Rocky Mountain Retribution (The Ames Archives Book 2)

by Peter Grant

  * * *

  Walt yelled in pain as one of Bart’s searching bullets creased his right arm. He dropped his revolver, clutching at the wound, but instantly realized his mistake. Even as Rose looked down, alarmed, he scrabbled on the floor with his left hand, recovering the gun, raising it, lining his sights on the back door once more. “Watch the door!” he snapped at her, and instinctively she obeyed. A slight noise came from the open window down the passage, and she began to look to her right.

  Next instant, there came a shot from the window. Rose screamed as a bullet slammed into her right ribcage, traversing her chest and bursting out the other side of her body, over Walt’s head. He spun around, feeling an icy stab of panic in his heart. “Rose!” he yelled, but she fell limply against him. He tried desperately to hold her up with his wounded arm.

  As he did so, a bulky figure burst through the open back door. “Ames!” the man yelled, raising his revolver. He fired a quick shot, which hit Rose in her left shoulder—but she did not cry out.

  Walt let her fall as he snapped up his revolver and fired at the latest attacker. He knew he’d hit him, because he saw him clutch at his chest with his left hand; but he still held his revolver, thumb-cocking it. Walt did the same, lifting the gun higher, trying to realign his sights.

  They fired at the same instant. Walt screamed as something heavy and red-hot smashed into his left hand, holding the upraised revolver. It crushed two of his fingers against the butt, bounced off the wood and steel, and burrowed deeper into his flesh. He fell back, momentarily paralyzed by pain, as the intruder lined his gun again. Flame licked from its barrel. Searing agony flared in Walt’s head, toppling him over the edge of a bottomless pit.

  The darkness took him.

  * * *

  “Got you, you bastard!” Bart roared in bestial triumph as he saw Ames fall backwards. He pulled the trigger again, only to be rewarded with a dull click. He’d shot the gun empty.

  He never had a chance to reload, or reach for another revolver. Walt’s neighbor, roused by the gunfire, had rushed to the fence between their properties, stark naked except for the Springfield Model 1861 rifled musket in his hands, a relic of his Civil War service. He saw a stranger standing in his neighbor’s back door with a gun in his hand, only twenty yards from him. He threw up his long, heavy rifle and let fly. The intruder was flung forward onto the kitchen floor as a .58-caliber Minié ball smashed through his spine and his lung, ripping out through his chest.

  Paralyzed and screaming, Bart Furlong bled to death in a spreading pool of his own gore.

  * * *

  Isom skidded to a halt as he came up to the house. Three of the neighbors were pointing guns at him. “It’s me! Isom!” he shouted hurriedly. “I work for Mister Ames!”

  To his relief, he heard one of the men call, “Yeah, I know him. He’s all right.”

  “Thanks, mister. Where’s Ames?”

  “He’s inside, boy. It ain’t good.”

  Isom shouldered his way through the gathering crowd, and slammed to a halt. “Oh, God, no!”

  Rose was slumped on her side on the floor, motionless, her nightgown soaked in blood. Beside her, Walt lay on his back. Blood was flowing from a gash on the side of his head, from his smashed left hand, and from another wound on his upper right arm.

  Isom felt his brain begin to flutter in mindless panic, and forced control upon himself. Remember them Comanche ambushes, he told himself sternly. Iffen you lost your head in one o’ those, you died. I gotta get a grip! Mister Walt’s depending on me!

  There was no good worrying about what had happened. The important thing was to get Mr. Ames and his wife to a doctor. He spun around. “Anybody got a buckboard, or buggy, or anything like that?”

  “Yeah, I have a buckboard,” an older man called.

  “Can you please harness it, mister, quick as you can? We’ve got to get them to a doctor!”

  “I’ve already sent for one, boy. He’ll be along right quick.”

  Isom stifled his resentment at being called ‘boy’. It was a term used unthinkingly by almost every white. Walter Ames was an exception for not doing so—something for which he was profoundly grateful.

  “Thanks, mister.”

  The doctor arrived within a few minutes, eyes still bleary with sleep, wearing a dressing-gown over his nightgown and carrying his medical bag. He took a quick look at Rose and shook his head. “The bullet went straight through her heart. She can’t have lived more than a few seconds.”

  Isom felt the pain of her loss flood through him anew. “An’… an’ Mister Ames?”

  The doctor was already examining him. “Concussion for certain. The right arm wound’s not bad. It needs cleaning and stitching, but it’ll be all right. The left hand, though… that’s very badly smashed up.”

  “Doctor, do whatever you can. Money ain’t important—your bill will be paid. Just save him if you can!”

  “And who are you to pledge money like that?”

  “I’m Isom Fisher, one of his wagonmasters.”

  “An’ I’m Samson Moses,” Isom heard a familiar voice say as another black man pushed his way through the onlookers. “I own a quarter of Ames Transport, an’ I’m his yard manager. I’ll take care of the bill, no matter what it costs.”

  The doctor looked at them in astonishment for a moment, clearly unaccustomed to forceful negroes, whom he probably thought were being uppity and pushy. At last he nodded. “All right. I’ll need to get him to my rooms. His left hand’s going to require surgery at once. I’ve got to try to pick all the chips of bone and wood out of it. If I don’t, infection will set in.” They all realized that he was implying, even if not saying, the dreaded word ‘gangrene’—a sure death sentence, if it could not be prevented or surgically excised.

  Isom looked at the man who’d said he had a buckboard, but he was already turning away. “I’ll harness old Nellie and be right with you,” he called over his shoulder as he ran out of the front door.

  Samson came to Isom’s side, looking down at Walt and Rose. “What happened?” he asked, fury burning a caustic undertone to the fear and sorrow in his voice.

  “Don’t know yet. There’s a dead man in the window over there.” He pointed to Ben’s body. “Let’s go check the other rooms.”

  Isom identified Bart’s body in the kitchen, and Brad’s on the ground outside. He didn’t know the other two dead men. He cursed as he noticed the open door to the lean-to. He pulled it open, to find Jacob lying gasping on the floor, a hole in his side. Samson ran to get the doctor while Isom knelt beside him.

  “What happened?”

  “Four of ’em… came from the back alley… their hosses are out there… I got one… don’t know about the rest… how’s Mister Ames an’ his wife?”

  “Bad, but don’t worry about them now. Samson an’ I will take care of things. You just worry about getting’ better as fast as you can.” He spat into the corner. “Soon as Mister Ames is healed up, I dessay he’ll be huntin’ Parsons. We’ll be with him every step of the way, even if he takes us to the gates o’ hell an’ back again!”

  Walt was suddenly aware of something, but it wasn’t like waking up normally. It was as if his mind was lying on the softest feather pillow in the world. It was drifting, empty… He struggled to focus, to understand, but he slipped back into the darkness, where nightmare creatures cried out in pain, in Rose’s voice, tearing at his heart.

  An unknown time later, he opened his eyes. He stared up at a white ceiling. It had patterns that he didn’t recognize, and smoke stains in one corner. Lamps or candles had obviously been placed below it for a considerable length of time. The light in the room was dim, as if drapes had been closed in the daytime, to block out the sunlight.

  He tried to turn his head, but pain shot through it. He cried out weakly, closing his eyes. A rapid clacking of heels on a wooden floor came from the other side of the room, and he recognized Bella’s voice. “Samson! Samson! He’s awake!”

&
nbsp; Heavier footsteps ran into the room, and Samson’s familiar dark face appeared in his sight, looking worried, fearful. “Boss? You awake? D’you know me?”

  “Y… yes… you’re Samson…” His tongue felt thick and heavy, unresponsive as he tried to form the words.

  A hand appeared from the other side of the bed, holding an invalid cup. “Here, Mr. Ames,” Bella said. “Drink some water.”

  He sucked at the narrow tube coming out of the cup’s lid. The liquid flowing into his mouth suddenly seemed like the most delicious drink he’d ever taken. He drew it in eagerly, only to whimper in protest as the cup was pulled back. “Not too much, now! A little at a time.”

  “Wh… where am I? What… what happened?”

  “You’re in my house, boss. D’you remember the gunfight at your place?”

  “Gunfight?” Suddenly something clicked in Walt’s mind. He heard again Rose’s scream as she collapsed against him, and a knife seemed to pierce his heart. “Rose! What happened? Is she all right?”

  Bella let out what sounded suspiciously like a sob. Samson blinked, moisture gathering in his eyes. “Suh… I ain’t got words to tell you how sorry I am. I… She’s dead, suh.”

  “No! NO! Not Rose!” Walt squeezed his eyes shut, grief welling up like a gusher inside him. He couldn’t speak for a few moments, feeling the tears trickling down his cheeks and the raw, hollow emptiness inside him.

  At last he said hoarsely, without opening his eyes, “Tell me what happened.”

  Slowly, painfully, Samson related what they’d found at the house, and what they’d deduced from the evidence outside. “Isom says two of them were Bart Furlong and his son, Brad. A third looks like them, so he thinks it’s Bart’s middle son, Ben. The fourth is a man we don’t know.”

  Walt was silent for a long moment as sudden guilt seared his soul. If I hadn’t hanged Furlong’s son, and burned his house, he wouldn’t have been so set on getting revenge, and Rose would still be alive… but what else could I have done? I couldn’t let him or his son get away with it! … or could I?

  “What about Jacob?” he asked at last.

  “He got one of them, suh—the first one to die, the stranger. Another of them fired into the lean-to, an’ hit him with one shot. It bounced off his ribs, breaking two of them, but missing his innards. The doctor says he’ll get better.”

  “At least that’s something. To lose him as well…” Walt couldn’t continue for a moment. “He gave us enough warning to prepare. If it hadn’t been for him, we’d have woken up to find Furlong and his men standing over our bed, pointing their guns at us. He gave us a chance. Is he blaming himself for Rose?”

  “Ah… yes, suh, he is, kinda.”

  “Tell him from me not to be a fool. He did the best he could. Rose wouldn’t blame him, and I don’t either. If anyone’s to blame, I am.”

  “I’ll tell him, suh.” Samson was silent for a moment. “We found their horses in the back lane, suh—eight of them. Six carried Bar F brands. Isom says that was Bart Furlong’s brand up in Furlong. Two of them are branded Lazy S, which is registered to an outfit near La Junta.”

  “La Junta? But that’s two days’ ride east of here!”

  “Yessuh. Isom’s gone out there to learn what he can. He’ll be back tonight.”

  “Tonight? How long have I been out?”

  “Uh… three days, suh. This is the fourth. You took a bullet ’longside the head. It gave you concussion. Another one cut the outside o’ your right arm. The worst was the one that hit your left hand. The doctor operated right away, then we brought you to our house. He told us it’d probably be several days before you woke up. He’s been lookin’ in morning and evening, suh.”

  Walt slowly, shakily raised his left arm, looking down. A big ball of bandages covered his left hand. It seemed… shorter than normal. He suddenly became aware that it was throbbing painfully. “How bad is it?”

  “Suh, I’d really rather let the doctor say.”

  “Dammit, Samson, tell me!”

  His manager sucked in his breath. “If you say so, suh. The bullet came in t’rough your fingers, hit the butt of the gun, and bounced off it into your hand. It took wood splinters with it from the grips, an’ a few chips of metal from the frame. It went in between your middle and ring fingers, then carved its way down inside your hand to the base o’ your wrist. The doctor reckons, if it hadn’t hit your gun first, to slow it down, it would’ve carried on all the way up your forearm.

  “You was already unconscious, but the doctor put you under with ether while he worked. He said, if he didn’t, the pain of all the pokin’ an’ proddin’ he’d have to do would wake you up again. He worked for an hour. I watched him, suh. He knew his business. He was pullin’ out bits of lead from the bullet an’ splinters of wood from your gun. They was all over, suh.

  “At last he said he had to make a hard choice. There were too many small pieces. It was gonna take hours to be sure he got all of them out, but he couldn’t keep you under ether that long—it might kill you. If he left anything in there, it’d get infected, an’ you’d get gangrene. He said that was certain as the sunrise. Takin’ all that into account, he had to take your hand off at the wrist, suh.”

  Walt closed his eyes again for a moment of self-pitying mental anguish… then shook his head, producing another spasm of pain. “Damn it! Well, if Isom can learn to do without his right hand, I can learn to do without my left.” I’ve already lost my strong right arm, he thought bitterly. Rose was all that to me, and more. What’s a left hand, compared to losing her?

  “That’s what Isom said, suh. He says he’ll teach you how to do things.”

  “Tell him I’ll take him up on that.”

  “I will, suh.”

  Bella moved forward into his field of vision, tear tracks still visible on her cheeks, even though she’d dried her eyes. “You need to rest now, Mr. Walt. The doctor says your head took a real hurtin’ from that slug that hit you. It carved a line in your skull bone—that’s how close it came to killin’ you. He reckons you’re going to have headaches for a few weeks, and you mustn’t ride for a month. I’m going to fix you some broth. You lie quietly until I bring it, you hear me?”

  He tried to smile, despite the aching, bitter void in his heart where Rose had been. “I’ll do that, Bella. Thanks.”

  * * *

  The next week would be forever misty in Walt’s memory. Some days were lost in a haze of pain, dulled by laudanum when it became unbearable. He complained to the doctor, on one of his visits, that the fingers on his left hand were hurting.

  “That’s a well-known thing, Mr. Ames. They call it ‘phantom limb pain’. A lot of people who’ve lost a foot think they can still feel their toes—even twiddle them. They feel real, even though they’re long gone. I’m sure that’s what you’re feeling.”

  “Oh. I knew lots of soldiers who lost arms or legs during the Civil War, but since they didn’t come back to their units, I guess I never got to hear about it.”

  The doctor made a wry face. “We probably learned more about surgery during the Civil War than in the previous fifty years! I was a hospital orderly in the Union Army for three years. When I was mustered out, I decided I wanted to be a doctor. I studied in Philadelphia, interned there for a year or two, then came west to hang out my shingle.”

  “I guess I owe you a lot. Samson tells me you handled my arm real well.”

  “I saw enough wounds like that during the war that I knew what to do. I’m just sorry I couldn’t do anything for your wife. She was a lovely woman.”

  Walt closed his eyes for a moment. “Did she suffer, doctor?”

  “No. Definitely not.” The man’s voice was emphatic. “That bullet came in through her right ribs and cut straight through her heart. She would have been dead within seconds. I doubt she had time to feel much at all.”

  “That… that’s a mercy. Thank you.”

  Samson and Isom didn’t give him many details of what they were d
oing, urging him to wait until he could think straight once more. Isom was particularly blunt. “Come on, suh! You was in the army. I reckon you saw other folks with head wounds like yours. If they tried to think real hard ’fore they was ready, it made ’em worse. Give yourself time. I know you want to get after Parsons. I’m doin’ all I can to get ready for that. Leave it to me for now.”

  “All right, dammit! You’re right. I’ll try to wait… but not for long!”

  Ten days after he woke up, he went back to the house for the first time. Samson put him into Rose’s four-wheeled, well-sprung buggy, and drove him there very slowly and carefully, to avoid bumps that might reawaken his concussion. He’d already sent a cleaning crew to remove all traces of the fight.

  Walt walked slowly through the rooms, supporting his unsteady balance with a cane, feeling the wrenching pain of guilt and loss again as he looked down at the floor where Rose had died. It showed lighter patches where the cleanup crew had used lye to remove the dried bloodstains, but had stripped the wood of waxes and polish in the process.

  “I… I can’t live here anymore, Samson.”

  “We figured you’d feel that way, suh. I got the carpenters in the day after you was hurt, an’ paid them extra for fast work. We’ve built an apartment at the end of the office building at the yard. Bella saw to the paintin’ and furnishin’ for you. It’s real nice, an’ ready for you whenever you want to move out of our spare room.”

  Walt relaxed with a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Samson. You and Bella have been absolute towers of strength. I don’t think I could have dealt with this without you, and Isom too.”

  “We’re here for you anytime, suh, just like you an’ Miss Rose was always here for us.”

  Walt glanced across at him. “Why did you build an apartment at the yard? Why not just rent another house?”