“Slapjacks,” Will answered. “You like ’em?”
“No. Did you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I reckon, that’s the kind of crap you have to learn to eat if you’re a deputy marshal. It tastes more like horse turds to me.”
“I reckon I’d have to take your word on that,” Will said. “I ain’t ever ate horse turds. I most likely ruined your taste buds when I bought you that breakfast this mornin’.”
“I’m done with this stuff,” Hawkins said. “Come get this plate.”
“All right,” Will responded, and walked over to the tree. “Put the plate down on the ground and stick your hands out. You know what to do.” He drew his .44 and waited until Hawkins dropped the plate. Will figured that was to have been his move if he had taken the plate from him. With his familiar snarl, Hawkins threw the plate on the ground, obviously having been thinking along the same lines Will had. But he was not through. He extended his hands on both sides of the tree and waited for Will to slip the rope with the loop over his hand. This time, however, when Will quickly drew the noose tight, Hawkins jerked the line out of Will’s hand, thinking to overpower the one-armed lawman. He howled in pain and released the rope when the bullet from Will’s .44 tore through his boot. Ready for such a move, Will grabbed the free end of the rope and took a few quick turns around Hawkins’s wrists, pulling them up tight together. “You don’t learn very fast, do ya? I warned you what would happen if you tried anything like that.”
“Damn!” Hawkins roared. “You shot my foot!”
“Just like I said I would,” Will replied. “You might as well get it in your head that every time you try something like that, you’re gonna get another bullet. Maybe you don’t get the picture. You’re wanted dead or alive and it don’t make that much difference to me. You’d be a lot less trouble dead.”
With his prisoner’s hands bound tightly together again, Will untied his feet, but there was no relief for Hawkins. “I need a doctor,” he wailed. “You broke my damn foot.”
“Ain’t no doctor in Tishomingo,” Will said. “Reckon you shoulda waited to try that little trick when we got to Atoka. After he takes that bullet outta my back, I might have him take a look at your foot—depends on how you behave between now and then.”
CHAPTER 20
The wounded lawman and his wounded prisoner spent an unusually painful day in the saddle before reaching Jim Little Eagle’s cabin on Muddy Boggy Creek. The pain in Will’s shoulder showed no signs of easing, and Hawkins’s foot had swollen to the point where his boot was going to have to be cut off before Doc could treat it. Will decided it best to go to Jim’s cabin before taking his prisoner to the jailhouse. He could use Jim’s help in transferring Hawkins from his horse to the jail. And at this point, he was ready to admit he needed the help.
Mary Light Walker came to the cabin door to see what had caught her husband’s attention. “It’s Will Tanner,” Jim said, “and it looks like he’s caught up with Hawkins.” He stepped off the little porch and went to meet them while Mary remained in the doorway, watching. “Heyo, Will,” Jim greeted his friend. “Looks like you had good hunting.”
“I reckon,” Will replied, “but it coulda been a lot better. I was hopin’ to bring Tiny McGee back, too.”
“Tiny get away?” Jim asked. Will shook his head. “You shoot him?” Jim asked.
“No, Hawkins’s mother shot him.” He turned in the saddle and looked at Hawkins, who responded with a painful sneer. “When I get a minute, I’ll tell you all about it.” Jim asked if he wanted to step down, but Will said, “I reckon I’d better not. We both need some doctorin’, and I think I’ll ride on into town and put Hawkins in jail, so I can go see Doc Lowell.”
“You have to use my jail,” Jim said, noticing the dried blood on Will’s shirt under his coat. “Sam Barnet take his key back. Say no more railroad jailhouse. You shoot it full of holes. You wait till I saddle my horse. I go in with you.” He peered hard at Hawkins, then looked back at Will. Will didn’t need to wait for the question. “He’s got a bullet in his foot,” he said, and Jim nodded his understanding, then promptly turned toward the barn to get his horse. Mary stepped out on the porch and asked if he wanted her to fix food for him and Hawkins. “No, ma’am, thank you just the same,” Will answered. “I wanna get Mr. Hawkins settled in the jailhouse before it gets much later. It’s still early enough to get some supper from Lottie Mabry’s dinin’ room. And I need to see Doc Lowell, too.”
When Jim was saddled up, they rode the short distance into town, going directly to the old converted storehouse that served as the official Choctaw jail. The first obstacle they were faced with was Hawkins’s wounded foot. It was so sore and swollen, he couldn’t walk on it, but it was also enough to discourage him from attempting any sudden moves to escape. He was a sizable man, as well, so it was a struggle to get him off his horse, then half carry and half drag him into the jail. By the time they had accomplished that, Will’s wound was bleeding again, so Jim insisted on taking the horses to the stable, so Will could go to the doctor’s office. “What about me?” Hawkins demanded. “I need the doctor, too.”
“I’ll get him to take care of you,” Will said. “Just hold your horses. I’ll bring you somethin’ to eat, too, so just relax and enjoy your rest.”
“You SOB,” Hawkins said, which was his standard reply to Will’s sarcasm.
* * *
“I swear, I don’t believe it,” Dr. Franklyn Lowell complained when Lila, his Choctaw housekeeper and cook, came to tell him Will Tanner was waiting in his office to see him. “On Christmas, and like every time he needs a doctor, it’s at suppertime.” Lila shrugged helplessly. “Is it him, or did he bring a prisoner to get doctored?” She said that it was just him, so he took another bite out of a piece of corn bread, washed it down with a gulp of coffee, and got up from the table.
“I’ll put your plate in the oven,” she said as he left the kitchen.
“What have you got this time?” Doc asked as soon as he walked in his office. “It better be a bullet wound ’cause if you’ve called me away from my Christmas supper for a bellyache, I’ll let you sit here till I’m finished eating.”
“Sorry ’bout the time,” Will replied while he carefully pulled his coat off. “I just now got into town, so I came as quick as I could. I’m sorry to disturb your Christmas. Tell you the truth, I forgot about it bein’ Christmas.”
Seeing the trouble Will was having, Doc helped him out of his shirt. Once he got the wound exposed, he asked, “How long ago did this happen?” Will told him it was two nights ago, causing Doc to shake his head. “Shoulda gone to a doctor right away.”
“You’re the closest doctor to where I got shot,” Will answered. “I got here quick as I could.”
“Well, we need to get that bullet outta there,” Doc said. “That wound’s heating up like a hot stove. Lila!” he yelled. “I’m gonna need some hot water.”
* * *
Will’s surgery didn’t take long. Doc probed in the muscle of his shoulder for less than fifteen minutes before extracting the lead slug and pouring iodine in the wound. “That’s gonna feel a helluva lot better in a day or two,” he said. “Just try to keep it as clean as you can.”
“I appreciate it, Doc,” Will said as he paid the three dollars Doc charged. “I meant to tell you, I’ve got a prisoner down in Jim Little Eagle’s jail that needs some doctorin’, too. He’s got a bullet in his foot.”
Doc bit his lower lip, about to explode into his usual rant about having his supper interrupted, but then he paused. “Shot in the foot, huh? Is he the one who shot you?”
“No, that was his brother that shot me,” Will answered.
Interested now, Doc asked, “This fellow down in the jail, did you shoot him in the foot?” Will said that he did. Doc shook his head and declared, “Crazy—I don’t know who’s the craziest, the outlaws or the lawmen.”
“I reckon it’s about a draw,” Will said. He thought he might have heard the
comment before, and he was pretty sure it was Ruth Bennett who said it.
“All right,” Doc decided, “I’m gonna finish my supper, then I’ll come down there and treat your prisoner.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’m gonna stop by Lottie’s place and pick up some supper for me and my prisoner, then I’ll be down at the jail. If I don’t get there before you do, Jim Little Eagle will let you in.” He plopped his hat on his head and went out the door.
Doc paused at the window and watched Will walk down the street toward the boardinghouse dining room. “Damn shame, nice young fellow like that, probably end up dead before he reaches thirty.”
“Jim Little Eagle say Will Tanner damn good man.”
Unaware Lila had come from the kitchen until she spoke, Doc turned abruptly and replied, “He’ll be a damn good dead man, riding for the law in this territory.”
“I’ll get your supper out of the oven,” she said.
* * *
“Will Tanner,” Lou-Bell declared when she saw him come in the door. “You come for Christmas dinner? We’re servin’ it up all day today.” She walked up to greet him when she realized he had one arm in his coat sleeve and the other one in a sling. “What happened to you?”
“I got in the way of a bullet,” Will answered, then quickly changed the subject. “I need to buy two suppers, and I need to take ’em with me. One of ’em is for a prisoner, and the other one’s for me. I’ll bring the plates back.”
“So we’re gonna have some more jailhouse business, are we?” Lottie asked as she walked up to join Will and Lou-Bell. She, like Lou-Bell, wanted to know what happened to his shoulder. He gave her the same brief report he had given to Lou-Bell. “Who’s the prisoner?”
“Ward Hawkins,” Will answered.
“So you got him back,” Lou-Bell commented, remembering the stern countenance of Tiny McGee’s partner. “Reckon you’ll hold him this time?”
“Reckon we’ll just have to wait and see,” Will replied. “I expect he’s thinkin’ he’s liable to starve to death about now.” Lottie chuckled in response to his obvious jibe and hurried Lou-Bell off to the kitchen to serve up two plates.
When he got back to the jail, he apologized to Jim Little Eagle for drawing him away from home on Christmas. “I gotta be honest with you, I plum forgot what day it was, what with me and Hawkins both grumblin’ about our wounds.” Jim assured him that it made no difference to him, Christmas being just another day to him. “I coulda brought you one of Lottie’s special Christmas plates.” He held the plates up so he could see. “Look there, she’s even got some stuffin’ on there. Course, she didn’t have any turkey, but pig’s just as good.” Jim said he’d already eaten supper and it was beef, which he preferred. “Then I reckon I’ll have to give it to the prisoner,” Will said, “if you’ll unlock the door for me.”
“I think I better,” Jim said, looking at Will’s sling. “Doc fix you up with one wing.”
“I don’t think I’ll be wearin’ this very long, but he’s comin’ here to doctor Hawkins’s foot, so I’d best leave it on at least till he’s done with him.”
Overhearing their conversation, Hawkins called out, “How ’bout bringin’ my supper in here, so I can eat it before that damn doctor starts cuttin’ on my foot.”
Will glanced at Jim and winked. “Why, sure, Mr. Hawkins. It’ll be a pleasure to serve you this fine Christmas supper.” He put one of the plates down, freeing his gun hand, while Jim unlocked the door. Then with his Colt drawn, he stepped inside and held it on Hawkins while he offered the plate with his other hand. “Be real careful what you’re thinkin’,” he warned Hawkins. “The next shot ain’t gonna be in your foot.”
“You crippled me up good, damn you. There ain’t much I can do. Just gimme the plate.” He took it from Will’s hand and started to devour the food immediately.
Will backed out of the jail and Jim put the padlock back in place and, ignoring the cold, they sat down on a bench in front of the building while Will ate his supper. “I don’t think it’s a good thing for you to take him back now, not with that bad shoulder,” Jim felt bound to say. “Maybe you leave him here till Ed Pine comes back.”
“I ain’t as bad off as it looks,” Will insisted. “And I’ve already spent a helluva lot of money takin’ care of prisoners on this trip.”
“You stay here,” Jim continued. “Dan Stone send somebody to take this prisoner back.” Further discussion was halted at that moment by the arrival of Doc Lowell.
Doc’s visit was not a lengthy one. He took one look at Hawkins’s foot and declared, “You’re gonna have to take him to my surgery. I can’t operate on him in this fifthly storeroom. I shoulda known that in the first place.” He didn’t wait to hear their decision but turned abruptly and returned to his office. “Bring him on, if you want me to work on him,” he tossed back over his shoulder as he walked up the street.
Lila White Bird opened the door when Will, with Jim’s help, brought Hawkins to the doctor’s office. “Take him in there,” she said, pointing toward Doc’s surgery. Then she stood aside, casting a stare of contempt for a man responsible for supplying firewater to the Choctaw men of her tribe.
Sensing her scorn for him, Hawkins growled, “Merry Christmas,” to her as he limped by, laughing when she turned at once and went to the kitchen to get hot water for the doctor.
“You mind your manners,” Will warned, “or I’ll take you back to jail without any doctorin’ on that foot.” He and Jim helped Hawkins into the little room where Doc did his surgery. In a short time, Doc came in, ready to work.
“Put him on the table,” Doc directed. “That foot’s so swollen, I’m gonna have to cut the boot away.” So he went to work right away, eager to be done with it. When he got the boot off, he found that Will’s bullet had gone almost all the way through with the slug’s nose stopped by the boot’s heavy sole. “Shouldn’t take long,” Doc said. “I’ll just pull the bullet all the way out.”
Hawkins was content to lie patiently waiting for Doc Lowell to finish working on his foot. He had no intention of leaving his office still under arrest. He figured his best chance, maybe his only chance, to escape was while he was out of the secure little smokehouse that served as a Choctaw jail. And there was enough distraction in the tiny surgery to offer an opportunity to get the jump on his captors. The opportunity came when Doc bound the injured foot and declared he was finished. Both Will and Jim had to move back toward the corner to give Lila room to pick up a basin holding the instruments Doc had used. When she started to turn around to take them to the kitchen, Hawkins suddenly sat up and grabbed a scalpel from the basin, shoving Lila to the floor. Before Will or Jim could get to him, he collared Doc around the neck and pulled him back against him. Locked in a stranglehold and the scalpel against his neck, Doc was helpless against the much stronger outlaw. “This is where we part company,” Hawkins informed Will and Jim. “I’ve got nothin’ to lose here, so if you two don’t back up to that corner again and drop your gun belts, I’m gonna slice a nice big smile across this old buzzard’s throat.” He glanced down at Lila, who was on her hands and knees, the contents of the basin scattered on the floor around her. “Get up from there and get back in that corner. And you listen to me, you Injun witch. You pick up their guns and bring ’em to me, or you’ll be workin’ for a dead doctor.”
He clearly had the advantage, but Will was thinking to get a shot at him before he had time to cut Doc’s throat. “There ain’t no way you can get outta here alive, Hawkins. Odds are against you, even if you do cut Doc, I’ll get a bullet in you before you can finish him. So, drop the knife and we’ll take you back to the jail.”
“One quick slice and Doc’s gone,” Hawkins replied, holding the hapless little man in front of him for a shield. “Ain’t nobody fast enough to keep me from slittin’ his gullet, so let your belt drop to the floor if you want him to live.” He pressed the knife against Doc’s throat just hard enough to draw a little blood.
“Al
l right!” Will responded. “We’re gonna drop ’em.” He propped his rifle against the wall and made a pretense of unbuckling his belt, hoping that Hawkins would provide an opening for him to take a shot. But Hawkins was wary of just such an opportunity, so he kept Doc pulled up tight against him, knowing Will would hesitate to shoot if he didn’t have a clear shot.
“Get over there like I told you,” Hawkins growled to Lila, who was still on the floor at his feet. She got up then, hiding the other scalpel behind her skirt. When she came up, she lunged into Hawkins, plunging the scalpel into his side as hard as she could manage. He yelped in pain, reeling back while still holding on to Doc, but not tight enough to keep the desperate doctor from bending his head slightly forward. It was enough. Will’s shot smashed the side of Hawkins’s head in and he dropped to the floor with one arm still wrapped around the doctor.
“You all right, Doc?” Will asked. Still shaken for the moment, Doc couldn’t answer.
“Hell’s bells!” Doc finally managed to spit out, but that was all for a few more moments.
“You can thank Lila for savin’ your life,” Will said. “If she hadn’t gone after him with that knife, I wouldn’t have had a shot.”
Gradually recovering his sarcastic persona, Doc said, “I ain’t sure you had one. I’m lucky you didn’t blow my head off.” He looked to his housemaid then. “You all right, Lila?”
“I think it a good thing we got rid of that man,” Lila said. “I need to clean up the mess he made.”
CHAPTER 21
He rode hard, asking Buster for the maximum each day, in an effort to complete the 110-mile journey in two days’ time. The picture of what might be awaiting him in Fort Smith was the only thought spinning in his mind as he urged the buckskin on. At the end of the second day, after leaving Atoka early the day after Christmas, he pulled his weary horses to a stop on the banks of the Poteau River, less than ten miles from Fort Smith. To go farther that day seemed too hard on Buster and the horses he was leading. To his credit, the buckskin gelding showed no sign of quitting and would have willingly pressed on over the short distance left. There was another factor that caused Will to hesitate. The dread of walking into Boggy Town to face Ward Hawkins and Tiny McGee did not hold a candle to the dread he felt for the face-off ahead with Ruth and Sophie Bennett. It would be three days past the date of the wedding. He could explain the situation he had found himself in, but the explanation would fall on deaf ears. Through a miracle he could never explain, he had been granted the good fortune to have won the heart of a woman he had come to realize he adored. To lose that precious heart to a worthier suitor would be one thing he could more easily accept. But to lose her because he forgot what day it was, struck him with an urge to run. He pulled Buster’s head toward the trees by the river and walked him down along the bank until he found a spot that suited him. Then he climbed down, unsaddled his horses, and prepared to make camp. He would deal with it in the morning.
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