by Lou Bradshaw
Finally I gave into the need to get up and get ready. I reckoned it to be about half past four. It wouldn’t matter if I had a fire by then, so I made coffee and used it to wash down some cold biscuits. Then I broke camp and saddled the horses. I led them up the trail to a point just below the upper bend in the switchback, where they’d be out of sight but close.
I wasn’t expecting any tricks from Fargo. He wasn’t what you’d normally think of as trick prone. He was more the type to take the easiest course, and bull his way through. But he was barely bright enough to realize the boy was more valuable alive than dead, and I wasn’t about to underestimate him. My main concern at that time was to give Fargo the money and take the boy back down to Snake Junction and his family.
Dog and I walked out to the center of the cliff face, and I set the satchel down in the middle of the trail. Then we walked back to where the trail started to drop. The cliff started to recede at that point and the rocks aren’t exposed. Dog and I stepped back behind the edge and waited among the trees.
The sky turned pink and then gray, and I normally considered that to be first light. But Fargo wasn’t what you’d call in tune with the rest of the world, so he could be figuring first light to be when he finishes his breakfast. If I had to wait here till noon…I would.
The sun was shining bright and it was broad daylight, before Dog’s ears came up. It was a few seconds later when I heard footsteps on gravel and rock. There was more than one adult coming down the trail. I didn’t expect the boy to make much noise wearing moccasins, he couldn’t weigh thirty or forty pounds, and he’d been an Apache since he was three years old.
They came around the bend on foot, and there were three of them. I expected Fargo and Alan, but I hadn’t counted on the old woman, Nell, being there. But there she was holding the boy’s hand and walking ahead of Fargo. When they were all three out in the open, I stepped out and called to him saying,
“Fargo, the money is in the satchel layin’ in the middle of the trail. Send the boy over, and it’s all yours.”
“How do I know it’s all there? You could be trying to skunk me.”
“Well then… you bring the boy out to the money and count it. When you’re satisfied, the boy comes to me, and you go on back up the hill.”
“No good… You’d have a better shot at me while I was countin’ it.”
“If I was plannin’ to shoot you… You’d already be dead, but I made a deal, and I’ll stick by it.”
“Still don’t trust you… tell you what I’ll do… I’ll send the old woman and the boy out to count the money, and if she says it’s all there the boy can go to you, and good riddance.”
I agreed to that, and the two walked out into the empty space between the two turns in the trail. Nell sat on a rock and spread her knees, and Alan poured the coins into her apron. Then she started counting the coins. Those were twenty dollar gold pieces and there would be five to a hundred and fifty of them to a thousand. As she counted each coin, she would put it into the satchel. Each time she would reach fifty coins, she would call out to Fargo. It took a long time, but in the end he was satisfied and let the boy come on to me.
When Alan reached where I was standing, I moved him behind me and we moved sideways to where the horses were waiting. When he was out of Fargo’s line of view, I told him to go ahead and climb up on the smaller horse and start slowly down the trail. I sent Dog along with him.
Keeping an eye on Fargo right to the end was more caution than was needed. When the woman was barely within an arm’s length, Fargo lunged at her and grabbed the satchel. He pulled it close to his chest and wrapped both arms around it. Just before he disappeared beyond the edge of the bluff, he turned and fired a shot in my general direction. He was shooting at something he couldn’t even see, but I reckon he felt like he had to do it for style.
I had just settled into the saddle and started to follow the boy and Dog. Above me, beyond where the trail runs along the base of the cliff I heard a rifle being levered. I was swinging Bud around to see what was up there. That’s when I heard the report and felt something that could only be a red hot running iron being stabbed into my right side.
Chapter 19
As we turned to the right, I saw Fargo’s back as he took off running. I was able to get two bullets heading in his direction with my six-gun, but I was sure I was only shooting out of frustration. I needed to get out of there fast before that crazy bastard came back again.
Dog and the boy were but a short distance ahead, and I caught up with them quick enough. I couldn’t tell if his big grin was due to being free of Fargo or if it was due to having a horse all to himself. To his credit, he saw me favoring my right side and it was bloody. His grin vanished and he asked,
“You hurt?”
“I’ve been hit, but not bad… we need to get into the village, so I can fix it.” I didn’t know how bad it was, but there wasn’t any reason to worry him.
The town of No Place was only about three miles from where we were, and I was hoping it wasn’t bad enough to keep me from getting there… If Catfish Smith was still there, he could patch me up as well as anybody. So I kicked up the pace a little. If the kid could hold on, that cowpony would follow along without much effort from the rider… especially with Dog at his heels.
When we reached the village, I was still in the saddle, but I wasn’t feeling overly great. I had been doing the best I could to keep pressure on the side, but I was losing more blood than I felt I could afford to lose.
As we went through the door, the first person I saw was Harold Cherry, who I purposely ignored and went straight to Frank at the bar and told him,
“Frank, I need a bottle of whiskey, a couple of towels, and a nickels worth of rock candy.”
He looked at me funny, and then he caught a glimpse of yellow hair and looked over the bar and saw Alan standing there and smiled. When he came back with about a yard of cloth he said,
“This is the closest thing I got to towels. Folks just tear them in two. You been shot?”
“Yeah…That crazy Fargo tried to bushwhack me… Is Catfish Smith around?”
“He’s sleepin’ in the storage shed out back… want me to get him?” He looked at my bloody buckskin shirt and didn’t wait for me to answer.
Alan was still standing there with eyes as blue as the sky and big as silver dollars. I handed him the bag of rock candy, and he just looked at it. So I took a small piece and put it in my mouth and smiled. He tentatively put a piece in his mouth, and quickly took it out to look at it. It went right back into his mouth… it didn’t come out again.
I was ripping the cloth into appropriate sized pieces and Cherry was talking and running off his mouth… I told him to shut it before I set Dog on him. He was quiet for a while. When I got my shirt off and I could see the damage, I took a piece of cloth, folded it into a quarter and soaked it with whiskey. I was wiping and cringing at the bullet holes. There were two of them, one in the front and one in the back.
The bullet had hit me in about the best place it could. It went in just above the hip bone and below the ribs. Fortunate for me there isn’t anything there a fella needs to keep him alive. It was all muscle, skin, and a little fat. It wasn’t much worse than a flesh wound, except it put a hole right through me.
Cherry couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself. And he started talking about the “Mighty Cain” and how even the big tough ones can get killed.
“If you don’t keep it shut, Cherry, you’re the one who’s gonna end up killed.”
Catfish came in as I was finishing my threat. He looked at Cherry and said,
“You better listen to him, Cherry, cause if he don’t shoot you I will.”
Smith didn’t waste time with chit chat, but went right to cleaning the wounds with whiskey. I was sitting on the bar and he was working on the wound.
“I’d like to cauterize ‘em for ya boy, but I think you’d be better off with me sewin’ ‘em up. That way they can drain a little�
�� you just keep ‘em clean, and you’ll be all right, Shadrac.”
“Shadrac…What the hell kind of name is that?” Cherry roared and started a high pitched laugh.
Catfish calmly pulled that big old Walker Colt from his belt, cocked as he turned, and shot Red Handed Cherry in the chest and said,
“Sure hope that moron don’t have no youngens scattered around because stupid people shouldn’t have children.”
“Hold off on that candy, Sweet Ally. It’ll make you sick if you eat too much.” He looked up and smiled a sheepish smile. He hadn’t even flinched when Coon shot Cherry. He was gonna be a very wealthy youngster, but I suspect there will always be a little bit of Apache in his soul.
We stayed there for about an hour, and Catfish finished up. A pair of local citizens came in, and Frank got them to drag Cherry off. Before we left, Frank announced that his stew was hot, so we had a couple of helpings. It dawned on me that I didn’t even know if the lad had had anything to eat other than candy. But I doubted that Nell would have let him go without breakfast.
I was sore and a little light headed from loss of blood, but I’d been that way before, so I knew what I could or couldn’t do. One of the things I found troublesome, was getting into the saddle, but I made it and once I was seated… I’d stick.
“You ready to go see your mama and your grandpa, Son?”
He bobbed his head, and we moved out. Frank had filled the canteens for me back at the saloon, and it was a good thing because I had a wicked thirst, which came from losing that much blood. We stopped at the spring of the old woman, and watered the horses. I had Alan slide down and refill the one canteen I’d been working on.
The thirst was better, but I had an anvil and a blacksmith in my head that gave me some discomfort. Every time the smith swung his hammer, I got a new high in headache pain. I didn’t expect it to go away soon, so I just learned to deal with it. I figured going down the mountain trail to be the worst of the trip due to the jolts of going down. Each foot fall would jolt that blacksmith into swinging that ringing hammer.
We had lost time having spent so much time at the No Place Saloon, but I was afraid to stop for the night… afraid I wouldn’t be able to get back in the saddle again. So after some long and serious thinking, I decided to go straight through.
It was close to sundown when we came out of the foot hills. I pulled up and talked it over with Sweet Ally. I told him,
“Son, I may not be able to stay awake across this next stretch of trail. I’m going to tie one of your hands to the saddle so that if you fall asleep, you’ll stay in the saddle.” He bobbed his head. I was sure he’d seen braves come into camp tied to their ponies.
“Dog will take you to the train, and your mama will be waiting for you there… don’t worry about me. If I fall off, my horse will stay till they find me.” He shook his head like he didn’t want to do that. “Be strong and be brave… Trust your pony… and trust Dog… He’s your spirit animal now.”
It took him a little bit to translate that in his limited vocabulary, but he seemed to get the idea and bobbed his head. The fine points of what I said may have been lost on him, but he understood enough. I gave him some jerky to chew on. He knew well enough what dried meat was and what to do with it.
Then I got Dog’s attention with a whistle. I waved my arm in a chopping motion in the direction I wanted him to go. “Go to …Cal.” I said it several times. He knew who Cal was, so he knew where to go. Then came the tricky part, I needed to tell him to take Alan to Cal. Holding horn as tight as I could, I leaned to my left and put my hand on Alan’s shoulder and patted it. “To Cal… To Cal.” It was the best I had. I couldn’t speak dog, and he hadn’t learned all my words.
We moved on in the gathering gloom. I knew that Dog would go to Cal and the railroad, but I wasn’t sure if he got the message about taking the boy there. If nothing else, Bud would follow him in the dark… he’d done that before. The horse the boy was riding was a question with an unknown answer. But he’d been following Bud for several days, and I saw reason for him to quit. I’d yet to fall from a horse asleep or half bled out, so I figured to stick in the saddle.
Darkness closed in on us as we rode on at a walk. Alan was on my left, and I could see him nodding his head trying to stay awake. He was losing the fight. His small body stayed upright, but it swayed front to back with the motions of the pony. I was having my own problems with staying awake.
I either dozed off or blacked out there for a while because the next thing I knew, the moon was out and it looked to be still before midnight. We were traveling at a walk. Dog had set the pace, and that was what he was comfortable with.
The rest of the night went like that. I was in and out, but Alan slept through it. His neck would be stiff and sore, but he wouldn’t whine or complain about it, no Apache youngster would even consider it. That’s a trait, which will serve him well throughout his life. No one really wants to know about another person’s aches and pains… We all have our own troubles. We deal with it.
He woke up once during my awake time and asked, “How far?” I told him I wasn’t sure, but he was already asleep, and that was the last thing I remembered.
Chapter 20
Dog was barking loud enough to wake the dead. I thought for a minute, he was trying to wake me, but I couldn’t be dead. I hurt too much to be dead, unless some of those hombres I’d sent to hell were laying for me there.
I was almost fully awake, and Dog kept on barking. It struck me odd because Dog wasn’t much of a barker. He usually got his message across with a growl and a snarl. Suddenly there was a light coming from somewhere. It must be daylight… and we weren’t moving.
A strong hand pulled my arm free from where it was clinging to my horse’s neck. Then a lantern showed in my eyes and my head was being lifted up. I could hear voices, but I couldn’t make any sense of what they were saying. Then someone said,
“He’s alive… Bring him inside… I got the boy.”
Someone was doing a rough handed job of getting me out of the saddle. They’d have done better to just tip my horse over and I’d fall to the ground. Then I was between two men, who were half carrying me and half dragging me. Looking to the man on my right, I had to let my eyes focus to see it was Clancy.
“Clancy, what are you doin’ here in hell?” I could hear myself asking.
“Jest helpin’ a friend get inside.” Was all he said.
Then they jostled me and turned me and lifted me. I figured they were going to throw me in the fire, but they carried me into a well-lit room and set me on a fancy couch, and I was beginning to think I’d made it after all. Then Foo was standing over me with a knife and I changed my mind again… just before I blacked out.
When I woke up, I was in a dimly lit room and when I could focus my eyes I saw it was Cal Bailey’s private car. Looking down at the floor, I saw Dog laying there next to the couch. I reached down and scratched his ear, and the next instant he was looking at me nose to nose.
“Good old Dog… You’re a damned site smarter than either of us looks.”
Footsteps shuffled behind me and I could hear Foo calling to, “Captain Bairree,” and telling him I was awake. Within a few seconds, Cal was looking down on me. I looked up and said,
“Well you’re sure the homeliest Angel I could ever imagine… Does this mean I’m alive?”
“No two ways about it. You’re alive and there’s some folks who are mighty happy about that… me for one.”
“How’s the little fella? Everything all right?”
“He’s fine. He’s in the other car asleep in his mother’s arms.”
“The last thing I remember was Foo standing over me with a big old knife… I figured he was fixin’ to make some kind of Chinese stew out of me.”
“He was just cutting your shirt off so he could attend to your wound. He used some of his top secret Chinese herbs on your wounds. Claims there should be no puff puff. Whatever that means. You lost a lot of blood b
y the looks of your clothes and your saddle. We were surprised you made it this far.”
“I was afraid to stop, for fear of not being able to start again… I just told Dog to take us to you, and I reckon he did.”
“What happened up there?”
“Oh that crazy Fargo doubled back on me after the business was done…. He had nothing to gain, he was just bein’ low down… or maybe he just didn’t like me… who knows?”
Foo came in with a tray of what looked like soup and coffee… I’ll call it soup for want of a better name, it sure tasted good. I kinda hoped Chinese cooking caught on over here. Cal went back to the other car. I finished the soup and coffee and went back to sleep. There didn’t seem to be any reason to stay awake.
When I opened my eyes again it was mid afternoon, the sun was shining so bright, it hurt my eyes till I got used to it. When I could see well enough, I looked around the room. It was empty except for me and the sleeping Dog. He’d been walking steady for at least twenty or so hours. He needed the sleep as much as I did.
My arm was on top of the blanket and I almost didn’t recognize it. That wasn’t my buckskin shirt a covering it. Whatever I had on wasn’t anything that I would have ever bought. It was white linen and light weight. Carefully, I lifted the blanket and took a look underneath it and quickly covered myself again… I was wearing some kind of gown!
Taking another peek, I closed my eyes and pulled the blanket up to my chin I said aloud, “Good Lord! I’m wearing a Dress!”
That brought Dog’s head up and shuffling feet coming down the hall. Foo came shuffling into my range of view. I asked him,
“Foo… What happened to my clothes… Somebody put a dress on me.”
“Buckskins all wore out… had to cut ‘em up… much bloody… bloody bloody… no good no more.”
“Well, what the devil am I gonna wear? I can’t run around here in this dress.”
“Captain Bairree bringie them.”
