Sawbones

by William W. Johnstone

  He felt his belly tensing up at the thought of how Doc had gotten on with Amelia Parker. Ben had seen her first. Just because Doc patched up her pa wasn’t any reason for her to ignore a real man.

  “You’re lookin’ kinda tense. Can we buy you a drink?” The cowboy winked broadly, meaning he wanted someone else to drink with but couldn’t pay for it.

  “Why not?” Ben poured himself a shot of whiskey and upended it. He licked off the rim of the glass and put it down on the bar. The two cowboys drained their glasses and looked expectantly at him.

  Hattie still snored away and nobody else had come into the Golden Gate. He fixed up the two with fresh glasses of beer and poured himself another shot. Life in Buffalo Springs looked secure. For a while. Until he got tired of it and decided to move on.

  The whiskey surely did go down his gullet smooth and warm to a puddle in his stomach. The alcohol relaxed him and gave him a better outlook on life. How could Hattie Malone ever deny him that?

  CHAPTER 26

  Milo Hannigan kept his head low as he urged his new horse, one he’d stolen after the bank robbery, to even greater speed. The horse’s flanks heaved and lather flew. The entire town of Pine Knob had turned out, armed and angry, when it became obvious the bank was being robbed. Hannigan blamed Fitzsimmons for rallying them as fast as they had gathered. The damned president ought to have been in the bank. If he had been doing his job, he should have been at his desk and forcing him to open the safe would have saved lives.

  “Come on, you worthless nag.” Hannigan raked the horse’s flanks with his heels. The more distance he put between him and Pine Knob, the better.

  Then he was sailing through the air, staring at the sky only to land hard on his back. He hit with such force that the air rushed from his lungs. Gasping, hurting, he tried to sit up and failed. Hannigan finally rolled to his side and used an elbow to get out of the dirt. His lungs hurt so bad breath refused to enter his chest. He tried to curse his horse, then saw there was no need. The horse had stepped into a badger hole and broken its leg. If Hannigan couldn’t even make tiny mewling sounds, the horse made up for it with a keening that rose until Hannigan thought his eardrums would explode.

  He kicked around, got his feet under him and stood on shaky legs. Air came slowly. Each breath hurt like fire filled his body. He stumbled over to the horse. Its nostrils flared as it thrashed about, eyes so wide white showed around the brown irises. Hannigan drew his six-gun and fired once, putting the horse out of its misery. The recoil caused him to stagger. He spun around and headed for a stand of pines off the road. His horse was gone, but that said nothing about those the posse rode.

  There had to be a posse. Fitzsimmons offering a reward was the least of his worries now. If Captain Norwood got on the trail, Hannigan’s crimes became federal. Running across a county line wouldn’t be good enough to escape robbery and murder charges. He had to outrun the whole damned Union army.

  He flopped onto the ground when he heard hooves thundering along the road. Squirming around, he saw a half dozen riders draw rein and circle his dead horse. One rider jumped down and examined the horse, reporting to a deputy. After exchanging a few more words, he struggled to pull the saddlebags from under the horse’s carcass. The deputy rummaged through them, grumbled and tossed them back to the man on the ground. Hannigan froze like a deer when the deputy turned slowly in the saddle to take in the terrain. The lawman’s scrutiny passed over Hannigan and centered on a patch of forest twenty yards back toward town.

  Hannigan wanted to run but knew any motion would pull the posse’s attention to him. He lay facedown and slowly recovered from having the wind knocked from him. His entire body hurt like demons poked him with pitchforks. As the pain faded, he looked back toward the road. A smile came to his lips. He recovered, and his luck soared. The deputy ordered had half his men on down the road. The rest he took back in the direction of Pine Knob. With only half the original number of deputized citizens hunting for him, he had a better chance of getting away.

  Shooting one of them from the saddle and stealing his horse crossed Hannigan’s mind, but he discarded that unless the theft happened away from the others. Why let them know he was nearby? Let them think he was all the way back to Georgia and beyond their law.

  Slowly moving backwards on his belly, he got up so the thicket hid him from chance view from the road. He brushed himself off, turned, and faced a leveled shotgun.

  “Howdy,” Marshal Ike Putnam said. “If you want to keep on livin’, get them hands up high and don’t even think on doin’ anything dumb.” The marshal chuckled. “That might not be possible, I know, considerin’ how that bank robbery went for you.”

  “You got the wrong man, Marshal. I didn’t hold up a bank or kill anybody.”

  The lawman’s smile faded. “Good of you to remind me how you flung lead around and left so many dead. None of them dead folks voted for me, but that don’t mean them dyin’ ain’t a loss. I grew up with them. Why me and Lester, we soaked Miss Marley’s chalk in ink so it turned black and when she tried writin’ on the blackboard with it, nuthin’ showed.”

  Hannigan lowered his hands a fraction of an inch. If the garrulous marshal kept on, his attention would drift for a moment, giving an opening to—

  “I got orders to bring you in alive, but nuthin ’d please me more than to drag your lifeless body back to town just to spite him.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m sayin’ you use your left hand to take out your iron and drop it. Then strip off the gun belt. If you don’t give me no trouble, I’ll let you keep your boots on. Now do it!”

  Hannigan had no choice. At this range, even the marshal wasn’t going to miss with a shotgun. He dropped his six-gun, then let his holster fall to the ground.

  “Let’s start on back. I reckon we can make it by sundown. A pity you had to shoot your horse. It looked like a noble steed, not unlike one me and Lester stole from a drifter passin’ through town. We was ten or eleven, so we didn’t actually steal it. More like we borrowed it to see how such a fine horse rode ’cuz neither of us had ever seen one like it. Lester thought it was a Tennessee walker, but I knew better.”

  Hannigan considered making a break for it so the lawman would kill him. Dancing with the devil had to be better than listening to Marshal Putnam all the way back to Pine Knob. Then he discovered something worse.

  * * *

  “You’re not taking me to the jailhouse?”

  “After all that walkin’, you still got the energy to ask dumb questions? Might be I run you around town a couple times to burn off that curiosity?” Marshal Putnam hefted the shotgun resting across the saddle. “Go on up to the porch.”

  Hannigan knew who lived in the two-story house, and not being taken to the town’s hoosegow gave him a surge of hope he might escape. The marshal had kept up a steady stream of personal stories of his days growing up in this hick town, but he had also been keen-eyed and alert. If Hannigan had tried to run, he would have filled his hide with buckshot. Now he had a chance to overpower Gerald Donnelly and get away.

  Hannigan tromped up the steps. A black maid opened the door and silently ushered him inside. He sized up the place and made his plans. Try to get away now or later? If he waited, the marshal’s attention would waver. That would be a better time than immediately.

  The click-click of a cane tip against the wood floor brought him around.

  Donnelly hobbled out, a black-gloved hand gripping the cane’s knob. “You didn’t run too far.” He pointed with the cane to a hard wooden chair.

  “My horse stepped into a gopher hole and broke his leg.” Hannigan sank into the chair, trying not to slouch. He had to remain alert. A quick sprint out the back meant freedom for him, but he had to avoid the marshal.

  Donnelly snorted. He used the cane to lower himself into an overstuffed chair. He thrust out his injured foot and rested the cane on the toe of his boot. Seeing Hannigan’s interest, he lifted the cane and pointed
it at his heart. “It’s a rifle, it’s loaded, and it is quite accurate, especially at this range.” Donnelly turned the golden knob on the end of the cane. A dull click warned that a trigger had sprouted on the underside and that a hammer was prepared to fall on a cartridge.

  “Should I worry? You don’t have a trigger finger. Heard tell it got shot off.” Hannigan risked getting shot, but he wanted to see Donnelly’s reaction.

  Only a few reasons existed for Hannigan to be brought to the carpetbagger’s house rather than thrown in jail—or left alongside the road, swinging from a tree with a rope around his neck. He had to find out what Donnelly wanted before moving a muscle.

  “Don’t think you can anger me, Mr. Hannigan. Yes, I know your name. I know that Samuel Knight rode with you. Why did you part company?”

  “He thought he was better than the rest of us.”

  “I detect a hint of bitterness in your words. It’s easy to understand that he would leave you, but the rest of your men stayed with you. Where are they? After any robbery, even one as piss-poor as your attempted bank holdup, a rendezvous point would be part of the robbery.”

  The front door slammed open, interrupting Donnelly. He swung his cane gun around to center on Captain Norwood.

  The army officer stalked over and with his back to Donnelly, faced Hannigan. “On your feet, sir! You are under arrest!”

  “Norwood! Your lack of manners is appalling. Your tone is insulting, and my guest will not be badgered. I will not permit it under my roof!”

  “Your guest? Are you confessing you took part in the bank robbery, too?”

  “Your accusations fall on deaf ears, Captain. I have been appointed to administer civil law in Pine Knob and see that Reconstruction proceeds properly. As that administrator, I have authority to order the army to carry out my desires.”

  “You’re not my superior, Donnelly. I take orders from the Secretary of War, not you. I—”

  “I can get official orders here in a day, Captain. The telegraph is a great invention, and one which has connected Pine Knob with Washington, D.C. Secretary Stanton—you know Edwin Stanton, personally? I do—will respond quickly to my query as to whose wishes are to be followed here. I understand there is an opening for a junior lieutenant in Indian Territory. Are you willing to take a reduction in rank to assume a trivial command there, or would you prefer to be mustered out of the army entirely, Captain Norwood?”

  Hannigan smirked at the officer’s fury. Norwood turned red in the face and balled his fists, ready to strike out. Hannigan hoped he would try. He believed Donnelly would cut down the man should he attack either of them. That told Hannigan his position was more secure than he thought. He began to enjoy the bluecoat’s discomfort.

  “This man is a murderer. He and his gang killed four men and tried to rob the bank of an army payroll.”

  “Your money is intact, Captain, and the death of any citizen of this fine town is unfortunate, but you are jumping to conclusions if you think Mr. Hannigan is responsible. Didn’t the robbers wear disguises?”

  “They had bandannas pulled up to hide their faces. But we got good descriptions of their clothes, and several witnesses overheard them calling each other by name.”

  “I have faith in the marshal to maintain order. There’s no crime here to interest the military. Why, Pine Knob hasn’t even tried to pass a Black Code or otherwise deny Negroes of their civil rights. That should interest you as it does me, showing our intense desire to maintain the rights of all citizens. That includes falsely accusing citizens of serious crimes. Now, Captain, I have business matters to discuss with Mr. Hannigan.”

  “Yeah, Norwood. Business,” Hannigan said, feeling ten feet tall. He now held the winning hand, no matter that Donnelly pointed a rifle at him. He knew the man’s weak points. All it took to get what he wanted was to mention Knight.

  “I’ll get evidence. When I arrest him, it won’t matter if you are sleeping with Edwin Stanton’s wife. You will watch Hannigan’s execution, Donnelly. I promise.” Norwood executed a right face, clicked his heels, and marched out, slamming the door behind him.

  Donnelly turned back to Harrigan. “I will need to rehang the door. He needs to make more sedate exits.”

  “You surely did tell him off.”

  “I can get him back in a heartbeat, Hannigan. If you are not able to give me what I want, it will be amazing how quickly I can discover you were the leader of the gang cutting down locals.”

  Hannigan said nothing. The cane rifle pointed at him again, balanced on Donnelly’s bad foot.

  “Where is the rendezvous point for your gang? Tell me. I’ll have them arrested and you will not be charged.”

  Hannigan never hesitated describing the hill where they had agreed to meet. “You’ll have to approach from the north since even those fools will see you approaching from any other direction. There’s heavy forest to the north, so sneaking up on them will be easy.”

  “You give them up so easily?”

  Hannigan shrugged. What did it matter to him if Nott and the others were arrested?

  “You are as much of a scoundrel as I hoped. Will you testify against them in court?”

  “Not if it means I have to admit I was their leader. A lynch mob would string me up alongside them if I testified I was inside that bank.”

  “That won’t be necessary. What will it take for you to track down Knight?”

  Hannigan considered his options. “You’re offering me a job?”

  “Hector Alton did a poor job of bringing Knight to justice. Can you do better?”

  Knight’s betrayal showed on Hannigan’s face, much to Donnelly’s approval.

  Hannigan settled down and chose his words carefully. “I’ll find him. I know what he looks like, after all. How far could he have run?”

  “I want you to go to the ends of the earth, if that’s what it takes to drag him back here. Alive. He has to be alive.”

  “Does it matter if his health isn’t all that good?”

  Donnelly laughed harshly. He moved the rifle cane away from its target in the middle of Hannigan’s chest, turned the knob, and retracted the trigger.

  “I don’t care. Bringing him to justice is my only concern. Alton failed. You will succeed, Mr. Hannigan, or I will find someone else who can.”

  “It’s sure not going to be Captain Norwood. He’s not willing to do what it takes to find Knight, much less arrest him.”

  “We agree on this, too. Good.”

  “It’d be easier if the rest of my men rode with me. They all know Knight and his ways. Four of us stand a better chance of getting him soon.”

  “Four?” Donnelly pursued his lips. “That’s all in your gang?”

  Hannigan restrained himself. Let Donnelly come to whatever conclusion he wanted. Knight and the Lunsford brothers would all pay for deserting. If Knight had to be alive, so be it. Nothing had been said about the two brothers.

  “Do we have a deal, Mr. Donnelly?”

  Gerald Donnelly stood, met Hannigan halfway, and thrust out his hand. Hannigan made no comment about the missing finger. This fool was going to help him run down Samuel Knight. After that, maybe Donnelly might suffer an accident and someone like Milo Hannigan might move up to replace him in Pine Knob as head of Reconstruction.

  Someone exactly like Milo Hannigan.

  CHAPTER 27

  “It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?” Amos Parker pulled himself erect in bed and held up the blanket over his midsection for a quick look.

  “You’re not going to walk again, if that’s what you mean.” Samuel Knight closed his medical bag. “No more kicking dogs and other small animals.”

  “You got a mouth on you, Doctor.” Amos dropped the blanket back. “Might be that’s what she sees in you.”

  Knight perked up. He looked at the man, who fixed him with a steely look. Amos had improved dramatically in the past week. Once the threat of infection passed, his recovery had been nothing less than a miracle.

&nb
sp; “That got your attention, didn’t it? You know she’s taken a shine to you. I’m not dead, either. I see the way you look at her.” The man harrumphed. “She could do worse. Hell, ’fore he lit out for the goldfields intending to get rich without working, her boyfriend was worse. Never saw what she did in that Chisolm boy. A lazy lout who lived off his pa and second wife.”

  “But he was a handsome lazy lout, Papa,” Amelia Parker said from the doorway, “and he had hidden talents.”

  “You hush up, girl. That’s more’n I want to know. It’s likely more’n the doc wants to know, too. Isn’t that so, Dr. Knight?”

  “You rest, Amos. You’ve got a bottle of whiskey if the pain gets to be too much, but I predict you’ll be out of bed by this time next week. We’ll see about getting you outfitted with crutches.”

  “Samuel’s asked around town and gotten Mr. Orr to fix you up. You know how good he is making furniture. He said it would be a challenge to carve you a set of crutches that wouldn’t break under your, uh—”

  “Bullshit. That’s what Grayson Orr would say, isn’t it?”

  “Rest, Amos. I’ve got to drive your daughter back to town. Other people get sick, too.”

  “And, Papa, I took a job as bookkeeper at the bank. It doesn’t pay much but it’ll keep us going.” Amelia Parker looked smug at her triumph, getting her father’s full attention.

  “Thanks for not saying until I get back on my feet.” Amos heaved a sigh. “I suppose we need the extra money to pay off the doctor.”

  “I work cheap.” Knight looked at Amelia. She blushed. He wondered what went through her mind in that instant and how close it was to what he was thinking.

  “Nobody with good sense thinks that the price you’re likely to pay is cheap,” Amos said. “You two, get out of here and let a man get his beauty sleep.”