“I can go home now?” Jared asked.
Aiken smiled. “Put on your shirt. Your father and brother are in the waiting room.”
“Thanks, Doctor,” Jared said. He put on his shirt and stepped down off the examination table, followed Aiken out of his office and into the waiting room of the St. John’s Infirmary in Salina, Kansas.
Doc and Miles saw him and got up off the bench. Norm Collins rose from his chair, his mouth spread in a wide grin that showed his tobacco-stained teeth.
Doc embraced Jared as Miles looked on. Jared squeezed his father.
He looked past him at Miles, a warm twinkle in his eyes. Miles was not smiling, but was wan and pale, with a worried look on his face.
“Pa,” Jared said. “Thanks.” He broke his embrace and stepped over to Miles.
“I owe you my life, brother,” he said.
Miles was speechless.
“I mean it,” Jared said. “Will told me what you did. I’m mighty obliged.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Doc said. “A bunch of the boys are waiting to see you, Jared. They’re all over at the Red Dog Saloon.”
Jared looked over at Norm, who stood, hat in hand, a foot away, his eyebrows arched as if he were waiting to ask a question.
Jared recognized him and walked over.
“Norm, how come you’re here?” he asked.
“Well, your pa and Miles, they asked me to come. I guess I got something to tell you.”
“Can it wait? I’m plumb parched and the boys are waiting for me.”
Miles stepped up to the two men.
“It can’t wait, Jared,” he said. “It’s about Caroline. Tell him, Norm. Tell him all of it.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Doc said. He pointed to the door and the others followed him past the reception desk and out onto the street.
As they walked along, Norm told Jared about Earl Rawson and what he had done to Caroline, how he and Skeeter had taken her by wagon to the Slash B, where his mother and father had taken care of her.
“She’s in a nursing home, Jared, where you can see her when we get back to Amarillo.”
Jared was stunned to a dumbstruck silence. They walked slowly down the street with its small shops and drab storefronts proclaiming a section of town that was older than the rest.
“Caroline is mad?” he said, a layer of bewilderment in his tone.
“No, Jared. They say that boy, when he beat her, did something to her brain.”
“I can’t believe it,” Jared said. “My beautiful Caroline.”
Miles cleared his throat, hawked up a gob of phlegm, and spat off the boardwalk.
Jared glanced at Miles. “Sorry,” he said. “I forgot she was your wife, Miles.”
“That’s all right, Jared. She belongs to all of us now. All we can do is see that she gets good care and lives a good long life.”
“I’d like to get my hands on that kid, Rawson,” Jared said. “When I let you hire him off me, Miles, I thought it was good riddance. But I never thought he’d beat up on Caroline.”
“None of us did, Jared,” Miles said.
“You don’t have to worry none about Rawson no more,” Norm said. He was a step behind the Blaines.
“How come?” Jared asked. He stopped and turned to face Collins. Miles and Doc stopped too.
“Skeeter rode up from Amarillo,” Norm said. “Got here last night. Seems he had some news about Rawson.”
“Go ahead, Norm,” Miles said. “Tell him.”
“Skeeter said Rawson wore his horse out lighting a shuck for Fort Worth. He got roaring drunk there and stole a horse from a rancher named Bert Finwoodie.”
“Didn’t we buy some whitefaces from Finwoodie a long while back?” Jared said.
“Yep, we did,” Doc said. “But let Norm tell you the rest of it, Jared.”
“Bert got some hands together and they tracked Rawson to Dallas, where the boy took up with a woman of ill repute. They grabbed him and took him back to Fort Worth, where a judge heard the case and ordered Rawson to be hanged. They hanged him right off. Bert heard about what Rawson did to Caroline and rode over to Amarillo and told your ma, who told Skeeter to hightail it for Salina and tell Doc. I seen Skeeter first and got the story first and I told Doc. Now I’m tellin’ you, Jared. Rawson is dead and you don’t have to worry about him no more.”
Jared’s eyes filled with tears. His father put a hand on Jared’s shoulder. Miles put an arm around his brother’s waist and squeezed. He started to weep as well, and then Doc’s eyes leaked tears. Norm stood there, his head bowed out of respect.
“I guess,” Jared said, “that’s some justice for your Caroline, Miles.”
“For our Caroline, Jared,” Miles said.
Jared looked at his brother. He smiled through his tears and then he put his arms around his father and brother and they walked toward the Red Dog Saloon, Norm following a few steps behind.
To his surprise, tears came to Norm’s eyes as well.
Later, he would tell Skeeter and the others about this, saying, “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Tragedy has a way of bringin’ folks together,” Skeeter would say, and all the men would nod knowingly at such a profound statement.
At the saloon, Doc bought a round of drinks for all hands.
Then Miles and Jared chipped in together and bought more rounds.
The men from the Rocking M, the Slash B, and the Lazy J bought the next round and toasted the Blaines. The Kansas onlookers in the saloon joined in, with their free drinks in hand, without knowing what the Texans were celebrating.
One of them said, however, “Boy, them Texans sure know how to have a hell of a time.”
And they all had a hell of a time at the Red Dog that afternoon, even after Albert Fenster and Alvin Mortenson joined them to offer Doc a new contract for the following spring.
A while later, Miles walked to the bar and spoke to the barkeep. The bartender reached down and brought up a large round box.
Miles carried the box to his table and set it in front of Jared.
“What’s this?” Jared asked.
“It’s a hatbox,” Curly Bob said in a loud voice.
“Open it, Jared,” Miles said.
Jared opened the box and pulled out a brandnew Stetson.
“You can thank the boys for that,” Doc said.
Jared put on the hat, squared it, and tamped on the crown.
“What do you know?” he said. “It fits.”
Everyone laughed and cheered as the drinks kept coming.
“How did you get the right size?” Jared asked his father.
“Miles put on a bunch of hats. That was the one that fit him.”
Jared looked at Miles and smiled, his eyes filling with a soft mist. He doffed his hat and bowed to Miles.
“I guess this proves it,” Jared said. “You and me are true brothers.”
And all the hands raised a mighty cheer.
Don’t miss another exciting Western adventure in the USA Today bestselling series!
THE STRANGER FROM ABILENE
A Ralph Compton Novel by Joseph A. West coming from Signet in August 2011.
It was midnight when the man from Abilene came to the ferry.
He could have been there earlier, but he had taken his time along the trail, in no hurry to kill the man he hunted.
A steel triangle hung from a rope, suspended from the low branch of a cottonwood that stood by the riverbank. Tied to the triangle was a length of scrap iron.
The man, tall, lanky, the weight of forty hard years hanging heavy on him, groaned as he swung stiffly out of the saddle. He led his pony to the river and let it drink.
A bloodstained moon had impaled itself on a pine on the opposite bank and the night was still, the silence as fragile as glass.
Only the misted river talked, an ebb and flow of whispers as it washed back and forth over a sand and shingle bank.
The night was cool, the stars fro
sted.
Once the buckskin had drunk its fill, the man led it back to the triangle.
He grabbed the chunk of iron and clattered and clanged the triangle awake, its racketing clamor ringing through the splintering night.
The man smiled and twenty years fled his weathered face. He dropped the iron, mightily pleased by his act of acoustic vandalism.
A couple of echoing minutes passed, and a couple more.
He heard a splash from the far bank; then a man’s voice, cranky, rusted with age, reached out through the darkness to him.
“Hell, did you have to wake the whole damned county?”
The man from Abilene grinned and made no answer.
But the ferryman, invisible in the darkness, wouldn’t let it go. “Alarming good Christian folks like that. ’Tain’t right and it ’tain’t proper.”
The man, still grinning, took hold of the iron again and banged it lightly against the triangle, once, twice, three times.
“And that ain’t funny,” the ferryman yelled.
The ferry, a large raft with a pole rail on two sides, emerged from the mist like a creature rising from a primordial swamp. Its algae-covered logs ground over shingle and shuddered to a stop.
“Howdy,” the man from Abilene said, raising a hand in greeting.
The ferryman dropped the rope he’d been hauling. Even in the darkness he looked sour.
“You the ranny making all the noise?” he said.
“Sorry I had to wake you,” the man said.
“Hell, you could’ve camped out tonight and rung the bell in the morning when folks are awake.”
The man nodded. “Maybe so, but I’m mighty tired of my own cooking and spreading my blankets on rocks and scorpions.”
The ferryman was old and he’d lived that long by being careful around tall night riders with eyes that saw clean through a man to what lay within, good or bad.
Like this one.
“You won’t find no vittles or soft bed around here,” he said.
“There’s a town just three miles west of the river,” the tall man said. “Or so I was told.”
The ferryman nodded. “You was told right. But Bighorn Point is a quiet place. God-fearing people living there, and everything closes at eleven, even on Friday nights.” He gave the tall man a sideways look. “There ain’t no whores in Bighorn Point.”
The man from Abilene smiled and flicked the triangle with the nail of his middle finger. As the steel tinged, he said, “Right now all I want is food and a bed. I guess I’ll just have to wake up some o’ them God-fearing folks.”
The old man shook his head. “Well, just don’t let Marshal Kelly catch you doing that. He’ll call it disturbin’ the peace an’ throw you in the hoosegow quicker’n scat.”
Suddenly the tall man was wary. “Would that be Nook Kelly, out of the Sabine River country down Texas way?”
“It be. You know him?”
The tall man shook his head. “Heard of him, is all.”
“Nook Kelly has killed fifty men.”
“So they say.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I’d need to hear it from Kelly himself. People believe what they want to believe.”
The man showed the ferryman an empty face, but inwardly he was worried. Having a named gunslinger like Kelly as the law in Bighorn Point was a complication he didn’t need.
Ferrymen were spawned by the same demon as trail cooks, and curiosity was one of the many traits they shared. Interest glowed in the old man’s eyes, like a cat studying a rat. “Here, you ain’t thinking of robbing the Bighorn Point Mercantile Bank, are ye?”
The tall man smiled. “Now, why would I do a fool thing like that?”
The ferryman looked sly. “Mister, you’re a hard case—seen that right off. You’re dressed like a cattleman, but you’ve seen better days. Except for the new John B. on your head, your duds are so worn I wouldn’t give you two bits for the lot, including the boots.”
The old man grinned. “Maybe that’s why you planned on doing a fool thing like trying to rob the Mercantile.” Getting no answer, he said, “But Nook Kelly would kill you. You know that now.”
The tall man said, “Talking yourself out of a fare, ain’t you?”
“No. You’ll cross the Rubicon because you’re headed to Bighorn Point for another reason.”
The oldster’s historical reference didn’t surprise the man from Abilene. Back in the day, this old coot could have been anything.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m going to Bighorn Point to kill a man.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Maybe. But I don’t know the man myself. Hell, I don’t even know his name.”
“You mean you aim to kill a man, but you don’t know who he is?”
“That’s how she shakes out, I reckon.”
“Mister, he must have done something powerful bad.”
The tall man nodded. “Bad enough.”
“How you plan on finding him?”
The tall man smiled. “He’ll look like he needs killing.”
The Amarillo Trail Page 19
