The Last River

by Leon Loy

  What Sparrow experienced first at discovering Buck in the draw was a chill running all the way through her. She pressed her forehead in the sand, and shuddered. How strange that she had come all this way across the prairie, only to find him here. For several long minutes, she struggled with her fear. She wanted to turn and run. But she had been running from him; look where it had taken her. Finally, she found courage enough to lift her head, and look again.

  What was he doing here? Why was he hiding among the rocks? She saw him lean out again, looking back up the slope that led into the draw. He was waiting for someone. No, he was hiding from someone. He was hiding with his rifle because he intended to surprise someone, and shoot that someone.

  Her fear was replaced with a gripping concern. What if he was planning to ambush someone who was coming for her? Someone from Dodge City. Harold had brought back money which was paid for her release. Perhaps the people who paid the ransom were coming for her. Her heart raced in her breast. She had to stop him.

  She crawled the few feet to the edge of the bluff. If she climbed down the wall of the bluff to the floor of the draw—a perilous drop of over fifteen feet—she would be in full view of him. There was a break in the rim about twenty feet to her left. Water had worn a crevice through the limestone down into the draw just wide enough for her to fit into.

  Sliding into the crevice, she began working her way downward. It was tight, and slow going at first, then it opened as it dropped. She slid down quickly, releasing a noisy shower of loose rocks and sand. She rolled onto the floor of the draw and scrambled to her feet.

  Buck was looking directly at her.

  He could hardly believe his eyes. Here she was! Dropped right out of the sky, practically into his lap. He was so beside himself that he didn’t notice she had Harold’s Colt in her hand.

  Stepping out from the rocks, he said, “You!” and started toward her.

  “Don’t you move,” she replied. Her voice was shaky, and thin, but it stopped him.

  “It’s me,” he said, smiling. “It’s Buck. You came for me, didn’t you? You found me.”

  She thumbed back the hammer of the Colt and pointed it at his face. “I said, don’t move. What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here? I am looking for you.”

  “Why are you hiding? Who is coming after you?”

  His smile disappeared, and he said, “That sorry gambler, Doc Holliday, and your friend, Dr. McCarty. They killed Joe.” He paused, his face growing dark. “And you killed Harold.”

  “Harold was going to rape me,” she said. “No different than you.”

  Buck took that hard. “No, it is different. You are mine. Harold had no rights to you.”

  Her eyes flared, and she stiffened. “You have no rights to me. I am not yours.”

  He took another step, and she squeezed the trigger. The blast echoed off the walls of the draw, but her shot missed. Buck threw the rifle to his shoulder and fired. She turned away, and the bullet hit the leather holster around her waist, ripping it off and slamming her to the ground. The bullet had grazed her hip, and she twisted in the dirt, grimacing with pain.

  Buck was on top of her before she had time to recover. He grasped her wrists, and straddled her. “You want to kill me, like you did my brother,” he growled. Then leaning close to her face, he said, “But I ain’t my brother.”

  She fought him with all her strength, but he was too strong. He slapped her so hard across the jaw that she was stunned. He struck her again and she went limp.

  He dragged her toward his horse and found some leather strips in a saddle bag. As he tied her hands together behind her back, she regained her senses and began fighting again, but it was too late. He turned her on her back and set his foot on her stomach to hold her still, then began unbuttoning his trousers.

  With a crazed look in his eye, he said, “It’s time I take what’s mine.”

  “Stop,” she said, thinking quickly. “Stop. I will do what you want. Just untie me and let me clean myself off. You know you like me clean.” If there was someone following him, maybe they would have time to get to them if she could stall him long enough.

  “No, no,” he growled. “I ain’t waiting on that. You can clean off after.” He straddled her again, pulling at her camisole.

  “Buck,” she said, slower and softer. “My hip hurts where you shot me. Let me see to it first.”

  “Your hurt don’t bother me.”

  She grew desperate and began speaking to him in Comanche. This stopped him. “Why are you talking that way? Don’t talk to me in that Ind’n talk, you red bitch.”

  By the time Caleb reached the slope, he could hear voices to his left, down the small creek where it emptied into the draw. He heard a man’s voice, and a woman’s. It was unmistakably the voice of his wife.

  He sprinted toward the draw, rounding a stone outcropping as Buck Hester was raising a hand to strike his wife, who was beneath him on the ground.

  Sparrow first saw her husband as he swung the Winchester, stock first, at Buck’s head. Buck noticed her looking over his shoulder, and turned to see Caleb’s carbine the instant it slammed into his chin. The walnut stock cracked the bone, and Buck fell forward, unconscious.

  Sparrow scrambled to get out from under him. Caleb kicked the body away from her with his boot. He tossed his carbine to the ground and began untying her.

  “Are you hurt?” he said, noticing blood on her knickers.

  She showed him. “He shot me, there.”

  “Shot you?” Caleb asked, alarmed. He could see that the skin on her hip had a red furrow in it, but the blood was not flowing.

  “I will kill that son of a bitch,” he said, attempting to rise.

  She clutched onto him. “Caleb,” she said. She was so overcome at seeing her husband again, she could hardly speak. “Just hold me.”

  She pulled him to her, and kissed him. He returned her kiss, savoring the taste of her. Though the feel of their bodies pressed together was real enough, it took a while for their minds to grasp that they had, at last, found one another.

  Caleb pulled away and using the leather strips which had bound Sparrow, he quickly tied Buck’s hands behind him. He wasn’t taking any chances that Buck might regain consciousness and be a danger to them. When he was satisfied that the binds were tight, he turned again to his wife.

  “None of this would have happened to you, if I hadn’t been such a fool,” he said. She pressed a finger to his lips, but he continued, “Sparrow, can you forgive me?”

  She kissed him again, and said, “There was a man out there.” She pointed in the direction from where she had come across the prairie.

  “What man?” Caleb asked.

  “A crazy man,” she said. “His horse was gone, and he had a dead rabbit on his head. I found him sleeping in the sun.”

  “Who was he? Did he do something to you?”

  “No. But he knew about me, and Fort Griffin, and O’Reilly.”

  This news caught Caleb completely by surprise.

  “And he knew you, too,” she added.

  “Was this a short skinny man, small face, thin black hair?”

  “Yes, he was not well.”

  “I know him. His name is Eb. He worked for O’Riley.”

  “Tell me, Caleb, what was he talking about?”

  Any hope of keeping his mission to Fort Griffin from her, was now gone. “The real reason I went with Charles Rath on that supply train was to get to Fort Griffin and deal with O’Riley,” he admitted.

  “He said you set O’Riley on fire.”

  Caleb was silent for a minute. “O’Riley is gone, Sparrow. He will never torture women again.”

  “You could have told me what you were doing,” she said, frowning.

  “Yes, you are right.”

  “You lied to me,
and then left me. I should be very mad at you.”

  “Yes, you should be. But know this, Sparrow; I love you more than I can put into words. When anyone harms you, it does something to me. It burns like a fire inside, and it doesn’t go away. That’s why I had to find O’Riley. But now I wish I had thought of another way to do it. My foolishness has caused even more harm to you. I am so sorry.”

  And just like that, she could not bring herself to tell him any of the things she had rehearsed in her mind to tell him angrily. Everything she wanted to reproach him for seemed so petty now that they were together. She didn’t want to let go of him, ever.

  “Caleb, you won’t leave me again, will you?”

  “Never again, Sparrow.” He kissed her, and wiped away some of the grime from her face with his fingers. For the first time, he noticed how filthy she was. Her auburn hair was matted together with dried mud, and the undergarments she wore were soiled and torn.

  “Tell me what has happened to you,” he said. “I want to hear all of it.”

  And as the sun set, and shadows lengthened in the draw, she told him about her abduction, the imprisonment in the cabin, and her escape. She told him about the long walk from the cabin across the prairie, and the coincidence of walking to the very spot where Buck was hiding out. She assured him that Buck and his brother had not sexually assaulted her, leaving out the times when they very nearly did.

  She was surprised when Caleb told her that Dr. Holliday and Dr. McCarty had come searching for her and of their shootout with Buck in the breaks.

  “They are waiting at the river for Buck to bring you to them,” he said. “I don’t think Doc Holliday was convinced Buck would live up to his promise. He would have followed him here, but he was too weak. It was the best of fortune that I found them when I did.”

  “Poor Doc Holliday,” she said. “And how was Dr. McCarty?”

  “He blames himself for what happened to you.”

  “It was not his fault,” she said. “He tried to keep me from leaving his house that night, but I wanted to go home, to our house. I insisted on going alone. He followed me and tried to save me from Buck, and was nearly killed for it.”

  Now that she was safe with Caleb, the pent-up emotions of the past weeks’ ordeal found release, and she began crying. “Caleb, I missed you so much. You were gone so long.”

  He held her again, running his fingers through her tangled hair.

  “What is this?” she asked, fingering the hawk’s claw around his neck.

  “It was given to me by Job.”

  “Job? You saw him when you were in Texas?”

  “Yes. He was very concerned for you,” he said. “In fact, it was he who warned me that you were in trouble. That was how I knew I had to come looking for you.”

  Buck groaned and began to stir. Caleb pulled away from Sparrow, removing his Schofield revolver from its holster.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m going to kill the animal,” he said.

  “No, Caleb. Not like this.”

  “After what he’s done to you, I don’t think I could live knowing he’s still drawing breath.”

  He stood over Buck, pointing the revolver at his head. Buck’s eyes were rolling around, glazed and unfocused. He hadn’t yet fully regained his senses. His smashed chin gave his face an ugly, unbalanced look, and a bloody froth was oozing out of his mouth.

  “What we should do, is leave his carcass out here for the vultures,” Caleb said. He cocked the gun and pressed it against Buck’ forehead. The wounded man tried to focus his eyes on Caleb, but without success.

  The look on Sparrow’s face told Caleb that killing him like this would not set well with her. He reluctantly let the hammer down on the revolver. “We will take him back to the river, join Dr. Holliday and Dr. McCarthy, and return to Dodge City. After the law is through with him, I suspect he’ll spend the rest of his days in the Kansas State Prison. Is that what you want?”

  She hesitated to answer. What did she want? Despite his cruelty to her, she did not want to see her husband shoot him like an animal. If she never had to worry about him again, she decided to agree to Caleb’s suggestion of prison. “As long as he is never near me again, yes,” she said.

  With the imminent danger past, a pain in her throat reminded Sparrow of her thirst. She looked down at her arms and legs and said, “I am so thirsty, and dirty.”

  “You are thin as a rail,” Caleb said, helping her to her feet. “I have some food in my saddlebag. We’ll eat and when you’re ready, we will head back to the river.”

  Buck’s eyes had cleared some, and he was making strange sounds with his mouth.

  “You so much as look at her,” Caleb said to him, “and I will finish you. You understand?” The look on Buck’s face told him he understood. Leaving him on his stomach, Caleb dragged Buck a dozen yards away, where he could not see her.

  Sparrow drank from the creek, and did her best to scrub some of the dirt and sand from her hair and face. Afterwards, she put on the tattered dress which had been tied around her waist, and she and Caleb walked up the slope to get his horse.

  The light in the sky was fading from sunset violet to a twilight blue as they rode out of the draw, with Buck tied to his horse, and Caleb and Sparrow riding double on the mare. Sparrow guided them to where she had left Eb sitting on the little rise.

  “He is not here,” she said.

  “I guess he decided to walk away,” Caleb said. “It’s getting too dark to see, now. We need to keep on to the river.”

  As they descended the little rise, they rode near stacks of limestone rocks illuminated by the waning light in the sky. A dark shape lay over the pale stone.

  “Caleb,” Sparrow said. “There he is.”

  A chorus of rattling and hissing stopped Caleb from dismounting. “There are snakes over there,” he said. “See them? My God, they’re all over him.”

  “Do you think…?” Sparrow began.

  “Yes. He’s dead. There is nothing we can do for him.”

  “Poor man. He got what he wanted.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He told me he wanted to die,” she said.

  21

  When they arrived at the river two hours after dark, Sparrow guided them through the cottonwoods to the small cabin in the gorge. Dr. McCarty and Doc Holliday were sitting against their saddles around a fire outside. They both stood up when they heard the two horses splashing through the creek toward them.

  Caleb could see Holliday’s revolver in his hand, which even in the faint light of the fire, didn’t look too steady. In his other hand, he held a bottle of whiskey.

  “Don’t shoot, Doc; it’s me, Caleb,” he said. “Look who I found wandering around out there in No Man’s Land.” Sparrow slid from behind Caleb, and stepped into the firelight.

  “I’ll be damned,” Holliday remarked.

  Dr. McCarty leaped forward, taking her in his arms. “Sparrow, you don’t know how glad I am to see you!” he exclaimed. He held her tightly a moment, then backed away, embarrassed. “Excuse me, Caleb, for handling your wife so.”

  “You have my permission for as long a hug as she’ll tolerate,” he said, dismounting.

  Sparrow gave the doctor a quick embrace, letting him know it was fine. “You came to find me, Dr. McCarty,” she said. “You and Doc Holliday. I owe my life to you. If you had not told Caleb where Buck was going, he would not have found me in time, or, at all.”

  Holliday had been drinking all afternoon and standing up so abruptly aggravated the effects of the alcohol. He looked at his hand holding the revolver like it belonged to someone else, then slid the gun back in its holster, and clumsily resumed his position on the ground.

  “Where is that imbecile Buck Hester?” he asked. “I hope you sent the fiend back to the hell he sprang from.�
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  Caleb stepped into the dark, and pulled something to the ground off the second horse. They heard a grunt and groan, and a second later, Caleb shoved Buck toward the fire for all to see. The skin beneath his beard was turning blue from his broken chin.

  “Do you mean this fiend?” Caleb asked back.

  Holliday cocked his head to one side, and said, “I believe the inbred bastard will require some dental work.”

  Buck glared at him, but said nothing.

  “But I do not think I will undertake it,” Holliday added. “The rearrangement of his mental protuberance is an improvement, don’t you think, T.L.?”

  The doctor, normally quick to assist anyone with a physical ailment or injury, made no move toward Buck. He was finding it difficult to feel any obligation to the man responsible for so much grief and violence to himself, and his friends. Just looking at him made the lump on his head throb.

  “Sparrow was shot, though not gravely,” Caleb announced. “Doctor, would you take a look?”

  “Shot?” Dr. McCarty asked, his voice ringing with concern. “Where is the wound, dear girl?”

  Sparrow glanced at Caleb, hesitant to expose herself in front of the men. “It doesn’t hurt so much now,” she said shyly.

  “I should tend to it immediately,” Dr. McCarty said, “lest infection sets in.”

  Caleb urged her closer to the fire, and said, “It’s on her hip, there.”

  Sparrow looked pleadingly at Caleb, and he could tell she was embarrassed.

  “I will close my eyes,” Holliday said, looking away. “And promise not to look. Though I suspect a prettier hip I will never again have the opportunity to behold. I shall forever envy you, T.L.”

  The remark elicited a chuckle from both Caleb and Sparrow. Holliday turned his stare toward Buck, who in spite of the pain from his broken chin, was intently watching them all.

  “Turn away, you loathsome wretch,” Holliday threatened, “or I will put a bullet in your cranium. Something I have been yearning to do all day.”