Ralph Compton Bullet For a Bad Man

by Ralph Compton

  Epp went on frowning.

  ‘‘You see, when a man falls from a horse, usually there is a lot of bruising. Your father hardly had any. And when a man takes a tumble like his, usually he lands on the back of his head or on the side of his head or the front of his head, not smack on top of it. For your pa to hit the way he did, he would have to be upside down when he fell.’’

  ‘‘You make it sound impossible but it’s not.’’

  ‘‘True. But then there is the other thing. His skull was caved in a good three inches. I measured it. And with my magnifying glass I found bits of stone embedded deep in the wound.’’

  ‘‘So?’’

  ‘‘So you claimed he hit his head on a boulder. Boulders are harder than bone. They don’t splinter.’’ Doc Baker fiddled with his bag. ‘‘I took your word about how he died. But it bothered me, Epp. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Couldn’t stop wondering if maybe he didn’t die the way you said he did.’’ The physician took a deep breath. ‘‘Then your mother gave up the ghost.’’

  ‘‘You told everyone her heart gave out.’’

  ‘‘It was the logical conclusion. After all, you told me she was having chest pains. But when I examined her, I saw something in her throat. Something so far down, I almost missed it. I fished it out and didn’t say anything, because at the time my doubts had not become a certainty.’’

  Epp clenched and unclenched his fists. ‘‘What was in her throat?’’

  ‘‘A feather.’’

  ‘‘A what?’’

  ‘‘A feather. The kind you find in a mattress. Or in a pillow. A feather that had no business being where I found it.’’

  ‘‘That is plumb ridiculous. Maybe she swallowed it when she was thrashing around on the bed.’’

  ‘‘You said there was no sign of a struggle. She died as peaceful as could be. Your very words.’’

  ‘‘I could have been mistaken.’’ Epp picked up the whiskey bottle but put it down again without taking a drink. ‘‘All of this amounts to a lot of hot air. I am insulted you think I would do such a thing.’’

  Doc Baker was silent a bit. Then he cleared his throat. ‘‘You are right. I can’t prove a thing. But I know you did it, and I am going to keep an eye on you from here on out. If anyone else dies under peculiar circumstances, anyone at all, I will take my suspicions to the United States marshal.’’

  Epp started to come up off the settee, but Doc Baker’s hand suddenly rose out of his black bag, holding a derringer.

  ‘‘Stay where you are.’’

  ‘‘You are a bundle of surprises, Doc.’’

  ‘‘I never go anywhere without this.’’

  ‘‘And you, a healer. What would people think?’’

  Doc Baker rose. ‘‘I no longer trust you, Eppley. I will see myself out. Don’t try to stop me. Don’t come after me. I told several of your funeral guests I was coming back, so if I turn up missing you will get a lot of attention you might not want.’’ He backed toward the hall, the derringer steady in his varicose-veined hand. ‘‘Be seeing you.’’

  Epp did not stir until the front door slammed. Then he swore and said, ‘‘You can count on it, old man.’’

  Curly Wolves

  They had pushed the stolen herd hard and were well north of the border. Old Man Radler allowed only brief rests. When their mounts tired, they switched their saddles to stolen horses.

  Finally, Old Man Radler consented to stop and make camp, but only because Drub Radler was pale and sweaty and his right sleeve was stained bright with blood.

  ‘‘You are a damned nuisance,’’ the father told the son as Drub sat glumly on a boulder.

  ‘‘I am sorry I got shot, Pa.’’

  ‘‘Don’t apologize, damn it. How many times have I told you a man never says he is sorry? Take what life throws at you and don’t whine.’’

  ‘‘It hurts an awful lot,’’ Drub said.

  Vance Radler’s cruel features split in a smirk. ‘‘What an infant. How we can be related I will never know.’’

  Suddenly whipping around, Old Man Radler slapped him. ‘‘Shut your mouth, boy. Your ma was too scared of me to ever lie abed with another man.’’

  ‘‘Hell, Pa,’’ Vance said, rubbing his cheek, ‘‘I know she was a lady. I was only joshing.’’

  ‘‘Some things shouldn’t be joshed about.’’

  Boone Scott had taken a folding knife from his saddlebags. The blade was six inches long and honed sharp; the hilt was a deer hoof. Unfolding it, he examined Drub’s shoulder. ‘‘You need to take the shirt off or I will have to cut it.’’

  ‘‘I will take it off. I only have the one.’’ Drub clumsily pried at the buttons.

  ‘‘Slow as a turtle,’’ Vance said.

  Boone switched the knife from his right hand to his left. ‘‘You might want to find something else to do besides insult your brother.’’

  Vance looked at his father, and when his father did not say anything, he growled, ‘‘Oh, hell!’’ and tromped off.

  ‘‘Thank you, Lightning.’’

  ‘‘Keep unbuttoning.’’

  The slug had caught Drub high in the right shoulder. It missed the bone and lodged in thick muscle. But it did not go clean through, and he had a bulge in his skin the size of an acorn.

  ‘‘This will hurt some,’’ Boone said.

  ‘‘Do what you have to, pard. I can hardly lift my arm and I need it for eating.’’

  Old Man Radler watched as Boone carefully made a slit and lightly pried with the tip of the blade. ‘‘I don’t know what to make of you, Lightning. I truly don’t.’’

  ‘‘What did you mean back there about maybe having to kill me?’’ Boone casually asked. The tip scraped metal and he parted the skin for a better look.

  ‘‘I can’t have weak sisters in my outfit,’’ Old Man Radler replied. ‘‘To put it simply, you are too nice.’’

  ‘‘And nice is bad?’’ Boone asked while inserting the tip so it was between the slug and sinew.

  ‘‘Nice is stupid. The world isn’t nice. It bites us and chews on us and swallows us whole if we don’t watch out.’’

  Boone looked up. ‘‘I will get a few shots off before I am swallowed. I can promise you that.’’

  Old Man Radler glanced at Boone’s ivory-handled Colt. ‘‘That is something to keep in mind.’’

  ‘‘My ma is nice and she is not stupid.’’

  ‘‘Women can afford to be. They do most of the kid raising, so it is natural for them. But for a man it is a weakness. If we aren’t hard, life grinds us under like a miller’s wheel grinds flour.’’

  ‘‘You have a colorful way with words.’’

  Old Man Radler reacted as if he had been slapped as hard as he had just slapped Vance. ‘‘Don’t you ever do that again, you hear me?’’

  ‘‘Do what?’’

  ‘‘Give me praise. That is a woman’s trick. Get it through your head I don’t want to know you or like you or be your friend. The only worth you have to me is as a pistol with a body attached.’’

  ‘‘I will keep that in mind.’’ Boone twisted his knife and the slug popped out into his open palm. He held it for Drub to see. ‘‘Here. Your arm should be good as old in a week or so.’’

  Grinning, Drub inspected it. ‘‘Hard to believe puny things like this kill so many folks. It is no bigger than the marbles I used to play with.’’

  ‘‘Your pa let you have marbles?’’ Boone asked, with a sideways glance at the father.

  Old Man Radler colored, and swore. ‘‘Don’t make more of it than it was. I needed to stop him from yapping.’’

  ‘‘Can I keep it, Pa?’’ Drub asked.

  ‘‘Not a lick of sense.’’ Old Man Radler spat. Suddenly snatching the slug, he threw it far away.

  ‘‘What did you do that for?’’

  ‘‘Because I know you, Drub. You would show it to people and they would ask how you got shot, and you, with your head so full of mud, would
tell them you were shot rustling horses down in Mexico.’’

  ‘‘But I was.’’

  Old Man Radler hissed like an angry rattler. ‘‘Damn it. How many times must I tell you?’’ He put his hand on Drub’s other shoulder. ‘‘Pay attention, boy. Is what we do legal or not?’’

  Drub’s face scrunched up. ‘‘Not.’’

  ‘‘And if it’s not legal, what is the law liable to do to us if they catch us?’’

  The furrows on Drub’s face multiplied. ‘‘Dangle us from cottonwoods.’’

  ‘‘Good, son. You remember.’’

  ‘‘But why can’t I tell folks about the slug? I won’t tell it to anyone wearing a badge. I can be smart, Pa.’’

  ‘‘Then try to be smart now. What happens if one of those you tell goes and tells it to a tin star?’’

  ‘‘Oh,’’ Drub said.

  Old Man Radler sighed and turned to Boone. ‘‘Do you see what I have to put up with?’’

  ‘‘Yet you put up with it. As hard as you are.’’

  ‘‘You can go to hell.’’ Old Man Radler walked off, glowering at the world and everyone in it.

  ‘‘You made Pa mad.’’

  ‘‘He is mad at himself, not me. You should wash the bullet hole and then button your shirt back up.’’

  ‘‘Can’t waste the water,’’ Drub said. ‘‘Pa says we are only to use it for drinking, and then only a little bit at a time. That’s so we don’t die of thirst.’’

  ‘‘Your pa takes good care of you.’’

  ‘‘He does?’’ Drub’s face did more scrunching. ‘‘He doesn’t talk like he does. But he hasn’t shot me yet, so that is something.’’ He paused. ‘‘He shot my cousin, Thad.’’

  ‘‘No fooling?’’

  ‘‘Thad used to ride with us. One day Pa saw him talking to a sheriff, and that night when we were camped Pa walked around behind him and shot him in the back of the head. It shook me so much, I about spilled my coffee.’’

  ‘‘I can imagine,’’ Boone said.

  Grimacing, Drub shrugged into his sleeve. ‘‘We are never to talk to lawdogs. Don’t forget that or Pa will shoot you too.’’

  ‘‘Your pa probably thought your cousin was about to turn him in for the reward.’’

  ‘‘You know about that?’’

  ‘‘Everyone in Arizona must know about it. Five thousand dollars is a lot of money.’’

  ‘‘That’s why Pa has to be so careful. Anyone is apt to shoot him in the back. Except me. He told me once I am the only person in the whole world that he trusts not to do that.’’

  ‘‘Yes, sir. Your pa is as hard as flint.’’

  Wagner and the others had gathered wood and Galeno had kindled a fire. Coffee was put on to brew and beans were poured into a pot.

  Drub sat with his big hands to the flames and grinned from ear to ear.

  ‘‘What the hell are you so happy about?’’ Vance snapped.

  ‘‘My shoulder doesn’t hurt no more.’’

  Old Man Radler was poking the ground with a stick. ‘‘Tomorrow we start to sell off the horses. If all the buyers have the money in hand like they are supposed to, by the end of the month we will be back at the canyon.’’

  ‘‘The canyon?’’ Boone said quietly to Drub.

  ‘‘Our secret place.’’

  Old Man Radler had gone on. ‘‘That is where we will divide up the money. Then all of you can go off and do as you please.’’ He pointed the stick at Boone. ‘‘You are one of us now, so you get an equal share.’’

  Drub chuckled in delight. ‘‘Do you hear that, Lighting? You are one of us!’’

  ‘‘Get married, why don’t you?’’ Vance said.

  Boone was up and around the fire in two swift bounds. No one had time to react except Skelman, whose hands swooped to his mother-of-pearl Colts. Boone’s own Colt flashed up and out and caught Vance Radler on the temple, felling him like a poled ox. For a moment Boone stood over him, and then he stepped back and twirled his Colt into his holster.

  Galeno, grinning, reached over and slapped Vance. He kept slapping him until Vance groaned and groggily sat up.

  ‘‘God, my head hurts.’’ Vance blinked in confusion. His eyes alighted on Boone and he swore and started to stand but apparently thought better of it. ‘‘You had no call to do that.’’

  ‘‘I warned you about the insults. On your feet.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘You heard me.’’

  ‘‘The hell I will.’’ Vance looked around for help, but no one answered his mute appeal. He swallowed, and sat back. ‘‘I won’t let you goad me. If I draw on you, you will kill me.’’

  ‘‘It will be fair. Skelman will count to three.’’

  Skelman looked up. ‘‘I don’t recollect being asked.’’

  ‘‘Three or four or none, it is all the same,’’ Vance said. ‘‘I am not getting up.’’

  ‘‘The insults will stop?’’

  Vance glared at Drub and his mouth became a slit. ‘‘You have heard the last of them.’’

  Boone turned to their father. ‘‘Was that hard enough for you?’’

  Old Man Radler snorted. ‘‘Hard, hell. Hard is never giving the other bastard a chance. Hard would have been to shoot the fool dead.’’

  ‘‘Thanks, Pa,’’ Vance said.

  ‘‘I am not your umbrella, boy. You bring rain down on your head, you are bound to get wet.’’

  Drub chose that moment to wriggle with glee and say, ‘‘This is more fun than I’ve had in a coon’s age.’’

  Dawn found them on the move. The lingering cool of night gave way to the inferno of day. The dust they raised hung in the air as if reluctant to fall back to earth.

  Boone was riding drag when a figure in black came around the trailing end of the horse herd and reined in alongside him.

  ‘‘We need to talk,’’ Skelman said.

  ‘‘I don’t recollect being asked.’’

  ‘‘You are not nearly as hilarious as you think you are.’’

  ‘‘I try.’’

  ‘‘Old Man Radler was right. You are not hard enough. And I don’t see you getting any harder.’’

  Boone flicked his coiled rope at a bay that was inclined to dawdle. ‘‘Maybe I will surprise you.’’

  ‘‘You can fool the others but you can’t fool me or Old Man Radler,’’ Skelman said without looking at him.

  ‘‘I am not out to fool anyone. I am just me.’’

  ‘‘He tolerates you because of Drub. But he does not like you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can be his friend, because you can’t. If he gets the hair, he will kill you, and you won’t see it coming.’’

  ‘‘Why are you telling me all this?’’

  Skelman pulled the black brim of his hat low over his eyes. ‘‘After you get your cut, light a shuck. Everyone else will head off to seek entertainment. They will be back, but if you are smart you will never show your face in this part of the country ever again.’’

  ‘‘You didn’t answer me.’’

  ‘‘Don’t prod me.’’

  Shimmering particles of dust settled over them. The horses were plodding dully along, heads drooping. They needed water and they needed graze and they needed both soon.

  Skelman let out a sigh. ‘‘I have been at this a good long while and I aim to stay at it awhile more. Some might call me loco for liking to ride the owl-hoot trail, but it is in my blood. I like the killing more than anything. It is the one thing I am good at.’’

  ‘‘That is the first time I have heard you brag.’’

  ‘‘You have seen for yourself. Don’t accuse me when I am only stating fact.’’ Skelman raised his reins.

  ‘‘Now I have said my piece. Whether you take my advice or not is up to you.’’

  ‘‘You still haven’t told me why you went to this bother.’’

  ‘‘Use your head for something other than a hat rack. When the time comes, Old Man Radler might no
t do it himself. He might have one of the others do it. Or he might ask me.’’

  ‘‘I think I savvy.’’

  ‘‘At last.’’

  ‘‘You don’t want to have to kill me.’’

  ‘‘Damn, you are as stupid as Drub,’’ Skelman said, and rode off.

  To Tree a Sawbones

  Doc Baker was a kind man. Good and kind, everyone said. The salt of the earth and a blessing to the community, was the opinion of its churchgoing members. Everyone knew him or knew of him.

  His snow-white hair and ever-present black bag were common sights in Tucson and along the dusty country roads and rutted tracks he traveled in his buggy day in and day out, year after year.

  People liked to joke that Doc Baker had helped give birth to more babies than God. He had been there for half the mothers in the territory in their time of trial, and the ladies who benefited from his presence praised him to high heaven.

  Doc Baker had stitched knife cuts and bandaged bullets wounds. He had treated bite marks and set practically every bone in the body that could be broken. And he always did his work with that warm smile of his, and always with a kind word for the stricken and afflicted.

  He was a constant in their lives, like the sun and the moon. He was steady of mind and habit, a rock in a sea of life’s uncertainties, as dependable as a human being could be.

  So when he started to change it was all the more startling.

  Abby Harker out to the Harker Ranch was the first to notice. She was eight months along and sent for Doc Baker because of stomach discomfort she was having. She was outside taking a stroll when his familiar buggy came up the road. Some of the punchers waved, but Doc Baker did not wave back. He brought the buggy to a stop near the white picket fence and stiffly climbed down.

  Abby hurried to greet him. ‘‘Than you for coming so quickly,’’ she began gratefully. She had more to say, but the sight of him so shocked her that she did not say it. Instead, she asked, ‘‘Are you all right?’’

  Doc Baker pushed open the gate. He wore his usual suit and hat and had his black bag. But his face was unnaturally pale and slick with sweat, and he had dark rings under his eyes. ‘‘I am fine,’’ he said brusquely.