Rawhide Flat

by Ralph Compton

  “I’ll show you where it is,” Masterson said. “Now, let the girl go.”

  “Not that simple, Sheriff,” Stark said. “You tried to trick me once and there won’t be a second time. You’ll take me to the money, but Crane and the girl stay here until I come back. Just to prove your bona fides, like.”

  “You won’t come back, Stark,” Crane said, loud enough for all to hear. “You’ll take the money and run.”

  “That’s a damned lie and I throw it back in your teeth.” A big, gruff-looking man with a beard down to his navel stepped away from the others. “Prophet, to set the mind of the people at ease, I will accompany you. Remember, a faithful man will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished.”

  “Yes, I am eager to get rich, Lucas, but only because I am a mighty river that flows to my people and does not wish to see them live in want.”

  Stark turned to his followers and made a dramatic gesture, his hands thrown high in the air. He roared, “The money is yours! As the avenging angel of the Lord is my witness!”

  Above the approving shouts of the crowd, a woman’s scream, high-pitched and edged with hysteria, tore apart the stretched fabric of the night.

  “Look at the sky!” she shrieked. “It’s a sign!”

  Crane glanced upward and his blood froze.

  Alone in a cloudless sky, the moon was disappearing.

  Chapter 30

  Because of the drama unfolding around camp, no one had been paying any attention to the sky. Now the eclipse was almost complete and only a sliver of moon remained.

  “Yes, it’s a sign!” Stark yelled. “It is proven! Verily, the angel has anointed me!”

  The crowd was on its knees, staring at the night sky, hands joined in prayer. And the riflemen in front of the wagons, including the belligerent man named Lucas, had loudly joined in the devotions.

  As the moon was lost to sight and the darkness grew more profound, the only light came from the glowing domes of red around the campfires. Beyond the flames, the night was as black as spilled ink.

  Stark’s people kneeled in the gloom, their whispered prayers rising like the drone of a million insects.

  Lightning flashed to the east and Stark jumped around in a frenzy, the tails of his frock coat flapping around his skinny legs.

  “I saw him!” he screamed. “The Archangel Michael has entered the clouds!”

  Heads moved, looking toward the mountains where the distant clouds blazed with white and vermillion fire.

  “Yes! I see him!” a woman screamed. “The angel of the Lord has come to smite the sinful land!”

  “I see him too!”

  “And me!”

  “And me!”

  “Michael is come with a sword of flame!”

  People began to sing hymns of praise, as they were caught up in the awful majesty of the moment.

  Ignored by all but Jeptha Stark, who held on to her arm, the knife still in his hand, Sarah stood with her head bowed, as though oblivious to the turmoil around her.

  Masterson turned to Crane, slid his rifle into the boot and drew his revolver. A slight, bemused smile touched his lips.

  “You ready, Gus?”

  The marshal drew his own Colt. “Call it.”

  “Now!”

  Masterson set spurs to his horse and the big sorrel leaped forward. He closed with Sarah very quickly, taking Jeptha by surprise.

  The man recovered, took a backward step and hurled his knife at Masterson.

  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Jeptha Stark could not have made that wild throw effective. But fate, luck, whatever you want to call it, sometimes meddles in the affairs of men, and the knife flew true.

  Straight as an iron falcon on its prey, the blade buried itself high up in Masterson’s chest, close to the shoulder. For a moment the sheriff reeled in the saddle; then his gun hammered in the darkness.

  Jeptha went down on one knee, coughing blood, and Masterson shot him again.

  He didn’t wait to see the effect of his second shot. At the gallop, he scooped Sarah into his arms, threw her into the saddle in front of him, and swung away from the wagons.

  As Masterson began his charge, Stark’s riflemen had quickly scrambled to their feet, grabbing for their guns.

  Crane saw the danger and cut loose with his .45, fanning the gun to lay down a field of fire with no thought of accuracy.

  He made no hits, but his spraying bullets were enough to send the men scattering for cover behind the wagons.

  The marshal swung his rearing horse away, reaching for his rifle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Masterson stiffen as a bullet smashed into him.

  Then the sheriff was running for his life, Sarah clinging to him.

  Crane drew rein and levered his old Henry, but in the gloom saw no targets. Rifles flared from behind the wagons and a close shot split the air an inch from his nose.

  There was nothing to be gained and much to lose, notably his life, by making a fight. He galloped after Masterson, bullets chasing after him like enraged wasps.

  Crane caught up with Masterson and the sheriff turned in the saddle. “Take the girl.”

  Without slacking their pace, their mounts running flat-out, Crane grabbed Sarah and held her in front of him. She immediately threw her arms around him and laid her head against his chest. The girl felt thin and frail and she was trembling uncontrollably.

  “Easy, easy,” the marshal whispered, at a loss for comforting words, “you’re safe now.”

  Sarah didn’t answer, but clung so tight to him he could feel the rapid beat of her heart.

  Now the marshal turned his attention to Masterson. He was bent in the saddle and it took a few moments for Crane to see the knife sticking out of his upper chest.

  “Paul, can you make it back to Rawhide Flat?” he asked urgently.

  Masterson’s face was a frozen white mask in the newborn moonlight.

  “I’ll make it,” he said. His voice was weak and his mouth was stretched in a tight line, a man fighting back pain. He managed a weak smile. “I’ve got a bullet in my back someplace, but I don’t know where. Seems like the bowie’s demanding my full attention.”

  “We have to stop,” Crane said. “Get that damned blade out of you.”

  “They’ll be right behind us, Gus.”

  “It’s tough to trail men in the dark. I’ll hunt us a place to hole up.”

  Masterson made no answer, as though the effort of speaking was suddenly too much for him.

  Crane was a far-seeing man and his gaze probed the shadowed, high plains country ahead.

  Beside him, Masterson reined his horse to a walk, swaying in the saddle.

  Suddenly the need for shelter became urgent.

  Fate had already intervened in Crane’s affairs that night and now it did so again.

  To his right, a deer burst out from a thicket of brush and stunted juniper and bounded away. The marshal grabbed the bridle of Masterson’s horse and retraced the buck’s steps.

  The trees grew around the mouth of a sandy, dry wash that cut into what seemed to be an ancient lava flow. Both walls were about eight foot high, very steep, and were crowned with scattered clumps of bunchgrass and prickly pear.

  Listening into the night, Crane heard no sound of pursuit behind them. He rode deeper into the wash, pulling Masterson’s sorrel behind him.

  The wash narrowed slightly, then ended at a sheer wall of rock that showed signs of being smoothed by a heavy fall of water in times of torrential rain or snow melts off the high mountain ridges.

  A trickle of water, barely enough to wet the surface of the rock, still ran through a patch of green moss that flourished in a shallow gutter at the top of the wall.

  The wash was not an ideal place, but for what Crane had to do, it would serve well enough.

  He tried to free himself from Sarah, but the girl clung to him, her head against his chest, fingers digging deep into his shoulders.

  “Sarah,” he s
aid, “you’ve got to let go. Paul needs our help.”

  The girl raised her face to his. “Gus, you won’t leave me ever again?”

  “No, I won’t, and that’s a promise.”

  Reluctantly, Sarah moved away from him and Crane set her gently on the ground. He swung out of the saddle and stood at Masterson’s left knee, looking up at his shadowed face.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Worse than I look.”

  “Then you feel real bad. I’ll help you down.”

  “I can do it.”

  The sheriff tried to step out of the leather but collapsed into Crane’s arms.

  “I guess I’m weaker than I thought.”

  “Easy . . . I’m going to lay you down on your back.”

  Once Masterson was settled, Crane took a knee beside him and looked at the knife. “The bowie’s got to come out of there. Then I’ll take a look-see at the wound in your back.”

  The sheriff tried to smile. “I reckon I’m shot through and through, Gus.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Where’s Stark?”

  “I don’t know. I guess, out in the dark somewhere.”

  “That damned eclipse was a piece of bad luck.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It helped us get Sarah back.”

  Now Masterson’s smile was genuine, with sunlight in it. “You’re always the optimist, Gus.”

  “I don’t believe that, and neither do you.” He studied the knife again. The broad blade was buried in Masterson’s chest almost to the hilt. “Now I’m taking that bowie out of you.”

  Sarah kneeled beside the sheriff and cradled his head in her lap. She took off his hat and stroked his thinning hair.

  “I know this is gonna hurt,” Masterson said.

  “Seems likely it will. But a man can stand more than he thinks he can.”

  “Thanks for the words of wisdom, Gus. I reckon—”

  Masterson gasped and arched his back against the pain as Crane pulled the knife free. Immediately the wound began to bleed.

  Crane studied the man’s face, then lifted his eyes to Sarah. “I think he’s passed out.”

  “No, I didn’t pass out,” the sheriff snapped. “And be damned to ye, Gus Crane.”

  Smiling, Crane said, “Anybody ever tell you that you’re a rotten patient?”

  He looked at Sarah. “We’ll turn him over. I want to take a look at his back.”

  By nature, Paul Masterson was not a cursing man, but he gave vent loudly and passionately enough to singe all the grass within ten yards when Crane and the girl pulled his upper body upright.

  “Unbutton his shirt, Sarah,” Crane said.

  “Damn it, Gus,” Masterson growled, “did nobody ever tell you, ‘Don’t interfere with something that ain’t bothering you none’?”

  “All the time.” The marshal grinned. “But I’ve always gone right ahead and interfered anyway.”

  He pushed up Masterson’s shirt . . . and what he saw horrified him.

  Chapter 31

  A heavy caliber bullet, possibly a big .50, had entered Masterson’s lower back close—dangerously close—to the spine. The wound looked raw and angry, but there was little blood.

  There was no exit wound.

  Crane let the man’s shirt drop.

  “How’s it look, Gus?”

  Gently, the marshal laid Masterson’s head on Sarah’s lap again. It was then that the sheriff read the answer to his question in Crane’s face.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Yeah, it’s bad, Paul.”

  Masterson tried to move. “I can’t feel my legs. They’re not numb. . . . They’re just . . . not there.”

  “I think maybe the bullet nicked your spine.”

  “Done broke it, you mean.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.”

  “Dang, I would never have guessed.”

  Crane rose to his feet. He stepped to the rock wall and stripped a handful of moss from the runnel, then kneeled beside Masterson again.

  “This will stop the bleeding from the knife wound,” he said.

  He placed a moss poultice on the cut and bound it up with his bandanna. There was nothing he could do for the bullet wound.

  “I’m going to put you on your horse, Paul,” he said. “We’ve got to get back to Rawhide Flat and take you to Doc Preston.”

  Suddenly Masterson seemed tired. He made no objection and the eyes Sarah turned to Crane were filled with sympathy and something else that looked like resignation, a small surrender to the inevitability of destiny.

  The marshal felt uneasy. The girl claimed horses spoke to her, and now maybe she was hearing another voice, the thin whisper of death skulking close by.

  “Let’s get him on his horse,” Crane said to her. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded hollow.

  Freed from the shadow of the jealous earth, the moon was restored to its former glory. The steep faces of the high rock rims glowed like tarnished silver, but on the flat, the hollows were mysterious places, shrouded in deep blue shadow. Moonlight tangled itself among the branches of juniper and piñon and hung there immobile, like dewy spiderwebs. To the east, the sky still throbbed with heat lightning, as though the Archangel Michael was indeed getting ready to pass judgment on the land.

  Masterson drifted in and out of consciousness and talked to dead men. Sarah rode behind the cantle, supporting him in the saddle, her arms around his waist.

  Crane’s head moved constantly, searching their back trail and the way ahead.

  Nothing moved, not even the wind. The country before and behind him was still, vanishing into distance and darkness, populated only by Paul Masterson’s dusty ghosts.

  Where was Reuben Stark?

  It was likely that Paul had killed Jeptha. Was the old man taking time to grieve for him? Or was he saving himself for something else? Perhaps the invasion of Rawhide Flat?

  That last possibility seemed more likely to Crane.

  Stark would hold the town to ransom and if it didn’t pay up, he would attack and loot everything of value he could find. And what could not be moved, he would burn.

  Ambition is bondage, and the man who hoped to found a dynasty must know that the last grains of sand were rapidly running through the hourglass. He had but two sons left, the least of them, and he had to act now.

  Crane no longer troubled to search the trail.

  Stark would come as surely as night follows day and it would be at a time of his own choosing. Today . . . tomorrow . . . soon.

  When Crane rode into Rawhide Flat, the moon had dropped below the horizon and the dark of night was shading to a somber blue. The sky was the color of a sour apple. There was no one on the street and the saloons and stores were locked up tight.

  In the harshening light, the town looked gray and gaunt, like a tired whore who had just stripped off her makeup and wouldn’t paint her face again until nightfall.

  Only the mission of the Sisters of the Cross and Passion was lit, shining like a beacon of hope in a dark world.

  The marshal rode directly to Doc Preston’s office, a squat frame building with the surgery in front, the dwelling at the back.

  Masterson was conscious, but his eyes were unfocused and he could not walk.

  Sarah went on ahead and pounded on the doctor’s door as Crane lifted the sheriff from the saddle and carried him.

  “Bring him inside,” Preston said, holding the door wide. He wore a long, red and white striped nightshirt that fell to his ankles and a pointed cap with a tassel hung over his shoulder.

  Crane had never seen such a sight before.

  “Through here into the surgery,” Preston said, opening a frosted-glass door to his left. “Lay him on the operating table, Marshal. Gently now.”

  Crane did as he was told, then said, “He took a knife to the shoulder and he’s got a bullet in his back. He says he can’t feel his legs. I put moss on the knife wound to stop the bleeding, but I couldn’t do anything about t
he bullet.”

  “Very wise of you, Marshal.” The doctor had already rolled Masterson onto his side, examining the bullet wound.

  “The bullet’s still in him. Maybe you could probe—”

  “That child needs sleep,” Preston said. “Look at the dark circles under her eyes. Perhaps you could take her to the hotel.”

  “She’s got a room there, Doc. But about that gunshot wound? I’d say it was made by a Sharps ‘Big 50.’ Now that’s what we call a buffalo gun around these parts and—”

  “Please, Marshal.” Preston’s eyes hardened. “Take the girl to the hotel before she falls asleep on her feet.”

  “I am very tired, Gus,” Sarah said, more in league with the doctor than Crane realized.

  “Come back in an hour, Marshal,” Preston said. “I’ll have completed my diagnosis by then.”

  “Will he be all right?” Crane asked.

  “Marshal, at the moment I have no idea. Come back in an hour.”

  “Don’t you want to know how it happened?”

  The physician was already involved with Masterson. “Come back in an hour,” he said. “Right now I’m interested in what happened, not in how it happened.”

  Crane felt Sarah grab his arm. She was trembling again and when he looked at her eyes, they were brimming with tears.

  Chapter 32

  The sight of her hotel room cheered Sarah considerably. She ordered Crane to step out into the hallway and when she called him back inside, the girl had changed out of her nightdress and was sitting up in bed, the sheet pulled up to her neck.

  The marshal poured water into the basin from the jug on the dresser and used a clean patch of Sarah’s soiled clothing to dab away the blood from the corner of her mouth.

  “You’re good to me, Gus,” she said. “And for such a big huggy-bear of a man you’ve got very gentle hands.”

  Crane made no answer and Sarah said, “What’s going to happen to me?”

  Now he made eye contact with the girl. “I’ve been studying on that. I reckon when this is over I’ll take you with me to Virginia City, or Carson City, wherever the United States marshal is hanging his hat.”