked out for good, finally gave up the ghost, he meant to make himself heard on that score. Anybody that tried to punch his ticket a different direction than McCluskie was going to have a stiff scrap on his hands.
Kinch chuckled to himself and slowly climbed to his feet. For someone living on borrowed time, he sure had some powerful notions about the hereafter. Like as not, when a fellow passed on, they just gave him his choice, and there wasn’t any big rhubarb about it one way or another.
Squinting at the sun, he made it a couple of hours before noon. Time he got off his duff and swamped out the saloon. Quitting the cottonwoods, he headed up the bluff toward the station.
The town wasn’t much. Aside from the saloon, there was a ramshackle hotel, two general stores, and perhaps a dozen houses scattered about the surrounding prairie. While the township had been officially designated Salt Creek, honoring a nearby tributary which flowed into the larger stream, it was known simply and universally as Red River Station. Situated on a high limestone bluff overlooking the river, it was as far as a man could go and still say he was in Texas. Once across the Red, he entered Indian Territory.
The reason for the station’s existence lay just west of town. There, a wide natural chute, boxed in by limestone walls, sloped down to the water’s edge. Starting in late spring and continuing into early fall, herds of longhorns were driven down the chute and pushed across the river. A sandbar ran out from the northern back, and when the cattle reached it, they had begun the long haul up the Chisholm Trail. Some two hundred fifty miles farther north, after passing through Indian Territory, the trail ended at the Kansas railheads. Abilene, Newton, and the reigning cowtown this particular spring, Wichita.
Small as it was, it seemed likely that Red River Station would thrive and prosper forever. Though the cowtowns faded into obscurity as quickly as rails were laid south and west, the station depended on nothing but itself. It was the gateway to the Chisholm Trail, the only known route through the red man’s domain, and this strategic location guaranteed its prosperity.
The trail herds passing the station had been sparse thus far this spring. Cattlemen were reluctant to ford the Red, and the latticework of rivers crisscrossing Indian Territory, until the flood waters had receded. But the billowing plume of dust on the southern horizon steadily grew larger, and over the past week, better than three herds a day had made the crossing. Soon, as many as ten herds a day, numbering upward of twenty thousand longhorns, would be stacked up waiting their turn. Red River Station made not a nickel’s profit off the cattle themselves, but its little business community grew fat and sleek off the cowhands. After fording the river, the Texans wouldn’t again see civilization for close to a month. The station was their last chance, and in the way of thirsty men doing dirty work, they made the most of it.
Kinch came through the back door of the Alamo Saloon and started collecting his gear. Broom and featherduster, mop and pail. Tools of the trade for a swamper. He didn’t care much for the job, emptying spittoons and swabbing drunken puke off the floor, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. The way he looked at it, Roy Oliphant had been damned white to take him on, and he felt lucky to have a bunk in the back room, three squares, and a little pocket change. More importantly, it allowed him to straddle the jaws of the Chisholm Trail while he watched and planned and waited.
Hugh Anderson would pass this way, as did all Texas cattlemen, sooner or later. When he finally showed, the kid had a little surprise in store. An early Christmas present, of sorts.
After sweeping the floor, he started mopping the place with a practiced, unhurried stroke. Nine months on the end of a mop had taught him that there was no fast way. Slow and sure, that was the ticket. It left the floor clean and his
lungs only slightly bent out of shape. He was nearing the rear of the saloon when Roy Oliphant came down from his room upstairs.
The boy paused, breathing hard, and leaned on his mop. “Mornin’, Mr. Oliphant. All set for another day?”
Oliphant stopped at the bottom of the stairwell and gave him a dour look. The saloonkeeper was a gruff bear of a man, widowed and without children, and early morning generally found him foul-tempered and vinegary. But in his own way, rough and at times blistering, he had a soft spot for strays. The ones life had shortchanged and left discarded along the wayside. There were occasions when he reminded the kid just the least little bit of McCluskie.
“Bub, ever’ now and then I get the notion you haven’t got a lick of sense. Look at the way you’re huffin’ and puffin’. Goddamnit, how many times I got to tell you? Slow down. Take it easy. The world ain’t gonna swell up and bust if you don’t burn the end off that mop.”
Kinch grinned and took another swipe at the floor. “Aw, cripes, Mr. Oliphant. Workin’ up a sweat is good for me. Gets all the kinks ironed out.”
“Why sure it does,” Oliphant observed tartly. “That’s why you’re wheezin’ like a windbroke horse, ain’t it?”
“Well, I always say if a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing right. Besides, you got the cleanest saloon in town, so what’re you always hollerin’ about?”
Oliphant grunted, holding back on a smile. “Don’t give me none of your sass. This here’s the only saloon in town and you damn well know it.”
“Yeah, but it’s still the cleanest.”
“Real funny, ‘cept I ain’t laughin’. You’re not foolin’ anybody, y’know?”
“What d’you mean?”
“C‘mon, don’t play dumb.” Oliphant headed toward the bar, talking over his shoulder. “You buzzsaw that mop around so you can get back down to the bluffs and start bangin’ away at tin cans.”
The kid blinked a couple of times, but he didn’t say anything.