“Hell, Officer Delgadillo,” Josh said. “That ain’t worth two twenties. You should give me one of em back.”
“What I am telling you is that he is somewhere on the street, going in and out the bars,” Delgadillo said, with a wide smile. “So maybe you should give me an extra twenty.”
Josh shook his head. “Thanks, Officer,” he said, with a smile of his own. “I need to find him before he kills one of your citizens over a simple argument of some kind.”
“If I see him again I will arrest him for you,” Delgadillo said. “Then I bet you will give me the five hundred.”
“Two twenties,” Josh said, as he turned to go.
Officer Delgadillo smiled again.
Josh spent the rest of the day hanging around in the cantinas and bars watching for Olsen. Later that evening as he headed back across the border, Andy’s sweetheart, Carmelita Gomez, stopped him.
“I saw you get Andy out of jail and take him back across the bridge,” she said. “I was with him when he had the fight and got arrested.”
“Yeah, I know,” Josh said, hoping to get some information about Lem Olsen from her. “He spoke highly of you.”
“He did?”
“Yes, he did,” Josh said.
“What did he say?”
“He said you’re the prettiest girl he ever saw and that he hoped to someday marry you,” Josh said.
“Is that the honest truth?” she said with a big smile.
“It’s the truth,” Josh said.
“Andy said you were looking for a man with a patch on his eye and I told him I knew where he was,” she said.
“Yeah, he told me that, too.”
“He also said you were looking for a big ugly man with long black hair,” she said. “I know where he is and if you will come with me I will show you.”
“I swear, Carmelita,” Josh said. “No wonder Adam likes you so much.”
That made her smile again. “Well, come on,” she said.
He followed her to a stairway at the side of a building. “He is up there with a woman.”
Josh handed her a hundred dollar bill. “Thank you, Carmelita,” he said. “Go find Officer Delgadillo. He told me not to shoot, and I won’t if he’ll hurry over here.”
She hadn’t been gone more than a few minutes before Lem Olsen came out and started down the stairs. As bad as Josh wanted to just shoot him and be done with it, he stepped out in the street and held up his hand.
“Throw ‘em up, Olsen,” he said. “You got one chance to raise them hands.”
The corners of Olsen’s mouth trembled as he stopped for a second, then drew his pistol and fired. The bullet whizzed over Josh’s head and slammed into the side of a building across the street.
Olsen ducked in between two buildings and started running toward the bridge. Josh wished he hadn’t promised Officer Delgadillo he wouldn’t shoot on this side of the border since he missed a chance to stop Olsen. He started chasing him up the street, with Olsen firing back over his shoulder, causing Josh to duck and dodge. Olsen kept running full speed and gained ground on him.
Officer Delgadillo crossed the street and caught hold of Josh’s wrist in a crushing grip. He had lowered his sandpaper voice almost to a whisper. “I told you not to shoot or I’d take you to jail.”
Josh had to fight the impulse to jerk away and keep running, but instead, he stopped. “I ain’t shot a single time, Officer,” he said. “That man up there runnin’ is shootin’ back over his shoulder. I told you I’d not shoot, and I ain’t.”
“Alright then,” Delgadillo said, as he took off running. “Let’s go.”
Olsen beat them to the bridge, crossed over, and disappeared into the crowd. Officer Delgadillo stopped at the entrance of the crossing, knowing he couldn’t keep chasing Olsen into Texas.
“If you catch him, bring him back over here and I will see to it that he never comes back to Texas,” he said, as Josh ran past him.
Deputy Hensen was still in the sheriff’s office when Josh got back across the bridge. He felt a shaft of disappointment. “I thought you were goin’ after the sheriff,” he said.
“I was, but a big fight broke out at the Placer Saloon right after you left. I had to go over there and arrest the trouble makers and bring ‘em back to the jail,” Hensen said.
“Well, go get him,” Josh said. “Lem Olsen came back across the bridge and is now somewhere here in town.”
“Alright, then,” Deputy Henson said. “I’ll be right back.”
Josh whiled away twenty minutes, then crossed the street to Dendy’s Saloon and looked over the top of the swinging doors. The place was so filled with smoke that he couldn’t even see half way across the room. Suddenly Lem Olsen came into view, walking straight toward him. Josh stepped off the sidewalk and was standing in the street with his revolver in his hand when Olsen came outside.
“Lift them hands, Olsen,” Josh said. “We’re in Texas now and you ain’t gettin’ a second chance.”
Olsen suddenly went pale. Their eyes met and held as he drew his pistol and fired one shot and whirled around and ran back into the saloon. The shot clipped the side of Josh’s neck as he fired a shot of his own, striking Olsen in the stomach. Looking over the top of the swinging doors, Josh saw Olsen hobbling toward the back entrance, holding his bleeding stomach with one hand, and waiving his pistol with the other.
He pushed the swinging doors open and stepped inside and fired again, this time hitting Olsen in his right thigh, knocking him to the floor. By this time all the people in the saloon had rushed to one side of the room and ducked for cover.
Olsen rose up and fired again, and this time the bullet struck Josh in the upper chest, knocking him to the floor. Josh fired again and one of the bullets hit Olsen, creasing the top of his head. By now the room was not only filled with cigarette and cigar smoke, but also gun smoke. Olsen crawled behind a turned over table and fired off two fast shots, kicking up sawdust around Josh’s head.
Josh rolled behind the bar and returned fire, splattering Olsen’s face and neck with splinters from the table he was hiding behind. Out of ammunition, Josh had propped himself on one elbow and was trying to empty the spent cartridges out of his gun. When he reached in his gun belt for another round his hands were shaking and slick with blood and he dropped the cartridge.
Realizing Josh’s gun was empty Olsen stood up and staggered toward him. Josh only had time to reload one round. Olsen looked around the end of the bar and fired off his last shot, striking Josh in the side of his head. Josh fired his one remaining bullet, striking Olsen squarely between the eyes and he crashed to the floor beside him.
Sheriff Duncan and Deputy Hensen burst through the swinging doors with their guns drawn. “Everybody stay right where you are,” Duncan yelled. “Who’s doin’ all the shootin’ in here, Lex?” he yelled at the bartender, who had moved to the far side of the room with the rest of the people in the bar.
“A cowboy and a big long-haired man got into it and shot the hell out of each other,” Lex said.
“Where are they?” Sheriff Duncan said.
“On the floor behind the bar,” Lex said.
Both men were unconscious. Josh was lying on his back, bleeding, still holding his empty revolver in his hand. Lem Olsen was lying next to him, face down on the dusty floor.
Sheriff Duncan motioned at two men standing nearby. “Jeb, you and Henry take Josh out to the post hospital at Fort McIntosh. And Jim, you and Burl carry Lem Olsen over to the old jail.”
The old one-story jail was located next to the new county jail, a brick two-story building larger than the typical calaboose. The new jail was on the second floor and the sheriff’s office was on the bottom floor, but Sheriff Duncan didn’t want Olsen that close to his office in case a mob tried to take him out and hang him.”
As Jim and Burl carried Olsen out the front door of the saloon, suddenly Jim stopped and looked back. “Sheriff Duncan,” he said quietly. “This man just died.”
“Well, take him to the coroner’s office then,” Dawson said.
Jeb and Henry were lucky enough to find a man with a wagon in front of the mercantile store just a couple of doors down from the saloon. He was glad to make them a loan of it, so they were able to load Josh in and get him to the post hospital in a very short time.
Although the army doctors had a lot of experience with removing bullets and repairing major wounds, Josh had lost a lot of blood and was unconscious for the next few days. Then, for a brief moment he came to. “I ain’t gonna make it, am I?” he whispered, not opening his eyes or moving a muscle.
Nurse Evans jumped as if she’d been slapped. “Well, Cowboy,” she said happily. “Welcome back. You’ve been out for almost a week now and I’ll have to admit, we’ve been worried about you.”
Josh shook his head. “You gonna answer me, or not?”
She made a face. “Why would you ask a question like that?”
“Just answer my question and don’t lie to me,” Josh said.
“I won’t lie to you,” she said.
Josh’s mouth was cotton dry. “Maybe I couldn’t talk,” he whispered. “But I heard Doc Chandler say I wasn’t gonna make it. So, did he say it, or not?”
Nurse Evans leaned down. “Yes, Josh,” she said. “He said it, but I didn’t. I told him I thought you would.”
“Maybe I need a different doctor,” Josh said.
“He said we’ve done all we could for you,” she said. “But like I said, I just don’t believe we have.”
“Why’d he say that?” Josh said.
“Doc Chandler said it because you seemed to have completely given up. You wouldn’t, or couldn’t, respond to anything he said to you. This is the first time you’ve come out of the coma in over a week. He said it’s your decision to get well. You understand, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” Josh said. “How can I make a decision if I’m unconscious all the time?”
“Well, you’re awake now,” she said. “Can’t you make that decision right now? It’s a good sign for you to come out of it and I believe you’re getting better.”
“What happened, anyway?” he asked.
“Don’t you remember getting in that gunfight down at Dendy’s Saloon?”
“No,” he said. “What happened?”
“I wasn’t there, but when they brought you out here to the post hospital you kept yelling, Andy, Anne, or Ana, or something like that. You don’t remember any of that?”
“No.”
“Well, did…” Josh drifted off again. Nurse Evans placed a cold wet rag on his forehead, and in a few minutes he slowly opened his eyes.
“It’s Ana,” he mumbled. “I wish Ana …” Suddenly he stopped talking and drifted back into a coma.
Headlines in the Laredo Daily Times read …
Last member of the Wolf Gang Killed in Loredo by Josh Logan
Austin Sheriff Burley Dawson leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on his desk and picked up the newspaper. The blaring headlines caused him to drop it to the floor and spring to his feet.
Deputy Chico Torres jumped like he’d been stuck with a hot branding iron. “What the hell’s the matter?” he yelled.
“Chico, I been wonderin’ where Josh Logan was and now I know. He’s been down at Laredo chasin’ that killer Lem Olsen.”
“Why’d you wonder about him,” Chico said.
“Because Ana Yarnell has pestered the daylights out of me askin’ if I knew where he was,” Dawson said. “But now she’s gone, and I don’t know where she is so I can tell her about Josh.”
“Where’d she go?” Chico said. “I just saw her a few weeks back.”
“She’d been stayin’ with Mrs. Rice and her sister, Mrs. Jarnigan, and taking care of ‘em. She couldn’t go look for Josh as much as she wanted to,” Dawson said. “But, when both of them ladies passed on, Ana just pulled out without tellin’ nobody where she was headed.”
“Why does it matter to you?” Chico said.
“It matters because I promised Josh I’d look after her while he was off chasin’ outlaws,” Dawson said. “Now, if he contacts me I’ll have to tell him I don’t know where she went?”
“Why, hell,” Chico said. “She’s just another wild young girl as far as I’m concerned.”
“You only say that ‘cause she wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with you,” Dawson said. “I mean, hell, she don’t even know Mrs. Jarnigan left her entire estate to her. It’s a huge estate, too.”
“How huge?” Chico said.
“Thousands,” Dawson said. “I mean more money than you and me will have in our entire lives.”
“Damn,” Chico said. “What’ll happen to the money now that she’s disappeared?”
“I had the Judge put it in the bank here in Austin,” Sheriff Dawson said. “If I ever learn where she is, it’ll be here for her.”
“Can you get to it?” Chico said. “You and me ought to have some of it for all the work we do around here.”
“Chico, you ain’t done a lick of work since you been deputy,” Sheriff Dawson said. “And even if I could get to it, I wouldn’t give you any of it.”
“Well, it don’t make no sense for it to just lay there,” Chico said.
“No, it don’t,” Dawson said. “I’ll telegraph Sheriff Guthrie down at San Antonio. He knows Ana, and might know where she’s at.”
He hurried over to the telegraph office and caught operator Lucas Gann asleep at his desk. “Wake up, Lucas,” Dawson yelled as he came in the door. “I got a telegram to send.”
Lucas flinched at the sound and jumped to his feet. “I ain’t asleep,” he said. “I was just restin’ my eyes.”
“Yeah, well, rest ‘em when I leave,” Dawson said. “I need to get this message to Sheriff Guthrie in San Antonio.”
Sheriff Guthrie
Josh Logan cleaned out the Wolf Gang. He is in Laredo and he is hurt.
I need to tell Ana Yarnell, but I don’t know where she is.
Telegraph me if you learn of her whereabouts
Sheriff Dawson
When Lucas Radford, the telegraph operator at San Antonio received the message, he hurried across the street and handed it to Sheriff Guthrie.
“Got a message from Sheriff Dawson up at Austin for you, Sheriff,” he said. “He’s lookin’ for that girl, Ana Yarnell.”
“I guess he don’t know she came down here when them ladies she was takin’ care of died,” Guthrie said. “She’s been lookin’ all over hell for Josh Logan. Why, I bet she left out of here ten different times goin’ to different towns when she’d hear Logan was there, only to find he’d already gone.”
“Well,” Radford said. “Sheriff Dawson wanted you to let him know if you knew where she was, so do you want me to message him back and tell him?”
“Yeah,” Guthrie said. “I’ll write it out for you.”
Sheriff Dawson
Ana Yarnell is in San Antonio. I saw that newspaper article and will tell her about it.
Sheriff Guthrie
Guthrie headed to the hotel where Ana was staying. Ed Ward, the caretaker at the livery stable saw him hurrying across the street, ran as fast as he could, and caught up with him.
“What’s your hurry, Sheriff?”
“I gotta find Ana,” Guthrie said. “I got news about Josh Logan.”
“She’s down at the livery stable,” Ward said. “She landed here broke, so I been payin’ her to help me take care of the horses.”
“I didn’t’ know that,” Sheriff Guthrie said, as he turned and head toward the livery stable. “Tally up what you’ve paid her and I’ll reimburse you. Them’s legitimate expenses.”
Ana looked up and saw Guthrie and Ward coming down the street and ran out to meet them. “What’s wrong, Sheriff? I can tell something is by the way you and Ed are hurrying.”
“I got news about Josh,” Guthrie said. “He’s in the post hospital at Fort McIntosh in Laredo. He cleaned out the
Wolf Gang, but he’s hurt bad.”
“What happened” she asked.
“He got into it with Lem Olsen and both of ‘em got shot up pretty bad,” Sheriff Guthrie said. “Olsen died, and Josh is in bad condition. They don’t think there’s anything that can save him, but I know something that might bring him out of it.”
Ed Ward glanced up. “You do?”
“I think so,” Guthrie said. “It’s worth a try, at least. We can’t just wait around. We’ve got to do something. Come on, Ana,” he added. “Let’s take the train to Laredo.”
The next morning just before dawn, Josh took a slow, deep breath. At times when he was able to come out of the coma, he’d practice opening and closing his eyes and moving his arms and legs a little bit.
Although he still could not speak, at least once in a while for a few moments anyway, he was able to regain consciousness. However, within a couple of minutes, as it always did, everything went dark.
A few moments later, feeling something warm on his cheek, he tried to wake up, but couldn’t seem to come out of it. Another soft touch on his cheek caused cold chills to course up and down his spine. Then a soft touch on his lips caused him to open his eyes for a few seconds.
Not more than a couple of inches away, he looked into Ana’s beautiful black eyes. And somewhere in the distance, he thought he could see the smiling face of Sheriff Guthrie. He strained to stay awake. Slowly, he raised one hand, and with his eyes still closed, touched Ana’s face.
“I won’t ask if this is real,” he whispered. “And I don’t know if you’re a dream. I only know how good it feels to …”
Sheriff Guthrie stepped out in the hall with a wild look in his eyes and motioned for the doctor. Doctor Chandler rushed into the room and bent over Josh, checking his heart rate with his stethoscope.
His eyes were still closed, but a slight smile parted Josh’s lips. “Did you see her, Doc?” he whispered. “Did you see, Ana?”
“I saw her, alright,” Doctor Chandler said. “We all wondered if you’d pull through.”
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