Ralph Compton Death Along the Cimarron Page 8

  “Who goes there?” Sheriff Matheson asked, hearing the barn door creak open as a sliver of sunlight striped across the dirt floor.

  Dr. Callaway whispered as he closed the door and heard the sound of a pistol cock in the grainy darkness, “It’s me, Oscar, dang it! Don’t cock that hammer at me. The shape you’re in, that thing could go off. Then who’d be left here to look after you?”

  “Sorry, Doc,” Sheriff Matheson said in a weak voice. Lying with his back propped against a stall post, he let the cocked pistol drop across his lap. The doctor stepped into the stall and frowned, seeing the pistol in the faint striped sunlight through the cracks in the barn wall. “Give me that,” Dr. Callaway said, stooping and taking the gun from Matheson’s hand. He let the hammer down and shoved the pistol into the holster lying by Matheson’s side. “Confounded guns!” he growled. “They’re the cause of all the trouble in this world.”

  “Don’t start on guns, Doc,” Sheriff Matheson said in a voice labored with pain. “If I hadn’t had this with me a while ago, I reckon I’d be dead right now.”

  “I suppose,” the doctor grumbled, already opening the dressing on the sheriff’s upper right chest. “Of course, if those jackasses didn’t have guns, they couldn’t have shot you in the first place. That’s how a more civilized man would reason with it.”

  “I’m all for civilization, Doc,” Matheson said, offering a tired, painful smile. He nodded toward the street beyond the dark, quiet shelter of the barn. Distant laughter rose above the sound of breaking glass. “How bad is it out there?” Two pistol shots roared from the direction of the saloon.

  “It’s bad enough,” the doctor said, shaking his head as he examined the sheriffs wounds. “The blacksmith buckshot one of them, sending him sailing. The ringleader laid up at the Crown Hotel with some woman under his arm before the smoke cleared. Poor Gerald’s dead, so’s our telegraph clerk ... our banker, the blacksmith too. We didn’t have many folks here to begin with. This will just about do us in.”

  “The Crown Hotel, huh?” said Matheson.

  “I saw him go there,” the doctor replied. “Can’t say the woman looked real happy. They might’ve just had a lovers’ spat or something.”

  Thinking about it for a moment, Sheriff Matheson said, “I sure did let this town down, didn’t I?”

  “Hush, Sheriff,” said the doctor, “you know better than that. You did the best you could. Nobody will ever fault you for what’s happened here.”

  “I fault myself,” said Matheson.

  “Then I reckon that’s your own stubborn lawman’s prerogative,” said the doctor, looking closely at the wound before closing the sheriffs shirt over the bloodstained bandage, “so I won’t waste my breath arguing with you. I won’t change this dressing until it clots up some more.” He turned his attention to the dressing beneath the sheriffs split trouser leg. “Lucky this one didn’t hit the bone. A feller your age gets a shattered hip bone, he’s ready for the pasture, if he can even walk out to it.”

  “Yeah, a feller my age...” Matheson let his words trail in contemplation.

  “No offense, Sheriff,” said Doc Callaway. “But like myself, you’ve grown long in the tooth.”

  “I reckon I have, Doc.” A silence passed as the doctor spread the split on the sheriffs trouser leg, pulled back the comer of the bloody bandage, and looked at the wound. Sheriff Matheson let out a long breath. “I was getting ready to retire, hand in my badge, you know.”

  The doctor turned his eyes upward, looking at the sheriff above his spectacle rims. “I had no idea.”

  “Well, it’s true,” said Matheson. “I’ve got a daughter I ain’t seen since she was nine ... when her ma up and left me in Abilene. She’s married to a rancher out in California. They’ve got two freckle-faced kids. She wrote me, said, ‘Pa, come on out, meet your grandchildren.’ ” He nodded and gazed off across the darkened barn. “That’s where I was retiring to.”

  “Well ... you still can, can’t you?” the old doctor inquired, closing the bandage, then the split trousers.

  Sheriff Matheson continued staring off as he spoke. “She said they’ve got a room off to the side of the house where I could stay—close the door and be left alone days I didn’t want to talk to nobody.” He grinned. “I reckon folks with grandchildren never get lonesome for talk or for getting their stories listened to.”

  “I reckon not,” said the doctor. “You could go there, say, a week from now, maybe two. Lay low for now. Let this bunch of trash clear out of here. Give these wounds time to heal, and then head for California. Nothing’s stopping you.”

  “I know it,” said Matheson: His fingertips brushed the tin star on his chest. “My daughter said you can ride less than three miles from her front door and stand on a cliff that looks out over the ocean. Can you imagine that, Doctor?”

  “Sounds real fine, Sheriff,” said Dr. Callaway. “I envy you.”

  Another silence passed, and the doctor saw the trace of a tear in the sheriff’s tired, distant eyes. “Well, hell, Sheriff,” he said with resolve. “I suppose you’ll want me to bring you a shotgun?”

  “Yep. The biggest 10-gauge double-barrel you can find, Doc,” said Sheriff Matheson. “I’d hate going out with whimper instead of a bang.”

  “But can you get on your feet and walk by yourself?” the doctor inquired.

  “I’ll walk on my own when the time comes. I might need you to help me to my feet.” The sheriff managed a thin, tight smile. “I reckon you’ll do that much for the only man in town who ever kept his bill paid.”

  Dr. Callaway returned the thin smile. “Well, I can see you’re feeling much better.” He patted a hand on the sheriffs good shoulder as he closed his black bag and stood up. “I want you to know I’m not the kind of man who can shoot a person, Sheriff, no matter how justifiable the situation.”

  “I understand, Doc,” said Matheson. “I’d never ask you to. Just get me a shotgun and get me on my feet. Wearing this badge has always meant I’d be the one to take the bullet ... or give it, however way the chips fall.”

  The old doctor nodded as he backed away toward the door. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

  Sheriff Matheson watched the door open a crack then dose. Outside, Dr. Callaway slipped unnoticed along the backs of the buildings toward the New Royal Saloon, where he knew the owner kept a spare loaded shotgun stuck beneath a whiskey pallet in the stockroom. On his way to the back door of the saloon, the doctor saw the first steam of smoke rise atop the buildings from the direction of the telegraph office. “Sonsabitches,” he whispered to himself, hearing hoots of drunken laughter from the street.

  Finding the rear door to the saloon unlocked, the old doctor slipped inside and held his breath as he passed the open stockroom door and saw Sherman Fentress lying atop the billiard table, drunk and waving a cocked pistol back and forth aimlessly. Dr. Callaway kept an eye on the wounded gunman as he slipped over to a darkened corner where a wooden pallet lay supporting a half dozen whiskey crates. Before his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, the doctor reached a hand out to the crates. But instead of feeling the rough wood, he felt the familiar round hardness of a knee bone and jerked his hand back, startled, as a deep voice said, “Doc, what’re you looking for, slipping around back here?”

  “Damn it, Leonard! Scare the bejesus out of a man!” the doctor cursed in a whisper. “Sitting here in the dark like some lunatic!” He collected himself and took a deep breath, looking at the darkened face of Leonard Whirley, the saloon owner, sitting slumped atop a whiskey crate. Atop Whirley’s head, a ruffled-up toupee sat crooked and slanted too far to one side. “Fix your hair, Leonard. It looks like a rat’s got his head stuck in your ear.”

  The saloon owner reached up, adjusted the toupee, and smoothed it down. “Sorry, Doc. Had I expected company, I would’ve been better groomed.”

  The doctor shot a glance out to the billiard table, seeing the bartender carry a fresh bottle of rye from behind the bar and hold
it out to Sherman Fentress’s grasping hands. Then he said, looking back at Whirley, “Sheriff Matheson is still alive and kicking. I reckon you know why I’m here?”

  Whirley nodded and moved his right foot to one side. The doctor stooped down, pulled out the shotgun, blew dust from it, and broke it open, taking pains to keep his actions quiet. “There’s a couple extra loads down there if you want them,” said Whirley.

  “Why not?” said the doctor, reaching back under the pallet and bringing out two shotgun loads. He dropped them into his pocket.

  Watching the old doctor check the loaded shotgun, the despondent saloon owner said, “Believe it or not, I was just thinking about pulling that out myself. There’s only five of them, one already wounded all to hell. I figured I could walk out and blast that bloody buzzard off my pool table, then go to the street and take my chances with the rest of them.”

  “Only five, huh?” The doctor stared at him for a second, then said, “Five is no small number when there’s guns pointed at you.”

  “I said I was just thinking about it, Doc,” said Whirley. “I never said for sure that I was going to do it.”

  “That’s what I figured,” the doctor said. “While you’ve been thinking about it,” he said, clicking the shotgun shut, having seen that both barrels were loaded, “our sheriff is getting ready to do it.” He looked the saloon owner up and down. “Of course, I don’t suspect he’d be opposed to some help, if you’d like to join him.”

  Whirley swallowed a dry lump in his throat. “Who was I kidding, Doc? I ain’t going to do nothing but sit here thinking how bad I want to. I ain’t no hero.... I never was.” His hand went nervously to his hair-piece. “I can always think things out, how to go about doing something like that. I can picture it in my mind clear as day. But I ain’t got the sand to kill a person.” His shoulders drooped even more. “I reckon all I can do is roll onto my back and show my belly like a beat dog.”

  “Don’t be hard on yourself, Whirley,” the doctor relented in a low tone. “I can’t shoot a person either.” He ran a hand along the glistening black gun barrel. “Oh, I say it’s because I’m in the healing arts. Truth is, I’m as big a coward as you. I just plain ain’t got the guts.”

  At the Crown Hotel, Cherokee Earl stepped into his trousers and pulled them up, turning back to face the bed where Ellen Waddell had just sat up and pulled a blanket around herself, clasping it under her arms, holding it closed in front. “What did you expect?” she said flatly, keeping her eyes from looking directly at him. “I’ve been dragged here against my will ... by a total stranger. I’ve seen my husband left for dead.”

  “Well, I reckon I just expected a little more fire and thunder, darling,” said Earl mockingly as he leaned forward, took her by the chin, and tilted her face up, forcing her to look into his eyes. “I might’ve thought that just maybe you’d be a little obliging, seeing as how I didn’t leave you dead in the dirt. You know I could have had my way with you back there on that three-cow spread, then left ... no witness, no nothing.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” Ellen said, carefully weighing how much snap to put into her words. “What kind of an animal did you think I was? Did you really think that I would just throw in with you after what you did to my husband?

  Earl found himself stuck for words, looking into her eyes, not fully understanding what he was looking at There was something puzzling about this woman. She hadn’t fought him, hadn’t resisted him. She in fact had done everything demanded of her. Yet he felt now as he’d felt before they’d arrived. He felt as if he hadn’t touched her. Her eyes seemed to look straight through him. They made him think that, whatever he might say, she had already heard. “Don’t play with me, woman!” he hissed, holding her chin roughly between his finger and thumb and leaning close to her face. She didn’t so much as flinch or brace herself. She sat limp, spineless, he thought, but still untouchable. “Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” she said calmly, not trying to avert her eyes now but rather staring into his so steadily that he himself had to look away for a second.

  “See ... I believe there’s more than meets the eye with you, little lady. I think maybe ole Dave Waddell didn’t know the whole story on you when he hitched you to his wagon.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ellen, her eyes still steady, still cool and fixed.

  “Yeah, I bet you don’t,” said Earl. “I get the feeling that you were an old hand at this sort of thing long before you crawled under Dave Waddell’s blanket.”

  “Then you are badly mistaken, sir,” said Ellen. “Mr. Waddell is the only man I have ever known.”

  “Until now, you mean,” said Earl, a trace of a triumphant smile coming to his face.

  “No ... including now,” she said distantly. “This doesn’t count. This is just something that happened that never should have. It is best forgotten.”

  Earl stood frozen for a moment. Then he said with an almost hurt sound to his voice, “Well, I ain’t going to forget. And I still ain’t had my fill of you.”

  “Very well,” Ellen said softly. She started to unwrap the blanket from around herself in submission.

  “Wait, damn it, not now.” Earl stopped her, tucking the blanket back up under her arms. “That ain’t what I meant.” He ran his fingers back through his hair in frustration and chuckled. “See? See what I mean about you? You’re as cold, spiteful, and deliberate as any whore I ever laid hands on. You don’t fool me any longer.”

  “You think I’m a sporting woman?” Ellen asked flatly.

  “I think you have been at some time or other,” Earl offered.

  “And if I was?” said Ellen. “Would that make any difference?”

  Earl shrugged. “I wouldn’t waste any more time on you if I was convinced you were. I have no respect for a sporting woman. I never did. I want a woman who is my woman—mine alone.” He thumbed his bare chest.

  “So you kidnap me? You force me to go to bed with you?” said Ellen. “That’s the kind of woman you want? A slave?”

  Earl looked confused. “Don’t put words in my mouth. If I thought you was ever that kind of woman, I reckon I’d just turn you over to the rest of the boys, then ride on.”

  Ellen looked away now and took a breath, running a hand across her damp forehead. Then she sat quietly until Earl said, “So? Are you? I mean, was you ever?”

  “No, of course not,” said Ellen. “I was a school-teacher, a professional woman, before I met my husband.”

  Earl reached out and suddenly grasped a handful of her red hair, forcing her eyes back to his. “You’re lying, ain’t you?”

  “If you think I’m lying, do what you just said.” She stared back at him unflinchingly. “I’m powerless to stop you, whatever you’ve got in mind.”

  “Awww, damn it!” Earl turned loose her hair roughly, shoving her head sideways. “It doesn’t have to be this way, woman! All you got to do is get used to being with me instead of Dave. Why is that so hard to do?”

  Ellen stared at him. “Not hard at all if I were a bitch dog, or if I were the kind of woman you accused me of being. But you just said if I were that kind of woman, you would have no more use for me.” She paused and shook her head. “I think you need to do some thinking about—”

  Her words were cut short by a knock on the door and the sound of Dirty Joe’s voice in the hallway.

  “Yeah, Dirty, what is it?” said Earl. Before Joe Turley answered, Earl said to Ellen, “We’ll finish this some other time.”

  Ellen didn’t even bother to answer.

  “Boss,” said Turley from outside the door. “You said to come wake you up, tell you when we’ve done all we set out to do here.”

  A silence passed; then just as Dirty Joe started to knock again, Cherokee Earl growled in a sleepy voice, “All right, damn it to hell! I heard you! Hold your horses.”

  Dirty Joe looked back and forth quickly in the hallway as if to find some horses and do as he was told. Bu
t as the door opened a bit, Dirty Joe snatched his hat from his head and stood rapidly smoothing down his hair as Cherokee Earl stood, before him wearing only his trousers, his belt and fly both hanging open. “You sure are getting a case of the propers, ain’t you, Dirty?” Earl opened his eyes wider and added, “Did you bring me any flowers?”

  Dirty Joe looked embarrassed and wrung his hat brim between his hands, saying quickly in his own defense, “Boss, I just thought it might be the lady opening the door is all.... I didn’t figure it would look right, me standing here with my hat on. That’s all I meant by it, honest.”

  “I believe you, Dirty Joe,” said Earl in a tired voice, stepping back and flagging him into the room. “If I’d thought otherwise, I’d have cracked your skull.”

  Inside the room, Joe started to speak, then fell silent when his eyes fixed on Ellen Waddell. She sat on the edge of the bed, shivering in spite of the heat, a blanket wrapped around her. She stared at the wall as if it were a thousand yards away. Her red hair lay damp and curled against her forehead and her bare shoulders.

  “Well, Dirty,” said Earl, seeing what affect a half-naked woman was having on this dumbstruck cattle rustler, “are you going to tell me what’s gone on out there, or did you just stop by for tea?”

  “Well, uh—” Dirty Joe stammered. “We, uh, looted all the, uh, cash from the, uh, bank—”

  “Hold it, Dirty,” said Earl, cutting him off. He reached out with both hands, took Dirty Joe by the shoulders, and turned him away from the woman. “Now try again.”