Ralph Compton Showdown At Two-Bit Creek Page 20

  Hawthorne studied the wound on Fletcher’s side and made an annoyed tut-tutting sound with the tip of his tongue. He probed the gunfighter’s shoulder wound and the cut Conroy’s bullet had opened on his right thigh.

  “Been through the wars, haven’t you, son?” the old doctor said.

  Fletcher nodded. “Some.”

  “Heard the shooting; but then, since Higgy Conroy and the other two got here, gunfire hasn’t been all that unusual.” Hawthorne studied Fletcher’s face, his faded eyes shrewd. “Ran into him, did you?”

  Again Fletcher nodded. “The three of them aren’t around anymore,” he said.

  “Figured that,” Hawthorne said, smiling slightly.

  He looked again at the wound on Fletcher’s side. “What ham-handed quack masquerading as a physician stitched this up for you?”

  Despite his desperate tiredness, a grin touched Fletcher’s lips. “It’s worse than that, Doc. This was done by a Pinkerton agent masquerading as a ham-handed quack.”

  Hawthorne shook his head. “I’m going to pull these sutures out and do the job right.” He looked at Fletcher. “At least he’d the good sense to keep the entry and exit wounds on your shoulder open. Those must heal from the inside.”

  “How about my leg, Doc?” Fletcher asked. “It’s paining me some.”

  “A scratch. I’ll bandage it up for you.”

  The old man rose to his feet and opened a glass cupboard. He selected a small blue bottle from the shelf and handed it to Fletcher.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s laudanum. It will ease the pain when I start to suture you up again.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “I’ve never been much of a one for taking medications and stuff like that. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll do without.”

  Hawthorne shrugged, his smile cold as a tomb. “Your funeral. It will hurt.”

  The gunfighter nodded and said grimly, “Sew away, Doc.”

  As the old man had predicted, the process was painful. Fletcher gritted his teeth, trying hard not to cry out.

  At one point, Hawthorne looked up from his work and said, “You’re very brave, you know. I mean, you don’t yell and holler like some of my patients.”

  “Yeeeouch!” Fletcher cried loudly. He smiled. “See, Doc? I’m not that brave.”

  After it was over and Fletcher was bandaged up again, Hawthorne asked, “Have you ever gone to a museum and seen one of those ancient Egyptian mummies?”

  Fletcher shook his head. “Can’t say as I have.”

  “Well, believe me, you look like one,” Hawthorne chuckled.

  His face suddenly sober, the old physician said, “You know, by rights you should be dead. Do you know why you aren’t?”

  “No. Luck, I guess.”

  “Luck’s got nothing to do with it. You’re alive because you’re not civilized. If you were from Back East, a banker or stockbroker or a member of some other civilized profession, right now you’d already be pushing up daisies or at least lying flat on a hospital bed earnestly talking to a preacher.”

  Fletcher forced another smile, knowing how insincere it must look. “Never thought of myself as being uncivilized.”

  “Well, you are. I’ve heard about you, Fletcher, and the things you’ve done. Sure, you might read Goethe or Cervantes or ponder the deeper meanings of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, but at heart you’re as wild and uncivilized as any Apache or painted Cheyenne Dog Soldier.”

  Hawthorne grinned, trying to soften the criticism. “Paradoxically, it’s uncivilized men like you who brought civilization to the West. Once the land needed your kind: violent, tough, enduring and unbending. But now”—the doctor shrugged—“we’re real close to being thoroughly civilized, and we don’t need your help or your guns anymore.”

  Fletcher’s mouth hardened to a bitter line under his mustache. “What are you trying to tell me, Doc?”

  “Just this: In the end, the civilization you helped create will kill you, Mr. Fletcher. Like the wild Indians out there on the plains, you’ve become an embarrassment, a very visible, living anachronism, and that’s why you can no longer be tolerated, even in a back-woods burg like Buffalo City. You’re a constant reminder of a past the more civilized among us would rather forget.

  “Oh, civilization may not kill you with a rope or a bullet, but it will destroy you by indifference, neglect and contempt. Like the Indians, that’s something your touchy pride will be unable to accept. Eventually you’ll just curl up and die, maybe in bed, eaten up by a sense of grief and loss, or more quickly, by whiskey or your own hand. In the end it won’t matter. Either way, you’ll be just. as dead.”

  “There’s still a lot of civilizing to be done,” Fletcher said, an impotent anger rising in him. “It’s not all over yet, not by a long shot.”

  Hawthorne nodded. “You’re correct, of course. But the time for you and your kind is fast running out. This is 1876. I believe in less than ten years, it will be all over. Buffalo City is already talking about streetcars, street lamps, a telephone exchange and a nice, civilized police force in smart blue uniforms.”

  “Ten years is all the time I need, Doc,” Fletcher said. “I don’t aim to live forever.”

  Hawthorne shook his head, his voice exasperated. “As your doctor, I’m giving you some dvice, young man. Stay in that cabin up on the Two-Bit and settle down. Find yourself a good, steady woman who can bear you tall sons and will never want to leave your side. Do it now before it’s too late.”

  “Doc,” Fletcher said quietly, “I reckon it’s already too late.”

  The old physician sighed. “Well, maybe it is. Only you know that.” He shook his head thoughtfully. Then, suddenly all business, said, “Come back in two weeks, and I’ll take those stitches out.” He stretched out his palm. “That will be two dollars.”

  Buck Fletcher walked to the hotel, where the desk clerk, his eyes wide and frightened, quickly handed him a key to a room. The three killings had obviously made the man wary and more than a little tense.

  “I’m afraid your friend, Doc Holliday, is no longer in residence,” he said, trying to demonstrate his helpfulness. “I believe he’s now in Deadwood.”

  Fletcher nodded. “Doc is a wanderer.” Then he took the stairs to his room. It was not yet evening, but the gunfighter was bone tired, and his side and shoulder hurt where Hawthorne had poked and probed and stitched.

  Quickly, he undressed and lay on the bed; within minutes he was asleep. Fletcher slumbered on as the afternoon passed and day shaded into evening. Along the street, oil lamps were lit. The saloons began to fill up with revelers, and the talk was all of Buck Fletcher and the gunmen he had killed.

  Just down the street, the three dead men lay naked in the undertaker’s embalming room, dollar coins on their eyes, their skins tinted blue by the moonlight streaming through a skylight window. They would be buried next morning at city expense, and there was none to grieve for them.

  Night came, and one by one the saloon patrons dispersed to their homes, bending their heads against a wind that blew long and cold from the Black Hills and warned of a hard winter.

  Gradually, Buffalo City grew quiet. A teamster, taken with consumption, coughed up blood in his tormented sleep, and once, close to midnight, a damp-haired woman tilted back her head and cried out her pleasure from an open mouth, uncaring of who heard.

  Full darkness shrouded the heights and plains surrounding the town, and the slow, slumbering hours passed. Only the restless wind stayed awake, prowling among the wooden buildings, stirring the fallen leaves into swirling, rustling circles as it whispered pine-scented secrets it had learned long ago from the hills.

  Dawn came, a dark blue sky streaked with fingers of red. A rooster strutted along the roof of a chicken coop and proudly proclaimed the start of a new day.

  Fletcher slept on.

  He did not wake until the sun climbed to its highest point above Buffalo City. Then he returned to consciousness slowly and painfu
lly.

  He rose stiffly and dressed. Despite the constant pain in his shoulder and side, the long sleep had restored him, and he felt a little stronger and more alert.

  Fletcher strapped on his gunbelt and picked up his Winchester. He made his way downstairs, paid the clerk and walked along the boardwalk to a restaurant he’d seen earlier.

  The restaurant was warm and cozy and smelled of frying steak and coffee. Only a few townspeople sat at other tables, surreptitiously glancing at him now and then, a strange mixture of fear, apprehension and fascination in their eyes.

  Fletcher ignored them, concentrating on his plate. The coffee was good and the food was better. After he’d eaten, he paid his bill and walked to the livery stable. He saddled his horse without too much difficulty and rode out of Buffalo City, heading southwest toward the Lazy R and Judith Tyrone.

  The day was fresh and clear but bitter cold, and Fletcher’s breath fogged in the air as he reached Bear Den Mountain and then swung south.

  Since his arrival in the Dakota Territory, he’d been dealt a hand from a stacked deck, and the thought came to him that he should just keep on riding and leave this whole sorry mess far behind him.

  But almost as soon as the idea entered his mind, he impatiently dismissed it. He had done enough running. He would not allow himself to throw in his cards but would play out this hand to the bitter end.

  He wanted to hear from her own lips Judith deny the allegations made against her by Savannah Jones and Matt Baker. He wanted to see those wagons and the gold miners they said she’d gathered at the ranch. Even if Savannah and Matt were indeed Pinkertons, the whole thing could still be a setup, with Judith playing the scapegoat while the real brains behind all this remained free to plot and scheme.

  He had little doubt in his own mind that Judith was innocent, but he needed to talk to her and hear her say it. He must know where things stood, not only with her ranch, but with him.

  Especially with him.

  Would she leave with him if he asked her? Would she turn her back on the Lazy R and ride away from all this turmoil? If she loved him she would.

  But did she love him?

  Fletcher shook his head. He had no certain answer to that question.

  In his present weak condition, riding was tiring. After crossing Strawberry Creek, Fletcher stepped out of the saddle and staked his horse on some good grass near the creek bank, where the ground was mostly free of snow. He laid his back against the trunk of an ancient cottonwood and rolled a smoke, lit it and held it between tight lips.

  A jackrabbit loped through the snow about twenty feet from where he sat, then settled on its haunches and tested the wind, sensitive nose twitching. The little animal turned its head, watching Fletcher out of one bright eye, then ran back the way it had come, its curiosity satisfied.

  The jackrabbit’s tracks pointed south, toward Strawberry Ridge and its rolling, pine-covered hills, and idly Fletcher smoked and marked their progress.

  His eyes, accustomed to long distances, caught something: a dark object against the snow. The rabbit’s tracks had veered around whatever the thing was, then even wider around a nearby outcropping of tumbled sandstone rock crested by a few stunted spruce.

  Puzzled, Fletcher stood and ground out his cigarette butt under his heel. He swung into the saddle and rode at a walk toward the object in the snow. The sorrel tossed his head, bit jangling, liking the trail and the coolness of the sun-splashed winter afternoon.

  When he was about fifty yards from the object, Fletcher made out what it was. It was the English painter’s easel. His pack donkey and long-legged horse stood nearby, nosing under the snow cover to get at the grass.

  Fletcher rode up to the easel and swung stiffly out of the saddle. He looked around at the surrounding hills and trees, but saw nothing. Warily now, he pushed his mackinaw away from his gun and stepped up to the inverted V of the easel and the canvas propped against it. The canvas was covered by a dirty white cloth, and Fletcher lifted it. What he saw made him smile tightly and nod. He’d suspected as much.

  The painting, such as it was, was just a tangled mess of color, splotches of red, green and black daubed here and there with random, artless brushstrokes.

  Bob was an artist all right, Fletcher thought grimly. But of a very different kind.

  The rectangular leather case he’d earlier thought might contain dismantled frames lay near the easel. But this was no artist’s case. The inside was lined with green velvet, expertly compartmentalized to take the stock, barrel and forearm of a takedown rifle. Fletcher tipped down the lid with the toe of his boot. An oval brass plaque set into the expensive leather read:Alexander Henry & Co.

  Gunmakers

  Edinburgh,

  Scotland.

  Fletcher glanced at the canvas again. It seemed Bob had fooled everybody.

  “Not very good, is it?”

  Fletcher froze, cursing his carelessness. He’d walked into a carefully prepared ambush like any pilgrim.

  He turned slowly, keeping his hand away from his gun. The little Englishman was walking toward him out of the rocks, smiling, a beautiful double-barreled hunting rifle with a sighting scope in his hands. His fingers were steady on the gun’s triggers.

  “But then I’m not much of an artist, am I, Buck?”

  “How did you know I’d be here?” Fletcher asked, puzzled despite the very real danger he was facing.

  Could he draw and fire before Bob pulled those triggers? He doubted it, and that realization chilled him to the bone.

  “I didn’t, actually. I’ve just been scouting around, searching for that young Amy Prescott person and her lads. But then I saw you in the distance—riding another of those big sorrel horses you love so much. There’s just no mistaking you, Buck. You’re such a distinctive figure. And, well, you know the rest. Shall we just say you walked right into my little trap? Just a small lapse of concentration that will be your death.”

  “You’ve tried to kill me before, Bob, and I’m still here,” Fletcher said, desperately playing for time. “I think the first time was in the blizzard when I found Savannah Jones. You were lucky that day, Bob. My pup nudged my rifle and threw off my aim.”

  “Miss Jones is a Pinkerton agent, did you know that?” Bob asked. “How very unusual. I mean, her being a woman and all.” He shook his head. “I would have had her that day if you hadn’t shown up at the wrong time.”

  “You shot at me that day and missed, and a few times after that. You were trying your best to kill me.”

  “My best? Not really. All the shots I fired at you, except for the last one, of course, were just warnings. An attempt to drive you into the camp—and, might I add, into the arms—of my employer, Judith Tyrone.”

  “Birmingham Bob Spooner,” Fletcher said, “the sure-thing contract killer. I don’t believe Judith would have anything to do with a snake like you.”

  The little man shrugged. “Believe what you like. But I killed her husband and then that lout Pike Prescott on her orders. And a few others: cowboys mostly, men of little account.”

  “You’ve always had the reputation of being a methodical man, Bob,” Fletcher said, trying to spin this out.

  There were only he and Bob and the empty land around them. And one of them would die here on the snow. Very soon now.

  “Methodical, yes. I have that reputation. But I must admit, when we first met in Buffalo City, I feared for a moment that you’d recognized me, and my cover would be blown—so much so that I seriously considered putting a bullet in your back during our scrape with those two hillbillies.”

  “It took me a while, Bob,” Fletcher said. “Then I recalled seeing you one time when you were hunting Comanche scalps for a bounty down along the Rio Grande in the Neuces Plains country. As I recollect, you were selling Mexican scalps—men, women and children—and passing them off as Comanche. Seems Mexicans were a lot easier to kill.”

  If Bob was annoyed, he didn’t let it show. He shrugged his thin shoulders.
“A man makes a living any way he can.”

  “Heard of you again a couple of years back, only this time you were up on the Cimarron killing nesters for one of the big English cattle companies. They say you weren’t any too particular who you shot with that rifle of yours then either. Men, women, children: They were all the same to you.”

  Bob nodded. “Did my job. Cleared those nesters out. That’s what I was paid to do, and I did it. Over the years, I believe I’ve killed around sixty people, all of them for money. You will be number sixty-one, and no doubt Mrs. Tyrone will pay handsomely for your—dare I say it?—singularly unhandsome head.”

  “You’re pretty low down, Bob,” Fletcher said. “A contract killer who shoots from ambush isn’t much.”

  The little man’s smile slipped. “This grows tiresome.” His washed-out blue eyes were ugly. “By the by, I’m going to kill you very, very soon, you know.”

  Bob’s face wrinkled into a thoughtful scowl. “One thing before you ... ah ... leave. I don’t understand how you survived when I shot you off your horse as you were riding back from the PP Connected. I laid the sights of the scope right on your chest. I didn’t miss, did I? That’s impossible.”

  “Quartz,” Fletcher said.

  “Pardon?”

  “I had a pocketful of quartz, and it deflected the bullet.”

  “Impossible! This weapon is an Alexander Henry big game rifle. It fires a steel-jacketed .500 caliber nitro express round that can kill an elephant at a hundred yards. Nothing deflects that bullet. Nothing.”

  “The quartz did.”

  Fletcher was thinking fast. The little man seemed shook, his confidence in his weapon undermined. Like any craftsman, Bob took great pride in the tools of his trade, and he obviously set store by his rifle. Was this the time to draw before he could pull those triggers? Fletcher knew his chance of success was thin, but it was the only chance he had.

  “I believe you’re lying to me, Buck,” Bob said. “And for that, as a little punishment, I’m going to give you both rounds in the belly. It will take you hours to die, and for most of that time you’ll scream like a woman. Believe me, death will come as a welcome release.”